A HAND TREMBLED. Emily was half-dressed, standing in her living room, holding a copy of a photograph Walker had just discovered in Fearon’s cell. The SO had come straight there on his way off duty to hand it over personally. ‘It was hidden behind a picture on his wall.’ He could hardly look at her. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. It looks like you were right about him all along.’
Staring at the photocopy in disbelief, Emily’s heart was banging in her chest, her worst fears realized. She and Rachel were the subjects in the photograph, the image taken in their cottage garden just weeks before Robert’s death. Looking up, her eyes met Walker’s, an unspoken plea for answers. He stared back at her, a mixture of embarrassment and sympathy. She wanted to slap him hard for not offering her the level of protection she deserved within the prison environment.
His wing. His responsibility.
She held on to her anger.
‘What drove you to search his cell?’ she asked.
‘Does it matter?’
Of course it mattered.
Emily wanted to thank whoever it was. It was nice to know that someone was looking out for her. Walker’s body language was revealing. He looked out of the window, an avoidance tactic if ever she saw one. If it wasn’t his own idea, then whose? Had Stamp intervened on her behalf, called in a favour from night-shift security? He was big mates with the principal officer in that department. Or was it Jo? Few officers at the prison would turn her down.
‘Well, was it Martin or Jo?’
‘Neither.’ Walker didn’t offer an alternative.
Emily’s stomach lurched as she realized there could only be one other name in the hat. Guilt washed over her. She owed Bill Kent a big apology. She’d fingered him to the police and, in so doing, had probably kick-started a catastrophic chain of events that might cause him a lot of unnecessary grief. She’d have to undo that immediately, apologize to Kate Daniels for wasting her precious time.
Fair enough.
At least everyone would now understand that her fears were legitimate. Perhaps they would start to take her allegations seriously, stop treating her like a deluded attention-seeker with a tendency toward paranoia.
‘Was it Kent?’ She knew the answer before Walker had a chance to nod. ‘But how, Ash?’ She tapped the photo. ‘The original of this was in my desk, out of sight. Please tell me Fearon hasn’t been in my office unsupervised.’
‘He’s a wing cleaner, Em.’
Emily held her tongue, ran a hand through tangled bed hair, her lips pressed tightly shut to stop herself from breaking down. She looked at him accusingly. ‘Have you been listening to me at all? I thought that you of all people . . . How could you? Knowing how that creep feels about me! How could you let him in there?’
Walker wouldn’t meet her eyes. He knew he’d let her down and had no answer. Emily asked him to leave. She wanted him out of her house so she could ring Kate and explain how wrong she’d been and what had happened during the night. Shutting the front door, she listened as Ash drove away, then sank to the hall floor and wept. There was a bomb in her head and Fearon had just lit the fuse.