There were seven of them in the prison van. Simon had been taken to another safe house in the black cab, then conveyed by a small white van to the back entrance of a huge outer London prison. There he had been frisked, his bag labelled and taken away, before he was put into a holding room. Two other men were already there, four arrived later. The room was the usual – stuffy, windowless, green paint, like every interview and holding room in every police station Simon had ever known. They were given tea in paper cups, and a plate of biscuits between them. They waited for four and a half hours. Lavatory breaks had come twice, and each of them was escorted by a prison officer. There was nothing to read, nothing to look at, nothing to do. He glanced at the others occasionally. They sat with their heads down, hands on their knees, staring at the floor. No eye contact between them. They ranged in age from early twenties through to a couple in their sixties, if not older. They looked wary, defeated, and used to endless waiting. He remembered it now, the waiting, sitting about in pubs, in greasy spoons, in cars, during a covert op, sitting outside police cells, waiting for a balloon to go up.
Waiting.
They shuffled their feet, cleared their throats, sat back, leaned forward again, and closed their eyes. More tea. No biscuits. The duty prison officer left and another took his place. There was no clock. No one told them they could not talk but they didn’t anyway. They were rule-bound.
He had met paedophiles often enough but not six together, convicted, serving time for the offence, waiting to find out if this or any other therapeutic regime under the sun could cure them, take the rotten core out of the apple and make it wholesome again.
He caught the eye of the oldest-looking man. Looked away. So, he’s thinking the same. Paed. Nonce. Another like me.
The brown linoleum was worn away where feet had rubbed into it.
‘Seven for Stitchford? Follow me.’
They filed out, Simon expecting a closed prison van but they were greeted by a people carrier. Climbed in.
‘The journey takes three hours. We have a single pit stop, we’ll be met at the service station by two prison officers from Stitchford, who’ll supervise the break. Then on for the last hour. If you need a pee now put your hand up.’
Two hands.
The doors were opened, and they were escorted out. Three minutes and back.
‘Seat belts on please.’
The gates opened for them and they slipped into the stream of afternoon traffic out of London.
Ten minutes or so into the journey the man in the next seat at the back of the carrier offered Simon a mint.
‘Thanks.’
‘Nobby.’
‘Johnno.’
The man in front half turned. ‘It’s Brian, if we’re getting pally.’
That was it. The others went on silently looking out of the windows.
‘Where you come from, Johnno?’
‘Dartmoor.’
‘Shit.’
‘You?’
Nobby jerked his thumb back to London.
‘Wandsworth?’
‘Pentonville. You been?’
‘Started out in Exeter, got moved to Dartmoor, that’s it, me.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘How long?’
‘Done four and a half.’
‘Out of?’
‘Nine.’
‘Shit.’
‘You?’
But Nobby didn’t answer.
They hit the M1 and a belt of rain that streamed down the windows, blocking any view. Simon put his head back and closed his eyes. ‘Johnno,’ he said inside his head. ‘Johnno Miles. Johnno Miles. Johnno Miles. Giles John Archer-Miles. Johnno. Johnno. Johnno Miles.’
The driver slammed on the brakes, shaking them all up.
‘Christ.’ Man in the row in front of them. ‘Fuckin’ mentalist.’
‘Me?’ the prison driver asked warningly. ‘Or him?’
There was a murmur round the van.
‘Good job.’ He edged forward again.
‘We could play I spy,’ Nobby said. ‘If we could see out the bleedin’ windows.’
Seems normal, Simon thought. People carrier of blokes going from work site A to D, Tuesday afternoon. Usual mixture. Normal. Motorway full of the same. Instead, six of us are convicted child abusers, two are prison officers, one is an undercover DCS. Six men serving time for offences so unimaginably vile most people would cross the street to avoid coming face to face with any of them, the rest would spit, a couple or more would get out a knife. He caught the man in front glancing round. Brian. He bent his head. You had to get used to that, not making eye contact, keeping your head down. Until now. Until the therapeutic community that was Stitchford, where there would be no hiding place, not for any of them. Not even for Johnno Miles. The only one who was hiding so deep he might never crawl out of the hole was Simon Serrailler.