One Last Breath

‘Anger management? So Quinn is a violent man, would you say, sir?’

‘No doubt about it,’ said Hitchens. ‘He has a long history of violent incidents in his past. In fact, he got knockback early in his sentence because he assaulted a fellow prisoner. He broke the man’s arm and removed a couple of his teeth. And he couldn’t explain why he did it. Or wouldn’t.’

‘And what about the original murder?’

‘Well, there was certainly enough blood at the scene. The place was like an abattoir. Not what you’d want your sitting room to look like – especially in your nice new three-bedroom detached house in Castleton. Pindale Road, that was the place.’

Fry settled back against the wall with a sigh. ‘What happened exactly?’

‘Well, it seems that Quinn had made his way home from the pub, where he’d been drinking with his mates all afternoon. There was a row; he lost his temper, grabbed a handy kitchen knife … And bingo – a body on the floor, blood on the shag-pile, and the suspect still on the premises when a patrol responds to the 999 call. Terrible scenes with the kids arriving home. The whole street hanging out of their doors to see what was going on and generally getting in the way. All the usual mess. The victim was dead at the scene. She had multiple stab wounds to her body.’

‘An ordinary domestic, then,’ said Fry, irrationally disappointed. ‘One like thousands of others. I suppose the reasons for the argument might vary a bit, but the choice of household object doesn’t usually show much imagination. And it’s always the wife who ends up dead on the floor.’

‘Except there was one big difference in the Quinn case.’

Fry lifted her head.

‘What?’

‘The body on Quinn’s sitting-room floor,’ said Hitchens. ‘It wasn’t his wife’s.’

2

Sudbury Prison, Derbyshire

There used to be poppies in every cornfield once – they were bright red, like splashes of fresh blood. Mansell Quinn was sure he’d seen them all through the summer. As soon as the sun came out, they were everywhere in little clusters, peering from among the yellow stalks, nodding their bloodied heads in the sun, waiting for the combine to scythe them down. For a few hot days each year, a field in the bottom of the valley would be filled with entire red rivers of poppies, pooling and streaming, moving slowly in the breeze.

This morning, he noticed for the first time that there was a cornfield right across the road, its acres of brown stalks just starting to seed. The fences around it were strung barbed wire. Quinn looked for poppies in the corn, needing that glimpse of red. But there were no poppies.

As he walked towards the outer gate clutching a plastic carrier bag and his travel warrant, Quinn began to realize that even his liberty clothing was too big for him, and too stiff to be comfortable. He’d lost weight during the last fourteen years, and his body had hardened, as if a callus had grown over his skin, the way it had grown over his heart.

Past the gatehouse, he turned to look back for the last time. Above a bank of flowers was the white sign with its slogan Custodywith Care and a mission statement: committed to rehabilitation andresettlement of prisoners.

Eight thirty was time for the morning collection. Right now, a court van was turning in through the gate and slowing for the speed hump, its steel grilles and reinforced doors making it look like an armoured personnel carrier. As Quinn stepped on to the grass to let it pass, the driver gave him a cautious glance, though the van would be empty yet this morning, its cage still smelling of too much disinfectant.

‘I’ll be home in an hour or so. And I can’t bloody wait. What about you?’

The man who fell into step alongside him was at least twenty years younger than Quinn, somewhere in his mid-twenties. He had short, gelled hair and a tattoo on the side of his neck, and he looked freshly shaved and scrubbed. He could have mingled with any bunch of lads in town on a Saturday night – which was just what he’d be doing by tonight, no doubt.

‘It’ll take me a bit longer than that,’ said Quinn.

‘Eh?’

‘A bit longer to get home.’

‘Oh? You sound like a Derbyshire bloke, though.’

‘That’s exactly what I am.’

‘Right.’

But Quinn had been born in the Welsh borders. It was there that the poppies had filled his summers. He supposed they must have found their way into the seed that the farmers sowed, or lay hidden in the ground until disturbed by the plough. Then they would flower before the wheat ripened, flourishing secretly between sowing and harvest. For the young Mansell Quinn, those poppies had been like a glimpse of wicked things existing where they shouldn’t be.

But when his father had got himself a new job as a forester on a country estate near Hathersage, his family had moved north to the Hope Valley. There were no cornfields among the gritstone hills and shale valleys of the Dark Peak.

The young man laughed. ‘You mean you’re getting right away from the old place? I don’t blame you, mate. Not for a minute.’

Quinn had no idea who the lad was. Yet in a way, they were as close as brothers. There were things that created a bond, ties that didn’t need to be talked about in these few minutes between the prison gate and the outside world.

‘Have you got somebody waiting at home for you?’ said Quinn.

‘Bloody right. I told her we’d get married when I came out. It’s only right, for the sake of the kids. We’ve got a council house and everything.’

‘Lucky.’

‘Yeah. I won’t be going back, that’s for sure.’

Quinn had stopped listening. His mind was on another house and another family.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you have to go back.’

‘You what? What are you saying? You know nothing about me, mate.’

‘No,’ said Quinn. ‘Nothing.’

The young man’s edginess subsided. It was only tension born of a fear of the unknown.

‘I’m Rick. You?’

‘Quinn.’

‘I’ve seen you around, I think. But I’ve not spoken to you before.’

‘Make the most of it.’

They walked across the road from the gate. This road was a dead end, created to serve the prison when the Sudbury bypass had been built. Ahead of them was the entrance to a concrete underpass.

‘So where are you heading?’ said Rick.

‘Burton on Trent. Some hostel my probation officer fixed up.’

The underpass was damp and smelly, a dim tunnel leading towards a patch of light. Their voices echoed from the walls, but the sound of their footsteps was muffled by the dirt floor.

‘First thing tomorrow,’ said Rick, ‘I’ll be off to Meadowhall to get myself a load of new gear. Well, after I’ve slept off the hangover from tonight, anyway. Getting pissed is the first priority.’ He laughed. ‘You too, I bet.’

‘Me too what?’

‘You’ll be getting some new clothes.’