Page 93 of The Dead Ex

There was a shrug.

The little boy wriggled out of his mother’s grasp and began walking uncertainly towards me. He was actually clambering onto my lap!

What if I dropped him?

‘There’s no one in my family what can have him.’ The girl’s voice was tearful. ‘Only me sister but she’s done time, and they say she’s not responsibleenough. So he’s going to be fostered or maybe adopted. He’ll grow up without me.’

The boy was playing with the buttons on my jacket. Icould smell him; a mixture of biscuits and milk. ‘How long have you got?’

‘Ten years.’

Something serious, then. It wasn’t ‘done’ to ask what someone’s offence was, but the question lay there, hovering.

‘I killed the bastard.’

‘Who?’

She looks down at theground. ‘My uncle. Said my mother had dishonoured the family name by going out with this bloke he didn’t approve of. So he slashed her throat.’

She says this with such matter-of-factness that I almost wonder if I’ve heard correctly.

‘How terrible.’

She shrugged. ‘That’s why I killed him. Life was too good for him.’

Maybe. But even so, you couldn’t just go round taking the law into your ownhands or the world would be even more anarchic than it was already.

‘You might be out early with good behaviour.’

There was a sniff. ‘I’ve got into trouble already.’

Jimmie was now playing with my keys instead.

‘I was pregnant when I came inside. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know how I’d have got through. And now they’re taking him away.’

Tears were streaming down her face. As if sensinghis mother’s distress, Jimmie began to cry too. ‘When?’ I asked quietly.

‘Next month.’

The girl reached out and clutched my hands. ‘You’reimportant here, aren’t you? Do something. Please. He likes you.’

The child was staring up at me, through his tears. Such long dark lashes!

‘I’ll look into it,’ I said, handing back the little boy to his mother. ‘But I can’t change the rules. Do you havea counsellor to talk to?’

‘Just the other girls. And they’re in the same situation. We’re the forgotten island. That’s what some of us call the MBU.’

I spoke stiffly to hide my feelings. ‘I’ll do my best.’

It wasn’t until I’d reached the staff loo and locked the door behind me that I allowed the tears to flow.Mum. As a little girl, I’d pretended to cope with the separation when she’d beenin hospital and eventually her death. I’d wanted to be strong for my dad. So I knew all too well what these toddlers – and their mothers – were going through. If I could only help one girl, it would be something.

Yet, when I asked my superiors, there was nothing that could be done in this particular case. Long-term fostering was the best they could offer, but adoption might well be on the cards.It depended on committees, etc., etc. Any decision had to be in ‘the child’s best interests’.

I decided I’d break the news to Sam myself. It was the least I could do. But when I went to see her, she was out, walking Jimmie round the grounds.

Meanwhile, I had a lot to learn in my new role. A prisoner had to be shipped out (moved quietly overnight to another prison) for having a mobile phone.Another was on hunger strike because, she told me, she wasn’t allowed to go to her mother’s funeral. This seemed unfair to meuntil Jackie, one of the senior prison officers who had been really helpful when I’d arrived here, told me that the woman’s mother had died five years ago and that the deceased was actually her cousin three times removed.

‘Prisoners love funerals because it means theycan get out for the day,’ she explained. ‘But I respect the fact that you’re not afraid to make a stand. Know what the others say about you? You’ve got breastsandballs.’