Saturday afternoon was family visiting time at the Pine Ridge prison. Rob had taken the time before his flight to make phone calls to his contacts, with the result that Rachel would be permitted to visit on Saturday morning. According to his email, it would be more ‘convenient’ for her to be there on Monday, but she was adamant that she couldn’t wait a further forty-eight hours. Her time was a precious commodity.

The cover story, constructed with the prison governor’s collaboration, was as follows: she was an academic conducting research into the effect of incarceration on the families of inmates. It was decided that this would explain her English accent, among other things. The prison authorities would tell Ethan Rowe that he had been randomly selected to take part in the study. His cooperation would be encouraged, but could not be forced. The challenge for Rachel would be to get as much information as possible from him without raising his suspicions.

After turning down the absurdly indulgent ‘Sweet Briar Break-your-Fast’ of fruit compote, coffee, muffins, omelettes, hash browns and pancakes with syrup, Rachel helped herself to a take-out coffee and an apple. As an afterthought she grabbed a couple of packets of M&M’s from the entrance hall’s self-styled ‘Treat Table’ as she headed out to her car. Madras had had an airbase during the war and retained a tiny airport. That tiny airport had a single rental car franchise whose sole available vehicle was hers for the duration of her trip.

She headed due east out of Madras, and after driving for fifteen minutes came to a halt at the wire fence surrounding the Pine Ridge Correctional Institution. You couldn’t really miss the place.

‘Nature of your business?’ enquired the corpulent corrections officer in the bulletproof reception cubicle. He had a thatch of silver hair with a matching beard, and wore a badge that said ‘C.O. Ernest Dwyer’. If the guards’ uniforms had been red, he would have been a dead ringer for Santa Claus.

‘I’m here to see Ethan Rowe.’

‘Ah…’ He gave Rachel what bordered on a wink. ‘You’re the lady that’s coming to talk to Rowe. Come with me, Miss.’

Ernest led her down the corridor to a windowless, featureless interview room. The place smelt of disinfectant, urine and despair. She sat on one of two plastic chairs and waited. Ten minutes later, Rowe shuffled in, wearing leg irons and handcuffs. The corrections officer removed the hardware and left the room with a small nod at Rachel. ‘I’ll be right outside.’

Rachel gazed at her subject with ill-concealed curiosity. He was around her height and his build was slight; his orange jumpsuit hanging off him. His hair was thin and mousey, and an unconvincing fluffy goatee beard covered a weak chin. The only striking thing about his face was his eyes, which were a startling jade green.

‘Hello, Ethan,’ she extended her hand.

He refused to take it, looking down at his lap.

‘My name’s Miss Prince. I’m studying inmates and their families, and I’m here today to talk to you about yours.’

‘They said I din’t have to talk to you.’ His voice was thin and hoarse, with a faint hillbilly twang.

‘It’s not going to take very long; I only have a few questions.’

Rowe slouched back in his chair, ankles crossed, chin thrust up.

‘Can I start by asking you about your parents?’

He did not reply, half closing his eyes.

‘Ethan?’

Silence.

Rachel tried another tack. ‘How are things in here? How are they treating you?’

There was no response. Rowe affected a catatonic state, his eyes now mere slits. She rummaged in her bag for one of the packets of sweets she had taken from the B & B. Tearing it open, she pushed it across the table to him. ‘Go ahead, help yourself.’

He rocked forward in his chair so that he could slide his hand into the bag and take a fistful of the garishly coloured treats. Leaning back again, he opened his mouth and dropped them in one by one. Then he repeated the process. Rachel waited patiently for the sugar surge to take effect.

‘So waddya want to know?’ he asked eventually, chewing with his mouth open.

‘Tell me about your parents. How do they feel about you being in here?’

‘Mom died when I was nine.’

‘And your father?’

He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘Never knew him. He split when I was a baby.’

‘Do you know his name at least?’

‘Raymond. Raymond Rowe.’

‘And your mother was?’

‘Kathleen.’

‘Tell me what happened when your mother died. Where did you go.’

‘My gramma raised me mostly. Was in foster care a bit.’

‘And how about siblings?’

He stared at her blankly with those disturbing green eyes.

‘Brothers and sisters.’

‘Don’t have any.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, my mom had a couple of babies with my stepdad. Don’t really know ’em.’

‘Boys or girls?’

‘Two boys.’

‘So you have half-brothers?’

Rowe had returned to his heavy-lidded stupor. Rachel reached for the second bag of M&Ms and pushed it towards him. ‘How about half-sisters?’

He frowned. ‘Not that I know.’

‘And cousins. Do you know how many you have?’

Rowe filled his mouth with sweets and chewed for a couple of minutes. When he had swallowed he said. ‘There’s my cousin Rainey. She used to stay with Gramma too sometimes.’

Rachel paused, pen over on the page. ‘And how old is Rainey?’

He shrugged again. ‘Don’t know for sure. Around the same age as me.’

‘Do you know where she lives now?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Rowe checked the bag, and realising he’d eaten all the available sugar, turned and bellowed ‘Guard!’ in the direction of the door. When the prison officer came in, Rowe stood up. ‘I don’t want to talk no more.’

‘Just a couple more questions,’ Rachel pleaded.

But Rowe was holding up his wrists in readiness for them to be re-cuffed. ‘I said, I’m not going to talk no more,’ he enunciated slowly. ‘This stuff is stupid.’ The prison officer gave Rachel an apologetic look and led him out of the room.

---

‘Get what you need, Miss?’ beamed Officer Dwyer as Rachel returned to reception.

‘Not really. But I don’t think I’ll get any more out of him.’

‘He’s a tricky little weasel, that one,’ sympathised Dwyer, checking her bag and then opening the main gate for her.

‘Does he get any visitors?’

‘His grandmother comes on Saturday afternoons. Lives quite near here. Nobody else.’

‘And visiting hours are?’

‘Starts 1 p.m. She’s pretty much here on the dot of quarter after one every time.’ He reached out his visitors’ logbook and looked up the relevant page. ‘Norma Starling’s the name.’

Rachel checked her watch. It was still only eleven fifteen. Did she really want to wait here for another two hours? She could always drive the nine miles back into Madras and return again later. On the other hand, what was there to do in Madras when she got there? And if she ended up missing Ethan Rowe’s grandmother by a few minutes, she was certainly not in a position to return again the following Saturday.

Her policing instincts kicked in. She would sit and wait. She occupied herself by sketching out a basic family tree with the limited information she had. Norma Starling was almost certainly Kathleen’s mother. She drew a line from Raymond Rowe to Ethan, and placed cousin Rainey off to his right, two rungs down from Norma, with a big question mark next to her name. One of her parents would have to be a child of Norma’s too. There were five names on the tree, for now. A fair start, she decided.

There was a knock on her window. Santa Claus stood there with a cup of coffee and a doughnut. She rolled the glass down.

‘You look like you could use these.’

‘Officer Dwyer—’

‘Call me Ernie.’

‘Thank you, Ernie. Very kind.’

‘And if you need it, come find me and I’ll take you to the staff bathroom.’

The coffee was very welcome despite being lukewarm and slightly acid, and Rachel drank it straight away. She had not intended to succumb to the doughnut, but after an hour passed she was not only bored but genuinely hungry, so she polished it off and followed it up with her breakfast apple.

First rule of stakeouts, she heard Brickall’s voice saying in her head. If you’ve got it, eat it. This prompted her to check her phone, but there was no response to the photo she had sent him. She photographed her empty coffee cup, the sugary doughnut wrapper and the apple core and sent it to him captioned ‘The stakeout diet.’ She fully intended to keep the message-bombing going until he caved in and replied.

She had intended to start researching cousin Rainey, but the sun coming through the car window was warm, and the prattle of the radio soporific. Despite herself, she started to doze. She was woken by more rapping on her window.

‘Miss, thought you’d want to know that Miz Starling’s just gone in to visit her grandson. She’ll probably be out in no more’n twenty minutes. He’s no talker, as you know.’

‘Thank you, Ernie. Very kind.’ Rachel straightened herself up, then climbed out of the car to stretch her legs. She waited, leaning on the bonnet for fifteen minutes until a scrawny woman with wispy, greying hair walked out of the gate and towards one of the parked cars, leaning on a stick. She wore a floral top, polyester trousers that were several sizes too large for her, and open-toed slides which revealed painful-looking bunions.

‘Mrs. Starling?’ Rachel called out to her. ‘Could I have a word with you?’

She was expecting hostility, but was met with a beaming smile. ‘You’re the young English lady: Ernie told me about you.’

Rachel extended a hand. ‘Rachel Prince. Nice to meet you.’

‘Call me Norma, dear.’ She pointed to one of the cars with her stick. ‘You better follow me.’