‘Prison. You know that. You’re not stupid. You’ll be able to paint there, though. Or write, if you want to. I’ll make sure of that. I’ll look after you, but first you’ve got to put the gun down.’

‘What about my paintings, the ones in my house? What will happen to them?’

There’s a pause. It seems to last a long time.

‘Nothing. They’ll be waiting for you when you get out. And you will get out. You’ve got to trust—’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know exactly. With extenuating circumstances taken into account, perhaps five years.’

‘You’re lying!’ Mary waves the gun in the air as if she can’t decide who to aim for. ‘Five years for a murder and two attempted murders? That’s too little. How long? Tell me the truth.’

‘You’ll be allowed to keep some of your paintings with you on the inside,’ says Charlie. I hear fear in her voice for the first time. ‘I’ll do everything I can to make sure—’

‘I wouldn’t be able to take them all with me, would I? All my pictures?’

‘Hand the gun to me and I’ll make sure they go with you, every single one of them.’

‘You’ve seen how many there are.’ Mary’s voice shakes. ‘They won’t fit in a prison cell. I can’t not have them with me.’

‘There are prisons that have other kinds of accommodation, not only cells. Women’s prisons especially. Some prisoners have their own rooms, or they share with one other person, but the rooms are a decent size.’

‘Sounds like a Villiers dorm.’

‘It’s true, Mary,’ says Waterhouse. ‘We’ll make sure you have the space you need for your paintings.’

‘You’re lying, both of you,’ she says, sounding calmer. ‘That’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.’ She lifts the gun, holds it to the side of her own head. When she speaks again, I can hear that she’s smiling, even though her face is turned away from me. ‘Now, Martha,’ she says. ‘No mistakes this time.’

‘No!’ Charlie screams.

‘I think yes,’ says Mary, and pulls the trigger.

28 - 12/3/08

28

12/3/08

‘The CPS won’t touch it with a bargepole unless we can do better than this,’ said Proust. His ‘World’s Greatest Grandad’ mug lay on its side. He rolled it back and forth on his desk, smacking the handle against the wood every few seconds. ‘It doesn’t help that Aidan Seed’s in the habit of confessing to killings that never took place. He still hasn’t offered a satisfactory explanation for why he did that—why tell us he’d killed one woman when in fact he’d killed someone altogether different?’