“Her Majesty’s Prison, Bullingdon.”
“What about Callum Loach?”
“He still lives locally.”
Ruiz reaches into his jacket pocket.
“I took the opportunity to peruse copies of the local rag at the library. Came up with this.”
He hands me a pile of photocopied stories from the Oxford Mail, most of them concerning the trial. One clipping has a photograph of Natasha at the courthouse, being escorted through an angry crowd. The shutter has captured the moment when she flinches under the abuse and a faceless security guard pushes someone aside.
“They blamed her for what happened,” says Ruiz, whose afternoon breakfast has arrived. He eats like a condemned man, with his elbows either side of his plate.
In the meantime, I read the articles. The last of them reports that Callum Loach has been selected in the British Paralympic Team. A photo shows him sitting in his wheelchair nursing a basketball.
Ruiz pushes his plate away. Belching quietly. “Being crippled is a powerful sort of motive… so is being sent to prison. I doubt if Aiden Foster shed many tears when Natasha McBain went missing.”
“Maybe we should ask him,” I reply.
“I’m way ahead of you.” Ruiz pulls a ten quid note from his wallet and slides it under the teapot. “I booked us a visit. Visiting hours end at 4:30.”
HMP Bullingdon is eighteen miles north-east of Oxford on the southern outskirts of Bicester. A category C training prison, it houses inmates who fall somewhere between serial killers (high security) and disgraced Cabinet ministers (open prison).
Wives and girlfriends have already started to gather at the visitors’ center. Some of them have children, who fidget and fight, wanting to be somewhere else. Once inside we are searched, ID’d and have our belongings confiscated and put into lockers. Gifts are vetted in advance. Anyone wearing clothes too similar to prison garb is asked to change.
The formalities over, we are escorted to a large annex, which has fixed tables and chairs. Visitors must stay outside until the prisoners are brought from their cells. Dockets are presented and the doors opened. Visitors and prisoners are kept apart. Knees cannot touch or lips meet. Hands can be held and children lifted over the divide. Some kids are fine. Others are howling. Some don’t leave the safety of their mothers’ skirts, peeking out at the stranger sitting opposite.
Aiden Foster is twenty-three now, but looks younger. His pale blond hair is gelled into peaks like a seismic chart and he sits with his legs splayed as though he has weights hanging from his testicles. He’s a boy playing a man, trying to survive in a place where men who look like boys get turned into women.
He gazes around the room, expecting to see someone else. Then his forehead creases. Mentally, the floor seems to tilt up and away from him.
He slouches loosely, rocking slightly. I notice the bruises on his neck and the shadows beneath his eyes. He has done it hard. Parole is coming.
Ruiz pulls a paper bag from his pocket. Inside are two packets of cigarettes and chewing gum. Aiden peers into the bag as though examining his school lunch. He stacks the cigarettes on the table with the gum on top.
I introduce myself and Ruiz does the same. Aiden doesn’t react. He’s trying to give the impression of being completely at ease. A small silver crucifix swings on a chain around his neck.
“We want to talk to you about Natasha McBain,” I say.
“Has she turned up dead?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Why else would you be here?” He smiles.
“You don’t seem very upset, Aiden.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m crying on the inside.”
Again he smiles. Ruiz folds his arms, unimpressed. He’s met a lot of smart-mouthed punk kids and has never lost his desire to punch them.
Certain people don’t seem to match their voices and Aiden Foster is one of them. His tone is pitched too high, but he tries to roughen it up by adopting a growl. I’ve read his police file and the trial transcripts of his evidence. I know his type. He’s a bully when he can be and a victim when it suits him. I knew somebody like him once, a lad called Martin Payne who made my life a misery at boarding school. Martin joined the army when he graduated. He fought in Bosnia and Kuwait, winning the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. Despite these heroics, I always considered Martin to be most at risk of being struck by a random thought. As it happened, I was right. After drinking fourteen pints he bet a friend that he could jump between two platforms on the London Underground—a leap that would have made Bob Beamon proud. Martin landed six feet short and perished on the live rail. Undone by idiocy.
Aiden leans back in his chair, scratching his groin. I point to his crucifix.