The Third Twin - Ken Follett [44]
Steve could not have laughed to save his life.
Spike stopped in front of an empty cell. Steve stared inside as the cop unlocked the door. There was no privacy. Steve realized that if he needed to use the toilet he would have to do it in full view of anyone, man or woman, who happened to be walking along the corridor. Somehow that was more humiliating than anything else.
Spike opened a gate in the bars and ushered Steve inside. The gate crashed shut and Spike locked it.
Steve sat on the bunk. “Jesus Christ almighty, what a place,” he said.
“You get used to it,” Spike said cheerfully, and he went away.
A minute later he came back carrying a Styrofoam package. “I got a dinner left,” he said. “Fried chicken. You want some?”
Steve looked at the package, then at the open toilet, and shook his head. “Thanks all the same,” he said. “I guess I’m not hungry.”
10
BERRINGTON ORDERED CHAMPAGNE.
Jeannie would have liked a good slug of Stolichnaya on the rocks, after the kind of day she had had, but drinking hard liquor was no way to impress an employer, and she decided to keep her desire to herself.
Champagne meant romance. On previous occasions when they had met socially he had been charming rather than amorous. Was he now going to make a pass at her? It made her uneasy. She had never met a man who could take rejection with good grace. And this man was her boss.
She did not tell him about Steve, either. She was on the point of doing so several times during their dinner, but something held her back. If, against all her expectations, Steve did turn out to be a criminal, her theory would start to look shaky. But she did not like to anticipate bad news. Before it was proved she would not foster doubts. And she felt sure it would all turn out to be an appalling mistake.
She had talked to Lisa. “They’ve arrested Brad Pitt!” she had said. Lisa was horrified to think that the man had spent the entire day at Nut House, her place of work, and that Jeannie had been on the point of taking him into her home. Jeannie had explained that she was sure Steve was not really the perpetrator. Later she realized she probably should not have made the call: it might be construed as interfering with a witness. Not that it would make any real difference. Lisa would look at a row of young white men, and either she would see the man who raped her or she would not. It was not the kind of thing she would make a mistake about.
Jeannie had also spoken to her mother. Patty had been there today, with her three sons, and Mom talked animatedly about how the boys had raced around the corridors of the home. Mercifully, she seemed to have forgotten that it was only yesterday she had moved into Bella Vista. She talked as if she had lived there for years and reproached Jeannie for not visiting more often. After the conversation Jeannie felt a little better about her mother.
“How was the sea bass?” Berrington said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Delicious. Very delicate.”
He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger. For some reason the gesture struck her as self-congratulatory. “Now I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to answer honestly.” He smiled, so that she would not take him too seriously.
“Okay.”
“Do you like dessert?”
“Yes. Do you take me for the kind of woman who would pretend about a thing like that?”
He shook his head. “I guess there’s not much you do pretend about.”
“Not enough, probably. I have been called tactless.”
“Your worst failing?”
“I could probably do better if I thought about it. What’s your worst failing?”
Berrington