The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

wisdom and inherited certainties. Also she knew how easy it would be for him to make her job even harder than it was, though in fairness he had never done anything to block or disrupt what he called her
tête-à-têtes
, which he pronounced
tit-a-tits
with a face so blank it defied correction.
    After a year in post, she wasn’t sure how much good she’d done in relation to the killers and terrorists, but as far as Hadda was concerned, she felt she’d made no impression whatsoever. They brought him along to see her, but he simply refused to talk. After a while she found that her earlier exasperation with what she had judged to be her predecessor’s too easy abandonment of his efforts was modifying into a reluctant understanding.
    And then one day when she turned up at Parkleigh, the Director had sent for her.
    ‘Terrible news,’ he said. ‘It’s Hadda’s daughter. She’s dead.’
    Alva had studied the man’s file so closely she did not need reminding of the facts. The girl, Virginia, had been thirteen when her father was sentenced. She had never visited him in prison. A careful check was kept of prisoners’ mail in and out. He had written letters to her c/o his ex-wife in the early days. There had been no known reply and the letters out had ceased though he persevered with birthday and Christmas cards.
    Joe Ruskin had recorded that Hadda’s reaction to any attempt to bring up the subject of his relationship with his daughter had been to stand up and head for the door. Grief or guilt? the psychiatrist speculated. Hadda’s predilection for pubescent girls had led the more prurient tabloids to speculate whether she might have been an object of his abuse, but there had been no suggestion of this either in the police investigation nor in the case for the prosecution. Ruskin had demanded full disclosure of all information relevant to the man’s state of mind and crimes, but nowhere had he found anything to indicate that details had been kept secret to protect the child.
    Now the Director filled in the details of Ginny’s life after her father’s downfall.
    ‘Her mother sent her to finish her education abroad, out of the reach of the tabloids. Her grandmother, that’s Lady Kira Ulphingstone, has family connections in Paris, and that’s where the girl seems to have settled. She was, by all accounts, pretty wild.’
    ‘With her background, why wouldn’t she be?’ said Alva. ‘How did she die?’
    ‘The worst way,’ said the Director. ‘There was a party in a friend’s flat, drugs, sex, the usual. She was found early this morning in an alley behind the apartment block. She’d passed out, choked on her own vomit. Nineteen years old. What a waste! Alva, he’s got to be told. It’s my job, I know, but I’d like you to be there.’
    She’d watched Hadda’s face as he heard the news. There’d been no reaction that a camera could have recorded, but she had felt a reaction the way you feel a change of pressure as a plane swoops down to land, and you swallow, and it’s gone.
    He hadn’t been wearing his sunglasses and his monoptic gaze had met hers for a moment. For the first time in their silent encounters, she felt her presence was registered.
    Then he had turned his back on them and stood there till the Director nodded at the escorting officer and he opened the door and ushered the prisoner out.
    ‘I’ve put him on watch,’ said the Director. ‘It’s procedure in such circumstances.’
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Procedure.’
    He looked at her curiously.
    ‘You don’t think he’s a risk?’
    ‘To himself, you mean? No. But there has to be some sort of reaction.’
    There was, but its nature surprised her.
    He started talking.
    Or at least he started responding to her questions. He was always reactive, never proactive. Only once did he ask a question.
    He looked up at the CCTV camera in the interview room and said, ‘Can they hear us?’
    She replied, ‘No. As I told you when we first met,