Waxwork by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online Page A

were not able to exercise control over it. She accepted the restrictions, the indignities, the scrubbing-brush and the latrine-bucket, without a syllable of protest. She was scrupulously subordinate in her dealings with the staff. Yet she remained remote. The privations should have made her increasingly dependent on her gaolers; it was a process so predictable that they took it as a right. Deprived of it, they could not understand how this prisoner could be simultaneously submissive and indifferent. Certainly there were indications of strain in her features, but she persisted in her aloofness. Her eyes showed no more interest in her attendants than the furniture or the walls.
    The governor had noticed it. On Monday, Cromer’s fourth day in Newgate, he had asked for her to be brought to his rooms as was his custom with newly admitted prisoners. Hawkins and Bell had taken her. It meant walking to the other end of the prison through low stone passages, relics of the eighteenth century, never progressing far before an iron-bolted door had to be unlocked and slammed with a resounding crash after they were through.
    There was a door beyond which you found yourself stepping on carpet instead of stone. Far from producing an impression of comfort, it was so alien to the rest of Newgate that it disturbed even the wardresses. Bell’s knees turned to jelly every time.
    In the carpeted passage they stopped at a panelled oak door with brass fittings polished to military standard. It was Hawkins who knocked.
    â€˜Enter.’
    The governor’s room was vast. Vast, that is, compared with cells thirteen feet by seven and corridors so narrow that in places two people could not pass without one stepping aside. The sense of space was unnerving.
    It was panelled in dark wood and furnished with high-backed leather chairs. There were bookshelves to the ceiling, pictures of hunting scenes, stuffed animals’ heads and green velvet curtains. It was warm, so there was no fire burning. The governor was facing a tapestry firescreen.
    â€˜If you please, sir, the prisoner Cromer,’ the less nervous wardress announced from the doorway.
    â€˜Yes.’ He turned, a grey-haired man with a waxed moustache and blue, watery eyes. ‘Step forward, Cromer.’ His voice was strange to the ear, modulated by carpets and furnishings.
    The prisoner took two steps towards him.
    â€˜Over here, if you please. I may be fearsome, but I am not dangerous, I assure you.’
    The wardresses watched her approach to within a yard of him, her face raised to meet his. She was not fearful. Not in the least.
    â€˜I make a point of seeing each prisoner who enters Newgate,’ he told her in a voice just audible across the room, ‘and I always begin by making it clear that this institution and others like it exist only to meet the requirements of the law. For that reason I shall say nothing about the events that brought you here. They were the subject of your trial and I imagine you would not care to be reminded of them. My responsibility is to see that the sentence of the law is carried out—to a point, that is. The ultimate responsibility rests with the Sheriff of the City of London. If your sentence is confirmed by Her Majesty I shall be required to deliver you to the Sheriff for the implementation of that sentence. A formality that you need not concern yourself with, unless it comforts you to know that we in Newgate are responsible only for your custody, not, do you understand … ?’
    â€˜I understand.’
    Bell caught her breath. The prisoner had failed to address him properly.
    The governor fingered the knot of his necktie. ‘You will wish to know how long you may expect to spend in Newgate. The period prescribed by the Home Office is a little over two weeks. Three Sundays must elapse since the day on which sentence was passed. Assuming there is no intervention’—he crossed the room to his desk—‘I