Free Down Among the Dead Men by Peter Lovesey

Ventnor and Yarmouth. Then he was back to Cowes and Ryde. Infuriating. Relax, man, it doesn’t matter, he told himself. But by now his brain was turning the treadmill like the bloody donkey.
    He put the light on and watched a documentary about the Titanic disaster. Made himself tea. Went to the bathroom. Tried to sleep again.
    Seaview was somewhere on the island, but that wasn’t it. Seaview had a sea view. He was back on the treadmill.
    At what hour of the morning he was spared and allowed to sleep he didn’t want to know. Ten minutes after, it seemed, came the wake-up call. He heaved himself out of bed, tottered to the shower, failed—as he always did in hotels—to master the controls, got a burst of cold water, and remembered.
    Freshwater you can’t drink.
    Two black coffees later, he was downstairs, propped against the wall at the hotel entrance. Georgina appeared, spry and animated. It took a while for him to work out that she was in a black suit, the first time he could remember seeing her out of uniform. Apart from the silver buttons and insignia the look was the same.
    â€œArchie arranged for a car,” she said, looking at her watch. “It should be here by now.”
    â€œIs he coming?”
    â€œAbsolutely not. Get this into your head, Peter. We’re free agents, independent of his lot.”
    â€œBut using one of his cars.”
    â€œIt was either that or hiring one and I don’t believe in burdening the taxpayer.”
    The blue and yellow livery of the Sussex police car was too much for Diamond’s tired eyes. He sank into the back seat, thankful he didn’t have to drive and hoping the caffeine would soon take effect. Georgina got in from the other side, planted the seat buckle in his lap and said, “I don’t want you falling asleep and crushing me.”
    They started the drive to the Portsmouth car ferry.
    â€œYou look queasy,” Georgina told him before they’d gone far.
    â€œI’m all right.”
    â€œSomething you ate last night? If so, a sea crossing isn’t going to help you. Personally, I had a wonderful meal.”
    He hoped she would leave it at that.
    She didn’t. “New season turbot and spring vegetables followed by baked Alaska, which comes as a dish for two.”
    He thought for the first time that it was possible the Double Whopper burger he’d eaten may have had something to do with his sleepless night.
    Georgina hadn’t finished. “Archie had the dressed Cornish crab and said it was excellent. Oh, and I forgot the starter. We both had the Burgundian snails. I don’t suppose you’re a snail person, but with the garlic herb butter they’re as good a mouthful as you could wish. Do you eat snails, Peter?”
    â€œCan we talk about what we’re doing today?”
    â€œBy all means. We’re going to meet a guest of Her Majesty.”
    â€œA prisoner ?”
    â€œWe’re not visiting the island to make sandcastles.”
    He should have remembered that Parkhurst and Albany were located there. For years they had been the “places of dispersal” for dangerous convicts such as the Krays and the Yorkshire Ripper. A few years ago, the two prisons had been downgraded and treated as one, relabelled HM Prison Isle of Wight, a category B lock-up, which meant it housed prisoners “for whom maximum security is not thought to be necessary, but for whom escape needs to be made very difficult.” Someone with a nice sense of irony thought that up.
    â€œAnyone I know?”
    â€œI doubt it,” Georgina said.
    â€œNot someone I put away?”
    â€œNo, he was from here on the coast, a lifer by the name of Stapleton.”
    â€œNever heard of him.”
    â€œHe claims he was wrongly convicted.”
    â€œDon’t they all?”
    â€œThis one could be telling the truth, and the truth he has to tell has come as a shock to certain people.”
    â€œYour