Free Slipknot by Priscilla Masters Page A

all over him. Skinny, frightened-looking, no confidence, that horrible sag these youngsters have in their shoulders. He was inviting people to pick on him. So there is he and there is TyroneSmith, a psychopath, who’s always on the lookout for a victim.’
    ‘Are you suggesting Tyrone Smith incited Hughes to hang himself?’
    ‘No. He wasn’t clever enough to do that.’
    ‘Intimidated him then?’
    Randall’s expression was pained. ‘I can’t prove it,’ he began awkwardly. ‘I don’t know. And what difference would it make?’
    ‘Maybe a great deal – to his mother.’
    ‘But then what? Would it make the prison service culpable for mixing and matching inmates?’
    ‘Alex,’ she said softly. ‘Whatever the cost we must find out the truth. We owe it to this boy and to justice.’
    ‘Well then – in that case – we must make sure that Mark Sullivan does a thorough post-mortem.’
    ‘Should I be speaking to the prison officers?’
    Alex rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’d quite like to start that off first,’ he said. ‘If I can get to the bottom of it on my own I’d feel happier. I can ask whether Smith has ever assaulted anyone before. I have to say, Martha, I’d be very surprised if he hadn’t.’
    Martha nodded.
    ‘I’d better take a look round the cell,’ she said. ‘That’s what I came for. I take it Tyrone Smith’s been moved elsewhere?’
    ‘Of course.’
    They walked along the corridor, a prison officer locking and unlocking the doors in front and behind them.
    It was a small, crowded, claustrophobic room, painted cream, a sink and a toilet (without a seat) at the far endbeneath a frosted window. On the right side were bunks stripped down to the bedsprings. The police had removed all the bedding and the mattresses. The window had been opened an inch or two but there was still the sour scent of stale vomit.
    Tyrone Smith had made his temporary home quite comfortable with a computer, stacks of games, pin-ups of women with impossibly large breasts and strangest of all a magazine picture of a giant four-tiered beefburger complete with bright red relish. Martha studied the picture with interest.
    Alex pointed to some tape on the side of the bed frame of the upper bunk. ‘Hughes was in the lower bunk,’ he said, ‘Smith in the upper one. He had been sharing with a youth called Gavin Morrison but he’s been moved nearer London so his family can visit.’
    ‘It might be an idea if you interviewed Gavin Morrison,’ she said, ‘and asked him what sort of a cell mate Tyrone Smith made.’
    She looked round the room and saw a pair of shoes, neatly paired, side by side. Reebok trainers.
    Sam had an identical pair.
    Suddenly overcome with claustrophobia she turned around. She had seen enough. She felt a desperation to escape, to get of here.
    Had Callum Hughes felt like that too?
    She left Stoke Heath soon after. The police could deal with the remaining interviews. She had a few hours’ paperwork before attending the post-mortem this afternoon.
    The news must have leaked out. At the gates of Stoke Heath someone had laid a wreath of flowers. Red and whitecarnations. Liverpool colours. And the mantra,
Callum, you’ll never walk alone.
    It seemed that Callum Hughes and her son shared the same passion for a football club.
    Jericho was waiting for her when she entered her office. Though he was unsuitable as a coroner’s assistant, being a shocking gossip, he was, in other ways, extremely efficient. ‘The post-mortem’s at two o’clock,’ he said. ‘I’m to let them know if you’re wantin’ to attend and if the time is inconvenient.’
    ‘It’s fine,’ she said and wandered through to her office.
    Her post had been opened and the letters requiring her attention laid to one side. Junk mail had already been binned and the second pile contained letters which could be dealt with at her leisure.
    ‘And how are things at Stoke Heath?’
    ‘Rather unpleasant at the moment.’
    ‘The young