Page 23 of The Flame

Belinda stayed with me. “What are you thinking, dear?”

“I’m thinking that Lewis might not have top security clearance, but we’re going to need access to any women inside Ward Z at some point, right?”

Belinda acted before I could. She unclipped her card and swiped. There was a soft beep, but the red light above the card reader didn’t change to green.

Disappointed, I tried the door anyway. Maybe the light sensor was broken. It wasn’t. The door remained firmly locked.

Lewis had stopped to watch us with a bored expression.

“All done messing around?” he said when it became clear we weren’t getting inside Ward Z.

Belinda said nothing and I shrugged as we caught up to him. “So, how long have you worked here?”

“Too long,” he grunted.

We walked down the long corridor, the plaques on the closed doors self-explanatory. An Administration Office. Doctors’ offices. A staff lounge at the far end, just before the passage dead-ended in two sets of swing doors, one to Ward X and the other to Ward Y.

Lewis swiped his card for Ward Y and pushed through. Belinda and I hung back to swipe our own cards before following, into a room with an unmanned desk in front of a wall of pigeon holes, some empty, some containing yellow binders.

The room made me feel claustrophobic and I soon realized there wasn’t a single window. Fluorescent tube lighting bounced off the four walls with a yellow hue. A steel-plated door cut into one of the walls with the obligatory scanner and red light.

“This is the nurse’s station for this ward,” Lewis told us. He gestured towards the doors on either side of the counter, one with a small viewing window. “The communal spaces and the patient rooms. Ward Y is for serious offenders and re-offenders.”

I didn’t appreciate the terminology, but I held my tongue as Lewis shepherded us out again without further exploration. I’d lost all interest in making a friend out of him and had already decided I’d rather tour the facilitiesproperlylater on my own, without his foul commentary.

He waved a hand at the swing doors to Ward X. “Minor first offenses, mostly probation sentences.”

“That’s where we’ll be starting,” Belinda murmured.

That’s where they’d be putting Daniel. Not because they considered his offence minor, or because they intended to release him after a short probation period. That was just the ward we could get cleared out quickly.

The door to the staff lounge stood open and we took a quick look inside. A pair of brown sofas anchored one corner of the room. There were a couple of tables and chairs. A counter with cabinets beneath ran along one of the walls, holding a sink, mugs and plates stacked on a drying rack and a coffee machine.

I walked up to the bank of windows, genuinely pleased with the view. The forest of velvet pines pressed close, spectacular and peaceful.

“This is beautiful,” I exclaimed. “Do all the patients have this view from their rooms?”

Lewis peered at me from beneath the rim of his spectacles, then shook his head in a disdainful manner, as if he were trying to shake me off his vision.

Without answering, he pointed out the fridge. “If you want to bring in your own food. The canteen only offers whatever we serve the inmates, so it’s nothing fancy.”

“Inmates?” I marched up to him, my blood heating. I’d held my tongue until now. I’d made excuses for him. I’d done my best to ignore his callous attitude to women who’d been so grievously wronged. “Please tell me that is not how you refer to the women held here.”

His mouth thinned into a sneer. “Society is too kind to call them criminals out there, but why do you suppose they landed up in here? They broke the law.”

Belinda confronted him, as unimpressed as I was. “What is your position, young man? Are you an orderly?”

“That’s none of your business.”

I squinted at the security card attached to his chest. His name,Lewis Carlton,and citizen number beneath his photograph. I didn’t see anything about a job title.

Before I could re-read his citizen number to remember, he turned from us. “That completes the tour. Excuse me, I do have actual duties that require my attention.”

Belinda’s stare pricked his back as he walked out. “I do not like that man.”

“He should not be working here,” I said emphatically. “These women shouldn’t have to put up with another minute of that kind of attitude while they’re waiting to be discharged.”

A short while later, after hearing Belinda and me out, Janice was in total agreement with us.

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