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gonna bite your head off. It’s just that I’m a bit of a psychologist myself. Purely amateur, of course. You have to be to survive as long as I have in my world. You have to know how people tick. You have to understand their motives and needs.’
    ‘In order to manipulate them?’ I asked, feeling suddenly bold.
    He shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Sometimes just so that you know who you can trust and who’s likely to stab you in the back.’
    I sipped my wine, trying not to rush it. ‘So you know how I tick, then?’
    ‘I know what a tough decision it must have been for you to ring me, and how you’ve been feeling since.’
    ‘Oh?’
    He smiled. ‘No disrespect, but it’s not exactly rocket science. Soon as you did what you did to land in Pentonville you knew it was a mistake. You decided then and there to put it behind you, to better yourself, and I admire you for that. Most of the kids inside, they’re ignorant and lazy and they don’t know any better. They think being a criminal makes them tough and independent, and that going straight, abiding by the law, means they’re soft, that they can’t hack it.
    ‘But they’re wrong. Because it takes a lot more guts to do what you did. For young kids the pressure inside to be meaner and badder than everyone else is immense. If the government don’t want inmates to re-offend then they shouldn’t put them together in the first place. Criminality feeds off criminality. Stands to reason.’
    ‘So where should you put them?’ I said. ‘You can’t build individual prisons for people. There aren’t the resources to remove offenders from the environments that make them what they are.’
    Benny gave me a crooked smile. ‘Now that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?’
    ‘And what about you?’ I ventured. ‘Aren’t you putting yourself down by saying what you’re saying?’
    ‘I am what I am,’ Benny said. ‘I am what society made me. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, and I’m not saying I’m ashamed of it. It’s just the way it is.’
    ‘You seem to have done okay for yourself, though.’
    ‘Well, that’s because I was brought up right. I listened to my elders and respected what they told me. I kept my eyes and ears open and was encouraged to think for myself. I didn’t rush into things and I didn’t run before I could walk. It’s all about planning. Using a bit of this.’ He tapped the side of his head.
    ‘But this isn’t about me,’ he continued. ‘It’s about you. When I gave you my number and told you to call if you needed anything, I thought the odds were I’d never hear from you again. And to be honest, I hoped I never would hear from you again. If I did, I knew it’d mean that you were in trouble, or that you’d somehow slipped off the straight and narrow. I knew you’d keep my number, though, and not throw it away. Even back then you were a smart boy, and a careful one, and I knew you’d keep it as something to fall back on, just in case.’
    ‘And when I called you today,’ I said, ‘what did you think?’
    ‘Like I said, I knew you must be desperate. I’m part of your old life, the one you were determined never to go back to, so I’m guessing that since putting the phone down this morning you’ve been regretting calling me, dreading this meeting, wondering what it’ll lead to. You’re trying to act like you’re pleased to see me, but you’re not really. You’re scared.’
    It was disconcerting, having my layers stripped away so unceremoniously.
    ‘You’re very astute,’ I said, ‘and I have to admit that’s a pretty accurate assessment.’ I paused, then asked, ‘ Should I be scared?’
    Benny shrugged. ‘Probably. Not of me, though.’
    ‘Of what then?’
    ‘Of whatever it is that made you pick up that phone, and of what you might have to do to put it right.’
    I sighed and took a gulp of wine. ‘Like I said, my daughter’s in trouble.’ Briefly I told him what Candice had told me last