The Unexpected Harte

The gentle whoosh of the windshield wipers was her only accompaniment. She thought briefly of putting the radio on, to listen to the drive-time news. She thought of asking Siri to play her favorite podcast. Then she thought better of it. What she needed now was the one gift a person might truly give themselves: the gift of peace and calming solitude. She needed a clear mind, to empty it of all else, even if only for a short drive to the prison.

The thrum of the rain on the car was helpful. It reminded her of holidays in her parents’ caravan. That took her mind away from the car crash her life had become. An unfortunate idiom, she thought, switching lanes. Oh, she could have sent a junior lawyer to get the consent signed, but if she didn’t get away from the office she might have screamed. Her destination on this short drive out of the city was HMP Barlinnie; her reason was to see the firm’s client Pat Wallace, the infamous Glasgow hardman whose decades of criminal rule had finally caught up with him. She would meet him in the interview rooms, convince him to sign the consent for the pub’s license, and be on her way.

She was now on the M8, the motorway that scythed its way through Glasgow city center like a killing blow. She looked up to Minerva, standing atop the Mitchell Library, peering across the city in her constant search for wisdom. She thought of her mother then, and her constantly kind overtures to have her daughter seek out knowledge from an early age. The Mitchell had been a special place for them. Then the hate rose. She tried to force the thought of her mother out of the car as if casting it from the window to tumble and toss around those others making their own drives to here and there. She realized, with such hurt that her chest physically shook, that she would much rather confront the gangster than her own mum.

She wondered what he would be like. A caricature, larger than life? A let-down? Perhaps in confronting such a man and convincing him to sign something he may not wish to sign, she might see through him, see under his media persona, and in learning what made him tick, it might help her. What she really wanted was to know how he could live with himself. And that, she realized with a pang of shame, was what she wanted too.

She peered back across the motorway, to the city on her right. Although it was not even 5 p.m., at this time of year Glasgow was already shrouded in winter darkness. The city lights did not comfort her. She felt like she was a little fish being swept along the bottom currents, and the lights were those unknowable creatures who thrive in the dark waters, who hunt and lure.

She glanced at the passenger seat, to check yet again that the document wallet was sitting there, waiting. It was. She realized she was losing all faith in herself, and she shuddered. She thought of the deep void where the silent creatures preyed, and wondered if she might be better off down there, allowing the cold embrace to swallow her so that she might not feel anything, not feel anything ever again.

With her father long gone, the only person she might have been able to turn to about the mess her life had become was her mother. But she knew she had behaved abominably toward her, cutting her out of her life, unfairly blaming her for his passing. Yet she also knew that if she fled to her mother’s embrace, it would be given willingly. And knowing that, knowing she would be forgiven and loved, made her behavior all the worse and therefore made it even harder to change course. She was appalled by how much hate bristled in her heart, festering in dank repose.

Changing lanes, she caught her breath. This was supposed to be a short, quiet little drive to let her clear her mind of the volcanic disaster brewing at her office. Instead, her mind had set itself a trap, and she had driven straight into it. The one thing that was worse than contemplating being struck off by the Law Society for financial chicanery was the dance around what her mother thought of her. She pirouetted past her shame and guilt, guilt for hating her mother so. She had a logical mind. It was completely and utterly unreasonable to hate her, but she did. Or at least, she felt hate – had borrowed it somehow. Was … was it really her mother she hated? She looked at herself in the rearview mirror and saw a haunted, wraithlike figure staring back.

It’s not my mother. It’s me. I hate what I’ve done to her.

Her body fully charged with a flood of emotions, she screamed and battered the steering wheel. Tears were in her eyes, obscuring her vision. Wiping them, she veered over the lane markings and caught herself just in time. Looking around her, checking all her mirrors, she sought to breathe deeply. But here, alone in her car, the terrors that had hunted and haunted her were on her tail. It was the horror of recognizing one’s own tragic failings, and therefore inescapable.

The windshield wipers were no longer a gentle breath; the swish back and forth was the lick of a serpent’s forked tongue. The soft thump as they hit the base of the windshield was the cool and calculated heartbeat of the night itself, tricking her, trapping her, forcing her to steer directly down its gaping throat, before clamping the jaws shut with velocity invisible to the human eye.

She realized the hammering rain was no longer her wistful companion, cajoling memories of being with her mother and father together. Now, the clatter was the noise of hundreds of cracking, brittle bones, constricted by the reticulation of the dark around her, the despair and hopelessness of what had become of her.

Yet something sinister lurked beneath all of this. It was something so hideous, so awful, that her mind could not allow her to even approach it. It was too much. She screamed again.

“Won’t somebody help me!”

Losing focus, she realized she had almost missed her cutoff to Riddrie and took command of her senses, indicating at the last second. A car behind her, which she had not seen (had not seen!), flashed and tooted at her. She swerved, and the other car hit the brakes. She had made the off-ramp. The other driver blasted his horn again, but drove on along the motorway and was soon out of sight.

Her heart was thumping like a juggernaut and her hands trembled with the fear of her own stupidity. That had been a close one. Sitting at a set of lights, she glanced down at the passenger seat to check yet again that the document wallet was there. It was. She fumbled with it, to make extra sure the letter that Pat Wallace had to sign was within. It was. As she looked it over and her eyes gazed at the empty place where his signature should be, a car horn blared. The lights had turned green. She tried to move the car into gear, missed it and stalled. She held her hand up to offer some apology to the driver behind, and restarted the car. As she lumbered off, the lights changed back to red and the car behind was stuck. She looked in her rearview mirror and could see a middle-aged man hollering with his hands thrown up in the air with frustration.

The dark night loomed, somehow corporeal, as if to warn her. Stay back, Esmie, stay back. Turn back. You’re not welcome here. This is not the place for you. As she prowled down Smithycroft Road, she found her hand wandering to feel the document wallet and tried to replace the consent letter inside. As she glanced down to complete the task, a terrible-looking man bundled out of the corner shop. He was clearly in a foul mood, shouting and swearing. His ashen face was a skeletal grimace below a dark hoodie, and as she drove past and stared at him, he lurched forward and kicked the rear of the car. In fright, she sped up to escape him, and lost control. Skidding into the prison road, she screamed.

All went dark.

When she regained her senses, the man had fled. Some nutter. Had he been there at all? No one else was around. The car was partway through a hedge next to the deep blue prison signpost. Lucky I missed that, she thought, as she fumbled with her bag and found her phone. It was 5:30 p.m. She felt unnerved, perhaps a consequence of blacking out.

A memory flashed in her mind, of a driving lesson with her father when she had been all of seventeen. She had careered into a shrubbery on the verge of a quiet road. She had been so worried, thinking her father would be angry. But he had laughed it off.

“You’ve killed a shrubbery, Ez!” he had said, with tears of laughter. “The plant police will be after you!”

She had joined in, and they had laughed so much. She had passed her driving test first time. But the memory of her father took her back to some other place, something hateful which lay below it all, and which her mind had yet to acknowledge.

She reversed out of the hedge, and prowled up toward the main entrance. The street was deserted, and she was surprised to see the visitor car park was dead. She realized it was now past the usual time for visits, and it was Christmas Eve. She would be lucky to get in the Bar-L at all.

Before she knew it, she was through the glass doors and into the main reception. She did not recognize the guard, his face unfamiliar and unwelcoming. She flashed her solicitor’s ID badge, though it felt so odd in her hand. She read out her client’s name and prison number. The guard clicked his tongue in his mouth like a ticking clock. His way of saying you’re late. “I just need to get a signature, and I’m on my way,” she offered.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Harte, we’re open late the-night. We have a couple of high-heid-yins coming to interview a few of our guests and they’ve been held up in the flash flooding. So, you’re good to go. You know the drill, sign in at the guard station when you get past the doors, and you’ll be taken into a room.”

“I’m familiar.”

The guard pressed the buzzer which released the magnetic clamp on the outer door. She felt a strange sensation across her face, as if a flash of sweat. I can’t be nervous, she thought. She had attended prisons to speak with clients many times, although never with such a Big Chief in the Glasgow underworld as Mr. Pat Wallace. Pat had been the epicenter of the ecstasy infiltrating the city back in the nineties. Although the police openly suspected him of murdering gangland rivals, no bodies were ever found.

The streets would have you believe Pat relied on a “cleaner” to tidy up his messes, a mysterious character known only as the Magic Man. Pat’s cleaner could make people disappear. The fiscal had never taken forward any murder charge, with no shred of evidence to do so. The rumour back then was that Pat had someone close to him infiltrate the police. He had evaded justice for decades. But times changed. His influence waned, and Pat had been caught in a drugs sting. He was now serving life.

She waited for the door behind her to close before walking down the corridor to the next steel door. She reached out to open it, trying to turn the handle. It was stuck firm. She took a step back and looked around at the cameras, confused. Then, a garbled voice over the intercom. “You can open the door now.” She did so, and was through to the second section of corridor which led to a third and final steel door. Again, she waited for the door behind her to be locked remotely, hearing the clunk. The door handle felt strange, as if the metal was sallow, rubbing off on her hand. She felt out of place, somehow. No, that’s not it. It was the place itself that was out of place. Disoriented, she walked through the door.

On the other side she was met by two guards, one of whom was armed. She was directed to sit to complete the entry card, and filled in her details and those of her client. After she had handed it back to the guard clerking the desk, he filed the card and stared up at her.

“Room 7. Right at the end. Facing the clock.”

She walked down the row and was surprised to see every one of them empty. Normally the rooms would be a hive of activity, bustling with prisoners and their briefs taking instructions or imparting messages.

Her room was also empty, but that was usual. The procedure was always to get the solicitor in and seated, then the prisoner would be brought from the holding pen. In this case, with Pat Wallace being such a high-profile guest, there were additional guards, each of them armed. Her interview room was the one nearest the holding pen. She could see through the barred glass that there were a handful of prisoners in there, some in orange jumpsuits and some in blue. They were hollering and jeering at one another, and as she watched them bounce off each other, for the very first time since setting foot in the prison, she felt unsafe.

She turned her face back to look around the room. It was really quite an awful place; but it was worse than she remembered. The heater in the corner was broken. The carpets were filthy and fraying at the edges. The pipes on the walls were blistering. The walls were flecked with paint and blistering here and there. There was no hope in this room, no care or attention. This was a place for the forgotten, for those left behind whom we no longer want to see. It was a place of neglect. As the threadbare nature of the room sank in, she realized it was just like her life. This place had emptied itself of any vitality. It was unloved, left behind and forgotten.

She felt overcome by throbbing pangs of fear. This place was hollow, transitory. It was no place for the living, for those with lives. How many broken souls had sat in this creaking plastic seat before her? Did they leave this room with any more of themselves restored? In fact, everything around her seemed very strange; unfinished. It was like she had interrupted the person who had painted this scene, leaving it half done as she fled.

The laughter from the holding pen died down and she was struck by how silent the prison around her had become; as silent as the grave. Then, a guard opened the door, and Pat Wallace stepped out. He was a tall, strapping man and, though now in his mid-seventies, was clearly still a strong, broad-shouldered individual. His face was careworn and his white hair, short but wiry, fit him perfectly.

He sat down and almost immediately started rubbing his feet against one another, and the scratching, scuffing sound almost echoed around her. He filled that room. He filled it without even saying a word.

“Mr. Wallace,” she said, lifting the document wallet. He stopped her, holding up his hands.

“I’ve not seen you before. Are you sure you belong here? What’s your name?” he asked.

“You are my client, Mr. Wallace. A client of my firm, I mean. I’m here to have you sign these papers.”

“Tell me your name.”

She felt so small. She hadn’t even introduced herself properly. Clearing her throat, she announced herself. She suddenly felt very strange, as if her vision was ebbing and flowing. She felt as if cold winds were blowing over her face and there was a sharp pain across her scalp.

“Ms. Harte. Esmie Harte. I should be expected.”

"How strange. I’m sure I would have recognized your name if you were supposed to be here. Folk arrive early sometimes. Others arrive far too late."

“Mr. Wallace … my firm has sent me to have you sign this consent letter. It’s to transfer the license for the Taxi Bar at the Barras. It’s still held in your name.”

“If I had to guess, Ms. Harte, I’d say you’re a bit too eager, are you not? Are you sure you’re supposed to be here, to be here now – so soon?”

“Well … yes. I need to get this form signed.”

She noticed the lights in the room were dimmer. And why was Mr. Wallace whispering? It made no difference. The interview rooms were not bugged. Client confidentiality, and all the rest of it. But even so, she found herself looking around just in case. There was something very off about all this. She realized the clock had not moved, not even a second. It was stuck at 5:35 p.m., which was probably about the time she swerved into the hedge.

“I’ll sign this if you want me to, but it makes no difference. It’s not why I’m here.”

Confused, she pushed the letter across the table, making sure he signed it and returned the pen. She would have to show that to the officer at the desk on the way out.

“I know you’re not here because of the license, Mr. Wallace.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, the volume of his voice dwindling.

She realized she was struggling to breathe, and her vision was blurry. The pressure in the room was unsettling, like a plane coming in to land.

“I’m here because you need me to be. To help you understand you’re in the wrong place. You shouldn’t be here, within these walls. You know you should be with your mother.”

She pulled at her shirt; somehow it was tugging around her throat, conspiring against her. That wave of cold swept over her again, and the liquid on her brow was like droplets of cold sweat.

“What? What d’you mean? What about my mother?” she said, gasping.

With every ounce of her strength, she tried to focus on his face. I must be having a panic attack, or worse, she thought.

“I don’t feel so good … I think I need medical help,” she blurted.

“Your mother is the one you need to visit, not me. You came here expecting me, so here I am. But I did not expect you. I am not expecting you. Not now, at least. I think you should leave.”

She ran her hand over her throbbing scalp, and found it was wet. Mr. Wallace was not making any sense. She tried to call for help from the guard, and found she could not speak, her words stolen away.

“I’m going to leave you now. You shouldn’t be here. I only came because this is what you thought to expect. But this is not where you should be. You are not really here, and so neither am I. I think I need to leave you now, so you can leave me. Perhaps we will meet again.”

As he stood, the room around her faded, smudged, like rain across a child’s drawing.

“What’s happening?” she cried to herself.

Mr. Wallace turned at the last, before returning to the holding pen. She tried to see him but all around her was dark, so very dark, and his body was wisping in and out of her sight. And then his face became clearer, and it was her father’s face. It was her father. She screamed.

And then, the hate came flooding forward. The unexpected revelation of it took her breath away. She did not hate her mother, though she had behaved awfully toward her. She realized then that she did not even hate herself, though she was deeply ashamed. As she saw her father where Pat Wallace had stood, she realized that it was him she hated. And her heart broke, all over again.

She hated him for leaving her. She hated him for dying. She hated him for keeping his cancer a secret from them both and denying them the truth, delivering unexpected loss instead. All this hate, she had pushed down, hidden in the deepest of darkened cells, below her unending love for him. She could not possibly allow herself to hate her father, so the hate found other ways out. Though imprisoned inside her, it had been so powerful that it seeped out of her walls, seeped out so she could hate anyone, anyone but her wonderful father.

Her eyes were ablaze with love for him, and ablaze with the realisation – at last – that her hate was really of what had happened to him, to them all.

She reached both hands out, to grab around his waist and pull herself into him just like she had done when she was a little girl and he would wrap his dressing gown around her. But her hands met nothing, nothing but air. She could not touch him. “Daddy?” she asked, in the tone of a desperate child who knows her father always has all the answers, all the answers except one. Why did this happen to us?

“Go to your mother. She needs you,” he said, and his voice was just as she remembered it, so full of strength and love for her.

But she was ashamed to think of how she had treated her mother and she clapped her hand over her face. She wanted nothing more than to see her father again, but now that he was somehow here, she could not bear to look at him.

“You’re not expected here, Ez. Not now. So, go. Go to your mother. To have peace, you need to make peace.” And then, the bristling dark enveloped him, and the walls disappeared. Everything disappeared.

And then, everything came back.

The cold across her face was the wind, knifing its way through the shattered windshield of the car. The sweat dappled on her brow was the rain lashing in across her, as her face lay against the steering wheel. The dampness in her hair was blood, her own blood, from shards of glass that had been thrust inside when she lost control of the car and struck the signpost for the prison. The signpost had buckled instantly, part of it flying through her windshield.

And lying next to her, covered in the shattered glass, was the letter.

It was unsigned.

There were shouts around her now, people were coming to help. The shopkeeper was there, trying to open the door and clear the broken glass. “Jesus Christ, hen, are ye awrite?” he was shouting. “Yer bleeding, hen! ‘Mon we’ll call an ambulance!”

“Can you help?” she muttered, reaching across to the passenger side.

“Aye hen, whit is it?” the shopkeeper said. “Ye want this letter?” He reached in and passed it to her. She crumpled it, casting it aside, and reached out again.

“My phone. In my bag.”

“Ye want me tae call some’dy?”

She tried to open her eyes fully and saw the shopkeeper outside the car. Dazed, crying, and with flashing images of her father’s face, she realized she had never set foot in the prison at all.

She was outside – free of all her walls.

“Please … please can you call my mother? She’ll be expecting me.”

JS Apsley is the pen name of a mystery and thriller author based in Glasgow, Scotland. He won the Ringwood Short Story Prize for his debut submission, “Immersion,” which was published in January of 2025.