Belatedly, she remembered she hadn’t taken her medication. Had she remembered it yesterday? She threw them back with some water, and immediately felt better. Not because the tiny white tablets had started working within seconds, but because she was taking a step towards control. She wouldn’t break down without Jason. She would survive.
Next stop was a shower and clean clothes. The water was too hot, too loud, too sharp on her skin, but she got through it. Defying the dress code, she dressed in jeans and a burgundy T-shirt emblazoned with the goddess Brigantia. She made a cup of coffee, with a generous portion of milk, and found a tin of peaches in the back of a kitchen cupboard.
After a bit of self-care, Amy started to feel the beginnings of functionality. She opened her laptop and checked her phone. She had two messages from Jason, and one from Catriona.
Jason’s first message simply said:
Don’t worry xx
The kisses were important. They made her feel less inclined to murder him.
The second one was more confusing. The miniature phones they had were difficult to type on and didn’t have the same predictive text as a smartphone, so each letter had to be typed individually. The message read:
Def a snitch in here secret hatch in kitchen were up above you find the longest players and joes watch.
After spending a couple of minutes puzzling over it, Amy decided to write it out on a piece of paper, filling in the blanks and separating out the points:
Definitely a snitch in here
Secret hatch in kitchen
We’re (?) up above you
Find the longest players
And Joe’s (?) watch
The first point confirmed her suspicion. When Owain talked of receiving a report, he had someone on the inside. A secret hatch in the kitchen, though? Was that the method of communicating? Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that the cameras were out in the kitchen.
The third point was difficult to fathom, but the last two were easy enough to understand. Jason wanted her to find out who had been in the compound the longest and to find a watch belonging to Joe. Unfortunately, while they were easy points to understand, they were pretty much impossible to carry out.
With each prisoner inheriting the number from the one before him, the only way to find who had been there longest was to read each individual entry. Or, at least, the entries on exit and entry days. She did a quick calculation – it had been just over 35 weeks, so that was 350 entries to find and read. Assuming there weren’t blanks, and not counting the prisoner record that she had no access to.
The record for G – aka The Cardiff Ripper. He was now her number one suspect. He was in the same camera blackspot as Mole when he died. If she could only work out how he got the body outside, they could pack up and go home.
Though, was he also the snitch? He seemed to have some kind of position of power there, and that must involve officially communicating with the agents – about supplies and who was leaving, if nothing more. It had to be someone else.
If she looked over the records and footage for the past week, if she could remember what had happened during the incidents, she might be able to work out which prisoner was assigned which number. Then, by process of elimination…
Then, there was Joe’s watch. Who the hell was Joe? If she asked Jason to describe him, that might narrow it down, but a lot of these boys were similar build, similar hair, similar attitude. Even if she could accurately identify him, how was she meant to find his missing watch? She could try to follow him between cameras, but for how long? If he'd lost the watch in the last couple of days, she might have a chance. However, if he was unsure, if it could’ve been a week or a month ago, she didn’t have a hope in hell.
Setting aside Jason’s five impossible things before lunch, she looked at Catriona’s message. There was a link to a picture message, which her crap phone couldn’t handle and couldn’t access the internet to see. The text said:
Thanks for restoring the signal. We have a location. You’re underneath Jason.
With repetition, Jason’s message suddenly became clear. They were literally on top of each other, his surface compound mapping to her underground bunker. With all the missing camera angles, she hadn’t realised that the layout of the compound almost perfectly resembled the bunker, but now that it had been brought to her attention, she could see the obvious resemblance.
The kitchen hatch now also made a certain amount of sense. Were the kitchens in alignment? How did they receive the communications in the bunker? Amy checked her watch. It was between mealtimes, mid-shift – this was the emptiest the corridors would ever be, and she was unlikely to find anyone but Owain in the kitchen.
Entering the corridor, she took her empty mug back to the kitchen. Once inside, she closed the door and set her mug down by the sink. She hadn’t paid attention to the stark metal of the kitchen before, but it was full of identical cupboards, all dull silver. She opened one at random and found more tins. She opened the next one – and a folded sheet of paper fell into her hand.
Glancing up at the door, she unfolded it and read, before returning it to the cupboard and closing the door. She washed up her mug in the sink, her mind whirring, trying to keep the panic under control.
The note said:
Communication compromised. Will find new drop point. Disregard further messages.
It made sense that once Jason found the hatch in the kitchen, the snitch would sever that line of communication. That he would warn his handlers that he had been compromised, that he might target the person who had unmasked him. All those things should make her panic, make her breath catch in her throat so that she couldn’t draw another, slowly suffocating with anxiety. But it wasn’t that which caused her to fret.
The thing that panicked her was that the note was in Jason’s handwriting.
Chapter 35: A Splitting Headache
Watching Catriona pace was making Cerys feel very sick. She was practically vibrating with tension, getting in the way of the nursing staff and making everyone very nervous. It was like being escorted by the canine unit.
Gwen had arrived about half an hour ago and was sitting next to her, gripping her hand as if it would disappear at any minute. Cerys felt a tiny bit guilty for the shit they put their mother through, but then decided it was Jason’s fault for setting a bad example.
Her neck was a mess of red marks and blossoming bruises. She'd been given an ice pack to help with the swelling, but the coldness made her breath catch, reminding her of being choked all over again.
One of the attending officers stopped Catriona in her pacing and asked for her statement.
‘PC Carr entered Mrs Collins’ residence by invitation. She was assaulted by Alby Collins and raised the alarm. I forced entry and neutralised him.’
Catriona’s clipped words were punctuated by the burning intensity of her eyes. Cerys hadn’t heard Catriona’s voice take on that particular coldness before, at odds with her knitted sweater and her fiery red hair. It wasn’t that she was detached or emotionless, but something was wrong in the way she spoke, the stiffness in her body. Had she been hurt?
The officer closed his notebook and crossed the Majors department, standing outside a cubicle and conferring with another constable there. That’s where they were keeping Alby then. She saw Catriona have the same revelation, saw her rise up on the balls of her feet, as if ready to run.
‘Mam, can you get me a cup of tea? And maybe some chocolate?’
Gwen squeezed her hand, frowning down at her.
‘Are you allowed that, bach? Won’t it make your throat sore?’
‘It’s like a cold, isn’t it?’ Cerys blagged. ‘Hot drinks are soothing.’
‘I’ll pop down to the coffee shop then. I won’t be long now.’
As soon as Gwen was out of sight, Cerys swung her legs over the side of the bed. Ca
triona watched her warily.
‘Where are you going?’
‘If you’re going to question Alby, I want in.’
Catriona shifted her weight, looking away. ‘I never said—’
‘Come on,’ Cerys said and, without waiting for an answer, crossed the A&E department.
There was only one PC outside now, and Cerys recognised him from training. His eyes caught on her neck and she watched his eyes flood with sympathy. She hated that. The last thing she needed was her colleagues to think she was weak because a perp had got the jump on her.
The curtain hadn’t been fully closed, and she could see Alby Collins sitting on the edge of the bed. The doctor with him stepped back to admire her handiwork. Alby’s face was covered in spiderwebs of blood, the front of his head shaved to reveal a network of lines that had been recently glued shut. The tray on the side had a few slivers of glass in amongst the bloody cotton pads. Catriona had really done a number on him.
‘I’m done for now,’ the doctor said. ‘You’ll need an appointment with plastics. I’ll ask the consultant to check you over before you leave.’
It was amazing how many doctors believed curtains to be soundproof. She cleared up her tray and stepped outside, bypassing them all without a second glance. The PC sighed quietly.
‘Be quick,’ he said, and jerked the curtain aside.
Alby looked up at them both and flashed a lazy smile at Cerys.
‘Nice tattoo you got there. That one’s on the house.’
Cerys took hold of Catriona’s arm, unsure of what she might do. Always the quiet ones.
‘You’ll be back in prison before you know it,’ Catriona said, in that same hard, cold voice.
Alby stretched his free arm behind his head, settling back on the pillow. The other was secured to the bed rail with handcuffs. As was proper when he had just committed assault. An assault on a police officer, an assault on her. Cerys felt her own blood begin to boil.
‘Nah, see, I’ve got immunity. The Governor himself sent me out here to find Jay Bird. That NCA bitch made her promises too. You should look into that.’
‘Oh, we have.’
Cerys turned to see Bryn walking through the open curtain. It seemed that coppers shared the delusion that these conversations were private. However, he didn’t try to force them out, just sat at the end of Alby’s bed and smiled like a shark.
‘I think you’re a bit unclear on the terms of your arrangement. You had a clean slate, a second chance. Then, you assaulted a police officer, and what do you know? Your record suddenly reappeared on my screen, as if it had never been gone.’
Alby sat upright, his shoulder jerked back by the tether on his wrist. ‘What? That can’t be right. She said we were going free!’
‘Free if you kept your nose clean. But here you are, back under arrest, and nowhere to hide. You’re going back to Swansea, boy. It’ll be like you’ve never been away.’
She saw Alby’s frightened eyes in the rictus mask of his face, barely able to breathe as his world crashed down around him. Good. He should know what it was like to suffocate. Catriona’s fingers gripped Cerys’ sleeve, and she saw the perverse pleasure on her friend’s face. She was sure the expression mirrored her own.
Bryn allowed his words to sink in, let him really understand the consequences of what he had done. He waited until he was sure Alby knew he was drowning before throwing the lifeline.
‘Of course, it might’ve been self-defence. Someone coming into your room, unexpected-like, and startling you when you were coming out of your K-hole. A sympathetic judge might leave you with a suspended sentence and a bit of drug rehabilitation. But it’s a big ask, isn’t it, with a history like yours.’
Catriona made a small noise of discontent beside her, but Cerys shushed her. She was a bigger picture person. If this deal helped them now, she didn’t really care what happened to Alby. He'd go back to being an irritating memory in her past, and that suited her just fine.
Alby swallowed, quickly sizing up his options. He looked at his wrist, the chafed red skin beneath the cuff, opening and closing his hand to watch the tendons move beneath the skin.
‘What is it you want?’
‘Information on your country retreat.’
The panic was back. ‘I can’t. I signed a thing. I’ll lose—’
‘You already lost it, all of it. The only person who can help you now is me.’
‘You don’t understand. They’re not like ordinary cops. They’re gonna come after me if they know I talked.’
‘Who’s going to know, Alby? It’s just us in here, and a judge who took pity on you and your poor mam.’
‘I don’t know anything though!’
‘You know where the watch is,’ Catriona said.
Cerys knew Alby of old. She expected him to grin, to smirk at how he had pulled off the petty theft and kept his prize away from everyone involved. He had always been a show-off, taking his little victories when he could, enjoying the patronising praise of the others. But now he shrank back onto the bed, suddenly looking young and lost, even more frightened than when he had been faced with Swansea again.
‘You don’t want that watch. Not really. Whoever’s got that watch, on the inside – they have a target on their back.’
‘What’s so special about the watch?’ Cerys asked.
‘It’s not the watch. It’s what’s on it. It records reminders, see. If you’ve got a lot to remember, it records a lot of shit. Half an hour of shit, or something.’
Cerys saw Bryn have the same revelation as her, felt Catriona press her arm tightly.
‘Someone was using it to gather information,’ she said.
‘Joe was recording stuff. But he wasn’t doing it for his ownself, see. He was doing it for someone else.’
‘Who was he doing it for?’ Bryn asked.
Alby shook his head, clamming up and trying to sink further into the bed, as if it would swallow him up. ‘No, I can’t. They’ll kill me.’
‘They’re locked up in a compound in the country,’ Catriona said.
Alby laughed then, hollow and desperate.
‘Not for long.’
Chapter 36: The Black Knight
Amy went to fetch a cup of coffee around half-eleven, her eyes tired after a long day of staring at video footage and trying to link shapes on the screen to a prisoner code.
The minimalistic diary-keeping was driving her insane. Every prisoner showered, ate, worked – day-in and day-out. She had divided them quickly into those who went to the Project Room and those who did other odd jobs around the place, and the enhanced prisoners wore a uniform that marked them out. She recognised Jason and Lewis, of course, and she remembered the one with the anchor tattoo had tended to Jason: P6. Scrolling back through his entries didn’t take long, as she worked out he had replaced Alby Collins by the eviction dates.
The rest was a muddle that was nearly impossible to decipher. Even the prisoners who were distinct on screen weren’t obvious in the paperwork – no one bothered to note if they were short, stacked, or White Welsh in their sparse documentation. Jason hadn’t responded to her request for information on his fellow prisoners, nor her message asking him what the fuck he was playing at with that note. She would have to wait a little bit longer to bollock him.
She was frankly furious with him. He hadn’t sent her anything reassuring, coordinated any of his increasingly dangerous ‘plans’ with her, or even had the decency to let her know what was going on with him. That was before she even considered that she had shared her body with him, and the most she had got from him since was a row of crosses via text. The anger and fear jangled inside her and she felt constantly on the edge of a panic attack. She wished she had more diazepam to calm her the fuck down. Instead, she had to rely on exhaustion to settle and caffeine to work.
As she entere
d the canteen, she realised it wasn’t as empty as she'd hoped. Some guards from the day shift were playing cards and drinking something that definitely wasn’t coffee. She recognised them from her excursion to the Security Hide: Twofer, Threesome, and Sixy. Not exactly her favourite people.
She went over to the drinks table, dumped a tablespoon of coffee granules in a mug, and filled the mug to the brim. Turning towards the door, Sixy suddenly loomed in front of her, cutting off her exit.
‘If it isn’t TD1. Shouldn’t you be in bed, love?’
‘I’m working,’ she said, not meeting his eyes, trying to step round him.
Threesome appeared next to him, blocking her way again. ‘Why don’t you take a break? It looks like you need a little bit of relaxing.’
‘I’m fine. Excuse me.’
‘Will not,’ Threesome said, as if this was a childish game.
‘You should join us,’ Sixy said, reaching out to touch her shoulder, to hold it and try to steer her towards their table.
‘I said I’m working.’
‘All work and no play,’ Threesome sang to her.
Sixy put both of his hands on her shoulders and pulled her towards him. She tripped forward, dropping her coffee cup with a smash, as he smothered her with his body. She could hear Threesome cackling like an unhinged witch, as she was suffocated, unable to move or breathe, her whole body on fire with shame.
‘Fuck off, Sixy!’
The weight was suddenly off her, and a hand was gently pulling her back, steadying her when she slipped on her spilled coffee. She focused on her breathing, on the air moving freely in and out of her lungs, trying to remember her mindfulness exercises. She could feel the coffee warming her leg through her jeans, the trickle of heat into her trainer. She knew her cheeks were burning and the hand on her arm hadn’t let go, searing her skin through her T-shirt. She heard raised voices, loud and up close, but she just had to keep breathing.
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