3
‘Hurry up, Hudson! Bring them here!’ Sullivan could hear Bergan bellowing up above, as he stumbled down the staircase to the lower floor, towards his cell, his home. His head was swimming with the idea of possibilities, the last half an hour’s activity making his brain scramble to catch up. He hadn’t allowed himself to believe what Bergan had said, and even peering over his shoulder and watching Bergan empty the first petrol canister on to the floor he still believed it a warped joke between people unprepared to share. It was Hudson’s tears and wailing that finally turned Sullivan around to the truth. The sheer heartbreak in each incomplete, warbled word that fell off his tongue and landed unheard next to Bergan was the most honest Hudson had ever been. Thinwater prison was going down, and Sullivan’s heart charged into his throat as his face broke into the widest sort of happiness.
The rat was back on his bed looking at him as Sullivan arrived in the cell. Could it sense what was happening? The cell seemed darker than ever to Sullivan at that moment, so dark that he struggled for longer than he dared in the small wooden cupboard on the wall, looking for his wife’s letters – the only things five years in this hell had offered worth a damn. His hands probed the murky depths, catching splinters and combing through cobwebs until finally his fingers caught on the string he’d tied them with and he plucked them up and held them to his chest. Sullivan looked back to the rat on his bed and smiled. The rat, Sullivan believed, returned it.
‘Time to go,’ Sullivan said and held out the palm of his hand, which the rat sniffed before climbing on to. They turned out of the cell for the last time and never looked back.
Sullivan hopped and staggered back up the stairwells, his legs throbbing with each over-exuberant bound, his head floating somewhere above him, alive with childish, grabbing ideas. As he turned out on to the main landing he pulled up and came to a quick stop, the rat squealing as the momentum caused Sullivan’s hands to close to fists. Hudson was kneeling in the middle of the landing, his short box shape jittering as his body shook from great tides of tears, and his arms reached out to the air in an over-dramatic pleading gesture. His wheezing was now a harsh rasping sound and the coughs came in great loud blasts between the sobs. Bergan was at the far end of the landing, whistling a catchy tune and wrapping the rags around an old chair leg.
Hudson met Sullivan’s gaze and Sullivan could see the pleading in his eyes, his mouth almost, but not quite, forming the word “please” as Sullivan stood over him. He thought instantly of Mandrake and his night-time sobbing, his calls, his pleads and his harsh treatment at the hands of this sorry little mess now knelt in the middle of his derelict kingdom, and Sullivan felt nothing. He wanted to. He wanted to be human and feel what humans should, but he knew there was no point even trying to find the emotion. He passed Hudson and walked on, loosening his fists and raising the rat up to his face as if he were about to kiss it better.
He hated himself for it. Hated Hudson for making him face what he had become, hated Bergan for starting the whole damn circus. He had resigned himself long ago to slowly fading away from sight, and the one benefit he had managed to chisel out of that unfortunate end was the fact he no longer had to feel anything about anyone. He was a slave to his memories – they were his fuel – but he had managed to all but shut out any care or concern for his neighbours and his jailers. Now, at the sight of the fearsome man who had ruled his life through threat and fear for five years, broken and defeated, he felt a deep fear grab around his ribcage and his confident stride collapsed into a weedy shuffle. Suddenly the disruption to his life seemed like thievery, seemed like a callous offence. Something was going to be expected of him, people would ask questions and he would have to find answers, or even worse, opinions. He had been exposed and the very idea of freedom suddenly terrified him, so much so that he thought, for the briefest of moments, that perhaps he should have taken a dive in the courtyard in front of Bergan and then perhaps all this, whatever this was, would be playing out a million miles away from him. He would be truly free of everything. Crossing the landing, he started to walk like a drunkard, each step in need of a guide, an instruction or an order. The thought of leaving prison, the undiluted excitement of it, was slowly being eclipsed by his reality and the knowledge that whatever was outside the walls these days, it surely was not for him. Then he looked at the rat sitting in the palm of his hand, looking at him with curiosity and expectancy, twitching its nose to the air and Sullivan knew what he had to do. Wiggs always used to say the secret to getting through life at Thinwater Prison was to find little goals, even the smallest things, even something you would view as irrelevant back in the real world. Find one and see it through. Each goal was a stepping-stone to survival and that was all that mattered. So it was to the rat’s safety that Sullivan eventually turned, and towards Bergan that he walked.
‘Please Mr Bergan! Why must we do this? Why?’ Hudson started shrieking, his hands clenched into fists, beating on to his head and his red-raw childlike face. ‘He can’t want this! He can’t want you to take the prison. Leave me something. I can stay here and secure it for you. It can be a haven for you all. With some money, some reinforcements, we can…’
‘All this place is good for now is tactical misdirection.’
‘But no one would come here, no one has been this way for weeks. We are quite safe here. Yes, you should all come here. We can secure it, that would be my pleasure, and then we can…’
‘There are two groups at the city border. Large groups. Hundreds. They will come to the fire. We want them to come,’ Bergan shouted back, his elbow barging Sullivan to one side as a hand probed his pocket for a lighter. ‘It might buy us time. That’s the only commodity that matters now, Hudson. Time. Now get off your fat arse and shut up.’
‘But…but…’
Bergan dipped the bound rags into the nearest pool of petrol and then held the chair leg aloft like a sword. ‘Shall I torch him along with it? What do you think, Sullivan?’
Sullivan laughed lightly, nervously, then realised Bergan wasn’t joking, that he was perhaps, with those eyes, incapable of it. Sullivan quickly shook his head. ‘No, Mr Bergan. Please don’t do that.’
‘Why not? He’s a scumbag. There is no real point to him any more. He’s done his job. You were his job. His pet. His justification.’
‘His justification for what?’
‘Living.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t understand you, Sullivan. I find it curious that you should want to spare him. Are you sure?’
Sullivan thought for a moment, but the thoughts wouldn’t hold. He shrugged them off him and nodded.
‘Why look so unhappy, Sullivan? Smile. This is what freedom feels like.’
‘Please Mr Bergan! Please!’ Hudson screamed again, staggering slowly to his feet, his arms waving around his head. ‘Please don’t do this!’
‘Make your choice, Hudson.’
‘But…’
‘Now!’
Hudson, slowly and delicately, started hobbling towards them; the simpering and smug teacher’s pet of before now nothing more than a snot-nosed infant on his first day at school. Bergan took the lighter to the rags and let the fury of the flames into his eyes for the briefest of moments before launching the chair leg up and across the staircase and on to the landing.
Hudson was the first out of the door, the stark deviousness of the winter wind hitting him as if from another world.
4
There was snow in the air, just light freckles, but enough to excite a child Sullivan thought. His child, his daughter, she would have been excited by it. The surroundings would have made no difference to her, she would have danced and skipped around with her arms to the sky, catching snowflakes in her hands and on her smiling face. To Sullivan, it was merely an irritant; the cold day now just those few notches chillier, the flakes of snow a mocking threat that promised coldness that would seep into his bones and make him shiver.
Bergan led t
he way. Hudson, on a zombie like autopilot, followed and, chain of command obviously still standing, Sullivan brought up the rear. Sullivan wouldn’t look back at the prison despite his great rush of exhilaration as the flames caught their first. Something had locked inside him and at every sound of breaking glass, at every snap of the vicious crackling flames, Sullivan felt a jab in his mind, as if someone was plucking things from his subconscious and tossing them away to the wind. His dreams had come alive, that was his thought, his concern. Had he dreamt this? Was this always what was meant for him? Burning paper fell around them and the smell was sharp and pungent. Sullivan caught a cough in the back of his throat and swayed as he tried to clear it.
The great iron gates to the prison were parted like the yawning mouth of a trapdoor on the gallows. Beyond, only a bruised inhuman sky was visible. A jet black BMW was parked across the entrance, neatly tucked between the doors, and a figure in tatty army fatigues strolled around the vehicle in a perfect circle, a large hunting rifle rested in his arms, his face turning left to right and back again, looking out into the real world beyond the gate and giving the raging inferno of Thinwater prison nothing more than the most cursory of glances. The man looked young, little more than a teenager, Sullivan thought. But he had the wiry edge in his eyes of one who has seen too much.
The rat was trying to wriggle free from Sullivan’s hand as if frightened by the world beyond those iron gates and for that moment Sullivan didn’t want to let it go. He looked down into those dark eyes, eyes so similar to Bergan’s yet graced with a twinkle of light that Bergan had yet to find and, with difficulty, he hunched down and opened his palm full so as to let the rat make its decision. The rat looked back once, sniffed at the grease on Sullivan’s palm, decided it wasn’t for them and then scurried off his hand and away into the car park, zigzagging a path towards freedom or at least something similar.
What if it had a family in there? A Mr or Mrs Rat and a couple of kids. What if I’ve taken it away from its family? Why would it be so eager to escape?
Sullivan let the thoughts go. It was easy. Far too easy. As he stood and turned back towards the great gates of the prison he suddenly felt life drain from his brain and down his body. He rocked back and forth on unsteady feet, once more the drunkard looking for guidance, and then he began to fall forward, his limbs empty, his body hollow; an Easter egg with a disappointing gift inside.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…that was her favourite nursery rhyme. She’d sing it aloud to me and I could never tell her how much I hated it and how I found it ever so slightly creepy. There was beauty in the difference though, real beauty, I should have told her that. I assumed she wouldn’t understand.
He was stopped by a hand that felt like a pitchers glove, grabbing at his collar and spinning him around. Bergan was at his side and propping him up, Sullivan’s head flopping on to Bergan’s shoulder as he was dragged forward to the car. Bergan had managed to catch him, turn him and start marching him toward the car without breaking stride. If Sullivan had had any great capacity for thought left he would probably have conceded it was an impressive manoeuvre.
Sullivan was tumbled on to the back seat of the car face first and Hudson was shoved in crudely behind him; the heel of Bergan’s boot making the jailer fit just that little bit better. The smell of the leather seats was strong and smelt unspoilt but Sullivan would conclude later, when he gave time to look back, that it was probably just the brief reacquainting of an old memory that made the smell so keen. There was, surely, nothing unspoilt in this world.
Sullivan lay there for a moment, gathering himself, inhaling the leather seats and allowing his head time to float back to his shoulders. He could feel Hudson pressed up against him, could hear his wheezing and his coughing. Hudson’s mighty ring of keys was pushing into Sullivan’s backside and one kneecap was pushed up into his ribs. Sullivan readjusted and raised himself to a seated position.
Bergan was against the boot of the car talking to the man with the rifle and Sullivan caught a few words in every sentence, the two men talking quickly and urgently, nothing making much sense. The man with the rifle was called Kleinman, that much was obvious, and something over the road had caught their attention, for it was there they were looking, Kleinman occasionally pointing with his rifle and Bergan craning forward, squinting those blackened eyes.
‘Like a scuffling noise…’ Kleinman was saying. ‘Leaves…a breaking branch.’
‘A straggler…’
‘Why torch the place, Frank?’
‘If we can’t control it, kid, we torch it. What have I taught you? They…come across to the fire. It might buy us a day.’
When Sullivan looked back into the car he saw that Hudson was sitting bolt-upright staring at the headrest of the driver’s seat. His face was blank, his mouth tightly closed and his body rigid. Looking at him, Sullivan was reminded once more of that dreadful day; the day he had last held a gun, the day that had changed everything for him. He remembered feeling that all that had defined him had seeped out of his body that day, on to the floor and away from him, free to mix in with the blood at his feet. He knew Hudson was having the same feeling. Hudson was Thinwater prison, and now, whatever was left to stand up in his clothes when he stepped out of the car, would never fit them quite the same way.
Kleinman was stepping forward, the rifle trained in front of him. Bergan was at his shoulder, the pistol drawn from its holster again and aimed ahead at a clump of diseased horse chestnut trees across the road. Sullivan wiped the growing condensation from the car window nearest him and tried to see what they were looking at, but as the two men advanced Bergan blocked his view. Sullivan shifted himself on the seat and tried to look from the back window, craning his neck across the headrests. Kleinman was edging sideways, his finger clamped over the trigger of the rifle, his face scrunched in concentration. Bergan was holding his free hand to him, stopping him from moving forward.
‘Only if you are sure…we need to preserve ammunition. Don’t fire unless you are sure.’
From the corner of the window an orange glow was growing around each man as the window began reflecting the fire of the prison. It was only now that Sullivan looked back at his home for the last five years; Thinwater prison, the last place he thought he would ever see. The kitchens had just caught alight and were crumbling under great dancing flames, smoke pouring from the punctured eyes of the windows and swirling outwards into the car park. One wall of the main prison block had fallen outwards, spilling its brick guts down into an orangey blood pool. The blackened landings inside, twisted and bent, comical almost, poked out like broken metal ribs. A solitary car in the car park had been dragged into the enveloping flames and popped and juddered as the fire began to dismantle it, looking for the drink of petrol it would greedily swallow.
He looked back at Kleinman and Bergan and saw that Bergan had holstered his pistol and was just staring ahead, hands in his pockets. Kleinman was down on one knee, the rifle butt against his shoulder, one supporting arm rested on a raised knee, his finger rock steady on the trigger. For a minute there seemed to be no noise, nothing anywhere, from the broken road ahead of them or the ice cold sky above, even Thinwater prison appeared to be falling apart without fanfare or complaint. Then, suddenly, one quick rifle shot cracked and blasted into the air and Sullivan jumped back so quickly he hit his head on the roof of the car and then fell forward into the window. Almost instantly Kleinman opened the door and Sullivan tumbled out, slipping down to the ground like a limp rag doll.
‘Jeez Frank, guys a wet lettuce. Maddox would have him for breakfast.’
‘Come on, kid, you know Maddox wouldn’t ever touch salad. Raw meat all the way!’
There was laughter and then the fading smell of leather upholstery as Bergan and Kleinman each took one of Sullivan’s arms and lifted him back into the car. Sullivan was aware of the car starting and the orange glint at the side of his eyes, then he found himself in a fitful sleep before waking up three hours later
screaming. He had been dreaming of fire.
5
Sullivan was lying on a bed in the centre of a brilliantly white room and his screams bounced off the walls and echoed back to him. He shook his head trying to focus but a greasy, uncontrollable sweat was falling from the lines on his forehead and dropping like tiny darts into the corner of his eyes. He could feel hot piss staining one leg and he felt colder than he had ever been before. Snot fell from his nose like limp tusks and as he tried to wipe it clear he realised his hand was numb. Scrunching his toes against the metal bar across the base of the bed, he realised his feet were the same way. His wife’s letters lay scattered over him and above the bed water was coming in from some unseen place, carried along with an icy breeze that threatened to burrow to his core. All around him, all over him, the feeling of emptiness hung like a huge cage swinging on a frayed wire, groaning on its last effort to remain in place and threatening to fall at speed and shut out whatever feeling there was left.
A mouse under a trap. That’s me, baby. Look at me now. How she hated the mousetraps I used to put down. She scolded me for that. Wouldn’t speak to me for days. She loved the mice. Rats. Rodents. Tough cookie, my girl. That time she found one in the garden and let it run over and under her cupped hands…that was joy, right there, that was what it was all about. Fucked up world.
Sullivan pulled himself up on his elbows and slowly felt his head come back to its natural position. A shape, fleetingly and tantalisingly the shape of his wife, hovered into view at the base of his bed, shadows finding a form, colours mixing as his eyes sought the truth. The memory of his wife faded as the shape stood and became instead, the rock carved bulk of a man in army fatigues – these black rather than the camouflage colourings of Kleinman’s cut and paste clothing. The man was a brute by even the most forgiving person’s standards; cuts and grazes plastered his heavily-stubbled face as well as his scalp, all too visible under the shaven hair, and a crazed fury lit brilliant blue eyes, sucking out any hint of friendship. He held a hunting knife in one hand and one of Sullivan’s wife’s letters in the other which, having satisfied himself Sullivan was awake enough to see, he began to screw up into a ball. Sullivan jerked forward to grab the letter but collapsed back on to the bed in a heap. The man laughed, a horrid, loud and spiteful laugh and dropped the balled letter on to Sullivan’s head, and then he rounded the bed and crossed to the door, leaving the laugh behind him like a bad smell. Sullivan could feel the prickly promise of tears but kept them locked away until he heard the door to the room slam shut and the man’s footsteps walking away. With the safe release of the tears he rolled over on to his side and gathered up as many of the letters as he could see on the bed, clumsily dragging them to his chest and wrapping his body over them for protection.
Bleeker Hill Page 4
