Blame

by Simon Mayo

  ‘You got that right,’ said Amos.

  Henry’s home was a shipping container. About six metres long and nearly two metres high, it had clearly once been blue but was now mainly browns, greens and rust.

  ‘Managed to paint it a bit,’ he muttered as he pulled on a metal bar, releasing a door in the end wall. Inside it was dark and, they all realized together, revoltingly smelly. Piles of papers and heaps of magazines littered the opening. They all hovered at the container’s entrance. ‘Wind- and waterproof,’ said Henry proudly, ‘and I’ve changed the door mechanics so I can lock it from the inside.’ He pushed a few tottering stacks of paper to one side. ‘Though I wasn’t expecting visitors . . .’

  Ant saw that all the papers had completed crossword puzzles.

  ‘Any chance of you losing the gun, Henry?’ asked Max. ‘Makes me nervous.’

  ‘It’s supposed to make you nervous!’ he said, irritated. ‘Are you stupid or something? Prison rot your brain?’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t in prison,’ said Amos. ‘He was at university.’ He managed to make it sound like an insult.

  ‘I’m an on-the-run too,’ said Max. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘They always are.’ Henry emerged from the gloom at the back of the container. He had lost the gun and was holding a vinyl album sleeve. Quiet music started to play, and he sat on old car seat propped against the metal wall.

  ‘Van Morrison,’ he said, holding up the record sleeve. ‘You won’t know him, but he was a genius.’

  ‘Actually I have heard of him,’ said Ant. ‘He was from Belfast, wasn’t he? One of our POs liked his stuff . . .’

  ‘Where’s your power from?’ asked Mattie, changing the subject.

  ‘Oh, some car batteries I wired together. It’s not perfect, runs a bit slow, but even at the wrong speed, music stops me from going totally mad. It doesn’t go any louder than this.’ He closed his eyes and conducted along for a few bars. ‘But it’s enough. You’ll need to keep everything you do quiet. Attract no attention.’ He read something on the record sleeve. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Amos got in first. ‘We think all the strutters are being brought to Bodmin Prison. There was a fire at ours and . . . we don’t know if our parents are alive or not . . . and we were sort of heading this way . . .’

  ‘Not exactly a plan of action,’ said Henry, nibbling at a fingernail, ‘but you’re right about one thing. Bodmin is the new strutter prison. They’ve been doing the place up ever since I got here. It wasn’t used for a hundred years – became a hideous tourist attraction with waxworks and everything. But now it’s state-of-the-art. It’s not finished, but word is they’re filling it with strutters.’

  There was silence for a moment. ‘So Bodmin Moor is where you go if you want to hide, to disappear—’ said Ant.

  ‘It’s one of the places . . .’ interrupted Henry.

  ‘But Bodmin Prison is where you end up if you’re caught,’ she concluded.

  He nodded. ‘That’s about it, yes.’

  ‘Can you get near the prison?’ asked Amos.

  ‘You can if you want to,’ said Henry. ‘There’s a high fence around most of it, but it’s in the town – you can walk past it. Not sure why you’d want to though. If you’re hiding, stay here. If you want to get caught, take a trip to Bodmin.’

  ‘What if we drove through?’ said Max.

  ‘Is the van stolen?’

  Max shook his head. ‘Nope. Hired.’

  Henry shrugged, then got up and went back into the container. They heard him rummaging and cursing, before he reappeared with some number plates in his hand. ‘My last visitors didn’t, er, seem to need them,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Lithuanian number plates. Everyone will assume you’re here for the harvest. Put them on and you really will disappear.’

  They hadn’t discussed it, but Ant was sure that they were all thinking the same thing: they needed to see the prison. If all the strutters were being taken there, then Jimmy and Daisy would be there too. If Gina and Dan had survived – if any of the adults had survived – they would be inside Bodmin Prison.

  Whether it was revenge or justice, it had to start there.

  Day 2

  We owe you:

  A busted coach

  You owe us:

  Jimmy

  Daisy

  Everyone else

  Everything else

  Mattie declared it the worst night ever. Initially they refused Henry’s offer of bedding on the grounds that it stank of Henry, but the hard metal floor of the van had forced them to reconsider; finally they accepted a threadbare sleeping bag and three mouldy cushions.

  Max and Ant had argued with each other, then they had argued with Amos. When anyone moved, the whole van shook. When anyone made even the slightest noise, the van seemed to amplify it. Sleep eventually came, but the respite was brief; a heavy storm was followed by sunrise just before five. As the borrowed bedding heated up, the smell became unbearable. Breakfast was biscuits, but the fresh air tasted good. Ant and Mattie stood together in a pool of early morning sunlight and breathed deeply.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ muttered Ant.

  ‘Grass. Wood. Flowers. Earth. And the river,’ Mattie said, inhaling again. ‘So many nice things at once.’

  ‘Certainly beats Spike first thing in the morning,’ said Ant, stretching. Then she paused, listening. ‘Can you hear music?’

  Mattie nodded. ‘Henry’s up.’ They heard shuffling feet and turned.

  ‘Henry is indeed up,’ said Henry, ‘and offering you tea. If you fancy it.’ Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed back towards his container.

  Ant and Mattie exchanged ‘why not’ shrugs, and followed. They sat on piles of newspaper, and Henry handed them a mug each. A slow, delicate piano solo drifted out from the container.

  Henry sipped. ‘It’s some Bill Evans,’ he said. ‘You know him?’ They both shook their heads. ‘It’s my morning tune. Play it every day.’ He waited for a few more chords, his free hand playing air piano. ‘I know every note.’ He held up the record sleeve, which showed a bearded middle-aged man sitting hunched at a piano. ‘People said we looked alike. Long time ago. What do you think?’

  Ant shook her head. ‘Can’t see it, Henry – sorry.’ He passed it to Mattie.

  Ant sifted through some of the newspapers at her feet. All were folded to the crossword, each clue completed. ‘You’re good,’ she said. ‘Our foster dad did them. Think you’re better than him though.’

  Henry shifted his weight on the makeshift seat. ‘You think he may have died? Your friend seemed to be suggesting . . .’

  ‘Yeah, maybe . . .’ she said, glancing at Mattie.

  Henry cleared his throat. ‘I always was good with words,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Loved playing with letters. Fitting it all together. Some puzzles take me a while but’ – he gestured around – ‘I have plenty of time.’

  ‘What about numbers?’ asked Mattie.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Are you good with number puzzles too?’

  Mattie and Ant exchanged glances. ‘Good call,’ she muttered.

  ‘Not bad, I s’pose,’ Henry said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Ant took her cue. ‘Just before he died, a prison officer who helped me – his name was Brian . . . anyway, he told me that the code he used for his security pass would not just get me out but change my life. I think it means something but—’

  ‘What’s the code?’

  ‘8B 3S 2C3.’

  Henry repeated the numbers and letters back a few times. ‘No idea. But I’ll work on it if you like?’

  Max appeared and nodded at him. ‘Thought I heard voices,’ he said. Then, to Ant and Mattie, ‘We should go to Bodmin.’

  Ant finished her tea; Mattie poured his dregs onto the ground and said, ‘See you later, Henry.’

  They followed Max back to the van and told Amos what they planned to do.

  Mattie loo
ked at Ant. ‘You know Brian said to keep a record of the numbers and letters?’ he asked her.

  ‘He said something like that, yes,’ she replied. ‘There was a lot going on . . .’

  ‘Well, did you? Did you write them down ever?’

  ‘No. No way. Seemed too dangerous. Why, Mattie?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just seems a weird thing to say, that’s all.’

  After removing the bedding from the van, they set off. Max headed past the fenced-off houses and back onto the road.

  ‘About five minutes to the prison,’ he said. ‘That’s what Henry says anyway.’

  Ant’s nerves started to jangle; now she really was awake. She scrolled through the Bug sites; she had tried to log on the previous night but got no signal in the woods. Here it was strong, and she called out the posted comments as she found them.

  ‘Sorry, guys, no information here . . . Big sympathies, no sightings . . . Oh, hang on!’ She read a new post to herself, and everyone turned to face her. ‘Someone called Ally67 says she’s heard of a possible sighting of Sarah Raath. And someone else says they heard of some escaped strutters getting recaptured. And that’s all.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’ Amos grabbed the phone. He’d been looking over her shoulder and noticed a whole stream of comments that Ant hadn’t mentioned. Mattie tried to snatch it back, but Amos read from the screen. ‘Goose girl is right. We need more like her . . . What do those geese mean? . . . Good messages from the goose girl . . . “Not to Blame” needs to be shouted from the rooftops . . . Want more videos, goose girl . . .’ He threw the phone back to her. ‘You’re getting famous,’ he said, with mock enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, feel free to post the next message,’ she said, shrugging. ‘It doesn’t really matter.’

  Max braked, interrupting the argument. ‘OK, we’re here!’ he called, and they all stared through the windscreen. ‘This is Bodmin – prison’s off to the left, I think.’

  Houses and small stores lined the road. There was little traffic about.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ wondered Mattie.

  ‘In bed. It’s still only seven o’clock. Wonder if we stand out, driving around so early . . .’

  ‘We’ve got the foreign plates on,’ said Amos. ‘Didn’t Henry say we’d be invisible?’

  ‘He did,’ said Max. ‘And we have to remember we’re Lithuanian harvesters if anyone speaks to us.’ It seemed so ridiculous, everyone laughed.

  ‘What do Lithuanians sound like?’ asked Mattie.

  ‘Vaguely German, I think. Hang on, guys – look at this.’ Ahead, two large white vehicles had stopped at some traffic lights; it was clear what was happening.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ant. ‘Prison transporters.’

  ‘And proper ones this time,’ added Amos. ‘The kind we can’t attack.’

  Max drove closer, waiting for the lights to change. Rather than pulling up alongside them, he tucked the van in behind the second transporter. It was white and polished steel, a tinted window set in its rear door.

  ‘Can they see us?’ asked Mattie. ‘Should we be hiding?’

  Before anyone could answer, a truck trundled past them towards the junction. ‘Cable Broadcast and TV Services,’ Mattie read from the painted logo. The driver blasted his horn at the prison transporter, which replied in kind. There followed some shouted greetings across the tarmac.

  ‘Old friends apparently,’ said Max.

  Amos frowned. ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘Not good at all,’ agreed Ant. ‘TV and prison means Correction. They must be planning on filming here.’ She felt her flesh creep.

  The prison vehicles and television truck moved away. Max waited briefly, then followed at a distance. They drove down a steep hill, a few more vehicles providing some cover, and then a large rectangular tower appeared above the rooftops. Max slowed as the rest of the prison came into view. From Henry’s description, Ant had expected a modern building, but what she saw was something from a distant age. Ancient and forbidding, its vast brick walls rose castle-like into the sky, tiny windows arranged at regular intervals. Ivy covered whole sections of the wing that was closest to them; here there were larger, patterned windows with ornate surrounds, and bright, modern lighting shone from inside. Ant saw movement and a face appeared in the window, pausing momentarily before moving away.

  ‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’ she said, her voice urgent. ‘Keep going! That was Grey! Oh my God, he’s here!’

  Max spun round; Amos twisted in his seat; Mattie grabbed Ant’s arm.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ breathed Amos.

  ‘The assessor guy from Spike? You sure?’ asked Max.

  ‘No,’ said Ant, ‘I’m not. I can’t be. But I know how he stands. How he looks. How he breathes. And that sure looked like him.’

  Max had swerved back into the lane.

  ‘God, I hate him,’ Ant muttered.

  ‘Whether Dad’s alive or not,’ said Amos, still staring at the window, ‘I want to see Grey punished. I want to see him hurt.’

  ‘OK, guys, calm down,’ said Max. ‘If that is Grey, does it make a difference to where I’m driving? The road follows the security fence – I can do a lap . . .’

  Steel barricades and six-metre-high concrete blocks encircled the prison; security cameras every fifty metres. The building might be gothic but the security was brand new.

  ‘No, no, no, it’s too risky,’ said Ant. ‘Why would anyone do a lap of a prison? Pull away, Max.’

  He turned left and started the climb back into the town.

  Ant’s head was buzzing. ‘If that was Grey, and if those TV trucks are for Correction, we are right back in it here,’ she said.

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ asked Mattie. ‘Do we want to be “right back in it”?’

  ‘What can the four of us do against all that?’ Amos pointed at the prison tower, still visible over the rooftops.

  ‘We can cause trouble,’ said Ant. ‘At the very least, we can cause trouble.’

  They drove in silence for a while; then Max slowed right down. ‘How about here?’

  The road sign said ARMCHAIR CORNER; the houses were small, neat and modern, but as the van stopped, they saw the view. Max had looped round, ending up behind the prison but much closer than before. This housing estate, built when the prison was just a ruin, looked straight into its courtyards.

  An overgrown brick-and-wood fence gave them cover, and they piled out of the van. Ant hoisted Mattie up in front of her and they peered over the top. She guessed the prison’s exterior walls had been kept because it was a listed building, but it could just have been because they were terrifying. The dread she felt was, she thought, just what she was supposed to feel.

  ‘There are the transporters.’ Mattie pointed to a walled area in front of an arched gatehouse. The two prison vehicles and the CB&TV truck were parked alongside each other, prison officers and technicians milling around them.

  ‘You think this is for Correction?’ said Max. ‘That wouldn’t be till tonight – they seem extremely busy for seven forty-five in the morning.’ The TV technicians were setting up small spotlights and switching them on.

  ‘No,’ Ant said slowly, ‘this is happening right now,’ and she pulled her phone out of her pocket. ‘There’s something they want to show us.’ The fear in Mattie’s eyes mirrored her own. She found one of the morning news shows and held out her phone for them all to see. Along the bottom of the screen ran a caption: News Alert – Live statement from HMP Bodmin. Ant propped the phone against a tall clump of weeds and her eyes switched from screen to courtyard.

  From Armchair Corner they watched a woman in a suit appear in front of the lights, a cameraman poised and ready. Both then turned as a stooped man in a black suit emerged from the prison building.

  Ant inhaled sharply. ‘It is him. It actually is him. The bastard is here.’

  They all took it in turns to curse Grey as he shook hands with the reporter, then patted his hair.

&nb
sp; ‘Anyone got a rocket launcher?’ said Amos. He mimed the action of firing into the courtyard.

  Grey and the reporter stood together, the POs behind them; they all seemed to be waiting for something.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Mattie.

  ‘The eight o’clock news,’ said Max. ‘Maximum coverage, highest viewing figures. That’s what’s happening. And here come the drones.’

  They instinctively ducked as four prison surveillance drones appeared above the courtyard, two dipping and moving further away, two hovering thirty metres above the transporters.

  ‘Great,’ said Ant. ‘Right at our eye level. Thanks for nothing.’

  They all slid to the ground, sitting with their backs to the fence, and stared at her phone.

  ‘I have a terrible feeling we’re going to know whoever’s in that transporter,’ said Max.

  ‘You’re watching Breakfast News . . .’ A suntanned, slightly puffy-faced man smiled into the camera. ‘As you know, we’ve been expecting a statement from Bodmin Prison about some of the recently escaped prisoners from HMP London. Our reporter Vic Ladysmith is there. Vic, what can you tell us?’

  The view switched to the walled courtyard, where a thin-faced woman with big hair and stretched skin nodded. ‘That’s right, Eammon. Here at Bodmin Prison we’ve been waiting to hear from their new governor, John Grey, and he’s with me now.’ The shot widened to reveal not just the black-suited Grey but also the two transporters. ‘Governor,’ continued the reporter, ‘I believe you have news of some of the escaped London prisoners.’

  Grey smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, Victoria. Following the shocking violence at HMP London, many heritage criminals regrettably managed to escape. We have mounted an unprecedented security operation to recapture these dangerous men and women.’

  He glanced over at the first transporter, where handcuffed prisoners were starting to emerge, POs leading them past the camera towards the prison.

  ‘The message this sends, Victoria, is that the rule of law holds firm. Heritage crime needs to be tackled, and here at Bodmin we will lead that fight. Every prisoner here is a so-called strutter. They will pay the debt they owe. These criminals’ – he gestured to the line of shuffling men and women behind him – ‘tried to run away. And they failed . . .’