by John Macken
As he waited for her to end the call and come up to the lab, he rocked the small toy in the palm of his hands. It was a Kinder egg, oval and slightly elongated, the sort which pulled apart at its equator to reveal a few small fragments of plastic which inevitably required assembling into something or other of little interest to a child once it had been constructed. He spotted an envelope on the lab bench and wondered momentarily whether he should send the egg’s contents to Joshua. The words ‘choking hazard’ were printed on the scrap of paper which had fallen out of the egg along with its plastic innards. He frowned briefly to himself.
Laid out on a clear perspex tray beneath his hands was an Eppendorf tube, half full of a pink liquid, a minute pair of disposable tweezers, several dabs of double-sided tape, a scalpel blade, a cottonwool bud and a nylon glove. Through the rear window he saw Sarah climbing out of her squad car. Reuben worked quickly, packing the items into the Kinder egg and forcing it closed again. It was a tight squeeze, but they just about fitted. He spent a few long seconds staring at the object and slowly shaking his head. Then he slid it into his pocket as a knock sounded at the door.
Sarah appeared hassled, in a pretty sort of way, almost as if vexation suited her features. Her light straight hair, not pinned back under its usual discipline, worried her eyes. She wore very little make-up, and her clothes hadn’t seen an iron recently.
‘Jesus, look at the state of you,’ she said.
Reuben neglected to comment on her appearance. ‘Thanks.’
‘What happened?’
‘Training and preparation,’ he answered, running his tongue over his swollen lower lip.
‘I won’t ask. Probably a good thing to look like that where you’re heading. You ready?’
Reuben had a last scan of the lab, its fridges and freezers, its anonymous machines, its industrial light fittings, its spotless benches. Containers housing solvents, buffers, powders and liquid nitrogen crowded its shelves. In the freezers he pictured thousands of small opaque tubes, each with a unique sample of DNA. He flicked off his computer and shut down the lights. ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I’m ready.’ Under the bandage, his right arm itched like crazy. A small pool of blood had leaked through, scabbing brown at the surface of the cotton. He checked his pockets, certain that he had everything he needed. And then, Sarah waiting impatiently by the open door, he locked up and left.
Reuben remained quiet as Sarah drove out of the ruined housing estate, with its skeletons of vehicles and carcasses of buildings. Inflated carrier bags were tangled in the branches of skinny trees. A cold easterly wind blew through the broken windows of empty tower blocks, a lifeless howl tearing at the thick glass of the Volvo. Sarah’s police radio burst into life and died again, inaudible words crackling and fading.
‘So this is it then,’ Sarah muttered. ‘Any last words?’
‘It’s only going to be a few days.’
‘A long few days, though.’
‘Maybe. But it will be worth it.’
‘I guess so.’
Reuben surveyed the dismal concrete atrocity which surrounded them. He fell silent, listening to the engine as Sarah turned on to a main road and worked her way quickly through the gears.
‘If there was a way of doing this through official channels . . .’ he said after a while.
‘There isn’t. Not without him finding out.’ She drove quickly, relying on motorists to spot the understated police markings. ‘In which case you’ll never find out who he is and get to the truth.’
‘Yeah.’
Sarah turned to him as they waited at a traffic light. ‘Well it won’t be your worst assignment ever. Remember what happened last year?’
Reuben fingered the Kinder egg in his jacket pocket. It was warm, unyielding, and critical to the next few days. He recognized where they were, knew they were getting close.
‘Jesus, yes.’
‘Just don’t compromise yourself in there.’
‘Compromising, as you know, is not something I do well.’
The rest of the journey passed in silence, Reuben watching the outside blur by, thinking things through, knowing it was the right course of action but wishing there was another way.
‘OK, we’re here,’ Sarah said eventually as she pulled the squad car into an underground car park, blinking in the momentary darkness, her tired eyes struggling to adjust. She parked rapidly and brusquely, and Reuben couldn’t help but be impressed.
‘I’m going to have to go on one of those driving courses one day,’ he said, climbing out.
‘Sorry, Dr M,’ Sarah countered with a smile, ‘for proper CID only.’ She walked around the car and stopped in front of him. ‘I think you’re forgetting something.’
Reuben looked into her eyes, brilliant and clear despite the fatigue. ‘What?’ he asked, caught for a second in her beauty.
‘Give me your hands,’ she answered.
He paused, unsure. And then, almost disappointed, he understood. Reuben pushed his arms towards her. Sarah took them in her own, keeping eye contact, something playful in her face. Then she handcuffed his wrists.
‘Come with me, Remand Boy,’ she said, leading him towards a door and up a flight of concrete steps.
They walked along an off-white corridor which opened out into a larger hallway. At the end, they entered an office. It was small and modern, designed to be functional rather than comfortable. A duty sergeant was seated at a cramped desk. He was late twenties, thick-set and surly, clearly resenting being bound to his desk. He looked up at them with little enthusiasm.
‘DCI Sarah Hirst, GeneCrime Forensics, Metropolitan CID,’ Sarah announced, an abrupt and official intent to her voice. ‘This is Reuben Maitland, on remand for attempted spousal murder. Hearing’s been postponed for a week, and bail denied, while we repeat a series of DNA tests. He’s now due to be transferred in the interim. Can I leave him with you?’
The duty sergeant sighed audibly. ‘You got his forms?’ Reuben noted that he had an untidy mouth, lower lip too big, teeth elongated and badly aligned.
Sarah passed him a sparse bundle of paperwork from her case. ‘I’m afraid we’re still waiting for his I-26 and his 2052 Self Harm.’
A practised look of doubt shaded the man’s features. ‘Without the 2052 there’s no—’
‘Look, sergeant,’ Sarah interrupted, ‘I’ve got another case due upstairs. Court three. I’ll have one of my team fax the Self Harm through as soon as it comes.’ Her tone hardened. ‘Now, let me ask you again: can I leave this prisoner with you?’
‘Fine, ma’am,’ he replied, straightening in his seat but avoiding eye contact. ‘You uncuff him, I’ll take him through.’
Reuben marvelled at the power Sarah could generate just by raising her voice a notch. Sarah turned and unlocked his cuffs. She stared into his eyes again, a long second which excited and unnerved him. There was something there, but he struggled to decide what. Sarah then moved out of the way, pausing in the doorway as the broad and looming duty sergeant stood up and gripped his upper arm.
‘From now on, he’s all yours, sergeant,’ she intoned.
Reuben felt the tightening grip and knew that this was a taste of what he was about to face. Constraint. Restrictions. Limitations. He was suddenly nervous.
An hour later, in a prison van with blacked-out windows, Reuben swayed on his feet as the vehicle emerged through the double security gates of the courthouse and swerved around the corner. Surrounding him, prisoners were standing, trying to peer through the obscured windows, banging on the walls with their fists, shouting and hollering. The van shifted direction again and the prisoners swayed, bouncing off one another. Reuben punched the metal lining of the van hard, his knuckles jarring, his teeth clenched hard.
He was about to take his own personal trip to hell.
TWO
1
Reuben paced the cell, restless, curious and on edge. He examined it from every conceivable angle, a habit he had developed in the many hotel room
s he had called home over the last year. There were two slender single beds, a metre and a half apart, tubular metal frames, dark green blankets and light green sheets. A partition just over a metre high abutted the pillow of Reuben’s bed. Behind it sat a toilet, its plumbing open and exposed, and next to it a brown plastic bucket. There was a pair of boxed fluorescent lights, one on each wall, and the floor was sealed with a tightly glued vinyl. A white painted board attached to the wall ran the length of the bed, just above it, blank except for an infestation of drawing-pin holes. At the end of the room, a window, a metre wide, with integral white-painted bars. In between the bars resided a thick layer of perspex which felt warm to the touch.
Reuben stopped in front of a chest of drawers with inset blue handles. He examined a small sink in the corner which was full of socks soaking in the murky water. Two hot-water pipes ran through the cell, one of them feeding the sink. A few pairs of dark blue boxer shorts adorned both pipes, and were slowly drying. Over the other bed was a collage of posters: a wolf, close up and hungry; Homer Simpson, drunk and watching TV; an England flag, hand-drawn; a Liverpool FC banner; two composite pictures of lingerie-clad women in a variety of poses; a calendar with a picture of a castle; a BMW Auto Sport sticker; a grisly bear with an arching salmon in its mouth. Reuben tried and failed to picture the man who would be his cellmate from the images he chose to surround himself with.
Since arriving he had been interviewed twice, searched naked, then asked about his health but not examined. He had filled out questionnaires, had helped complete a Shared Cell Risk Assessment form, and had barely uttered a word of truth. The induction process, which had been rumoured to last two days, had been rushed through in hours. It had been brisk but friendly, prison personnel happy to push him through the procedural stages, into the next waiting room, and into the next, until they were satisfied he wasn’t going to kill himself or anybody else. Reuben had often read reports on Pentonville when he worked at GeneCrime and consigned killers there. Prisoners in bleak, often dirty cells; inadequate first-night procedures despite occasional self-inflicted deaths; night staff unaware of the location of new prisoners; lack of training in basic emergency procedures; prisoners locked up for twenty-two hours on some wings; vulnerable prisoners routinely moved into stained cells alive with cockroaches. He had known what to expect. And not just from what he had read.
Reuben recalled that feeling, alone, cut off, scared, incarcerated for the first time, surrounded by men you would pay to avoid on the outside. The intense concentration of murderers, rapists and the mentally unstable. Not knowing who was who, the people to stay clear of, the inmates to not even look at. Appreciating the cold statistics of bullying, self-harm, sexual assault. Hearing the stories about men cutting themselves just to spend a night in the safety of the hospital wing, of punishment beatings, of sugarings, of buggerings. Seeing prisoners sitting in their cells smoking crack all day, indifferent warders ignoring everything except what they wanted to see. The insomnia, the helplessness, the hidden hierarchies, the all-pervasive fear.
Reuben knew, because he had been there before. A different institution, a long time ago, almost in a previous life. Three months for possession of Class A narcotics with intent to supply. Aaron’s narcotics. Protecting his brother from breaching his parole and going down for five years. Identities traded, Aaron promising to stay clean and make it up to him. It had been a poor decision, one that still rankled with Reuben. But the knowledge of prison life, which he repressed and had always been ashamed of, now gave him strength. He knew what to expect, and how he would react. Reuben was no virgin. He was an ex-con.
He walked over to the metal door, which again was painted white, with an enlarged letter-box aperture, a metal flap which folded out into the corridor and couldn’t be opened from the inside. There was no door handle. He ran his fingers over its cold surface wondering who was going to walk through.
Reuben turned and examined himself in the wall mirror, which was metal, not glass. The barely reflective surface showed a man with a crew-cut, narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. A week could sometimes be a long time. Still, he would do what he had come to do, then get the hell out. Undetected and unnoticed. A viral particle that floated in on the wind and floated out again.
He glanced towards the door as its lock turned. The man who walked in was mid-thirties, scruffy and slightly shorter than Reuben. He tossed his folded newspaper down on the bed, the whole time maintaining eye contact, spending a few critical seconds weighing Reuben up. Reuben looked back at him. He wore loose tracksuit bottoms and a red hooded sweatshirt. Dense cropped hair, dark eyebrows, stocky through his clothes. He said the words, I’m Narc, and Reuben replied, I’m Reuben. The voice was north-western, Merseyside probably, but could have stretched into Cheshire.
‘So, what’re you in for, like?’ Narc asked.
‘On remand. Tried to kill my wife.’
Narc sat down heavily on his bed. ‘Why?’
‘She’d been cheating on me.’
‘How did you know?’
Reuben had had time to invent his story, and knew it inside out. But verbalizing it suddenly felt empty and unconvincing.
‘I caught her out,’ he answered.
‘How, like?’
‘What are you in for?’
‘How did you catch her?’ Narc repeated.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Every time he had rehearsed the words in his mind they had sounded plausible. On remand, awaiting trial on the grounds of attempted spousal murder. He had even smiled when Sarah had suggested it. Trying and failing to kill his unfaithful wife seemed to ring true, as if this was something he had thought about doing, Lucy in the arms of Shaun Graves finally pushing him to violence. But there was just something about saying it out loud which didn’t sit right with him, confessing to a crime that hadn’t happened.
Below dark, thick eyebrows, Narc screwed his eyes up and squinted at Reuben. He leaned forward on his bed, hands on his legs. ‘You want to be nice to me,’ he said curtly. ‘I could save someone like you a lot of bother in the long run.’
‘What do you mean, someone like me?’
‘Someone who hasn’t done time.’
Reuben sighed, unsure for a second what to say. It had been fifteen years ago, before the force, a short sentence. The image of his brother came to him again. But time moved on, and to someone like Narc, Reuben clearly didn’t look the type any more. He wondered whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
‘That obvious, huh?’ he said eventually.
‘Only to the whole prison. And this ain’t a nice prison. I’ve done Winson Green, Scrubs and Dartmoor, and this little shithole is the worst of them all.’ Narc stood up and took a pace towards Reuben. ‘And as for this wing, it’s the shittest wing of the shittest prison. Suicide hot-spot of the whole penal system. Two people a week die in UK prisons. You know that? And some weeks both of them seem to come from this cesspit. You get me?’
Reuben nodded.
‘You don’t fuck about in here. When someone asks you a question, you fucking well answer it.’
Reuben avoided his eye, sensing a quick temper and a refusal to give ground. There was no point in facing his cellmate down. He had to get in and out with the minimum fuss, ruffling as few feathers as possible.
‘I came home early from work and found him in my house,’ he began quietly. ‘When he’d got the hell out I calmed down. And then I started hitting my wife and couldn’t stop.’
Narc relaxed his chest and shoulders, which had been on alert beneath his hooded top, prepared for trouble. ‘You see?’ He grinned. ‘You stick with me, you’ll go a long way.’
Reuben turned and sat on his bed, staring at the blank ceiling above him. His cellmate wasn’t ideal, but shouldn’t present a problem. Seven days and seven nights, by his best estimate. Lying low and doing what needed to be done. Redressing the balance, searching out what Michael Brawn had to hide, snooping into the affairs of GeneCr
ime. And all the time closing in on the truth about his sacking from the country’s leading forensics centre, burrowing into the heart of one institution to find his way into another.
2
Reuben felt acutely observed. He was in the lions’ den, and knew it. Without doubt he would have put away some of the prisoners he was walking past. It was an unnerving thought. As he negotiated his way down steel stairways and along catwalks, he tried to blend in, dressed in grey tracksuit bottoms and a baggy T-shirt, his tattoo obvious, his crewcut unremarkable.
From the inside, Pentonville was a Matrioshka doll of metal cages within metal cages, a web of suicide netting connecting everything. In between, corridors were freshly painted in pastel colours. Several of the passageways had suspended ceilings with neon strip lighting. Reuben could see where towering Victorian corridors had had their wings clipped, the arches above doors squared off. The largest prison in the country, captive in the twenty-first century, being bent and twisted into shape as it served its time.
The dining room had retained its high ceiling. Reuben received his evening meal – a cube of lasagne, a portion of carrots and a scoop of chips – and looked round for somewhere to sit. Inside, an almost insistent voice repeated the words blend in, blend in. Most of the plastic seats were taken. He headed towards a virtually empty table in the corner, and lowered his tray. A large, tattooed prisoner glanced up, his forehead wrinkling into a bulldog frown.
