Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2

by Louise Welsh

  ‘What about you?’ Jeb asked the older man. ‘You look well enough.’

  ‘I didn’t want to leave Jack here.’ The boy was taller than him, but the scarred man reached up and put an arm around the youth’s thin shoulders. ‘Him and me’s been mates a long time. He needs looking after, specially if he’s ill.’

  Jeb nodded as if he understood. His expression was neutral, but he stood stolid in the middle of the corridor, blocking the men’s progress.

  ‘Anything else we need to know?’

  The man shrugged. ‘They’ve got the prison records up on computer and they’re checking what people are in for. They say they want to stop any nonces from getting out.’

  Magnus snapped, ‘Why don’t they just mind their own fucking business?’

  The older man gave him a shrewd look, but he said, ‘The lad here’s right. They’re long-termers, big men inside, nothing on the outside. I guess they like being big men.’

  Jeb said, ‘We’re both in for intent to supply, you know the sketch. Think they’ll have any objection to that?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so.’ The older man didn’t sound convinced. ‘Not unless your face doesn’t fit.’

  Jeb nodded again. ‘Yes, there’s always that.’

  The young boy started to cough. The older man rubbed his back, but the boy’s coughing increased, catching in whoops at the back of his throat. Magnus took a step backward, but Jeb held his ground. It seemed that all the air in the boy’s body was being expelled, but then he bent forward and was sick against the wall. He crouched over his vomit, gasping for breath.

  His companion put an arm around him. ‘It’s all right, Jack, you’re going to be fine.’

  ‘Piss off, you old poof. Can’t you even keep your hands off me when I’m bloody dying?’

  The man threw Jeb and Magnus an apologetic look. ‘I’d like to find him somewhere comfy, where he could have a lie-down.’ He gave them a sad half-smile, asking for permission to move on.

  Jeb stepped to one side. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Yeah, same to you.’

  Jeb waited until the men were further down the corridor and then he asked, ‘How many are in this reception committee?’

  ‘A few.’

  Magnus would have liked to have pinned the man down on exactly how many a few were, but the answer seemed to satisfy Jeb. He said, ‘Are they armed?’

  ‘Tasered up to the eyeballs, mate, wired too. That’s why we’re planning on bunking down and making the best of things. Prisoners make brutal jailers.’

  Eleven

  ‘The boy said the army were coming.’ Magnus was crouched next to Jeb in a corner of an intersection in the long, white corridors that were a feature of the admissions block.

  Jeb hissed, ‘Ever been in army nick?’

  ‘No, have you?’

  A stretch of empty hallway loomed before and behind them. They had not seen anyone since encountering the two retreating prisoners, but a rumble of male voices reverberated through the building, echoing from all directions, like cries in an overcrowded swimming pool. There was something high-pitched and excited about the noise that raised the hairs on the back of Magnus’s neck and he guessed it would not be long before they met more escapees.

  Jeb said, ‘I’ve heard plenty about them from guys that have. The army have their own rules. This isn’t the cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We’re the bad guys, remember?’

  The wolf-man was howling again. It was hard to tell if he was in pain or celebrating his freedom to roam the corridors.

  Magnus said, ‘I’ve not even been properly charged. It was different when I thought we were stuck here, but now help is coming …’

  The baying noise increased in pitch.

  Jeb said, ‘I’ll fucking throttle that guy if I get my hands on him.’ He looked at Magnus. ‘The army will help you into a set of handcuffs, kick you up the arse and into a cell that’ll make your last place look like a fucking palace. If things are as you say they are, then we need to get out of here, pronto.’

  Magnus thought of the headlines in the Daily Express. Jeb was right: tabloids were not to be trusted, but the contents of the paper chimed with the television he had watched and the sick prisoners, absent warders and abandoned prison all told their own story. He said, ‘Scarface said there’s a reception committee checking who’s who. If they find our records on the computer they’ll know we’re VPs.’

  ‘Keep your voice down.’ Jeb glanced around as if he were afraid someone might have overheard.

  The howling seemed louder, the yells and catcalls of the surrounding voices closer. Magnus would have liked to have found a cell, climbed into bed and hidden himself beneath the covers, until whatever was about to happen, happened, but the smell of Pete’s illness was still sharp in his memory and he knew that once closed, cell doors were not so easily opened.

  Jeb took a swift intake of breath and whispered, ‘They’re coming.’

  The howling was upon them. A squad of men, most of them still in prison tracksuits, rounded the corner. The wolf-man gambolled beside them like a mascot. He was smaller than Magnus had imagined; a chubby, middle-aged man who it would be easy to imagine devoting Sunday afternoons to washing his car, were it not for the mad bluster of his dance, the crazy tilt of his head. The prisoners had broken up bunks and benches and armed themselves with chair and bed legs. A couple of them carried fire extinguishers. Magnus wondered why it had not occurred to him to arm himself in the same way. He leapt to his feet, ready to run in the opposite direction, but Jeb grabbed his arm.

  ‘Stand your ground.’ Jeb pulled his baseball cap low over his eyes, hiding his features in the shadow of its brim. ‘This is our best chance.’ He stepped into the middle of the corridor and raised a hand in greeting, like a man trying to stop a car on a country road. The group faltered to a halt. No one spoke and then Jeb said, ‘Okay to join you lads?’

  ‘We don’t need any screws,’ a voice from the back said.

  There were about fifteen of them, Magnus reckoned. He wondered how they had got out and hoped that no one had seen him and Jeb crossing the courtyard, leaving other prisoners trapped in their cells.

  ‘Do we look like screws?’ Jeb’s voice was hard and challenging.

  The wolf-man waved a chair leg lightly in the air, the way a fool might wave his sceptre. ‘You’re dressed like off-duty screws, or filth …’

  Jeb’s head jerked at the mention of police. ‘We look like screws cos we nicked these clothes from their locker room. We thought they might help us get away. We just want out, same as you do.’

  One of the prisoners started to cough, a second man joined in and another spat on the ground.

  ‘Anyone know these boys?’ a tall man near the front asked.

  There was no one in charge, Magnus realised, no one to make the decision to let them join the group. He said, ‘I just got put in here on Friday, no trial, no lawyer. Emergency measures, the police told me.’ He let some of the despair he was feeling leak into his voice. ‘It’s been a fucking nightmare. All I’m interested in is getting home. I’ve got family I need to get back to.’

  The tall man nodded. He looked at Jeb. ‘Do I know you?’

  Jeb lifted his face and stared him straight in the eyes. ‘Ever worked the rigs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe we met somewhere.’ Jeb shrugged. ‘I work the rigs, three weeks on, three weeks off. It makes you stir-crazy. Occasionally it gets me into a bit of bother. Drunk and disorderly; expected a night in the cells, woke up in here.’

  The tall man glanced at the men behind him. No one said anything and he gave Magnus and Jeb a curt nod.

  ‘Plan is we go out mob-handed. Extra bodies should be a help.’

  Magnus said, ‘We met a couple of guys earlier. They told us there’s a squad at the front door checking what people are in for and deciding who gets out.’

  ‘We heard that.’ The tall man snorted. ‘There’s always plenty want to make th
emselves fucking guvnor.’

  ‘Fuck the guvnor!’ the wolf-man shouted. A few of the men took up the cry. The wolf-man leapt into his dance again and the men stepped on, their voices rising once more. Magnus realised they were scared and the realisation tightened fear’s grip on him. Jeb shoved himself into the huddle of bodies. He grasped Magnus by the shoulder, taking him with him.

  Magnus pulled the hood of his stolen jacket up over his head. ‘I’m not sure about this.’

  Jeb’s voice was low. ‘Have you got a better suggestion?’

  Once, on a Christmas visit to Edinburgh organised by the High School, his cousin Hugh had dragged Magnus on to the starflyer in Princes Street Gardens fairground. Joining the squad of escapees reminded Magnus of the sensation of suddenly being borne aloft by the ride. He felt the same swoop of danger in his stomach, the same loss of control.

  Magnus had thrown up over the side of the starflyer. His vomit had been snatched away by the wind, travelling it seemed in one solid mass towards the south side of the gardens. Hugh had laughed so hard Magnus had thought his cousin might throw up too. ‘I was just imagining some poor wee man walking his dog and getting hit in the face by your spew,’ Hugh said later as the two of them walked along Rose Street in search of a pub that would not be too fussy about the age of its clientele.

  Hugh had filled himself full of vodka and pills and walked into the sea, not long before Magnus had decided to hell with islands and left for London. Magnus had often wondered if Hugh had been scared when he did it, or if the drink and drugs had drowned his cousin’s fears, even as the bitter sea slid over his head and into his lungs.

  The wolf-man capered beside them like a fool at a Morris dance. He waved the chair leg he was carrying lightly in the air, like a sceptre. ‘There’ll be a squad of soldiers waiting to mow us down soon as we step out those gates.’ The wolf-man’s voice was high and excited. He pointed the chair leg as if it were a gun and made a rattling noise, aiming it at the prisoners behind him. Somebody knocked it from his hand and someone else kicked it away. The wolf-man scrabbled on the floor, among the feet of the men, searching for it. Magnus thought they had lost him, but it was as if the wolf-man sensed something different about him and Jeb. He soon returned to their side.

  ‘Piss off,’ Jeb said. ‘Unless you want me to take that stick off you and shove it up your arse.’

  ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ the wolf-man said in a camp voice, grinning with delight. He thrust his face close and whispered, ‘I know who you are.’ Jeb made a lunge for him, but the wolf-man was faster. He ducked backward into the small group of men. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a grass.’

  ‘Prick.’ Jeb’s jaw bunched, but he let the wolf-man go.

  The bodies of two screws lay slumped on the floor of the corridor, each of them marked with signs of the sweats.

  Magnus whispered, ‘What the fuck is this thing?’

  Someone said, ‘The army will have an antidote.’

  Jeb touched the pocket that held the Taser, as if it were a talisman against infection. ‘It was probably those army bastards that caused it in the first place.’

  Magnus said, ‘So maybe we should stick around and get vaccinated.’

  Jeb laughed. ‘Think they’d share it with scum like us? Who’s to say they didn’t drop a test-tube accidentally-on-purpose? It wouldn’t be the first time inmates have been used as guinea pigs.’

  The inmates’ conviction that the authorities knew everything reminded Magnus of the dying youth they had met earlier. They’ll sort us out, he had said.

  ‘The sweats isn’t just killing prisoners.’ Magnus jerked a thumb backward to where the screws’ bodies lay slouched together in a corner.

  The wolf-man was suddenly at their side. He did a twirl and then staggered with the dizziness of it. ‘Collateral damage.’ He giggled. ‘Scratch a screw and you’ll find a bastard, it’s no great loss.’ He waved his chair leg in the air. ‘Me, you, these cunts, the whole stinking world. None of it would be a great loss.’

  Twelve

  Magnus had thought they would pause to work out a plan before they got to the reception desk, but the small band of inmates gained speed as they got closer to the front entrance. A man with keys ran on ahead to unlock each door and hold it open for the rest, who sailed through without faltering, as if they instinctively knew that to lose momentum would be to lose courage. The key-man waited until the last moment before opening the door leading to the entrance hall. He held it wide and they bombed through, keeping close, because the door was only wide enough for one man at a time.

  It would have been better to keep quiet and hold on to the element of surprise, but the escapees were anxious and when the wolf-man raised his voice in a high ululating howl, others joined in. The sound was ghastly. Magnus thought that if he had been on the other side of the door he would have fled, but the self-elected cordon at the security desk were made of steelier stuff. They decked the first wave of trespassers with Tasers. The stun guns had been designed to fell with one quick blast, but the inmates pumped the triggers until the men snared by the wires stopped screaming and lay still on the ground. There were only a few Tasers to go round and no time to disengage the cables from their victims’ bodies, but the cordon had planned ahead. They weighed in with batons and improvised weapons. Jeb had cannily positioned himself and Magnus in the second wave of the assault. He Tasered the largest of the men guarding the hallway and then took the penknife from his pocket and stabbed another in the neck. Blood gushed from the wound in a mesmerising arc. Magnus grabbed the man as he sank to the ground.

  ‘Jeb, for Christ’s sake …’ He was about to tell his cellmate to get a grip. That he would end up killing someone if he wasn’t careful, but then something hit him, hard and sickening, on the back of his head. He fell forward, landing on top of the other man’s body. Jeb grabbed him by the scruff of his jumper and hauled him to his feet. They were in the middle of the tussle now, backed up against the admissions desk. ‘Computer!’ Jeb shouted in Magnus’s face.

  It took Magnus a second to grasp the command, then he realised what Jeb wanted him to do. He tumbled on to the counter, rolled behind the desk and grabbed the desktop computer. The cables snagged, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, but then Magnus managed to topple it to the ground, breaking its screen. He put a foot through the cracked plastic, making certain it was truly beyond use and no one could discover that they were VPs. His heel stuck in the computer’s damaged frame. Magnus swore and pulled it free.

  An overweight man was grappling with the electronics under the desk. He must have found the correct switch because he punched a hand into the air and shouted, ‘Ya beauty!’ and the front doors opened automatically. The gate to the outside world waited beyond it. An inmate dressed in jeans and a prison sweatshirt was running into the courtyard, a set of keys swinging in his hands. A prison guard raced after him, but the guard’s movements were slow and weaving. He faltered to a halt and sank on to his knees in the middle of the courtyard, clutching his head.

  There were only a few of them left tussling in the entrance hall. Magnus looked for Jeb and saw him in the centre of a small ruck. The men were squeezed together, limbs tangled, like Uppies and Doonies in close combat for the ba’ and it was hard to tell who was fighting who.

  ‘C’mon, lads. Have yous lot nae hames to go to?’ Magnus shouted in the voice of Johnny Bell, landlord of the Snapper, who could empty a bar full of thirsty trawlermen, swift as the sea could sweep you from your feet. ‘The bloody gate’s open. Get yourselves through it.’

  Some inmates took heed and ran for the door, a few continuing to exchange kicks and punches as they fled. A small knot of prisoners was too engaged in the fight to extricate themselves, afraid that if they turned their back their opponents would gain the advantage. Magnus had lost sight of Jeb, but it was every man for himself now. He scanned the foyer, plotting his route to the door. There was no way to avoid passing the cluster of fighters, but perhaps if he ran …r />
  ‘He’s a fucking nonce,’ a voice screamed.

  For a moment Magnus was unsure who had shouted, then he saw the weasel face of the hungry VP he had released from his cell during their escape. Magnus’s cheeks flushed. He tore the computer keyboard from its shattered monitor, ready to use it as a weapon.

  ‘I’m not …’

  Denial started to his lips in a rush of breath and shame. Then he saw the cut across the small man’s face, the bloody knife in Jeb’s hand, and realised who the VP had accused. The fight faltered and eyes glanced in Jeb’s direction, marking him. It was Magnus’s cue to break for the door, but he shouted, ‘He’s lying to save his own arse. That guy’s the nonce. I saw him earlier, straight out of the VP wing. He was wearing blue sweats.’

  Two men had already grabbed Jeb. One of them pressed his hand to Jeb’s throat, pushing his head back, turning his face crimson. The small inmate was on the edge of the tussle. He pointed at Magnus. ‘He’s one t—’

  Eyes swivelled in Magnus’s direction and he realised he was about to be lynched.

  Jeb nutted one of the men holding him. He kicked the other one’s knees, knocking him flat, and then kneed the weasel-faced VP in the groin before he could finish his accusation. The man crumpled and Jeb kicked him in the head, felling him. The weasel-man crawled towards the exit. Magnus saw the penknife shining in Jeb’s hand and started towards him.

  The fight was filtering away, more inmates making for the door. But the two prisoners who had fixed on Jeb seemed content to delay their escape. Blood was streaming from the nose of the man Jeb had nutted, but pain seemed to have given him strength. He sprang to his feet and caught hold of Jeb again. His companion shook the penknife from Jeb’s grip.

  ‘Just do him,’ the other man said, his smile as wide as his gut. ‘One less nonce, you’ll be doing the world a favour.’