by Jack Dickson
Jas sighed, mind back on the visit from Room Service. “Aboot this job ...”
Swallowing. “Great! Ah’ll fix ye up.” Telly whipped off the denim work shirt, struggled into the biker’s jacket, then replaced the denim. He grabbed the Armani bag, two pairs of Calvins and four packs of cigarettes.
Jas let him: he was the novice here.
The jacket provided the bulk Telly had always lacked. Carefully folding the Armani bag, he slipped it under the shirt, then stuffed the rest of his cache back into the neck-pouch. “Ah’ll be in touch, Mr Anderson. Guid doin’ business with ye.” He seized the empty tray, pulled the door open and left the cell.
Seconds later, the sound of keys in locks.
Jas finished the cake, stared at the large metal door. Power came in various forms: when demand was high and supply was low, the commodities trader had muscle of a different sort ...
He eyed the jar of petroleum jelly, patting the two condoms in his pocket.
... there was one commodity every man in the Bar-L possessed: a body.
Jas knew it was a buyer’s market. He shoved the lube under his bunk, then stretched out on the lumpy mattress. No offers so far, but no guarantee it would stay that way.
Sometime during Telly’s visit, the light had faded.
Sometime during that time, the caged, fluorescent light had flickered into life.
Jas stared up between more bars at a flickering, humming cylinder.
The spider circled a couple of times, then disappeared into the sparker.
Jas closed his eyes.
He was using the piss-pot when keys scraped again.
Jas shook his prick, zipped up and turned.
McStay’s large form instantly shrank the cell.
Jas nodded a greeting.
The gesture was ignored. McStay vaulted up onto the top bunk.
Jas watched the man lie back, clasp hands behind head and stare at the small photograph. “Yer kids?”
“Whit’s it tae you?” Angry brown eyes fixed his.
Jas shrugged, pulled the packet of Bensons from his pocket and held them out.
The gesture ignored. McStay’s eyes were back on the photograph.
Jas frowned, stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it. He leant against bare brick, watching the way his cell-mate’s chest rose and fell with each breath. Anonymous hate he expected.
Hate for the uniform he no longer wore.
Hate for the laws he no longer enforced ...
Jas flicked ash into the piss-pot.
... but this felt ...?
He flicked more ash, listening to the sizzle as it hit the piss. Jas turned.
Brown eyes met his, then immediately glanced away.
Fingers tightened around the cigarette’s filter. Anonymous hate was cold, clean. What came off his cell-mate in crashing waves was something else, something more threatening and less easily identifiable.
But identifiable, nonetheless.
Two men. One cell. A power balance needed asserting.
Jas turned back to the window, stuck his hand into the pocket of the combat pants ...
He remembered Telly’s warning.
... and removed the only weapon he had.
The cell was silent.
Jas took a last few draws from the cigarette, then dropped it into the piss-pot.
A still-glowing end extinguished itself in three inches of yellow liquid.
He pulled the T-shirt free from waistband, slipped the disposable razor between two layers of fabric and applied pressure.
The lower plastic blade-guard snapped off easily. He removed the jagged shard, tucking it into back pocket.
A sound. The sound of worn bed-springs. Then boots on concrete.
Jas moved away from the piss-pot and turned round slowly.
Inches away, his cell-mate unzipped, pointing his prick towards the aluminium bucket.
Jas stared at the cell door, fingers still gripping the now-exposed razor blade. On the periphery of his vision, a stream of urine splattered into the pot. The rational part of his mind told him McStay was merely taking a piss.
Another part of his mind felt the closeness, smelled an enforced intimacy ...
... Jas edged past the bulky body and walked to his bunk. Throwing himself onto it, he stared at the small window above a tangled, ponytailed head.
Peter was out there. Mhairi was out there.
His solicitor was out there ...
He moved gaze from bars to stone.
... what was left of his detective business was beyond that wall.
Peter was something he didn’t want to think about. Mhairi was another matter. Jas narrowed his eyes.
His solicitor had her name, her occupation, her approximate address. Everything the police had on him was circumstantial. Jas blinked.
The tangled, ponytailed head had moved, exposing more brick.
Jas sighed. The wall erected between himself and his cell-mate was was more solid than anything hewn from stone.
As he lay fully-dressed on the narrow cot, boots hanging over the end and eyes closed, Jas knew he was far from sleep.
Twelve
ONLY AFTER LIGHTS-OUT did he realise how far.
The first scream stopped his heart.
Eyelids shot open.
The second scream sent the organ into overdrive.
The third helped him place the screamer. He stared at the bunk above.
Not this cell. Not the next. Ten, maybe fifteen yards away, a voice not long broken wailed like a wounded animal.
Fingernails dug into palms. Jas waited for the corresponding shouts of annoyance, then the sound of boots on metal and the scraping of keys.
Nothing. Just more screams.
He propped himself up on one elbow and listened.
From the bunk above, muffled snores drifted down.
He fingered the exposed razor, then shoved the blade under the mattress and pulled the pillow over his head. It didn’t help much.
But it did help.
Just as dawn’s grey light seeped in through the bars, the screams stopped.
Jas wondered if the screamer had grown hoarse ...
He stared up at the fluorescent light casing.
... or merely screamed himself to sleep.
Time played its tricks. What seemed like minutes later, keys scraping. Jas scrambled from his bunk, grabbed the towel and was first out of the cell.
As he filed past an open door three cells down, a loose noose drooped from window-bars.
The screamer had found a more permanent oblivion.
So much for Strict Suicide Supervision.
He looked away.
None of his business.
Five yards in front, a familiar jacket.
Jas threw his still-damp towel over one shoulder and stared at the stranger in his biker’s jacket. He vaguely remembered Telly’s trade: a job would get him out of the cell during the day. Nights were something else ...
... he walked on.
Snatches of disturbed sleep stuck to his skin, lingering in his brain like broken cobwebs, dreams half-spun. Jas rubbed his face, fingers running up over scalp.
He moved with the snake of figures towards the shower block. A hundred pairs of booted feet rang in his ears.
The makeshift noose hung in his brain, suspended from shreds of some kid’s screams.
Some kid with parents, or parentless?
Some kid with someone to worry about him?
Some kid with worries of his own?
None of his business ...
... his head flicked left. Jas stared across the anti-suicide net to the opposite walkway, searching a line of denimed men for normality ...
... Gerry or the rodent-faced boy from the bus.
Boy ... kid ...
Jas followed the denimed serpent down two flights of metal stairs. He glanced up at the CCTV cameras and wondered about the non-red eyes and ears which patrolled the corridors at night.
&nb
sp; Cries for help that long and that loud were hard to miss.
So much for Strict Suicide Supervision.
Running a prison meant more than keeping them here: keeping them alive was part of the contract too.
The line of men seemed to be moving more quickly ...
Jas walked through a doorway which was flanked by two figures in grey uniform. He paused, staring at a face almost as young as that which had produced the ersatz lullaby. No eyes met his. Someone behind bumped into him. Jas walked on.
... or maybe he was merely getting used to the way time worked in the Bar-L.
The way everything worked in the Bar-L.
Inside the shower block, he stripped off.
“Oi! You!”
Jas recognised the voice but couldn’t place it. He didn’t need this. Tomorrow he’d skip showers ...
... the washing did everything but get him clean, anyway.
“You! Anderson, or whitever yer fuckin’ name is!” The voice was closer, now.
Jas clenched his fist, spun round.
McStay. Out of line and holding the piss-pot, which he thrust at Jas. “Your turn!”
The half-full bucket hit him in the stomach, splashing its contents over the flimsy lid.
Jas glared into large brown eyes with pupils the size of full stops. He gripped the pot with wet hands, watched as McStay thundered wordlessly away, then turned back to the showers.
Following the two men in front, he made his way to the stalls, emptied the pot. then rinsed worn aluminium under a tap in a large sink. He could smell piss and the scent of stagnant water on his hands.
When he returned to the queue, someone else had taken his place. Jas frowned, watching a back view of his cell-mate. Large hands moved the ponytail then lathered shoulders. His eyes flicked away to beyond, and a St Andrew’s Cross tattoo.
Gerry’s naked wiry body filled his eyes ...
... then pupils stared back into his. The smile from Induction gone. Mouth set in a hard line, the skinhead held the gaze, then removed a hand from around a soapy cock.
One finger extended. “Whit you lookin’ at, polis?”
Jas looked away and cursed the ever-efficient grapevine. On the edge of his vision, in the drying area, denimed legs. Three pairs. He tensed.
Denimed legs walked on past ...
... and stopped in front of Gerry.
Jas stared, saw everyone was staring.
Under the faucet, skinhead bravado was being tested ...
Two clothed men grabbed a wiry arm each and pulled the naked man from under the faucet. Another seized the strong chin, forcing Gerry’s head back against tiles.
“Hey, boays, come on.” Worried and trying to sound otherwise.
... and found wanting.
Other words. “Think ye’re a big man, eh son?”
Jas’s gaze flicked to between wet, ropy thighs. Gerry’s balls were trying to hide inside his body.
One of the three men leant forward, whispered something Jas couldn’t hear.
The light went out of Gerry’s sparkling eyes. A zero-cropped head shook from side to side in fervent denial. The rest of the body merely shook.
Hands released narrow wrists.
Gerry slid down the tiled wall, eyes never leaving the heavier of the three men.
Jas watched the St Andrew’s flag waver in surrender, watched the heavy-set man crouch down. The large face was inches from Gerry’s down-tilted head. Which nodded.
Laughter.
The three men moved away.
Gerry continued to cower against tiles.
The humiliation had been public and undeniable. Jas compared the slumped figure to the swaggering man of minutes earlier.
Gerry was out of his depth and league, and had just been reminded of that fact.
Power had been exerted ...
A faucet became free. Jas dumped clothes and piss-pot on a wooden bench and stepped under the shower, three down from the crumpled skinhead.
... had gone unchallenged. Gerry wouldn’t open his mouth again for the duration of his remand.
Maybe his arse would be a different matter.
Jas located what was left of the soap and looked away.
Not his business ...
... nor his problem. Eyes moved to the drying area.
Telly. And two others he didn’t recognise. Beyond, a skinny, underdeveloped form was attempting to drag dry clothes on over a still-damp body. Head lowered, constantly flicking over shoulder.
Jas met the eyes of the rodent-faced boy from the bus.
Half-dressed and holding large trainers, the kid was making for the door.
Telly’s cronies beat him to it.
Beside the two older, larger men, the rodent-faced kid was slighter than ever.
A rat in a trap. Would he bite or flee ...
Jas lathered up the soap and washed his pits.
... or accept, as Gerry had done?
The kid stared up at one of Telly’s cronies, shook his head.
The man shrugged, ruffled step-cut hair. He and his mates moved away. Rodent-face scurried from the block, dropping one trainer. Someone picked up the large shoe and hurled it after the departing boy.
The refusal had been good-naturedly accepted. Jas rubbed soap between his palms and continued to wash.
None of his business ...
He washed legs and arse, scanning the room.
... but business nonetheless. Jas tried to wash last night’s screams and rat-faced terror from his mind. A layer of grime and sleep was swept from his body in a tide of carbolic.
Everything else stayed.
Eyes darted to exit then entrance and back again, noting Gerry was slowly pulling on bleached, skin-tight jeans. His mind returned to his own skin ...
... wherever Neil Johnstone was housed, it wasn’t B-Hall, unless washing with the riff-raff was below the dignity of someone already at the bottom of the heap.
Despite or maybe because of what had just happened, his body began to unwind under the warm water. He turned his face up to the faucet and closed his eyes.
Neil Johnstone: youngest of the Johnstone brothers. Seventeen when Jas had arrested him, mid-twenties now. Where older brothers Liam had the front, Michael the style and Jimmy the gall, Neil was an unknown quantity.
His last image of the teenager was in the High Court’s dock, the judge passing a two-year sentence for vehicular manslaughter. The expression on the hard face had been harder to read.
The expression of the key prosecution witness’s face, after a knife had slashed her from eye to mouth, had been an open book.
Mhairi McGhee had received her letter of thanks promptly.
And Jas?
He soaped belly and chest, trying to enjoy the feel of the soft lather on his goosefleshed skin.
There was a postscript outstanding – a postscript Neil was now in a position to write.
“Git a move oan, yeah?”
He shook water from his face and opened his eyes, head flicking to a heavy, red-haired man who was stamping his feet and hugging tits large enough to be female.
Jas stepped out from under the faucet. “Sorry, pal.” He brushed the large, freckled body as he reached for the towel. Low words:
“Ye’re no pal o’ mine, polis!”
Jas ignored the remark. Drying himself, he rejoined the previous train of thought.
Unknown quantity ...
... maybe brains sank to the bottom, in the Johnstone family. In an environment where everything was certain, veiled threats and concealed anger were unusual weapons.
Did Neil Johnstone put the psycho in psychological warfare?
He pulled on clothes that felt too tight, grabbed the piss-pot and headed for the door.
He would, no doubt, find out.
In the canteen, a different cook served him and didn’t spit in his breakfast.
A large, anonymous foot hit the back of his right knee as he walked from the serving hatch.
Breaki
ng the worst of the fall with forearms, Jas scowled up from the concrete floor. He ignored the laughter and scanned for officers.
None looked in his direction, and he knew better than to seek them out: like Gerry and rodent-face, he was being tested.
He was still picking bits of congealed egg from the Adidas T-shirt when he located Telly’s table.
Concerned, ruddy face. “Here, Mr Anderson.” A chair was pulled out.
Jas sat down.
Telly plucked a rasher of bacon from his own then each of his companions’ trays, placed the meat on a spare tray and pushed it towards him. “Gotta keep yer strength up!”
Jas almost laughed.
Telephone stared at his stained T-shirt. “Ah’ll get they jumpers tae ye the day sometime.”
He munched on the bacon. The hatred of polis was easy to understand: Telly’s attentions were harder to fathom.
“Sleep well, Mr Anderson?”
Jas looked up into baggy eyes. “Did you?” He frowned.
Blink. “Ah’m at the far end o’ the hall. Ah didney hear him ...”
Jas glanced to a line of four grey backs which stood at the door.
Telly talked on. “... an’ they widney, nice an’ cosy in their wee control-room wi’ the cameras switched aff!” Something in the voice. More than anger.
Pity.
Jas flicked back to Telly. Baggier eyes:
“Ah tried tae tell the wee bastard, clue him in – ye ken?” Baggy sigh. “The pretty wans git it worst ...” Telly fiddled with a plastic fork. “... an’ they could huv it best, if they’d only wake up an’ smell the –” Sigh. “Ah, whit the hell! Ye dae whit ye can, right Mr Anderson?”
Jas crunched a piece of over-cooked bacon. He had no intention of doing anything except getting through the next five weeks. But he nodded.
“Aye, ye’re a guid guy, Mr Anderson.”
Jas chewed, swallowed. “The feelin’s mutual, Telly ...” He remembered other feelings – the feeling of being trapped in a cell to which many seemed to have easy access. “... so when dae ah start this job?”
Telly slid a half-full cup of coffee sideways, and lowered his voice.
