The Sinner

by Martyn Waites

  Something crept across Cunningham’s face. Tom couldn’t describe it. ‘How handy?’

  ‘Very handy,’ said Tom in a voice meant to discourage any further investigation. It didn’t.

  ‘You mean like trying to . . . you know?’

  Tom didn’t answer. Cunningham took his silence for agreement, became more excited. ‘How far did he get?’ Then he shook his head as if to dislodge the thoughts growing there. ‘No, no . . . don’t . . . no . . .’ He looked up. ‘Did he get his hands on her . . .’ He couldn’t say the words, gestured to his chest, mimed breasts. ‘Did he?’

  Tom stared at him.

  ‘No,’ said Cunningham, once more, to himself, ‘No. That’s wrong. Don’t think it. Don’t think about the, the dirty things . . .’ His face contorted, struggling. He looked up, a lascivious smile in place. ‘Then what? Did he force her down?’ He clamped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he had just said. ‘No, it’s not right . . . You’ve been told, Noel, been told . . . you know what happens if you have those kind of thoughts . . .’ His voice had changed. Become older, more feminine. He closed his eyes, shook his head once more. Leaned forwards, body rocking to and fro. Opened his eyes only when he had finished violently shaking his head. His voice dropped low, scared to say the next words aloud but also defiant. He gave Tom a long, leering smile. ‘Did he fuck her?’

  Years undercover had taught Tom to stay in character, play along with the target rather than impose his own values on a situation. Out of practice, he thought. He swallowed down his revulsion, tried to ignore the thought that this face was the last thing Cunningham’s victims ever saw. Kept his eyes hard, his cover intact.

  ‘No one fucks her but me. He learned that the hard way.’

  His tone of voice had clearly been authoritative enough. Cunningham backed down from any more questions.

  ‘What about you?’ The ice was well and truly broken.

  Cunningham made a noise that sounded like liquid gravel on the move, but Tom realised it was a laugh. ‘You don’t know me?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘You should. Famous, aren’t I?’

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  ‘I’m a murderer.’ Cunningham simpered, his eyes shining. Like a child trying to impress by saying the worst thing imaginable.

  ‘Right.’ Tom’s face was as still as stone.

  Cunningham looked deflated. Expecting a bigger reaction from Tom. ‘Who’d you kill, then?’

  Cunningham’s features became evasive. ‘Well, that’s the thing. That’s what they all call me. Murderer. Here. On the wing. Murderer.’ Said in an angry whisper, followed by a giggle. ‘Keeps them away from me. Let’s me be on my own.’ He did it again. ‘Murderer . . . Don’t go near him, he might murder you too . . .’ Another laugh. ‘They leave me alone then. Scared. Scared of me.’

  Tom had seen the other inmates. Cunningham was deluding himself if he thought they were scared of him. He could imagine them leaving him alone, though. Too irritating to bother with.

  ‘So you’re not a murderer?’

  Cunningham’s expression changed again. Sharply. Tom couldn’t gauge what it meant but something behind his eyes unnerved him. ‘Oh, I’m much more than that. Much more . . .’

  ‘Like what?’

  Cunningham shook his head, a blissfully sick look on his face. ‘You wouldn’t understand. It’s . . . you just wouldn’t.’

  He took his attention away from Tom, went back to the photo of Lila. Stared at it. ‘You wouldn’t understand . . .’

  Tom’s first impulse was to jump up, hide it. Then smack Cunningham round the head. But he tamped it down. Kept in character.

  ‘So why aren’t you on the VP wing?’

  Vulnerable prisoners were housed on a separate wing. Usually child killers or paedophiles but not exclusively. Anyone whose life was in danger, a suicide risk or even an ex-copper, they were all put in there.

  Cunningham smiled as if he knew something Tom didn’t. ‘Who knows? Maybe they want someone to hurt me here.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Are you going to hurt me?’

  The sick light in Cunningham’s eyes told Tom that he might not find that so unappealing.

  Tom ignored him, took a paperback out of his bag, lay back on his bunk.

  Cunningham just giggled.

  Silence fell. Following his outburst Cunningham zoned out, sat slumped, staring at Tom’s photo of Lila, a smile twisting the corners of his mouth. He began to sing to himself. Tom couldn’t identify it but knew it was something holy. Something befitting an ex-choirmaster.

  Tom tried to read but his mind was whirring too much.

  8

  Dean Foley closed his eyes. Tried to relax. Or relax as much as he ever could. Sentries were posted, screws paid off, no one could get to him. No one would dare. But still, the rational part of his brain was telling the other half that this would be the perfect opportunity to attack him. With his guard down. With everything down. The other half of his brain told him to chill. Enjoy it. He tried to listen to that side of his brain. But it didn’t really matter. Because at present, a completely different part of his anatomy was doing the thinking.

  He opened his eyes, looked down. Kim was doing a grand job. Working his cock with her mouth and hand like a pro, head bobbing up and down like she was nodding to the beat of something only she could hear. She was half in, half out of her prison officer’s uniform, enough that she could pull it together if she needed to, but also enough for him to see her magnificent tits as she worked.

  Or magnificent for in here. Maybe on the outside he wouldn’t look at her twice. A five or a six, probably. But in here everything changed. In here she was a ten. Prison did that to people.

  He felt his legs stiffening, breathing becoming harder, harsher. He was coming. Kim sensed it too, bobbed, pulled quicker. Building him up until he couldn’t hold it anymore.

  He came, gasping and grunting. Kim tried to pull away, get her face, her mouth out of shooting distance, but he was having none of it. He forced her head down onto his cock, pushed his body up towards her as he bucked and spasmed.

  Eventually the wave passed and his body eased, moving his hand from her head. She fell backwards, red-faced, gasping for breath, chin and mouth wet. He looked down at her, slumped with her tits hanging out, anger, shame, self-loathing in her averted eyes. Christ, what did he see in her? Was she really the best he could do?

  He knew the answer to that one.

  She stood up, crossed to the sink, rinsed her mouth out, began to gather her uniform around her.

  ‘How’s Damon doing?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  ‘Did you get him into that special school?’

  She nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said, eyes not going anywhere near his. ‘For the money.’

  He sniffed, sat up. Wiped himself off with a tissue, pulled his jeans back up. ‘When you next on?’

  ‘Got two days off. Back on Thursday.’

  ‘See you then.’

  She crossed to the closed cell door, knocked. It was pushed inwards from the outside. She stepped over the threshold and was gone.

  Foley stood up. Got his breath back, sniffed once more. ‘Baz.’

  The door opened and a young man stepped inside. In another life he might have been good-looking but not in this one. His face looked like it had suffered severe punishment. His nose had been broken so many times it looked like a useless appendage. His skin was flecked with healed cuts and scars and there was a strange symmetry about his features, like one side was a perfect but unnatural mirror of the other. Despite the damage his once handsome features could still be glimpsed underneath. His face was a roadmap of where he had been, the underlying handsomeness the path not taken.

  ‘Close the door,’ said Foley, sitting down in a wooden chair.

  The cell was well-equipped. A large screen TV in the corner, curtains at the window. The mattress and duve
t were a long way from standard prison issue and there was framed artwork on the walls. It wasn’t very good art, all landscapes and sunsets, but it was original and it was all signed in the bottom right corner: D Foley.

  Baz stood, waited.

  ‘Everything alright out there?’

  ‘Yes boss.’

  ‘No problems while she was in here?’

  ‘No boss.’

  ‘Good.’ Foley relaxed. But only slightly. Baz was the best right-hand man he’d ever had. But in prison everyone was vulnerable to attack. ‘How’s business?’

  Baz crossed to the table the TV stood on, emptied his pockets. Grubby, creased, screwed-up bank notes fell out, a few coins. He straightened the notes out, piled up the coins. Foley looked across.

  ‘Hardly worth bothering. But every little helps. The next shipment should be in a couple of days. Keep it quiet, I don’t want anyone getting tipped off again. Hopefully we’ve scared off the opposition.’

  Controlling the supply of drugs in a prison was like controlling the air they all breathed. Everybody wanted it so there was a demand, which was good. But nearly everybody had a way of getting it, which meant there was more than one method of supply, and that made Foley’s job even more difficult.

  Supply was easy, especially with drones cutting out the hassle of the mules, no longer running the gauntlet of sniffer dogs and body searches, but as he knew, it meant anyone could do it. So if he was to hold on to his monopoly he had to do it the old-fashioned way. Put the fear of God into them. God being him. And Baz his representative who carried out the Lord’s work.

  When he arrived he had let it be known that he was in charge. And if anyone didn’t like that they could challenge him. But he came inside with money and favours owing and challengers were few and doomed. Now it was well known that no drugs entered the prison without his say so. But that didn’t mean everyone stuck to that rule: he still had to get his foot soldiers to teach a lesson or two.

  He looked at the pile of money. It was dwindling, no doubt. It always got like that before a new shipment came in. And then it was boom time again. The fact that the prison was privately run helped Foley immeasurably. The entry requirements for these officers were lower than state ones and they consequently attracted a lower quality of officer. Easier to manipulate, bribe. Corrupt.

  It was no bother to have a hole cut in a security fence and send one of his runners to the perimeter to pick up packages droned and dropped there. The private officers didn’t have the training or the pride in their work. It was easy to get them to look the other way. Or just to have stuff droned right to the cell window. Even better.

  Foley had contacts all the way up the North West to Manchester, which meant he was able to source and supply high quality product. Demands and tastes changed. He was happy to accommodate them. Where it would have been heroin and weed a few years ago, now it was spice, black mamba and the bastard daddy of them all, annihilation. Super strong synthetic cannabis, that didn’t just mellow you out, it sent the user on a psychotic trip. True escape for the mind, even if it was often difficult to come back from. They weren’t called zombie drugs for nothing.

  Yeah, it fucked people up, but so what? Foley only cared about profits. And that was something he needed now, more than ever.

  A knock on the door.

  Both Foley and Baz turned. Foley stayed where he was but Baz moved to the side of the doorway, fists ready. They shared a look. Foley nodded.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Foley.

  ‘Someone to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  A pause. ‘Says his name’s Clive. Got something for you.’

  Foley frowned. Did he know a Clive? He searched his memory. Clive . . .

  The only Clive he knew was some greasy little scrote from Oldham.

  Foley sighed. ‘Send him in.’

  The door opened and a hunched little weasel of a man entered. ‘Hello Mr Foley,’ he said, hands wringing as if holding a cap in Dickensian times, ‘how are you?’

  ‘All the better for seeing you, Clive. What d’you want?’

  Clive smiled, missing the sarcasm. Then he noticed Baz. Frowned, trying to look beyond the ruined face. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

  Baz stared at him. Unnerved, Clive turned back to Foley.

  ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got something for you, Mr Foley. Something you’re going to like very much.’

  ‘What?’ A statement rather than a question.

  ‘Well. You’ll never guess who I’ve seen coming into this prison . . .’

  9

  The cottage was small, but Lila thought it felt even smaller when Tom wasn’t there to share it with her. Stifling, even.

  She had been studying stuff like that in her Psychology A Level at Truro College so she knew why it was. The same reason that unhappy people don’t become miraculously happy when they move somewhere new. They don’t change as people. They just take their unaddressed problems with them. That was how it was without Tom to distract her. She was alone with herself and her thoughts. Her doubts, guilt and fears. And they grew to fill the space. Or the space contracted around them.

  That was why she had been so angry when he announced he was going away. Or one of the reasons.

  Things had calmed between them before he left. She began to accept what he had to do. Knew he was only doing it reluctantly. He also knew how much he had hurt her by having to go. But he had no choice and deep down she knew that.

  So now she was alone. She hadn’t really made any new friends at college. Unsurprising, given what she had been previously. The fact she had turned her life around to attend college at all was astounding enough. Tom had encouraged her to think that what she had endured wouldn’t happen again and she could look to the future with confidence. She wasn’t sure she believed him – or that he believed it himself – but she was trying. And struggling. Her peers at college all seemed so happy and sure of themselves, their world, their place within it and their life maps, unaware that things could take a sudden turn for the worse and those rock-solid beliefs could come crashing down. She couldn’t be like them, think like them, feel like them. ‘Just do your best under your own terms,’ Tom had said. ‘And if you’re worried about not fitting in, just pretend you do. That’s what they’re all doing. You might not think it but they are. Everyone does it. If there’s a secret to life, that’s it. Fake it till you make it.’ So she tried. It had been difficult. Now even more so in his absence.

  Meeting Tom had changed her life. And, although she had felt she was being presumptuous, or even tempting fate, she had taken his surname for college enrolment.

  ‘I never found out what your real one is,’ he had said.

  ‘Killgannon,’ she had said, smiling. ‘Like yours.’

  He had understood.

  She made herself a cup of tea, looked out the back window. Autumn had dismantled summer, leaving drifts of wilted leaves and carpets of rotten flowerheads around the garden. Leave it all on the ground, Tom had said. Good compost. Make things grow bigger and stronger come the spring. Lila had dutifully done so, watched as those beautifully lush green branches turned into spider scrawl against the heavy grey sky, waited for those green buds to return. But for now it was the quiet period before the end of the year and winter fully hit, the earth gone into lockdown.

  The water boiled, the kettle clicked. She turned away, took a tea bag from the jar in the cupboard.

  A knock at the door.

  Lila couldn’t stop the involuntary shiver that ran through her. No matter how comfortable she got in this place, there was always that threat of a knock at the door. It had happened to Tom. She feared that she would be next.

  Another knock.

  She turned, headed down the hall. Took a deep breath. Opened the door.

  ‘Just me.’

  Lila smiled in relief. Another bullet dodged.

  ‘Hi Pearl.’

  ‘I was just passing and . . .’ Pearl stopped speaking. ‘No I wasn’
t actually. I came to see you.’

  Lila stood back, let the other woman through. ‘I was just making a cup of tea.’

  ‘Brilliant timing.’

  They both made their way to the kitchen. Lila took out another mug, another bag. Poured in the water. Tea made, she took it to the table. Pearl had already taken off her coat, sat down.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Pearl was over ten years older than Lila, with dark hair where Lila’s was mousy blonde, smart jeans as opposed to Lila’s attempts to bring back grunge, and with a poise and self-confidence Lila thought she could never hope to emulate. But the woman was Tom’s boss, perhaps more. And they had been through a lot together.

  ‘How you coping?’ asked Pearl.

  ‘Fine,’ said Lila, sitting down opposite her. While it was true that they had shared a lot, Lila was still wary of opening up to her.

  ‘You heard from him?’

  Lila shook her head.

  ‘Me neither.’ Pearl took an experimental sip of her tea, found it too hot, placed it back on the table. ‘He said it might be difficult.’

  They sat there in silence. Both, for their own reasons, not wanting to be the first to speak.

  ‘Look,’ said Pearl, ‘That offer still stands. Me moving in here.’

  Tom had asked her again before he left. She had told him she would be fine on her own. Neither had believed her.

  ‘Did Tom ask you to come round?’

  ‘He just wants me to keep an eye on you.’

  Lila felt anger building inside her at Pearl’s words. ‘What does he expect me to do? Have wild parties? Get into trouble? Run away again?’

  Pearl shook her head slowly. Her voice was low, calm. ‘He was worried about you out here on your own. Just wanted to make sure you were looking after yourself.’ She smiled. ‘That you weren’t just eating pizza and burgers and drinking coke all the time.’

  Lila felt herself redden with a kind of angry amusement. ‘He said that? Those words?’

  Pearl laughed. ‘Yeah. Is that code, or something?’

  Lila smiled. It was the last thing he had said to her before he left. They had gone through the anger and heartache, tried to come out the other side and joke about it. No pizza and burgers and drinking coke all the time. And no boys in your room after ten thirty. Yes sir, she had replied, giving him a mock salute in response. ‘That’s all he said?’ she asked.