with the leather jacket. The man was grinning. Totally confident, totally in control. 'I don't want any trouble,' said Nelson, and he could hear the fear in his voice. He took another step backwards.
Anorak was still running towards him. Nelson didn't know what he could say to keep the two men at bay.
'Please . . .' he said. He felt his bowels go liquid and knew he was about to piss himself.
Leather Jacket swished the Stanley knife from side to side. Nelson stared at it in horror. Then Anorak hit him side on and Nelson crashed to the ground. His hand twisted under his chest and he felt his little finger snap. He tried to get to his feet but Anorak kicked him in the stomach and he curled up into a ball.
Anorak kicked him again, his boot catching him under the chin and snapping his head back. Nelson started to black out. Then he was aware that his face was being slapped. He opened his eyes. Leather Jacket had a knee in the middle of his chest. Nelson blinked away tears. He could see his face, his tear, reflected in the black lenses of Leather Jacket's sunglasses.
Leather Jacket leered at him and held the Stanley knife to his throat. 'If I cut you here, you'll bleed to death in less than a minute,' he hissed.
'Please, don't!' Nelson gasped. 'My wallet - my wallet's in my jacket.'
'We don't want your money.'
'My car,' said Nelson. 'Take it. The keys are--'
Leather Jacket pressed the knife to Nelson's cheek and sliced the flesh. Nelson felt a burning sensation, then warm blood spuring down his cheek. 'Shut up and listen,' hissed the man, his mouth just inches from Nelson's ear. 'You know the Carpenter case?'
Nelson nodded. It was a Customs and Excise and Drugs Squad case, and he had been scheduled to give expert testimony in support of tapes recorded by two undercover officers. He had to show that the tapes hadn't been tampered with, and that the voices on them belonged to Gerald Carpenter and the agents.
'You tell them you can't give evidence,' said Leather Jacket. 'Tell them you're sick, tell them you've had amnesia, tell them what you want, but if you turn up in the witness box we'll be back to finish the job. Understand?'
'They'll know I've been warned off--' The man in the anorak kicked him hard in the ribs. Nelson felt a bone break and pain lanced through his side. He screamed, but the man with the knife clamped a hand across his mouth.
'I'm a nasty piece of work, me, but I've got mates who are ten times worse,' he murmured. 'They'd love nothing more than to spend a few hours in the company of your wife. Pretty woman, Mrs Nelson. Lovely blonde hair. My mates were arguing about whether or not she was a natural blonde, and they'd love the chance to find out. How would you feel if your wife was raped? Take the gloss of your marriage, wouldn't it?'
Nelson didn't say anything. Tears welled in his eyes, not because of the pain but because he felt so helpless. The last time he'd been so powerless was when he was nine, and two teenage bullies at school had taken his dinner money off him every Monday. Nelson had been too scared to tell his parents, too scared of what the older boys would do to him if they found out, so he'd paid them every week. He'd started stealing loose change from the coats in the sixth-form cloakroom and had used it to pay for his lunches. He'd never told anyone. Not his parents. Not his teachers. Not his wife. It was a secret he'd kept buried for years, but lying on the cold concrete floor of the car park with the knife against his throat and blood trickling down his cheek, the shame and self-disgust came flooding back.
'We know where you live, Gary. We know where your wife walks the dogs. Fuck with us and we'll fuck with you.'
Leather Jacket took his hand off Nelson's mouth. Nelson gasped. Every breath was agony - he could feel the fractured ends of his broken rib grating together - but he was grateful that he was still alive, that they weren't going to kill him.
'Just nod to let me know that you understand and agree,' said the man, pushing the blade of the Stanley knife into Nelson's neck.
Slowly, Nelson nodded.
Shepherd woke early. It was a nuisance not having his watch. The forensics investigator still had it, and he had no idea when, if ever, he'd get it back. Lee was snoring softly. Shepherd stared up at the barred window. All he could see was a patch of pale grey featureless sky. It was a strange feeling, knowing that central London was only a few miles away. Pubs, shops, football grounds, all the places he used to take for granted might as well not exist. His wife and son were less than thirty minutes away.
He wondered how it would feel to be a lifer, knowing you were going to be kept behind bars for ever. The confinement would drive him mad, he was sure of it. He'd go the same way as Justin Davenport and devote all his time and energy to breaking out. There was no way he could accept that for the rest of his life he would be told what to do at every minute of every day. Lloyd-Davies had probably been right when she said that a military background prepared a man for prison: the communal food, sleeping and washing arrangements, the requirement to follow orders, the rules and regulations that had to be obeyed, no matter how inappropriate, all brought back memories of Shepherd's time in the army. But there was a big difference between the men with whom he had served and the prisoners in Shelton: choice. Shepherd had wanted to join the army ever since he'd gone into an army careers office with three school friends to shelter from the rain one lunchtime. They'd watched a promotional video, dripping wet and eating packets of Golden Wonder crisps. The others had jeered at the video, but Shepherd had been transfixed. His parents had been pushing him towards university: they wanted him to be a solicitor or a doctor, a professional, someone they could boast about to their neighbours, and they looked horrified when he'd turned up with a stack of army brochures. They managed to persuade him to go to university but he'd left before taking his finals and had signed up as a career soldier.
Once in the army he'd wanted to be the best of the best and had put himself through the SAS selection course twice before he was accepted. It had been harder and more uncomfortable than anything they could do to him in prison, but it had been his choice. Everything he'd done had been his choice, right or wrong, and there hadn't been a day when he couldn't have walked away if that was what he'd wanted. Eventually he had left, and that had been his choice, albeit because it was what his wife had wanted. But the men in Shelton had no choice, and that was what made prison such a terrible punishment. It wasn't the food or the environment or even the people, it was the lack of choice. And when there were choices, they were choices laid down by others. Top bunk or bottom. Tea or coffee. Vegan meal or Ordinary. Choices that were no real choice at all. Even now, Shepherd was in prison by choice. He could have refused the job and woken up in a warm double bed with Sue, instead of alone in an uncomfortable bunk with a racist thug beneath him. But if that choice was ever taken away from him, Shepherd knew that the confinement would be more than even he could bear. He'd do whatever it took to get out.
He sat up, not liking where his train of thought was heading. Gerald Carpenter had a wife and family, and he was facing a long prison sentence. Shepherd had been inside only two days but already he had grasped how appalling the prospect of twenty or even ten years was. Carpenter had decided how badly he wanted his freedom, and the price he was prepared to pay to achieve it. He'd kill to get out. Shepherd rubbed the back of his neck where the tendons were as taut as steel cables. Would he be prepared to do the same? He had killed - five times - but in combat, in the heat of battle, the enemy in front of him. Combat wasn't especially clean or honourable, but it was kill or be killed, soldier against soldier. Would he be prepared to kill another human being in cold blood if it meant the difference between life imprisonment and freedom?
Shepherd swung down off his bunk and started doing rapid press-ups. He concentrated on his rhythm and breathing and was soon bathed in sweat. He increased the pace and soon he could think of nothing except the exercise, the burning in his muscles, the pressure on his fingertips, the blood coursing through his veins. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. He stopped at sixty, knowing he could do more, and switched to rapid sit-ups, working his left side, then the right, until he rolled over and did another fifty press-ups.
'Bloody hell! Sooner they let you in the gym, the better,' said Lee. He was watching Shepherd with one eye.
'Sorry, Jason,' said Shepherd. The lack of privacy was one of the worst things about his confinement. The only time he could be alone was when he was sitting on the tiny toilet: it had a thin plastic door but even then every bodily function could be heard in the cell. Since he'd been in prison he had always been just a few feet from another human being. He promised himself that the first thing he would do when he got out was go for a long walk in the countryside. The Brecon Beacons, maybe, where he'd done the SAS selection course. He'd hated the wilderness
