He'd been dozing in his sitting room when the noise from upstairs woke him.
Doctor Robert Dexter sat forward quickly, sucking in a deep breath as he regained his senses. He looked around the large sitting room, catching sight of the clock on the mantlepiece. The hands had crawled around to 1.26 A.M.
Again the noise from upstairs.
Footsteps.
Dexter got to his feet, glancing up at the ceiling. He swallowed hard and headed for the door that opened out into the hall. Outside the wind was blowing strongly. The house stood on top of a low hill, joined to the main road by a narrow driveway flanked on both sides by dwarf conifers. As he moved into the darkened hallway he could see those conifers bowing deferentially to the strong breeze.
Dexter stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up into the gloom at their head. He reached across to the bank of switches at his right hand and flicked a couple. The darkness at the top of the stairs was dispelled swiftly by bright lights.
He put one foot on the bottom step and prepared to ascend.
The crack came from behind him.
A sharp slap of wood on glass. He spun round to see that a skeletal branch from one of the bushes beneath the hall window had been blown against the pane.
Dexter felt his heart beating a little faster as he began to climb the stairs.
From above him the sounds of movement had all but ceased; only the creak of a solitary floorboard broke the silence now. As he reached the landing he paused, looking around at the five closed doors that faced him.
He knew which one the sounds were coming from.
Dexter sighed and made his way across to the third door, halting outside it.
He found that he was shaking.
After all these years he was still afraid.
Afraid of the occupant of that room, afraid of what he might find, yet, simultaneously, knowing exactly what he would find. The same sight would confront him that had confronted him for the past fifteen years.
He stood by the door, listening for movement, and again heard the slow footsteps, pacing back and forth over the carpet. The creak of the one loose board.
Dexter closed his eyes for a moment. Perhaps it would just be best to walk away this time. Go to bed. Go back downstairs.
He heard breathing on the other side, close to the door. As ever, he was aware that the occupant was listening for him, was perhaps aware even now of his presence there. The time to turn back had passed. He knew he must enter.
Dexter unlocked the door, turned the knob and walked into the room.
His heart was thudding hard against his ribs and he felt the first droplet of perspiration pop onto his forehead.
The occupant of the room was sitting in one corner. Dexter closed the door behind him.
PART THREE
-Romans 12:19
-Black Sabbath
SEVENTY-FOUR
The door crashed shut, the loud clash of metal on metal reverberating inside the cell.
James Scott stood in the centre of the small room for a moment, looking round, then sat down on the edge of the bottom bunk.
He felt numb, as if his entire body had been pumped full of novocaine. There was a lead weight where his heart should have been. He felt as if every last drop of feeling had been sucked out of him. The past two days had passed quickly, so quickly in fact that the events of those four days were somewhat hazy. And yet still he retained memories of that time. Like splinters in his mind.
The journey to the court. The police had brought a suit he'd requested from his flat and he'd changed into that, shaved and smartened himself up.
The trial.
He had decided, as advised, to plead guilty and proceedings had moved with dizzying speed. The gun had been produced as evidence. Pictures of the dead men had been circulated around the jury. Scott could remember one of the jurors in particular. She had been in her mid-forties, a smart, efficient-looking woman who had hardly taken her eyes off him throughout the trial. And he had seen hatred in those eyes. When sentence -had been passed he glanced at her and was sure he could see the trace of a smile on her lips.
Scott had heard little of the Judge's summing up or, indeed, of his comments after the life sentence had been passed. Just the odd word here and there, like 'horrendous', 'brutal', 'cold-blooded' or 'dangerous', had filtered through the screen that seemed to have erected itself around him. He felt as if he'd been inside a cell ever since his arrest, imprisoned within his own mind.
He had spent much of the trial gazing around the court room particularly into the public gallery, but not once did he see Carol.
God, how he needed her now.
If only he could have spoken to her one last time before he'd been taken down. Touched her. Kissed her. But that was not to be. She was gone now, out of his life as surely as if she were dead.
After sentence had been passed he had been taken to the cells, then back to Dalston in a black van. From there he'd been taken in a police van to Whitely by two police officers.
The journey, despite the distance between London and the prison, had taken a surprisingly short time. Or so it seemed to Scott. It was as if time had lost all meaning, as if even that were conspiring to hasten him to this place where he would spend the rest of his life.
The rest of his life.
The finality of the words hit him once more; only now, within the confines of the cell, they had an almost deathly abruptness. He looked around the room, at the bunks, the other small bed on the other side of the cell. At the thick metal door, the wooden table and chairs. The slop buckets. There was one single window set about seven feet up the wall, covered by wire mesh as well as being barred. Freedom was now only something to be glimpsed through steel. Death must be similar to this feeling, he thought. The four walls of the cell might as well be the wooden sides of a coffin. There was no such thing as life within prisons, only day-to-day existence. Passing time. Waiting for the only real release, which would come in the form of death; the actual termination of life, not the living death of captivity.
He had been shown which locker in the room was his and told that one of his cell-mates was on work detail, the other in the exercise yard. Scott didn't really care. He unzipped his bag and took out what few possessions he'd been allowed to bring in to the cell: a small cassette-radio and a few tapes. The towels were
