By the time the alarm was raised almost an hour later, Nails was long gone. It took 3 separate counts for the officers to realize someone was missing from the unit, Control eventually calling a Code Echo for an escaped prisoner. And while they were out searching, I lay on my bunk, hopeful that Frank was celebrating Nails’ success.
6.
Frank did celebrate. Probably more than he should have. By the time I visited his cell 2 days later, the empty bottle of Pinot Noir was already disposed of, the evidence tied inside a rubbish bag that was taken out to the dumpster by the bin billet.
The prison remained in lockdown for a day after the escape, but unlocked that Monday morning. I paid Frank a visit and asked him whether he helped plan the escape. He said he did, closing his eyes with a thoughtful smile.
“Maybe a little too much celebration afterwards, but there’s nothing wrong with celebrating,” he whispered. I was glad. Happy in fact. Celebrating was good, and something I was also hoping to do in a few days.
Although I can only speculate for the most part, the rumours that followed seemed to fill in a lot of the blanks, so I’ll try and share what happened as best I can. By the end of that Monday, Frank began to feel ill, something about his stomach cramping up. By the next morning, he had cold sweats, the bulk of his time spent sitting on the can with nothing but grey water leaving him.
Despite me suggesting for him to see a doctor, he refused, saying men didn’t see doctors over a bad case of food poisoning.
“I knew that fish was off the other night, I knew it.” If Frank thought he had food poisoning then I wasn’t about to correct him. But his symptoms didn’t get better, instead growing worse by the hour.
At the end of Wednesday’s dinner, I went to pay him another visit and found him hugging his pillow, unable to leave his bed because of the pain in the soles of his feet and palms of his hands. He looked fucked, sweaty and tired; his eyes grim with horror.
“I just wanna sleep. Fuck off and let me sleep,” he murmured to me and I did. I didn’t know at the time, but Thallium poisoning could come from trace amounts of exposure, measuring something like a couple of micrograms. I don’t know how much Thallium was in the rat poison but what I can tell you is that I injected a full 25ml of the stuff into that drink.
As I left his cell for the final time, I heard him mutter something about Danny, talking as if he could see him. I didn’t care.
7.
I was awoken through the night by screaming. A few of the boys yelled out for the dude to shut up but he continued wailing, sounding in severe pain. The noise eventually raised the attention of a couple of screws who were out patrolling the prison. They popped their head through Frank’s trap and called a Code Mike.
I saw Frank one last time and it was a heavenly sight to see. I only saw it through the crack of my cell door, but to me, felt like cinema viewing. The nurses arrived and immediately called for Frank to be wheeled up to the medical wing by stretcher. Four officers carried him down the stairs and I watched as the breathing corpse was lowered onto the stretcher. He was bleeding from his eyes and nose, his screams of agony silencing the unit. He kept waving his arms like a madman, calling out for Danny and Tommy to help him.
The officers struggled to secure him with the straps, desperately trying to tie him down. Frank kept thrashing about as the excruciating pain gripped him hard, each convulsion looking as if physically kicking him in the stomach. It was glorious watching him suffer. The pain must have been extraordinary.
I wanted to shout out the names of his victims. I wanted to scream out so he knew that it was me. But as I watched him bleeding from every visible orifice, I whispered them instead, so that they might hear from wherever they were and would come and watch the man suffer for his crimes.
As they finally wheeled him crying from the unit, I heard a single voice call out to him, one that I recognized well.
“Good bye, Frank,” Hal called, the pain in his voice evident.
8.
Nick shook my hand so vigorously the next morning, that I nearly fell over. He stood and clapped me on the back.
“I heard him, Dylan. I heard that piece of shit groan in agony for almost an hour this morning. You did it.” They had brought Frank into the medical wing then called for an ambulance. Nick was happy, despite not seeing the man himself. But hearing him suffer was enough for Nick to consider his revenge taken care of.
News of Frank’s death didn’t reach us for another 3 days, the old prick clinging to life for almost another 50 hours of agony. I wish I could have been there for every single one of them. Despite the doctor’s best efforts, none were able to save him, the poison running its course until his final, agonizing breath. Although there was a real sadness and shock within the Cruds, none knew how to proceed.
We held a vigil out in the yard, just as we did for Tommy. While many were sad and angry, no one suspected that one of their own had killed him. A rumour began to circulate that his food had been poisoned. For me, the evidence disappeared the day the bottle was dropped into the dumpster, itself emptied that very night. I eventually made the rat poison disappear down the toilet, the bottle dropped into a rubbish bag.
Despite a brief investigation, no evidence was ever found to support
