The other players in his performance are all ready. All waiting. Sitting at their desks like schoolboys, with their plastic beakers of water and their felt-tip pens. Men with bad posture and spread legs, lounging in hard chairs or leaning forward on folded arms. The youngest, maybe twenty-two. The oldest, white hair and pale skin, maybe eighty, and not long for the world. Cox surveys the room in a glance. Takes them all in. Karen the librarian, ditzy and distracted; all wobbly flesh and flashy colours. The writer, out of place and staring around him like he’s on safari. And Miss Harris, professional and focused. She has gone out on a limb to accommodate his request. Were he the sort of man to remember a favour, she would’ve earned herself a place in Cox’s good graces. But Cox has no good graces. He remembers slights, not courtesies.
Then it begins.
‘Are you fucking kidding me? What in God’s name is that dirty evil bastard doing here?’
‘I swear to God I’ll tear out his eyes …’
‘He’s not on this course is he, miss? I’m not breathing in the same air as that murdering bastard.’
He stands in the doorway, all innocence. Mr Windsor lingers in the hall, trying not to meet anybody’s eye. Miss Harris has been lumbered with this, all so the inmates of HMP Holderness don’t begin to think he has a tattoo congratulating himself on having a sweet perineum.
It’s Suggs whose voice carries the most weight and venom. Suggs who is going to ensure whether the sessions are a success, or the scene of a riot.
Miss Harris stands, cool and casual. Gestures for Cox to come in and take the seat near her own. Cox nods his thanks. Walks, head down, to the plastic seat by the wipe-clean desk, his back half-turned to the rest of the room.
She gives Suggs her attention. ‘Settle down, Suggs, we are all going to play nice. Cox has had his request for inclusion granted and I have sworn that you can play nicely. I know you were very keen to participate in all this, so let’s not spoil it, eh?’
‘But he’s a fucking nonce!’ spits Suggs. ‘He’s a VP! We shouldn’t be anywhere near the sick fucker …’
Cox turns and examines the squat, brutish man who so objects to his presence in the drab classroom down the corridor from the library. He knows very little about him, but feels as though he knows his type. Suggs is a criminal, but in his own mind, he’s not a bad guy. He’s a veritable Robin Hood. He believes himself to be several revolutionary steps up the ladder from the sex offenders, grasses and paedos who people the VP wing. He feels it is his duty to kill or maim such men, so his gaggle of brats on the outside never have to be exposed to such ugliness. Cox has never considered engaging such a man in debate. He has never vocalized his opinion that it is men like Suggs who create men like him. It is the alphas, the big silverbacks, oozing testosterone like blood, who feed the demon in him. Men like Thomas and Rory, the popular boys at school, who saw the weakness in Cox and chose to exploit it for their own gain. Men who wielded their masculinity, their sexuality, their fertility, like a weapon. Men who raped him not because they found him attractive, but because they knew he wouldn’t like it, and wouldn’t tell.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Harris. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea after all. Mr Suggs here clearly has some poetry in his soul and it would pain me to deny him the opportunity to get in touch with his repressed sensitivities …’
Suggs springs up, fists clenched, shoulders squared. ‘What did you fucking say to me?’
Cox turns away from him, catching the eye of another inmate. He gives a wink. The man, forties and shy, gives a little smile, then looks away, flustered.
‘Steady, Suggs,’ says a large man, seated at the next table. He’s a big lad. Older than most of them. Red-faced and bearded. He’s quiet, but his voice carries an authority. Suggs sits down, grumbling to himself. Cox wonders if this is Callan. He’s heard the name but not yet had the pleasure of meeting the man. He was an armed robber, on the outside. A good one too. Only got caught because one of his crew gave him up when cutting a deal with the police. Callan had to spend a lot of money to get access to the grass. Paid a computer wizard to alter the database so there was no mention on either of their files that they should be kept in different jails. Then he had himself transferred. Was waiting for the grass in his own cell. Beat him to death over the course of nine hours. Cox wishes he had such useful contacts. Were he the sort of man to have dabbled in organized criminality, escape would not prove difficult. A rope over the wall, a mobile phone in a friendly rectum, and he could be a free man within a week. But Cox has no such contacts. This is why escape is going to be all the sweeter.
‘You’re welcome to leave, Suggs,’ continues Miss Harris, holding his gaze. ‘It would be a shame, but we can all just about muddle along without your contributions. It’s just, I’ve seen your letters of complaint about the staff and canteen, and I know you’ve got a lovely turn of phrase. “Twatwaffle”, “cock-blanket” and “sphincter-bandit” are all particular favourites …’
Titters, from the group: pressure escaping from a valve.
‘That’s not fair …’ begins Suggs, looking petulant. He’s probably thirty. Muscled, tattooed and pretty damn fond of himself. He dresses much the same inside as he did before he was convicted: grey jogging suit and flashy white trainers. He’s got tramlines
