had left.
Louise appeared in the doorway. 'You sure?'
'I think I should probably be heading off.'
'I've got decaf.'
'Why don't you just stay the night?' Thorne asked.
Monahan's stomach had been plaguing him since late morning. He had been in and out of the toilets half a dozen times since the session with Thorne and his bitch of a sidekick, and whatever the hell was in the meat pie he'd had for dinner had made things a damn sight worse. He lay on his bunk, listening to his guts grumble and the voices echoing on the landing outside the cell door.
Animal noises.
When he was not in the Segregation Unit, this was his favourite part of the day. The hour he liked best. On his own, reading or smoking, while the other inmates got through association their own way, playing table tennis, working out or whatever. A bubble of peace, with the rest of the prison moving around him. He enjoyed the stillness – such as it was, with six hundred other blokes sharing the oxygen – but knew there was company just a few feet away, if ever he wanted it. He far preferred being alone in a crowd to those stinking, scratchy hours of genuine isolation, even though he'd always brought them on himself.
It was like he'd said to Thorne, though. Sometimes he just couldn't help himself.
Be nice to get out that bit sooner and see him.
He thought about what Thorne had said, the request for help that was really an offer. However tempting it might be, he knew it was short-term thinking. Dangerous thinking. The money being set aside every month for his release was a threat as well as a promise; he had always understood that. It put a price on his silence, but never let him forget what shooting his mouth off would cost him.
His life and his son's life, no question about that.
Living is what counts, right?
He thought about the man who promised and threatened so much, and above the sound of the acid bubbling in his gut, he heard the hiss and crackle of a fire. The whump of an explosion and the distant drumming of a woodpecker.
'Paul?'
There was a knock on the open cell door and Monahan sat up. Jeremy Grover was a con he got on with better than most. He did his time quietly enough and was fairly bright, as armed robbers went.
'Jez.'
'Thought you were coming to play cards.'
'Sorry, mate, my belly's a nightmare.'
'I'll have some tea then, if you're getting a brew on.'
Monahan swung his feet to the floor and walked over to where the kettle stood on a small table in the corner. He asked who was winning all the money, reached for a mug and promised to take all the lads to the cleaners as soon as he stopped shitting through the eye of a needle. Then he turned to say something else and stepped into a punch that pushed the breath from his lungs in an instant. Grover's breath hot and sour on his face.
'Jez…?'
Only it wasn't a punch, course it wasn't, and there was already blood pooling on the floor as he slipped down to his knees and then dropped on to his side. It was hard to raise his head and he was scared to look at what was leaking into his hands. He saw Grover lean back against the door and then step forward as an officer pushed his way into the cell. He watched them speak while his guts slipped, warm between his fingers, but he could hear nothing, not really, until the officer had gone again and an alarm began to sound from a long way away.
PART TWO
NINE
The man on the prison security desk had as little to say to Dave Holland as he had done to Thorne's more garrulous female colleague twenty-four hours earlier. There was no question of Anna Carpenter accompanying Thorne this time, not considering the reason he was returning to Wakefield.
Brigstocke had called just after 6 a.m., in no mood for going round the houses. 'Whoever was paying Paul Monahan to keep quiet can cancel the direct debit,' he said.
The Crime Scene Investigators from the West Yorkshire force had already been and gone, but the murder scene was still sealed off with blue tape that stretched from the cell door to the edge of the landing. Thorne and Holland were escorted on to the wing by a prison officer and met outside the cell by a grim-looking welcoming committee. Sonia Murray, an attractive black woman in her early thirties, was the prison's police liaison officer. She made herself known, then introduced Andy Boyle, the local DI, whose team had been on call when the incident had occurred.
Boyle seemed less than thrilled to meet his colleagues from down south. 'If we have to work together on this,' he said, 'I suppose we have to.' The Yorkshireman was clearly no shrinking violet, but he still had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the shouts and jeers that echoed along the landing. The entire wing had been confined to their cells for more than fifteen hours, since the body had been found, and the prisoners were not shy about making their feelings known. 'It's not ideal though, is it?'
'We'll try not to step on anyone's toes,' Holland said.
Thorne forced a smile, but was beyond caring if it was convincing. 'And if we do, we'll make sure we're wearing slippers.'
Paul Monahan's body was in the city mortuary, awaiting post-mortem. He had died on the way to hospital the previous evening, having been discovered on the floor of his cell with serious stab wounds. The prisoner who had been found inside the cell with Monahan had been taken to the local station, but he remained uncharged and had been returned to the prison that morning in anticipation of Thorne and Holland's arrival.
'So, here's the story,' Murray said. She emphasised the last word, making it clear to Thorne that they were now leaving the known facts behind and venturing into an area where all they had were possibilities, interpretation and bullshit. It was dangerous territory, and interesting. It was the part Thorne had always liked the most. 'A prison officer named Howard Cook entered Monahan's cell just after nine-thirty last night.' Murray was reading from a small notebook. 'He discovered a prisoner named Jeremy Grover covered in blood and bent over Monahan's body. Grover told Officer Cook that he had discovered the body a minute or so earlier, had been unable to find a pulse and was trying to perform CPR.'
'Good of him,' Holland said.
'Oh yeah, he's a regular good Samaritan is our Jez.'
'Except when he's waving sawn-off shotguns around in building societies,' said Boyle.
Murray returned to her notebook. 'Cook left the cell to sound the alarm, an ambulance was called and a Code Black was declared. Within twenty minutes, the wing was shut down and the police were informed.'
'We were here just after ten,' Boyle said. 'Monahan had already pegged it in the ambulance.'
Thorne nudged the cell door open and stepped inside. Everything except the bunk and the metal chair had been removed. The blood had run towards one wall, down the slope of an uneven floor. Dried, it looked almost black against the dark orange linoleum. 'Where's Officer Cook?' he asked.
Murray moved to the door. 'He was sent home and given a day's trauma leave,' she said. 'Standard practice after a Code Black incident.'
Thorne turned and walked back on to the landing.
