‘ True. I heard ‘em talking after,’ Trent whispered. ‘I heard your name. “Gonna get some of his own medicine” I heard’ em say. Mentioned your name, Vic.’
Wallwork could not even get his mouth to form and project a single word. His lips opened and closed a few times, making a popping sound like a fish out of water.
‘ They buggered me until I bled,’ Trent continued, laying it on thick.
‘ When?’ Wallwork managed to croak. ‘When will they come after me?’
Trent shrugged. ‘Could be any time. Suddenly they’ll be there.’
Wallwork closed his eyes hopelessly.
‘ We need to fight back,’ Trent said. ‘We need to make a stand, otherwise our lives won’t be worth shite.’
Wallwork snorted derisively, but there was a touch of hysteria in his voice. ‘Yeah, like sure. They’d kill us if we did anything.’
‘ Are you at the farm today?’
‘ Yeah, why? What’s that got to do with it?’
‘ Plenty.’ Trent sounded mysterious. He laid his spoon down, turned his face close to Wallwork’s and lowered his voice a couple of degrees to no more than a hoarse whisper. ‘We need to sort those bastards out once and for all and you can help me by bringing something back with you.’
‘ Oh, like a pitchfork, you mean? Don’t be stupid. We get searched going out and coming back. I don’t want to lose my privileges by being caught with something I shouldn’t have.’
‘ You’d rather have eight inches up your arse, would you? Probably followed by a broom-handle?’ Trent’s voice grated ferociously. ‘’Cos I’ll tell you now — it hurts. It fucking hurts. If you want to do anything about them, you’ll find a way of bringing what I want back in
… won’t you?’
Danny was tied up that morning with the bane which afflicts all police officers: paperwork.
For once, though, she was uncomplaining about it, kept her head down and tried not to look up when Sands came into the office for any reason. Out of the periphery of her vision she couldn’t help but notice him banging about, making everyone else’s life a misery. However, he studiously ignored her, for which she was grateful.
She guessed he might try to tag onto her at lunch, so when the chance came and he was otherwise engaged, she slipped out of the office and made her way to the canteen where she collected a sandwich and sat down opposite the man who was destined to be her next boss, Detective Inspector Henry Christie.
‘ I heard about your problems yesterday,’ Henry said to her, partway through the meal. He was eating a light salad. It looked like he was on a diet.
Briefly Danny was puzzled. How on earth did he know about Sands? Then it dawned on her. He was referring to Claire Lilton.
‘ Oh yeah. Little cow.’
‘ You did well. You’ deserve a commend,’ Henry said genuinely. ‘I hear some poor sod got blown off the prom in Morecambe, so you were lucky.’
‘ I should’ve let her drown.’
Henry laughed, changed the subject. ‘So — next Monday? You’ll be with us?’
‘ Can’t come quick enough. Really looking forward to it,’ Danny said with sweet expectancy. Working for Henry Christie, it was said, was a great pleasure. She knew his CID team was well-motivated and got results. She was eager to be a part of it.
She bit into her tuna-mayo sandwich — granary bread, no butter or margarine, no salt, light mayo. Having her back to one of the canteen doors meant she didn’t notice him come into the room so it was consequently a surprise when Jack Sands sat down next to Henry, bearing a plate of spaghetti Bolognese. He glared at her and his expression morphed into an evil smile. She attempted to respond with a pleasant greeting but it stuck somewhere in her throat.
Henry glanced quickly between the two of them. He immediately picked up the tension. It was like a crackle of static. His brow creased. Something was not quite right, the vibes informed him.
He nodded at Sands and they fell into an easy conversation to which Danny strenuously declined to contribute.
The phone on the other side of the room rang and was answered by an officer nearby. He clamped his hand across the mouthpiece and called across: ‘Danny — for you.’ He held up the phone.
She couldn’t have left her seat any faster, Henry noted.
Danny took the call, hung up and returned to the table where she collected her shoulder bag. ‘Someone at the desk to see me.’
Henry watched her leave, then glanced sideways at Sands whose eyes fixed on the door she had gone through, like he was in some sort of trance. His face had become hard and angry.
Henry speculated whether the rumours were true about Sands and Danny having a ‘liaison’. Maybe they’d just had some sort of lovers’ tiff, he thought.
Trent’s next target was another member of the small clique of sex-offenders, a man called Coysh who had been virtually conscripted by Blake to be a manservant — for him and his team. Coysh had willingly accepted this role of ‘fetch-me, carry-me’ because it kept him reasonably safe from the gang rapes organised by Blake. Even so, he had been subjected to a couple to keep him in his place and he was often ritually humiliated by Blake. Just for sport.
Trent went to Coysh for two reasons.
Firstly he worked in the kitchens and secondly he was generally up to date with Blake’s whereabouts — knowledge Trent would need in the near future.
They were out in the sunshine of the exercise yard when Trent accosted Coysh.
They conversed as they walked around. Coysh nodded at Trent’s requests. Easy — on both counts.
A couple of minutes later they parted.
Trent smiled. It was coming together quite nicely.
Danny was relieved to get away.
Once outside the canteen she breathed deeply, thanked God for the phone call and tried to stop herself shaking.
She did not bother to wait for the lift because sometimes it took ages to arrive and the last thing she wanted was to step into it and turn to find Jack behind her, trapping her.
Instead she chose the stairs, trotting quickly down them to first-floor level where she headed for the back of the enquiry desk.
‘ Hiya, Danny,’ the public enquiry assistant said. ‘It’s that Claire Lilton waiting for you. She’s in the foyer.’
‘ Cheers.’ Danny walked out through the security doors, into the waiting area. Unusually it was completely empty.
Claire Lilton had vanished.
Trent spent the remainder of his afternoon engaged in trading his stash of cash, sweets, cigarettes and cannabis around the prison.
He knew he could easily have approached one single person — a guy called Connor, the most powerful drugs dealer in the institution — to get. what he wanted, but a one-stop strategy wasn’t in line with his plans. He considered it more important to get around as many people as possible, act manically depressed following last night’s violent rape, and even mention the word ‘suicide’ a few times. That way as many people as possible knew of his intentions. He knew that in a short space of time the word would spread up to the screws who, he knew, would do nothing. Not that he cared. He wanted them to do nothing. Just to know.
By tea-time, Trent had bought enough tablets to kill an elephant, never mind a human being.
He inserted them one at a time into the hole in the waistband of his jeans. Towards the end of this process he had to push quite hard to get them in. He counted 162 assorted tablets, many of indeterminate origin.
