by Simon Mayo
‘Grey,’ said Ant from the bed. ‘I’m telling him a few things he needs to hear.’
Daisy chuckled. ‘Say them from me too.’
‘I did. He knows.’
‘You took a long time fixing Jimmy’s dressing earlier.’
Ant heard the smile in her voice. ‘You think?’
‘I think, yeah.’
‘It was more fun than fixing a bandage should be, I suppose . . .’
‘Ha! I knew it. Well, if you can, you should sleep, Ant. It’ll be your shift next.’
‘I know, I know.’ Ant’s head was spinning with tiredness and pain, but the tablets she’d taken were beginning to work. The room was hot but the bed was cool and soft and the tiredness was overwhelming. She was about to say that she’d be up in a minute when someone jumped on the bed.
Ant sat bolt upright. Daisy had disappeared; she heard running feet downstairs and muffled voices nearby. It was a few seconds before she realized where she was and that she had, however briefly, slept. The room was pitch black, but she could just see the outline of Mattie’s hair, inches from her face.
He spoke in an urgent whisper. ‘Hide! They’re here!’
He pulled her out of bed and into the small office across the landing. It had a deep ornate cupboard that ran the length of one wall – their chosen hiding place.
‘Where did Daisy—?’ began Ant, but Mattie put his hand over her mouth.
‘Everyone’s where they need to be,’ he whispered, ‘apart from Jimmy. I couldn’t wake him.’
‘What?’ said Ant. ‘So we’re not all hidden, then, are we?’
She pushed her way into the cupboard, clearing files and boxes as she went. Mattie followed and pulled the door shut behind them. ‘Well, I didn’t know what to do!’ he said.
‘OK. Who saw what?’ she said into the silence.
‘I saw someone in the garden,’ said Mattie. ‘At the back, by the hut.’
‘Just the one?’
‘I think so.’
‘I wonder . . .’ Ant pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She hit the buttons that took her through the security and encryption of the dark web, then logged onto the Bug site and found what she was looking for. She climbed out of the cupboard.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Mattie.
‘Follow me,’ she said, heading for the back window.
‘Ant!’ came Mattie’s nervous cry.
‘Watch!’ she said.
They went into the main bedroom, taking up position by the curtains. The large wardrobe creaked, then opened.
‘What’s happening? Why aren’t you hiding?’ said Daisy from behind a rail of dresses.
Ant was hitting the phone again. ‘Watch,’ she said, and hit call.
She drew back a corner of the curtain and they peered into the dark garden. The London sky was bright enough for them to make out some grass and flowerbeds close by, but beyond that everything was blurred shapes and shadows.
‘What am I looking for?’ whispered Daisy.
As if on cue, a light shone through the trees at the end of the garden. It was bright enough to reveal hands, a jacket, then the side of a face. A man on a phone.
‘That,’ said Ant, and held her phone to her ear. The figure was suddenly crouching, shielding the light from the screen. They saw him glance up at the house. In the bedroom, everyone heard the nervous whispered, ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Max,’ said Ant. ‘We’ll let you in.’
Mattie was downstairs first, Amos joining him on his way to the kitchen.
‘What? He’s . . . ? How did he find us?’
‘I left him a message,’ said Ant, unhooking the back-door keys.
‘You did what?’
‘Calm down, Amos,’ she said. ‘He’s on our side.’ She unlocked the door and pulled it open. A tall figure appeared in the doorway, then hesitated.
‘Max!’ said Mattie in a half-whisper, half-shout, and ran towards him. Max came into the dark kitchen just as Mattie collided with his waist.
Max laughed, a low chuckle. ‘Mattie? But you’re enormous!’ He dropped his rucksack and ruffled the boy’s hair. Behind him, Ant pushed the door shut and locked it.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey.’
They stared at each other. It was just light enough to make out faces and shapes. Neither of them were smiling.
‘Nice haircut,’ said Ant.
‘What happened to my mum and dad?’ said Max.
Ant looked away. ‘We don’t know. None of us do,’ she said. ‘There are three others here; none of them know what happened to their families either.’
Max peered into the kitchen.
‘Hi, I’m Daisy.’
Max saw white blonde hair and an upheld palm. ‘Hi.’
‘Amos,’ said a voice from the shadows.
‘Hi, Amos.’
Mattie pulled Max over to the table, where he slumped onto a chair. ‘Amos’s dad Ahmet is missing,’ said Mattie. ‘Daisy’s mum is Sarah. We don’t know where she is either.’
‘You said there’s five of you . . .’
‘Jimmy Noon,’ said Ant. ‘We had to cut off his strap. He’s upstairs, sleeping. His mum is missing.’
‘You cut off his strap?’
‘I didn’t, Lena did. She escaped too. She did a good job – I think he’ll be OK.’
There was so much to say that no one said anything. Eventually Max looked around and whistled softly. ‘This is so weird,’ he said.
He made tea and found some porridge oats. He sat opposite Ant – across their old kitchen table – eating hungrily. Mattie had fallen asleep in an armchair, Amos and Daisy had wandered off, presumably to their beds.
Ant began to talk. Starting with the disastrous Correction, she told him the story of the last forty-eight hours: Brian MacMillan’s plan for getting her revenge, her run into Holloway, finding Tess Clarke, disguising herself as a man in Pentonville and not finding Pellow. Then her escape and Brian’s death. Max listened in silence, but as she paused, knowing that the riot and the fire were next, he interrupted.
‘He did all that for you? Why did he sacrifice himself like that? Were you guys a thing or something?’
‘No, not really,’ said Ant. ‘We were just friends – he was way too old anyway.’
‘And a PO,’ added Max.
She sighed. ‘Yeah, and that. I think he felt responsible. The double raid was his idea . . .’
‘Was it?’ said Max? ‘Sure about that? Sounded like he’d been chosen to ask you.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe . . .’
‘And what were those numbers he gave you? The ones he said would change your life?’
Ant closed her eyes, remembering. ‘8B 3S 2C3.’
‘So why would they change your life?’
She shrugged again. ‘Because they got me out of Pentonville? I don’t know. It did sound weird at the time, though . . .’
Max reached for his phone. As he hit the keys, the screen lit up; he squinted at the sudden brightness. She saw his face was gaunt, the cropped hair accentuating the ridges of his skull.
You’re as tired as we are.
Max frowned. ‘Nothing here. Just getting maths questions and algebra.’ He scrolled down. ‘What were Brian’s exact words?’ He looked up at Ant, his face illuminated from below as though he was holding a torch and they were playing at horror films.
‘Something like . . .’ She screwed up her face. ‘He got me to repeat the numbers. Then said something like, “Keep a record. They’ll get you out. Grey will go mad. Then they’ll change your life.”’
‘Then they’ll change your life?’ whispered Max. ‘After you get out. He was trying to tell you something, Ant! Have you looked them up?’
‘Just got the phone, Max. Not a lot of research time so far.’
‘OK, OK, fair enough,’ he said, getting up and pacing the kitchen. He read out the numbers and letters again. ‘A staff number? A tax code?’
‘No idea
,’ said Ant.
‘It must be something he thought you’d get,’ said Max. ‘Something you’d understand. What did you talk about when you were . . . not being a thing?’
‘Mainly how terrible life was for everyone. He hated Grey, hated his job, hated the system.’
There was a creak from the armchair. ‘You said he was into music,’ said Mattie, his voice slurred with sleep. ‘He liked loads of bands.’
‘You been listening to all this?’ said Ant.
‘Nope. Just the last bit about Brian.’
‘Did you like him?’ asked Max.
‘He was OK,’ said Mattie. ‘Better than the rest, I s’pose . . .’
There was silence in the kitchen before Max spoke again. ‘And how long between Brian dying and the riot starting?’
‘Not that long,’ said Ant, taking time with each word. She took the next silence to mean that he was waiting for the rest of the story, and she figured she owed him that. She described the invasion from Holloway and Pentonville, the fire that followed, the last time she saw Dan and Gina.
Max rubbed his head with his hands. ‘What are the chances they got out alive?’ he asked, his voice flat.
‘We don’t know, Max,’ she said quietly. ‘They waved us away! We couldn’t get them out – the card had stopped working—’ She broke off. Mattie got up and came to stand beside her.
Max paced some more. ‘Would it be fair to say that you and Brian started the riot?’ he said softly.
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Ant. ‘It would be a stupid thing to say. And ignorant. And dangerous.’ She was on her feet now. Mattie tried to take her arm, but she shook him off. ‘I know you hate me, and I know you blame me for what happened to Dan and Gina.’ She walked to within a few centimetres of Max. ‘But I went into Holloway and Pentonville to stop all the shit they were talking in the Correction films. It was all lies and there was more coming. I might have stirred it up a bit, but the whole prison was ready to blow anyway.’ She was bouncing on the balls of her feet and Mattie recognized the danger.
‘Let’s go, Abi,’ he said.
‘You have no idea what you’re talking about, Max,’ she said loudly. ‘I don’t even know why you’re here. We escaped without you, we’ll cope without you!’
Max had heard enough. They stood shaved head to shaved head, seeing the anger and fear in each other’s eyes. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’ll cope without me,’ he said. ‘You started the riot without me, started the fire without me, got my—’ He broke off.
‘Go on, finish the sentence,’ Ant said, ignoring Mattie, who was tugging at her arm. ‘Got my parents killed without me? Is that what you were going to say? You came all this way to accuse me and Mattie of killing Dan and Gina? Really?’
A voice from the shadows. ‘What the hell . . . ? Who are you?’
Ant and Max turned to see Jimmy coming into the kitchen, followed by Daisy. Amos was standing in the doorway. They all stared at each other – it was Mattie who broke the silence.
‘This is Max, Dan and Gina’s son,’ he said.
‘Great,’ said Jimmy drily. ‘Are you trying to get us caught? Because I’m pretty dosed up at the moment, but you sure woke me up. You see everything is dark in here? It’s because we don’t want to go back to prison. So if you can help, great. Otherwise go back to wherever you came from. And – Ant? For God’s sake, calm down.’ He turned and headed back upstairs. Daisy and Amos melted away too.
‘Is that the guy who had his strap cut out?’ asked Max, the spell broken.
‘Yes,’ said Mattie.
Ant hesitated, looked from Max to Mattie, then turned for the door. ‘I’m going back to bed,’ she said.
Max hadn’t moved; he was still standing in the middle of the room. Mattie approached him warily. ‘We didn’t kill Dan and Gina,’ he said, his voice tiny. ‘We tried to save them.’
Max sighed heavily. ‘I’m sure you did, Mattie, I’m sure you did.’
‘And you should separate the numbers and letters.’
‘What?’ Max said.
‘Gina taught me algebra,’ said Mattie. ‘The code that Brian gave Ant . . . She mentioned it before, but we haven’t really talked about it till now. But you mentioned algebra . . . and I think you should separate the numbers and letters. Try that.’
After Mattie had gone, Max did try that. By the light of his phone he scribbled down different combinations of numbers and letters using 8B 3S 2C3. Then he typed them into his phone, searching for any combination that might give him a lead. It was a long list, and eventually he gave up. Maths wasn’t his subject, but even he knew there must be thousands of variations. Then they’ll change your life was what Ant had said. She was the key, he was sure of it. This prison officer must have assumed that he had given her all the information she required. He needed Ant to decode it, but after that row, they might not be speaking for a while.
‘We haven’t got time to tiptoe around this,’ he said aloud. ‘Need to sort it now.’
He hadn’t even got as far as the landing before flashing blue lights filled the house.
‘Police!’ yelled Max. He crouched down on the landing. ‘At least two! Front and back!’ Amos flew across the hall and dived under the stairs. Jimmy peered from behind a door, then disappeared again. Mattie burst out of the spare room and tore across the landing. ‘You need a space!’ he hissed as he passed Max. Ant and Daisy had tumbled from the bed, both looking dazed. Daisy’s hair was a white curtain in front of her face as she climbed into the wardrobe. Max and Ant were pulled by Mattie into the spare room, then pushed into the cupboard.
‘Did you clear your stuff up?’ said Mattie as Max disappeared into the jumble of boxes. It was clear from Max’s face that he hadn’t. From outside, the sound of low conversation and squawked radio chatter.
‘Too late!’ said Ant. ‘Get in, Mattie!’
There was room, just.
‘Did you fix the window lock?’ said Ant, sitting on cupboard’s cluttered floor, her voice deadened by the closed door.
‘Yes, best I could,’ said Mattie from somewhere above her. They sat in the dark and in silence. When the doorbell rang, they all jumped. When it was followed by rapid, loud knocks, they all held their breath. They heard voices, then doors being rattled, their locks tested.
‘What if they break in?’ whispered Mattie. The others didn’t reply – the answer seemed obvious.
We go back to prison.
The tapping, knocking and radio chatter moved round the house as every window and door was examined. Ant’s heart was beating so hard and fast that, in the close confines of the cupboard, she was convinced Mattie and Max would hear it.
The noises subsided, silence returned. They waited.
‘How do we know when it’s safe?’ said Mattie.
‘We don’t,’ said Ant. ‘We just stay here.’
‘I should go and clear up my stuff in the kitchen—’ said Max.
‘Yes, you should,’ interrupted Ant, ‘but you shouldn’t have left it out in the first place.’
‘I know. That was a mistake, but—’
There was the sound of movement in the hall downstairs; Amos had stepped out of his hiding place and they all listened hard. They heard him walk, pause then curse.
‘Cops are with the neighbours!’ he half whispered, half shouted. ‘Looks like they’re getting keys!’
Now it was Ant and Max’s turn to curse.
In the cupboard, Mattie crawled over Ant and pushed the door open. ‘Mattie?’ said Ant.
‘Setting the alarm,’ he said. ‘If they open the door and the alarm goes off, they’ll know there’s no one here, right?’
‘Can you do that?’ Max sounded doubtful, but Ant followed Mattie, then turned to Max.
‘We have seconds. Tell Daisy what’s happening.’ Max leaped out of the cupboard.
By the time Ant had told Jimmy, Mattie was down the stairs. She paused only to glance through the window above the front door; a number of police were
walking their way. A neighbour was looking on.
‘They’re coming! Amos, we’re setting the alarm,’ she called. ‘Stay put. We’ll turn it off when they’re gone.’
Rapid beeps came from the alarm unit, followed by a single tone.
‘Twenty seconds!’ she called. ‘Mattie, get out of there!’
The flashing blue light shone through the stained glass of the front door, filling the hall with deep, moving colours. Ant and Mattie saw dark shapes approaching and sprinted up the stairs. The doorbell rang as they reached the landing, the shout through the letterbox came as they entered the spare room. They heard a key in the door as they jumped into the cupboard.
First lock undone. Second lock undone. Mattie gripped Ant’s hand, then the alarm countdown was triggered. They heard the single tone and then the series of beeps. Heavy footsteps in the hall. Shouting. Radio squawking. Orders given. Then silence.
Upstairs no one breathed, no one moved. From the hall, more shouting, a slammed door, and then the sounds of an urgent conversation; three voices? Four? Ant wasn’t sure.
‘They know the code too,’ whispered Mattie.
‘They’re so close to Amos . . .’ breathed Ant.
Then a clear voice from the hall. Authoritative – in command. ‘If the alarm’s set, they’re not here. Reset it and move out.’
More boots in the hall, more beeping from the alarm unit, then the slam of the door. The click of two locks. In the darkness, Ant and Mattie high-fived.
‘Are we sure they’re gone?’ said Max.
‘Amos will tell us,’ said Ant, pushing the door open.
Sure enough, after a minute a muffled voice came from downstairs. ‘They’re gone! All clear! Shout out the code!’
They all stumbled across the landing, Mattie calling out the security code. As they slowly went downstairs, they saw Amos standing in the hall, looking dazed. ‘My ears are ringing . . .’
Daisy quickly covered his mouth with her hand. ‘Too loud!’ she whispered. ‘They haven’t gone far!’
Max positioned himself on the stairs so he could just see the road out front. ‘Police cars gone,’ he said.
When they were sure they were on their own, they all returned to the kitchen and sat around the table. The only light came from the gas hob that was heating a kettle.