by Shaun Baines
“We did it, buddy,” Scalper said through painful gasps.
Daniel glanced at him from the corner of his eye as he pulled away. The damage done by his first beating was compounded by the second. He was alive, but only just. The plan had been to use Scalper to draw them out and he had readily agreed. He’d known the risks, but Daniel hadn’t known Scalper was lying about his recovery. He should never have left the hospital.
“Are we taking them to Five Oaks for interrogation?” Scalper asked.
“You’re going to hospital.”
Scalper rubbed the scar around his mouth with a shaking hand. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“Fuck the plan. You almost died for the Daytons once. It’s not going to happen a second time.”
At the exit of the park, they were blocked by a vehicle trying to enter. Heedless of the attention he drew, Daniel blasted his horn in frustration. The driver of the other car sat rigid with surprise. Daniel sounded the horn again, giving the driver a hard look through the glare of his windscreen. The driver casually rolled down his window and stuck his head out, his bulbous eyes creased with amusement.
“Fucking Jesus, it’s Fairbanks.” Daniel jumped from the van to see a rifle levelled through Fairbanks’ window. A shot rang in his ears and he fell to the ground. Fairbanks reversed and Daniel watched him speed down Bywell Avenue. Looking to his van, he saw a bullet hole in the centre of cracked glass. Scalper’s head lay to one side, blood pumping from a wound in his throat. It coated the interior of the van in a red hue.
The engine was still running. Daniel jumped inside and drove away to the sound of distant police sirens. This was fucked up. He was too fucking stupid to pull off a stunt like this. Hadn’t his Dad always told him? He was the hammer, not the hand who drove it. He took orders. He was too dumb to give them.
He kept to the back streets, trying to ignore how the sun shone through the glaze of Scalper’s blood on the window. Not good enough, he hissed over and over. You’re not good enough. Scalper died because of you. Your daughter is in a coma because of you.
He found a building site where a transit van could be left without question. There were a handful of contractors in the scaffolding. They worked steadily and didn’t notice Daniel’s arrival.
He didn’t feel like it, but he had to work fast.
Taking a cloth from the glove compartment, he wiped down the interior of the van. He rubbed down the outside of the driver’s door and did the same with the passenger side.
He hoped Scalper’s beloved mother would forgive him for abandoning the son she loved so much.
Daniel pulled the kitchen knife from his pocket. He wanted to question the three men in the back of the van, but it would take too long. If he didn’t question them, his pursuit of Fairbanks would be over. He couldn’t allow them to go free, but he didn’t have the time to kill them.
Taking the envelope from Scalper’s dead body, he put it in his pocket, aware it was stained with the blood of two men. He didn’t know why he was taking it, but it seemed important somehow. Perhaps he wanted it as a souvenir or a reminder of how deadly the hunt for Fairbanks had become.
He wiped his fingerprints from the handle of the knife and threw it into a patch of wild grass. The driver’s door was open. He reached inside and smashed the centre of the steering wheel with his elbow. The van horn blared and continued to sound as Daniel ran for cover. When all eyes were drawn to the wailing van, Daniel sprinted from the building site to the relative safety of the streets.
When the contractors alerted the police, Fairbanks’ men would be taken into custody. Men like that always had records. With any luck, Daniel would never hear from them again.
Fairbanks had used the police in a trap to capture his brother. At long last, Daniel had repaid the favour.
The thin trail of breadcrumbs to Fairbanks was gone. The men in the caravan were his last chance and they had been sacrificed to save his own skin. To make matters worse, Scalper had died for nothing. Daniel was no closer to the people who had hurt Eisha than he was when he arrived.
The only difference now was that following his conversation with Scalper, he was beginning to suspect the Daytons were somehow involved.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
His minestrone soup had gone cold. Swirling it around his bowl, he’d watched the steam curl into the ceiling until all that was left was a watery mess he had no appetite for. He handed it back to Colon, a skinny twenty-year-old who waited anxiously by his side.
“Not hungry, boss?” Colon asked.
“You can have it.”
Colon, so-called for his preferred method of smuggling heroin across the English Channel, slurped from the bowl. Prisoners weren’t allowed cutlery in their cells. Even a spoon could be turned into a deadly weapon. Harold Spicer, a lifer and hard con, watched in disgust as bullet-like peas and strips of pasta dripped from Colon’s stubbly chin.
Sighing, he lay down on his creaky bed and tucked his hands behind his head. His cell was six foot by eight. He’d been moved around a lot from Belmarsh to Wakefield. This time it was HM Frankland, but the cells remained the same. They were suffocating with a bunkbed, sink, toilet and a twenty-two hour lockdown. On the pockmarked walls were signed messages from previous occupants. The one to his right read, “Even Jonny Cash never came here. Smally 2010.”
Spicer was whippet lean with sparse blonde hair and pale green eyes. He wore a black tracksuit, which he insisted Colon ironed everyday whether it was clean or not. “Anything I should know about on the wing?”
“No, boss.”
He looked up at Colon’s stunted reply. His skin was the colour of wet pastry. The tremors in his hand were a dead giveaway. It wasn’t soup Colon was after.
“Okay. Thanks for bringing my lunch. Tell Queenie I want to see him when you get your bird.”
Spicer had barely finished speaking before Colon was out of the door, tucking the empty bowl under his T-shirt to avoid detection from the guards. Queenie was Spicer’s right-hand man. He doled out the bird. It was too risky to have it in his own cell. Bird, or bird’s eye, was prison slang for a tiny drop of smack. He used it to control a private army of druggies, who would do anything for a fix. It’s what made him King of the Wing and afforded him his small pleasures. Why did things have to change, he wondered?
Queenie stepped into his cell, making the room feel smaller. His heavy muscle had turned to fat and his skin was busy with the blue ink of prison tattoos, including a badly drawn tiara wrapped around his pink, bald head.
“Has Dayton started his shift yet?” Spicer asked.
“Should have started five minutes ago. I was on my way to see you when Colon came in.”
“Did you pay him?”
Queenie nodded and Spicer got to his feet, stretching his arms skyward. “You’re in charge of the shanks. When we’re done, it’s up to you to get rid of them. I can’t afford to have any more time added to my sentence.”
“What about my sentence?”
Smoothing down the blankets of his bed, Spicer spoke over his shoulder. “You’re a brutal rapist and sex offender, Queenie. You don’t deserve to be released.” He turned to see the sloppy grin on Queenie’s face. “Are you sure Dayton’s alone?”
“Apparently, he insists on it.”
“The fucker’s been on my wing less than five minutes and he’s throwing his weight around already. Come on. Let’s go teach him a lesson.”
Queenie scratched at his crotch and followed him out.
The library was two cells knocked through into one. The walls were lined with shelves and filled with books donated by charities and Christian groups. Unlike the rest of Frankland, it was warm and free of damp. It was an open room, but secluded and given that it was generally run by model prisoners, the guards rarely visited. For Spicer’s purposes, it was perfect. For Queenie’s too.
Colon was already high as a kite, pacing his cell and blabbering about cross Channel ferries. Spicer stationed another of his junkies, a fat man called
Graham, outside the library as a lookout. The place was empty, except for Dayton who sat at a green baize table with his head in his hands. He didn’t look up when they entered.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Spicer asked.
Scott jumped, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. His eyes were red and puffy. He glanced over Spicer, but braced himself when he saw Queenie and the look in his eyes.
“We don’t stock gay porn so what do you want?” he asked.
Picking a book from the shelf, Spicer pretended to read the inner cover. “I’d like to say I’ve come to improve my mind, but actually it’s yours that’s in need of some education. How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to get the measure of you.”
“I don’t think you have. It takes years to earn enough brownie points to run the library. You haven’t even been sentenced and yet, here you are.”
He expected Dayton to react to the threat in his voice, but he remained seated, staring vacantly at his hands. Spicer looked at Queenie, who shrugged in response. He tossed the book onto the floor and selected another. “I guess your hard man reputation doesn’t count for much in here. You’re just a Daddy’s boy really.”
Scott raised his head slowly, his hands balling into fists. The look in his eyes was enough to force Spicer back a step. Queenie stepped forward, but he was just as wary.
“I heard about your father,” Spicer said. “Committed suicide, didn’t he? Threw himself to his death?”
He dropped his book on Scott’s table.
“Splat,” Scott said quietly, pulling it closer. On the cover was a picture of the crucifixion with the title ‘The Sacrifice of Our Lord’. He knocked it to the floor and mumbled to himself.
“What was that?” Spicer asked.
Scott cleared his throat. “Just take what you want and go.”
Taking off his tracksuit top, Spicer wrapped it around his thin waist. He nodded at Queenie, who tugged free his tracksuit bottoms, exposing his grey, dirty underwear and the growing bulge underneath.
Spicer averted his eyes. “I’m sorry about this, Scott. I thought you’d come here to be the big I am, but you don’t have it in you anymore, do you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to put something in you instead. Everything will be okay,” Queenie said.
“Actually, Queenie here as just been diagnosed with HIV so nothing’s going to be okay for you ever again,” Spicer said.
Queenie pouted and blew Scott a kiss. When Scott snarled back, Spicer saw a glimpse of the man he used to be.
“Come anyway near me and I’ll kill you both,” Scott said.
“I don’t think so. Grief is a terrible thing. Makes a man weak, but I have to send a message out to the rest of the wing.”
The shank appeared from nowhere and into Spicer’s hand. It was the signal to move and Queenie rushed behind Scott, who looked up to see a sharpened toothbrush slice the air inches from his face. He attempted to stand, but Queenie wrapped his thick arm around his neck, choking the air out of him, driving him face down on the table.
He fought, but he was no match for Queenie’s depravity. Spicer leaned in so close he could feel Dayton’s panicked breath on his face. His eyes were wide and fearful. At last, thought Spicer, he was getting the reaction he hoped for.
“You’re not going to like this, Scott. There’s probably going to be a lot of blood, but I want you to remember this is all your fault. Just like your Daddy’s death.”
Scott bucked against Queenie, finding space to rise from the table, but Queenie slammed an elbow into his lower back and he crumpled.
“That’s it, bitch,” he said. “Fight me. Make me hard.”
Spicer smiled. “If you’d been a free man, maybe you’d have stopped your father from jumping. I guess we’ll never know.”
He gave Queenie the nod and stepped outside. He hated watching the next bit, but as he joined Graham outside, a prison guard approached along the gangway. Spicer threw his shank back into the library where it slid under a shelf.
“Hello, Officer Montague,” he said loudly.
Immediately suspicious, the guard picked up his pace. He was one of the younger, newer recruits. Still green, his eyes were bright with enthusiasm. “I didn’t peg you as a book lover, Spicer.”
“You know me. Always looking to improve.”
The rattle of scraping furniture came from the library and Montague craned his neck around the open door. Shit, thought Spicer.
“Against the wall. Against the wall,” the guard shouted, pushing him in the chest. Spicer reluctantly complied while Graham made to scamper away. Montague dragged him back to a standing position. “Don’t move.”
“Hey, we came to borrow books, that’s all.”
Montague spoke rapidly into a comms unit mounted on his shoulder. “Request assistance. D wing library. Repeat. Request assistance. Code orange.”
He waded into the library, snatching his pepper spray from his belt. Spicer didn’t need to watch. He knew what happened next. Startled from his attack, Queenie would surrender. He’d be ordered to face the wall and he’d be cuffed. What happened thereafter depended on the guard. By rights, his detainee should be marched to solitary, charged and dispatched to another prison where he’d serve out his current sentence and any time added. But it all depended on the guard and rapists were the lowest of the low.
Four burly guards stampeded down the gangway. He heard Queenie scream inside the library. They squeezed through the doorway and returned moments later, carrying a semi-conscious Queenie in their arms. His eyes were bloodshot. Tears and snot streamed down his face. He gasped for breath. As he was bundled passed Spicer, he looked to him for help, but Spicer was examining his fingernails.
Montague stepped out of the library, his back a little straighter than when he entered. Spicer smiled at him. “I didn’t think you had the balls,” he said as the guard reattached the pepper spray to his belt.
“Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Me and my friend Graham were simply out taking some air. Still got his cherry, I hope.”
“If I’d been any later, this would be a very different assault charge, Spicer and I would have made sure some of it stuck to you.”
Scott loomed in the doorway, holding onto it for support.
“Are you okay, Dayton?” Montague asked. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
He shook his head. His face was paler than usual. The only colour to it was the bruising around his left eye. He was shaking and there was a rip in his tracksuit bottoms.
“How did your date go?” Spicer asked. Scott ignored him and he pulled a sympathetic face. “Never mind. There’s always next time.”
Scott leaned in to Montague. “Can I go back to my cell now, Officer?”
“No. I came here to get you. There’s a visitor waiting.”
He looked surprised and Spicer bit down on his tongue. There was a shank under the bookcase and lesson time wasn’t over yet. Dayton didn’t have to be hurt in the library. Spicer was happy to do him in his cell. He was sure Graham would take care of it for a little extra bird.
Scott avoided his hateful stare as he was led away by the guard. Spicer spat on the floor. “There’s always next time, Dayton,” he shouted. “There’s always a tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
HM Frankland was a prison in County Durham housing high security Category A and B prisoners. These men had committed the worst crimes imaginable. If they ever escaped, they were considered a danger to the public, but an exodus seemed unlikely. The prison was surrounded by thirty-foot walls topped with razor wire. Then came electrified chain link fences topped with more razor wire. Getting out was almost impossible, but breaking in was manageable.
Fairbanks adjusted his paisley tie and handed over his identification documents to a prison guard at the front entrance. He waited while the guard ran the necessary security checks, playing with the strap of his shoulder bag.
The g
uard had a cropped beard struggling over a double chin. He looked up from his computer screen. “It says you’re here on behalf of Reeceman and Co. for a Mr Scott Dayton?”
“That’s right,” Fairbanks said, nodding. “My boss is Walter Reeceman, but we call him Noodles.”
The guard returned his identification with a short smile. “Why do they call him that?”
Fairbanks’ jaw dropped. He didn’t know. It wasn’t in his research. He thought quickly. “He likes Chinese food?”
Apparently, the guard didn’t care and handed over a security pass without further comment. Fairbanks pinned it to his pressed white shirt and followed a second guard through a grey corridor, attempting not to jump every time a door slammed shut.
They reached a checkpoint where a third guard took over from the second. He looked young, but was at least thirty pounds overweight. He gestured for Fairbanks’ documentation, scrupulously examining every detail. He then searched his bag, pulling out stolen headed notepaper reading Reeceman and Co, Barristers at Law. “Could you stand on the red line please, sir?” he asked.
Fairbanks complied.
The guard ran his hands along Fairbanks’ outstretched arms and down his legs. By the time he finished, the guard was perspiring and dropped back into his seat with a grunt. “Through that door there, sir,” he said and continued with a half-eaten ham sandwich on his desk.
The metal door with a small mesh window squeaked as Fairbanks pulled it open. He stepped inside and shivered, though he didn’t know if it was from the fall in temperature or his feeling of claustrophobia. The floor was concrete and painted grey, decorated with the scuff marks of countless shoes. The walls were a washed out yellow and daubed with graffiti. It smelled of stale aftershave and body odour. A red blinking light alerted him to the security camera keeping a silent vigil. Fairbanks lowered his head.
Sitting behind a table bolted to the floor, he loosened his tie and waited for the door on the other side of the room to open.
It wasn’t long before Scott Dayton was shown inside. The young guard he knew as Montague gave him a wink and left them to it. Scott looked ruffled. His glacial eyes scanned the room and settled on Fairbanks, who met his gaze with his own blank stare.