by Mark Dawson
Milton took it and held it in his hand, the brush in his palm. It was just long enough.
“Can I borrow your lighter, too?”
Milton rolled over so that he was facing the wall and, with Isko keeping watch, he took the lighter and thumbed flame. He used the fire to soften the plastic, waiting until it was blackened and soft. Once he was happy with it, he started to rub the edges back and forward against the abrasive surface of the concrete wall. He worked at it for an hour, turning the brush halfway through so that he could concentrate on the opposite side. He scrubbed, peeling away the plastic and then heating it again so that it stayed soft. By the time he was done, he had rubbed away enough of the plastic so that the shaft ended in a point. Milton touched the end. It was sharp. It was a poor substitute for a metal shank, but it was the best he could do on short notice. The plastic was easy to grip; he would have liked some duct tape to roll around it so that he had something more substantial to grip onto, but he doubted that would be possible.
He would make do with what he had.
48
THE GUARDS unlocked the cell doors in the afternoon so that the inmates could have their exercise. Milton took the sharpened toothbrush and slid it inside his trousers, the point prodding his thigh as he followed Isko down the stairs and out into the yard.
“Be careful,” the old man said as they started to stroll around the same circuit as before.
“Stay away from me,” Milton warned. “You don’t want to get caught up in this.”
“I know what you’re doing. It’s dangerous.”
“I have to do something. You said so yourself.”
“They might beat you in solitary, too.”
“They might. But Tiny is definitely going to keep working me over if I stay where I am. It’s worth trying. What do I have to lose?”
Milton tensed as he saw a group of four inmates walking out to intercept them. He reached down and plucked out the toothbrush, sliding it up his arm so that the handle was pressed against the inside of his wrist and the sharp point rested against his cupped fingers. The men wouldn’t be able to see it until he wanted them to and, by then, it would be too late for them.
“Go on,” Milton said. “Keep walking.”
“Good luck, Smith.”
Isko continued on.
Milton stopped. The men were closing in. He recognised them: two of them had been in the group that had attacked him the first day in the canteen, and the remaining pair had been part of the group who had beaten him in his cell before delivering him to de Lacey. Beyond them, Milton saw a pair of guards with shotguns waiting by the entrance to the exercise yard. There were another ten guards scattered around the periphery of the space, and two watchtowers loomed at either end.
“You,” the nearest man said. “You come with us.”
“Again?”
“Come.”
“Not today, lads. Tell Tiny I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“We don’t ask,” the man said. He took a pace ahead, stepping in front of Milton, less than an arm’s length away. “We tell you. You come—”
Milton dropped the shank into his hand and slashed out with it. He backhanded him with an upward diagonal, the point slicing through the man’s cheek and continuing up across his eye and up his forehead. He shrieked with pain, his hands automatically flying up to his face.
He wasn’t a threat any longer; Milton ignored him and turned to the next man. Milton’s arm was still raised from the first swipe, and he brought it back down and across in a forehand hack that found the side of the man’s jaw and then tracked down across the soft flesh of his throat.
It was a deep incision, and bright red arterial blood frothed out.
The man fell to his knees as Milton pivoted. The third and fourth men were frozen to the spot, agog at the sudden detonation of brutal violence.
Milton closed the distance to the nearest inmate with two quick steps and flashed the blade across his face. The man managed to raise his hands, and the point of the shank sliced across both outward-facing palms.
The fourth man backed away.
There came the unmistakable boom as a shotgun was discharged.
He heard the sound of a raised voice. He couldn’t translate the Filipino, but the meaning was clear.
He glanced to his right. One of the guards at the gate had fired into the air, and his partner was coming forward with his own shotgun aimed squarely at Milton.
He dropped to his knees and raised his hands.
“Lie down!” they bellowed.
He did, covering his head with his arms.
He heard the sound of the guards’ boots in the sand as they ran across to him. He tensed, anticipating that he was going to take another beating, and they didn’t disappoint him. They jammed the butts of their shotguns down onto his torso, working up his shoulders to his folded arms. He couldn’t protect all of his head, and they jabbed down with the shotguns and struck him with kicks and punches, so many of them that he dimly assumed that others had come over to join in.
He felt consciousness retreating and, once more, the familiar curtain of blackness twitched at the edges of his vision. The blackness grew pregnant and swollen and rushed over him, sweeping him away again.
49
ALEX HICKS was having dinner with his family when his telephone rang.
They were celebrating. The results of Rachel’s last PET scan had been delivered that morning and, after another round of chemotherapy, the cancer was officially in remission. They had gone out to the Pizza Hut in the centre of Cambridge, and Hicks had somehow been cajoled by his boys to eat the hottest pizza on the menu. They had conspired with the waiter to add extra chili to the topping and, loath as he was to admit it, he was struggling. He grimaced as he started on the penultimate slice, aware that a light sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead. His sons found his discomfort hilarious, and Rachel smiled to see them so happy. It made Hicks happy, too. It wasn’t so long ago that the diagnosis had seemed like a death sentence.
His phone was in the pocket of his jeans and he felt it buzz for fifteen seconds before it stopped. There was a pause and then the phone buzzed again to indicate that a voicemail had been left. Not many people besides his family had his number, and it rarely rang. He finished the slice, exaggerating the heat of the chili for another cheap laugh, and then said he was going to the bathroom to run the cold tap directly into his mouth.
He took an empty cubicle, shut the door, took out his phone and navigated to his missed calls. He didn’t recognise the number. It wasn’t that it was unfamiliar to him, although that was true; he didn’t even recognise the country code.
He went to voicemail, set it to play the last message and put it to his ear.
“Hello.” Hicks didn’t recognise the voice. It was a woman, with an accent that he couldn’t place. “This is a message for Mr. Hicks. Mr. Alex Hicks. My name is Josie Hernandez and I am calling from the Philippines on behalf of John Milton. He is in trouble and he asked me to contact you. It is urgent. Please call me back.”
The woman’s English was halting, the accent heavy and difficult to decipher. She recited the same phone number that Hicks’s phone had recorded and then ended the call.
He stared at the screen for a moment as he absently wondered what to do.
It didn’t take long.
He tapped the number and waited for the call to connect.
“Hello?”
“You left a message for me.”
“Mr. Hicks?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for returning my call.”
“You know Milton?”
“A little.”
“You said he was in trouble?”
“He has been arrested for murder. He is in prison, waiting for his trial.”
“And what does that have to do with you?”
“I am a police officer in Manila. I arrested him, but now I do not believe he did what it is said that he did.”
Hicks
lowered the lid of the toilet and sat down. It was only thanks to the money that Milton had provided that he and Rachel had been able to fly to America for the experimental treatment that had saved her life. He had helped him with a small matter since then, but it did not extinguish the debt that he owed. Milton would not have called if it wasn’t necessary. Hicks believed the woman: the fact that she had his number was evidence that Milton was involved and proof that he was in trouble.
“I can’t talk now,” he said. “Can I call you in an hour?”
“Yes. I will wait to speak to you. Please, do not forget. It is urgent.”
He ended the call and went back out to finish dinner. The kids had been waiting to see the new Avengers movie for a week, and he and Rachel had promised to take them. The boys were playing with their action figures in anticipation of the film.
“Is everything all right?” Rachel asked him quietly.
“I had a phone call,” he said.
“Alex,” she said with a sigh, “not now. We’re having dinner.”
“It was about Milton. I think he’s in trouble.”
Rachel knew that Milton had provided the money that had funded the treatment. Her exasperation evaporated. “What kind of trouble?”
The children were distracted, but Hicks kept his voice low. “He’s in the Philippines. He’s been arrested. For murder. The call was from a policewoman. She said that Milton needs my help.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I said I’d call back this evening.”
“The Philippines? Are you going to have to go there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Rachel was patient, and she knew that they owed Milton everything. “If you have to, you have to. Are you going to miss the film?”
“I’ve got to call her back.”
She nodded to their children. “They’ll be disappointed.”
“I know. She said it was urgent.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll take them. Just promise you’ll keep me in the loop.”
“Of course,” he said.
He kissed her on the cheek, told his boys that he would take them to see the film for a second time, and then went to find a taxi to take him home.
50
MILTON AWOKE. It felt as if he had been drugged. He could hear the sound of voices, but they were a distance away from him and he was too groggy to understand them. He waited until he came around a little more. The voices were speaking in Filipino. Raucous laughter punctuated the conversations. He couldn’t understand a word of what was being said.
He was lying on a hard surface. No bedroll this time. His body ached and his head throbbed. He opened his eyes and wished that he hadn’t. It seemed to trigger a fresh wave of pain, a surge that pulsed from his head and all the way up and down his body. He felt nauseous and weak.
He was in a cell. It wasn’t the one that he had shared with Isko. There was no natural light and, as he tilted his head as far as he could without intensifying the pounding in his skull, he confirmed that there were no windows. The walls, floor and ceiling were all fashioned from slabs of bare concrete. The only way in and out of the cell was a metal door with a blocked-off slit at head height. The light was from a single fixture overhead. Milton would have preferred it to be dark, but it was not; the light was bright and merciless.
He was in solitary confinement. That, at least, was what he had banked upon. He remembered de Lacey’s four stooges ready to haul him out of the prison yard so that Tiny could beat him again. He knew that he had hurt three of them; it was possible that he might even have killed the man he had slashed across the throat. The guards had subdued him, beaten him until he was unconscious and then brought him here.
That was good. It was what he had wanted. He had been battered yet again, but he hoped that it would be more difficult for de Lacey to reach him here.
He tried to work out what time it was, but that was impossible. He usually had an instinctive feel for day or night, but not now. He would make it a priority to find out the time. He had been kept in solitary before, and having a rough idea of the time was a crucial part of hanging onto sanity. The passing of hours and days was a constant around which he could balance out the loss of his liberty.
He heard the sound of footsteps. He gingerly rolled over and tried to sit. His muscles had locked up, and the effort of raising himself up was excruciating. He pushed himself to a sitting position as the slot in the door scraped open.
“You are awake,” a man’s voice said.
“What time is it?”
“That is unimportant. You will stay here now.”
“Where am I?”
The man didn’t answer. “You killed another inmate. Killed one and badly hurt two others. You will be kept here for your own safety until you can be tried. After that…” The man let the words peter out. “Well,” he began again, “after that, you will return to the main prison and I doubt you will last very long. But we must keep you safe until your sentence is passed.”
“Water,” Milton said. “I need a drink.”
“Later.”
The slide scraped back again and Milton heard the footsteps retreating.
It was progress, he told himself. It was what he had wanted.
So why didn’t he feel any more optimistic?
Part III
51
HICKS PUSHED up the blind and looked out of the porthole window. The 747 was on its final approach and he could see the lush green canopy of trees as they descended over a forest and then the sprawl of metropolitan Manila ahead.
He had purchased a ticket to the Philippines last night. He knew that Rachel was not pleased to see him go, but he explained that he couldn’t ignore Milton and she had told him that she understood. He had been a soldier for many years, and during that time there had been months that he had been forced to spend away from his family. They had hoped that those days were behind them, but this was something that could not be ignored.
Hicks told her that he expected that this would be only a brief absence. She told him to hurry home.
He had driven to Heathrow and caught the overnight Philippine Airlines flight. It was scheduled to take just under fourteen hours, and he had watched a film with his dinner and then slept.
He watched through the window as the jet descended. There was a seemingly long moment as the jumbo slowly navigated the final few feet to the ground, the hangars rushing by in a blur, and then the wheels bumped and the rubber squealed and the plane slowed.
Hicks looked out at the terminal bathed in a brilliant bright afternoon sunlight that promised a hot day and found himself wondering what his stay would bring.
HICKS MADE his way through immigration into the arrivals hall. He had arranged to meet the woman here, but, as he looked into the sea of expectant faces, he realised that he had no idea what she looked like. He had her cellphone number and was about to call it when he noticed a young woman working her way to the barrier. She was holding a piece of paper with his name scrawled across it.
He raised his hand and, as she acknowledged him, they both set off to meet at the end of the barrier.
“Mr. Hicks?” the woman said.
She was wearing a police uniform: a dark blue skirt with a lighter blue shirt. The shirt was decorated with the badge of the Manila Metropolitan Police, there was rank insignia on the shoulder, a ribbon above her right breast that noted her citations and a nameplate that identified her as Officer Hernandez. She wore a pistol belt with a holstered Glock.
“That’s me,” he said.
“I’m Hernandez,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.”
“How was your flight?”
“Long.”
She led the way out of the terminal building. The early afternoon heat washed over him.
“Hot, yes?”
“You could say that.”
“It’ll get hotter. I’m afraid the air conditioning in my car doesn’t work very well, either. And we hav
e a long drive ahead of us.”
She led the way across the road to a multi-storey parking lot.
“Where are we going?” Hicks asked her.
“To prison,” she said. “We need to see your friend.”
52
HERNANDEZ DROVE them to the south. Her car was a bit of a wreck; the transmission sounded as if it was on its last legs and the air conditioning was shot. The foot well was littered with trash: empty cans and paper coffee cups, newspapers, empty sandwich wrappers and fast-food packaging, a plastic carrier bag. Hicks swept it aside with his foot.
“Sorry about that,” she said, nodding down at the detritus.
“How long have you been in the police?” he asked.
“Long enough.”
“How is it?”
She shrugged. “It was better before.”
“Before what?”
“The president. There’s a lot of violence now that wasn’t here before. A lot of mess for us to clear up.”
They had spoken on the telephone for fifteen minutes yesterday, but now she took the opportunity to take him through everything that had happened to Milton since he had arrived in Manila. She explained what she had found at the hotel room on the morning before Independence Day, and the process by which she had peeled away the layers of lies and deceit until she was convinced that Milton had been framed.
“You didn’t say why he agreed to come out here,” Hicks said.
“The woman said that he was the father of her son.”
Hicks had never heard Milton speak of children before. “And is he?”
“I don’t know.”
They cleared the city and she was able to pick up speed.
“How do you know him?” she asked.
“What has he told you?”
“That he worked in intelligence. And that he was a soldier before then. And that you have a similar background.”