Bill eased up as Inspector Taylor straightened his tie.
“What are we waiting for?” he said. “To the courthouse!”
He made it sound as if he came up with the idea himself. He led them out the door.
45
Inspector Taylor was meant to lead them to the courthouse but was too out of shape to be the pacesetter. Katie and Bill pushed ahead as Inspector Taylor slowed to a crawl, and then a stop. He braced himself on his knees and waved a hand. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”
“How are you doing there, chum?” Aaron pulled up alongside him and dragged him forward by the arm.
Inspector Taylor struggled for breath. “Not… good.”
“I was out of shape too,” Daryl said. “But you know how I got better?”
“You slowed down, stopped, and gathered your breath?” Inspector Taylor said hopefully.
“I just kept going. “Through the pain, through the suffering, through the sheer agony. Just keep going.”
Inspector Taylor looked like he wanted to cry. He let Aaron and Darryl half carry, half push him along the street.
Katie and Bill ran up the steps into the courthouse. Katie stopped at the steps again and checked the building’s layout. This time, she didn’t approach the front desk.
A prim and proper black lady in a smart suit stood up. “Can I help you?”
“No thanks,” Katie said. “I think we can find the way.”
She and Bill took off up the steps, following the signs pointing out the judges’ chambers.
The prim lady waved to a security guard. “Stop them!”
The security guard looked up from reading an old newspaper and instinctively reached for his radio. Of course, it wasn’t working, so he took off up the steps, chasing them. “Hey! Hey you!”
Katie and her grandfather sprinted down a long corridor. Judges’ chambers ahead, the sign said. They marched down it, each peering in a different direction. The rooms were empty, decorated with heavy tomes of leather bound books. A lawyer’s paradise.
“Up there,” Bill said.
They pegged it down the corridor, hung a left, and reached a series of doors. On each of was a plaque with a judge’s name written on it.
Judge Seymour. Judge Clarence. Judge Hampton.
“This one.” Bill barrelled into the corresponding door and knocked it open with his shoulder. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but this is an emergency–”
He froze and took in the scene before him.
A gorgeously appointed room, bedecked with limited edition books. Behind an opulent shiny desk was a man Katie had never met before. His full white beard looked out of place on his skinny frame. He was in the middle of handing a piece of paper to a man Katie was growing to know very well.
Preston accepted the document with a grin directed at Katie and Bill. He removed his hat and bowed, sweeping it around regally. “Pleasure doing business with you, judge. As always, the Thornhills thank you for your kind service.”
He folded the piece of paper up and tucked it in his pocket. He placed the hat back on his head and approached the door.
Bill met him before he reached it. “Don’t do this. Let’s work together. We can do this if we work as a team.”
“Why would a winning team ever accept working with a losing one?” Preston tapped Bill on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, my friend. You lose this time.”
He nodded respectfully and left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
“So, you’re the ones causing all the trouble in my town,” Judge Hampton said.
He leaned backwards in his chair and then rocked forward, easing himself up onto his feet. He used a black walking cane. The metal tip made a harsh clack clack clack noise on the parquet floor as he crossed to them.
“Let’s get a good look at you,” Judge Hampton said. “I’ve always been a good judge of character… if you’ll pardon the pun. And there’s no reason you should.”
He raised his watery blue eyes at Bill. “An old face, aged and haggard. Not a stranger to trouble and strife. And yet, a face I recognise. A face from my younger years.”
He blinked at Bill and one corner of his mouth curled upwards into a half-smile. The result of a stroke, Katie thought. He extended his shaking arms and shook Bill’s hand. “I wonder, are your wits as quick as your hands?”
The twinkle in Bill’s eyes caught Katie off guard.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to leave pretty sharpish,” Judge Hampton said. “But indulge me for a moment. I wish to get a closer look at this young lady beside you.”
He leaned down with an audible groan. His joints clicked as they struggled beneath the strain. He peered into Katie’s eyes, and his, yellowed around the edges, glinted with the same playfulness as Bill’s just a moment ago.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I see more than a little of the Ghost in you, girl. I only hope I’m not around when I have to see what you do to my town. But, if it’s anything like your grandfather here, I suppose things will work out for the best in the end.”
Bill grabbed Katie by the hand. “We have to get going.”
“I thought we were supposed to get permission to get in the prison?” Katie said.
“Oh, I think your grandfather has already seen to that,” the judge said with a grin. “Don’t let me catch you doing that in my courthouse ever again, young man.”
The old man managed to stand on his own two feet as he waved his cane at them and they ran from his office.
“Young man?” Katie said. How old did a man have to be to call her grandfather a young man?
Bill hustled into the corridor just as the security guard puffed into the hallway, a large sweat patch growing from the middle of his chest. He waved an arm and weakly shouted: “Stop!” His voice came out a hoarse gruff wheeze.
The fugitives turned and ran.
“Cup of tea, Barry?” Judge Hampton said.
Barry the security guard looked back in the direction Katie and Bill had gone, shrugged, and stumbled into Judge Hampton’s office.
Katie tore her arm free from her grandfather’s grip. “Okay, I’m confused. I thought we came here to get permission to enter the prison?”
“We already have it,” Bill said.
“What do you mean?” Katie said.
But she got no further explanation.
They came out of the courthouse and swung into their saddles. By now, Inspector Taylor had only just managed to make it to the courthouse.
“Well?” Aaron said. “How did we do?”
“I’m not sure,” Katie said honestly.
“Onto the prison.” Bill yanked the horse’s head and heeled it down the street.
“You mean to say I didn’t need to run all this way?” Inspector Taylor said.
Aaron heeled his steed down the street. “Sorry, pal. Sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
“Consider it a part of your daily exercise regime,” Darryl said with a grin.
Every breath Inspector Taylor gasped felt like it might be his last. He slid down the wall to his backside. A passing man dropped a pound coin in his lap.
46
Vincent was thoroughly lathered by the time they reached the prison. If Katie pushed him any harder there would be no other way for it to end but a one-way ticket to the knacker’s yard.
Bill climbed off his nag and handed the reins to Darryl. “I want you to walk the horses to the back of the prison. Walk, don’t run. The poor creatures have run hard enough already.”
“Now what are we supposed to do?” Katie said. “How do we get inside? Climb the walls?”
“Nothing quite so drastic,” Bill said.
He approached a prison officer on the other side of the prison fence. “Entrance papers, please.”
Bill reached into his pocket and withdrew a document neatly folded into three parts. Katie frowned, unsure where he’d gotten it from. Bill unfolded it and handed it through the small hole in the fence. Bill read the office
r’s nametag. “Here you are, Officer Peter.”
“Call me Peter.” Peter read the first line, looked up at Bill, then bent down to read the full letter. “Judge Hampton gave you this?”
“He did indeed,” Bill said.
“All right,” Peter said. “Everything appears to be in order.”
He unlocked the gate and pulled it open. The moment they were inside, he shut it again and attached the lock.
“Truth be told, we’ll be pleased to see him go,” Peter said. “He’s a bad influence on the other prisoners.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bill said.
“You should be.” Peter grinned. “Now he’s your responsibility.”
Katie sidled up to Bill. “Fastest hands, huh?”
“Fastest this town has ever seen.”
Katie hadn’t seen it, but he must have lifted the papers from Preston’s pocket. When he realised he no longer had it on him, Preston was going to blow a gasket.
That thought alone made Katie grin.
“What are you smiling about?” Aaron said.
“My grandfather,” Katie said. “Sometimes he can surprise you.”
Aaron smiled back. “He’s not the only one.”
Katie felt a flutter at the roof of her stomach. The way the light streamed across the exercise yard and his face brought out his chestnut brown eyes and square chin. A prickling sensation pinched her lips – a memory of the kiss they shared what felt like a lifetime ago. A hot blush came over her, rising up her neck and across her face. She looked away, hoping he hadn’t seen it. When she looked back, she was mildly disappointed it wasn’t looking at her but at the empty cells on either side. Then she saw the reason for his turning away from her. Rising up his neck and across his cheeks, a hot flush that matched her own.
Katie grinned.
“You’ve got a lot of empty real estate here,” Bill said.
“It’s no bad thing,” Peter said. “Well, I mean it’s better if the prisoners were here but we never had enough personnel to watch over them in the first place. And when the power cut out, well, the job was impossible.”
He took them down two flights of stairs. The deeper they went into the facility, the more personnel they saw. They all carried weapons. When you had the most dangerous criminals in the whole country in a single cell block, you tended to take extra precautions.
Grunts issues from a cell concealed in shadow. Katie ensured to keep as far from either side as possible. Through the bars, arms reached through and waved at her.
“Want to keep me company, hot stuff?” a gravelly voice said.
“After she’s done with you, she can come take care of me,” another voice said.
“All right, that’s enough,” Peter bellowed.
Evidently, it wasn’t enough as the further they went, the worse it got, until Aaron and Bill took position on either side of her. Katie tried to ignore the voices and catcalls and walked with her head held high.
“Here, slutty slutty slut,” another voice said.
“Do you think she does anal? She looks like she does.”
“I haven’t had a pussy that fresh in years!”
Katie let the comments run over her like water. There was nothing else she could do.
Finally, they came to the lowest floor in the whole facility. The isolation cells. There were just three of them, and they were all silent. Peter led them to the one in the middle.
“He has a cell up there,” he said. “But he prefers the isolation cells. It makes them feel more special.”
He slid the slot down, peered inside, and checked to make sure the prisoner was far enough away from the door so he couldn’t attack.
“You’ve got visitors today, Quentin,” he said. “They’re here to take you out of here.”
Katie sensed a slight shiver in the prison officer’s voice. Just how bad was this man to be locked up the way he was?
Peter held the latch and made eye contact with the others. “Ready? Because when you think you are, that’s exactly when you’re not.”
He opened the door, and there, standing in the corner of the room, turning as if on a turnstile, was Quentin Morse.
47
During her long walk to the bowels of the prison and seeing the lesser prisoners they walked past, an image flowered in her mind of what Quentin Morse would look like.
He would be big and surly, towering above them, and yet although he was trapped inside a single room most of the time, he would somehow be in good, trim shape. He would have piercing eyes and demand the attention of every eye in the room.
He would be unstoppable.
But the man she saw in that cramped cell was none of those things. He shuffled forward on aching feet. He kept his eyes facing the floor at all times. His bushy beard was just about the only part of him that looked as she imagined it would. But that too was scraggly and streaked with grey.
“You have visitors today, Quentin,” Peter repeated. He rested his hand on his baton, prepared to whip it out and beat the poor man down if he moved.
“We’ve come to take you out of here,” Bill said.
Quentin looked up, his eyes not quite meeting theirs. He opened his mouth, revealing a set of bent, broken, and rotting teeth. He wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come.
“I don’t understand,” Katie said. “Why are you so afraid of him?”
“Stories, mostly,” Peter said. “Myths. The kind of things that keep prison officers awake at night. Some of it might be true, most of it probably isn’t. But still, you always hear the stories.”
He was no longer the man they first sent there. His long tenure inside the solitary cells had seen to that.
“It’s time to leave,” Katie said.
Quentin nodded and shuffled forward.
“Hold up there, partner,” Peter said. “You know the drill.”
Quentin moved slowly and dropped to his knees. He put his hands behind his back.
Peter handed Bill two sets of restraints. “You apply them. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
They might as well restrain a kitten. Bill put the restraints on the man. Quentin didn’t so much as attempt to escape. Bill eased him up onto his feet and led him toward the door.
Boom.
The room shook.
Katie almost lost her feet, bracing herself on the wall. Bill used the momentum to push forward and rush through the doorway. He checked either direction.
“What’s going on?” Peter said.
“Sounded like an explosion,” Katie said. “Can you see anything?”
“Nothing down in the cells,” Bill said. “It must have happened above us.”
“Who do you think it is?” Katie said.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Aaron said. “It’s the Wedges. They don’t have the kind of political sway to get the documents like the Thornhills can. They have to use brute force.”
“Come on.” Bill grabbed Quentin by his wrist restraints and led him out the door and along the corridor. “Let’s get you out of here.”
They ran along the hall, the jeering remarks quieter now, as the prisoners listened to yet more explosions above their heads.
Boom. Boom.
The lights shuddered, blinked, and then came back on again. Were they trying to turn the power off? Were they trying to disable the generators as the Chelsea Smile gang had? Or were they simply trying to knock a hole through the wall and grab Morse that way?
They ran up the metal stairs, their footsteps clanging and echoing as they ascended. They reached the top, now on ground level. From here, they could run straight out to the front entrance, but that wasn’t where their horses were located. They were around back, where Bill had told Darryl to take them.
“Take us to the back entrance,” Bill said.
“I’m supposed to take you out the front,” Peter said.
Bill grabbed him by the front of his shirt with his free hand. “Back entrance. Now.”
Another explosio
n rocked the prison to its very foundations. Somewhere, something fell and collapsed. It sounded like a wall.
A cloud of dust swirled about their heads and descended like a curtain, turning the dying sunlight into a shield. It was difficult to make out much in the darkness.
“This way,” Peter said.
The worst of the dust came from directly ahead. They coughed and sputtered and draped cloth from their t-shirts over their mouth and nose. The guard knew the prison better than any of the others, so they followed him. He took them on an angle perpendicular to heading straight, and then up another set of stairs, which took them above the worst of the dust cloud. The air was cleaner and fresher up there.
Prisoners snorted and sneezed in their cells, caught in the maelstrom but unable to escape.
“Help me!” they shouted.
But even opening their mouths that much, they coughed in painful rattling fits.
Aaron took Katie by the hand and held on tight.
She didn’t shiver or pull back from his touch. They were running for their lives, she thought. Any touch that happened now was nothing remotely romantic. She wrapped her fingers through his, interlocking them.
They blitzed down the corridor until they came to a locked door.
“Open up.” Peter banged on the door with the flat of his palm. “I know you can hear me, you arsehole. Open up now. I know you’re not supposed to let people out when the alarm’s blaring, but this is what they call a special circumstance.”
He waited for a response but none came.
“The people responsible for the break-in are trying to get hold of the prisoner I’ve got with me right now. It’s Quentin Morse.”
A pause before the door shunted open and a hand reached through the gap. “Paperwork.”
“This is no time for paperwork!” Katie said.
Peter handed the document over. “There is always time for paperwork in a prison, lady.”
Cut Off (Book 3): Cut Loose Page 16