My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (4 page)

And, actually, aside from some residual demons, why shouldn’t she be?

Fine.

Hawkins
assured herself that the clunking noises emanating from upstairs meant her father wasn’t far away, and that it was impossible for the man who’d attacked her six weeks ago to repeat his actions now. She took hold of the grip rings either side of the chair and rolled herself forwards; ignoring the discomfort this caused her armpits and chest.

She crossed the threshold into the kitchen, thankful for once that her mother’s obsession with cleanliness meant there were no obvious traces of her blood on the dark floor tiles. But that didn’t stop her feeling sick.

The room was exactly as she remembered, just tidier. Every surface was clean, and she knew without looking that the cupboards and drawers would be organized enough for use in TV advertising. She was safe.

So why was her heart racing? And her cheeks wet?

She blinked the tears away, trying to steady her breathing as she rolled herself towards the bench. Just like everything else, the kettle shone. Hawkins stared at her reflection in its mirror-finish. But even her mother’s elbow grease couldn’t shift memories. And the room was infused.

She closed her eyes, immediately opening them again for fear of inviting back the trauma lurking behind her eyelids. Her attacker’s face, his hateful stare, the knife, the
pain
. She’d lost count of the times she’d relived those final moments. Maybe it
was
too soon.

She realized she was scratching and pulled her hand
away from her chest. The stab wounds were healing, but nowhere near as fast as she’d have liked, and her nervous system was in tatters. Although that, ironically, was probably the main reason she was still here.

Get a grip.

She shifted forwards in the chair and reached out for the kettle. Her fingers made contact.

You can do this.

For an instant she was back there, standing, flicking open the lid, thrusting the boiling liquid at her assailant. Hearing him hiss.

‘I can’t find any sheets.’

Hawkins nearly dropped the kettle as she jerked round to see her father standing in the doorway.

‘Jesus, Dad.’

‘Sorry, love …’

Concern entered his expression. ‘Have you been crying?’

9

Bull renewed his grip on the scalpel, keen to maintain precision.

Where to cut next?

He glanced up at the laptop. Aside from the high-intensity lamp lighting his work, the computer screen was the only thing breaking the darkness in this small upstairs room. The image on its display was large and detailed. But it was only a guide.

He had to translate.

Bull lined up his blade and pushed the point in behind the ear, running it carefully down and along the jaw line. Over and over, each stroke lighter and more exact, reshaping his silent subject.

Satisfied, Bull put the knife down and flexed his fingers. He’d been at this all evening. His hand would probably pack up soon, but he was nearly done. Just another half-hour.

He switched his attention to the eyes, using the razor point of the knife to strip away one fragile layer at a time. Digging out the pupils with delicate care.

Then he picked away the offcuts and cleared the mess that had built up on the table beneath. Without
debris in the way, it was obvious his creation was nearly finished. Just the mouth needed work.

He ran a fingertip lightly across the scalpel’s edge.

Blunt.

Bull eased the worn blade off the handle and dropped it in the bin. He took a new one from the pack, seated it and spent another ten minutes shaving the lips and chin. Finally, he sat back, assessing his work. His skill was improving; the likeness to the photograph on the computer screen not bad at all.

He picked up the carving and placed it with the others before stepping back to survey his collection of lime wood figures – one for every life cut short.

His memorial.

Their numbers were growing.

But there were many more to come.

10

‘Twelve–four!’ Slater shouted, watching the Ping-Pong ball skip off the scruffy table and bounce erratically into the corner. ‘You fuckers see that?’

She began punching the air with both scrawny, tattooed arms, the type of celebration that might have been justified had she just won Olympic gold. There were mutters of support from the women sitting nearby, as Timpson, Slater’s younger, dumpier opponent, retrieved the ball like a weary child whose competitive parent never tired of humiliating her.

To their left, Miller and Burnett were playing a loose approximation of darts, arguing over the scores whenever one of the Velcro-ended projectiles refused to attach itself to the worn-out board. At a couple of the smaller tables, groups were hunched over games of draughts or cards. A few others sat around, chatting among themselves, or just watching their mates.

And on the periphery, Amanda Cain sat, her stare returning to the middle distance.

There was nothing new to see here. She knew the scars on every wall, every patch of dirt extending slowly outwards from the tiled corners where the cleaners’ mops didn’t quite reach. But, of her poor and limited
choices, this was still the best place to be. In fact, she spent as much time as possible in the busy recreation area, not because she had any desire for the lurid company of her fellow inmates; precisely because she
didn’t
.

Following her arrival at Holloway nearly nine months earlier, Cain had realized quickly that, in prison, the more you tried to hide, the more visible you became. Everyone went for the vagrant. If she hid in her cell, as at first she had, to repel the suffocating proximity of those crammed in around her, it was perceived either as weakness, which drew in the resident bullies, or as sensitivity: a magnet for desperados craving sympathy, affection, or both. And if it wasn’t other inmates, it would be the screws, rounding up their herd, as if they didn’t understand why someone starved of company would choose solitude in the rare intervals when they were offered a choice.

So now, whenever the opportunity arose, Cain came here: the games room on the ground floor of B Unit. She’d been around long enough now that the others knew she’d decline any offer of competition, not to mention attempts at conversation. But most of them valued an audience, too, so her idle company was endured. And while the guards were constantly in place, backed up by those passing through on journeys between various strays, they seldom intervened. In this room, Cain’s presence was obscured by its blatancy. In familiarity, she became no more significant than the paint on the walls.

Across
the room, Slater was coaxing Timpson into another game, and a moment later the tic-tac sound of a plastic ball passing from one end of a table to the other resumed. But only when the clamour suddenly died did Cain’s attention return fully to the present.

Her head didn’t move, but her eyes picked up the two new arrivals as they entered through the door in the far wall and moved purposefully across the room. Tor was first in, six feet of muscle and scar tissue, the appalling V-shaped dent in her forehead reputedly the result of being hit with a flail made from a lantern battery in a sock. Her attacker hadn’t benefited, though. That murder was the reason behind Tor’s third life sentence.

Behind her came Reedy, the sidekick: also tall, but contrastingly thin. Reedy wasn’t exactly bright, but she was as violent and cruel as Tor, with an on–off temper that nobody in possession of any sense tampered with. Cain watched a couple of cons who happened to be near the exit slide carefully out of the room.

There was a shift in the screws’ demeanour as Tor strode towards Slater, but nobody moved. If the guards jumped at every early sign of aggression, they’d never be done.

Tor reached Slater, who visibly leaned away, although her feet stayed planted. There was nowhere to go in this place, so running only made things worse.

‘Commission, bitch,’ Tor demanded. ‘Now.’

Slater frowned. ‘Sorry, boss, don’t know what you mea–’

‘Don’t
give me that shit.’ Tor grabbed Slater’s jersey, almost lifting her off the floor. ‘You sell your shitty fags on my wing, you pay for my permission. So where is it?’

Slater squirmed. ‘I ain’t …’

But she had wasted her only chance.

Without further warning, Tor’s free hand flew at Slater’s jaw. There was a dull crunch as it made contact and Slater’s legs gave way. But Tor didn’t let her drop, hauling the skinny woman on to the table, landing a second blow in the centre of her face, bursting Slater’s nose.

At the far end of the table, Timpson took a step towards the fight, an instinctive attempt to assist her friend. But Reedy saw her and blocked her path, body language alone enough to halt Timpson in her tracks.

Tor landed another crushing blow to Slater’s face.

Cain looked around for the screws, expecting them to rush in and haul Tor off her already pulped opponent. But the three guards in the corner of the games room, and another up on the first level gantry, hadn’t moved. All had their batons drawn, but their expressions suggested they were enjoying the show too much to intervene. Cain realized that survival of the fittest was being allowed to play out in front of them.

The guards were going to let them fight.

She turned back to see Tor drop an elbow in Slater’s gut, but her victim had already stopped reacting and just lay bleeding on the Ping-Pong table. Someone would have to intervene soon, or Slater might not
survive. Reedy and Timpson were mere observers now, and still the guards hadn’t moved.

Cain studied the larger woman, with her damaged skull and triple life sentence, still raining blows on her fellow inmate. If she ever got out, Tor wouldn’t stay free for long: a true boomerang prisoner.

With nothing left to lose.

Suddenly Cain was on her feet, striding between the other cons, faces around her turning in awe that anyone other than a screw would voluntarily enter the fray. Reedy saw Cain as she got within feet of the table. Her eyebrows rose, but she didn’t interfere. Behind her, Timpson looked about ready to cry. Then Tor noticed Cain standing over her.

She looked up, fist raised, her victim lolling. ‘Fuck do you want?’

Cain didn’t answer.

‘Come to save your mate? She your bitch or something?’

Still no response.

‘Fuck off.’ Tor dumped her victim and straightened, wiping the blood off her hand on to her jeans. ‘Or you’re next.’

Cain looked down at Slater. One eye was full of blood and a couple of teeth hung from her mouth by bloody threads.

Tor followed her gaze. ‘She won’t be going down on no one for a while. You sure this is worth it?’

Cain looked at the guards. They still hadn’t moved.

‘Fuck
you, then.’ Tor dropped her shoulder.

The first strike was an upper cut. It smashed into Cain’s stomach, doubling her over. She dropped to her knees, fighting for breath, just as a second heavy punch connected with her right cheek, sending a white flash across her vision. She hit the floor, head ringing, as a kick landed square in her gut, driving the oxygen from her.

She coughed, opening her eyes just enough to see Slater’s legs hanging over the edge of the table.

Still alive.

She waited for another hit, hearing nothing but the air wheezing in and out of her lungs, wondering whether it would be a head shot.

But the next blow never came.

Cain rolled on to her back, hearing loud voices, trying to focus on the blurred shapes merging above her. She realized why the attack had stopped. The screws had intervened.

She waited, swallowing blood, watching the group of guard-coloured distortions dragging the two prisoner-coloured ones away.

Then she was hauled to her feet.

11

‘Cuppa for you, love.’ Alan Hawkins pointed to the mug on the bedside cabinet as his daughter emerged, yawning, from the sheets.

Hawkins lifted her head, blinking, and peered at the steaming liquid. ‘I thought I showed you where to find the unused teabags.’

‘Cheeky madam.’ He perched on the edge of the bed. ‘How did you sleep?’

‘I’m getting there.’ She hefted herself on to an elbow, opting not to mention the cold sweats that had woken her at least three times in the night. She also resisted the urge to stretch, wincing as now familiar pain shot through her torso.

Her father half stood, visibly alarmed. ‘Blimey, that looks painful. Want your pills?’

‘No more drugs.’ Hawkins eased herself into a sitting position against the headboard. ‘You could let some light in, though.’

‘Seeing as you ask so nicely.’ He shuffled over to the window, his dodgy knee obviously playing up. ‘Isn’t a bad day out there, as it goes.’

He opened the curtains, flooding the room with bright winter sunshine. Hawkins picked up her tea and
sipped, before pulling a face that he caught, turning back.

‘Oh, love. At least take some paracetamol or something.’

‘It doesn’t hurt, Dad.’ She raised the cup. ‘This is disgusting.’

‘You’re full of gratitude this morning.’

‘Sorry, it’s early. What time did Mike leave?’

‘Oh, sevenish. He didn’t want to wake you.’

‘Quite right, too.’ She glanced at the clock. It was nine thirty on Saturday morning, which meant that Maguire, thanks to shift work’s inherent lack of compassion for normality, would be with the rest of their team, in the operations room at Hendon.

Where she should be.

‘Anyway’ – she put the cup down and began edging her legs off the bed – ‘I can’t lounge around here all day.’

Her dad smiled. ‘That’s my girl.’

Hawkins’ feet made contact with the floor. ‘So what’s on your agenda for today?’

‘I was going to pop out for a paper, but I can’t find my bloody shoes.’

She suppressed a grin. ‘Well if they don’t turn up, I think there’s a pair of Mike’s trainers under the stairs that’ll fit you.’

‘They must be here somewhere.’ He headed for the door. ‘Shout if you need me.’