Jeb’s legs swung to and fro, to and fro; frustration and pent-up energy. ‘We need to be ready for them.’
Magnus slid along his bunk, out of reach of the large feet. ‘The screws?’
‘Screws, cons, whoever comes through the door.’
‘They’ve got Tasers.’
‘So we get ready for Tasers.’
‘And if no one comes?’
The legs stopped swinging. ‘We draw straws for who eats who.’
Magnus made an almost-but-not-quite-decent living from his wit, but all he could manage was a weak, ‘Very funny.’
‘Laugh a minute, me.’
The north of England accent was more present. Magnus wondered if it signified anything. Jeb letting his guard down, or maybe trying to get Magnus to let his own guard down, so he could take charge and use him as a human Taser-shield. His mind was spiralling towards panic. As long as Jeb had lain silent and calm on his bunk there had been the possibility that this was a prison crisis, unusual but not unprecedented. That the other man was taking it seriously, more than seriously, was spooked by it, made the virus real.
Magnus asked, ‘How do you feel?’
Metal returned to the flat voice and Jeb’s legs resumed their restless rocking. ‘You sound like a woman.’
Magnus said, ‘I don’t mean emotionally. How do you feel physically?’
‘Hungry.’
‘But otherwise all right?’
‘No. Otherwise fucked off, but I’m not sick if that’s what you mean. How about you?’
‘The same.’
‘Good news for both of us then, if this virus is as bad as you say it is.’
There was a grudge of accusation in Jeb’s delivery.
‘Don’t blame the messenger.’
Jeb slid from his bunk and leaned against the cell wall. Magnus saw the height of him, shorter than he remembered, five eleven or thereabouts, but broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. Jeb smiled for the first time. His voice was soft and reasonable.
‘Best not to tell me don’t. Not if we’re going to try and get out of this together.’
The sky beyond the cell window crept to a blush-tinted grey that slid in turn to black and then back to a pink-grey dawn; another night, another day. Magnus had resolved not to think of food, but his mind kept drifting to his mother’s slow-cooked casseroles, more fragrant even than Hamza’s Italian pastas, though Hamza’s penne con salsiccia picante had been a masterpiece of bite and spice that barely left room for zabaglione. Places came uninvited into Magnus’s mind too. The beach at Skara Brae covered in the large flat stones the ancestors had heated in their fires and used to warm water. They would have roasted fish too. Magnus could almost smell grilled sea trout. His cousin Hugh had always been landed with the job of gutting their catch, while Magnus and the other boys gathered driftwood for the fire. Salmon was good, and herring coated in oatmeal or poached in milk, though he had hated it as a boy. Christ! He remembered his primary school classroom, the smell of wet coats drying on the radiators, Mrs Anderson’s stern eye and quick smiles. Hadn’t there been a Scottish prince thrown into a dungeon and so starved that he ate his own hands? Magnus held his hands up in front of his face. They were bony and unappetising, the knuckles red from clenching his fists.
‘Listen.’ Jeb’s voice was a whisper.
Magnus kept his own voice low. ‘What?’
Jeb slid from the bunk and went quietly to the door. Magnus followed him. There were footsteps on the landing. The sound was uneven and limping, but it was coming slowly closer. The terror he had been trying to keep at bay rushed at Magnus. He imagined some dreadful spindly-legged beast, distorted and unnatural, slouching towards them. Jeb gave his shoulder a shove. It was time to put their plan into action.
‘Hello!’ Magnus’s voice was rusty from lack of use. ‘Hello! Are you ill? I’m a doctor. I can help you if you let me out of here.’
The footsteps stopped. Magnus felt Jeb moving quietly in the cell behind him.
‘Hello? My name is Magnus McFall. I’m a qualified doctor.’ There was no response from the corridor, but the footsteps had not resumed. ‘I studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. I specialised in respiratory diseases before I got myself into this spot of bother.’ There was a character Magnus used in his act, a bumptious Scotsman inspired by Mr Brown his maths teacher, whose certainty in the wrongness of the world had sent him into the St Ola Hotel every afternoon before the school bell had finished its final peal. ‘Don’t be scared. I saw a lot of this kind of thing in Africa during the SARS epidemic.’
Jeb whispered, ‘Don’t overdo it.’
But Magnus was sure he could feel the limping presence listening on the other side of the door.
‘There are things I can do right now, as soon as you let me out, which will alleviate your discomfort.’
Somebody coughed. There was a sound of retching and then a faint voice said, ‘Prove you’re a doctor.’
Magnus had feared the challenge, but he put a smile into his voice. ‘I can’t very well do that from behind a closed door. Let me out and I’ll prove it.’
There was a pause while the voice stopped to consider and then it said, ‘Tell me something.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘The kind of thing a doctor would know.’
‘Fucking hell.’ Jeb’s voice was a low warning.
Magnus realised that if he failed, his cellmate would blame him. He thought of Pete’s sickness, the pains that had racked him.
‘I know your symptoms and what they signify. Your body is trying to expel the virus, hence your vomiting, diarrhoea and severe sweating. Unfortunately this kind of physical panic makes your body rather indiscriminate, and so it’s also expelling a lot of useful and necessary stuff along with the bad. That’s why, instead of feeling cleansed by the purges, you are shivery and disorientated. My first job will be to replace lost nutrients; thereby stabilising your condition; the next will be to—’
There was a sound of metal on metal as the person on the other side of the door tried to insert their key into the keyhole. It clattered to the floor and Jeb swore softly. ‘Jesus Christ.’
Magnus held a hand up in the air, warning him to keep quiet.
‘Just take it slowly,’ he coaxed. ‘Lack of co-ordination is a classic symptom, but you’ll feel better soon.’ At last the key was in the lock. ‘You’re doing well,’ Magnus said. The key turned. Jeb tensed. The door pushed inward. Magnus stepped out of the way, just like they had rehearsed. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he said and his voice wavered.
The screw’s face might once have been a rich copper, now it was grey. He was clutching a Taser, but his eyes were unfocused, his hands trembling.
Magnus said, ‘I don’t think you need to—’
But Jeb sprang into his part of the routine. He raised the small, flat-screen TV in his hands and dashed it against the screw’s face. The man slammed against the cell wall and crumpled to the ground. The Taser flew from his hand, rattled against the corner of the bunk and slid across the floor. Jeb pulled his foot into a kick.
Magnus grabbed hold of his arm. ‘He’s finished.’
Jeb’s biceps were bunched hard, ready for action. He pulled himself free and for a moment Magnus thought he was going to follow through, but then Jeb shook his head, like a man trying to shake himself awake and said, ‘Get his keys.’
Jeb’s blow had stunned the screw and there was a gash on his forehead where the corner of the television had met its mark, but neither of these should have pinned him, gasping for air, on the floor. Magnus knelt down beside him.
‘I’m sorry, pal. We were worried no one was going to come and let us out.’
The keys were on a chain attached to the screw’s belt. Magnus stiffened, trying to keep his face as far from the other man’s as possible, and pressed his hand into the softness of the screw’s belly, trying to find whatever held them there. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘We didn’t know what else to do.’