‘I don’t look anything like him,’ Magnus said.
‘Just flash it and only if you need to.’ Jeb pulled on a beige jacket, shoved the Taser into one of its pockets and ran a comb he had found through his hair. ‘Tidy yourself up.’ He tossed the comb to Magnus.
Magnus glanced in a small mirror hung on the inside of one of the lockers. His hair was greasy, his chin covered in stubble too long to be designer, but too short to be called a beard. The bruises on his face were shifting to yellow, but the graze on his cheek had scabbed and it was obvious that his eye had recently been blacked.
‘Ready?’
Jeb shoved an NYPD baseball cap on his head. His beard was slightly ragged, but the civilian clothes he had chosen fitted well and he might easily be mistaken for an off-duty prison officer.
‘You look like a screw.’
‘Good, that’s what I was aiming for.’ Jeb grinned. ‘I’m not sure what you look like, but it’ll have to do.’
The corridors up ahead echoed with the rumble of male voices. They passed a splash of blood blooming head-height on a wall, red and vital against the whitewash. Their eyes met, but neither of them said anything. Magnus wished he had the weight of a Taser in his pocket.
‘Anyone who’s got out will come this way,’ Jeb whispered. ‘So sooner or later we’re going to meet someone. If anything kicks off, go in hard.’ Magnus wanted to protest that he did not know how to ‘go in hard’, but he nodded. Jeb must have seen the fear on his face because he added, ‘Fight dirty and don’t hold back.’
Magnus’s father had tried to teach him how to fight, shouting instructions while Magnus threw punches into a grain sack, left, right, left, right, right, right, right, but Magnus did not have the dexterity required of a good featherweight and he lacked the power to be a heavyweight.
‘It’s your mouth that gets you into trouble,’ his dad had finally said. ‘Let’s hope it learns how to get you out of it too.’
They met their first prisoners in the next stretch of corridor. There were two of them, both still dressed in green prison-issue tracksuits and trainers. Magnus detected a glimmer of sweat on the younger of the pair which spoke of the virus. That was who he would go for if it came to a fight, he decided, the under-fed youth whose hands were trembling. The decision prompted a familiar jolt of shame.
‘All right, lads?’ Jeb’s voice was bold and confident.
The men froze and the boy Magnus had marked as his target muttered, ‘Shit.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re not screws.’ Jeb took off his baseball cap and rubbed a hand through his suede head. ‘Just treated ourselves to a couple of going-away outfits. Talking about going away, you’re going the wrong way, aren’t you?’
‘Depends whether you want to get your head kicked in or not,’ the elder of the duo said. He was a man somewhere beyond his mid-forties who looked like he knew what it was to take a kicking. The man’s face was pitted with old scars that suggested a flight through a car windscreen or unexpected congress with a plate-glass window.
‘Trouble up ahead?’
‘You could say that.’ The man’s voice was heavy with resentment. ‘A reception committee checking who’s fit for the outside.’
‘Too scared to go outside themselves, if you ask me.’ The boy hugged his ribs, as if he were cold and trying to stop himself from shivering. ‘They said I was sick. No one sick gets to leave.’ His voice wavered, but he added bravely, ‘I heard on the news that they’re sending the army in anyway. That’ll fix those cunts. The army have the best doctors too. They’ll sort us out.’
‘What about you?’ Jeb asked the older man. ‘You look well enough.’
‘I didn’t want to leave Jack here.’ The boy was taller than him, but the scarred man reached up and put an arm around the youth’s thin shoulders. ‘Him and me’s been mates a long time. He needs looking after, specially if he’s ill.’
Jeb nodded as if he understood. His expression was neutral, but he stood stolid in the middle of the corridor, blocking the men’s progress.
‘Anything else we need to know?’
The man shrugged. ‘They’ve got the prison records up on computer and they’re checking what people are in for. They say they want to stop any nonces from getting out.’
Magnus snapped, ‘Why don’t they just mind their own fucking business?’
The older man gave him a shrewd look, but he said, ‘The lad here’s right. They’re long-termers, big men inside, nothing on the outside. I guess they like being big men.’
Jeb said, ‘We’re both in for intent to supply, you know the sketch. Think they’ll have any objection to that?’
‘I don’t suppose so.’ The older man didn’t sound convinced. ‘Not unless your face doesn’t fit.’
Jeb nodded again. ‘Yes, there’s always that.’
The young boy started to cough. The older man rubbed his back, but the boy’s coughing increased, catching in whoops at the back of his throat. Magnus took a step backward, but Jeb held his ground. It seemed that all the air in the boy’s body was being expelled, but then he bent forward and was sick against the wall. He crouched over his vomit, gasping for breath.
His companion put an arm around him. ‘It’s all right, Jack, you’re going to be fine.’
‘Piss off, you old poof. Can’t you even keep your hands off me when I’m bloody dying?’
The man threw Jeb and Magnus an apologetic look. ‘I’d like to find him somewhere comfy, where he could have a lie-down.’ He gave them a sad half-smile, asking for permission to move on.
Jeb stepped to one side. ‘Good luck.’
‘Yeah, same to you.’
Jeb waited until the men were further down the corridor and then he asked, ‘How many are in this reception committee?’
‘A few.’
Magnus would have liked to have pinned the man down on exactly how many a few were, but the answer seemed to satisfy Jeb. He said, ‘Are they armed?’
‘Tasered up to the eyeballs, mate, wired too. That’s why we’re planning on bunking down and making the best of things. Prisoners make brutal jailers.’
Eleven
‘The boy said the army were coming.’ Magnus was crouched next to Jeb in a corner of an intersection in the long, white corridors that were a feature of the admissions block.
Jeb hissed, ‘Ever been in army nick?’
‘No, have you?’
A stretch of empty hallway loomed before and behind them. They had not seen anyone since encountering the two retreating prisoners, but a rumble of male voices reverberated through the building, echoing from all directions, like cries in an overcrowded swimming pool. There was something high-pitched and excited about the noise that raised the hairs on the back of Magnus’s neck and he guessed it would not be long before they met more escapees.
Jeb said, ‘I’ve heard plenty about them from guys that have. The army have their own rules. This isn’t the cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We’re the bad guys, remember?’
The wolf-man was howling again. It was hard to tell if he was in pain or celebrating his freedom to roam the corridors.
Magnus said, ‘I’ve not even been properly charged. It was different when I thought we were stuck here, but now help is coming…’
The baying noise increased in pitch.
Jeb said, ‘I’ll fucking throttle that guy if I get my hands on him.’ He looked at Magnus. ‘The army will help you into a set of handcuffs, kick you up the arse and into a cell that’ll make your last place look like a fucking palace. If things are as you say they are, then we need to get out of here, pronto.’
Magnus thought of the headlines in the Daily Express. Jeb was right: tabloids were not to be trusted, but the contents of the paper chimed with the television he had watched and the sick prisoners, absent warders and abandoned prison all told their own story. He said, ‘Scarface said there’s a reception committee checking who’s who. If they find our records on the computer they’ll know we’re VPs.’