Cages by David Mark (reading fiction TXT) 📗

Cox has enjoyed seeing the welt on his arm slowly darken. It is a yellow-tinged smudge of purple today: the indentations left by finger and thumb looking like the wings of a butterfly. Cox had not anticipated that the writer would respond to his rudeness with physicality. It disquiets him a little. He knows what the coming sessions will bring. Knows every step on his path to liberty. Orton may prove a nuisance, but he needs the sessions to continue in order to give him access to Miss Harris. He fancies the right course of action will present itself before long. In his pocket, he can feel the glassy smoothness of his gift for Miss Harris. He will find the right moment to present it, he’s quite sure of that. He has always thought himself somewhat charmed; his present predicament notwithstanding. All of the setbacks and abuses he has endured have been learning experiences when considered through the span of his life. Were it not for the unfairness, for the inequitable distribution of merit, he would have not been a target for those stronger than he. And had they not pummelled him so mercilessly, the part of him that now controls his every thought and deed may have lain dormant forever. And had he not allowed that ferocious beast out to feed upon that which it craved, he would never have discovered just what pleasures were there to be consumed. He is grateful for his beatings. They have made him the man he is.

‘Away with the fairies, Cox?’

He looks up at the sound of his name. Orton is addressing him. He’s smiling, but it falls well short of sincerity.

‘Sorry, sir. As you say. Thinking upon other things.’

‘I was congratulating you on your own piece of writing. An impressive feat – to transport yourself into the mind of another character – to look out through their eyes, to feel their pain as your own. I must congratulate you.’

Cox purses his lips, endeavouring to look bemused. ‘You’ll forgive me, but I believe you have me at a disadvantage. My own work? I haven’t yet had opportunity to deliver you anything. I was called away to a legal appointment yesterday, and …’

‘Bollocks you were,’ spits Suggs. ‘Don’t be giving it that shit. We all know where you were, you nonce. My mate Rich was on his way back from an adjudication when he saw Laurel and fucking Hardy with the wing governor heading to the interview rooms and you’d just been dropped there, so fuck off if you think it isn’t all over the wing about what they’ve got on you. They’re looking for that poor lass’s body! How many you got on you, eh? How many you put in the ground?’

The escalation is volcanic. One moment Suggs is at his desk, arms crossed, spitting phlegm-tinged invective into the grey air of the classroom, and then he is lunging across the table, hands outstretched, trying to get his fingers around Cox’s throat.

Orton reacts before the prison officer. Lurches forward as Suggs pushes the tables out of his way, scattering other inmates, and leaps towards Cox like a basketball player aiming to slam-dunk. Orton grabs him around the waist, taking the momentum out of the dive, and the pair of them clatter into the nearest table in a tangle of arms and legs, paper and pens. Windsor pushes past the men in front of him, baton extended, but the explosion of violence has turned the classroom into a cage full of animals and suddenly men are taking the opportunity to settle grudges, to release their tensions, and in a moment Mr Windsor is on his back, boots thudding into his ribs.

Cox slips from his chair, boots already hammering down the corridor, shouts of ‘code red, code red’ bouncing off the walls. He glances at Orton, trying to hold Suggs flat to the floor as he squirms beneath him. Sees Callan step forward and press a big firm hand into Suggs’s face, picking a side, making it plain to the screws who barrel through the door that he has had no part of the melee …

Cox slips, unnoticed, behind the desk at the front of the classroom. Slips the object from his pocket and tucks it deep into the folds of Orton’s satchel. His fingers touch something long and sharp. Tests the tip with his finger and could almost laugh with delight at the sheer ecstasy of the discovery.

He stands. Sees the officers grappling with Suggs; sees the two spiced-up drug dealers who have been booting Mr Windsor in the guts. Sees Orton, anger on his face, pulling himself upright; two inmates checking on his welfare and saying they had nothing to do with this. Nothing. Nothing …

Nobody is looking at Cox. Nobody sees him take the pencil, turn the tip towards himself, and delicately probe at the soft flesh beside his armpit for the space where he is guaranteed to cause himself no real harm. He steels himself. Grits his teeth. Pushes the point through his skin as if sliding pieces of uncooked chicken onto a skewer.

It takes a huge effort not to cry out. He feels light-headed at once. It is as if he can feel himself turning grey.

It only takes a moment for one of the officers to notice.

‘Cox. Cox is bleeding. He’s bleeding!’

And Cox, theatrically, gratefully, slips to the floor.

‘He’s been stabbed! Code Red. Code Fucking Red!’

TWENTY-ONE

Neilsen didn’t sleep much last night. After he left Bob Roberts, he walked around for a while, meandering aimlessly around the half dozen streets that led off from the marketplace like fingers from a palm. He sat for a while on the wall by the churchyard, staring at the gates of the grammar school where Bronwen had been a pupil. Sat there until it was too cold and dark to tolerate. Then he drove home; the static in his head louder than the music on the radio. He did an extra workout when he