Slammer (4 page)

'Too late.' Horse steered him by the elbow. They were on the bottom flat now, heading for Horse's peter. 'You know now. So either you're in or we have to kill you.'

Glass looked at Horse. He wasn't smiling. 'I'm serious,' Glass said.

'Me, too.'

'Look, you're crazy, talking to me like this. I don't want to know about your —' he looked around, but nobody was near '— drug deals. I'm a prison off—'

'Get in.' Horse stopped two doors short of his peter. This was Caesar's cell, the one he shared with Jasmine.

'Yes, come on in, Officer Glass.' Caesar stood in the doorway. Behind him, Jasmine sat on the bed, legs crossed, foot dangling.

She waved her long-fingernailed hand at him and said, 'Hiya.'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Glass said.

'Please.' Caesar stepped to the side, gesturing in the direction Glass should take. 'How are Lorna and Caitlin?'

Glass felt sharp pains in his chest, as if a thorn bush were growing inside him. "You're not listening to me. I said no." He turned, headed back to the office. Didn't look behind him.

Every con he passed on the way was his enemy. He could have jumped any one of them, ripped their throats out with his teeth. They were animals. But so what? He was an animal too.

He had to think like that. He had to. By the time he reached the office, he'd just about convinced himself.

He knocked. Entered when he was invited to do so.

'You okay?' Senior Officer Neil Shaw asked him.

'You mind if I use your phone?'

'Feel free,' Shaw said. 'You sure you're okay?'

'Just want to call home.' Glass dialled, hands shaking. He could feel the bones shaking under his skin. Surprised he couldn't hear them rattle.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

He muttered, 'Come on.'

Ring.

'Hello?'

Thank Christ.
'Caitlin, babygirl. It's Daddy.'

'Daddy!'

'You okay?'

'Fine.'

'Is Mummy okay?'

'She's baking. We're making a cake. Want to speak to her? Mummy!'

Glass sank into a chair. 'No, sweetheart. Just tell her Daddy called to say he loved her.'

'Me, too.
Me.
'

'You, too, of course. I love you too.'

He blew her a noisy kiss, hung up, ran his hand across his brow. When he looked up, Shaw was staring at him.

'Problem?' Shaw said.

Glass shook his head and got to his feet. 'Everything's fine,' he said.

'Just how you want it to be.'

Seemed like an odd thing to say, but Shaw smiled, and Glass smiled back and nodded.

TUESDAY

'It was freaky,' Lorna said, taking a sip of her gin, propping her foot on the coffee table and flexing her toes. Apple-green nail polish. Glass had never seen anyone else wear that shade. 'He knew me.'

She'd been telling Glass about her visit to the supermarket that morning, the guy outside, sitting on the wall, accosting her when she came out.

'What did he say?'

'Asked me how I was.'

'Maybe he fancied you.' Highly likely. Lorna had a pretty face, long blonde hair, athletic body, those sexy toes. She was eight years older than Glass, but thirty wasn't past it, however much she said she felt old. Hardly.

Everybody'd said their relationship wouldn't work. Well, they hadn't. Just her mother. But Glass knew what the rest of them were thinking.

She's pregnant. He won't stick around. He's too young.

Right. Sod the lot of them. He'd stuck around long enough to get married and he'd keep sticking around. Even if things weren't always perfect. Nobody had a perfect marriage. Maybe Lorna wasn't the same person who'd once climbed naked onto the windowsill of her flat above the bakery to wave to the pedestrians below. Just because he dared her to. 'You'll be safe,' he'd said. 'Nobody looks up.' And he was right. He joined her on the ledge and they stood there, giggling. And nobody looked up.

She'd call him a twat if he suggested doing that now. She'd changed. But then so had he.

Anyway, they were settled in
Edinburgh
and he had a steady job. What he didn't need right now was some arsehole messing everything up.

'He used my name,' Lorna said. 'He said, "Nice day, Lorna. How are you?" Knew Caitlin's name, too.' When she said 'Caitlin', Lorna looked up.

Glass did too, half expecting Caitlin to bounce downstairs, tell them she couldn't sleep and was ready for Daddy to read her another bedtime story, the one about the dragon who got angrier and angrier till he breathed all the fire out of himself.

Glass caught himself smiling. He liked that one too. That was one lucky dragon. But Caitlin didn't appear. It was just him and Lorna, and her tale about the creepy guy outside the supermarket.

'Weird,' Glass said. He had an inkling who the guy was — or at least who'd sent him — but didn't want to tell Lorna in case he was wrong. He didn't want to worry her.

'You think so?' she said. 'You think it's "weird"? Really?'

He winced like she'd cut him with a razor blade. Her sarcasm was one of the changes he'd never adjusted to, didn't think he ever would.

'I said to him, "Do I know you?"' She paused. 'Know what he said?' She waited for Glass to respond.

He gave a slight shake of his head.

'"Not yet."' She sipped her drink, her hand unsteady enough that her teeth clinked against the edge. 'Freaked me out.'

'I bet,' Glass said. 'I can imagine.'

She took a breath, switched her glass from one hand to the other, wriggled her toes again. 'So I wondered if he was someone you knew. I asked him. He said, "We have mutual acquaintances."'

The topic was moving into dangerous territory.

Glass said, 'What did he look like?'

Her eyes narrowed, mouth opened slightly, tongue pressed against her teeth. 'Short brown hair. Unshaven. Sort of charity-shop look. Army surplus.'

'Doesn't ring any bells.'

'If you know, Nick, tell me. I don't want to be protected. I'm a big girl.'

'Sorry,' he said. 'I've no idea who he is.'

He walked round the side of the coffee table, got down on his knees, reached across and cupped both hands round her foot. Something to take their minds off the supermarket guy. She leaned back, closed her eyes. He prodded the ball of her foot with his thumbs. 'Early night?' he said.

She opened her eyes, slid her foot out of his grasp. 'No,' she said, 'I'm not in the mood.'

WEDNESDAY

Glass slotted in the key, unlocked the door to Caesar's peter. He still found it hard to resist the urge to knock. You see a door that isn't yours, you knock before you enter. That's how we're all brought up. But he couldn't do that here.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. 'We need to talk,' he said, his voice tapering off on the last word.

Caesar's eyes were closed, his trousers around his ankles. Jasmine was on her knees. Her eyes widened when she saw Glass but she didn't stop what she was doing. If anything, she seemed to set to it with more enthusiasm.

'I ought to put you on report,' Glass said.

Caesar grinned, his eyes still closed. 'Officer Glass, give me a couple of minutes and I'll be right with you.'

Jasmine waved her fingers at Glass, carried on.

Glass turned and walked out.

*

In the shop, the work party was stationed round the room at the lathes, milling machines, bandsaws. All quiet.

S.O. Neil Shaw was addressing the prisoners.

Officers Fox and Ross hovered by the gate next to Glass, Fox stifling a yawn.

'… close supervision,' Shaw said. 'Any more blades discovered and this workshop gets closed down permanently.'

Groans from the cons. If they didn't get out to work, they'd be spending twenty-three hours a day locked in their cells and none of them wanted that.

'Not bloody likely,' Fox said, under his breath.

Glass looked at him.

'Prison's got a contract to manufacture road signs, Dumbo,' Fox explained in a whisper. 'Nice little earner. No way the governor's going to let that go.'

Shaw clapped his hands twice, held them together. 'So get back to work,' he said, 'and play nice.' He walked out, giving a curt nod to the officers as he passed.

'Can't believe he wants three of us here,' Ross said.

Fox said, 'All on account of one person's incompetence. You'd think, after six weeks' training at Polmont, Officer Glass would have learned how to set off the alarm.'

'Maybe we can work it out between the three of us,' Ross said. 'How much training does it take to press a button?'

It had been like this since day one. Some of Glass's colleagues had taken an instant dislike to him. And he didn't understand it. Wasn't as if he'd done them any harm. They treated him like a con. Worse, in some ways. They respected a lot of the cons.

It had to be the fact that he was so much younger than them. He couldn't think of anything else.

'Hey, Crystal, your boyfriend's out of the Digger today,' Ross said.

Glass couldn't help himself. He said, 'He's not my boyfriend. I'm married. I have a kid. Go fuck yourself.'

'Ooo,' Ross said. 'Touched a nerve, Fox.'

'You believe him?' Fox said to Ross.

'Too young to have a kid. Doesn't look like he shaves yet. If he is married, I bet the wife's just for show.'

'Yeah,' Fox said. 'I bet the kid's not even his.'

Glass could have cried. Or he could have kicked several shades of crap out of them, even if Ross was a woman. She wasn't the type to hide behind her tits. He did neither, though. He just stood there and tried to look like it wasn't bothering him.

After a bit, they turned, walked away, Ross saying to Fox, 'Bet you a tenner he doesn't last the week.'

*

Half an hour later, the noise in the machine shop making his skull rattle, Glass bent his head for a minute, and that's all it took.