Trespass (P.I. Johnson Carmichael Series - Book 2) (8 page)

Green sat back down on his bed. He had never felt so scared in all his life. He knew there was a demonstration, if not a full blown riot, currently being planned and that would make the perfect cover for Garcia to slip in and end his life. God only knew where the
fish
was right now.

An idea struck him:
find Rosco
.

The chances were that if a protest was being organised against the lack of festive food, one man would be sure to be at the centre of it: Rosco. If he could find Rosco, he would have a chance of avoiding Garcia, as even he wouldn’t attempt to get at Green with the big bear so close.

He leapt from the bed, and glancing around to check that Garcia hadn’t returned, he headed down to the masses in the canteen below. As he descended the stairs, he could see the guards now numbered ten or so at the far end of the room, but they didn’t seem any more organised than when he had first spotted them; they would make a good barricade but that would be all.
Perhaps that is the strategy
, he thought:
Containment
.

He forced his way between inmates until he made it to the epicentre of the group, where he found Rosco listening intently as
Los Cojones
talked at length about how this protest was going to go down.

‘Bitch is infringing on our rights!’ declared one.

‘We gonna teach her a lesson, in’it?’ said another.

Rosco was nodding along to every statement, his face now a very dark red. In the same way as Dr David Banner struggled to control the monster inside of him, Rosco was now struggling to control his own
Hulk
. Green tried to get his attention.

‘Rosco, I need a word,’ he whispered.

The larger man dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

‘Rosco, please? It’s urgent.’

Rosco glanced back at
Los Cojones
and decided he could afford to step away for two minutes to see what his cellmate wanted.

‘What is it?’ he asked when they had moved a couple of metres from the crowd.

Green wasn’t sure of the best course of action: should he tell the truth and admit his vulnerability or lie? It wasn’t a dilemma he had been often forced to consider.

‘They’re starting the cell search now,’ he lied, nodding his head towards the guards at the far end of the room. ‘They’re going en masse, while everyone else is down here plotting. We need to get back up there and make sure our shit is clean.’

Rosco looked at the guards and then at their vacant cell upstairs. He knew he had a stash of pornographic magazines that would likely be confiscated, and he also had a large stash of chocolate hidden for emergencies that would be found and taken. That said, he would just as likely end up in temporary confinement if this protest ended badly so what was the difference: he had to take a stand.

‘Fuck the room!’ he declared and turned his back, pushing back through the crowd to where he had been standing.

Green sighed audibly, realising that his attempt had failed. He tried to push his way back through the crowd, figuring if he was at least close to Rosco he might be safe, but the bodies would not part. He tried once more but when success seemed unachievable he walked away, deciding that being stood in a group of crazed killers was probably not such a clever idea: although he suspected Garcia’s motives, the truth was that any of them could be his executioner and if he was standing in the group, he wouldn’t see his killer coming.

No, he decided, he had to be pro-active about his approach. It was then that he spotted the thin frame and greasy hair of Garcia descending the staircase, towards the ground floor. The
fish
was carrying a small plastic bag, out of which was sticking a towel. Green remained back, watching as his nemesis moved towards the wash block.

It was now or never:
kill or be killed
.

*

Luis Garcia was a despicable human being. He had grown up in London’s Latin Quarter; his father a delivery man and his mother a dancer at a local nightspot. It hadn’t been long before he had fallen in with his mother’s employers, idolising the life of a hood: lots of money and no boring office job. A pimp at the club had hired him to pick the pockets of passing tourists who had come to experience ‘a little bit of Mexico in England’s capital’, as the billboard described it. It was easy work. The twelve year old Garcia found his smaller than average hands were perfect for slipping into pockets and bags and removing wallets and purses. What made him exceptional was that he could lift a wallet, remove the contents and replace it in under five seconds, before the victim had realised. It wasn’t until the victim then went to pay for something later that they even realised they had been robbed, by which point Garcia was long gone.

The pimp, a slimy bastard known as Ruiz, paid Garcia ten percent of anything he hauled in, which on average meant that Garcia usually had at least two hundred pounds in his own pocket on any given day.

As he grew through adolescence, so did his hands and he started to get noticed more and, after a few hairy chases, he decided that he was destined for greater things than pick-pocketing. Ruiz promoted him, aged fifteen, to a collector, responsible for shaking down the local retailers on Ruiz’s patch for ‘protection money’. Despite his slight frame, Garcia had something his competitors didn’t: a cruel and ruthless streak. Whilst most threatened to beat and kick their targets if they didn’t pay, Garcia simply threatened to remove digits. It wasn’t a threat either: on his first day he removed six fingers from different customers, just as a warning. It was rare, thereafter, that he had any trouble with clients not paying the protection money.

At seventeen, Garcia grew bored of sending his hard earned monies up the line to Ruiz and the two men dissolved their partnership. Garcia took the small amount he had managed to save and invested it in a small consignment of pills. He was able to shift these in a single night, quadrupling his investment. This was to be the practice he followed for the next ten years until the incident that had led to his arrest and subsequent incarceration.

A fifteen year sentence wasn’t much to look forward to, and in the few weeks since he had arrived on the wing, he had found the pace of life a lot more stilted than he had ever imagined. He had been wise to keep his mouth shut during the police investigation and trial that followed. The group running the wing seemed to appreciate this and had given him a few errands to run on their behalf, including cash drops for a couple of the guards. It had been one of these guards who had let slip the governor’s proposed Christmas regime. This gem of information had further enhanced Garcia’s reputation with
Los Cojones
and he was now preparing to take a relaxing shower whilst those around him planned their protest.

Garcia had heard all the rumours about keeping his back to the wall when he showered and that his youthful looks would make him prime meat for the rapists, but he hadn’t found anyone had tried such a thing with him, much to his relief. He had taken necessary precautions, of course, keeping as far away from the perverts as he could and of course always carrying a small weapon. He had managed to get hold of a shard of broken glass from a shaving mirror that a recently released inmate had left. The shard was small enough to pass in his pocket undetected, but sharp enough to strike a deadly blow if required. He liked the fact it was multi-functional: he could slash a throat as easily as thrusting it into an on-rushing body. He had a feeling the blade would come in handy if the protest got out of hand later.

As he entered the wash block, he was surprised to find it unguarded, but that did not deter him stripping off and entering one of the cubicles. He hung his towel over the top of the door to indicate the cubicle was occupied and then turned the tap on. Cold water shot out of the shower head, but was quickly heated up as he tipped his head back and allowed the water to run over his head and down his back.

The shower lasted five minutes and when he was satisfied with his hygiene, he opened the cubicle door and headed through it. The steam that the shower spray had caused hung in the air like a thin fog. From nowhere a shadow appeared and before he could defend himself he felt a sharp blow just beneath his rib cage. He was so surprised that he didn’t have chance to exhale before a second blow was received.

Clutching at his gut, Garcia stumbled back into the cubicle, crashing against the water pipe. Looking down at where the pain was now emanating he saw a pool of blood forming in his hands.

I’ve been stabbed
.

As his mind raced to process the next steps he saw the face of the person who was responsible for the blow.

*

Green watched as Garcia began to cough up blood. The young Hispanic was trying to mouth words but no voice could be heard. Green looked down at the shiv in his hand and was satisfied with the thin trail of blood that ran along the pointed plastic.

He had followed Garcia towards the wash block but had waited until the youngster had turned the shower on, before taking up his position just outside of the cubicle. He had stood in silence for nearly five minutes planning how he would leap out and catch the younger man off guard. It was the first time his senses had been so aroused in years. So much had been done to desensitise those urges that he suddenly felt reborn.

Watching Garcia’s gurgling body slump to the ground made him want to finish the job properly. Stepping into the cubicle, he placed his two hands around the Mexican’s neck and started to squeeze. Garcia threw both arms out to try and fight his attacker but he had already lost so much blood that his limbs were not up to the job. Green squeezed hard, the act bringing memories of Patricia Tropaz flooding back. He had not meant to kill her but had felt great power when her body had lain limp in his hands. It was a power he could feel surging through his veins with adrenaline.

Garcia’s arms dropped to the floor as the last ounces of life were squeezed from him. Green remained standing over him for a further minute, until he was satisfied that the man was dead. Then, reaching up to the plastic bag that Garcia had been carrying, he rifled through the dead man’s meagre possessions. He found a money clip with three twenty pound notes in it and placed the bills in his own pocket. He also found a small shard of broken mirror, which he carefully removed, being careful not to leave any fingerprints. Pulling the sleeve of his jumper down over his hand, he gripped the shard tightly and then proceeded to slash it across Garcia’s neck, where small bruises were already starting to form from the strangulation. He was determined that when the body was found, the authorities would presume that the incident was gang-related and so questions would be asked of
Los Cojones
and not of him. To finish the job, he thrust the shard into the two puncture wounds that his own shiv had made.

Garcia lay in a bloody mess.

He dropped the shard to the floor and turned to leave. Of course questions would be asked as to why there was no guard on duty in the wash block at the time and, inevitably, one of the screws would lose their job over it, but the important thing was, he was in the clear. What’s more, he had managed to terminate the contract that had been taken out on him; for now at least.

He left the wash block and quietly made his way back up to his cell. Rosco was still not back, so he climbed up to his bunk and lay down. His body was trembling as he breathed in and out but on the inside his mind was racing with how good it had felt to be back. Maybe he could go and speak with
Los Cojones
himself and offer his services. He closed his eyes as he relived the last five minutes of memories. He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face.

Green was still dozing on the top bunk in his cell when an almighty sound erupted above his head. It took him a moment to remember where he was and why. As his senses adjusted to the audible intrusion, he became aware that the sound was that of an alarm, and it filled the cell, echoing off the small plastered walls.

Fire
?

He hopped from the bed, attempting to cover his ears as best he could. His cell door was closed-to and, as he opened it, he realised there was shouting coming from the floor below. He leaned over the rail and saw the group who had been gathered earlier was now hurling abuse and objects towards the group of guards, who had formed a line of linked arms at the main exit from the wing.

The alarm, he realised wasn’t to warn of a fire, it was to confirm a riot was underway. It seemed as if all prison officers on the wing had been removed from their usual posts to help bring the protest under control. The dining area was beginning to resemble a war zone: the usually neatly aligned tables were spread far and wide and the plastic chairs were being flung forwards. The protest could not have been underway for too long as the group had not advanced from their original position and there was still quite some distance between the opposing forces.

He looked around for Rosco and it wasn’t long before he saw his cell mate standing two rows from the front of the group, snarling.

Personally, Green didn’t give a shit if Christmas was cancelled. His two decades inside had allowed him to become quite objective about his own crimes as well as those of his co-inhabitants. They were criminals, pure and simple, and were lucky that they lived in a more liberal time, in a land where the death penalty had long since been abolished. What rights did they have? They were here to serve as punishment for their crimes.

Frankly, he did not want any involvement in this protest, regardless of the human rights aspect that would be used as motive. It was actually rather amusing that this need to express themselves with violence in itself called into question their own rights. He knew that the majority of the men beneath him were just looking to release built up tensions and frustrations in a good fight, rather than standing up for what was right.

In fact, it’s probably only Rosco who has a real cause
, he thought.

The newly appointed prison governor appeared the other side of the bars behind where the wall of guards was. He saw she had a megaphone in her hand and was preparing to communicate with the protesters.

‘This is your governor,’ she began. ‘You are all in breach of the code of conduct of this prison and will have this disturbance recorded against you. Parole boards do not look kindly on violent protests, so those of you who wish to remain on good terms, should disperse immediately and return to your cells.’

The crowd roared loudly in response, but nobody left the group. Green looked around at the other cells on the floor and saw that a handful of inmates had remained in their cells, as he had, keen to avoid unnecessary trouble. The protesters took two steps forward. The guards remained steadfast. Governor Swinton looked troubled.

‘I understand you have a right to raise your concerns with any treatment you receive which you deem to be unfair, but there is a time and a place for those conversations to be held. This is not it.’

The crowd roared again and moved another foot forward.

‘If you do not stand down, I will be forced to call in the riot police to break it up and that will likely result in additional time being added to your sentences.’

It was like she was waving a red rag at a bull.

The crowd roared angrily and charged forward, some brandishing wooden table legs, others holding plastic chairs aloft. Each one seemed to have found something they could use as a weapon and there was only one thing they had on their mind: fight.

Green glanced over at the wall of guards, some of whom were eagerly speaking to the governor over their shoulders. Whether they were asking her to let them out or asking what action was required was unclear. As they stood with their backs pressed firmly against the bars behind them, all they could see were bloodthirsty killers charging at them.

The first of the rioters got to a guard and promptly started to hit him with his makeshift bat. Another of the guards broke the linked arms and tried to wrestle the inmate from his colleague. More of the rioters arrived and started to throw punches and weapons at their foes. In these situations, the prison officers are not at liberty to use force, even to defend themselves but that book of conduct was now out of the window. There was one thing on each of the guard’s minds: survival.

Governor Swinton took two steps back as she watched her recently-inherited staff members being dragged into the paths of these caged animals. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

What year is it
, she thought.

‘Back,’ she shouted into the megaphone. ‘Get back, I tell you!’

But her voice could not be heard over the alarm that was still sounding and the shouts and grunts of the group.

‘Send them in,’ she shouted into her phone, which was connected to the small army of officers waiting at the main entrance to the block. They had been busy donning their protective riot gear: stab and bullet-proof Kevlar. In her twenty years of running prisons, Governor Swinton had never seen something so gruesome unfolding before her eyes. How had she lost control so badly?

She offered up a small prayer for the lives of the men who were now being beaten up beyond the bars and walked away. She didn’t even know what they were protesting against.

*

Green remained on the gangway outside of his cell watching in horror as the unconscious bodies of the dozen guards who had remained trapped inside the compound were tossed idly to one side. It was still too noisy to concentrate on anything else so those who had chosen not to get involved with the violence had gathered together to watch events unfold. It wouldn’t matter that they had chosen to be conscientious objectors, all the inmates would be tarred with the same brush and would find other rights removed. It was just the way the system worked.

He had taken the sensible decision to stuff some torn bits of toilet paper into his ears to protect them from the continuous alarm. Despite the scene of violence unfolding before his eyes, ironically this was the safest he had felt all day. With Garcia out of the way and Rosco happy to unleash his anger on someone that wasn’t his cell mate, he felt a wave of relief envelope him.

A nudge on the arm caught his attention. He turned and saw Peacock, the kitchen’s Head Chef, standing next to him. Green nodded at the man who returned the acknowledgement before lifting a small plastic bottle up.

‘Fancy some mead?’ Peacock attempted to shout into Green’s ear. ‘It’ll help the time pass.’

Mead was what the inmates called the illegal alcoholic beverage that they brewed from honey and potatoes. It tasted like shit but, at over thirty percent proof, it was a popular beverage to help one forget their troubles. Green had only tried it a dozen times since he had arrived, and only then on special occasions such as his birthday, but now seemed as good an occasion as any. Nodding, he led Peacock into the cell and partially closed the door.

‘Have you got anything we can mix this with?’ Peacock asked, lifting the straw-coloured liquid to show what he was referring to.

‘Sure,’ replied Green, opening a small cupboard where he kept his possessions and removing a litre bottle of
Coke
. ‘It might be a bit flat, but should disguise some of the flavour.’

Peacock accepted the bottle and poured some of the soft drink into a couple of plastic beakers on the side of a basin. He then added the mead and swilled the contents of the beaker. He offered one to Green and took a sip from the other.

‘Eurghh,’ grimaced the chef, ‘still tastes like shit.’

Green took a sip and felt his cheeks tighten as if he had just chewed on a sour lemon.

The alarm suddenly stopped, but he could still feel a ringing in his ears as he removed the pieces of tissue.

‘That’s better,’ he said, before apologising when he realised he was still shouting.

‘Do you think it’s over then?’

‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘It’ll be over soon enough.’

Both men took another sip from their drink. He was starting to feel lightheaded already.

‘Is this your own batch?’ he asked.

Peacock nodded, knocking back the rest of his drink, a small smile breaking onto his face. Green copied the action and was forced to cough as the liquid burned at his oesophagus on the way down. He was starting to feel drowsy and his head began to roll around.

‘That’s shum pretty shtrong shtuff,’ he slurred, trying to point at the plastic bottle, but unable to focus. His vision was blurring and his tongue had gone numb.

‘Wha-’ he tried to say, but found he could not speak. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor as an all-encompassing paralysis gripped him. He tried to find Peacock to see if the chef was struggling to deal with the alcohol too, but all he could see was a pair of black shoes walking towards him.

Peacock bent over the fallen man and whispered into his ear, ‘It seems someone out there doesn’t like you, my friend. I want you to know that I’m sorry it had to end like this, but at least you can take some solace from the fact that it was a painless death. The poison you have swallowed will shut down your central nervous system so you will feel no pain as each of your main organs slowly fails. It is my own recipe, but of course, I didn’t put any in my cup. You’ll probably pass out before your heart stops beating so you won’t even realise you are dying. It will just feel like a dream.’

He could not process the confession as his eyelids began to grow heavy. He never saw it coming.