Warhol's Prophecy

Preparation

THE BLADE WAS no more than three inches long.

Fashioned from a single piece of iron, it was triangular in shape, rough-sharpened on both sides and needle-sharp at the tip.

The makeshift handle had been formed by driving the sharpened metal into a piece of thick wood. That wood had then been repeatedly wrapped in masking tape.

The whole lethal weapon was less than six inches in length.

‘And how the fuck did you get that out of the machine shop?’ asked Paul Doolan, looking at the blade.

David Layton didn’t answer.

He sat silently on the edge of his bunk, gazing down almost lovingly at the knife that rested on his pillow.

‘If the screws flip this fucking cell, we’re both in the shit,’ said Doolan. ‘If they find that, we’ll . . .’

‘They’re not going to find it,’ snapped Layton irritably. ‘The fucking thing won’t be here long enough for that. Besides, if we don’t give the fucking twirls reason to flip us, then they won’t, will they? This’ll be gone by tomorrow.’

‘When you doing it?’ Doolan wanted to know.

Layton shrugged.

‘When the time’s right,’ he said quietly.

‘Who is this geezer anyway? Why does Brycey want him cut?’

‘It’s family business, so I hear. This Morton bloke, the one who Brycey wants cut, they stick him in here for receiving, or something like that. Only it turns out, while he’s been in the real world, he’s been shafting Brycey’s cousin, hasn’t he?’

‘And Brycey didn’t know that?’

Layton shook his head.

‘One of the most powerful gang bosses in East London, and this Morton geezer is cutting a slice off his fucking cousin,’ he chuckled.

‘So Morton didn’t know who this bird was?’

‘No, not a clue. ’Course, the fact that she’s only seventeen didn’t exactly please Brycey, did it? I mean, from what I’ve heard, she’s a right little slag anyway. Could suck a golf ball through a fucking garden hose, that type.’

Both men laughed.

‘More pricks than a second-hand dartboard,’ Doolan added.

‘Yeah – and the rest,’ Layton continued.

‘So Brycey wants you to do him up?’

‘What was I going to say? If Geoff Bryce asks you to do something, you fucking do it, don’t you?’

‘With less than a month to parole?’

‘What would you have done? Told him to go fuck himself?’

‘No, of course not. But I haven’t got less than a month to jam roll, have I?’

‘Look, if I do this job for Brycey, I walk out of here with a few bob in my pocket. If I don’t do it, I don’t walk. Besides, I couldn’t give a fuck. I don’t know this Morton bloke, so what do I care?’

David Layton slid the blade beneath his pillow and lay back on his bunk.

He lay on his side, gazing across at the opposite wall of the cell: at the array of photos showing naked women in every manner of pose. He’d stuck most of the pictures up there himself, Blu-tacked to the discoloured stonework.

On the bunk above him, Paul Doolan was flipping slowly through the daily paper, occasionally reading sections aloud.

He was thirty-two, four years older than Layton. Both men had spent the majority of their lives in and out of various institutions. Layton himself had begun with a remand home at thirteen and then, as theft had become receiving stolen goods, then possession of cocaine, and finally several charges of assault and grievous bodily harm, he had graduated to a series of prisons.

This cell in Wandsworth was his latest.

A three stretch for glassing some fucking ponce inside a nightclub in Hackney. It had left the victim with one hundred and twenty-six stitches in his face, and Layton with another listing on his record. He had once joked that he had more form than Red Rum.

Prison life didn’t bother him. Why should it? He knew the system here inside out. He knew how to work it to his advantage. Lots of men folded inside. Not David Layton: he had blossomed.

‘So,’ said Doolan, leaning over to look down at his cellmate. ‘How did you get that blade out of the machine shop? You didn’t tell me. You couldn’t have crutched something like that.’

‘Does it matter?’ said Layton.

‘Just curious.’

‘Well, you know what curiosity does, don’t you? And not just to cats.’

Doolan grinned.

‘Why’s the blade so dirty?’ he wanted to know.

‘I covered it in shit. When I cut Morton, that will infect the wounds. They’ll turn bad. The cunt might even end up with blood poisoning, with any luck. If he does, Brycey might bung me a bonus.’ He grinned crookedly.

Beneath the pillow, he closed his hand around the weapon.