Captives

SEVENTY-FOUR

The door crashed shut, the loud clash of metal on metal reverberating inside the cell.

James Scott stood in the centre of the small room for a moment, looking round, then sat down on the edge of the bottom bunk.

He felt numb, as if his entire body had been pumped full of novocaine. There was a lead weight where his heart should have been. He felt as if every last drop of feeling had been sucked out of him. The past two days had passed quickly, so quickly in fact that the events of those four days were somewhat hazy. And yet still he retained memories of that time. Like splinters in his mind.

The journey to the court. The police had brought a suit he'd requested from his flat and he'd changed into that, shaved and smartened himself up.

The trial.

He had decided, as advised, to plead guilty and proceedings had moved with dizzying speed. The gun had been produced as evidence. Pictures of the dead men had been circulated around the jury. Scott could remember one of the jurors in particular. She had been in her mid-forties, a smart, efficient-looking woman who had hardly taken her eyes off him throughout the trial. And he had seen hatred in those eyes. When sentence -had been passed he glanced at her and was sure he could see the trace of a smile on her lips.

Scott had heard little of the Judge's summing up or, indeed, of his comments after the life sentence had been passed. Just the odd word here and there, like 'horrendous', 'brutal', 'cold-blooded' or 'dangerous', had filtered through the screen that seemed to have erected itself around him. He felt as if he'd been inside a cell ever since his arrest, imprisoned within his own mind.

He had spent much of the trial gazing around the court room particularly into the public gallery, but not once did he see Carol.

Bitch.

God, how he needed her now.

If only he could have spoken to her one last time before he'd been taken down. Touched her. Kissed her. But that was not to be. She was gone now, out of his life as surely as if she were dead.

After sentence had been passed he had been taken to the cells, then back to Dalston in a black van. From there he'd been taken in a police van to Whitely by two police officers.

The journey, despite the distance between London and the prison, had taken a surprisingly short time. Or so it seemed to Scott. It was as if time had lost all meaning, as if even that were conspiring to hasten him to this place where he would spend the rest of his life.

The rest of his life.

The finality of the words hit him once more; only now, within the confines of the cell, they had an almost deathly abruptness. He looked around the room, at the bunks, the other small bed on the other side of the cell. At the thick metal door, the wooden table and chairs. The slop buckets. There was one single window set about seven feet up the wall, covered by wire mesh as well as being barred. Freedom was now only something to be glimpsed through steel. Death must be similar to this feeling, he thought. The four walls of the cell might as well be the wooden sides of a coffin. There was no such thing as life within prisons, only day-to-day existence. Passing time. Waiting for the only real release, which would come in the form of death; the actual termination of life, not the living death of captivity.

He had been shown which locker in the room was his and told that one of his cell-mates was on work detail, the other in the exercise yard. Scott didn't really care. He unzipped his bag and took out what few possessions he'd been allowed to bring in to the cell: a small cassette-radio and a few tapes. The towels were prison issue, along with the roll of toilet paper and the clean white T-shirts and underwear. He crossed to his locker and opened it. From the pocket of his overalls he took a photo of Carol. She was smiling out at him, her long blond hair tousled. She was wearing jeans and a denim shirt (which he'd bought her). He looked at that smile.

A mocking smile?

He wanted her badly.

Bitch.

He needed her.

She had betrayed him.

Perhaps she would visit him. He wedged the picture inside the locker door and stood staring at it.

No, she wouldn't visit him.

Perhaps she'd write.

He looked at the photo.

His jaw was clenched tightly, his eyes narrowed.

Why did you betray me?

I love you.

'Fucking bitch,' he snarled and drove his fist against the door, against the photo.

When he looked at it, there was blood oozing from two split knuckles.

Red spots had splashed across the picture. Across her smile.

Fucking bitch.

'I love you,' he breathed softly.

The blood dripped from his gashed hand.