And Sally spoke a name. A name he’d promised to keep secret and safe. And Leah went and whispered it to Devlin, because why wouldn’t she? Something going on in G block right under his nose. Maybe she asked him what he knew about Naseem Suresh, whether he believed her, whether he knew any of the officers she was accusing.
And Devlin probably said no, nothing in it.
Then rose from her side and…
I’ve got to move, Sally thought. I’ve got to do something. I can’t just sit here until the world ends. It will take too long.
His hands were heavy on the ends of his arms. Every movement felt exhausting and wasteful of energy as he booted up his computer and opened a document. The confession was long and rambling, full of false starts and repetitions. It jumped backwards and forwards in time. Even the sentences had no structure. They were coming apart in much the same way Sally was. He attached all the sound files from his secret store, his spy tapes, but forgot to reference them in the document or explain what they were.
When the document was complete, or felt like it was complete, he spent another hour looking for places to send it to. Newspapers. TV channels. Online newsfeeds. Blogs. The more the merrier.
He hit SEND and a bar appeared in the centre of the screen. It showed 0% complete, and for a long time it didn’t change. Then the 0 ticked over into a 1. It was the sound files of course. They were colossal.
But he couldn’t wait for them to finish. There were so many things he still needed to do.
Signing out, first of all. In the middle of his shift. Marcela Robbins was incredulous. “But… what if it all kicks off over in Goodall? Didn’t the governor say everyone had to stay onsite?”
“Pharmacy,” Sally said. “We need…” – he dredged up some words – “Blood. Bandages. Toilet paper.”
“Toilet paper?” Marcela repeated.
Sally walked on, leaving her staring.
He drove to the Pot of Gold, where he ordered a pint of bitter with a whisky chaser – the first of many. He had to be drunk to do what he needed to do, but there were collateral benefits too. After three pints and three whiskies, his pain had a much duller edge to it.
It wasn’t fair to canonise someone, he thought, alive or dead. To make them the keeper of your conscience or the apple of your eye or the guarantee that you’d actually lived. And it wasn’t fair to hate them if they let you down. If his wife had needed to take six inches of solace from a brute like Devlin, that had to say as much about Sally as it did about her.
He felt as though he was spitting out dead parts of himself. The beer took away some of the filthy taste. He was having trouble standing now, but he didn’t want to sit down. He was so unused to serious drinking that he might just put his head in his hands and fall asleep. That wouldn’t do at all.
“Are you all right, love?” The barmaid, who was about twenty, was looking at him with pity and concern. Sally had no idea what she was reading in his face, but he tried to rearrange his features in a neutral configuration and told her he was fine.
He ordered another beer. Another whisky. As he drank, he looked around him at the early evening crowd. The pub was already filling up. It would take a long time to sift through so many strangers, even sober. There had to be a quicker way.
And there was, of course.
Sally stood and banged his empty glass on the counter. “On me,” he called out. “All of your drinks. On me.”
A few people looked at him, but only for a moment. One or two cheered. Most just turned away again, amused or contemptuous.
“I said it’s my round!” Sally shouted. When they still didn’t pay attention, he closed his hand on the glass he was holding. Squeezed it and squeezed it until finally it shattered, shards biting deep into his fingers and his palm as they slid and ground across each other. It hurt a lot more than he expected, but it did the trick. Everyone was looking now as the blood dripped down over his wrist and spattered on the counter.
The barmaid swore and backed away from him. She shouted out a name – the manager’s name, maybe – but there was no immediate response.
“I would love,” Sally said with ponderous dignity, “to buy you all a drink. That would be my privilege.” He shook his hand gingerly, flexing his damaged fingers to dislodge bloody pieces of glass, which fell on to the bar, the floor, his jacket. He took a deep breath and went on. “I’m celebrating, you see. A drug deal. Big one. Up at the prison. That’s who I am up there. Big man in the drugs. Smuggling. Get them in through the gate. Get them on to Curie… Curie block, especially. That’s my particular…” – he waved his bleeding hand – “… thing.”
He still had everyone’s attention. Some of them were whispering to each other, shaking their heads. One or two had taken out mobile phones and were either dialling or else filming him. The barmaid was gone, headed for the hills. That was fine. Sally didn’t mind being dismissed as a lunatic by everyone in the room who didn’t know what he was talking about. As long as there was someone there who did.
“Harriet Grace,” he said ringingly. “Harriet. Grace. You know who that is? I’m very, very friendly with Harriet Grace. She lets me in on all her little secrets. Dennis Devlin. Me and him are like… are like…” He tried to make his fingers connect. The blood was welling so freely now from his right hand that it made a constant pitter-patter sound on the wooden floor.
“Dennis is the one,” he summarised. “Makes it happen. If someone needs to go, like that Minnie Weeks, Dennis just waves his hand and it… happens. And it’s taken a long time, but I think I can honestly say I’m as big a man as he is. Important. Influential. Involved. All the way. All the way to the top. Enjoy your drinks and thank you for your… for your time.”
That will do it, Sally thought. Or else it can’t be done. Either way I’m dead so…
He staggered to the door, pushed it open with his elbow and went out. When the cooling evening air hit his face, he felt a wave of nausea rising inside him. He barely made it to the verge of the road before throwing up the entire contents of his stomach. The heaves were like someone’s arms gripping his abdomen and performing a Heimlich on him.
Drained and tottering, he made it to his car and got it open, cradling his injured hand against his chest. He slid into the back seat, the world rocking around him. He couldn’t drive in this state. He couldn’t go back inside either. There was vomit on his trousers and his shoes. He was filthy, a disgrace. He would give himself a few minutes and then stagger down the road to the bus stop. There was nothing else left to do.
Both of the car’s rear doors opened at the same time, and two men climbed in on either side of him. One was lean and hard and whippet-thin, with an army buzz cut. The other was huge, barrel-chested. Sweat made his shaved head shine like lacquered wood. He wore an apologetic smile.
They clicked the locks down on the car doors. The thin man wrinkled his nose at the sour smell of Sally’s vomit. The other, precisely and without undue ceremony, took a straight razor from his pocket and unfolded it. He turned a cool, blue-eyed scrutiny on Sally.
“Evening,” he said gravely. “My name’s Kenny. Kenny Treacher.”
“Is it?” Sally said. “Well. I do not give a flying fuck about that.”
“No?”
“No.” Sally started to shake his head, but had to stop at once as another wave of nausea sluiced through him. “You’re as bad as she is. As they are. Poison. Sell poison, and get rich from people dying. Bad as I am, probably. But are you bad enough, Mr fucking Kenny fucking Treacher? That’s the question. Are you bad enough to be any fucking use to me?”
“Well,” Treacher said, pressing the razor up against Sally’s throat, “I can only do my best. Tell me about this Devlin, yeah?”
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