Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 (10 page)

‘We heard that.’ The tall man snorted. ‘There’s always plenty want to make themselves fucking guvnor.’

‘Fuck the guvnor!’ the wolf-man shouted. A few of the men took up the cry. The wolf-man leapt into his dance again and the men stepped on, their voices rising once more. Magnus realised they were scared and the realisation tightened fear’s grip on him. Jeb shoved himself into the huddle of bodies. He grasped Magnus by the shoulder, taking him with him.

Magnus pulled the hood of his stolen jacket up over his head. ‘I’m not sure about this.’

Jeb’s voice was low. ‘Have you got a better suggestion?’

Once, on a Christmas visit to Edinburgh organised by the High School, his cousin Hugh had dragged Magnus on to the starflyer in Princes Street Gardens fairground. Joining the squad of escapees reminded Magnus of the sensation of suddenly being borne aloft by the ride. He felt the same swoop of danger in his stomach, the same loss of control.

Magnus had thrown up over the side of the starflyer. His vomit had been snatched away by the wind, travelling it seemed in one solid mass towards the south side of the gardens. Hugh had laughed so hard Magnus had thought his cousin might throw up too. ‘I was just imagining some poor wee man walking his dog and getting hit in the face by your spew,’ Hugh said later as the two of them walked along Rose Street in search of a pub that would not be too fussy about the age of its clientele.

Hugh had filled himself full of vodka and pills and walked into the sea, not long before Magnus had decided to hell with islands and left for London. Magnus had often wondered if Hugh had been scared when he did it, or if the drink and drugs had drowned his cousin’s fears, even as the bitter sea slid over his head and into his lungs.

The wolf-man capered beside them like a fool at a Morris dance. He waved the chair leg he was carrying lightly in the air, like a sceptre. ‘There’ll be a squad of soldiers waiting to mow us down soon as we step out those gates.’ The wolf-man’s voice was high and excited. He pointed the chair leg as if it were a gun and made a rattling noise, aiming it at the prisoners behind him. Somebody knocked it from his hand and someone else kicked it away. The wolf-man scrabbled on the floor, among the feet of the men, searching for it. Magnus thought they had lost him, but it was as if the wolf-man sensed something different about him and Jeb. He soon returned to their side.

‘Piss off,’ Jeb said. ‘Unless you want me to take that stick off you and shove it up your arse.’

‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ the wolf-man said in a camp voice, grinning with delight. He thrust his face close and whispered, ‘I know who you are.’ Jeb made a lunge for him, but the wolf-man was faster. He ducked backward into the small group of men. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a grass.’

‘Prick.’ Jeb’s jaw bunched, but he let the wolf-man go.

The bodies of two screws lay slumped on the floor of the corridor, each of them marked with signs of the sweats.

Magnus whispered, ‘What the fuck is this thing?’

Someone said, ‘The army will have an antidote.’

Jeb touched the pocket that held the Taser, as if it were a talisman against infection. ‘It was probably those army bastards that caused it in the first place.’

Magnus said, ‘So maybe we should stick around and get vaccinated.’

Jeb laughed. ‘Think they’d share it with scum like us? Who’s to say they didn’t drop a test-tube accidentally-on-purpose? It wouldn’t be the first time inmates have been used as guinea pigs.’

The inmates’ conviction that the authorities knew everything reminded Magnus of the dying youth they had met earlier.
They’ll sort us out
, he had said.

‘The sweats isn’t just killing prisoners.’ Magnus jerked a thumb backward to where the screws’ bodies lay slouched together in a corner.

The wolf-man was suddenly at their side. He did a twirl and then staggered with the dizziness of it. ‘Collateral damage.’ He giggled. ‘Scratch a screw and you’ll find a bastard, it’s no great loss.’ He waved his chair leg in the air. ‘Me, you, these cunts, the whole stinking world. None of it would be a great loss.’

Twelve

Magnus had thought they would pause to work out a plan before they got to the reception desk, but the small band of inmates gained speed as they got closer to the front entrance. A man with keys ran on ahead to unlock each door and hold it open for the rest, who sailed through without faltering, as if they instinctively knew that to lose momentum would be to lose courage. The key-man waited until the last moment before opening the door leading to the entrance hall. He held it wide and they bombed through, keeping close, because the door was only wide enough for one man at a time.

It would have been better to keep quiet and hold on to the element of surprise, but the escapees were anxious and when the wolf-man raised his voice in a high ululating howl, others joined in. The sound was ghastly. Magnus thought that if he had been on the other side of the door he would have fled, but the self-elected cordon at the security desk were made of steelier stuff. They decked the first wave of trespassers with Tasers. The stun guns had been designed to fell with one quick blast, but the inmates pumped the triggers until the men snared by the wires stopped screaming and lay still on the ground. There were only a few Tasers to go round and no time to disengage the cables from their victims’ bodies, but the cordon had planned ahead. They weighed in with batons and improvised weapons. Jeb had cannily positioned himself and Magnus in the second wave of the assault. He Tasered the largest of the men guarding the hallway and then took the penknife from his pocket and stabbed another in the neck. Blood gushed from the wound in a mesmerising arc. Magnus grabbed the man as he sank to the ground.

‘Jeb, for Christ’s sake . . .’ He was about to tell his cellmate to get a grip. That he would end up killing someone if he wasn’t careful, but then something hit him, hard and sickening, on the back of his head. He fell forward, landing on top of the other man’s body. Jeb grabbed him by the scruff of his jumper and hauled him to his feet. They were in the middle of the tussle now, backed up against the admissions desk. ‘Computer!’ Jeb shouted in Magnus’s face.

It took Magnus a second to grasp the command, then he realised what Jeb wanted him to do. He tumbled on to the counter, rolled behind the desk and grabbed the desktop computer. The cables snagged,
fuck
,
fuck
,
fuck
,
fuck
,
fuck
, but then Magnus managed to topple it to the ground, breaking its screen. He put a foot through the cracked plastic, making certain it was truly beyond use and no one could discover that they were VPs. His heel stuck in the computer’s damaged frame. Magnus swore and pulled it free.

An overweight man was grappling with the electronics under the desk. He must have found the correct switch because he punched a hand into the air and shouted, ‘Ya beauty!’ and the front doors opened automatically. The gate to the outside world waited beyond it. An inmate dressed in jeans and a prison sweatshirt was running into the courtyard, a set of keys swinging in his hands. A prison guard raced after him, but the guard’s movements were slow and weaving. He faltered to a halt and sank on to his knees in the middle of the courtyard, clutching his head.

There were only a few of them left tussling in the entrance hall. Magnus looked for Jeb and saw him in the centre of a small ruck. The men were squeezed together, limbs tangled, like Uppies and Doonies in close combat for the ba’ and it was hard to tell who was fighting who.

‘C’mon, lads. Have yous lot nae hames to go to?’ Magnus shouted in the voice of Johnny Bell, landlord of the Snapper, who could empty a bar full of thirsty trawlermen, swift as the sea could sweep you from your feet. ‘The bloody gate’s open. Get yourselves through it.’

Some inmates took heed and ran for the door, a few continuing to exchange kicks and punches as they fled. A small knot of prisoners was too engaged in the fight to extricate themselves, afraid that if they turned their back their opponents would gain the advantage. Magnus had lost sight of Jeb, but it was every man for himself now. He scanned the foyer, plotting his route to the door. There was no way to avoid passing the cluster of fighters, but perhaps if he ran . . .

‘He’s a fucking nonce,’ a voice screamed.

For a moment Magnus was unsure who had shouted, then he saw the weasel face of the hungry VP he had released from his cell during their escape. Magnus’s cheeks flushed. He tore the computer keyboard from its shattered monitor, ready to use it as a weapon.

‘I’m not . . .’

Denial started to his lips in a rush of breath and shame. Then he saw the cut across the small man’s face, the bloody knife in Jeb’s hand, and realised who the VP had accused. The fight faltered and eyes glanced in Jeb’s direction, marking him. It was Magnus’s cue to break for the door, but he shouted, ‘He’s lying to save his own arse. That guy’s the nonce. I saw him earlier, straight out of the VP wing. He was wearing blue sweats.’

Two men had already grabbed Jeb. One of them pressed his hand to Jeb’s throat, pushing his head back, turning his face crimson. The small inmate was on the edge of the tussle. He pointed at Magnus. ‘He’s one t—’

Eyes swivelled in Magnus’s direction and he realised he was about to be lynched.

Jeb nutted one of the men holding him. He kicked the other one’s knees, knocking him flat, and then kneed the weasel-faced VP in the groin before he could finish his accusation. The man crumpled and Jeb kicked him in the head, felling him. The weasel-man crawled towards the exit. Magnus saw the penknife shining in Jeb’s hand and started towards him.

The fight was filtering away, more inmates making for the door. But the two prisoners who had fixed on Jeb seemed content to delay their escape. Blood was streaming from the nose of the man Jeb had nutted, but pain seemed to have given him strength. He sprang to his feet and caught hold of Jeb again. His companion shook the penknife from Jeb’s grip.

‘Just do him,’ the other man said, his smile as wide as his gut. ‘One less nonce, you’ll be doing the world a favour.’

If Magnus ran now he might make it through the front gate and out into the streets beyond. The man raised the penknife in the air. Magnus fired the computer keyboard at the upraised hand. It dealt Jeb a glancing blow on the forehead that freed him from the smiler’s grip and knocked the knife from the other man’s grasp.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Jeb’s attacker lunged towards Magnus who picked up a discarded fire extinguisher, freed its safety catch and pulled down on the trigger, blasting the men with foam. Jeb was back on his feet, grappling with the fat man, but the foam made the tiled floor treacherous and he slid backward, pulling his opponent on top of him.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Jeb shouted. ‘This isn’t fucking
Home Alone
. Hit him with it.’

Magnus swung the extinguisher; it was heavy and he almost lost his balance, but he managed to right himself and deal the other man a blow on the side of the head. His descent, sure as Wylie Coyote’s after he had been hit with an Acme anvil, would have been comical were it not for the sickening crunch of metal against bone. Magnus retched, but his stomach was empty and all that came up was bile. The man groaned. The fingers of one of his hands fluttered. Magnus drove the fire extinguisher down again, like a crofter marking where he was about to begin digging turf. There was another stomach-turning crunch of bone and then the man lay still.

The fat inmate lost his grip on Jeb. ‘Fuck.’ He took a step backward, his eyes moving from Magnus to his friend lying still and bloodied on the ground, then back to Magnus again. ‘Fuck,’ he repeated. ‘Fuck,’ and made for the exit.

Magnus scanned the entrance hall, preparing for the next attack, but he and Jeb were the only people left standing.

‘Shit.’ Jeb leaned forward panting, his hands on his knees. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you.’

‘I don’t.’ Magnus was gasping for breath. ‘Do you think he’s . . . ?’

Jeb looked up. ‘Christ, that was a close one. I thought he had me there.’

Magnus held out his hands. They were trembling. ‘I think I might have . . .’

Jeb said, ‘You did what you had to do. You saved my skin and I saved yours.’

Magnus gave a crazy laugh. ‘What does that make us? Blood brothers?’

Jeb folded his penknife and slid it into his pocket. ‘It makes us even.’

There was a rumble of activity beyond the prison. Magnus looked towards the open gates and saw a flash of desert camouflage, a pale alert against the London brick.

Thirteen

‘We could pretend to be screws and show them our ID.’

Magnus kept his voice to a whisper, even though the wall they were crouched against was too far from the gate for the soldiers guarding it to hear them. His heart was still pounding from the fight in the entrance hall, but the fear that had stalked him since his arrest had vanished. The drab courtyard gleamed with colours he had never noticed before and the air made his skin tingle. Magnus’s eyes tracked a seagull flying high above. The sky was bluer than he remembered, the bird a soaring flash of white.

‘If they don’t believe us, it’ll be game over.’ Jeb was sorting through his pockets, examining the tangle of car keys he had lifted from the locker room. ‘I’m not getting banged up again.’