Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 (9 page)

Magnus lifted the paper from the floor and held it wide, showing Jeb the photograph of the hospital ward, flanked by sidebars of smiling female celebrities.

‘People are dying.’

Jeb was riffling through jackets and trouser pockets. He glanced up. ‘We already knew that.’ He clicked a penknife open, checking its blade. ‘How many of these actresses are holed up in some spa, ready to come back from the dead with a big
tada
when the time’s right? And who says the people in that hospital have the chills? All that photo shows is exactly what I’d expect to see in a hospital, patients lying in bed.’

‘They’re calling it the sweats.’

Jeb clicked the penknife shut. ‘Sweats, chills, I don’t give a fuck.’ He slid the closed knife into his jeans pocket. ‘Just concentrate on getting out of here. We can worry about killer flu after that.’

Magnus joined Jeb on the floor and rummaged in a sports bag. There was nothing useful in it, just a bottle of shower gel that claimed to double as shampoo and a towel, but touching another man’s possessions felt intimate and wrong. Magnus shoved it out of the way and started on another bag. He wanted to find something to eat. He wanted a knife like the one Jeb had found, or, better still, a Taser. He said, ‘What if the front door’s locked?’

‘I’m hoping someone will have already solved that problem for us, but if it’s locked then we find a way of opening it.’ Getting rid of his incriminating tracksuit had made Jeb more confident. ‘Here.’ He passed Magnus a prison officer’s identity card.

The man in the ID photograph was older than Magnus. His hair was a similar dark brown, but it was cut short in a barber-shop no-style. His face was thin and intelligent-looking; perfect casting for a university professor, or a curator of rare manuscripts.

‘I don’t look anything like him,’ Magnus said.

‘Just flash it and only if you need to.’ Jeb pulled on a beige jacket, shoved the Taser into one of its pockets and ran a comb he had found through his hair. ‘Tidy yourself up.’ He tossed the comb to Magnus.

Magnus glanced in a small mirror hung on the inside of one of the lockers. His hair was greasy, his chin covered in stubble too long to be designer, but too short to be called a beard. The bruises on his face were shifting to yellow, but the graze on his cheek had scabbed and it was obvious that his eye had recently been blacked.

‘Ready?’

Jeb shoved an NYPD baseball cap on his head. His beard was slightly ragged, but the civilian clothes he had chosen fitted well and he might easily be mistaken for an off-duty prison officer.

‘You look like a screw.’

‘Good, that’s what I was aiming for.’ Jeb grinned. ‘I’m not sure what you look like, but it’ll have to do.’

The corridors up ahead echoed with the rumble of male voices. They passed a splash of blood blooming head-height on a wall, red and vital against the whitewash. Their eyes met, but neither of them said anything. Magnus wished he had the weight of a Taser in his pocket.

‘Anyone who’s got out will come this way,’ Jeb whispered. ‘So sooner or later we’re going to meet someone. If anything kicks off, go in hard.’ Magnus wanted to protest that he did not know how to ‘go in hard’, but he nodded. Jeb must have seen the fear on his face because he added, ‘Fight dirty and don’t hold back.’

Magnus’s father had tried to teach him how to fight, shouting instructions while Magnus threw punches into a grain sack,
left, right, left, right, right, right, right
, but Magnus did not have the dexterity required of a good featherweight and he lacked the power to be a heavyweight.

‘It’s your mouth that gets you into trouble,’ his dad had finally said. ‘Let’s hope it learns how to get you out of it too.’

They met their first prisoners in the next stretch of corridor. There were two of them, both still dressed in green prison-issue tracksuits and trainers. Magnus detected a glimmer of sweat on the younger of the pair which spoke of the virus. That was who he would go for if it came to a fight, he decided, the under-fed youth whose hands were trembling. The decision prompted a familiar jolt of shame.

‘All right, lads?’ Jeb’s voice was bold and confident.

The men froze and the boy Magnus had marked as his target muttered, ‘Shit.’

‘Don’t worry, we’re not screws.’ Jeb took off his baseball cap and rubbed a hand through his suede head. ‘Just treated ourselves to a couple of going-away outfits. Talking about going away, you’re going the wrong way, aren’t you?’

‘Depends whether you want to get your head kicked in or not,’ the elder of the duo said. He was a man somewhere beyond his mid-forties who looked like he knew what it was to take a kicking. The man’s face was pitted with old scars that suggested a flight through a car windscreen or unexpected congress with a plate-glass window.

‘Trouble up ahead?’

‘You could say that.’ The man’s voice was heavy with resentment. ‘A reception committee checking who’s fit for the outside.’

‘Too scared to go outside themselves, if you ask me.’ The boy hugged his ribs, as if he were cold and trying to stop himself from shivering. ‘They said I was sick. No one sick gets to leave.’ His voice wavered, but he added bravely, ‘I heard on the news that they’re sending the army in anyway. That’ll fix those cunts. The army have the best doctors too. They’ll sort us out.’

‘What about you?’ Jeb asked the older man. ‘You look well enough.’

‘I didn’t want to leave Jack here.’ The boy was taller than him, but the scarred man reached up and put an arm around the youth’s thin shoulders. ‘Him and me’s been mates a long time. He needs looking after, specially if he’s ill.’

Jeb nodded as if he understood. His expression was neutral, but he stood stolid in the middle of the corridor, blocking the men’s progress.

‘Anything else we need to know?’

The man shrugged. ‘They’ve got the prison records up on computer and they’re checking what people are in for. They say they want to stop any nonces from getting out.’

Magnus snapped, ‘Why don’t they just mind their own fucking business?’

The older man gave him a shrewd look, but he said, ‘The lad here’s right. They’re long-termers, big men inside, nothing on the outside. I guess they like being big men.’

Jeb said, ‘We’re both in for intent to supply, you know the sketch. Think they’ll have any objection to that?’

‘I don’t suppose so.’ The older man didn’t sound convinced. ‘Not unless your face doesn’t fit.’

Jeb nodded again. ‘Yes, there’s always that.’

The young boy started to cough. The older man rubbed his back, but the boy’s coughing increased, catching in whoops at the back of his throat. Magnus took a step backward, but Jeb held his ground. It seemed that all the air in the boy’s body was being expelled, but then he bent forward and was sick against the wall. He crouched over his vomit, gasping for breath.

His companion put an arm around him. ‘It’s all right, Jack, you’re going to be fine.’

‘Piss off, you old poof. Can’t you even keep your hands off me when I’m bloody dying?’

The man threw Jeb and Magnus an apologetic look. ‘I’d like to find him somewhere comfy, where he could have a lie-down.’ He gave them a sad half-smile, asking for permission to move on.

Jeb stepped to one side. ‘Good luck.’

‘Yeah, same to you.’

Jeb waited until the men were further down the corridor and then he asked, ‘How many are in this reception committee?’

‘A few.’

Magnus would have liked to have pinned the man down on exactly how many a few were, but the answer seemed to satisfy Jeb. He said, ‘Are they armed?’

‘Tasered up to the eyeballs, mate, wired too. That’s why we’re planning on bunking down and making the best of things. Prisoners make brutal jailers.’

Eleven

‘
T
he boy said the army were coming.’ Magnus was crouched next to Jeb in a corner of an intersection in the long, white corridors that were a feature of the admissions block.

Jeb hissed, ‘Ever been in army nick?’

‘No, have you?’

A stretch of empty hallway loomed before and behind them. They had not seen anyone since encountering the two retreating prisoners, but a rumble of male voices reverberated through the building, echoing from all directions, like cries in an overcrowded swimming pool. There was something high-pitched and excited about the noise that raised the hairs on the back of Magnus’s neck and he guessed it would not be long before they met more escapees.

Jeb said, ‘I’ve heard plenty about them from guys that have. The army have their own rules. This isn’t the cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We’re the bad guys, remember?’

The wolf-man was howling again. It was hard to tell if he was in pain or celebrating his freedom to roam the corridors.

Magnus said, ‘I’ve not even been properly charged. It was different when I thought we were stuck here, but now help is coming . . .’

The baying noise increased in pitch.

Jeb said, ‘I’ll fucking throttle that guy if I get my hands on him.’ He looked at Magnus. ‘The army will help you into a set of handcuffs, kick you up the arse and into a cell that’ll make your last place look like a fucking palace. If things are as you say they are, then we need to get out of here, pronto.’

Magnus thought of the headlines in the
Daily Express
. Jeb was right: tabloids were not to be trusted, but the contents of the paper chimed with the television he had watched and the sick prisoners, absent warders and abandoned prison all told their own story. He said, ‘Scarface said there’s a reception committee checking who’s who. If they find our records on the computer they’ll know we’re VPs.’

‘Keep your voice down.’ Jeb glanced around as if he were afraid someone might have overheard.

The howling seemed louder, the yells and catcalls of the surrounding voices closer. Magnus would have liked to have found a cell, climbed into bed and hidden himself beneath the covers, until whatever was about to happen, happened, but the smell of Pete’s illness was still sharp in his memory and he knew that once closed, cell doors were not so easily opened.

Jeb took a swift intake of breath and whispered, ‘They’re coming.’

The howling was upon them. A squad of men, most of them still in prison tracksuits, rounded the corner. The wolf-man gambolled beside them like a mascot. He was smaller than Magnus had imagined; a chubby, middle-aged man who it would be easy to imagine devoting Sunday afternoons to washing his car, were it not for the mad bluster of his dance, the crazy tilt of his head. The prisoners had broken up bunks and benches and armed themselves with chair and bed legs. A couple of them carried fire extinguishers. Magnus wondered why it had not occurred to him to arm himself in the same way. He leapt to his feet, ready to run in the opposite direction, but Jeb grabbed his arm.

‘Stand your ground.’ Jeb pulled his baseball cap low over his eyes, hiding his features in the shadow of its brim. ‘This is our best chance.’ He stepped into the middle of the corridor and raised a hand in greeting, like a man trying to stop a car on a country road. The group faltered to a halt. No one spoke and then Jeb said, ‘Okay to join you lads?’

‘We don’t need any screws,’ a voice from the back said.

There were about fifteen of them, Magnus reckoned. He wondered how they had got out and hoped that no one had seen him and Jeb crossing the courtyard, leaving other prisoners trapped in their cells.

‘Do we look like screws?’ Jeb’s voice was hard and challenging.

The wolf-man waved a chair leg lightly in the air, the way a fool might wave his sceptre. ‘You’re dressed like off-duty screws, or filth . . .’

Jeb’s head jerked at the mention of police. ‘We look like screws cos we nicked these clothes from their locker room. We thought they might help us get away. We just want out, same as you do.’

One of the prisoners started to cough, a second man joined in and another spat on the ground.

‘Anyone know these boys?’ a tall man near the front asked.

There was no one in charge, Magnus realised, no one to make the decision to let them join the group. He said, ‘I just got put in here on Friday, no trial, no lawyer. Emergency measures, the police told me.’ He let some of the despair he was feeling leak into his voice. ‘It’s been a fucking nightmare. All I’m interested in is getting home. I’ve got family I need to get back to.’

The tall man nodded. He looked at Jeb. ‘Do I know you?’

Jeb lifted his face and stared him straight in the eyes. ‘Ever worked the rigs?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe we met somewhere.’ Jeb shrugged. ‘I work the rigs, three weeks on, three weeks off. It makes you stir-crazy. Occasionally it gets me into a bit of bother. Drunk and disorderly; expected a night in the cells, woke up in here.’

The tall man glanced at the men behind him. No one said anything and he gave Magnus and Jeb a curt nod.

‘Plan is we go out mob-handed. Extra bodies should be a help.’

Magnus said, ‘We met a couple of guys earlier. They told us there’s a squad at the front door checking what people are in for and deciding who gets out.’