I was lying awake on my bed when the note got pushed under the door. I’m not sure what time it was, but it was late. More than likely it was early. I’d not been sleeping well at all for the last couple of weeks and had been tossing and turning for what felt like hours when I noticed a shadow pass across the observation window of my cell door. The prison officers looked in at random intervals anyway, presumably to make sure that no one had hung themselves after lights out, but this time the shadow stayed in front of the window for longer than normal. I heard a noise at the bottom of the door, and when I looked up, I could see a single sheet of paper had been pushed under it.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I got to my feet to retrieve the note. I didn’t have to worry about disturbing Mac as he was back on the hospital wing. Coughing up blood again. I’d never once seen him cough up anything other than thick phlegm, but he was insistent. Besides, he’d said, the food was better on the hospital wing. Although we bickered like a husband and wife most of the time, I missed him.
I knew some of the prisoners preferred to be in solitary, even to the point of staging fights to get assessed as high risk and locked up, but I didn’t think I’d manage that for long. I’d even heard a story about a lad who wet the bed all the time just to get his own cell, but I’d heard it from so many people I figured it was an urban legend. I picked the paper up off the floor and held it to the light coming in the observation window so I could read it.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I muttered as I read the text. It was an instruction to pack my things up and be ready to move at lights up tomorrow morning. That didn’t give me a chance to speak to anyone before I left. They always shipped prisoners out before the doors to the cells opened. I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to the few mates I’d made in Whitemoor, and that included Mac. The instruction didn’t say where I was being moved to, just that I was being moved. “What am I supposed to pack my stuff into, anyway?” I said under my breath, looking around the cell. In reality, my personal possessions would fit into a shoebox.
One of the main advantages of being ‘ghosted’ out of Whitemoor was that Gejza or whatever his name was would be miles away. I didn’t doubt he could find out where I had gone, but it put at least one degree of separation between me, the Romanian, and his gorillas. I still hadn’t worked out what I would do about that problem, but perhaps being moved away would buy me some time until I’d come up with something. Lying back down on the bed, I stuffed the paper under my pillow. I stared at the bottom of the bunk above me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep now. I closed my eyes anyway.
The next time I opened them it was morning, and my cell door had just been unlocked. I’d drifted off to sleep after all. With a start, I realised that I’d not packed any of my stuff. Wherever I was going, I didn’t want to leave any of it behind. I pulled the picture of Jennifer off the wall of the cell, trying to rub the congealed homemade glue off the back. It was made out of coffee whitener mixed with a dab of water and was as strong as superglue, but it messed the photos up for good. It was my one remaining photograph of her. I looked at it and frowned. I’d have to get Andy to send me another one in and hope it got through the postal system intact.
“You sorted, then?” a voice shouted through the open door. It wasn’t Mr McLoughlin, but one of the other prison officers. Mr Philips, I think his name was. “Come on, I haven’t got all day.” I moved about the cell, trying to get as much of my stuff together as I could.
“Have you got a box or anything?” I asked. “Please?” I heard a muttered swearword in response and a few seconds later a battered shoebox came sailing through the door. I dumped my few possessions into it and picked it up before leaving the cell without a second look.
Mr Philips was standing on the walkway outside my cell with a look of complete indifference on his face.
“Follow me,” he said as he walked off down the walkway. I set off after him, listening to the jeers and catcalls that always accompanied anyone getting moved with almost no notice. I ignored most of them until I walked past one of the cells and heard my name being called out. I looked across and could just see one of my friends from the library, Jimmy something or other, armed robbery. He was looking through the observation window of his cell door.
“Good luck Gareth,” he said. “Wherever you end up.”
“Mate, can you tell Mac goodbye from me when he gets back?” I slowed my pace as much as I dared. “Tell him I’ll be in touch, yeah?”
“Yeah, course mate,” Jimmy replied. “No worries.”
“Come on, Dawson,” I heard Mr Philips shouting at me. “You don’t want to miss the happy bus.” His words were followed by a chorus of laughs and jeers that echoed around the wing.
I followed Mr Philips through the wing and out of the locked doors that separated us from the outside world. As I stepped out into the courtyard, I shivered. It was freezing, a typical cold November morning. I looked up at the sky, enjoying for a moment a different view of it than from the exercise yard, but it was just as grey and dismal. I followed the prison officer towards the Serco Sweatbox, as the white prison vans were known. Ironic really, as the only time you ever sweated in them was in the middle of summer. The rest of the year they were bloody freezing. I took my place in the metal cage in the back of the van and sat on the hard metal seat as Mr Philips locked both my cage and the rear door of the van. There were eight compartments in the back of the van, each one separated by metal bars. An opening in the door of each one allowed you to put your hands through to have handcuffs put on or taken off. I leaned back against the bars, wincing at the cold of the metal I was sitting on, and waited.
It was an hour, maybe an hour and a half later when the door to the back of the van was reopened. I was sitting in the same position, arms wrapped around me to try to keep warm. I felt the van’s suspension dip a little and saw Mr McLoughlin step into the back of the van.
“I heard you were being shipped out at Morning Prayers,” he said. I had to think for a moment before I worked out he must be talking about their morning briefing session. Not many of the prison officers struck me as churchgoers. “So, I thought I’d stop by and say goodbye.” That was a surprise. I got to my feet to speak to him.
“Thanks, Mr McLoughlin,” I said. “I appreciate that.” He shook his head.
“Now don’t get soppy, Gareth,” he smiled. “No tears, you hear?” I grinned back at him, and we stood there in silence for a few seconds. “Anyway, I would say it’s been a pleasure, but I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with me.”
“I think the pleasure’s been all Her Majesty’s,” I said, and we both laughed. The next thing Mr McLoughlin did really surprised me. He put his hand through the slot in the door and into my cell, palm extended. As I shook his hand, I realised that this was the first actual contact I’d had with any of the prison officers in Whitemoor.
“You don’t know where I’m going, do you?” I asked him, deciding to take advantage of the situation. He smiled back at me, and again I reflected on how different he looked with a smile on his face.
“I’m not allowed to tell you where you’re going,” he replied. “I don’t understand why, but rules are rules.”
“That’s fine, I get that,” I said, feeling bad for putting him on the spot.
“I’m sure wherever it is, it’s a fine city.” My smile widened at his words. At every entrance to the city of Norwich was a sign proclaiming it as ‘a fine city’. I was going home.
Mr McLoughlin let go of my hand and walked towards the back door.
“Thank you, Mr McLoughlin,” I called after him. He stopped and said something that I didn’t quite catch. “Sorry, I missed that?”
“My name’s Richard,” he said. “I said my name’s Richard.”