26
I wandered along to the blue room. Moorby and Manson were leaning on the landing rail outside. Clearly only I was going into the showers. I could feel the expectation in the wing or perhaps it was just my raised level of adrenaline. The blue room served two wings, A and B, and all the levels. The A-Wing door was on the left and the B-Wing door on the right. Mr Wharton and Tug Wilson were in A-Wing, so they would probably come in through the left door. I followed the instructions Harry had given me and wondered how he knew what to do. But mine was not to wonder why; mine was but to do and hopefully not die.
I was in the first shower row, the fifth shower cubicle along, and I heard someone approaching. Suddenly Mr Wharton was standing in front of me, naked and erect. He was still wearing his hat.
‘How about that one, soldier?’ His hands were above his head and his hips were thrust forward.
I swung the razor upwards, right to left, across his body, cut deeply into his pride and joy, and blood spurted everywhere. His scream died as I slashed sideways again from right to left, aiming for his throat. More by luck than anything else, the blade sliced into his neck and forward into his windpipe. I had to pull it free. An artery must have been cut or perhaps a major vein as the blood pumped and poured out. My stomach tied into a knot; I was horrified at what I had done and was fighting to breathe and at the same time, my thinking was clear, ice cold. I stepped across the body into the opposite cubical and heard the sound of running feet above the whoosh of the two running showers opposite. Tug appeared. He was naked apart from the plastic faceguard they had fitted because of the facial damage I had inflicted, looking like the phantom of the shower room. He was facing the first running shower, looking down at his master. I picked my spot and stabbed him with the ice pick between the shoulder blades. I held him on the spike as I reached around his body and used the razor to cut his throat. His knees folded, he tipped forward and the long, slim pick in my hand pulled free from his back. He was dead before he hit the ground.
I froze, looking at my hands and the weapons in them. For the first attack I’d had the razor in my right hand and the pick in my left. At some point I’d changed hands so the razor was in my left and the pick in my right and that aided my attack, but I didn’t recollect doing that.
The two naked bodies were at my feet face down. Wilson was draped around Wharton and slightly over him. Wilson’s right arm was around Wharton’s chest and his chest against his back like two lovers dreaming. I shuddered at the gross image and the realisation of what I’d done. I was trembling and my breathing was shallow and rapid. I’d killed before, more than once, but this was different, very different. I wanted to be sick, gagging. But I daren’t as this might identify me through DNA. I swallowed with that revolting acid taste left in my mouth.
I washed the blades and stepped into the still-running second shower. Blood flowed into the first one, the spots of blood on me washed off and I gargled and spat. I turned off the second shower and used my wet flannel to clean the shower valve. The first shower was still running, washing the blood down the drain. I cleaned the shower valve and I wonder why Harry wanted me to do this shower routine. Then I was confused, did he actually tell me to do that? I walked to the end of the row, wiped the blades with my flannel and rolled them in a rag that was on the window ledge. Luck was with me and I dropped them through the window. There was a hose dribbling at the end of the line of the second row of showers. I turned it on full and washed the passageway between the showers so that if I’d dripped any blood from me it would be washed away.
I went to my still-running shower, along the back of the blue room, washed myself down quickly just in case any blood was still on me, dried myself, dressed and walked out of the showers, past the baths to the A-Wing door. The two prison officers were opposite. Their surprised reaction could be seen. Moorby put his hand onto Manson’s hand and they didn’t move. What could they do? I caught their eyes and did a little nodding tweak of my head in a greeting. I could see the confusion in their faces and in their stance, and I wandered nonchalantly back to my cell. I could hear a very quiet buzz just above a deathly silence. The atmosphere was electric. Expectation hung in the air. I was so relaxed I could have sung or danced but I held myself in, quiet and controlled; no rush, just the usual wander. How strange: from shuddering horror to happy relaxation in a few minutes.
Harry was waiting and when I got back to our cell, he hugged me and said, ‘Thank God for that, Captain. Are they dead? Of course they are; now you better go to your medical. You’ve an appointment.’ He was proud of me. How strange. I could hear it in his voice. He hadn’t doubted me for a minute. This is what sergeants expect – no, want – from their officers, to be listened to and then for the officer to do the job excellently as their leader.
I walked along the landings, down the stairs, through the passageways to the medical centre. It seemed to me that everybody knew something had happened; it was in the very air that we breathed; it was in the creaks and bangs and scrapes of the very fabric of the building and voices of the prisoners. The ‘what’ wasn’t known but the fact that something had happened or was about to happen was there – an intangible knowledge.