28

I’d been dreaming that I was drowning, drowning in blood, the blood of Mr Wharton and Tug Wilson. They’d been pulling me into their blood. A big stinking pool of blood; I could feel its cold clammy stickiness and its contraction as it congealed on my skin and turned from red to chocolate brown, and the iron metallic taste in my mouth and the smell – that smell. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared; no, I’d never been so scared. I was soaked in sweat and had difficulty breathing. I just lay still and controlled my breathing. I ached. I tried to lift my head but my neck was like rock. My eyes were open but I could only see the dim outline of things in the glimmer of light from the blue safety lamp over the cell door. It was so dark it must have been the middle of the night. I could feel my hands trembling and my heart pounding. I lay on my bunk looking upwards at the grey area above me as the darkness was hiding the ceiling from me. I could feel the sensation in my right hand of the cutthroat razor slicing into Mr Wharton’s throat and see the blood flowing across the bathroom floor reflected in the greyness above me in curling streaks, like a modern abstract painting. I could see his face reflected in this bizarre picture, surprise, shock, horror, floating in the cold darkness. I could see his grey, dying body in the light of the blue safety lamp. I could feel his coldness in the chill of this cell – cold, very cold in death – and the greyness of the dead body that had pumped out its blood from the severed arteries and veins in his throat and penis. I could hear him choking and whispering in the scraping and rattling that pervades the bareness of the prison, in the cries of other prisoners, but most of all in the soft rasping of Harry breathing in the bunk below me, whispering with a voice that I’d cut from Mr Wharton. I pulled my skinny blanket up to my throat in an attempt to shield myself from that, that from which I couldn’t hide. No warmth, no hiding place from what I’d done.

‘Are you okay, Captain?’

‘Not really, Harry.’

‘Bad dream?’

‘Yes, a bad dream.’

‘The killings?’

‘Yes, Harry.’

‘But you’ve killed before, Captain.’

‘Yes and I’ve had nightmares before but not quite like this one.’

‘What was it?’ It was a simple open question.

‘Blood, Harry. I’ve never stabbed anyone before.’

‘Messy stuff blood: shooting at a distance or breaking someone’s neck is kind of clean but blood is messy stuff.’ I could hear the understanding in his voice. An understanding that none of the counsellors had had when I’d spoken to them in the past about killing people. Odd isn’t it: organisations send people to counselling with people who have never actually been engaged in the real situation. They may have attended the lectures or read the good books but they’ve never actually killed anybody or been stabbed or shot or lost a leg or a child. How would they know what it feels like, the horror, the fear, and the self-loathing? Yet, I’d done it, I’d been a counsellor and not really known what the poor bastard I was supposed to help was going through and because of the enormity and the personal nature of the problems, they couldn’t really tell me, but Harry had been there, done it and suffered from the results.

‘You had nightmares, Harry?’

‘Oh yes and nights when I couldn’t get to sleep, but not now, not anymore. You’ll be okay, Captain. Those bastards deserved to die.’

The strange thing was that his words relaxed me. Harry knew; he’d been there. He was something special. My shakes stopped, the stiff neck evaporated and I felt tired. I was going to be all right with Harry guarding my back. I even started to giggle. I could see the two bodies like lovers and could imagine the images on the police photos.

‘What is it, Captain?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, Harry. I’m okay now. Thanks.’

Then I must have just fallen asleep. Well, I knew that I had as I had a dream.

It was raining, I could hear the rain and we were in my car. The rain bounced off the roof with that drumming noise and the rain splashed off the windscreen and we were looking through the streaky windscreen across green fields and there were cows. We were talking and I knew it was Sam with me and I felt wonderful but I couldn’t see her.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘To the village.’ She was pleased.

‘Can we go to the restaurant?’

‘Yes,’ I said but the car wouldn’t start and she got out and she walked away and I couldn’t get out because the door was locked. And I was shouting for her, it got dark and I could hear her calling me.

Then we were home and she was in the bath and calling me and I said I was coming and Harry woke me up.

‘You okay, Jake?’ he asked. ‘Why?’

‘You were shouting.’

‘Sorry.’

He got back in his bunk.