Bailey lay awake on her bunk in the darkness of the night, pondering her progress so far. From below came the gurgle of Sharon’s snoring and the sporadic creak of the springs in her mattress as she shifted position in her sleep.
Beyond the locked cell, distant sounds echoed through the sepulchral Victorian edifice. The clang of a door opening and closing. The croak of muffled sobbing. The shout of a prison officer barking something to someone.
She’d been in here for almost three weeks, but it felt like considerably longer. She supposed it was good that she had adapted to prison life so quickly, but on the other hand, she had almost forgotten what life was like on the outside. Either way, she felt like she was making good headway in her investigation now that she had succeeded in infiltrating the gang.
It hadn’t taken long, of course, for Sharon to notice her bruises and nascent tattoo, along with her new lunch buddies in the prison canteen. Sharon knew exactly who the ABC were and what they did, and apart from a few minor asides, she was uncharacteristically restrained when it came to asking Bailey about her involvement with them. Bailey guessed Sharon held them in the same wary regard as everyone else in the place. At the very least, she was grateful for anything that might help to keep Sharon off her case.
She turned onto her side to try and find a more comfortable posture, wincing slightly as she did so, the aches and pains from her beating a week ago still somewhat tender.
She was afraid, as always, to give in to the pull of tiredness for she knew what the night would bring. But the day’s activities had drained her and she felt worn out. Slowly, inexorably, she closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep.
And the nightmares descended upon her, like they did every night, always the same…
She is in a dark cavernous room. A cold bare room with a concrete floor and metal girders for rafters. She is hanging from one of the metal rafters, chained up to a meat hook.
She knows that however loud she screams for help, no one will be able to hear her because this place is too isolated.
Her feet are not touching the ground and she can feel the hard metal chains biting into her wrists. She can feel the stress on her shoulder muscles as they support her body weight. But she knows this discomfort is nothing compared to what is to come.
As she hangs there, she realises that she is at the mercy of the figure waiting in the shadows.
Her torturer.
He is visible only by the red glow of a cigarette tip. Spiced smoke drifting towards her. The smell of a clove cigarette being smoked in the darkness.
Vainly, she peers into the shadows. Always she does this.
She tries to reason with him. Pleads with him. But it is no good. It is never any good. He is silent. He is watching her. He is relishing her discomfort.
He steps forward into the small pool of light cast by the bare overhead bulb. He is dressed in expensive clothes, metropolitan in appearance, very well-groomed, and there is a deceptively affable smile on his face.
He demands the name.
Always, he asks the name.
And always she refuses.
He takes the cigarette he is smoking and grinds the burning tip into her flesh.
She screams and writhes on the meat hook, but to no avail. She can smell her flesh burning. She can hear the sound of it sizzling. The hiss of the fat bubbling.
Once more, he demands the name.
Once more, she refuses.
Again with the cigarette. Again and again.
Still, she refuses to say the name.
Then he takes the cut-throat razor from the inside pocket of his designer jacket. Slowly, he opens it up, brandishing it in front of her, the wafer-thin steel blade sparkling in the light.
The name.
She refuses.
And he begins to slice into her flesh.
The blood running down her body. Slick and wet. Running in rivulets. Dripping off the ends of her clenched toes to drip, splat, splat, splat, onto the concrete floor, forming a crimson puddle beneath her.
The name.
She refuses. Screaming and crying.
The name.
The name.
The name.
The name.
She tries to force the name down. But the pain and horror always win out. In the end, she always succumbs. Please just make it stop. Anything to make it stop.
The name rises to the surface like a bubble of air escaping and there is nothing she can do to stop it bursting from her mouth.
Saying it over and over again.
‘Spyros!’
Bailey jerked awake the next morning, the stench of her burning flesh still strong in her nostrils.
As always, she reflexively checked herself, running her hands over her body, surprised to discover that she wasn’t bleeding and her flesh wasn’t raw. The scars were now thin hard ridges of flesh and the burns were now coarse discoloured patches.
She rolled off her bunk and put the kettle on, noticing a faint shaking in her hands as she opened her breakfast packet. Not long after, Sharon yawned, stretched and got up to join her for tea.
They both sat there in the cell, drinking tea, neither of them saying much to the other. Sharon seemed uncharacteristically quiet and Bailey got the impression she wanted to say something. Eventually, she tilted her head at Bailey, a faintly quizzical expression on her face.
‘You were saying stuff in your sleep last night.’
Bailey felt a burst of panic. What had she revealed?
‘What was I saying?’
‘You were tossing and turning a lot. That’s what woke me up, see. The bed springs creaking. You were murmuring and moaning. You didn’t sound happy. And then you started saying stuff.’
She cursed to herself. What if she had given her cover away?
‘What kind of stuff?’ she asked. She had to know if she’d revealed anything compromising.
‘Something about Spyros. You kept saying the word Spyros. What’s Spyros?’
Her heart thumped hard.
The name.
She’d said the name.
‘Oh nothing.’ She tried to sound casual.
‘Sounds like a Greek restaurant.’
Bailey tried to emit what she hoped was a casually dismissive laugh.
‘Is it a person?’ Sharon enquired.
Bailey shrugged. ‘I don’t know. People say all kinds of stuff in their dreams.’
‘I’ve heard you say it before when you’ve been sleeping. It must have some kind of meaning. Is it a bloke?’ Sharon winked suggestively.
Bailey realised she needed to give Sharon something to sate her curiosity.
‘Yeah, it was a bloke.’
‘Ahh… thought so. You’re a dark horse, Bailey.’
‘But I don’t want to talk about him,’ said Bailey, deliberately flicking her lock of hair aside to reveal the scar on her face.
Sharon’s face went serious, almost in a caricature of shock. ‘Oh… he did that to you, did he? What a bastard!’
She didn’t know the half of it.