Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

Suddenly she is out of her seat, clutching her hand to her mouth, pushing past Rufus and running for the living-room door. She feels sick all the way through. Cold and feverish and horribly, horribly scared.

She thunders up the stairs and into the bathroom. Slams the door behind her and vomits into the toilet, emptying herself, eyes popping, half weeping as she retches over and over.

When she is done she slides to the floor. Through tear-fogged eyes, she reads the story that Griffin Cox wrote on her behalf and handed in to be assessed.

There is no doubt in her mind any more. He knows what she did.

And there will be a terrible price to pay.

PART TWO

TWENTY

Cox was the first to arrive. He’s already sitting in the classroom, arms clasped demurely in his lap, as the rest of the inmates troop in. Mr Windsor, who has lately developed an irritating habit of sniffing loudly then blowing out a kind of exasperated sigh, is standing by the small window at the back of the room. He’s irritated, and Cox is enjoying it. Windsor has been tasked with overseeing the class today. Miss Harris will not be coming in. A sudden sickness, apparently. Cox had looked forlorn, genuinely distressed, when Windsor broke the news. Whatever could have caused that, he’d wondered, as he fought the urge to congratulate himself.

‘You back, are you, dickhead.’

‘Thought you’d been moved on, nonce …’

‘Mr Windsor, he can’t be here … he missed yesterday, just take him back …’

‘Where’s Miss Harris, sir?’

Cox sits silently, enduring it all. He keeps the same unreadable expression on his face. Despite being the centre of attention, he finds that nobody ever really looks at him. Only Callan, the big armed robber with blood on his hands, takes the time and trouble to meet his eye and gives him a look that says, ‘I know what you are, and if opportunity arises, we both know what will happen’.

Karen bustles in behind the assorted inmates, reading out names. They drop into Cox’s memory bank like coins. He wants to know everything about the people he surrounds himself with. Not because he has any interest in them, but because when he escapes, they will each face unpleasantness: endless grillings conducted in the furnace glare of suspicion that they were somehow complicit. He will enjoy that thought, when what’s done is done. Will allow himself to picture their discomfort as he begins whatever life waits for him beyond these walls.

‘Sorry, sorry …’

The writer appears in the doorway, damp and breathless. Behind him, a tall officer, saddled with the unfortunate name of Crippen, throws him a thumbs-up and peers into the classroom through the door.

‘All right, sir!’

‘Crippen looking after you, sir?’

‘Where’s Miss Harris?’

‘Shut up, Mings, Karen just fucking told you …’

Cox stays silent. Knows what’s coming. Keeps himself completely inscrutable as Orton slips out of his rain-speckled jacket and scans the room. His eyes fall on Cox. Something ripples across his features: a cat momentarily showing teeth. Cox feels the deep, warm swell of excitement. Feels his body loosen, his insides become liquid. She knows, he thinks. She saw it. Read it. Devoured it. And it’s made her so fucking sick at herself that she can’t even bring herself to face him. Cox knows from experience that people are at their most vulnerable when they feel helpless. He is the kind of man willing to offer help to those in need, for the right price.

Orton drags his attention back to the rest of the class. ‘Sorry I’m running a bit behind. Nothing to worry about. Engrossed in your writing, that was the problem. Let time run away with me …’

Cox watches, delighted, as Orton tries to find the energy to sparkle the way he had yesterday. He tries to decipher the cause of the air of sullen greyness that seems to linger about him like mist. Could Miss Harris have confided in him? Perhaps Orton had read the whole batch of offerings and congratulated her on having the courage to hand in something so personal. Cox likes the idea. If so, it will have played out exactly as he hoped. He wants Miss Harris to feel as though her whole world is shifting on its axis: as if the bones from her past are going to climb from the earth and crawl towards her; skeletal hands clutching at the legs of her dark trousers; yellowed teeth in defleshed craniums leering, obscenely; dirt and worms and dried blood spilling down ivory jawbones.

‘Mr Mings,’ says Orton, finding him at the second table from the front. ‘A superb piece of writing. Not precisely a work of fiction but I’m just pleased to see words on a page. Fascinating reading. Lots of trivia about prison life; the relationships between inmates; that sense of fear; the way the smallest thing from outside can linger in your mind – turn to anger … it’s a good read.’

Behind him, Suggs jerks his head up. ‘What fucking relationships between inmates? Is he calling me a bender? I’m not having that, no fucking way …’

‘Settle down, Suggs,’ says Windsor, from the back of the room. He’s found himself a seat and is reading a newspaper, crinkled and folded so it’s the same size as a paperback. Cox presumes he’s doing the crossword. Fancies that the Daily Star’s tea-break quickie will occupy him for the day.

‘All interactions between human beings are a relationship of one sort or another,’ says Orton, quickly. He glances at Cox. Gives the tiniest shake of his head. Looks around at the others. There’s something harsh and accusatory in his eyes. He doesn’t seem like the posh, befuddled man who addressed them yesterday. He looks, again, like the man who leaned over Griffin Cox’s table, and twisted the skin on his forearm with such unforgiving force that it had taken an effort of will to keep the benign look on his face.