Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

his precious flesh. He doesn’t want this monstrosity, this old, wrinkled thing, poking at him as if he were a body on a slab. Doesn’t want to look into her brown eyes, or see the places upon her chin and upper lip where she has failed to pluck errant hairs; or to see the pores across her nose. He finds her repulsive. Finds them all repulsive, truth be told; fears being infected by their ugly, wrinkled decrepitude. She is the same age as Griffin Cox, but around thirty-five years past her sell-by date as a figure of desire.

‘You were lucky,’ says Dr Lechmere, straightening up. ‘A couple of inches to the right, and you’re looking at a broken heart.’

Cox makes an effort. Smiles, thinly, as if it is sapping the last of his strength. He makes a show of reaching down to find his pyjama top, fumbling feebly around in the blue-and-white bedsheets to locate the hem of his cotton shirt.

Dr Lechmere turns and addresses the two men behind her. Wing Governor Laiquet Hussain is a decent, quietly efficient chap from the Midlands whose broad Birmingham accent disarms those inmates who expect his skin tone to directly impact on his personality. Dark hair, dark eyes, thick black beard, he would be a Home Office pin-up for diversity if he could stand the incumbent government and if he hadn’t made a name for himself publicly criticizing the underfunding that has left his prison dangerously underfunded and understaffed. Behind him hovers Inmate Wellness Liaison Simone Greaves. She’s all affectation. Perm, headband, glasses, anorak, trainers, stripy jumper and leggings that look as if they have been lined with moussaka. She is a representative of the outside oversight agency tasked with making sure no prisoner slips in the shower or tumbles down the stairs more than once per sentence. Cox finds it faintly absurd that the phrase ‘do-gooder’ has any kind of negative connotation, but he cannot think of Ms Greaves as anything other than a ‘bleeding heart’: arse-clenchingly saccharine and systemically pious. She has a way of putting her head on one side and asking questions in a soft, understanding voice that makes him want to slice her open and pull out whatever he sees first. He saw a picture of her once, front page of the Hull Mail, trying to block plans for a new incinerator. She had waged war on those who planned to damage the next generation’s precious lungs. To Cox, she’d have emphasized her points more emphatically if the image hadn’t shown her three quarters of her way down a Marlboro Red.

‘They did a decent job,’ says Dr Lechmere, referring to the emergency team who had looked after Cox as he lay on the classroom floor, and then sped him to A&E at Hull Royal Infirmary, where his wound was cleaned, stitched, and where he suffered the indignity of antibiotic shots to his rump. He was there under five hours. He’s back at the prison now, looking feeble and weak on the slightly comfier mattress he has been furnished with for his brief stay on the medical wing. He’s rather enjoying it. He has his own room, which is not a particular novelty, but it’s cool, and quiet, and he’s allowed to feel briefly like a victim, which is a rarity.

‘Hear that, Griffin?’ asks Mr Hussain, jovially. ‘Survived, eh? Not quite fit as a fiddle but certainly not far off. I told you we’d see you well looked after …’

Beside him, Ms Greaves bristles. Her nostrils take on a double-barrelled-shotgun appearance. ‘I think it’s somewhat too early to make those kind of assessments, Mr Hussain,’ she says, primly.

‘Of course, Ms Greaves,’ says Mr Hussain, with Herculean forbearance. Cox knows he’s had a difficult day. Aims to wring the juice out of it in his own inimitable fashion.

‘You’ll be able to tell us what happened soon enough, no doubt,’ says Hussain, with forced joviality. ‘Of course, we’re rather struggling to pin down precisely how the injury occurred, but once you’re well enough …’

Cox makes sure his voice sounds sufficiently gruff and weedy: feels like somebody securing themselves a sick-day with a dose of feigned flu. ‘Miss Harris,’ he says, dry-mouthed and pained.

‘Sorry, Griffin, that was just beyond me,’ says Ms Greaves, who adopts the general air of somebody telling a dying loved one they are in their prayers. ‘Miss Harris, you say …’

‘Only one I trust,’ he says, feebly. ‘I don’t feel safe talking to anybody. They all want to hurt me, I know that, but all I wanted to do was use my time properly … just try to write, to learn a new skill …’

‘Steady now, Mr Cox,’ says the governor, looking down at him and making every effort to seem concerned about his well-being. Cox has to fight the urge to throw him a wink and a cheeky smile. For now, Cox is a victim of attempted murder. It happened in the education suite, under the eye of one of his junior members of staff: himself currently in intensive care. There are rumours spreading through the prison like mist. Already three different officers have told him stories being spread among the inmates. Suggs claimed responsibility, at first, but backtracked when he learned how many years it would add to his sentence. Mings claimed to have seen Mr Windsor stab some form of sharpened screwdriver right into Cox’s chest. Another, high on spice, claimed that Mr Orton had lost his patience with him and attacked him in front of everybody. HMP Holderness already has a reputation as an institution from another age. For now, Mr Hussain needs Cox to think of him as an ally, and that means swallowing his bile and pretending they are something akin to equals.

‘Miss Harris,’ croaks Cox, again. ‘I’ll talk to her. Please. She understands. I’ll talk to her. My solicitor, if not. Has word reached him? Has he called …?’

‘Don’t you be worrying about things like that, Griffin,’ says Simone. She manoeuvres