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I’d made it part of my morning routine to wake up early and get to the shower block before anyone else. We already had an early start, with lights on at five thirty, but I’d always been an early riser. Besides, it wasn’t as though I ever slept well in this place. It was impossible to fully relax when you never quite knew if someone was going to try to stab you in your sleep. I’d always been good at zoning out, getting some rest, while still being conscious of what was going on around me. It was part of what had made me good at my job—that ability to wait in one place for an extended length of time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike my mark.
The C.O.s had told me to get back to bed the first couple of times I’d gotten up early, but now they were used to seeing me, and knew I wasn’t causing any harm. If I came up against Damps, I’d usually end up having to wait for everyone else to get up—something that seemed completely pointless to me—but there was no point trying to argue with that asshole.
This morning I was in luck. One of the older guards, Reynolds, was on duty, and he just gave me a nod as I walked by, my wash bag in hand.
I stepped into the shower block and stopped dead. The door to one of the middle showers was closed, the water from the shower pissing down onto the tiled floor. Water ran out from beneath the door, into the shared drain, but the water wasn’t clear.
It was red.
Immediately, I knew I’d walked into something I shouldn’t have.
“Guard!” I yelled. “C.O. Reynolds!”
I stepped forward, and just as I did, I noticed something poking out from beneath the shower door, buffeted by the flow of the water. A set of thick, black framed glasses, broken in several places.
My heart plummeted.
Praying there was still something I could do, while instinctively knowing there wasn’t, I rushed forward and slammed open the shower door.
Eddie sat slumped against the tiles. Fully clothed, it was clear he hadn’t come in here to shower. His clothes clung to him, soaked not only by the water, but by the huge quantity of blood he’d lost. He was folded over, so all I could see was that he had stab marks to his chest and stomach. I couldn’t see how many, not that it mattered. He was clearly dead, and I had a fairly good idea who was responsible.
The sound of feet came running behind me. Something slammed into my back.
The guard’s shout, “Get down on the ground!”
Weariness took over me, and I slowly dropped to my knees and then lay face down on the wet tiled floor.
“He was like this when I walked in,” I tried to explain, as he climbed on top of me, and grabbed my hands to pull them behind my back.
“Shut it. The prison warden will be asking you plenty of questions.”
“He’s been dead awhile,” I tried again. “You just saw me walk by two minutes ago.”
I hoped common sense would kick in, but the man had a job to do. I knew he wasn’t allowed to appear weak and indecisive, even if he knew I was telling the truth.
I was on the ground, my face jammed against the cold, slimy tiles. The weight of the C.O crushed down on my back, my hands pulled together, straining my shoulders. There was no point in trying to fight back. Above my head, the guard spoke into a radio, calling for backup.
Fuck, poor Eddie. I didn’t have any doubts who was responsible for his death. Was I partly to blame as well, for ever striking up a friendship with the younger man?
Within a minute, more guards rushed in.
“Jesus, fucking, Christ,” said Damps as he caught sight of the body. “What a fucking mess.” He noticed me on the ground. “Is that the guy responsible?”
I was relieved to hear C.O. Wyber say, “Nah, he just found the body.”
Thank God, common sense had come into play.
“We need to go on lockdown,” Wyber continued. “Get the cops and forensics in here before more people contaminate the crime scene.”
Damps made a growling sound at the back of his throat. “Dammit. I hate when those assholes have to get involved.”
Wyber exhaled a huff of air. “How did this happen? There’s going to be some tough questions asked.”
I was hauled to my feet. I cast a final glance at Eddie’s body, before the guards marched me out of there and took me back down to the dorms. A siren cut through the air.
I was pushed into the dorm and the door locked behind me. Everyone else had been woken by the alarms, everyone questioning what was going on. My shirt was damp from being pushed to the floor, and I saw a hint of pink on the damp patch—Eddie’s diluted blood.
Numerous eyes were fixed in my direction.
“What the hell’s going on, man?” someone yelled.
“Eddie’s dead,” I shouted back. “Someone stabbed him in the showers.”
Yells of ‘what the fuck,’ ‘how the hell,’ rose from the small crowd.
I lifted both hands. “I just found him. I don’t know anything else.”
But I felt Callum and his friends looking at me with extra focus, and I deliberately did my best not to make eye contact with them. I went to my bunk and changed my wet, bloodied shirt. At least Callum was no longer beneath me in the bunks, having swapped his sleeping position with another prisoner a couple of days earlier. I only wanted for Callum and his gang to leave me the hell alone.
Didn’t seem that was going to happen, however.
Shawn walked past and leaned down to me. He spoke in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “Eddie cried like a little baby when I shanked him in the gut.”
Rage coiled tight inside me and it took every ounce of strength I had not to retaliate. That son-of-a-bitch. He might have been the one to carry out the dirty work, but I knew Callum was behind it.
He was behind everything around here, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time.