Killing with Confetti

6

Magda is hurting. Whichever way she turns, joint and muscle pain drills in after a short time. Her feet have lost all feeling and her trapped arms have gone beyond numb to a strange sensation of the flesh being worn away and the bones fused together, turning her into a stick creature. Her throat is parched. She can’t see the sun but it is obviously high, turning the shed into an oven. Her watch is trapped behind her back, so she can only guess at the time. Late morning, she supposes, or into the afternoon. Hours more are sure to go by before she is found.

Or days.

Her best hope is that her absence from work will be noticed and someone from the prison will try phoning and get the voicemail message a few times and eventually have the gumption to come out here and check. But who? As a governor, she isn’t under orders to tell anyone about her movements. She hates admitting this to herself, but there is a strong possibility nobody will do anything.

Dehydration is a killer.

For no obvious reason Blanche looks up and barks twice. The exhausted dog has been curled up sleeping all this time.

A bad dream, most likely.

‘It’s okay, sweetie. You’re safe now.’

But the pricked ears have heard sounds that reach Magda herself a few seconds after.

A tense moment.

Two male voices again. The same, presumably. It seems they didn’t drive off with her possessions. They must have been inside the cottage all this time and now they are approaching the shed and Blanche is acting as a guard dog, making it all too obvious she has escaped from the sack.

‘No, Blanche!’

The barking gets louder.

‘Stop it!’

But you can’t make a dog ignore an unseen caller. The little Westie dashes to the door and stands squarely on guard behind it, barking fit to burst.

Magda is petrified. There is nothing she can do.

The men aren’t put off. The key turns in the lock and the door opens.

The first foot to enter the shed gets Blanche’s full attention. She clamps her jaws over the toe end of the training shoe.

‘Bloody hell! Get off!’

The man shakes his leg. Blanche hangs on, snarling.

He has to be the tall guy who tied Magda up. Just behind is a shorter, wiry companion who is rocking with amusement. They are both in balaclavas.

The second man says, ‘Didn’t you tie a knot in the sack?’

The other is too busy with Blanche to answer. He didn’t speak a single word when he took them prisoner, but now he is yelling a stream of obscenities. He aims swipes at the small dog’s head with the back of his hand and doesn’t land many. She snarls even more and refuses to let go. In the end he swings his leg at the log-pile with Blanche attached and when her small body thumps hard against the wood, her jaws open and she falls. He takes a kick at her and misses. She has already backed off to carry on barking at him from a safer distance.

‘By Christ, I’m going to slit its throat.’ He has taken out a knife with a vicious curved end.

Magda cries, ‘Don’t you dare.’

The second man is still laughing. ‘It’s only a wee pooch, for fuck’s sake. Here.’ He reaches down and grabs Blanche by the scruff and swings her one-handed onto the log-pile. She was caught off guard and this man seems to know how a dog behaves. ‘Put the blade away and hand me some of that rope.’

The tall man picks up a length of the braided blue nylon rope. ‘You going to strangle it?’

‘For the love of God.’ His companion loops the rope under Blanche’s collar, knots it, tethers the end to a hook on the wall and returns her to the floor. She seems to understand she is no longer a threat, shakes her coat, goes silent and sniffs at the floorboards as if they are far more interesting than the two intruders.

Thinking the second man may not be totally cruel, Magda says, ‘She’s seriously dehydrated and so am I.’

‘You want water?’ the short man says. He turns to the other. ‘They need water. It’s bloody hot in here. Get some.’ He is clearly the boss out of these two and he’s shown some compassion. Already she is thinking of him as Good Crook.

Left alone with him, she tries to reason. She is experienced in dealing with violent men, if usually from a position of strength. ‘You could untie me. You can see I’m in no state to take you on.’

He eyes her without a word. He doesn’t seem amused by the remark. She can only hope he is weighing the truth of what she said.

His hand moves to his right thigh.

From the zip pocket of his tracksuit he produces a knife every bit as vicious-looking as the first man’s and unsheathes it.

Good crook or bad? Magda sends up a silent prayer.

He leans over her and cuts the rope binding her legs. She gasps and sighs as the pent-up tension is released. Then she cries out with pain. The rush of blood to her feet is like needles forced through her veins.

‘Turn your back.’

He unfastens the straps round her arms. Huge relief is followed by huge discomfort as the blood flow is restored. She would certainly have fainted if she wasn’t lying on the floor. She tries taking deep breaths.

In a moment she has recovered enough to sit up.

Bad Crook returns with a large bottle of Evian from the fridge. He’s also brought the dog bowl for Blanche to drink from. Not all bad then, or is he trying to redeem himself with Good Crook?

Held in thrall by the spectacle of two litres of water disappearing so quickly, the men look as if they might applaud at the end.

Whilst swallowing, Magda is making a rapid reassessment. They’ve untied her and revived her, yet she isn’t dumb enough to believe they are acting out of kindness. They have something planned and she was wrong about the burglary. She’s had time while lying helpless on the floor to go over every scenario. It is now screamingly obvious that their actions have a link to her job as governor.

She comes straight to the point. ‘What do you hope to get out of this?’

Bad Crook says, ‘Shut it.’

His companion takes out a mobile, glances at the display, and steps outside the hut to take the call.

‘Is he trying to do a deal?’ Magda asks. ‘It won’t work, you know. It’s been tried before. They have a game plan for every situation.’

‘I told you. No lip.’

She addresses her remarks to her dog. ‘You and I are being excluded from the debate. Pity. Knowing how things work, I could have offered some help.’

Bad Crook raises two fingers.

She says to Blanche, ‘Must be hot under those balaclavas. I can understand our visitors being secretive, but a plastic Mickey Mouse mask would have been more practical.’

She’s chancing her arm here. Bad Crook’s hand goes to the pocket where his knife is.

‘You won’t use that on me,’ Magda says. ‘I’m the bargaining chip, aren’t I?’ Even as she is speaking, she recalls accounts of severed ears and fingers being sent by kidnappers as proof of identity.

Good Crook returns and says to his accomplice, ‘It’s on.’ To Magda, he says, ‘On your feet. We’re going over to the cottage.’

‘Not without Blanche, we’re not.’

‘Who the fuck is Blanche?’ He looks alarmed and she realises she hasn’t mentioned the name in his presence.

‘My dog.’

‘Get you.’ He nods, looking relieved that there isn’t some extra woman to deal with. ‘Okay, but if she gets in the way...’ He draws his forefinger across his throat.

They allow Magda to hold the rope that is doing service as a lead. Blanche trots confidently ahead of her.

And stops halfway across the vegetable patch.

Good Crook says, ‘Move.’

‘It’s my shoe. She’s found my shoe. Good dog. And look, there’s the other one.’ Without asking, Magda stoops and puts them on again.

She hears Bad Crook ask, ‘How long to lift-off?’

‘Dunno. Could be soon.’

Lift-off? What does that mean? A major action underway? Normally in a hostage situation you sit tight and discuss terms. Maybe they plan to move her to another location. Makes sense. Once the prison authorities are told she’s been snatched, they’ll send police to the cottage. Obvious.

She wonders how far this has gone already. She’s been locked in the woodshed at least five hours. Her kidnappers have pointedly avoided showing their hand. The terse phrase ‘It’s on’ suggests some high-up has just authorised the operation.

Magda’s duty is to stop it — or at least cause some delay.

As soon as they enter the cottage, she says, ‘Thank goodness. I need the bathroom — badly.’

Plausible enough, and true.

‘He’s going in with you,’ Good Crook says, tilting his head at Bad Crook.

‘He’s not.’

‘Don’t fuck us about. No way are we letting you shut the door. If you really need to go, you put up with him. There may not be another chance.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘What I said, lady.’

‘Where’s my handbag?’

‘Kitchen table, where you left it.’

‘You’ve been going through it, I suppose?’

‘Only to make sure who you are. Your cards and cash are safe. We’re not here to steal.’

She crosses the living room to the kitchen and checks her bag. Everything seems to be in there, including her phone and keys. She picks it up.

‘Leave it on the table,’ Good Crook says.

‘I need a comb.’

‘You’re not going visiting. Leave it, I said.’

She obeys and endures the humiliation of using the bathroom under the scrutiny of Bad Crook. As for Blanche, she sensibly made a comfort stop while they were walking across the garden. She is now curled up in her basket under the kitchen table making snuffling sounds.

‘Okay, governor,’ Good Crook says after Magda has washed her hands and face, ‘time to go.’

Proof positive that they know who she is. This whole episode is definitely linked to the prison. ‘Go where?’

‘For a ride in your car. You’ll be driving me. My mate will be in the van behind and make sure nothing goes wrong.’

‘What’s the object of this?’

‘You’ll find out. Play along, and no harm will come to you.’

‘You ought to know by now that I won’t be “playing along,” as you put it, with anything criminal.’

‘You will, lady.’ He’s taken a gun from inside his tracksuit, a black automatic. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I need my bag.’

‘Why?’

‘Car key.’

‘Empty the bag on the table.’

She does so. Her hand goes to her phone.

‘Only the key. What do you take me for?’

‘What about Blanche? I’m not leaving her here after what she’s been through.’

‘Listen, governor. I’ve had it up to here with this pooch of yours. She’s got food and water. She stays.’ He motions to the door with the gun.

Škoda, with Good Crook beside her, gun in hand, Magda waits.

‘Start her up, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Where to?’

‘Where do you think? The prison.’

Of all places.

Get with it, woman, she chides herself. Of course he wants the prison. His plan is bolder and more ambitious than you imagined and he can’t do it without you. She presses the ignition.

HMP Bream, her place of work, is outside a one-time coal-mining village on the southern fringe of the Forest of Dean, only five miles off, along a shaded, leafy route through one of the quietest parts of Gloucestershire. They will be there in ten to fifteen minutes.

Not long to decide what she can do.

She says, ‘I would have thought the prison was the last place you’d want to visit. Anywhere but.’

‘You thought wrong,’ he answers, and adds no more.

She steers onto the winding lane that passes the cottage. In the rear window she can see the small white van driven by Bad Crook. He’s dangerously close. ‘Does he know we’re driving through a deer park?’ she says. ‘I may have to slam my brakes on any time.’

‘He’s okay.’

‘Yes, but I don’t want him shunting me from behind. I’m fond of this car.’

He makes no comment.

‘Boar, too,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to stop for wild boar before now.’

He says as if she hasn’t spoken at all, ‘When we get to the jail and the guards recognise your car and open up, tell them the van behind is coming in with you.’

‘I don’t think that will work. They’ll be suspicious.’

‘You’re the fucking governor. Tell them.’

‘Me, with a stranger sitting beside me and a white van following? It’s abnormal.’

He ignores her.

‘What’s this about, anyway?’ she says. ‘Are you hoping to spring somebody?’

‘Hoping, no,’ he says.

His phone sounds. In the car, she is going to hear every word he says. He operates the tab with his left hand, keeping the gun in his right.

Magda checks in the mirror to see if the caller is Bad Crook. Evidently not.

Her passenger turns towards the window and shields the phone. She strains to hear the muttered words. There aren’t many of them.

‘Ten minutes, no more than that.’ He ends the call. Not much learned from that — except he probably has a contact inside the prison.

She is under no illusion. Phones are smuggled into every prison in the land. The latest miniatures are the size of matchboxes and weigh only thirteen grams. They are blatantly advertised as BOSS-approved, meaning they won’t activate the body orifice security scanners installed in the visiting areas.

She glances at the gun, now held loosely and resting on his thigh. He will make sure it isn’t visible to a prison officer on gate duty looking in. They will be admitted and so will the van if she doesn’t find some way of alerting the guard.

‘Who are you hoping to spring?’

‘I wasn’t born yesterday, lady.’

‘It’s a Category B prison. All the offenders are behind several sets of security doors. If you think I can spirit him out in some way because you’re holding a gun to my back, you’re mistaken.’

He doesn’t seem troubled.

They pass through St. Briavels, the last place of any significance before the prison will come into view. The village is dominated by the castle that once served as King John’s hunting lodge and in later years was put to use as the local prison until the Victorians built the ugly replacement three miles up the road.

Plans of action are whirling around Magda’s brain. All have their element of danger. With her enemy beside her with an automatic in his hand, the best she can do right now is make the effort to get him talking and learn what might be ahead.

‘Whatever you do will be on CCTV.’

‘So?’

‘They’ll have the van’s number.’

‘We’re not amateurs.’

She takes that to mean they are using fake plates.

‘They’ll want to look inside the van.’

‘Empty, isn’t it?’

She tries another tack. ‘Are you going to take off the masks?’

He doesn’t answer.

‘No prison guard is going to let two masked men through the gate.’

‘Leave me to do my job,’ he says. ‘Make sure you do yours right or the pooch won’t get another meal.’

The chink in her armour. He’s struck home.

She fights the upsurge of panic. Whatever happens, someone will think of Blanche, won’t they? Prison colleagues have seen her. People in the village know her.

They have almost reached the end of the lane that links with Lydney Road where the prison is. She needs to be ice cool. She has a massive responsibility and she can’t be fretting over Blanche.

He has put the phone to his ear again.

‘Me.’ Giving nothing away. ‘Are you there?... Okay... Straight in, straight out and no messing.’

She looks in the mirror again at the tailgating van. Bad Crook isn’t holding his phone. The call was to someone inside Bream.

She makes the right turn onto the main road and the van stays so close that she could be towing it.

Up ahead is the prison. One more curve in the road and it will be in view three hundred yards away. Even before the road straightens, she catches her breath in horror.

Black smoke is billowing above the trees.

‘God in heaven.’

Good Crook is unmoved. He must have known.

‘Don’t they realise what a death trap it is?’

She has the full view of the old Victorian building now, the grim castellated gatehouse flanked by twin towers. Behind the razor-wired walls, C wing is enveloped in smoke, with flames at two of the windows. There are inmates running about on the roof.

‘Crazy.’

But she knows it isn’t crazy at all. There’s a cynical logic behind this. When there’s danger of a riot inside a prison, your first duty as governor is to enforce a lockdown. But if the place is burning you are likely to kill some of the inmates, so you are compelled to allow them to roam the landings and the association areas to escape the worst of the flames and fumes. They know this, of course, and they get on the roof to protest and be seen from outside.

Into this mayhem Magda is about to make her entrance, already hours late. She will be recognised by the guards and the gates will be opened. She’ll drive in, followed closely by the van. The escapees will have used the confusion to force their way through the system of security gates to the gatehouse yard. They’ll get in the van and so will Good Crook and they will drive off.

‘Give my mate a signal,’ he tells her out of the blue. ‘We’re stopping.’

‘What?’ Has he changed his mind?

She does as ordered.

‘On the verge. Here. Leave the engine running.’

She watches the van pull in behind.

No other traffic is in sight. No pedestrians either.

He lowers the window. Surely he isn’t about to light a cigarette. Maybe he wants a word with his sidekick.

Neither man moves.

Rigid with tension, Magda stares at the smoke engulfing the prison only a short way off. She should be in there, taking charge. She has a duty to act, to prevent loss of life.

Flames appear at a third barred window on the second floor. This is what rioters do to create a distraction, typical of major prison disturbances. And it sometimes ends in tragedy.

She says, ‘People are going to die.’

‘Shut up, will you? Turn the engine off.’

‘You told me to keep it running.’

‘Shhhh.’

He seems to be straining to listen for some sound. All Magda can hear is the rustle and swish of the trees.

Then she rejoices. Carried faintly above the sound of the foliage comes the two-tone note of a siren. Fire, police or ambulance, it doesn’t matter as long as the emergency services are coming. Someone has acted responsibly.

Her passenger has heard it, too.

‘When they come past, pull in behind and follow them through the gates.’

Now she understands. The siren is his cue.

She waits, looks in the mirror, possibilities churning inside her head.

The siren’s wail increases and she spots the flashing light. It’s a red vehicle. A fire engine.

‘Start up,’ he says.

The fire engine is fully in view now, coming at speed.

She touches the ignition and watches in her wing mirror.

He smacks his palm on the dashboard. ‘Now! Go, go, go.’

The siren is his cue for action and she has to think why he has delayed so long. It was all in the timing. The men inside need the prison gate opened to make their escape.

She starts up and eases the car back on the road.

‘Faster.’

You want faster, she thinks. I’ll give you faster.

She glances in the mirror to make sure the van is in close attendance. Then she jams her foot hard on the accelerator. The Škoda responds and so does the van behind.

Fifty.

Sixty.

But she doesn’t follow the fire engine when it swings left and through the prison gate. She drives straight past.

‘What the fuck...?’ Good Crook yells.

Seventy.

Eighty.

A clear road ahead.

She grips the wheel hard, shifts her foot to the brake, crushes it down and squeezes her eyes shut.

A screech of tyres, a bellow from the seat beside her and then the impact as the van concertinas into the rear of the braking Škoda.

Metal on metal. Shattered glass.

Oblivion.