Tony Black - Murder Mile

As he walked his rushing blood calmed, seemed to settle. When he got like that, he couldn’t control it. He just wanted to lash out. He couldn’t change that, it was who he was. He put his energy into his stride, but the prison followed him. The prison smell haunted him. He would never forget that smell; on his first night he’d asked an old giffer what the smell was. ‘The stench of a thousand reeking bastards,’ he’d told him, ‘their farts and shits, their BO and their utter fucking despair!’

There was no escape from it, the prison got under your skin. It polluted you. If it wasn’t some radge talking about who he’d offed on the outside it was some nut-job looking to make a name for himself by offing someone on the inside. You had to be on your toes, every minute of the day. There was no way of avoiding it; if you didn’t play the game then they thought there was something wrong with you. That’s how rumours started. He remembered the bloke who’d got moved from Kilmarnock, he never fitted in, never made the effort and then folk started to say he was a nonce. A beast. He was battered into a coma.

That’s what prison had taught Neil Henderson, to be tough; to get the first punch in. No one was looking out for you in the pound. You were on your own. And if you let your guard down for a second it could be fatal. Life was like that, too. That’s what they all said. ‘Get your retaliation in first!’ That’s what he’d been told, and that’s what he believed.

‘You got someone coming for you, Hendy?’ said the screw.

‘I don’t know, not a fucking mind reader am I.’

The screw shook his head. ‘Have you no family?’

Henderson shrugged.

The screw rattled some keys. ‘What about a girl?’

‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you?’

The conversation came to an abrupt halt as the prison officer opened the first door into an enclosed area that had been partitioned off. He pointed to a sheet of paper on a clipboard, said, ‘Sign.’

‘What’s this?’

‘For your possessions.’

Henderson grabbed the brown paper bag tighter. ‘You better not have nicked anything… I know what I came in here with, got it all up here,’ he tapped his head.

‘You saw it counted out, now sign it or you’ll be in another night. That what you want?’

Henderson grabbed the pen, signed. When he was finished he let the biro fall, it swung on its chain, rattled off the wall. The screw picked it up and placed it on the counter. ‘Always the arsehole, right to the end, eh. You learnt nothing in here?’

‘Oh, I learnt plenty, mate… fucking plenty.’

The screw turned down the corners of his mouth, he seemed to have something else to say but kept it to himself. It was a look that Henderson had seen many times before, it had started at home, when he had a home, then it was school, the workplace, the street, pubs. Everywhere. Someone always seemed to be ready to tell Neil Henderson how to lead his life, where he was going wrong.

A key turned in a large lock, then another. A bolt slid across the door and then light and a cool breeze flooded in. Henderson tipped back his head to inhale the luxury of clean air.

‘Don’t get too used to it out there, sure we’ll be seeing you again soon.’

Henderson smiled. He was too pleased to see the outside world to manage a riposte. As he stepped over the prison threshold he felt a weakness in his knees. He was out. He was back in the real world. For a second he felt exhilarated and then he felt a tightening in his gut. Something twisted there, like a rag being wrung out. He wondered what it was. Fear? Panic? It was nothing, surely. Just the shock of being out, of getting away from that shit-hole. There would be no more, he was out.

‘You fucking beauty!’

He looked up Gorgie Road, he could go anywhere, do anything. He sniffed the air like a dog that had been kept in for too long. Beer, he wanted a bevy. He could grab a pint and then, at the weekend, he could see Hearts. The glorious Jam Tarts.

Henderson was free, he felt it like a rush. He raised his bag and ran towards the bus stop.

Angela Mickle had woken with a humming in her head, she didn’t quite know if it was the humming that came from a hangover or the humming that precipitated her withdrawal from heroin. She’d shot up but knew the slim takings she’d managed out on the Links the night before weren’t going to be enough to score again soon; and she would need to score again soon.

Her arms itched, her throat was dry and the humming in her head made her feel woozy. There were bruises too, finger marks on her arms; her last punter had been too rough, but he’d paid extra for that. She touched her lip, it had been split, she remembered the knuckle cracking off her teeth. She’d told him, bawled him out, but he said he was taking what he’d paid for and that was that. ‘Scream all you want you dirty whore, who’s going to hear you out here?’

That’s what he’d said.

He’d driven her to an old factory site in East Lothian, miles from anywhere and threatened to leave her there if she didn’t play along. As Angela gripped herself, felt her bruised ribs, it didn’t seem like such a good idea now. Even for the extra twenty pounds.

She looked at herself in the mirror that sat on the floor beside the mattress where she lay. Her dirty blonde hair needed washed, there was blood smeared in it. Her lips were cracked and scabbed, she couldn’t go out looking like this. But she needed to go out, to score. It was a Friday, punters were always looking to score at the end of the week, they were flush with wages. That’s what Hendy had told her; he had looked after her.

Angela knew she couldn’t go out in the daylight, there was too much aggro now from residents on the Links. Nosey bastards; Edinburgh was full of them. It was a town full of square pegs. It wasn’t her town any more, it didn’t feel like the place she’d grown up in, but she couldn’t see herself going anywhere else now; not any time soon anyway.

Angela raised herself from the mattress; she felt a little sick rising in her stomach, it reached her throat and she threw up on the floor. Some milky-white vomit splashed on the mattress and her foot. She leaned over and felt the knots in her stomach again.

‘Got to fucking score,’ she said.

As she reached over to the wall, tried to steady herself, she became vaguely aware of noise from beyond the front door of her flat. It jarred with the humming in her head, made her feel worse. But it was Leith, there was always noise in Leith stairwells. This was something different, however; it sounded like a celebration.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Angela pushed out her thin legs, they were bruised and scraped. At one stage her punter had kicked her out of his car, she’d landed in an overgrown bramble bush; she remembered now. So much of what she did seemed a haze at the time, but it always came back to her the next day. That’s when she wanted another hit, to block it all out. Angela Mickle didn’t want any reminders of what her life had become.

There was a knock at the door; heavy thuds.

Angela felt her heart kick. Little needles tingled at the back of her eyes. It didn’t feel like fear, but it was confusion. She tried to push herself forward. Her hands steadied herself on the wall as she placed one foot in front of the other, slowly at first, but then she found something close to a rhythm.

The knock came again. Louder this time.

‘Angela, open up, eh?’

It was a man, who?

She wasn’t expecting anyone, the rent was paid — it had been short but she wangled her usual five-finger discount from the landlord. He was starting to get greedy, had asked her to see to his friend as well.