Chris Ryan - Osama

And she knew Joe. Murder Caitlin? Eva no more believed him capable of that than herself. But then war did things to people, or so she’d heard. Maybe the Joe Mansfield she’d grown up with was not the same one who would now be in remand custody, awaiting trial.

She closed the newspaper and pushed the cold coffee away from her, before leaning her head against the back of the banquette and closing her eyes. She felt sick. Maybe it was because she was tired. Or maybe it was because she didn’t know what the hell to do.

Two minutes later she was walking east up Victoria Street. Hundreds of workers from the surrounding area had emerged from their offices in search of an early sandwich. Eva battled against the tide, growing more and more anxious the closer she got to the Yard. By the time she had turned into Broadway and could see the revolving logo fifty metres away, she was out of breath.

Eva worked out of an office on the third floor which she shared with four other colleagues. To her relief it was empty – she hadn’t even thought up an excuse for returning after her shift was over. They shared a single terminal of the Police National Computer, and it was to this terminal that she headed. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard as she sat down, but something stopped her from using her personal login. Every piece of activity on the PNC was logged, and searching for information not directly linked to an ongoing investigation was a sacking offence. But Eva had a workaround. One of her colleagues, a sleazy fat bastard by the name of Daniels, had been hitting on her a few months back. She’d found herself trapped in his office while he sang his own praises, clearly thinking that was how to worm his way into her underwear. He hadn’t realized he’d left his login details in full view on his desk, or that Eva’s memory was far better than his feeble pulling techniques. She’d stashed the login on her phone, never knowing when it would come in useful. Now was the time. She gained access to the database and in less than a minute she had the information she required.

Barfield. That was where they were holding him.

‘Fuck me, Eva. Bit keen, isn’t it?’

Eva immediately shut down the screen she was looking at and spun round in the chair. A young, friendly DI called Frank was walking over to his desk and removing the leather jacket he always wore to motorcycle into work. She and Frank had gone out a couple of times about a year back, once to a film, once for a meal. He’d taken her home on the bike after the second date and hinted that he might come in for coffee. When Eva had said no, he’d taken it fine. No hard feelings. She hadn’t let on that it was the closest she’d ever got to a relationship, and Frank had never mentioned it again. As colleagues, they rubbed along together just fine.

‘Just finished now,’ said Eva, feeling her cheeks flushing. She stood up. ‘I’ll, er… I’ll see you, yeah?’

Frank slung his biker’s jacket over the back of his chair, raised one palm in farewell, and Eva hurried out.

Her heart was thumping as she walked the corridors to the exit, avoiding the eyes of all the Yard employees she passed in the hope that nobody would stop and talk to her. Nobody did. And as she sat on the Tube from Victoria to Green Park, then headed west on the Piccadilly Line, she was almost glad that she couldn’t get a seat. She felt too anxious, too restless to sit.

Eva was sufficiently clued-up on prison regulations to know that a remand prisoner could receive visitors. Normally it was enough just to phone twenty-four hours in advance and she could get away without showing her face in the office, she reckoned. But as she locked herself into her cramped third-floor flat, all IKEA furniture and framed photos of her mum and dad, she found herself doubting the wisdom of making such a call. She knew Joe would be a high-profile, high-risk prisoner. Maybe the rules were different for him. Maybe she’d be causing him more harm than good if she tried to arrange a visit.

All these thoughts spun around in her head as she sat on her futon sofa staring at her phone. It was with a head full of confused misgivings that she finally called directories and requested a number in a quavering voice: ‘HMP Barfield,’ she said. ‘London.’

‘HMP Barfield – that’s the prison?’ asked the operator.

‘Yeah. The prison.’

During the night the agony of Caitlin’s death kept coming to Joe in vividly accurate flashbacks. Fear too. It was a dark shadow on the edge of his mind. He was trapped. Set up. And if anyone wanted to have another go at him, it would be easy.

As it grew light, he realized he would soon have to go back to the dining hall. When the door was unlocked at seven-thirty, he decided to head straight there without saying a word to Hunter. But his path was blocked. Sowden, the screw who had received him when he first arrived, was standing in the doorway. ‘All right, Mansfield,’ he said. ‘Hands flat against the wall. You too, Hunter.’

It was a brisk but thorough search. Sowden patted down his arms, his legs, his torso, back and crotch. ‘Go,’ he said shortly when he was satisfied Joe was clean. ‘Your turn, Hunter.’

Joe left them to it and made his way to breakfast.

His senses were heightened, tuned in to any possible sign of danger, like he was in the field. Maybe the eyes that he felt burning into him weren’t really following his progress towards the serving area. Maybe Finch, still surrounded by his crew at a table halfway along on the left-hand side, wasn’t staring at him as he passed.

Or maybe they all were.

Joe ate everything he was given, shovelling Alpen and rubbery eggs down his throat like he was filling a magazine with rounds, and gulping down a cup of hot, sweet tea. All around him he heard cons complaining about the food. Try a cold MRE after three days in the snow, he thought to himself. It took him no more than three minutes to get his breakfast down him, after which he headed straight back to his cell, intending to stay there till the next mealtime.

No such luck.

It was 10 a.m. when he heard the sound of truncheons banging against the doors of the corridor. ‘Exercise,’ Hunter said from the top bunk.

‘Fuck that,’ Joe replied.

‘Won’t let you, fella. Everyone’s got to go outside. Half an hour. It’s the rules.’

Hunter was right. When Joe refused to leave his cell, three screws arrived to persuade him otherwise. He quickly decided it wasn’t a battle worth fighting. A minute later he was outside in the yard.

It was a warm spring day. A third of the yard was in shadow as the sun had not fully risen over the prison buildings. Joe scanned the inmates. There were two men walking on their own. They looked anxiously at the other cliques and groups who had congregated in different areas. Were they nervous that they might be targets? If so, they were doing the wrong thing keeping close to the walls. If anyone decided to close in on them, they’d have nowhere to run.

Finch and his crew – Joe counted seven of them now – were standing ten metres away. In the opposite corner four Middle Eastern-looking guys were talking, and there were several groups of black prisoners. And as always, the screws – five of them this time – patrolling the yard, but keeping their distance from any of the prisoners.

Joe started walking, bisecting the yard, which meant passing within three metres of Finch. The crew from Northern Ireland fell silent as he approached. He had cleared them by two metres when he sensed them closing in to follow him. He was practically in the centre of the yard now. Twenty-five metres to the nearest walls, fifteen to the nearest screw, who had obviously seen what was happening but was keeping his distance.