Chris Ryan - Osama

It was during one of the frequent moments of silence, while he was pacing the room to keep warm, that the door suddenly clicked open. Nobody appeared. He approached it with care, half expecting an attack, which didn’t come, and slowly opened it wider.

The corridor was brightly lit with strip lights. The walls were beige – paint applied directly to breeze blocks – and the smell was antiseptic. The corridor extended about twenty metres – to his left there was a locked metal door, to his right the corridor turned a corner. Two men were standing opposite his cell: Hennessey and Hobson, the screw with the ginger moustache whom Joe had lamped during his first minutes at Barfield. His upper lip was swollen, and he had steristrips across the bridge of his nose. Hennessey was leaning heavily on his crutch and rolling a cigarette. Both men looked at Joe with cool hostility.

‘Time?’ Joe asked.

Hobson stepped forward and held up a pair of handcuffs. ‘Put these on,’ he instructed.

‘No.’

Hobson glanced back to an alert-looking Hennessey. ‘If anyone finds me taking a segregated prisoner unrestrained to the loading bay,’ Hobson whispered, ‘I’m fucked.’

‘Then you’d better make sure nobody finds us,’ Joe said.

Hobson shook his head in disgust. ‘Forget it,’ he said. He was looking at Joe, but clearly talking to Hennessey. ‘Just forget the whole fucking thing.’ He turned and stomped off down the corridor.

‘You got kids, Hobson?’ Joe called after him.

Hobson stopped, but didn’t turn.

‘Think they’ll fancy visiting their dad in prison? Mine was banged up. I didn’t bother with him after he went inside. And helping this piece of crap smuggle some tart onto prison property has to be worth a couple of years, hasn’t it?’

Hobson turned, his swollen face carved with even more hatred than before. ‘No one will believe you,’ he said.

‘If you really thought that, you wouldn’t have just opened my cell door. But it’s your call.’ He gave a shrug and stepped backwards towards his cell.

‘Do it, Hobson.’ The instruction came from Hennessey and Joe immediately noted that there was something calculating in his expression. Was he just eager to get Joe out of his hair? Joe didn’t think so.

Hobson was pacing back to them. He was sweating. ‘If I can’t cuff you…’

‘Hand them over,’ Joe said. He took the cuffs from Hobson and placed them round his wrists without locking them. It wouldn’t pass a close inspection, but at a glance he would appear to be restrained. He turned to Hennessey: ‘Give Hobson your crutch.’

The skin tightened around Hennessey’s eyes and for a moment he looked like he was going to argue. But he clearly thought better of it, and handed his crutch to the screw. He was evidently not nearly so lame as he pretended, because he was able to stand quite well without it. ‘When you get to the van,’ he said, ‘knock five times and she’ll let you in.’

Joe nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he told Hobson.

Hennessey said nothing. He just lit his cigarette, blew smoke into Joe’s face, then turned and limped without much difficulty back down the corridor and round the corner. Before he disappeared from sight, however, he looked over his shoulder. He seemed neither nervous nor angry. More pleased with himself. Then he was gone.

He had something planned. Joe was sure of it.

‘The medical van’s arrived. They’re unloading now.’ Hobson wouldn’t look at Joe as he spoke. ‘You need to walk in front of me.’ He indicated the opposite direction to the one Hennessey had taken, towards the locked metal door at the end of the corridor.

Joe held his wrists against his stomach to stop the cuffs from slipping, and walked. When he reached the door he stepped aside to let Hobson open it.

The door led onto an alleyway about two metres wide, and the facing wall was at least ten metres high. Joe deduced that this was the exterior wall of the prison. Dried leaves had blown into the alleyway, along with old crisp packets and other bits of rubbish. This was evidently a little-visited part of the prison. It was raining quite heavily, but they were protected from the worst of it by the high wall. It could rain all it wanted as far as Joe was concerned. The more the better. It would keep people inside.

Hobson locked the door behind them, then nodded at Joe to walk down the narrow passageway. He didn’t like having the screw behind him, but he understood that it would look suspicious if Hobson didn’t have eyes on him at all times. They continued for twenty metres, Joe scanning ahead, though all he could see was a right-hand turn at the end of the alleyway, and all he could hear was the rain.

At the end they turned right. The corridor extended for just a couple of metres, then opened up into a tarmacked yard about fifteen metres square. Five metal catering bins, each a couple of metres high, were lined up on the far side of the yard, outside a set of closed double doors that Joe assumed led to the kitchens. The rain drummed noisily on the metal lids. Parked in the middle of the yard, ten metres away, was a white Transit van. ‘MediQuick’ was written in blue lettering on the side and the rear doors were open. Hanging back in the protection of the alleyway, Joe could see the legs of three individuals hidden by the open doors of the Transit. Then two inmates emerged from the protection of the doors, each carrying a cardboard box that Joe took to be part of the delivery, their faces sour on account of the driving rain. And following them, after they’d slammed the van’s doors shut, he saw Sowden. Unlike the inmates, he wore a black raincoat, with the hood up.

‘Stay there,’ Hobson said. Joe saw that he had leaned the wooden crutch against the wall before stepping forward a few paces. Sowden clearly saw this, and Joe felt himself tensing up. What the hell was Hobson doing? His question was answered by a brief nod of acknowledgement from Sowden. Clearly the fucker was in on Hennessey’s little treat too. Sowden barked an indecipherable instruction at the two prisoners. They carried the boxes through the double doors, followed by the screw, who closed them and – Joe assumed – locked them behind him.

But had Sowden seen him? Joe didn’t think so. The courtyard was empty now, and the rain coming down even harder. Joe slipped his hands out of the cuffs and indicated to Hobson that he should retreat into the cover of the alleyway. Hobson obeyed. He looked like shit. Bedraggled hair, rain running down his face.

‘Who’s the driver?’ Joe asked.

‘Always the same guy. Stays in the cab.’

‘Does he know what’s going on? Does he know it’s me?’

Hobson nodded. His eyes flickered anxiously to the left, almost as though he was expecting something to happen.

Joe acted on impulse. He grabbed Hobson and thrust him up against the wall, pressing his right forearm into the screw’s neck. He didn’t say anything for a full twenty seconds, by which time both Hobson’s arms had gone into spasm and his rasping breath was noisier than the rain on the metal bins. ‘What’s Hennessey got waiting for me in there?’ he finally demanded.

At first Hobson said nothing. He just tried to shake his head. But another twenty seconds and his eyes were rolling up – he was as close to passing out as it was possible to be – and his wheezing and struggling told Joe he was trying to speak. Joe relaxed his arm, but only slightly. ‘What’s he got waiting for me?’ he repeated.

‘There’s no girl…’ Hobson managed to say, but as he spoke, his eyes rolled again. Joe swore as the screw crumpled to the ground – two fingers to the jugular confirmed he was still alive, just unconscious – but Joe had enough information to know that whatever was waiting for him in the back of the Transit, it wasn’t some chick expecting to give Hennessey a blow job. He dragged Hobson by his feet back down the alleyway, out of sight. It was impossible to know how long he’d be out for, so he took the precaution of cuffing him to the bracket of a hefty metal drainpipe and removing his keys from his belt. Even if he awoke, he’d have to scream over the rain to raise the alarm.