Stephen Leather - Once bitten

At the far right side of the room was a panel of booths, each with a plastic bucket chair facing a steel wall in which was set a square pane of glass about a meter square. Through the glass I could see a matching row of seats, facing towards me. To the right of each window was a telephone, not the modern sort but the old-fashioned black Bakelite type, the sort you see in old movies. I heard the doors close behind me. The two guards stood at either side with their guns at the ready, their eyes watchful, almost fearful. They said nothing but I guessed that I was supposed to sit in one of the booths. There was no indication which I was supposed to use and as I approached the line of chairs I saw that there was nobody on the other side of the glass. I sat down and waited, the plastic cold against my backside through the thin material. Beyond the glass I saw a smaller room, also metal lined, and a single door with no handle or visible lock. The walls were also featureless though there were what appeared to be ventilation grilles set into the ceiling.

After five minutes or so (there was no way of telling how long because they'd taken my watch) the door opened and a guard came in carrying an automatic rifle. He walked into the room, his eyes flicking from left to right, then stood to one side. Behind him I saw Terry. She looked small and frail, pretty much the way I'd first seen her in De'Ath's interrogation room more than ten years earlier, her hair loose around her shoulders, her skin pale and her eyes lowered. She was wearing a robe which looked as if it was made from the same material as my overalls and which ended just below her knees. They'd given her a pair of brown plastic sandals for her feet and she was having trouble walking, but that wasn't because of her footwear, it was because the bastards had chained her feet together. There were big chrome clasps above each ankle joined by a chrome chain which couldn't have been more than eighteen inches long which meant that she had to shuffle rather than walk. My heart went out to her. Her arms weren't chained which surprised me at first but then I realised that they were more concerned about inhibiting her movements than of her attacking anyone. They had assault rifles and by the look of it she had nothing, just the robe and the sandals.

If they were as thorough with her as they had been with me then I knew that she'd never come within a million miles of anything that could conceivably be used as a weapon. She walked into the middle of the room and another guard followed her in. I saw a third guard close the door behind them but even though it was made of steel several inches thick I could hear no slamming or grating sound. The glass was obviously completely soundproof and, for all I knew, probably bullet proof as well. Terry was in her own sterile world, completely insulated, and almost certainly had been for the last ten years. The guards in her room took up positions on either side of the door, their fingers on the triggers of their rifles. Both of them were wearing miniature headphones I noticed, small black ear pieces with wires running round their necks and disappearing into their overalls. Were they constantly receiving instructions from some central command point, or were they using music or white noise to blot out anything she might say to them? I had no way of telling.

Terry raised her eyes and saw me for the first time. Her face broke into a smile then it quickly disappeared, as if she'd thought she'd seen a friend but then realised she'd made a mistake. Was that because she wasn't pleased to see me, or because she didn't want them to know how she felt about me? Did she still feel anything for me? God, I was so bloody confused, about her, about my feelings, about what I should do.

I stood up and said hello, even though I knew she wouldn't be able to hear me through the glass.

She mouthed hello back but stayed where she was in the middle of the room as if she was afraid of approaching the glass screen. I knew I had to play it cool, too. They had only allowed me to see her because they thought I was on their side, that I wanted to study her, to find out what made her tick. Any sign of affection and they'd pull me out immediately, I was sure of that. God, I so much wanted to take her in my arms, to press myself against her and to bury my face in her long, black hair, to seek out her lips with my own and to kiss her until she couldn't breath. I motioned for her to sit down and she shuffled forward, her hands slightly forward for balance, and lowered herself into the chair. She pulled the chair forward so that she was right up against the small shelf that ran under the glass partition. There was a matching shelf on my side of the glass and I followed her example, getting as close to her as I could. I picked up the phone on my side of the glass and there was a crackling noise like static. I nodded at her phone and she picked it up gingerly with her left hand as if afraid it would give her a shock. She used her right hand to brush the hair behind her left ear and then pressed the receiver to it.

"Jamie, how are you?" she asked quietly.

"I'm fine, Terry. Just fine. How are they treating you?"

She looked deep into my eyes. Her right hand moved slowly on the shelf, making small stabbing movements with her extended index finger.

"I've been in better hotels," she joked. Her right hand moved up as if to brush the hair behind her right ear, but as she did she made a small cupping gesture. She was signing to me. The sign for Listen. THEY LISTEN. She was telling me that the conversation was being listened to, though I'd already figured that out for myself. They'd be crazy not to monitor what was being said, and they'd be sure to record it, too, so that experts could go over it afterwards. I couldn't see any television cameras in the two rooms, but they'd been everywhere else so I was pretty sure they'd be watching us here, probably through concealed cameras, in the ventilation grilles maybe. Terry had obviously realised that because she put her hand back on the shelf where it would be shielded by her body.

I nodded to let her know that I understood. "You're not hurt, or in pain?"

Terry began signing individual letters with her right hand. It was slow, but she couldn't use the normal word forms that made up the deaf and dumb language because they were very expressive and often required both hands and the guards would have spotted it straight away. So as she talked she spelt out words, letter by letter.

"Sometimes, but there are lots of doctors here." I M-I-S-S Y-O-U.

"They feed you OK?" I signed back, keeping the movements to a minimum. M-E T-O-O.

"Yeah, but it's never the same with plastic cutlery, you know?" I L-O-V-E Y-O-U. "How long has it been, Jamie?"

That was one of the things I wasn't supposed to tell her because they were trying to disorient her sense of time. "How long do you think it's been?" M-E T-O-O.

She shrugged. "Eight years, maybe." C-A-N Y-O-U…

"A long time, that's for sure."

"Not really, not for me."….H-E-L-P M-E?

"What do you mean?" H-O-W?

"I mean it's not that long for me, in percentage terms." E-S-C-A-P-E. "For you eight years represents, what? A fifth of your life? Twenty per cent? Have you any idea how small a part of my life eight years is, Jamie? It's nothing. It's the equivalent of you waiting for a taxi." P-L-E-AS- E.

"Do you get bored?" H-O-W?

She shrugged. "I guess so, yeah. T-E-L-L T-H-E-M They let me have books. No newspapers.

No television. No radio. W-H-E-R-E I A-M. I asked if they'd let me have my cello a couple of years back but they haven't decided yet. T-E-L-L T-H-E-M Do you think you could do anything about that?" L-E-V-E-L 1-8.

"I can try. T-E-L-L W-H-O? Is there anything else you want?"

"Shit, Jamie," she said angrily. A F-R-I-E-N-D "I just want to get the fuck outta this place, but we both know they're not going to allow that, don't we? W-I-L-L V-I-S-I-T I'm here for ever. You know, they don't allow me to have any visitors. Y-O-U S-O-O-N. Not one. And they won't let me use the phone. Ever. In all these years I haven't seen one single person who hasn't been carrying a gun or wearing a white coat. T-E-L-L H-I-M Except for you. You're the first friend they've allowed in to see me. THREE O-T-H-E-R-S H-E-R-E. I'm so glad that you came. A-L-L How did you swing it?" L-E-V-E-L 1-8.