Paul Gitsham - No Smoke Without Fire

For his part, the old man keeps on walking as if he hasn’t heard a word; a few more paces as if to guarantee he is truly outside and he stops. Turning slowly to survey the place he has called home for over a decade, he looks slowly at the guard and fingers the crucifix.

“No, you won’t. I’m never coming back. I will never spend another day in that hell-hole.” His voice, quiet, raspy, damaged by too many cigarettes, is nevertheless resolute.

The guard scowls, disappointed that the prisoner — former prisoner — doesn’t rise to the bait. Sometimes they do; sometimes they start the first day of their new life in a bad mood, as he manages to turn a joyous occasion for the prisoner and his family into a nasty confrontation. Prisoners dream of the moment they step through those gates free men. They idolise it, constructing fantasies about how perfect it will be — as if they are soldiers returning from a far distant front line; conquering heroes, not the dregs of humanity finally released back into society, more often than not to pick up where they left off. The guard always does his best to spoil that moment — his final gift to his former charges. If he had his way, people like the old man would never leave — they’d serve time until their dying breaths, and then they’d be buried in unmarked graves in an inaccessible and overlooked part of the prison grounds.

Finally, the old man breaks his gaze and turns back towards the road, starting his shuffle again. He seems to notice the chill December wind for the first time and shivers. It was spring when he was driven through the gates that last time; the lightweight suit that he wore in his final court appearance more than adequate. Now it’s winter and he almost wishes he’d put on his prison-issue sweater. But no, he could never do that. He only has it in his bag so that he can light a bonfire with it and start to expunge the legacy of his recent incarceration. To have put the sweater back on would have been to surrender his freedom again. Never.

He waits on the side of the kerb, not quite sure what to do, his teeth starting to chatter. How ironic, he thinks, to have survived all of these years, only to freeze to death because his lift is late. Behind him he hears the whine of an electric motor, then the heavy thunk as the huge door closes, shutting him off from the nearest source of warmth for miles around. Never mind, he long ago made a promise to himself: even if the snow was three feet deep and the temperature twenty below freezing he would never step inside a prison again, either by choice or by compulsion; he’d rather die of exposure.

Finally, he hears the purr of a well-tuned engine. Looking up, he sees a dark blue Jaguar driving slowly towards him. Instinctively he knows it’s for him. The car, an unfamiliar model sporting the new type of licence plate that means nothing to him — yet another small detail that slipped past as he languished inside — eases to a halt. The driver reaches across and opens the passenger door. He remains leaning across the seat, looking up at the old man.

“Hello, Dad. You survived, I see.”

Twelve months later

Friday 2 ndDecember

Chapter 1

The young woman stepped into the ice-cold December air. Six p.m. and already it had been fully dark for two hours. She operated her mobile phone with one hand, fumbling in her handbag with the other. Wrapped up tightly against the cold, with a long red woollen coat, a dark, knitted scarf and matching hat, she nevertheless had yet to put her gloves on, in deference to the touchscreen on her phone.

Activating it, she saw that it was precisely one minute past six. Selecting the text icon, she read the short message:

On my way babes. C U soon. X

She smiled as she finally located her cigarettes and lighter. Darren was on time as always. The couple had developed a well-oiled routine over the year that they had lived together. Darren would leave the tyre fitters where he worked at six on the dot and drive across town to pick her up. A devious little rat-run let him avoid Middlesbury’s one-way system in the rush hour and arrive in the side street behind her office building at about ten past six, giving her just enough time to enjoy a well-earned cigarette. Unfortunately, the only place he refused to allow her to smoke was in the passenger seat of his well-loved and heavily customised Vauxhall Astra.

Truth be told, she thought the Astra was a bit much. A man in his mid-twenties really ought to have grown out of motoring magazines and ‘pimping his ride’ as he liked to call it. It seemed ludicrous to her that a grown man couldn’t see the folly of spending thousands of pounds customising a car worth less than five hundred. Then again, he couldn’t understand why she insisted on buying more shoes and handbags when she had a wardrobe full already. In the end they had agreed to disagree. Besides which, it beat catching two buses to and from work every day.

She took a long drag on her cigarette and was surprised to hear the sound of an engine entering the far end of the road. That was quick, she thought as she took another hit, anticipating the need to stub it out at any moment. It had to be Darren — the narrow side street was little more than an alleyway and she couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone else using it in the past year. The local businesses put their recycle bins out for the council to collect on a Monday morning, but as far as she knew the bin lorries didn’t even come up there; the refuse collectors just dragged them around the corner to the main road.

At that moment her phone beeped; a short note from her best friend, confirming that she was coming around at eight with a bottle of rosé and a DVD.

Despite the distraction, her subconscious had spotted something was not quite right; the engine sounded wrong. Rather than the throaty growl of Darren’s twin exhausts, it was the grumbly rattle of a diesel engine that made her look up. She blinked in surprise at the unexpected sight, then mentally shrugged. The vehicle was a common enough sight in other parts of town; she wouldn’t have even noticed it if she hadn’t been expecting Darren. She turned her attention back to her mobile, already ignoring the vehicle as it pulled up to the kerb a few metres past her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the driver get out and start to walk towards her.

The driver was only a few paces away from her when she finally paid attention. What alerted her she would never know. Was it the purposeful stride in her direction? The fact that the vehicle shouldn’t be here at this time of the evening, let alone stationary with its driver out? Or was it the smell, sweet yet slightly acrid, even at this distance? A scarf covered his mouth against the cold, a woollen cap pulled low hid most of the rest of his features. With a jolt of surprise she realised he was wearing one of those rubber masks that you could buy in a joke shop.

She opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late. The driver covered the last three paces impossibly fast, his right hand blurring upward towards her face. Suddenly her nose was filled with a solvent smell that reminded her of her mother cleaning paintbrushes in turpentine. She struggled to breathe, her eyes filling with tears, but the driver’s hand was clamped tightly across her face. The world was already starting to spin; a sudden feeling of lightness swept through her body and a rushing noise filled her ears. Her legs weakened and before she knew it she was slumping downwards as if trying to sit on the kerb.

The world was now turning a fuzzy light grey, like an old-fashioned TV set when you pulled the aerial lead out, followed by a dark grey, then finally black. Her last memory was the clatter of plastic on concrete as her mobile phone hit the pavement.