DISHONOUR. Jacqui Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ by their own life of crime and violence, still winced and turned away at the sound of the cue stick gouging out Craig’s right eye and his screams of fear and pain.

      A few hours later, when all the prisoners of D-wing had been questioned by the screws, swearing on their loved one’s lives that they hadn’t seen, heard or even frequented the recreational room that day and had no clue how Craig had sustained his injuries, Freddie Thompson sat in his magnolia-painted cell.

      He looked around, curling his nose up. The slop buckets were full to overflowing. The heavily stained sheets – which were supposed to be fresh each week – looked like they’d just been swapped from one dirty set to another. And the cold July evening’s air whirled in through the barred prison window as if looking for some warm sanctuary.

      Freddie wasn’t sorry about putting Craig in hospital. Fuck it; he hardly had anything to lose now. And besides, Craig was a friend of Benjamin Bradley. He’d been there that day in the showers. The day Freddie had used up his get out of jail card. Closing his eyes, he remembered it like it was yesterday …

      It’d been a day like any other when Freddie walked into the showers, hoping they wouldn’t be filthy. He never understood why the men had to behave like animals and shit all over the cream tiled floor. The screws didn’t care; it only sealed their belief the courts had been right to lock them up.

      No one was willing to clean it up, so it stayed there, mixing with the soap suds along with the cheap shampoo before finally disintegrating down the shower plug holes.

      The only time the showers were fit for human use was on a Wednesday morning, when the cleaners came with a look of disgust and made a half-hearted effort to clean them up.

      Taking his frayed towel, given to him at her majesty’s pleasure, Freddie made his way to the showers expecting them to be empty, having sacrificed his breakfast of an undercooked egg to get a shit-free shower. So it surprised and annoyed him in equal measure to hear voices.

      Coming round the corner he saw the wiry form of Benjamin Bradley laughing like a hyena and jumping around on one foot in excitement as he huddled up in the far corner with a few other men.

      Freddie glanced at them, pleased the men were fully clothed with no obvious intention to shower and took no more interest in them than he would a pesky gnat. Until a moment later that was, when Benjamin dropped something on the floor, making him frantically scramble to pick it up.

      Curiosity took hold of Freddie as he walked across to the shifty-looking men.

      ‘What’s so interesting Bradley to make a grown man roll on the floor like a fucking circus clown? What have you got there?’

      Benjamin Bradley looked up and froze. Freddie knew most prisoners and come to think of it, most people were scared of him. His formidable reputation always preceeded him. It was clear to Freddie, from the sweat breaking out on Bradley’s face, he was afraid as any other man.

      Freddie watched as Bradley stayed frozen on all fours, with his mouth opening to reply but closing again seconds later.

      ‘The cat got your tongue? Because if it hasn’t, you better have a fucking good reason for not answering me. Otherwise I’ll be the one having your tongue Bradley, and you really wouldn’t want that.’

      Freddie looked round at the other men, who quickly averted their eyes. This was going to be very interesting. Again, Freddie could see Bradley was trying to find an answer but it was clear he didn’t have one. With the speed of a fox at the sound of a hound, Benjamin Bradley rammed the evidence into his mouth.

      Freddie Thompson was dumbfounded. He’d expected the man just to tell him what it was; instead here he was shoving it into his mouth as if it was the last supper. It only took Freddie a moment to snap himself back into action. He reached quickly down with one hand, putting his fingers between Benjamin’s teeth as the other men stood frozen He yanked open the squirming man’s mouth with the other, making Benjamin shriek with pain and spit out the contents which he’d manically been trying to chew.

      Freddie held Benjamin’s gaze for a moment before picking it up and unfolding the soggy mess. It turned out to be a photograph. As the photo unfolded, Freddie’s eyes widened. Lying in his hands, covered in Benjamin Bradley’s warm saliva was a photo of a little boy, no older than two or three. A mask of torturous pain covered his face and his big green eyes were wide open in manic terror. Bradley was in the photo as well, and there was no mistaking what he was doing to the boy.

      Freddie had seen and done a lot. Hurt people for just looking at him. Nothing could touch him, but this image of the little boy made him want to drop to his knees and cry. Instead he used the ache he felt inside of him to clench his fist and bring it down in a haze of raging fury into Bradley’s face.

      Ten minutes later Freddie stood under the cold shower, not feeling the icy sting on his back. Not caring that a dead man lay at his feet with a fractured skull and a small rich trickle of blood coming out of his ear. The only feeling Freddie Thompson had at that moment was one for the nameless boy and the image he knew he’d never get out of his head.

      When they’d found Benjamin Bradley’s body, all the prison inmates denied knowing anything about the murder despite everyone knowing exactly who had done it, and how.

      Freddie had decided with that with all the DNA tests, and the fact just a microscopic drop of blood could put you in the frame for something, it was best for him to admit he’d slapped Benjamin around a bit but deny all knowledge of the murder; adding that as Bradley was a known nonce, he was a sitting target.

      Not having enough evidence to charge him for murder, due to having over twenty witnesses suddenly remember they saw Freddie Thompson slap Bradley about a bit before leaving him very much alive and well to go to play pool in the recreational room, the CPS had no alternative but to stop pursuing the case and let Freddie get on with appealing against his original sentence.

      Freddie had thought it was all behind him, until one morning the police came to see him, informing him that one of the men who’d been there that day was willing to give evidence against Freddie.

      The case had gone to trial a couple of months later and it’d only taken the jury two hours to come back with a guilty verdict. With no mitigation to speak of, Freddie had received a life sentence.

      He’d honestly thought no one would’ve been brave enough to give evidence against him. But according to Freddie’s sources, the man who’d grassed on him had got early release for grassing him up. Not that it’d done him any good. Freddie’s men had found the geezer a week after the trial and three weeks after that his bloated decaying body had been found in the Thames.

      Freddie sighed heavily bringing him back to the present. Killing the man hadn’t done Freddie any good; he was still sitting on a life sentence. He tried not to think about that day. Not because of the nonce’s brains all over the shower room floor, but because of the image of the little boy, which haunted him still.

      On some days it made him squeeze his eyes tight shut so the tears wouldn’t seep out, and on other days, it simply made him want to beat a man within an inch of his life.

      If getting a life sentence meant the boy could be saved from a life of abuse, Freddie Thompson would’ve happily served his sentence without another thought. But he could no sooner find and rescue the boy than he could walk out of prison. And the way it was looking, he wouldn’t be walking out anywhere until he was doing it with a walking frame.

      Freddie put his head in his hands. He took a deep СКАЧАТЬ