Guilty by Jane Bidder

Author:Jane Bidder
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909624177
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2014-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Plait Man had topped himself. That’s what everyone was saying although it wasn’t official yet. Had hung himself up by stringing together his bedsheets and fastening them somehow to the top of the shelf which they all had as routine fixtures in their pads. Some used them for clothes or music. Simon stored his books there. Plait Man had used his as an execution tool.

‘It’s my fault,’ Simon said to Spencer as they stood in a huddle in the small narrow corridor that ran through G hut.

Spencer yawned. ‘What you on, man?’

‘Nothing.’ How could he expect the boy to understand? Elbowing his way through the crowd, he made his way to the officer who was standing by the door of the hut, trying to get them into some kind of order. He was a tough-looking man in his fifties whose small eyes were dwarfed by his large, hooked nose. ‘May I speak to you?’ said Simon in a low, urgent voice.

The officer didn’t even look at him. ‘Later.’

‘Please.’ Simon raised his voice. ‘You see, I think all this is my fault.’

They took him to a small room off the centre and invited him to sit down on a plastic chair. His right knee wouldn’t stop shaking and he could see the officer noticing.

’You’d better tell me what this is all about, Mr Mills, before I decide if I need to get you before the guv.’

Simon closed his eyes. He found that he could think better that way in prison because it shut out the noise and the look in the officer’s eyes. A look that said ‘I’ve got to work here but it doesn’t mean I have to like you.’

‘I’m a Listener.’

There was no response.

‘That means …’

‘I know what that means, Mr Mills.’

This time, Simon noticed, there was no accent on the ‘Mr’. The man’s voice sounded gentler. ‘Please tell me what you have to. We’ve got a prison to run here.’

‘The Plait Man … I mean the man who died, came to see me last night in the Listeners’ Hut. He said he was dreading his release date and that he didn’t know how he’d cope when he was free. Apparently he’d been in prison for more years than he’d been out of it.’

‘Many of them have.’

The prison officer’s voice was definitely more sympathetic now. ‘I told him that, when he got out, it would be all right and that the fear of something was actually often worse than doing that thing that scared you in the first place.’

‘Like the line about the ant in Shakespeare.’

‘Exactly!’ Simon opened his eyes and was shocked to find that the officer’s face looked completely different. Open. Understanding.

‘Sounds like good advice to me.’

‘No. Don’t you see? It couldn’t have been or he wouldn’t have killed himself.’

The officer took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s not official yet. But even if it was, you can’t blame yourself. You said what you felt what right at the time.’

Simon was so astounded he could hardly talk.

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