Exit wound

I forced my eyes open and looked around. I was in an orange jumpsuit. I was in a cell. There weren’t any windows, just a fluorescent light with a mesh cover fixed flush with the ceiling. The walls were plain plaster. I could see scrawls in English. There was a familiar institutional smell, a mixture of school dinners and cleaning fluid.

I vaguely remembered being moved and shoved about…lying on a stretcher… the horrible feeling of waking up wet because I’d pissed myself.

I rubbed my face. My hands grazed a good two days’ worth of stubble.

They definitely had eyes on me. It wasn’t more than a minute before I heard boots squeaking down a corridor. I studied the sheet-metal door. There was no peephole or any of that stuff off The Bill. There’d be fibre-optics or some sort of shit chased into the walls.

Keys jangled and the lock turned with a heavy clunk. I got my head under my arms, curled up and waited.

The door burst open and boots and blue trousers headed my way. They were black Hi-Tec, high-leg boots. This was feeling more familiar by the second. I ventured an eye upwards to see two Brit policemen in white short-sleeved shirts, one balding, one with a shaven head. Neither looked in much of a mood to fuck about. They grabbed hold of me. The shaven-headed one had ginger-freckled hands. He did the business with issue cuffs, the ones with a rigid link between them. Even the sight of those was comforting.

His massive fist closed around the link and jerked me to my feet. No words, just actions. He tugged the link behind him and I followed as fast as I could to relieve the pain of the steel against my wrists. My legs took a while to spark up and I had to keep my arms horizontal.

Metal doors lined the narrow corridor. Every one of them was closed, and the ID plates bore no name, blood group or religion. Either I was the only one in here, or they were playing mind games.

Were they trying to disorient me? Then why wear watches that agreed with the big wall clock ahead of us? They all said just after three o’clock. A.m. or p.m., what did I care? At least I wasn’t lying dead on an airstrip or banged up next to Sherry’s old man. Whatever, it was time to buckle up. Things could still get hairy, depending who had brought me here.

They hauled me into an interrogation room. Why they called them interview rooms I hadn’t a clue. We all knew what went on inside them.

The steel table in the middle had four tubular legs bolted to the floor. The two bench seats either side were also fixed. The walls were cream. The paint, I could smell, was fresh. I wondered what had happened to the last occupant to prompt a makeover.

Fluorescent lights were set into the ceiling, like in the cell. Nothing to grab, nothing to pull out.

The two handlers’ boots squeaked over the polished tiles and came to a halt. They turned me round and plonked me by the bench furthest from the door. I kept looking down. My bare feet had left a trail of sweaty prints across the floor.

I was allowed to sit myself down, but they attached my cuffs to the retaining chain welded to the table. I was free to move my hands, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

They turned and left the room. I was being watched, of course. There weren’t any two-way mirrors. This place had cameras in each corner.

I sat there with the strange sense of comfort that came from being somewhere that felt familiar. Red Ken and Dex had been right. There was no way I was going to fester in a Dubai jail.

The squeaks came down the corridor once more, and the door was unbolted. It wasn’t Ginger who came in armed with two steaming mugs, but Julian, the Premiership player from the funeral.

He unbuttoned his single-breasted pinstripe. Even though he was dressed like an upmarket estate agent, always had an annoyingly perfect Windsor knot in his tie and an immaculately pressed, double-cuffed shirt, I had him down as one of the good guys from the Security Service.

I’d been hoping this had something to do with him, and couldn’t hide my relief. But now that he was in front of me I couldn’t be sure if it was going to be good or bad. After all, he still had me chained up.

At least he was smiling. That made me feel a little better.

I smiled weakly back. ‘Hello, mate.’

The door closed behind him but it wasn’t locked. Ginger and his baldy mate would be hovering just in case I did a Houdini and went for the throat of one of MI5’s big cheeses.

He sat down opposite me and passed across a mug of mud-coloured instant. ‘I’m not sure if you wanted it, but I added sugar.’

I picked it up between my manacled hands and went to get it down my neck. Old habits die hard. You never know when the next one’s coming, or whether they’ll whisk this one away just as you take your first sip.