Handcuffed, but still wearing his own clothes, Henry Mills moved into the courtyard in the middle of Charing Cross police station, flanked by two security guards. Behind him came two other prisoners, a nineteen-year-old glue-sniffing mugger and a fifty-two-year-old petty thief. The trio were being transported across London to Wormwood Scrubs, the Victorian prison, where they would await their respective trials at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
It was barely eight in the morning and a sharp chill lingered in the shade of the courtyard. Mills shivered, but breathed in deeply. It was the first time in almost two days that he’d enjoyed some fresh air, and he appreciated it. His night in the cells below his feet had been extremely unpleasant, the liberally applied disinfectant failing to cover the smell of innumerable bodily evacuations. He had spent the last twelve hours breathing through his mouth and failing to get any sleep. Equally, he hadn’t been able to wash or shave in the last couple of days. Worst of all, he hadn’t been able to brush his teeth, and his mouth felt as if a small animal had died in it.
Edging slowly forward with dainty baby steps, he tried to focus on nothing other than the small patch of tarmac immediately in front of his feet.
‘Hold it!’ One of the guards, an emaciated skinhead called Jeremy, with a tattoo of an angel on the back of his neck, held up a hand.
The other guard stepped out from behind the prisoners and gazed sullenly at the assembled police vehicles in front of them. ‘Where’s the van?’ He turned to a mechanic who was working under the hood of a Toyota Prius hybrid. ‘Mate,’ he asked, nodding at his trio of prisoners, ‘where’s the transport for our friends here?’
The mechanic stood up and twiddled a spanner aimlessly. ‘Huh?’
‘The van for the Scrubs?’
‘Oh yeah, it’s outside.’ The mechanic pointed with his spanner at the closed metal gates covering the entrance. ‘They couldn’t get it in. Some genius parked in front of the doors. We’re waiting for them to get towed.’
The guards looked at each other.
Mills looked at the guards. His heart sank at the prospect of being sent back inside.
One of the other prisoners, the glue-sniffer, farted loudly and at length, eliciting a peal of hoarse laughter from the thief.
‘I’ll take them out one at a time,’ Jeremy decided, after a while. ‘You wait here with the others.’
‘Okay,’ the other guard nodded. ‘My shift finishes at half-nine, so let’s get on with it.’
Jeremy put a gentle hand on Mills’s shoulder. ‘Come on, sunshine,’ he said, gesturing towards a side door, right next to the main gates. ‘Over there.’
Less than a minute later, Henry Mills was out on the street and, fleetingly, back in the real world that he’d imagined he’d left behind for good. Feeling the sun on his face, he squinted as he got his bearings. A couple of people walking by, on their way to work, stepped around him without a second glance. A taxi roared past. Life outside was going on as normal.
Towering over the other cars parked on Chandos Place, the Dennis high-security prison van was about ten yards down the road. After aiming a half-hearted kick at the Skoda Yeti illegally parked in front of the police garage, Jeremy walked Mills towards the back of the prison van, nodding at the driver as he passed. Mills waited patiently on the pavement while the guard stepped up on to the footplate to open the back door.
The door would not budge.
‘Christ!’ Jumping back down from the footplate, Jeremy pushed past his prisoner and jogged back to the front of the van. ‘It’s locked,’ he shouted at the driver. ‘Open it up!’
Engine revving, a blue flower-delivery van turned into the street, heading towards them. Mills watched the driver talking animatedly into his mobile phone while steering with one hand. Isn’t there a law against that? he wondered. Either way, the driver was going far too fast. As he accelerated down the street, a woman pedestrian scuttled for cover. Ignoring the screeching of brakes and the blaring horn, Henry Mills smiled. He looked up at the clear blue sky and felt himself floating away. Blinking away his tears, he heard a second van racing down the street towards him. He knew that this was his moment. ‘I’m coming, Agatha,’ he mumbled to himself, as he stepped into the middle of the road and closed his eyes.