Die Alone

never spoke except to give instructions and they didn’t appear to be armed.
The garden was sheltered from the outside world by the leylandii hedge that surrounded the whole property, and high wooden gates at the front. I either walked round and round the house followed by whichever guard was on duty that day, or simply sat in the sunshine, looking up at the sky and enjoying the feeling of the sun on my face after so much time inside. There was a back gate built into the leylandii. I wasn’t sure if it was locked or not but it never occurred to me to make a break for it. There really wasn’t a lot of point, even if I did manage to get away.
It was a lot easier to stay put as I was being fed really well too. Three meals a day, simple but tasty fare like steak and chips and roast chicken, always brought to my room by one of the guards.
After that first meeting with Lane I didn’t see her again for a while, and I got the feeling she wasn’t staying in the house. During that time I followed her instructions to grow a beard and, with only limited exercise, and plenty of hearty food, I put on a fair amount of weight, which was no bad thing. Prison, and the stress of always being on my guard, had kept me thin and given me a gaunt, haunted look I was happy to lose.
When she did finally reappear, I was actually quite nervous to see her, having settled into my new life of incarceration pretty well, and having no desire to end it.
‘We need to get you ready for your new passport photo,’ she told me, coming into my bedroom while one of the guards stood in the doorway behind her. As before, she was wearing a balaclava and gloves, on top of a navy trouser suit and flat work shoes.
It was late afternoon and I’d been sitting in my pyjamas reading a book on medieval history.
She was carrying a holdall, and she dropped it on the bed. ‘There are scissors in there as well as an electric shaver. You need to shave your head. There’s also black dye for the beard. Get everything done and I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.’
I’m one of those vain forty-year-old men who’s far too proud of his full head of hair, and the thought of getting rid of it filled me with horror, but I knew there was no point arguing.
Twenty minutes later I was sitting in a chair against the wall in the downstairs dining room, with a bald head and a dark beard. I didn’t look pretty, but I looked different, and clearly this was the point. Lane took some headshots on a Lumix camera and told me that my new passport would be ready in three days. ‘When we’ve got that, you’ll be ready to go out into the world. The hunt for you’s already scaling down.’
This didn’t surprise me. The prison rioting had now spread to almost a dozen institutions, and there was constant footage of burning buildings on the TV news as the inmates vented their frustrations. I was still mentioned as a footnote but the rioting itself was sucking up most of the airtime, which suited me fine. It was strange really. I’d spent so much of my adult life putting criminals behind bars but I’d never given any real thought to what it was like for them in there. Now, having spent a year inside myself, I had a lot more sympathy with them. Prison was an overcrowded, debilitating hell, and it wasn’t peopled entirely by monsters, even on the VP ward. With the exception of child killers like Wallace Burke, they were just men who’d fucked up, made bad decisions, who’d been unable to control their emotions and had acted rashly. Some of them were mentally ill, including plenty of services veterans who’d spent years serving their country only to be deserted by the powers-that-be when they’d returned home with PTSD. They were the dregs of society and they knew it, locked away and forgotten by the outside world, only noticed when they finally fought back in a furious, desperate and ultimately futile way.
I wouldn’t say I was rooting for them. But I wasn’t exactly rooting against them either.
Three days after she’d taken the photos, Lane returned as promised.
It was early afternoon and I was told to get dressed, pack my bags, and be ready to go. My rest and recuperation was over. It was time for the real work to begin.
When I was done, I was led downstairs to the dining room by both guards. Lane was standing there, in the same tailored suit she’d had on last time, a number of items next to her on the table.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Mason. Are you ready to check out?’
I guessed this was her idea of a joke, and I have to say, even with the balaclava on she looked in a jaunty mood. Perhaps she was just glad to be seeing the back of me and this whole operation, which was clearly both secretive and very risky. ‘I’ve been sat on my arse in here for the last fortnight, stuffing my face and putting on weight, and I was sat on my arse in jail for the year before that. Of course I’m not ready.’
‘You’re a pro, Mr Mason, and you’re ex-army,’ she countered. ‘You also managed to fight your way out of a murder attempt by a number of assailants. I’d say you were ready.’
‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘It’s a very simple one, as the best usually are. As you know, Alastair Sheridan is fond of young women.’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘There’s a very discreet establishment in a townhouse in Bayswater where the tastes of certain wealthy businessmen are taken care of. Alastair visits it quite regularly, and always likes to be entertained in the penthouse, where he won’t