Most days were boringly predictable but this could change with such sudden ferocity that Karl took nothing for granted. He had expected to be attacked by the other prisoners. A child murderer was the most despised member of the prison population; but when the first attack came he was not the intended victim.
It took place while he was walking in the prison yard. The prison officers were unaware of the sudden violent surge, and the prisoners standing nearby swerved away, determined not to add time to their sentences by becoming involved in a brawl. They created an immediate firebreak between themselves and the assailants, who numbered three against one. Karl was caught in that empty space, unable to move. He could go in either direction. Go with the prisoners, who were distancing themselves from the fight, or make the odds two against three. If he went with the former he would be safe but still trapped in that numbed sluggishness. Pain, or even death, could come with the latter. It seemed, in that instant of indecision, that this was the most crucial decision he would ever make.
The prisoner being attacked was Gabby Morgan, an overweight, pugnacious forger whose pasty complexion was seared with acne scars. Outside those steel bars Gabby was the last person he would have wanted to know, yet, as he charged into the brawl, Karl was filled with a murderous determination to protect him.
The man who was about to kick Gabby’s head was Killer Shroff. Killer worked out in the prison gym every day and was one of the most feared prisoners on the block. Karl lunged at him, taking him by surprise so quickly that Killer was shoved off balance. This gave Gabby, who was curled in a foetal position on the ground, time to wriggle out the way before Killer could lift his foot again. His arms protected him against the next kick and Killer’s two accomplices turned on Karl. Red stars splattered before his eyes. Pain splintered across his face. He was still struggling when prison officers dragged him away. He ended up in solitary for a week. He had no memory of the fight. His only recollection of those few explosive minutes was the fury that had consumed him as his fists smashed against gristle and bone.
Gabby had been beaten up because his impeccable reputation for forged import documentation had failed to fool a customs official. Something about smuggling drugs inside surfboards; Gabby was vague on detail. The surfboards, which should have been cleared through customs and delivered to a sports shop that served as a legitimate cover for the Shroffs, were checked and their contents discovered. Unfortunately for Gabby, he ended up in the same prison as Killer, who was charged with being the recipient of the surfboards.
‘Killer would a kilt me if ya hadn’t come along.’ Gabby was grateful for the intervention when he recovered from his injuries. He made peace with the Shroffs – again he was hazy on facts, but information to the brothers on the location of stashed counterfeit fifty-euro notes was mentioned. This gave Gabby immunity from further attacks and was, at his insistence, extended to protect Karl.
He knew better than to protest his innocence to Gabby. If his own family refused to believe him, what chance had he of convincing him? Here, in this rarefied atmosphere, everyone was a potential innocent.
‘This place is the fuckin’ miscarriage of justice academy.’ Gabby agreed with him. ‘I’m expert on what’s fake and what’s real, and yer the only fucker what’s genuine in here. But not everyone thinks like I do so watch yer back. Don’t worry about Killer but there’s other fuckers who’d take ya down quick enough, so they would.’
Alertness replaced apathy, an animal instinct that made Karl constantly aware of danger. He sensed footsteps before they were audible, sensed an impending threat before it struck, sensed the shapes behind the shadows. Flight or fight, his adrenalin in constant flow.
His doodles in his journal, the smiley faces that had once amused Sasha, grew muscle, bone and fibre. They evolved into tiny boar-like characters with spiked hair and large, round eyes. He gave them magical wings and hooves that knocked sparks from the ground when they ran on two sturdy legs. The knot in his chest only eased when he entered their imaginary world where evil was punished and good triumphed. He was tempted to show his illustrations to Gabby, one artist to another, but he resisted the temptation. Gabby was street-tough. He would sneer and claim that his friend was watching too many episodes of the Teletubbies.
Fionn arrived one afternoon on an unscheduled visit. Raindrops glistened on his hair and on the shoulders of his coat. He brought with him the rhythm of normality, of temperatures rising and falling, the pace of freedom. Although he seemed outwardly calm, Karl knew that something was about to change when Fionn passed a copy of Capital Eye across the table to him.
The walls of the visiting room blurred as he began to read. The prison noises, a cacophony that had seemed unendurable when he first arrived, fell away and the only sound to fill the visiting room was the almost unendurable pounding of his heart.
Chapter Nineteen
‘There’s been an unexpected development in the Karl Lawson case.’ Hunter was whey-faced when Amanda got into the passenger seat of his car. No anonymous hotel room had been booked on this occasion. Instead, they met in a cul-de-sac at the rear of an industrial estate close to Dublin Airport. The staff had left for the night and the shuttered buildings added to the anonymity of their surroundings. In the distance, lights from the runways twinkled, a galaxy of stars spiralling downwards, and the whine of descending aircraft reached them intermittently.
He opened his laptop and cursed under his breath when he entered an incorrect password. The screen lit up on his second attempt. Images he had managed to download onto a USB flash drive opened before them. Selfies and short videos of teenagers egging the wall of a house. A boy holding a long, thick worm over another boy’s open mouth. A girl dropping water balloons from a flyover bridge on to the cars below.
‘I’ve copied this from a phone that was found at the scene of a suicide,’ Hunter said, as more images appeared on the screen.
Amanda recognised Connie Lawson. The young teenager was kneeling on a bed with Tracey and Gillian, the three of them wearing flimsy briefs, their small breasts bared. They waved their bras like pennants at the photographer, their expressions a mix of defiance and self-consciousness. Young teenagers acting out.
Her hands began to sweat. The air in the car was swampy with fear as she stared at a video Connie had shot at a beach party. Ben’s Shack, Amanda whispered, and Hunter nodded. Another video revealed a wall sprayed with graffiti, blurry shots of rough stone and a low, arched roof, lit by torchlight.