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ELIJAH COLE LIES in his prison cell, hands behind his head, staring into the black. Around him he hears the snores of his fellow prisoners, mutterings behind walls, heavy footsteps, and the clatter of keys in metal doors—sounds that have become as familiar to him over the last twenty years as birdsong and laughter once had been.
His bed is comfortable, his pillow soft. He is alone in a cell built for two—luxuries he has earned. They turned his cell over today. Went through his belongings, checking his mattress, his books. But the governor left in disgust, muttering under his breath. He smiles at the memory now. He knew they were coming; of course they would find nothing. Who do they think he is?
He is a man forged in the fires of hell. A man who remembers the exact moment he learned from his mother that control could be taken back at any time. With a knife, and a cry of rage.
That day, that final day, he’d felt triumphant. Two. He’d made it to two, shifting hiding places, using stealth to deceive his father as heavy footsteps patrolled the tiny house, counting down. But he found himself pinned in, and his father grabbed him by the hair, hauling him out and into the kitchen.
But two. Two he could take. Two of anything. Two strikes with the belt. Two cigarettes. Even two punches in the stomach would be okay, when he’s had five before. But he underestimated his father. The cruelty. The psychopathy that now flows in his own veins.
His father slowly pulled a knife from the block, then walked to where his mother was lying, beaten and gasping on the floor.
“Choose,” he said.
Her eyes were scared and wide. “Choose what?” she burbled through her bloody mouth, her missing tooth.
“Anything. Two of anything. An ear and a finger. An eye and his thumb. What should I remove?”
Elijah couldn’t breathe. His hands balled into fists.
His father continued. “Choose,” he said again. “Or I take them all.”
And he’d grabbed Elijah, his eleven-year-old son, roughly forcing him down to the kitchen table. Fist around his neck; Elijah’s cheek against wood. With the other, his father grabbed his hand and Elijah screamed with absolute terror as his fingers were pried from his palm. Pushed down, joints cracking in protest.
And the knife came down hard.
* * *
Elijah hears footsteps now, becoming louder as they head toward him. He sits up, placing his bare feet on the floor. He waits. The boots stop outside his door. He hears the slow turning of the handle, and the flap opens.
“Doc,” a voice whispers. A Glaswegian burr, and he smiles as he gets up. He knew he’d come through. Tit for tat. Easily recognizable symptoms, worries shared by the guard late at night. Followed up with a doctor—a proper doctor—the cancer quickly diagnosed; his daughter saved.
And now the guard does as he’s asked; something is pushed through the flap. Cole takes it, feeling the soft aged paper between his fingers. A debt willingly repaid, time and time again.
“That book you wanted,” the voice says, and is gone.
Elijah sits back on the bed, resting it in his lap. Weighty, solid. War and Peace, by Tolstoy. He opens it to the center, and in the darkness he just makes out a shape, a hole carved out of the pages. Something in the middle. He picks it up. It’s older than he’s used to; he flips open the lid and presses the “On” button. It bursts into life, casting his cell in a blue glow.
Yes, this will do fine.
The mobile phone loads, and he types in the number he knows by heart. He sends a quick text, instructions that will be followed to the letter. The next piece of the plan is slotting into place, and if he’s as knowledgeable of human behavior as he thinks he is, he knows what will happen next.
Job done, he hides the phone in the book and lies back on the bed. Time for sleep, for thought, for reflection. His mind goes to his girls. His favorite, Grace Summers. She’s the one he’s partial to now, more often than not, as he lies here in the dark. He’s an old man but he still has urges.
The others, they gave up. He saw the light in their eyes fade as they submitted to whatever he wanted. As they lay there, limp, beneath him. They cried quietly, curled into a ball in the corner of the filthy mattress. They stopped eating, drinking. He didn’t kill them; they wanted to go, and that was the only way they knew how. But Grace? Oh, how she fought, how she screamed. He’d tie her up, suspend her from the ceiling for days, and she would still spit in his face. Even when she was bleeding, ripped, he’d have her over the others. Feel her blood mixing with his cum as he fucked her, watching her tears streak lines in the dirt on her face, beating her unconscious after.
He kept her alive the longest. Grace was the last to die. He took the credit, but it wasn’t him. That was someone else’s rage, someone else’s doing.
A secret he’s kept quiet. For twenty-six years.
CHAPTER
56
Day 8
Saturday
ADAM WAKES TO the smell of coffee. He opens his eyes as Romilly climbs back into bed. Her hair is rumpled and messy, and she is wearing a T-shirt and knickers; to him, she has never looked better. He runs a hand through his hair, scratching at the several days of stubble on his jaw, then pulls himself up to a half sit on the pillow next to her.
