out of the rank cell and breathe fresh air. A corridor led past three other cells and up a short ramp. To get to the exercise yard, you stood in line to get padded down by a hack, before passing through a metal detector.
As James?canvas slipper took its first step into the sand, another inmate passed him a white paper bag containing his breakfast. James got called back before he had a chance to see what het got.
Rose.?
Superintendent Bob Frey was the pot-bellied, yellow-toothed man whot crushed James?foot in the reception room the previous afternoon. Frey took James under a veranda and made him stand with his back pinned to the cellblock wall.
Been in my cellblock less than fifteen hours, havent you??
Ibout that, sir.?
i got two brothers in the hospital. One of 抏me just a busted nose and concussion, but the other fellae got neck damage thate gonna cost this prison tens of thousands in medical bills.?
James shifted awkwardly, not knowing how to answer.
Then I got your brother in the hole,?Frey grinned. Hou ever been in the hole, boy??
Ro sir.?
Hou got no light, no ventilation, not a strip of clothes and no toilet. We hose it out once a day, like an animal cage. Any more trouble and thate where I抣l have you. Understood??
Hes sir,?James nodded. Now longe Dave in there for??
慙ong enough,?Frey grinned. Row get out of my sight.?
James opened up his breakfast bag as he walked on to the sun-bleached yard. The milk was warm, the three pieces of fruit were past their best and the muffin was on the dry side, but it was edible and James was starving. His last decent meal had been the fried chicken two nights earlier.
The yard was oval-shaped and the size of three football pitches. It was scooped out of the desert basin around the back half of the cellblock. The facilities were basic: shelters to keep off the sun, a few basketball hoops and chin-up bars and the small prefabricated building where lunches were served. Beside the perimeter fence was a five-metre stretch of concrete behind a red line, which was known as the shooting gallery. No inmate was allowed on the shooting gallery and to make it clear, the notices dotted along the fence had a little stick man standing inside a gun sight with Lethal Force Authorised written beneath him.
Ney,?Abe said, jogging up behind James with a banana in his hand.
James smiled. Hou did me a big favour last night. Dave was supposed to be watching my back ?I just gotta hope Stanley doesnt have any pals popping out of the woodwork.?
The two big white guys were in the shower when I went for a piss. They asked if It seen you.?
Lhich guys??James asked anxiously.
Elwood, and the one with the German name.?
慘irch. What did they want??
They just asked where you were.?
Cid they sound angry??
Abe shrugged. Ill they said was one sentence. Have you seen the little psychopath? I told them I thought you were already out on the yard.?
They called me a psychopath??James said, unsure if this was a bad sign or a mark of respect.
i think you broke that guye neck.?
it was me or him: he was about to slit my throat.?
James threw away the core of his apple and took a slug from his bottle of milk. He was frightened. If Dave had been around, Elwood and Kirch would have been manageable. But with Dave in the hole, het be outgunned if things turned heavy.
i抣l wait for them to come on the yard,?James said. It least theree space to run away out here.?
James and Abe found a spot under a shelter with a view over the whole yard and sat together in the dirt.
Kirch came through the metal detector first. He was a seventeen-year-old skinhead, two metres tall, with massive pectoral muscles inside a sweat-stained vest. Elwood was taller and thinner, shaved bald. A swastika with MOM written underneath it was tattooed on his neck. Curtis came next. He was an average build and the same height as James, but he looked undernourished standing between his massive bodyguards.
The three boys joined up with a bunch of similarly fierce looking skinheads from another cell, who were standing around a set of chin-up bars taking it in turns to do sets. The gang was bigger and meaner than James had expected. He realised they were going to have no problem hurting him if they wanted to.
A couple of minutes later, while Kirch was on the chin-up bar, Elwood