looked at him in bemusement. ‘This ain’t the 1960s Ed, and it certainly ain’t Midnight Express.’
‘I’m being serious.’
Freddie stared at him. ‘You and I both know people don’t escape from prison; not any more anyway, and certainly not from a high-security one. Nice thought though.’
‘Freddie, hold up. I’m not saying to break out from here; you wouldn’t stand a fucking option mate. Pull me up if I’m wrong but I’m presuming you’ll get compassionate visits to go and see Ray-Ray in hospital?’
Freddie raised his eyebrows, and for the first time since the conversation had started, he began to take some real interest in what Eddie was saying. ‘Yeah, go on.’
‘Well, I know it’d be no good either to try to do a runner from the hospital but going there or coming back. Different matter entirely. What you got to lose? You’re serving minimum of what? … ten, fifteen years?’
‘Twenty-five.’
Eddie whistled, shaking his head. ‘Fuck me. Twenty-five long ’uns for killing a nonce. World’s gone mad.’
‘Eddie, remind me to come to you when I need cheering up won’t you?’
Eddie grinned; thankful they could both hang onto their sense of humour. ‘Okay, so you’re burning a quarter. If you’re lucky you’ll be out in eighteen, maybe fifteen, but it’s still a long time.’
‘This still ain’t helping.’
‘Think about it; money’s not going to be a problem to you when you’re out, so the only two headaches you’ll have are finding the muppets who thought they could get away with turning Ray-Ray over, and sorting out the missus. And once that’s done, you get on a plane and live happily ever after, sipping sangrias in the sun.’
‘Sounds easy when you put it like that, but ain’t you forgetting the one small matter of how I’m actually going to get from being inside a reinforced prison van to lazy days in the sun?’
‘You’ve got enough men to sort out being sprung.’
‘The being sprung part ain’t the big pain Ed, though it’d still take some doing. The authorities being clued-up is the pain. They don’t take chances now. Each time they take me to see Ray-Ray, they’ll use a different route. They could easily add another two hundred miles on, just so we don’t go the same way.’
‘That’s where I come in.’
‘I’m desperate to get out to be there for Ray-Ray, so much so I don’t even know how I’m even going to get through the next few hours, but that don’t make me stupid Ed.’
Pushing the bowl of cold apple pie to the side, Freddie sighed and started to get up from the table. He liked Eddie and trusted him, but he certainly didn’t want to talk shit with him. Half the inmates in prison spent their time talking about escape plans; the other half spent their time feigning their innocence.
Freddie understood it was a way of the men coping, but personally, he wasn’t interested in living in a fantasy world. His way, whether he liked it or not, was to face the time he had in front of him. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to get his head round it, but bullshitting himself wasn’t an option.
Eddie continued. ‘I know a driver who works for the security firm who provides the transport for here. He sorts out the rosters so it won’t be a problem for him to be the one who works the day you visit Ray-Ray. He’ll also be able to tell us the day before which route he’ll be taking.’
Freddie sat down. His mind was racing. What he was hearing sounded almost too good to be true. ‘Is he trustworthy?’
‘Yeah, trust isn’t the issue. I’ve known him a while and sorted out a few things in the past for him.’
‘So what’s the issue then?’ Freddie paused, squinting his eyes and letting Eddie have a flash of the hardened face everyone was scared of. ‘What’s in it for you Ed? I know you and me have a history, but I also know no one in life gives a bag of candy without wanting a blow job in return.’
Eddie licked his lips nervously. ‘I want to come with you.’
Freddie laughed ruefully. ‘Stop wasting my fucking time. You really have been watching too many movies. I don’t need to listen to this kind of shit now.’
The urgency in Eddie’s voice stopped Freddie walking away completely. ‘I ain’t asking to come and rub suntan lotion on yer back. Once I’m out, we go our separate ways. Listen, we can do this. What I can’t do is spend the next few years rotting away behind bars because of my missus. I have the contact but I don’t have the readies.’
‘How much exactly are we talking?’
‘Two hundred grand; maybe a bit more.’
‘That sounds okay, but how will you be able to get in the same van as me?’
‘I’ve thought about that. On the morning of you going to see Ray-Ray, there’ll need to be a fight on the wing. I need to get hurt. Hurt enough for the medics not to be able to deal with it here, but not hurt enough for them to call an ambulance. You’ll have to have someone break my arm. The wing will go into lock down whilst they check me over. Obviously you’ll be delayed as well. When they realise it’s broken, they’ll call the security firm to take me. I can sort it for my contact to make sure there aren’t any other vans available that morning. And in this day of lags suing the prison authorities, they ain’t going to have me hanging around whilst I’m screaming lawsuits. Then, knowing your van is coming for you, they’ll probably put me in with you.’
‘Probably?’
‘Well there’s the possibility they might not, but what I thought was, if you put a squeeze on that muppet of a deputy governor who you’ve got sucking shit out of your arse, you can make sure I’m on the van.’
‘And what if I can’t? What if I can’t swing it for you to be on the van?’
‘Then at least we tried, but you’ll still have a chance of getting away.’
Freddie watched Eddie watching him. It not only sounded good, it also sounded like there could be a chance of them pulling it off, albeit a small one; but as Eddie had said, what did they have to lose? He could easily sort out his men to haul up the van with shooters if they knew which route they were going, and the money wasn’t a problem.
With one flash of his gleaming white teeth, Freddie Thompson grinned. ‘Okay Ed, let’s do it.’
11
Ray-Ray Thompson was only half listening to the blonde haired nurse talk as she changed his dressings. He liked her. She’d been kind to him, comforting him when he was crying out in pain, staying with him as he screamed out from the nightmares. Now she was telling him about her boyfriend. From what he could gather he was a bit of a player and no more in love with her than he was in love with his teacher, though he wasn’t going to say so. Who was he to spoil anyone’s dreams? As the nurse chatted away, Ray-Ray thought about Laila. He missed her. Everything about her he missed. Her smile, her laugh, the way her eyes danced when she
