Ten minutes later Freddie stood under the cold shower, not feeling the icy sting on his back. Not caring that a dead man lay at his feet with a fractured skull and a small rich trickle of blood coming out of his ear. The only feeling Freddie Thompson had at that moment was one for the nameless boy and the image he knew he’d never get out of his head.
When they’d found Benjamin Bradley’s body, all the prison inmates denied knowing anything about the murder despite everyone knowing exactly who had done it, and how.
Freddie had decided with that with all the DNA tests, and the fact just a microscopic drop of blood could put you in the frame for something, it was best for him to admit he’d slapped Benjamin around a bit but deny all knowledge of the murder; adding that as Bradley was a known nonce, he was a sitting target.
Not having enough evidence to charge him for murder, due to having over twenty witnesses suddenly remember they saw Freddie Thompson slap Bradley about a bit before leaving him very much alive and well to go to play pool in the recreational room, the CPS had no alternative but to stop pursuing the case and let Freddie get on with appealing against his original sentence.
Freddie had thought it was all behind him, until one morning the police came to see him, informing him that one of the men who’d been there that day was willing to give evidence against Freddie.
The case had gone to trial a couple of months later and it’d only taken the jury two hours to come back with a guilty verdict. With no mitigation to speak of, Freddie had received a life sentence.
He’d honestly thought no one would’ve been brave enough to give evidence against him. But according to Freddie’s sources, the man who’d grassed on him had got early release for grassing him up. Not that it’d done him any good. Freddie’s men had found the geezer a week after the trial and three weeks after that his bloated decaying body had been found in the Thames.
Freddie sighed heavily bringing him back to the present. Killing the man hadn’t done Freddie any good; he was still sitting on a life sentence. He tried not to think about that day. Not because of the nonce’s brains all over the shower room floor, but because of the image of the little boy, which haunted him still.
On some days it made him squeeze his eyes tight shut so the tears wouldn’t seep out, and on other days, it simply made him want to beat a man within an inch of his life.
If getting a life sentence meant the boy could be saved from a life of abuse, Freddie Thompson would’ve happily served his sentence without another thought. But he could no sooner find and rescue the boy than he could walk out of prison. And the way it was looking, he wouldn’t be walking out anywhere until he was doing it with a walking frame.
Freddie put his head in his hands. He took a deep breath and tried not to think. But as he’d discovered in the last few months, not thinking was easier said than done.
He didn’t want to think about his house in Soho or his villa in the Costa Del Sol. He didn’t want to think about his beautiful wife, Tasha, because he missed her too much. He’d never told her that or even thought about telling her, but he did. He didn’t want to think about his son Raymond, who he was so proud of, and he certainly didn’t want to think about the next twenty-five years. The one thousand, three hundred weeks, or the nine thousand, one hundred and thirty-five days – give or take – he had to serve.
Whichever way he looked at the numbers it was a hell of a long time. Freddie Thompson found it was all he could think about and it was beginning to fuck him up.
How had he got himself into this situation? After all, he was Freddie Thompson. The Freddie Thompson. Since he’d been legally accountable, the longest he’d spent behind bars was eighteen months. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been able to get out of something, whether it be grief from his wife for boning some Tom from the clubs, some ruck with the South London boys or even the other charges of murder he’d been up for. He’d always been able to talk, to pay or threaten his way out of the situation; hell, he’d even had his original sentence reduced to a streak of piss, but as he sat in his cell, Freddie realised there was no getting out of this one.
He wanted to cry but he didn’t know how to. Tears were as foreign to him as a heatwave was in the Arctic. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t escape. He was fucked.
‘Hey, Thompson. The governor wants to see you. There’s been a phone call.’
Freddie looked up. Eyeballing the prison officer with as much contempt as he could muster, he snapped, ‘Ain’t you heard of knocking? Don’t walk into my cell again without a tap. Anyway, what phone call?’
Without thinking the prison warder snapped. ‘How do I know, Thompson? I’m not a mind reader.’
Freddie Thompson stood up. He stepped towards the officer, purposely standing within an inch of him, watching as the screw gulped and the colour drained away from his face.
‘I may be in here, but that don’t stop me getting to you out there. One nod from me and my men will come looking. And it won’t take five minutes to find you. How do you fancy being woken up in the morning with a fucking axe in your head, Officer Davies?’
‘All … all I meant to say is, I don’t exactly know what the call is about. But I think it might be about your son. I think there’s been an accident.’
5
‘You must think me awfully rude. I’ve spent all this time with you and I haven’t even told you my proper name. It’s Arnold, but my friends call me Arnie. It means powerful eagle you know, derived from a Germanic name.’
Arnold beamed, whilst thinking how much smaller than usual she looked as she lay naked, curled up shivering in a foetal position on the single bed, her hands tied.
He couldn’t understand why she was still shivering. He’d turned the radiator up to full blast even though he knew it would cost him an absolute fortune. But still, he didn’t want to be selfish.
A horrifying thought came to Arnold’s mind as he gazed at her. A fleeting, disturbing thought passed through his mind. Perhaps she was unhappy; perhaps she wanted to go home, instead of being with him?
Dismayed, he caught a reflection of himself in the mirror which was placed above the small white bookcase. He saw the worry lines etched into his forehead and he saw the anxiety in his eyes. He had to stop this. He had to stop torturing himself thinking she didn’t want to be with him. Why wouldn’t she? He wasn’t going to let himself start thinking negatively, especially not today of all days.
‘Are you still cold Izzy?’
‘My name’s not Izzy.’ She spoke and it shocked him. He wasn’t sure if it was the Scottish accent which he didn’t remember her having when they’d first met, or the obvious hostility in her voice. It made her sound coarse. But what shocked him the most was her denying her name was Izzy.
The other girl had said the same thing. Telling him over and over again her name wasn’t Izzy and he’d got the wrong person. Though eventually he’d seen she’d been telling the truth. He’d got the wrong person. He’d made a mistake and he didn’t mind admitting it. How he’d thought she was Izzy, he didn’t know. He’d been wrong. So very wrong. She’d been nothing like her.
The girl spat her words. ‘You’re fucking sick, you know that? My name’s Lucy, fucking Lucy, you sick fuck.’
Arnold scowled. Not wanting to listen to any more abuse, he placed her gag back on, watching as she squirmed and made grunting sounds until she’d exhausted herself. Touching her gently, Arnold stroked her head as he talked. ‘That’s my girl. Nice and calm now. You really shouldn’t get so angry Izzy. It’s really not good for you. My silly little Izzy; my Isabel. It means God’s promise you know.’