‘Stay there,’ Hobson said. Joe saw that he had leaned the wooden crutch against the wall before stepping forward a few paces. Sowden clearly saw this, and Joe felt himself tensing up. What the hell was Hobson doing? His question was answered by a brief nod of acknowledgement from Sowden. Clearly the fucker was in on Hennessey’s little treat too. Sowden barked an indecipherable instruction at the two prisoners. They carried the boxes through the double doors, followed by the screw, who closed them and – Joe assumed – locked them behind him.
But had Sowden seen him? Joe didn’t think so. The courtyard was empty now, and the rain coming down even harder. Joe slipped his hands out of the cuffs and indicated to Hobson that he should retreat into the cover of the alleyway. Hobson obeyed. He looked like shit. Bedraggled hair, rain running down his face.
‘Who’s the driver?’ Joe asked.
‘Always the same guy. Stays in the cab.’
‘Does he know what’s going on? Does he know it’s me?’
Hobson nodded. His eyes flickered anxiously to the left, almost as though he was expecting something to happen.
Joe acted on impulse. He grabbed Hobson and thrust him up against the wall, pressing his right forearm into the screw’s neck. He didn’t say anything for a full twenty seconds, by which time both Hobson’s arms had gone into spasm and his rasping breath was noisier than the rain on the metal bins. ‘What’s Hennessey got waiting for me in there?’ he finally demanded.
At first Hobson said nothing. He just tried to shake his head. But another twenty seconds and his eyes were rolling up – he was as close to passing out as it was possible to be – and his wheezing and struggling told Joe he was trying to speak. Joe relaxed his arm, but only slightly. ‘What’s he got waiting for me?’ he repeated.
‘There’s no girl…’ Hobson managed to say, but as he spoke, his eyes rolled again. Joe swore as the screw crumpled to the ground – two fingers to the jugular confirmed he was still alive, just unconscious – but Joe had enough information to know that whatever was waiting for him in the back of the Transit, it wasn’t some chick expecting to give Hennessey a blow job. He dragged Hobson by his feet back down the alleyway, out of sight. It was impossible to know how long he’d be out for, so he took the precaution of cuffing him to the bracket of a hefty metal drainpipe and removing his keys from his belt. Even if he awoke, he’d have to scream over the rain to raise the alarm.
Back at the end of the alleyway, Joe took Hennessey’s crutch and checked out his path to the van. Apart from the driver, the courtyard was deserted, though he didn’t know how long it would remain so. Joe couldn’t see the guy, but he knew that he’d be visible in the passenger-side wing mirror as he approached the rear of the van. He looked at the angle of the mirror: about seventy degrees. Joe estimated that the driver’s field of view had a radius of approximately five metres. Did it matter if he saw Joe? Perhaps. If someone else was waiting for him in the back of the van, they might be communicating with each other. Much better to keep out of the driver’s field of view until he was directly behind the Transit, at which point he would be able to walk directly up to the rear doors, unexpected.
A crack of thunder ripped through the sky. A fresh torrent of rain hammered down. Soaked through, Joe stepped out into the courtyard.
He kept close to the perimeter wall, moving quickly while he had the advantage of an empty yard. It took no more than five seconds to get to the point where he was directly behind the Transit, at a distance of about seven metres. He suppressed a grim smile at a sign on the back of the van which read: ‘Remember: if you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you.’
He checked the doors leading into the kitchen. No movement. He checked back in the direction of the alleyway. No movement.
He removed the crutch from under his arm and advanced.
His mind was calculating with every step he took towards the van. Hennessey and Hobson’s game was clear: they didn’t want him in the prison, and they didn’t want him grassing them up. That meant that whoever was waiting for him in the van would have strict instructions: get Joe beyond the prison walls, then make sure he never speaks again. It would cause a fucking stink, and spark a massive investigation, but Hobson and Sowden would be hoping nothing could be pinned on them. Better that than have their cosy relationship with Hennessey revealed. So whoever was waiting there in the van would attack immediately. And his eyes would be used to the gloom inside, putting him – or them – at a distinct advantage. Joe had Hennessey’s crutch – a sturdy bit of timber, but hardly his weapon of choice. He did have the element of surprise, though: whoever was there wouldn’t expect him to go in fighting.
‘Knock five times,’ Hennessey had said. Like hell he would. He gripped the crutch firmly, then yanked open one of the rear doors and jumped inside the van.
As Joe expected, it was pretty dark inside, even with the door open. He turned his head to one side to take advantage of his peripheral vision – more attuned to low light – and spun Hennessey’s crutch ninety degrees so that it was horizontal in front of him. At once two figures rushed at him. Definitely male. Joe surged forward, throwing all his weight behind the crutch, which thumped brutally against both the silhouetted figures. His attackers dropped, their fall broken and muffled by a bank of cardboard boxes like the ones Joe had seen being removed from the van minutes earlier. One of them cursed in what sounded like Arabic.
Joe’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He recognized the men ahead of him: the two unharmed Middle Eastern guys from the dining hall. Hunter had been right: Hennessey was smart. He’d relied on the two men in this shithole who most wanted to kill him.
Joe didn’t give them even a second to recover.
He threw down the crutch, then, with all his strength, smashed his fist into the face of the nearer of the men. He heard the nose crack, but was already delivering the next blow.
And another.
And another.
He kept pounding the man’s bleeding face, splintering the already broken nasal bone. As the fucker collapsed, his mate got to his feet again. Joe seized his throat and dragged him down too. Grabbing a clump of his greasy black hair, he slammed his face as hard as he could against the metal floor. The guy went limp.
Silence. Joe stepped back and closed the door.
He was breathless and sweating, but thankful for the rain pounding down on the Transit because it would have masked the sound of the struggle. Although the driver would have heard the rumpus, Joe was sure he would have assumed it was he who’d been overpowered. He stood still for twenty seconds, waiting for his eyes to readjust to the increased darkness. He found himself imagining Hennessey’s sordid little encounters in the bleak darkness of this vehicle. He couldn’t help thinking they were as much to do with keeping up his reputation as the sex itself.
He edged forward. There was a wall of cardboard boxes in front of him, but with a gap to their right that led to another space behind them, less than a metre wide. Perhaps it was where Hennessey was accustomed to losing his load. His assailants were bony to look at, but heavy to drag. Joe manoeuvred their limp frames to the hiding place behind the boxes with difficulty, before retrieving Hennessey’s crutch and joining them. It crossed his mind to try and revive them, to squeeze every last bit of information out of them – not about Hennessey, but about whoever had ordered them to take him out in the first place. He quickly rejected that idea: his focus had to be on escaping. Better these two remained out cold.