'He's fucking dead,' screamed the Bear, while the Bull made a rudimentary attempt to resuscitate McCullum by applying what he thought was artificial respiration, and which in fact meant hurling himself on the body and expelling what remained of breath from his victim's lungs.
'Give him the fucking kiss of life,' ordered the Bear, but the Bull had reservations. If McCullum wasn't dead, he had no intention of bringing him back to consciousness to find he was being kissed, and if he had coughed it, he didn't fancy kissing a corpse.
'Squeamish sod,' yelled the Bear, when the Bull stated his views on the question. 'Here, let me get at him.' But even then he was put off by McCullum's coldness. 'You bloody murderers,' he shouted through the cell door.
'You've done it this time,' said the Governor. He had found the Chief Warder in the office enjoying a cup of coffee. 'You and your infernal sedatives.'
'Me?' said the Chief Warder.
The Governor took a deep breath. 'Either McCullum's dead or he's shamming very convincingly. Get me ten warders and the doctor. If we hurry, we may be in time to save him.'
They rushed down the passage, but the Chief Warder had yet to be convinced. 'I gave him the same dose as everyone else. He's having you on.'
Even when they had secured the ten warders and were outside the cell door, he delayed matters. 'I suggest you leave this to us, sir,' he said. 'If they take hostages, you ought to be on the outside to conduct negotiations. We're dealing with three extremely dangerous men, you know.' The Governor doubted it. Two seemed more probable.
Chief Warder Blaggs peered into the cell. 'Could have painted his face with chalk or something,' he said. 'He's a right crafty devil.'
'And pissed himself into the bargain?'
'Never does things by halves, does our Mac,' said the Chief Warder. All right, stand clear of the door in there. We're coming in.' A moment later the cell was filled with prison officers and in the melee that followed, the late McCullum received some post mortem injuries which did nothing to improve his appearance. But there was no doubt he was dead. It hardly needed the prison doctor to diagnose death as due to acute barbiturate poisoning.
'Well, how was I to know that the Bull and the Bear were going to give him their cups of cocoa?' said the Chief Warder plaintively, at a meeting held in the Governor's office to discuss the crisis.
'That's something you're going to have to explain to the Home Office enquiry,' said the Governor.
They were interrupted by a prison officer who announced that a cache of drugs had been found in McCullum's sodden mattress. The Governor looked out at the dawn sky and groaned.
'Oh, and one other thing, sir,' said the warder. 'Mr Coven in the office has remembered where he heard that voice on the telephone. He thought he recognized it at the time. Says it was Mr Wilt.'
'Mr Wilt?' said the Governor. 'Who the hell's Mr Wilt?'
'A lecturer from the Tech or something who's been teaching McCullum English. Comes every Monday.'
'McCullum? Teaching McCullum English? And Coven's certain he was the one who phoned?' In spite of his fatigue, the Governor was wide awake now.
'Definitely, sir. Says he thought it was familiar and naturally when he heard "Fireworks" Harry'd snuffed it, he made the connection.'
So had the Governor. With his career in jeopardy he was prepared to act decisively. 'Right,' he said, casting discretion to the draught that blew under the door. 'McCullum died of food poisoning. That's the official line. Next...'
'What do you mean, "food poisoning"?' asked the prison doctor. 'Death was due to an overdose of phenobarbitone and I'm not going on record as saying'
'And where was the poison? In his cocoa, of course,' snapped the Governor. 'And if cocoa isn't food, I don't know what is. So we put it out as food poisoning.' He paused and looked at the doctor. 'Unless you want to go down as the doctor who nearly poisoned thirty-six prisoners.'
'Me? I didn't have anything to do with it. That goon went and dosed the sods.' He pointed at Chief Warder Blaggs, but the Chief Warder had spotted the out.
'On your instructions,' he said with a meaningful glance at the Governor. 'I mean I couldn't have laid my hands on that stuff if you hadn't authorized it, could I now? You always keep the drugs cupboard in the dispensary locked, don't you? Be irresponsible not to, I'd have thought.'
'But I never did...' the doctor began, but the Governor stopped him.
'I'm afraid Mr Blaggs has a point there,' he said. 'Of course if you want to dispute the facts with the Board of Enquiry, that is your privilege. And doubtless the Press would make something of it. 'PRISON DOCTOR INVOLVED IN POISONING CONVICT' would look well in the Sun, don't you think?'
'If he had drugs in his cell, I suppose we could say he died of an overdose,' said the doctor.
Chapter 8
'There's no use in saying you didn't come home late last night because you did,' said Eva. It was breakfast, and, as usual, Wilt was being cross-examined by his nearest and dearest. On her other days, Eva left it to the quads to make the meal a misery for him by asking questions about computers or biochemistry about which he knew absolutely nothing. But this morning the absence of the car had given her the opportunity to get her own questions in.
'I didn't say I didn't come in late,' said Wilt through a mouthful of muesli. Eva was still into organic foods and her home-made muesli, designed to guarantee an adequate supply of roughage, did just that and more.
'That's a double negative,' said Emmeline.
Wilt looked at her balefully. 'I know it is,' he said, and spat out the husk of a sunflower seed.
'Then you weren't telling the truth,' Emmeline continued. 'Two negatives make a positive and you didn't say you had come in late.'
'And I didn't say I hadn't,' said Wilt, struggling with his daughter's logic and trying to use his tongue to get the bran off the top of his dentures. The damned stuff seemed to get everywhere.
'There's no need to mumble,' said Eva. 'What I want to know is where the car is.'
'I've already told you. I left it in a car park. I'll get a mechanic to go round and see what's wrong with the thing.'
'You could have done that last night. How do you expect me to take the girls to school?'
'I suppose they could always walk,' said Wilt, extracting a raisin from his mouth with his fingers and examining it offensively. 'It's an organic form of transportation, you know. Unlike this junior prune which would appear to have led a sedentary life and a sedimentary death. I wonder why it is that health foods so frequently contain objects calculated to kill. Now take this'
'I am not interested in your comments,' said Eva. 'You're just trying to wriggle out of it and if you expect me to...'
'Walk?' interrupted Wilt. 'God forbid. The adipose tissue with which you'
'Don't you adipose me, Henry Wilt,' Eva began, only to be interrupted by Penelope.
'What's adipose?'
'Mummy is,' said Wilt. 'As to the meaning, it means fat, fatty deposits and appertaining to fat.'
'I am not fat,' said Eva firmly, 'and if you think I'm spending my precious time walking three miles there and three miles back twice a day you're wrong.'
'As usual,' said Wilt. 'Of course. I was forgetting that the gender arrangements of this household leave me in a minority of one.'
'What are gender arrangements?' demanded Samantha.
'Sex,' said Wilt bitterly and got up from the table.
Behind him Eva snorted. She was never prepared to discuss sex in front of the quads. 'It's all very well for you,' she said, reverting to the question of the car which provided a genuine grievance. All you have to do is'
'Catch a bus,' said Wilt, and hurried out of the house before Eva could think of a suitable reply. In fact there was no need. He caught a lift with Chesterton from the Electronics Department and listened to his gripes about financial cuts and why they didn't make them in Communication Skills and get rid of some of those Liberal Studies deadbeats.