Murder Mile Read Online Free PDF Page A

that name, knew who he was. He wasn’t to be messed with.
    As he walked his rushing blood calmed, seemed to settle. When he got like that, he couldn’t control it. He just wanted to lash out. He couldn’t change that, it was who he was. He put his energy into his stride, but the prison followed him. The prison smell haunted him. He would never forget that smell; on his first night he’d asked an old giffer what the smell was. ‘The stench of a thousand reeking bastards,’ he’d told him, ‘their farts and shits, their BO and their utter fucking despair!’
    There was no escape from it, the prison got under your skin. It polluted you. If it wasn’t some radge talking about who he’d offed on the outside it was some nut-job looking to make a name for himself by offing someone on the inside. You had to be on your toes, every minute of the day. There was no way of avoiding it; if you didn’t play the game then they thought there was something wrong with you. That’s how rumours started. He remembered the bloke who’d got moved from Kilmarnock, he never fitted in, never made the effort and then folk started to say he was a nonce. A beast. He was battered into a coma.
    That’s what prison had taught Neil Henderson, to be tough; to get the first punch in. No one was looking out for you in the pound. You were on your own. And if you let your guard down for a second it could be fatal. Life was like that, too. That’s what they all said. ‘Get your retaliation in first!’ That’s what he’d been told, and that’s what he believed.
    ‘You got someone coming for you, Hendy?’ said the screw.
    ‘I don’t know, not a fucking mind reader am I.’
    The screw shook his head. ‘Have you no family?’
    Henderson shrugged.
    The screw rattled some keys. ‘What about a girl?’
    ‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you?’
    The conversation came to an abrupt halt as the prison officer opened the first door into an enclosed area that had been partitioned off. He pointed to a sheet of paper on a clipboard, said, ‘Sign.’
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘For your possessions.’
    Henderson grabbed the brown paper bag tighter. ‘You better not have nicked anything … I know what I came in here with, got it all up here,’ he tapped his head.
    ‘You saw it counted out, now sign it or you’ll be in another night. That what you want?’
    Henderson grabbed the pen, signed. When he was finished he let the biro fall, it swung on its chain, rattled off the wall. The screw picked it up and placed it on the counter. ‘Always the arsehole, right to the end, eh. You learnt nothing in here?’
    ‘Oh, I learnt plenty, mate … fucking plenty.’
    The screw turned down the corners of his mouth, he seemed to have something else to say but kept it to himself. It was a look that Henderson had seen many times before, it had started at home, when he had a home, then it was school, the workplace, the street, pubs. Everywhere. Someone always seemed to be ready to tell Neil Henderson how to lead his life, where he was going wrong.
    A key turned in a large lock, then another. A bolt slid across the door and then light and a cool breeze flooded in. Henderson tipped back his head to inhale the luxury of clean air.
    ‘Don’t get too used to it out there, sure we’ll be seeing you again soon.’
    Henderson smiled. He was too pleased to see the outside world to manage a riposte. As he stepped over the prison threshold he felt a weakness in his knees. He was out. He was back in the real world. For a second he felt exhilarated and then he felt a tightening in his gut. Something twisted there, like a rag being wrung out. He wondered what it was. Fear? Panic? It was nothing, surely. Just the shock of being out, of getting away from that shit-hole. There would be no more, he was out.
    ‘You fucking beauty!’
    He looked up Gorgie Road, he could go anywhere, do anything. He sniffed the air like a dog that had been kept in for too long. Beer, he wanted