Daisy in Chains(36)

PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.





Chapter 27


IT IS STILL only the second week in December and yet cell 43, corridor 2, H wing of Parkhurst Prison is as festive as the Christmas aisle in Poundland, and every bit as tacky. Paper chains run from the central light fitting to the four corners of the room and drape the window bars like a climbing vine. More chains festoon the length of the two bunks and paper baubles dangle from the ceiling. A man called Phil James is perched in the corner, folding and sticking narrow strips of red and green paper.

‘OK, Mr Sahid.’ Wolfe is on his feet, looking down at the Pakistani man on his bed. ‘I need to have a look at your backside.’

The whites of Sahid’s eyes have turned yellow, his skin has the look of ageing leather. He is in his mid fifties, could be a decade older. He has been in this place for five years. He is unlikely, ever, to leave.

‘You better not try anything.’ Sahid doesn’t move. His two henchmen, their bodies as solid as the door they’re guarding, don’t take their eyes off him for a second.

‘I’ll try to restrain myself.’ Wolfe takes the single step that will bring him to the washbasin and soaps his hands. When he turns back, Sahid hasn’t moved.

‘It’s entirely up to you, Mr Sahid. I’m sure you’ll get an appointment with Dr Evans next week.’

‘What do you think it is?’

‘I don’t speculate, Mr S., I diagnose. I’ve got others waiting if you’ve changed your mind. How many out there, Phil?’

Wolfe’s cellmate looks up from his chain-making. ‘Seven, last time I checked, Doc. Kids on C wing have been spliff-banging again.’

Wolfe shakes his head. ‘Give me strength.’ Spliff-banging is the latest craze to hit the prison. Youngsters film themselves punching each other, in a sick, ritualistic fashion, with the violence tolerated because it will be rewarded later by cannabis. They bring the broken noses, the split lips, to Wolfe to fix up.

‘If you’re not going to show me your bottom, Mr S., I’ll wish you good morning. When you see Dr Evans, tell him I’m not happy about the yellowing in your scleras. If you were a drinker, I’d worry about liver damage. As it is, gallstones would be my best guess.’

These daily surgeries annoy the hell out of the prison doctor.

The small, slim man, who is probably the most powerful and feared in Parkhurst Prison, glares. ‘No one comes in.’ He barks the order at his bodyguards, who turn their backs and swell to fill the entire doorway.

Phil turns round too – he has a healthy respect for Sahid and his gang of ‘Muslim Boys’ – to look out of the small window at the leaden greyness beyond. Wolfe, caught off guard, does the same and feels the sharp stab of panic that hits him every time he sees the sky.

‘Trousers down, lean over.’ He concentrates on the patient, because even here, this is normal, this is who he is.

‘Try anything and you’re a dead man.’

‘You’re really not my type, Mr Sahid.’ Wolfe adjusts the angle-lamp and crouches, trying not to breathe too deeply. An arsehole is just an arsehole. Though the smell intensifies somewhat when showers are rationed.

‘Any noticeable change in bowel habits, other than the blood you mentioned?’ There is hardly any flesh left on Sahid’s backside. The brown skin is fading to a dull beige, dry and flaking. This is more than poor diet and five years without sunshine. ‘Going to the toilet more often? Passing looser stools? Pain when you go to the toilet?’

‘Not particu— What in the name of God are you doing?’

‘Keep still, please, try to relax. I’m checking for swelling just inside the anus. OK, we’re done. You can get dressed.’

Phil has filled the sink again, adding hot water that he’s had to bring from the kitchen. Water from the taps is never hot after eight o’clock in the morning.

‘Thank you, nurse,’ Wolfe says, as he sometimes does.

‘Suck my dick,’ Phil replies, and passes him a towel. Wolfe joins Sahid, who is dressed again, on the bunk.

‘You look like you’ve lost weight, to me.’

Sahid gives a flat smile. ‘My bathroom scales are broke. It’s hard to tell.’

‘Trousers feel looser?’

A grudging nod. ‘A bit.’

‘Any itching?’

A shrug. It means little, anyway. With hygiene so poor, itching of the genitalia is more or less the norm. Some cons seem never to take their hands out of their trousers. The constant movement down there could be scratching; few like to enquire.

‘How’s your appetite?’

‘How’s anyone’s in this place, the shit they serve us.’

Wolfe thinks of the porridge he was given in his first week, with actual shit in it. He’d taken a mouthful before realizing where the smell was coming from. ‘If you’re lucky, Mr Sahid, you’ve got haemorrhoids. I can’t see anything, and I don’t have the equipment for an internal examination, but it’s quite possible you’ve got enlarged blood vessels inside your rectum. They’ll be causing the bleeding you talked about, any itching you might have experienced, and can also cause discomfort, particularly when passing stools.’

Sahid looks at his guards. ‘You two, outside.’ He doesn’t bother looking at Phil, just raises his voice a fraction. ‘You too.’