The Angel: A shocking new thriller – read if you dare!

At least the police had seemed to believe that he hadn’t intended to start the fire; hopefully the judge would too. Every time he closed his eyes, Gabriel imagined what it must feel like to burn alive. Why hadn’t they checked the place was empty? Why had he allowed himself to be pushed into something so bloody stupid? He longed for the sound of his parents screaming at each other when they thought he was out of earshot. Anything but this.

The van started moving and Gabriel allowed himself to breathe. He looked outside, wondering if he would ever walk on a street again. He was afraid that he wouldn’t even last a week in jail; either the asthma or something worse would get to him. The invisible strap around his chest tightened. One, two, three, four, five. He soaked in as much of the city as the route would allow. The bus station, the pub he went into with Emma sometimes. As they pulled into the prison, Gabriel held his breath again. He had very little idea of what to expect, but he was going to keep his head down, speak when spoken to and keep himself to himself. He was grateful at least for his six foot two inches of height, hoping that might deter any unprovoked attacks.

The first thing that hit Gabriel was the smell. It was a musty kind of clean. The kind of clean that was masking a multitude of sins. Industrial cleaner that has an unpleasant bite. He tried not to think about it as he stood with the prison officer at the end of a long room that was more like a giant corridor. B-wing. Doors with cross-hatched, reinforced windows in them. A hatch and a big bolt on the outside. Breathe.

The wing itself was light and airy, empty at the moment apart from the two men with mops and buckets at either side of the long room. Instinctively he wondered what they did to get put inside when they looked so harmless. Most of the doors that lined the walls of the gallery were open. He wondered what was behind the doors that were closed. There was a vaulted ceiling with skylights, fenced off by a metal barrier, and they were on the second level, a gallery looking down onto a communal area with ping-pong tables and sofas. Above everything was a steel net, presumably to stop people from throwing themselves – or others – over the railings.

‘All right, son?’ The prison officer smiled and touched Gabriel on the shoulder to indicate that he should move forward. Gabriel noted the look of sympathy on the officer’s face and realised he must look terrified. He opened his mouth, stretching his jaw; it had been clenched for so long that it had started to hurt. He settled his face into a more stoic expression, feeling his jaw tightening all over again. He pouted his lips to at least make his anxiety seem like confidence, looking down his nose as he walked forward with a strong, assertive stride. He couldn’t let them see his fear, he couldn’t show any weakness. They were about two thirds of the way into the room when the officer stopped.

‘Your stuff’s already in there. When you hear roll call, make sure you come and stand here again and answer when they call your name. If in doubt, just copy everyone else.’

You’ll soon get the hang of it. Just stay calm.

Gabriel considered the room. It was very innocuous with its cream walls and bunk beds. There was a desk and a cupboard each for belongings, and two comfortable chairs against the far wall.

‘Thanks,’ Gabriel managed to squeeze out. Thanks for locking me up. Thanks for facilitating my incarceration. Thanks for saving me from myself.

‘Your pad-mate will be back off work duty soon.’ The prison officer put his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, giving him a gentle pat, or a nudge maybe. Maybe it meant something else altogether.

That was Gabriel’s cue to move from the doorway, to leave the long light corridor of the wing and enter the small space he would occupy for the foreseeable future. At least until he had to appear in court for sentencing – until they decided how much of a risk to society he was. The guard left without closing the door. The idea that anyone could walk in at any moment was not something Gabriel had considered. He had prepared himself to be locked in, but not for this.

He grabbed his bag from on top of the cupboard. He couldn’t tell which bunk was his and so he sat in one of the chairs and waited for his cellmate. He was nervous about conversation. Worried he might say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Upset someone without meaning to. Hopefully his cellmate wouldn’t ignore him. He had been counting the words that had come out of his mouth since he had been charged, aware that he had only spoken when he had to, when he was spoken to first. He wasn’t sure if it made him feel more or less lonely. He had said fifty-five so far, most of them answering the nurse or counsellor in the screening as they processed him to enter the prison.

Gabriel looked through the bag of clothing his mother had sent in to see that his favourite T-shirt was missing. The Slipknot tour T-shirt that Emma used to sleep in. He hadn’t even washed it – he wanted it to smell of her. The rest of his stuff seemed to be there.

‘I’m Jason Cole. Who are you?’ A man entered the room, bounding straight towards Gabriel with his hand held out. Gabriel stood up awkwardly.

‘I’m Gabriel.’

‘Well it’s good to meet you, Gabriel!’

‘Thanks.’

‘You been inside before? I’m guessing by the look on your face the answer is no.’ Jason sat down on the edge of the bed.

Gabriel stuffed his things back into his bag and put them in the empty cupboard. He could sort it all out later.

‘Roll call!’ A booming voice came from outside the cell.

Jason nodded Gabriel towards the door and they both stood up. Gabriel was a good few inches taller than Jason, who had on a red shirt and blue jeans. Gabriel was once again feeling out of place in his fully black attire. Jason went outside and stood to the left of the door, and Gabriel followed, trying to remember what they had told him at the induction. So far so good though. Jason didn’t seem to be violent, at least.

As he stepped out of the cell, he looked up and down the wing without moving his head and without making eye contact. He stood to the right of the door as Jason stood to the left. That seemed to be what everyone else was doing.

Another prison officer stood in the centre of the floor below, calling out names from a sheet. His voice carried through the whole of the wing, reverberating off the walls and silencing most of the murmuring inmates. He had some lungs all right. There was no whispering or messing around as the guard reeled off the names and the men responded. Gabriel noted how strange it was that these men, these law-breakers, were all so obedient. He could feel eyes on him but didn’t want to know who was looking at him. He kept his face straight ahead.

‘Webb?’ The guard called finally. There was no hiding anymore. His presence had been announced.

‘Present,’ Gabriel responded. Fifty-nine words. He heard a couple of murmurs and wondered why his voice had elicited such a reaction. He didn’t want paranoia to get the better of him, but he felt so alone. He took a cursory glance around before stepping back inside his cell, confirming that he had been noticed.

‘Half an hour bang-up then it opens up for a few hours so we can get dinner and kick back,’ Jason said. He looked at Gabriel. ‘What you in for?’

‘I killed someone,’ Gabriel responded quietly, not wanting to shock Jason, whose demeanour changed immediately. His casual stance disappeared. His back straightened and Gabriel heard him suck in a breath before smiling and looking down to avoid eye contact with Gabriel. To avoid eye contact with a killer.

Gabriel was big, but he knew he had a young face. Younger than his nineteen years at least. Angelic was how everyone had described him when he was a baby, and that’s how he was named. Angel Gabriel. It could have been worse.

Jason grabbed a puzzle book from the top of his cupboard and slid into the lower bunk, facing away from Gabriel. The conversation was over. At least now Gabriel knew which bunk was his.

The officer that had initially shown him to his cell stuck his head around the door. Gabriel looked at his name tag: Barratt.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes thanks,’ Gabriel said, getting used to speaking again.

It felt good not to be completely isolated. It’s one thing to be deliberately moody and a bit reclusive when you can do what you want, he thought. When you have no other options, it gets old, fast.

For the first time since Gabriel had entered the cell, the door closed completely. The cell still felt like a room by all accounts; it was kind of how Gabriel imagined university halls to be – a place he’d never had much interest in, much to his parents’ disgust. Barratt pulled the latch across and Gabriel heard the thunk of the bolt as it slotted into place. He felt his throat closing. He pulled himself onto the top bunk and tried to concentrate on his breathing again. He didn’t want to rely on his medicine in here; he didn’t know when he wasn’t going to have access to it. Claustrophobia was not something Gabriel had ever experienced before but here it was, the walls closing in on him. There was no way out. The knot in his stomach grew tighter and he tried to distract himself for the twenty-five minutes that remained until the doors unlocked again.

Gabriel opened his eyes to find the door was open. He jumped off the bed and saw Jason was gone from the lower bunk; he assumed he was getting his dinner, at least he hoped he hadn’t scared him away on their first day together. He could hear chatter outside the cell and saw people walking past, milling around as though this were all perfectly acceptable. He wished he’d brought a book with him; somehow, it didn’t seem like a good idea to touch any of Jason’s things. He smoothed down his hair and shook his head a little so that it fell in front of his eyes before reluctantly walking towards the door.

‘Hey.’ A man with a mop of thick black curls was standing in his doorway. He was about as tall as Gabriel but he was bulkier; not fat, but not shredded either.

‘Hi.’ Gabriel folded his arms and stood by the door, just inside as though some invisible force-field would protect him if something bad should happen.

‘I’m Solomon Banks, I’m two cells down.’ The man pointed to the left of him. ‘Everyone calls me Sol.’

‘I’m Gabriel.’

‘Hi Gabe.’ A big smile spread across Sol’s face. It was warm and friendly-looking, but Gabriel had already been warned that in prison everyone is out to get you. The police had told him, the duty solicitor, the nurse. They had all told him to watch himself, whether to scare him or give him a heads-up he didn’t know. Everyone is just looking out for themselves. ‘If you grab your bowl and stuff I’ll take you down to the servery,’ Sol continued. ‘The food’s not great but it’s not too bad either.’

‘Thanks.’ Gabriel was hungry. Maybe he needed to take a chance with this Solomon guy. Surely it was better than walking into the unknown by himself. He hoped his instinct about Sol was right because he genuinely seemed OK. He wondered what he was in for; he imagined he’d be wondering the same thing about everyone he was going to meet in the foreseeable future. The duty solicitor had explained to him that a remand prison was a mixed bag with a lot of traffic. Some of the sentences were much harsher than others, from petty theft to manslaughter. Some of the inmates were just waiting to be sentenced and moved on.

Gabriel grabbed his things and stepped onto the wing, crossing the threshold from his sanctuary into the fray. It was different to when he had arrived just a short while earlier. Again, he noticed the smell. The powerful odour of the cleaner had been replaced with the smell of men. The taste of sweat, both old and new, hit the back of Gabriel’s throat. He could smell that horrible tar soap he remembered his grandad using.

There were men everywhere. Booming laughter and heated discussions. Mumbled conversations, profanities and platitudes. A cacophony that reminded him of the changing rooms at secondary school, another place where he’d been at the bottom of the food chain, at least until he’d grown to well over six feet tall. He kept his head down as he followed Sol to the servery. They passed some big white men with shaven heads on the way down the narrow metal stairs onto the lower level. They walked past the ping-pong tables, Sol calling out hello to several of the players.

Then came the showers. Gabriel was horrified when he noticed that you could see inside; there were four men in there, showering completely naked and no one was batting an eye. There was a small wall that came to about hip-height on Gabriel, just to allow for a little modesty. Although forsaking his freedom was something that Gabriel had resigned himself to, he hadn’t considered the complete lack of privacy. Nothing was his anymore. He was part of this organism, part of this system that he had to adjust to. The realisations about his new life were coming thick and fast for Gabriel as he walked over to the long queue for dinner. He stood behind Sol. One thing he had also noted on his walk was the authority Sol seemed to command, or if not authority then maybe just respect. Not fear though, definitely not fear.

‘You’re in with Jason?’

‘Yeah,’ Gabriel said, still struggling to find his voice.

‘If I were you, I’d stay out of his way.’

‘Is he dangerous?’ Gabriel tried to sound calm, knowing full well that tonight he would be locked in a room with Jason for a very long time.

‘No, but he is stupid,’ Sol whispered as he nodded hello to one of the other inmates, a young man with a ginger beard and a crew cut. Gabriel watched as the man’s eyes travelled up his body. He shivered involuntarily.

‘Stupid?’