HMP Prison, Belmarsh

Harvey concentrates on lifting the weight, closing his eyes as he raises it higher, feels the tension increasing in his arms. He squeezes his eyes shut; then drops his arms, allowing the weight to clatter to the ground with a thud. He wipes sweat from his brow and watches one of his fellow inmates doing pull ups on the multi gym ahead of him. Harvey leans back on the bench and smiles. It isn’t going to be long now. Danielle will be here in two days’ time. Jeremiah was excited when he spoke to him on the phone. Everything feels like it’s all coming together, like he was always told it would do. He’s never been particularly patient so it’s been excruciating for him having to wait for this moment. There’s a flash of a memory in his head; he flinches. He sees himself edging down the stairs, twenty years ago, after leaving his sister hiding in the wardrobe in their bedroom. He hears the voices of the adults in the living room; their soft murmurings, convincing each other they’d done the right thing. He’d curled his fists at the sound of them talking about him and his sister, and about how much better their lives would now be. He’d hidden the axe under his bed the previous night; he doesn’t think his sister would’ve seen him pull it out. He can still see his shadow in the light of the hallway downstairs, his scrawny figure; the axe in his hands, ready to do his bidding.

Closing his eyes, he tries to picture what Danielle could look like now. He’s glad there’ve been no pictures published of her; he hates the thought of the media hounding her. On Friday, he’ll know the answer to that question, he won’t have to imagine anymore.

‘Alright, mate?' The guy who was doing the pull ups is standing beside him, his hands are buried in his pockets, Harvey glances at the massive sweat patch on his chest.

Harvey knows the guy's in for killing his girlfriend, well his ex-girlfriend; she left him for someone else. Two days after he found out, he went round there, to his ex's place, and killed her and her boyfriend, and then went round to the nearby chippy to get himself some fish and chips, like what he'd just done hadn't happened at all. The case only took place two years ago; he remembers reading about it in the papers. The funny thing is, is that all the other inmates in here tend to avoid him, despite some of them committing worse offences than he has. He thought, with time, people might try to approach him after a while, but they all steer clear of him. They would’ve known about him when they were living their lives outside, before they threw their lives away. At least he has a reason for being here. The guy looks away. God, he’s scared of him. Perhaps he’s read about the ludicrous conspiracy theories Harvey’s heard about himself, that have been circulating the internet for years. He even heard one suggesting he was some sort of spawn of the devil. People surely must know it’s all a load of bullshit.

‘Yeah, I am,’ Harvey says.

The guy fixes his attention back on him. ‘You finished with the weights?’

Harvey pulls himself upright and nudges the thirty two kilogram weight with his foot.

‘All yours mate,’ he says.

The guy mutters something in response but Harvey can’t work out what it is he’s said. He doesn’t care.

The guy picks up the weights and meanders over to another bench at the far end of the room.

It’s time to hit the showers. Harvey picks up his water bottle and makes his way to the exit. Even in here there are guards watching their every movement. They train their eyes on him. He gives them a smile but they make no acknowledgment of it, they’re like the guards who stand outside Buckingham Palace, they’re not meant to interact with the public, despite tourists thinking otherwise. His parents took him there once, long ago, long before his sister was born. He still remembers standing beside the guard outside, the Royal Mews, having his photograph taken. When he was first sent to a young offender’s institute, before he was moved to an adult prison, he was terrified of the guards. It was the way they watched him, it used to make him think of lasers searching for their target in the dark, it really freaked him out. He would cry in his cell, thinking about it, wishing he could turn back the clock and be back in the house he grew up in with his sister. If he didn’t have Jeremiah keeping in contact with him, he would’ve gone mad, he’s sure of it. Now the guards make him laugh. They look so pathetic, all dressed up like that.

He concentrates on his sister as he heads for the showers, his feet slapping against the stone floor, and wonders if she’ll resemble their Mum, or their Dad more. It’ll be their Mum whom she'll have taken after; they both had the same brown, shoulder length hair, the same shaped nose. He doesn’t suppose her new family would’ve encouraged her to change her appearance, to make the link to her past seem less obvious to everyone. He can just imagine the whispers that must’ve followed her over the years wherever she went. He switches the shower on, water rushes down on him, and he massages soap into his hair.

Only two more days to go. He feels like a kid waiting for Christmas.

**************

Characters:

Danielle (protagonist)

Callum (Danielle’s best friend)

Harvey (Danielle’s brother)

William (Danielle’s adoptive father)

Emma (Danielle’s adoptive mother)

John Cole (Danielle’s biological father)

Laura Cole (Danielle’s biological mother)

Ian Jones (third person who Harvey killed)

Max Hardy (podcaster)

Jeremiah 

Oliver 

Mary

Abraham

Abigail

Isaac

Noah

Eve