The World Out There - 28. Twenty-Eight

The following two days felt calm on the ward, and he found himself relaxing back into it all. The ward was still running on its usual routine. He spent his days in the Education Centre, in his afternoons he met with Aiden or sat through the Group meetings, and in his free time, he hung-out with Chrissy and TJ. Chrissy made most of the conversation with TJ shooting his comments into whatever she was saying, but he enjoyed listening to them. They did involve him in their friendship and, though it was never a thought he wanted to admit to, he had always wanted friends.

One of the things that made the calm atmosphere on the ward was a lack of Britney. He would see her at mealtimes in the Dining Room, either sat on her own at one of the small tables, or else sat next to a nurse who wasn’t eating, but always she was quiet and almost subdued. He had never seen her around in the Education Centre, but she was missing from Monday’s Group meeting, and he hadn’t seen her around in the Common Room. He didn’t miss her, and he certainly didn’t worry about her. Without her there, he didn’t have to worry about her making demands of him and he certainly didn’t have to worry about telling everyone his secret - why he had been sent there - because she had suddenly grown bored. He could relax and enjoy Chrissy and TJ’s company without any worries hanging over him.

That Wednesday afternoon, he had been filling in the time before dinner by doing his latest homework in the Common Room. He was sat on the opposite side of the long table from Jared, who, as always, was writing long lines on his pad of paper. That day, Liam was doing his maths homework. Maths didn’t much interest him - it was just learning and repeating formulas. There was no imagination in Maths, but he still did his Maths homework and put as much effort into it as he could. Just because the subject bored him didn’t mean he shouldn’t be good at it or do his best.

As he was working on another equation, his attention was snapped away from his notebook by the Common Room’s door suddenly being noisily thrown open, followed by Britney storming into the room. Her face twisted up red with anger, she was alive with energy, almost twitching and shaking with her own anger. She marched straight into the centre of the room, shouting, “You shitty load of bastards! You cunts! You spineless cunts! None of you lot have helped me! None of you shitty cunts cared about me! I know you cunts are all laughing at me. I know you were all rushing to Janet and those other fucking lesbos behind my back, telling them all your fucking lies! I want you all to get fucking cancer and die!”

“Fuck off, Britney!” Wayne shouted out, cutting short her rant.

“Britney, you know language like that isn’t appropriate,” Elizabeth, the nurse, said as she stood up from the table where she was sat.

“Fuck off, lesbo bitch!” Britney screamed back at her. “They’re sending me to fucking prison! I’m being sent to prison!”

“Britney, this isn’t the place for this,” Elizabeth said, as she walked up to up Britney. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

“Fuck off, lesbo bitch!” Britney again screamed back at her, but, in the next second, she followed it through with a rapid punch that caught Elizabeth on the side of the head. The woman staggered backwards a couple of steps, a surprised and confused expression filling her face, as noise suddenly filled the room. Someone shouted, someone screamed. Liam heard someone else shout, “You stupid bitch!”

“It’s your fault I’m going to prison, you fucking gay cunt! I’ll fucking kill you!” Britney carried on screaming, but this time, she was pointing straight at Liam, her anger-filled face staring straight at him. Her eyes were wide with anger, the irises ringed with her white pupils, while her mouth was open with drops of spittle in the corners of it. Liam pushed back as far into his chair as he could, as if that had suddenly become a magical protection against Britney’s rage.

“No you’re not, Britney!” Val’s voice boomed out. She and Cindi had entered the room, but Liam hadn’t seen them, though now he was glad of their presence.

“Yes, I am, lesbo! I’m not going to prison, and I’ll cut anyone who sends me there!” Britney screamed, her body now shaking with anger.

“No you won’t!” Janet’s voice cut through the room. She and the agency nurse, Tommy, had entered the room and were stood with Val and Cindi. “You’ll stop this little performance now and go to your room,” Janet added. She wasn’t shouting now, but her voice filled the room with her authority.

“Fuck off, lesbo bitch!” Britney again screamed. “I’m going to have that queer cunt, and then anyone who comes near me. I’M NOT GOING TO FUCKING PRISON!”

“Restrain her,” Janet commanded.

The nurses acted fast but in a tightly coordinated way, as if this were something they had practiced many times before. Liam silently watched them.

The nurses very quickly encircled Britney so fast that the girl had barely any time to react. From either side of her body, Val and Tommy took hold of each of Britney’s arms, pressing them tightly to her body and holding her torso too. Janet took hold of the back of Britney’s head. In the next moment, they tipped Britney backwards off her feet. Britney screamed out and went to kick out at anyone, but Cindi had hold of her legs, pinning them both together and holding them close to her own body.

Britney was screaming and spitting like some feral animal, but the nurses seemed to just ignore her as they held her tight while restraining her.

“Her room. Now,” Janet commanded, and suddenly, they were all gone from the room. The nurses had quickly carried Britney out, none of them looking shocked, or even as if they were straining under their burden. Had they done this before? They must have done. Liam blinked in his own surprise. Britney had been screaming and swearing, but the nurses had carried her out of there so quickly.

For a few more moments, he heard Britney’s screaming from outside the room, out there in the corridor, but it was soon gone.

“Jesus!” TJ’s voice cut through the silence that now hung over the Common Room.

Liam slowly looked around himself. The blood was still pounding in his head and his body was still tense with his nerves. He hadn’t moved, but his body was alive as if he’d had to physically fight off Britney.

TJ was sat on one of the sofas. Both his eyes and mouth were open. Chrissy was sat next to him, though she had pulled herself back into the corner of the sofa, her knees drawn up in front of her abdomen, held in place by her arms wrapped around them, as if she were trying to protect herself with her own knees.

Aiden was now in the room too, though Liam hadn’t seen him enter it. He just seemed to have appeared. He was attending to Elizabeth, examining the side of her face where Britney had punched her, and talking quietly to her.

“Britney was asking for that,” Jared quietly said, his voice so low that it was obvious that he only meant for Liam to hear him.

He looked over at Jared and saw the lad slowly nodding his head in agreement with himself. He couldn’t disagree with Jared.

Liam breathed out, releasing some of the tension pulling at his body.

<><><><>

That evening he ate dinner with Chrissy and TJ, sat around one of the tables in the Dining Room. That Wednesday they had reached the point in the rolling menu where it was Hot Pot and green vegetables. Again, it was some indeterminable meat so overcooked that it was soft and stringy material, but no taste, under a crust of potatoes. It was always like that.

As he pushed the food into his mouth, Chrissy announced, in a suitably hushed voice, “I know why Britney was sent here.”

“No you don’t,” TJ replied. “They’re all dead hot on no one telling no one why we’re here. Janet would do one if someone were saying that. Britney won’t tell anyone either, she’s like that.”

“I found out,” Chrissy said, a note of pride in her voice.

“Which nurse told you?” TJ said, though the tone of his voice said he didn’t believe her.

“Don’t be stupid, none of them would blab anything interesting,” Chrissy answered him.

“Then how?” TJ asked her.

“I checked her out online, up in the Education Centre. They usually ignore me up there,” Chrissy said.

“Not even you could be that stupid,” TJ said, the corner of his mouth turning up in distaste. “They check all those computers’ browser histories every day.”

“Jared showed me how to clear it,” Chrissy protested.

“Yeah, and he tried to hack a computer there so he could download porn. He got it wrong and locked himself out of all the computers there. They went nuts over it. He’s not the Tech Boy he wants us to think he is,” TJ replied.

“Oh, well, it was ages ago when she first came here. She was a bitch to us in The Group the first week that she was here. I did it after that. If they’d caught me, I’d be in the shit by now. No one has said nothing to me about it,” Chrissy replied.

“I guess so,” TJ reluctantly said.

“What did you find you out?” Liam quietly asked. He wanted to know what Chrissy had found out. Britney knew all about him, why shouldn’t he know about her. Wasn’t that fair?

“See that’s the right question to ask,” Chrissy said to TJ, smiling knowingly at him. “Not to go on at me about computers. Who cares about computers?”

“But what did you find out?” Liam again asked, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.

“Well … this,” Chrissy said. “Britney killed an old woman.”

“What?” TJ’s voice leapt up in volume. Quickly, Liam glanced around the Dining Room, but no one had responded to TJ’s exclamation. They were safe. He had to hear what Chrissy had to say, no one could interrupt them before she finished. But, he didn’t want anyone overhearing them, even if what she’d done hadn’t been exactly wrong.

“You see, Britney’s got this younger sister, Kylie, and she’d do anything that Britney told her to do,” Chrissy said, as she leaned into the table, pulling her face closer to theirs and lowering her voice. “Britney and Kylie did all these criminal things - shoplifting, stealing - and they were a real pair of bullies. Kylie would always do the physical side of things: she’d be the one to steal the stuff from the shops or hit the younger kids until they gave her their money or stuff, but it was always Britney’s idea behind it. They’d got a few cautions for shoplifting but nothing else. There was this old woman who lived a few streets away from them. The old woman didn’t have any family and lived on her own. Britney decided to rob her. They went around to the old woman’s house one afternoon when they thought she was out, but she wasn’t. Britney and Kylie broke into her house and found the old woman still at home. They beat up the old woman and then tied her to a chair. Then, they started to torture her. They wanted the pin number to her card and where she kept her jewellery. They really tortured her: it was really sick shit what they did to her. They got her pin number out of her and her jewellery. The old girl didn’t have much jewellery anyway. She wasn’t rich. Then, Britney and Kylie just pissed off, leaving the poor old girl still tied to that chair and in a really shit state. No one found her until the next day when one of her friends called on her. The old girl had had this massive stroke. They took her to hospital, but she died there a few days later.”

“They didn’t actually kill,” TJ said.

“Yes, they fucking did,” Chrissy replied, still keeping her voice quiet. “They beat seven types of shit out of the old girl and left her tied up there. They didn’t get her help or anything.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” TJ said.

“How did they get caught?” Liam quietly asked.

“Well, we all know Britney’s as stupid as pig shit. They left clues everywhere. Their fingerprints were on everything in the old girl’s house and Kylie left her scarf there, a City scarf. And they used the old girl’s card that night, but they used it in cash machines which had cameras on them. They got their pictures taken every time. Then, Britney got the pin number wrong at the last cash machine, and it ate the card. So Britney got Kylie to smash it up with a brick, and still it takes their picture. They were so fucking stupid.”

“Why was she sent here then?” Liam asked.

“Don’t know,” Chrissy replied. “They sent Kylie to a Youth Detention Centre, but someone sent Britney here.”

“Yeah, and that failed. They’re sending her off to prison now,” TJ said.

“And she deserves to be there. She’s a little psycho bitch. Look at the way she treated Liam,” Chrissy said, leaning back in her chair.

“Yeah, a real bitch. But she’s gone now,” TJ added.

“What are you three talking about, all huddled away here,” Cindi’s voice cut through their conversation. She was a few steps away and walking towards their table. Had she heard their conservation? Liam watched her face closely, for a moment, but Cindi was smiling her normal and bright smile.

“Just gossiping,” Chrissy replied, smiling openly back at Cindi.

“No one talks about anything else around here,” Cindi said.

“How’s Elizabeth?” TJ asked Cindi. “What Britney did to her was nasty.”

“She’s fine. Only bruised and sore, but no serious injuries,” Cindi replied.

“I like Elizabeth, she’s nice, not as nice as you though,” TJ said to Cindi.

“Creep, you like everyone,” Chrissy said, though her voice had the exaggerated edge it had when she was joking.

“Enjoy your dinner,” Cindi said, as she moved away from their table.

<><><><>

That evening, the three of them had sat together, in TJ’s room, watching the medical soap Holby City on the little TV TJ had. Chrissy was sat on TJ’s chair, staring intently at the television, following closely every single thing that happened in the soap. TJ was lounging on his neatly made bed, his head supported on his hand, while he made frequent and regular sarcastic comments about the action of the soap, much to Chrissy’s annoyance. Liam was sat cross-legged on the room’s carpeted floor, his back resting against TJ’s bed, but he was almost completely ignoring the soap opera on the television. His mind was still buzzing with what Chrissy had told them over dinner.

Britney had killed another human being, but she had done it as the result of torturing that old woman. Britney had taken a long time to torture that old woman. She must have, and she did it deliberately. What he knew of her, which was far too much now, she had probably enjoyed doing it. She had certainly enjoyed hurting people while she had been at Nurton Cross.

He had killed someone else, but he hadn’t enjoyed it, well maybe for a moment only, but he felt guilty for what he did. He still felt guilty. Some nights, when he would wake in the early hours, he would lay in his bed, his mind repeatedly going over `and over all the things he could have done that would have stopped him killing Rhys Clarke, and there were so many of them. He should have stopped himself. He didn’t tell Aiden about this anymore as it only happened once a week or less, and he’d told Aiden about it before. He didn’t want to bore Aiden with his repeated pity stories. He so enjoyed talking with Aiden that he didn’t want to risk boring him.

He wasn’t Britney, though - he hadn’t taken enjoyment in harming another human being. But she had killed someone too. She had threatened him with his past and yet hers was far worse. She had planned what she had done. She had enjoyed what she had done. She was far more of a monster than… Well, he certainly wasn’t Britney.

Now they were sending her to prison. Why prison? For killing that old woman, yes., But she had been here instead. What had she done wrong to get her sent to prison now? Was it anything to do what she’d done to him? Was her treatment of him so bad that she was being sent to prison now? How could he ask anyone about that?

“God, he’s got his shirt off again! Man-whore!” TJ called out.

“He has to. It’s part of the story,” Chrissy protested.

Liam looked up at the television and saw that one of the handsome actors, playing one of the show’s handsome doctors, had taken his shirt off. He was now dressed only in his “scrubs” trouser that looked so like pyjamas to Liam, and was arguing with the actress playing his girlfriend - or was she his wife? - or was she the woman he was cheating on his wife with? There were a lot of characters and stories in this show, and he found them difficult to follow, especially tonight.

The actor was blonde and very muscular. His blonde hair was shaped into a very solid style that swept over his head, from right to left, in a very unmoving wave. But it was the actor’s bare and hairless chest that snatched at Liam’s attention. His pectorals were elliptical and pronounced, each almost crowned off by a pale pink nipple. There was a shallow crease between his pectorals, running down his chest and over his flat stomach. The strong definition of the actor’s six-pack radiated off this crease. The actor’s chest was almost sculpted. Was that even natural? For a moment, Liam couldn’t pull his eyes off that bare-chested actor as he played out a shouting argument with his character’s girlfriend/wife/lover.

TJ’s hand suddenly and lightly tapped him on the shoulder, making Liam twitch with surprise for a moment.

“You alright?” TJ asked.

“Yes, I’m… I’m okay,” Liam replied.

“You seem a bit out of it,” TJ said.

“It’s what Chrissy told us about Britney,” he told TJ, the words falling out of his mouth before he’d thought about them. But he was sitting there under TJ’s handsome gaze, TJ’s deep brown eyes - it was always too distracting.

“Don’t worry about that Britney. She can’t harm you. She can’t harm anyone here,” TJ said.

“It’s not that,” Liam replied. “It’s just how horrible what she did. She went around like she was so much better than us.”

“She’s a real bitch. Don’t worry about it,” TJ said.

“Shut up!” Chrissy snapped at them. “Doctor Sebastian is going to come clean.”

“And without his shirt,” TJ laughed back at her.

<><><><>

The next day, Thursday, had been very busy on the ward. So many of the nurses had been rushing around there, looking like they had pressing things that must be done. There seemed to be a tense atmosphere on the ward, but he had no idea why.

That afternoon, it had been Val who chaired The Group, even though Janet had been on duty. Val did her usual competent job of chairing it, and the conversation did flood. He was able to sit back and almost enjoy it, but it did feel as if there were something that they weren’t talking about.

All through the hour of The Group, Liam kept finding himself glancing over at Val. Why was she here and not Janet? Janet was on duty - he’d seen her around on the ward before he’d left to go to the Education Centre at five-to-nine that morning. Why was Janet missing The Group? The only other times she hadn’t chaired it was when she wasn’t on duty, but she was there on the ward.

After The Group was over and people were still milling around in the corridor outside, he slipped off and quietly walked down to the far end of the ward. Britney’s room had been there, the last room on the right, but he didn’t want anyone realising where he was going. So he walked as casually as he could, keeping to the left-hand side of the corridor. When he reached her room though, he found it empty. The room’s door stood open and everything inside of it - everything personal - had been stripped out. All that was left was the basic furniture. It looked pathetic and vacant, so quickly had Britney been removed and the room abandoned by her. He’d stood in front of the room’s open door, just staring at the empty room. She was gone, completely gone.

“Liam, you can’t stand around here,” Cindi said as she’d walked around the corridor’s corner.

“Yes, yes,” he mumbled and turned away from the empty room.

He’d quickly joined Chrissy and TJ in the Common Room, who were watching some afternoon reality show on the television, though he didn’t mention Britney’s empty room or where he had been.

<><><><>

He didn’t get to speak to Aiden until Friday that week. The ward had seemed so busy. The nurses seemed occupied with “official things,” meetings on and off the ward, none involving any patients, or else they were in the ward’s office dealing with “paperwork.” He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew not to ask. He’d never got answers in the past.

As he’d been brought back to the ward that Friday afternoon, he found Aiden actually waiting for him.

“Shall we go for a walk in the garden?” Aiden asked him as he greeted Liam.

“Yes,” Liam replied with delight slipping into his voice. It had been a warm autumn day, the sunlight streaming into the Education Centre’s rooms, warming the air.

They left the ward and were soon walking along the gravel path that wound its way through the hospital’s garden. Autumn was creeping into the garden. The flowers were beginning to fall off the plants and on so many of the different plants, there was no sign of new growth. The plants in the garden seemed to be slowing down, preparing themselves for winter.

“How has your week been?” Aiden asked, as they walked away from the door out into the garden.

“It’s been strange,” Liam replied, “with Britney and everything.”

“What about Britney?” Aiden’s voice was level, simply enquiring.

“Her kicking off in the Common Room the other day and now she’s just gone from the ward. Has she been sent to prison?”

“She has been sent back to prison.”

“Was that because of something I did? I mean telling you all about what she did to me, was that one of the reasons she has been sent to prison?”

“No,” Aiden said, his voice calm but he was using his calm nursing voice. “It was all because of things Britney did or didn’t do. It was her behaviour on the ward and how she didn’t engage with so much here.”

“But why was she sent to prison?” He’d seen the things Britney had done - she had been a bitch and a bully; she had openly challenged the nurses and the rules. Was that alone enough to get someone sent to prison?

“You know I can’t talk about other patients.”

“But she was here on the ward and then she was sent to prison. Was it something she did? Or something someone else did?” Could it happen to him? That was what he really needed to know. Britney had killed someone. He had killed someone. Could he be sent to prison too, just like that.

Aiden took a slow and very audible breath.

“Okay,” Aiden said, again in that calm nurse’s voice of his. “Britney had been sent here on an Assessment Order. It meant that we had to assess her and see if she was suitable to be here, to be treated. At the end of her assessment time it was decided that here wasn’t the right place for her. That’s why she was sent back to prison.”

“Was it because she broke all the rules on the ward?”

“You know I can’t say that.”

“Who said she had to come under this Assessment Order?”

“That was the court. Well, the judge at her trial, advised by the CPS.”

“Was I sent here under an Assessment Order?”

“No, you were sent here directly. The judge and the CPS and everyone at your trial decided that this would be the best place for you.”

“How did they know that?”

“You had enough assessments and such at your trial.” Aiden took another deep breath before saying, “Why all these questions about what happened with Britney?”

It was his turn to take a deep breath. He filled his lungs with the warm and fresh autumn air and pushed down on that old and little voice that told him to remain silent.

“I’m worried it could happen to me,” Liam said, not looking at Aiden as he spoke.

“Why worry about that?”

“Because Britney killed someone and I killed someone, and Britney was breaking all the rules on the ward. I worried that if I broke the rules, I could be sent to prison too.”

“How do you know Britney killed someone?”

“I was told… I was told,” for a moment he had nearly let slip that it had been Chrissy who told him. Then he’d have to explain how she knew too.

“Gossip in this place spreads faster than… than Norovirus.”

“What’s that?”

“Something nasty that spreads quickly, and we don’t want another outbreak of it. It was messy. Anyway, the gossip around here.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. We all like a bit of gossip.”

“Okay,” he quietly replied.

“You’re very different to Britney, in a lot of ways, and being here is right for you. You’re making progress here. Don’t worry about prison because you were sentenced to come here and not prison.”

“Thanks,” he quietly replied again. He meant it, though. Aiden’s words were reassuring, and on several different levels.

“How are Chrissy and TJ?”

“It’s great hanging out with them. They’re dead cool and TJ is really nice, and Chrissy always has something to say. And they look out for me.”

“That’s good to hear,” Aiden replied.

<><><><>

In all the turmoil and drama of that week he nearly forgot that the following day, Saturday, was one of the days on which Mark visited him. He nearly forgot, but he didn’t. He couldn’t forget one of Mark’s visits.

Liam had been sat with Chrissy and TJ in the Common Room, as Chrissy was telling them of her theory about the latest big storyline in the soap opera Eastenders. Liam had only been half-listening to her, though TJ was already taking the piss out of her theory. He looked up to see Gary, the nurse, walking towards them. In that moment, he remembered Mark was due to visit him that day.

“Liam, you’ve got a visitor,” Gary said, as he stopped near to the sofa where they all were sat.

“Yes, I was waiting,” Liam said.

“Your mum’s come to see you?” Chrissy asked as he stood up from the sofa.

“No, it’s my mate, Mark,” he replied.

When he entered the Visitors Room, he saw Mark sat at one of the small tables. Mark was very casually dressed, wearing a dark red shirt, though he wore it more like a jacket. It was unbuttoned and open, showing off the white t-shirt he was wearing underneath it. He also wore dark blue jeans. His dark, curly hair seemed darker and richer in colour. It had been brushed or pushed back from his face. Mark looked much less scruffy than he usually did.

“How have you been?” Mark asked him as Liam sat down at the table.

“I’ve been watching soap operas,” Liam replied, smiling broadly as he said it.

“God, not you as well. My Office Manager, Joyce, is deeply into the things, and I have to pretend to be interested. She’s too good at her job, so I have to keep her happy. But you can’t be into them too.”

“I’m not into them, I just watch them with Chrissy and TJ. Chrissy is the one who’s into them.”

“Who’s Chrissy and TJ?” Mark asked.

“They’re my friends.”

“You’ve made friends! Good for you!” Mark’s face lite up with a broad smile.

The words gleefully fell out of his mouth as he told Mark all about his friendship with TJ and Chrissy. He told Mark all about watching television with TJ and Chrissy, and TJ taking the piss out of all the soaps Chrissy liked. He told Mark about just hanging out with Chrissy and TJ, how much he just enjoyed being with them. He didn’t mention that hanging out with Chrissy and TJ meant that he didn’t feel lonely on the ward anymore. Finally he told Mark about TJ and Chrissy standing up for him, making him feel liked and wanted.

“They sound like really good friends,” Mark said.

“They are,” Liam replied.

They fell silent for a moment. One of those silences that occasionally happened between them, those silences where Liam would take a moment to formulate what he wanted to say.

“Did you know what they were saying about me, in the newspapers, when I was on trial?”

“God, yes. We couldn’t ignore it,” Mark’s voice had a note of sadness/regret to it.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it all?”

“God, how could we? They were vicious and nasty, and you were having a hard enough time as it was. I would have been a real cruel bastard if I had.”

“They would bang on the side of my prison van and scream how they would kill me, every day I was taken to court and when I left it. I was terrified.”

“I did everything I could to try and stop it. Each day I complained to the court about you being brought in that marked prison van, when that bloody mob would know you were inside. I wanted you brought to court in an unmarked van, but they refused. They said it went against regulations and wasn’t safe. That bloody mob wasn’t safe.”

“I read these articles about my trial…”

“Where did you get them?” Mark asked, a prominent edge of concern in his voice.

“This girl on the ward gave them to me. She wanted to blackmail me because she said she knew why I’m here,” he tried to keep his voice level. He didn’t want to go into too much detail, to have to explain to Mark all about Britney. He just wanted to forget she had ever been there.

“God, that’s disgusting!” Mark exclaimed.

“It’s okay, I told one of the nurses and that girl… Well, she’s no longer on the ward. Not just because of trying to blackmail me but because of everything she did.”

“That’s good.”

“Some of those articles said they should bring back hanging so I could be hung.”

“Liam, they were talking crap, they so often do. Don’t take them personally.”

“My nurse, Aiden, said that there was this panic about teenagers using knives in crimes and such at the time of my trial. He said a lot of people, who didn’t know me, used what I’d done to make political points.”

“Your nurse, Aiden, is a clever man and he’s very right. A lot of stupid people told a lot of lies to try and score political points. I hate all those opinion writers and rent-a-mouths – people who’ll say anything just to be controversial. They are so stupid and moronic, and they think they are so clever. They were only making the panic about knife crime worse, and they weren’t offering any solutions.”

“Did they affect my trial?”

“I really do not know. Bernie - Mrs Stewart-Graham your Barrister - says that she’s sure it influenced Two-Bottles McCoy, but we’ll never be able to prove.”

“Who’s Two-Bottles McCoy?”

“Justice Walter McCoy, the judge at your trial. He was always a far-right old fart,”

“Why do you call him that? Two-bottles?”

“Because each evening, when he gets home, he drinks two bottles of red wine, without fail.”

“Doesn’t he get pissed?”

“He’s being doing so long that he doesn’t. He’s what’s called a ‘functioning alcoholic.’ He doesn’t get pissed anymore. Aiden will better be able to explain it to you, better explain how he can do that.”

Liam nodded his head in replied, he had to remember to ask Aiden about it.

“My mum did two interviews about me.”

“You didn’t read them, did you?”

“Yes.”

“God, they are just full of lies.”

“How do you know? Have you read them?” Liam asked. Had Mark read all those lies she’d told?

“No, I know your mother lies all the time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve had a lot to do with her. Since your trial, she sees me as her free source of legal advice. She’s always telling me some stupid story that is obviously just a pack of lies. She’s not even very good at lying.”

“Do you give her legal advice?”

“God, no. Your mother would never pay me, and I don’t work for free. Well, most of the time I don’t.”

“She said, in those interviews, that I’d played with knives since I was a little kid, that I threw knives at her all the time and she was afraid of me. That was all lies.”

“Of course it was,” Mark said.

“You don’t believe her?”

“Last time your mother turned up at my office, we had to call the police to get rid of her. I was afraid Joyce might resign after all the things your mother called her. I can’t imagine her being afraid of you at any time. And you’re not some knife-mad little hoodie-hooligan. Your mother was just saying what she thought they wanted her to say, and, God, she wasn’t even being original.”

“Do you think people believed her?”

“If they knew you, no way, but there are a lot of stupid people out there. Hopefully, you won’t have to meet them. And people do forget very quickly. Most of those stupid people will have forgotten about you by now. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, I’m not that interesting.”

“Yes, you are. Don’t talk like that,” Mark replied, giving him a mock stern look, before smiling back at him.

“Thank you,” Liam quietly replied.

“Before I forget,” Mark said, as he pushed another brown paper bag across the table towards Liam.

“Thank you,” he said as he opened the bag. Inside was a paperback book titled Chinese Cinderella. He looked at the book’s bright blue cover, the drawing of a teenage Chinese girl standing in profile. She looked nervous and plain, and yet he recognised the expression on her face. He knew what she was feeling.

“Joyce recommended it to me. She reads a lot of young adult fiction, as they call it. I don’t know why because she is the same age as me, and she has two children.”

“Thanks. These books are great. Thank you,” he said smiling back at Mark.

“You’re welcome. You always enjoy reading them.”

“Yes, I do,” Liam said. “You’re looking good. Have you had a make-over or something?” He wanted to change the subject. He loved those books Mark brought him, and yet he still felt guilty for Mark spending his money on him.

“You could say that. I’ve met someone so I need to up my game, kind of.”

“You’ve got a boyfriend?” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. If anyone deserved a boyfriend and a happy relationship, then it was Mark.

“I won’t go that far. We’ve only had a few dates and such.”

“What’s his name?” He wanted to know as much as he could about Mark’s boyfriend. It was something good in both their lives, and it felt exciting to hear about someone else’s real gay relationship.

“William,” Mark replied, a large smile in his voice and spreading across his lips.