"| could have. But here's the rub. I'm a convicted felon, which means 
| can't practice law, and legally | can't give advice. When you go toa 
judge—a real one—and try to explain why you should be able to 
withdraw your guilty plea due to incompetent legal counsel, it would 
really behoove you to know what you're talking about, rather than 
having to admit that a wife-killer piece-of-shit coached you in what to 
say in the prison library." 


"| see." 


"If | were able to provide legal counsel, however, here's what I'd add. 
That shop was, as | understand it, your own property. No mortgage, 


no lease, just bought and paid for. To make things even better, you 
often slept there." Keagan nodded. "The Castle Doctrine has 
become weaker over time—blame the bailiffs—but even Tony Martin 
got his charges knocked down to manslaughter in the end because 
he killed a burglar in his own home. Three years, not life. And I've 
seen a /ot of court cases—enough to know a solicitor who advises a 
businessman attacked in his own shop to plead guilty to murder 
rather than roll the dice with a jury trial doesn't know what he's 
talking about it.” 


"Okay," said Keagan. "So what now?" 


"Now," said Kellogg, "you learn how to draft a writ. And then you 
prepare, because you really only get one more chance to convince a 
judge that you deserve a trial." 


"Can't | just hire another solicitor to do it? You must know some 
halfway competent lawyers." 


"Unfortunately, the climate of the industry is such that most solicitors 
simply won't accept briefs of this sort. There's no money in it for the 
private sharks—and the Legal Aid cretins are bound to act in 
accordance with government policy, which I'm afraid means keeping 
people like you in jail. Frankly, there's no barrister | know who would 
present a writ of habeas corpus that relies upon accusations against 
a legal professional, and | wouldn't have done it before | took the 
bench." 


Keagan paused. "Do you think this is a wild goose chase?" 


The Judge smiled. "| didn't say that. Perhaps I'm biased, but 
ultimately | believe the British justice system is fair, and eventually 
puts right all its wrongs. A lot of people don't believe they got a 
decent shake out of the system, but they also think that ‘innocent 
until proven guilty’ means they don't need to know the law. I'm afraid 
that includes a lot of solicitors. The law doesn't prove your 
innocence, Keagan. But it guarantees your right to a trial before a 
jury of your peers, and if you were misled it offers you the 
opportunity to make your case." 


Keagan left the library that night with his head ringing, filled with 


light. He couldn't sleep, but then, he didn't want to. He lay on his 
bunk, reverberating with the words he'd heard, mind conjuring up 
hallucinations of vindication, of the words 'Not Guilty’ echoing in an 
oak-panelled courtroom, of freedom, of walking in the leafy hills of 
the Lake District and finding that old church, of Lauren, though he 
found he could never quite bring her face into focus; she existed in a 
soft blur of radiance. 


It was July. The stifling heat in the old bricks of Wormwood Scrubs, 
coupled with the stench of over a thousand men packed into a tight, 
concrete labyrinth drove the inmates into the yard every hour they 
could get. 


"Are you going out?" Keagan asked the bundle of rags above him. It 
made a shuddering exhalation, which Keagan took as a negative. 
He waited for the guard to unlock the door and walked down the 
wing towards the exercise yard, in the process passing the Judge's 
cell. He rapped on the reinforced plastic window. 


"Judge? You going to be okay?" 


The older man opened the door and looked up at him. He had dark 
rims around his eyes and he was more disheveled than usual. 
"Sure, sure. You go out. | don't feel up to my usual run today. | have 
to get to work on our mutual friend." 


"The politician?" Keagan lowered his voice. 
"Yes. Look, I'll show you. Come inside." 


Keagan was impatient to get out in even the suggestion of cooling 
breeze afforded by the exercise yard, and aware that the few 
minutes a day he was allotted were draining even as he waited. But 
curiosity made him stay as the Judge pulled out his latest wodge of 
papers. Keagan sat on the bed and the Judge slid the top sheet 
across to him. 


This is what it said: 


Dear Jacky 


Though it's been fun talking to you, | feel we must part 
ways. Soon, although you will not know it, the universe 
will change and nothing will be as it was, for | have the 
power to shape it to my will. | will no longer be the 
servant of the State but its Master and | will no longer 
have time for these pleasant diversions. | wonder, dear, 
sweet Jacky, what your face looks like when you are 
thinking of neither good nor evil? That would be your 
original face, the face you wore before your mother and 
father were born. What | would give to know that face— 
and perhaps | shall. 


If my Francesca only knew of our correspondence, 
surely it would destroy her utterly. Is that what you are 
counting on, in your secret nights, enclosed in your stone 
ocean? To enslave my mind to your body—or is it that 
you wish to enslave my body to your mind? Can it be 
that the Jacky you have caused me to imagine thinks of 
the former and the you that Jacky imagines thinks of the 
latter? 


Goodbye, my beautiful my sweet my poppet my pigsnie 
Three pounds of flax 


Keagan could hardly make heads or tails of the letter. "You said he 
was a nutcase. Why do you think a guy like this is worth anything?" 


The Judge sucked air between his lips. "He's always like this. He 
uses several zen koans in this." 


"Koans?" asked Keagan. 


"Buddhist riddles. They sound nonsensical but are usually intended 
to hide a greater truth. The way he uses them, though, are 
completely wrong, over-literal and completely dependent on the 
historical context of their delivery, which undermines the entire point 
of a koan. See, he signs himself ‘three pounds of flax’, which is 
typical. That was the answer by a Zen master to the question "What 
is Buddha". Our man thinks of himself as some kind of spiritual 
prodigy, an untouchable. Well, I'll sort him! If it's not another 


reference to something, he's given me the name of what could be 
his wife or girlfriend, or maybe a daughter. It's enough to be going 
on for a bluff.” 


"What do you make of that ‘original face’ stuff?" asked Keagan, "is 
he trying to say he knows Jacky isn't real?" 


"| don't care—and it doesn't matter," said the Judge vehemently, 
passing across his response as he wiped sweat from his forehead. 
"Read this." 


Keagan saw that this latest letter had abandoned all pretense at 
being Jacky, the 15 year old juvenile delinquent. Instead, a new 
persona had emerged—'Jan Crucnik’, ostensibly a prisoner at HMP 
Wandsworth. This is what it said: 


You want to see my real face? I'm happy to show it to 
you. You must realise by this point you've been had. 
There's no Jacky, real or otherwise. And you've not been 
nearly as careful with your identity as you imagine. Every 
word you've written will be exposed to the world—and 
your precious Fran will hear it first; don't think | can't 
reach her. This is what you must do—you'll send me 
£1m in cash or traveller's cheques—and | know you're 
good for it, with all your boasts about what you would do 
to Jacky on your yacht in Malta—to PO Box 759. Don't 
try to trace the money, or | will expose you. Don't try to 
find me, or | will expose you. Pay the money, and you'll 
never hear from me again. Don't pay, and | will shatter 
your career, your life, everything. 


Regards, 
Jan Crucnik 


Keagan held the letter very still. "This goes beyond a simple scam, 
he said. "You're fucking with what, if your assumptions are true, is 
one of the most powerful men in the country." 


"Don't | Know it," said the Judge. "I've been in a state all week. | 
haven't been able to contact my solicitor. But he's due up here on 
Thursday to discuss an old robbery-homicide trial | presided over in 


1993. I'll give the letter to him then and I'll be done with the whole 
thing. If the mark doesn't respond, he doesn't respond." 


"That sounds very sensible," said Keagan. "Look, | have to get out 
for a few minutes, at least. Are you going to be alright in here?" 


The Judge waved a hand. "Don't worry about me. I'll be locked in 
here, working on this draft. Safe as houses." 


If the yard had been divided between the prison cliques before, it 
was nothing compared to the territorialisation that had taken place 
now it had become the one place prisoners could escape the 
growing heat of summer. Marvin Hagman and his compatriots 
controlled the weight machines—the contraband traders, suddenly 
headless with the mysterious disappearance of Cameron Moat, 
about which it seemed no-one knew anything more than his 
roommate, huddled close in the shade of the C block walls. The 
Pakistanis had camped out under the tree, making a simple run a 
multi-jurisdictional affair. Keagan planned out his route, jinking 
around the most lively areas in a figure of eight and steadily 
increased the pace until his muscles began burning. He began to 
realise how out of shape he was—though it hardly seemed possible 
on the soup and watery mashed potatoes that formed such a 
generous portion of their diet he had unquestionably gained weight 
around his waist and thighs and lost stamina. He resolved to build 
himself back up to something approaching the level of fitness he had 
maintained working in the auto repair shop. 


The exercise was simple and mindless and he began to appreciate 
what the Judge saw in it—one allowed one's anxieties to dissolve 
into the almost voluptuous sensation of complaining joints and 
anaerobic muscle pangs, and devoted one's entire self to pushing 
against them, not ignoring them but pushing so close they became 
granular, the discomfort breaking up into lots of oddly-shaped 
splinters that the mind no longer registered as painful. 


He realised something was badly wrong when he saw Creepy 
Bastard. Keagan barely recognised him in the sunlight of the yard— 
he had never before seen him out of the cell. He was taller than he 
expected, but spindly, like a harvest spider, prison clothes hanging 


on him like a wire rack. His large pale eyes blinked rapidly as he 
tried to adjust to the outdoors, finally giving up and squinting. 


Keagan changed direction and cut his speed as he worked his way 
over to him, edging around a group of men he guessed from their 
chatter were Poles and who were quite blatantly gambling, erupting 
into the occasional insincere brawl as one accused another of 
cheating. 


"Keagan—Keagan!" Creepy Bastard was shouting, looking 
nervously left and right and favouring anyone who looked at him with 
a hostile grin with those narrow, yellow teeth. Finally Keagan got 
close enough that Creepy Bastard's eyes were able to focus and he 
saw him. 


"What is it, you bastard?" Keagan panted. "Why are you outside?" 
But the little voice inside his skull said— You already know that. 


"It's the Judge," said Creepy Bastard. "Someone's got him. In his 
cell. | think he's dead. | heard it all but whoever did it was gone by 
the time | looked." 


"Christ fuck," exclaimed Keagan, grabbing Creepy Bastard and 
hauling him nearer the doorway. "Who else knows about this?" 


"No-one—I mean, | didn't tell anyone about it, dear," said Creepy 
Bastard, "other than you. | can't swear other people didn't hear, but 
there's not too many people still inside right now. But whoever's 
watching the cameras will see his cell's open before long." 


Keagan scanned the yard quickly, trying to process faces. Patrick 
Goettsch was nowhere to be seen. 


"Alright," he said. "Jesus Christ. Stay here. | need to do something." 


"Stay here?" asked Creepy Bastard, rolling his eyes around the yard 
in a look of pure animal terror. "What do you expect me to do?" 


"| don't know, ask the bloody Poles for a game of poker or 
something!" retorted Keagan. "Right now anyone inside is going to 
be a suspect and I'm guessing you don't want that to be you." And 


with that, he left Creepy Bastard staring with lost eyes at the sight of 
200 prisoners talking, trading, gambling and fighting, and plunged 
back into the stifling air of the prison. 


Keagan moved as fast as he dared, almost running into the chisel- 
jawed blond guard who he vaguely remembered Creepy Bastard 
had identified as McGage. 


"Mind yourself," McGage said, pulling his cap over his eyes and 
gesturing for Keagan to go on. "No running inside." 


When he reached the lifer block, he saw the Judge's cell door open 
and sheets strewn out into the hall. He ducked around the door. 


There was very little blood—just the Judge slumped back in his chair 
with glassy eyes, head and right arm over his writing table, and four 
or five diamond-shaped marks on his chest, dull red against his blue 
trustee's top. The expression on his face was one of disbelief— 
surprise and disgust mingled; a confidence betrayed. Keagan 
wondered if the Judge had him in mind in his last moments. 
Whoever had stabbed the Judge had done it in a hurry, then made a 
half-hearted attempt to search the room before the noise attracted 
too many people. Half the Judge's books had been clawed down 
from their shelves, and his mattress had been picked up and flung 
aside. 


Keagan entered the room, tucking his hands up into his sleeves. He 
fumbled through the bundle of clothes at the base of the bed and 
found the sheaf of papers he had been shown earlier; the latest 
installment of the Judge's correspondence in the persona of Jacky. 
The draft the Judge had been working on was gone—and a cursory 
examination of the chaos led Keagan to believe the rest of the 
scam's documentation—the past exchanges with Reg Thompson 
and all the rest—had also been discovered and taken. Keagan 
tucked the remaining evidence of the scam into the band of his 
trousers and left the cell, a few seconds before other cons and 
guards arrived. 


Keagan jogged through the corridors and through into the library, 
down into the blind corner where Patrick Goettsch had attacked the 
Judge before, and stashed the letters in the newspaper archives 


between back copies of The Guardian. He wandered back out into 
the yard, trembling, and waited for the lockdown siren. 


Chapter Three: "Transfers" 


In a lockdown, a prison becomes a fortress—nothing goes in, 
nothing comes out. All visiting hours are cancelled and prisoners are 
confined to their cells. Just four guards were tasked with the 
unenviable task of herding hundreds of sweltering prisoners back 
inside. Initially, morbid curiosity overwhelmed the inmates’ natural 
resistance to this stifling fate; however, as the guards secured the 
walkway adjacent to the Judge's cell in anticipation of the arrival of 
the coroner, it became clear that the only other way for the 
inhabitants of B block to return to their cells was the long route up 
the stairs and around the other side. As the guards would permit no 
more than one inmate at a time to return their cells, the prisoners 
were forced into a long line snaking through the corridors, advancing 
maybe a step every five minutes, each slightly hotter, sweatier and 
more unpleasant than the last.