Page 69 of The Stranger in Room Six

A razor blade? Is Linda planning to kill herself or someone else?

The old Belinda wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d have gone straight to the governor. Then Linda would be shipped out. Simple.

Except that this is not how it works in prison. Linda Wall has friends. They would take up her cause and I would be the one who got her throat slit.

But if I don’t do what she says, Gillian or Elspeth will be hurt or worse. Of that I have no doubt. Many prisoners, unlike me, have contacts outside. Linda knows my girls’ names; she knows where they live. I cannot risk this.

‘What’s wrong?’ asks Mouse when I’m quiet that evening.

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t give me that.’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘If I do, someone I love will get hurt.’

‘That’s got to be the girls, then.’

I’ve already said more than I meant to. But somehow Mouse gets it all out of me. ‘Right,’ she says, her mouth fixed. ‘Leave it to me.’

‘What do you want in return?’ I ask.

‘You’re learning,’ she says with a smirk. ‘Fact is, I don’t know right now. But one day I will. Maybe we’ll still be in here or maybe one of us will be out. Don’t worry about it now. You’ll know when the time comes.’

I feel as if I’ve just made a deal with the devil. But I’ll do anything to save my girls.

I don’t go to gym on Friday because I have a migraine. That’s what Mouse told me to say but it turns out to be true. It’s the type that makes you vomit and see flashing lights. I never used to get them but prison makes you feel all sorts of things you didn’t feel before: physically and mentally.

I am sent to the San after throwing up on an officer, who told me to ‘pull yourself together’.

So I’m in one of the sick beds when the alarm goes.

‘Stay there,’ says the nurse nervously.

I can hear shouting and screaming and banging of doors, followed by a siren. Through the barred window, I can see an ambulance. Someone is being carried out to it on a stretcher. Then a second stretcher follows.

My chest caves in with fear.

‘What’s happened?’ I ask when the nurse returns. Her face is white.

‘I can’t say.’

I’m sick again, either because of nerves or my migraine. I don’t know which. Then an officer comes in. ‘Did your cellmate say anything to you about a grievance with Linda Wall?’

‘No,’ I lie, attempting to sound genuine. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘No, it’s bloody not.’ He gives me a hard stare. ‘Are you sure you’re telling me the truth?’

‘Of course I am.’

My migraine gets so bad that I’m told to stay in the San overnight.

In the morning, I’m taken back to a different cell. ‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Because forensics are still cleaning it.’

Forensics? I feel nauseous again. Why won’t anyone tell me anything?

‘Everyone else seems to know so I might as well tell you. Your cellmate left a razor blade on the step machine. The next person happened to be Linda Wall, who trod on it and started bleeding like a pig. Apparently, Mouse then yelled, “You wanted a razor blade and now you’ve got it.” Linda managed to pick up a weight and throw it at Mouse.

You could hear the snap across the room. After that, all hell broke loose.’

I think back to the two stretchers. ‘Are they in hospital still?’

‘Hospital?’ The guard crosses herself. ‘The morgue, more like. They’re both dead.’