Georgio fluffed up his pillow which felt as if it was stuffed with pieces of flint and said, ‘You speak for yourself, mate.’

Chopper sniggered, glad he’d raised Georgio’s hackles.

‘Oh, but I am, Georgio. I am. I’d murder me own fucking sister if the price was right. Let’s get that straight right away.’

Georgio closed his eyes even as he knew it was a futile thing to do. After what Chopper had said, sleep would be the furthest thing from his mind.

The boy’s crying was getting on his nerves now. It was almost eerie in the darkness of the cells. Five minutes later, it seemed most of the men felt the same way. A man shrieked: ‘Put a fucking sock in it, will ya?’

And the place was quiet once more. Except for the snores, groans and loud bursts of wind that were usual in any prison.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Georgio was awake well before the bell rang. He lay in the silence of the early morning, listening to the heavy sound of his own breathing. In the bunk above him, Chopper’s snores were low and regular. He was asleep. Georgio toyed with the idea of getting up quietly and hammering him with the metal slop bucket, but dismissed the notion as soon as it wandered into his mind. Anything he did to Chopper would be repaid tenfold. That much, at least, was a certainty.

He knew the man above him was Lewis’s plant - at least Lewis made no bones about that. He also knew that in order to live he had to keep on the right side of Lewis, Chopper, and any other henchmen Lewis employed.

One good thing about Chopper, he showered, washed out his socks, and put his books and shaving stuff away neatly - a result after Timmy. Though Georgio was missing Timmy now, even with his smell and dirty habits.

Chopper moved in the bunk, and the noise was heavy in the confined space. This huge hulk above him would, and could, kill him on a whim. Lewis’s whim. It was this that was making Georgio so uneasy.

As he heard the distant clanking of doors, and the early-morning noises of the prison, he relaxed. The days were just about bearable; now the nights would be like torture.

He consoled himself with the thought that Alan and Donna were working for his release and it cheered him. Christ Himself knew, he desperately needed something to latch on to. Even his early-morning erection had died a death at the thought of Chopper, Lewis and the rest of them.

As Georgio slipped a hand into his boxer shorts, Chopper was off his bunk in one swift movement.

‘Wanking already, Brunos?’

Georgio snatched his hand out of his boxers as if he’d been burnt. ‘No, scratching me nuts.’