Chapter 22 Hard Times
"You've got five minutes, Grey, and you're even lucky to get that, I will be listening," Johnson said, checking his watch uninterestedly.
"The Governor approved that I would be allowed fifteen minutes. I know what my rights are."
"Stand there."
Johnson positioned Grey against the wall and began to undo the handcuffs behind him.
"Let me guess you're going to give me another strip search, are you? Is that how you get your kicks?"
"Ah, darling is the prison making you feel a bit nervous? And by the way, I don't give a toss what you have pre-approved with the governor. Just be quick about it. It is my lunch break soon."
Johnson shoved Grey into the telephone room.
"Use the phone on the left," Johnson said banging the door shut.
Grey found himself in a small tiled room of about 10 square feet. Acoustic foam covered the featureless walls, with two gaudy avocado-colored telephones mounted on the walls, connected to a recording system.
Through the plexiglass, Grey could see Johnson walking into the observation room and opening a newspaper, while another prison officer was tapping away at his phone, playing a game of Candy Crush.
Grey grasped the receiver, feeling the slippery texture of the grimy surface under his sweaty palms. He dialed the family's number, hoping for a swift answer.
It took seconds – just two short rings – before Juila's panicked voice filled her husband's ears.
"Julia, it's me."
"Thomas, where are you?" her voice trembled. "I don't know what to do. I thought you'd left us here."
"Daddy! Where are you?" Grey could hear the twin girl's cries in the background.
"Julia listen, I do not have a lot of time for explanations. I am stuck in prison with Turner at HMP Liverpool."
"Prison. Liverpool, oh my god. What have you done? Thomas, we are all alone here, it is not safe."
"Julia, please do not get hysterical. I will figure something out."
"Hysterical. I am at my wits' end. I need you here."
"I have been watching the chaos on the news. Julia, you must take the girls and leave London now. Go and stay with my mother. You'll be safer in the countryside."
"Thomas, you don't understand, our car has been petrol-bombed. We are trapped.”
“Petrol-bombed, have you called the police?”
“Thomas, the police are overwhelmed. There are gangs everywhere. We are running out of food. No one can help us. I am so scared."
"I know things are bad out there, but hold on tight. Get a pen and paper and write down this number. Detective Jamison will arrange to get you out of there."
Julia and the twins sat huddled together on the living room floor, hearing angry shouts and chants coming down the street.
"Thomas, hold on. It's happening again."
Julia peered nervously through the cracks of the curtains letting in slivers of light.
The girls noticing her worried expression, peeked through, their small faces mirroring their mother's anguish.
Descending upon the quiet cul-de-sac, an unruly parade of masked figures hurled bottles and rocks through the air, their projectiles shattering against homes as a warning of impending violence.
"Julia, do you have a pen ready?"
"Thomas there is another gang, and they coming towards the house"
"Take the girls and go to the loft," Grey said frantically.
"They are going in our garden," she said fearfully into the phone.
Her eyes scurried between the dark silhouettes lifting the catch of the front gate, then to the daughters.
"They are coming right up to the front door."
Julia desperately herded the trembling twins into the hallway, her voice wavering away from the phone.
Julia! Julia, what's going on?" Grey cried out in desperation. "Get out of there, run."
Without warning, the double-glazed window exploded inward in a hail of fanged translucent shards.
Julia threw her arms up to shield the girls, feeling the bite of slicing glass across her skin.
Blooms of blood were already welling between her toes from a dozen stinging cuts.
Grey could hear the sound of breaking glass, and the screams of his family.
"Julia, what's going on? Are you all right?"
Through the jagged teeth of the window pane, men with balaclavas fixated on Julia's vulnerable form.
A gnarled hand reached inside and began to twist the doorknob.
Each forceful turn only added to the sense of entrapment.
The twins were halfway up the stairs. Julia was on her back now paralyzed with fear.
"Thomas!" Julia shouted distanced from the phone.
"Julia!" The sounds of a struggle filtered through the line before it went dead.
Rage gripped Grey's heart as Julia's cries were cut off. He tried desperately punching the number again, praying for a glimmer of hope to pierce through the suffocating silence.
Johnson and the other guard sauntered into the telephone room.
"Five minutes are up, Grey. It's my lunch break," Johnson snorted.
"Johnson, please, I need my 15 minutes, my family is under attack. I need you to get one of my detectives over there."
Johnson snatched the phone away and put it back in its place.
"Well, well, well. Looks like your sweetheart's in a bit of a jam, ain't she?
Shame you're stuck in here with us, instead of out there saving her. But hey, that's just the way the cookie crumbles, right?"
"Your little tart is in trouble. That's too bad. You're not going anywhere," The other guard quipped.
Grey's pent-up frustration reached its boiling point as he violently yanked the phone off the wall, determined to make Johnson pay for his actions.
The sharp crack resonated like a thunderbolt as the heavy receiver collided with Johnson's unsuspecting head, momentarily stunning him.
Grey lunged at the other guard, but Johnson regained his composure, removing the baton from his tool belt.
Repeatedly Johnson blitzed Grey's skull until he buckled against the wall.
A small battalion of prison officers burst in through the door with riot gear, swarming all over Grey and tying him up in knots.
"Stick in him in the segregation unit. I have plans for him later," Johnson ordered cupping his bleeding wound.
Grey fought against their iron grips with everything he had.
"Fuck you, Johnson. I will get you, I swear down."
Johnson wiped a smear of blood from his forehead.
"You ain't getting out the hole for weeks. I will see to that."
The guards took sadistic pleasure in Grey's suffering, dragging him from the phone room.
Grey shouted hoarsely until his throat burned, demanding answers that went ignored. All too soon he was carried like a log across the landings.
Assembled prisoners on association time watched from the wings.
The Somalins and the Muslim brotherhood observed, their faces blank masks of indifference.
From the upper levels of the 3 and the 4, the gangs of Liverpool, and Manchester reigned spit.
It poured down through the anti-suicide netting, landing with audible splats on the floor below.
The sound resembled rainfall, only this was no gentle spring shower - it was a torrent of hatred and contempt.
Grey tried to remain impassive, scanning the landings, searching for a friendly face.
Even the prisoners who didn't participate in the abuse seemed to revel in his disgrace.
Turner watched with a haunted look from the grill window, beneath the stubble of his beard.
He looked away, unable to bear the sight of his friend's ordeal, sinking onto the lower bunk.
The parade continued. Grey's escorts led him past the open doors of the cells, where prisoners leaned against the walls, their arms folded across their chests in amusement.
Eventually, Grey disappeared from view, swallowed up by the labyrinthine corridors of the prison.
Prisoners started to meander back to their cells, picking up where they had left off at the pool table and returning to their card games - bantering about the morning's entertainment.
Turner stared blankly at the ceiling. What had they done to him? And why? Questions swirled in his mind like demons, tormenting him with their relentlessness.
The guards dragged Grey's limp frame through winding corridors. They arrived at the segregation unit, with Johnson opening the heavy door with a protracted groan.
Johnson was ahead of the guards. Peeping eyes peered nosily through the peepholes of the new guest joining them in the segregation unit.
"We're going to throw him in cell four, the worst one," Johnson said.
"Detective Grey, may I present to you the Hotel Hades," Johnson smirked, unlocking the door.
"Our finest suite, complete with complimentary despair and a side of hopelessness."
They unknotted him, shoving him into his new quarters. Grey could hear the mocking laughter fading from behind the closing door.
Now Grey was slumped against the cramped cell wall - while somewhere out there in London, his family was clinging to life itself.
But what could he do, trapped in a room barely four steps from one end to the other, with only a thin palette of a mattress on the bare floor?
Grey tried to shake off the fogginess in his head, taking stock of his new surroundings.
He prayed that Julia and the twins had managed to get to the loft in time and that nothing more serious had happened to his family's home beyond a simple burglary.
With only his thoughts for company, the hours crawled by at a glacial pace throughout the day.
Occasionally, an insult would echo through the hollow ventilation pipes - "Pig!" "Scum!" - but he tried to ignore them.
He jealously looked across the yard where the other criminals had been working out for an hour. He had an inkling, Johnson wouldn't afford him the same luxury.
Rattling keys followed the creak of doors opening and slamming. Johnson's voice punctured the segregation unit with his presence throughout the day.
Sweatily, Grey lay in his cot, after countlessly pacing the confines. The walls began to crush inwards in a claustrophobic panic attack until his body began to pass out. Was he having a nervous breakdown?
An ominous fog of despair settled upon his tortured mind. Horrific images of his family lying on the hallway floor reeled like a play of psychosis.
Sanderson's decomposed face hovered above his dead family, laughing from the stairs.
"Wake up, Grey. Wake up, Grey. Who else do you want dead on your watch?" Said Sanderson in a spectral mist.
Grey's eyes snapped open.
"Wake up, Grey. Wake up, Grey. Here's your canteen," the guard said, pushing a flaccid sandwich and a rotten apple on a tray to his feet.
It was the silence that hit him first, it was almost peaceful compared to the nightmare that still lingered. It was as if he'd just emerged from a dark and treacherous tunnel.
Outside, the sun had passed its zenith. The moon had set, leaving only the faintest glimmer of starlight to illuminate his cell as he picked at the sandwich - hoping it was not nested with cockroaches.
Breakfast and dinner were the same every day for him and Turner. Porridge, bread, and water. No variation. Day after day. But this was the pits.
A whisper interrupted Grey. An Irish-accented voice leaned against the adjoining wall.
"I recognized ye when they brought ye in, proper tied ye up, didn't they? Ye looked a bit of a state if ye know what I mean."
"What do you want?" Grey grunted, trying to hide his annoyance.
"Do ye not remember me voice, 1998? It was ye that put me in here?"
"Apart from being Irish. Very well, let the guessing commence. Did you kill Mrs.White in the study with the candlestick?
Or was it Professor Plum in the billiards room with the dagger..." Grey sighed, exhausted by the idle games, that had plagued him since the Grand National.
"Northern Ireland, ye're gettin' closer, so ye are. But why are ye in the seg unit, then?"
"You're a nosy sod aren't you?" Grey said.
"I've got nothin' else goin' for me to keep me entertained. Sounds like ye're not goin' anywhere for a wee while, Inspector Grey. Spin me a yarn, why don't ye?"
"I am no longer in the police force. Those days are over."
"Listen, Grey, a lot of my guys in here recognize you, and they don't care if ye're a copper anymore or not.
You're gonna get run up upon, that's for sure. Nobody can find your paperwork.
So, what are ye're doing in the seg unit? Thought you could hide from us, did yer?"
"OK, I will indulge you. It sounds like I have nothing else to lose anyway. I smashed the prison phone over Johnson's head."
The strange Irishman in Grey's ear burst out in fits of laughter.
"Aye, Grey, it must've been a decent craic indeed. You're not the first one to get on Johnson's wrong side, that's for sure."
"Suppose you don't have a roll-up. I could kill for a smoke?" Grey asked.
"Claridges Hotel 1998. Princess Isla's wedding. Does it ring a bell?"
Memories flooded back to 1998 in Grey's mind. The good old days as a young, ambitious Detective Constable.
As he recalled, the IRA had targeted Britain that year in a long and bloody campaign of violence before signing the Good Friday Agreement.
It was also the year the Provisional Irish Republican Army attempted to blow up the Claridges Hotel with a boatload of Semtex.
Fortunately for the royal family in attendance, Scotland Yard prevented what could have been a worldwide disaster.
Grey, in particular, was instrumental in the operation. It was the first high-profile case that put him on the career ladder, with Sanderson taking him under his wing.
"McBride, it's you, isn't it?" Grey inquired.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Correct, we've got plenty sorted in here, Grey. There's a fair few pairs of boots on the ground if ye know what I mean. And ye're in for a wee bit of a bumpy ride, aren't ye?"
"You know, McBride, if you had succeeded that day. I would be home with my family right now. You actually would have done me a favor."
"Favour? What're ye on about? Ye're away with the fairies, so ye are. Talkin' out of yer head!"
"I want the royal family dead as much as you do, McBride, but that's where our ideologies end.
I have lost many good men, personal friends of mine, due to your brand of terrorism.
You deserve to rot in here for the rest of your life, McBride. Are you going to give me a rollup or not?"
"You know, Grey information is the currency here, unless ye've got somethin' to offer me in return."
Grey's nicotine withdrawal surged like a snake winding around his body.
Russian spy, been there. Conspiring with China, already bought the T-shirt. Traitor to the United Kingdom, Fucked over. Why not throw in the IRA for good measure?
"Mcbride give me something to smoke and I will give you everything. I know."
"Take a look in the vent between our cells, I'll chuck a roll-up through the pipe. If yer hand's big enough, ye might be able to fetch it back, so ye might."
Grey bent down and wedged his hand into the air vent, reaching for the sweet tobacco.
"Come on McBride, give me a lighter?"
"Right, let's get this show on the road. If I catch even a whiff o' bollocks or ye're not keepin' me entertained, ye'll be outta luck, got it?"
"OK, McBride. But it will smell like bullshit. I really cannot believe what I have done and what has happened to me in the last three months."
Grey slouched against the wall, his disheveled hair and weary eyes a testament to his exhaustion.
Apart from the odd check from a prison officer, his voice cut through the stillness of the segregation unit, holding court with all who would listen.
Into the early hours, Grey recollected every detail. His nerves were calmed by McBride's roll-ups. They talked about life, family, and loyalty.
There was an air of desperation in Grey's words that almost seemed earnest to Mcbride, captivating his undivided attention.
Every word uttered was charged with emotion and an act of underlying revenge against His Royal Highness that lit the fire in McBride.
Eventually, In the somber darkness, a faint glimmer of early sunrise flickered through the iron grills, Like a reluctant visitor, the muted glow caressed the concrete walls.
"Aye, well now, Grey, that's quite a story ye got there. But let me ask ye this: why should I care about yer troubles, hmm?"
Grey lay on his thin mattress, his eyes staring at some distant point beyond the confines of the cell.
"If I got out of here, McBride... I swear I would try to get to the King himself."
"I see what ye mean, lad. I've seen my share o' horrors too. But that's the price we pay fer fightin' fer what we believe in, ain't it?
In another time you would have been a good soldier for the cause."
McBride stretched his muscles.
"Well, lad, seems like we both got stories to tell. Maybe one day we'll find a way to put 'em to use."
McBride settled back onto his cot, closing his eyes. The rhythmic sound of breathing filled the cell as both men lapsed into silence.
Outside, the prison came alive. Guards shouted orders, for the men to appear for work duties and education with grudging compliance.
Food from the servery could be smelt of the same salmonella breakfast served every day.
The door to the segregation unit gaped open, and Johnson appeared ready to start a new day.
As he walked, he whistled a jaunty tune, his spirits seemingly lifted by the prospect of another shift spent tormenting the prisoners under his care.
johnson stopped outside McBride's cell, his whistling dying away
"Alright, McBride. Time to head back to your cell. Did you get everything on Grey?" Johnson asked, opening his cell door.
McBride smiled slyly as he stood up.
"Och aye, I've got plenty. More than enough to keep ye busy for a while. Grey's got some aul big secrets, Johnson. Real big."
Johnson's haggard, drawn tired face stared into Grey's cell with a fresh plaster on his forehead.
"I think you and Turner are in for quite a fun day today. Wait and see what I have planned for you."
Johnson and McBride began to leave the segregation unit, Grey called out to McBride, his voice dripping with venom.
"Hey, McBride! You're a real snitch, aren't you?"
"Oh, that I am. See you at midday laddie."
"12-00 Grey," Johnson shouted from a distance.
Uproarious laughter pulsated in Grey's ears before they disappeared around the corner. The door slammed. He wondered what awaited him and Turner at 12-00. God If only he could warn Turner.
**********
From his cell on the upper tier, Turner sensed something was off.
He took in the bare concrete floor of the common room below, now devoid of the pool tables and ping pong tables that normally occupied the space.
Orderlies, scrubbed with cleaning chemicals, leaving an open canvas - apart from the worn-out television set flickering mutely in the corner -offering fleeting glimpses of an outside world.
It required little more than a week's residence within these walls to become attuned to the established prison's daily routine.
Education and day jobs invariably commenced at 9:00 a.m., following breakfast.
It was this established daily rhythm that Turner had learned in his short time. So the change unsettled him, setting his nerves on edge.
The usually bustling wings had been uncharacteristically still. Turner had watched the gym orderlies ferrying equipment backward and forwards all morning, assembling a makeshift boxing ring.
Four thick, frayed ropes were threaded through metal poles, their once-lustrous surface now tarnished by the relentless passage of time, and the sweat of countless battles fought within their confines.
"Oy, Jammer, any idea what's going on down there?" Turner said tapping on his cell wall
"Heard the lads talking - Johnson has arranged a bare-knuckle bout. Best fighter against some poor bastard. It happens once a month."
"Who's the best fighter? and who's the poor bastard?"
"You will see soon enough. Anyway, I will see you in a bit."
Prisoners trickled out of their cells as the hands of the prison clock started to trudge towards 11:30.
They gathered along the railings, craning their necks for a better view.
A buzz of excitement rippled through the wing, fueled by rumors of the impending fight.
Some prisoners even risked venturing down to the lower levels, amongst rival gangs, hoping to secure a prime spot.
Despite the risks involved, they were willing to chance it for the opportunity.
Camera phones materialized as if by magic, trained on the ring like a swarm of electronic paparazzi.
Johnson's heavy tread signaled his arrival, entering through the ropes, carrying a microphone.
"I'm tellin' ya, he ain't lastin' past 30 seconds," Sweeney said to his cellmate Yammy.
"Bollocks mate, I reckon he makes it to 50-60 seconds"
"Five quid, and your week's canteen, says Ox lays him out in 30 seconds!"
"Nah, Sweeney. You owe me a fiver already. Double or nothing and I get your two-week canteen. 50-60 seconds."
"You're both wrong," Another prisoner said, next to them. "Ox said he will murder the bloke in the second round, halfway through."
"You're on pal."
"Then what are we doing standing here then? Let's go and make a killing, around the landings. I will get you that fiver back Yammy."
Johnson stood on display, a microphone grasped firmly in hand.
His cohorts of guards formed a protective cordon around the outside perimeters, their eyes ever vigilant, as if aware that at any moment, the fragile peace might shatter like fine crystal dropped upon stone.
"Alright, lads," Johnson boomed, "we've got a real treat for you today!" He paused, surveying the sea of faces downturned towards him.
"Standing at 6 foot 4, weighing 230 pounds, we have HMP Liverpool's very own golden gloves champion Darren 'The OX' Slaney."
A hulking beast of a man sweatily emerged from the depths of level two, his mates tapping him on the shoulders.
"Awright big man, give us a roar!"
Veins bulged from his meaty neck and arms as if he were a creature fashioned from the very concrete that formed his prison cell.
He raised his brown boxing gloves, before giving them a thunderous clap together.
"Holy shit, look at the size of 'im!" a newby prisoner said in amazement.
"Ye looks pissed, Ox! Gonna murder someone today?"
Turner felt drawn to the action unfolding before his eyes as if fate itself had decreed that he bear witness to this momentous occasion.
A dawning realization hit him like a brick, he and Grey had arrested, Darren 'The OX' Slaney on a murder charge years ago - now he was on a life sentence in the same bang-up as him.
The OX surged into the ring, electrifying everyone's senses; the microphone pursed to Johnson's lips
"With a criminal record standing at, five stabbings, eight counts of arson, 3 counts of Murder, and an unblemished record of 87 knockouts, Darren 'The OX' Slaney."
Turner caught the unwelcome site of Gunner and Brummie ascending the stairs towards the sanctuary of his wing.
Now upon him, they strolled with cockiness. Gunner's malignant face appeared, as did Brummie's, battering the cell door with their batons.
They swung open Turner's cell, further amplifying unease.
"On your feet, scum," Gunner said with a pair of boxing gloves. "You're going for a brisk walk."
"You're not sticking me in there with him?"
"Governor's orders, don't worry, it'll be over quick once Ox is through with you."
"Gunner? I didn't sign up for this!"
Less than ten seconds later, Gunner and Brummie had twirled Turner outside his cell door.
Overlooking the wing railing, It seemed as though Tuner's presence had cast a spell on both his fellow prisoners and the guards.
The ox danced around the ring shadow boxing, his fiery orbs, locked onto one target alone – Turner.
Sweeney and Yam strolled through the different levels of the landings, stirring up the prisoners' hunger for anything resembling excitement or relief from their dreary lives, as rogue bookies
"Making his debut, I bring you a former serving member of Scotland Yard, Detective Turner."
Turner with nowhere to run, and fueled by fear and adrenaline, zigzagged towards the ground floor, the impending doom of the boxing ring in his sights.
Johnson waved him into a chorus of jeers and catcalls.
"This piece of filth, helped some of you get locked up in here, but as I'm sure you know, there's only one way to settle things.
So without further ado, let the games begin!"
Johnson exited through the ropes, not before laughing in Turner's face and taking his seat with Gunner and Brummie at a ragged timekeeper's table with a rusty bell.
Turner contemplated his dwindling options, gasping for air; he'd done a couple of boxercise classes with an X-girlfriend a long time ago, but this was not going to cut it.
Ox's shadowboxing was picking up speed now, waiting for the bell. Gunner and Brummie laughed, they had been looking forward to this all week
Turner, rolling his shoulders loosely, tried to calculate Ox's vulnerabilities - if there were any, just to avoid those tree trunk limbs of his.
"Johnson, do I at least get a referee? This is a right stitch-up," Turner said over the ropes.
"Ding!, Ding!"
"I am going to open you up you little shit, And wait until I get you on the wings. "Ox said under a water fountain of sweat and bile. spitting from his mouth.
Ox charged. The first blow landed hard like Turner had just been run through with a tractor, knocking him clean off his feet.
Unfortunately for Turner, Ox wanted more scooping him up like a feather duster, crashing him onto the corner of the ropes like a sitting target.
"Knock his block off, Ox!"
"Smash his fuckin' head in!"
"Someone get the mop, there's gonna be guts and teeth everywhere!"
Turner spitting blood tried to a duck a wild haymakey from Ox's massive paw, but with stars dancing around his eyes, he was sent reeling once more, slumping against the ropes.
Uproarious cheers exploded from the satiated onlookers, drunk on bloodlust.
"What do you prefer, a right hook, or a kidney punch?" Ox said, landing three quick shots to the kidneys with a flourish.
"That all you got, Slaney?" Turner said seeing five spinning Slaney's punching him.
"Ooh, I felt that from up here!"
"He's fooked! Someone throw in the towel!"
Through the haze, of getting his clock cleaned, Turner could hear the sound of the distant bell, signifying the end of round one.
With no corner, backing him to throw in the towel, he just lolled against the ropes punch drunk.
"Ding!, Ding!"
Turner started round two staggering around, with Ox toying with him like a cat with a mouse.
"C'mon ya pussy, fight back ya divvy!"
Turner was not keeping count, but he hoped Ox would just finish him. From his dazed peripheral vision, Turner spotted a visibly shocked Grey being prodded across the floor - in line for the next beating no doubt.
Then it went on, Turner spat more blood, shoulders slumping from the accumulated punishment.
Yet still he rose each time, refusing to submit through sheer grit. The spectators were hooked, enthralled by the plucky underdog refusing to fall.
"Give up," Ox said. "And I'll give you a free pass by knocking you out."
"Fuck off, Slaney," Turner said, bobbing his head in dizziness.
Turner strained every sinew to keep standing. He wouldn't give up, not now.
He hoped that he had earned some unspoken, begrudging respect from the men on the wings.
Turner raised his guard and charged, hoping to catch Ox off his guard.
But Ox was too quick for him. He sidestepped Turner's punch and landed a hard right to Turner's stomach. Turner doubled over, gasping for breath.
"Put 'im outta his misery already ye salad!" Brummie shouted.
Ox followed up with a left hook to the jaw. Turner's head snapped back, and he felt himself falling to the common room floor with a thud. Everything went black.
"Don't go down, pig!" one degenerate gambler shouted from level 3, minus a month's rollies.
"Get up you bleedin' idiot!" came from another, now negative a week's worth of calling credit.
Turner blinked awake, pain throbbing through his skull. Where was he?
Johnson's microphoned voice amplified into his ears.
He half expected Gunner and Brummie to burst through the door at any moment like he was trapped in some kind of hellish boxing time warp.
Gradually regaining consciousness and discovering himself back on the floor of his cell.
The closing images of the fight—Ox towering above him before throwing that fateful punch—came flooding back as his vision came back into focus.
He shuffled over to the viewing slit in his cell door, peering through the small opening, he could see Johnson riling everybody up, resuming his role as the master of ceremonies.
The stirring howls rippled through the prison like a whirlwind, heralding the main event with renewed bloodlust.
Johnson raised his hands and the crowd fell silent, awaiting his announcement.
"Alright lads, we've got another bone-breaker for ya." Johnson teased, prolonging the tension.
"Hailing from the dreary streets of Belfast, this man needs no introduction. With a trail of bodies stretching back decades, he's been bashing 'Brits' since he was but a wee lad.
At 6'2 and 220 pounds of solid Irish rage, put your hands together for the one, the only. I give you 'Bomber' McBride!"
The cellblocks exploded with roars and pounding as McBride swaggered into view. Even among hardened criminals, his reputation preceded him.
His Irish eyes stared out from under heavy dark brows, looking up to the masses with practiced menace.
Tattoos of paramilitary symbols covered his muscular arms, borne of a lifelong submersion in Ireland's violent history.
Stopping at the ring's edge, McBride raised his bare fists, in recognition to his members of the IRA in attendance.
"Top a the mornin' to ya Bomber!"
A sly grin emerged, revealing a mouth missing several teeth - trophies from past scuffles.
Surprisingly for someone of his advanced years, McBride vaulted over the ropes with the agility of someone half his age, bouncing on the balls of his feet and shadowboxing to keep loose.
"And his opponent..." Johnson drew out the pause, relishing the suspense.
"Unlike our friend from across the sea, this man needs no introduction. A former member of Scotland Yard, I give you Detective Inspector Grey!"
Grey stepped nervously into the ring. His bruised body bore the marks of his captivity.
Weak and gaunt, he knew little chance remained against the wiry McBride's hardened frame - who looked like he hadn't missed a day of training in months.
McBride scoffed at the scrawny Grey - he remembered him looking a lot fitter all them years back at his arrest.
This mismatch would be a mere warmup before, the real action begins. On the wings, in the showers, his members had a new plaything to pass the days away.
The crowd bayed for blood, aroused rats anticipating the feast to come.
Johnson, signaled for Gunner to ring the bell.
McBride was a seasoned criminal known for his violence and hatred toward the British authorities - especially, Grey.
Indeed as Johnson had promised the prison clock stroked on to midday noon.
"Ding! Ding!"
"Long time no see, Detective. Bet yer thought you'd seen the last of me, eh?" McBride Sneered, through piano teeth.
"Say hello to your sister for me, McBride. Tell her she can call me anytime,"
Grey said brazenly through an amateur Philly shell defense.
"She can go and get fucked. And so can you."
McBride stormed forward, landing blow after blow on Grey's battered frame. Despite his fear and exhaustion, Grey tried to summon the strength to fight back.
Each hit thudded throughout the cell block, drawing cheers and jeers from the watching prisoners.
"Smash him, Bomber!"
Grey couldn't defend himself, his movements too sluggish and uncoordinated. McBride sensed his vulnerability and pressed his attack even harder.
With each passing second, Grey grew weaker and weaker until finally, just like Turner, collapsed to the floor - signaling an end to the one-sided contest.
Pouches of tobacco and sweets passed between the hands of the victors, they all had placed their bets, trying to predict the exact moment when Grey, would be knocked out.
It was a high-stakes game, fuelled by prison debts and double-or-nothing bets - with extra interest for the losers. Fights and vendettas broke out, as they always did.
"You still owe me fags from last week ya bam."
"Shut it ya wee fanny, I'll pay ya Friday."
The guards rushed the landings to break up the liberty takers.
Johnson got his revenge, as did Mcbride. Gunner and Brummie put Grey on a hospital trolley, whistling him away back to the segregation unit.
The landings and wings began to dissipate for the afternoon's lockup.
Turner licked his wounds in his cell. Then the gym orderlies came to dismantle the ring, putting the common room back together like nothing had ever happened.