Chapter Two Razor #2
Even if I wasn’t guilty.
Not of what they said I’d done that night, anyway.
I’d made sure of that. But innocent? No.
I’d never been that, and everyone knew it.
The screws. The briefs. The man on the street.
Razor Slade was guilty of plenty—of being a cog in a much bigger machine, understanding exactly how dirty money moved and choosing to keep it moving.
I’d been turning those wheels for years before the night they picked me to carry it.
Before I’d hesitated. Before I’d stopped following instructions.
So yeah…I was going down. For a long time.
It didn’t matter that I’d been lining Cormac’s pockets since I was fifteen. Nor how many nights I’d bled for his organisation. When it came down to it, he’d let me go without a backward glance. Cause he knew I’d tricked him.
So here I was. Back where I’d started.
Piss fucking poor.
And being poor meant I didn’t get to choose.
Much like what Mum used to say when she handed me my burnt dinners as a kid: I got what I was given.
“We’re still awaiting further disclosure from the CPS.” Ellwood dropped his gaze to his notes. “They’re citing complexity.”
Ellwood had done what he was paid to do. What the courts expected. He’d lodged the bail application, then watched it die on its feet. He’d chased disclosure that arrived late and thin, as if by design. He’d challenged the arrest enough to irritate the bench but ultimately changed nothing.
All competent.
All useless.
I snorted. “What’s complex about it?”
Ellwood didn’t take the bait.
“You’re remanded on the supply charges. The other investigation remains live, but no further charges have been brought.”
Yet.
We all knew what that other investigation meant.
Murder. A body they wanted to hang round my neck, whether it fitted or not.
I wasn’t guilty. Not in the way they were suggesting.
But that had never stopped them before. They needed a shape to pour it into, and I was already here. Present. Named. Convenient.
Time would do the rest.
Keeping me inside meant I couldn’t fight it properly. Couldn’t steer the narrative. Move pieces. Nor remind anyone that I wasn’t just a name on a charge sheet and how I’d had no reason to torture, maim, or kill Kyan Gibbons.
The problem, though, was that my fingerprints were everywhere. On places they shouldn’t have been. Anyone else’s prints would have been scrubbed clean by now. That was a given.
What I did know though, through the grapevine of Pentonville remand, where most of us had moved in the same circles long before we ended up caged together, was that Kyan’s family had vanished.
House cleared. Phones dead. No forwarding address.
One week they were there; the next, they weren’t.
Could’ve been the money I’d pushed their way.
Could’ve been courtesy of less corrupted money.
Someone, or some organisation, making sure they stayed out of reach.
Either way, it told me what direction this was heading.
So I sat there, hands cuffed to nothing, and understood with bleak clarity, that I had no defence.
All I had was containment.
The mouthpieces carried on talking. About time. Patience. How these cases took longer when there were multiple moving parts. As if time were neutral. As if it didn’t grind men down while everyone else debated process. They weren’t the ones in here. Patience is hard when all you have is time.
Then Ellwood cleared his throat. “We need to discuss representation.”
“What? Why? You represent me, right?”
There was a notable pause. Then, “This case has developed in a way that exceeds what our firm is best placed to manage.” Ellwood glanced at Davies.
Fractional. Pre-arranged. “There are indications that this prosecution may attract wider scrutiny. Political sensitivity. Press interest. Additional oversight.”
I waited.
Davies stiffened. “We believe a firm with specialist experience in complex organised crime cases would better serve you.”
I scoffed. “What the fuck do you do then?”
“We’re mostly low-level crime. Possession charges. Street supply. Clean evidential chains. Your case…has names attached to it that, quite frankly, are frightening.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What names?”
“Names we wouldn’t do you justice fighting against.”
“So, you’re dumping me?”
Fucking hell. When the piss-poor firms give up, it’s obvious I was a no-win.
I looked at Davies. “Is someone leaning on you?”
Silence.
That told me everything.
“Fuck.” I clenched my fist on the table. “So what happens now?”
Suddenly, it wasn’t just the prison I had to worry about.
Nor just the waiting, or the remand, or the CPS hovering like vultures deciding which charge to drop first. It was the realisation that I could become administrative.
A man misfiled. A case stalled because no one was pushing it forwards.
I was slipping through the cracks in here, time stretching thin while they decided what else to hang around my neck.
If these two walked away and no one replaced them, my hearings would drift. Adjourned. Relisted. Forgotten.
Rot was slow. That was the danger of it.
Ellwood must have seen it on my face because his tone changed. Less polished, more careful. “There will be no gap in representation. We won’t withdraw until new solicitors are formally instructed.”
“And if they’re not?” I asked.
“They will be.”
I knew I wasn’t innocent.
Not of the work. The routes. Nor protecting men who didn’t deserve it by building something that could only ever end like this.
But guilt isn’t the same thing as being caught.
And they’d skipped that step entirely. So, yeah, I wanted my day in court.
I wanted to get out of here. Wanted the chance at least.
No one deserved to be warehoused without resistance.
Then it came back to me.
A memory I’d shoved out of reach because it hurt too much to hold.
Sentencing bias. How people from poorer areas get hit harder by the courts than people who do the same crimes but can afford decent lawyers.
He’d said it lightly. As if it were theory. As if it lived on paper instead of in cells like this one. As if it hadn’t been a warning.
He’d been right.
Tricky.
The thought of him struck me right in the chest. Sharp and unwelcome.
I hadn’t heard from him. Not that I’d expected to.
Or even truly wanted to. He belonged on polished pavements and sun-drenched terraces.
Should get to wear tuxedos, eat caviar and listen to the steady, civilised thwack, thwack, thwack of a tennis match. He deserved the light.
Not this.
Not me.
Someone who kept circling the dark and would end up swallowed by it for good.
Ellwood cleared his throat again, dragging me back to the room. “We’ve already contacted a firm better equipped to handle this level of exposure. They specialise in organised crime, politically sensitive prosecutions, that sort of thing.”
“And if they don’t want it?”
“They will. Cases like yours don’t get ignored. They get escalated.”
“To who?”
“Senior counsel. KCs. Teams with the resources to deal with the CPS when things turn… aggressive.”
“And until then?”
“Until then, we remain on the record. We attend hearings. Keep things ticking over. No decisions are made without representation.”
“And bail?”
“Unless there’s a material change, we can’t fight it. At present, the Crown’s position is too entrenched.”
Entrenched. Another word for someone powerful wants you here.
“So I sit?”
“For now. But not indefinitely.”
I studied him. The way his hands stayed folded. The way he didn’t quite meet my eye anymore, and I couldn’t help but say it. “You’re scared.”
Ellwood stiffened. “We’re being realistic.”
“No.” I tilted my head. “You’re scared of whoever’s standing behind the CPS on this.”
Silence followed. The thick, telling kind.
I waited. Gave them the space to contradict me.
Nothing.
I tried again. “So who ain’t scared of these names, then?”
Ellwood looked at Davies. Davies looked at the table.
That was my answer.
I shut my mouth.
There was nothing to be gained from pressing men who had already decided self-preservation beat professional pride. They were done with me. The meeting was over; we were simply going through the motions.
They gathered their papers. Snapped files closed. Stood. Ellwood even had the audacity to offer his hand. I took it out of habit rather than respect. His palm was clammy. His grip too careful. As if he were afraid I might mark him with my touch. And trust me, I wanted to.
Then they were gone.
The door opened. Closed.
Dent stood by the door. “Let’s go.” He tipped his head towards the corridor.
The walk back felt longer.
The wing was fully unlocked with doors open, men drifting into the narrow strip of space, staking claim to inches. Conversations faltered as I passed. Voices dropped. Eyes followed. Took measure. Logged whatever had shifted in me since I’d gone.
Word moved fast in here. Faster than truth.
They would probably already know. That my defence had blinked.
That someone had decided I wasn’t worth seeing through to the end.
That I’d been professionally set down in the middle of the floor and left there.
So I kept my head level and my pace steady.
In a place like this, abandonment didn’t stay private for long.
And I hadn’t only been abandoned by my legal team but also thrown to the wolves to fend for myself by Cormac.
I hadn’t expected to walk free. I didn’t expect mercy.
And once it was clear there was nothing helping me on the outside, that Cormac had made a point of washing his hands of me, the only thing left to hold on to was the chance to stand when it mattered.
To be heard. To stop this from becoming endless and faceless.
As long as I stayed present. Stayed sharp. Stayed myself.
As long as I kept my hands clean. Prevented Ghost from dragging me into violence I couldn’t walk back from and remembered who I’d been before survival became the only measure, then maybe there might still be something of me left worth saving.
When we reached my cell, I knew something was wrong immediately. Someone new occupied the bottom bunk.
“You’ve got a new cellmate,” Dent said, as if commenting on the weather.
I took in the man sitting there, hunched over on the mattress. Mid-forties. White. Office-soft. A body that had never taken a hit. Not once. It would if he stayed long enough. His gaze crept to mine then away again, breath coming too fast, skin grey with shock.
That was how quickly things changed in here.
One minute you existed. The next, you didn’t. Cleared out. Replaced. Like furniture.
The man stood, tugging at the front of his jumper as if he could smooth himself into place. “Hi.” His voice wobbled despite the effort to steady it. “I’m Colin.” He held out his hand.
I looked at Dent.
Dent chuckled under his breath. He liked moments like this.
The recalibrations. How a room reset itself without warning.
But I didn’t take the hand. Not out of cruelty.
Out of caution. And I stepped past Colin, climbed the ladder to the top bunk, and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
The same crack ran across it as before, spidering out from a point just above my head.
Fucking great.
From above, I could hear Colin breathing. Too fast. Too loud. Fear made people noisy in ways they didn’t realise. I closed my eyes and listened. To the wing. The shouts. This new weight in the room.
“Is it always this loud?” Colin asked.
I said nothing.
Harris had known the rules. Had understood my need for silence.
This bloke didn’t.
He’d have to.
Or he wouldn’t last.
As the noise of the prison settled back into its endless, grinding rhythm, one thought lodged itself in my chest, heavy and inescapable.
I was completely, utterly alone.