Chapter 70
FRASER
The floor of Fraser’s cell is streaked with dirt and grease. He lowers himself until his face grazes the concrete, then he pushes himself back up. He feels the burn across his triceps.
Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six.
Slow. Tight. Perfectly controlled.
Fraser works out every day, and the twenty kilos he has gained since being sent down has thickened his neck and broadened his chest. Ex-coppers can be sitting targets in prison, but no one seeks out Fraser. Not unless they’re looking for trouble.
Sixty. Sixty-one.
Down the corridor, someone hammers at a cell door, setting off a series of shouts: Shut the fuck up, you cunt! and Who are you calling a cunt? Elsewhere in the block, televisions and radios compete for attention.
Fraser’s pace doesn’t alter. The cell is too small to pace and too noisy to think, but the press-ups carve out a kind of silence.
A bead of sweat falls from his brow to the filthy floor.
Prison can break you, but it can build you, too, and Fraser is using his time wisely.
When he’s not in the gym, or working out in his cell, he’s reading.
Learning about the powers of persuasion, about hiding in plain sight.
The government can pass laws on meetings – on protests, on action – but no one can police his thoughts.
They think they’ve broken New Dawn.
Seventy-six. Seventy-seven.
They’ve only made it stronger.
Made him stronger.
Fraser keeps talking. Word-of-mouth. Keeps drip, drip, dripping New Dawn’s messages throughout the nick and beyond to the outside world.
The prison is full of young, angry men disillusioned with authority, with society.
Fraser takes them under his wing and educates them.
He helps them see how the housing system favours foreigners over its own; how the courts go hard on British-born offenders and let immigrants go free.
He shows them how much money the government sends abroad each year, while the NHS leaves old folk dying in hospital corridors.
Eighty-one. Eighty-two.
The establishment can put in whatever laws it wants; it can’t legislate what a man thinks. Not when he’s already decided. Not when he already knows.
Fraser’s arms are trembling now, his chest slick with sweat.
Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred.
Done.
The metal bunk creaks as Fraser sits on the edge and wipes his face with a towel.
One of the young men Fraser has recruited gets out today.
Fraser has furnished him with New Dawn contacts who will help him get back on his feet, cementing the lad’s loyalty to the cause.
Brick by brick, they are rebuilding. Underground, this time.
A slow, satisfied smile forms on Fraser’s lips. No one can stop the sun rising, no matter how hard they try.
The New Dawn is coming.
And, when it does, Fraser and his comrades will step back into the light.