He sat down, happy to have a window seat, but the flight was busy and soon two women arrived to take the seats alongside him. They looked to be business types, in their mid-twenties, conservative tailored suits, off on some sales trip or other, Norm supposed. On any other occasion he’d have been pleased at the prospect of being in a confined space wedged up against two attractive girls, but right now, the last thing he wanted was to be drawn into conversation or to say something inadvertent that might draw attention to himself. He stared resolutely out of the window, so much so that the flight attendant had to ask him twice to fasten his seat belt before he realised she was talking to him.
A moment or two later, the girl sitting in the aisle seat reached up and pressed the attendant call button, The same smiling uniformed woman returned and the two had a girl by the aisle whispered something to her.
“No, I’m sorry, madam,” the flight attendant responded, “we don’t have an ‘unaccompanied men’ section on the flight. We’re an Irish carrier, you see.”
“Well, BA have them. Don’t you think you should if you’re flying from the UK?”
“I’m sorry madam, I’ll pass on your comments but there’s nothing I can do, I’m afraid. I hope it doesn’t disturb your flight.”
Norm turned and smiled benignly at the woman in the aisle seat. She scowled. He sat back to enjoy the flight. He was glad to be getting back to Ireland.
He spent the flight wondering what he would tell Danny about how things were in the UK. He’d been encouraged that there were people trying to do something about the New Order tyranny but the ExCel Centre project had been a failure and the speed with which Gerry had legged it didn’t give Norm the impression of the sort of leadership that would be needed to make real changes. He hadn’t seen enough of Spencer Hames to know if he was going to graduate from talk to action. Jack seemed willing enough but the only one leading him on was Daisy as far as Norm could tell.
The flight was an hour late landing which was some achievement on a flight that should have only taken an hour and a quarter anyway, Norm thought. It took more time to get the plane onto a gate.
Standing outside the international arrivals at Dublin gate at Dublin Airport was a dark haired girl carrying a sign, saying “O’Neill”. She was woman in her mid thirties wearing denim dungarees and a plaid shirt. She had a fresh open face, freckled beneath a messy thatch of ginger hair. Norm thought things were definitely looking up.
It took Norm a moment to remember that was the name he was travelling under. “I’m O’Neill,” he said to the girl.
“Sure you are,” the girl said, “and I’m Molly Malone. Danny said to pick you up. You’re late.”
Norm lost what patience he had remaining after the last few days. “Do you have to be so frosty? To be honest, I’ve had enough of aggressive bitches for the past few days in England and if that’s all you can manage, I can always take the bus.”
The girl looked apologetic. “Sorry. Let’s start again. I’m Patsy.”
“Sure you are,” Norm smiled. “Terence O’Neill — or that’s what its says on my passport so it will probably do for now. Are we heading back to Sligo? To be honest I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing that sitting in the Pride of Éireann and downing a few Bushmills.”
“In that case, ‘Mr O’Neill’, perhaps we’d better be off.”
The two of them set off to find Patsy’s car for the two and a half hour drive. Norm was looking forward to some peace and relaxation.
Chapter 23: Disruption in the Detention Centre
A group of three inmates at the ExCel Detention Centre was standing and waiting apprehensively in the centre’s workshop. The detention regime envisaged that inmates would carry out useful work and learn skills that would help them re-integrate into society. This seemed to mainly involve learning how to make uniforms for the prison staff using the banks of sewing machines lined up on the tables. The lucky ones got to stitch skirts — straight-ish seams and hems even if it was black thread with black cloth. Less lucky and you worked on the shirts; much more fiddly and white thread on white cloth. Still less lucky and you were stitching leather belts by hand which was hard work and hard on the fingers too.
“Hello boys. I thought we should have a chat after that silly business yesterday.” One of the warders was standing with two of her colleagues. She was weighing a riot control baton in her hand as if she was really hoping for an excuse to put it to use. “And you three always seem to know what is going on around here.”
“No, I don’t think we knew anything about that, Ma’am.” Hugh had long since learned that a respectful response reduced the risk of trouble. “It was as big a surprise to us as it was to you when the wall came in.” The other two nodded their agreement.
“Are you really sure about that, Hugh?” the warder was standing behind him, pushing the tip of her riot baton up against his arse. “I mean, really, really sure.”
She had her lips close to his ear, he thought she might lean forward and bite. He could smell tobacco on her breath. He was dying for a cigarette. Tobacco was like gold dust in the Centre. He wondered what he could do to get some; what she might make him do if she knew he wanted some. The effect on his cock was unwanted. He could feel it stiffen at the thought. Luckily the trousers of his detainee coveralls were baggy. She wouldn’t notice. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. He hoped neither of the other officers would notice. He hoped his fellow detainees wouldn’t notice.
The other two detainees stood by, intimidated and motionless, under the watchful gaze of the warder’s associates.
“It’s just that we were a bit surprised as how you had all turned up for lunch at the same time. Like you had all decided that cook’s lunch time delights couldn’t be waited for a moment longer than absolutely necessary. I mean someone cynical like me might think that somebody knew something was going on. You could see how I might think that can’t you, Hugh?”
Another prod from her baton brought a grunt from the man she was talking to. She had moved around in front of him now. Her baton was so close to discovering that his cock was just as hard. He was trying to distract his thoughts while making sure he gave the impression of respectful attentiveness.
“Now, I’ve got a proposition for the three of you. You tell us what you know about this little escapade and we’ll say no more about it. If you keep quiet about it we’ll let everyone of your fucking mates in here know that you’ve told us exactly what we wanted to hear. How is that as a deal? You can be shits and no one will know or you can be heroes and have everyone think you are shits.”
The three men looked glum. They knew which was the better option. And anyway, as Hugh told himself afterwards, there wasn’t anything much the warders would do with the information anyway. It was pretty obvious that they had had a tip off before the wall had come in. After all, why else had there been a van load of red flaps in the courtyard that morning?