A Smaller Hell by A. J. Reid

puncture the canvas flesh of the cell floor.
    ‘What are you thinking about, Mr. Black?’ Doyle asked.
    I did not answer.  Instead, I returned my head to the sanctuary of my forearms.  Doyle stood silent, basking in my misery.
    ‘Where is she?’ I asked.
    ‘Who?’
    My fists clenched as Doyle played with me like a cat pawing at its half-gutted prey.
    ‘I might remind you that Graziano is watching everything on one of his monitors.  I suggest that you remain calm,’ she said, running her hand through my hair.
    ‘Are you in love?’
    Silence.
    ‘I was in love once, but I couldn’t make him love me back,’ she said, raking her fingernails across the canvas pads covering the walls.   ‘Imagine an endless summer so hot that you think you're going to burst into flames.’
    ‘Not a British summer, then,’ I mumbled into my arms.
    ‘No, not a British summer,’ she said quietly, still staring out of the little white rectangle and tapping her nails on the Perspex. ‘I had to send him away.’
    ‘Sent who away?  Actually, I don't want to know.’
    ‘You need to know, Mr. Black.  Of all people, you need to know that if I don't get what I want, bad things happen,’ she said. 
    ‘I know that if you do get what you want, bad things happen,’ I replied.
    Doyle's laughter made me wince in the dead ambience of the cell.   ‘That’s exactly what he used to say, before I sent him away.’
    ‘Maybe he couldn’t love you?’ 
    ‘Once he missed his deadline, he no longer had a say in the matter, my dear,’ she said, raking her fingers through my hair one last time before swiping her security card and letting herself out of the room.

Artery
     
    I pulled my collar up around my face and tapped my pocket to ensure that the Captain's flask was still there.  Fifteen minutes after Doyle had left, the store detective let me out and told me not to take any more unauthorised breaks unless I wanted an authorised break in my arm .  He also told me not to mess with these people and reminded me that he was just trying to earn a living, holding his hands up and shrugging. 
    As I considered all that Doyle had said to me in the cell, snow began to fall.  It was all too feasible that she had been talking about Rachel’s father.  Looking up at the streetlight, it seemed as though I was travelling through a starlit artery towards a bright, mysterious destination.  I continued walking up the hill, against the wind and snow, the blood thudding through my own vessels.
    I took out Rachel’s phone and called her number, but there was no answer.  Texting her instead, I told her that we needed to talk. 
    On the black cab journey to the cottage, I decided to come clean and tell her everything.
    When the taxi pulled up on the country, there were no lights on and no vehicles in the driveway of the house.  The driver seemed none too pleased that he had navigated all those snow-laden roads in vain, so I passed the full fare and a tip for him to take me to Emma’s penthouse.  Glaring at me in the rear view, he turned the cab around and headed back towards town.
    The taxi fare still glowed red and angry at me in the dark as we pulled up outside the apartment block.  The driver mumbled a seasonal greeting to me before unlocking my door to let me out on to the forecourt.
    Entering the flat, I could smell laundry and garlic and outside my door hung washed and ironed shirts.  I peeked inside a cardboard box in the lounge to find all my stuff from the squat.  Emma must have braved the rat shit, barbed wire and broken glass to fetch my belongings.  In the kitchen, the oven glowed and hummed on a low setting.  I poured myself a glass of red wine and moved to the sofa, where I found a note stuck to the coffee table:
    Gone to work.  Your dinner’s in the oven.  Lots of love, Emma x . 
    I looked out of the balcony's sliding door over the snow-covered docks and the city.  Not bad for a hideout.  I put the chain on the door and laid