Baildon Moor - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bradford, October 2013

I am alone in a tiny prison cell, lying on a narrow, metal-framed bed with a thin mattress and rough grey blankets. The bed takes up the whole length of the cell and the only other furniture is a small metal table bolted to the opposite wall. I am wearing paper slippers and a drab colourless dress of some coarse, scratchy material. My long hair is unwashed and matted. I am gripped with an overwhelming terror, suffocated by the knowledge of what is about to happen.

I recoil as there is a loud metallic clang along the corridor and a pale yellowish light shines through the grill in the grey metal cell door. The door is yanked open and two prison warders enter, sinister in black uniforms and with peaked caps pulled so low I cannot see their faces. They grab me roughly – one on each arm – and they march me out of the cell and along a series of brick-lined corridors which get lower and narrower along the way; we have to stoop to pass under the final brick archway. I struggle and shout but the warders remain silent and hold my arms even more painfully as we bundle our way through the passageways to our destination.

At last we come to a high-ceilinged room that holds nothing but a wooden scaffold in one corner. My feet barely touch the flight of steps as they drag me up to a platform where there is a noose suspended from a gallows. One of the prison warders pulls a white hood from his tunic and pulls it awkwardly over my head; the other warder clumsily ties my hands behind my back with a thin rope. I panic and scream again, scream that I am innocent; that I am not a murderer; that what happened was an accident. The inside of the hood is wet and sticky with my saliva and tears; I struggle to breathe with the thick damp cloth pressing on my nose and mouth. The warders still say nothing and tighten the noose around my neck. One of them barks an order and there is a crack as the trap door opens and the noose jerks upwards and I fall into an empty black nothingness.

***

I wake up abruptly and for a moment I don’t know where I am, even though the nightmare is a  familiar one and I’m lying in my bed at home in Bradford. My heart is thumping, I am hag-ridden, breathless and drenched in sweat; the old T-shirt that I use as a nightdress clings to me foully like an obscene second skin. I fumble for the bedside light and take deep slow breaths as I feel the terror begin to abate and my pulse return to almost normal.

It’s a little past five o’clock in the morning and many years’ harsh experience tells me I’ll not get back to sleep. I peel off my dripping T-shirt and pad into the shower, where I scrub myself under torrents of hot water and lashings of sandalwood body wash until I can pass for something like human.

Wide wake and pinkly scrubbed, I go to the kitchen to make coffee. Marwood appears from nowhere like a sloe-black ghost, meows and slinks around my ankles. I pick him up and give him a cuddle; he butts his great black furry head against mine and begins to purr. Marwood is a real softy, despite appearanced; we adopted each other five years ago and the former feral terror of the backstreets of BD3 has become a proper mummy’s boy. I take my coffee and sit on the sofa; Marwood joins me and kneads at my bathrobe, his yellow eyes half-closing with contentment as he digs his claws into the thick loops of cotton fabric.  I rub his tattered bald ears and he settles down and wraps his tail tightly around his nose.

The cliché about life being what happens whilst you make other plans is true, I contemplate as I drink my coffee and watch Marwood doze on my lap. I’m forty-five, single and childless, and I live alone with my cat - I’m sure that wasn’t how it was meant to be but isn’t it odd how the tiniest events can change your life for ever? One wrong decision, one misunderstanding, one accidental stumble off the path and suddenly nothing is ever the same again.  

I wonder if the others have nightmares too.