He turned round and doused his smirk as he saw the terrified civilian cooks and porters huddled against the far wall by the exit door, looking at him with scared suspicion. Immediately he turned against the door he’d just come through, seeking a lock and finding none.
“Where’s the lock?” he said urgently.
“Doesn’t have one,” said an acned boy whom Avery strongly suspected of snotting in his mustard pot. The boy didn’t look so smug now, thought Avery happily. His acne had flared with terror and his bottom lip trembled.
“Help me block the bloody door before the whole lot come through it!”
Avery grabbed a metal tray trolley and slid it against the door. He knew it was useless but this was just for show. A chubby middle-aged woman whose name tag read “Evelyn” bustled over, apparently having made the decision that Avery was to be helped on the basis that her enemy’s enemy was her friend.
Together they tugged and strained to move a chest freezer across the doorway. Halfway through the task, four or five of the dozen or so staff hurried over to help.
Once the freezer was in place, there was a pause, and Avery knew they were suspicious of him all over again.
His mind raced and pinged for the way to play this, and he was grateful it had been recently exercised.
He had three things on his side: first, civilian kitchen staff was a revolving-door job, he knew. He could only remember seeing Zit-boy and Evelyn before today—the others had not been at the prison long enough to register on his consciousness. Secondly, he was an unremarkable-looking man, and would not stand out in any crowd, let alone a crowd of men all dressed in grey and blue jerseys. And even if they did know him because of who he was, the tunic and, more importantly, the hairnet cum cap was a disguise that neutralized the features of anyone who wore it.
The final point in his favor was that, apart from Zit-boy and an elderly man so bent that he looked like a circus monkey in his baggy checked trousers, they were all women. And fuck women’s lib, he knew that women were still less likely to challenge a man than most men were. Clinging to these truths, he puffed out his cheeks in mock relief and looked them all in the eye.
“Nice day to start a new job!”
“Yeah, shit,” said Zit-boy shakily.
The others looked only slightly mollified. They were exchanging guarded looks and Avery realized he was going to have to keep moving if he wanted to get through this.
He produced the keys. “Anyone know which one opens that door?”
There was a ripple of relief.
“Where’d you get those?” asked the chimp suspiciously.
“One of the guards. Told me to get everyone the hell out of here.” As he spoke, Avery walked to the exit door and started trying the keys.
“What happened to him?” said the chimp, jerking his head back towards the sound of the riot.
“God knows,” said Avery with feeling. “I’m only interested in what happens to all of us.”
It was a masterstroke. The kitchen staff still didn’t trust him, he could tell, but they now clustered around their only chance of escape like eager day-old chicks, prepared to risk following him as long as it was away from the sounds of mayhem that rang in their ears. The lesser of two evils, Avery thought with a little smile. It might be the only time in his life that even that derisory title would be accorded him.
The fourth key turned the lock with a satisfying click, and Avery stood back politely to let everyone else through first. Now they started to nod at him and mutter “Thanks” as they passed. Only the monkey still looked chagrined at being released.
A thump on the door behind them hurried them all through, and Avery locked the exit door.
Evelyn was bustling ahead and as he hurried to catch up a half dozen guards hurtled past them. Avery recognized all of them, but their eyes slid over him in his white kitchen tunic and hat as though he were invisible.
He knew that the kitchen staff would not allow him to walk out of the front gate with them. Once they were safely surrounded by guards who were not panic-stricken and running, someone—probably the monkey—would voice his suspicions.
That was why, as they passed A-wing, Arnold Avery quietly slipped off the back of the group, stripped off the tunic and hat, stuffed them behind a large flowering shrub that he didn’t know the name of, then headed for the chain-link fence.
Rumor had it that the chain-link was under such high tension that a spade jammed into it with enough force would split it open like a popped paper bag. Avery didn’t believe that rumor. And he didn’t have to. He had the keys to the kingdom.
Just before D-wing he passed
