CHAPTER TWELVE“Oi, Rosbif! Come over here,” snapped Laroche with a jerk of his head, indicating his side of the cell. The boundary line between them was curiously drawn: Laroche could put his feet on Michael’s bed, but Michael had to be invited to sit beside him at the table. The evolution of these laws was touchy and intuitive.
“It’s payback time.”
Michael was a long way down. He had been trying to stop himself from thinking about the flight of stairs at home, the vertiginous distance from the first floor to the ground, the endless loop of Charlotte, falling. He’d been trying to stop himself from thinking about the coat that she was wearing – it was purple, and she only ever dressed in black. He’d been trying not to wonder what that signified, if it signified anything at all: a change o
