Running his finger through the thorny shrubs, the tiny scratches are welcome to Craig’s pale skin. The plants are poking over ancient brick walls, overflowing from the tastefully unkempt gardens of terraced period properties. The mild pain gives Craig a thrill, reminding him that he is alive in the free world.

This can’t be the right place though, Craig is thinking, as he shrugs his rucksack back to push the heavy front door with both hands. Solid wood, painted green with brass knobs and letterbox, must be pretty old. The lush red carpet inside seems too royal as it cushions Craig’s unworthy feet, the fresh wallpaper and paintwork that clothes the ageing walls smartly beam immaculately at his shabby body. Up ahead, a couple of lads with guitar cases spit muffled laughter through tight lips at the front desk, dressed in scruffy old clothes, far from smart – but cool at least.

“So where did he kill her then? You get all the bloodstains out yet?” the one with long ginger hair asks the short young Asian lad who is welcoming guests to The Bourdan Hotel. He mumbles something back but it’s too quiet for Craig. “He’s just curious,” says the other lad, slapping his mate on the back heartily with his right hand and flicking his dirty denim collar up with his left. Craig, getting closer, looks up at the arm cupping in tightly around his mate’s torso, up toward the hand, fingers digging slightly into the shoulder blade, adorned with black nail varnish. The lad declares, “This place is a bargain, what a lovely gaff”.

The place must be Victorian or something, in a nice part of town, but suspiciously cheap enough for the small allowance Craig’s parole office Carol gave him for a couple of nights’ lodge. Well, it was suspicious – now he knows better, why the heavy discount. The pressure in the place is dropping now that Craig knows its dirty secret, the swollen impressiveness eases and the large healthy houseplants in their ceramic pots seem to wither and clear the last few feet to the front desk for him.

Craig relaxes and feels a half smirk. How fucked up to feel chilled out now you know a murder had just happened where you’re staying? “That’s me,” Craig says under his breath and sticks out his chest, his unzipped Under Armour tracksuit top parting slightly as he strides confidently across a luxurious white furry rug up to the check-in desk.

The two lads with guitars are leaving the counter in laughter as Craig pulls up, unnoticed. They look queer buggers as they pick up their backpacks and head for the stairs, Longhair kicking Nail Varnish Boy up the arse. A flash of envy grips Craig though – because, despite being weirdos, these boys are clearly having good crack. He reminds himself he’s better off in the luxury of finally being alone after too many years, but it’s hard to convince himself.

“You the boss then?” Craig always asks that when he arrives, something from childhood that’s stuck. This young lad definitely doesn’t look like the gaffer, but you never know, the small quiet ones can surprise you sometimes. “No sir,” he’s not up to much this lad, Indian, short and meek, robotically pattering through the check-in procedure.  Craig breathes the place in, his new place, he considers what he’s got for himself; a clean, well-kept hotel with a distinct lack of piss stench, very quiet with not a single knackered old wino or screaming nutter banging on the walls. Reassuringly old, built from old Yorkshire bricks and guarded by trees that are much older still. Yep – it’ll be plump pillows, peace and quiet with a few tinnies and the telly. Craig is going to chill out, Craig deserves this.

Stretched right out in bliss, it was nicer than Craig had expected, might be the loveliest bed he’s ever laid on in fact. A thick, clean, pure white duvet cradles him in an aura of a fresh start – a clean break. Checking with the forefingers on his left hand, Craig’s first few knuckles on his right still feel a little sore. He thinks back to that flimsy newbuild and he wonders if they had moved that wardrobe yet and found the dent he’d made in the plasterboard? He was stressed at the time, worried he’d not be allowed to leave the halfway house if they found it. That was his last outbreak though, Craig is chilled now. You can hardly blame him for that little slipup – how can any man, 22-years-of-age, be cooped up and bossed about like a little boy without lashing out at least once?

A branch taps on the window and Craig rolls to his left to see dusk coming through the wooden frame, the branch is a near-black silhouette against that kind of sky that is a blue both bright and dark and the whole tree shows every tiny bare bit of twig, stripped naked to its complex ancient structure. Craig daydreams of meeting a nice lass tomorrow in town. He’ll go to the market, get a Costa coffee and sit on a bench and she’ll ask to sit next to him. Her pretty face lights up when he says “yeah course you can,” and she sits, dressed nicely but still casual, in tight jeans and an ironed white Lacoste polo shirt, very tasteful. Craig glances down and spies her erect left nipple poking beneath the crocodile logo,  the right one is making itself known too – both of them entirely unfettled by any kind of bra. Then, looking back up, he finds her grinning cutely before turning away, all shy. Craig is on the verge of a wank, but resists like a good lad. A sudden urge swells in his chest – an urge to go out on the lash, but that’s not for tonight either. Rolling over on his right side, Craig finds the Nike rucksack still on his bed and fishes out the four pack of Fosters. Still a bit cold – beautiful.

At 1.14am Craig is awake, the Fosters is long gone and now the cheap vodka is flowing, topped with a slug from a grey bottle of budget energy drink, a bit warm but drinkable. There’s not much on terrestrial telly and he’s too pissed to focus on his tiny phone screen anymore, so Craig gets to his feet and steps in front of the mirror. He could do with a haircut, it’s nearly over his ears. He’s almost got a beard as well, definitely looking on the rough side with his milky skin, dark eyes and a face bordering on gaunt. He’ll find a local barbers tomorrow though, he tells himself, and get a tight, fresh new cut to go with his fresh new start.

There’s heavy footsteps in the corridor and laughter. As Craig opens his door, he sees the back of Nail Varnish Boy a few doors down with a lad in a black leather jacket and old brown boots stomping about. He watches them push each other about a bit, laughing heavily, they look like they’re having a ball. “Now then lads, had a good night?” Craig calls out. Both turn around and Craig gives a grin, raising the 70cl bottle of Glen’s Vodka and widening his eyes. The two boys don’t return the smile when they turn though, they look fresh faced and a little lost. “Yeah mate, you?” says Nail Varnish Boy. “Just a chilled one for me boys,” says Craig, giving a little nod to Brown Boots, who’s got scruffy brown hair, much more overgrown than Craig’s, “Here, has your buddy been borrowing his lass’s makeup or what? What’s that nail varnish about ey?” Craig asks with a wink. Brown Boots opens his mouth, but nothing comes out as his eyes widen in confusion with a hint of worry. “We’re just in a band mate,” Nail Varnish Boy says, almost apologetically, “It looks good onstage with the guitar, y’know, I don’t wear it normally.”  “Oh yeah, into the old rock ‘n’ roll?” Craig mimics guitar playing, “bit of Oasis an’ that? I love all that me.” “Haha, yeah sound mate,” says Nail Varnish Boy, his mouth smiling, but the jovialness heard in the corridor less than a minute ago now thoroughly depleted. “See ya later anyway mate,” says Brown Boots, waving weakly. “After party is it now boys? Any girls coming or what?” Craig asks as he struts down the corridor towards the young musicians. He’ll show these boys how to party, he thinks, they don’t seem like much crack afterall and might need a bit of guidance. “No, no, just to bed mate,” Brown Boots rushes to say, “Yeah, night mate,” adds Nail Varnish, and with that they turn and walk to their room, leaving Craig deflated.

Craig wakes up starving and sees 9.32am displayed on his cracked phone screen, he thinks of the last time he ate – a ham sandwich and crisps with Coke from Boots around noon the day before. His head is banging and the air in the room feels warm, stale and stinking. As he pushes the duvet off, the weight takes him by surprise and he takes great comfort in remembering where he is. The smile he cracks actually hurts his head. He’s still dressed in yesterday’s clothes and remembers breakfast is served until 10am, that should sort him out – he goes straight to the door in search of some scran.

The breakfast room is small and Craig spots catering gear all along units on the right hand wall with the welcome smell of bacon and sausages filling the room. Scanning his surroundings, Craig sees Brown Boots and Longhair eating at a table near the middle but no-one else. There should be plenty of food left if the place is half empty, he supposes, and wonders how much he can get away with eating.

Craig helps himself to a warm white plate and looks down pitifully at the sad mini boxes of Weetabix and Corn Flakes – peasant food – as he passes them on his way to the good stuff. He lifts a steel lid to reveal a dozen or so sausages, lying there, lightly wrinkled, waiting for him like hot parcels of fatty comfort. He tongs seven onto this plate carefully, one-by-one, lining them up diagonally around the top left curve of his plate from eleven O’clock all the way down to five O’clock, and moves on to the next station. Three fried eggs, a little crispy round the edge, are added to the top left quadrant, stacked but staggered like a fan of cards, cheering up the plate considerably. Craig sidles along to the next merry-looking container and a lid lift reveals back bacon looking floppy and pink, Craig wants to see a lot more crispiness – this stuff looked like it had been boiled rather than grilled – like miserable warmed up ham. Bacon never tastes bad though, so Craig takes five rashers and stacks them as best as he can in the bottom left quadrant to leave enough room for the finishing touches. He has just two lids left to lift now, both on the same heated catering container, they must be mushrooms and baked beans, those bits that fill in the gaps in the stomach pile and give the meal its hearty satisfaction. The lids are transparent and not quite on properly because they each have a utensil wedging them open, tongs in the left one and a ladle on the right, both steamed up so the contents are hidden from view. He whips off the first to disbelief – nothing but a single cooked mushroom, he whips off the lid to the right and sees it reassuringly filled high with hot baked beans but no more mushrooms to be seen. The floppy bacon could be forgiven as there was plenty of it available, but to have no mushrooms on offer at all really boiled his piss. Turning round, lid in hand, to see if the lads at the table could see the travesty he’d been struck by, Craig didn’t seem to earn so much as a glance from them as they sipped coffee and munched away. Craig drops a full ladle of beans into the centre of his plate stroppily – there’s no point in caring about presentation now, it’s ruined. Craig eyes up Longhair who’s casually scrolling on his phone while sipping from a mug. Brown Boots is quite timid, he can be sure of that, but Longhair might have a bit more about him, could be the band’s leader and Craig had better get the measure of him, so he chucks a couple of slices of white toast on the plate and strides confidently over to their table, pulling out a chair deliberately roughly with his free hand and firmly planting his arse down on it.

Eyes up from Longhair, as he fiddles his fork, Brown Boots stares at his plate, hunched over as he scrapes across some beans with his knife, the black varnish half worn off now, he may have caught a glance of Craig but doesn’t look up properly

“Good night lads?”

“Yeah, yeah decent,” says Longhair. “Yourself?”

“Ah just a quiet one for me, nowt like you lads out on the road with your rock music, bet you’re partying every night aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah pretty good like, rough as arseholes this morning though.”

“Back on the road in a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah, when his lordship drags himself out of bed”

The pile of mushrooms on Longhair’s plate catches Craig’s eye, “So you’ve taken all the mushrooms then!” He shouts, outraged, and shovels half off them onto his own plate with his fork. Longhair looks stunned, mouth agape. Craig eats eyes down now, his shoulder wide, huddled over his food like an owl.

After breakfast, the lads in the band pack up their stuff in the shared room and lug it down the stairs and hear shouting from the foyer. “What the fuck’s that?” asks Nail Varnish. Descending the stairs, they see Craig berating the two desk attendants and Longhair distractedly bangs his guitar on the bannister. Craig notices him, “Lend me your phone,” “What?” Says Longhair, “Please let me borrow it, it’s an emergency,” Longhair unlocks his phone and hands it over, Craig heads out to the front garden with it. “Has he nicked that – what’s going on?” Longhair asks at the desk, to the same Indian lad who greeted them. “We have had some trouble with this guest,” he explains.

Craig storms back in, “This is absolutely outrageous,” he shouts, voice breaking slightly as he thrusts the phone back into Longhair’s hand. 

‘Mr. Kelly, your room, you have created so much damage. You must pay for the repair Mr. Kelly, you must pay us £750, just a small part of the cost, we will take it from your card.’

‘No, you’re robbing me, this is wrong, you can’t take that money from me, that’s all of it.’

‘It is the minimum Mr. Connor, the cleaning bill alone for the urine stains, it will be hundreds, you must pay.’

*

He’d trashed it. He’d hurled each piece of furniture he could lift, flung the little wooden chair at the opposite wall, plaster smashed, showing clear damage, but not enough, the bedsheets had to be ripped, the poxy posh things, mocking him for his poor past, a plush pisstake of a fine fabric he’d never felt before.

I did nowt wrong, I always knew it, but I got soft when I was insside – I listened to the twisted words of that pastor, the counsellor, that fucking bitch Carol, they hadn’t heard her lies, they weren’t there, they didn’t see how she was with me, a pisstaker, mean, cruel, putting herself above me when she had no right, no fucking right at all.

The chair was stamped the same way his dad stamped on him, cracking, coming apart, useless now, never to be sat on again. Curtains ripped down of course, easy work, nowhere to hide now. The wall could fuck off an’ all, punching the hole bigger, fist bloodied, wrist weakened, a fucking disaster – his first weekend. The fragile lamps ripped from their fitting with a crack and tear, mock brass bent with a bounce off the shelf. He beat all purpose out of the room.

I’m a proper fucking man, they had no right putting me in a cage.

He’d kicked the bed, but it was heavy and big and barely budged, stronger, more expensive than him.  To repay the disrespect, he slipped down the elasticated waste of his tracksuit bottoms, whipped out his most trusty weapon and pissed all over the thing, bedding and all, it was fancy things, but only things, bits of dead tree, dead cotton, dirty plastic, he was better than that – at least he was alive. 

Three fucking years, what a waste. 

The soft pathetic room humiliated by his power. The old window pulled up, jamming in its swollen frame as it became big enough for Craig to slip his little body out of. The tree offered its embrace as Craig leapt towards it, gripped and pulled his way towards its trunk, twigs snapping and scratching his skin, welcome pain, man and nature, how it should be. At 2am he squatted between its strongest two offshoots, the original split, “You’re in reality now son,” the tree whispered, “that world of lies will never hold you down”. Craig looked in on the lit up room, destroyed and meaningless.

I’m out now. I’m free.

*

He lunges, a woman screams, Craig grabs at the desk lad’s neck but feels his arm gripped, he’s twisted round and soon on the ground, “Remain still, the Police are coming”, says Amir, dutifully holding down the unruly guest. “Get the fuck off me now, get off, you fucking bastard,” the three band lads look amazed, slightly scared but also amused – they’ve just gained a great tour story to tell.

Craig settled under Amir’s bodyweight, he could feel his warmth, hear his heartbeat and smell his sweat. He submitted completely.

When the police came, Craig was almost catatonic as Amir got off him and the officers attached the cuffs. I’ll never be free, not in this world, escorted back out the green door, down the steps and  onto the pavement beyond the gate, where people craned their head as they walked to work, he looked up at the tree, swaying majestically, it whispered something in the breeze, Craig couldn’t make it out, but felt shame as the branches gestured imperiously.  The copper pushed down his head and he slid onto the back seat – that familiar place, almost safe. He thought of the woman he’d hurt.

The band was stood on the doorstep with a few of the staff and a couple of other guests, watching the police car roll away and Amir was being congratulated for his bravery. “I started training two years ago, after the murder here, you know, in case I needed it”, “Well you certainly did”.

The boys descend the steps as the police car engine fires up, edging closer to try to catch a last glimpse of Craig. “Who did he ring?” Nail Varnish asks Longhair. “Yeah, should’ve mentioned that to the coppers,”  realises Brown Boots. ”He might have rang someone to come and cause some trouble.” Longhair unlocked his phone to check, “Fucking hell,” “What?” asked Brown Boot. “He rang 999.”