The Roll Call at Stonehaven – Part 1: Roll Call

The cell block at Stonehaven had been designed for a hundred and twenty men. Tonight it held three. The wing was long and bare, a double row of iron doors under a barrel-vaulted roof, lit by a string of caged bulbs and warmed, faintly, by the old steam pipes. At the head of the wing stood a small wooden desk with a clipboard, a lantern and a brass bell.

Delphine stood behind it with her hands behind her back. She was forty-nine, an operations director with a taste for order and a voice that carried. She had asked three friends to come, each separately, after a year of careful conversations. They stood now in a line in front of her, in their own clothes, bags at their feet.

Ambrose was forty-one, a barrister's clerk. Tobias was thirty-eight, a sound engineer. Wilf was fifty-two, a retired headteacher. Each had said, in his own words, that he wished to be told where to stand. Each had signed his own copy of the Regulations. Each had been given a separate safe word, so that any of them could stop without ending the others' night. Ambrose's was Ledger. Tobias's was Tannoy. Wilf's was Noticeboard. Hers was Armistice.

"Say your words."

"Ledger," said Ambrose.

"Tannoy," said Tobias.

"Noticeboard," said Wilf.

"If any of you says it, I take off the jacket, I sit with that man, and no one will think less of him. Yes?"

"Yes, Chief Warden."

"Not yet." She buttoned a charcoal uniform jacket with a silver collar badge, took the clipboard in one hand and the brass bell in the other, and her voice dropped, crisp, flat and unhurried. "Roll call. Stand to attention."

They stood.

"Ambrose."

"Present, Chief Warden."

"Tobias."

"Present, Chief Warden."

"Wilf."

"Present, Chief Warden."

She looked up from the clipboard and let her eyes travel along the line, slowly, one man at a time, and said nothing at all for a very long time. A bulb buzzed. The pipes ticked. Not one of them breathed.

"You have been admitted to Stonehaven," said Delphine, "for insubordination. You will each be assigned a cell, a task and a number. You will not speak to each other. You will speak to me when asked."

"Yes, Chief Warden."

"Are you content, Ambrose?"

"Content, Chief Warden."

"Tobias?"

"Content."

"Wilf?"

"Content, Chief Warden."

"Good." She rang the little brass bell, once, and the sound ran along the wing like the end of a long shift. "Dismissed to your cells."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Armistice.