Scanlon languished in his cell.
He knew knew knew he was just meat.
Pound his head against the bars, the back wall.
Scanlon shit was poisoned meat. Unsancitified meat. Meat not a soul. Meat that would go nowhere.
Meat that would die, spoil, right here, in a basement with drips and routines and bricks. Where no one really cared, duty being duty. Meat that would spoil not just in this cell. But forever. Gone. Done.
He saw himself that way.
Jimmy Scanlon might as well have arrived sealed in a can. He had no control. So he stuck to his fruit-fly tune: "the legendary Explosive 808, the green stuff that smelled of almonds," he hummed. "Got me a trunkful. Being shipped to another base on a certain day, at a certain time."
That was his story.
About the IRA? Best he could do.
Just before the typical count-on-them Brits doubted him and put a bullet through his brain; as an economy measure. Because bullets cost money. And government Brits weren't trusting. Government Brits weren't patient. Cunning is all. And if he wasn't cunning, he was dead; Scanlon knew.
That was his last pillow. Cunning or dead.