Two bleary little eyes were looking at him. A tattoo poked out of a dirty shirt collar near the left ear. The man’s breath smelled of alcohol and rotting teeth. ‘What?’ ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ Russell suddenly realized where he was. He sat up, feeling his joints creaking. Spending a night on a bunk in a cell wasn’t the most comfortable position for the body. When he had been arrested the previous night, this skinny, down-at-heel guy hadn’t been there. They must have brought him to the jail while he was sleeping. He was so tired he hadn’t heard a thing. Clearly more desperate than ever for a smoke, the man said in a hoarse voice, ‘So, do you have that cigarette or not?’ Russell stood up. The man instinctively took a step back. ‘You can’t smoke here.’ ‘I’m already in jail, boy. What can they do, arrest me?’ His cell companion underlined his joke with a catarrh-filled laugh. Russell didn’t have any cigarettes, and he wasn’t in any mood to continue this conversation.
