"Fuck you, Morgan Freeman!"

They were the last words I heard as the tattooed man was engulfed by a blossoming explosion. I had time to see his skin blacken, time to hear his anger choke as the fire stole his oxygen, time to smell his flame-grilled flesh. Then he was gone, succeeded by a faint cloud of ash and a foul aroma. Swarms of leaves, shuddered from Hyde Park's trees by the shock wave, rained to the ground like autumnal snow.

The stand-off had lasted hours, the silent man cradling a hand grenade at the centre of a police cordon and a steadily swelling crowd. Now there was a blackened patch of grass and the sound of a thousand excited voices on mobile phones.

I knew then there was more to his story than met the eye. On my dog-eared jotter pad I wrote; 'Morgan Freeman, trapped, tattoos'. Not the most meaningful collection of notes, but they were leading me somewhere. My gut felt like a rock festival had set up home in it, and every bugger in attendance was moshing with vigour. This was a lead!

"What you doing here, Hubris?" asked a gruff voice behind me. I didn't need to turn to know Sergeant Derek Graves had sneaked up on me. I smiled as my old sparring partner added, "There's no story here, just some scrote doing us a favour by detonating himself."

"Last time I checked," I said, scribbling 'Police know something?' on my pad, "I was the reporter here. That means ..." I rotated on the spot to face him, a habit I knew was very annoying. "I decide what is and isn't a story."

Graves adjusted his official-issue Metropolitan Police cap and glared. "There's no evidence this is anything more than idiocy."

"Oh come on, Sergeant. Morgan Freeman? Nobody hates Morgan Freeman, not enough to curse him with their last breath. He's like the world's Grandad! There's something going on here, I can smell it."

"What you smell is in your pants," he replied with a grin.

I chuckled. "You've been saving that, haven't you? Now make a statement or let me get on."

Graves waved a hand. "Yeah, clear off, but you're wasting your time."

I headed for my car, dialling on my phone as I went.


*****


Two useless phone calls later (Morgan Freeman's agent refused to put through a 'low rent' reporter, and the police told me to wait for the press release), I sat in a cheap cafe munching on a bacon sandwich. Nobody was talking and my editor would kill me if I had no solid story within a day or two. Perhaps I should ignore my gut for now, and just find another politician with a dirty sex life or footballer who got in a fight.

It was when I settled my bill that I found the note in my pocket:

'He was a prisoner, serving a life sentence in Dartmoor.'

I was hit with a mixture of excitement that my instincts were right and frustration that a source had been standing close enough to slip a note. Whatever I felt, though, this was a solid lead. A prisoner free to kill himself with a hand grenade in a public place was well worth investigating.


*****


"Good morning, you're through to the National Offender Management Service, finance division. This is Steve Batt speaking, how may I help you?"

I laughed before I could stop myself. "You have to say that every time you answer the phone?"

There was a burst of static on the line. "Nick Hubris! I never thought you'd dare call me at work again, not unless you're ringing to arrange that beer you owe me. Look, I don't care if the Pope's on fire and dancing across the roof at Wormwood Scrubs. I am not a source, and I'm not going to tell you anything. Call the Press Office."

"Ah come on, mate. I tried that, but it's like talking to a slate wall with hearing difficulties. Throw me a rope here, I'm drowning! Come on, what's weird at the moment? What's happening in the world of prison management?"

He sighed audibly. "It's all the usual boring shit, Nick, no stories. There's not enough places for all the prisoners, we're being sued constantly, and we're meant to do more next year with fewer staff and less money. The only weird thing is this new income account that's just called 'dispersals', but I figure any income is good income right now."

My instincts jangled keys in my mind. "How much is coming in?"

It was Steve's turn to laugh. "Yeah, like I'm going to tell you that! I'd like to keep my job, thanks. It's a lot, that's all I'm saying."

"No comment on how a convict who's meant to be in Dartmoor blows himself up in Hyde park?"

There was a brief silence. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Thought so. Catch you later, Steve. We'll have that beer."


*****


I dropped into second gear and powered my ancient Volkswagen Beetle up the road that climbed the moors. Dawn breasted the summit ahead of me and gave me eyeball ache, but I couldn't risk looking away from the distressingly narrow strip of tarmac. HMP Dartmoor; the circular prison, the castle in the mist. Slap bang in the middle of a windy Devon moor, it was the prison nobody wanted to be sent to, inmate or guard.

I'd secured a visit on the basis I was writing a piece about the effects on prison regime of recent cuts in the Ministry of Justice budget. With luck, I could wheedle some information out of the governor about the Morgan Freeman-hating, grenade cuddling escapee from the park. As the prison's Victorian facade came into view, a deep shiver reverberated through my body. The dank, forbidding stone stared implacably back at me, utterly unfazed by my existence. This place was old, and cold, and completely without mercy. I forced a smile to my lips - that could be the opening line of my article.

I handed in my laptop and mobile phone at reception, suffered the pat-down, and hung my visitor's pass below my press ID around my neck. I promised faithfully that I wasn't there for purposes of sabotage, espionage, or terrorism, and that I wouldn't antagonise any of the inmates. Finally, a burly Prison Officer took me through the gatehouse into the controlled zones of the prison, and we headed for the governor's office.

"Anyone gone missing from here recently, mate?" I asked in a jovial tone as we strolled.

The guard gave me a brief searching look, then apparently decided to smile. "Nobody gets out of Dartmoor, friend. Even if you scaled the fence and tackled the S-wire on the top, you've still got to fool the microwave sensors in the dead zone, avoid the cameras, climb the six meter outer wall with it's anti-climb device, and jump down the other side. The few that have ever managed that got picked up soon after on the moor. The cloud comes down and you can't see head from toe. You can run for miles and never find shelter. And it's cold on the moor, mate. Colder than you city boys can imagine." He laughed; a short, barking sound. "No, people don't go missing from here."

We passed through a wing on our way and I made a point of meeting the dull, curious gazes of the prisoners. As we reached the halfway point along a gallery that housed sixty offenders, I was struck with a total sense of vulnerability. If a group of them decided to jump us, we'd be dead before help got close.

"Delicate balance of authority you have here," I muttered.

The guard nodded. "Keep them engaged, keep them separated, and keep them knackered. If we don't, we're fucked." He smiled suddenly. "Pardon my French."

Presently I was shown to a door and I strode confidently into the governor's office, closing it behind me.

"You must be Nick Hubris," she said in a strict, nasal voice. "You don't look much like a journalist."

I looked down at my impeccable suit and shiny black shoes, aware that I didn't fit the scruffy, jotter-pad wielding stereotype. "What do I look like?"

"A slimy turd with a fuck-me wardrobe and a penchant for firm-grip hair gel." She looked over the rims of her fashionable half-moon glasses at me. "If you don't mind my saying."

I chuckled and held out my arms in surrender. "Well, I'm a WYSIWYG kind of guy."

Finally, I got the ghost of a smile from her lean face. She must have been in her late forties, and many battles were etched into the shadows of her expression. Slim, striking and confident, she looked ready for conflict and I knew confrontation would get me nowhere. I'd have to play my cards right with this one.

"What are you really here for, Hubris?" she asked, shaking my hand and perching behind her desk while I took a seat opposite. "The popular press isn't interested in our budget cuts, and the public thinks we're all overpaid bureaucrats with nothing to do, so what could you possibly want to write about?"

We matched stares for several moments as I deflated inside. There was only one way I had any chance of getting anywhere here. I'd have to tell the truth and hope that she was as baffled by events as I was.

"A man killed himself in Hyde park yesterday. He blew himself up with a hand grenade, roaring 'Fuck you, Morgan Freeman' to the winds. I have information that he was a prisoner, specifically one of yours, serving a life sentence. Do you know anything about that? Has your population changed recently?"

Her face was impassive, giving me no clue as to whether she knew what I was talking about. "Your information is incorrect," she said eventually. "Our population fluctuates with natural churn, but all variations in headcount are accounted for."

"Are you sure? My source seemed certain."

Her lips pursed ever so slightly. "Do you have this imaginary prisoner's name?"

Shit! "No, I'm afraid not."

She leaned back in her chair, dropping her hands into her lap. "Well, then, I'm unclear what you expect me to do."

I nodded. "Also, I can't shake the feeling that this is tied up with a strange new income account referred to as 'dispersals'. It's channelling money into the MoJ via the NOMS Finance Directorate."

She leaned forward sharply and her gaze bored into my skull. The voice took on a tone even more severe than previously. "Listen to me, Hubris. You didn't make that last statement, understand? You have no idea what's going on here, and believe me when I say you don't want to. I suggest you leave now and find a story about a guilty celebrity or a badly behaved footballer. Don't make me repeat myself."

Finally, I was getting somewhere! "Come on, governor, can't you give me anything, not even a Dan Brown?" A Dan Brown, in the journalistic community, was a clue so obscure as to be virtually pointless.

"Get out of here, Hubris," she responded. "Dan Brown can get you killed."


*****


That night, sleep did not seem likely. Never one to lay in bed staring at the ceiling (even as a child, I felt sorry for the sheep that had to hop across a fence purely so I could bore myself into a stupor counting them), I retired to the armchair in my rented room. Country inns are magically quiet of a night, so I sat in a pitch-dark corner with the gentle breeze caressing my skin, and I got down to the hard business of thinking.

The governor's reaction made it clear I was onto something, and it was big enough to have a confident, hardy career woman frightened to talk. For all her bluster, I'd seen the panic behind her glare. Conviction, however, wasn't my main problem. The biggest issue I faced was where to go next - my leads were used up, my time was running out, and I was getting the distinct impression that nobody in their right mind would talk to me. Even if I got a solid article together, would this be too big? Would my editor just flat refuse to print it, then stripe my arse for not giving him usable copy?

I smiled inwardly, knowing I'd not convince myself to stop. Nick Hubris never ran from a case! Now, if only I could get a fresh lead ...

It was at that moment, as I sat in the dark in my birthday suit, that a man the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger, covered head to toe in black, burst into my room and jumped on my empty bed.

"Gotcha!" he roared, then paused. "Eh, Bigman, this bed's empty!"

A diminutive figure - knee high to a mosquito, my Dad would have said, and as skinny as a rake wrapped in cling film - followed the giant into the room. "You fucking retard, Tiny Tim, how many times have I told you to check the bed before you bundle it?"

I didn't hang around to find out what they wanted. Stark bollock naked, I made a lunge for the open, ground floor window. I got one hand outside before my feet were kicked out from under me. As I rolled, a small boot crunched into my exposed genitals and I curled up into a ball, my world become a haze of pain and misery.

"Damn, Bigman," said a deep voice, "you didn't have to go for his meat and veg."

"Shut up, Tiny Tim. I ain't got your bulk, so I got to improvise. Get the bag on his head."

My world turned completely black and my nose filled with a sharp, choking smell.

"Muhuh?" I said as I was manhandled to my feet and marched from the room, my perceptions hazing.

Tiny Tim chuckled. "You're in trouble, mate. Mr Freeman wants to talk to you."

The last thing I heard was a car boot closing, and then I was in a closed space as my thoughts mumbled into nothingness.