Cross Country Murder Song by Philip Wilding

once visiting time was over. Tired-looking mothers and their sad-eyed children trailed in and out of those doors, loitered on the seats, kicked their feet and waited for a bus door to hiss into life, its gears to grind into place and take them away again. He took a seat in the middle of a bench that looked as though it had been liberated from a church, even down to the bracket at the back where he could imagine finding a small, leather-bound bible. It was quiet; there was no one there from the prison as far he could see. A young couple sat a few spaces down from him arguing in low, intense voices about the next move they should make. He wished he could help; he had no money to give them (the government had given him a meagre handout as they pushed him out of the prison doors) and he knew that was what they needed more than anything else. That and a few more options. He’d once kept moving like they were moving, trying to resist life, hoping that his rootless self could somehow evade consequence, but it almost always came down to places like this – he surveyed the muddied windows that rattled in their frames each time a truck passed by, the empty vending machine, the old magazines, the toilet where the light didn’t work and the lock was broken, the locks were always broken. But some winter nights when he’d been on the road, refusing to yield, then places like this had passed for sanctuary; well lit, sheltered and dry – a refuge from the endless night overhead.
    I don’t want to go back there, said the girl, gathering her jacket around her shoulders, He glanced at them and they both shot him a look back. He quickly averted his gaze and felt the rattle of a truck pulling slowly past. The building vibrating up through his boots and making his ears tingle.
    Where else is there? said the young man, we’ve run out of places to go. The door opened and a woman in a peaked cap walked in, took a black marker pen from a cup next to a large board and started writing down the bus times for the rest of that day. The pen squeaked with each stroke. He saw that there were four buses coming through that afternoon. He looked at the board and determined to take the third one wherever it was going. The young man got up and stood close to the board as if willing the list of destinations to change. He sat next to the girl and said something to her and she shook her head softly and then rested it on his shoulder, pulling her legs up underneath her as she did so. A bus came into view, describing a wide arc and momentarily blotting out the afternoon light with its glass and chrome bulk. It shuddered to a stop and passengers, some he recognised from the visiting hall at the prison, trooped past, their shoulders low, their posture inclined towards the slight hill that led up along the curved road that would eventually take them to the jail and out of sight. One man nodded at him as if in recognition and he knew that he must have passed him as he sat waiting for his father or brother to come and see him. It always took longer than any one of them would have liked to filter through the combination of gates and bag searches before they arrived in the main visitors’ hall itself. His brother, without fail, would always ask him what in the hell he was doing in there. It was a signal that he’d already run out of things to say. His father was more reflective and would bring him books and critique them slowly before handing them over. He’d sit there opposite his son with his hand laid flat across the book cover and explain the nuances of the plot, the strengths and flaws of the characters, sometimes even revealing the story’s denouement before pausing theatrically and then apologising in a soft voice. Only then would he slide the book across to him. He looked forward to both their visits, though. His brother would reveal sports results as if they were magical tricks he’d pulled from the air. He half expected