Ninth Circle.
"Do you know? You are to be released from your Purgatory."
That was the first thing Shine had said to him in the cells, after what seemed like hours of silence. It must have been clear what had happened to bring them both there. For all his faults, Shine wasn't stupid; he must have known what Flight would do from the moment he'd pulled the gun on Shine. No doubt he'd been expecting Reid to come for him, but still he said nothing to Flight. Probably knew that would be worse, to make him wonder what Shine was planning. He knew Flight - the real Flight - better than anyone, and now he had chosen to speak, he was demonstrating that. He'd always mocked Flight for clinging to his childhood Catholicism, that need for confession and absolution, but he'd used it too, the knowledge of the guilt that followed Flight around like a shadow, to manipulate him at every turn.
And now Shine was gone, having played his hand and won, leaving Reid no choice but to release him, having dragged all of Flight's guilty secrets out into the light. They hadn't known what to do with Flight, so they'd locked him back up and left him there.
Purgatory.
As comparisons went, that was suitably apt. Though Flight knew his sins meant he was destined much lower than that. He'd not had much schooling as a child, but since his... reinvention, as Shine put it, he'd read as widely as he could, and of course Dante had come his way. Of all the circles of Hell, the ninth, the last, the worst, was reserved for those who betrayed others.
Judas.
That was one of the things the other policemen hissed at him when they passed, learning what he'd done and why he was there. Flight made no reply; it was true, after all.
Through his weakness, that was what he had done, betrayed good men who had trusted him, for a man who epitomised evil. Was that worse than his actual crimes? Both before Shine had recruited him and after; all of them haunted him. Every time he saw a blind beggar on the street, he wondered if this was one of the people he had, in his ignorance, poisoned.
He knew that guilt and regret were useless things, but still he clung to them as he did the religion of his parents, his homeland. Flight barely remembered his mother; vague memories of them kneeling in front of the wooden crucifix mounted on the wall of their home, her teaching him to make the sign of the cross, how to say his Hail Marys. She'd called him "my Bertie", and smiled, that much he did remember. Any other memories were confused, unsure if they were real or dreams, the hopes of what she would have been like had she lived. Holding her hand on her deathbed as she faded - had that been real? Watching her suffer... It felt real, though in his mind, she personified his guilt and shame.
"Be a good boy, Bertie. You've a good heart: listen to it."
But he hadn't, and when he thought of his mother, he thought of the person he should have been, what she'd wanted him to be. Without her, he'd been weak and done bad things, evil things. A good heart didn't count for much if you didn't listen to it.
As for his father...
As a man, Flight could see the situation differently. Losing his wife, being stuck with the care of a young child, alone, on top of all his other troubles, it was no surprise the man had turned more and more to drink. But as a frightened and bereaved five-year-old, all he'd been able to see was a man become a monster, and that was the lesson that had stuck. The world wasn't fair, bad things happened, why bother to even try to be good? Of course he wasn't the only boy whose father beat him, there wasn't a boy on the street who didn't get a clip from his Da, but did the other fathers tell their sons they wished they were dead, instead of their mothers? That they wished they'd never been born? Maybe they did. It wasn't something anyone would ever talk about, but it left young Albert so afraid, all the time. And Da hadn't gotten any better, people were noticing, though they never intervened. That was a man's own private business, they said, something he heard wherever he went. It wasn't until he became a policeman that he started to question that; why did people never pry? When a man drank himself senseless every night, while his son went about black-eyed, in clothes too small and boots worn out? Or maybe they did. Maybe his father had turned them away with the same fury he directed at his son, in the time between drunkenness and unconsciousness, when fists spoke as often as words.
And then...
Flight closed his eyes, leaning back against the cell wall.
He hadn't thought about the day his father died in years, had tried his hardest not to, never confessed it, even when he spilled his heart out to a priest about everything else.
That memory was hazy too. Was it a year after his mother's death? The days had blurred, with little to differentiate them, and the night had started like any other. His Da, coming home from the pub, stumbling up the stairs to their room, (they shared a house with two other families, all of whom ignored Albert and his father as best they could, perhaps wary of drawing his father's anger their way), cursing with every step. Albert huddled in his cold bed, trying to make himself invisible, hoping against hope that this time, this time, it would be all right. But of course it wasn't, and the moment the latch opened, his father was calling out for him, cursing him and somehow, Albert knew this couldn't go on. It wouldn't get any better, never. He couldn't stay here.
So he leapt from his bed, and bolted out of the room, ducking under his father's arm and out into the hall, sprinting down the stairs. Taken by surprise, his father hadn't realised what was happening until Albert was almost at the front door.
"Boy!" His father bellowed. "Get back here!"
Albert tried to open the front door latch, but it was high up, and he was small for his age. As he strained to reach up, his father came thundering down the stairs after him, shouting loud enough to wake the whole street. Maybe he caught his foot, or maybe he was just too drunk to manage the stairs at any speed, Albert never knew. But he fell.
There weren't many steps, but his father was a heavy man, and the drink always made him clumsy. He went down headfirst and by the time he reached the floor, he was quiet.
For what seemed an age, the whole house, street, town was quiet. Then people started to come out to see what had happened.
The neighbours brought lamps out, so they could see Albert's father lying dead on the ground, his neck broken in the fall. Someone was sent to fetch help. Albert didn't remember much of what happened next. No-one blamed him, not outright, but they didn't help him either, and eventually the magistrate sent him off to the workhouse, with all the other unclaimed orphan children.