The Lifers' Club
Page 14
Alan was about to reply when he was cut short by the flashing red light. He counted the prisoners into the room. There were nine of them. So he hadn’t even started and three students had already dropped out. He tried not to take it personally, but his pride was wounded. He knew it was ridiculous, after all three less students meant more individual interview time. More time with Ali.
He spotted Ali immediately. He had anticipated that the younger man might try to avoid his gaze, but he didn’t. Their eyes met and Ali’s stare was intense and unsmiling. It was neither defiant nor threatening. If anything it was worse: it told him absolutely nothing. Deadpan.
But that stare had done the trick.
Alan straightened and almost shuddered; he’d been hit by a massive shot of adrenalin.
As the students settled down, the Education Officer handed Alan a full list of their names, plus a few notes they’d prepared themselves, about their outside interests. Nothing was said about the inmates’ crimes, or sentences.
The Education Department had agreed that each session would begin with an hour’s talk on a particular subject, followed by an hour and a half ‘contact time’, when the students would do practical work with artefacts which Alan would provide. During this time too, Alan would have one-to-one interviews with each man, when they’d discuss the previous month’s essay, and any other problems to do with the course.
As this was the initial A-level session, there were no essays, so Alan had intended to use the interviews to learn why each student had decided to enrol. Or at least that’s what he’d told the powers that be.
The Education Department stipulated that a table and two chairs should be set to one side of the classroom. They’d be positioned close by a panic button, so there’d be no need for closer supervision, as there would be at least one officer in the room. That was the theory. The practice was different.
Alan gave his set piece lecture: starting with a rapid historical introduction to archaeology, which lasted for about half his allotted time. Then he drilled down to detail. He wanted his class to realise what the modern subject could achieve and he used the notes Harriet had given him on DNA, and the analysis of burial rites to estimate the extent and rate of possible Saxon incursions. It was heard in respectful silence and he couldn’t judge how well, or how badly, it had gone down. Then, precisely one hour after he had begun speaking, he finished.
At that point an additional officer entered the room and helped the two others arrange the furniture. It wasn’t at all what Alan had imagined: instead of a cosy table and two chairs they dragged the lecturer’s desk-cum-table to one side and placed chairs at either end, a generous two, maybe two and a half metres apart. An officer was standing at the centre of the long table that separated the two chairs. He looked like an ex-military man. He stood stock still, legs slightly apart, hands behind his back, staring into the middle distance. All he lacked was a sentry box.
When the arrangements had been completed, an officer announced to the Education Officer in a very loud voice:
‘Interview arrangements now in place, SIR!’
Visibly deafened by this, the Education Officer flinched and, turning to Alan, muttered under his breath:
‘Christ, this is going to be hard work. It’s all part of the security row. You must see the Governor before you go home. Please. We can’t do a damn thing like this.’
In a much louder voice he announced to the class:
‘As this is to be a full A-level course, our specialist teacher Mr Alan Cadbury has asked to have some ten minutes for individual interviews with each student.’
He was cut off by one of the officers who whispered something in his ear. The room went silent. Then he resumed.
‘I have been reminded that due to current operational difficulties, all unaccompanied one-to-one contacts will have to cease. So supervision will be in place and the interviews will be reduced to just two minutes.’
When he had finished, the officer nodded his approval.
Alan’s adrenalin was now surging, red hot and furious. How the hell was he going to get anything out of Ali in this situation? He took a deep breath. Stay cool, he told himself. Take your time and choose your words wisely.
* * *
At the final planning session Alan and the Education Officer had decided to break with tradition and not order the individual sessions alphabetically – an attempt, pathetic in the current circumstances, to make the process ‘less mechanistic’. So there were two other inmates before Ali. The first was a university student who was completely at sea in prison. He had long given up trying to relate to others and his replies were terse, his eyes to the ground. Alan made a note of his name for future sessions. The next man was confident, but very poorly educated; Alan couldn’t decide if he’d been let down by the education system; again he made a note of his name, with the simple query: ‘Thick?’
Ali Kabul was next. And it didn’t help that Alan was now very frustrated. Ali detected Alan’s mood, instantly. Slowly he smiled. Alan got the impression that Ali was enjoying seeing him so fed up.
Sitting at opposite ends of the table, Alan could clearly read Ali’s body language: he was very confident. Alan deliberately adjusted his posture. He sat up, leant forward and placed both his hands on the table: a gesture of control, he hoped.
He looked down at the sheet before him.
‘Tell me, Mr Kabul, why did you join this course?’
‘You know why.’
The officer standing between them cleared his throat, then continued to stare straight ahead. His presence had the effect of a reinforced concrete wall between them.
Ali paused briefly before Alan replied.
‘I’d like to hear it from you, directly.’
‘I like old things.’
‘Is there any specific aspect of archaeology that you’d like to focus on?’
‘Oh, you know, dead bodies.’
Alan felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. Ali was actually taunting him. The officer was right there, right next to them, and he just didn’t care.
He was goading Alan on, daring him to mention Sofia.
OK, thought Alan, if he really wants to play it like that…
Alan leant forward, and spoke to Ali in a softer, more informal tone.
Almost as if he was confiding in him.
‘I’m sorry the lecture was a bit disappointing.’
Ali shrugged.
‘It was all right.’
‘I had limited resources. My house burnt down a few days ago. I lost half my books.’
‘You’re fucking joking?’
‘Language, Mr Kabul,’ warned the officer.
Alan willed him not to intervene.
Ali was leaning forward in his chair now. He looked shocked. He seemed genuinely concerned.
‘What happened?’
‘The police suspect arson.’
Not strictly true, thought Alan. Or at least not yet. But he wanted to ramp up the pressure.
Ali was shaking his head, part angry, part incredulous.
‘You got out OK?’
‘Luckily, I wasn’t there when it happened.’
‘Right, so whoever did it just wanted to scare you, not kill you. That’s something, I guess.’
The prison officer was staring straight ahead still, but there was an intensity to his gaze that suggested to Alan that he was listening with every fibre in his body. Alan was aware that they were skating on very thin ice indeed.
‘Anyway, back to the course. Is there any period that you are particularly interested in?’
But Ali wasn’t listening.
‘I can’t believe you lost your books, man. That really sucks.’
He looked genuinely upset. In that moment, for the first time since they’d re-met, Alan saw the Ali that he used to know was now
gazing straight at him.
The officer coughed and looked at his watch.
‘Your time’s up, Kabul.’ He glanced down at the list on his clipboard, ‘Tell Evans he’s next. Jump to it, lad!’
* * *
At the end of the individual sessions, as the students were filing out of the room, the Education Officer came up and told Alan that the governor was keen to see him, if he could spare the time. This was what Alan wanted, even though he was now desperate to be out of the place and back at Harriet’s.
He was feeling as low as he could remember. He’d come hoping for clarity of some sort, but now he felt more confused and muddled than ever. He stared vacantly at the wall and waited, while one of the officers was detailed to escort him to Grant’s office. Then they set off.
After five minutes of walking along identical corridors, all brightly lit by overhead strip lights, they passed through a double-locked door into the Administration Block. Alan was aware of a sudden relaxation in the atmosphere. His escorting officer could read it in his face:
‘It gets you every time, doesn’t it?’
‘What, d’you feel the change too?’ Alan replied, surprised at this.
‘Yes, I do. Every time. But it’s worse for the secretaries and people on this side. Some of them refuse point-blank to come over to our side. They won’t budge from out of here.’
And with that he closed and locked the heavy door behind him.
The wheels of Blackfen Prison, like so many British civil institutions, were lubricated not so much by harsh discipline, as by endless cups of tea, the latest of which was placed before Alan and the Governor by his Personal Assistant, who then returned to her desk in the anteroom.
‘So I see here,’ the Governor glanced down at the sheets of paper before him, ‘that you’ve got nine students. That’s good. Very good. You must have made your introduction last month highly enticing. I certainly enjoyed it.’
Alan looked suitably modest.
‘I did my best. But having got nine, can I expect to keep them all?’
‘As a rule, yes, you can – unless of course they don’t come up to scratch and you decide to drop one, or more, of them. That happens quite often. And if somebody isn’t coping, it’s better to shed them. You can do it quite gently, but if they’re obviously struggling, it just adds to the other stresses of prison life. You’d be doing them no favours if you kept them on.’
There was a quiet knock on the door, and Grant’s PA came in to remove their tea things. The Governor was thumbing through his files.
‘Right,’ Grant began, ‘those lists. Who do we have here?’ He ran his finger down the page. ‘None of them have been assessed as dangerous, but of course they wouldn’t be here in the first place, if they were little angels. Have a look for yourself.’
He handed Alan three sheets of print-out. Alan went through the motions of reading them through.
‘I’m slightly interested in this chap, Ali Kabul.’
He held up the notes and pointed to Ali’s name. The governor looked down at the files.
‘Ah yes. He arrived last year…’
Alan decided it was time to come clean. Or at least partially.
‘I could swear,’ he broke in, ‘I’ve seen him before.’
‘Oh really?’ The Governor was obviously interested. Alan guessed it wasn’t often that teaching staff were acquainted with inmates. Again he referred to his notes.
‘It says here, he was convicted at Leicester Crown Court for murder.’
‘I was on a dig at a place called Flax Hole, in Leicester, back in February 2002 at the time of the murder and this young man…’
‘Are you sure it was him? Young…’
Alan suspected he was going to say ‘young Asians’, but thought better of it. ‘Youngsters can look very similar, especially if they’re wearing those hoodie things.’
Alan sympathised with Grant’s brief moment of discomfort, again those cultural prejudices, lurking just beneath the surface. No-one was immune, not even the most well-meaning prison Governor.
‘He never wore a hoodie, but I got to talk to him on several occasions. He was a pleasant young man. Very intelligent and yes, I’m certain the man I saw this afternoon was him.’
‘Quite certain?’
‘Absolutely. He visited the site several times. He also showed a real interest and ability. I’d have employed him, if I could, but he was already running a small delivery business.’
Alan paused briefly then continued, ‘I also met the victim, his sister Sofia, too.’
Norman Grant got up from behind his desk and went over to a filing cabinet from which he withdrew yet another folder. He rapidly scanned it.
‘Ah yes,’ he said as he resumed his seat, ‘I remember this one well. Interesting case, Mr Ali Kabul. A bright lad. He joined us early last February and was sent here direct from Leicester Crown Court. It was one of the first of those unpleasant “honour” killing cases, but Kabul wasn’t caught and convicted until almost seven years after the killing.’
‘Why on earth did it take so long to arrest him?’
Alan knew the answer of course, but he was keen to see if Grant’s version of events tallied with Lane’s. Or if there was more to it; if Lane had been selective with his disclosure of information.
‘The usual thing. The entire family clammed up. Everyone had ridiculously over-watertight alibis. It was the murdered girl’s fiancé…’
He consulted the notes again and continued, ‘That shopped them. A young Sikh lawyer named Indajit Singh. He was convinced that his bride-to-be, Sofia, had been murdered.’
‘Presumably because he was a Sikh and their union would bring shame on the family.’
‘Precisely.’
‘They never found the body, did they?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not party to that level of detail.’
Alan doubted that very much. From Grant’s defensive body language he could tell that this was a sensitive area. And no wonder – a murder conviction based solely on a confession, without any forensic evidence, had to be a contentious issue.
Time to try a different line of questioning.
‘So how long did young Ali get?’ Alan asked.
Again, he knew the answer, but was keen to hear Grant’s interpretation of events.
‘Not as long as I’d have thought, to be frank. If he’s a good boy, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Parole Board don’t let him out in nine years, maybe even less.’
‘And is he a “good boy”?’
‘So far.’
The Governor paused. Then continued, ‘How can I put it? He’s an operator to his fingertips. And we have some grounds to believe he’s involved with illicit mobile phones. He certainly uses them. But then, sadly, so do most inmates.’
‘On what grounds? Have you been monitoring their calls?’
Grant smiled.
‘If we could do that we’d be able to cut the crime rate in the outside world by a record percentage. No. We just know that the smuggled phones originated from Leicester, which puts Kabul in the frame.’
‘You’ve traced their SIM cards?’
‘Oh no, nothing as simple as that. They never have personalised SIMs. To be honest I don’t know all the details, but it’s something the police have told us. And it’s been confirmed by independent security consultants.’
‘I must admit I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Ali was involved in the phone scam. Doing business seems to be in his blood.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘I offered Ali help to get a place at university but he turned it down in favour of setting up his own van delivery service.’
‘That confirms my impression of the man,’ Grant replied, pencilling a note in his files, ‘he’s someone who can organise people and things.’
‘According to these notes,’ the Governor replied, ‘when he did confess he expressed great remorse for what he’d done. Apparently that affected the jury. According to friends and family he regularly attended the Mosque and would pray for forgiveness. They said he was even planning a pilgrimage to Mecca…’
‘How much of that do we believe – any of it?’
‘You tell me,’ the Governor replied. ‘I’ve no idea. But it would seem the jury bought it – or at least some of it. And then of course there was the question of his age – and that can’t be disputed, as he still possesses his Turkish birth certificate.’
‘So how old was he when he committed the crime?’
Grant referred to his notes.
‘One month the wrong side of eighteen. If he’d been a month younger, things wouldn’t have gone so hard for him.’
The Governor took the file over to his desk, where he sat down. Then the older man voiced what they were both thinking.
‘Honour killing. It’s so hard to believe in this day and age, isn’t it?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘But what are the chances,’ Grant said, focusing on Alan, ‘of you being there at that precise place and time? And then turning up here so soon after his arrival?’
This didn’t sound like an accusation, but Alan knew he couldn’t be too careful. He tried to sound casual in his reply.
‘To be honest, I’d have been surprised if I hadn’t been. Nearly all sites for redevelopment near the city centre are crawling with archaeology. And at the time we were being run off our feet.’
‘And the sites: I guess most are Roman, aren’t they? Like ours here?’
Alan welcomed the opportunity of deflecting attention away from himself and back onto Grant’s interest in archaeology. Ratae Corieltaurum, Roman Leicester, was a major centre.
‘Yes,’ Alan replied, ‘but the Roman City had large extra-mural suburbs too. And there’s also plenty of Saxon and medieval stuff around, not to mention post-medieval and industrial sites. I began as a Site Supervisor with the City Archaeological Unit. I had a two year contract. I supervised dozens of projects, large and small. Then I set up with another man and we did Flax Hole together.’