Where No Shadows Fall

by Peter Ritchie

  Tommy McMartin nodded in agreement, swearing to himself that he wouldn’t let the bastards see his fear. The revelation that Mickey was on the game had thrown him, but not for long. He was a street animal, and it took no time to accept that he’d been fucked – the only question was who by? He knew a stitch-up when he saw one. He gritted his teeth, thinking how Mickey had played him like a kid and he’d fallen for it all. Christ, the guy could have won an Oscar for his performance if he hadn’t been dead. He’d walked into the trap like an amateur and forgotten every lesson he’d ever learned.

  4

  Goldstein was right on the money – Slab McMartin nearly choked at the news his nephew was gay, and he raged more than was good for a man with a seriously dodgy ticker. For him it was betrayal by his favourite, and he knew that his enemies would take the piss and a great deal of delight in the story. The fact that Tommy was bisexual made no difference; it was the same as gay: a poof, a form of perversion. And he’d wasted years treating him like a son. ‘It’s a total embarrassment, Danny; the boy’s sick. Needs treatment, castration, whatever the fuck.’

  Goldstein kept quiet, never mentioning the fact that his own daughter was gay and living happily with her partner. He loved and was proud of her – why wouldn’t he be? – and he’d said as much a hundred times over the years to his friends and family. In a way he pitied the man raging at Tommy’s sexual orientation, unable to put it in context with his own worthless existence. Slab couldn’t understand that the only value in his own life was built on the misery of others. Despite his tolerance of the subject, Goldstein wasn’t going to argue with the man, sick or not. Slab washed his hands of his nephew. He warned Goldstein not to spend too much time or his money fighting what for him was a deservedly lost cause.

  When the lawyer got home to his wife that night he was dejected and she’d never seen him so low. Every case tended to get his juices going, but this one troubled him. Logic said that it was straightforward: a young man who’d proven he was capable of extreme violence had killed his lover. It had all been done before, and what was new under the sun? It wasn’t enough though; despite having nothing to go on he knew there was something wrong with the whole story. It was like a vague pain in his backside that he couldn’t quite explain.

  His wife poured him a shot of his favourite brandy and told him he was getting old. He sipped the drink quietly and decided she must be right.

  5

  When it came to the court case it was almost no contest. Tommy McMartin pled not guilty and went to trial without a snowball’s chance in hell. Goldstein did his best, got a decent QC, but the man seemed to become exasperated when he couldn’t convince the accused to plead guilty. Despite the trial being a waste of everyone’s time the papers loved every gory minute. There was a feeding frenzy on the sexual angle that a prince in the top crime family was gay and involved with an escort, or ‘rent boy’ as the red tops preferred to describe the deceased.

  When they squeezed Tommy into the transporter for the trip from court to the prison it was as if a massive download of negative energy surged through his body and he was racked with the shakes. While he’d been on remand in Barlinnie, or Bar-L as it was better known to its clients, it was almost as if he’d gone onto autopilot and the days waiting had turned into a blurred dream. Goldstein had done his best not to build any false hope, because none existed. It was bad enough already, though the screws had been fair, and no one had laid a finger on him. There was, of course, a good reason for that. The other remand prisoners had their own hopes for a not guilty or not proven come the day of their appearance, so he was more or less left alone apart from the odd warning of what was waiting for him. No one wanted to fuck up their chance of walking away from court because they’d done the business with Tommy McMartin. There would be plenty time for that if and when they were convicted, and an attack wouldn’t make that much difference to them then.

  Two of the Gilroy brothers were on the remand wing at the same time as Tommy, waiting for their own trial for an armed robbery. They had their own reasons to hate the McMartins: one of the men who’d planned to kill Slab at his home and ended up with his nut flattened was their uncle. The brothers were a couple of years apart in age, but there was no mistaking their relationship – they could almost have been twins. That was unfortunate because they were horrible bastards – one would have been more than enough, but two was an affront to humanity. And in addition to their almost matching features, even from a hundred yards away only a blind man could have missed the fact that they were both as thick as shit. They were a couple of gingers with hairlines far too close to their eyebrows, which were one continuous straight line, and pulped noses that had been squashed by too many second prizes. Although they were both short-arses, they were pit bulls with tempers to match; they only had two moods – occasionally extremely happy or, most of the time, completely pissed off. There was no such thing as a centre ground. Every time they saw Tommy McMartin they grinned as if they were starving and looking at a nicely cooked dinner. As confirmed thickos they pissed themselves endlessly when they saw him, making cut-throat signs, and sometimes the two of them would do a kind of simulated man-humps-man impression as either mockery of what Tommy was or what was coming to him.

  Tommy had managed to get a line of some prescription tabs that helped take the edge off the mess he was in, and like with alcohol he didn’t have a great tolerance for dope of any kind. At least the tabs numbed him enough to keep him away from the reality of his position. Spending his days shit-faced meant he could ignore the fact that, barring a miracle, he was destined for years behind the doors with people like the Gilroys waiting for any chance to break off a piece of a McMartin. Goldstein kept warning him to try and hold it together, and he’d promised he’d clean up once the trial was over, but they both knew that would only happen with a not-guilty verdict. Tommy clung to the dope-assisted fantasy that something or someone would come to his rescue.

  When the trial was over and he stared at the man on the bench handing down a lifer, he smiled. The judge took this as confirmation that the accused was a thug getting justice, when in fact for Tommy it was a nervous reaction that was nothing to do with defiance in the face of the law. What terrified him most was the bewilderment, the fact that he was about to rot away his youth in Bar-L without knowing what or why it had happened. He couldn’t handle the incomprehensible, and although he was almost sure he hadn’t killed Mickey, he just couldn’t be certain. If it was a fit-up there were always a million reasons why in his game. His business was inhabited by rats – big ones and small ones scuttling around in every dark corner, all looking to survive and, if possible, prosper. It never mattered if it was at someone else’s expense. Slab had said it himself often enough. ‘This game is dog eat dog, son, and the only lesson you ever need to know is this: eat the other fucker before he even considers doing it to you.’

  Tommy had run a hundred scenarios through his head of why he might have been played and who might be responsible – the problem was that they all worked. The most likely was one of the family, because they were all candidates and being Slab’s favourite had come at a price. His money was on Crazy Horse and Big Brenda, because Slab barely looked at them unless it was business, and they had to be pissed off that Tommy had almost taken their place in Slab’s family. He was everything they weren’t, and he saw it in the way they looked at him on the rare occasions they were in the same room. They ran their own teams within the organisation, and Slab seemed to intentionally keep him well away from the others. Unfortunately he couldn’t prove it because he had no one on the outside who could dig into what had happened. If anyone from the family business came to see him, Slab would know before the visit was over, and that person would be lucky to escape with a Glasgow smile, which had always been one of Slab’s favourite punishments.

  In his game, prison was always a reality, and although Goldstein was a magician, everyone accepted that there were times when it was just your turn, things wen
t wrong and you did your time behind the doors. Tommy, like almost everyone he knew, had thought about it, and there was a general belief that a few years away could add to the credibility of someone in the business. If you faced up to it like a man, took shit from no one and refused to grass, then friends and opponents gave you just that bit more respect, even if they wanted you dead. The point was that you had the family, organisation and other people who cared about you, and who you knew you could count on to still be there on the day of your release, to get you through the long hard days. All that had been stripped from Tommy McMartin. He had enemies outside and, for too many years to come, enemies squeezed in beside him who’d been told that a McMartin was there on his own – anyone with a grudge just had to wait for their shot. There would be a queue waiting for their turn, and the Gilroys would be right at the front.

  6

  When Tommy arrived back from the court it was a weird experience because it was almost as if he was going into Bar-L for the first time. Hope was gone, and all that he had was endless days in the halls. The prescription tabs he’d managed to buy were wearing off, and he felt sick when they stuck him in the dog boxes in reception, waiting for his turn to see the doc and get fed into whichever hall he was heading for. He started to hyperventilate in the confined space till eventually a screw helped him out and waited till he’d calmed down.

  ‘It happens all the time here. Take it easy – the first night’s always the worst.’ The man’s kindness threw Tommy and added to his confusion. The truth was that the first night wasn’t the worst; it was each night as it came. They were all the worst.

  When they walked to his cell in A Hall he was shocked by the silence; he’d expected something else, not this. The screw walking him through saw his expression, knew exactly what it meant and went through the same line he did with so many. ‘It’s always like this, son. Dead quiet and has to be. We control it and that’s why. Most of the day you’re all behind the doors, and unless you go for a bit of exercise or work that’s where you stay.’

  The screw sighed and wished it was time to go off his shift and watch the big game. He felt weary in his bones watching another young man destined for fuck all but wasted years. He remembered the days when he was all for locking all the bastards up and thought hanging was too good for them. It just tired him now, and he’d forgotten how to hate the endless lines of wasted lives. They just made the screw feel sad, and mostly for himself.

  ‘You’ll get used to it, son,’ he added. ‘Tell you the truth, there’s no choice. Just keep your head down and watch your back.’

  Tommy looked up to the top of the four landings and saw there wasn’t another soul there. The place might have been empty, but it wasn’t. Behind every door two grown men survived in cells hardly bigger than most people’s bathrooms. The place was sterile and freshly painted with just a trace of cooking smells over the ever-present kick of disinfectant.

  The screw walked him up to the second floor, the only sound the rap of their footsteps on the old walkways.

  It was strange, because when the door opened in front of him, he found the cell was almost identical to the one on remand, but he still took a half-step back when he saw it. It was a shock to his overloaded defence instincts. His new co-pilot didn’t even get off the bottom bunk to say hello but stared at the bottom of the mattress above him as if the door had never opened. He’d been told all about Tommy and what was coming to him. He didn’t want any part of it and certainly didn’t want to become his mate.

  When the door closed behind him Tommy wanted to crawl into a corner, but there were no corners available in a cell that didn’t have a spare inch of space, and the quiet man in the bottom bunk obviously didn’t give a shit about keeping it tidy. To add to it all the quiet man he was sharing his new life with had a serious problem with BO, and it just added to the sense of hopelessness that seemed to be weighing Tommy down. He tried anyway, although with little enthusiasm.

  ‘How’s it goin’, mate?’

  ‘I’m alright.’ The man swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stood up and took two steps forward, which left about a six-inch gap between their faces. ‘Just so we’re clear, I’m not much of a talker, and that’s the way I like it. Your bed’s up there and that’s all we need to know. You got a big fuckin’ target on your back, pal, so stay clear of me.’ It was on the word ‘pal’ that he started jabbing his forefinger into Tommy’s chest.

  He was a tall man, mid-thirties and far too skinny to be a battler. Tommy realised that the word had already gone out that he was in for a hard time, but this clown had taken that to mean that anyone could piss on Tommy with impunity. The mistake he’d made was that they hadn’t quite reached that stage yet.

  Tommy grabbed the finger in mid-jab, bent it backwards and, grabbing the man’s balls with his other hand, squeezed just hard enough while leaving something in reserve. The clown gasped out all the air in his lungs and seemed to lift up to his tiptoes with the pressure Tommy was applying. His mouth was a big round ‘O’ as he tried to cope with the pain.

  ‘That’s fine then . . . pal.’ Tommy felt some of the old fire burn in his belly as he said it. ‘Just so you don’t get any ideas – I’ll rip them off the next time and flush them in the lavy. We clear . . . pal?’

  His reluctant co-pilot got the message but swore he’d run to the Gilroys anytime he could to help do Tommy McMartin’s legs.

  The world and his family all forgot about Tommy, apart from Goldstein, who made the occasional visit for what seemed to him to be incomprehensible reasons. He watched Tommy shrink and age, saw the occasional bruise and barely got a word out of him. He could only imagine what a friendless lifer with the name McMartin would be enduring inside. The big bonus for the predators was that when they came and took turns at holding him down, they could enjoy that rare treat of watching one of Slab’s own cry like a baby. Goldstein tried not to think too much about that particular nightmare, but it kept coming back to him whether he wanted it or not.

  He kept Tommy’s file in his desk at home, pulled it out after each visit and stared at the pages, which just confirmed that there was no possible explanation other than that the boy had committed the murder. Every time he put the file back in his desk he gazed at the bookshelf opposite for a few moments, shook his head and knew that sleep would evade him yet again.

  7

  The governor had done Tommy a big and intentional favour when he’d moved him in with old Andy Holden after his first few months inside, which had been nothing short of a nightmare. Tommy had struggled to remain sane, and his bastard of a co-pilot had barely spoken to him – just lapped it up as he watched Tommy lose strength and will every day that passed. The memory that always raised his blood pressure was of being a front-row witness in the showers, leering at the Gilroys and a couple of stooges holding Tommy down. What they did got him off every time it came back to him.

  It was probably a practical as well as a humanitarian move by the governor, because there was a danger that Tommy was going to be killed during the repeated ‘incidents’ that were never officially reported despite being picked up by the screws. They were tuned into even the faintest vibrations in the pokey, and a good officer knew what was going on without ever being told. They knew exactly what the bruises and discomfort meant when Tommy was asked to sit down.

  Tommy tried to convince them that it was his ‘ceramics’, but his refusal to be examined told them all they needed to know. Despite everything he’d suffered, he still had that tough core, refusing to go into protection with the beasts, even though the staff tried their best to convince him that it was in his best interests. Tommy knew that once he went in with the pervs he might be safe from animals like the Gilroys, but he would be finished with the world of real men. That would be the final ignominy, and he was determined to fight that one.

  The Shawshank Redemption was one of Tommy’s favourite films, and he always thought of Andy as Bar-L’s very own incarnation of Morgan’s Freeman’s char
acter Red. Before prison, and with the exception of a few fines for being drunk and disorderly, Holden had led a pretty ordinary life at the bottom end of the food chain. His great mistake, when he was still in his teens, had been to marry a woman who had almost no redeeming features apart from giving any of the local boys whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

  He was pretty naive in those days, mistaking lust for love, and when his future wife realised she was pregnant she picked Holden as the least bad option of all the boys who’d been there already. Her old man was a local hooligan who gave him two choices, the second of which meant no future, so he’d married a woman who spent her days nagging him into actually looking for work so he could get away from her for at least part of the day.

  Three useless children and twenty years later he’d walked into the house early one day when he’d called off sick and found the woman who made every day a trial in a compromising position. Not quite as soon as he’d walked in. What he saw first were the Doc Martin boots just inside the front door, then the heavy black trousers, but what had made his heart race was the utility belt with all the gear a modern beat cop needs to keep himself safe on the job. This particular community cop was right on the job that day, and all his efforts were concentrated on Holden’s wife. The coco was concentrating so hard he never heard the front door open or Holden go into the kitchen, drink a glass of water and rummage through the drawer for the biggest knife he could find. Much later he wondered why he hadn’t just taken the incident as all the reason he needed to walk out of a waste of a marriage. What had blown his fuse was the lightning flash of realisation that he’d wasted twenty years he’d never get back and that his three children all looked remarkably like close friends.