Rule of Night

by Trevor Hoyle

  ‘Have you ever been in trouble before? With the police.’

  Kenny swallowed. ‘I was picked up one time at Rochdale football ground.’

  ‘Were you charged?’

  Kenny looked up at him and then down at the table. ‘I’m not sure. I wasn’t fined or anything like that. I have to see the Juvenile Liaison Officer every month.’

  ‘Right. Yes. What about outside Rochdale? Have you ever been in trouble, you know, anywhere else?’

  ‘No,’ Kenny said, almost a shade too quickly. He had nearly said Luton, almost wanted to say it. It was frightening how easy it was to give yourself away, as though something was urging you to confess everything. He lit another cigarette (his last one) and used it as camouflage to draw several deep steadying breaths. They must have got him mixed up with somebody else. They were polite enough; it was only routine; they wouldn’t be so polite if it was anything serious.

  The constable with the neat black moustache was looking at him quite openly. It seemed to Kenny that he almost smiled. They were friendly blokes, really, not all that much older than him. They were probably married, with children: ordinary straightforward blokes in suits and uniforms. He felt his confidence returning.

  The Detective-Constable said, ‘What’ve you done with the money?’

  Kenny stopped breathing. He couldn’t answer the question because he hadn’t the faintest idea what the Detective-Constable was on about. There hadn’t been any money in the Liberal Club. Then he felt relieved; they really had confused him with somebody else. It was all right, they’d made a mistake. He felt like telling them they’d made a mistake, but instead he said:

  ‘I haven’t taken any money.’

  The constable opened the door, poked his head into the corridor, and closed the door again. Kenny noticed that he was practically as tall as the door.

  The Detective-Constable said, ‘We hate fucking liars: you’re a fucking liar.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Kenny said, ‘honest.’

  ‘On the 4th of January – a Friday – you did four meters on Bury Road. You broke in four flats and took seventeen quid from the meters. Right? This is a statement.’ He pushed a sheet of paper across the table. ‘Sign here,’ and laid a pen beside it.

  ‘Weren’t me,’ Kenny said. ‘Honest. I wasn’t in Rochdale that night. I was in Heywood—’

  ‘At the Seven Stars,’ the Detective-Constable said. ‘You got the bus to Rochdale, got the eleven o’clock bus up to Bury Road and broke in four flats and robbed the meters. Right? Anything else you want to tell us?’

  ‘Weren’t me.’

  ‘Keep your fucking voice down,’ the Detective-Constable said very quietly.

  Kenny was suddenly furious. He controlled it inwardly but his stomach ached with the effort. She’d told them everything. He couldn’t think. He had to tell them something quickly to make them believe he hadn’t been there. He had to keep on saying he hadn’t been there and eventually they would have to believe him. But why him, why had she done this to him? He couldn’t credit it.

  ‘Sign the statement,’ the Detective-Constable said. ‘Right? Don’t give us any pain.’

  Kenny dropped his cigarette on the floor and put his heel on it.

  ‘Pick that up,’ the constable said. Kenny picked it up and held it in his hand.

  The Detective-Constable was looking at him across the table. The hairs in his nostrils were vibrating gently with his breathing. His shirt collar was starched and spotless, the tie in a precise triangular knot. He sighed almost imperceptibly and glanced up at the constable, muttering something that Kenny didn’t catch. The constable came round the table behind the chair and leaned over him, his chin almost on Kenny’s shoulder. There was a strong smell of aftershave.

  ‘Laddie,’ he said, ‘we can’t waste any more time on you. Sign the statement as you’ve been told. Don’t be a cunt all your life.’

  ‘It weren’t bloody me,’ Kenny protested.

  ‘You yobboes,’ the constable said softly. ‘You are as thick as pigshit. You are a prize cunt. I’ve sorted more of your lot out than you’ve had hot dinners. Now are you going to sign that statement – I’m asking you nicely – or do we have to make you sign it?’

  Kenny stared at the piece of paper. The cigarette butt had crumbled in his fingers and bits of charred tobacco were falling to the floor. ‘I’m not—’ he said, and the constable lost his temper and hit Kenny so hard that he fell off the chair on to his knees. The blow had been on the upper arm, right on the muscle, and his entire arm went numb. The constable kicked him on the buttocks and Kenny rolled across the floor. The two of them picked him up and Kenny was astounded at the hate in their faces. It didn’t seem right to him, such hatred from these clean young men. They were married and probably had kids of their own. Surely if he asked them to be reasonable …

  He found himself standing against the wall while the Detective-Constable took what seemed ages aiming a fist at his stomach; Kenny was watching his eyes as it came and he remembered that his main feeling was one of complete mystification that this young man who had walked along the Esplanade with him should be actually doing this. Kenny was angry – part of him, that is, was angry – but so frightened that the fear seemed to have drained his arms of all strength. He was afraid that if he retaliated they might do something really terrible to him. He was hit repeatedly on the arms and ribs (places where it wouldn’t show) and kicked on the shins and ankles. At one point he thought he was going to cry but managed to hold it back. After five minutes or so the two young men, panting a little, sat him down on the chair and the Detective-Constable started pushing Kenny’s head forward until his nose was resting on the paper.

  ‘Today is Friday.’ The Detective-Constable was slightly flushed and breathing unevenly. ‘If you don’t sign the statement now we’ll keep you here over the weekend. You’ll sign it Monday.’

  His head still bowed, Kenny said, ‘What will you do to me if I sign it?’

  ‘What will we do to you if you don’t sign it?’

  ‘Can you write?’ the constable said. He took hold of Kenny by the scruff of the neck and jerked him upright. ‘Did anything penetrate that thick skull of yours at school?’ He gave a little snort of derision. ‘Seventeen quid. That’s about your mark, you thick twat. Come on, sign.’

  Kenny wrote his name on the dotted line at the bottom of the paper.

  He felt relieved somehow but he also felt physically sick. It wasn’t that he was badly hurt – just that he wanted to go home. He couldn’t think of anything better at this moment than to be sitting on the settee watching Les Dawson on the telly. He thought of Margaret sitting there in the flickering darkness and Kat eating Rice Krispies out of a bowl and his eyes filled with tears. He really thought that he was never going to see them again. That life had gone forever. His future was confined to this room and these two young men and him with a pen in his hand staring at a piece of paper with his name on it. All the alternatives had narrowed down to just this one: Kenny Seddon on his own without a friend in the world. He thought for a moment, wildly, that it was all a terrible dream; then he remembered he had no cigarettes left and knew that this time it was for real.

  Rochdale Observer, 27 February 1974

  FAMILY TROUBLE LED

  ‘REJECTED’ YOUTH

  TO THEFT – SOLICITOR

  REJECTION by his father and disharmony in his family led a seventeen-year-old youth to court, a solicitor told Rochdale borough magistrates on Monday.

  B______ P______ W______of Sandridge, Ashfield Valley, admitted breaking into the Air Training Corps hut in Ashfield Valley and stealing £2.50 worth of property and cash.

  W______ told police he climbed into the hut through an open window after removing wire mesh from the frame. A friend told him it was easy to get in.

  Mr S. J. Greenwood, defending W______, said: ‘He has been rejected by his father for most of his life. His mother has left home and he doesn’t know where she is. His previous cou
rt appearances, as a juvenile, were because of the disharmony which resulted in the family.’

  W______, said Mr Greenwood, lost a job in January, got another as a roof tiler and was then made redundant.

  Police questioned W______ with a juvenile at W______’s home and were told: ‘We haven’t done anything wrong.’ But a pair of drumsticks, a cap badge, a blazer badge and £1.25 were found in his possession and he admitted breaking into the hut.

  W______ was sent to a detention centre. The juvenile was allowed bail and is to appear before the juvenile court on Friday.

  DETENTION

  BUCKLEY HALL

  HM BORSTAL

  AND

  DETENTION CENTRE

  GOVERNORS

  G GRIFFITHS

  1955–58

  L F WHEELER

  1958–61

  W H C CARMICHAEL

  1961–68

  W L KILLIP BEM

  1968–73

  R M PARFITT

  1973–

  BUCKLEY HALL IS ABOUT TWO MILES TO THE NORTH OF Rochdale, just inside the borough boundary, standing in sixty-three acres of grounds with its own farm (with 50 cows), workshops, a staff of seventy including forty-nine officers in uniform, Chaplain, seamstress, part-time teachers and maintenance men, and at any one time round about 100 detainees between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. The inner perimeter is marked by a high wire fence which encloses the main buildings and central courtyard, although access up the driveway is perfectly free and open, with beautifully tended flowerbeds and sloping lawns on either side. The Hall itself is a dignified building in grey-brown stone – what you might imagine to have been the home of a mill owner – though without the white-painted iron bars across the windows and that air of military primness which implies there is a place for everything and everything is in its place.

  In a year six hundred boys (known as first custodial offenders) pass through the Detention Centre, the biggest proportion of them from Liverpool and Kirkby. Sentences are of three or six months’ duration with usually one-third remission for good behaviour. The success rate, ie: those who within two years of leaving the Centre haven’t got into further trouble, is estimated to be about 55 per cent. The boys are paid 20½ pence per week plus a five pence bonus; they are allowed to write (those who can write) two letters a week and one half-hour visit every fourteen days. On arrival they are classified as Grade I and kept under close supervision for two weeks; after two weeks a report is compiled on each boy and subject to him having made satisfactory progress he is allowed to complete Grade I and then re-classified as Grade II, which means he can work outside the perimeter fence.

  Kenny came in with three other lads, two from the ‘Pool and one from Blackburn. In the van he found out that between them they had two cases of burglary, one of taking and driving without consent, and one of common assault. They were issued with shirts, underclothes, overalls and boots, each given a number to memorise, and spent the rest of the day seeing in turn the Doctor, Warden, Education Officer, Welfare Officer and House Officer.

  Standing in line with the other three newcomers dressed in strange, baggy clothes he was given a summary of the day’s routine by an officer in a peaked cap with the chain of a whistle looped from his breast pocket:

  ‘You rise at six-thirty. Wash, shave if you have to, and prepare for breakfast at ten minutes past seven. Parade at eight o’clock. Your duties will be assigned to you for the day. Work during the morning. Parade at twelve o’clock. Lunch from twelve-thirty to one-thirty. Parade at one-thirty. Back to your assigned duties for the afternoon – by the way, one hour’s PE during either the morning or afternoon. Parade at five o’clock. Wash and change for tea. Tea from five-thirty till six-fifteen. Evening classes commence at six-fifteen till eight o’clock: from eight o’clock to nine-fifteen, recreation: darts, cards, chess, etcetera, TV at the weekend. The library is open if you wish to use it. Supper at nine-fifteen, then wash, undress, bed and lights out at nine forty-five sharp.

  ‘Now, rules and regulations: there are ten work periods during the five-day week and from one to three points awarded each day for conduct and general behaviour. You will note that smoking is not allowed at any time. You will address all officers, teachers and other members of staff as ‘Sir’, rise and stand to attention whenever they enter the room and remain at attention until instructed otherwise. Disciplinary matters will be referred to your House Officer, the Assistant Warden and the Warden, in that order and depending on the nature of the offence. Is that clear? Any questions? Fall out.’

  Kenny had always thought he was tough until he came up against the Scousers in Buckley Hall: they frightened the living daylights out of him. He learnt his lesson that first day when a scuffle broke out in the corridor and, standing innocently by, he was butted in the face and had his nose burst. Two officers appeared and sorted it out before it could develop into anything serious, but a nod to Kenny was as good as a wink: steer clear of the Scousers and never, under any circumstances, pick a fight with any of them. They were a breed he hadn’t encountered in large numbers before – not just hard on the surface but hard all the way through, tough as old boots – and with such a strong accent that the language they spoke was almost incomprehensible to anyone else.

  His first meal in the dining-hall at teatime surprised him: it was good nosh and plenty of it. He was nervous, which made him hungry, and he wiped every trace of baked beans from his plate with a slice of dry bread and washed it down with strong tea. He felt a lot better with his stomach full and began to take an interest in this strange new environment of rows of lads all dressed alike and officers in dark uniforms standing at either end of the hall and – something he hadn’t expected – an air about the place of comradeship, almost a cosy family atmosphere with the lads bent over their plates and now and then a smothered snigger of laughter or a brief snatch of conversation. It seemed as though talking wasn’t allowed at mealtimes, though the officers (did they call them screws?) didn’t appear to enforce the rule with absolute strictness.

  One of the Liverpool lads nudged Kenny and said in a murmur, ‘There’s a bloke over there looking at you,’ and when Kenny glanced up saw Skush at a table near the window raising and lowering his eyebrows. He looked fatter and there was colour in his cheeks; neither were his eyes the same staring watery brown.

  The first night was the worst. Kenny and the other three were each locked in a tiny cubicle with a bed and a wooden chair. It was explained to them that tomorrow they would be given a bed in one of the dormitories but tonight they had to sleep alone. At eight o’clock the doors were locked and the light switched off and from the window all that could be seen were dark, unfamiliar shapes on a background of blackest night. Kenny lay in the darkness, the stiff laundered sheets against his skin, his feet confined by the regulation folded bedclothes; it was very quiet, no motorway traffic, no chiming Town Hall clock, none of that grating metallic sound of garage doors sliding shut. He had been brave all day, preoccupied with the newness and strangeness of everything, but now his bravery had ebbed away and he began to feel very small inside, like a child almost. He wasn’t going to cry, he would resist crying with all his might. He was a grown-up lad in a Detention Centre; one amongst a hundred other grown-up lads; locks and doors and fences separated them from the outside world. In fact he could hardly believe that the real outside world still existed. Were there people in pubs at this moment? Were Andy, Fester, Crabby and the rest of them pinting it somewhere right now? It seemed as though the rest of the world had stopped dead, vanished, ceased to exist, and he, Kenny, was alone in the darkness with the sound of his own heartbeats and the scrape of the sheets on his skin. He wasn’t going to cry, though, he would make sure of that.

  He tried not to think of Janice. But in trying not to think about her she had entered his mind and he couldn’t stop himself thinking about her. He would have been strong inside – stronger, anyway – if he could be assured that she still loved him. Vera had been
to blame for telling the police, she had given evidence against him, but because he hadn’t been allowed to see Janice (or she hadn’t been allowed to see him) it wasn’t clear in his mind whether she was equally to blame or had been forced to tell on him. She must have been forced, she must have been … she must still love him … there was nothing else he could think. Her mother had wormed the truth out of her, that’s how it must have happened. Vera – Christ, that woman! – the hate in her, the nastiness, the spite! What had he done to deserve such hatred? It took his breath away even now, here, away from everything, to recall that look on her face.

  Margaret had stood by him: thank God for her and bless her, the old lady had stuck up for him. She had been near crying herself, but she had kept it bottled up inside. He had actually felt proud of her, they had hugged each other, and he’d felt all the suppressed movements in her chest battering against him. It showed at times like these who really cared and who didn’t. She was still his mother and he was still her son: they were a family and there would always be some love for him there. He pictured her at home with Kat, not many miles away on the other side of town, the two of them watching TV. He conjured up the warm peaceful flat in his mind, the stairs leading down to the passage, his door on the left and behind it his room and inside it his bed, empty now of course and unslept in: a huge sob came up from the depths of his stomach and he had to let it all out.

  • • •

  Four meals a day: Kenny hadn’t eaten so well in a long time. He was put in the same dormitory as Skush, who had done a month and, subject to a satisfactory report, was about to move from Grade I to Grade II.

  ‘Have you put on weight since you’ve been here?’ Kenny asked.

  ‘Yeh, you either put it on or take it off. The screws have a joke. They say if the police caught you before you came in they won’t catch you after you get out.’

  ‘What have you got left to do?’