Slipknot

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Not in any sort of personal way,’ Pembroke said defensively, almost truculently. ‘But I’ve a couple of sons of my own. One working in Shrewsbury prison. I can get along with them most times. I didn’t take this job to get close to vulnerable young lads if that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘Right. So – did you need to restrain young Hughes?’

  Pembroke managed a laugh. ‘Oh no. He was one of your timid sorts. Once we’d let him have a turn around the corridor he was fine to go back in.’

  ‘And the second time?’

  ‘Fast asleep. Like Smith. Sleeping like a baby.’

  ‘I should just tell you that there were some bruises on his face, his leg.’

  ‘Nothin’ to do with any of us, Inspector Randall.’

  ‘The pathologist asked if the body was slumped against the bed or free swinging. How long was the computer cord?’

  Pembroke hesitated. Then he said ‘Tight. There was no room for movement.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Randall had the impression that Walton Pembroke had been unsure how to answer this question.

  Interesting.

  ‘OK. You’re free to go, Pembroke.’ He waited until he had reached the door. ‘If you do think of anything you’d like to add to your statement you know where I can be reached.’

  Randall watched him go with a feeling close to unhappiness. He didn’t quite trust Walton Pembroke. There was something too slick about the man. He was too restless to speak to the woman officer. Before he moved on he decided he would take another peep at cell 101.

  The corridors looked long and, in his current frame of mind, menacing with doors every few feet. The cells must be tiny. He looked up and met the unblinking eye of the video watching him.

  He’d take the tapes back to the station and get a couple of sharp-eyed rookies to drink coffee and watch them just in case there was anything of interest, any clue. They could freeze-frame young Callum Hughes’s last moments. He looked up again at the CCTV. It was trained practically outside Callum’s cell. That walk along the corridor. He ducked underneath the police tape and peered round the door. It was a small room, floor space maximised by bunks up against the wall. Thank God the habit of slopping out had stopped. The toilets were cleaned by the inmates every morning. The cell smelt primarily of bleach. The window was ajar, a faint breeze blowing the scent through.

  For a tiny room a lot had been packed in. A computer, two cupboards, plenty of posters, toilet and sink, bars across the windows.

  Randall looked out on the courtyard, then, on impulse, he crossed to the door and banged it shut. Yes, if he was a young lad of thirteen or so, in for the first night of what would almost certainly be a long stretch, he too would feel claustrophobic.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was with a feeling of relief that he walked away from the cell and returned to the interview room.

  Stevie Matthews was sitting outside, waiting for him, her hands tucked underneath her legs, gulping for air.

  ‘The little one with the big arse.’

  He smiled. The regulation trousers did nothing for her, white blouse tucked in giving her the look of a sack of spuds tied around the middle. She was pale with thin dark hair which straggled to her shoulders and anxious, tired eyes. He knew she had not slept in her free morning. However tired she had been she had not relaxed.

  ‘Sit down,’ he invited, after introducing himself.

  Instantly he could tell the difference between her and Walton Pembroke. Pembroke had been so sure of himself, sure of his job and position too whereas she was a nervous wreck. Randall wondered. Was it simply the senior officer’s years on the job plus the fat carrot of a good pension or some confidence inbuilt?

  Stevie was new, nervous, uncertain what to say. And frightened.

  Of what?

  That she’d lose her job?

  He watched her sit down and wondered how on earth she would survive her years as a ‘screw’. She simply didn’t look tough enough.

  He tried to put her at her ease with a smile and a preamble. ‘Stevie,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s short for…?’

  ‘Stephanie.’ She had a squeaky, high-pitched voice.

  ‘But you prefer Stevie.’

  She nodded and he knew that the simple little ruse had succeeded. She was just starting to unwind.

  ‘How long have you worked here for, Stevie?’

  ‘A month.’

  ‘First stretch of nights?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘So this is pretty much a nightmare for you.’

  ‘Terrible.’

  ‘Tell me about your encounter with young Hughes. What did you think of him?’

  She swallowed with a noisy gulp. ‘He seemed quiet. Not a problem. Some of them…’ She was warming to her subject, ‘they swagger. They’re so cocky and full of themselves – almost as if they were proud to be here. Loads of them boast they’ll get off, that they’ve got influence, a clever lawyer, stuff like that. Hughes didn’t hardly say anything.’

  ‘Can you remember who took the decision to put him in with Tyrone Smith?’

  ‘No. I don’t have much to do with decisions like that. I only knew he was to go in there. I think Walton told me.’

  ‘And what did you think of that?’

  She regarded him silently and he knew the true answer was nothing. She had not thought about it. It told him something about her.

  She was unimaginative.

  A lack of imagination can be very useful to the police. Unimaginative people make poor, uninspired liars – unless fed by others. They tend to tell the truth. Her very dullness encouraged him.

  ‘You put Callum in his cell then saw him again at around eleven?’

  Stevie nodded and flicked a string of hair away from her face. ‘We always go and see the new ones, make sure they’re settling in. Some get really scared, you see. Mr Pembroke…’

  Something stopped her short. She pressed her lips together, Randall noted but made no comment. He suspected misguided loyalty to her senior colleague and probed innocently. ‘I expect Mr Pembroke has been a great help to you – being experienced in the prison service?’

  Prison Officer Matthews nodded her head vigorously. ‘Yeah. He’s been great. Really helpful. It’s made my first weeks here a lot more pleasant.’

  Randall could well imagine it. The wide-eyed innocence of Matthews would have fattened Pembroke’s ego up nicely. ‘Pleasant,’ he queried innocently. ‘In what way?’

  ‘He stopped me being made a fool of, taught me how to suss them out.’

  Randall raised his eyebrows.

  ‘He knows all the tricks.’

  Randall licked his lips. ‘All the tricks?’

  ‘Yeah. Like they say they get asthma or pretend they’ve got stomach-ache or something like that. Just for attention. You know? To get out of their cells.’ Her limpid, pale eyes watched him.

  ‘And that’s what you did, of course, with young Callum Hughes. Took him out of his cell. Why?’

  ‘He was in a bit of a bad way. Lying there, shaking on his bed, all scrunched into the corner. He was in a right state so we let him have a turn along the corridor.’

  She was not looking at him, Randall noted, but at a fixed point on the wall, slightly to his right side, a little over his shoulder. Again he made no comment but squirreled the fact away. He suspected that the lessons Walton Pembroke had taught his new young colleague had been connected with domination and intimidation rather than interpersonal skills.

  ‘Did he say anything when you walked him up the corridor? Anything that made you suspect that he was suicidal?’

  Stevie Matthews looked upset. ‘No. Nothing,’ she protested. ‘We’d have put him on suicide watch if we’d had any idea.’

  But she was still fixing on that point on the wall so he pushed forward. ‘I take it that when you allowed Callum out of his cell you locked the door behind you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s standard practice.’

  There i
s something depressing about employees who trot out the company line a little too tritely, Randall reflected. They would always quote ‘company practice’. Such a useful phrase to hide behind.

  ‘And what was Tyrone Smith doing when you took Callum out of the cell?’

  For the first time since she had entered Stevie Matthews smiled and relaxed. She was surer of this ground. ‘Asleep,’ she giggled. ‘Like a baby. Snoring his big fat head off.’

  ‘And was Callum happy to return to his cell?’

  The prison officer nodded.

  ‘We had a little chat with him,’ she said. ‘We explained the rules, how he could make his life easier if he fell in with us. He was happy enough then. A bit more settled. We never guessed.’ Her eyes changed shape. They were round with the horror. The vision of Callum Hughes, slumped against the bed was obviously what had upset her.

  Randall waited before his next question. So often it is silence which encourages people to talk rather than banter.

  ‘And the second time?’ he prompted.

  ‘Callum was asleep too,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Did you go inside the cell?’

  Oddly enough Stevie Matthews seemed unsure how to answer the question. She looked confused.

  At such a simple question?

  Randall repeated it.

  ‘Did you go inside the cell?’

  Matthews jerked and nodded as though she’d found her lines. ‘We thought we’d better just check on him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’d seemed so upset earlier. And it was his first night in custody.’

  ‘Was Tyrone Smith still asleep on your second visit?’

  Stevie Matthews smiled. ‘He was. Snorin’ like an express train.’

  ‘I’m sorry to ask you again but on your second visit – at about twelve – Callum was asleep and in good health.’

  ‘Yeah – as far as I know. I mean…’ She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t touch him or anything.’

  ‘Miss Matthews. I want you to think carefully. Is it possible Callum was faking being asleep?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because if he wasn’t he must have woken up and then decided to…’ There was no need to finish the sentence.

  He moved on. ‘So then what?’

  ‘The alarm went off about six-thirty. There was panic stations. Me and Walton went to cell 101. Tyrone Smith was hammering on the door, screaming.’ Her face crumpled. She was losing control. ‘We unlocked the door and there was Callum, slumped against the bed, the wire round his neck.’ Her face was distorted with the horror. Her eyes bulged. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘It was horrible. I couldn’t believe it.’ Her face held something bleak. Something approaching despair.

  ‘Nearly finished,’ he said heartily. ‘Just one other area. When Doctor Sullivan did the post-mortem Callum was found to have some minor injuries. Bruising on his face, a blow to his chest and quite marked bruising on his right shin. Do you have any idea how he came by any of these injuries?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Did he at any time resist arrest?’

  Again she shook her head, her eyes fixing on his face. Beseeching him – begging him to believe her? Or to simply bring the interview to a close?

  ‘You never had to restrain him?’

  Another jerky shake of the head.

  He nodded. ‘When you entered the cell and found him hanging did you try to resuscitate him?’

  ‘Walton said it was pointless. He was cold.’

  ‘And the bedding?’

  She frowned. She couldn’t see the point of this question. ‘All loose,’ she said curtly. ‘Hanging down. I didn’t take a lot of notice.’

  ‘And Tyrone Smith?’

  ‘He looked sort of shocked. When we unlocked the door he was backed against the window. He was holding his hands up. ‘I never done nothing,’ he was saying over and over again. ‘I didn’t do nothin’. It weren’t me’.’

  Randall could well imagine it. Smith would be like that, he thought.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to add?’

  Stevie Matthews shook her head again.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You’re free to go.’

  She bolted, like a child out of school. When she had gone Alex Randall sat for a while, pondering. He’d learnt nothing by coming here today. He could have guessed most of it.

  Or could he?

  He called in at the front desk for the CCTV tapes and left Stoke Heath with a feeling of relief. It might be his job to put these youngsters behind bars but the place depressed him.

  He took the tapes back to the station and handed them over to a couple of duty officers. They could spend the evening being paid for watching telly. It was his usual quip but they grinned obediently. He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past eight and he felt the usual reluctance to going home. Home was trouble. Home was conflict. He sat in his office, his face buried in his hands.

  At nine he could put it off no longer. He must go to what passed as a home.

  Martha finally got through to Sam at nine-thirty and instantly knew that he was not alone. She could hear the evasion, the embarrassment in his voice, the hesitation when she asked her question. Perhaps now he rarely was alone but always with someone. ‘Is everything all right, Sam?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  But she knew it wasn’t. Something was wrong. It might be nothing – a minor problem – a missed kick, a clumsy pass. Or something else. And now, to herself, she acknowledged that she was worried Sam would be bullied, picked on and would retaliate. It wasn’t that there was some similarity between Callum Hughes and Sam Gunn but that there are some common points between all boys of thirteen years old. They are all chrysalis men, trying to prove themselves.

  ‘We thought we’d come up over the weekend, Sam?’ She left the question hovering and again was aware of another presence physically nearer to her son than hers.

  ‘Is that OK?’

  She sensed a theatrical shrug. ‘If you like. We’ve got a friendly against another Junior Premiership.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Kick-off five on Saturday.’

  She knew that he would be unable to concentrate before a match and afterwards she didn’t want to rob him of the camaraderie of either a triumphant or defeated football team. ‘What about Sunday then?’

  ‘If you like.’

  She spent the rest of the evening seething with frustration and self-doubt. Maybe it had been the wrong decision to let him go. He was too young. To channel him into sport had been the wrong decision. And yet it had been what he had wanted.

  At thirteen years old?

  Overridingly, she worried what was happening up there?

  Randall had given the video tapes to two young officers, Detective Constables Harris and Jenkins who spent the evening munching crisps, drinking coke and watching telly. Only the videotapes were boring. Hours of nothing which they fast-forwarded, slowing down when the prison officers did their rounds.

  It took them over an hour to find anything of interest. Then they both sat up.

  In grainy black and white they watched the shorter prison officer turn the key to what must be Hughes and Smith’s cell. Straightaway Callum pushed forward. They saw Pembroke push him back with an elbow but Hughes came forward again. He was obviously saying something, protesting, pleading. And it seemed to work. Stevie Matthews actually pulled Hughes, locking the door behind him. Next they saw him being frogmarched between the two prison officers. They could see all but hear no noise. Yet they could sense the terror of the lad. He was wild, bumping along the narrow walkway. His shoulders were hunched. At one point he almost slumped against the female prison officer. Then he seemed to try and make a break. The camera was poorly angled so they didn’t see the outcome but seconds later he was being manhandled back into the cell with a shove.

  Then there was a return to the hours of long, empty corridors.


  ‘I bet that broke up the monotony of the night,’ DC Harris remarked. The other swigged from the coke can. ‘And we think our job’s boring.’ He slammed the can back on the table and fast-forwarded.

  ‘This must be when they went in for the second time.’

  This time there was no sighting of Hughes. The two prison officers went into the cell, stayed there for a while and then emerged, Walton Pembroke with his arm draped loosely across Stevie Matthews’ shoulders. They both glanced up straight into the camera before vanishing from sight.

  The third sighting of the pair was completely different. This time they were running, unaware of the video eye or anything but a clumsy haste to enter the cell. Stevie Matthews had trouble inserting the key in the lock. She was fumbling. Panicking. They ran in and must have pressed the emergency button again because officers seemed to appear from everywhere.

  The two officers marked the places on the tapes and left them on Randall’s desk.

  Something about the Callum Hughes case stayed with Martha. The first thing she thought about when she awoke the next morning was the boy’s mother, determined, brave. Admirable really. She sat up in bed, hugging her knees and listening to the awful silence. Without Sam the house was too quiet. She wondered how Shelley Hughes was coping with the silence? At least she had Sukey and Agnetha. Shelley Hughes had no one. Simply an empty house surrounded by hostile neighbours.

  She tried to will her thoughts on. It is never a good idea to become too involved in a case. A coroner must, inevitably, move from death to death, like a spectre in a graveyard, dealing with one only to move straightaway to another tragedy, another loss. She knew this. It was part of the job. And yet this one small, tragic case was holding her fast. It was easy to speculate why. Her own son, the same age as Callum Hughes, had also recently left home. Two mothers. And – surely – there were more. War, boarding school, broken homes where the offspring stayed with the father. There were plenty of incidences where mothers and sons were separated.

  There was a soft knock at the door. Sukey entered, gingerly carrying a mug. ‘Agnetha boiled up the kettle,’ she said. ‘I thought you might like a coffee.’