by John Macken
‘When he attacked me.’
‘Trouble in the dining room. A search which revealed that you’d smuggled certain contraband into the prison. Including, it says here, the scalpel blade used in the initial confrontation.’ Another drag, a smoky pause before the punchline. ‘You think we approve of prisoners smuggling weapons into Pentonville?’
‘I guess not,’ Reuben muttered.
‘And now this. A riot. A long-serving warder in casualty, four inmates in the hospital wing.’
‘It was hardly my fault.’
‘You deny that you were wielding a pool cue?’
‘No.’
‘And that you assaulted a number of inmates, including’ – he squinted at the names in front of him – ‘prisoners Davies, Hussein and Ruddock?’
Reuben remained silent, pleading for calm. All of this was irrelevant. He had to get the hell out. His son needed him.
The governor took a deep, measured drag on his Marlboro Light and blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘No, I’m sorry, it’s time to take action.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Only thing I can. Ship you off to the next rung on the ladder. I don’t have the resources to monitor you twenty-four seven.’
‘Where?’
‘Scrubs.’
‘Wormwood Scrubs?’
‘They have a room in their Secure Unit.’
‘Look, I appreciate that I’ve forced you into this. But it just isn’t like that.’ Reuben was desperate. Another prison would raise a whole new series of problems. ‘Like I said, I was a CID officer before I transferred to the Forensic Science Service. I ran GeneCrime – you’ve heard of the unit?’
The governor stared back and shrugged. ‘So?’
‘I’m here to track a prisoner, to take forensic evidence from him. Now I’ve done it, and I need to be released. I’m not a criminal.’
‘Like you said before. Although there is this, Mr Maitland.’
The governor opened a shallow drawer in his desk and pulled out a slim file. There was a sense of check-mate about his movements which Reuben tried to overlook.
‘What is it?’
‘Previous arrest record.’ He leafed through a few of the fragile pages within. ‘Let’s have a look. Possession of cocaine with intent to supply. Three months in Belmarsh.’
Reuben slumped in his seat. The bastard had been digging. ‘How did you get that?’
‘Wasn’t easy, but I have some useful contacts. So you are a criminal, in fact, Mr Maitland. And also one who has covered up his identity at some point in the past, in order to work in the force.’
‘So at least you know I was in the force.’
‘Oh, you were. But now you’re not. A covert mission? Don’t make me laugh. Where’s your evidence? Where’s the paperwork? Why have no CID officers come knocking on my door and begged for your release? Shall I tell you?’
‘Go on,’ Reuben answered flatly.
‘Because you’re a fantasist, Mr Maitland. Nothing more, nothing less. After our last little chat, I cross-checked. You were sacked by the FSS for gross misconduct. No one I talked to knew where you were any more or what you were up to. None of my contacts in the Met are even aware of a policy for forensics officers entering prisons. Face facts, Mr Maitland. I know what you are and you know what you are.’ He made a show of signing the piece of paper in front of him, briskly and irritably, and motioned Reuben to the door. ‘Go and pack your stuff. I’ve booked a van. You’re leaving tonight at eight p.m.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Reuben muttered, defeated and powerless in the governor’s office.
‘And, for the record, don’t mess the governor of Scrubs around. He really is the meanest governor in the whole prison system.’ He allowed himself a sly smile as he finished his Marlboro Light. ‘I look forward to hearing how you two get along.’
24
Reuben checked his watch. He didn’t have much time. Things had moved so quickly, from seeing Michael Brawn at the phones, to the fight in the hallway, to being summonsed to the governor. He had just under two hours before they transferred him. Reuben had tried and failed to get through to Sarah. Her mobile was off. Her answerphone told him that she was attending a crime scene. She would be unaware of his movement to Scrubs until he could contact her. And that might take days. Secure Unit prisoners, he was well aware, had to earn luxuries like phone cards.
His second choice, however, was more helpful.
‘They’ve fucked your lab,’ Moray said, matter-of-factly.
‘Who?’ Reuben asked.
‘Interesting question,’ his partner answered. ‘But they were good at it. We thought you might have some suggestions.’
Reuben closed his eyes. He was going to a different prison, his son was sick and his lab had been done over. This wasn’t a great day.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘forget that for now. I need you to do something for me.’
‘Name it,’ Moray said.
‘This is a big one.’
‘Go on.’
‘In fact, my fat friend, this is the big one.’
Moray didn’t bother disguising his sigh. ‘As I said, big man, name it.’
‘And you don’t have much time.’
‘As in weeks, days or hours?’
‘As in minutes.’
‘I’m on it. When and where?’
Reuben told him what he knew and hung up. He glanced at his watch again. An hour and fifty-five minutes to pack his meagre possessions and say his goodbyes. An hour and fifty-five minutes to avoid a last-minute beating by Michael Brawn. If there was an up-side to his current situation, at least he would be leaving Brawn behind.
Reuben made his way back to his cell and slumped on the bed. He dozed for a while, then spent a long while staring at the eclectic series of images Narc had chosen to decorate his wall with. There he saw illustrated the conflicted state of mind brought about by incarceration. The pictures of freedom, of nature, of sexual possibility. A mental slide-show of denied opportunity, of self-imposed captivity.
The door opened and Reuben sat up. Narc eyed him almost triumphantly. Reuben realized that he had given Narc a new lease of life over the past week. He had become the copper’s cellmate, his notoriety rocketing within the prison, a nobody who had suddenly become a somebody, with information and observations and stories to tell.
‘So it’s true?’ Narc asked, looking down at him. ‘You’re off?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘Of course, they’re gonna fucking love a bizzie in Scrubs.’
‘That so?’
‘You think this place is bad? I’ve heard stories about the secure wing would make you want to fucking die than go there. And that’s normal prisoners. Not fuck-ups like you.’
Reuben stared up into his beaming face, his almost cheeky expression of joy. ‘Narc, shut it.’
Narc changed instantly. ‘You threatening me, copper?’
Reuben stood up. He opened his drawer and the clear plastic HMP bag he had been given and started to stuff his clothes into it.
‘You threatening me?’ Narc sneered again. ‘Cos there’s about a hundred cons in this wing would like to say goodbye to you properly. All I do is open this door and shout. You want that?’
‘Like I said. Just shut your mouth.’
‘The trouble with you, you don’t know when you’re fucked. I mean, really fucked.’
Reuben grunted. Prison was starting to mess with his mind. He gripped the handle of his bag.
‘Right now, people in this wing will be ringing their mates in the Scrubs, telling them there’s a smart-arsed copper on the way over tonight, telling ’em what you look like, who you are, what you’ve done. And you know who’s at the head of the fucking queue?’
Reuben tried not to meet his eye. ‘Surprise me.’
‘Your mate. Michael fucking Brawn.’
Reuben continued to round up his possessions, knowing that he had to stay calm. Out of the corner of his
eye, he noted that Narc was visibly gaining in confidence.
‘And an educated boy like you, delicate hands, pale eyes, could be very popular over there. Make someone a very nice wife.’
Reuben suddenly snapped. A lifetime of being in control had disappeared in just under a week. He wheeled around and grabbed Narc by the throat, pushing him hard against the wall.
‘I’ve got you a leaving present,’ he spat, pulling his fist back.
Narc’s triumphalism only seemed to grow. ‘At last! The educated man becomes an animal!’
‘I’m warning you . . .’
‘This is the system you send people into.’ Narc was undeterred, despite the imminence of violence. ‘And what does prison do?’
‘Tell me.’
‘It brutalizes you.’
And Reuben saw it. He knew he was right. His father, the rain pouring down, head bowed in the passenger seat, examining his knuckles, raw and wounded. Realizing that a barrier had been put up between them, a gruffness, a sadness, which had never been there before. His father increasingly withdrawn, given to depressions and fits of temper. A different man from the one who had gone in.
‘Doesn’t matter who you are. If you weren’t brutalized before, you fucking are by the time you leave.’
Reuben slackened his grip and turned away. Narc was smiling slyly at him, his point made.
There was a rattle at the door, and then it swung open. Two guards stepped in, ones Reuben had seen in riot gear earlier, removing their helmets after the fun was over, wiping the blood off their metal truncheons with paper towels. One of them brandished a pair of handcuffs and sauntered over to stand uncomfortably close to Reuben.
‘Who’s been a naughty boy then?’ he asked. His breath reeked, sour tobacco on top of wet halitosis.
‘And naughty boys have to be punished,’ his partner added.
The first guard grabbed Reuben’s wrists and fastened the handcuffs tight.
‘Time for a trip to hell,’ he grinned.
25
The modified Ford Transit was a snug fit, designed to transport a maximum of two or three prisoners at a time. Its blackened windows were barred on the inside, invisible from the street. The driver sat in an enclosed compartment, sealed off in wood and metal, with a drilled plastic hatch at head-height to the side. Reuben sat between the two guards, his manacled hands in his lap, wrists already swelling and sore.
They were, Reuben appreciated, picking their way through quiet North London back-streets. He monitored their progress for a second through the tinted window. Some of the roads were familiar, well-worn routes across an area of the capital he and Moray had come to know well over the last few months. They were only a couple of miles from GeneCrime, not far from Kieran Hobbs’ patch, and Judith’s house was a handful of junctions away. The pavements were almost empty, the darkness unappealing, the cold keeping people inside. The van passed the Italian café where Moray had dropped him just over a week ago, Sarah Hirst sitting inside, drinking coffee, Michael Brawn’s file resting on the table, a faked signature inside. Reuben pulled in a deep breath and held it. The guards fidgeted in their seats, bored and listless. Reuben sighed the air out again and slumped forward, holding his head in his hands.
‘That’s it,’ the first guard said.
‘Kiss your arse goodbye,’ his partner added.
‘Cos from now on, it’s gonna belong to someone else.’
Reuben stayed where he was, long second after long second. The guards lost interest in him. The van slowed, the driver working through the gears, the brakes complaining as they reached a junction.
And then there was an almighty thump. A screeching, grinding aftershock of metal contact. A strangled shout from somewhere, maybe the driver. Out of the corner of his eye, Reuben saw events in slow motion. The two guards careering forward like crash test dummies, in flight, ramming into the seats in front. Papers and belongings hanging in the air. Reuben, in the brace position, staying still, his movement subdued by the rear of the next seat. Shaking his head. Standing up and turning to the rear of the van. Walking unsteadily back. The guards slumped in their seats, blood beginning to pour from their faces. Reuben kicking the buckled rear doors. Glass crunching under his feet. A smell of petrol in the air. The doors yielding on the third blow. Outside, Moray jumping down from the cab of a four-tonner which was leaking fluids from the impact. Moray grabbing Reuben’s arm and leading him across the empty road to a parked car. Vision still blurred, senses running slow. Buzzing in his ears. Climbing into the car and driving off at speed. Looking back through the side mirror, pale and aching, sight and sound starting to cooperate. Watching the damaged prison van slowly recede into the distance. A guard emerging, bent double and coughing.
Out of prison.
A free man.
THREE
1
. . . and back again. He takes a couple of seconds, shakes his head. Gaps, holes, rips in the present tense. No way of knowing whether they’re getting more frequent or whether it has been like this for months. Very difficult to tell. But they seem to happen under certain conditions. Excitement and anticipation, at night, when alone. Then during the day, hardly at all.
He glances quickly around, checking nothing has changed. The car park still has just three vehicles in it, the lights of the surgery burning bright behind vertical blinds. He clenches his fists and releases, repeating the move several times.
The noise of a car. He looks over at the entrance, a battered maroon Polo pulling in, spluttering past and parking. A young woman, nineteen or twenty maybe, climbing out. Just yards away. On another occasion, he tells himself. Not tonight. He watches her from behind the thick laurel hedge, her body slender through her coat. Dressed tight, exhibiting what she can despite the temperature. Wanting to be looked at, inviting his stare. But another night, another occasion.
He drags his eyes away, checking his watch. Almost seven p.m. Those general practitioners are putting in the hours. Late surgeries twice a week for office jockeys tied to their desks. He hunches his shoulders and pushes them back, laughing to himself. The police putting in the hours as well. Looking for him. Feeding wildly inaccurate descriptions to the newspapers. Coming up with half-baked theories and notions. And he is right under their noses, has been, all along. No one has twigged anything. It gives you faith. All that staring at computer screens and DNA sequences when a quick look around, a few questions here and there, could do the trick straight away.
There was nothing in the papers about the last one. He checked them all, reading and scanning, page after page, fingers grubby with ink. They obviously hadn’t linked it. True, it was different. Could almost have looked accidental. A young woman in a red top lying on the pavement, having fallen and hit her head after a night out. But it had left him hungry. Being denied something has that effect. A missed opportunity. A reckless attack that didn’t go as planned. The one that got away. He wonders whether she survived the cold, lying on the empty street, bleeding from her head, and suspects she didn’t. He smiles to himself, the answer coming to him. If she had, the police would have tried to link it.
Somewhere a car alarm screams for a few seconds, before being terminated. It is cold, but not as bad as it has been recently. He guesses it is three or four degrees, about the temperature of a drink in the fridge. For a second, he wonders whether a chilled can of Coke would just feel normal if he drank it now. It’s all relative, after all. How things relate to each other. How events are linked. How compounds interact. How you deal with those interactions.
Negative feedback, that was the problem. The doctor told him that. Although she’d said a lot of things. More long names and clinical conditions. What were her exact words? It increases the desire but inhibits the performance. Like alcohol or something. But what did alcohol ever do for you, apart from make you thirsty and sluggish? For a doctor, her knowledge was laughable. Two-dimensional textbook stuff. This alleviates this, but may cause this. This is associated with this, but rare
ly this. This interferes with this, and shouldn’t be used with this.
But this, this is the stuff, this is life, proper life, as it is designed to be lived. Not scraping by, office hours, tired and bruised, weak and enfeebled, never quite catching up, never really being who you wanted to be, repressed and suppressed, unable to fight, just taking it from your corporation, your boss, your partner and your kids, a bloated punchbag, there for the kicking, waiting in the warm air of a doctor’s surgery at seven p.m., praying to fuck that they’ll put you on antidepressants.
But it is not enough simply to survive. You must exist. And you must demonstrate your power of existence. And if one part of your power is denied you, is lost as a by-product of who you are and what you do, you must find another way. A more gratifying way. A more permanent way. A way that shows the low-lifes and reprobates surrounding you that you are more alive than the rest of them put together.
An old man hobbles across the car park to his car, and makes a meal of pulling out and driving away. His exhaust gases stay in the air after he has gone, wafting through the cold, still car park. Seconds after he disappears, the young female returns to the safety of her Polo, a prescription in her hand. She leaves briskly, no seatbelt, tyres squealing slightly. He glances around. Just two vehicles left now. Nice ones, noticeably smarter than the patients’. One with four-wheel drive, the other Scandinavian and sleek.
A light in the top left of the three-storey building goes out. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a small plastic bag. Inside are two vinyl gloves, transparently thin and lightly powdered. He pictures her taking hers off as he puts his on. He is careful, not touching the outside of the gloves, wriggling into them as he has observed and practised again and again. The plastic bag is folded up and zipped into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a woollen balaclava and rolls it down over his face.
High heels, echoing along the alleyway. He is breathing hard through the coarse material, wet, excited breaths. And then he sees her.