Ben Bracken: Origins (Ben Bracken Books 1 - 5)

by Robert Parker

  ‘How far?’ he asks.

  ‘We are... over... the rec room... On... the other side... down two flights...’, Tawtridge manages through ragged breaths.

  Ben can see they are getting closer to another opening. He just hopes that on their travels they don’t stumble into any fleeing prisoners who have managed to get lost on their search for an outlet to Manchester. God knows the tumult they are running directly above, and what has become of Quince and Craggs.

  Mercifully the corridor ends and opens into another metal landing, with stairs on the immediate left. Tawtridge almost tumbles down the stairs, such is the abandon he throws himself at them with. He regains his footing and presses on. Ben follows, but as he does, he acknowledges that the footsteps behind now carry a duller, quieter echo - those following are in the corridor, gaining on them. Whether the pursuers know who it is they are following is unknown to Ben, but he doesn’t care - avoiding them is key, and if they see Tawtridge, they will surely rip him limb from limb. And Ben needs him alive.

  After descending two stories, Tawtridge exits onto the landing and pushes straight through one of two metal doors - again unlocked. As they do so, they hear the immediate clanging of footsteps traveling the stairs from whence they just came. Their pursuers are gaining. They enter a corridor that is markedly different to the others they have travelled down, the walls no longer dark grey unfinished breeze blocks, but now more of a finished gloss magnolia. Brighter, for another purpose.

  After 25 yards, a door appears on the left wall. Tawtridge jangles his keys out of his pocket.

  ‘Shit... Shit...’ he says, as he frantically selects the right key from a thick wad and opens the door. Ben clocks the selfishness and carelessness of leaving a number of doors unlocked through laziness, and Tawtridge keeping his own little sanctuary bubble-wrapped. They enter into the office, just as on the landing behind them, through the glass on the door, Ben catches a blurred glimpse of two men in prison issues hit the landing. He doesn’t wait to be noticed, and follows Tawtridge into the office, hoping to God that the men didn’t notice, but fully expecting that they may well have.

  5

  The office is stuffy, with a coppery airborne hint of mold. Tawtridge locks the door behind them, and makes sure the blind on the door viewing glass is tightly shut. Ben surveys the room, and waits, marveling at the full bin, the cluttered desk, the papers piled on the floor, the picture of Tawtridge himself with two laughing boys and a collie. A different side to the man. Much less glamorous. Ben didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this. Maybe a bank of flat-screens with cctv feeds, elaborate security shutters, a side table with a whiskey decanter on it... He is surprised at this reveal of near-budget-less middle management.

  Quiet pervades. The men seemingly haven’t pursued - at least for now.

  Tawtridge gasps air, his mouth still lunging for it and grasping. After a moment, his breathing slows and he turns to Ben.

  ‘Bracken, don’t think for one minute that getting me out of there is going to get you any kind of special treatment. You’re still just a face wandering faceless halls.’

  Ben almost smiles here, especially now he knows its time for his own big reveal.

  ‘I’m not expecting any special treatment at all. What I demand goes a bit beyond ‘special treatment’,’ Ben counters.

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’, Tawtridge rises to full height, spreading his mass, like like a fat featherless peacock in a suit.

  ‘We both know you’re not going out there again while all that is going on, so you’re going to have to hear me out,’ Ben says, as he perches on the edge of Tawtridge’s desk. The mere action of infringing on Tawtridge’s property like this both excites Ben and riles Tawtridge himself. ‘Besides, I think you’ll find it quite important.’

  Tawtridge softens a touch, as if he knows his conduct may finally have caught up with him.

  Ben continues. ‘Let’s see how much attention the shepherd pays to his flock.’

  ‘If that is in reference to me, I know everything that goes on around here. Everything.’

  ‘Then you’ll know what volunteer jobs I do.’

  ‘I know you like to portray yourself as a good little worker, a right busy little bee, eager to please - as if doing a few odd jobs is going to put a dent in your sentence, you idiot. We all know you’re here for the duration.’

  ‘What jobs exactly?’

  ‘Laundry detail, primarily. But I know you offered to help on the blood donation day last week, among other things.’

  ‘You’ve got it in one.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Well, it would explain how a handful of warden uniforms went missing last week, doesn’t it?’

  Tawtridge takes that in for a second, but bristles again.

  ‘Prisoners clothing is washed in a separate session to uniforms, you know that.’

  Ben can only smile at that. ‘You believe that? I put it you that you are so preoccupied with your gratuitous little power-trip around this place that you over-look finer detail. Rather, actually, that you assume the final detail is taken care of. Are there, or are there not, 5 guard uniforms missing?’

  Tawtridge doesn’t answer but words are unnecessary in answering. His eyes scream the affirmative, and his jowls wobble with anger.

  ‘Now, you mentioned another of my other little do-gooder jobs. The blood drive,’ Ben says, folding his arms across his chest with more than a hint of smugness. He has been waiting for this moment a while - it is a moment he imagines any man who has served time under Tawtridge’s bent governance would appreciate - and he wants to savour it. ‘What if... In helping with converting the room back from a blood donation clinic to a simple snooker room, some... blood went missing.’

  ‘Woop-di-do’ Tawtridge taunts. ‘You’ve got some prisoner’s blood. Fantastic. What’s your point?’

  ‘Are you not interested to hear who’s blood I have? Or, I should say, had?’

  ‘I don’t care. I literally couldn’t care less. What difference does it make?’

  ‘Who’s the kid who got knifed today?’

  Tawtridge stumbles for the words, crawling across the broken shards of his brain to try to find the right name. Ben puts him out of his misery.

  ‘Quince,’ Ben says. ‘Richard Quincey’.

  Tawtridge meets Ben’s eyes. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Nasty way to go,’ says Ben, grimly. ‘I’d feel bad if he wasn’t just another underbelly-feeding gutter-worm. Someone had to be the fall-guy. There wasn’t a lot of time when the collected blood was left isolated. I offered to help cart the fridge down to the lift. I managed to slip my hand in and grab what I could. I knew one bag would be enough. It was, I must admit, a bit of a lottery, as I knew the bag I picked was consigning the donor to death.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You set this up today?’ Tawtridge exclaims.

  ‘Then came the easy part - convincing that jumped-up, self-aggrandizing waste of oxygen I share a cell with, that he had a problem with Quince and that Quince had a problem with him.’

  Tawtridge stares goggle-eyed, all too aware that the ecosystem he has set up in here has been played like a fiddle.

  ‘I talked him through the whole damn thing. I even picked where he was to stick him, because you and me both know that’s the only place in that entire room the cameras don’t cover fully. There’s a 7 foot square in the corner that they miss. I assume you know that.’

  Tawtridge doesn’t answer, words again pointless. He doesn’t like where this is going.

  ‘To summarize what I have arranged, a duffle-bag has left the prison today, en route to Greater Manchester Police’s Superintendent’s office. In that duffle-bag is 5 guard uniforms from your prison coated in Quince’s blood. Your CCTV footage will show Quince entering the room, then your guards rushing towards the corner of the room where Quince was standing, a riot, then presumably him being carried out, bleeding to death. I promise you -
it won’t look good. It will bring a thousand microscopes over every aspect of your reign here, scrutinizing you for the egomaniacal tyrant you are. What do you think they’ll find? My guess would be, a lot. But I have a lifeline for you. You march me to the front door now, send me on my way, and I will stop the bag from reaching it’s destination. Your reputation would be safe.’

  Tawtridge is amazed at this. The outrageous bottle of this man to attempt ousting him, and to force him into a corner. The intricacies of the plan, and then his own recognition that all the pieces mentioned are, in fact, in place.

  ‘But don’t think for one minute I won’t be watching. I’ll be keeping an eye on this place, and if I feel if only just for a second, that you have carried on in the same way, with a scant disregard for the justice you have sworn to uphold, I will bring it all down - the good thing about my little safety net is that that evidence is bound forever. There is forever concrete evidence that, presented in the right light, your guards killed a prisoner on your watch. You change your ways and let me go right now, it never has to see the light of day - I’ll stop it from reaching it’s destination.’

  Tawtridge is forced to think about this very carefully, but he has room for one last attempt at bravado. ‘This is bullshit. A last ditch ploy from a convicted murderer to run like the twisted weasel he hopes he is trying not to be anymore.’

  Ben reaches into his pocket and tosses an object to Tawtridge, that catches the light as it spins through the air. Tawtridge catches it, and holds it up. It is a drained, plastic blood bag, empty save for a few traces of bubbled crimson in the corners. It is labelled in black marker pen ‘Richard Quincey, type A+’. Tawtridge stands dumbfounded.

  ‘Do you really want to take the chance that everything I’m saying is made up?’ Ben asks.

  Tawtridge can’t bring himself to say anything. He just stands there staring at Ben, as his expression transforms from vehement anger to disbelieving panic.

  6

  Against all the limits of his expectation, Ben finds himself massively surprised by what happens next. Tawtridge reassembles himself from the frenzied blancmange he had devolved to on hearing Ben’s plan, and silently opens the door to the office.

  He marches Ben along the dank corridors and down - all the while the bowels of the prison screaming bloody conflict. A riot is breaking out, escalating in scale with each passing moment. The guttural rumblings combined with Tawtridge’s submission echoes eerily symbolic to Ben. He relishes this moment - drinks it in - and, while he is far from home and dry, he is well on the way.

  The corridors are still bare, and transmit the echoing ruckus well. Ben imagines that gunshots will soon follow, and wonders whether, if they have to, they will call the police or not, or bring in extra security. That would only bring outside eyes into the prison, and extra scrutiny on Tawtridge’s little kingdom. No, Ben thinks - he’s going to have to clear this one up all by himself. And what a mess Ben has left him.

  ‘I don’t care how you square it away. Or what you do with Quince. Nobody is coming to look for me for the next 15 years, so with your age you can probably leave my absence for the next administration to fathom. Either way, you need to do some covering up. I would imagine that telling the authorities I escaped would only result in questions regarding the security here, and checks and balances will have to be made. I assume you don’t fancy that, so I’d advice you let the outside world believe that Ben Bracken is happily holed up in his cell. But think on. Everything you do from here on in... if you don’t think I’d approve, then don’t do it. Because I will bring this place down without a moments warning if I think you are taking the piss’.

  Tawtridge nods once as he walks, his loyal acquiescence assured. They are ending the corridor to a locked metal gate, which Tawtridge opens swiftly. They drop immediately down a flight of steel stairs, and arrive in a cold entrance area that hosts a grand black wooden door - a remnant of earlier times in the prison’s lifetime but no less imposing. A guard pokes his head out of a glowing side room, confusion spattered across his face.

  ‘If you want to keep your job, you’ll ignore this’ Tawtridge yells to him, and the guards head vanishes immediately like a spooked gopher. ‘And you’ll open the door.’

  Tawtridge and Ben pause by the door, but only momentarily, as an urgent buzzer sounds softly and a lock clunks undone. Tawtridge opens the door immediately, but Ben stops him.

  ‘Harry - you don’t really expect me to leave wearing this do you?’ Ben says, motioning to his prison issues.

  Tawtridge stands dumfounded for a moment.

  ‘I’ll need your suit’, Ben commands.

  Tawtridge stares at Ben in outrage but he knows that Ben holds all the cards - and then some. He has no option at this stage but to play along, and as he strips down to his obese pink belly, y-fronts and pringle socks, he knows his embarrassment is complete. He has been well and truly beaten.

  Ben throws on the shirt, trousers and jacket in a flurry, euphemistically holding his nose at the stale sweat stink that hovers on the surface of the clothes. Better than nothing, he grimaces. He knows freedom is mere seconds away - so close to this plan coming off better than he ever could have guessed. He had contingencies, but they were so minor, and they all were pretty last ditch in the grand scheme of things. A future looms large ahead of him, and with it a typhoon, brewing, sure and unstoppable. He is elated, buoyed by the second chance to do good which he has generated for himself. He swears he will not make the same mistakes, and will make the most of this welcome opportunity.

  He tosses the prison issues to Tawtridge, who stands there pathetic, stripped of both his clothes and bravado, right down to his grits. Ben turns to the door, and lets the cool air of outside drift in onto his face. It feels damn good.

  ‘I’m a man of my word, Harry’ Ben says, while he surveys the cold blue Manchester outside. ‘The duffle bag is safe for now.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it’, Tawtridge says, pulling on the prison issue sweatshirt.

  Ben steps through the door, into the cold wet street. Out. Free. Home. Ben takes a second, as the door thunks shut behind him. The suit fits horribly, hanging off his shoulders and down over him like an apron. He simply stands in the street, enjoying the moment. He looks back up at the stone beast that is Strangeways. Silence. You’d never know it was there, or what was going on inside. The ecology that is trying to find it’s new balance through bloodshed. Ben takes a step forward, and crosses the street, about to make the short walk into the city centre, and the first steps to redemption.

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