Adele rushed through her breakfast, finding it difficult to eat with her distressed mother sitting across from her. She was absorbed by guilt. Why had she left her mother to face her father’s wrath alone? She should have stayed downstairs and supported her.
When Adele had finished her breakfast, she asked her mother once again if she was all right. Eventually, she reluctantly left her mother and set off for school, her mind in turmoil at the prospect of what lay ahead now that her brother was incarcerated and her dad knew they had kept it from him.
Chapter 24
A week had passed since Peter’s court appearance. The family were sitting in their living room and a heated discussion was taking place between Tommy and Shirley. Adele was becoming exasperated as she listened to her parents deliberating over whether to go and see Peter in the detention centre where he was being kept.
‘Are you coming with me to see him?’ Shirley asked her husband. ‘Only, my mam’s not up to it.’
‘You must be fuckin’ joking!’ said Tommy. ‘There’s no way you’d catch me in a place like that with all the scum of the earth.’
‘But he is your son, Tommy,’ Shirley pleaded. ‘He needs someone to visit him. Imagine how he’d feel if he was the only lad that didn’t have any visitors.’
‘He should have thought of that before he went pissing about robbing people’s houses. It’d serve him fuckin’ right if no one went. I’m not going’ and that’s that! If you’re daft enough to go then that’s up to you but you can go on yer bleedin’ own.’
He walked out of the room, signifying that it was the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned. Adele looked at her mother whose eyes were welling up with tears.
‘What am I gonna do?’ asked Shirley. ‘I can’t go all that way on my own.’
Adele knew her mother was trying to guilt-trip her. ‘It’s OK, I’ll come,’ she sighed.
‘Oh thanks, love. I’ll get in touch with them and make the arrangements,’ said Shirley.
Adele didn’t fancy the prospect of visiting Peter in a detention centre. After all, her dad did have a point about the sort of people that went to those places and she didn’t like to feel that her family had sunk so low. But he was her brother and her feelings towards him were uppermost in her mind. Although Adele didn’t like what he had done, she still felt loyal towards him and wanted to support him as best she could. She knew that her mentally fragile mother wouldn’t cope with the trip alone, and Adele hated to think of Peter being stuck there on his own.
*
The day of the visit was bitterly cold. Adele wrapped up well in preparation for the two-hour journey to the far side of Yorkshire. They were catching a coach from Chorlton Street Bus Station in Manchester and their journey started with a bus trip into the city centre.
By the time they arrived at Piccadilly, Shirley was already in a state. ‘I don’t fancy this coach journey,’ she said. ‘It’s a bloody long way and in weather like this too. I bet the roads will be icy especially up in them hills.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Adele reassured her. ‘If the weather’s too bad for the trip, they’ll cancel the coach. Stop worrying, Mam.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Shirley. ‘Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to go all that way after all. It’s a pity my mam’s not with us. She’d know what to do. But her stomach’s got even worse during the last few weeks. I’ll be glad when them bloody doctors sort it out and she’s back to normal. It’s been dragging on for months now.’
Adele felt a pang of guilt at the mention of her grandma. She still hadn’t found time to visit her and she vowed to herself that she would soon. But at the moment her mind was on other things. Her mother’s constant fretting was starting to get on her nerves especially as she wasn’t looking forward to the trip herself. ‘Will you give over, Mam?’ she snapped. ‘I’m not going back home now! We’re already on the way. Imagine how Peter will feel if we don’t visit him; he’ll be gutted.’
‘OK, I suppose you’re right,’ Shirley muttered.
For some time Shirley stayed quiet but Adele could see that she had turned her anxiety in on herself. She subconsciously frowned and pursed her lips as worrying thoughts raced through her mind.
When they arrived at Chorlton Street Station, they crowded onto the coach, along with the other passengers, and found a seat near the front.
The first half of the journey was fine, and Adele settled back into her seat, looking at the view through the window as they made their way out of the city. Eventually they hit the countryside and the coach began to crawl up endless hills. Then they reached a steep incline and the coach rounded several bends as it made its laborious climb. Some of the bends were hairpin and Adele found herself tensing as the coach struggled to navigate them, heaving its bulky metal frame to make the sharp turns.
They had just passed through one such bend and straightened out again. As the coach teetered on the edge of the hill, Adele looked out of the window. Big mistake! She inhaled sharply when she caught sight of the view. They were now high up on a hill with a steep drop down and only a slim metal bumper separating the coach from the edge. She could also see the remains of snowfall dotted about.
Adele turned away from the window and kept her eyes focused on the interior of the coach instead. She took a peek at her mother, curious to see how she was coping with the journey. Her knuckles were white and her face had turned pale.
‘Not long now before we get to the other side of this hill,’ said Adele, placing her hand over her mother’s.
‘Ooh, I hope so. This is bloody awful,’ said Shirley, her lips trembling.
‘Keep your eyes shut and try not to think about it,’ Adele advised.
As they progressed on their journey, Adele noticed that few passengers remained on the coach and most of them were what she would have termed rough-looking. At long last the coach drew to a stop at a small village. Adele recognised the name of the town from the instructions they had been sent, and wondered where the villagers lived as there didn’t seem to be any houses for miles around.
‘We’re here, Mam,’ she said to her mother who seemed oblivious as to their whereabouts.
Adele was glad she’d taken charge of the instructions they had been given, which had directions on how to get there. They descended from the coach and Adele pulled the instructions out of her bag.
‘Right, according to this map, we’ve got to take that path to the right,’ she said to her mother.
Several of the other passengers were already walking up the path, which was on a steep incline. Adele assumed they were going to the same place and she and her mother followed them. They continued walking for about ten minutes, skirting around frozen puddles, and negotiating banks of snow and large tufts of hardy grass.
‘Bloody hell!’ said Shirley. ‘It must have been snowing up here… Are you sure we’re going the right way?’
‘Yeah, there’s no other path on this map. Besides,’ Adele said, nodding at the people who were several metres ahead of them, ‘they’re still here, and they seem to know where they’re going.’
It was a few minutes later when they noticed a large building in the distance.
‘That must be it,’ said Adele.
‘Jesus! It looks a bloody long way,’ her mother complained, stopping to get her breath back as her loud gasps formed small clouds in the chilly air.
‘We’ll soon be there,’ Adele encouraged. ‘Come on. Let’s keep going. We’ve got most of the journey over with.’
A few minutes later they arrived at the building which was a modern, red-brick, featureless structure. It was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire, which had been wound into impenetrable coils. Adele felt saddened as the reality of Peter’s situation hit her.
They went through the main entrance, a dense metal door, and were searched as soon as they stepped inside. The guards then directed them along a corridor and told them to take the door on the bottom left. Adele led the way and p
ushed open the door to a large room. A sterile smell hit her straightaway; like disinfectant but more potent.
The room reminded Adele of the school hall set out for exams, with rows of tables laid out before them, except that the tables were larger and the set-up was different. On one side of each table sat a boy and the visitors were seated on the other side. Most of the tables were fully occupied but at a few of them the boys sat alone awaiting their visitors.
Adele scanned the room, looking for Peter. She spotted him just as he noticed her and smiled.
As Adele and her mother walked over to Peter, she was astonished to see many familiar faces. They all lived only a few streets away from her and were mostly from the rougher families. She felt ashamed to be among them, and felt a brief stab of resentment towards Peter for bringing her to this. Adele hoped that this experience wouldn’t drive an even bigger wedge between them.
Two of the women, who had never previously bothered with her, were eager to say hello. She cringed as she returned their enthusiastic greeting. It was as though she had now become an unwilling member of an elite but corrupt society. Or perhaps they were taking pleasure in her family’s demise. She wondered fleetingly why she hadn’t seen them on the coach. Perhaps they had taken an earlier one or they may have even driven here; in a stolen car most likely.
When they reached Peter’s table, Adele was shocked by his appearance. In the space of only a couple of weeks he already had a haunted look about him. His complexion was pallid and there was fear in his eyes. She tried to mask her shock; it wouldn’t help to mention it. Instead, they talked in general terms about what it was like inside.
‘How are you finding it?’ asked Shirley.
‘All right, yeah.’
‘Are the other lads all right with you?’
‘Yeah, course. I already know some of ’em. Hey, you know that Vinnie off our estate?’
‘Yeah,’ said Adele, picturing a small, sly-looking boy who had always been hostile towards her.
‘Well, you’ll never guess what he’s in for?’ Peter asked, lowering his voice.
‘Go on, tell us,’ said Adele.
‘He thumped a teacher,’ he said. When Adele and her mother stared at him open-mouthed, he continued. ‘I know, I was surprised. He’s a good lad, always up for a laugh and that… but she was giving him a hard time.’
Adele was shocked by the act of thumping a teacher rather than by the person who had committed it, but she held her tongue. She was concerned though. Why did Peter think that these people were good when they clearly weren’t?
For the remainder of their visit, Peter seemed to delight in telling them tales about the crimes some of the inmates had committed, who were the hard boys and who were the ones that weren’t to be trusted. In spite of his haunted look, he seemed to be enjoying the camaraderie with the other boys. It was as though he felt he had arrived; he was now truly one of them. The idea sickened Adele. She couldn’t understand why he thought it was OK to commit crime. But she didn’t say anything. Time with him was at a premium and she didn’t want to spend it arguing.
Adele noticed a putrid odour coming from the family sitting at the next table. Even the powerful sterile smell in the room didn’t mask it. She was glad when Peter asked for chocolate from the vending machine, and a cup of tea, so she could escape the cloying smell for a short while.
When Adele returned from the vending machine, Peter chomped away at the chocolate, unperturbed by the vile stench around them. She guessed it was his first taste of chocolate since he had been sent down.
Adele was surprised by how quickly Peter seemed to have adapted to life on the inside. Apart from the horrible smell, he didn’t seem fazed by the state of the people around him or the faults of his fellow inmates either. She had an unsettling feeling, though, that his overenthusiastic narrations were hiding a truth that he wasn’t willing to share.
It was soon time to go. Despite her feelings about Peter being in this place and the sort of people he was mixing with, Adele was sad to say goodbye. It didn’t feel right leaving him there. As a child she had always stood up for him but now she was powerless to help him out of the mess he had got himself into.
‘Well, at least we know he’s all right,’ said Shirley, oblivious to Peter’s troubled appearance as she dabbed at her tear-stained face.
Again Adele kept quiet. Why worry her mother unnecessarily? If Peter was having problems, there was nothing they could do about it.
Now that the visit was over Shirley seemed relieved and, on the way out, she struck up conversation with a woman she knew from their local area. A woman who had several unruly kids in tow. Adele didn’t share her mother’s delight on finding out that the woman was also getting the coach back to Manchester.
Great! thought Adele. As if the journey here wasn’t bad enough.
They had just left Peter in that awful place. Who knew what kind of hell he was going through? And now her mother was treating it like a pleasure trip.
Chapter 25
Once Peter had watched his mother and sister leave the room, his mask slipped. Now it was back to reality. No more putting on an act.
‘Come on, Robinson. Your visitors have gone now. Get back to your cell!’ ordered a burly guard.
Peter left the room reluctantly, his eyes downcast. Once they were out of view of the visitors, another set of guards took control. The next one to approach him wasn’t quite as polite.
‘You lad, stop dragging your feet. Get a bloody move on!’ he shouted, cuffing Peter sharply round the back of the head.
Not wanting to upset one of the centre’s meanest guards, Peter did as he was told. Slaps and jabs from some of the guards were a daily occurrence. But if you didn’t toe the line things could get much worse. He’d heard about the beatings and seen evidence of it on the bruised and swollen faces of some of the other inmates. And even if you did toe the line, you sometimes couldn’t escape some of the other forms of abuse that took place at the centre.
For Peter the other inmates weren’t a problem. He had the advantage of already knowing many of them from his local area. They’d put him in the picture straightaway so he soon learnt the pecking order. And as long as you respected that, there wasn’t a problem. Most of the lads here were OK. Sure, there were a couple of arseholes but he tried his best to avoid them.
Peter’s problem lay with the guards. Apart from the physical abuse, there was verbal abuse too. Guards would constantly try to rile the inmates by putting them down. Peter had become used to being told, ‘You’re no fuckin’ good; that’s why you’re here,’ and being referred to as, ‘council estate scum’.
His friends had warned him from the outset not to divulge anything that happened on the inside. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ they said. ‘No one will believe a word you say, and they’ll just make things harder for you.’
But for him, it wasn’t just about the daily beatings and name-calling. No, his particular nightmare began after the lights went out. Officer Patterson had a penchant for young boys and he’d chosen Peter as his latest victim.
The first time it happened, Peter wasn’t expecting it. Patterson called at his cell one night just as Peter was nodding off to sleep.
‘Robinson, I want you for a special job,’ said Patterson.
‘At this time?’ asked Peter.
‘Less of your lip! Just do as you’re told.’
Peter jumped out of bed and put his clothes on as quickly as he could while Patterson watched. He felt uneasy having to get changed in front of the guard. It was something he wasn’t used to.
‘Come on, hurry up! You don’t need your shoes.’
Peter had thought that was a bit strange but he did as he was told.
‘You’re for it now,’ his cellmate whispered, stifling a chuckle as Peter left the cell. He wondered what he’d done to get into trouble.
Peter had noticed Patterson that day. He was a big, lumbering guard with greasy hair and rotten teeth. At first Peter had
felt unnerved at the way Patterson looked at him, but he’d later shrugged it off. Nobody had warned him about Patterson so he had no reason to suspect anything untoward.
The guard led him along the corridor, past rows of cells then down some stairs. Peter felt a chill as his bare feet made contact with the cold metal steps.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Never you mind! We’re nearly there now,’ said Patterson.
When they’d reached the end of another corridor, they arrived at a locked, steel door. Patterson pulled at the keys that were hanging from his belt. They jangled as he sorted through them. When he had found the right one, he turned the lock and led Peter into another corridor.
Immediately to the left of them was another locked door. Patterson soon found the key to this one and pushed Peter inside. It was a storeroom. There was nothing in there; just brooms, a bucket, some cleaning implements. And one chair.
Peter turned round. Patterson was locking the door again. He swung around, staring lasciviously at Peter. Realisation hit Peter like a thunderbolt. Patterson was a nonce!
He didn’t wait to see what Patterson was going to do. No fuckin’ way! Peter charged at him, throwing ineffectual punches. He tried to get to the bunch of keys so he could unlock the door and make his escape. But Patterson was too strong. Within seconds he had overpowered Peter and had him bent over the back of the chair with his trousers down.
It’s often said that when you dread something, the anticipation is worse than the event. Peter wished that applied in this case. But nothing could have prepared him for what was about to happen. As Patterson penetrated him, Peter felt like a ball of flame was burning through his delicate insides. He couldn’t even cry out with the extreme pain. Patterson had already thought of that. He’d gagged him.
As soon as Patterson had finished, he zipped up his trousers. ‘Get yer clothes back on!’ he ordered.
Peter grabbed at them and pulled them on quickly, tears of humiliation stinging his eyes as Patterson leered at his exposed body.
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