Hard Landing

by Stephen Leather

  'I'm a nasty piece of work, me, but I've got mates who are ten times worse,' he murmured. 'They'd love nothing more than to spend a few hours in the company of your wife. Pretty woman, Mrs Nelson. Lovely blonde hair. My mates were arguing about whether or not she was a natural blonde, and they'd love the chance to find out. How would you feel if your wife was raped? Take the gloss of your marriage, wouldn't it?'

  Nelson didn't say anything. Tears welled in his eyes, not because of the pain but because he felt so helpless. The last time he'd been so powerless was when he was nine, and two teenage bullies at school had taken his dinner money off him every Monday. Nelson had been too scared to tell his parents, too scared of what the older boys would do to him if they found out, so he'd paid them every week. He'd started stealing loose change from the coats in the sixth-form cloakroom and had used it to pay for his lunches. He'd never told anyone. Not his parents. Not his teachers. Not his wife. It was a secret he'd kept buried for years, but lying on the cold concrete floor of the car park with the knife against his throat and blood trickling down his cheek, the shame and self-disgust came flooding back.

  'We know where you live, Gary. We know where your wife walks the dogs. Fuck with us and we'll fuck with you.'

  Leather Jacket took his hand off Nelson's mouth. Nelson gasped. Every breath was agony - he could feel the fractured ends of his broken rib grating together - but he was grateful that he was still alive, that they weren't going to kill him.

  'Just nod to let me know that you understand and agree,' said the man, pushing the blade of the Stanley knife into Nelson's neck.

  Slowly, Nelson nodded.

  Shepherd woke early. It was a nuisance not having his watch. The forensics investigator still had it, and he had no idea when, if ever, he'd get it back. Lee was snoring softly. Shepherd stared up at the barred window. All he could see was a patch of pale grey featureless sky. It was a strange feeling, knowing that central London was only a few miles away. Pubs, shops, football grounds, all the places he used to take for granted might as well not exist. His wife and son were less than thirty minutes away.

  He wondered how it would feel to be a lifer, knowing you were going to be kept behind bars for ever. The confinement would drive him mad, he was sure of it. He'd go the same way as Justin Davenport and devote all his time and energy to breaking out. There was no way he could accept that for the rest of his life he would be told what to do at every minute of every day. Lloyd-Davies had probably been right when she said that a military background prepared a man for prison: the communal food, sleeping and washing arrangements, the requirement to follow orders, the rules and regulations that had to be obeyed, no matter how inappropriate, all brought back memories of Shepherd's time in the army. But there was a big difference between the men with whom he had served and the prisoners in Shelton: choice. Shepherd had wanted to join the army ever since he'd gone into an army careers office with three school friends to shelter from the rain one lunchtime. They'd watched a promotional video, dripping wet and eating packets of Golden Wonder crisps. The others had jeered at the video, but Shepherd had been transfixed. His parents had been pushing him towards university: they wanted him to be a solicitor or a doctor, a professional, someone they could boast about to their neighbours, and they looked horrified when he'd turned up with a stack of army brochures. They managed to persuade him to go to university but he'd left before taking his finals and had signed up as a career soldier.

  Once in the army he'd wanted to be the best of the best and had put himself through the SAS selection course twice before he was accepted. It had been harder and more uncomfortable than anything they could do to him in prison, but it had been his choice. Everything he'd done had been his choice, right or wrong, and there hadn't been a day when he couldn't have walked away if that was what he'd wanted. Eventually he had left, and that had been his choice, albeit because it was what his wife had wanted. But the men in Shelton had no choice, and that was what made prison such a terrible punishment. It wasn't the food or the environment or even the people, it was the lack of choice. And when there were choices, they were choices laid down by others. Top bunk or bottom. Tea or coffee. Vegan meal or Ordinary. Choices that were no real choice at all. Even now, Shepherd was in prison by choice. He could have refused the job and woken up in a warm double bed with Sue, instead of alone in an uncomfortable bunk with a racist thug beneath him. But if that choice was ever taken away from him, Shepherd knew that the confinement would be more than even he could bear. He'd do whatever it took to get out.

  He sat up, not liking where his train of thought was heading. Gerald Carpenter had a wife and family, and he was facing a long prison sentence. Shepherd had been inside only two days but already he had grasped how appalling the prospect of twenty or even ten years was. Carpenter had decided how badly he wanted his freedom, and the price he was prepared to pay to achieve it. He'd kill to get out. Shepherd rubbed the back of his neck where the tendons were as taut as steel cables. Would he be prepared to do the same? He had killed - five times - but in combat, in the heat of battle, the enemy in front of him. Combat wasn't especially clean or honourable, but it was kill or be killed, soldier against soldier. Would he be prepared to kill another human being in cold blood if it meant the difference between life imprisonment and freedom?

  Shepherd swung down off his bunk and started doing rapid press-ups. He concentrated on his rhythm and breathing and was soon bathed in sweat. He increased the pace and soon he could think of nothing except the exercise, the burning in his muscles, the pressure on his fingertips, the blood coursing through his veins. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. He stopped at sixty, knowing he could do more, and switched to rapid sit-ups, working his left side, then the right, until he rolled over and did another fifty press-ups.

  'Bloody hell! Sooner they let you in the gym, the better,' said Lee. He was watching Shepherd with one eye.

  'Sorry, Jason,' said Shepherd. The lack of privacy was one of the worst things about his confinement. The only time he could be alone was when he was sitting on the tiny toilet: it had a thin plastic door but even then every bodily function could be heard in the cell. Since he'd been in prison he had always been just a few feet from another human being. He promised himself that the first thing he would do when he got out was go for a long walk in the countryside. The Brecon Beacons, maybe, where he'd done the SAS selection course. He'd hated the wilderness then, hated the bleak hillsides and the icy, clinging rain that had soaked him to the skin and chilled him to the bone, hated the freezing streams that poured into his boots, hated the wind that froze his cheeks and hands. But now he'd give anything to be out in the open, breathing fresh air that hadn't been through the lungs of a hundred other men. 'What time is it?'

  Lee squinted at his watch. 'Twenty past seven. They'll be doing roll-call soon.'

  'You okay if I keep exercising?'

  'Sure,' said Lee sleepily. He rolled over and put his head next to the wall.

  Shepherd carried on doing press-ups, sit-ups and leg raises. He heard boots on the stairs, then inspection hatches.

  It was Hamilton who opened theirs. 'Macdonald, you get to shower this morning,' he said.

  Shepherd frowned. He hadn't requested a shower and it wasn't like Hamilton to offer him unnecessary privileges. He still hadn't come up with a copy of the Prison Rules.

  'You've got an appointment with the governor at eight forty-five. RSVP isn't necessary.'

  The inspection hatch snapped shut. The governor had obviously been told of his presence, and Shepherd was pretty sure that he wouldn't be happy to have an undercover cop in his prison.

  In an ideal world, Shepherd would have preferred that no one knew his true role. But HM Prison Shelton was not an ideal world, and there might come a time when he needed a Get Out Of Jail Free card at short notice. The governor would be his only lifeline, so, whatever his reaction, Shepherd would have to handle him carefully.

  The secure corridors were filled with inmates wh
en Hamilton took Shepherd to the governor's office. Prison officers stood at the corners of the corridors linking the various blocks. All the connecting doors were open and they watched the prisoners file past, singly and in groups. The atmosphere was relaxed as a university campus between lectures, and other than the prison uniforms and surveillance cameras there was no real sense that they were in a holding facility for the country's most dangerous criminals.

  Most of the prisoners were moving from their blocks to the workshops where they spent three hours each morning. Their jobs were mundane - filling the breakfast packs, assembling Christmas crackers for a high-street chain or electrical goods, putting junk mail into envelopes for financial institutions. Lee had told Shepherd there was a small computer department that did freelance programming work but the only prisoners who could work there had degrees and programming experience. Shepherd had been surprised to hear that half a dozen long-term prisoners fulfilled the requirements; most were in for murder.

  The governor's office was on the top floor of the administration block. A small outer office contained two middle-aged women, one working at a computer, the other talking on the phone. One side of the room was lined with metal filing cabinets; flow-charts and posters covered the other walls. Hamilton pointed at a plastic sofa and Shepherd sat down. He'd seen most of the posters in the reception area when he'd first been brought into the prison. How not to get Aids. The penalties for racial abuse. How to contact a Listener.

  The woman on the phone put her hand over the receiver and smiled at Hamilton. 'Is that Mr Macdonald?' she asked.

  Hamilton nodded.

  'Mr Gosden says he's to go in,' she said.

  Hamilton gestured at Macdonald to stand up, then knocked on the door to the governor's office and opened it.

  John Gosden was a stocky man in his late forties, sitting behind a large teak-veneer desk with two stacks of files in wire trays, a desktop computer and a small laptop, both with modem connections. There was a tropical fish tank by the door. A couple of dozen brightly coloured fish were swimming languidly round a sunken plastic galleon and a diver with a stream of tiny bubbles fizzing out of its helmet.

  'Thank you, Adrian,' the governor said to Hamilton. 'You can wait outside.' He waited until the officer had closed the door, then got up. He was a head shorter than Shepherd, but his shoulders were broader. He looked like a bodybuilder who'd given up exercising some years ago.

  Shepherd thought the man was going to shake his hand, but Gosden walked over to the fish tank and picked up a container of flaked food. 'Do you keep fish, Shepherd?'

  'No, Governor,' said Shepherd. 'Don't mind eating them, though.'

  Gosden flashed him a cold smile, then sprinkled a small amount of food on to the surface of the water and bent down to watch the fish feed. 'An aquarium is a delicate balancing act,' he said. 'The mass of fish you can support depends on the volume of water in the tank, the surface area, and the efficiency of your aeration pump. The number of fish determines how much food you put in. If any of the variables is out of kilter, if anything is added that isn't planned for, the whole eco-system can fall apart.'

  'I get the analogy, Governor,' said Shepherd. 'I don't intend to do anything to upset the equilibrium of your institution.'

  'Your presence does that,' said the governor, straightening up.

  'Only if the prisoners work out who I am and what I'm doing here. And they won't.'

  The governor's lips were a thin, unsmiling line. 'I'm not just referring to the prisoners. The fact that I have allowed you to go undercover in my prison suggests I don't trust my people. And this place runs on trust, Mr Shepherd. It's all we have standing between order and anarchy.'

  Shepherd didn't say anything. The governor must have known there was a good chance that one of his officers was helping Carpenter run his organisation from behind bars.

  'I'm not happy about this, Mr Shepherd. Not happy at all.'

  'I'm sorry about that,' said Shepherd. He was still standing in the centre of the room. Clearly the governor had no intention of asking him to sit down.

  'Have you any idea what a dangerous position this puts me in?' the governor went on. He knocked on the side of the tank and the fish darted to the back. 'If the prisoners find out there's a policeman in their midst, there'll be a riot.'

  'I think, of the two of us, I'll be the one in most danger,' said Shepherd.

  'You think they'll stop with you?' said Gosden. 'If you believe that, you've no idea how a prison functions.' He snorted, then went to sit behind his desk. 'Your mission is to find out what Gerald Carpenter is up to, is that right?'

  'He's sabotaging his case. We have to find out how.'

  'And the presumption is that one of my people is helping him?'

  Shepherd shrugged. 'I've got an open mind, Governor, but his phone conversations and mail are monitored, so that doesn't leave too many options.'

  'His family. His legal teams. He has medical visits.'

  'Medical visits?'

  'He has a recurring back problem, which means he has a weekly visit from an osteopath. And his dentist has visited twice.'

  'I thought the prison had its own medical facilities.'

  'Apparently the facilities we have aren't satisfactory in view of the state of his spine or his root canals. He's got world-class lawyers, has your Mr Carpenter, and the 1998 Human Rights Act is full of helpful phrases. At one point it was starting to look as if the great Cherie Booth was going to be representing him so we decided to let him have his own way.' At last the governor waved to a chair opposite his desk. 'Sit down. Please.' He looked suddenly tired. He ran a hand across his forehead and rubbed his eye. 'Look, I'm sorry if I sound tetchy but this is a stressful job at the best of times - and I don't like being told what to do by suits who've never been within a mile of a Cat A facility.'

  Shepherd sat down. 'I have to say, Governor, I'm as unhappy as you are about being here. But you've been told what Carpenter's doing - what he's already done?'

  'My suggestion was that they move him to another prison. Put him in the secure unit at Belmarsh.'

  'And they said?'

  'That they wanted it dealt with here. Which I presume means that they suspect the leak is in-house.'

  Shepherd nodded. Moving Carpenter wouldn't solve anything. If they kept him in Shelton there was a chance that they would find the bad apple in the prison and identify who on the outside was doing Carpenter's dirty work. 'You were a prison officer yourself ?' asked Shepherd. Gosden didn't seem the type to have come into the service at the top.

  Gosden smiled. 'Shows, does it? Started off walking the landings in Parkhurst. Six years. Then moved to an open prison and couldn't stand it. Went back to the Isle of Wight, got made Principal Officer and did an Open University degree.'

  'It's not a job I could do.' Shepherd was trying to get on the right side of the man, but he was being truthful. Undercover work was stressful but at least he had the adrenaline rush and the satisfaction of putting away the bad guys. Prison officers were at their most successful when nothing happened, when the status quo was maintained. And the job was never-ending. For every prisoner who walked out of the gates, another moved in to take his place. Shepherd doubted he had the stamina or the patience to make a career of keeping people locked up.

  'It has its moments,' said Gosden. 'Believe it or not, most prison officers care about what they do. At least, when they come into the service. And a lot of inmates are genuinely remorseful and want to turn their lives round.'

  'I sense a "but" . . .' said Shepherd.

  'There are enough bad apples to turn even the best-intentioned prison officer cynical after a few years,' Gosden told him. 'Hot water thrown over them, HIV-infected prisoners cutting themselves and flicking blood around, razor blades in soap, ears bitten off. You know all prison officers wear a clip-on tie? That's in case a prisoner grabs it. And these days all the prisoners know their rights, from the Prison Rules up to the Human Rights Act. And to make it worse
, the officers often feel there isn't enough support from above. If a governor isn't behind his men one thousand per cent, they'll start to think that maybe it's not worth keeping to the straight and narrow. That maybe the rules can be bent.' Gosden stood up and started to pace up and down the office. 'So, if you were to ask me if one of my officers could be on the take, what am I supposed to say? I have to back them.' He stopped. 'Do you understand what I'm saying?'

  'Absolutely,' said Shepherd. 'It's the same on the job. Your colleagues come first. They have to, because when the shit hits the fan they're all you've got.'

  Gosden nodded.

  'But sometimes cops go bad,' said Shepherd.

  'We've some in here too. On Rule Forty-five. Couple of Vice cops who were on the take for years.'

  'What I'm saying is, when cops go bad you can't turn a blind eye.'

  'That's not what I'm doing,' said Gosden, defensively. 'What I'm doing is giving my people the benefit of the doubt. You tell me that one of them's on the take and their feet won't touch the ground, I promise you.'

  'That's fine by me,' said Shepherd.

  'But if you disrupt my prison, if I think you're putting the safety of my men at risk, I'm pulling you out. I don't care what some Home Office mandarin says, this is my prison.'

  Shepherd didn't say anything. He knew that Gosden didn't have the authority to halt the operation, but he could make Shepherd's life impossible. A word in the right ear and his cover would be blown. Once that happened he would have no choice but to bail out.

  The two men stared at each other for several seconds, then Gosden relaxed. 'That's my pep talk over,' he said. 'I'm told I have to co-operate with you, so is there anything you want me to do?'

  'I need to get close to Carpenter, but I'll have to do that myself. If you were to pull any strings it'd tip him off that something was up. But I could do with a look at your personnel files. Just the officers on the spur.'