Hard Landing

by Stephen Leather

  'What happened, Mr Healey?'

  'Prisoner hurt,' said Healey, and closed the door.

  'Topped himself ?'

  Healey didn't answer. Lee switched on the television and sat down on the chair. 'Shit,' he said. He stabbed his sausage with a plastic fork.

  'What?' asked Shepherd.

  'They'll keep us banged up until whatever it is gets sorted,' said Lee. 'No association, no exercise, no nothing. Just because some wanker decides to hurt himself.'

  Shepherd put his tray down on the bunk. He'd lost his appetite.

  Alice Roper frowned when she saw the two cars parked in the road outside her house. As a rule there was just one, with two men from the Church. It had always seemed strange to Alice that the men of HM Customs and Excise were called the Church. The Custom House headquarters by the Thames didn't look in the least like a house of worship and there was nothing religious about the men and women who worked there. The reason, Sandy had once told her, was because of the code used over the radio. Custom House became Charlie Hotel, CH, and then their colleagues at MI5 had begun to use Church instead. The Customs men quite enjoyed the religious overtones of the codename; the honest and true forces of good battling against the powers of evil. They were like children sometimes, thought Alice.

  One of the cars, a big black saloon, was empty but she recognised the two men in the other vehicle. Sandy had introduced them, but Alice couldn't remember their names. Over the past weeks there had been more than a dozen taking it in turns to sit outside the house and Alice's only contact with them had been to take out occasional cups of tea. One of the men smiled and waved as she drove by and turned into the flagstoned driveway. She parked the Ford Fiesta by the garage door and lugged the shopping out of the boot. Sandy had refused to go with her to the supermarket: the office was insisting that he go out as little as possible. That didn't make any sense to Alice because Sandy had claimed from the start that no one knew who he was or that he was involved with the court case. If that was so, why was the office so worried that he might be recognised? She hadn't argued as she was fed up being cooped up in the house with him all day and she'd quite enjoyed the time alone, even if all she was doing was pushing a trolley round Sainsbury's.

  She walked to the front door, let herself in and heaved the carrier-bags on to the kitchen table. 'Do you want tea, Sandy?' she called, as she switched on the kettle.

  Ben and David were in the garden, kicking a football. Alice saw a man at the end of the garden, close to the small greenhouse. He was tall, gangly, in a raincoat with sleeves that were slightly too short for his spindly arms.

  She heard footsteps and whirled round, but it was only her husband. 'Who's that in the garden?' she asked.

  'Alice, we've got to talk,' said Roper.

  Lee had been right: the cell doors remained locked all night. In the morning Lee was due to shower so he was up as soon as he heard doors being unlocked down the landing. He stood at the door with his towel and washbag humming. Shepherd climbed down from the top bunk in his prison-issue sweatpants and a T-shirt. He started to shave at the washbasin. The spyglass clicked open and the door was unlocked. Lee rushed off down the landing.

  Hamilton had opened the cell door.

  'What's the story, Mr Hamilton?' Shepherd asked.

  'What do you mean?'

  'The lockdown last night.'

  'A prisoner was attacked on the threes.'

  'Is he okay?'

  'Broken leg. He's in the hospital. What's your interest, Macdonald?'

  'I missed out on the gym because we were banged up, that's all. How do I go about getting on today's list?'

  'I'll see what I can do,' said Hamilton, but Shepherd could tell from his tone that he wouldn't.

  He finished shaving and dried his face, then went out on to the landing and down to the ground floor. Digger's cell was in the corner opposite the door to the exercise yard. Prisoners were milling around but no one paid him any attention.

  Digger's door was ajar. Shepherd pushed it open. The cell was empty. Shepherd cursed.

  'You looking for something, man?' said a voice.

  Shepherd turned. Needles was standing behind him, his hands on his hips. 'I'm looking for Digger.'

  'Don't you know you never go into another man's cell until you're invited? Never as in ever.'

  'I wasn't over the threshold, but I hear what you're saying, Needles. Now, where is he?'

  'Showering,' said Needles. 'What do you want?'

  'To talk to Digger.' Shepherd moved to get past him, but Needles put out a massive arm, blocking his way.

  'You can talk to me,' he said.

  Shepherd looked at the arm. It was the thickness of his leg. 'You spend a lot of time in the gym, yeah?' asked Shepherd.

  'Some.'

  'Lift weights, yeah?'

  'Some.'

  Shepherd wasn't sure how much damage he could do to a man as big as Needles. He was huge, but he wasn't fat. It was muscle. That didn't necessarily mean that he was hard, but it did mean that all his vital organs and nerve centres were well protected. If it came to violence Shepherd would have to aim for the unprotected areas - the throat, the temple, the sternum. But the problem with aiming for a vital area was that if he hit Needles too hard he risked killing him. Not hard enough, and Needles would have a chance to retaliate. He was capable, evidently, of inflicting a lot of damage.

  'Here he comes now,' said Shepherd.

  As Needles turned, Shepherd drove his knee into the man's groin. The breath exploded from Needles's mouth and he bent over, groping for his balls. His eyes were wide and staring as his mouth worked soundlessly. Shepherd stepped round him, then put his foot against the back of the man's left knee and pushed hard. Needles toppled forward. Shepherd started to walk back along the spur. He'd taken three steps before he heard Needles hit the ground with a dull thud. Two black men in tracksuits moved to let him walk by. From the astonished looks on their faces it was clear that they'd seen what he'd done to Needles. He glared at them, then scanned the spur. No prison officers.

  He went quickly back up the stairs. There were two officers in the bubble, both men in their mid-thirties whom Shepherd hadn't seen before. He went along to the shower room. Lee was walking out, his hair still wet. 'Is Digger in there?' asked Shepherd.

  Lee nodded and hurried away, as if he realised what Shepherd was planning to do. There were two men in the showers, a stocky white guy with a tattoo of the union flag on one shoulder, and Digger.

  Shepherd leaned against the wall where two towels were hanging. The white guy glanced over at him and he gestured with his thumb for him to go. The man took his towel and left.

  Digger turned to watch him go, then smiled. 'You want something?'

  'A word.'

  'In here?'

  'Not shy, are you?'

  'You could have talked to Needles.'

  'I did.'

  The water stopped running. Digger walked over to Shepherd, his huge feet slapping on the wet tiled floor.

  'I want Jurczak's place on the cleaning crew,' said Shepherd.

  'There's a queue.'

  'Fuck the queue. I want his place.'

  Digger loomed over him. He was as big and as hard as Needles, but he didn't seem the type to fall for the behind-you ruse. 'You got money?' asked Digger, thrusting his chin forward.

  'I can get you money.'

  'A grand.'

  'Fuck that,' said Shepherd. 'Jurczak paid five hundred.'

  'Inflation.'

  'The way I see it, you've already got five hundred from Jurczak so the job's paid for.'

  'You did a number on him. Broke the man's leg.'

  'I asked him nicely first. Now I'm asking you nicely.'

  Digger's eyes narrowed. 'That sounds like a threat,' he said.

  'I just want Jurczak's place. He's not going to be walking for a while. Cleaning crew's a man short. I'm that man.'

  'Five hundred.'

  'Agreed.'

  'You
pay my sister on the out.' Digger told Shepherd her name and address. A flat in Brixton. 'Five hundred by tomorrow night.'

  'Okay. When do I start?'

  'Soon as it's okayed with the screws.'

  'Who okays it?'

  'I fucking okay it. That's all you need to know.'

  Shepherd hadn't expected that Digger would tell him who his contact was, but it had been worth a try. 'There's something else.'

  'Yeah?'

  'Needles.'

  'What about Needles?'

  'We had a run-in downstairs.'

  'And?'

  'I had to hurt him.'

  Digger chuckled. 'You hurt Needles?'

  'A bit.'

  'Because?'

  'He blocked my way.'

  Digger put a hand on the wall and pushed his face closer to Shepherd's. 'What if I block your way?'

  Shepherd shrugged but didn't say anything. When a man was that close his options for attack were limited; Digger was too close to kick or punch so that meant a headbutt or a knee in the groin. Digger was several inches taller than Shepherd so headbutting would be difficult and Shepherd kept his hands low so that he could block the knee if it moved. However, Digger was menacing, but his body positioning was wrong for an attack.

  'Am I going to have a problem with you, Macdonald?'

  Shepherd shook his head. 'It's your spur. I just want to get out of my cell, that's all.'

  'That money isn't paid to my sister by tomorrow night, I'll be paying you a visit.'

  'She'll get it.'

  Digger nodded slowly, then pushed himself away from the wall. Shepherd looked down at the other man's groin and grinned. 'It's true what they say about you guys, then?'

  Digger chuckled. 'I don't get no complaints.'

  Bonnie Carpenter tossed two containers of spaghetti carbonara into the microwave and slammed the door.

  'I don't want pasta, Mum,' moaned Jacqueline. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a science book in front of her.

  'Me neither,' said Paul, trying to match his older sister's tone and doing a pretty good job.

  Bonnie twisted the dial and the microwave buzzed into life. 'It's Marks and Sparks,' she said. 'It's not as if I cooked it myself.' She picked up a French loaf and began hacking at it with a bread-knife.

  'I'm a vegetarian, Mum,' said Paul, pulling a face.

  'First of all, you're not a vegetarian,' said Bonnie, tossing chunks of bread into a basket. 'You're just copying Harry and he's only a vegetarian because his parents never grew out of theirhippiephase andtheywon't lethim eatmeat.'

  'Actually, they're too young to have been hippies,' said Jacqueline. 'Hippies were in the sixties.'

  Bonnie waved the bread-knife at her daughter. 'I didn't say they were hippies, I said they went through a hippie phase.'

  'Harry said they were punks,' said Paul. 'His dad had a safety-pin through his nose. He says there's a picture in one of their albums. And you can see his mum's breast in one of the pictures. Most of it. He says he's going to bring it to school.'

  Bonnie transferred the attentions of the bread-knife to her son. 'And second of all, there's no meat in spaghetti carbonara, so you won't be breaking any of your newfound principles.'

  Jacqueline pushed back her chair and went over to the kitchen worktop as Bonnie emptied a pack of pre-washed salad into a glass bowl. 'Do you want dressing?' Bonnie asked.

  'Dressing's fattening,' said Jacqueline, as she studied one of the cardboard wrappers that had been round the ready meals.

  Bonnie ripped open the plastic sachet with her teeth and squeezed the dressing over the salad. 'You're a growing girl,' she said. 'You need the essential vitamins and minerals in olive oil.'

  'It says here there's ham in the spaghetti sauce.'

  'You don't think they use real ham, do you?' asked Bonnie, carrying the bread basket and salad bowl over to the kitchen table. 'It's that artificial stuff. Made from soya beans.' She frowned at her daughter. The last thing she wanted was her son refusing to eat meat. He was picky enough at the best of times.

  Jacqueline held up the wrapper so that Bonnie could see the picture. 'Looks real enough to me,' she said.

  'Just goes to show how cunning food scientists can be,' said Bonnie. 'It's artificial, trust me.'

  'Was Dad ever a punk?' asked Paul.

  Bonnie laughed harshly. 'If there's one thing your dad most definitely never was, it's a punk,' she said. 'Jacqueline, while you're on your feet could you get me a bottle of Pinot Grigio out of the fridge?'

  'You drink too much,' scolded Jacqueline.

  'You drive me to it,' said Bonnie. 'Be an angel and open it for me, will you?'

  'I will,' said Paul, and rushed to the drawer where they kept the corkscrew. The phone on the wall rang and he changed direction to answer it.

  The microwave pinged and Bonnie took out two plastic dishes of steaming pasta.

  'It's Dad!' said Paul.

  'Let me talk to him,' said Bonnie, holding out her hand for the phone.

  'I want to tell him about my football match,' said Paul.

  'Let me talk to him first,' said Bonnie firmly.

  Paul gave her the phone reluctantly.

  'Hiya, honey,' said Bonnie. 'How long have you got?'

  'Six minutes and counting,' said Carpenter. 'Sorry. Should have more credit in a day or two.'

  There was a small mechanical timer on the worktop and Bonnie twisted it to six minutes. Paul saw the time and pulled a face.

  'You okay for tomorrow?' asked Carpenter.

  'Sure, do you need anything?'

  'Just clean clothes. See if I've any thirty-two-inch jeans, will you? The thirties are getting a bit tight.'

  'Gerry . . .'

  'I know, love, but it's the bloody food here. All starch and carbs.'

  'Mum . . .' complained Paul. He pointed at the timer, which was down to five and a half minutes.

  'Paul wants a word,' said Bonnie.

  'Everything okay there?' asked Carpenter.

  'There's been a BT van parked down the road for the past three days,' said Bonnie. 'They must think I'm stupid.'

  'Ignore them,' said Carpenter. 'If they want to waste their time, let them.'

  'The DVD in the bedroom's playing up. Keeps saying there isn't a DVD in when there is. What is it with these machines? They think they're smarter than we are sometimes.'

  'Chuck it and buy a new one,' said Carpenter. 'Costs more to repair them than it does to replace them. Repair shops, bloody robbers they are.'

  'Mum . . .' whined Paul.

  Bonnie handed the phone to Paul. 'Ninety seconds, then give it to your sister.'

  Paul grabbed at the receiver and started telling his father about the game of football he'd played the previous day.

  Bonnie went upstairs and knocked on the door to Stephanie's room. It bore a sheet of paper with 'PRIVATE - KEEP OUT' printed on it. Underneath were the words 'Especially you, Paul!' Bonnie opened the door. Stephanie was sitting in front of her television with her PlayStation 2. 'Steph, your dad's on the phone,' she said.

  'So?' said Stephanie, her eyes never leaving the screen. It was some shoot-'em-up game, blowing zombies into dozens of bloody pieces.

  'It'd be nice if you said a few words to him.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like asking him how he is. Like telling him how much you miss him.'

  'I'm busy, Mum.'

  'Steph, get downstairs and talk to your father. Now.'

  'Let me get to the next level.'

  'He's only got a few minutes.'

  'So I'll talk to him tomorrow.'

  Bonnie glared at her wilful daughter. She had half a mind to walk over and pull the plug out of the video game but knew how unproductive that would be. Tears, threats, and probably a week-long sulk. She closed the bedroom door and swore under her breath.

  When she got back to the kitchen there were just three minutes left and Jacqueline was standing behind her brother, poking him in the kidneys wi
th a spoon. 'Paul, let your sister talk to your father.'

  'I haven't finished yet,' Paul protested.

  'Yes, you have.' Bonnie took the receiver from him and handed it to Jacqueline.

  She poured the spaghetti on to four plates and put them on the table as Jacqueline chatted to her father. Paul sat down at the table with a sour look on his face. Bonnie picked up the glass of wine, which her daughter had poured for her, and drank half of it in one gulp.

  When there was a minute left on the timer, Bonnie took the phone from Jacqueline. 'Where's Steph?' asked Carpenter.

  'In the bath,' said Bonnie.

  'She was in the bath last time I called.'

  'Just be glad she's not like her brother. I can't get him to stand still in the shower long enough to get wet.'

  'She's okay?'

  'As okay as any ten-year-old can be,' said Bonnie.

  'Sorry I'm not there to help out,' said Carpenter.

  'Yeah, you and me both,' said Bonnie. 'How much longer are you going to be in there, love?' She regretted the question as soon as she'd asked it. She knew that he was doing everything he could to get out of prison, and that there was nothing he could tell her, not with the authorities listening in to all his calls.

  'I'll be back before you know it, honey,' said Carpenter.

  'I'm sorry,' said Bonnie. 'I know how tough it is for you in there.'

  'Piece of cake,' said Carpenter. 'Got to go, see you tomorrow.'

  The line went dead and Bonnie put the receiver back on its cradle. She drained the rest of her wine and refilled the glass. 'It's not your dad's fault,' she said to Paul. 'He only has so many minutes to use the phone.' She ruffled Paul's hair. 'He'd talk to you all day if he could.'

  'It's not fair,' he said. 'It's bad enough that he's in prison, what difference does it make how long he uses the phone for?'

  'It's part of the punishment,' said Bonnie.

  'But it's punishing me and I'm not the one who did anything wrong.'

  'Dad didn't do anything wrong either, did he, Mum?' said Jacqueline.

  Bonnie took a deep breath, then forced a smile. 'Of course he didn't. Go and tell Steph her food's on the table.'

  Shepherd nodded at Carpenter as he replaced the receiver. 'How's it going?' he asked. He'd been waiting in the line for the two phones and had heard most of Carpenter's end of the conversation - 'I'll be back before you know it,' Carpenter had said, and he'd sounded confident.