by Shaun Hutson
Robinson nudged the man in front of him and nodded a greeting as the man turned.
The uniformed man noticed the movement and stepped close to Robinson.
'No talking,' he said.
Robinson shrugged and smiled innocently.
'Cunt,' he whispered, stifling the word with a yawn.
Across the landing an identical procession was filing towards their own latrine. Men who had emptied their slop buckets were returning to their cells. There were the odd murmurings, the sounds echoing throughout the large building, but they were quickly quelled by warders anxious to maintain silence.
Porter peered over the landing rail, through the steel netting that was strung from one side to the other, and noticed that, on the landing below, prisoners who had finished slopping out had not in fact returned to their cells but were standing outside, their attempts at entry barred by warders. He frowned, wondering what was going on. His musings were interrupted as he reached the latrine. He and Robinson emptied their slop buckets into the waste chutes provided, rinsed them with boiling water and then made their way back to their cell.
The door was closed, the entrance blocked by another warder, Raymond Douglas. He was a red-faced man with a pitted complexion who always looked exhausted, as if he'd just completed a marathon.
'Stay there,' he said, toying with his key chain, holding up his free hand to add weight to his instructions.
Further down the landing, other prisoners also stood outside their cells. Irritated mutterings grew louder.
'… What's going on?…'
'… Why are we being kept outside?…'
'What's the deal, Mr Douglas?' Porter asked.
'You'll find out,' said the warder. 'For now, just shut it.'
Porter eyed the uniformed man malevolently, then exchanged puzzled glances with his cell-mate.
'Cell search?' Robinson murmured. 'Someone been smoking whacky baccy again?'
'I said shut it,' Douglas snapped.
'Just curious,' said Robinson, gazing around him.
On all the landings men now stood outside their cells, increasingly frustrated and increasingly cold. It wasn't exactly warm inside Whitely and many of them were dressed only in shorts. The babble of discontent grew more insistent, to the point where even the warders couldn't quell it.
'What the hell is going on?' Porter wanted to know.
'SHUT UP.'
The voice boomed around the inside of the building, bouncing off the walls with its ferocity and power.
All heads turned in one direction, peering upwards to find its source.
'Shut up and listen,' the voice continued, and now the inmates could see where the thunderous exhortation came from.
On the uppermost landing, flanked by warders, stood a tall, powerfully-built figure in a dark blue suit, his greying hair slicked back so severely it appeared that he was bald. He gripped the landing rail with hands as large as ham-hocks. He regarded the men beneath him impassively, his eyes flicking back and forth as they looked up at him.
Peter Nicholson, the Governor of Whitely Prison, began to speak.
FORTY-TWO
You could have been forgiven for imagining, that Peter Nicholson had undergone surgery to replace his vocal chords with a megaphone. His words boomed out, spoken with clarity and in a tone that suggested that he was keeping his words simple for the less intelligent inmates of the prison. On either side of him the warders looked down onto the other landings, watching for any signs of unrest amongst those below. Warders on each of the individual landings also ensured that silence prevailed as he spoke.
'As you may have heard,' the Governor said, smoothing his hair back with one hand, 'Whitely has been in the news lately. The media are obviously hard up for stories because they seem interested in what they refer to as our overcrowding problems here. Also, the local MP has taken it upon himself to look personally into what goes on in this prison.'
Robinson looked at Porter and raised his eyebrows quizzically.
'To that end,' Nicholson continued, 'a Home Office delegation will be visiting this prison tomorrow to see how it runs and to see how well you're all cared for.' He smiled sardonically.
A murmur rose that was quickly silenced.
Nicholson paused for a moment theatrically.
'The members of this delegation will be speaking to a number of prisoners. Asking about conditions, etcetera.' He looked around the upturned faces. 'You may speak to them if you wish. Help them with their questions. You may have some questions for them. If you have any problems or grievances, you're quite free to tell them.'
'Yeah,' murmured Porter. 'And get our fucking heads busted by the screws when they've gone.'
Swain took a step towards him, shooting him a warning glance.
'If any of you have any problems, at any time, you know you are free to speak to the officers in charge of your landing or to me personally,' Nicholson continued.
There was another babble of chatter, and this time it took longer to quieten.
Nicholson looked around once more. His green eyes, like chips of emerald, caught the light and reflected it coldly. He brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve as he waited for the silence he required. Finally satisfied, he continued.
'I want this prison running perfectly for these visitors,' he said. 'I want co-operation between you and the officers. I want the cells spotless. I want them to be impressed by what they see. I don't like people meddling in the way I run-this prison and that's what they're doing. Meddling. I want them to leave here, knowing that this prison is well run and that its inmates are being adequately dealt with. I don't expect them to leave here with a catalogue of stories about what a terrible place Whitely is. As I said, you may speak to them if you wish. That is your prerogative. But bear in mind that if they hear too many bad reports, they'll disrupt the way I run this prison. And I don't like disruptions. I hope that's understood.' He looked around him, then smoothed his hair back once more. 'That's all.'
Nicholson and his officers turned and moved away from the landing rail, out of sight of the other prisoners.
On all the landings the inmates were allowed back inside their cells.
'Breakfast in twenty minutes, get a move on,' said Warder Swain, slamming the door shut behind Robinson and Porter.
'Suck this,' rasped Porter, holding his penis in one fist. 'Fucking cunt.'
Both men started to dress, taking it in turns to wash as best they could in the small sink perched on the cell wall.
'I wonder if anyone will be stupid enough to tell this bunch of do-gooders the truth?' Robinson mused, drying his face.
'Are you joking?' Porter muttered, fastening his grey overall. 'Even the screws wouldn't tell them anything. They're more frightened of Nicholson than most of the cons in here.'
Robinson nodded in agreement.
'A tour of the prison, eh?' he said, smiling. 'I wonder what they'll make of our humble little home.'
'Probably want to move in with us,' Porter quipped. He crossed to his locker and took out a comb, running it through his short black hair. The inside of the locker was a mosaic of photos: naked women, a team picture of Liverpool FC and a couple of postcards all vied for attention. He blew a kiss to one of the women, then closed the locker again.
Robinson was sitting on the edge of the upper bunk. 'I'll tell you one thing, Rod,' he said, 'and I'll bet money on it. There's at least one part of this nick they won't see. Nicholson will make sure of that.'
FORTY-THREE
The office was large, functional rather than welcoming. Efficiency was the keyword. It was a place of work, after all, thought Peter Nicholson, and it had been his place of work for the last sixteen years. He'd seen many changes in the penal system as a whole and Whitely in particular during his days as Governor at the prison. The changes since he first began working in the service had been radical, to say the least. He'd begun back in the fifties as a prison officer. He'd served his early years in Wandsworth. In fact, he'd
been one of two warders who had escorted Derek Bentley from the condemned cell to the hangman on January 28 1953. Bentley had been sentenced to hang because his accomplice, Christopher Craig, despite having fired the shot that killed a policeman, had been too young for the rope.
After Wandsworth Nicholson had moved around from prison to prison, serving his time as surely as any of the inmates in those institutions. The difference was that he could go home at the end of every shift. He had an increasingly long key chain to show for his years of service.
His enthusiasm for his work and his intelligence had led to him being appointed Assistant Governor at Wormwood Scrubs. From there it had been only a matter of time until he was given his own prison.
Whitely was all he knew and had known for the last sixteen years.
The penal system he worked in was not the only thing that had changed during Nicholson's time. His own attitude had hardened, too. He'd originally joined the service after his mother had been attacked and beaten almost to death in 1950. He felt that he was acting, by proxy, for her and all victims of crime like her in his role as gaoler. And that was exactly how he viewed his job. He didn't see his task as correcting the ways of men who had strayed into crime and needed help; he and his warders existed to protect society from the kind of human garbage locked within the walls of Whitely.
He stood up, glancing across at the photograph of his wife on the desk. The image smiled back at him as he straightened the frame. He moved over to the window of his office and looked out.
He could see into the empty exercise yard. Beyond it, protected by a high stone wall, was a small chapel in the grounds of which were a number of graves, each one marked by a simple marble marker; some were actually decorated by headstones or crosses. They bore the names of prisoners who had died at Whitely. Men who, with no family on the outside, had nowhere else to rest. Even in death they were confined within the walls of the prison.
A couple of inmates were picking up leaves from around the graves, sweeping them into a large black sack. The skeletal trees that grew close to the chapel rattled their branches in the wind, which whipped across the open ground.
The closest town of any size to the prison was over twelve miles away, across barren land now unfit even for farming. The remains of an open-caste mine, shut down over a decade earlier, lay to the west.
A single road, holed and pockmarked, connected the prison's main gates to a small tarmac road which wound through the hills and moors like a dry tongue in search of water.
The wind rattled the window in its frame but Nicholson remained where he was, keeping vigil, gazing out over his empire.
The buzzer on his intercom interrupted his thoughts.
He turned and flipped a switch.
'The warders you asked to see are here, Mr Nicholson,' his secretary told him.
'Send them in,' he instructed her.
A moment later the door opened and five men in uniforms trooped in. Nicholson motioned to them to take a seat. He leant on his desk top, waiting until the last of them was seated, then stood upright again, pulling himself up to his full six feet. He looked an imposing figure.
'You know what this is about,' he said curtly. 'I want to be sure that everything runs smoothly when this blasted delegation gets here tomorrow. Any hint of trouble, I want it stamped on.' He looked at each man in turn.
'Will you be showing them round yourself, sir?' asked John Niles.
Nicholson nodded.
'How many are there?' Raymond Douglas wanted to know.
'Four. One woman.'
'That should please the men,' said Niles, smiling. The other officers chuckled but Nicholson didn't see the joke.
'If any of those bastards finds out that one of them is going to be a woman, there could be trouble,' Nicholson said flatly. 'Take care of it.' He smoothed his hair back with one hand. 'I want them in and out of here as quickly as possible. I don't like the idea of people investigating my prison.'
'Why are they coming to Whitely, anyway?' Paul Swain enquired. 'We're not the only prison in the country that's overcrowded.'
'That's perfectly correct. Unfortunately, however, we are the only prison where a remand prisoner was murdered by a lifer recently.' He held up his hands in a dismissive gesture.
'I hope they're not too disappointed by what they see,' said Gareth Wart on.
Nicholson looked at him unblinkingly.
'Meaning what?' he said irritably.
'You have to agree, sir, conditions are below standard.'
'Standard for what? This is a prison, in case you'd forgotten. The men here are here because they broke the law. Most of those in Whitely are here because they're too unruly or dangerous even for other jails to cope with.' He fixed Warton in his gaze. 'We, Mr Warton, have the scum of the earth under this roof.'
'They still deserve better conditions,' Warton persisted.
'They deserve nothing,' Nicholson hissed. 'They're here to be punished. We're here to ensure that punishment is carried out.'
'Isn't it our job to help them too, sir?' Warton said.
'Yours, perhaps, if that's how you feel. I don't see it as my job to help them. It's my job to help the people on the outside and I do that by making sure the scum in here stay in here.' He fixed Warton in the unrelenting stare of his cold green eyes. 'Do you know what we are, Mr Warton? We're zoo keepers, paid to keep animals behind bars.'
Warton coloured and lowered his gaze.
Nicholson sucked in an angry breath and turned back to look out of his office window.
'When the delegation arrives I want them brought here,' he said. 'I'll show them round the prison, round the recreation rooms and cells. If they want to speak to any of the prisoners they can. But I want at least two men present at all times.'
'Will you be taking them to the maximum security wing, sir?' Swain asked.
'Yes, and the solitary cells,' the warden told them.
'What about the hospital wing?' asked Niles.
'No,' snapped Nicholson, turning to face the officer. 'The infirmary, perhaps, but there's no need to show them anything else.' He looked up and down the line of faces. 'Are there any questions?'
There weren't. Nicholson dismissed the warders, returning to the window for a moment as if searching for something out in the windswept yard.
From where he stood he couldn't see the hospital wing.
The thought suddenly spurred him into action.
He turned back to his desk, picked up the phone and jabbed an extension number.
As he waited for it to be answered he drummed lightly on the desk top. The phone was finally answered.
'We have to talk,' said Nicholson. 'Come over to my office. It's important.'
FORTY-FOUR
Ray Plummer filled the Waterford crystal tumbler with soda and ice and handed it to John Hitch, and then repeated the procedure, passing the other brandy and soda to Terry Morton.
Morton thanked him, interrupted in his appraisal of a pair of Armani statues.
'And this stuff is worth money, is it, Ray?' Morton said, motioning towards the figurines.
'Of course it's worth money, you prat. Why do you think I bought it?' Plummer said. 'Fuck me, I'm surrounded by Philistines.'
He took a sip of his own drink and sat down in the leather chair closest to the fireplace, looking into the authentic fake gas flames as he sipped his drink. He touched his hair self-consciously, worried that the high wind outside might have disturbed it.
Morton remained on his feet, swaying backwards and forwards from the balls to the heels of his shoes. The delicate tumbler was out of place in his heavy hand; he looked as if he would have been more comfortable carrying a bottle of beer. Or a cosh.
'Sit down, Terry, you make the place look untidy,' Plummer told him, smiling at Hitch, who grinned back as his companion sat down hurriedly.
Both Hitch and Morton had worked for Plummer for more than ten years and he trusted them as much as anyone in his organisation. Hence the
ir privileged presence in his penthouse flat. They were two of only a handful of his employees allowed to enter this most private of havens.
Hitch was a couple of years younger than his boss but his long blond hair and perpetual sun tan (the product of a solarium) made him look closer to thirty than thirty-six. Morton was the opposite, dark-haired, squat, almost brutish in appearance. He'd been a successful amateur boxer before he joined Plummer's organisation. The flat nose was a testament to his habit of fighting with his guard down. Hitch maintained he could stop buses with his head (and frequently did).
'So, tell me what you found out about Connelly,' said Plummer. 'Is it right he's moving into drugs?'
'As far as we could find out, he's got no plans to expand in that area, Ray,' Hitch said, sipping his drink.
'He's making bundles out of the money business, isn't he?' Morton added. 'Why should he try that other shit?'
'Because that other shit is worth a damned sight more,' Plummer said scornfully.
'Well, we spoke to at least half a dozen members of his firm and none of them knows anything about a shipment of cocaine,' Hitch announced. 'That call must have been someone winding you up.'
'But why?' Plummer wanted to know.
Hitch could only shrug.
'The bit about the warehouse was right,' Plummer continued. 'Connelly's just bought himself a warehouse down by the docks.'
'Maybe his boats unload there, the ones that bring his mags in,' Hitch offered.
Plummer remained unconvinced.
'You spoke to members of his firm,' he said. 'They're hardly likely to tell you what the cunt's planning, are they? Especially if he's planning to take over London with the money he makes from selling that fucking cocaine.' Plummer got to his feet and walked across to the fireplace, staring into the flames.
'There's no reason why he should want to try and "take over",' Hitch said. 'It doesn't make sense, Ray. There's been peace for over three years now. Connelly's not going to fuck it up by starting a drugs war, is he?'