by Tom Sharpe
‘And what good is that going to do? He can’t bring her back to me!’
‘Nobody can, dammit. And if you hadn’t put the idea into her empty head that she was capable of earning her own living when it was as clear as daylight she was as thick as two short planks, none of this would have happened.’ Lord Lychknowle picked up the phone and dialled the Chief Constable.
*
At The Glassblowers’ Arms, Wilt was on the phone too. He had spent the time trying to think of some way to circumvent whatever ghastly plans McCullum had in mind for him without revealing his own identity to the prison authorities. It wasn’t easy.
After two large whiskies, Wilt had plucked up enough courage to phone the prison, had refused to give his name and had asked for the Governor’s home number. It wasn’t in the phone book. ‘It’s ex-directory,’ said the warder in the office.
‘Quite,’ said Wilt. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’
‘And that’s why I can’t give it to you. If the Governor wanted every criminal in the district to know where he could be subjected to threats, he’d put it there wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Wilt. ‘On the other hand, when a member of the public is being threatened by some of your inmates, how on earth is he supposed to inform the Governor that there’s going to be a mass breakout?’
‘Mass breakout? What do you know about plans for a mass breakout?’
‘Enough to want to speak to the Governor.’ There was a pause while the warder considered this and Wilt fed the phone with another coin.
‘Why can’t you tell me?’ the warder asked finally.
Wilt ignored the question. ‘Listen,’ he said with a desperate earnestness that sprang from the knowledge that having come so far he couldn’t back down, and that if he didn’t convince the man that this was a genuine crisis, McCullum’s accomplices would shortly be doing something ghastly to his knees, ‘I assure you that this is a deeply serious matter. I wish to speak to the Governor privately. I will call back in ten minutes. All right?’
‘It may not be possible to reach him in that time, sir,’ said the warder, recognizing the voice of genuine desperation. ‘If you can give me your number, I’ll get him to call you.’
‘It’s Ipford 23194,’ he said, ‘and I’m not joking.’
‘No, sir,’ said the warder. ‘I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.’
Wilt put the phone down and wandered back to his whisky at the bar uncomfortably aware that he was now committed to a course of action that could have horrendous consequences. He finished his whisky and ordered another to dull the thought that he’d given the warder the phone number of the pub where he was well-known. ‘At least it proved to him that I was being serious,’ he thought and wondered what it was about the bureaucratic mentality that made communication so difficult. The main thing was to get in touch with the Governor as soon as possible and explain the situation to him. Once McCullum had been transferred to another prison, he’d be off the hook.
*
At HM Prison Ipford, the information that a mass escape was imminent was already causing repercussions. The Chief Warder, summoned from his bed, had tried to telephone the Governor. ‘The blasted man must be out to dinner somewhere,’ he said when the phone had rung for several minutes without being answered. ‘Are you certain it wasn’t a hoax call?’
The warder on duty shook his head. ‘Sounded genuine to me,’ he said. ‘Educated voice and obviously frightened. In fact, I have an idea I recognized it.’
‘Recognized it?’
‘Couldn’t put a name to it but he sounded familiar somehow. Anyway, if it wasn’t genuine, why did he give me his phone number so quick?’ The Chief Warder looked at the number and dialled it. The line was engaged. A girl at The Glass-blowers’ Arms was talking to her boyfriend. ‘Why didn’t he give his name?’
‘Sounded frightened to death like I told you. Said something about being threatened. And with some of the swine we’ve got in here …’
The Chief Warder didn’t need telling. ‘Right. We’re not taking any chances. Put the emergency plan into action pronto. And keep trying to contact the bloody Governor.’
Half an hour later, the Governor returned home to find the phone in his study ringing. ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Mass breakout threatened,’ the warder told him, ‘a man …’ But the Governor wasn’t waiting. He’d been living in terror for years that something of this sort was going to happen. ‘I’ll be right over,’ he shouted and dashed for his car. By the time he reached the prison his fears had been turned to panic by the wail of police sirens and the presence on the road of several fire engines travelling at high speed in front of him. As he ran towards the gate, he was stopped by three policemen.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ a sergeant demanded. The Governor looked at him lividly.
‘Since I happen to be the Governor,’ he said, ‘the Governor of this prison, you understand, I’m going inside. Now if you’ll kindly stand aside.’
‘Any means of identification, sir?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘My orders require me to prevent anyone leaving or entering.’
The Governor rummaged through the pockets of his suit and produced a five-pound note and a comb. ‘Now look here, officer …’ he began, but the Sergeant was already looking. At the five-pound note. He ignored the comb.
‘I shouldn’t try that one if I were you,’ he said.
‘Try what one? I don’t seem to have anything else on me.’ ‘You heard that one, Constable,’ said the sergeant, ‘Attempting to offer a bribe to –’
‘A bribe … offer a bribe? Who said anything about offering a bribe?’ exploded the Governor. ‘You ask me for means of identification and when I try to produce some, you start talking about bribes. Ask the warder on the gate to identify me, dammit.’ It took another five minutes of protest to get inside the prison and by then his nerves were in no state to deal at all adequately with the situation. ‘You’ve done what?’ he screamed at the Chief Warder.
‘Moved all the men from the top floors to the cells below, sir. Thought it better in case they got onto the roof. Of course, they’re a bit cramped but …’
‘Cramped? They were four to a one-man cell already. You mean to say they’re eight now? It’s a wonder they haven’t started rioting already.’ He was interrupted by the sound of screams from C Block. As Prison Officer Blaggs hurried away, the Governor tried to find out what was happening. It was almost as difficult as getting into the prison had been. A battle was apparently raging on the third floor of A Wing. ‘That’ll be due to putting Fidley and Gosling in with Stanforth and Haydow,’ the warder in the office said.
‘Fidley and … Put two child murderers in with a couple of decent honest-to-God armed bank robbers? Blaggs must be mad. How long did it take them to die?’
‘I don’t think they’re dead yet,’ said the warder with rather more disappointment in his voice than the Governor approved. ‘Last I heard, they’d managed to stop Haydow from castrating Fidley. That was when Mr Blaggs decided to intervene.’
‘You mean the lunatic waited?’ asked the Governor.
‘Not exactly, sir. You see, there was this fire in D Block –’
‘Fire in D Block? What fire in D Block?’
‘Moore set fire to his mattress, sir, and by the time –’ But the Governor was no longer listening. He knew now that his career was at stake. All it needed to finish him was for that lunatic Blaggs to have acted as an accessory to murder by packing all the swine in the Top Security Block into one cell. He was just on his way to make quite certain when Chief Warder Blaggs returned. ‘Everything’s under control, sir,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Under control?’ spluttered the Governor. ‘Under control? If you think the Home Secretary’s going to think “under control” means having child killers castrated by other prisoners, I can assure you you’re not up-to-date with contemporary regulations. Now then, about Top Security.’
‘Nothing to worry
about there, sir. They’re all sleeping like babes.’
‘Odd,’ said the Governor. ‘If there was going to be an attempted breakout you’d think they were bound to be involved. You’re sure they’re not shamming?’
‘Positive, sir,’ said Blaggs proudly. ‘The first thing I did, sir, by way of a precaution, was to lace their cocoa with that double-strength sleeping stuff.’
‘Sweet Jesus,’ moaned the Governor, trying to imagine the consequences of the Chief Warder’s experiment in preventive sedation if news leaked out to the Howard League for Penal Reform. ‘Did you say “double strength”?’
The Chief Warder nodded. ‘Same stuff we had to use on Fidley that time he saw the Shirley Temple film and went bananas. Mind you, he’s not going to get a hard-on after tonight, not if he’s wise.’
‘But that was double-strength phenobarb,’ squawked the Governor.
‘That’s right, sir. So I gave them double strength like it said. Went out like lights they did.’
The Governor could well believe it. ‘You’ve gone and given four times the proper dose to those men,’ he moaned, ‘probably killed the brutes. That stuff’s lethal. I never told you to do that.’
Chief Warder Blaggs looked crestfallen. ‘I was only doing what I thought best, sir. I mean those swine are a menace to society. Half of them are psychopathic killers.’
‘Not the only psychopaths round here,’ muttered the Governor. He was about to order a medical team into the prison to stomach-pump the villains Blaggs had sedated, when the warder by the phone intervened. ‘We could always say Wilson poisoned them,’ he said, ‘I mean, that’s what they’re terrified of. Remember that time they went on dirty strike and Mr Blaggs here let Wilson do some washing up in the kitchen?’
The Governor did, and would have preferred to forget it. Putting a mass poisoner anywhere near a kitchen had always struck him as insane.
‘Did the trick, sir. They come off dirtying their cells double quick.’
‘And went on hunger strike instead,’ said the Governor.
‘And Wilson didn’t like it much either, come to that,’ said the warder, for whom the incident evidently had pleasant memories. ‘Said we’d no right making him wash up in boxing gloves. Proper peeved he was –’
‘Shut up,’ yelled the Governor, trying to get back to a world of comparative sanity, but he was interrupted by the phone.
‘It’s for you, sir,’ said the Chief Warder significantly.
The Governor grabbed it. ‘I understand you have some information to give me about an escape plan,’ he said, and realized he was talking to the buzz of a pay phone. But before he could ask the Chief Warder how he knew it was for him, the coin dropped. The Governor repeated his statement.
‘That’s what I’m phoning about,’ said the caller. ‘Is there any truth in the rumour?’
‘Any truth in the …’ said the Governor. ‘How the devil would I know? You were the one to bring the matter up.’
‘News to me,’ said the man. ‘That is Ipford Prison, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it’s Ipford Prison and what’s more, I’m the Governor. Who the hell did you think I was?’
‘Nobody,’ said the man, now sounding decidedly perplexed, ‘nobody at all. Well, not nobody exactly but … well … you don’t sound like a Prison Governor. Anyway, all I’m trying to find out is if there’s been an escape or not.’
‘Listen,’ said the Governor, beginning to share the caller’s doubts about his own identity, ‘you phoned earlier in the evening with information about an escape plot and –’
‘I did? You off your rocker or something? I’ve been out covering a burst bloody bulkloader on Bliston Road for the last three bloody hours and if you think I’ve had time to call you, you’re bleeding barmy.’
The Governor struggled with the alliteration before realizing something else was wrong. ‘And who am I speaking to?’ he asked, mustering what little patience he still retained.
‘The name’s Nailtes,’ said the man, ‘and I’m from the Ipford Evening News and –’
The Governor slammed the phone down and turned on Blaggs. ‘A bloody fine mess you’ve landed us in,’ he shouted. ‘That was the Evening News wanting to know if there’s been an escape.’
Chief Warder Blaggs looked dutifully abashed. ‘I’m sorry if there’s been some mistake …’ he began and brought a fresh torrent of abuse on his head.
‘Mistake? Mistake?’ yelled the Governor. ‘Some maniac rings up with some fucking cock-and-bull story about an escape and you have to poison …’ But further discussion was interrupted by news of a fresh crisis. Three safebreakers, who had been transferred from a cell designed to hold one Victorian convict to another occupied by four Grievous Bodily Harm merchants from Glasgow, known as the Gay Gorbals, had begun to fulfil Wilt’s prophesy by escaping and demanding to be closeted with some heterosexual murderers for protection.
The Governor found them arguing their case with warders in B Block. ‘We’re not going in with a load of arse-bandits and that’s a fact,’ said the spokesman.
‘It’s only a temporary move,’ said the Governor, himself temporizing. ‘In the morning –’
‘We’ll be suffering from AIDS,’ said the safebreaker.
‘Aids?’
‘Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We want some good, clean murderer, not those filthy swine with anal herpes. A stretch is one thing and so’s a bang to rights but not the sort of stretch those Scotch sods would give us and we’re fucked if we’re going to be banged to wrong. This is supposed to be a prison, not Dotheboys Hall.’
By the time the Governor had pacified them and sent them back to their own cell, he was beginning to have his doubts about the place himself. In his opinion, the prison felt more like a mad-house. His next visit, this time to Top Security, made an even worse impression. A sepulchral silence hung over the floodlit building and, as the Governor passed from cell to cell, he had the illusion of being in a charnel-house. Wherever he looked, men who in other circumstances he would happily have seen dead, looked as though they were. Only the occasional ghastly snore suggested otherwise. For the rest, the inmates hung over the sides of their beds or lay grotesquely supine on the floor in attitudes that seemed to indicate that rigor mortis had already set in.
‘Just let me find the swine who started this little lot,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll … I’ll … I’ll …’ He gave up. There was nothing in the book of legal punishments that would fit the crime.
7
By the time Wilt left The Glassblowers’ Arms, his desperation had been alleviated by beer and his inability to get anywhere near the phone. He’d moved onto beer after three whiskies, and the change had made it difficult for him to be in two places at the same time, a prerequisite, it seemed, for finding the phone unoccupied. For the first half hour, a girl had been engaged in an intense conversation on reversed charges, and when Wilt had returned from the toilet, her place had been taken by an aggressive youth who had told him to bugger off. After that, there seemed to be some conspiracy to keep him away from the phone. A succession of people had used it and Wilt had ended up sitting at the bar and drinking, and generally arriving at the conclusion that things weren’t so bad after all, even if he did have to walk home instead of driving.
‘The bastard’s in prison,’ he told himself as he left the pub. ‘And what’s more, he’s not coming out for twenty years, so what have I got to worry about? Can’t hurt me, can he?’
All the same, as he made his way along the narrow streets towards the river, he kept glancing over his shoulder and wondering if he was being followed. But apart from a man with a small dog and a couple who passed him on bicycles, he was alone and could find no evidence of menace. Doubtless that would come later. Wilt tried to figure out a scenario. Presumably, McCullum had given him the piece of paper as a token message, an indication that he was to be some sort of link-man. Well, there was an easy way out of that one; he wouldn’t go near the bloody prison again.
Might make things awkward as far as Eva was concerned though. He’d just have to make himself scarce on Monday nights and pretend he was still teaching the loathsome McCullum. Shouldn’t be too difficult and anyway, Eva was so engrossed in the quads and their so-called development, she hardly noticed what he was doing. The main thing was that he still had the airbase job and that brought the real money in.
But in the meantime, he had more immediate problems to deal with. Like what to tell Eva when he got home. He looked at his watch and saw that it was midnight. After midnight and without the car. Eva would certainly demand an explanation. What a bloody world it was, where he spent his days dealing with idiotic bureaucrats who interfered at the Tech, and was threatened by maniacs in prison, and after all that, came home to be bullied into lying by a wife who didn’t believe he’d done a stroke of work all day. And in a bloody world, only the bloody-minded made any mark. The bloody-minded and the cunning. People with drive and determination. Wilt stopped under a street light and looked at the heathers and azaleas in Mr Sands’ garden for the second time that day, but this time with a resurgence of those dangerous drives and determinations which beer and the world’s irrationality induced in him. He would assert himself. He would do something to distinguish himself from the mass of dull, stupid people who accepted what life handed out to them and then passed on probably into oblivion (Wilt was never sure about that) without leaving more than the fallacious memories of their children and the fading snapshots in the family album. Wilt would be … well, anyway, Wilt would be Wilt, whatever that was. He’d have to give the matter some thought in the morning.
In the meantime, he’d deal with Eva. He wasn’t going to stand any nonsense about where have you been? or what have you been up to this time? He’d tell her to mind her own … No, that wouldn’t do. It was the sort of challenge the damned woman was waiting for and would only provoke her into keeping him awake half the night discussing what was wrong with their marriage. Wilt knew what was wrong with their marriage; it had been going on for twenty years and Eva had had quads instead of having one at a time. Which was typical of her. Talk about never doing things by halves. But that was beside the point. Or was it? Perhaps she’d had quads to compensate in some ghastly deterministic and genetical way for marrying only half a man. Wilt’s mind shot off on a tangent once again as he considered the fact, if it was one, that after wars the birthrate of males shot up as if nature with a capital N was automatically compensating for their shortage. If Nature was that intelligent, it ought to have known better than to make him attractive to Eva, and vice versa. He was driven from this line of thought by another attribute of Nature. This time its call. Well, he wasn’t peeing in a rose bush again. Once was enough.