Law & Order

by G. F. Newman

‘Did you now?’ the po said. ‘Then you’d better take it up with the deputy governor. I’ll put you down on application to see him tomorrow.’ He glanced at his subordinate. ‘Mr Allison.’

  When they banged his door Lynn realised what he had done, but getting involved in Bobby Mark’s fight helped him to stop thinking too much about his own problems. He turned his attention to his supper and lifted a piece of bread. As he did so he saw something beneath it that shouldn’t have been there, and remembered Brian Lang’s wink. Replacing the bread he checked round, making sure he wasn’t being watched. Then, sitting masking the tray, he lifted the bread and found half a bar of chocolate. He felt cheered by this and would remember to repay Lang somehow.

  Applications to see the governor for any reason were taken in the adjudication room during the morning, but often it was the deputy governor or an assistant governor who heard the complaints. This morning it was Maudling’s deputy.

  ‘A4697, on application, sir, to make a complaint against an officer,’ Chief Officer Carne announced.

  ‘Is the officer who the complaint’s against present?’ the deputy governor wanted to know. He had a pale wispy moustache that was trying to hide a slight harelip. Prison officers were given every possible opportunity to defend themselves.

  ‘I took the application, sir,’ po McClean informed him. ‘He refused to name the officer.’

  ‘Well?’ the deputy governor said, his gaze settling on the wall over Lynn’s left shoulder.

  Lynn had had all night to think about what he was being drawn into, and he remembered Mr Allison’s advice. His being nicked again wouldn’t do much for Bobby Mark and in the unlikely event of his getting a result they would have it in for him as well as Mark.

  ‘What is the complaint?’

  Still Lynn remained silent.

  ‘Answer, man, or you’ll be charged with insolence,’ the deputy governor said, his harelip rising like a beak.

  ‘I made a mistake, sir,’ Lynn said. ‘I apologise for wasting your time, sir.’

  The deputy governor and the chief officer exchanged looks.

  ‘Very well, I accept your apology. You’ll find this change of attitude will make your stay here far easier for you.’ He nodded, concurring with himself.

  That easy.

  42

  ON THE WINGS THERE WAS the constant clashing and slamming of gates and doors. That was how Jack Lynn remembered stir, no one ever closing a door quietly, and gates were always banged. After a few weeks you stopped noticing, but he wondered if the screws slammed doors at home in the same way.

  Once through the locked outside door, entrance to the wing proper was barred by a heavy steel gate that formed a security reception area. Allison and another warder who escorted him from the punishment block waited while a wing warder came forward and unlocked the inner door.

  Standing on the threshold of his new environment, a feeling of panic rose in Lynn and he started to sweat. The old wing was tall and narrow, with built on spurs like afterthoughts. The centre of the three-storey building was clear through to the skylights, interrupted only by an oppressive anti-suicide chain-link netting that stretched horizontally at each floor. On each of the stone landings around the main well were cell doors set back in the brickwork, the entrances low and restricted, the doors opening outwards and with a two-inch Judas hole designed to give a view of every part of the cell. To the right of each door fixed to the shiny-painted green and cream wall was a cardholder with the cell card of each prisoner. It gave his number, name and sentence, the colour of the card denoting his religion. Most prisoners stated a preference, some adopting the denominations affording the most privileges. Catholics got fish on Friday, Buddhists got vegetarian diets, and vegans got vegan food if they made a fuss, but if you had no religion you stayed banged up during chapel times. The wing where Lynn was put held both special and category ‘A’ prisoners, who were considered the most dangerous in the entire maximum-security prison and had special exercise and recreation facilities. These for the most part were training weights and table tennis, both on the ground floor. On each of the landings there was an association room where prisoners could eat their evening meal and watch tv. The main office used by the warden was on the ground floor, as was the po’s office. A green baize notice board was fixed to the wall, beneath it stood the empty food trolley, ready for their next meal to be collected. Lights burned on the ground floor where daylight failed to penetrate. Fixed to the far wall was a worn iron staircase that groped its way through the chain-link safety nets.

  ‘One on,’ Allison called to the warder who unlocked the section gate. ‘A4697, Lynn.’ He passed over Lynn’s movement book. This went with him everywhere and was signed by the officer into whose charge he was given. After locking the gate the young wing warder glanced at the photo in the book then at Lynn before going away for the po to sign the book.

  Allison raised his eyes, as though cheesed off with the procedure, and trying to draw Lynn into his disapproval. Instead Lynn turned away, meeting the eyes of a trusty, who had stopped polishing the floor and was leaning on his mop. The trusty glanced away so not to give offence. Staring at fellow prisoners often meant a challenge.

  ‘You’ll be behind your door for a couple of,’ Allison commented, ‘while they assess you.’

  The young wing warder returned with the principal officer, who compared Lynn against the photo before signing the book. Allison returned to the gate while the po took the movements book to his office and the warder ordered Lynn to move off.

  ‘Hello, Jack!’ The cheerful greeting met him as he came round the first-floor landing. ‘Heard you was down here.’

  Lynn felt pleased to encounter a friendly face.

  Alan Parker, who was descending the stairs, had lost all his front teeth since Lynn had last seen him in a pub on Clapham Common and offered him some work. The front part of his hair was missing too and he had aged ten years in the last twelve months. Lynn wondered if he had too. Dolly hadn’t said as much, but then she wouldn’t.

  ‘I thought you drew the “Moor”.’

  ‘I was for a couple of months. S’fucking murder down there and I didn’t stop telling them. S’how I done them,’ pointing to his missing teeth. ‘I’d sooner be in this piss-hole. You have to have a rick, Jack, s’all that keeps you sane.’

  The young warder looked at the con, then at Lynn. ‘Move on.’

  ‘Don’t take no nonsense from Enoch there,’ Parker advised, and started on down. He called back, ‘If you need anything while you’re behind your door, just send me the word.’

  On the top landing, the warder checked off cells until they reached one with an empty cardholder. He popped Lynn’s card into it. ‘Your new home,’ he said.

  Lynn checked the inclination to tell him it wouldn’t be for long.

  As the screw pulled open the door, a prisoner inside jumped off the bed in alarm. ‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’ the warder demanded.

  ‘I was just lying down, Mr Powell. I wasn’t feeling well, sir.’

  The prisoner seemed unduly nervous. He sidled along the wall of the narrow cell as the warder stepped inside. He was tall, slim and had the fine-boned face of an actor. But fear was etched deeply into his skin.

  ‘Out,’ Powell snapped, ‘before you get my toe up your ass.’

  That seemed about right to Lynn, the screw bullying someone like that. He wouldn’t have tried it with him or Parker.

  The prisoner shrank away from Lynn and hurried towards the stairs, his head flicking from side to side. Lynn watched him clatter down the stairs like a nervous kitten.

  ‘Simon Menzies,’ Powell said. ‘You probably heard about him, molested and killed a little girl, he did.’

  ‘What?’ Lynn was suddenly incensed. ‘And he’s been sleeping on my fucking bed?’ The offence might have been contagious.

  ‘There�
�s been worse than him in here at times.’

  ‘I’d better have another cell. It’s a fucking liberty, Mr Powell.’

  He watched as Powell considered him, uncertain whether or not to go along with it. Finally, he stepped out of the cell and, taking the cell card out, changed it with the card outside the next cell.

  ‘Here you are. This is Bobby Mark’s cell. He won’t care where he’s put when he gets out of hospital.’

  Lynn hesitated, thinking how the lad from solitary had enough problems without him taking his cell. But the room was almost as bare as the previous one, so he felt it didn’t matter. The space was six by twelve, with a tiled floor and shiny cream walls – they must have run out of green paint. The furniture consisted of a washstand in the corner, a small table, a chair and a narrow cot bed with three blankets and duck sheets piled at the top end. There was a heavily barred window high in the end wall. Mark’s meagre personal effects were stacked on the table and seeing those, even without knowing how long he had done, made him feel more sorry for the man.

  ‘This is it. There’s nowhere else.’

  ‘What about those?’ he said, pointing to Mark’s pos­sessions.

  The warder collected them up. ‘The chaplain and social worker will be round to see you soon.’

  ‘Oh, terrific,’ Lynn said.

  #

  During the two weeks behind his door he got more than one visit from the chaplain and the welfare officer. On each occasion he repeated his statement that he’d been fitted and didn’t intend doing his time. Probably that formed part of his assessment for he knew that anything said to prison staff went onto your record, and then into the Home Office computer, despite any promise of a conversation being in confidence.

  Work was offered to him sewing mailbags, which he sat on instead. He didn’t smoke and had no real needs, while the £1.90 a week on offer wouldn’t help Dolly and the girls. There were plenty books to read. Even so, he was glad when at last they opened the door.

  On this wing he was ranked among the elite of hard men who had done worthwhile villainy, about fifteen of them. Others on the wing with long sentences got those for mindless villainy, usually involving unnecessary damage to property. His acceptance by the hard men was shown in the respect people gave him. The other thirty or so prisoners there were murderers, rapists, and nonces – the child molesters were kept behind their doors under Rule 43, and let out with an escort only.

  At dinner time, which started around four when prisoners came back from the workshops, food was served from the trolley on the ground floor by a trusty. You collected your food according to the pecking order; nonces were always last to eat.

  ‘Get your supper,’ a warder told Lynn on his first unlock, pointing down the stairs.

  Lynn sauntered out onto the landing with a strange sense of freedom and ran into Alan Parker, who was about to turn along the second landing-with his food.

  ‘Jack, all right, son? Get your grub and come up here in the tv room.’

  ‘S’that where you eat?’ Lynn wanted to eat in the right place.

  ‘There, or behind your door. Go on, ’fore those fucking nonces try to get their’n and someone pisses in it.’

  On the ground floor there were a lot of prisoners milling around the trolley waiting their turn, as two warders oversaw things.

  ‘Hello, son,’ Stephen Collins, a major villain, said to Lynn as he was moving out with his own supper. Heads turned. Collins giving him such obvious respect made Lynn feel special. ‘Al told me you was here. A fucking turn-up.’

  ‘Innit just?’ Lynn responded.

  ‘Get stuck in ’ere,’ he said. Then, turning back to the trolley, ‘Who’s that for?’

  ‘It’s Lentin’s,’ replied the trusty.

  ‘I should fucking think so, what, before Jack gets his?’ He took the tray and gave it to Lynn. ‘You’d better put a bit more on that as well. He needs fattening up.’

  ‘Only so much food comes over from the kitchens, Stephen,’ one of the screws said as the trusty heaped more food on Lynn’s tray.

  ‘Only because the catering officers are at it,’ Collins said. ‘The nonces can go short.’

  On reaching the second level, Lynn said, ‘I’m having my bit of grub in the tv room.’

  ‘Not there with them mugs,’ Collins chided. ‘Come up to the threes,’ – there Collins held sway.

  ‘I just told Al I’d see him.’

  Collins seemed slighted at that. Clearly, he liked having his own way. But he grinned, finally, as though seeing Lynn as some kind of celebrity he didn’t want to let go of, and said, ‘All right. I’ll come there for a change.’

  The tv room was the size of a double cell. It had a central table where Lynn and Collins joined Parker and two other prisoners who were eating. Three more were sitting watching Blue Peter on a large tv tucked away in the corner.

  ‘No-good fucking ponces,’ Alan Parker said angrily as Lynn’s case was discussed. ‘Them three what got done with you, Jack.’ It might have been himself wronged.

  Each of the men at the table claiming they were either fitted up or unjustly weighed off, stating their chances on appeal, arguing who was the governor among them, or who was fucking whom, was the staple conversation, Lynn was soon to learn.

  ‘What the fuck can you do?’ he said. ‘The filth decided they wanted me long before Tully’s little firm showed up.’ He grew dangerously philosophical about this. Had he been weighed off with an easy five he might have accepted that it was his turn.

  ‘John Tully always was a no-good slag,’ Collins said. He was a volatile mixture of love and hate, the sort of bloke who, in other circumstances, was as likely as not to say what a nice fella Tully was.

  ‘They should definitely have given you an out,’ Parker said.

  ‘You stuck in your appeal, Jack?’ one of the other cons at the table asked. He was Micky Dunkerton, who was in his late thirties. He was immaculately dressed compared with other prisoners, some of whom not only didn’t bother with ties or coats but wandered around in their vests. Dunkerton wore a collar and tie, his jacket and trousers neatly pressed.

  ‘My brief done it right off!’

  ‘I don’t want to depress you, son,’ Collins said. ‘But you know yourself the way that is. Either you’ve done half your bird before you ever get to appeal, or those slags always stick together and favour the judge what puts you down.’

  He didn’t enjoy being reminded of the immediate prospects for his appeal. ‘Don’t you watch the news, Steve? The Court of Appeal is turfing them out all over the place.’

  ‘Only if you got one of the criminal groupies working for you and get on telly,’ Collins said.

  He was a bit older than Lynn, a bit fatter, with a babyish complexion. He had an argumentative nature, and didn’t like to see anyone get something he didn’t, whether it was an extra letter or a result on appeal. Clearly he liked to be Jack-the-Lad and dominate people. That was something he had effectively done on the outside, but Lynn suspected he was basically a coward. He had heard stories about Collins and half-forgotten details of his old firm. His reputation was formidable with a thirty-year tab for assaults, robberies and murders.

  ‘The thing is,’ Parker said, eating the last of his pudding, ‘you got to get someone to look at the discrepancies in the police evidence. That’s the only sure way to get a result. The dopey sods write things down then forget to destroy their own dodgy notes.’

  ‘Get some new evidence against the filth, Jack,’ Collins said, ‘that’s what you need.’

  ‘My brief’s working on it.’ Lynn believed his young solicitor was doing nothing else. ‘He’s a bit near the mark.’

  ‘You ought to talk to Tony Scuffham down on the ones,’ Dunkerton said. ‘He’s doing twenty-five with a recommendation. He handled his own appeal.’

  ‘How’d he go?
’ Lynn asked with interest.

  ‘Oh, it went against him, Jack. He couldn’t get into what Old Bill were up to.’

  ‘S’fucking handy,’ Lynn retorted. He looked at the faces of the men around the table, deciding they each had to be all right or Alan Parker wouldn’t be sitting with them. ‘It does go the other way, I tell you, I’ll have to plot one up, s’all.’

  ‘Out of here? You got to be joking,’ Collins said. ‘What d’you reckon I been thinking about for the past seven? Get one going, Jack, me and Bri’ll make it with you. Won’t we, Bri’?’

  The fifth man at the table, who had said little throughout the meal, glanced over at Lynn with interest now. He was Brian Smith, who was in his late twenties and seemed to be the odd man out. It wasn’t simply his different accent, he didn’t get his living from villainy, and had been adopted by Steve Collins, perhaps because of being so different.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have had something going by now,’ Lynn said. He would never settle down to his twenty years.

  ‘Ain’t even been attempted, too many fucking grasses. You can’t even have a shit round here without you’re grassed.’

  ‘Something’s got to be tried.’

  ‘You wait and see,’ Collins said. ‘There’s one or two grasses I’ll mark your card about later, Jack, though you’ll smell most of them a mile away.’

  Straightaway he recognised what Collins was doing. He was trying to bring him into line, to give the impression that he was part of his little team. It wasn’t on, Lynn decided. He glanced around the table, looking for any spare food. Dunkerton hadn’t finished his pudding. ‘Don’t you want that, Micky?’

  ‘No. You wan’ it?’ He pushed the tray his way. ‘It ain’t that good, is it?’ Collins said.

  ‘I’m a growing lad.’ Lynn was surprised how quickly he had accepted the low quality of food.

  ‘You look like you could do with putting on a bit,’ Collins said and pushed his chair back. ‘You need any snout, son?’

  ‘No, I don’t use it,’ Lynn said.