by G. F. Newman
‘The thing is, Brian, I got dough on the outside, a lot of it. And I’ve still got a lot of worthwhile contacts. I’m no old mug. I’m not some silly fucking cowboy who could do no better than stick a shotgun over a building society counter with a video camera watching me the whole while. I could arrange to have a boat to take us off the island, across to France or Morocco. Anywhere we want.’
Brian Smith noticed how easily Collins included himself. Maybe the man was genuine, but still he hesitated.
‘The thing is, if you’re relying on Jack,’ Collins said, ‘you shouldn’t. He’s no value, no value at all. He’ll get his appeal, get a result, he’s a stone ginger. He won’t want to make one, I guarantee it.’ He paused. ‘Think about it, Bri’. Do yourself a favour, son. Put me in instead. You won’t regret it.’
Brian Smith committed himself no further than to say he would think about it. Despite everything Collins said, logic told him that Jack Lynn was a better bet.
#
Unaware that he was the centre of anyone’s attention, Jack Lynn carefully read through the petition he had written to the Home Secretary seeking some indication of a release date for Bobby Mark. The chances of getting it were slim, but it was worth a try, especially as it encouraged Bobby Mark and took his mind off his own problems. There were a lot in this prison like him, and they probably had no more success with their petitions. He was doubtful if the Home Secretary ever saw them. What he needed was someone in Justice or the television programme Rough Justice to take up his case. But they only ever took on cases where there was a glaring injustice, not where prisoners like Bobby Mark had never denied their guilt.
‘You gotta sign this now, Bobby.’ He pushed the letter form towards Mark.
A worried expression came over Mark’s face. ‘Can you put down about them breaking m’ specs? Makes m’ headaches worse without ’em.’
‘Well, I could put it down. But we’d be better off not putting that in now. I mean, you just give silly bollocks an opportunity to back it. Here, stick your signature on that. We’ll tackle the MO about your glasses. All right?’
Mark accepted the advice and signed the petition.
Alan Parker appeared in the doorway, looking flushed.
‘Jack, there’s a couple of nonces on the twos, watching telly!’ He sounded outraged.
‘On their own?’ Lynn was no less outraged.
‘No, with two screws. S’all part of silly bollocks’, normalisation plan – trying to integrate the nonces.’
‘Fucking liberty! We can’t have that.’
‘Too fucking right. He’ll have us twoed up with the dirty fuckers next.’ Parker’s indignation increased. ‘I told some of the others to have a wander down there.’
‘Tell some of them to get some boiling water from the urn, Al,’ Lynn suggested. ‘We’ll scald the fuckers.’ Just thinking about what some of the nonces on their wing had done enraged him so much he wanted them to die a painful, lingering death.
‘Some are already getting it,’ Parker told him.
‘Let’s see to the monsters, then.’ He started out after Parker. Bobby Mark went with them.
In the tv room on the second landing Lynn found Menzies, a fine-boned child-murderer sitting with another killer of children, the egg-headed Donald Ludlow, who was in his mid-thirties, but looked older. The fact that both seemed so unrepentant and were out of their cells expecting to lead a normal sort of existence further enraged him. If the opportunity presented itself he, along with most normal prisoners, would put the nonsense cases away. Most were unswervingly dedicated to that cause, even if it meant being charged again.
The two child-murderers were sitting between two warders watching Coronation Street when Lynn arrived with Bobby Mark. None of the other Rule 43s on the wing had ventured out under the governor’s new scheme to integrate them. One of the warders who looked after the second landing, Joe Marshall, glanced up then turned back to the tv. With the arrival of other cons there were enough of them to overpower the two guards easily and murder the nonces. That prospect must have occurred to the two of them as they started to quake. Their eyes flitted nervously around at the arrival of more prisoners, none of whom was interested in the tv, but leaned against the wall or sat on the edge of the table and stared at them.
Sweat broke out on the faces of Menzies and Ludlow as alarm visibly rose through them.
Collins came in, followed by Brian Smith. That made fifteen ordinary prisoners in the room and the atmosphere was so tense it crackled. Each ignored the tv and watched for a signal that would spark things. Steve Collins provided it as he stepped over to the tv.
‘What’s this rubbish you’re watching?’ he said. ‘The other side’s much better.’ He switched channels, then again and again without bothering to identify the programmes. ‘Ah, that’s a load of bollocks.’ He switched the set off.
Like he was unaware of the tension, Marshall said, ‘We were watching that, Steve.’
He was another Geordie, in his early thirties, with a clipped moustache. The slashed peak on his cap hung almost vertically down his forehead and over his eyes, forcing him to carry his head erect in order to see. A number of the younger warders slashed the peaks in that way, like they belonged to some club. The older screws rarely did. Marshall’s claim to fame was that he had achieved the most overtime in a single week, ninety-eight hours actual. He was certainly as much a prisoner as any of them, if serving his time less reluctantly.
‘No one else was watching it, Joe,’ Collins said. ‘Anyway, it’ll corrupt these two, won’t it?’
Marshall’s glare circled the room, quickly assessing the gathering. ‘All right, what the fuck’s going on?’
‘Going on?’ Dunkerton said in apparent surprise. ‘We just come for a bit of association. You know, the telly’s broken on the threes. But what do we find? Fucking monsters forced on us.’
‘You got kids, Micky, haven’t you?’ Lynn said.
‘Yeah, I got five terrific boys. Think the world of me, they do. Come down and see me regular and everything.’
‘I got kids too,’ Collins commented. ‘Nothing I wouldn’t do for them. It breaks your fucking heart when you think what some wicked bastards here done to kids.’
‘How’d you like these monsters getting hold of yourn?’ Lynn asked. His voice trembled with emotion and he could barely get the words out. It was as much as he could do to stop from rushing the nonces. ‘Trying to make them go down on them like one of them done, listening to their cries, pleading with them not to, then strangling them when they wouldn’t. S’what we gotta associate with.’
A prisoner working around the governor’s office had got a look at the nonces’ records. Those details spoken of here caused fear and loathing that had been building in these men to explode like the expulsion of a single breath from the prisoners. The two screws were suddenly on their feet, the nonces coming up with them like their shadows.
‘Back to your cells,’ Marshall barked at them. ‘Fuck off – quickly!’
Menzies and Ludlow didn’t need telling twice but went like hares breaking cover just as Alan Parker came along the landing with three other cons, each carrying a pint of boiling water collected from the tea urn. The nonces ran straight into the shower of scalding water and in pain and panic they hurled themselves along the landing.
Cons, forcing their way out of the tv room in pursuit, drove the two screws ahead of them. Lynn, like everyone else, was beyond their immediate control and ignored their shouts to get back to their cells, but pressed on along the landing, joined by other angry prisoners. One of the screws reached the strategically placed alarm button and the clanging bell started up and drowned out all the other noise.
45
NEWS OF THE DISTURBANCE WASN’T something Archibald Maudling wanted at the start of his day and he was angry that he was only hearing now. ‘Why wasn’t I telep
honed at my home last night?’ he demanded. He didn’t listen when the deputy governor explained that he had decided the incident wasn’t significant enough to disturb him. Maudling wasn’t satisfied. ‘I know the signs,’ he told his deputy, Chief Officer Carne, and po Allen as they followed him into his office. ‘There’s unrest, discontent – I can sense it fermenting. It was just such an incident that sparked last year’s riots,’ he reminded them. ‘Am I the lone member of staff to recognise this?’
There was no reply from any of the senior officers.
He had no sympathy for the child-murderers and wished he could get them transferred to Long Lartin.
‘How are Menzies and Ludlow this morning?’ he finally got around to asking.
‘The MO treated them for superficial scalds,’ the chief informed him. ‘It shook them up more than anything. They’ll be all right, a couple of days behind their doors. The way those lads on the twos went after them they might prefer to be left behind their doors.’
Reading the files of those two prisoners and what they had done to their victims made Maudling feel sick. He had three children of his own and found it impossible to detach himself from what he had read. Believing he was fair-minded and moderate in his reactions, he wasn’t convinced he would hurry to prevent any of the prisoners on Rule 43 from getting a beating. To see one of them suffering physically reduced his deep anxiety for his own children’s safety. He didn’t doubt these men suffered mentally, but that didn’t satisfy his sense of justice, any more than it did for ordinary prisoners. These were not thoughts he shared.
He sat heavily behind his large orderly desk in his large orderly room. It was spacious and comfortable, a carpet on the floor, and curtains, with paintings, and photos of his family.
‘Was it a premeditated attack?’ he asked.
‘There were no witnesses, sir,’ po Allen answered. ‘The prisoners claim they were taking hot water for coffee to the tv room on the twos when Menzies and Ludlow rushed out and crashed into them. Mr. Marshall confirmed that, sir.’
‘Animals,’ he said unthinkingly, ‘that’s what they are. No decency or compassion in any of them. What hope is there of ever rehabilitating these people?’ He would have preferred to pass the more violent specimens on to Broadmoor, but unfortunately there was limited room. ‘Keep them locked up after breakfast, Mr Allen. I’ll see them in their cells, all of them.’ He thought about that for a moment. ‘I only wish I could keep them there the whole time.’
#
There was a lot of noise from prisoners protesting about being kept banged up without being allowed to slop out after breakfast. Lynn knew that men regimented day after day as they were, forced to evacuate their bowels at set times, got into the habit by the clock. In the normal course of events they got to slop out half an hour after breakfast. Now it was two hours past usual slop out time. Some prisoners were banging on their doors with tin ashtrays, others ringing their bells, or calling out. He heard the screws moving along the landings, shouting for them to quieten down as the governor was coming over.
‘I’m bursting for a pony,’ Micky Dunkerton shouted, hammering on his door.
‘Use your pot if you can’t hold it till the governor’s been,’ Warder Westbury said as he went along the landing. He swung his keys against the door of the next cell. ‘Stop ringing that flicking bell!’
‘I need to use the recess.’
‘You can’t!’ He moved along to the cell where Bobby Mark was and wrenched open the door. ‘What’s this fucking noise? You want to be put back in hospital?’
Mark said, ‘M’ pot’s full.’
‘Then try eating some of it!’
#
The governor could hear the noise from way across the prison and feared such a protest would start something bigger. Protests of this sort had the habit of spreading like fire through a tenement.
The noise struck Maudling forcefully when the chief opened the main entrance to the wing. Waiting in the security vestibule while po Allen unlocked the inner gate, he bristled with anger. Someone would be on the punishment block for it, he decided.
‘What’s all this fucking noise, Mr Allen?’ he demanded, as though incapable of identifying the cause of the protest.
‘They’re complaining about not being allowed to the recesses, sir,’ po Allen snapped.
This only added to Maudling’s displeasure. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said. ‘I’ll show them they can’t carry on like this. We’ll start at the top, chief.’
The governor strode away towards the metal staircase, causing the two uniformed officers to put in a quick step to catch up.
‘Open it up,’ he ordered impatiently. The four of them were outside Collins’s cell. No one had checked through the Judas hole, which ordinarily the landing officer would have done before unlocking the door.
There was no immediate sign of Collins as the door swung open. But when Maudling ventured into the cell with the chief and the po, he went rigid. Collins was squatting in the corner with his trousers down, using his pot.
‘Sorry, guv, I was took short,’ he said, with a smile.
Although a man squatting in this way had a considerable physical disadvantage, the situation found Maudling psychologically disadvantaged. He wasn’t about to accept that it was his fault the prisoner was forced to do this but muttered a barely comprehensible apology and turned out. He would have to come back to question the man about his part in last night’s disturbance, for he certainly wasn’t going to do so while he sat in the corner defecating.
The next cell door was opened with the same lack of caution. There they found Dunkerton with his trousers down also sitting on his pot, which was placed for convenience on his chair. His apology sounded no more sincere than Collins’s had been. ‘A bit of diarrhoea, sir.’
‘See the MO,’ Maudling barked and spun out of the cell, more angry than embarrassed that his staff had allowed such a situation to develop.
His anger increased when, in the next cell, they found yet another prisoner on his pot. Maudling knew clearly what was going on. It was no coincidence that three men in succession were unable to control their bowel motions. Checking through the inspection hole in the door to the next cell they found Lynn in the same position. They proceeded no further. Maudling retreated along the landing, furious.
‘They won’t get away with this, chief. Enforce every rule to a letter. I want the ringleaders of this little charade. We’ll see who has the last laugh.’ He started down the stairs, not wishing to see any more prisoners.
Enforcing rules and regulations was the simplest way of punishing prisoners, doubly so for the satisfaction his officers had of knowing they were behaving legally. One of the most effective uses of the rules was to unlock men three at a time for their meals, and making sure they were locked back in their cells with their food before the next three were let out. It guaranteed that all but the first three got cold food, and the meals weren’t appetising even when hot. The whole process generally took over an hour, when normally it would take no more than fifteen minutes. The same slow process pertained when slopping out. Privileges were curtailed, and the no-talking rule on moving from one place to another was enforced. Offences against discipline were frequent, with many prisoners appearing before the governor or his deputy. There was no doubt in Maudling’s mind who would be the final winner.
#
Frequent references were made to the scalded nonces which kicked off the rule enforcement as the prison staff sought the ringleaders but, when it got nowhere, the whole matter was suddenly dropped, only the staff continued to enforce rules to the letter. Eventually they would be relaxed again, but meanwhile prisoners were getting frustrated. Knowing what could so easily happen in this situation, Lynn found himself persuading prisoners to refrain from taking retaliatory action. Most of them knew that if any one of them protested, it would be put on the block as
the ringleader.
More warders than usual now watched them as they exercised around the yard in pairs.
As Lynn walked around with Bobby Mark, Steve Collins, who was six paces behind with Brian Smith, said, ‘That was a result, Jack, doing them fucking nonces, whatever way you book it. No one was nicked, was they? Everyone stayed behind his door.’
‘What did it achieve though,’ Lynn wanted to know, ‘apart from all this aggravation?’
‘What?’ Collins sounded surprised. ‘We showed silly bollocks he can’t normalise the monsters. They didn’t give us much for it. We ain’t worse off, are we?’
‘We’re no better off either.’
‘No talking, you two, a warder yelled, running along the yard towards them. ‘You’re on report.’
They had finally found the ringleaders!
46
TIME DIDN’T EXACTLY SLIP AWAY, but it did pass, even though he counted the minutes and the hours as they grew into days, then weeks. Time passed more quickly when he wasn’t behind his door, and was allowed to associate with other prisoners.
Lynn was counting the days and weeks to his appeal. He had yet to be given a date, and couldn’t guess how long it would be before it got on. That in-between time was his actual sentence, notwithstanding the result he might get. This was time that couldn’t be returned to him. The prospect of not having his conviction overturned and having to do the remainder of his sentence was something he couldn’t bear to think about.
Time passing brought his first visit from his wife nearer, and the prospect excited him. He would have preferred Dolly to bring his daughters but much as he wanted to see them, there was too much to talk about, too many adjustments to try to make first. The visit for two hours every three weeks wasn’t nearly long enough and their letters didn’t help either. Disturbing problems thrown up by this forced separation couldn’t be gone into in a letter, not when you knew screws read it. That inhibited every word he ever set down on the page. He wanted to tell her of his sexual needs, how much he wanted to make love to her, and have her write of such things to him, and got angry thinking about feelings being gloated over by others, their intimacies dipped into and shared among the prison staff like confiscated contraband. They couldn’t even write about money or how those problems might be solved, but he read between the lines about the aggravation Dolly was getting from the Social Security.