Law & Order

by G. F. Newman

  When he got back on the wing, he found the subject of Mark’s death a past issue with only some surface anger, but nothing he could work up into a strident protest. He would have liked to see the entire wing barricaded on the top landing, or out on the roof tearing up the slates and hurling them, refusing to budge until the newspapers and television took up their grievance. Most of his fellow prisoners were being apathetic, and he suspected that Steve Collins was the prevailing force influencing this. It was his form of paying back for not being included in the escape attempt. ‘Who was Bobby Mark anyway?’ Collins said. ‘Just some simple lad who was category “F” and liable to turn it all in himself anyway.’

  ‘That’s not the Bobby Mark I knew,’ Lynn told the gathering up in the threes’ tv room. But it made little difference:

  He tried again.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Steve? You’re doing the screws’ job for them. They definitely topped him,’ he said adamantly. ‘They done it all right.’

  ‘No way will you convince me different,’ Collins said. ‘But who’s gonna believe it, Jack? I tell you, son, it’s a nonstarter.’

  ‘Someone’s got to,’ he argued, ‘we kick up enough fuss. We should have a right ruck about it. We’re worth fuck all ’we don’t.’

  ‘They had a coroner’s inquest, Jack,’ a con said, fiddling nervously with his tobacco tin. ‘He took his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed, didn’t he? That was the verdict.’

  ‘They didn’t fucking well call me as a witness, did they? They didn’t call Brian Smith.’

  ‘You reckon it would have made some difference, Jack?’ Alan Parker said. If anyone was prepared to protest over the issue, it was him. So perhaps it really was a nonstarter, but Lynn was undeterred.

  ‘There was no way he could’ve tore those cotton duck sheets to make a rope. I mean, he was a strong lad, sure, but ’you tried them, have you? It’s bollocks him hanging himself. They give him too much stick, that’s what. Hanging him was the only way they could cover it up.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence around the room. ‘You’ll get us all nicked, Jack, that’s what you’ll wind up doing,’ Collins said.

  ‘How fucking hard’s that?’ Lynn demanded. ‘Bob’s dead.’

  ‘But you gotta be a bit practical, son.’

  Lynn had to check an inclination he felt to leap across the table and hammer Collins. He finally convinced himself that the snaky slag wasn’t worth getting nicked for.

  Shortly after, the meeting broke up and cons slipped away quickly as if fearing Lynn would corner them and press them into some kind of action.

  Smuggling out a stiff to his brief to ask him to do something was the only course left open to him, he decided, but that would be a slow process and would relieve little of his frustration. Despite learning to temper his anger with cunning, the pressure he felt to do something was acute.

  Micky Dunkerton, immaculately dressed in his prison uniform, with a clean shirt and wearing a tie, was lying on top of his bed reading when Lynn pushed into his cell. There was an awkward pause as they looked at each other. This sort of encounter with him, one to one, was something most of them tried to avoid, but they couldn’t lock their doors against him.

  ‘Ready for the off, Micky, are you?’ Lynn said.

  ‘I’d say I was, Jack.’ There was another pause, and for a moment or two Dunkerton refused to look at him. ‘Sorry I can’t do nothing about a protest, Jack. But I only got one more day before they shift me to Ford, know what I mean?’

  Lynn nodded. He understood Dunkerton’s position: now the end of his sentence was in sight he was being moved to an open prison to acclimatise him to the outside world. With that much to lose, it wasn’t reasonable to expect him to put himself on offer. ‘Silly bollocks’d block you out of spite.’

  ‘I liked Bob Mark. Bit simple, but a nice lad. I’d like to have helped, but you know. I’m even calling the screws “sir” now.’

  Lynn smiled. ‘Got something in mind when you event­ually get shown the door, Micky?’

  ‘I daren’t even think about it, Jack. I’ll draw a bit of Social Security for a few weeks, give the old woman a taste – if I can still get a hard-on. Then I s’pose I’ll have to look for a bit of work. I mean, I’m still a blagger, Jack. If there’s anything to blag any more. I hear there’s no money about.’

  ‘Someone’s still got some, Micky.’

  ‘Then someone’ll put one up to me and I’ll go for it. What else can you do? Can’t live on Social Security all your life like some of them parasites.’

  ‘You’ll get on your feet. You soon adjust. They’ll let you have a couple of home leaves from the Ford.’

  ‘That’ll be handy. Know what I mean?’

  There was another lull in the conversation. ‘Any chance you’d take a letter out for me? S’nothing in it for you, Micky, s’about Bob’s death. I wanna see if my brief ‘ll do something. I mean, if you don’t fancy it, s’all right – I don’t want to fuck your chances.’

  ‘No, I’ll take a chance, Jack. Least I can do. It’ll go easy out of Ford.’

  Lynn felt a surge of relief as the pressure eased off him. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘He might do something – m’ brief.’

  ‘They took a fucking liberty with Bob Mark,’ Dunkerton said. ‘You gonna try and make another one out, Jack?’

  ‘I’ve gotta try, Micky. You just go off your flicking head otherwise. Know what I mean?’ He looked at him, suddenly realising that his question had a purpose. ‘You got something in mind?’

  ‘Make sure no one’s about,’ Dunkerton said, climbing off the bed.

  Lynn checked and found the landing was clear. From the door, he glanced back at Dunkerton and watched him lift the top end of his bed. Then, removing the base cap from one of the tubular legs, he slid out one half of a pair of wire cutters and a hacksaw blade. The other leg held the second half of the cutters and the bolt to fit them together.

  ‘I’ve had these about three years, can you believe? I was thinking about making one. But time kept slipping away, then I got m’parole. I didn’t know who to give ’em to – I don’t trust no one else, Jack, to be honest. If I left them here and they was found, I’m yanked back in. They’re safe enough. What about him?’ he said, indicating a budgerigar in a large home-made cage. ‘You want to have him transferred to your peter?’

  ‘Poor little fucker, he’s doing life,’ Lynn said. He waited to see what Dunkerton had in mind, knowing how he felt about that bird.

  ‘There’s a rope ladder in the bottom.’

  ‘Oh, nice one, Micky,’ Lynn said. It was like winning the football pools. ‘Did you have something plotted up?’

  ‘Of course – the time I been in here.’ He gave him all the details of his escape plan.

  #

  The following evening, after lights out, Lynn went to work on the bars of his cell with the hacksaw blade. Leaving one bar on the extreme left of the window, he fastened the sheet rope to it and climbed out. The rope, made from strips of cotton duck sheets, was strong and held as he lowered himself, taking extra care not to make a sound as he went past the windows of cells below him. He lost count of the knots to estimate the length of the rope and became anxious in case it was too short. In fact, he had plenty when he dropped easily to the ground in the exercise yard, which meant there was a fence between him and the wall. Although it was extra work cutting his way through the wire, there was some advantage in that there would be no one in the yard at that time of night to look towards the building and see the rope hanging down. Cutting the wire was difficult with home-made cutters which, to his surprise, proved man enough for the task. As he emerged on the far side of the yard, he almost ran into a dog patrol and had no option but to go forward. He sprinted across the open compound to the lee of the wall, where he pressed himself into the shadow formed by the abutment.
Alarm seized him as he looked towards the wing and saw the rope hanging like a beacon as lights reflected on it. The screw who was approaching only had to turn and he’d see it. He was talking to his dog, and either or both would be close enough to hear his thrashing heart.

  His mouth was dry and he tried to moisten it, but couldn’t. At that moment, he felt more helpless and vulnerable as he watched the warder and dog pass not more than twenty feet from him. If he turned his head a little to the right the screw would have seen him.

  Tension and anxiety eased a little as they departed, Lynn scarcely believing his luck, but feeling drained and unable to move for a few seconds. When at last he did, he carefully unwound Dunkerton’s rope from his waist and made certain the hook was securely fastened – earlier doubts about the home-made hook holding his weight were partially dispelled by the worth of those home-made wire cutters. He hurled the hook up the wall. It found a hold first time, catching on the razor wire close to one of the Y-shaped brackets it sat in. With relative ease, he hauled himself up the rope, hand over hand, adjusting the blanket he’d brought with him as he went. Getting the blanket out over the wire when he reached the top of the rope was difficult as it meant hanging there by one hand, his feet dangling in mid-air. The prospect sickened him, having no stomach for heights, but having less for another sixteen plus years inside. It took three attempts to spread the blanket on the razor wire before he could pull himself onto it without cutting himself to pieces. By this time the muscles in his left arm were saying they had had enough and were about to give up. He struggled awkwardly onto the blanket. Barbs came through the folded cloth anyway and cut into him when he rested on the wire, his weight causing the rolls to shift like a spring the whole time.

  Preoccupied as he was keeping his balance on the shifting wires as he hauled up the rope to lower over the other side, he didn’t notice the closed-circuit security camera on the wall opposite complete its circuit and swing back in his direction.

  There were eight cameras covering all aspects of this section of the perimeter wall but he only needed to avoid three at any one time. How long he was on the wire he didn’t know but he knew it was too long when he saw the camera reach him. All he could do then was pray the watcher in the gatehouse was busy with other things.

  The bells starting up shocked him, ending his prayer. He lost his balance and wobbled and reached out and grasped frantically at the wire. The razor barbs sank into his palms and he could feel them biting deeper into the flesh. The pain shot down his arms like an electric shock and he let go, hitting the ground hard. He managed to get up, intending to run, only he couldn’t, pain in his feet causing him to collapse as he tried to move. Even if he was able to run there was no longer anywhere to run to with about a dozen screws closing in on him. He simply lay on the ground, clasping his bleeding hands and grinned up at them defiantly.

  56

  WHAT THE VISITING COMMITTEE WOULD decide on for his escape attempt was a foregone conclusion: the maximum fifty-six days cellular confinement; loss of all privileges; one hundred and eighty days loss of remission. Having expected and got all that, he was surprised when later the same day he was taken out of his cell and back along the block to the adjudication room. What more could they give him? All too soon it became abundantly clear.

  The governor was behind the desk when Lynn was wheeled in, the Committee having gone. Chief Officer Carne was present, along with po McClean.

  ‘You are clearly a man who is determined to learn nothing from experience,’ the governor said, straightening and bending a paperclip and refusing to look at him. ‘Well, understand this, I am equally determined that you will learn, however painful that experience.’

  ‘Like you done with Bobby Mark!’ Lynn said, the words exploding out of him. ‘You done a t’rific job there.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Carne ordered, as if by reflex.

  Maudling raised his hand, an amused smile dancing across his face. ‘Let him shoot off his stupid mouth, chief. He’ll learn that every offensive remark, every display of disrespect, will be to his cost.’ He paused and nodded to the uniformed officers, before turning back to Lynn. ‘The fifty-six days cellular confinement you were sentenced to this morning will be unlike any you have previously experienced. Firstly, you will have no privileges whatsoever, not even a letter from home; you will have positively no contact at any time other than with warders on the punishment block; you will be in a stripped cell throughout the day, your bed only being returned for you to sleep at night. Your clothes will be removed from your cell at night; the light will remain on the whole time. You will be observed by a patrol every ten minutes, day and night.’ He paused and smiled again, then quickly glanced away.

  ‘Terrific,’ Lynn said. ‘So what’s any different?’

  The governor slowly pointed the straightened paperclip at him. ‘The difference is this: if any breach of discipline is reported to me, however minor, then your fifty-six days sentence will begin from day one again, regardless of how much of it you have served. In other words, I want exemplary behaviour from you for fifty-six consecutive days before you will be released from solitary confinement.’

  There was a brief silence.

  Then Lynn said recklessly, ‘You got some fucking chance.’

  Another smile parted Maudling’s thick lips, as from someone with a secret that gave him the superior position. ‘We’ll see.’

  By the time he had changed back into his shoes and had been escorted through the punishment block, po McClean was waiting by the open door of his cell. The senior screw reached out and prevented him entering the cell. He was smiling too, like it was catching lines etched deep in his mask-like face. Lynn smiled as well, and widened it into a grin for the escort. They were unmoving.

  ‘What I want from you,’ McClean said quietly, ‘is two months of impeccable behaviour. A single wrong word to any of my officers, or an offensive gesture, in fact, if you so much as fart without permission, you’ll be back to square one. Is that understood?’

  ‘That’s all bollocks,’ Lynn said, believing he could take anything they put on him, and keep up the aggro for as long as they did.

  ‘You’d better get anything you want to say off your chest while you’ve got nothing to lose,’ the po said reasonably. ‘Tomorrow, you’ll only have fifty-five days left to do.’

  Lynn stared at this man, trying to read something in his eyes but he could see little of them under the acute angle of the peak of his hat. What he did see of them were cold and dead, even though he was still smiling. For a moment, Lynn felt scared and tried to push his fear away.

  ‘I’m going to enjoy watching you break, you fucker. I’m going to get such a hard-on from hearing you beg my staff not to put you on report when you slip.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Inside. Now not another word out of you.’

  Lynn ducked into the cell and the door was slammed after him. He stood waiting, half expecting the shutter to open and the po to say something else. Nothing happened and as he waited he experienced a curious feeling of isolation, something not experienced before in solitary. He wondered why he felt this way now and tried to dismiss the feeling. It wouldn’t go away. There was nothing in the cell with which he could distract himself, and out of nowhere a daunting feeling rose up in him at the prospect of serving this fifty-six days.

  The shutter snapped open to reveal Warder Dorman’s smiling face. The screw said nothing, but simply looked in, before closing the shutter. That happened every ten minutes, or thereabouts, and by the third day Lynn was beginning to admit to himself that this exercise was wearing on him. There was nothing he could do which wouldn’t be seen during this personal inspection by the warders, and his options were pretty limited. He could do press-ups, use his pot, masturbate, walk up and down, or lie on his bed, when the bed was in the cell. He began to tense instinctively as the shutter slid back. There
was no contact when his food was served to him. No longer did the block trusty bring it into his cell, instead the tray was handed to the screw, who opened the door and passed it in. Except, that was, when Dorman was on duty. Then he had the trusty put the tray on the floor and would slide it inside with his foot, treating him as if he was contaminated.

  ‘Why don’t you just throw it on the floor, you slag!’ he finally screamed at Dorman, his first outburst for three days. Holding in all his anger had caused him too much pain.

  Dorman’s immediate response was to slam the door, as if ignoring the remark. Then the shutter snapped open when he was safely outside. ‘That’ll cost you the three days you’ve already done.’

  ‘You no-good slag!’ Lynn shouted and hurled his tea at the warder. The shutter was quickly slammed, and Lynn had to live with his pint of tea on the cell floor until his bed was returned to him later that evening. Then he was given a bucket and mop and told to clean up the mess. He missed his tea that night.

  In the exercise yard he was just as isolated, moving round in a circle within the wire sometimes for a lot less than the hour he was supposed to get, and he rarely saw other prisoners, not even at a distance. When two passed beyond the compound wire he felt elated. One of them called out, ‘How’s it going, Jack?’

  ‘T’rific,’ he responded, but regretted doing so, knowing it was to his cost.

  ‘Inside!’ a warder ordered. ‘You’re on report.’

  That meant going back to square one, losing the ten days he’d done without incident. Lynn shook his head contemptuously. ‘You silly bastard. I can keep this up as long as you.’