by Jennie Finch
The only other woman on the team was Margaret, and Alex looked at her as she sat upright and self-contained in the corner and wondered what on earth had brought her into this line of work. Margaret specialized in serious offenders – violent or sexual offenders, often with multiple convictions. She dealt with their mental states, kept them to their licence conditions, breached them with cool efficiency when necessary and still had time to lecture part-time at several regional universities. In her neat suit, court shoes and perfect make-up, she was the complete opposite of Alex, a fact they both acknowledged by a polite nodding of heads in greeting each morning.
Alex was slightly in awe of the final member of the team, a long-serving and supremely capable man named James by his parents but known generally around town as ‘Gordon’ Bennett. Dressed in a tweed jacket with leather patches, a hand-knitted waistcoat and sporting a neat beard, Gordon looked more like a visiting academic than a probation officer. He was unfailingly polite to everyone he encountered, lived his life by his own strict moral standards and was generous with his support. On several occasions he had taken Alex to one side and offered the benefit of his experience and she had never regretted taking his advice. Gordon was the core of the team, the man they all relied on, but he was by no means a push-over as many clients (and occasionally officers) had found to their cost. Gordon was living proof that it is a stupid person who mistakes gentleness for weakness.
It was Gordon who leaned over and said to Alex, ‘Have you got your SNOP with you?’
Alex looked at him, startled. ‘My what?’
Gordon grinned, transforming into a mischievous faun for a moment. ‘The Statement of National Objectives and Priorities. That tedious government summary they sent round last week.’ He reached into his briefcase and withdrew a battered looking document. Alex rose from her chair hoping to dash to her office and locate her copy before the meeting began, but the door opened and Garry entered, followed by Pauline, the senior administrator who was carrying a full copy-box. Eddie sprang to his feet and took the box, huffing in surprise at its weight, and Alex sank back down hoping Garry wouldn’t notice her empty hands.
‘Here,’ whispered Gordon, and thrust a sheaf of papers at her. ‘I always keep a spare copy in case Garry wants to borrow one of mine. I wouldn’t want him reading some of the comments in the margins.’
Garry looked around and nodded approvingly as the team settled into their chairs.
‘Thank you Pauline,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘Perhaps you could arrange some coffee?’
Pauline looked around the room, her face devoid of expression as the officers glanced at her and then back to the SNOP papers. Only Alex met her eyes as she tried to convey sympathy for Garry’s boorish attitude. Pauline was a vital part of the office, hugely experienced and highly skilled. Treating her like an inexperienced trainee was, in Alex’s mind, not acceptable. Garry waited until the door closed behind Pauline before beginning.
‘I trust you have all read and considered the new Statement of National Objectives and Priorities,’ he said. ‘As you probably know, this is an exciting new approach to our work and will allow a more unified and cohesive strategy to underpin the changes taking place in the criminal justice system.’
Alex wanted to close her eyes and drift away. Garry was one of the most tedious speakers she had ever encountered. The man could sound pompous reading out a menu.
‘We have been working to develop a local initiative that, whilst keeping to the ideals of the national strategy, is appropriate to our need here in Somerset,’ Garry continued. He reached into the copy-box and drew out a number of identical buff folders, passing them round to the team. ‘This is the result, the Statement of Local Objectives and Priorities.’ He sat back looking very pleased with himself as the officers flipped through the document in a desultory manner.
‘This is purely a local scheme?’ Margaret asked, in an attempt to appear enthusiastic. Garry nodded as Eddie said cheerfully, ‘So this would be SLOP then?’ Garry’s smile vanished as a fit of sniggering broke out around the room. Ignoring his Senior’s expression, Eddie grinned and said, ‘Maybe we should do a special version for our team. We could call it the Statement of Team Objectives and Priorities. That would make it …’
‘Stop that!’ snapped Garry. ‘That’s quite enough acronyms, thank you.’ Eddie nodded, ‘exactly. SNOP, SLOP and STOP. It’s got quite a nice ring to it don’t you think? After all, this is the pointy end of probation work and the buck stops here.’
It was unfortunate that Pauline and Lauren chose that exact moment to deliver the coffee.
Alex had not wanted to go back home for Christmas. She knew her parents had been expecting her but the thought of the long journey to London and then the battle around the North Circular road to get out into Essex was depressing beyond measure. Her brother was there, her perfect brother with his perfect wife and their two perfect children. Brother was something successful ‘in the City’ and brought home an obscene income. He had recently adopted the grey suit and red braces look of the new generation of money men and Alex loathed everything he stood for. Predictably he poured scorn on the idea of rehabilitation of offenders, thought the courts were too lenient and was in favour of capital punishment. It had been a miserable few days and she was glad to be back in Somerset, her main emotion being relief as she turned into the lane and bumped her way up the track to her rented home. She loved her parents very much, but they had so little in common now that she found the hours dragged by, each a lost opportunity as much as a wasted holiday. She would have stayed in Somerset for Christmas but was rather chastened to realize how few people she could honestly consider friends. She’d never been wildly sociable she realized, as she poured a glass of guilt-free wine and settled in front of her log fire, but at least she always had people around her at college. It was a few days shy of the New Year and she was sitting in silence, drinking alone. Her mind wandered back to the last New Year with its long, warm night of revelry holding so much promise. Broken promises, she thought bitterly as she dragged her thoughts away from that horribly painful memory. There were worse things than being alone she decided.
She recounted this to Lauren over coffee and mince-pies the next morning, brooding on her parents’ lack of understanding for her career choice and her lack of any real alternative to the trip back for the festive season.
‘I don’t know, is it me perhaps?’ she asked.
Lauren was brutal in her honesty.
‘Thoroughly tiresome, that is, and fully deserves the wrong answer. You don’t exactly get out much and the only people you meet here are either staff or criminals. And between you and me, I think you’d have more fun with the criminals. Do you want that last mince pie?’
Alex hesitated, a fatal error, and Lauren continued as she munched away.
‘Why are you living way out in the sticks anyway? You should look for some place a bit closer so you can go out, have a drink sometime. Buses is rubbish round here you know and there’s no taxi driver going all that way late at night so you pretty well stuck.’
Alex was doubtful. ‘I don’t know, it’s not a good idea living on your patch. We were always advised against it at college.’
Lauren waved a scornful hand. ‘College,’ she scoffed. ‘What do they know. Is not like some big city here. Why, is scarcely any trouble for those in town. Let’s face it, most times they’re too pissed to find their way home never mind track down their probation officer.’
Alex sat in her office, picking away at the small mound of paperwork on her desk. On her arrival she had taken a short-term lease on a converted forge out in the countryside. It had been a beautiful and tranquil retreat during her first stressful weeks at work. Set at the foot of the Quantock Hills, it was the complete opposite of the endless flat of the Levels. An Essex girl born and bred, Alex still found hills rather a novelty. She loved their solid presence at the back of her home, the way the trees rose in layers as they sought the sunlight. Sh
e had watched the evening sun cast cloudy shadows across the broad sweeps of heather and bracken and marvelled at the way the day cast the face of the hills into ever-changing patterns, an infinite swirl of colours.
But as winter closed in she began to regret her choice. The forge was cool in summer but bitterly cold in winter and she had been cruelly misled over the supposed mildness of the West Country climate. By the beginning of December she was giving serious consideration to dragging her bedding into the front room to sleep in front of the wood-burning stove, the forge’s sole source of heat. Whatever the drawbacks in visiting her parents, at least they had central heating and they even ran it occasionally. The next morning, when she woke to find ice inside the bedroom window, she spent her lunchtime visiting the few estate agents open over the long Christmas break. The market was slow, interest rates were higher than most people could countenance and she was able to grab a bargain, a small terraced house on the banks of the River Parrett, five minutes walk from her office. It was a funny, crooked little house with a tiny back garden, no parking and a loft conversion with windows that threatened to slip into the street if opened. She loved it, and in February, helped by Gordon and his family, Lauren and her brother Jonny, she bid the forge farewell and moved into the heart of town.
The next day, tired and aching, she sat in at the afternoon meeting trying to nod intelligently when she really wanted to put her head down and doze off. She was imagining her new front room, freshly painted with a wooden dining set and matching dishes when she realized Garry was talking to her.
‘Right,’ she said and flashed him a bright smile.
‘So you’ll liase with Eddie and Paul on this?’ Garry asked suspiciously, ‘This is potentially a serious matter and I need to be sure you can handle it.’
‘Of course,’ she said, wondering what she’d agreed to take on.
‘We can have a quick meeting in my office,’ said Eddie nodding in her direction. ‘Make sure everyone’s informed of events and histories.’
‘Especially histories,’ muttered Paul into his notepad.
The team meeting was blessedly short and Alex hurried after Eddie and Paul to the relative safety of the Eddie’s office. It was very masculine she decided looking at the leather chair by the desk and the series of photographs from long, hard walks. Tousled and grubby faces grinned down at her in triumph as they stood on a succession of bare and windswept peaks. In the centre of each group stood Eddie, clad in a cagoule. Orange, she thought privately, was really not his colour.
‘Right,’ said Paul seating himself next to the desk. ‘This needs careful handling. How much do you know about the Johns family?’
Alex hesitated, blinking in confusion. ‘Well, not much. Actually nothing. Sorry.’
Eddie snorted and reached into his filing cabinet. ‘Lucky you,’ he said as he dropped a thick, battered file onto his desk. ‘There you go. Bedtime reading.’
Alex reached out and pulled the folder across the desk, opening it gingerly.
‘That’s just the stuff we can prove of course,’ said Paul. ‘There are a lot of false alarms with the Johns family. This is mainly about Derek, their father. A nasty piece of work by all accounts and he has been inside several times. We’ve nothing on the boys except the stuff from Social Services. You know, family with absent father, school avoidance; young Biff was always a bit too handy with his fists on occasions.’
Eddie leaned over and turned to one page near the middle, ‘This is all we’ve got on the elder boy, Billy. He was caught shoplifting once, let off with a caution. Nothing at all since then but he’s known as Newt around town. Bit of a legend in his own way.’
‘Newt?’ asked Alex.
Eddie nodded, ‘Yep. Like the pond lizard? Word is he can climb a sheer wall as if his hands and feet stick to the surface. He’s smart, quick and charming and so far he’s run rings round the entire county police force. Derek Johns got pulled for a bit of dodgy lead theft but he’s due out again any day and this is going to hit him very hard. He adores his boys despite being such a nasty piece of work so be careful and play it absolutely by the book. For some reason, Newt is pleading guilty and you’ve got him so you get to do the report. Lucky girl.’
Alex opened her mouth to protest the ‘girl’ when Paul interrupted.
‘I’d go as soon as possible,’ he said, his face serious. ‘They’ve let Newt out on bail to be with his mother so you have to visit the Johns’ home and that’s better done without Derek there. He’s a bit – volatile, especially where the boys are concerned. And there are whispers about this whole business. It seems the police were waiting for them. Someone’s “bubbled”. Wouldn’t like to be them when Derek gets out.’
He took the file and flipped through it. ‘No, I’ve got most of this already,’ he said to Eddie. ‘I’ll go and see Iris Johns, offer our support if she needs it. I had a bit of contact with Biff last time he was excluded from school. He was placed in the special unit for a while and we got on quite well the times I was visiting. Poor lad.’ He shook his head. ‘There’ll be hell on about this. Someone didn’t do their job properly at the station.’
Eddie nodded as Paul got up to leave.
‘Hang on,’ said Alex. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve missed something here. What’s going on with this family?’
Eddie looked at her with sad eyes. ‘They were caught coming out of a post office down the other end of the county,’ he said. ‘No way were they going to walk from that regardless of their father’s “connections”. The boys were separated at the station and Biff was locked up alone. Someone decided to let him stew, so they just left him. They found him in the morning, dead. He’d hanged himself with his blanket.’
Mindful of Paul’s advice, Alex arranged to see Billy ‘Newt’ Johns the next afternoon and spent an unsettling evening skimming through the file for his father, Derek Johns. It made uncomfortable reading. Derek began as a snatcher – grabbing bags and purses and running away – whilst still at school. He’d been excluded permanently for assault when he was thirteen, after beating another boy unconscious and then punching a teacher in the face when she tried to intervene. The next few years were filled with shoplifting, petty theft and drunk and disorderly charges until he was sent to borstal for burglary aged fifteen. On his release he surrounded himself with like-minded people, loud, arrogant men who took what they wanted and did what they liked. He’d spent over half his adult life behind bars and his two sons ran wild, skipping school to shoplift, stealing fruit and eggs from local farms and drinking home-made cider, known as ‘natch’, to the locals.
Natch, Alex knew, was a problem particular to this part of the country. Brewed by many farms and small-holdings, it was sold in gallon containers to anyone with the few pounds it cost. Over half of her younger caseload had committed their offences under the influence of Natch. She’s never tried it herself and had no intention of indulging. Some ‘natural ciders’ reportedly had eight units of alcohol in a pint. By her reckoning this made a gallon container as potent as a bottle of whisky – and it was consumed with relish by children as young as ten.
Neither Biff nor Newt had any criminal record apart from Newt’s collar for shoplifting a handful of sweets then he was eleven. Cryptic notes from Social Services suggested this was mainly because they had never been caught, or by the time anything came before the magistrates the witnesses forgot vital and incriminating details. Maybe that was why Biff hung himself, she thought. No chance of escaping this time and no father to protect him, he was heading for some kind of secure unit or Young Offenders provision. Newt was about four years older – he’d be off to ‘proper’ jail somewhere and Biff would have to fend for himself. He must have been terrified if killing himself was the better alternative. She turned out the light and tried to settle into sleep, but the unfamiliar sounds of the river outside her window kept her awake and she lay on her back, eyes open as she tried to get the thought of young Biff Johns out of her head.
‘Phone call, Ale
x,’ called Lauren, as she pushed through the front door the day after the Easter break. She waved a hand in acknowledgement and pointed upwards to indicate she’s take it in her room. She hauled her overloaded briefcase across the reception area as Lauren said, ‘Just transferring you now’, into the telephone. In her room she dropped the case onto the desk and groaned as the contents spilled out over it and onto the floor. Snatching up the receiver she tried to sound calm and professional.
‘Hello? Alex Baker here.’
‘’Morning,’ came an unfamiliar male voice. ‘You are the probation officer for William Johns I understand?’
Alex had to think for a moment – William … of course, Newt.
‘Yes that’s right. I’m due to visit him later this week. Sorry, you are …?’
‘Chaplain McCausland, Dartmoor prison. I’m calling to let you know you’ll have to reschedule. I know sometimes the authorities forget to inform people with appointments so I thought I’d make sure you knew.’
Alex felt her heart race, memories of Biff flooding through her head.
‘Knew what please?’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘Why, about the escape. Young William’s in solitary for two weeks but you should be able to see him after that. Though he’ll be on special measures for a bit, silly boy.’