The Rules of Restraint

by David Wilson

  “This yours, John?”

  John didn’t say a word, but frowned as if he was trying to remember something.

  “Nice piece,” said Munro holding it up to the light. “Looks like a wedding ring.” He smiled. “You take it off and hide it pretending you’re not married? You on the pull at your age Johnsson? You naughty beast.” He was about to hand it back when he noticed an inscription on the inside. It was a name: Penny.

  The atmosphere in the room freeze-framed for a heartbeat, then time juddered forward as its pulse gathered speed.

  “Your wife’s name’s not Penny, is it,” he said, it wasn’t a question. Munro could hear Knight’s words coming back to him with unnatural clarity, describing the broken body, her husband identifying her, her missing wedding ring.

  “Where did you get this?” said Munro.

  It was Johnsson now who rocked to and fro on his chair. He sat on his hands as if that might give him more balance. He was trying to formulate a reply but his voice couldn’t draw enough air.

  “The fuck…” he managed.

  “She was killed yesterday, it’s Penny’s wedding ring,” said Munro.

  “What the fuck do you know?” said Johnsson in a strange, strangled voice, almost a scream and he launched himself across the desk, grabbing Munro’s collar with one hand and with the other he tried to wrestle the ring out of Munro’s grip but he wasn’t quick enough so Johnsson pulled at Munro’s scalp, tearing his hair while jamming his head down onto his desk in an attempt to force his skull onto the hardwood desktop. Munro swung his right arm with all the force he could gather in a sitting position and with his head almost between his knees and his fist rammed into Johnsson’s ear propelling him off the desk and clattering to the floor along with Munro’s in tray stack and computer flat screen and every other carefully positioned desk item including his framed photo of Morag which landed with the distinctive sound of glass shattering. Munro retrieved his phone.

  “Get me Knight,” he said to his PA. “And call backup.”

  Johnsson was on his feet and staring at Munro as if he couldn’t decide whether to apologize or beat the living daylights out of him, but some instinct triggered and Johnsson took two strides towards the door and pulled it open. He let out a startled moan as if he’d been jabbed in the throat when he saw on the other side of the door, filling the frame, Officer Brock who took his hand as if in greeting and twisted it up his back until it nearly touched his neck. At the same time he caught Johnsson in a choke hold and marched him back into Munro’s office. Johnsson was making a terrible gargling noise.

  “Ok, don’t kill him Brock,” said Munro just as Knight and three police officers arrived wielding fixed batons ready to strike at the two struggling men.

  “Which one’s the baddie?” said Knight.

  “I think for once it’s pretty clear,” said Munro, pointing at Johnsson.

  Knight put the cuffs on Deputy Governor Johnsson and led him out.

  “Find out everything Knight, I want the whole story from him. Nice job Brock, thanks.”

  Munro turned away. He could feel bruises coming up over his body. He looked out the window. Good from bad; he was beginning to think he couldn’t tell anymore.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “This changes everything,” said Munro. “Kate was right about her hunch that we’re dealing with a member of staff.”

  “I suggest you don’t jump to conclusions,” said Knight. He had knocked and entered straightaway.

  They were in the prison infirmary. Munro was seated having his right hand dressed where the knuckles were bleeding. There was a purplish swelling around the joint of his little finger.

  “Nothing broken,” said the nurse.

  “You ok?” said Knight.

  “Yeah, a bit of whiplash and my scalp is stinging. What a crazy bloody episode, John Johnsson, he should be locked up.”

  “He’s at the station. We’ll interview him fully as soon as we can. He was your deputy, didn’t you suss any instability?”

  “Martin Wooldridge, the previous governor appointed him, they were close. Something’s cracked.”

  “I always found him to be a perfect gent,” said the nurse. Munro turned to her. He realized he should be careful what he said. She wore a name tag: Abigail Chancey. Her uniform was like something out of the seventies sitcom Angels; she even wore a fob watch.

  “What do you know about him?” said Knight, trying to read the time on her upside-down watch.

  “Polite, charming, he was on medication though, anti-anxiety, panic attacks, that sort of thing,” said Abigail.

  “Psychopathic tendencies?”

  “Not that I could perceive, but you can never tell. Sometimes people just come apart, they snap like a piece of elastic.”

  “Thanks nurse,” said Munro. “Let’s continue this conversation later.” She left the room.

  “I talked to him, he’s denying everything,” said Knight.

  “He would wouldn’t he. Wooldridge? Penny? How did he get hold of her wedding ring? What the hell was he doing with it in his pocket?”

  “His mind’s all over the place. Access, opportunity? Big fat marker pen ticks. And the other murders? He could be part of a team or he could be a bystander sucked into the maelstrom. Something’s pushed him over the edge. What was Brock doing outside your door? Bloody quick off the mark that one isn’t he?”

  Munro was silent. Fiona Fullerton, that was her name, the actress from Angels, kind and caring; they were innocent times. He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I’m going to interview one of the new girls from admin,” said Knight. “One of the four Kate wanted to pass over; informal chat. There’s something about her background that’s caught my eye. I’ll do Brock and Sandel again, dig a little deeper. We got nothing out of them in the first interviews. I’ll squeeze Johnsson once my boys have had a go at him.”

  *

  “It’s nothing formal, just some easy questions,” said Knight. They were sitting in a meeting room in the administration department, glass on two sides, shift staff ambling by carrying folders, looking busy while peeking into the room, giving the couple the once over.

  “Why me?” she said.

  “You’re new, the other newcomers are also being questioned, it’s routine, I’m sure you appreciate.” She had short brown hair parted down one side with a fringe. Her lips were tight and her green eyes shone with fierce concentration. She didn’t seem to be wearing make-up. There were lines around her eyes and Knight wondered if her face could ever break out into the radiant smile she must have enjoyed in her youth. Her name was Liz Duffield; according to her file she was forty – she looked older.

  “You’ve been employed at Greenbank for how long?”

  “Six months.”

  “You passed your three months’ probation ok? That would have been with Martin Wooldridge, is that right?”

  “I didn’t report to him of course, he was a wonderful boss though.” She looked down.

  “What do you think happened to him?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “What appealed to you about working at Greenbank?”

  “I needed the money.”

  “Seriously? The prison service pays peanuts.”

  “I was attracted to the regime, the chance to make a difference to peoples’ lives, to be involved in remedial work rather than punishment.”

  It was well rehearsed.

  “It says here you have a degree in Economics from Leeds University, then you worked in the City in finance for some years. How was that?”

  “Well paid.”

  “Enough to retire on?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “There’s a ten-year gap here, er… Ms Duffield, in your CV. Between age twenty-seven when you quit your job in the City to thirty-seven, three years ago. What happened?”

  “You ever heard of housewifery? Looking after the family, shopping, cleaning, making dinner, being up all nigh
t calming a crying baby?”

  “You don’t strike me as the housewife type Ms Duffield.”

  “What the hell do you know?”

  When she had composed herself, Knight continued. “I’m sorry Liz, if I can be a little less formal, I too hate my job sometimes. It’s a form of privacy invasion, some would say smash and grab, but you’ve got to hope you’re on the side of the angels or you’ll go mad. Which side are you on?”

  She lifted her head and looked at him quizzically, a fury twitched in her eyes for a moment, like a hammer on an anvil, before she blinked it away.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you tell me about those ten years?”

  “They’re wilderness years. Married at twenty, career, divorced, end of career. As good as down and out. I was twenty-seven, sick with remorse.”

  “Why?”

  “The way the world turns.” There was the faintest tremble on her lips. Knight knew he’d have to go gently.

  “Children?” It was a gamble.

  “I have a daughter, two years old, Harriet, she’s the reason I live.”

  Knight nodded. It wasn’t adding up.

  “And the father?”

  “He left, decided he preferred the company of other men, if you know what I mean. Came out of the closet, shut the door behind him. We’re still friends.”

  “How long did you live in Wakefield?”

  “Three years.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Worked as an admissions assistant at the Prison Service Training College, it says on my CV. Why do you need to know this?”

  “Get to know any of the lads at the Prison Service Training College there?”

  She looked at her watch.

  “I have to get back to work now Inspector. That’s all I am prepared to give you without a lawyer present.”

  She stood up and left the meeting room, closing the door quietly behind her. Knight put his head in his hands. Too softly-softly he thought, perhaps he should take her in, have her on the record. There was something going on he didn’t like. The husband, the crying baby. He studied her file once more.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Knight knew he had to get a move on. Staff would be clocking off their Saturday shift, they’d have the Sunday to put their stories straight, pray to God, absolve themselves of their sins, lose their memories to heavy drinking. He took a final drag on his cigarette and stamped it out before re-entering the prison.

  He’d set up a meeting with Officers Sandel and Brock in Munro’s office. When he arrived, Sandel was sitting in Munro’s chair, leaning back with his feet crossed on the desk, studying his phone.

  “Well if it isn’t Clint Eastwood in the sheriff’s office,” said Knight.

  “Yeah I’m the High Plains Drifter,” said Sandel, without looking up.

  “The Good, the Bad,” said Knight, pointing first to himself then to Sandel. “So where’s Ugly?” Knight looked around the room.

  “I assume by ‘ugly’ you mean my friend, Will Brock?”

  “He’s the one,” said Knight.

  “Did you know,” said Sandel, putting his phone away and allowing Knight to take Munro’s chair, “that Clint Eastwood was once described by a film critic as ‘the ultimate thinking man’s cinematic killing machine’? Isn’t that cool. Brock’s done a runner, he wanted to catch a ride on his bike before the weather gets nasty.”

  Knight couldn’t enforce Brock’s presence, these were informal interviews. He’d talk to him on Monday.

  “You’ve been at Greenbank how long?” said Knight.

  “Six months.”

  “You arrived with Brock?”

  “Correct.”

  “You close to him?”

  “We’re mates.”

  “You married, kids?”

  “I told you, I'm the High Plains Drifter, no commitments, that’s how I like it.”

  “What’s your take on the murders?”

  “Mess isn’t it. It would appear that John Johnsson is the perp.”

  “How do you know about John Johnsson?”

  “Brock mentioned it on his way out.”

  Knight paused, hoping the silence might draw him out.

  “What would you say if I suggested John Johnsson has been set up?” said Knight. There was a slight pursing of Sandel’s lips. The guy wasn’t a very good liar, thought Knight. His bad attitude was paper thin, the carapace around his personality soft-shelled, either because he hadn’t yet learnt the dark arts or because he didn’t want to.

  “Are you a man of violence, Sandel?”

  “I can look after myself.”

  “I mean do you get a kick out of it?”

  “What is this? Guilty until proven innocent?” Sandel clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. “We all have a capacity for violence, us men, women too, but it’s mostly us isn’t it?”

  “Like to dish it out?”

  “Give over, I’m squeaky clean. Violence is only justified if the circumstances deem it necessary.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “It’s obvious isn’t it, self-defence, helping out a mate, if someone’s done something bad.”

  “The latter would be against the law.”

  “The law is ridiculous and you know it. There’s such a thing as natural justice.”

  “There are murderers, child abusers, paedophiles, serial rapists, long-term lifers in this prison, people who have done some very bad things. They are coming to terms with their mistakes by undergoing therapy and rehabilitation, being coached through the mess they’ve made of their lives and the lives of others. That seem fair to you? Natural justice at work?”

  Sandel shook his head. “It’s the system, violence doesn’t solve anything.”

  “You don’t itch to pick up a .44 Magnum and blow some of these punks away like Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry?”

  “I’ve got to go,” said Sandel, levering himself from his seat. “Thanks for sharing your insights and, if you don't mind me saying, your sicko fantasies. I’d ask Brock, he’s got the box set of the Callahan movies.”

  *

  Sandel red-lined his Fireblade in second gear to blow the cobwebs away. In town he slowed to thirty mph, cruising, sticking to the speed limit. He drew up in front of the house and parked his bike at an angle to the kerb. He took off his helmet and pulled off his gloves but remained seated on the bike. It was starting to spot with rain. The interview with Knight had got right under his skin. The questioning was only going to get harder and he’d have to be on his guard. There wasn’t a shred of evidence, unless they planned to pin some circumstantial on him. Things could get out of hand, there’s a wafer-thin divide between the good guys and the bad guys.

  He knocked on the front door. She was expecting him. As the door opened a small child came running and leapt into his arms with the abandon of someone jumping off a cliff armed with the confidence that they can really fly. He hugged her tightly, there was a tear in his eye. Her mother joined them and they stood in the hall for a while, bound to one another.

  In the lounge the girl sat on his lap with her arms around his neck.

  “You won’t ever leave me, dad,” she said without fear or equivocation. It was merely a confirmation of the absolute in a universe that to her would never change.

  Liz Duffield brought him a beer which he drank from the bottle. She sat to one side of him in an armchair in the bay window. It was clear to Sandel that she’d been crying.

  “We’ve got to try to stop this,” she said.

  “I know,” he said.

  On the mantelpiece there were three framed photographs of Harriet, one on her birth, one on her first birthday and one on her second birthday. Each milestone had been recorded, as if to shore up the passage of time. On the right of the mantelpiece was a larger framed photograph of Liz as a younger woman with her arm around a boy who looked to be no older than seven or eight. His face had broken out into a full-beamed smile, not unlike his mo
ther’s, an expression she wore, back in those days, without reflection or fear of any kind of consequence.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  From behind a large wooden desk Jack Wright, the POA union leader, surveyed the visits room, which was filling up with mums and dads, grandparents, girlfriends, and assorted kids. In they trooped, wearied by a journey that most had made by train from London, and then by the local bus to the prison. The prison sometimes put on a special bus, but various cutbacks meant that these were few and far between, although Greenbank was unique in that it did at least run evening visits.

  That had been Wooldridge’s idea.

  It made sense, but prison regimes weren’t necessarily designed to be sensible, and crucially Wooldridge had to win over the POA. They didn’t want anything to do with the idea of evening visits: messes up the shift system, they argued, knowing full well that this was Wooldridge’s Achilles heel. Like most of the older governors, he had absolutely no idea how the shift system worked, and was easily outmanoeuvred if the staff claimed interference with how they were detailed to their various tasks. The “detail” as it was called, was a mystery, and the POA liked to keep it that way.

  Wright offered him a solution. It didn’t involve much – just moving Wright away from the wings, and into the detail office where he would be “excused prisoners”, and could sit on his ample backside all day long.

  The visits room did its best to look welcoming, although it was small, cramped, and painted orange. Volunteers from the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS) had hung up pictures that the prisoners’ children had painted, and this helped to soften the atmosphere.

  The visitors were mostly quiet, and some especially so, for they knew they still had to meet Napoleon.

  “Please stand on the four pink squares,” explained Officer Cook, and with that the visitors moved, one by one, into position.

  “Now remember,” Officer Cook continued, “do not pat the dog. He will not bite you.”

  A waggy-tailed spaniel bounced into view. “Go on boy! Come on Napoleon!” said Officer Cook.

  Several of the child visitors smiled, but grim-faced parents and girlfriends were worried that Napoleon was going to sit down at their feet, indicating that they were carrying drugs – attempting to smuggle contraband into HMP Greenbank, contrary to the 1956 Prisons Act, and punishable by up to a two-year prison sentence. All around the visits room, newspaper articles from the local papers were pinned to the walls trumpeting Napoleon’s success in thwarting would-be drugs smugglers.