Borstal Slags

by Graham, Tom

  ‘I said drink up, Sam.’

  ‘That watch is a physical link to the past. I’m guessing pretty close to the truth, yes? It’s a link to something that happened with McClintock and Annie’s father ten years ago – and it’s a link so strong that I sensed it at once, and it let me actually glimpse those events first hand!’

  Nelson clanged the bell hanging over the bar. ‘Time, gentlemen.’

  Something in Nelson’s manner, some invisible, indefinable aura about him – kindly, gentle, but strong – made Sam obey. To demand more answers and explanations suddenly felt impertinent, as if Nelson were a superior officer who far outranked him.

  And, in a way, I think that’s exactly what he is.

  Sam was loath to leave the warm snug of the Arms and the mysterious and reassuring presence of its landlord. ‘No chance of a lock-in tonight, Nelson?’

  ‘Home and bed for you, Mr CID,’ Nelson told him. ‘Get some kip. You need it.’

  ‘But we’ll talk further, another time? You know, about – well, about …’

  ‘Sure. Just do me one favour, Sam. Don’t go blabbing about our little chat here tonight. Best to keep it private, between the two of us. What happens in the Railway Arms stays in the Railway Arms, you hear me?’

  Sam had paused, thought about it, then nodded. ‘I hear you, Nelson.’ And then, in the doorway, he had looked back and added, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ Nelson had replied. ‘Safe home, Sam.’

  I don’t know who that man is – or if he’s even a ‘man’ at all – but I do know he’s a friend. A real friend. And that’s enough, too.

  When he got back to his flat, Sam’s head was buzzing, but not with the booze. He felt curiously sober, given how much scotch Nelson had poured down his neck. What intoxicated him at the moment were visions and dreams, glimpses of some vaster reality than he could comprehend, and hopes of a future beyond what his imagination could conceive.

  ‘I’m happy,’ he said to himself. And he grinned. ‘I’m actually really, bloody happy!’

  Happy – and ravenous. He raided the kitchen, toasting himself a mountain of Mother’s Pride and smothering it with Marmite. And, because he was still officially a bachelor, and therefore was perfectly at liberty to behave like one, he washed it all down with a couple of brown ales from fridge.

  He was just on his third bottle when, from the hallway outside his front door, came the one voice he most longed to hear: ‘You awake in there? It’s the girl of your dreams, Sam – and I’ve got something special for you!’

  His heart leapt, and he instinctively went to open the door – then hesitated. He was officially off sick with the flu. That would be what the Guv would tell everyone, and that’s what Sam wanted them to think, even Annie. Especially Annie. How could he explain that he had suffered a momentary existential breakdown brought on by too much involuntary time travel? He didn’t want anyone looking at him sideways, whispering behind his back, diagnosing him over coffee in the canteen. It was the stuff of wildfire rumours.

  ‘You can’t come in, Annie,’ Sam called back.

  ‘Oh aye? And what’s her name?’

  ‘She’s called influenza and I’m in bed with her right now. I’m on the sick, Annie. At home until I recover. Guv’s orders.’

  ‘You got the flu?’ she called in to him. ‘Poor Sam! Let me in, I’ll play nursey.’

  ‘I’m contagious.’ And, to prove it, he coughed theatrically.

  ‘Flippin’ heck, Sam, you sound like you’re at death’s door!’

  ‘Death’s door. Yes, you could say that.’

  ‘Oh please, Sam, open the door. I won’t breathe in or nothing. It’s really, really important!’

  He couldn’t resist. Sam turned the latch. There she was, in her beige overcoat and sensible outdoor boots. She beamed at him, her face flushed and excited.

  ‘You don’t look too bad to me,’ she said.

  ‘And you look like the cat who stole the cream.’

  ‘I feel like it, too!’

  She bustled in, throwing off her coat to reveal her muted paisley blouse and brown, chevron-patterned skirt.

  ‘I’ve cracked it!’ she grinned, pulling a couple of sheets of paper from her handbag and waving them in his face. ‘I can’t believe it, Sam! I’ve only gone and cracked it! I’m so excited! If you weren’t snotty and contagious, I’d give you the biggest snog you’ve ever had!’

  Sam inwardly cursed his cover story. Why hadn’t he made up something about putting his back out instead?

  ‘I’ve made sense of it!’ Annie beamed.

  ‘Made sense of what?’

  ‘The letter! The one from Andy Coren! I knew there was something iffy about it. And I was right! I was bloody right, Sam!’

  ‘There was a secret message in it?’

  Annie nodded vigorously.

  ‘And you’ve cracked it?’

  Annie nodded even more vigorously.

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  Annie shook her head, most vigorously of all.

  Sam grinned. ‘Hit me with it!’

  ‘Right! Look at this!’ She thrust the crumpled, bloodstained letter at him. ‘This is the original, right? Strangely worded, mentions a nonexistent vet in Lidden Street – but, other than that, innocent enough. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Sam perused the letter closely. ‘I still can’t see anything.’

  ‘No, you can’t. And for ages, neither could I. I was going over it and over it, not getting any joy. I started to wonder if I was just driving myself potty over nothing. Anyway, as you can see, the original’s getting pretty tatty. So, I decided to make a copy of it on that new Xerox machine and use that to work from instead.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘See for yourself.’

  Annie proudly shoved a sheet of photocopier paper at him. Sam looked it over.

  ‘I still don’t see anything,’ he said. ‘It’s just a copy of the letter.’

  ‘Yes, but look! The Xerox sweeps a powerful light over what it copies – and that light shows up all sorts of marks and imperfections on the original. See how all the little rips and indentations show up as black speckles?’

  ‘Yes. But I still don’t—’

  ‘Look at the individual letters! Here, and here, and here and here …!’

  She pointed, and Sam looked. His eyes slowly widened.

  ‘There are tiny marks beneath certain letters,’ Sam said.

  ‘Pinpricks.’ Annie grinned. ‘We’d have seen ’em straightaway if we’d thought to hold the letter up to the light! The pinpricks mark out a series of individual letters. Put them letters in order and you get this!’

  She thrust a sheet of foolscap at him. On it, in her neat, schoolgirlish handwriting, it said, ‘OLDFRIDGEGERTRUDEFRIDAY’.

  And then, beneath it, ‘OLD – FRIDGE – GERTRUDE – FRIDAY’.

  ‘So this is how Andy Coren arranged his escape plans with his brother on the outside!’ Sam said. ‘They used a code. And you cracked it! Annie, you’re a genius!’

  ‘A genius? Me? Oh, no, no, no,’ Annie simpered. ‘Well – maybe just a bit.’

  ‘You’re a bloody marvel!’

  He threw his arms around her, but she ducked away from him before he could land a kiss.

  ‘I don’t want your germs!’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Of course. My germs.’ Confounded, Sam turned his attention back to the letter. ‘Andy Coren was a regular Houdini, escaping from one borstal after another. And this explains it. He must have had this code worked out with his brother all along. Derek could be there on the outside, helping him escape. They could communicate freely, right under the noses of the screws.’

  ‘Yes, but something went wrong this time,’ said Annie. ‘The message says he’ll be in a fridge on the back of Gertrude. But he wasn’t. He was in an old oven that got brought in by the other lorry.’

  ‘Matilda.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Which means,’ said Sa
m, ‘that either Andy Coren buggered things up and got in the wrong lorry, or—’

  ‘Or somebody knew about his escape plan and buggered it up for him. Who might do that to him, Sam?’

  ‘Well, what about House Master McClintock? He personally vets all the outgoing letters at Friar’s Brook. He would have seen this letter before it was sent. He rubber-stamped it for approval and let it go out. But what if he spotted the code? Or was tipped off about it? Either way, let’s suppose he deciphered the hidden message. He would have known what Andy Coren was planning.’

  Annie nodded, then frowned. ‘Yeah, but – if this House Master knew that Coren was planning to escape, why didn’t he just scupper his plan right away?’

  ‘Because that’s not how McClintock operates,’ said Sam. ‘I met him today. He’s a bastard, Annie. A real bastard. He runs that borstal like it’s a concentration camp. You wouldn’t believe the things that go on there, Annie.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Let’s suppose that Andy Coren was a troublemaker. Let’s suppose there was bad blood between him and McClintock.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s suppose that. What of it?’

  ‘McClintock doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to discipline. And he can’t stand to have his precious System challenged. What if he somehow deciphered the message in that letter, but let it be posted anyway?’

  ‘Why would he do that, Sam? It makes no sense.’

  ‘But it does make sense. Because, once he’s let that letter be posted, he changes the work detail! On the day of the escape, he shifts Coren from loading fridges onto Gertrude to loading ovens onto Matilda. He foils Coren’s escape plan at the very last second, just to show him, just to really rub it in!’

  ‘But he didn’t stop him, Sam. Andy Coren did escape!’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps Andy couldn’t resist the chance. Perhaps he trusted to luck that his brother would find him anyway once he was at Kersey’s Yard. But what really matters here, Annie, is that McClintock knew he was inside one of them ovens! He knew it, but he let that lorry carry him out anyway.’

  Annie frowned. ‘And why would he do that?’

  ‘Because those ovens were destined for the crusher. It was his punishment, Annie. McClintock knew Coren was being taken to his death, and he let it happen. He let it happen!’

  ‘That’s a pretty big accusation to make, Sam. You sure that flu bug hasn’t gone to your brain?’

  ‘If you’d seen what I’d seen today, Annie, you wouldn’t put anything past that bastard McClintock.’

  ‘Well,’ said Annie, glancing at her watch. ‘Whether you’re right or wrong, there’s not much we can do about it tonight. And since you’re supposed to be down with the flu, perhaps you’d best be in bed.’

  ‘That bed’s awfully cold – you know, for a man on his own.’

  ‘I’m not sharing with a sick fella!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘I got too much to do, Sam. I can’t catch your lurgy and go off sick an’ all.’

  ‘Don’t leave just yet. We need to celebrate your new role as CID’s very own Enigma machine! I’d open a bottle of champagne, but I haven’t got one. So what about a bottle of brown ale? It’s refrigerated.’

  He waggled a bottle enticingly at her.

  ‘I’m sold!’ Annie smiled. ‘But don’t you start thinking you’re going to get me tipsy enough for what you’ve got in mind.’

  He poured them a glass each, and toasted her.

  ‘You did some good work with that letter, Annie. I mean it. At this rate, you’ll make DCI before I do.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, Sam, I can really see that happening! A bird running a department!’

  ‘Don’t write it off. Who can say what the future holds? Just think how proud your parents would be!’

  Her parents.

  He recalled at once that modest little house with upstairs bedroom window all lit up, and a teenage Annie almost visible within in. And then he thought of Tony Cartwright, that anxious, frightened, troubled man, with his guilty conscience, his split loyalties.

  ‘You never talk about your parents,’ he said. ‘What are they like?’

  Annie shrugged, sipped her beer, and grimaced at it. But that didn’t stop her taking a second swig.

  ‘Are they still alive? Do they live in Manchester? Are you close to them?’

  ‘Sam, you sound like you’re interrogating me.’

  ‘I’m just interested.’

  ‘No. I know that tone of voice. And that expression. You use both of them when you’re questioning suspects.’

  ‘You can hardly blame me for asking,’ said Sam. ‘I mean, we’re supposed to be – you know, getting closer to each other.’

  ‘And so we are,’ said Annie.

  ‘Then why won’t you talk about your family?’

  ‘Why won’t you talk about yours?’

  ‘I never said I wouldn’t!’ Sam smiled. ‘If you want to know, I’ll tell you right now. I’ve got a mum. She’s—’

  He broke off. Sam thought of his mother, wherever she was now – a beautiful young woman, several years younger than he – and, at the same time, a woman in her sixties, somewhere in the future, mourning the tragic death of her only son.

  Haltingly, he said, ‘She’s – a really great mum.’

  ‘That’s a bit vague, Sam.’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  Sam swigged deeply from his beer bottle, gulped it down heavily, and said, ‘My dad’s even more complicated than my mum.’

  ‘Well there you go!’ laughed Annie. ‘Family ain’t easy.’

  ‘But I know so little about you. Why won’t you tell me anything about where you come from?’

  Annie shrugged.

  ‘Well?’ Sam gently prompted her.

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘It’s like you’re avoiding talking about it.’

  ‘Knock it off, Sam.’

  It was as if she was hiding something – but Sam knew that the real reason was quite different. It was as Nelson had said: she simply couldn’t remember. She had been here too long, her old life had faded from her mind, she knew nothing outside of this strange facsimile of 1973.

  Surely there’s some scrap of memory remaining, Sam thought. And, if there is, maybe I can rekindle it.

  ‘Annie?’

  She turned and smiled, holding her bottle of brown ale.

  ‘I want to ask you a question.’

  ‘That sounds ominous, Sam.’

  ‘It’s difficult. I … heard something, saw something. Some information – about you.’

  ‘Hey, Sam, it’s me you’re talking to. You don’t have to be cagey. What do you want to know about me that’s so important?’

  Sam looked into her eyes and decided to come straight out with it.

  ‘Does the name Clive Gould mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Think. Think back. Think back to when you were a teenager. Was there a – a boyfriend? Or a would-be boyfriend? A fella who used to hang around?’

  ‘What’s on your mind, Sam? Checking out the competition?’

  Once again, she was slipping around all questions of her past.

  ‘It’s important, Annie. Please think. Does the name Clive Gould really mean nothing to you at all?’

  ‘Is it supposed to mean something to me?’

  Could he jog her memory? Could he ignite a recollection of what once had been? And, if he could, would it help save her?

  ‘There was a man,’ said Sam. ‘A villain. He was on the make, back in the sixties. Owned casinos. Bought off coppers. Bumped off rivals. He knew your dad – and he knew you.’

  ‘Sam, I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘His name was Gould. He was – he was interested in you. Years ago, when you were just a girl.’

  Annie laughed, then stopped. Her brows furrowed.

  ‘He was determined to get his hands on you. But
your father stood up to him, tried to put together evidence to convict him of murdering a rival. I think things went badly wrong.’

  Annie carefully set down her beer and stood looking at Sam with a strange expression.

  Sam hesitated, wondered if he should continue, and then decided to take the risk and keep talking. ‘Your father was a police officer. The department was thoroughly corrupt. Most of his colleagues, and those higher up, were on Gould’s payroll. That’s how he literally got away with murder. But your father’s conscience was deeply troubled by this. He tried to make a stand.’

  The light had gone out of Annie’s face. She had backed away from him, her expression hard to read.

  ‘One of his colleagues tipped Gould off,’ Sam went on. He wasn’t going to even attempt to explain that that colleague had been McClintock, and that Sam himself had witnessed the whole thing first hand. ‘Your father was betrayed. And I think – I think Gould may have – I think he may have …’ Sam ran his hands over his face, took a breath, and said, ‘I know how I sound.’

  ‘You’ve talked like this before,’ Annie said quietly. ‘Stuff about the future.’

  ‘And now I’m rambling on about the past.’

  ‘No, Sam, it’s not the past. It’s certainly not my past, though you seem to think it is.’

  ‘You must think I’m bonkers, right?’

  ‘Do you feel bonkers, Sam?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yes. Totally. Completely.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good sign. I mean, it’s them who’s most bonkers that think they’re most sane.’

  ‘Then why are you standing so far away from me? You’re not frightened of catching the flu.’

  ‘You ain’t got the flu. That’s not why you’ve gone off sick.’

  Sam sighed. ‘No. That’s not why I’m off.’

  Annie looked about awkwardly. ‘Sometimes, Sam, I don’t know what to make of you.’

  Her awkwardness, her genuine discomfort at what he had been saying, told Sam that he had been wrong to try to stir up her past. Was this what Nelson had been warning him against? Was this why he had told him to keep all that he had learnt this evening to himself?

  ‘I’m sorry, Annie, my thoughts sometimes run away with me,’ Sam said. ‘You shouldn’t listen to me when I talk like that. I think about things too much sometimes. It gives me a distorted view.’