by Martina Cole
Jonnie stared at him for a while and said, ‘Just my fucking luck, stuck on a jump with a Scottish philosopher! Here, you didn’t marry a social worker, did you? I hear they do your brain in and there’s a load of them hanging around in Scottish nicks, just waiting to marry a con and write a book about it.’
Danny smiled wryly. ‘You Cockneys have a weird sense of humour, Jonnie.’
Jonnie grinned, showing his extensive teeth. ‘It ain’t that we’ve got a weird sense of humour, Danny, me old mate, it’s more a case of the Scottish ain’t got one!’
One of the younger brothers, Iain, said loudly, ‘What about Billy Connolly then?’
Jonnie nodded and said soberly, ‘All right, I’ll concede the Big Yin, but I reckon he’s got an English granny somewhere along the line. He was a bleedin’ throwback!’
They all laughed, nervous laughter that was too high and too long.
Jonnie pulled on his cigarette again.
‘I hate the waiting, I can’t stand the waiting.’
‘You should get yourself a ten-stretch, Jonnie, you’d soon get used to waiting then. There’s nothing like a big one to give you patience.’
‘Well, mate, if everything goes wrong today, I might just find that out for myself.’
The van was quiet then, the men all contemplating getting caught.
Danny’s voice was low as he said, ‘Calm down, everyone. It’s nerves that make people do things wrong, that get someone shot or killed. We’ll be in and out in no time. So stop worrying and let’s put the radio on. Maybe we’ll find a good play on Radio Four.’
‘A fucking play on Radio Four?’ Jonnie H. sneered. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’
Iain’s voice was dry as he said, ‘They might be doing The Great Escape, eh?’
The men all laughed again, loud and long.
Jump nerves had got to all of them.
Donna was lying on the settee in her lounge, still in her dressing gown, a pot of tea on the small Japanese table beside her. The room was in disarray, and she looked around it as if for the first time. She had lain awake all night, and at some point a cigarette had dropped from the side of the ashtray and burnt through the lacquered top of the table. Far from distressing her, she found it slightly amusing.
She would love Georgio to walk in now. Never, in all their years in the house, had he seen the rooms looking less than perfect. Both Dolly and she had made sure of that because that was what he wanted.
Donna had spent the best part of her life in the conservatory, rarely using the lounges because the white leather furniture showed every speck. She had been frightened to crumple a cushion in case the lord and master came home and wanted to sit and watch TV. Then the room would be used, but Donna had never felt at home in there.
It was strange, she reflected, just how much Georgio had dominated her life, even down to subconsciously keeping her out of her own home, parts of it anyway. Like the French windows on the landing. They opened out on to a small balcony with wrought-iron table and chairs. If Georgio wanted to, they took their breakfast coffee out there in the summer and looked over the garden and the fields beyond. But only if he suggested it.
Once, she had gone out there alone, and Georgio had woken up and found her there. And in his own inimitable way, had made her feel a fool.
‘What are you doing out here all on your own?’
She could still hear the incredulity in his voice, as if she had done something sneaky, underhand. She had pointed to the second cup and he had shook his head, as if the thought of him, Georgio Big Man Brunos, sitting on a small balcony in his own house with his wife, was something distasteful. Lowering even. He had walked down the stairs and she could hear him greeting Dolly in the kitchen, leaving her up there alone, feeling a trifle foolish.
The memory hurt her - yet another suppressed slight that had resurfaced in the last few days. Small things that over the years she had ignored. Could you really love someone so much, you allowed them to dominate even the most trivial parts of your life? He had told her what to wear, and how to wear it. He had told her what she should be, how she should talk, how she should act, and she had gone along with it all. Never daring to question anything, because if you questioned Georgio he had a knack of making you regret it, making you feel a fool.
If you wanted Georgio, you did what he said, and if you didn’t then you knew you would lose him. Now, after all that had happened, she wondered why the thought of losing him had been so very frightening. She looked around the room again and smiled once more.
It was a shambles. But she was actually enjoying it. Enjoying living in her home - and it was her home now. Georgio had signed the lot over to her. Home, business and brothels. She laughed gently, covering her hand with her mouth.
She was the proud owner of a building business, a car lot and a brothel. Not any old brothel either, a brothel for children. Georgio had always promised her he would see her all right, look after her, and he had. Oh yes, he had looked after her all right.
Picking up the ashtray, she hurled it across the room, sending ash and cigarette ends all over the place.
She felt better for the action.
On the verge now of wrecking the house, feeling the urge rising inside her, she took a deep breath.
‘Get a grip,’ she whispered to herself.
‘Get a grip on yourself, woman.
‘Everything you survey is yours and Georgio Brunos can’t take any of it.’
What was the old adage she had heard from Carol Jackson? That was it. If you wanted to hurt a man, hit him in the pocket. Well, Georgio would never get a cent from her, or from this house, ever again. She would burn the lot first and enjoy herself while she did it.
Lying back on the settee she closed her eyes.
Would today never end?
She had to hear something soon or she would lose what little remained of her mind.
Carol called through her door in a strident voice: ‘Go away, Davey, I’m warning you!’
He stood on his own doorstep, aware of the stares of women coming home from taking their children to school.
‘Carol love, open the door. I just want to talk to you. We have to sort out what’s going to happen.’
She laughed delightedly. ‘Up yours, Jackson. You have more chance of getting a dose off the Bishop of Durham than you’ve got of ever getting back in this house again. Now piss off before I call the Old Bill.’
‘If you don’t open this door, I swear to Christ I’ll kick it in.’
She pulled her dressing gown tightly around her breasts. ‘Kick away, you prat, and I’ll have you arrested. Go on, kick the door in. I have enough on you to put you away till doomsday, mate.’
Davey could hear the taunting in her voice and he closed his eyes in distress.
‘Listen, Carol love,’ his voice was calmer, sweeter now, ‘I want a few bits from the house. Just a few bits, that’s all.’
Carol was wary. ‘Such as?’
‘There’s some keys in the bedroom, up on top of the wardrobe. I need them, Carol, they’re important.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve already got rid of them, Davey.’
‘You what!’ His voice was incredulous.
‘I gave them to Big Paddy. Why - didn’t he give them to you?’
Davey wiped his hand across his face.
‘Tell me you’re fucking joking, Carol. If you’ve really given them keys to Big Paddy, I’ll break your fucking neck!’
Carol’s laugh came through the door, maddening him.
‘You’ll have to catch me first, Jackson, and I have a feeling I know a little too much about you to worry about you hurting me. So do Donna Brunos and old Dolly. Enjoy threatening her, did you, with Paddy? Oh, he was as pleased as punch when I gave him the keys, Davey, over the fucking moon he was.’
She watched him storm down the pathway and slam the gate behind him. A part of her wanted to open the door and call him back; the other half of her saw the books her hus
band had peddled, had conned her into peddling, and her heart hardened.
Running up the stairs, she placed her hand on top of the wardrobe and felt around for the keys she hadn’t known were there until her husband mentioned them.
Looking at them, she realised she had the keys to the lock-ups in her hands. That’s where the merchandise would be stored and that’s what he wanted. She weighed the keys, moving her arm up and down, juggling them. Trying to decide what to do with them.
Dressing quickly, she left the house, with no make-up, no backcombed hair, no nothing.
Her next-door neighbour watched her with a slight frown on her face. The Jacksons should not have been living in a respectable residential street as far as she was concerned. They should have stayed in their privatised council house where they belonged. The woman’s disgraceful language was bad enough, as were the skintight clothes on her ample frame and that shocking bleached blonde mass of tangles on her head, but Carol Jackson’s choice of car was what really got her down. A shocking pink Golf Gti was hardly the kind of car one welcomed in Runnymead Close.
Georgio ate his breakfast in silence. He could feel the electric atmosphere around him as the men all waited for the off.
Lewis was nowhere to be seen, but this didn’t worry Georgio. He knew Lewis would be taking a leisurely breakfast in his cell, a full cooked breakfast, as he did every morning, consisting of eggs, bacon, fried slice and button mushrooms. Georgio couldn’t help smiling as he thought of Lewis’s face when he found out Georgio had jumped, right away from him and the prison . . . taking Lewis’s money with him.
He looked up from his breakfast and saw Ricky watching him. He winked and Ricky winked back. But he didn’t smile and Georgio carried on eating, knowing that it might be the only food he got for a good few hours.
Beavis and Butthead, aka Harvey Hall and Bernard Denning, watched everyone surreptitiously. Since arriving in Parkhurst they had realised exactly how much danger they were in. Listening to the men talk was a terrifying experience, and both being convicted childmolesters and paedophiles who had accidentally murdered some of their victims, they had become wary, terrified of ever being unmasked for what they were. The average person on the street would feel no compunction in attacking them. Outside the court, women had screamed abuse at them, had tried to attack them, and they were normal housewives. What would these hard-faced, violent men do if they guessed who these two really were? And both Hall and Denning knew that eventually the men would find out.
The waiting was worse than anything. They had listened to the men’s opinion of nonces. Transvestites and homosexuals were accepted in this environment, as long as they were consenting adults. But rapists, childmolesters and especially beasts, were hated, despised. Yet Georgio was a beast, he was a supplier. But no one in here was aware of that apparently. To them he was just one of the lads, a blagger, a villain.
Harvey Hall watched Georgio eating, saw him pushing the food into his mouth as if frightened someone was going to take it away from him. Unlike Denning, Hall could feel the tension in the air. He had made a shrewd guess that the men were all waiting for something, and he had a nasty feeling that the thing they were waiting for concerned him and Bernard.
He felt the fear loosen his bowels and shifted uneasily in his chair.
Eros, the young black man who had come on to the Wing with them, started singing. Everyone had already put him down as a religious nut, which he was. Inside for murder, he was a paranoid schizophrenic who believed that certain people were asking to be killed. That they gave him subliminal signals which he acted upon, on the say-so of none other than Christ Himself. Eros was waiting to be assessed and then transferred to a top-security mental hospital. The men were used to lunatics like him and left him in peace. Unlike the public, they were capable of handling him if he became aggressive. There were plenty like him in the Wing who were left to their own devices.
‘Jesus is waiting for you! Jesus just wants you to love him.’
There was no real tune and Benjy, the joker, began singing with him.
‘And if Arsenal wins the cup, I’ll be singing on the other side of my arse!’
Everyone laughed except Eros. He answered in a deep brown rich-timbred voice: ‘You can’t mock God, boy. Jesus is watching over you all. He is here now while I am speaking!’
‘Well, tell Him to go and get me another cup of Rosie Lee then!’
The laughter was louder. Even the screws joined in, keeping their distance though because any altercation in here could turn into a war.
Benjy walked over to Eros and said loudly, ‘What punishment would Jesus give out to people who murdered and raped little children, eh? What’s the score for all that then?’
Hall and Denning stiffened in their seats.
Eros stared up at Benjy and said seriously, ‘The wages of sin is death. Suffer not the little children, He said. The bad men will scream in Hell, and their bodies will be burnt on the Day of Reckoning. For all eternity they’ll be tortured in fires of brimstone!’
Benjy pretended to wipe the sweat from his brow and said, ‘Is that all? I thought they might be forced to listen to reggae for all eternity. Now that’s what I call a punishment!’
Ricky laughed good-naturedly. ‘Your trouble is, you don’t know good music when you hear it, boy. Gregory Isaacs is a god, a musical genius.’
Benjy made a face. ‘With respect, Ricky, I’ve heard better tunes from a cat with a banger up its arse! He sings like Gazza plays football - badly!’
While the bantering was going on Georgio looked at the clock on the wall. It was just after nine-thirty.
Another half an hour till the off.
Eros began singing again, one of his own peculiar songs, and Georgio looked over at Hall and Denning, a slight grin on his face. He couldn’t wait to get started.
Then Eros stood up and began to dance with an invisible partner.
Ricky shook his head in wonderment. ‘The man’s as mad as a hatter.’
Benjy tut-tutted loudly, like a motor mechanic assessing the damage to a car.
‘It could be worse, Ricky mate. It could be you!’
Everyone laughed again, a friendly, contagious sound.
Georgio joined in, feeling euphoric at the thought of his planned escape. At the thought of getting one over on Lewis. At the thought of never having to listen to any of them again. Especially Eros.
It was coming up to a quarter to ten when Lewis made his entrance into the rec room. Everyone was there, the air was alight with tension and the screws had picked up on it. Lewis still limped slightly, and was still on medication, but there was a burning brightness in his eyes that denoted his inner strength. His easy smile made the prison warders nervous. There was something going down but they couldn’t even hope to guess what it was. Since open visiting and the new Governor, they felt they had lost a lot of their authority and credibility with the prisoners.
But it was always the same on the violent wings: these were men who would kill their own grannies if they annoyed them enough, and they were men it was hard to police. You could only watch and wait and see what was going to happen, and hope against hope that you weren’t going to be caught in the crossfire. Most of the warders were in the pay of Lewis anyway. They had a job to do for him as well as the Home Office.
The screw in charge today was a Mr Hollingsworth. He had been deliberately chosen because he was quiet and on the verge of retirement - exactly what Lewis needed on a day when the Wing was to be pulled apart.
Hollingsworth called the two screws out of the rec room at one minute to ten exactly.
It was what Lewis had told him to do, and Mr Hollingsworth, being used to taking orders, did precisely what was asked of him.
Chapter Forty-Three
Donna parked the Astra van outside the lock-up garages in Pitsea and turned off the engine. She looked at Carol, who was watching the road to see if Davey had arrived before her, and was maybe waiting for them. At the moment the t
wo women trusted no one. If Paddy had been found, and the chances were that he hadn’t, then the men could arrive at any minute.
‘Do you think we’re doing the right thing, Carol?’
She shrugged, helplessly. ‘I really don’t know, Donna. All I do know is that we have to get out the merchandise and burn it. Burn the bloody lot. If that arsehole of an old man of mine thinks I’m going to sit back and let him carry on with this lot, he’s got another think coming!’
She slipped out of the van and Donna watched her with apprehension as she approached the garage doors.
What she was supposed to do if Big Paddy or Davey jumped on them, she wasn’t sure. Donna picked up her mobile and turned it on in case she had to phone for help.
Carol unlocked two padlocks and two mortice locks on the wooden door of the garage. The door opened fully to allow access for a vehicle, and it also had a small inset doorway. Carol opened the doorway first and Donna watched as she stepped inside, her heart in her mouth.
Carol popped her head out and gestured to Donna to back the van up.
Five minutes later the two women had opened the door fully and were packing the boxes of books and discs into the back of the Astra.
‘Oh, please hurry up, Donna, for fuck’s sake. If we get caught by the Old Bill it’ll be bad enough, but if Paddy comes we’ll be in deep shit.’
Donna was moving the last of the boxes from the back of the lock-up. The Astra van was nearly full and the last few boxes would be difficult to cram inside it. As she moved them she called out, ‘Carol, come and look at this!’
Carol walked over to her and frowned. The concrete had been taken up at some time and now, after the removal of all the boxes, they could clearly see that a hole had been dug in the floor of the lock-up.
‘What do you reckon this is then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Donna said. ‘Maybe something’s buried here.’
Carol stepped back in fright.