by Jan Needle
‘It can’t be safe. No mobile’s safe. They leak like hell.’
‘Still two hundred and fifty you owe me,’ mocked Rogers. ‘Mister Know-all. You’re stupid, though. Why waste two-fifty when you could get it free? I suck your cock, we both get mutual pleasure, and it’s money in the bank.’
‘No thanks,’ said Masters. He thought, appallingly, of Sarah. ‘No.’
An odd expression passed across Rogers’ broad, cruel face, an expression Masters couldn’t read. He raised thick eyebrows.
‘You know best,’ he said. ‘You’re the rich cunt. I’ll call the serf.’
As Masters was escorted back to his cell by a docile prison officer, it occurred to him that since he had been dealing with Brian Rogers, he had been taken off the goonie squad. Chris Abbey and his sidekicks quite noticeably left him alone. He thought of the mobile, and of the currency Rogers wanted him to use. He thought again of Sarah. It hurt.
FOURTEEN
London. Forbes and Rosanna.
Rosanna Nixon, once she had committed herself to Andrew Forbes, did it with whole heart. She had not made love properly for several years, and she had told herself she did not miss it. After three days with Forbes, she revised that slightly: she did not know what she’d been missing.
On the morning after they first slept together, Forbes had brought her a mug of –milkless – coffee in bed, and made a tent of the duvet for them to drink it under. It was, he said, so that they could talk without the boys listening in, and that may well have been true. It also gave them the opportunity, in the light-spill as they moved, to study each other. Rosanna, at first, was shy. Forbes, for the amusement it afforded him, pretended still to be.
‘You look to me,’ he said, lifting the covers slightly and angling his head, ‘to be a skinny sort of piece. Under eight stone did you say? Your mammy would reckon you weren’t getting enough haggis and neaps. If your mammy could see you now.’
Rosanna blushed.
‘You’re quite fat,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised, all the beer you drink. But you’re rather revolting, if this is honesty time. You ought to keep your mouth shut, in case I change my mind. Come to my senses.’
Resting on one elbow, his coffee mug on the mattress in his hand, Andrew reached across and took her nipple between his finger and his thumb. He stroked the thumbnail gently downwards.
‘You’ve got quite hairy nipples,’ he said. ‘Is that a sign of something? Your tits aren’t very big.’
‘They’re not hairy! There’s two hairs out of that one, and three out of that. It’s not my nipples, anyway. It’s the areolae.’
‘Christ,’ said Andrew. ‘Sorry I spoke. I like them, anyway. Lie down.’
‘I’m finishing my coffee. Lie down yourself and have a fantasy. Andrew. Stop it.’
Shifting her mug from one hand to the other, Rosanna rolled onto her face, propping on her elbows, slopping coffee.
‘Shit.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve spilt my coffee.’
‘No, I meant why stop it? I’m not doing anything.’ Andrew sat up, and threw the rest of his mug down his throat. His action had uncovered Rosanna, face downwards, naked. He put his mug down and put his right hand on her bottom.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Rosanna. ‘It’s my upbringing, maybe. The religion. I’m not much good at this sort of thing, I never was. I was terrible last night. Sorry.’
‘You were great,’ said Andrew. ‘We were exhausted. There’s nothing nicer, sometimes, than just to be received. A nice, warm, welcoming cunt, expecting nothing in return. It’s relaxing. It’s generous. I slept like a baby.’
‘I know. I did get something in return, though. I wanted it. You. It was nice. It was what I wanted.’
Andrew turned to her, and put her mug down on the floor. He turned her over onto her back, half-covering her with the duvet. Rosanna put her palms under the back of her head, eyes closed. Outside there was birdsong, and early traffic. He studied her. Her armpits were unshaven.
‘You’re very tiny,’ he said. ‘But you don’t look like a girl, at all. Your nipples are dark brown, aren’t they? And I love your breasts. Even lying on your back they’ve got that shape. And what do they call these hip-bones? Is it salt-cellars, or is that up near your shoulders? They’re lovely. You could eat your dinner off your stomach. How are you on coming? Orgasms? Being religious and all that.’
The flat white stomach convulsed twice, smoothly, as she laughed. She kept her eyes closed, and Andrew noticed that she coloured slightly.
‘Being religious,’ she replied. ‘I’ve never had one. That’s my story, anyway. I’ve only had one lover, as you know. An Irish Catholic. I’m lucky I’m not still a virgin. Actually, I think it’s something in myself. There seems to be a sort of mechanism. It stops me, when I think I’m going to start. That’s my religion, I suspect. To be fair to Irish Catholics. Adulterers.’
Forbes had dropped his hand onto her lower stomach.
‘To be fair to Seamus,’ he said, quietly.
‘His name was Des,’ she said, calmly. ‘As you know. Mark you,’ she added, ‘I’ve got nothing against the idea. In principle.’
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she drew her heels towards her, and moved her knees apart. Her thighs were very slim. Equally imperceptibly, Andrew moved his finger into the wider cleft.
‘You’ve got the longest hair I’ve ever seen,’ he said. ‘It’s very lovely. It’s straight, and it’s glossy. Most unusual. Most cunt hair’s curly. And short.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Hence the name. You’ve got a grey one here.’
Rosanna sat up, eyes open, anxiously.
‘I haven’t! You don’t get grey hairs there, surely?’ Forbes dropped his head onto her stomach. He spread the dark mass with his left hand, and tried to catch the elusive silver hair with the fingers of his right. Rosanna, resting her weight on her arms, leaned back, but craned her head forward to see. She noted Forbes’ tousled hair, and the stubble on the curve of his cheek.
‘There,’ he said. ‘One grey hair. Christ, it’s about three inches! Shall I pull it out?’
He tugged it, very softly, and Rosanna had a thrill of shocking, lovely, pain. Her thighs were wide apart now, and Andrew’s lips were touching the topmost hair. She could feel his breath on her thigh, and she heard him breathing deeply. Slowly, Rosanna lay down on her back once more. One hand she laid across his head, and ear.
‘Your clitoris is very sweet,’ he said. ‘It’s very small and pink. What’s wrong with your thigh? Why are you moving it?’
She was, although hardly consciously. She was moving her left knee inwards rhythmically, then letting it drop out. Each time the long tendon twanged tight it was exquisite. Having Andrew nestling between her legs, his head being banged by the thigh, was wonderful.
His head was moving underneath her hand, turning. She wound her fingers in his hair, taking desperate care not to pull too hard. She was coming.
‘I’m moving it because I like it,’ she said. ‘Is there any rule?’
She did not know what Andrew was doing with her now, or with what. She knew nothing, except that her thighs were strained outwards, and her stomach and back were arched, pushing, pushing. There was a feeling of heat, of electricity, a sudden, spreading shock. Sudden but slow. Then a wonderful, extraordinary, release of energy, that she could not stop. She twisted, joyfully, like an animal, throwing one leg over the other and rolling right across the bed and Andrew, almost pulling off his ears. She ended up on her back again, lying on the bare board floor, legs stretched across the mattress, open. Her eyes were open, too, and she was laughing.
‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I’ve done it. You’ve done it! Andrew! Come into me! Oh Jesus.’
Andrew covered her body, and her mouth, and everything, with his, and came into her. They were lovers.
*
Queen Anne’s Gate. Sir Gerald Turner.
Even after the riot at his prison, even after Cherry Orchar
d’s death, Richard Pendlebury had failed to obtain a meeting at the top. His phone calls had been taken, which was some advance, but the story now was that the minister in charge was in America, and there was therefore little point. A private call from Sir Cyril France had changed all that.
After Christian Fortyne had ushered Pendlebury out afterwards, the Home Secretary sat silently for many minutes. Normally, he would not have agreed to speak to an individual governor, any governor. But Pendlebury, who thought he had come to talk to Fortyne alone, had Bowscar. And Bowscar had Michael Masters. And, secretly, it had Angus, too. The Animal.
In terms of publicity, Masters had been a thorn Turner’s side since his arrest so many months ago. His image as a big fish in the murky pool of high finance, the widespread belief he had the judiciary and most members of the government in his pocket, had made a seemly handling of his case most difficult. Even when he’d gone to join the small fry who had been made example of, the problem was not solved.
With Masters banged up for six, the press had spectacularly changed sides. There were endless features on the devastated children and the lonely, lovely wife, and Sir Gerald had heard rumblings even in his club. What he couldn’t understand, was what the hell it had to do with him.
The latest bleat had been the most bizarre and worrying – not least because it had come at ten past seven in the morning, and from the most powerful barrister in the land. Sir Cyril France had been extremely agitated, and not the slightest bit apologetic. In fact, he said, he had held off as long as this only because he had not thought the matter through. Michael Masters was issuing warnings in the middle of the night – and issuing them by telephone.
‘By telephone?’ said Turner. ‘But that’s impossible.’
‘Impossible or not, that’s what he’s doing,’ said Sir Cyril. ‘And he said to tell the men who put him there that time is running out. It was a threat, Gerald. A threat of violence.’
‘But what’s it got to do with me, for God’s sake? What does he think I can do about it? I can’t get him out.’
There was a dismissive exhalation from the other end of the line.
‘Quiet words in ears in clubs,’ said France, bleakly. ‘Mr Justice Harper surprised us all, remember? I’m not asking if you spoke to him, but Masters clearly thinks it. I’m telling you.’
By the time Sir Gerald, after much anguished thought, dropped the alleged phone call into his meeting with Richard Pendlebury and Fortyne, he had half convinced himself the governor would deny it, even laugh it out of court. But Pendlebury hardly even flinched. He wondered, indeed, if Turner was so grand he didn’t even read the daily tabloids.
‘I couldn’t rule it out, sir,’ he said. ‘Of course I couldn’t. I—’
‘But good God, man,’ Sir Gerald shouted. ‘That’s appalling! A telephone in a prison! A secret telephone! You must search the place! Surely your prison officers can find an object like a telephone?’
Pendlebury, who had earlier spent a gruelling half an hour trying to convince Fortyne of the appalling danger they were facing, made a wry face. If there was a telephone, he explained, it would be owned and operated by a so-called baron, or possibly a member of the staff. It would be a way, in their eyes, of eking out their salaries.
‘But don’t you know?’ demanded Turner. ‘You’re the governor, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you know?’
‘I know what I am told,’ said Pendlebury, crisply. ‘There are nearly two thousand people in that building including officers and other staff. Many of the prisoners know more about the real life of the place than I do. It’s a secret world.’
Sir Gerald Turner was too wise a man to rant. But his response was unutterably lame.
‘An effort must be made,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Fortyne could advise? Perhaps more staff... Jesus Christ Almighty. If the newspapers got to hear about this call…’
Pendlebury, before he had left, had raised the subject of McGregor yet again. But it was too much for Turner. There was too much on his mind.
‘Fortyne,’ he said. ‘What is the position now, please? Can you tell Mr Pe—’
‘I have told him,’ Fortyne replied. ‘McGregor must remain confined, on the basis of the medical reports we have received, and he must never know his brother has been killed. The experts are all adamant. McGregor is totally unstable, and would probably suffer a schizoid breakdown if he was told. Nor must the news get out that he is held in Bowscar. I rather hoped that Mr Pendlebury, this time, had taken the point.’
‘I did,’ said Pendlebury. ‘But—’
Sir Gerald interrupted.
‘Mr Pendlebury, please. Quite frankly, there are more pressing things at Bowscar than the welfare of one prisoner. The telephone in particular. I want something done about that. That is intolerable. Now please. We are so very busy here.’
Alone at last, Sir Gerald Turner pondered. There was too much going on, he thought, too much going on. After a while, he reached for his internal telephone and punched buttons.
‘Fortyne,’ he said. ‘Where’s Sinclair now? No matter – I want him back. Yes, today. Tomorrow. As soon as he can get a flight. Don’t tread on any important foreign toes, of course. But back here, fast.’
After a minute more, he dialled an outside number. He wanted to have a quiet, confidential lunch. With the managing editor of The Times. Then he got put through to Downing Street and asked for an appointment with the Prime Minister. As soon as ever possible.
‘It’s time young Sinclair faced the music,’ he told himself when all was done. ‘It’s more than time. Or the wrong man might be going down the drain.’
*
Cynthia’s Beam. Sarah Williams.
The movement through the canal system marked in red ink on her map in the main cabin was a source of delight and comfort to Sarah Williams. When he had cracked the code with which she befuddled the (unofficial) censorship of his prison letters, her slow but steady progress amazed and warmed Michael Masters, too.
At first, her mail had been circumspect to the point of practical obscurity. She had talked of her and ‘Cynthia’ taking time off work to make a trip, but she had been totally vague about when it was to be, and where they might be going. Her meagre offerings were usually filled with painfully formal talk of mutual friends, so well-designed to hide the scent of their relationship that she might have been a maiden aunt of Masters, not a lover.
At last, though, she had suggested that he ask his wife to bring him ‘that book by Nicholson’ when she visited, because he was ‘good on the area and might be interesting’. The admin office had formally granted leave for it to be one of the dozen books he was allowed to keep in cell, and Barbara had not even wondered why he would have wanted a canal guide. He had many bizarre tastes.
Subsequent letters referred only to pubs and restaurants that Sarah and Cynthia had visited, and he was able to check them in the book and plot her progress week by week. Because she had a scheme, however crazy, to hold on to, Sarah had picked up her normal life again, and returned to work. She was moving the canal boat at weekends, comforted by the knowledge that she was drawing always nearer to the prison, and the fantasy that she and Michael would sit on their bed again, and hold each other, and make love.
Some time soon, he also hinted in his letters, he might have a surprise for her. He used the word ‘handy’ several times, and mentioned a mutual Berlin friend, and to keep communication open with them. It occurred to her at last that handy was the German word for mobile phone. And after that, at home, at work, on the boat, awake, asleep her phone was always charged and open. It became another object in a constant fantasy. And when the call came one day – brief, hurried, but appallingly exciting – she nearly died of joy. It was just the first, he said, and he could not talk this time, at all. But soon he would have a phone himself, not someone else’s, if it cost him half his fortune to obtain it.
‘Hang in there, Thing,’ he said. ‘I love you, only you, and I’ll see you soon. I’ll put my
life on it.’ The line had fizzed and crackled, and he’d slipped away. But her daydreams grew exponentially.
Canal boats were anonymous, untrackable, unnoticed. The slowest and most secure getaway vehicle ever thought of. And nobody, nobody in the world, would link them with a man in prison. Cynthia’s Beam would be just another early summer mover, with two quiet people holidaying on board. Soon he would ring again, and they could talk. Soon, somehow, they would be together, share a good pub lunch perhaps, chosen from the Nicholson guide. And then, together, they would disappear.
*
Bowscar. The Brain Cell.
Although AIan Hughes had provided the spark for the breakout fantasy, Charles Lister became the driving force. Jerrold and Masters were inclined to feel aggrieved by the speed and ruthlessness with which Hughes was sidelined, but to their surprise he welcomed it.
‘What did you want?’ he asked. ‘A vicarage tea party? Now Charlie’s here we’ve turned into a brain cell!’
In fact, Hughes pointed out, his ‘philosophical proposition’ could never be as neat and clean as it had sounded. Talking about ‘withdrawal of consent’ was one thing, but getting the mass of prisoners to do it was quite another. The project would be fraught with danger, involving violence, intimidation, bloodshed, and close association with men who might at any time turn against them to the point of maiming or even death.
‘We’ll have to convince the barons for a start,’ he said.
‘And bribe the bent officers who licence it all out. They make their living from it, don’t they – the rape, the drugs, the prostitution. We can’t take away their livelihood! Unfair!’
‘We need someone on the ground as well,’ said Lister. ‘Someone to move folks round, control the fucking madmen, organise the floors. No brainer. It’s Brian Rogers. Got to be.’
For Masters, this was a sticking point. He knew the man was obsessed with him, and that it was only the power conferred on him by wealth that saved him from brutal rape. The fact that it was not a homosexual lust he found the most chilling thing. Rogers wanted to fuck him purely because of who he was, as he would have wanted to exercise primeval dominance over a strong woman. Masters thought he was a pervert and a fantasist.