by Jan Needle
The atmosphere in the conference room was electric. Aides shuffled papers, looked at their hands. Donald Sinclair thought he might pass out with rage. When he did speak, though, his voice was calm, collected.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let me present the problem in another way, Sir Gerald. I did not actually seek this meeting to talk about the long term, but to tell you what I think will happen next. If we don’t act soon, there’ll be nothing left at all. This is not the POA’s assessment, because they want to earn more overtime, nor is it any mentally-exhausted governor’s. It is my own. The whole thing will go bang, there’ll be a holocaust. And Bowscar, please believe me, will only be the start of it. We must defuse the situation. We just must.’
Turner was looking at his watch. Perhaps he had a box booked at the opera, Donald thought. Perhaps it was as fucking mad as that. Turner smiled at him, with neither warmth nor humour.
‘Just as I predicted to the PM,’ he said. ‘A panic reaction to a local problem, followed by a ridiculous response. Donald, nobody could be more liberal than I am. Nobody could have invested more moral capital in sorting out our jails. But don’t you understand? The time’s not ripe for “taking off the pressure” as you call it. We’re fed up with the whingers and the whiners and the wets. We want action. The crack of firm government for once. Reform’s for later, not for now.’
Everybody in the room knew who ‘we’ was. Sir Gerald had been nobbled. His voice was not his own, but the Prime Minister’s. Although he did appear completely satisfied with his lot.
‘And if you’re wrong?’ asked Sinclair. ‘If the crack of firm government produces an explosion? What then?’
‘Thanks to you,’ replied Sir Gerald, ‘we’ve had a dummy run at Buckie, haven’t we? We’d give fair warning, then we’d go in hard. We’d give them bloody noses and we’d show them where the power lies. Good.’
‘Good,’ Sinclair repeated. ‘Except, sir, I don’t think bloody noses would be in it. I think it would be terrible. I think there could be deaths. At the very least it would probably mean losing the building. They’d raze it to the ground.’
‘So be it,’ said Sir Gerald Turner. He was mocking, there was laughter clearly in his eyes. ‘As you know, I think you are over-reacting quite grotesquely. But if we have to lose a building, if it proves absolutely necessary, is that so bad a thing? We sacrifice a prison, but the effect is salutary, is it not? We exercise the dogs of war and we appease the law and order brigade all at a stroke! Good God, if the velvet glove comes off, laddie, no one will ever risk anything like it again, will they? A few million spent, a few lives lost – and catharsis. A sacrifice maybe, but surely a reasonable one?’
‘It will be more than just a sacrifice,’ said Sinclair. ‘It will be a bloodbath, an appalling horror. If it spills outside the confines of the prison, if—’
‘It won’t,’ Sir Gerald interrupted. He stood. ‘It won’t be allowed to happen. I find that I’ve run out of time, and also out of patience. I’ve had a statement drafted, which you can look at if you like. You may tinker with the phraseology, naturally, but the sentiments will remain intact.’
He snapped his fingers, and an aide produced a sheet of paper.
‘The gist is,’ Turner said, ‘that you have promised liberalisation, if it should be appropriate in the light of your researches, but that it must be dependent on a certain quid pro quo, a readiness for the inmates of our prisons to reform themselves, to be deserving of our liberality. In the meantime, the men of violence, the thugs, the bully-boys should all take note. Any recurrence of indiscipline, any bad behaviour however slight, will be immediately crushed. There’s no great hurry, but I’ll check out your polished version in the morning, then you could call the press in. It will be another feather in your cap. Now I must go.’
He strode to the door and paused.
‘Oh, by the way, this isn’t a request for consultation, Donald, it’s an order. If you don’t like it, your office will go immediately to another man. Give my regards to Mary when you get home, won’t you?’
*
The flat in Stockwell. Sinclair, Judith
Later on that evening, though, Donald’s home was with his mistress, not his wife. They were tired but contented, and contemplating the sex that soon would follow. They had finished the redrafted communiqué some time after midnight.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Judith, ‘One thing the PM’s taught us is to respect the art of lying, and we’ve done quite well tonight, I reckon. But is that what we really want?’
She was referring to the last part of the communiqué, which they both thought was a gem: ‘Liberalisation remains the ultimate goal,’ it read. ‘But let no one mistake our stance for weakness. For the inmates of our prisons, life will only become more pleasant when the prevailing uncertainties have been removed. Our strength will be their safeguard, our vigilance their freedom.’
Donald was not sure what he really wanted yet. But he thought both Gerald and his puppet master had made a grave miscalculation. And he was damned and double damned if he did not take advantage of it. Whatever that entailed.
*
The Brain Cell.
The day Charles Lister brought the pistols back to the cell, the real meaning of what they had agreed to take part in was finally distilled for Masters and Hughes. They had watched him leave to meet the London visitors, to be ‘questioned further about alleged offences,’ and they had still not really grasped, effectively, what his return would signify. For all the other strands were in place. The phone calls had been made, escape routes for the rich and powerful had been organised, the triggers had been set. When he returned – if he brought the guns – the story, the fantasy, the theory, would suddenly come true. There would be about nine hours left.
For Jerrold, it was too much. As Hughes and Masters tentatively approached the subject, he grunted, and climbed down from his bed. The ironic detachment with which he had bolstered them through many periods of doubt had left him at last. He stood, large, shoeless and unhappy, facing them.
‘Alan,’ he said. ‘What have we done, guy? This whole damn job’s insane. Someone going to die.’
Hughes attempted levity.
‘The failure of the academic, Matt. When it comes to cases…’
But Jerrold’s bony, sculpted face was desolate. He gestured round the yellow, crushing walls. ‘Where can I go?’ he said. ‘I can’t even have a fucking walk!’
Clumsily, he picked his way past first Masters then past Hughes, his thighs knocking the table. He went back to his bunk and placed his hands palm down on it, and touched his forehead to the iron frame. Neither of the others spoke.
‘We didn’t realise, did we? We didn’t work it out. Alan, when it comes to it. If it really happens. What…?’
He bounced himself upwards onto his bunk again, and lay face down and silent. Hughes and Masters did not speak. After a few moments, they picked up books. But neither of them opened them.
When Lister at last returned, the cell door was unlocked to let him in and was left unlocked. He took in the situation, but waited until the sounds of boots had faded on the balcony before he broke the silence. Then he pulled his shirt-front open to reveal the dully gleaming butts, a wolfish grin spreading across his face. There was affection in it, maybe, and certainly contempt. He treated them as aliens.
‘You English kill me,’ he said. ‘You are weird. If you could only see the way you look.’
Masters regarded the four pistols, as they were laid on the table one by one, with a mixture of feelings that he could not have expressed. He had spoken to Sarah since she’d stolen and delivered them, and he knew what it had meant to her. Cynthia’s Beam, she’d told him, was moored at Bridge 47 now, and she would be waiting for him. But the happiness had been drained completely from her voice. It was as if she did not expect the same man to arrive, as if she saw him through new eyes. Had she known the lengths he was prepared to go to once free of Bowscar, thought Masters, the
revenges that he planned, little Sarah Williams would have been appalled.
Before the ammunition had been sorted into piles to match the pistols, Rogers had arrived, followed shortly afterwards by McGregor. Red-haired Billy Ford was the nearest look-out, with Pat Parkinson and Tom Amory strategically placed as early warning. The newcomers eyed the armoury with a hunger that was almost lust.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ said McGregor. ‘It’s a long time since I saw anything like this inside a jail. You’re a wonder, Charlie. And you, Mike. Who gets to choose?’
Masters spread his hands.
‘They’re all good guns.’ he said. His voice was flat. ‘I got them for the kids, but the local gunshop checks them out for me.’
‘The weans? Are you serious? That’s irresponsible.’ Lister and Brian Rogers laughed, but McGregor meant it. He picked up the .32 revolver.
‘I don’t want no automatic,’ he said. ‘However well it’s been looked after. One cost me six years once. And Brian here’ll want the howitzer, he’s a hardman, eh Bri? Charlie?’
Lister picked up the Ruger.
‘It’s still warm from rubbing on my pecker.’ He kissed the muzzle, theatrically. ‘I’ve gotten used to it. Fine by me, an automatic.’
Rogers pushed the .25 across the table towards Masters, using the business end of the .38 Smith and Wesson. His eyes were full of some obscure pleasure.
‘Tart’s gun,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t stop a Pekinese. So how do you feel about that, Mikey? They are yours, after all. You can tuck it in your bodice in case anybody makes a pass at you.’
Lister said: ‘It’s not a bad little gun, Mike. Close range. Don’t let him put you on.’
‘I won’t.’ He turned to Rogers. ‘Close-range,’ he said, ‘it would turn a scrotum into a pink mist. Think about it, Brian.’
There had never been a question of Hughes wanting a gun. As the men began to load their magazines, he viewed the weaponry with depression and distaste. After a short while he flapped his hands in a kind of pained disgust.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Do you have to do this now? It brings me out in spots. It reminds me of a family Christmas. Correct me if I’m wrong, but tonight’s the night. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that door’s unlocked. Correct me if I’m wrong, we ought to talk.’
They took his point. The professionals made their weapons disappear immediately, while Masters took a little longer. As he was thrusting the small, plated pistol into his trouser pocket, Lister leaned across and pulled it out again. With a smile, he engaged the safety catch.
‘Talking of scrotums,’ he said. ‘I hope to Christ you teach your kids better than that.’
Although the talk was detailed and the mood tense, they were all aware that there was nothing new that could be said. The break-out had been timed for the evening that the guns arrived – and now they had. The time of day was also fixed. Recreation ended at 8 pm, followed by the nightly locking of the cells for most men. For fifteen minutes before the lock-up, the balconies, workshops, TV rooms and corridors were full of inmates, some under escort, others unsupervised. It was characterised by a certain laxness in the officers, as it meant another day was safely over. Illogical, but the screws got demob happy.
The plan was relatively simple, and fraught with dangerous possibilities. The leader of each cadre would not be told until tea-time on the day, and would disseminate the information only to the men who needed it. Once the network of trusted people had been teed up, the distribution of the weapons, the knives, the sharpened bodkins, the razor blades in makeshift wooden holders and so on, would start. Most of them were held centrally, in one or two cells to a hall, and had been earmarked for the stablest and most intelligent.
There were bound to be one or two revenge attacks or ‘lovers’ tiffs’, but the hope was that they’d be held in check long enough not to precipitate an early crisis. One of the biggest fears was that a minor quarrel could spark off a chain reaction ending in a major lock-down of the sort that had defused the Orchard riot, so the weapons would be handed out individually, as far as possible, and the recipients told to keep their mouths shut and to wait. It wouldn’t be too long.
By the time recreation was under way, the plan was to foment rumour and excitement, but still with nothing concrete being said. The screws, inevitably, would pick up something, but with luck it wouldn’t worry them too much. Tensions in the atmosphere were almost normal, usually signifying nothing more in prospect than a beating in a sluice or a screaming match over a possession or a sexual partner. Officers often watched such incidents to make sure nobody was killed, almost to see fair play. Sometimes they allowed themselves a kick or two, if the victim was considered vile enough.
At 7.45 the fires in the cells were due to start. These had been carefully sited to cause maximum disruption at corridor junctions, and to be as far away from fire points as possible. Paper had been stockpiled under mattresses, and woollen clothes were available to make thick smoke. Small amounts of spirit had been provided to make sure the fires took, although Rogers could not guarantee it would not be drunk. Even on pain of death, he said, some things were not avoidable.
The ideal was that the fires should be set at timed intervals, so that the screws would be preoccupied with the first before the second started. That way a disproportionate number of officers could be expected in one place, their minds set on a single, local problem and not a general, preconceived disruptive pattern. When the second cell went up they might assume it was a copy-cat affair, and their resources would be split and stretched. The third, fourth and fifth blazes would confirm a full-scale insurrection, but the officers would be scattered throughout the prison, nowhere in any major strength. By this time, too, the prisoners would know that the balloon was going up. While they exploded indiscriminately, the hostage taking would begin.
This part was also planned carefully, in theory, but again was bound by its nature to be hit-and-miss, violent, messy. The basic idea was to seize four or five officers on every floor and lock them, immediately and without harm, into cells. Not only would it cut down the numbers available to fight the riot, but the others would be cripplingly worried about what was happening to them, and would make their rescue top priority. Rogers and Mike Shaw would seize other screws at gun and knife point, and led by Lister would demand the opening of the gates. If they met any resistance or any refusal, the first hostage would be killed after a single warning.
At the same time as this frontal assault, Tom Amory and Pat Parkinson would approach the gates with hostages from the laundry side while Billy Ford and a man called Tony Snaith took another route. McGregor’s role was as a ‘roving gun’ to watch their backs and flanks and take out dangerous officers as necessary, while the small contingent of unknowns, refusenik ex-terrorists and blank-faced men with long white robes and long black beards, they found of little interest or importance. Likewise some diehard loners like Conor Brady, who was known as the Armagh Wolf but most famous for his inability to smile. Whether they joined in the chaos or ignored it, it was reckoned that the gates would be open within minutes, and hopefully before a major alarm was raised.
Although no one in the Scar outside the admin block had any concrete knowledge of how information that trouble had started could be broadcast to the outside world, it was assumed the governor and his deputies would be the key. Men had been detailed to cut off the switchboard and all phones immediately admin was taken, and to ‘immobilise’ anyone touching a computer. This part of the operation was in the charge of a fearsome man called Ivan Buckley, who was reckoned to be able to knock down a stout wooden office door with his head alone. Further than that, they could only guess – although they knew the alarm would be raised somehow, obviously.
Michael Masters, although one of the gun holders, was acutely aware that he had been assigned no role. In fact, all three of the original participants had moved into the background now, become irrelevant, almost wraiths. Masters had a gun for self protection (as a millionaire
and good-looking he had double need of it) but Hughes and Jerrold definitely did not. Jerrold had taken to his bed, had refused to make contact with other black inmates for whatever reason, had made no request to use the phone to contact outside help to get away. When McGregor, Rogers and Lister left with their pistols to spread the word to their lieutenants, he was still face downwards in his bunk. There were solemn handshakes all round, which included Hughes and Masters. It was the last formal meeting before the riot. But Jerrold did not move.
When the other men had gone, Hughes resumed his seat at the table. Masters took the small pistol from his pocket and held it flat on his palm. He became aware that Jerrold was watching him. He made a face at him, of regret.
‘Well, Matt. It’s too late now, brother. Unless you’re planning to stay up there and hope nobody sees you.’
Hughes said: ‘I’m not going either. There’s nowhere that I really want to go, now that it’s come to it. There’s a few things I didn’t really reckon with, despite the years of thought. It’s a bit like studying Shakespeare. You think you’ve got it sussed, then some first-year student comes along and shows you, quite by accident, that you’re insane. I’m bonkers. I’ve got to be.’
‘It’s for savages,’ said Matthew Jerrold. ‘A game for savages. First the inmates, then the screws, then the Army, then the government. It’s not you who’s bonkers, Alan. It’s everyone.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Hughes. ‘To get ahead from here’ll take the utmost savagery. And that’s how they’ll be stopped. How did I not notice? How did I spout that balderdash? All we’ve got to do, I said, is withdraw our consent. Tell them we’re not staying any more. Didn’t it occur to me that they might disagree? Did I think they’d say OK? How did I overlook the savagery?’