Kicking Off

by Jan Needle

  Fortyne ended, ‘My minister doesn’t know I’ve rung you, Velma, and I’m sure he’d be furious. So far he’s handled it superbly. He’s imposed a total news ban and set every possible wheel in motion. But Turner’s messed things up at every turn, entirely off the record, and I think your boss needs to know. If the fainthearts take over and this gets out, the government will fall. I mean it.’

  When he’d put the phone down, Sinclair – who had been listening on the extension with Judith at his side – was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘He’s stitched,’ he said. ‘Now let’s find ourselves a couch or two, and get some blankets. A couple of hours’ shut-eye would really hit the spot.’

  Before he dozed off, Sinclair had the horrors for a while. The night hours had brought more news from the Scar and elsewhere, much of it disturbing. Two Special Branch men in an unmarked car had been shot outside the home of Andrew Forbes, who had subsequently disappeared with the Scottish woman. Lister the American was free, as well as the fearsome Angus McGregor and several English killers. Michael Masters, whose potential as trouble he did not care to calculate, was also out – apparently with a gun – and four more murders and several rapes had been reported. The slagheap was spreading.

  Despite Fortyne’s Machiavellian brilliance, despite his own absolute determination that whoever was brought down by this it would not be him, Sinclair could not quite see how he could escape unscathed. There were too many wild cards, too many sleeping sins.

  ‘I need some luck,’ he muttered. ‘I need some bastards shooting, quick. I need some good news.’

  The first bit came at 7.45, when he was woken up by Judith Parker. Sir Gerald Turner had been despatched to Bowscar to glean first-hand information for a Commons statement later in the day, which was the equivalent, in the circumstances, of being sent to Siberia for a long weekend.

  But Donald Sinclair had been invited to have breakfast. With the Prime Minister.

  *

  Hotel in London. Forbes and Rosanna

  Being a journalist herself, Rosanna Nixon found many of Andrew Forbes’ infuriating habits quite endearing. When they woke up in their hotel bedroom, he switched the radio on. Then, discovering as he often did that his slight hangover had produced a serious erection, he proposed to put it in her while they listened to the news. Rosanna, who was wearing nothing but a tee-shirt, spread her legs luxuriously. It was not a serious fuck, but it was very pleasant – and there were the events outside their house the night before to chat about as well.

  Bowscar came third or fourth in the running order and just before Andrew, moving lazily, was about to come himself. Rosanna went ‘ooh’ when she heard the name, and looked automatically over her shoulder at the radio. Andrew, his head buried in her hair, put himself on hold. They lay still, wrapped around each other, listening.

  ‘Overnight reports of escapes from Bowscar Prison, Staffordshire, have been denied by a Home Office spokesman,’ the announcer said. ‘A minor disturbance earlier is still being investigated, but nobody is reported to have been hurt. Bowscar, which houses more than one thousand men, some of them in the highest-risk security category, was the scene of another small disturbance last month. It is not thought that the incidents were related.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Andrew, when the next item had started.

  ‘I thought we were.’

  But she was not serious. They were no longer. She moved her body under him, and he rolled to one side. They looked into each other’s eyes, both troubled.

  ‘I don’t believe those swine,’ said Forbes. ‘If they say no escapes, it could mean anything. What if McGregor’s done a bunk? This could be our story down the tubes.’

  ‘Could he have attacked Pendlebury, maybe? Oh Christ, maybe he’s flipped?’

  Andrew rolled back over her and clicked off the radio. He grabbed his phone.

  ‘On the other hand,’ he said, tapping a number, ‘it could be a coincidence. Peter ought to know, if he’s heard the news. He’s got Lister to worry about, he’ll be shitting bricks.’

  ‘Andrew,’ came Jackson’s voice. ‘Have you heard? Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Hotel. They had the place surrounded when we got back home last night. We did a bunk.’

  ‘It was Lister. He came looking for you and they killed two coppers. The Lada Fusiliers. You did well.’

  Rosanna’s head was close, but she didn’t hear completely. Their heads banged as Andrew stared at her.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Did he say killed?’

  ‘It’s lies,’ he told her. ‘The radio. Lister’s escaped. That was his mess at home last night.’

  Her eyes were wide.

  ‘Did he say killed?’ she said, again. ‘Andrew. Who?’ He did not answer. He licked the inside of his mouth. Jesus Christ, he thought.

  ‘Andrew?’ said Jackson. ‘Look, I’ll be brief. You’re in the shit, mate. And Rosanna. The men who got blitzed had taken pictures from the spymobile, and they came out well. It was Lister and some others, going in your house. When they recognised Lister, the coppers went to my lot, in case we knew the other hoods, and ended up with me. De Sallis was the bonus: he knew all of them. It’s the mob, the ones we’ve been waiting for. They screwed us, Andy-boy. They got the bastard out of Bowscar.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Forbes. ‘But why did the spooks ask you? They’re in cahoots, aren’t they? They’re Lister’s mates? Do they really want to find him?’

  ‘Mates or no mates, you don’t go shooting coppers, do you? Even by mistake. We’re buddies now, we’re allies, can you believe that? We’re on an invite to a manhunt. And Andy. There’s a mouse-hunt, too.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Forbes. He flashed a smile at Rosanna, a smile that barely touched his mouth. ‘And tell me about Bowscar. Who else is out?’

  ‘Some, I don’t know who. These guys are wild for Lister, nobody else. Lister, and you, and the lady. They’ve got pictures of you going out last night, and they want to know why you never came back. Me and de Sallis played it blank, naturally. We don’t know you from Adam and Eve, and we don’t know what you are to Lister. Could be they believe us, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Either way, keep on the move, all right? I’m serious, mate. Look for trouble.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Andrew, soberly. ‘You too, friend, don’t trust the bastards. Look, we’ll keep in touch. We’ll see you soon, OK? It’s your round, as I remember.’

  For twenty minutes afterwards, Forbes and Rosanna chased all the information they had round and round in circles. They were both cast down and worried, as much for what it meant to Pendlebury as for themselves. They both knew they had to find the truth out fast, and they both knew it could only be achieved in person. They’d have to buy some clothes, said Rosanna (to a derisive snort from Andrew), and get some cash, and hire a car. They’d go to Bowscar, and see what they could see. If the governor wouldn’t talk to them in person – highly likely – they’d badger him by phone until he did. The decision made, they both felt better.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ said Andrew. Rosanna, getting out of bed, paused.

  ‘Should I be?’

  Andrew considered. The Lister aspect had come as a bad shock. But after all, they had done nothing wrong. They’d have to ride that for a while, see what transpired. He smiled.

  ‘Nah, I spose not. After all, you’ve got me to protect you! Here – where you going?’

  He pulled her purposefully back, and laid her on her side. Then he lifted her knee onto his thigh and slid his hand between her legs. He began to stroke her properly, as if he meant it this time. Rosanna stretched, and sighed.

  ‘That’s unexpected,’ she said. ‘What have I done to deserve this sort of attention in the middle of a crisis?’

  He put his lips into the soft part of her neck.

  ‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘If the nasties get us, this could be our last. And I’m rather fond of you, my mouse. Didn’t you know that?’

  *

  North Wales. Hughes, the Animal />
  Alan Hughes awoke to groans, which for many minutes seemed to have been part of his dreams. The dreams had been of Bowscar, and involved blood and sorrow in about equal proportions. The most vivid image was of Matthew Jerrold, bound in a chair, weeping to be freed. Prison officers, led by Christopher Abbey, were threatening him with staves, and taunting him.

  The first thing Hughes saw when he opened his eyes was a woman’s face, white and frightened. She was lying on a double bed, and her wrists were tied together so that her hands were on her chest as if in prayer. The dream faded instantly and Hughes knew where he was. He turned his head to the left, to the source of the groans. Angus McGregor, looking ghastly, was asleep or unconscious in a small armchair. His right hand was hanging over the arm, and on the floor below it was the pistol.

  Hughes was also in an armchair, but he was not free to move. When sleep had become inevitable, at about three o’clock that morning, McGregor had made his arrangements carefully. He had tied a single rope around Hughes’ body, high up underneath his armpits, and secured it behind the chair. It was not so very tight, but it was constricting. There was nothing Hughes could do that would not make a racket. McGregor had also locked the door.

  The movement of his head alerted the woman, and she turned her eyes to him. Her face wore such a look of incomprehension, such anxiety, that he had a physical twinge of pity for her. Until the night before he had not seen Carole Rochester for ten years or so, but he remembered her as a vivacious, happy girl of about nineteen. She had changed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, very quietly. ‘You’ll be all right, I think. Just be kind to him. That’s the secret.’

  Her eyes widened slightly. She turned to stare at McGregor. His neck was wrapped in a thick, bloody cloth and his mouth was open. Then she turned back to Hughes.

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ she said.

  Outside, incongruously, Hughes could hear sheep baaing. They were in a caravan, a static forty-footer, in a small copse at the bottom of a hill farm near Pwllheli. They had arrived at 2.30 in the morning, in Carole Rochester’s camper van, and on the journey down from Leicester there had been little talk. McGregor was too ill to do anything except hold the gun, Hughes had been disinclined to speak, and the woman, forced to drive, had needed all her concentration to overcome her dislocation and terror. Earlier, when she had opened her front door to two men with a gun, she had been on the point of setting off for Wales, alone. She quickly realised she had lost her liberty by perhaps two minutes.

  The drive to Leicester from Bowscar, in the stolen Uno, had itself been terrible, because of McGregor’s state. He had bled intermittently and badly, and had forced a stop once so that he could tear the back out of his shirt to make more bandages. He had rambled almost deliriously from time to time, but had also had flashes of gruesome lucidity, in which he had detailed what he intended to do to Gerald Turner. Every time Hughes had repeated his warning that the man who’d been his neighbour once had probably left the area years before, McGregor had grown ominously silent. If he had left, Hughes suspected, his own life would quickly end. When they passed his own old house, the tension got dreadful. It had been converted into flats, and the area had the air of bedsit land. Gerald Turner must have left.

  In the porchway, McGregor had been barely able to stand. Hughes had rung the bell, praying that nobody would answer it. Although the door was opened by a lone woman of thirty or so, she did not put it on the safety chain – she was dressed to leave. McGregor, showing the pistol, stumbled forward into the house, driving them in front of him.

  In the hallway, Hughes recognised Gerald Turner’s daughter, and she him. But her father no longer lived there, she explained, through shaking lips. She showed McGregor the empty house, to prove it. She had married, was now divorced, and rented it from her father’s Trust. She did not know where he lived, they were estranged, they did not speak. Most foolishly, she said she was on her way to Wales, where she had the caravan. McGregor, who knew they could not live undetected in the heart of Leicester, forced a description out of her. With the ghost of gallows humour, he asked to be invited, with his friend. Before leaving, in the camper, they put the Fiat in the garage. Carole Rochester, noticing the bloodstains, appeared to shrink.

  *

  Bowscar. Sir Gerald Turner

  By the time the Home Secretary had been at Bowscar Prison for an hour, his sense of simple outrage had been modified to one he hardly dared to put a name to. After a tour conducted by Colonel Simon Benson of the parts that could be accessed, he excused himself and went to a portable toilet. He sat for many minutes in the cubicle, studying his hands upon his knees. He was horrified by what he’d seen, horrified and ashamed. He had made a great mistake.

  Bowscar, in the light of a glorious summer morning, was devastated beyond belief. A low pall of smoke spread over the fields in the fitful easterly breeze, and the roof of one whole wing had collapsed into the burnt-out shell. Fires were still burning in several other places, with fire engines drawn up near them. As far as he could see, there was not one unbroken window in the place, nor one stretch of unstripped roof. Behind every chimney stack men flitted, with others standing at the parapets beside piles of jagged slates, which they threw intermittently at soldiers and firemen in the yards below. From one corner, most horribly, hung the corpse of a prison officer, dressed only in a uniform cap and shirt. Much against his will, Turner had been persuaded to look at him through high definition binoculars. The face was blackened and contorted from strangulation, and had one ear ripped off.

  Colonel Benson, whose slight rawness of manner marked him out as not quite establishment, had expressed some bitterness that his units had not been allowed to storm the jail in the early hours as had been planned and – they understood – agreed. Since daylight, three hostages had died, including the hanging man. One had been thrown into the courtyard still alive, seriously injuring a sergeant and two corporals who had hoped to break his fall. The person who had aborted the attack, said Benson levelly, needed his head examining.

  When his sojourn in the cubicle had lasted long enough, Sir Gerald sought out Colonel Benson and asked for a secure telephone. Out of the window, he could see through the prison gates into the main yard. There were covered bodies there, awaiting photographs and measurement, possibly for the coroner. Everywhere were men in uniform, with guns in hand.

  Sir Gerald dialled, aware that what he had to say would be a massive climb-down. The delay must end immediately, he would order, the Army must go in. And at all costs, the media must in no way understand just how vast had been the disaster that ‘as yet unidentified circumstances’ had wrought. In Whitehall, long before he made the call, he had been pre-empted on both counts. Donald Sinclair was sitting in an office with Christian Fortyne, and very shortly they would meet the press. Not for a simple conference, but for an unattributable briefing. The truth, the press had been promised, would be told.

  The strategy they had polished, with the help of Judith Parker, was to make the events at Bowscar into a sort of dreadful centrepiece, so that the grim reality of the massive break-out could be glossed over until the police and security forces had mopped up the worst elements. The bottom line must be that there had been a riot, but that almost no one had got out. And when the time was ripe, Bowscar would be stormed, purged, disinfected, cured. It would be a new beginning.

  So, at the briefing, both men stood up to lie. Judith had recommended standing, because she said it made politicians seem more truthful, and Donald Sinclair achieved a sort of glow, an air of frankness that was almost palpable. On his blind side from the press, Judith dared to blow a tiny, tiny kiss.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘And lady. We realise that from your point of view this is a massively important story, and we are proposing to give you unprecedented access. From this afternoon there will be full facilities, observation posts, and the opportunity to speak to prison officers and the Army. Our only restriction is a total ban on unmanned drone
s – for reasons of operational life and death, we cannot risk it. Whatever the outcome, you have our absolute assurance you will be kept informed, in return for which we humbly request you only to exercise restraint. You may hear wild reports and rumours – that’s probably inevitable – but we’d ask you, please, not to take them at face value without checking them with us. I can promise you a quick and truthful answer. Are there any questions?’

  There were, but mainly to do with the possible spread of violence, which Sinclair handled as a double act with Fortyne. The civil servant spoke rapidly, and never stumbled for an instant. No one could be unaware, he said, that the government were spending more than three billion pounds in their current programme of improvement, more than any other government in history. Nor could they overlook the fact that Mr Sinclair, although only confirmed as the junior minister days before, had already announced severe new measures to deal with violent and uncontrollable men. Donald then cited Buckie. The new model, the triumph. And that had been his alone.

  Finally, Fortyne thanked everybody for attending, and announced a standard, attributable press conference for three o’clock, with Sinclair in the chair. To disperse their interest even more, he revealed ‘intelligence just in’ that should put Bowscar in perspective. Two Special Branch detectives had been murdered in a London street in mysterious circumstances. The security services had been called in, and there appeared to be a Jihadi connection. It was a tragedy, he said, a matter of cold-blooded, ruthless disregard for civilised values, and he hoped the prison difficulties would not be allowed to overshadow it.

  Afterwards, Judith was full of contempt.

  ‘God, what fools the press are,’ she said. ‘Jihadis! They’ll swallow anything. It’s no damn wonder they’re so despised, is it?’

  Sinclair smiled.