by Ted Lewis
BILLY RAGS
Ted Lewis
L
L
L
SYNDICATE BOOKS
NEW YORK
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd in 1973
This edition published in 2014 by Syndicate Books
www.syndicatebooks.com
Copyright © 1994 The Estate of Edward Lewis
eISBN 978-0-98421-253-8
Other Books by Ted Lewis
The Jack Carter Trilogy
Get Carter
Jack Carter’s Law
Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon
Crime Novels
Plender
Billy Rags
Boldt
GBH
Other Novels
All the Way Home and All the Night Through
The Rabbit
BBB
About the Author
Born in Manchester, England, Ted Lewis (1940-1982) spent most of his youth in Barton-upon-Humber in the north of England. After graduating from Hull Art School, Lewis moved to London and first worked in advertising before becoming an animation specialist, working on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. His novels are the product of his lifelong fascination with the criminal lifestyle of London’s Soho district and the down-and-out lifestyle of the English factory town. Lewis’s novels pioneered the British noir school. He authored nine novels, the second of which was famously adapted in 1971 as the now iconic Get Carter, which stars Michael Caine.
Author’s note
This novel and its central character were originally inspired by certain actual events and by a real person. But it is a work of fiction: all the descriptions of prisons, convicts and their friends and relatives, prison officers and policemen are imaginary.
BILLY RAGS
LLL
Dear Sheila,
With any luck Ronnie should get this to you by Thurs¬day. It had to come pigeon post on account of what I’ve got to say, as you’ll appreciate. When you’ve read it, get rid sharp. What we are talking about is on, most likely sometime over the weekend, but maybe Monday or Tuesday. Whenever it is, though, I’ll be with you next week, darling. For Christ’s sake keep everybody else out of it. Only Ronnie knows and don’t talk to him about it either, because you’re not supposed to know and he might cop out, you never know. So just wait for the phone call, that’s all you can do. I know you’re feeling the same way as I am but it won’t be long now.
See you soon
All my love
Billy
Part One
I was glad I got Burnham. Not at first, and certainly not when I parleyed with the Governor, Captain Reece. He used to swish around the wing letting all the screws salute him; he and I had no difficulty whatsoever in identifying each other as enemies. He was shit scared of me and he knew I knew it.
No, the thing I really liked about Burnham was the remarkable little trap-door in the top landing recess that led into the loft. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. But what was more unbelievable was that nobody had done it before. A nickful of them and no one had doddled.
I remember saying to Toddy who was doing a ten-stretch:
“What they got in that loft, Toddy? King Kong?”
“I’m not with you Billy,” he said.
Christ, I thought. I must be the only bright bastard in the whole nick.
“The trap-door,” I said. “The trap-door on the landing recess. What’s up there that stops anybody having a go?”
“I dunno,” he said. “Can’t say I’ve thought about it. You reckon it’s worth a tickle, do you?”
Well, would I be talking about it if I didn’t, I thought, but to Toddy I said:
“Tell us, Toddy, who are the chancers in this place? Who’s ready and who’s willing?”
Toddy gave me seven names, including his own.
“You’re sure about that, are you?”
He knew what I meant because he said:
“No bother. They’re all straight.”
So about a month after that conversation me and the seven others went through the trap-door after copping for the screws.
I’d plucked my one off the alarm bell, just in time.
We bundled them into a cell but we had to take off without tying them up because someone tipped a table up in the air that had a load of cups on it; but we all made it up through the opening. We scuttled along towards the end of the wing. As we ran Toddy said to Crump:
“You’ve got the rope, haven’t you Crumpy?” Crumpy told him to fuck off but Toddy’s voice had come out all fag-wheezy and earnest and the fact that anybody on a doddle like this could forget the most important piece of equipment transformed the adrenalin pumping through the rest of us into hysterics, a sort of snorting giggle on the run. It was as if we were all running through apple trees with a farmer right behind us.
But when we got to the end of the wing I told them all where to start thumping at the roof and that channeled the hysteric energy in the right direction.
We smashed our way out through the tiles and Crump fixed up the rope and we all slid down it on to the ground and grouped together at the bottom of the outside wall. All except the strongest man in the nick; I stood apart and farther out from the others and began to swing the hooked rope to the top of the wall. I tried three or four times but it kept falling short.
Everyone began to look shitty and there was no doubt about it, the whole scene was very embarrassing: here we were out of the Security wing and standing by the wall in the dark without a screw in sight, with a rope and a hook and I just couldn’t get the bastard up. After about eight tries a young chancer by the name of Gordon Harris said to me:
“For Christ’s sake, man, give some other fucker a go, will you, otherwise we might as well turn it in right now.”
I slung the rope and the hook at him.
“All right, clever sod, you get it up then,” I said, and turned on Tommy Dukes who’d made the hook because I had to spin off my frustration and loss of face on someone.
I said:
“You stupid bastard, you weighted it all wrong.”
Tommy was so angry he couldn’t speak. He just stared at me with his mouth open and his eyes bulging out at me as though I was strangling him.
“I told you the specification,” I said. “Why didn’t you do as I said?”
If he’d had the hook in his hand I think he would have put it over my head but before he could either say or do anything someone shouted, “Screws.” At the same time the hook clattered and scraped down the wall and rang out on the concrete, sounding like a cell door sliding shut.
I turned round and looked at the screws. There were four of them, standing about twenty yards away, in the shadow of the main block, just watching us. I knew that the last thing they were going to do was to get in amongst us so I said to the others:
“Round the corner. We’ll try there.”
We all took off like athletes at White City. The screws didn’t move at first, either because the sprint start had startled them to death, or they knew something that we didn’t.
We stopped again and had three or four more tries with the hook. By this time all the main prison cons were up at their windows, shouting encouragement at us, but it didn’t raise our game. The four screws appeared on the scene again so we took off towards the main gate.
But when we got there, Captain Reece was waiting to receive us, backed up by a dozen or so more screws.
It’s always hardest to lose when you think you’ve won. W
hen I’d stood by the wall a few minutes back I’d thought it was just a formality. Now it was like being sentenced all over again; the same sick helplessness, the same desperate fighting feeling behind my eyes as the tears tried to get out, the same determination to show everybody you don’t give a stuff.
Reece’s piping voice floated through the night air.
“It’s no good lads, the troops are surrounding the place. Come in quietly and don’t let’s have any trouble.”
You could tell from the tone of his voice he was feeling as shaky as we were. The screws didn’t look too happy about it either. A few of them were holding riot sticks and Gordon Harris pointed at the nearest one of them and screamed at Reece:
“No trouble? What’s he got a riot stick for, then? You’re going to cosh us up, you bastards.”
The screw Harris had pointed at shifted the riot stick to behind his back and looked all sheepish. There was dead silence. Even the main block had gone quiet. The only sound was the far-off groan of a jet way up above the low night clouds.
“The bastards are going to cosh us up,” Harris screeched again.
Reece was beginning to look like a rabbit in a snare. He was frightened to say anything in case what he said triggered off the wrong kind of reaction but at the same time you could see he felt he had to say something as the screws were expecting it of him. But he didn’t so the screw who’d shifted the night stick behind his back spoke in Reece’s stead.
“Come on, lads, it was a good try.”
Everybody ignored him. We were all milling about just looking sick. Freddie Simpson said to no one in particular:
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I really thought we’d made it.”
Reece sounded in just as bad a state when he singled me out.
“Cracken. Come on lad. It was a good try but you may as well go in.”
He must have thought he sounded coaxing, but to me it was just grovelling.
I stepped to the front of our group.
“They don’t want to go in,” I said.
This was just what Reece didn’t want; grandstanding. It would load the atmosphere even more against him.
“They’ll go in if you go in,” he said.
I turned round slowly and began to walk away. I was too depressed to play out a scene for the benefit of the main block. I didn’t have any particular place to go, it was just that I wanted to walk away from the whole fucking issue.
As I walked I was vaguely aware of Reece trotting behind me trying to kid me about how I could get them all back inside. Then I became aware of a different voice. I stopped and turned round. Gordon Harris was still holding the hook but Freddie Simpson had picked up the rope and was making a loop out of it.
“I am going to hang you, you Welsh mountain goat. This is all your fucking fault.”
I realized he was talking to Reece about two seconds before Reece did. Reece’s jaw dropped and his eyes went glassy but the words he’d been saying still kept coming out as though his brain had nothing to do with his mouth and he started circling round me, with Freddie following him holding the loop and Harris trailing behind carrying the hook. It was the weirdest bloody thing you’ve ever seen. I mean they went right round me, two full circles, Reece staring at them shit-scared and yet burbling on to me as though nothing was happening, Freddie creeping after him like Quasimodo mumbling how he was going to fucking hang him and Gordon Harris poncing along behind holding the hook, looking like a spare prick at a wedding. And Freddie would have done it if he could, he had that look, it was all the grief of not being over the wall twisting him up inside and all he could see was Reece between him and the other side of the wall.
For Freddie’s sake I had to break it up so I shouted across to the others: “Let’s go back the way we came out.”
It took a minute or two to sink in because everybody had been fascinated by Freddie and his rope trick but I walked over to the main group and past them towards the spot where we’d dropped down. Reece just naturally followed after me and Freddie and Harris dropped the rope and the hook and ran past Reece to join the others who had already begun to follow me to the spot. When we got there Toddy cocked his head at the roof and said: “Why not give the troops a show?”
I nodded. Anything that would pour a little more crap over Reece’s head.
Reece had got back a bit of the military style he’d lost round by the gate. He’d certainly taken a big swallow because he walked over to us, his chin sticking out at right-angles to his scraggy neck; he’d obviously decided that the time had come for him to take matters firmly in hand.
But everything shattered for him again when he saw the rope strung up and everybody climbing back up it to the roof of the wing. Toddy and I were the only two left on the ground when Reece got close to us.
“Come on, Billy,” said Toddy, offering me the rope. “You went last before.”
He was only doing a twelve.
“After you, Toddy,” I said. I wanted to see what Reece would do, whether he would make a grab for me if he saw I was left on my own.
Toddy went up the rope. I could see from Reece’s face that he was thinking about it, and so could everybody else. Death or glory, he was thinking.
He was probably writing the headlines himself: “Governor tackles Cracken single-handed; courageous action foils attempted break.” Except that the part the press wouldn’t put in was the two broken arms and the two broken legs that Reece would finish up with if he tried anything.
Reece was very close to me now. The screws and the cons were all watching Reece, to see if he’d do it, and I was looking at him too, letting my eyes tell him that I knew he never would, not in a million years.
Then I just gave him a smile that described how pathetic he was and I turned my back on him and swung away up the rope.
Afterwards a screw told me: “He should never have let you get away with it. He should never have let you get up on that roof.”
I scrambled over the top of the roof and stood up. The air was cold and fresh and above me the clouds were breaking up slightly and through the breaks crystal stars were still and remote winking blankly at this pointless charade. I looked over the wall into the street. Besides the troops and the police, there was about a hundred people standing around, faces upturned, waiting to see what the animals would do next. What would it be? Swinging from branch to branch or scratching under the arm pits. I wanted to spit on them. I looked at the lads. A few of them were so sick they couldn’t whip up any enthusiasm for a demonstration but Freddie and Toddy and Harris began to rip the slates off and smash the woodwork and tear the tarpaulin underneath. Scrambled words drifted up into the night air from the loud hailers. The lads just carried on dismantling the roof. Then they got the spotlight on us and began to unwind the hoses.
“They’re going to squirt us,” Harris said.
With that he hurtled a tile down towards the plainclothes police who were standing in the nick yard, looking up with those po-faced expressions they all have. The tile shattered in front of them and they all stepped back, slowly, in perfect time with each other, like a load of bloody chorus girls.
Harris picked up a tile and so did Toddy and me and we began a barrage down into the yard.
This time the boys in grey overcoats lost their symmetry and scattered like so many bits of broken glass. Flash guns started going off. The police were popping from inside the nick, the press from outside. The press were wasting their time as we were fifty feet up but the police photographers were only fifteen yards away from the bottom wing so I tried to cover my face every time they took a picture.
The heroes down below finally got the hoses going but the power was too weak to dislodge us. Deliberately so. They couldn’t risk the scandal of one of us finishing up in the street with a broken back. That gave us back our confidence. Fredd
ie eased himself to the edge of the roof.
“I can piss harder than that,” he shouted.
If he’d been better hung he’d have given them a demonstration.
We kept the tiles winging down for a couple of hours. Then the group inside the nick gave over with the hoses and just left us alone. Our audience down in the street started to drift away. Without any attention the situation began to pall.
“Well, I don’t know about anybody else,’ I said, trying to detach my damp clothes from my skin, “I’m fucking freezing.”
Toddy sank down on the ridging.
Harris flung a tile out into the night as hard as he could and then relaxed completely, sagging down next to Toddy.
“Bastards,” he said. “Bloody sodding bastards.”
“We’ve got to go down sometime,” Toddy said.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go down. If we stay up here much longer somebody might miss us.”
Toddy pretended he found it funny and got up and swung himself down through the hole.
When we got back to the trap-door, Reece was waiting in the recess. He watched me all the way as I climbed down and he watched me as I scrubbed my tarred hands in the wash-basin. He was back in command again. Or so he thought. The exhibition he’d made of himself outside was just another memory for him to distort.
A half-decent bloke called Greaves, the chief screw, walked me back to my cell.
“Well that didn’t get you very far, did it Billy?” he said.
I shrugged.
“It was only the hook that done us,” I said.
“I reckon you’re on two months’ chokey for tonight.”
“It was worth it seeing Reece mess himself.”
Greaves didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t have to. He didn’t say anything to the lads who were calling their congratulations and commiserations as we walked the block, either. I just grinned at them all, well-braced as I walked, coming the old swagger, but when Greaves shut the cell door behind me I lay on my bed and I could have thrown up I was so depressed. There’d been a chance. A real one. All that had happened was that someone had ballocksed up the hook. I lay there and I could still smell the freshness of the night air and hear the soft surge of the town and see the warm orange of the strings of lights on the main roads that led out of the town. I didn’t sleep for a long time because I kept concentrating on the sounds and sights and smells of the evening so that I’d have something to exercise my mind on during the inevitable chokey that was to come.