A Prisoner of Birth (13 page)

Alex bowed his head. He would have settled for a retrial. If they gave him a second chance, he wasn't in any doubt that . . . The jury filed back out without another word and didn't reappear again that morning.

Alex sat alone in a corner of the restaurant on the third floor. He allowed his soup to go cold, and shifted his salad around the plate, before he returned to the corridor and continued his ritual pacing.

At twelve minutes past three, an announcement came over the loudspeaker. "All those involved in the Cartwright case, please make their way back in to court number four, as the jury is returning."

Alex joined a stream of interested parties as they walked quickly down the corridor and filed back into the courtroom. Once they were settled, the judge reappeared and instructed the usher to summon the jury. As they entered the court, Alex couldn't help noticing that one or two of them looked distressed.

The judge leaned forward and asked the foreman, "Have you been able to reach a unanimous verdict?"

"No, m'lord," came back the immediate reply.

"Do you think that you might reach a unanimous verdict if I were to allow you a little more time?"

"No, m'lord."

"Would it help if I were to consider a majority verdict, and by that I mean one where at least ten of you are in agreement?"

"That might solve the problem, m'lord," the foreman replied.

"Then I'll ask you to reconvene and see if you can finally come to a verdict." The judge nodded to the usher, who led the jury back out of court.

Alex was about to rise and continue his perambulations, when Pearson leaned across and said, "Stay still, dear boy. I have a feeling they'll be back shortly." Alex settled down on his corner of the bench.

Just as Pearson had predicted, the jury were back in their places a few minutes later. Alex turned to Pearson, but before he could speak, the elderly QC said, "Don't even ask, dear boy. I've never been able to fathom the machinations of a jury despite almost thirty years at the Bar." Alex was shaking as the usher stood and said, "Would the foreman please rise."

"Have you reached a verdict?" the judge asked.

"We have, m'lord," replied the foreman.

"And is it a majority of you?"

"Yes, m'lord, a majority of ten to two."

The judge nodded in the direction of the usher, who bowed. "Members of the jury," he said, "do you find the prisoner at the bar, Daniel Arthur Cartwright, guilty or not guilty of murder?" What seemed like an eternity to Alex before the foreman responded was in fact no more than a few seconds.

"Guilty," the foreman pronounced.

A gasp went up around the court. Alex's first reaction was to turn and look at Danny. He showed no sign of emotion. Above him in the public gallery came cries of "No!" and the sound of sobbing.

Once the courtroom had come to order, the judge delivered a long preamble before passing sentence. The only words that would remain indelibly fixed in Alex's mind were
twenty-two years
.

His father had told him never to allow a verdict to affect him. After all, only one defendant in a hundred was wrongly convicted.

Alex was in no doubt that Danny Cartwright was one in a hundred.

"W
ELCOME BACK
, C
ARTWRIGHT
." Danny glanced at the officer seated behind the desk in reception, but didn't respond. The man looked down at the charge sheet. "Twenty-two years," Mr. Jenkins said with a sigh. He paused. "I know how you must feel, because that's just about the length of time I've been in the service." Danny had always thought of Mr. Jenkins as old. Is that how I'll look in twenty-two years, he wondered. "I'm sorry, lad," the officer said—not a sentiment he often expressed.

"Thanks, Mr. Jenkins," Danny said quietly.

"Now you're no longer on remand," said Jenkins, "you're not entitled to a single cell." He opened a file, which he studied for some time. Nothing moves quickly in prison. He ran his finger down a long column of names, stopping at an empty box. "I'm going to put you in block three, cell number one-two-nine." He checked the names of the present occupants. "They should make interesting company," he added without explanation, before nodding to the young officer standing behind him.

"Look sharp, Cartwright, and follow me," said the officer Danny had never seen before.

Danny followed the officer down a long brick corridor that was painted in a shade of mauve no other establishment would have considered purchasing in bulk. They came to a halt at a double-barred gate. The officer selected a large key from the chain that hung around his waist, unlocked the first gate and ushered Danny through. He joined him before locking
them both in, then unlocking the second gate. They now stepped into a corridor whose walls were painted green—a sign that they had reached a secure area. Everything in prison is color-coded.

The officer accompanied Danny until they reached a second doublebarred gate. This process was repeated four more times before Danny arrived at block three. It wasn't hard to see why no one had ever escaped from Belmarsh. The color of the walls had turned from mauve to green to blue by the time Danny's keeper handed him over to a unit officer who wore the same blue uniform, the same white shirt, the same black tie, and had the inevitable shaven head to prove that he was just as hard as any of the inmates.

"Right, Cartwright," said his new minder casually, "this is going to be your home for at least the next eight years, so you'd better settle down and get used to it. If you don't give us any trouble, we won't give you any. Understood?"

"Understood, guv," repeated Danny, using the title every con gives a screw whose name he doesn't know.

As Danny climbed the iron staircase to the first floor he didn't come across another inmate. They were all locked up—as they nearly always were, sometimes for twenty-two hours a day. The new officer checked Danny's name on the call sheet and chuckled when he saw which cell he had been allocated. "Mr. Jenkins obviously has a sense of humor," he said as they came to a halt outside cell number 129.

Yet another key was selected from yet another ring, this time one heavy enough to open the lock of a two-inch-thick iron door. Danny stepped inside, and the heavy door slammed shut behind him. He looked suspiciously at the two inmates who already occupied the cell.

A heavily built man was lying half-asleep on a single bed, facing the wall. He didn't even glance up at the new arrival. The other man was seated at the small table, writing. He put down his pen, rose from his place and thrust out a hand, which took Danny by surprise.

"Nick Moncrieff," he said, sounding more like an officer than an inmate. "Welcome to your new abode," he added with a smile.

"Danny Cartwright," Danny replied, shaking his hand. He looked across at the unoccupied bunk.

"As you're last in, you get the top bunk," said Moncrieff. "You'll have the bottom one in two years' time. By the way," he said, pointing to the giant who lay on the other bed, "that's Big Al." Danny's other cellmate
looked a few years older than Nick. Big Al grunted, but still didn't bother to turn around to find out who'd joined them. "Big Al doesn't say a lot, but once you get to know him, he's just fine," said Moncrieff. "It took me about six months, but perhaps you'll be more successful."

Danny heard the key turning in the lock, and the heavy door was pulled open once again.

"Follow me, Cartwright," said a voice. Danny stepped back out of the cell and followed another officer he'd never seen before. Had the authorities already decided to put him in a different cell, he wondered, as the screw led him back down the iron staircase, along another corridor, and through a further set of double-barred gates before coming to a halt outside a door marked
STORES
. The officer gave a firm rap on the little double doors, and a moment later they were pulled open from the inside.

"CK4802 Cartwright," said the officer, checking his charge sheet.

"Strip off," said the stores manager. "You won't be wearing any of those clothes again"—he looked down at the charge sheet—"until 2022." He laughed at a joke he cracked about five times a day. Only the year changed.

Once Danny had stripped, he was handed two pairs of boxer shorts (red and white stripes), two shirts (blue and white stripes), one pair of jeans (blue), two T-shirts (white), one pullover (gray), one donkey jacket (black), two pairs of socks (gray), one pair of shorts (blue gym), two singlets (white gym), two sheets (nylon, green), one blanket (gray), one pillow case (green) and one pillow (circular, solid); the one item he was allowed to keep were his trainers—a prisoner's only opportunity to make a fashion statement.

The stores manager gathered up all of Danny's clothes and dropped them in a large plastic bag, filled in the name
Cartwright CK4802
on a little tag, and sealed up the bag. He then handed Danny a smaller plastic bag which contained a bar of soap, a toothbrush, a plastic disposable razor, one flannel (green), one hand towel (green), one plastic plate (gray), one plastic knife, one plastic fork and one plastic spoon. He ticked several boxes on a green form before swiveling it around, pointing to a line with his forefinger and handing Danny a well-bitten biro that was attached to the desk by a chain. Danny scrawled an illegible squiggle.

"You report back to the stores every Thursday afternoon between three and five," said the stores manager, "when you'll be given a change of clothes. Any damage and you'll have the requisite sum deducted from
your weekly wage. And I decide how much that will be," he added before slamming the doors closed.

Danny picked up the two plastic bags and followed the officer back down the corridor to his cell. He was locked up moments later, without a single word having passed between them. Big Al didn't seem to have stirred in his absence, and Nick was still seated at the tiny table, writing.

Danny climbed up onto the top bunk and lay flat on the lumpy mattress. While he'd been on remand for the past six months, he'd been allowed to wear his own clothes, roam around the ground floor chatting to his fellow inmates, watch television, play table tennis, even buy a Coke and sandwich from a vending machine—but no longer. Now he was a lifer, and for the first time, he was finding out what losing your freedom really meant.

Danny decided to make up his bed. He took his time, as he was beginning to discover just how many hours there are in each day, how many minutes in each hour and how many seconds in each minute when you're locked up in a cell twelve foot by eight, with two strangers to share your space—one of them large.

Once he'd made the bed, Danny climbed back onto it, settled down and stared up at the white ceiling. One of the few advantages of being on the top bunk is that your head is opposite the tiny barred window: the only proof that there is an outside world. Danny looked through the iron bars at the other three blocks that made up the spur, the exercise yard and several high walls topped with razor wire that stretched as far as the eye could see. Danny stared back up at the ceiling. His thoughts turned to Beth. He hadn't even been allowed to say goodbye to her.

Next week, and for the next thousand weeks, he'd be locked up in this hellhole. His only chance of escape was an appeal. Mr. Redmayne had warned him that that might not be heard for at least a year. The court lists were overcrowded, and the longer your sentence, the longer you had to wait before they got around to your appeal. Surely a year would be more than enough time for Mr. Redmayne to gather all the evidence he needed to prove that Danny was innocent?