Hard Landing (15 page)

The woman on the phone put her hand over the receiver and smiled at Hamilton. ‘Is that Mr Macdonald?’ she asked.

Hamilton nodded.

‘Mr Gosden says he’s to go in,’ she said.

Hamilton gestured at Macdonald to stand up, then knocked on the door to the governor’s office and opened it.

John Gosden was a stocky man in his late forties, sitting behind a large teak-veneer desk with two stacks of files in wire trays, a desktop computer and a small laptop, both with modem connections. There was a tropical fish tank by the door. A couple of dozen brightly coloured fish were swimming languidly round a sunken plastic galleon and a diver with a stream of tiny bubbles fizzing out of its helmet.

‘Thank you, Adrian,’ the governor said to Hamilton. ‘You can wait outside.’ He waited until the officer had closed the door, then got up. He was a head shorter than Shepherd, but his shoulders were broader. He looked like a bodybuilder who’d given up exercising some years ago.

Shepherd thought the man was going to shake his hand, but Gosden walked over to the fish tank and picked up a container of flaked food. ‘Do you keep fish, Shepherd?’

‘No, Governor,’ said Shepherd. ‘Don’t mind eating them, though.’

Gosden flashed him a cold smile, then sprinkled a small amount of food on to the surface of the water and bent down to watch the fish feed. ‘An aquarium is a delicate balancing act,’ he said. ‘The mass of fish you can support depends on the volume of water in the tank, the surface area, and the efficiency of your aeration pump. The number of fish determines how much food you put in. If any of the variables is out of kilter, if anything is added that isn’t planned for, the whole eco-system can fall apart.’

‘I get the analogy, Governor,’ said Shepherd. ‘I don’t intend to do anything to upset the equilibrium of your institution.’

‘Your presence does that,’ said the governor, straightening up.

‘Only if the prisoners work out who I am and what I’m doing here. And they won’t.’

The governor’s lips were a thin, unsmiling line. ‘I’m not just referring to the prisoners. The fact that I have allowed you to go undercover in my prison suggests I don’t trust my people. And this place runs on trust, Mr Shepherd. It’s all we have standing between order and anarchy.’

Shepherd didn’t say anything. The governor must have known there was a good chance that one of his officers was helping Carpenter run his organisation from behind bars.

‘I’m not happy about this, Mr Shepherd. Not happy at all.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Shepherd. He was still standing in the centre of the room. Clearly the governor had no intention of asking him to sit down.

‘Have you any idea what a dangerous position this puts me in?’ the governor went on. He knocked on the side of the tank and the fish darted to the back. ‘If the prisoners find out there’s a policeman in their midst, there’ll be a riot.’

‘I think, of the two of us, I’ll be the one in most danger,’ said Shepherd.

‘You think they’ll stop with you?’ said Gosden. ‘If you believe that, you’ve no idea how a prison functions.’ He snorted, then went to sit behind his desk. ‘Your mission is to find out what Gerald Carpenter is up to, is that right?’

‘He’s sabotaging his case. We have to find out how.’

‘And the presumption is that one of my people is helping him?’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I’ve got an open mind, Governor, but his phone conversations and mail are monitored, so that doesn’t leave too many options.’

‘His family. His legal teams. He has medical visits.’

‘Medical visits?’

‘He has a recurring back problem, which means he has a weekly visit from an osteopath. And his dentist has visited twice.’

‘I thought the prison had its own medical facilities.’

‘Apparently the facilities we have aren’t satisfactory in view of the state of his spine or his root canals. He’s got world-class lawyers, has your Mr Carpenter, and the 1998 Human Rights Act is full of helpful phrases. At one point it was starting to look as if the great Cherie Booth was going to be representing him so we decided to let him have his own way.’ At last the governor waved to a chair opposite his desk. ‘Sit down. Please.’ He looked suddenly tired. He ran a hand across his forehead and rubbed his eye. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I sound tetchy but this is a stressful job at the best of times – and I don’t like being told what to do by suits who’ve never been within a mile of a Cat A facility.’

Shepherd sat down. ‘I have to say, Governor, I’m as unhappy as you are about being here. But you’ve been told what Carpenter’s doing – what he’s already done?’

‘My suggestion was that they move him to another prison. Put him in the secure unit at Belmarsh.’

‘And they said?’

‘That they wanted it dealt with here. Which I presume means that they suspect the leak is in-house.’

Shepherd nodded. Moving Carpenter wouldn’t solve anything. If they kept him in Shelton there was a chance that they would find the bad apple in the prison and identify who on the outside was doing Carpenter’s dirty work. ‘You were a prison officer yourself ?’ asked Shepherd. Gosden didn’t seem the type to have come into the service at the top.

Gosden smiled. ‘Shows, does it? Started off walking the landings in Parkhurst. Six years. Then moved to an open prison and couldn’t stand it. Went back to the Isle of Wight, got made Principal Officer and did an Open University degree.’

‘It’s not a job I could do.’ Shepherd was trying to get on the right side of the man, but he was being truthful. Undercover work was stressful but at least he had the adrenaline rush and the satisfaction of putting away the bad guys. Prison officers were at their most successful when nothing happened, when the status quo was maintained. And the job was never-ending. For every prisoner who walked out of the gates, another moved in to take his place. Shepherd doubted he had the stamina or the patience to make a career of keeping people locked up.

‘It has its moments,’ said Gosden. ‘Believe it or not, most prison officers care about what they do. At least, when they come into the service. And a lot of inmates are genuinely remorseful and want to turn their lives round.’

‘I sense a “but” . . .’ said Shepherd.

‘There are enough bad apples to turn even the best-intentioned prison officer cynical after a few years,’ Gosden told him. ‘Hot water thrown over them, HIV-infected prisoners cutting themselves and flicking blood around, razor blades in soap, ears bitten off. You know all prison officers wear a clip-on tie? That’s in case a prisoner grabs it. And these days all the prisoners know their rights, from the
Prison Rules
up to the Human Rights Act. And to make it worse, the officers often feel there isn’t enough support from above. If a governor isn’t behind his men one thousand per cent, they’ll start to think that maybe it’s not worth keeping to the straight and narrow. That maybe the rules can be bent.’ Gosden stood up and started to pace up and down the office. ‘So, if you were to ask me if one of my officers could be on the take, what am I supposed to say? I have to back them.’ He stopped. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s the same on the job. Your colleagues come first. They have to, because when the shit hits the fan they’re all you’ve got.’

Gosden nodded.

‘But sometimes cops go bad,’ said Shepherd.

‘We’ve some in here too. On Rule Forty-five. Couple of Vice cops who were on the take for years.’

‘What I’m saying is, when cops go bad you can’t turn a blind eye.’

‘That’s not what I’m doing,’ said Gosden, defensively. ‘What I’m doing is giving my people the benefit of the doubt. You tell me that one of them’s on the take and their feet won’t touch the ground, I promise you.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ said Shepherd.

‘But if you disrupt my prison, if I think you’re putting the safety of my men at risk, I’m pulling you out. I don’t care what some Home Office mandarin says, this is my prison.’

Shepherd didn’t say anything. He knew that Gosden didn’t have the authority to halt the operation, but he could make Shepherd’s life impossible. A word in the right ear and his cover would be blown. Once that happened he would have no choice but to bail out.

The two men stared at each other for several seconds, then Gosden relaxed. ‘That’s my pep talk over,’ he said. ‘I’m told I have to co-operate with you, so is there anything you want me to do?’

‘I need to get close to Carpenter, but I’ll have to do that myself. If you were to pull any strings it’d tip him off that something was up. But I could do with a look at your personnel files. Just the officers on the spur.’

Gosden shook his head. ‘I’d have a walk-out if I did that. If nothing else they fall under the Data Protection Act.’

‘No one would know,’ said Shepherd.

‘That’s not the point. It’s a breach of trust.’

‘I only need background, just so I know who I’m dealing with.’

Gosden massaged the back of his neck. ‘God, this is a mess.’

‘Governor, it’s as much in your interest as mine to find out who’s helping Carpenter.’

Gosden went over to a filing cabinet, opened it and pulled out a dozen files. ‘You mustn’t make any notes,’ he said, ‘and I think you should be quick about it. Hamilton’s going to wonder why you’re in here so long.’

‘What reason have you given him for bringing me here?’

Gosden was pacing up and down his office again. ‘I told Tony Stafford that I wanted to talk to you about a family matter. I said your wife had written to me saying she was considering divorce. In view of the violent nature of the crime you’ve been charged with, I said I’d have a talk with you. It wouldn’t be unusual, I’m pretty hands-on here.’

Shepherd sat down with the files. He scanned the pages quickly, but his eyes passed over every line. He had to read the words to memorise them. Every name, every date, every fact was recorded perfectly, and would remain in his memory for several years, then begin to fade. Shepherd had no idea how his memory functioned. He could only memorise, not understand.

He went through the files page by page, then stood up. ‘There’s one other thing you can do for me,’ he said. ‘I need some phone numbers authorised, and to be able to make calls.’

‘I’ll set up a pin number for you,’ said Gosden, reaching for a pen and a notepad.

‘I need money in my account, apparently.’

‘I’ll get that sorted. I’ll put you on “enhanced”.’

‘Won’t that raise eyebrows?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Gosden. ‘I’ll simply say that after our chat I’ve decided that you’re becoming more co-operative and that, as a gesture of good faith, I’m making you enhanced. It’s happened before.’

Shepherd gave Gosden his fictitious Uncle Richard’s number.

‘Do you want to be able to call your wife?’

‘There’s no way I can risk it from the prison,’ said Shepherd.

‘You could call her from here,’ said Gosden. ‘I have a direct line.’ He gestured at his desk. There were two phones, one cream, the other grey. ‘The grey one doesn’t go through the switchboard. The Home Office uses it and I take personal calls on it.’

It had been four days since Shepherd had spoken to his wife, and he had no idea how long it would take Hargrove to get her in as a visitor. He swallowed and realised his mouth had dried.

‘It’s there if you want it,’ said the governor, ‘but we’re going to have to get a move on. You’ve already been in here much longer than I’d normally spend with a prisoner.’

Shepherd’s mind was in turmoil. He wanted to talk to Sue, to let her know he was okay and missing her. But a call from the prison, even on the governor’s direct line, was a risk. If anyone should ever trace the call from his house to the prison it would be the end of the operation. He dismissed the thought. No one knew who he was. As far as the prison population was concerned, he was Bob Macdonald, failed armed robber. No one other than the governor would know that he’d made the call. The benefits outweighed the risks. He nodded.

‘I can’t leave you alone,’ said the governor, apologetically.

‘That’s okay,’ said Shepherd. He picked up the receiver and tapped out Sue’s number. His hand was trembling as he put the receiver to his ear. The governor busied himself at the fish tank.

Sue answered the phone on the fourth ring. ‘Hello?’

Shepherd closed his eyes, picturing her. Shoulder-length blonde hair, probably tied back in a ponytail. Green eyes. Faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She hated her freckles and was forever covering them with makeup. Shepherd loved them. ‘Sue. It’s me.’ Even with his wife, Shepherd rarely identified himself by name.

‘Oh, God! Where are you?’

‘Didn’t Sam tell you?’

‘He said you were in prison on a job, but he didn’t say which prison. He said that was an operational detail and he couldn’t tell me.’

‘I’m sorry, love. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you because he’s going to try to fix up for you and Liam to visit. I’m in London, not far away. Did Sam tell you why I was here?’

‘Just that you were targeting someone. But he said it was important.’

‘It is, love, believe me.’

‘How long are you going to be away? Liam’s going crazy not seeing you. And Sam said I wasn’t to tell him anything, just that you were going to be away for a while.’

‘Is he at school?’

‘Of course. Life doesn’t stop because you’re away.’ There was a touch of bitterness in her voice. Shepherd wasn’t surprised she was upset. She’d expected him home two days ago and now she’d been told that he was on an open-ended assignment that would keep him away twenty-four hours a day.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why didn’t they tell us you were going away?’

‘They didn’t know until the last minute. I was as surprised as you, love. I was in here for a day before they told me what was happening.’

Sue sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to moan. Sam told me how important it was. And what happened to that other policeman.’ Jonathon Elliott, she meant. ‘Be careful, won’t you?’