Hard Landing (17 page)

Carpenter started mopping the floor again. He whistled quietly to himself. It wouldn’t be long now before he was back home with his wife and children, where he belonged. All that stood between him and his freedom was Sandy Roper. And, if all went to plan, Roper would soon be as dead as Jonathon Elliott.

Shepherd was lying on his back, staring up at the white-painted ceiling, when he heard the rumble of conversation and the unlocking of the door to the spur. There were shouts and laughter as fifty or so prisoners milled around on the ground floor, waiting for tea.

Shepherd heard footsteps on the landing and then his door was opened. It was a prison officer he hadn’t seen before, a huge West Indian with a beaming smile. Shepherd jumped down.

‘I’m Hal Healey,’ said the officer. ‘You settling in okay?’ He was a good three inches taller than Shepherd, with huge shoulders that almost blocked the doorway and a thick neck that threatened to burst out of his shirt collar. Shepherd’s memory flicked through its filing system and he pictured the file that he’d read in the governor’s office. Born 12 April, 1968. Divorced. Child Support Agency taking £450 a month from his wages. Prior to Shelton he’d worked at Belmarsh, where he had twice been accused of assaulting a prisoner. In both cases the prisoner had withdrawn his allegation.

‘Fine thanks, Mr Healey,’ said Shepherd. He moved to get past the man but the officer stood where he was, blocking his way.

‘I heard you were giving Hamilton a hard time,’ said Healey, affably.

‘I just wanted a set of
Prison Rules
.’

‘Disobeyed an instruction, is what I heard.’

‘It’s sorted now.’

Healey’s grin widened. ‘It’ll be sorted once we’ve finished this little chat,’ he said. ‘You’ve only been in here a day or two, so maybe you don’t understand how things work here.’

‘I’ve got the drift.’

Healey ignored Shepherd’s interruption. ‘This block runs on co-operation. Has to be that way. We can’t force you to do anything. Not physically.’

At that Shepherd smiled. Healey was big and strong enough to force practically anybody to do anything.

‘The punishments we can impose are basically loss of privileges. We can’t all pile in and give you a good kicking. Not officially, anyway.’

There was a touch of cruelty in his smile, and Shepherd wondered why the men in Belmarsh had withdrawn their allegations. ‘I don’t follow you, Mr Healey.’

‘When a prison officer asks you to do something, you do it. We tend to ask nicely, because we like you to co-operate. When you ask us for something, hopefully you’ll ask us nicely, too. That way, everybody gets along. But if you don’t co-operate . . .’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I get it.’

‘Well, you didn’t this morning, apparently. You insulted Mr Hamilton in front of other prisoners.’

‘They were down on the ones,’ said Shepherd.

‘They heard everything. Now it’s going to be that much harder for him to get any prisoner to do anything. And once they’re used to disobeying him, they might start on me. And I don’t want that happening. Not on my spur. Do you understand?’

Shepherd was running through his options, then filtering them through the persona of Bob Macdonald, armed robber and hard man. Dan Shepherd would behave one way but, as far as the world was concerned, he wasn’t Dan Shepherd and he had to behave in character. He stared at Healey, then took a step towards him. ‘Hamilton is a prick,’ Shepherd said quietly. ‘And not only is he a prick, he’s a cowardly prick, sending you to fight his battles. What was the theory there? Small white guy is scared of big black guy?’ Shepherd took another step towards Healey. ‘Well, you don’t scare me, Mr Healey. You’re big all right but most of it is fat, and I’ve stomped on bigger and fatter guys than you. Hamilton’s a prick for sending you and you’re a prick for coming in and trying to scare me.’

‘Racist insults are an offence against discipline,’ said Healey.

‘Rule fifty-one, section 20A,’ said Shepherd. ‘“A prisoner is guilty of an offence against discipline if he uses threatening, abusive or insulting racist words or behaviour.” But all I did was call you a big black guy, which is what you are. And fat. Which is also what you are. If you want, you can put me on a charge and we can both go before the governor and you can explain why you came into my cell.’

‘You called me a prick.’

‘And I can justify that to the governor. You called me scum. You started name-calling.’

‘Smart arse, huh?’ sneered Healey, but Shepherd knew he’d won.

‘Rule six, paragraph two,’ said Shepherd. ‘“In the control of prisoners, officers shall seek to influence them through their own example and leadership, and to enlist their willing co-operation.” That’s not what Hamilton was doing, and it’s not what you were doing by coming into my cell and getting heavy with me. Now, fuck off out. Yes, I know I’m using threatening and abusive words, but that’s nothing to what I’ll do to you if you don’t fuck off.’ Shepherd bunched his fists and took another step towards Healey. The prison officer backed away, then hurried off down the landing.

Shepherd took several deep breaths and smiled to himself. Despite his bulk, Healey was a coward. But Shepherd knew that the confrontation wasn’t over. He’d won the battle but the war would go on, and Healey would be able to choose his moment. Not that Shepherd was worried about a physical confrontation. He’d meant what he said: he’d hurt bigger men than Healey. Winning fights wasn’t a matter of size and strength: technique and commitment counted, and Shepherd had been trained by the best. But Shepherd was on his own and Healey had the backing of his colleagues. He was sure that Hamilton would relish the opportunity of putting the boot in, figuratively and literally.

Shepherd walked out on to the landing and looked down at the ones. Prisoners were already lining up at the hotplate, trays in hand. He looked at the bubble. Healey was talking to Stafford, waving his hands animatedly. It was obvious that he was telling the senior officer what had happened.

Shepherd stretched. The bones in his neck cracked. His wafer-thin pillow offered almost no support. He wondered how Stafford would react if he insisted on being treated by a chiropractor. Under Rule 20, an unconvicted prisoner was entitled to have his own doctor or dentist visit the prison. He rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. As he looked up at the threes he saw the big man with the shaved head walking purposefully down the stairs. He leaned on the railing and watched him go down to the ground floor and the hotplate. Once again, he went to the front of the queue and was served immediately. Craig Rathbone looked on disinterestedly.

Shepherd watched the man carry the tray of food back up to the threes, and lost sight of him as he walked along the landing. Carpenter’s cell must be at the far end of the spur. He wondered how easy it would be to get transferred to a cell near him. The governor could probably arrange it but that would mean drawing attention to himself. So far Shepherd hadn’t met Carpenter, either during association or in the exercise yard. And when Carpenter was out of his cell, working, Shepherd was banged up. Carpenter sent his man down to get his food, and Shepherd had no idea when he used the showers, but he doubted that a prison shower was the right sort of place to strike up conversation with a stranger.

Lee walked up the stairs, carrying his lunch on a plastic tray. ‘How’s it going, Bob?’ he asked.

‘Bored shitless,’ said Shepherd.

‘They’ll find you a job, now that you’re co-operating. Probably put you on breakfast packs.’

‘What’s that?’

Lee walked along to the cell. Shepherd went with him.

‘Those trays we get each night. With the teabag, sugar, milk and cereal. They make them up in one of the workshops. They normally put the new guys on that.’

‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers. How do I get on the cleaning crew?’

Lee laughed. ‘You don’t. Not without influence. Told you before, you’d have to talk to Digger.’

‘Who’s on the crew at the moment?’

‘On the spur, there’s six guys. There’s Charlie Weston, he’s in for VAT fraud. Must have money stashed away because he bought his job in his first week. There’s a black guy called Hamster. He didn’t pay but he does other stuff for Digger.’

‘Hamster?’

‘Sold crack in Soho. Kept the balloons in his mouth. Silly bugger had so many in there that his cheeks were always puffed up. Got caught by an undercover squad and couldn’t swallow them all.’ Lee chuckled.

‘Who else?’

‘Ginger, the guy down from us, the redhead who always wears Man United gear. He’s been cleaning for six months. His wife pays Digger on the outside.’

They walked into the cell. Shepherd stood by the door while Lee sat down at the table and startedforking spaghetti into his mouth.

‘How do you know that, Jason?’

‘No secrets in prison, mate. Ginger tells the guy he shares a cell with, guy tells my mate Jonno in the gym, Jonno tells me. That’s all there is to do in here, watch TV and talk. You come in thinking you’re going to keep yourself to yourself but after a while you let your guard down. Have to, or you might as well be in solitary.’

‘So, Charlie, Hamster and Ginger. Who else?’

‘What are you angling for?’ asked Lee.

‘Just want to know who the competition is,’ said Shepherd.

‘It’s not about competing, you just have to pay Digger.’

‘I don’t have the money to pay him so I’m going to have to be more creative.’

‘Not sure that Digger appreciates creativity,’ said Lee.

‘We’ll see,’ said Shepherd. ‘Who else?’

‘There’s a guy called Jurczak. He’s Bosnian or something. Stabbed an immigration officer. Nasty bastard, always throwing his weight around. He’s up on the threes. Oh, yeah, and Carpenter, he’s on the threes as well. Drug-dealer. Supposed to have millions on the outside.’ Lee frowned. ‘That’s five, innit?’ He ran through the names in his mind and nodded. ‘Yeah, Sledge on the ones is a cleaner, too. He’s the one you usually find doing the showers. Big guy, bald as a coot, bulldog tattoo.’

Shepherd had seen him the previous evening, washing the floor after the hotplate had been taken back to the kitchen. ‘Doesn’t seem the sort of guy who’d have money to spare.’

‘He hasn’t, but would you want to try to take his mop off him? I don’t think Digger does. You know why they call him Sledge?’

‘I don’t, but I bet you do.’

‘Short for Sledgehammer. His weapon of choice. He was on the cleaning crew before Digger got sent here. Digger got the other cleaners to quit, but there’s not much he could do to pressurise Sledge. Are you going to get your dinner?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘What did you ask for?’

‘Cornish pasty.’

‘Do me a favour and get it? If you don’t want it, I’ll save it for later.’

Shepherd headed for the door.

‘Get us a bread roll, too, yeah?’

Shepherd stopped and turned to look at Lee. ‘Anything else, Your Majesty?’

Lee put up his hands. ‘No offence, Bob. Just a pity to see good food go to waste, that’s all.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘You should get out more, Jason.’

The next day, Shepherd still hadn’t been given any work so he spent the morning locked in his cell. He was let out for dinner, then locked up again. Late in the afternoon, Craig Rathbone opened the door. ‘You not been fixed up with a job yet, then?’ he asked.

‘It’s in the pipeline,’ said Shepherd. ‘What jobs are there?’

‘You’ll probably be put in one of the workshops,’ said Rathbone. ‘Or maybe the laundry. I’ll speak to Mr Stafford.’

The last thing Shepherd wanted was to go to one of the workshops. He had to get close to Carpenter, which meant a job on the cleaning crew. And that either meant talking to Digger or getting one of the existing cleaners to give up his job.

‘You’ve got a legal visit,’ said Rathbone.

‘Yeah, my brief said he’d be back.’

Rathbone stood to the side to let Shepherd out of the cell, then the two men walked down the landing. ‘What’s your solicitor say?’ asked Rathbone.

‘Says I should try to get a deal, being caught red-handed and all. But I’m no grass.’

‘Honour among thieves?’

‘You know what happens to grasses inside.’

‘So you’ll go down for the full whack? Armed robbery, plus a cop getting shot? You could get life.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Shepherd.

‘Good luck,’ said Rathbone, and it sounded as if he meant it.

He took Shepherd out of the spur and along the secure corridor to the administration block close to the entrance to the prison. Shepherd had already adopted the rhythm of walking under escort, stopping at each barred gate, standing to the side so that the officer could open it, walking through first, then waiting while the officer relocked it.

Hargrove was already in the interview room. Rathbone told him to use the bell when he’d finished, then closed the door and left them alone.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Hargrove.

‘I’ve only been here two days, and I’ve been banged up for most of that.’

‘Have you seen Carpenter yet?’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘You’re going to have to pull your finger out, Spider.’

Shepherd flushed and he glared at the superintendent. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like in here? It’s a fucking high-security prison, not a holiday camp. I can’t just wander along to Carpenter’s cell and offer him a cup of tea.’ He sprawled back in his chair, exasperated.

Hargrove was clearly concerned at his outburst. ‘Are you okay?’

‘What do you think?’ said Shepherd, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

Rathbone appeared at the window with the bald officer who’d been there during Hargrove’s previous visit. Hargrove smiled and nodded, as if he and Shepherd were having a pleasant chat. ‘I think you’re under a lot of pressure,’ he said, ‘and I appreciate how hard the task is that you’ve undertaken. But we’re under pressure on the outside, too. One of the Home Office’s experts has been attacked. Dr Gary Nelson. He was going to give evidence on the recordings Elliott and Roper made, proving that they hadn’t been tampered with.’