Read Human Conditioning Online
Authors: Louise Hirst
Human Conditioning
Human
Conditioning
By Louise Hirst
Copyright
©
by Louise Hirst 2013
All rights
reserved
I dedicate this
book to this beautiful world. To those who do not have the means to appreciate
it, those who aspire to protect it and those who struggle to protect
themselves.
All characters and
events in this story are fictional.
“Some people might think
that what I did in my young life and beyond was a disgrace, a liberty, but if
you consider where I came from and the people who shaped my life, maybe then
you might come to understand why I became the man I did.”
Aiden Foster
(1969– 2002)
HMP Maidstone
7
th
December
2001
In October 1991, Aiden Foster was imprisoned for thirty-three
years at Her Majesty’s Prison Parkhurst on multiple charges of murder, extortion,
sexual exploitation, theft and drugs distribution. On 7
th
December 2001,
ten years after his imprisonment, and on the day of his 32
nd
birthday,
Mr Foster agreed to be interviewed for the very first time by Kathryn Daley of
the BBC. Earlier that year, Mr Foster had been transferred from Her Majesty’s
Prison Wakefield, a Category A prison (where he’d been transferred to from
Parkhurst in 1994), to Category B, Her Majesty’s Prison Maidstone, on good
behaviour.
Marked as one of East London’s most industrious criminal
minds of the past decade, Mr Foster spoke of his childhood, his relationships
and how he made his fortune working on the wrong side of the law. A recording
of the BBC interview was aired on national television on 24
th
December 2001. Mr Foster was found dead at Her Majesty’s Prison Maidstone two
weeks later.
7
th
December 2001
“Mr Foster, I am Kathryn
Daley, a reporter for the BBC,” I announce somewhat uneasily as the prison
guard who escorted me to the private cell inside Her Majesty’s Prison,
Maidstone, closes the heavy iron door behind me, leaving me alone with prisoner
64521 – Mr Aiden Lance Foster. “I believe I am to wish you a happy birthday, Mr
Foster,” I add with a shy smile as I shuffle inside the room in my high black
stilettos and grey pencil skirt. I pat down my blonde bob and run my nails
through my fringe, peering down at my white blouse, knowing that I have
shamefully left three buttons undone, deeming this fitting to meet a man who
had once been of high appeal in the public eye, not only because of his wealth
and criminal status, but because of his intriguing appearance. I have perused
through several photographs of Mr Foster this past week and he is striking.
Mr Foster rises from a plastic
chair behind a rectangular table that has a tray of condiments upon it. I’m
surprised to see him dressed in black trousers and a white shirt; his two top
buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up. I always thought inmates had a
uniform and I saw some in uniform as I was led past the cells just now.
I immediately register Mr Foster’s size. All the photographs
I have been given of him are head shots. I now see that he is robust, tall and
muscular, his shoulders broad but his waist slim: no doubt he has a six-pack
hidden beneath his shirt, which is currently tucked into his trousers. The
thought is distracting and I immediately force myself to smile and hold out my
hand to him. He takes it. His hand is large and hot, his fingers long,
engulfing my small hand, still cold from the freezing wind and rain outside the
prison’s stone walls. I peer up at his face through my fringe. He is as handsome
in the flesh as he is in his head shots...
very
handsome indeed, and I
cannot prevent myself from blushing. I feel the provoked heat in my cheeks with
awkward discomfort and I wonder if he can read my discomposure because, as he releases
my hand, his lips quiver. He has obviously got used to this reaction and either
relishes it or is embarrassed by it. I cannot tell which.
“Please, sit,” he says,
gesturing to the chair opposite his on the other side of the table. His voice
is gruff, his accent typical of a man who has grown up in the East End of
London. I am grateful for the distance between us as he retakes his seat behind
the table, and I’m not sure if it’s because of my downright unprofessional
reaction to his splendour or because, as I sit before him, I remind myself that
this man is guilty of
murder
, of
sexual exploitation
. I subsequently
remind myself that beauty and riches do not sanction cruelty. I set the brown,
leather briefcase I have brought with me on the table and, unzipping it, I pull
out my questions, typed on eight A4 sheets of paper, and my Dictaphone. I am
conscious that I am avoiding eye contact with my subject.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
he asks.
I take a breath and meet his
eyes: deep, ocean blue eyes, twinkling with, what? ...Anticipation, humour...
insanity? I remind myself that there is a guard just outside the door. I swallow
hard. “Yes, please. Milk, no sugar.”
He pursues the task of pouring
the tea and I concentrate on gathering my notes and my composure. He sets a
paper cup in front of me and pushes a plastic container of milk to my side of
the table. I glance up and notice he hasn’t prepared one for himself.
“Do you not drink tea?” I ask,
and I think it is to break the present silence.
He lounges back in his chair.
“No, I prefer the harder stuff,” he replies.
I watch him intently for a
moment, unsure whether he’s referring to alcohol or drugs, or both. I notice
that he’s sizing me up, trying to read me. It’s rather disconcerting, but I
think he probably does this with everyone he meets. I get the impression that
he doesn’t trust easily. He’s polite, but his body language conveys his
guardedness.
I pour milk into my tea cup
and help myself to a teaspoon from the tray. “Are you happy to begin right away,
Mr Foster?” I ask.
“I am.”
He relaxes, resting his elbows
on the arms of the chair so that his forearms hang down either side. After
stirring my tea, I place the teaspoon back on the tray and hit record on my
Dictaphone. “Tell me where you were born and where you grew up,” I begin.
He doesn’t hesitate. “I was
born in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. I grew up in Hackney.”
I wait to see whether he is
going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “A council estate,” I state after a moment.
I glance down at my notes. “Carlton Estate...?”
“Yes.” He regards me with
those piercing blue eyes of his. “It’s a tough upbringing,” he adds, and I am
surprised by this honesty but, again, he doesn’t elaborate.
I go on, “Your father is
Douglas Foster, your mother Vivien Foster.”
“That’s correct, though I
heard my father died a few years back.”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” I add,
feeling myself blush, but he remains impassive.
I stare down at my notes once
more, take a deep breath and cross my legs tightly. “Your parents had you out
of wedlock...” I say. His expression hardens suddenly and he cocks his head a
little to one side – intrigued, I think, by such a personal observation. I
swiftly go on, “That must have been difficult; in the late sixties and your mother
being from a Catholic family?”
He hesitates, in thought, then
replies flatly, “Well, she didn’t really have much of a choice.”
I frown. This is not the
response I was expecting and I’m not quite sure what he means. “Oh?” I press.
He settles further back in his
chair and raises an ankle over his knee. “Mrs...” he pauses and glances down at
my left hand. I know he sees no ring there because I do not have one and I
blush, feeling almost inadequate because I am not yet married at the age of
twenty-nine. He corrects himself and announces, “Miss Daley... I was a child
born out of rape and I believe my mother had no choice but to marry the old man
in the end.”
I am stunned into silence. I
feel my mouth pop open but my mind is instantly so clouded by his confession
that I cannot generate a signal from my brain to my mouth to close it. He
informs me so impassively, yet a slight smile now creeps upon his lips, as if
he is enjoying my momentary discomfort. “Yeah, my expression was somewhat the
same when my mother decided to drop that little bombshell on me on my sixteenth
birthday,” he adds as he scrutinises my every move.
I shift in my chair and
finally close my mouth. I gulp and say, almost in a whisper, “That must have
been difficult to hear.”
“At first, but Duggie soon persuaded
me to forget it had ever happened...” he replies, again impassively.
I frown with confusion and it
takes me a moment to realise that Duggie was his father. His top lip jerks up
in amusement. He’s definitely enjoying making me squirm. I get the impression
that whatever his father did to keep him quiet about his mother’s disclosure it
was something as bad, if not worse, than her announcing such a thing on his
birthday.