by David Carter
‘I want to see the prisoner, Goodchild.’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said the older of the two. ‘Follow me, ma’am.’
They hustled along the corridor, past the newly refurbished cells, until they reached sixteen. A bunch of keys was swinging from a chain from the guard’s waist. He selected one and rammed it into the keyhole.
‘Do you want me to come in with you, ma’am?’
‘No. That won’t be necessary.’
‘Wait outside?’
‘No,’ said Liz, smiling benevolently. ‘Lock us in. I’ll buzz you when I have finished.’
‘As you wish, ma’am.’
That was a first, thought the guard. The last SAC had never been seen alone in a cell with a prisoner in all the two years he had been in charge, and her being such a young and dainty woman. She didn’t lack guts, or looks, this Miss Elizabeth Mariner, pondered the guard, and she would be the talk of the guards’ bar long into the night. He pushed opened the heavy door. Adam was sitting at a small square table at the far end of the cell. He was staring at the floor. He glanced up at the open door, as Liz entered the cell and smiled down. He had to take a second look. Could it really be her?
‘Liz!’ he said, grinning and standing from the chair. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Sit down,’ said Liz, beckoning at the chair. She grabbed the other one, and sat opposite.
‘Well?’ he said impatiently, ‘What’s going on?’
‘All is not always as it seems,’ she said softly.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘This is going to come as a surprise, and please don’t think too badly of me, but I am a SPATs officer, Adam. I have been for three years.’
‘What!’
Liz nodded. ‘It’s true, kid. I used to be a humble policewoman, and one day I saw an advert in the Police Gazette for the newly formed SPATs section. I applied, and was accepted.’
‘You? A SPAT? I don’t believe you!’
‘Yep. A year or two after I joined the service I volunteered for undercover duties, and it kind of snowballed from there.’
‘What did?’
‘My belief in the job, and in the correctness of what we were doing, in the overriding need to protect the country from the outside forces that were gradually strangling the nation. After that, promotions regularly followed, in line with the successes we achieved.’
Adam went quiet for a moment and then said: ‘You mean that first day at Brockenhurst station, you were a SPAT then? It wasn’t a coincidence you were there?’
‘Course it wasn’t, I was waiting for you. For a while I didn’t think you’d come, but as soon as you came in, I knew you were the boy I was supposed meet.’
That word again, boy, he wasn’t a boy then, and he wasn’t a boy now.
‘And Martin? Is he a SPAT too?’
Liz forced a laugh.
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Martin is not a SPAT, never has been, just the opposite, if you must know.’
‘But you slept with him.’
‘I don’t think that is any of your business.’
While Adam was thinking about that, she said, ‘Bought you a Messenger, guessed you’d like something to read.’
‘Ta,’ he said without thinking, and then, ‘So you shopped me?’
‘I am trying to help you, Adam. I have been trying to help you ever since that first day.’ She reached across and touched his cheek. He pulled away. ‘I am trying to help you now, if only you could see it, but you must help yourself.’
‘I still don’t follow.’
‘The first thing you must do is recognise the seriousness of your situation.’
‘I don’t think the state will lose any sleep over a disillusioned boy like me.’
‘You are so wrong, Adam. The state is in no mood to forgive and forget, believe me, not for anyone. But it isn’t too late for you to mend your ways, to get on the right side of the law, to achieve great things with your life. You are young with your whole life ahead of you, but you have to grasp the nettle, you have to stand up and be counted. You have to think positively, and make the best of things.’
‘In what way? By collaborating in state sponsored terror? I don’t think so. By becoming a stool pigeon.... like you.’
She ignored his jibe. She had heard far worse many times before.
‘I am trying to help you, Adam, please pay attention, before it is too late.’
‘I don’t need help from the likes of you.’
‘If that was the case you wouldn’t be here,’ she said, glancing round at the walls that seemed to crowd in on them. ‘Whether you want it or not, I am going to give you some advice. You are to be interrogated tomorrow, probably by Inspector Smeggan.’
‘I know the cretin,’ he said, with a youthful grin.
‘It is most important you cooperate with him fully. If you don’t, you will surely be sent to Blackpool. They are not fussy what age their clients are, and once there, you will be beyond my help, out of my domain, beyond my protection. Do you really want to spend the rest of your days in custody? The rest of your life?’
‘Course not!’
‘That is what you are looking at.’
‘So you have been sent here to try and use your feminine wiles to persuade me into being more compliant?’
Liz smiled sweetly.
‘Course not, Adam. Listen to yourself, please. That is all I have to say to you. Tonight, I want you to think very carefully about everything we have discussed. Promise me that, kid, if nothing else, promise me you will.’
‘I’ll think about it all right. There is not much else to do in this filthy hole.’
‘Good lad,’ she said, standing and making for the door where she buzzed the red button.
Adam stood and faced her. ‘You’ve sold your soul to the devil,’ he said, staring into her eyes, searching for a reaction.
‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’
‘You’ve sold your soul to the devil.’
Liz shook her head, and smiled dismissively.
‘Think what you like, Adam, but remember this; I am making my way in life. You are in here, and here you will stay, indefinitely. Rotting. Unless you change your ways.’
‘I just can’t believe it,’ he said, as if he were no longer listening to her.
‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ she said, ‘I bought you some chocolate. The good stuff I know you like. Swiss, dark and expensive.’
She took the bar from her bag and set it down on the table and ruffled his hair. He pulled away as the cell door opened, and the guard stared inside.
‘You all right, ma’am?’
‘Yes, fine thank you, officer, Adam is a model prisoner.’
‘Whatever you say, ma’am.’
‘You can take that shit with you,’ sneered Adam. ‘I wouldn’t eat that if I was starving to death.’
‘Don’t you dare speak to the Commander like that!’ snapped the guard, ‘or you will feel the back of my hand!’
‘The Commander?’ said Adam. ‘That’s a laugh.’
‘Suit yourself, Adam, but make sure you make the right choices. Sometimes in life you have to decide which side of the barricades you truly belong, isn’t that right guard?’
‘It is ma’am, nothing more certain.’
‘It isn’t too late for you, Adam, really it isn’t. I could set you on the right road, if only you would let me.’
Adam shook his head and muttered, ‘Forget it.’
She turned and walked away, Adam hearing her heels growing fainter as she swept down the corridor. The guard condescendingly smiled at the kid, and began pulling the door closed.
‘San-fairy-ann,’ he cooed, an odd thing to say, thought Adam, and only when he was sure the guard had left the cell block floor did he remove his shoe and sock.
Thirty-Five
In bowels of The Bletchington Clinic Martin had been interrogated for four hours, without success so far as the authorities were concerned. Af
terwards, he was returned to his room, while his future was being decided. At six o’ clock his door opened. Martin imagined it signalled the arrival of his evening meal. Jason came in as usual, presumably to set up the table.
It was odd, thought Martin; that this nurse guard geezer would come and set the table every day like that. Why couldn’t he do it himself, but where was the sense in anything that went down in the Bletchington Clinic?
Jason wasn’t alone.
One of the earlier interrogators, a man in his late thirties, accompanied him, a man who didn’t claim a name.
‘Well if it’s not the man with no name,’ said Martin standing in the centre of the room, his hands folded across his chest.
‘Sit on the bed,’ ordered Jason.
‘Time for a beating, is it?’ said Martin.
‘Sit down and shut the hell up!’ said Jason.
Mister no name began speaking.
‘Martin Reamse, it is my duty to inform you of the decision of the authorities with regard to your future. Taking into account your continuing lack of cooperation, and the authorities ongoing view that you are still withholding vital information, you have been sentenced in your absence to twenty years.... in the Falkland Islands.’
A moment’s silence and then Martin began laughing.
‘You mean I am to be deported?’
‘Yes, if you want to call it that,’ said the nameless one. ‘Tomorrow you will have your first travel injection, the second one, before the end of the week, and soon after that, your journey will begin.’
‘No flying first class then?’ said Martin, managing a smirk.
‘Sea trip, long, harsh, and vile,’ said Mister Nameless, ‘can’t say as you deserve any better.’
‘I’ve always wanted to travel.’
‘You won’t be disappointed.’
It was the last thing they said before leaving him alone to think things through.
The Falkland Islands, he mused, and his mind returned to those strange meetings with Colin up on Hengistbury Head.
They are using the islands to deport people to. Persistent criminals, terrorists, troublemakers, shit stirrers, the whole lot of them, the whole shebang. Someone in the government had the bright idea that if all the hot heads and terror freaks were all swept up and dumped on the Falkland Islands, thousands of miles away, with nothing much more than an army tent and poor rations to keep them company, everything back here would be hunky dory.
Martin could almost hear Colin’s calm voice reciting those same words, there, in that cell, and he wondered which category, he, Martin Reamse, was deemed to belong. Was he a criminal, terrorist, troublemaker, shit stirrer, hot head or terror freak?
Fact was, he was believed to be all of those things.
Martin pondered where Colin was, and what he was doing. Was he free? Was he healthy? Was he at peace? Not knowing about Colin, about everyone, about his mother, about Liz, that was the hardest part of everything, not knowing where they all were, and what they were doing, and thinking, and whether they were thinking of him. He hoped Liz thought of him, if no one else did, and in that, he was right. Liz thought of him often, but not in the way he imagined.
In the morning, Jason returned. He seemed to have recaptured his humanity, and Martin put that down to the absence of the other guy.
‘No breakfast today,’ said Jason, almost apologetically. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I do now.’
‘Take off your clothes,’ he said, followed by: ‘Put this on,’ and he laid a disposable paper theatre gown on the bed.
Martin picked it up and shook it open.
‘I could spit through this,’ he said disdainfully, ‘it’s an operation thingy.’
‘Yeah, similar thing,’ said Jason.
‘I’m having a jab, not a bloody heart transplant,’ said Martin.
Jason shrugged. ‘You know how it is, rules are rules. No gown, no jab.’
‘That’s OK by me. I hate jabs.’
‘Stop being a prick, and put it on. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get back here and give you some food.’
Martin began undressing.
‘Where’s the horse with no name today?’
Jason laughed aloud for it was true; his senior officer did possess an incredibly long face. He stopped giggling as if suddenly remembering who he was laughing at. ‘He is busy,’ he muttered, ‘he is always busy.’
‘I’ll bet he is,’ said Martin, and then, ‘What do you think?’ doing a twirl.
Jason smiled. ‘Suits you to a tee, follow me, and do yourself a favour, cut out the cute, sarky comments.’
Martin flicked a salute.
Jason sighed, and clasped his right hand around Martin’s left wrist, and led him from the room. He tugged him along the corridor, past the main entrance desks where two different male nurses were whispering, and onward to the far wing of the clinic. Only as they passed a room numbered Q9, did Martin imagine he heard voices from within, though he couldn’t be certain. Q14 was their destination.
It was a large square room, no windows, white walls, glass-faced cabinets along the left wall, cold tiled floor, with floor to ceiling heavy metal cabinets set against the opposite wall. Along the length of the third wall was a white bench. In the centre of the room was a tilted bed, the kind of thing you might see in an operating theatre. Come to think of it, the whole room resembled a theatre, down to the huge bank of lights that glared down at the bed, like some cold angry monster from outer space. The monster looked hungry. The bed itself was chrome framed and the mattress was covered in black leather. Like everything else in The Bletchington, it was new, and appeared expensive.
‘Hop on the bed,’ said Jason.
‘I’m here for a jab, not an operation.’
‘Just do it!’
The bed was harder and narrower than it looked, and as he was making himself comfortable, a man wearing a white coat came in.
‘This is Doctor Anderson,’ said Jason.
The doctor nodded at Jason and Martin in turn.
‘All ready, are we?’ the doc said, cheerfully enough.
‘Just about,’ said Jason.
‘What is it? A tropical diseases prick?’ queried Martin.
‘Yep, something like that,’ muttered the doctor, ‘but I think we’ll have the restraints on.’
Jason came closer and took Martin’s left wrist and slipped it into a leather belt that he proceeded to buckle as tight as he could. Martin’s wrist was clasped to the bed frame.
‘What the hell!’
‘Now, now, no need for that kind of language,’ mumbled the doctor, who was by then unlocking the metal cabinet.
Jason buckled up Martin’s other wrist, and was heading for his ankles.
‘Do you mind explaining what the hell is going on?’ said Martin.
He watched the doctor remove a syringe and a handful of needles from the cupboard, and set them on the bench.
‘Gown up please,’ said the doc.
Jason came to the bed and carefully folded up the smock until it was tucked under Martin’s chin.
‘Gee, thanks,’ said Martin, winking at Jason.
Inside the unlocked cupboard, Martin could see a smaller locked cabinet. The doc returned there and was busy opening it. Martin watched him peer inside. The doc busied himself, letting out a quiet, ‘Mmm,’ and at that moment the main door to the room opened again, and another doctor came in, a woman. She shut the door quietly behind her and crossed the room, trying not to look at the patient. But no matter how hard she struggled to avert her eyes, she could not completely. Martin caught her glancing down.
‘All right, love?’ he said, ‘grabbing an eyeful?’ as he winked at her.
She jerked her eyes away.
‘This is Doctor Urbanowicz,’ said Jason.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Martin, ‘though I’d have preferred slightly different circumstances.’
She didn’t reply. Martin guessed she was i
n her late thirties. She was small and petite with floppy straight brown hair, not bad looking for all that. Urbanowicz, he thought. Urbanowicz, Polish extraction probably, perhaps she didn’t speak English that well. She might have gained entry to the country before the embargo bit on immigration, before the compulsory English tests were set.
Doctor Anderson removed something from the medicine cupboard and wrote a withdrawal note in the drug book. The woman’s first duty was to confirm and witness that withdrawal, and she did that by signing the controlled drugs register with a flourish.
‘You or me?’ said Anderson.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said cheerfully enough, or at least Martin thought so, in decent English, without any discernable accent. ‘I’m sure he’d appreciate a woman’s touch.’
‘Up to you,’ said Anderson, as they talked among themselves as if Martin was not there. Anderson gawped down into a cardboard box of what looked like replacement Christmas tree lights. He removed a glass ampoule and took it toward the bench where he gently set it down. She picked it up and held it to the light out of habit to check the use by date. It was OK by two months. She collected one of the needles and holding it by the green base, removed its sheath. She picked up the syringe and clicked the base of the hypodermic onto the nozzle, placed it back on the bench, and picked up the glass ampoule. She shook it once and broke off the glass top as if wringing a bird’s neck. As it always did, it broke off first time, clean as a whistle.
The ampoule contained haliperidol. She inserted the needle into the tiny glass container and pulled back the plunger, sucking up 20 mill of drug. Martin watched her holding the loaded syringe vertically. She tapped it three times, ensuring any bubbles were at the top. A tiny spray of liquid fountained from the needle. Bubbles gone. Injecting bubbles was an absolute no-no. The needle could no longer be considered sterile and would need to be changed. Those were old NHS rules from years ago, and in the current state of emergency, those same rules seemed ludicrous. But rules were rules, and no one was about to break them, not in The Bletchington Clinic, not on that day.
‘What is that?’ said an alarmed Martin.
