Slipknot

by Priscilla Masters

  She felt even more weary as the radio alarm clicked on at six-thirty – far too early. But she showered anyway, had two cups of coffee and an orange juice, put on her smartest black skirt, knee-high boots, a white long-sleeved T-shirt and pressed Callum’s one and only smart jacket – apart from his blazer which was now bagged up and heading for forensics. She consoled herself with cups of tea until at eight-fifteen she drove to the courthouse. Wesley Stephenson greeted her on the steps. One of her newfound friends. Silently she handed him the bag of clothes.

  It was hard not to cry out as Callum was brought to the bench, flanked by the same two police officers as yesterday, Talith and Roberts – two more names which would become more familiar. Shelley looked at her son anxiously. His face was white, his eyes sunken into his face and she knew that he had not slept through the long hours of the night either.

  There were three magistrates, one a chairwoman, tall and thin with sharp, angular features and a brisk, jerky manner, squaring up the papers noisily. Before speaking she eyed Callum up severely over the top of a pair of very large and heavy-looking glasses which had sunk down her nose leaving a permanent dent and some thin, blue, broken veins.

  Briskly she explained to the police, his solicitor and to him, that Callum Hughes was charged with attempted murder and that his case would be heard at Shrewsbury Crown Court in due time. In the meantime he was refused bail and would be taken on remand to Stoke Heath Young Offenders’ Institute until his case was heard. She advised the police and Stephenson that they should assemble their cases for both defence and prosecution with great care and minimise this first offender’s time spent in such uncertainty. Fifteen minutes later it was all over; efficient, brisk and businesslike with a complete absence of emotion.

  Shelley was almost breathless with the speed of it all. By ten-thirty her son’s immediate fate had been sealed. Callum shot a desperate look at his mother.

  She was powerless. There was nothing she could do to help him. He was led from the courtroom.

  Wesley Stephenson had set aside a room for her to spend some time alone with her son before his transfer and the minute she entered the dingy room Callum’s desperation touched her. He was sitting in the corner, looking out of the window which overlooked a brimming car park full of drivers cruising for a space.

  ‘What’ll happen to me, Mum?’

  She sat very close to him so she could speak very softly. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How long do you think they’ll bang me up for?’

  She knew that the slang phrase was his attempt at bravado but instead of reassuring her it had the effect of making her want to cry. The words sounded pathetic coming from his lips. He was not a tough boy. He didn’t look one and he couldn’t act one and this made her fear for him.

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ she said. ‘If they say what DreadNought was really like maybe it won’t be for long.’

  ‘What’ll happen to you,’ he asked next. ‘People’ll talk. You might have trouble.’

  She made an attempt at a smile. ‘Now that’s one thing I can deal with. I’m used to trouble, Call. Me and trouble are old friends.’ The way he looked at her made her think that her attempt at bravado was no more convincing than his.

  Paul Talith stuck his head round the door. ‘Delays on the Group 4,’ he said. ‘Van won’t be here till late on this afternoon. You can stay till lunchtime, Mrs Hughes, but after that we’ll have to take him back to Monkmoor to wait for it.’

  She nodded and Talith closed the door.

  It was the wrong time now to say that she wished it hadn’t happened, that she wished none of it had happened, not the bullying nor the deed itself. Instead she did her best to cheer him up. ‘Mr Stephenson says you won’t be in for long, Call,’ she said. ‘He says Stoke Heath’s all right.’ She made another brave attempt at a smile. ‘He says it’s quite civilised.’ She stretched out one hand to touch his shoulder. ‘I’ll come and visit you in Stoke Heath. Every week. You’ll get sick of the sight of me, Call. I’ll bring you things. You’ll probably see more of me there than normal. It’s not the ends of the earth, is it?’ But Callum was staring out of the window at the rows of cars glinting in the September sunshine. His face was frozen.

  ‘What’s it going to be like,’ he asked, ‘not to be able to just walk out of the door and go where you want?’

  She couldn’t speak.

  ‘What’s it like to be locked up every night? To have no choice – no freedom?’

  She tried to say something helpful but for once words failed her. There was nothing she could think of to console him.

  ‘Mum’, he said desperately, his hands shaking. ‘I can’t go there. I can’t do it. I just can’t.’

  Shelley glanced at the doorway. Plainly visible were the figures of two policemen. Standing guard. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Call,’ she said.

  She was fighting back the tears. Call was right. He did not belong here. She wanted to take him home. For nothing she would have beaten back the guards single-handedly, and taken him away from here. Instead all she had to offer were platitudes. ‘Stoke Heath isn’t far,’ she said again. She tried to laugh. It came out as a bray. ‘You’ll see too much of me. More than when you’re at home. We’ll sit and have chats. Talk. Just watch. I’ll bring in cigarettes and video games and all sorts of stuff. The time’ll fly, Call. It isn’t long. Just hang on in there.’

  ‘Why would you bring in fags,’ he asked curiously. ‘I don’t even smoke. I’m not even old enough.’

  ‘Maybe buy you a few pals,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you in some books as well. They said you can have a telly and a DVD player. Maybe even a computer as well. The time’ll pass quick,’ she said again. ‘Just think what you’re going to say when it comes to court. Listen to Mr Stephenson and take all the help you can.’

  Her anguish was threatening to engulf her.

  ‘Mum,’ he said again urgently, ‘you’re not pickin’ up on me. I can’t do it.’

  ‘You haven’t got any choice, Call,’ she said. ‘It’s the law. You can’t fight that. It’s the law.’

  But when she watched him being loaded in the back of the police van she felt as though her control would break. She watched the white van with its high, secure windows, swing out of the car park. One or two reporters held flash cameras high up and tried to catch a picture.

  For a while she stood on the court steps, paralysed, watching the spot where the van had left. People passed her by and eyed her curiously. But they were used to dramas being played out on the court steps. No one accosted her.

  Finally the doors swung open and Wesley Stephenson came down the steps, two at a time.

  ‘I’ve been having a talk with the police, Shelley,’ he said. ‘Callum’s a first offender. He’s no previous record at all. With a bit of luck – if we can persuade some of Roger Gough’s gang to testify about the bullying and particularly if the teacher, Mr Farthing, is willing to speak up, he might not be in for long. Let’s look on the bright side, and hope that Roger Gough makes a swift and full recovery. If we can expose the bullying they may well reduce the charge to GBH. That’s our best chance.’

  She managed a watery smile, knowing that Stephenson was doing his very best.

  He clapped her on the shoulder and moved on, to his car, out of the car park, home to his family.

  Shelley watched bitterly. It was all right for some. She called in at the newsagent’s at the bottom of the Lord Hill monument and caught the early edition of the Shropshire Star.

  Much as she’d expected, she thought.

  Call had made the headlines. There was plenty about young thugs and antisocial behaviour. ASBOs were the Government’s latest mantra and Hughes, aged thirteen, fitted the bill perfectly. From being an unknown he had become an object of hatred in just a few hours. A meteoric rise to infamy.

  Nothing, she noted bitterly, as she scanned down the page, about retaliation, nothing about bullying in schools or the need for some targeted y
oungsters to protect themselves because no one else would. There was nothing but condemnation. Unprovoked attack. The words mocked her from the page. She wanted to set the record straight publicly and knew she might not have the opportunity. She dropped the paper into the bin.

  8.30 p.m.

  Callum was sick in the back of the truck. He’d always been a bad traveller but the rocking motion together with the confinement on top of the stress all preyed on him so he vomited into a sick bag again and again until his stomach was empty.

  The security guard was sympathetic. He handed him a clean bag. ‘Get a bit of travel problems myself,’ he said. ‘Nasty, ain’t it?’

  Callum eyed him suspiciously. From now on everyone was an enemy.

  The sun was sinking behind the horizon by the time they arrived at the main entrance of Stoke Heath. Callum heard the great gates swing open and clang behind him. He heard it echo round and round his head and knew the sound would stay with him even if the place was silent.

  Suddenly the doors were flung open and an arc light shone in. Callum stared out. The entire courtyard was floodlit. He would soon learn that no corner was to be left dark. There would be no hiding place; no crevices under stones. Young Offenders’ Institutes are not designed to be pleasant places but to confine and re-educate, teach the young hoodlums the error of their ways. On the other hand they are not as intimidating as adult prisons.

  The security guards stood up with him and patted him on the back. As Callum stepped out of the van two prison officers stepped forward. The first one, Stevie Matthews, small, plump, with straight, dark hair, was new on the job. This was only her third day. This was her first transfer and her first ever stint of night duty.

  Her colleague, however, was a different case altogether. Walton Pembroke, craggy-faced, cynical, a world-weary divorced father of three girls, had thirty years of service behind him. He was one of the old school. Rough and tumble. Shove ’em around a bit. A don’t-let-them-have-the-upper-hand sort of a guy. Stevie was learning all the tricks from her senior. Walton Pembroke was a man feared by many. And not just the inmates. Heavy and ponderous, with a beer-drinker’s belly and bloodshot blue eyes, he supported the old values. He knew all the tricks of the sly little bastards. He knew where they slipped their drugs, where the beatings happened, what they’d smuggled in via long kisses from their sweethearts or firm handshakes from their mates outside. He knew those that were on the fiddle, those who pushed drugs. He knew the queens and the straight, the sexually predatory and their victims, those who masturbated alone and the ones who cried for their mothers into their pillows at night. He could recognise at thirty paces the racially prejudiced and the oddballs. He could recognise all the breaking points, spot the ones who were likely to erupt at any time. He had seen all sorts of trouble and knew all the warning signs. Those who had been in Stoke Heath more than once anticipated him without relish. He was physically strong, not above taking the odd swipe and he took no shit from any of them. He’d classified Callum Hughes before he’d even stepped out of the security van. Scared wimp. Victim. Mummy’s boy. It was written all over the boy’s face. He waited until the boy had stumbled a few paces towards him before barking, ‘Stand away from me, legs apart. Head up. Now you look at me, son.’

  Orders – it was all orders.

  Callum looked fearfully into the screw’s face.

  But I am terrified of Fritz, the hideous, whom I do not hate.

  In the same instant that the security van was driving through the gates of Stoke Heath, Martha was turning into the drive of the Albright Hussey, a hotel to eat in when you want to experience luxurious surroundings and good food. Timber-framed with a tall, brick extension built a hundred years after the original, it is on the Ellesmere road out of Shrewsbury, near Battlefield – the site of the bloody conflict between Harry Hotspur and Henry IV in 1404. Modern day Shrewsbury sits comfortably on its history. It was not cheap enough for a young family to eat here regularly so she and Martin had saved it for very special occasions. She parked in front of the half- timbered wing, locked up and pushed the door open.

  She was having dinner with a friend. Simon Pendlebury had been an old university friend of Martin’s while his wife, Evelyn, had been Martha’s friend. Simon had been a mystery to both of them. He was an accountant – or financial advisor whose income seemed to have grown exponentially and inexplicably since he had graduated. Six months ago Evelyn had died of ovarian cancer and since then he had taken to ringing Martha up every now and again and inviting her out to dinner. It was less a romance than a casual friendship with the bond that they had both lost their partners. Martha and Evelyn had been close friends, particularly after Martin’s death, and Simon missed her badly. Since losing his wife Simon had grown more sympathetic. Perhaps sensing that she would be missing Sam he had invited her to dinner for her first night after he had gone.

  Simon was already standing at the bar, gathering in some menus. He was a tall, dark-haired man with a forceful personality and a direct manner. Martha had often reflected that he had completely dominated his wife. She smiled. Even on such a warm night he was immaculately dressed in a dark suit and sombre, striped tie. He almost always looked as though he belonged in a boardroom. He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, put his hands on her shoulders and took a long, good look at her before nodding his approval. It seemed he liked the white, beaded skirt and top she had chosen to wear. ‘You know, Martha,’ he said, handing her a menu and ordering a gin and tonic without asking, ‘one thing I like about you is that you’re never late.’

  ‘Not to my favourite restaurant, Simon,’ she said. ‘You might not have waited. You might have started without me.’

  ‘No chance,’ he said, passing over the tumbler of gin. ‘Now how much tonic?’

  ‘Drown it,’ she said. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  He waited until they had ordered their food before launching into conversation. ‘So tell me about Sam,’ he prompted.

  ‘You know Sam,’ she said. ‘He’s texted me to say they’re sending me some forms to sign.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s probably some horrible disclaimer in case he injures himself.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he said, wincing, ‘but – you know, Martha, I was thinking as I drove here. I can’t say I do know Sam – at least not that well. When Evie and I came calling the children were already in bed. I hardly ever met him. And since Martin’s died you’ve always left the children with some au pair or other. I haven’t seen him for – it must be five years. So no. I don’t know Sam.’

  ‘He’s football mad,’ she said – almost apologetically. ‘I don’t know where it’s come from. Martin wasn’t ever like that, was he?’

  It was one of the things she valued about Simon’s friendship. She could talk to him about Martin – find out about the life her husband had had both before he met her and after, when they were apart. Simon knew things about his friend that she would never know. And this was one of them.

  ‘Actually.’ Simon frowned, ‘he did play for the varsity team once or twice. In fact he was quite good. Martha.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Do you still miss him very much?’

  ‘Not as much as I did,’ she said, almost regretfully. ‘I think I’m starting to move on. In fact I know I am. You know, Simon, how I wouldn’t change the décor in the study because it reminded me so much of him? The last thing Evie did before she got ill was to help me plan the great redecoration.’

  Simon smiled. ‘That was Evie,’ he said.

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I must, mustn’t I?’

  It was an odd answer.

  And it made Martha think. Although Simon had been Martin’s best friend Martin had never quite trusted him. They had shared a flat for years but Martin had puzzled that his flat-mate always seemed to have money – too much money – considering he came from a very deprived family. Simon’s father had vanished when he had been a baby and his mother had struggled to raise him and his sister. If Martin had been alive to follow his frien
d’s rise to super-wealth he would have been even more suspicious.

  Even more than ten years ago when Martin had still been alive they had felt the poor relations against Simon’s ostentatious wealth: the huge house, run by a Philippine couple, the swimming pool and gym block, the daughters at an expensive boarding school, the Rolls Royce and 4X4s, the exotic holidays. After a visit she and Martin would spend most of their journeys home totting up how much the lifestyle cost and how a financial advisor in a modest Shropshire town had built up so much wealth.

  They had never found an answer. Evelyn herself had never referred to it and it would have been crass to mention it. Martha had always imagined that one day, her friend would confide in her. But before that day had arrived cancer had claimed her and the secret had gone with her to the grave.

  Simon had a very strong personality. He could be opinionated and more than once Martha had locked horns with him. In fact while Martin had been alive Martha had never been quite sure whether she really liked him or not. His charisma was obvious and at times overwhelming but she had seen it switched on and off at will; you could always be guaranteed a lively evening in his company but behind the jokes there had been something ice-cold about him – something inhibiting. But since Martin’s death and particularly since his own wife had died Simon Pendlebury appeared to have changed. Perhaps being alone was mellowing him or possibly having achieved so much in his life he was, at last, learning to relax. Towards her he had become warm, sometimes frank and more honest than she would have thought possible. They were characteristics she would never have attributed to him.