Hard Landing

by Stephen Leather

  The prison officer flicked through the files and pulled out Macdonald's, which contained only a few sheets of paper. His photograph was clipped to the inside cover.

  The officer's eyes narrowed. 'Have you been in prison before?'

  Macdonald said nothing.

  The officer read through the papers. 'No fingerprints on file so this is your first time in the system,' he said, as he continued to read. Once he'd scanned the final sheet he looked at Macdonald and sneered. 'Right, then, you being a new boy and all, let me explain something to you. Your time on the remand wing can be relatively painless, or it can be a bloody misery, and the way you get treated depends one hundred per cent on how you treat us. Time out of your cell, the amount you can spend on canteen, recreation, association, the clothes you wear, it's all down to how much co-operation you show us. Do you get my drift?'

  Macdonald stared at him, his face blank. The Alsatian barked again, and another prisoner was led into the reception area, handcuffed to a policeman. Macdonald turned to look at the new arrival but it wasn't a face he recognised.

  'Name?' repeated the prison officer. He waited for a few seconds, then pushed Macdonald's papers to the side. 'Have it your way,' he said. He turned to a computer terminal and tapped on the keyboard. He looked at the screen, then wrote down a number on a manila file: SN 6759. Next to the number were spaces for Macdonald's surname and forenames. 'You are now in the system, prisoner SN 6759,' said the officer. 'Everything that happens to you will be noted in your F2050 here and it doesn't give a toss whether you've got a name or not.' He gestured with his chin at the holding cell. 'Take a seat.' He beckoned to the new arrival to approach the desk. The prisoner was a teenager in denims, who looked close to tears. Macdonald wondered what he'd done to justify being sent to a Category A facility.

  Macdonald shuffled into the holding cell and sat down. A clock on the wall above the door told him it was three thirty. Macdonald hadn't had anything to eat since his sandwich in the police station and his stomach growled. He knew there was no point in asking for something. Besides, it wasn't the first time he'd gone without food and water. He'd survive.

  Another prisoner was ushered into the holding cell, a big man with a badly bruised face and a freshly stitched wound on his shaved head. He nodded at Macdonald. 'How's it going, mate?' he asked, in a whining Liverpudlian drawl. He was wearing an England football shirt, Adidas tracksuit bottoms and Nike trainers, but his physique suggested it had been a long time since he'd chased after a ball.

  'Great,' said Macdonald.

  'What's with the gear?' asked the man, indicating the forensic suit.

  'Cops took my stuff,' said Macdonald.

  'Bastards,' said the man. He pointed at his bruised face. 'They did this to me. Resisting arrest.' He chuckled.

  Two more prisoners were brought into the holding cell, black men in their twenties wearing designer sportswear and expensive trainers. They sprawled on one of the benches, looking bored.

  'So, what are you in for?' the bruised guy asked Macdonald.

  'Armed robbery,' he said.

  'Bloody hell, premier division,' said the man.

  'Yeah, well, I would be if we'd got away with it. Why are you here?'

  The man laughed. 'Retailing.'

  'Retailing?'

  'Tried to sell a couple of watches. Turned out they were nicked.'

  'That's a pity.'

  'My own fault, really. It was me what nicked them.' He rubbed his square chin with his palm. 'Serves me right.'

  Macdonald heard the van start up, then drive away.

  'Did we have the same magistrate?' asked Macdonald. 'Guy with the long hair?'

  'Yeah, recognise him, did you?'

  Macdonald frowned.

  'He was with that pop group, back in the seventies, the guys who dressed up with the makeup and everything. Right ponces. New fucking Romantics. What the hell were they called?'

  A prison officer opened the door to the holding cell. 'Barnes,' he said.

  'That's me,' said the man. He flashed Macdonald a thumbs-up. 'Catch you later.'

  Macdonald sat and waited. Barnes was processed and taken away. Then another load of prisoners arrived, six this time. They had all been in the system for some time because each man was carrying his belongings in a large, tagged, clear-plastic bag. Five were sent into the holding cell. Two were black and young, with the streetwise arrogance of the earlier pair. They stared sullenly at Macdonald and ignored him when he acknowledged them with a nod. He couldn't have cared less whether they were friendly or not - they were obviously dispersal prisoners who had been moved from another institution and he wouldn't see them on the remand wing. Of the three white prisoners, one was a stooped man in his late sixties with thinning grey hair and a smoker's cough. He smiled at Macdonald, showing that half his teeth were missing. His right arm trembled constantly and the hand was curled into a tight claw. 'Got a smoke?' he asked, and Macdonald shook his head.

  The other two were similar to Barnes, with shaved heads and logo-covered sportswear. They nodded at Macdonald and pointedly ignored the two black prisoners. 'Nice outfit,' said one, but Macdonald closed his eyes and stretched out. He could see what game the prison officers were playing: he would be processed last.

  The clock on the wall showed five thirty when Macdonald was alone in the holding cell. There had been three more deliveries, including another truckload of remand prisoners. Macdonald had watched them all being interviewed, given forms to sign, then escorted away.

  Some were clearly familiar with the system, while others were confused and kept looking around as if hoping they were going to wake up and discover it was all a bad dream. One middle-aged man in a blue pinstriped suit and gleaming black shoes was wiping away tears as he answered the officer's questions.

  It was just after six thirty when a female officer opened the door to the holding cell and told Macdonald he was to go back to the reception desk. Macdonald stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his back ramrod straight. The officer looked at him coldly. 'Bad news,' he said. 'By the time we've finished processing you, they won't be serving food.'

  Macdonald shrugged.

  'And we seem to have run out of breakfast packs. For the morning.' He pointed at Macdonald's forensic suit. 'Normally we'd be able to get you out of that and into some clothes, but we've left it a bit late. We might be able to get something sorted tomorrow. No promises.' He scratched his sideburns.

  'I get the drift,' said Macdonald.

  'Good. So let's run through the questions again, shall we? Name?'

  Macdonald said nothing.

  'Prisoner refuses to give his name,' said the officer, writing slowly on the form. 'Date of birth?'

  Macdonald said nothing.

  'Prisoner refuses to give his date of birth,' said the officer.

  'Address?'

  Macdonald sniffed, but said nothing.

  The officer smiled to himself. 'Care of HM Prison Shelton,' he said. 'Remand wing.' He finished writing, then looked up at Macdonald. 'Next of kin?'

  Macdonald stared back at him.

  'Prisoner refuses to identify his next of kin.' In all there were more than two dozen questions on the induction form, and the officer insisted on putting each one to Macdonald before noting that he had refused to answer.

  Eventually he turned the form round and pushed it across the desk. 'Sign at the bottom,' he said, slapping down a cheap Biro.

  Macdonald picked it up. 'Can I put a cross?'

  'Put what you like,' said the officer.

  Macdonald made a mark at the bottom of the last page of the form.

  The officer pointed at a curtained-off area. 'Go in there and strip,' he said.

  'We hardly know each other,' said Macdonald drily.

  The man stared at him without speaking. Macdonald stared back, then walked over to the curtain. He pulled it back. There were two metal chairs. He slipped off the training shoes, unzipped the forensic suit and draped it over one of the
chairs.

  'Pull the curtain back. We don't want to see your spotty arse!' the officer shouted.

  Macdonald did as he was told, then removed his underwear and sat down. There was another clock on the wall. It was just before seven. It had been less than thirty hours since he'd run into the warehouse with a sawn-off shotgun. Thirty hours and his life had been turned upside-down. Macdonald put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. He was dog-tired. And hungry.

  The curtain swished back and a beanpole-thin man in a white coat walked into the cubicle holding a clipboard. He looked like a nervous supply teacher about to get to grips with a problem class in an inner-city school. He had black-framed spectacles with rectangular lenses, and a mop of brown hair that kept falling over his eyes. He sat down on the chair opposite Macdonald and put the clipboard on his lap, then patted the pockets of his white coat, looking for a pen. 'Any health problems I should know about?' he asked.

  Macdonald shook his head.

  'Are you on any medication?' Before Macdonald could answer, the doctor leaned forward. 'How did that happen?' he asked.

  'It's nothing,' said Macdonald.

  The doctor stood up and bent over him, examining the old bullet wound just below his right shoulder. 'Stand up, please.'

  'It's nothing,' repeated Macdonald. He stood up and stared at the clock on the wall as the doctor prodded the scar tissue.

  'What did this?'

  'A bullet.' Macdonald was being sarcastic but the doctor was so intent on examining the wound that he didn't appear to notice.

  'What calibre?'

  'I don't know.' That was a lie. Macdonald knew exactly what it was. He still had it somewhere, a souvenir of the night he'd nearly died. It was a 5.45mm round from a Kalashnikov AK-74. Macdonald didn't usually go into details because when he said it was an AK-74 most people assumed he meant AK-47, the Russian weapon beloved of terrorists and freedom-fighters around the world. Macdonald had got tired of explaining that the AK-74 was a small-calibre version of the AK-47, initially developed for parachute troops but eventually the standard Soviet infantry rifle. But the weapon that had shot Macdonald hadn't been in the hands of a Russian soldier.

  The doctor walked round him and studied his back. 'There's no exit wound,' he mused.

  'They dug it out from the front,' said Macdonald.

  'Unusual.'

  'It hit the bone and went downwards. Missed the artery by half an inch.'

  'You were lucky.'

  'Yeah, well, if I'd really been lucky I wouldn't have stopped a bullet in the first place.'

  The doctor studied Macdonald's chest again. 'Who did the operation?'

  'I forget the guy's name.' Another lie. He would never forget the man who'd saved his life, digging out the bullet and patching up the wound before he could be helicoptered to hospital.

  'It's . . . messy,' said the doctor, running his finger along the ridges of scar tissue.

  'Yeah, well, that's what you get on the NHS,' said Macdonald.

  'It's not a hospital scar,' the doctor said. 'This wasn't done in an operating theatre.'

  When the doctor saw that Macdonald wasn't going to explain the origin of the wound, he pulled out a stethoscope and listened to his breathing. He examined his throat, then had him sit down while he checked his reflexes with a small metal hammer. The brief physical examination over, he asked Macdonald a dozen or so medical questions, ticking off boxes on a chart on the clipboard. Macdonald answered all in the negative: he was in perfect health.

  'Drugs?' asked the doctor.

  'No, thanks.'

  The doctor smiled thinly. It was obviously a joke he'd heard a thousand times. 'Do you have a drugs problem?' he said.

  'No,' said Macdonald.

  'Alcohol?'

  'The odd pint.'

  'Ever been treated for depression? Anxiety?'

  'I find a five-mile run usually gets me sorted.'

  The doctor stood up. 'That's the lot,' he said. 'You can get dressed now.' He pulled back the curtain and walked away. A prison officer Macdonald hadn't seen before was standing by the cubicle holding an armful of bedding.

  As soon as Macdonald had pulled on his forensic overall, the officer thrust the bundle at him. 'These are yours, then,' he said, in a lilting Welsh accent. 'I'll take you to the remand block.' He was a small, balding man with a kindly face.

  Macdonald looked down at his bedding. There was a thin pillow, a pale green pillowcase, a green sheet and a brown blanket.

  'Don't hang about,' said the officer. He already had his key in his hand and unlocked a barred door with the minimum of effort. He stood to the side to let Macdonald through, then followed him and relocked the door. Macdonald glimpsed the key. It was like no other he'd seen before, no rough edges, just small discs set into the metal strip, which he guessed were magnets, impossible to copy.

  The officer walked him through another barred door that led on to a corridor covered by CCTV cameras. It stretched for several hundred yards and was deserted. Their footsteps echoed off the cream-painted walls as they walked towards a door at the far end. The officer unlocked another barred door and took Macdonald up a flight of metal stairs to the first floor. There, two guards were standing in a glass-sided cubicle. One was tapping at a computer terminal; the other was drinking a can of Coke.

  The Welshman pointed for Macdonald to stand where he was, then walked into the cubicle. 'Got a mystery man for you,' he said, handing over the file to the guard with the Coke, a tall, broad-shouldered man with bulging forearms.

  He scanned the file. 'Okay, thanks, Taff,' he said. He dropped it next to the computer. 'I'll take it from here.'

  The Welshman walked away, whistling softly.

  Macdonald gazed into the glass cubicle, the administration centre for the block. Along one wall there were half a dozen CCTV monitors. The guard put down his Coke and came out of the cubicle. 'My name's Tony Stafford, and I'm in charge of the block,' he said. 'You've been told how the prison is laid out?'

  Macdonald shook his head.

  'There are four blocks. This is block B, the remand block. It's made up of three wings, and each wing has three floors. You'll spend all of your time on your wing, unless you're going to the gym, the hospital or the education unit. An exercise yard is attached to the block, your meals are taken on your wing. Any problems, you talk first to the officers on your wing. Any problems they can't handle, they'll bring to me. I talk to the governor. That's the system and you work within it, right?'

  Macdonald nodded.

  'This your first time inside?'

  'Yes.'

  'You call me Mr Stafford. Or sir. Or boss. Some of the older lags call the officers "guv" but we'd rather you didn't. Causes confusion. I presume it's been explained what will happen if you continue to refuse to identify yourself ?'

  'Several times,' said Macdonald. 'Mr Stafford,' he added.

  'Right, then, I'll show you to your cell. Come on.' Stafford walked towards a barred door, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the polished floor. Macdonald followed.

  Stafford unlocked the door, let Macdonald through followed him and relocked it. A second barred door led on to the wing. Stafford went up a flight of metal stairs. A female guard was walking down them, swinging her key chain. She had blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, and a trim figure.

  Macdonald could hear music. An Eagles song, 'Hotel California'. The pounding beat of rap. Jazz. Then the muffled commentary on a football game.

  They reached the first-floor landing. There were twenty metal doors around the landing, all closed. A chest-high railing ran round the hole in the middle. A wire-mesh net had been spread across it, presumably to deter anyone wanting to jump. Macdonald looked up: there was a similar net below the second landing.

  Stafford took Macdonald along the landing, unlocked a cell door and pushed it open. 'We'll have a Listener for you tomorrow.'

  'A Listener?'

  'They're like the Samaritans. You can talk through any problem
s with them.'

  'The only problem I've got is being here,' said Macdonald. 'I don't need to talk to anyone.'

  'It's prison policy,' said Stafford.

  Macdonald walked in. The cell was about four paces long and three wide, with pale green walls. A bunk bed was pressed against one wall and a small metal desk stood under a barred window. There was a small portable colour television on the desk. It was switched on, a travel show, but the sound was muted. The wall by the desk was plastered with photographs of semi-naked women torn from magazines and newspapers. The door closed behind him with a dull thud. To his right was a small toilet with a white plastic seat.

  'Fuck me, I knew it was too good to be true,' said a voice from the lower bunk. A man sat up. He was squat with a shaved head and a swastika tattooed on his neck. He could have been the twin of the man in the holding cell, Barnes, except Macdonald hadn't seen any tattoos on Barnes. 'I told 'em I wanted a cell on my own.'

  He stood up and put his hands on his hips. A small vein pulsed in his forehead as he glared at Macdonald. 'I'm as thrilled as you are,' said Macdonald. He nodded at the photographs on the wall. 'Any of those the wife?'

  The man's eyes narrowed, then he grinned. 'In my dreams,' he said. 'I suppose I should be glad they didn't put a nig-nog in with me. You're not a smoker, are you?'

  Macdonald shook his head.

  'That's something. I'm Jason. Jason Lee. What's your name, then?'

  Macdonald threw his bedding on to the vacant bunk. 'Bit of a problem there,' he said. 'I'm not telling them who I am.'

  'That'll only piss 'em off.'

  'Yeah, well, I can live with that. Okay if I take the top bunk?'

  'You're not a bed-wetter, are you?'

  'I fart a bit after a few lagers and a curry but I don't expect that's a problem in here.'

  Lee slapped Macdonald on the back. 'You're a laugh, you are,' he said. 'Look, what do I call you? I can't keep saying, "Hey, you", can I? Not polite.'

  'Thing is, Jason, if I tell you, you might tell someone else . . .'

  Lee shot to his feet and took a step towards the bunk. 'You saying I'm a grass?'

  Macdonald put up his hands. 'It's not a question of grassing, it's a question of you using my name on the landing. Walls have ears, right?'