He was ambling round the compound on association one morning, ruminating on his luck, his life, his daughter and anything else that came into his mind, chatting to Moxey when Maisy appeared from nowhere.
‘Morning, Paul.’
Paul showed mild exasperation. He lifted his chin. ‘What do you want, Maisy?’
‘Just a chat.’
Moxey exchanged knowing glances with Paul. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, and walked away.
Paul gestured irritably at Maisy. ‘What is it with you? You drive my friends away.’
‘I’m your friend, Paul,’ Maisy told him brightly. ‘Those others are just part-time.’
‘So you say. Anyway, what do you want?’
‘Has Billy Isaacs bothered you much?’ he asked.
Paul shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Aren’t you worried?’
Paul shrugged. ‘What can he do to me that’s worse than spending my life in this hole?’
‘He could kill you.’ It sounded ominous. ‘He’s got it in him, you know.’
‘So have I,’ Paul countered. ‘That’s why I’m in here.’
They continued walking and chatting. Paul felt more comfortable keeping on his feet and moving in full view of the other cons in the compound. Inevitably Isaacs saw the two of them and made his way across the compound, his two thugs in tow.
‘Well, well, what have we here, then?’ He stood with his fists resting on his hips, his legs spread apart. ‘Won’t be long before Maisy has your dick in his mouth, Kennett.’
Maisy stabbed a finger at him. ‘Wash your mouth out, you fucking poof.’
Isaacs grabbed Maisy’s wrist. He twisted it, bringing the little man to his knees. But Maisy wasn’t giving in that easy; he swung his free arm out and slashed Isaacs wildly across the face. Two scratch marks appeared on Isaacs’s cheek.
‘You little fucking creep,’ he yelled and swung his fist down at Maisy’s face.
Paul reacted without thinking. He drove his fist into Isaacs’s exposed ribcage. The force of the punch drove the breath from the man’s body and brought him to his knees.
Immediately the two thugs launched themselves at Paul and began driving punches into his body. Maisy jumped on one of their backs. Isaacs was still struggling for breath on his knees and Paul was trading punches when two screws appeared and battered all of them with clubs. There were whistles going off and within a minute, the compound was full of prison officers. Within minutes the trouble had been dealt with, and the five men were led away to the ‘chokey’ where they were locked up until the chief prison officer could deal with them.
They were all given a week in solitary with privileges withdrawn. Paul was pissed off because he had done nothing other than to try and protect Maisy. He knew that once he was back on the wing, though, he would have to be very careful with Isaacs around.
He bumped into Maisy shortly after their solitary was up. Maisy had been reassigned to the laundry. Paul was in the tin shop when he saw Maisy come in to collect various items of clothing for the wash. He came over to Paul’s bench.
‘Thanks for what you did, Paul,’ he said.
‘It was spontaneous, Maisy,’ Paul confessed. ‘Not something I was planning on.’
Maisy pointed that elegant finger again. ‘God will reward you.’
‘Me? What for?’
‘For suffering on my account,’ Maisy told him. ‘One of God’s soldiers.’
Paul’s face dropped. ‘You? A Christian?’ Maisy smiled and for a moment Paul thought he saw something in the man other than his eternal cynicism and outright homosexuality. Maisy nodded solemnly. ‘You go to chapel on Sundays?’
Maisy nodded. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’
‘So how come if you’re a Christian you’re still a poof?’
Maisy shrugged indifferently. ‘Jesus said that not all men would be made the same.’ He drew a little closer to Paul. ‘But let me tell you this, my boy: I have never had sex with a man since I gave my life to Jesus.’ He waved his hand in a flourish. ‘Everything you see about me is the real me: it’s the way I am. What you don’t see is what you make up. It’s what others believe, or choose to believe. Isaacs knows what I’m like. He knows I have never given myself to another man since I gave my life to the Lord.’ He stood back a little. ‘And he’s determined to have me, one way or the other.’
Paul didn’t know what to say at first. Here was a man who was outrageously camp and did little or nothing to hide it, when in fact he was struggling under a promise he had made to God, knowing that a psycho like Isaacs was trying to break him. He took hold of Maisy’s hand and lifted it so that he was looking at his fingernails.
‘And these are your weapons,’ he said, remembering how Maisy had swiped Isaacs across the face and drawn blood.
Maisy shook his head. ‘God is my weapon. These are just deterrents.’
‘Come on, Kennett; get on with your work! Maisy, sling your bloody hook!’
They both laughed. Paul picked up his hammer and Maisy skipped away out of the tin shop. Paul realized that he had a lot to learn about people: none more so than Maisy.
Over the next few years, Paul and Maisy got on well. It took a while, and at first Paul had plenty of misgivings about their relationship. Other cons tried provoking Paul with a few wisecracks, but in the main the majority of them ignored him and Maisy. Some called them the ‘odd couple’. Maisy still flaunted himself around the wing and got into minor scraps where he used his talons as a reliable defence against his would-be assailants. Paul had seen evidence of it on those unfortunate cons’ faces: deep scratches across their cheeks.
The only thing Maisy badgered Paul about was his faith, or lack of it, as Maisy would say. Paul had seen the white card on Maisy’s cell door. This was the colour used for Christians. Roman Catholics had red cards, and Jews had blue. Maisy often referred to the other faiths as being non-Christian. It often provoked minor insults between Maisy and those of the other calling, but Paul always regarded it as playground antics. There was a hint of parody in it all, but at least it never resulted in real argument.
The one thorn in their side was Isaacs. He had never forgiven Paul for the day Paul had floored him. That in itself had lifted Paul’s reputation in the wing a few notches. Not many cons were willing to take a man like Isaacs on. Paul had made up his mind he would not let Isaacs intimidate him or Maisy again, loss of privileges or not. In a sense, Paul became Maisy’s protector, not that the little con would have admitted publicly that he needed one. But protection against Isaacs was worth its weight in gold to Maisy and he never got tired of reminding Paul how he felt.
But one day, that protection wasn’t there. It happened unexpectedly and was no one’s fault. Paul was exercising in the compound one Saturday. He expected to see Maisy turn up for a walk round the yard and beat his gums over some offence committed against him by the screws. But Maisy didn’t show until quite late. He acknowledged Paul across the compound and pointed towards the tin shop. Paul knew the shop was closed, but had no idea if it was locked. Paul screwed his face up as he saw Maisy open the doors and go inside. What happened then sent a shock thundering through Paul’s frame: Isaacs had followed Maisy into the workshop, and his two ever-present thugs had immediately taken guard on the doors.
Paul gave no thought to why Maisy had gone in there, but he knew Isaacs meant trouble. At that moment a fight started on the far side of the compound. Immediately everyone’s attention was drawn to it. The yard screws were on it almost immediately, but more cons joined in and alarms were going off all over the place. Paul reached the doors of the tin shop but was held back by the two heavies. One of them drove a fist into Paul’s stomach, and then caught him a pearler on the jaw. He dropped like a stone as the doors flew open and Isaacs stepped out. The last thing Paul saw as he passed out were scratch marks on Isaacs’s face.
When Paul came round he was lying on the hard surface of the compound, but nowhere near the tin shop. There were
a lot of cons milling around, but the fighting had stopped. Someone yanked Paul to his feet. It was Moxey. Paul was still unaware of what was going on, and only vague images floated around in his mind. He could see there was a veritable army of screws mopping up after the punch-up, but still had no idea what had happened. Moxey held on to his arm and levered him away, dragging him back to the wing and his cell.
The images were scrambled now. Paul rubbed his temples and tried desperately hard to recall what had happened, but nothing came, just a jumble of fists and men fighting. He heard cell doors slamming as the screws came round checking and locking the cons up. This was ‘lock-down’ and the cells would remain locked until the screws were happy that all prisoners were accounted for.
Soon every prisoner was locked in his cell and the wing was quiet. Then a whisper started. It was one of the ironies of prison life that news could be transmitted through locked doors. Soon the word was going round that Maisy was missing. Some of the cons guessed that the little man had absconded, although sense and reason would tell them that this would be pretty difficult on a Saturday and in broad daylight. No one would be released from their cells until they had found him. Suddenly the lock on Paul’s door rattled and the door swung open. The senior wing officer stepped into the cell.
‘Where’s Maisy, Kennett?’
Paul looked up in a daze. ‘Fucked if I know.’ He wasn’t going to do the screws’ job for them. The truth was, though, that Paul was still suffering from short-term memory loss, and had forgotten that he had seen Maisy going into the tin shop.
‘On your feet, Kennett,’ the officer snarled. Paul struggled to stand up. ‘You and your little poofter mate are always together, so where is he?’
Paul’s head was splitting. ‘I told you, I don’t fucking know!’
The officer spun on his heel and jerked his head at the two screws with him. He walked out of the cell as the two men walked in. The door slammed behind them as they dragged Paul up against the wall and began pummelling him. Two minutes and Paul was almost dead. He collapsed on the floor as one of the screws kicked him, and he lost consciousness.
They found Maisy’s body after a lengthy search. He had been strangled. It was obvious that the little man had put up a fight, and it was equally obvious that the chances of finding the killer were about zero. The prison governor came down to the tin shop to look at poor Maisy’s body. It had been pushed under one of the benches in a crude attempt to hide it. He turned to his chief prison officer and asked him to call the police.
When Paul regained consciousness he was in the hospital wing. His body ached all over and his head felt as though a ton weight was resting on it. He reached over to the small bedside locker where someone had placed a glass of water. He drank it down and settled back on the pillow. He felt marginally better, but running around inside his head was a kaleidoscope of images and questions, swirling round, searching for a way out.
A male nurse came into the room and looked at him, pulled a face and handed him a couple of tablets. He refilled the glass from a jug. Paul put the tablets in his mouth and drank the water. The nurse left and Paul still did not know what happened and why he was in there.
Later that day, a doctor came and examined Paul. His diagnosis was short and brief: he told Paul he would be allowed to return to the wing after one more night in the hospital.
The following day, Paul was taken back to his cell, but instead of going back to work, he was locked in his cell and told that he would be seeing the chief prison officer later that morning. Paul still had no idea what was going on. They came for him at midday and took him through to the wing office where the chief prison officer was waiting. He was flanked by two men wearing civilian clothes. Paul was left standing in front of the officer’s desk.
‘What can you tell us about the incident in the compound on Saturday, Kennett?’
Paul frowned. ‘What day is it today?’
The officer glanced at the two men beside him. ‘It’s Monday.’
Paul wracked his brain, trying to pin down some solid thought about that. Why couldn’t he remember what day it was? He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know anything about Saturday.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ The question was put testily. ‘Surely you remember the incident in the compound?’
Paul shook his head. ‘No, sir.’
One of the civilians put his hand on the chief officer’s shoulder and spoke to Paul. ‘Do you remember going into the tin shop at all?’
Paul frowned and screwed his face up. ‘Why should I do that? If it was Saturday, the tin shop would have been shut.’ An image flashed into his mind, then disappeared. What was it?
‘Did you see anybody go into the tin shop?’ Again Paul shook his head. ‘Were you aware that there was a fracas in the compound?’
Paul shook his head. ‘No. Is that why I ended up in the hospital?’
The chief knew what had happened, but chose not to say anything.
‘Think carefully, Kennett,’ the chief urged him. ‘Can you recall anything, anything at all about your involvement in Saturday’s disturbance?’
‘Look,’ Paul answered wearily. ‘If I could remember anything, I would tell you. But someone has turned me over good and proper, and my mind is a blank.’
One of the civilians bent closer to the chief officer and whispered something in his ear. The chief nodded. He looked a little reluctant at whatever had been said to him.
‘It’s obvious you’re in no fit state to be questioned, but I can’t let you go back to your cell yet. You’ll be in solitary for a couple of days or until you get your memory back.’
Paul’s mouth fell open. Solitary was a punishment, and he had done nothing wrong, so why was he being banged up for no reason at all? Then he realized what the chief meant by remaining in solitary until he got his memory back. The man obviously thought Paul was lying and a few days in solitary would do wonders for his memory. There was no point in protesting, so he kept his mouth shut as the two prison officers led him away.
Solitary was exactly what it meant. You saw no one other than the officer who brought your meals to you. You were escorted to the washroom and allowed no contact with anyone. There was nothing in the cell but a bed and four walls. Solitary was solitary and it tended to focus the mind. Paul was in there for three days, and during that time the images that had been flashing through his mind were now taking residence. They were still a little scrambled, but he was getting closer to piecing together what had happened, although there was still one piece of the jigsaw missing. He knew he couldn’t tell the chief officer what he remembered. One of the unwritten rules in prison life was that a prisoner did not ‘grass up’ other prisoners. In other words, you said nothing to the prison staff that would give them a reason to punish other cons. If other prisoners believed someone had grassed them up to the prison authorities, that con would be known as a ‘grass’ and he would have to be kept away from them for his own safety. This was known as ‘Rule 43’. It meant that cons who were in danger from other prisoners had to be separated for their own protection; so paedophiles, otherwise known as ‘nonces’, and grasses were kept under lock and key under the Rule 43 supervision code.
Paul knew that if he said anything to the chief officer he would have to be sanctioned under Rule 43 for his own safety. And the last thing Paul wanted was to be associated with nonces and grasses, so he decided to tell a half-truth and admit that he had attacked the two heavies that were always with Isaacs. Paul had still not been told about Maisy’s murder.
When he faced the chief officer again he stuck to his story and suggested that was probably the reason why a huge fight broke out in the compound. The chief officer asked him if he had seen Billy Isaacs going into the tin shop, but Paul said he hadn’t, which was partly true because his memory still hadn’t fully returned. Eventually the chief had to release Paul back to the wing. And that was when he found out that Maisy had been murdered.
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It was Moxey who told him. ‘They found him under a bench. He’d been strangled.’
Paul felt devastated. He had really got to like the little man despite his sexual preferences. As much as the cons enjoyed making fun of Maisy, he gave back as good as he got from them. It was often a joy to watch because of Maisy’s quick wit and acid tongue.
‘Who killed him?’
‘Billy Isaacs.’
Another piece of the picture fell into place in Paul’s memory. But there was still something missing. What was it? ‘Have they arrested him?’
Moxey shook his head. ‘No witnesses, no evidence.’
Paul swore. This was prison life. ‘I saw Isaacs go in there. Saw Maisy too.’
‘We figured you had something to do with it when we saw you being dragged across the compound by Isaacs’s thugs.’
Paul looked surprised. ‘You saw that?’ Moxey nodded. Paul went on. ‘So why. . . ?’
Moxey put his hand up. ‘It had all been planned. The fight in the compound was meant as a diversion. You were dragged away and dumped in the middle of it to make it look like there had been no one near the tin shop.’ He made a forlorn gesture. ‘Isaacs must have given Maisy a reason to go into the tin shop, or he knew that Maisy would be going in there. The man’s a fucking psycho, so no one will dare grass him up.’ He leaned forward to emphasize the next point. ‘And neither will you, Paul.’
Past Imperfect Page 20
