“Then why bother to earn all those privileges if you don’t plan to take advantage of them?” I asked.
“Weren’t part of Pete’s master plan, was it? Trouble with you, Jeff, is that you don’t think like a criminal.”
“So why was Pete so keen to get himself transferred to the enhancement block?”
“Good question at last, Jeff, but for that you’ll need a little background. Pete ‘ad already worked out that over on the enhancement block they ‘ad five screws on duty during the day, but only two at night, on account of the fact that if a prisoner reaches enhanced status he can be trusted, not to mention how short-staffed the prison service is. And don’t forget that, in an open nick, there are no cells, no bars, no keys and no perimeter walls, so anyone can abscond.”
“So why don’t they?” I asked.
“Because not many cons who’ve made it to an open prison are that interested in escaping.”
“Why not?”
“Logic, isn’t it? They’re coming to the end of their sentence, and if they’re caught, and nine out of ten of the morons are, you’re sent straight back to a closed nick, with extra time added to your sentence. So forget it, it’s just not worth it. I remember a con called Dale. What a muppet he was. He only had three weeks left to serve, when he—”
“Pete,” I tried again.
“You’re such an impatient bastard, Jeff, and it’s not as if you’re going anywhere. So where was I?”
“Only two officers on duty in the enhancement block at night,” I said, checking my notes.
“Oh, yeah. But even on the enhancement block you have to report to the front office at seven in the morning, and then again at nine each night. Now Pete, as I told you, ‘ad a job in the prison stores, handing out clothes to the new cons, and supplying laundry once a week for the regulars, so the screws always knew where he was, which was also part of Pete’s plan. But if he hadn’t reported to the front office at seven in the morning and then again at nine at night, he would have been put on report, which would have meant he’d be sent back to north block with all his privileges removed. So Pete never once misses a roll call, his cell was always spick and span, and his light is always out long before eleven.”
“All part of Pete’s master plan?”
“You catch on fast,” said Mick. “But then Pete came up against an obstacle—that the right word, Jeff?” I nodded, not wishing to interrupt his flow. “During the night, one of the screws would walk round the block at one o’clock and then return again at four in the morning, to check that every con was in bed and asleep. All the screw has to do is pull back the curtain on the outside of the door, look through the glass panel and shine his torch on the bed to make sure the con is snoring away. Have I ever told you about the con who was caught in his room, with a—”
“Pete,” I said, not even looking up at Mick.
“Pete would lay awake at night until the first screw came round at one o’clock to make sure he was in his room. The screw lifts the curtain, shines the torch on his bed and then disappears. Pete would then go back to sleep, but he always set his alarm for ten to four when he’d carry out the same routine. A different screw always turns up at four to check you’re still in bed. It took Pete just over a month to work out that there were two screws, Mr. Chambers and Mr. Davis, who didn’t bother to make the nightly rounds and check everyone was in bed. Chambers used to fall asleep and Davis couldn’t be dragged away from the TV. After that, all Pete had to do was wait until the two of them were on duty the same night.”
With only about six weeks to go before Pete was due to be released, he returned to the enhancement block after work to find that Chambers and Davis were the duty officers that night. When Pete signed the roll-call sheet at nine, Mr. Chambers was already watching a football match on TV, and Mr. Davis had his feet up on the table drinking a coke and reading the sports pages of the Sun. Pete went up to his room, watched TV till just after ten, and then turned off his light. He got into bed and pulled the blanket over him, but kept on his tracksuit and trainers. He waited until a few minutes after one before he crept out into the corridor and checked to make sure no one was around—not a sign of Chambers or Davis. He then went to the end of the corridor, opened the fire-escape door, and disappeared down the back stairs, leaving a wedge of paper in the door, before he set off on an eight-mile run into Wood-bridge.
No one can be sure when Pete got back that night, but he reported into the office as usual at seven the next morning. Mr. Chambers ticked off his name. When Pete glanced down at the screws clipboard, all four of his roll-call columns—nine, one, four and seven—had a tick in every box. Pete had breakfast in the canteen before reporting to the stores for work.
“So he got away with it?”
“Not quite,” said Mick. “Later that morning the cops turn up in numbers and begin crawling all over the place, but they’re only looking for one man. They end up in the stores, arrest Pete and haul him off to Woodbridge nick for questioning. They interrogate him for hours about the deaths of Brian Powell and Karen Slater, both found strangled in their bed. Rumor has it that they were having it off at the time. Pete stuck to the same line: ‘Can’t have been me, guv. I was banged up in prison at the time. You only have to ask Mr. Chambers and Mr. Davis, the officers who were on duty that night.’ The copper in charge of the case visited the enhancement block and checked the roll-call sheet. Brian and the tart were strangled some time between three and five, according to the police doctor, so if Chambers saw Pete asleep in bed at four, he couldn’t have been in Woodbridge at the same time, could he? Logic, isn’t it?
“An independent inquiry was set up by the Home Office. Chambers and Davis both confirmed that they’d checked every prisoner at one o’clock and then again at four, and on both occasions Pete had been asleep in his room. Several of the other cons were only too happy to appear in front of the inquiry and confirm they’d been woken by the flashlight, when Chambers and Davis did their rounds. This only strengthened Pete’s defense. So the inquiry concluded that Pete must have been in his bed at one o’clock and four o’clock on the night in question, so he couldn’t have committed the murders.”
“So he got away with it,” I repeated.
“Depends on how you describe got away with it,” said Mick, “because although the police never charged Pete, the copper in charge of the case later made a statement saying that they’d closed their inquiries, as there was no one else they wanted to interview—hint, hint. That wasn’t what you call a good career move for Chambers and Davis, so they set about stitching Pete up.”
“But Pete only had six weeks to serve before he was due to be released,” I reminded Mick, “and he was always as good as gold.”
“True, but another screw, a mate of Davis’s, reported Pete for stealing a pair of jeans from the stores just a few days before he was due for release. Pete was carted off to segregation and the governor had him transported back to Lincoln nick even before they’d served up tea that night, with another three months added to his sentence.”
“So he ended up having to serve another three months?”
“That was six years ago,” said Mick. “And Pete’s still banged up in Lincoln.”
“So how do they manage that?”
“The screws just come up with a new charge every few weeks, so that whenever Pete comes up on report the governor adds another three months to his sentence. My bet is Pete’s stuck in Lincoln for the rest of his life. What a liberty.”
“But how do they get away with it?” I asked.
“Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve been saying, Jeff?
If two screws say that’s what happened, then that’s what happened,” repeated Mick, “and no con will be able to tell you any different. Understood?”
“Understood,” I replied.
On 12 September 2002 Prison Service Instruction No. 47/2002 stated that the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ezeh & Connors ruled that, wh
ere an offense was so extreme as to result in a punishment of additional days, the protections inherent in Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights applied, A hearing must be conducted by an independent and impartial tribunal, and prisoners are entitled to legal assistance at such hearings.
Pete Bailey was released from Lincoln prison on 19 October 2002.
A Greek Trazedy
George Tsakiris is not one of those Greeks you need to beware of when he is bearing gifts.
George is fortunate enough to spend half his life in London and the other half in his native Athens. He and his two younger brothers, Nicholas and Andrew, run between them a highly successful salvage company, which they inherited from their father.
George and I first met many years ago during a charity function in aid of the Red Cross. His wife Christina was a member of the organizing committee, and she had invited me to be the auctioneer.
At almost every charity auction I have conducted over the years, there has been one item for which you just can’t find a buyer, and that night was no exception. On this occasion, another member of the committee had donated a landscape painting that had been daubed by their daughter and would have been orphaned at a village fete. I felt, long before I climbed up onto the rostrum and searched around the room for an opening bid, that I was going to be left stranded once again.
However, I had not taken George’s generosity into consideration.
“Do I have an opening bid of one thousand pounds?” I inquired hopefully, but no one came to my rescue. “One thousand?” I repeated, trying not to sound desperate, and just as I was about to give up, out of a sea of black dinner jackets a hand was raised. It was Georges.
“Two thousand,” I suggested, but no one was interested in my suggestion. “Three thousand,” I said looking directly at George.
Once again his hand shot up. “Four thousand,” I declared confidently, but my confidence was short-lived, so I returned my attention to George. “Five thousand,” I demanded, and once again he obliged. Despite his wife being on the committee, I felt enough was enough. “Sold for five thousand pounds, to Mr. George Tsakiris,” I announced to loud applause, and a look of relief on Christina’s face.
Since then poor George, or to be more accurate rich George, has regularly come to my rescue at such functions, often purchasing ridiculous items, for which I had no hope of arousing even an opening bid. Heaven knows how much I’ve prised out of the man over the years, all in the name of charity.
Last year, after I’d sold him a trip to Uzbekistan, plus two economy tickets courtesy of Aeroflot, I made my way across to his table to thank him for his generosity.
“No need to thank me,” George said as I sat down beside him. “Not a day goes by without me realizing how fortunate I’ve been, even how lucky I am to be alive.”
“Lucky to be alive?” I said, smelling a story.
Let me say at this point that the tired old cliché, that there’s a book in every one of us, is a fallacy However, I have come to accept over the years that most people have experienced a single incident in their life that is unique to them, and well worthy of a short story. George was no exception.
“Lucky to be alive,” I repeated.
George and his two brothers divide their business responsibilities equally: George runs the London office, while Nicholas remains in Athens, which allows Andrew to roam around the globe whenever one of their sinking clients needs to be kept afloat.
Although George maintains establishments in London, New York and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, he still regularly returns to the home of the gods, so that he can keep in touch with his large family Have you noticed how wealthy people always seem to have large families?
At a recent Red Cross Ball, held at the Dorchester, no one came to my rescue when I offered a British Lions’ rugby shirt—following their tour of New Zealand—that had been signed by the entire losing team. George was nowhere to be seen, as he’d returned to his native land to attend the wedding of a favorite niece. If it hadn’t been for an incident that took place at that wedding, I would never have seen George again. Incidentally, I failed to get even an opening bid for the British Lions’ shirt.
George’s niece, Isabella, was a native of Cephalonia, one of the most beautiful of the Greek islands, set like a magnificent jewel in the Ionian Sea. Isabella had fallen in love with the son of a local wine grower, and as her father was no longer alive, George had offered to host the wedding reception, which was to be held at the bridegroom’s home.
In England it is the custom to invite family and friends to attend the wedding service, followed by a reception, which is often held in a marquee on the lawn of the home of the daughters parents. When the lawn is not large enough, the festivities are moved to the village hall. After the formal speeches have been delivered, and a reasonable period of time has elapsed, the bride and groom depart for their honeymoon, and fairly soon afterward the guests make their way home.
Leaving a party before midnight is not a tradition the Greeks have come to terms with. They assume that any festivities after a wedding will continue long into the early hours of the following morning, especially when the bridegroom owns a vineyard. Whenever two natives are married on a Greek island, an invitation is automatically extended to the locals so that they can share in a glass of wine and toast the bride’s health. Wedding crasher is not an expression that the Greeks are familiar with. The brides mother doesn’t bother sending out gold-embossed cards with RSVP in the lower left-hand corner for one simple reason: no one would bother to reply, but everyone would still turn up.
Another difference between our two great nations is that it is quite unnecessary to hire a marquee or rent the village hall for the festivities, as the Greeks are unlikely to encounter the occasional downpour, especially in the middle of summer—about ten months. Anyone can be a weather forecaster in Greece.
The night before the wedding was due to take place, Christina suggested to her husband that, as host, it might be wise for him to remain sober. Someone, she added, should keep an eye on the proceedings, bearing in mind the bridegroom’s occupation. George reluctantly agreed.
The marriage service was held in the island’s small church, and the pews were packed with invited, and uninvited, guests long before vespers were chanted. George accepted with his usual grace that he was about to host a rather large gathering. He looked on with pride as his favorite niece and her lover were joined together in holy matrimony. Although Isabella was hidden behind a veil of white lace, her beauty had long been acknowledged by the young men of the island. Her fiancé, Alexis Kulukundis, was tall and slim, and his waistline did not yet bear testament to the fact that he was heir to a vineyard.
And so to the service. Here, for a moment, the English and the Greeks come together, but not for long. The ceremony was conducted by bearded priests attired in long golden surplices and tall black hats. The sweet smell of incense from swinging burners wafted throughout the church, as the priest in the most ornately embroidered gown, who also boasted the longest beard, presided over the marriage, to the accompaniment of murmured psalms and prayers.
George and Christina were among the first to leave the church once the service was over, as they wanted to be back at the house in good time to welcome their guests.
The bridegroom’s rambling old farmhouse nestled on the slopes of a hill above the plains of the vineyard. The spacious garden, surrounded by terraced olive groves, was full of chattering well-wishers long before the bride and bridegroom made their entrance.
George must have shaken over two hundred hands, before the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Kulukundis was announced by a large group of the bridegroom’s rowdy friends who were firing pistols into the air in celebration; a Greek tradition which I suspect would not go down well on an English country lawn, and certainly not in the village hall.
With the exception of the immediate family and those guests selected to sit on the long top table by the side of the dance floor, there were, in
fact, very few people George had ever set eyes on before.
George took his place at the center of the top table, with Isabella on his right and Alexis on his left. Once they were all seated, course after course of overladen dishes was set before his guests, and the wine flowed as if it were a Bacchanalian orgy rather than a small island wedding. But then Bacchus—the god of wine—was a Greek.
When, in the distance, the cathedral clock chimed eleven times, George hinted to the best man that perhaps the time had come for him to make his speech. Unlike George, he was drunk, and certainly wouldn’t be able to recall his words the following morning. The groom followed, and when he tried to express how fortunate he was to have married such a wonderful girl, once again his young friends leaped onto the dance floor and fired their pistols in the air.
George was the final speaker. Aware of the late hour, the pleading look in his guests’ eyes, and the half-empty bottles littering the tables around him, he satisfied himself with wishing the bride and groom a blessed life, a euphemism for lots of children. He then invited those who still could to rise and toast the health of the bride and groom. Isabella and Alexis, they all cried, if not in unison.
Once the applause had died down, the band struck up. The groom immediately rose from his place, and, turning to his bride, asked her for the first dance. The newly married couple stepped onto the dance floor, accompanied by another volley of gunfire. The groom’s parents followed next, and a few minutes later George and Christina joined them.
Once George had danced with his wife, the bride and the groom’s mother, he made his way back to his place in the center seat of the top table, shaking hands along the way with the many guests who wished to thank him.
Cat O'Nine Tales (2006) Page 17
