The Jump

by Cole, Martina

  ‘You don’t think it’s a grave, do you?’ Her voice was hesitant, fearful.

  Donna laughed nervously. ‘Well, if it is, then the person was buried standing up! Look at the size of it.’

  Carol lit a cigarette and pulled on it deeply.

  ‘That’s what I’m frightened of. Maybe it’s a little kid. After what we’ve found out the last few days, I wouldn’t put nothing past that lot.’

  Donna felt her face blanch. ‘Oh, leave it out, Carol, that’s stupid.’

  The other woman shook her head.

  ‘Listen, Donna, that lot are capable of anything, especially your Georgio. I ain’t being funny but I wouldn’t put fuck all past him. I mean, would you have believed that Big Paddy, that nice bloke, could rough up old Dolly, eh? Maybe they branched out into British kids, who can tell? For all we know, Georgio and Davey could have been nonceing.’

  Donna shook her head impatiently. ‘I can’t believe that, Carol.’

  She pulled Donna round to face her.

  ‘Well, they were peddling all this filth, weren’t they? What makes you so sure they weren’t getting their rocks off on it? They must have had contacts or they’d never sell the stuff, would they? They had to know men who wanted this stuff. This ain’t a bit of ordinary porn, love, a bit of old bluey. This is babies, little kids.’

  Donna acknowledged the truth of what Carol was saying, but everything inside her rebelled at the thought of Georgio, even knowing what she knew about him, actually touching the children. His baby son came to mind, and she felt a wave of pure hatred rush over her body. Then she heard Candy’s voice talking about Georgio in Thailand with the twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls. ‘The three-headed blow job’ she had called it.

  ‘Pack the last few boxes into the car, Carol, and I’ll start digging this lot up.’

  Carol stared at her as if she were mad.

  ‘You’re going to dig this place up? Are you out of your mind! Paddy, Davey, anyone could turn up!’

  ‘At this moment in time, Carol,’ Donna told her, ‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck, as you would say. I will never sleep again unless I know what the hell is under this floor.’

  Carol was stunned. She shook her head in distress, her flattened, bleached hair waving with the motion.

  ‘Oh Donna, please. I don’t think I want to know.’

  ‘That’s the trouble, love. That’s why people can buy all this stuff - because no one wants to know. No one likes to think about it. It’s too horrible to contemplate. Well, if you want, you go ahead and take the books and discs. Go on home. I’ll stay here alone and sort this lot out.’

  ‘You’re mad, Donna, stark staring mad. Get the Old Bill. Let them sort it out.’

  Donna wiped her hand across her face.

  ‘And what if there’s nothing here? What then? They will question you, me, the lot of us. We’ll be in it up to our necks, and I hate to remind you but you and I are as guilty as the men in this. Or at least, that’s how it will look. We’ll be arrested, your kids will be without you and Davey. Think about it, Carol. Until we know what’s under this floor we can’t decide anything.’

  Carol blanched with fright.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Donna. How the hell did this happen to us?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘It happened, Carol, because we let it. My mother used to say, “People only do to you what you let them,” and that’s true. Now pass me that crowbar and let’s get started. You shut the van up and lock it, then close the main doors. I’ll start pulling up the concrete.’

  Carol passed her the crowbar and walked from the lock-up, her heart in her mouth.

  Whatever they found, even if it was nothing, Carol knew it would be the final nail in her marriage to Davey, because she would never, ever forgive him for putting her through all this.

  As she shut the door of the lock-up, all her fear of Paddy and Davey evaporated . . . overshadowed by the fear of finding the remains of a child.

  Georgio watched the minute hand of the clock reach ten. Then Big Ricky went to the camera in the corner of the room and, standing on a chair, he placed a sweatshirt over the lens.

  Georgio watched and then Lewis walked towards him and he smiled. Lewis didn’t smile back.

  All eyes were on Denning and Hall, and the two men sensed that their lives were in grave danger. The rec room was ominously quiet as the men waited for the first blow to fall.

  Ricky took out of the waistband of his trousers a long-handled knife. It was made from the remains of a broom-handle, and fixed into the end of it was the blade of a steak knife stolen from the kitchens. He waved it in front of his face with a deep laugh.

  Denning grabbed Hall’s hand as if the action could save them and the men in the room sniggered.

  Ricky and Georgio walked towards them. Georgio pulled out his own blade, a smaller, scaled-down version of Big Ricky’s.

  ‘Thought we didn’t know who you were, didn’t you?’ Georgio’s voice was low.

  Then Ricky stabbed Hall in his stomach, pulling the blade across the beer belly, a deep red gash appearing as if by magic. Hall grabbed his stomach in both hands, mortal fear on his face. Denning watched in fascinated silence as did the rest of the men in the rec room. First blood had been drawn, and it seemed as if that caused the men watching to go mad.

  Chopper picked up a chair and smashed it against the pool table. Grasping a chair leg, he began to lay into Denning, putting all his considerable strength into the blows he rained down on the man’s body. Denning dropped to the floor at the first assault and then the men were all over him and Hall.

  Lewis walked calmly over to Georgio, who was watching the spectacle, fascinated.

  ‘Aren’t you going to help your friends out?’ Lewis said.

  The words were lost in the shouts and the screams of the two men being attacked.

  Georgio stared into Lewis’s face and then, smiling, he pushed the knife he held into Lewis’s chest until it was buried right up to its crudely-fashioned handle. He watched Lewis’s eyes widen with shock and pain, and as Lewis’s minder came towards him, he tried to pull the knife free. But Lewis was falling to the ground and this made it difficult. As the minder reached him with upraised fist, Georgio watched with pleasure as Big Ricky dragged the man backwards by putting his arm across his throat, and then he watched the man’s throat being cut, slowly and deliberately, with the long-bladed knife.

  Georgio pulled the knife out of Lewis and smiled at Ricky, who was pleased to see his enemy on the floor, writhing in agony. Georgio wiped the blade of the knife across Lewis’s throat, as if cutting through butter, and the blood pumped up into the air, catching Georgio’s denim shirt and trousers.

  Turning from Lewis, Georgio and Ricky joined in the fray around the beasts.

  The language was ripe, the men frenzied in their attack. The rec room was demolished within minutes.

  Looking around at the carnage, Georgio laughed in delight. It couldn’t have gone better. Everything was exactly as he wanted it.

  Standing back, he wiped his face and was surprised to find he was sweating. He watched in shocked silence as Hall’s head was hacked from his body. The men were going wild with bloodlust and hatred. He saw the head being thrown around the room, from man to man, saw it kicked across the floor and thanked God he wasn’t on the receiving end of it. Denning was still alive. Georgio watched as he tried to crawl under the pool table.

  ‘Oi! Watch out, Denning’s trying to get away!’

  Georgio’s voice was jovial, loud. He ran across the room and dragged the man out from under the table by his legs. Denning was unrecognisable, his face just a bloody pulp. In the distance, Georgio could hear the alarm bells going off all over the prison - the noise he had been waiting for. Throwing Denning’s legs back to the ground, he watched as the men began jumping on the nonce’s body, on his chest, head and legs; falling over and picking themselves up once more to attack the man again. All laughing hysterically, eyes bright, some
with bloodlust, some with the buzz of cocaine or heroin.

  Georgio looked around him and felt an urge to roar with laughter. All his life he had manipulated people and this, to him, was proof of what he could achieve if he wanted to.

  Eros, still singing, had somehow picked up on the atmosphere in the room and Georgio watched as he lifted Hall’s decapitated head and cradled it in his arms. Singing to it in a loud voice, an old hymn that seemed to make the scene more surreal as his voice rose over the other men’s, who all stopped what they were doing and watched him in a fascinated, spent silence. It was as if only now were they fully aware of what they had done.

  The men looked around them at the four mutilated bodies and the blood everywhere, and most felt as if they were awakening from a nightmare.

  Fifteen minutes after the first blood had been drawn, the guards came into the rec room and what they saw astounded them. All the men were standing around in silence, drenched in blood, and in the centre of the room was Eros, a man’s head in his arms, singing ‘Jerusalem’.

  Mr Hollingsworth took in the scene - Lewis’s body mangled and twisted, and said in a shocked voice: ‘Get the fuck out of here, men.’

  Two minutes later the wardens were on the other side of the Wing doors, and Mr Hollingsworth was on the blower to the Governor’s office. One of the younger screws was shocked to hear him shouting: ‘Get the fuck down here, man, they’ve all gone fucking barmy!’

  Slamming down the phone the older screw said sadly, ‘I thought I’d seen everything in this job, son, everything.’

  The younger man spoke for all the screws when he said, ‘What do we do now, Mr Hollingsworth?’

  The older man lit himself a cigarette and said in a tired voice, ‘We have a cup of tea and wait for Dopey Bollocks to get here. Now you’ll find out why the Governor gets paid such a hefty wedge. This is his baby, Sunny Jim, nothing to do with us. Let him sort it out.’

  Donna was sweating and tired. The concrete had been easy to prise up, it was the dirt underneath that was giving her the trouble. With only a piece of wood to dig with, it was a slow and laborious job.

  ‘Come on, Donna. Get a move on, will you?’ Carol was keeping lookout at the garage doors.

  ‘I’m nearly there. Will you stop keeping on at me!’ Donna’s voice was loud and irritable in the empty garage. Tugging at the dirt now with her bare hands, she said, ‘There’s something down here, Carol. Give me a hand.’

  Carol walked over to her on wobbly legs.

  ‘What is it?’

  Donna was too tired now and too involved with what she was doing to be frightened any more.

  ‘How the hell do I know? Give me a hand, girl, there’s something solid under the earth.’

  Carol looked into the hole that Donna had dug. It was about eighteen inches deep, and as Donna went on, tossing more dirt out with her bare hands, Carol saw pieces of a red blanket.

  Donna heaved at the blanket, putting all her weight behind her arms. The blanket started to come free from the dirt around it and both women realised that it contained something. Putting her hand over her mouth, Carol ran to the garage door, bile rising up inside her as she retched outside in the thin daylight.

  Holding her stomach she heard Donna give a high-pitched laugh, then she heard: ‘Oh my good God!’

  Taking her courage into her hands, Carol stepped back inside the doorway and walked towards Donna.

  Davey Jackson and Big Paddy pulled into the garage block just as Carol walked across the garage floor.

  Mr Justice Hanningfield, Acting Governor of Parkhurst while a permanent Governor was being chosen, walked on to the SSB unit with his two assistants.

  ‘What is going on here?’

  Mr Hollingsworth said quietly, ‘There’s been a bit of trouble, Mr Hanningfield. It seems the men got wind of Hall and Denning’s identity. They slaughtered them just before morning tea was served. They also slaughtered Donald Lewis and one of his cronies. At this particular moment the men are in post-attack trauma, quiet but still dangerous. I’ve seen it before. There’s been something brewing here for months and today is the upshot. I don’t like to cause trouble, sir, but I did advise against putting two sex-offenders in with the blaggers. I told you they wouldn’t swallow it.’

  Hanningfield looked at the man before him, and his lip, covered with a pencil moustache, twitched in agitation.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Hanningfield’s voice was clipped.

  Mr Hollingsworth shrugged maddeningly and said, ‘Well, forgive me for speaking out of turn, but I was under the impression that it was your job to tell us that.’ He hesitated for a few seconds before adding, ‘Sir.’

  Inside the rec room the men were high on blood and revolution. Georgio knew that he now had to talk them into letting the Governor in to negotiate.

  ‘Go down to the latrines, Benjy, and bring me back the shit in the cupboard. I am going to shit up this Governor.’

  Ricky looked at him in amazement. ‘You’re really going to shit up the Governor?’

  Georgio looked around the room. ‘After this little lot, I think it is about the only thing left we can do, ain’t it? Might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb. Anyway, I want to get my own back on that supercilious cunt. I hate him!’

  Georgio’s strong voice was loud in the quiet room and he bellowed, ‘What’s the matter with you lot? They were scum, shite, they were child-killers. We done the country a fucking favour, saved the taxpayers millions looking after them. The papers will know who they are within hours. We’ll be fucking heroes! The average person on the street will be right behind us! What’s the fucking matter with you lot? I’ll take the blame, and I’ll be proud to take the fucking blame. They were a pair of shitstabbers. The same with Lewis. He frightened the shit out of everyone. Now me and Ricky will be in charge, things can loosen up a bit.’

  Benjy came back in the room with the bucket of faeces and Georgio laughed delightedly.

  ‘I can’t wait to see the bastard’s face, can you? This’ll teach him to put nonces and beasts in with the real men, won’t it! Someone take down the sweatshirt. Let the Governor see what he’s caused.’

  Hanningfield looked at the wardens around him.

  ‘How is it that no one noticed that the interior camera was not in use?’

  The wardens all looked down at their feet.

  ‘Sometimes we lose contact for a few minutes. It’s an old system, Mr Hanningfield. We have our little hitches.’

  ‘Little hitches! Is that what you call them? Four men dead, as far as we know, and you talk about bloody hitches!’

  ‘With respect, sir, the perimeter fences aren’t exactly the greatest either. The cameras there are sometimes in completely the wrong direction. That’s how the other three went walkabout last year, remember, so don’t blame us because the money ain’t being spent on this place. Our job’s hard enough as it is. You should try looking after that lot!’

  Hanningfield said in a tightly controlled voice, ‘You have more experience than I in these matters. Please let’s save all this for later, shall we?’

  Mr Hollingsworth said calmly, ‘We have to separate the ringleaders, that’s the first stage. We have to get them off the Island. Bring into force the GOAD.’ He glanced at the Governor and said snidely: ‘To you that’s the Good Order And Discipline rule. Once the others know they’re gone, we’ll soon sort them out. We’ll get the leaders off on a laydown. It’s Section 43. We can remove them from the prison without escort in times of crisis - and I think this is a crisis, don’t you?’

  A loud shout came from the wing gates and a warden came into the main office, saying, ‘They’re calling for you, Mr Hanningfield. They want you, sir.’

  Hanningfield looked at the monitor screen showing the carnage in the rec room and Hollingsworth smiled as he saw the man’s face go pale. Then he said jovially, ‘Well, best not to keep them waiting, eh?’

  Hanningfield marched from the room and the wardens all followed him
sheepishly. Standing outside the Wing gates, the Acting Governor saw the bloodsoaked men and nearly lost the use of his voice.

  Georgio stood to the fore of the men and shouted: ‘You had no right to put that scum in with us, no fucking right, man. We’re not nonces. You insulted us by putting that scum in with us. You’re to blame for this, mate, and you know it!’

  The wardens, carrying guns, stood watching the performance with glee.

  Hanningfield shouted: ‘Give this up now and I’ll try to get everything sorted out quietly. You must give up on what you’re doing.’

  Georgio laughed. ‘Oh, we’ve stopped what we’re doing, Mr Hanningfield, sir. You can come in and clean up. In fact, we’ll help you if you like.’

  All the men laughed derisively.

  ‘Open the gates, we’ll all go back to the rec room and you can take the weapons and deal with us there. We were trying to prove a point. Scum we might be, to the likes of you anyway, but there is no way we will countenance nonces on the Wing, no way at all.’

  He put down his knife in full view of the Governor and the wardens and all the other men followed suit, even Big Ricky. Now the job was out of the way, Ricky had what he wanted and so did Georgio. All that remained was to get the trouble over with as soon as possible.

  Back inside the rec room, the men all stood about waiting for the armed screws to arrive. They were there within two minutes. The men were all lined up against the far wall, and Georgio stood with the bucket behind him waiting for Mr Hanningfield to make his grand entrance.

  He didn’t have to wait long. With the reassurance of armed men, and the quietness of the prisoners, Mr Hanningfield felt safe enough to walk into the room and assert his full authority. In the back of his mind were thoughts of how he would dwell on this part of the morning in his final report.

  He looked around the room, his heart beating a tattoo as he saw Eros sitting in a corner of the room with Hall’s head still in his arms.

  It was like walking into a waking nightmare, and he realised just how badly he had underestimated the people before him. They were capable of so much more than he could ever have guessed. He realised that despite the pamphlets he had read, and the books on the prison service he had pored over, he had no real idea of what to do with violent criminals like these. Nobody had. That was the trouble with the prison service. If someone had told him this would happen he would have laughed in their faces. He dined out on his stories of the criminals he had in his care, and now he would be ridiculed and vilified in the national press on top of everything else.