Hell Is Empty

by Conrad Williams

  ‘Inside and out,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you any more than that,’ he said. ‘And you’re welcome to search every room in this house if you think he’s camping out here.’

  ‘I don’t think that,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I think. I’m grateful to you. It’s been a change to meet someone who wasn’t obstructive.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing,’ he said. ‘I told you what I know.’ And then he said a very strange thing. ‘How obstructive are you?’

  ‘You what? I don’t…’

  ‘Forgive me if I’m out of line,’ he said. ‘I spent a lot of time waiting, you know, in prison. I spent a lot of time watching people. Just watching. I saw how people got on and didn’t get on.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I just wonder if you might not be making things harder for yourself.’

  ‘You’re talking to me, aren’t you?’

  Pastor smiled and his wrinkles sprang out of sight, showing me how he might look without the sorrow in his life. Renko made a high, inquisitive noise, completely at odds with his size, as if to remind me he was there. I risked losing my fingers by putting my hand out to him but he allowed himself to be stroked and I felt a little better, my skin engulfed by all that fur and warmth.

  Pastor watched, and he seemed impressed. ‘Last person who tried that got a face full of growl.’

  ‘This dog is soft as baby shit compared to what’s waiting in the shadows for me when I get home.’

  ‘You have dogs?’

  ‘I have a dark angel of death. With tuna breath.’

  ‘I don’t really miss having a girlfriend.’

  We laughed and I realised I’d liked him from the moment I saw him. It saddened me to think that I always went looking for the bad in people. Picking at the black threads, no matter how small they might be. Nature of the job, I supposed. But more likely nature of me.

  ‘This tunnel,’ I said. ‘The rails—’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I can’t be sure, I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t think you need to be. I put two and two together… One of the guards, guy called… what was his name… Collins. I forget his given name. He was always hanging around Tann. But not because he knew he was up to something. I always thought Collins was bent, on the take no matter what was being handed out. And he had a hobby. Model train enthusiast. You’d see him sometimes with his mug of tea, poring over these catalogues, picking out some new locomotive.’

  ‘I see what you’re getting at,’ I said. ‘And it doesn’t surprise me. You’d need inside help, if you wanted to pull a scam like that.’

  All the Smirnoff was gone. My mouth was sticky. Dehydrated. Once I realised that I thought I could feel crystals gathering in my blood, my brain shrinking back from the membrane at my skull, tongue turning to pumice.

  ‘Graeme Tann is one of those people you find surrounded by muscle in the slammer,’ he said. ‘I guess you find that sort of thing whenever you have someone who can magic goods into your hand. He was the Baron. And it’s always nice to know you’ve got protection, but he never, not in the time I saw him, made use of any of it. It was uncalled for. Unrequested. What I’m trying to say is, he didn’t ask for it. And he didn’t need it. Compared to everyone else in that place, he was a live wire. Prison didn’t seem to strip him of his life, it augmented him. He’s one of the most driven people I’ve ever seen. And I think he’s the most dangerous person I’ve ever seen too. But it wasn’t any kind of Charlie Big Spuds thing. You only had to look at his eyes to see it. They were weird, those eyes. As if he was in the moment, fast on everything, but at the same time also far away, as if he was living in his head.’

  ‘I visited him,’ I said. ‘In the summer. I tried to needle him. But he turned the tables. Got under my skin. Effortless. I lost it and went for him and he floored me. This with shackles on. I know what he’s capable of.’

  ‘I hope you do,’ Pastor said. ‘But my advice to you would be to do what I’ve done. Find yourself a hole well away from the bright lights and dig in until they catch him. He’s no ghost. He can’t hide for ever.’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll just grab a glass of water and I’ll be gone,’ I said.

  I drank long and hard until I thought I could hear waterfalls in my belly. I thanked Pastor and wished him good luck. It was hard to leave, to put myself back out there where he was, despite the spartan feel of the house. But one foot after the other, cinch the jacket around the aching muscles, because she was out there too.

  ‘I was going to ask you,’ I said at the door, ‘when you think you’ll be ready to… I don’t know… reintegrate… get back to daily life. But I was thinking and, well, you seem fine. This is… nice.’

  He nodded. ‘You can’t reintegrate into something that isn’t there any more,’ he said. ‘This place is good for me. I can’t cope with—’ and here he flapped his hand at the sky, ‘—any more. You find your nest and you dig in. And that’s me done.’

  I drove along empty lanes, hating the conspicuous car for once, and checking my mirror so much I was in danger of piling into a hedge, but I was not followed. That itch though, that certainty wouldn’t get out of my muscles. Someone was looking for me. The four that were left. I eased off the mirror, tried to relax and fantasised about doing what Frank Pastor had done. Bolthole. Isolation. Maybe one day, afterwards. I couldn’t sell up and move out knowing there was some kind of contract on me. And I couldn’t get out of London while Sarah was at risk.

  First though: A11, M11, M25, A2. Sometimes I feel like a travelling salesman. It’s just me and the car and my foot on the pedal. And there’s nothing to hawk but an idea. Hope. But nobody wants to trade in that these days.

  15

  I got to Rochester in three hours. I was on his street at a little after ten a.m. To pass the time I did a little digging online and found a newspaper article from a couple of years previously about Collins, Terence. He’d given decades of service to his profession and had bowed out while employed at Cold Quay. Cake and fizz and a gold watch. He was looking forward to his retirement, apparently. Who could blame him, going toe-to-toe with the mental cases in that place? He was going to devote his time to his grandkids and his hobby: model trains. That was quite a comedown from being threatened every day by some missing link with his teeth filed to points and a tattoo of a noose around his neck. I might be going OTT a bit on the description, but I’d met plenty of scary beasts who called prison home. People who’d sooner bathe in your blood than look at you, and have your head on a pike by the tub while they did it.

  An hour later I saw him emerging from his house in a thick jumper and nicely pressed slacks. I parked the car and followed him into town. I’d never been to Rochester before but I’d heard it said that if Kent is the Garden of England, Medway is its compost heap. It didn’t seem too bad to me, but then it wasn’t a weekend night on the high street when most places display their true colours, invariably in shades of red.

  I watched him buy a newspaper and go into one of those coffee shops with lots of ironic crap paintings on the wall, big, well-worn armchairs and distressed tables. I was distressed too, when I went in after him and saw the prices for the breakfasts. I ordered one anyway, as did he. I had a pint of lager with mine, though, while he had coffee, and beggar the distaste on the waiter’s face. I wolfed everything down and, good boy that I am, resisted the temptation to order another cold one. I was finished long before him, so I leafed through a magazine while the overloud MOR aural sick poured into one ear and out the other.

  When he was full of sausages and good cheer, he set off back towards Curzon Road. I intercepted him as he crossed the railway bridge.

  ‘Mr Collins?’ I said. ‘Terence Collins?’

  ‘Terry,’ he said. He didn’t seem at all fazed by a stranger uttering his name. He was smiling. Maybe this kind of thing happened all the time. I decided to take advantage of it. I stuck out a hand and gave him a disarming smile of my own.

&nb
sp; ‘I’m a journalist,’ I said. ‘From Milton Keynes.’

  ‘Journalist,’ he said. The smile remained. ‘Which paper?’

  ‘The Messenger,’ I said, guessing wildly. ‘I’m doing a piece on prisons. About how life in prison for inmates, as well as staff, can accelerate ageing.’

  ‘Can it now?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. There was a study in the States some years ago that found a sentence of two decades will reduce life expectancy by around fifteen years. But the officers suffer too. Heart attacks, ulcers, depression, alcohol abuse. All down to stress. Long hours, unpleasant conditions, locking horns every day with dangerous criminals…’

  ‘You’re quite some distance from Milton Keynes.’

  ‘I am, yes. But that’s because of you.’

  ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’

  ‘Well I remember reading that story the paper did about you retiring. From Cold Quay. That’s the link to MK, of course. I found your comments to be intelligent and thoughtful. A cut above the usual narrative.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you to say.’

  ‘Not at all. It makes an impact, that kind of thing, in my profession. All too often you get people trotting out the same lines. The same clichés.’

  He was maybe late fifties, early sixties. His hair was silver. I noticed that although he was neatly dressed, there was dirt under his fingernails. And he had shaved this morning: his skin was dry and red, a little shaving cream that he’d missed dried to thin curd on the underside of his jaw. I thought, He was married; she’s gone.

  ‘Come back to the house,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea.’

  It was nice to meet someone for a change who wasn’t suspicious or combative. I felt bad about duping him and thought about coming clean, but I supposed it didn’t matter. My imposture wasn’t hurting anybody.

  He got us inside and I followed him straight to the kitchen. The faint smell of last night’s dinner clung to the fabrics and carpets. Pictures on the wall. Flowers. Butterflies. Inoffensive: she picked them, he hung them, he never took them down.

  ‘You live alone, Mr Collins?’

  ‘Terry, please. Yes, yes, Mrs Collins went the way of all flesh five years ago. But she’s still with me, obviously.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. She was with him in the way he ironed his shirts and got his hair cut every six weeks. She was in the meals he cooked for himself. I imagined him standing in front of the wardrobe, waiting for her to point out which clothes to choose.

  ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ he said.

  ‘Joel,’ I said. ‘Joel Sefton.’

  He stuck out his hand and I almost told him we’d played that particular game, but I had to act nice. This was his home. He was all right. I accepted it.

  He folded it back towards me so that my fingers were bending against themselves. ‘This is a simple defence hold that we’re taught during training,’ he said. ‘The police use it too. I’ve used it many times. It’s most effective. You need minimum effort and the victim cannot counter at all.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. He kept tweaking his grip every time I made to readjust my stance or tried to grab at his arm with my free hand. The pain was causing me to buckle at the knees.

  ‘Who are you, really?’

  ‘Joel Sefton. I’m a journ—’

  ‘You’re no more a journalist than I am a lion tamer,’ he said. ‘The newspaper in Milton Keynes is the Citizen. There is no Messenger.’

  ‘I’m freelance.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Joel Sorrell,’ I said. ‘I’m a private investigator.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  I told him the whole sorry mess about Rebecca and as soon as I mentioned her name he let me go. He made mugs of tea and put them on the table. He supplied a plate of chocolate digestives.

  ‘You should have just told me the truth,’ he said. ‘I would have talked to you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Force of habit. You find yourself smacking your head against so many closed doors you don’t notice when they’re open.’

  ‘Your name cropped up, from time to time, now I recall,’ he said.

  ‘In conjunction with Graeme Tann.’

  ‘Graeme, yes.’

  All the things I could have asked him, this man who had seen Tann up close on a daily basis.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘He was a model inmate. Respectful, helpful, we never had a peep out of him in all the time he was there.’

  ‘And then he burns the place down and goes on the run.’

  Collins smiled but it was bitter and ugly. ‘There was nothing in his behaviour to suggest that he was going to start a prison riot.’

  I sipped my tea and stared at the chocolate digestives. I could think of plenty in his behaviour, but Collins was obviously having none of it. He might not have come up with the stock platitudes in his newspaper interview, but I was playing responsibility bingo now and I knew he was going to say something along the lines of ‘not on my watch’ some time soon.

  ‘Why did you retire?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d done my time,’ he said, and gave me another look at that bitter little smile. I got the impression he’d regretted his decision, even despite what had just happened at Cold Quay; that he preferred to be there, among his mates and the maniacs, rather than the ghosts in this house. ‘It’s true. It’s a stressful job. If you allow it to be. I was a good prison officer, I think. And enough governors and prisoners said so themselves over the years.’

  I cut through this little masturbation session and asked him if he’d seen anything to suggest there might be a riot on the horizon, before he’d left.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. He took a sip from his mug. There was a picture of a woman wearing an apron and brandishing a rolling pin beneath the legend: I’M IN CHARGE. ‘I mean, there are always little rebellions going on all the time. Inmates chancing their arm, pushing their luck. But it’s all bluster in the main.’

  ‘So why this catastrophic failure? The place was razed, Terry.’

  ‘Overcrowding was a problem,’ he said. ‘And facilities, while not what you’d call “Victorian”, were less than ideal.’

  I wanted to get out. I was sick of his tea and his biscuits and the bottle of Fairy liquid by the sink, the carefully folded tea towel on the handle of the oven. A letter rack contained a Hornby model train catalogue. A polythene bag contained two miniature trees, around the size of my thumb.

  ‘Things weren’t so bad when I was there. I can’t imagine what went wrong after I’d gone.’

  Tick.

  ‘Tell me about Graeme,’ I said. ‘I got the impression he was a sad little wanker who mooched about getting his kicks staring at women undressing through cracks in the wall. Quiet. Pathetic. One of those weak little piss stains in life. Boring and forgettable.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘He thinks the world of you.’

  Bitter smile. I matched it with one of my own.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be flippant.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Turns out, anyway, Tann has some clout. Who’d have thought it? Enters a tough prison as someone you’d think would be odds-on for a full-on anal assault in the showers, ends up cock of the walk. How does that happen?’

  ‘I noticed Graeme Tann was not what you’d call intimidating. But there are other ways to curry favour.’

  ‘Noshing off the guards?’

  Bitter smile. ‘I was thinking more about supplying inmates with, um, luxury items.’

  ‘You mean drugs.’

  ‘Drugs, tobacco, chocolate, men’s magazines. Et cetera.’

  ‘And how would they do that?’

  ‘Good contacts on the outside. Some way of smuggling the gear in.’

  ‘And how would they smuggle the gear in? High-security prison. Diligent prison officers on duty. I doubt anything got past you when you were doing
your rounds.’

  He picked up a biscuit and snapped it in half. The dried scurf of shaving cream was flaking away from his skin and catching in the fibres of his jumper. Through the kitchen window I could see his garden; he’d been at it with a spade, digging up turf. He saw my scrutiny and put down his halves of biscuit.

  ‘Getting rid of my lawn,’ he explained. ‘Too much of a time suck. You need to be mowing it two, three times a week in summer. I’m no green fingers. Going to put in some decking and gravel. Get a Japanese maple.’

  I wondered what the late Mrs Collins would have made of that. The garden was her passion, I’d have thought. I imagine he had wrestled with his conscience for many a day before that tang tucked into the soil.

  ‘How do you fill your days then, now that you’re a free man? Other than wrecking your back yard? Do you have grandchildren?’

  ‘No. My wife and I couldn’t have a family. But I have a couple of hobbies that keep me occupied. I go fishing. I’ve got a season ticket at Gillingham – supported them for fifty years man and boy. I like to cook…’ His voice trailed off, as if he was going to add some other things, but had thought better of it.

  ‘Where do you keep your train set?’ I asked.

  He started, as if I’d read his mind, but then he saw the catalogue and the miniature landscape scenery, and he snatched them up and put them in a drawer.

  ‘What did you get out of it, Terry?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t have to talk to you. I’ll call the police.’

  ‘I’ll save you the bother and call them myself. I’m sure they’d be interested to know that I found a tunnel down at Cold Quay. It’s how all those tasty treats were getting in and out of the prison. Did Tann have something to do with it?’

  He stood up. ‘Well, since you’ve worked it out by yourself, you might as well come and have a look at my pride and joy.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Collins,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got time to fuck about.’

  But he was going to have his way. I followed him through the hallway to the stairs. I didn’t like the look of this. I imagined him taking me into a room where there were lots of cleavers, and the floor was covered in plastic sheeting. We went up and he led me into a large bedroom that had been converted into a Thomas the Tank Engine wankfest for grown-ups. He flicked a switch on a table and trains started slithering along tracks.