Borstal Slags

by Graham, Tom

  When at last they saw it, Friar’s Brook borstal appeared as an assortment of squat, unfriendly buildings heavily fenced off from the surrounding countryside. The barred gate across the track and the barbed wire spiralling along the top of it made Sam think of concentration camps.

  ‘It’s so bleak,’ he said. ‘It’s like something out of Schindler’s List.’

  ‘Schindler’s list of what? Holiday camps to avoid? I’ve stayed in worse places.’

  ‘All seems a bit tough, though, don’t you think? I mean, for kids.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Tyler? You gone soft? It’s a lock-up, it’s supposed to be tough.’

  ‘Half them lads in there, I bet they’ve never known anything in their lives but “tough”.’

  ‘Life ain’t no picnic, not for any of us.’

  ‘I bet they’ve never known what it feels like to be safe and warm and looked after,’ Sam mused, peering through the high fence at the barred windows and heavily bolted doorways. ‘What chance do they have? Parents who don’t care, violence at home, violence at school, no job prospects, no education, no role models.’

  ‘Well I did all right,’ put in Gene, defensively.

  ‘I wasn’t referring to you, Guv.’

  ‘And knock it off about “no education”. I’m a walking encyclopedia, Tyler, you’d be surprised. Go on, ask me how to spell silhouette.’

  But Sam’s mind was still on that collection of low, mean-looking buildings and the unseen inmates entombed within. ‘Just think of all the wasted talent, wasted intelligence just rotting away inside that place. There’s boys in there could have been surgeons, or architects, or airline pilots, if only they’d been born a few miles across town where kids have a chance. Artists, writers – a future prime minister, who knows?’

  ‘Future prime minister? From round here? There’ll be a bird in Number 10 before there’s a Northerner,’ Gene growled.

  ‘Maybe there will be a bird. And one who is a northerner. There’s a thought for you, Guv.’

  Gene snorted contemptuously and shook his head. ‘I know what’s going on in that grubby little brain of yours, Tyler. The only northern bird you want to see on top is your bit of prospective crumpet.’

  ‘I take it that offensive epithet refers to our colleague WDC Cartwright? Guv, why can’t you and the other boys in the department just get used to the fact that people sometimes have what the grown-ups call relationships?’

  ‘Just keep your mind on the job we’ve come here to do,’ Gene barked. ‘If we find a hint that Andy Coren’s death wasn’t an accident, and that he ended up in that crusher for any other reason than him and his brother being a couple of useless dopey donuts, then Annie’s put us on the right track. She’ll have earned her brownie points for the day. That should loosen her knickers, Sam – get you one step closer to the ol’ pinball machine.’

  ‘Jesus, Guv, the way your mind works.’

  ‘Ain’t no different from yours, Tyler, except I’ve got what it takes to make DCI.’

  ‘So have I!’

  ‘When you’re old and grey, most like. But until then, Tyler, you’re just my little trained monkey. Now, then – best behaviour. We’ve arrived.’

  Gene brought the Cortina to the front gates and sounded the horn. They waited.

  ‘It’s like a picking up a date,’ he observed.

  ‘If that’s our date, Guv, you’re welcome to him,’ said Sam, as a gate officer appeared, dressed in black warder’s uniform with a fierce peaked cap. The man’s face was hard and angular, with a flat, broken nose and small, unfriendly eyes.

  Police IDs were flashed, and the gates were unlocked. As the Cortina nosed through, Gene stuck his head out of the window.

  ‘What’s going on there?’ he asked, indicating a set of roofless, broken buildings at the east wing. ‘V-2 come down on you, did it?’

  ‘Demolition,’ said the gate officer in a surly voice. ‘Pulling down the old kitchens and boiler house.’

  ‘That’s where the junk was coming from that ended up in Kersey’s Yard,’ said Sam. ‘Andy Coren’s escape plan wasn’t bad, Guv. He saw a chance and he took it.’

  ‘And then buggered it up,’ Gene growled. ‘Unless somebody else made sure it was buggered up for him.’

  Gene parked the car outside the reception area and clambered out. Sam followed him. Beneath a weather-beaten sign that said ‘HMP FRIAR’S BROOK’ stood a heavy door, which the gate officer now began to noisily unlock with yet another key on his chain.

  I don’t want to go inside there, Sam thought suddenly. He felt icy panic, as if something terrible awaited him within those drab, grey walls.

  ‘What’s up with you, Tyler?’

  ‘Nothing, Guv.’

  ‘Got the fidgets? You should’ve gone before we set off.’

  ‘I said it’s nothing, Guv.’

  ‘If you’re going to get spooked by a spot of kiddies’ porridge, Tyler, you should never have come along. I’d be better off with Ray.’

  ‘Guv, just leave it.’

  The gate officer rattled his keys and the heavy door clanged open, revealing a hallway with a tiled floor and whitewashed walls. It reminded Sam of a public toilet.

  ‘Get yourself ready, Tyler,’ Gene boomed, slapping his palms together and rubbing them briskly. ‘If you think the outside of this place is grim, wait until you breathe the air in them cells. Parfoom de Borstal. The heady aroma of BO, spunk and bunged-up khazies. And that’s just the staff who work here.’

  The gate officer glared at him from beneath his peaked cap. ‘Watch it, plod.’

  ‘DCI!’ retorted Gene, patting at imaginary pips on his arm as he swept by. Sam hurried after him. Behind them, the door clanged shut, with a power and finality that sent a cold shiver running along Sam’s spine. It was as if he himself were an inmate, arriving within the walls of this terrible place, doomed never to see the outside world again.

  Get a grip, Tyler, for God’s sake, he told himself firmly, and followed the Guv’s lumbering hulk as it swaggered off ahead of him.

  Sam and Gene were escorted by a warder along an interminable corridor. Far from reeking of filth and sweat, the air was thick with the pungent smell of detergent. Everything was scrubbed and polished, obsessively so.

  Up ahead, they saw one of the inmates. He was a frail, spotty-faced boy, dressed in denim dungarees. He listlessly mopped the floor. But, the moment he eyed the guard approaching, he made a show of working hard.

  How old is he? Sam thought. Fourteen? Fifteen? What sort of life’s brought him to this awful place? And what kind of future has he got in store?

  As Sam approached, he noticed a ragged piece of brown cloth stitched unhandily to the front of the boy’s shirt. But, when Sam tried to get a closer look, the boy turned away, averting his eyes and keeping his face towards the wall.

  ‘This way, gentlemen,’ said the warder, and he indicated an oak-panelled door. The sign on it read: ‘J. W. FELLOWES, PRINCIPAL GOVERNOR’.

  ‘I suppose we’d better knock,’ said Gene, flinging the door open straightaway without warning.

  Mr Fellowes, the borstal governor, sat behind his large desk. He looked up, startled. He was a balding man, rotund and soft-skinned, more at home with civil servants than hardened inmates.

  ‘Don’t wet ’em, it’s just us,’ said Gene, holding up his ID. He sniffed the air extravagantly. ‘At least your office don’t honk of Dettol.’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ stammered Fellowes. ‘Are you arresting me or something?’

  ‘I apologize for my superior officer, Mr Fellowes,’ Sam said, positioning himself in front of Gene to try to block him. ‘This is DCI Hunt. My name’s DI Tyler, Manchester CID, A-Division.’

  From behind him came a tight, clipped, richly Scottish voice. ‘A dramatic entrance, gentlemen. Ill mannered, unprofessional – but dramatic, I’ll grant you.’

  Sam and Gene turned to see a proud, stiff-backed warder standing in the open doorway. His
black uniform was immaculate. At his waist hung two chains, a silver one bearing keys, and a gold one attached to a showy fob watch he kept tucked into his pocket. For some reason, that watch caught Sam’s attention. He felt a cold shudder run through his body.

  Mr Fellowes cleared got to his feet and said, ‘This is our head warder, House Master McClintock.’

  So this is McClintock, thought Sam. He’s not an inmate at all: he’s the head warder. Is this the man I need to be watching? Was Barton right to tell me to keep my eye on him?

  McClintock stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. And, again, Sam found himself peering at the gold fob watch at his waist. What was its significance? Why did it demand his attention like this?

  ‘And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company, gentlemen?’ McClintock asked, eyeing them both suspiciously.

  ‘We’ve just been fishing one of your lads out of a crushing machine,’ announced Gene, eyeing McClintock right back. ‘Andy Coren. Handy Andy. Name ring a bell?’

  Fellowes and McClintock shot a glance at each other.

  ‘It does indeed ring a bell,’ said Fellowes. ‘I regret to admit that we … slipped up recently and permitted Andrew Coren an opportunity to escape. We were rather hoping we’d pick him up again without too much of a fuss. He’s not violent, just slippery.’

  ‘We have an excellent record here for security,’ said McClintock in his clipped tones. ‘None of us wish to see it besmirched.’

  Gene shrugged. ‘Your reputation might not be besmirched, Jimmy, but Andy Coren certainly is. Well and truly besmirched all over a load of old ovens in a great big crusher. Right old mess it was. Squashed, flattened, half his internal organs squirtin’ out his arse. I can go into more details if you like.’

  Fellowes sat down slowly and laid his hands on his desk. ‘So. He got out inside one of the ovens. It’s as we thought.’

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ declared McClintock. ‘I have implemented tighter security.’

  Fellowes looked up at Gene and Sam, said, ‘Thank you for coming out here to inform me of this tragedy – though I can’t see why it took two experienced officers to come here in person, when a phone call would have sufficed.’

  ‘We came here, Mr Fellowes, because of certain irregularities associated with Coren’s death,’ said Sam.

  ‘What sort of irregularities?’

  Sam found himself glancing nervously at McClintock, although the House Master was motionless and silent, his blank face unreadable.

  I don’t like that man. There’s something wrong about him.

  ‘Well, Detective Inspector? What sort of irregularities?’

  ‘Hard to say at present,’ said Sam, forcing his attention away from McClintock and back to Fellowes. ‘Ongoing intelligence. We’re in receipt of – scraps of information. We very much want to make sense of these scraps.’

  Fellowes looked searchingly at McClintock, then shrugged.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll help you all we can – if we can.’

  ‘Your kitchen block and boiler house,’ said Sam. ‘They’re being demolished. Why is that?’

  ‘They were unsafe,’ said Fellowes. ‘The boilers were ancient and simply had to go. And the kitchen had been in a dire state for years. We’d struggled on with it, but then there was a terrible accident with one of the gas ovens. It went up like a bomb.’

  ‘A boy was killed, am I right?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I’m afraid you are. After that, the Home Office had no choice but to allocate us funds for a refit. Perhaps you’d like to see our brand-new kitchens?’

  ‘I’d love to see your new kitchens more than words can say,’ growled Gene. ‘But, before you thrill me and my colleague with that particular emotional roller coaster, I want to know more about this boy what got barbecued. What kind of lad was he?’

  Fellowes fumbled for something to say, but it was McClintock who answered. ‘He was a young man by the name of Craig Tulse. Nasty little rogue he was. A lot of backchat. Insubordinate. A constant source of trouble to me and my warders.’

  ‘So – a relief to be rid of him?’ Gene said. His manner was confrontational.

  McClintock gave him a very cold stare. ‘The boy died. Burned. Horribly.’

  ‘I’ll bet. And what about this other lad, the one who topped himself a couple of weeks back? What’s his name again, Tyler?’

  ‘Tunning, Guv.’

  ‘Aye, Tunning. What’s the story with him, eh?’

  ‘Tunning hanged himself in his cell,’ said Fellowes. ‘Unfortunately, these things do happen. But may I point out that our suicide rate is lower than the state prison average.’

  ‘We’re not casting aspersions, Mr Fellowes,’ said Sam.

  ‘Well, we might be,’ growled Gene.

  ‘No we’re not,’ Sam cut across him. ‘We’re just trying to make sense of all things. Mr Fellowes, is there any connection that you can think of between Tunning’s suicide and Andy Coren’s death?’

  Fellowes shrugged and looked to McClintock for support.

  ‘They were both inmates at this facility,’ McClintock said flatly. ‘What more connection could there be?’

  ‘So – two deaths in two weeks is just a coincidence?’ said Sam. ‘Not to mention Tulse’s death a month or so before?’

  McClintock sighed. ‘Faulty stoves which have been replaced. A suicide. A bungled escape attempt. That, gentlemen, is the whole story.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Sam asked.

  ‘You said just now that you were not casting aspersions, Detective Inspector,’ McClintock said. ‘Your tone suggests the contrary.’

  ‘And your tone suggests you’re hiding something,’ snarled Gene, glaring at him. ‘What’s in the sporran, McTavish? Something nasty you don’t want the world to see?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector, I strongly suspect that you said that for no better reason than to get a rise out of me.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve got this thing about Jocks. As soon as I come across one I just have to get a rise.’

  ‘Then may I save you the bother of doing so by informing you now that you will get no such pleasure from me?’

  ‘Any institution housing criminals will have its share of accidents and suicides and escape attempts,’ put in Fellowes, keen to calm the tightening atmosphere. ‘We do our level best to keep such things to a minimum, but you appreciate that we cannot prevent them entirely.’

  ‘I recently spoke to an ex-inmate of yours,’ said Sam. ‘He suggested there were … irregularities here. What do you think he might have been referring to?’

  ‘I’m very surprised at you, Detective Inspector,’ said McClintock. ‘A man of your experience, giving credence to convicts’ tittle-tattle. The inmates will always cry “foul”. It is in the nature of inmates to do so.’

  ‘True,’ said Sam. ‘But sometimes they have a point.’

  ‘Not here, they don’t,’ McClintock said firmly. ‘There is a system in place here. The System. And the boys within these walls will abide by that System. No negotiations. No compromises. The System is everything, and that’s an end.’

  ‘Perhaps a spot of negotiation and compromise is exactly what these boys need,’ Sam suggested. ‘Treat them like adults and maybe they’ll start behaving like adults.’

  Mr McClintock fixed him with an implacable look. ‘Whether you like it or not, young Detective Inspector, the boys here cannot escape the System. They can run, kid themselves, score a few petty victories, tell themselves they’ll win in the end …’

  Sam frowned. He’d heard these words before. But where?

  ‘But it’s not so,’ McClintock went on, pulling out his fob watch and polishing its shiny casing with a pristine white handkerchief. ‘Everything here is fixed, set in place, unchangeable – like the passing of time itself. You can more easily rearrange the hours of the day, Detective Inspector Tyler, than alter the System.’

  I’ve heard that little speech before – in a dream
– in a dream about stars and the cosmos and—

  For a moment, Sam felt his head spinning, his thoughts reeling.

  I’m just a copper – and I’ve got a job to do.

  His gaze was drawn back to the gold fob watch in McClintock’s waist pocket. Its polished surface glinted, and Sam felt a powerful, almost giddying compulsion to reach out and grab it by the chain.

  He forced himself to stay focused.

  ‘What can you tell me about this?’ Sam asked, controlling his breathing as he placed the letter from Andy Coren on Fellowes’s desk.

  Fellowes peered at it, shrugged, and handed it to McClintock.

  ‘Well?’ Sam prompted.

  ‘All correspondences between inmates and the outside world pass by my desk,’ McClintock said proudly. ‘This letter bears my personal stamp. Thus, I approved it.’

  ‘It was written by Andrew Coren and sent to his brother Derek, correct?’

  ‘No, Detective Inspector, not correct.’

  Gene’s ears pricked up. ‘Explain what you mean by that, Jimmy.’

  ‘Like many inmates, Coren’s literary abilities did not stretch to the writing of even a simple letter such as this one,’ said McClintock.

  ‘He was illiterate?’ asked Sam.

  ‘No, not at all. Just unhandy with the written word. This letter, gentleman – and I know this from the handwriting – was written by a lad by the name of Donner. He’s an inmate here, although he shouldn’t be, not with the quality of the brain between his ears. He’s too intelligent to be indulging in crime. Perhaps he will mature in time and grow out of these criminal compulsions.’

  ‘So, this lad Donner,’ said Gene. ‘It’s him what wrote this letter on Coren’s behalf?’

  ‘It’s a service Donner supplies,’ said McClintock, passing the letter back to them. ‘Many of the boys here make use of him. No doubt they repay the favour in kind. Do you wish to speak to him?’

  ‘Yes, Mr McClintock, we do,’ said Sam.

  ‘With your leave, then, Mr Fellowes?’

  ‘I have no objections, Mr McClintock,’ said Fellowes, shuffling papers in his desk drawers. ‘But if you might excuse me, I have a great deal to get on with. An escaped inmate is a headache. A dead one is a migraine.’