Borstal Slags

by Graham, Tom

  Sam felt his gasp on Donner’s wrist loosening as they both thrashed and writhed.

  Don’t let go! For God’s sake, don’t let go!

  A knee shot upwards into Sam’s groin. He let go.

  The huge knife flashed before his eyes. He felt it slice through the leather of his jacket, just missing the vulnerable flesh beneath. Sam fell back, and at once Donner was on him, stabbing downwards with the knife. It hit his chest.

  That’s it, he thought, very clearly. I’m dead.

  In the next moment, a concussive boom resounded across the office. A spark leapt from the knife blade as it jerked from Donner’s hand and clattered across the floor. Donner had time to turn and glare upwards at the imposing figure who strode briskly towards him – and then a hand, clad in a black-leather string-back, struck him with the force of a speeding locomotive. The boy was lifted clear off the ground for a moment, carried helplessly by the sheer power of the blow. He landed hard, and at once tried to leap back up. But a second blow, this time from the butt of a smoking Magnum, knocked him out cold.

  ‘Norman Bates – you’re ruddy nicked,’ Gene growled, planting a leather-loafered foot firmly on the boy’s motionless body, like a big-game hunter posing for a photograph. With his black-gloved thumb he clicked the Mangum’s safety catch back on, and glanced across at Sam. ‘Still think my toys ain’t no good, Tyler?’

  ‘They have their uses,’ admitted Sam, aching and battered.

  Annie rushed over to him and threw her arms around him, holding him tight.

  ‘I thought you’d had it!’ she said, very close to his ear, her voice unsteady with emotion. ‘I thought that knife had gone right into you!’

  She released him from her hug and looked down at his jacket. It was ripped, right above the heart. Sam felt inside, his fingers reaching into the inside breast pocket, and pulled out the thing that had saved him. The gold casing of the fob watch was dented inwards where it had taken the force of the knife.

  ‘Shaves don’t get much closer than that,’ said Sam.

  Annie hugged him again, even tighter than before, and kissed him full on the mouth.

  ‘Get a flamin’ hotel room, you two,’ Sam heard Gene growl. ‘It’s like one of them Swedish films down the Roxy, only crap.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE FACE OF THE DEVIL

  Night had settled over the city, and it found CID A-Division quiet and almost deserted. The phones were silent, the typewriters unmanned. Chris and Ray had both repaired to the Railway Arms to get thoroughly bladdered. Only Sam and Annie remained behind – and the Guv, who emerged from his office after taking a late-night call.

  ‘McClintock’ll live, apparently,’ announced Gene, looming out of his office. ‘That was his quack on the blower just now. They’ve got him in the hozzie being fed porridge through a drip in his arm.’

  ‘As soon as he’s well enough, I’m going to go speak to him,’ said Sam.

  Gene frowned. ‘Go speak to Tavish McTwat? What the hell for?’

  ‘I just – have a few more questions for him.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll come with you, Tyler. Bring him some oats. And catch up with that nurse down there who’s got the hots for me.’

  ‘I’m not sure your company would be appreciated,’ Sam said tactfully.

  ‘I don’t see why not. I’m a charmer. And I do a brilliant Tommy Cooper – that’ll bring a smile to his face.’

  ‘I think in this instance, Guv, discretion is the better part of valour.’

  ‘Discretion is my middle name,’ Gene said. ‘And valour. And tripod.’ He winked at Annie. ‘Oh, maybe you’re right, Tyler. What are me and that Jock going to say to each other, eh?’

  The Guv shrugged on his coat, straightened his broad tie, adjusted his cuffs and checked his reflection in one of his office’s nicotine-coated windows. He gnashed his teeth, smoothed back his hair and flicked out a bogey from his left nostril.

  ‘Killer,’ he told his reflection, and fired a finger-pistol at himself. And then, sauntering across to the door, he called over his shoulder, ‘Don’t forget the lights on your way out, kiddies. See you bright and breezy first thing.’

  And, with that, he was gone.

  ‘So,’ said Sam, getting a little closer to Annie, ‘it’s now just the two of us. Alone.’

  ‘In CID, of all places. How romantic.’

  ‘We could always go back to my place. It’s crap and it’s cold and the bloke next door plays Thin Lizzy at all hours, but still …’

  Annie gave him a serious look. She thought hard for a moment, and then, with great deliberation, said, ‘I really like you, Sam.’

  ‘That sounds like one of them sentences that continues with a “but”.’

  ‘Well …’ She looked for the right words. ‘I do like you. A lot. I really care about you.’

  ‘There’s still a “but” on its way.’

  ‘Some of the things you say … The way you talk sometimes …’

  ‘You mean the things I said about your father?’ Sam asked. ‘Forget about it, Annie. I talk daft sometimes, you know that. But I’m still me. I’m not like Donner, I’m not a psycho.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a psycho,’ Annie said, trying to find the right way to express her thoughts. ‘Perhaps I thought you were a bit bonkers, you know, when you first said it, but then – something happened.’

  ‘What, Annie? What happened?’

  ‘That watch. The gold one that McClintock had. When I saw it, it sort of … seemed like it was familiar.’

  Sam watched her as she furrowed her brow and chewed her lip, trying to make sense of whatever was going on inside her mind.

  ‘Not just familiar,’ she went on. ‘Important, somehow. And for a moment, Sam, it was like – like it was like when you’re trying to think of a word and it’s right on the tip of your tongue.’

  ‘And did you remember, Annie?’

  She sighed and shrugged. ‘The next thing that happened was that Donner went for you with that knife, and then everything went out of my head.’ She tried to banish that awful memory from her mind. ‘What I’m trying to say, and making a total pig’s ear out of, is that I really do like you, Sam – and that I don’t think you’re bonkers for saying all that stuff about my dad. I think you know something – about me – something really important that I’ve forgotten. I – I don’t understand how you know, or what it is, or why I’ve forgotten it or what it means, but …’ Her troubled expression all at once cleared. She smiled at Sam, as much with her eyes as with her mouth. ‘I like you, Sam. And I trust you. And I know that, even if here and now ain’t the right time, that one day – very soon – you’ll tell me what you know. Because you’ve got a secret, haven’t you, Sam?’

  Sam looked at her for a long time, and then, at last, he said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘A secret about yourself – and about me.’

  ‘Yes, Annie.’

  ‘And one day, when we’re not as knackered as we are right now, and when it’s the right place, and the right time, you’ll tell me, won’t you. And then—’

  ‘Chuffin’ Nora! You two still here?’

  It was Gene, sweeping back in. Sam and Annie jumped, the fragile mood between them shattered.

  ‘I hope you ain’t thinking of using my office for hanky-panky,’ the Guv declared, stomping over to his desk and rummaging through a drawer. ‘Any fanny up for grabs between these hallowed walls is sole property of G. Hunt esquire. And no disrespect luv,’ he added for Annie’s benefit, ‘but I prefer ’em fuller up top and less boysy in the leg department. With pins like yours you should be playing for Bolton Wanderers. Aha!’ He suddenly flourished what he had been looking for: the keys to the Cortina. ‘The reins to my trusty stallion. Every knight needs his horse, Tyler – and I can see you’ve got yours.’

  Sam looked him straight in the eye as he spoke. ‘Guv, this degree of personal abuse you feel the need to dish out, don’t you think it suggests you might have some sort of behavioural problem?’


  ‘Nah,’ said Gene, jangling the keys to the Cortina as he strode back across towards the door. Then he paused, thought for a moment, and said, ‘McClintock’s shitty little watch. You still got it, Sam?’

  ‘I have. Why do you ask?’

  Gene shrugged. ‘Dunno. Something about it set me thinking.’ Sam and Annie shared a glance. Gene thought for a moment, then contemptuously waved his own thoughts away. ‘Ach, forget it. Ain’t got time to fanny about like this – the boys are expecting me to join them for a nightcap down the Arms.’

  ‘Give my regards to Nelson, Guv,’ Sam said.

  ‘I ain’t your flamin’ messenger boy,’ growled Gene as he strode out. ‘Christ, Tyler, you’re a saucy little get when you’re showin’ off to the crumpet. Birds in the department – it’s gonna spell the ruin of this place, you mark my words.’

  Puffing his chest out and squaring his jaw, Gene thrust his hand flagrantly down the front of his trousers to shift his balls into a more comfortable position, cleared his throat loudly, and went striding off along the corridor lustily whistling the theme from Van der Valk. A few moments later, from outside, came the revving of a Cortina’s engine, and the squeal of tyres. Then there was silence. This time, he was definitely gone.

  ‘Do you reckon he’s got kids?’ Sam asked.

  ‘The Guv?’ Annie balked. She thought about it. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But I don’t think he reproduces like us humans do.’

  ‘Oh? And how do us humans do it, then? I’m only a young ’un. I’d love to learn.’

  Annie drew closer. ‘We’d better see about fitting in you in for some lessons, then.’

  ‘Evening classes?’

  ‘Night school.’

  As Sam took Annie’s face in his hands and moved in to kiss her, there came the sudden clattering of a mop and bucket, and the high-pitched howl of a dodgy hearing aid. It was Deaf Aid Doreen, the night cleaner.

  ‘Oi, you two, you can’t ’ump in ’ere, I need to do under the desks.’

  Annie laughed and drew away from Sam.

  ‘Come home with me,’ Sam said.

  ‘I need to sleep. So do you.’

  ‘We can talk. I can – I can tell you about—’

  She rested her finger against his lips: ‘Another night.’

  She got her coat and handbag, then looked slyly across at him. ‘Looks like you’ll just have to wait for the start of term for them lessons.’

  ‘Any chance of some private tuition?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She smiled at him – a warm but teasing smile – and walked a seductive tightrope towards the door, wiggling her hips and glancing alluringly back over her shoulder like Betty Grable. ‘See you in the morning – Boss.’

  And, with that, she was gone.

  Doreen nudged Sam in the ribs with the end of her mop. ‘Bit of a goer, is she?’

  ‘I haven’t had the chance to find out yet,’ sighed Sam.

  ‘Eh? You what, luv?’ She fiddled with her hearing aid, making it whistle.

  ‘I’ve got to be going – early start in the morning,’ Sam intoned back at her, and he left her to her mopping.

  Back at his desk, Sam put a few things away, got his jacket – then paused. From his jacket pocket he pulled out the gold-plated fob watch and its slender chain.

  Everything’s coming to a head, he thought, letting the chain play across his fingers. Soon – very soon – I will tell Annie everything: about me, about her, about where we are; about the violent past that she cannot remember; the father who was murdered; and that monster Clive Gould. And, together, we’ll face that monster. Because he’s close now. He’s right around the corner. He’s breathing down our necks – and this watch in my hands is the link between me and him. Somehow, it is the bridge that brings us together.

  He shoved the watch into his pocket and shrugged on his jacket.

  That girl from the test card was wrong when she said the universe is too big for any one of us to matter more than a grain of sand. Me and Annie, we can be happy together, despite everything. I know we can – and that’s all that matters. I will be with her, she will be with me, and the whole damned universe can go to hell.

  As Deaf Aid Doreen lumbered about, working clumsily with the mop, her broad backside bumped against the Xerox machine, awakening it and setting it off making copies. Sam called to her, but Doreen heard not a word. She lugged her bucket away in search of fresh water.

  Sam crossed over to the copier to stop it. It was churning out page after page of blank copier paper. He pressed various buttons, shook it, thwacked it, but the machine didn’t respond, just kept sweeping its light and spewing out another blank sheet – or were they blank?

  Frowning, Sam picked up one of the sheets. It stank of chemicals – and of something else, something like burnt charcoal. There, just visible on the surface of the paper, was the hazy suggestion of a face. He turned the sheet towards the light and peered closer, making out narrow eyes, a broad chin, a cruel mouth behind which sat a chaotic jumble of large, uneven teeth.

  At once, he felt his skin tighten. The hairs tingled on the back of his neck.

  The face, faint as it was, was unmistakable.

  Sam grabbed the power cable of the copier and wrenched it from the wall. The machine fell silent. When he looked back down at the sheet of paper in his hands, it was blank. Totally blank. The face of the Devil in the Dark was gone.

  ‘But not for long,’ Sam said.

  To be concluded in

  GET CARTWRIGHT

  Read on for an exclusive peek, available summer 2013.

  CHAPTER ONE: SHADOW OF THE PAST

  It was Sunday morning. Manchester was still and silent. And DI Sam Tyler was staring death in the face.

  My God! It’s him …

  His blood had frozen in his veins.

  Don’t run. Stand your ground.

  His heart was hammering in his chest.

  This is it. This is the showdown. Don’t run – be a man – it’s time to finish this thing here and now!

  The silent confrontation between him and death had been as sudden as it was unexpected. He had been walking through the city on a typically dead Sunday morning. Manchester was lying in, its curtains still drawn, its head under the covers, refusing to budge. Here in 1973, Sunday trading was still just a promise – or a threat – that lay in the future. Apart from a few corner shops and wayside cafés, all the shutters were down. Hardly a car moved in the streets. An elderly man walked his elderly dog. A solitary council worker gathered up discarded cans of Tennent’s and stinking chip papers. And, through this, Sam had made his way, lost in his own thoughts.

  As he hurried past the Roxy cinema, a sudden movement caught his eye. He glanced up – and at once he gasped and stumbled to a halt. Stepping out silently from the dark façade of the cinema came a shadowy figure, blank-faced and featureless. It positioned itself in Sam’s way, standing motionless in front of a gaudy poster for Westworld, which remained visible through its hazy, insubstantial body. Grotesquely, Yul Brynner’s face – falling away like a mask to reveal robot mechanics underneath – could be seen where the shadow’s own face should have been.

  Sam knew at once what – or rather who – that phantom was. He knew the aura of horror that hung about it, had experienced before the unreasoning terror that surrounded this dreadful apparition.

  Running a dry tongue over dry lips, Sam said as calmly as he could, ‘So. Looks like you’ve found me, Mr Gould.’

  There was no sign of response. Yul Brynner glared back at him through the blank mask of the Devil in the Dark.

  Sam tried to pluck up the courage to take a challenging step towards this thing of darkness. But his feet would not obey him. He remained rooted to the spot. Acting tougher than he felt, he said, ‘How are we going to do this? Do we fight? Or do you just zap me with a death ray? Whatever it is, let’s do. Right now. Let’s finish this.’

  Brave words. But he felt anything but brave. A bead of sweat rol
led down his face.

  The shadow shifted its position, and now, through its hazy form, Sam could see the Westworld poster’s tagline, perfectly readable through Gould’s chest:

  ‘Don’t just stand there,’ Sam said, lifting his head and refusing to be cowed. ‘You want Annie? Forget it. You’re not getting her. She’s with me now, you filthy, bullying, murdering bastard. You’re never going to lay so much as finger on her ever again. You and her are history, done with. But you and me, Mr Gould, we have business to finish.’ He raised his fists. They felt puny and weak, like the fists of a child. ‘So let’s get on with it.’

  Clive Gould, the Devil in the Dark, remained still and silent, an insubstantial shadow, a dark, hazy stain upon the air. But Sam could still recall the broad-nosed, snaggle-toothed face of Clive Gould as he had seen it for himself that awful night he had witnessed the murder of Annie’s father, PC Tony Cartwright. In dreams and waking visions, the Test Card Girl had shown him more of Gould’s cruelty, the sickening treatment Annie had suffered in life from this brute, the beatings, the assaults, the psychological torture. And, although he had not seen it for himself (thank God), he knew that it was at Gould’s hands that Annie had died. She had died, just as Sam had died, and Gene Hunt and all the rest of them, and wound up here in this strange simulacrum of 1973 that lay somewhere between Life and the Life Beyond.

  And at some point Clive Gould died too, Sam thought. But, unlike Annie, he shouldn’t have come here. His place was elsewhere. But that hasn’t stopped him. He’s forcing his way into 1973, strengthening his presence here, becoming more and more real. At first, he was a dream, a glimpse of something awful in the dark recesses of my mind. Then I saw him personified in the monstrous body tattoos of bare-knuckle boxer Patsy O’Riordan. Then, in Friar’s Brook borstal, I saw his face, and I saw how he murdered Annie’s father.

  And now – right now – I’m seeing him again. A shadow – a ghost.

  Sam frowned, tilted his head, thought to himself.

  ‘You’re not saying very much, Mr Gould. What’s the matter? Don’t you want to kill me here and now? Or is it – is it that you want to, but you’re not strong enough yet?’