by Jan Needle
When he objected, though, Lister argued back.
‘Michael, that man is what we need. You can’t have it both ways, feller. He’s dangerous, he’s hard, he’s the fucking business. You and me, we can’t walk this jail, OK? What’s more, we don’t know who we need to speak to, do we? We’ve gotta get the psychopaths on board, the blacks, the fruitcakes, the Forty-Fivers. I don’t even know what blocks they’re on, for fucksake, nor do you. Alan does, and every time he sticks his nose out of the cell some screw flattens it. Matt here they watch like Dolly Parton’s tits in spades, no pun intended. We need that fucking asshole.’
‘Jesus,’ put in Jerrold. ‘Party time.’
‘You better believe it,’ replied Lister. ‘If this job’s going to happen, it happens one hundred and fifty per cent and then some, or it fails. The place has got to fall to pieces. We’ve got to swamp the system, clog it up like a busted john. We’re getting out, remember? It’s not a Girl Scout jamboree.’
He crushed a cigarette out, then lit up another one. Nobody spoke.
‘Any terrorists inside?’ he said at last. ‘Any fucking Irishmen left over from last time? Any mad mullahs with firecrackers up their holy assholes? We need this place to go up like a hornets’ nest that someone kicked. We tell everyone who’s ever used a blade or gouged an eye out. We want bastards who drink blood.’
‘We need secrecy as well,’ Hughes said. ‘Which is where Rogers and his thugs come in. He’ll know who to tell and who to frighten, including the bentest screws. We need secrecy, and everybody knows if they cross Rogers they’re stone dead. Sorry, Michael. He’s our man.’
From the first formal meeting, Hughes and Lister were proved right. Thug he might have been, but Rogers was not stupid. He digested the outline of the plan, then the details, then came back with angles of his own. He organised meeting times and places, and he began to put out feelers to his fellow barons in the other wings and halls. In his opinion – in his humble opinion he said, gazing ironically at Masters with his bright, lubricious eyes – they needed a military structure of control. They needed a cadre who would activate the blow-up on the day, in every area, with precision.
‘Another thing,’ he added. ‘We need guns’.
This time, it was Hughes who made objections. Guns, he said, would shift it up a gear. If men had guns, men would shoot. His theory, at its purest, would involve only minimal violence. The system would break under the strain of numbers, not of blood.
‘Bollocks,’ said Rogers, brutally. His red-haired henchman, Billy Ford, nodded at his side. ‘Some of the screws are fucking barmy. They’ll try to keep us in. They won’t see reason.’
Ford did not have the irony, but he shared the view.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Some of them need shooting, any road. And some of the other cunts in here. I’m going to waste a nonce or three, no danger.’
‘But if we had guns,’ Hughes argued, ‘they’d crack down harder. There’d be people killed, they’d send the Army in. It really would be war.’
‘They’ll send the Army in anyway, you twat,’ said Rogers. ‘They’ve got a plan, haven’t they? After Buckie. Don’t you listen to the radio? That Home Secretary.’
‘Sir Gerald Turner,’ murmured Hughes. He did not like the talk of guns. He could imagine some of the consequences. ‘I know him. Knew him, once.’
‘No, not him,’ said Rogers. ‘His sidekick. Donald Something. Donald fucking Duck.’
‘Sinclair,’ said Masters. ‘Yes, that sounds like Sinclair.’
‘Bloody Ada,’ said Billy Ford. ‘And you know him, I spose? How about the Queen? Prince Charlie? Couldn’t you tap them up for some guns, they’re always popping pheasants, ain’t they? Here, that’s a thought, Brian! That farmhouse that we done that time, with Terry. Down in Hampshire, somewhere. What was it, World’s End?’
‘World’s End,’ said Brian Rogers. ‘Pratt’s Farm. They go in for funny names in Hampshire, don’t they? So what? We’re in Staffs.’
‘He had guns though, didn’t he? That old prat what lives there. All alone with all them shotguns. We could get someone outside to do him over, couldn’t we? It’s lonely enough. An easy roll.’
‘You’re fucking barmy,’ said Rogers. ‘What use are shotguns? How we going to get them in, up your Lynn’s jacksie? And it’s in bleeding Hampshire, ain’t it? It’s fucking miles away. Two hundred.’
‘If it comes to that,’ said Masters, sarcastically, ‘I’ve got an uncle with a full-scale armoury. My wife has, anyway. He’s even got an elephant gun. He could pull a helicopter down. He lives alone as well, on a Scottish bloody island. Jesus, I’ve got guns at home. Finding them’s not the problem, is it?’
‘What guns?’ said Lister, sharply. ‘Handguns?’
‘Yes, three or four. But so what, Charlie? They’re in a locked steel cupboard. They’re not accessible. D’you think my wife’s going to bring them in? If I even suggested it, she’d go straight to the law. I promise you.’
Billy Ford had got excited. He pushed his hair back from his eyes. ‘We could get it done! Give us the details, Mike! We could get them lifted! We wouldn’t do no damage!’
Even Brian Rogers laughed.
‘I can just see it, can’t you?’ he said. He fixed his eyes on Masters, and his smile was hungry. ‘Mikey gives us the details, and we send some boys in. You be careful, we tell them. Make sure you don’t fuck up the carpets. Or the children. Or the little wife. Don’t get out of hand, lads. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Be your age, Billy, for Christ’s sake.’ He paused, for a fraction of a beat. ‘We’ll bear it in mind for some other time, though. I expect you’re in the phone book aren’t you, Mike?’
There was an uncomfortable silence, which Brian Rogers broke. He reached into the pocket of his dungarees and produced a flick-knife. Snapped open, it had a polished, pointed, six-inch blade.
‘Without no guns,’ he said, ‘we’ve got much less control, that’s all I’m worried about. I mean, knives, razors, knuckles – they’re all right, but there’s too many of them for comfort, isn’t there? I mean, we’ll get tooled up from now on, we’ll start to organise some blades, try and arm the important ones, like us. But you never know who else is going tooled. There’s some dirty bastards in this place, and I don’t just mean the screws. But they’d be capable an’all. A little bit of sweet revenge. And what a tragedy, eh? All the other cunts escape, and we end up fucking slaughtered. Charlie, you know guns. You’d rather have one, wouldn’t you?’
Charles Lister reached downwards and tucked two fingers underneath his trouser leg. When he straightened, a thin and wicked piece of steel glittered in his hand. One end was buried in a cork.
‘My mama told me never walk naked in the big bad world,’ he said. ‘Sure I’d like a gun, but I can kill you with this if I need to. Or my fingers. I only tell you this, friends, in case there comes a time... But we’re all buddies, OK? Alan, Michael, Matthew?’
‘I ain’t got nothing,’ said Matthew Jerrold. ‘My mummy told me the opposite to yours, Charlie. She say ask a policeman. And look where that got me!’
‘You lying nignog twat,’ said Rogers. ‘We all know about you and coppers, Sunshine. You chop the fuckers up. Nice one.’
In meeting after meeting, Rogers worried at the gun idea, even while he organised the constant stream of kitchen knives, bodkins, razor blades and other weaponry for distribution through the Scar. As an idea, it never ceased to unnerve Alan Hughes.
‘John Webster,’ he once told the Brain Cell, ‘could see the skull beneath the skin. That’s a quote about a Jacobean playwright.’ They laughed at him for being an over-educated prat. But they knew exactly what he meant.
Two days after Masters’ first call to Sarah, Charles Lister returned after an absence of more than an hour, and led him, alone and unescorted, to a mysteriously empty cell. He had spoken to his friends, he said, and it had been a difficult and important conversation. The upshot was that they would bring the guns in. Th
e handguns. They could not provide the weapons, that was impossible at this moment. But they could bring them in. All that was needed was for Masters to provide them. Masters was aghast.
‘But it’s impossible! I told you! They’re locked away. It’s a combination lock. My wife would tell the police.’
‘You’ve got the girlfriend, haven’t you?’ said Lister. ‘So find out when the house is empty, give her the number to the alarm, give her the combination to the cabinet. We need those pistols, Michael, we need them to survive. I’m talking you and me, friend, not anybody else. Not to shoot our way out, but to survive. They’ll cut us down, Michael. They’ll fucking cut us down.’
It was news that Lister knew about the call to Sarah, but not a shock. Nothing shocked him any more about the Scar. Rogers ruled the phone, and he and Lister were from exactly the same mould. Rogers was the man, quite probably, who indeed would cut him down.
‘I’ll call her,’ he said, quietly.
‘You better had.’
A hundred miles from Bowscar, the two ‘friends’ who had been on the phone to Lister were both obscurely afraid. They knew now that he’d had somehow been in touch with his American associates, and that something big and terrible was going to happen.
Like Masters they were a part of it, and like him, they could see no way out. They knew that they were riding on a fucking tiger.
*
Country pub. Forbes and Rosanna.
It was Rosanna’s idea to speak to Richard Pendlebury directly, and it was she who tracked down the village where he lived. After a bite to eat in their hotel not far away, they were confident they would beard him in the lonely pub he favoured. When they arrived, on foot, they identified his car, and exchanged a smile.
‘Here goes,’ said Rosanna. ‘Christ, Andrew! I’m on pins. Give us a kiss.’
Despite their gleanings that Pendlebury was considered to be a liberal in the service, they both assumed the expression would be relative. In their terms, he could only be right wing, and would inevitably meet their combination of revelation and demand with lies, evasions, and possibly threats. All they really hoped for was to get him to reveal – probably by default – that McGregor was indeed in Bowscar. That way they could present it to the Home Office as concrete fact, and force an answer from them. Pendlebury disarmed them completely.
He was sitting alone at a table when they entered, with a pint of bitter at his hand. Forbes bought bitter for himself, lager for Rosanna, and presented the pair of them in front of Pendlebury. He came straight to the point, using their real names and stating their business. Andrew believed in straightforwardness, although he did not often get it in return. The truth, he figured, was always worth a try.
Pendlebury looked old and very tired. He did not respond immediately, but considered them for a long moment, then invited them to sit.
‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘that I could lose my job by talking to you. Especially if McGregor were in Bowscar. I’m afraid you’ll have to explain in detail why you want to know.’
Between them, Rosanna and Andrew outlined what they understood. Pendlebury listened impassively until the death of James McGregor was mentioned. They both saw his eyes widen as if in shock.
‘Didn’t you know that?’ asked Forbes. ‘We thought…’
‘It was announced,’ Rosanna said. ‘Well, it made the Scottish papers. Although they didn’t make the connection. The fact that he was Angus’s brother. Oh.’
‘Oh indeed,’ said Pendlebury. ‘Oh indeed.’
After that, he listened with his forehead resting on one hand, his face half-hidden. When they’d finished, he stayed deep in thought.
‘Angus McGregor is in Bowscar,’ he said at last. ‘And like you two, I think that’s scandalous. More than that, now I’ve heard your side of the story, I think it is obscene. Quite simply, McGregor is the victim of a conspiracy.’
‘But why?’ asked Rosanna. ‘What’s it for? What do they hope to gain by it?’
‘Peace,’ said Pendlebury. ‘They’re terrified by the state of the prisons. They’re terrified about what would happen if the Scottish violence spread. They’re terrified.’
‘Well, that,’ said Forbes with satisfaction, ‘is not our problem, is it? Perhaps when this comes out it’ll force the smug bastards to do something about it. It’ll go against the grain, but they might even have to let some people out. Cut the prison population, improve conditions. Mr Pendlebury – this might just be a turning point!’
Pendlebury’s pale, exhausted face was like a mask.
‘But you can’t publish it,’ he said. ‘My prison’s like a powder keg, an unexploded bomb. Mr Forbes, Miss Nixon – that is not the way.’
‘It is the way!’ said Andrew, angrily. ‘That’s always their excuse, isn’t it? It’s the great British parrot cry: suppress it! It’s just too easy, Mr Pendlebury. Think of Angus McGregor for once. Think of James. We’ve got to tell the truth!’
Pendlebury, for a moment, responded to the anger.
‘The truth is this,’ he snapped. ‘If you want blood on your hands, go ahead and publish. But don’t fool yourselves that you’ll be the ones who suffer, will you? It’ll be me. My daughter. Angus McGregor. And all the other helpless men involved. Good God man, I’ve had enough of bashing my head against the wall of cynicism and incomprehension at the Home Office. Won’t you see sense? Do you want a bloodbath?’
They were in an alcove, and the pub was solid. Nobody had noticed the raised voices, or the passion. Forbes and Pendlebury stared at each other. Forbes shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We don’t. If it’s a matter of that, we don’t. But what will happen? About McGregor? It can’t just go on, for God’s sake. Can it?’
Pendlebury clasped both hands around his beer pot.
‘No,’ he said.
Before they left, they exchanged numbers. He didn’t smile when they said their home was bugged, but he said he thought his own was safe, and he’d tell his daughter Eileen about them, so that she could help if they couldn’t reach his mobile. He asked them to make nothing known, and not to try the Home Office until they’d spoken further.
That night, underneath the pastel-coloured duvet, they talked for hours before the idea of sex occurred to them. The sweet taste of success had turned slightly bitter.
FIFTEEN
Queen Anne’ Gate. Donald Sinclair.
The aspect of his recall to London that upset Sinclair most was the crudeness of the way it had been done. As he sipped a heavily watered whisky only hours after stepping off his flight, he felt irritated and strangely fragile, as if he were recovering from a bout of flu.
The jetlag had certainly been exacerbated by the fact no one would tell him why he’d been recalled. The news that he was booked on to a flight had been brought to him halfway through a visit to a fiercely repressive jail in California, since when he’d had only the shortest of meetings with Christian Fortyne before being ushered into a VIP reception room to face the press. Sensing a blood sacrifice, they had jumped on him like lions. All Sinclair knew for certain was that the rioting at Bowscar, and Raymond Orchard’s suicide, had been leaked. Would he now, at last, announce firm measures which would stop the rot?
He was infuriated. Had he not been so badly jetlagged, had Fortyne offered a more efficient cover, he would have fielded it with ease. But he could smell assassin, and it rattled him. He talked about the need for firmness, and promised firm and fast responses, and then bogged down. He waffled. The cameras, their flashes flickering like summer lightning, captured it all perfectly for next day’s front pages. Even down to the dark smudges underneath his eyes and his slightly misplaced tie.
Afterwards, when the press had been shunted off to do their worst, he went to have it out with the Home Secretary, who had been most conspicuous by his absence from the conference. Sinclair was slightly pale, but apparently collected.
‘Sir Gerald,’ he said. ‘I feel undermined. I’ve been dragged bac
k from America, I’ve been set up for the hacks and television like a performing dog, I’ve been made a bloody sacrifice. For what? What have I done wrong? Been too successful? Trodden on your toes? What’s going on?
He was aware that he was sounding clumsy, arrogant. Indeed, Sir Gerald Turner responded with a mixture of amusement and irritation. His eyebrows rose slightly in his bland, unthreatening face.
‘Too successful?’ he said, with a small edge of contempt. ‘My my, Donald. Did you not hear the questions that were put to you? Has Fortyne not briefed you fully yet? I’d hardly say successful.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sinclair. ‘That came out wrong. What I mean is—’
‘What I mean is,’ Sir Gerald interrupted, ‘is that the peace you promised me is a damned long time a-coming. You swan off to America on a wild-goose chase, and leave me to hold the baby. Well, the baby’s shit itself, and I won’t change the nappy, understand? You’ve got above yourself, laddie. To mix yet more metaphors, you were trying to run before you could walk – and I’ve clipped your wings.’
He put two hands flat on his desk-top and stood, deliberately. The interview was over, he did not have to speak. Sinclair, with an effort, composed himself and left the room.
Right, you bastard, he thought. So you’re going to make a fight of it, are you? A dirty fight. Well, that’s all right by me...
*
Bowscar. The Animal.
As Pendlebury entered the strip cell alone, after a noisy argument outside with three officers in full protective clothing, McGregor was standing at the farthest point, with his blanket wrapped and tucked so that he did not have to hold it. His eyes were unreadable, but his face was open. In fact, he was curious.
‘What was that all about?’ he asked. ‘Are you having trouble with the staff again?’
