Chapter 7
Liverpool, England, February1997
Several hundred miles away from the Thames in a young man from Liverpool with shoulder length wavy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, picked up his wash bag from the bunk and left the small cramped cell. He was a good looking young man of the long eye lashed, baby faced type that many women find irresistible and most men instinctively distrust. In this case the men were right. Wayne Doolan was an obnoxious bastard who would rent out his own Mother if the price were right. However, he was also very bright and he had become a trustee within a couple of months of being sentenced, mainly because he was in for a civil crime and also because he looked as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Consequently he had one of the prized jobs, working in the prison kitchens.
Working in the kitchens had its advantages as it was warm and there was always extra food and it certainly beat the shit out of working outside in the gardens at this time of year, or in one of the draughty workshops. The only problem was that the reek of soup and boiled vegetables hung in your clothes and hair, like the smell of bad body odour. It was always the same and being fastidious and not a little vain Doolan liked to use the recreation period after dinner to take a shower and try to get rid of it as much as possible. It made him feel cleaner even though the odour still hung in his blue prison suit and work shirt.
He went down the stairs from his landing to the main floor of the hall. It contained about fifty other prisoners engaged in various activities. Some were playing table tennis, cards or draughts, while others just sat reading or watching the television in the corner. The television was showing an ancient sitcom in which Ronnie Barker played an old lag doing his porridge and it always drew a large audience from among the inmates. Doolan could never understand why. It was bad enough being in here in the first place. If he had wanted to watch television he would watch something that enabled him to forget where he was, not remind him.
He passed through the hall towards the ablutions, nodding to various people as he went. At a table at the far end a slim, good-looking man in his mid twenties, with curly black hair, was sat in a poker school. They were playing for small squares of paper with various denominations of currency scribbled on them in pencil. The man caught his eye and beckoned him over.
Davey Cropp was Wayne Doolan's cellmate and after eighteen months of such close proximity, not surprisingly was also his friend. Davey threw his cards and two hand rolled cigarettes into the middle of the table in disgust and holding up his hands to the other players in a gesture of surrender, got up came over to meet him.
"A word to the wise, Wayne. Trevallen has just gone into the shower block with two of his little friends. I think you should give it a miss tonight. No point in looking for trouble."
The blonde one gave him a grim smile.
"Sooner or later that perverted gorilla is going to catch up with me anyway and I would rather face him when I am expecting it than be taken by surprise."
He held up the wash bag and shook it. Cropp, instinctively looking all around to see if any of the screws were watching, grabbing the other's wrist, putting the hand that held the wash bag back down to his side. He frowned and shook his head.
"Christ man, that bastard is six feet three tall and weighs well over two hundred pounds, while you are five feet nine at tops and no wider than a piece of string. Even with that blade he is going kill you if you try to stop him."
Doolan gave a careless shrug.
"Then what do you suggest I do, Davey? Put on some nice after-shave and a tie a pink ribbon in my hair and invite him back to our cell."
He walked on away from his cellmate and down the corridor to the shower room, leaving the other anxiously shaking his head. When he entered the showers the three of them were leaning against the wall in a row. The two acolytes, Barnes and Welling, didn't bother him at all. They were sad little men well past their middle age, who because of their frailty and homosexuality were forced to stick to Trevallen for protection of a sort. Better to be abused by one person than many. Trevallen himself however, was a different kettle of fish. Until he had been sent down for a sexual assault on a thirteen-year-old boy, he had been a steel worker in one of the smaller Sheffield foundries. During the past three years he had spent in the prison he had lost much of his muscle to fat and although now out of any real condition, he was still a formidable figure.
Forty-three years of age, Trevallen stood six feet three inches, give or take half an inch, with arms and legs like a blacksmith and an enormous girth that had given the prison stores a lot of problems when finding him overalls. He was completely bald on his head although from the neck of his shirt, hair sprouted in a mass so dense that from a distance he appeared to be wearing a black tee shirt. His face was further declaration his obesity with a row of chins and pale blue, watery eyes that were sunken deep within the folds of fat that covered his cheeks. The thing about him that most offended the rest of the inmates however, was his lack of cleanliness.
Like many fat people, Trevellan sweated profusely, but unlike the vast majority of gay men he was not at all concerned about washing it off on a regular basis. To the rest of the fastidiously clean gay community within the prison this made him an outcast, but it worried him not one little bit as he had his own methods of obtaining what he needed. He looked up at the sound of someone entering and then relaxed again when he saw who it was. He heaved the fat buttocks from off the sink that had been supporting them and waddled towards the blonde man. His voice was as surprisingly high and piping for such a large man.
"Well, well. If it isn't little Blondie."
Doolan ignored him and started towards the shower stalls. The fat man moved alongside of him and grabbed hold of his left arm with one large meaty fist.
"Now then, sweetheart, Its only polite to answer when someone speaks to you."
His two companions had moved away and taken up stations by the doorway where they could see and warn of anyone approaching. They turned and indicated to the fat man that the coast was clear. His face creased up even more in a smile and without letting go of the others arm he moved closer to Doolan, his breath floating into his face.
"Now you listen to me, sweetness. I like you and I am going to have you. We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Which do you want, Waynie love?"
He leered and reached out with his other hand to take a double grip on his victim, but the blonde man had dropped the sponge bag from his right hand to reveal a craft knife held in his fist. He slashed the knife down Trevallen's right arm, opening it up to the bone and then, as he was released, he slashed out again, opening up the others fat right cheek in a four inch gash. He watched the blood welling out from both cuts and smiled at the others look of amazement.
"Oh dear, Trevallen. You seem to be bleeding."
Trevallen stared at the blood in disbelief and then screamed a high-pitched scream and staggered away. He fell to his knees with his left hand shuttling back and forth from his injured arm to his face in an effort to stem the blood that was flowing from both, sobbing and moaning for help, his eyes wild and staring. His two companions stared at the carnage for a few horror stricken seconds and then fled down the corridor shouting for the screws. Doolan put the craft knife down carefully on the nearest sink before leaning back against the wall to watch the fat man writhing and moaning on the floor.
Twenty seconds had elapsed before four warders crashed through the door gripping their black truncheons in their hands. They stopped before the two men and the first warder knelt down next to trembling Trevallen and examined his injuries. He looked up at two of the others and pointed towards the door.
"Get this slob to the infirmary before the bastard bleeds to death."
He turned to the blonde man, wiping with annoyance at some spots of blood that had landed on his uniform.
"Did you do this, Doolan?"
The blonde man nodded and the warder held out his hand.
"Give me the blade."
Dool
an nodded towards the sink. The warder picked up the Stanley knife carefully, holding it so as not to smudge any evidence it might provide later and jerked his head at the other remaining warder.
"Take him down to solitary and lock him in."
He turned face back to Doolan.
"I can guess why you did this and if there had been just one cut you might have just got away with a caution." He pointed down to the blood on the floor. "But you cut him twice because you enjoyed doing it and I think the Governor will say that was a bit more than was necessary to protect your maidenhead. So you're in trouble, Doolan and your remission is in danger." He waved in the direction of the door. "Take him away."
Wayne Doolan had left the school with two very ordinary "O" levels and a fervent desire to become very rich in as short a time as possible. He was good looking to the point of being almost beautiful and at just under medium height, with wavy blonde hair and deep blue eyes, he was a favourite with the girls. Most men would have found his chin a trifle weak and his looks too pretty, but most men do not like Doolan's type of looks anyway. Too many of them have lost girlfriends to them.
As usual when nature chooses how to distribute it gifts between people it had gone all the way and he was also a gifted, if lazy, footballer. The schools top goal scorer, he had only been on a losing side twice in the two years he played for them, but that was during two flu epidemics when most of the class players were off sick. As a schoolboy he'd had trials with several big clubs including both of the Liverpool giants, but the laziness always let him down until finally they had rejected him. He could still have found a place in one of the lower divisions, but playing in front of half a dozen people and a dog every Saturday, while some talent less gorilla of a centre half tried to break his legs for him, did not appeal. Besides, the real money was not in the lower divisions. So upon leaving school, he became a clerk in a well-known jam factory by day.
He hated the job, but the evenings were different. In the evenings he led a group of other youths in raids, which were cleverly thought out and well executed, on tobacconists and other shops with high value goods. This went on for two years until unfortunately, after one particular robbery in which they got away with more cigarettes than they could quickly dispose of, Doolan was found in possession of stolen goods and after trial was sent for eighteen months to a Detention Centre for young offenders. It was at this point that his parents, both good Catholics and pillars of the local church, disowned him. Doolan merely shrugged when they gave him their decision.
As was hoped for by the Magistrates who had sentenced him, in the Detention Centre at Portland Bill he did learn the error of his ways, but unfortunately not from the authorities. The other inmates became his tutors and they taught him this. You do not steal large quantities of anything unless you have previously arranged for some one to take it off your hands before The Pigs call. While his criminal education was being completed however, being physically small and slight he had a very hard eighteen months at Portland and vowed not to return there.
Having learnt about the subtle art of fencing stolen goods, Doolan decided that he could achieve an even safer and more reliable career than stealing or fencing. A career where you didn't even have to see the goods to make a nice ten percent cut of the proceeds. So upon his release he sold the car he'd had up on blocks since he had his collar felt and rented an office in one of the cheaper areas of the city. On the door he had painted the legend Wayne Doolan Import/Export. He was just twenty-one years old.
From here over the next few months he slowly, but surely set himself up as a Mister Fixit, acting as a go between for those selling and those buying. Between thieves and receivers. He made sure he knew what was available and what was required and he made the necessary arrangements for the two to meet without ever touching the stuff or being physically involved until he was practically running a steal to order business. He took a fair ten percent for his trouble, five from each side, and in a few years was driving a BMW 525i. It looked as if it could go on forever. The police knew what he was doing, but could never quite gather enough evidence to prosecute. The one time they had tried the case was thrown out of court on the first day for lack of evidence. He carried out just enough legal transactions to give him the alibi of scratching a living.
Unfortunately again for Doolan, where the police were helpless the Inland Revenue were not, and as many bigger and more famous criminals had found to their cost, defrauding the Inland Revenue is an imprisonable offence. After he had been in business for seven years the Inland Revenue asked him, quite reasonably, how he could afford to change his twenty five thousand pound car every year, wear three hundred pound suits, be the owner of an eighty thousand pound house and generally live the lifestyle he followed on a declared income of just ten thousand pounds a year. The truthful answer would have got him ten years so he never contested the Inland Revenues statement that he was not declaring some two thirds of his income.
As he was unwilling to tell them how he did manage to afford his lifestyle and refused all deals, he went down for the full two years, but this time in a place for the big boys. To rub salt into the wound they assessed him as owing more than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in unpaid income tax and sent him bankrupt. This figure being based on his assumed earnings, calculated from his known spending habits over the last ten years.
After they had sold his house and his BMW, Doolan started prison still owing the Revenue Men more than forty thousand pounds. This meant not only was he doing two years, but when he came out he would be an undischarged bankrupt with a criminal record, leaving him no way of setting up any legitimate business front to cover other illegal, but highly profitable dealings.
As before in the young offenders unit he was not wasting his time in prison. He had attended sessions with several colleagues who were prepared to pass on their knowledge to their cellmates. This expertise only served to convince him of the difficulty he was in. Unable to set up a legitimate business front because he was an undischarged bankrupt, his only alternative was to find a proper job, which was the last thing he intended to do. If he took a normal job he would be paying off for years. At the same time, if he was out of work he could not discharge his debt and would remain hamstrung for starting another business. It was a catch twenty-two situation.
It was looking as if the only alternative to gainful and honest employment with the attached relative poverty for the rest of his life was to disappear and resurface in another country under a different name. He stared around at the walls of the punishment cell and once again tried to work something out. At least he had given that fat queer Trevellan something to remember him by. He grinned at the memory of the fat man's squeals.
Meanwhile, up in Liverpool Itself the Candy Man stood on the pavement by the bus stop opposite the school as if awaiting his bus. Cranbourne Comprehensive was one of the largest schools in Liverpool with over four thousand pupils between the ages of eleven and seventeen. That's why it was the Candy Man's favourite lunchtime place. The Candy Man himself was not much older than the fifth and sixth form pupils who made up some of his most valued customers. He stood out from them because he didn't wear the burgundy blazer of the school uniform, but not just for that reason, as many of the pupils flagrantly ignored the uniform rule and wore their hair as they pleased. No, what made him different was his body language.
The Candy Man didn't just move, he slid and sidled with a permanent ingratiating smile on his face as he made his promises of those wonderful experiences his little packets of powder and crystals could bring. When he leaned down to talk to some of the smaller children, for the Candy Man was tall and angular to the point of emaciation from his own habit, his long, lank, dirty blonde hair would fall forward and obscure most of his face from the casual watcher. All that could be seen would be his lips moving as they made their promises of the forbidden delights he carried, he and the hundreds of other Candy men throughout Britain.
He looked like a long lost ref
ugee from the sixties, dressed entirely in dirty denim and scuffed, calf length boots, but his wares were more up to date than purple hearts or LSD. The Candy Man's wares were also cheap if it was your first time, sometimes even free if he thought your future custom would be worth it. So he would smile and wheedle in his subservient way and be your friend, until the hook was in and you wanted a repeat prescription. Couldn't go on without one. Then he would become all steel and ice and the smile would vanish, never to be seen by you again. No money, no candy.
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