Kicking Off Read online

  ‘Ah,’ moaned Judith. ‘Oh too much talk. Oh Donald, come. Come, come, come.’

  They did, together, and carried on with the important stuff while they untangled limbs and made themselves respectable. Sometimes, thought Donald, sex with Judith was like his job. A means to an end, pleasurable, necessary, but unimportant. Sex without love. Politics. The idea pleased him.

  ‘That’s why Gerald selected me, when it came to it,’ he said. ‘He’s got liberality round his neck like an albatross. It suits him to be seen that way, but it makes it difficult to sort the prisons out for good and all. I’m going to play the liberal – and stick an A-bomb up their arse. He’ll still endorse me, though. He’ll be proud of me. He’ll think I was the best move that he ever made.’

  ‘Until you stab him in the back,’ laughed Judith. ‘Only joking, darling. Obviously.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Obviously. Shall we have champagne? The flying fuck club always makes me thirsty. And we’ve got two more jails to gawk at when we land.’

  The hostess got another fifty as they left.

  *

  Bowscar. Rogers and Cherry Orchard.

  On his journey to Brian Rogers’ cell, Raymond Orchard had been left in little doubt about what lay in store for him. The prison officers, whose rampant homophobia did not stop them grabbing parts of him and squeezing them, and fondling his bottom and his thighs, had been quite ecstatic. Apparently, they said, Rogers had spotted him on association and been excited by his appearance. This, to Orchard, would have been amazing, except that his capacity to be surprised was by now diminishing hourly. His face was cut and battered, his hair had almost gone, and his clothes were torn and soiled.

  When he had entered Bowscar, Orchard had been an actively politicised gay, homosexual, proud, exotic. He was tall and thin, and had carried himself like a model or a star. Under Sir Gerald Turner’s famous liberalism towards minorities, he had joined a gay pride march, been arrested and charged with assault and other things. It was nothing new, and being clever and articulate, and capable of impressing even magistrates who hated queers like poison, he knew he’d be acquitted, and he knew he could show the police to have been lying – he had done it all before. Because of this,

  perhaps, they did it properly. They planted a cut-throat razor on him – how wonderfully archaic, he laughed at first – and a package of cocaine. He was remanded in custody, and ended up in Bowscar.

  Raymond Orchard did not have Aids. More precisely, he was not HIV positive, and neither was his lover Kevin Clarke. Where Orchard was exotic, Kevin tended to the prosaic. He liked motorcycles and swimming, and holidays abroad. They had been together for six years, and although not married, had sworn an oath of sexually exclusive loyalty, on a hill in Lancashire. They were in love.

  Now, Orchard faced his fate. His back was to the door that had been locked behind him, and his upper arms were being gripped by two strong inmates. In front of him stood Brian Rogers. He was taking off his clothes.

  Orchard did not know what to say. The sickness in his stomach was so enormous that he dared not open his mouth. But had he done so, he would still have been speechless. He did not know what to say.

  Rogers was a big man, with a face that seemed intelligent despite a domed, bald skull protruding from a mass of lank, long hair that reached his shoulders. His chin was heavy, stubbled black, and his stomach, as he exposed it, was fat but powerful, with black hair rising from his pubis to his navel. When he stood naked, the men holding Orchard began to take his trousers off. He hunched forward, white and nauseous, as if to protect himself. But he did not try to resist. They pulled his shirt up his back, also wordless, and bent him across the bare formica table. One of them clamped a hand across his mouth, to stop him crying out.

  After Rogers, one of the other men raped Orchard. Because he was weeping, the third man, who apparently did not care for sex like that, was allowed to beat him up a bit. Then Rogers, pulling out his shaking hand, put a packet of dope into it, and a box of matches and some Rizla. Outside, the officers could be heard, preparing to unlock the door.

  ‘Dry your eyes, you silly fucking poof,’ said Rogers. ‘It was only a bit of fun.’

  They were the only words that had been spoken in the cell.

  ELEVEN

  Scotland. Forbes, Rosanna.

  The first breakthrough for Forbes and Rosanna came three days after they went back to Scotland. A seventeen-year-old chambermaid at the Buckie Fox Hotel identified a photograph of Donald Sinclair that Andrew showed her. She had recognised him on the TV news the day after the prison siege had ended, she said, and had wondered why he’d booked in as Philip Swift.

  The conversation took place in a small cafe on the other side of Buckie, and Forbes had already paid the girl twenty pounds. Not much else was forthcoming, though. From the manager downwards, lips appeared to have been sealed.

  ‘So you don’t know much else?’ he said. ‘You only saw him two or three times, and he’d left before you started in the morning? There haven’t been any rumours, have there? Since the siege?’

  ‘What sort of rumours? About Mr Sinclair?’

  ‘About anything. No tales of prisoners falling off roofs or anything? No bodies smuggled out of prison in the dead of night?’

  She was regretful.

  ‘No, nothing like that. It’s not likely, is it? This place goes dead at teatime. Even if you get a date the fellers take you back at ten o’clock; sometimes it isn’t even dark. You just wouldn’t believe how boring this wee dump is.’

  Driving back to Glasgow in Rosanna’s Renault, Forbes thought on balance he agreed. He’d been in the town for two days, and he had learned nothing of value at all until he’d picked the girl up as she left the Fox on her afternoon off. The locals, now the siege was over, were uninterested, almost embarrassed by the memory. Most of them appeared to handle the presence of the jail by pretending it was somewhere else, nothing to do with them at all.

  Rosanna had already gone to bed when Forbes got back, but she got up and put a robe on when she heard his key in the lock. She entered the kitchen to the sharp hiss and click of a ring-pull.

  ‘You didn’t ring,’ she said. ‘Was that bone idleness, or did you find out something for my ears only?’ He told her, and Rosanna’s eyes lit up. She got a can of Stella from the fridge. She raised it in a toast.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said, half-seriously. ‘The hand of the master where the feeble apprentice failed. That’s fantastic. Look, come through to the bedroom. My feet are cold.’

  Forbes followed her through to the big, bare room at the front, and watched her jump into the empty bed. She did not invite him in. He pushed her clothes off the chair and sat. He took a pull of beer.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not fantastic but it’s something. Another little coffin nail.’ He was feeling drained. ‘How have you got on?’

  ‘Hold on! Hold on! Surely it’s more than that? I know it’s a hell of a drive from Buckie, Andrew, but surely...Well, I mean, that’s enormous, isn’t it? The man was incognito. A minister of the Crown! You’ve found him out!’

  He nodded.

  ‘But what does it add up to? I’ve told you before, none of this means anything until it’s solid enough for somebody to print it. We need proof.’

  ‘Proof’ said Rosanna, heatedly. ‘I think you’re being really downbeat. We’ve got the chambermaid, a name. And the false one Sinclair used as well. For God’s sake, let’s at least hit the swine with that.’

  A small smile crossed his face.

  ‘He’s gone abroad. Who’ll pay our fares?’ He sighed. ‘In any case, has he broken any law? If he didn’t just deny the false name thing he’d call it a precaution. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nonsense! It’s a serious embarrassment, he’s been lying through his teeth! And if he’s abroad he can’t deny it, can he – even better! What about the register? Did you look?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What for? To r
ead the name Philip Swift? Where does that get us?’ He upended the can into his mouth and swallowed several times. Then he crushed it.

  ‘That’s the way it goes,’ he said. ‘That trail’s a dead’un, realistically. Unless we get another call. Look, I’m not saying the Buckie lead’s not a good one. We might be able to frighten something out of them with it. We’ll think tomorrow. But we need the Animal. He’s the only next of kin. We can ask about Wee Jimmy until we’re blue in the face. You have. And they don’t even have to answer.’

  Rosanna put her half-empty tin of Stella on the floor.

  ‘Andrew,’ she said. ‘You’re a constant wonder to me, so you are. You get the goods in one fell swoop, and you think you’ve got damn all. They refuse to answer all my questions, but the man in charge is Donald Sinclair. Nothing happened at Buckie, they assure us, but the man who wasn’t there was Donald Sinclair. Don’t you see it? Somehow or other he’s involved, he’s got the answers. And if he was there, when Jimmy McGregor got knocked off – Jesus Christ! No wonder he denies it! I say tomorrow we go and talk to Maurice Campbell, try and get it in the paper. This chambermaid. Is she pretty? Would she make a picture?’

  Andrew actually laughed.

  ‘Sordid cow!’ he said. ‘The language of the gutter press!’ He made a rueful face. ‘No, is she buggery, she’s horrible. Even the locals bring her home at ten o’clock rather than cop a quickie round the back.’

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘And I’m sordid, you sexist bastard? But is it worth a try, though? With Maurice? Seriously.’

  Forbes thought. He scratched his forehead with the empty can.

  ‘Realistically,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing that he’ll use. You don’t risk everything on the ramblings of a spotty adolescent. We’ll go and see him, though, have a drink, remind him we exist, he’s a bloody useful contact. You’re right to bollock me, as well. I’m getting stupid, potentially it’s terrific. Another thing we’ll do is hunt down Rafferty. We’ve got to find the Animal.’

  Rosanna looked gloomy.

  ‘I spoke to him today. Completely drunk. Is there no way we can follow up that trail ourselves?’

  ‘Now who’s being defeatist? Adrian Rafferty’s brilliant, if we can catch him when he’s sober. And short of going up to every jail in England and shouting through the keyhole, we’ve got no chance without him. We’ll hunt him down, and drown him in hot coffee, and bribe him senseless. How about a feel of arse till payday?’

  ‘For Adrian or you? Either way, it’s no. Oh Andrew! We will get somewhere, won’t we? It’s not just all a lousy waste of time?’

  Andrew Forbes stood up. Rosanna was very tiny in the big, square bed. Small, and tousled, and troubled. Very carefully, he did not step towards her.

  ‘Of course we will,’ he said. ‘We’ll bowl out in the morning, and we’ll sock ’em dead. In the meantime, I’m exhausted, you’re fed up, so this is absolutely and completely the wrong time to ask you: can I sleep with you tonight?’

  Her small face lit into a smile.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you, Andrew. I’m a wee Scot with a hang-up about sex.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Anyway, I’m very good at therapy.’

  ‘Aye, I’m very sure you are. Now go to bed. You can take this tin of beer if you like. I’ve touched it with my lips!’

  *

  B-floor. Charles Lister. Orchard.

  The orgasmic head of steam in Bowscar Prison built up more slowly than Donald Sinclair’s explosion in the mile high club, but went off with less control. The first spurt came, surprisingly, from Raymond Orchard, and started as the extension of the normal taunts and insults that he suffered.

  For the officers ragging him, it came from nowhere. They knew he had been raped, but they didn’t think he’d react so violently. It was, they after all assumed, what he wanted, wasn’t it?

  The incident happened on the B-floor sluice, when Orchard was slopping out. He was seen to be walking oddly as he approached, which in itself was cause enough for hoots and catcalls. When it was his turn to empty the contents of his bucket, the chorus became louder.

  ‘Let’s see the turds, Cherry!’ shouted one prisoner.

  ‘They reckon Brian Rogers has got a triangular dick, is that right? Have you been shitting pyramids?’

  Orchard gritted his teeth and took the lid off the bucket. Since the incident, two days before, he had been in considerable pain. He’d also lost a fair amount of blood.

  ‘Did you hear about the poof that went to the doctor with Aids?’ said a prison officer. He was standing in the doorway, as far away as he could be from the reeking drains and lavatories. ‘The doctor told him to go away and eat as much hot curry as he could, then drink a dozen pints of beer and take a laxative.’

  Orchard, who had heard all the foul jokes a thousand times, looked at the contents of his bucket. It was a quarter full of urine, and of faeces streaked with blood. He had visited the prison medical officer the day before, and received as little sympathy.

  ‘Why’s that Doc? says the poof,’ the prison officer continued. ‘Will it cure my Aids?’ He started laughing. ‘No, he says, will it fuck as like. But it’ll show you what your arsehole’s really for!’

  Quite unexpectedly, Raymond Orchard swung round and grabbed the bucket by its bottom and the handle. The officer, realising what was going to happen, jumped instantly sideways, treading hard on the foot of a man who had just entered, who had not joined the laughter, who did not appear to understand what was going on. It was Charles Lister.

  As Lister lashed out at the officer, the contents of the bucket hit them in their chests and faces, spraying half a dozen other men. Through the sluice door, the bouncing bucket hit another in the mouth and drove two teeth into his lip, before it clattered over the iron railing of the balcony and landed in the suicide nets. Prisoners two floors below watched the liquid dripping down, saw the furious tussle, and cheered.

  The reactions of the men inside were quite irrational. Because Orchard was gay, because there was blood, they knew there must be Aids. But even those who had not been flecked attacked him, and then each other. They were out to kill, and in the melée they were smeared, and punched, and cut.

  The prison staff were quick. Within seconds, three officers who had been close to start with, as back-up for the officer at the door, were pounding along the gallery to protect their colleague and assess the situation. Other prisoners who had already slopped out stood about uncertainly, their reactions slower. If it was a bit of fun, fair enough, they would join in. But it was a dangerous game, which could cost you very dear. The thundering of boots up iron stairs, the clanging of the alarm bell when it started, mesmerised some of them. Before they had recovered, officers were bundling them through their cell doors, quickly, urgently, and locking them with relief. Once inside, though, many had an immediate reaction. They became wild with fury, started crashing about. Men who had been standing at their doors, wondering what was going on, found themselves attacked, or pressed themselves into corners while their cellmates wrecked the place.

  On paper, the officer to inmate ratio in the Scar was quite good. But because of overtime restrictions, court escort duties, sickness and so on, the position in reality was never so favourable as it looked. In any case, the call on manpower when things got out of hand was horrendous. The first priority, the vital, overwhelming necessity, was to get the prisoners in their cells. But where in normal circumstances it was usually a formality, when trouble started each prisoner might need one officer, or two, or a small army. It depended on the level of excitement, and the level of preplanning.

  The alarms themselves caused problems. Although the flare-up was on B-floor of D-hall, the bells were audible all over the prison. Officers peacefully going about their duties on other galleries found themselves confronted with suddenly animated, inquisitive, nervous men, whom they had to guide back to their doorways and bang up, abruptly and with no explanation. Instead o
f the number of colleagues noticeably increasing in case of need, they noticeably decreased, as principal officers detailed extra men to D-hall by internal telephone. And the bells were not the worst. They triggered in the men a weird, harsh roar, an amalgam of cheers and shouting that gained its own momentum. Even when the alarms were switched off, the throbbing cry continued.

  For men already locked into their cells, like Masters, Hughes and Jerrold, the sounds induced mixed reactions. For Masters, strangely, the overriding one was fear. As the bells began, as the shouts and screams increased, his mouth grew dry, his stomach tense. Jerrold, on his bunk as usual, played Joe Cool, but his eyes betrayed him. Alan Hughes, seated at the table, leaned forward, his breath coming much faster.

  In the next few minutes Masters, for the first time in his life, experienced claustrophobia. It was extraordinary, he thought, that they could be so intimately involved in something, and have no sight of it at all, no perception other than through their ears. The cell became smaller in his mind, the walls moved in, the ceiling and the floor began to crush him, suffocate him. He had to get out. It was impossible to be locked in so small a space. He had to know.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. His voice had thickened, and he cleared his throat. ‘What’s happening?’

  Alan Hughes walked over to the door. He took the knob and shook it.

  ‘Christ knows,’ he said. ‘It’s a riot of some sort. Christ knows.’

  There could be anything out there. What if the prison went on fire? What if it was on fire, this was not a riot? Would they all be burned to death? Locked up like rats? Masters sank his face into his hands, seated on his bed. He had to know.

  For the governor, the disturbance meant extreme and unexpected danger. Ten minutes before, he had been conducted into Angus McGregor’s isolation cell by his spaceman escort, to continue the dialogue he had been trying to establish. As the days had passed and his hopes of getting any genuine response from the Prison Department had dwindled, he had been well aware that the dialogue was at best lopsided. As his creativity in expressing hopeful signs had diminished, so had McGregor’s willingness to talk. Today, after a half a dozen grunts, he had come out with only this: ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything. Except my brother.’ Momentarily, his eyes had gleamed. Then they had dulled, almost glazed. The deadness, which was becoming rapidly a characteristic of his expression, Pendlebury found horrifying.