Kicking Off Read online

  Those near enough to hear her yelped with laughter. There were prison officers in Eliot’s now, their shifts at the barricades over. Policemen, too. Many of the journalists were chatting to them, happily, hoping to pick their brains for usable quotes and bankable opinions.

  ‘Tell that crap to the lads!’ roared Angus. ‘Those bastards on the roof are cavemen! You’re wet behind the ears!’ Sandy Hamilton, slightly younger and less drunk, decided it was time to be nice. With four large Grouse inside him, and a pint or two of lager, he felt irresistible. His eyes were wet with lust.

  ‘I’m on your side, darling” he shouted. ‘The way ah see it—’

  He stumbled as he tried to move in on her, and much to Rosanna’s astonishment, Angus then became proprietorial, taking her roughly by the upper arm.

  ‘Hey hey there, Sandy,’ he warned. ‘I saw her first. Back off.’

  Rosanna jerked her arm free, spilling half her whisky. Both men immediately tried to buy another for her, but the Mouse had had enough. As she pushed her way towards the door, she heard her esteemed and valued colleagues talk about her.

  ‘Aye, Rosanna, Rosanna Nixon. She’s a graduate, know what I mean?’

  ‘I surely do. Knows fuck all and full of bullshite. She dresses something different, eh?’

  ‘So she does. She’s called the Mouse. Nice little pair of tits, though.’

  ‘Aye. And what about the Mouse’s hole? Eh? Eh? Eh?’

  To her distress, Rosanna discovered she could see the roof of Buckie Jail from her hotel bedroom. She stood at the window for several hours, on and off, watching the huddled black shapes, picked out sometimes as moonlight slid behind the chimney stacks. The fringes of their kingdom were illuminated constantly, and harshly, by batteries of mobile arc lights. One of the men she watched, although she did not know it then, was called Jimmy McGregor.

  TWO

  The roof. McGregor.

  Up on the split and broken tiles, the frozen, glaring desert that was their only home, none of the men had said more than a word for what seemed to be eternity. The routine had become so crippling, the cold so intense, that in the night hours they entered a state approaching coma. It was only spring, so God, as usual, had sided with authority. No balmy air, just hoar frost. They remained in their normal groupings – men who liked each other, or at least shared lives – but any contact other than for warmth was now irrelevant. They sought black shadows by the chimneys, and stared out from that heart of blackness at intense, white, painful light.

  For all Jimmy McGregor knew, straining his eyes into the harsh electric barrier, there could be anything out there. There could be soldiers with high-powered rifles, there could be a commando of paras ready to scale the walls, there could be a division of bloody tanks. He and his fellow prisoners had been up so long, had talked, and argued, and fantasised so long, that if the Kraken itself had awoken and peeped through the arc lights he would not have been surprised. They had burst out through the prison roof, smashed ceilings and slates and joists, in a white-hot rage that had been months maturing. In the last three days, it had been chilled from their very marrows. It had been frozen out of them.

  McGregor’s job, because many of the prisoners could not longer care, was to watch the ragged hole through which the empire might strike back. He sat at it now, his legs dangling into the darkened space below, and let the thoughts of that empire warm him, momentarily, with the warmth of hatred. The rage he could remember, but not with any vividness; that part had truly frozen with his body. Hatred remained, though, like an abscessed tooth, to be sucked and savoured. The pus of hatred was his sustenance. When it came down to it, he was prepared to stay on the roof until he froze to death, or hell itself froze over.

  A shape detached itself from the shadow of a chimney stack. Tall and thin, in blue denim and a woollen scarf, it came to Jimmy, stooped, and sat beside him. For several minutes nothing was said. When he did speak, his voice was hoarse and cracked. Francis Leadbitter was sixty-two years old.

  ‘How are you feeling, Jim?’ he asked, without wishing for an answer. ‘I’m terrible myself, I’ve never felt worse in all me fuckin’ puff. If I don’t get food inside me soon, I’m gannee bowk until I’m inside oot. There’s some of the lads, ye ken, who think we should go down. There’s some of them that think enough’s enough. I tellt them they must want a damn good kicking if they think like that. Toe-cap porridge, that’s the story, right? What do you think, son?’

  McGregor felt appalling, his mouth like lukewarm slime and his stomach aching, constantly. There were spots before his eyes, dancing, which had been there for thirty or forty hours, and made him dizzy when he stood. But he forced himself to respond.

  ‘Shut up maundering, you daft old twat,’ he said, almost affectionately. ‘Nobody’s going down there, sick or no.

  ‘I telled them yesterday, and so did Porter and McBride. When it comes daylight I’ll tell them again, OK? No one’s going down.’

  Leadbitter nodded, both pleased and satisfied. In his eyes, morale was cracking. But if McGregor thought that he could hold it, fair enough. McGregor was the mannie, the top dog. He was also the brother of Angus McGregor, the hardest man in all of Scotland’s jails, the Animal.

  ‘It’s no me fit’s whining, by the way,’ he said. ‘I’ve sunbathed in worse than this. But some of the wee loons...’ He looked at Jimmy sideways. ‘You must admit, son, it’s fuckin’ blistering, so it is.’

  McGregor touched the soreness around his mouth and eyes. It was cold, and that was their hard luck, wasn’t it? A cold blast from Iceland to say hello to summer. So it was cold. So fuck it.

  ‘Listen, Grandad, you tell they soft lads frae me. Every bugger’s seeing us, from fucking Holyrood down tae fucking London. They’re watching us, in the freezing fucking weather, doing nothing bad at all, just standing round like Eskimos to make our point, all right? The only way the government can end this, you tell ’em, is send the troops in – and they wouldnae fucking dare. For why? Because the telly’s there, OK, and there’s Scots glued to their tellies all around the fucking world, not just in fucking Edinburgh. If the bastards shoot us on the television, they’ve blown it. You tell the soft lads that.’

  The old man grinned. He made an obscene gesture, to an imaginary TV camera in the outer dark. Like Jimmy, like all the others, he believed.

  *

  The Buckie Fox. Sinclair

  By the time he’d paid off the disgruntled driver and checked into the small and unobtrusive Buckie Fox Hotel, Donald Sinclair had transformed himself. Signed in as Philip Swift, he was up here on business, unspecified. His room had been pre-booked by his civil service minder Christian Fortyne, and he had been politely monosyllabic at reception. No newspapers for the morning, nothing for his room tonight, no wake-up call. For news he had his i-Pad. Plus, there was a TV, obviously.

  In the lift, alone, amused by the seedy gentility Fortyne had chosen for him, Sinclair savoured the continuing collision of emotions in his brain and belly, and allowed himself a quiet laugh. It was a high-risk game that he was playing, and he loved high risks. He was a politician, and poised today upon the very brink of take-off. The reality of the jail, its almost medieval air of brooding cruelty in the intermittent moonlight, had been the perfect touch. World of cruelty, iron fist, velvet glove. He loved it.

  The siege at Buckie was the third in Scotland in as many months, and ‘bombing the place’, if the taxi driver had but known it, had damn nearly been considered as an option. South of the border, Scotland was held to be a whingeing parasite of a country, whose attitudes got worse as they leached more cash and power from the Whitehall exchequer, havng failed in their independence bid. What’s more, the prisoners up there were semi-housetrained savages. Hanging was too good for them.

  Donald Sinclair was in no way a left-winger, but in this dispute he was seen by some in the government as practically a bleeding heart. His own view – shouted down in private with grinding regularity – was that the tro
uble could not only spread in Scotland, but might finally ignite an English powder keg that had been building up for years. Sending in the troops was easy, but most people in the country thought the bankers and the Eton tossers – many of them politicians – had caused the trouble in the first place, and had got away scot free. To split heads, he argued, teach lessons, maybe kill a man or two – would be to court a holocaust.

  He also argued that something, somehow, had to change. Not so long ago, fifty thousand men in jail had been a dangerous scandal, which had to stop. Instead successive governments had watched complacently as the inmate-count had climbed inexorably towards the hundred thousand mark, mouthing such idiocies as ‘prison works’ and applauding major jail terms handed out for bad jokes made on Facebook or on Twitter. It had taken riots, mass below-the-breadline pay, a generation of the young without a hope in hell, before the Prime Minister (a millionaire among a cabinet of millionaires) had cried ‘enough.’ Christ, UKIP could even win the next election!

  Sinclair, when first asked to have a try at tackling the problem, had demurred. Not experienced enough, he’d said, self-deprecatingly. Too big a task for so young a man to tackle. He’d watched urbanely as in eight short months two other men had failed to solve the growing crisis, and seen their hopes of higher office crumble. Quietly, he’d been asked again.

  With the Home Secretary, Sir Gerald Turner, Donald Sinclair had a good, open relationship, although he had a secret from the older man that could have blown it all sky high. But he kept his front up as the very soul of modesty.

  ‘Quite honestly,’ he said, ‘I’m still not sure I’m ready for it, Gerald. The way I see it, the problem’s impossible in England, and in Scotland ten times worse. It needs a genius.’ He paused, then grinned engagingly. ‘I’m working on it, though. I’ll tell you when I’ve found the answer!’

  It was a bold joke, and they both laughed. In the event, the post of Under Secretary, Home Office (Prisons) had gone to a pale and ineffectual lawyer-politician called Cyril Richardson, whom Sinclair was confident could not survive another major crisis. By the time the Buckie siege blew up nine weeks later, and Richardson collapsed from nervous exhaustion, he judged the time was ripe. He picked up his office telephone and spoke to Sir Gerald’s secretary. Four hours later he was in temporary control of prisons, and next in line for the permanent position. He had, he indicated, found the answer.

  For a minister of the Crown, Sir Gerald Turner was a civilised man, whose idea of fulfilled ambition was to sail his thirty-five foot ketch around the British Isles with only his wife Elizabeth as crew. He listened to Sinclair’s masterplan with growing satisfaction. The use of force proposed was minimal, with an emphasis on solution rather than on smashing up.

  ‘Good,’ he said at last. ‘Because we’ve had enough lunatics with blacked-up faces howling across the TV screens recently to last a lifetime, and I don’t just mean the rioters. We’ve kept the lid on pretty well, as you know. But one more big inquest, one more documentary about blood and broken heads, one more mad anarchist who turns out to be an undercover cop, and…well, let’s say it’s just no longer on.’

  Donald Sinclair smiled.

  ‘I’m not a fool,’ he said. ‘I honestly believe I can sort out Buckie. But given luck and proper back-up, I think it will be a concrete solution, and long-lasting. The Scottish problem will cool off, the copy-cat effect will lose momentum, and the summer in England might be more than bearable.’

  The Home Secretary sipped his coffee.

  ‘No blacked up faces, then. No SAS. Wonderful.’

  ‘I promise you,’ said Donald. ‘Any fool could send the Army in and end the siege in twenty minutes, corpses notwithstanding. My way we’ll see them come down off that roof in good order, no hoods, no ropes, no blood. But what about the Scottish Parliament? We’ll be treading on their toes, big style. They won’t cut rough and send their lads in to take over? The last thing in the world we want to see is men in kilts and bagpipes fucking up.’

  They laughed together.

  ‘I’m the Secretary of State,’ Sir Gerald said. ‘That’s all you need to worry about at present, isn’t it? The PM wants a solution, once and for all. If you succeed, my boy, Richardson is toast. Career wise, the sky’s the limit for you. But if you fail…’

  He laughed again.

  ‘Well, put it this way, if you fail, it won’t only be the knives at Holyrood that are going for your jugular. You know how long a PM’s loyalty lasts. So make it good, Donald. Just make it bloody good.’

  Now, musing at the open mini-bar in his Buckie room, Donald Sinclair felt the apprehension level rise slightly, enough to outweigh the excitement. The plan was good, and simple, and almost foolproof. But of course, the military were involved, they had to be in some capacity unless he was going to go in himself, alone. A small team of soldiers in the know, a handful of selected civil servants, the governor of the jail. What Sinclair feared was the potential that a minor cock-up, one very slight mistake, could precipitate a disaster.

  He glanced at the miniature bottle of malt whisky in his hand, then twisted his wrist to reveal the face of his gold Patek Philippe. The watch had been a present from Sir Gerald’s daughter Carole, which was the nagging secret. Sinclair, a politician through and through, had never admitted it to anyone, had never left his wife, and had got out from under when pain and bitter blood began to flow. His brain registered not just the time, but the irony. What would his chances have been for this job had Sir Gerald known? The tiny flutter of apprehension, irrationally, increased.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he said. ‘I’m bloody terrified.’

  As he said it, the fear was exorcised. But Sinclair, having felt it, knew its potential. Firmly, he replaced the miniature Laphroaig and closed the little fridge. Later he would drink champagne, perhaps. He laughed. Or fall into the gutter with a pint of meths.

  *

  Assault squad. Major Edwards.

  Five floors below McGregor and his freezing comrades, the last of twenty armed men were taking their positions. E-block, where they had been assembled, was still full of filth and debris from the kick-off of the outbreak, and its devastation would make good evidence, or better TV footage when the trouble was resolved. It was full of debris, but empty of prisoners. Those who were not on the roof were in their cells, knowing less about what was happening in the building than anybody else in Britain. For the moment, indeed, most of them were asleep. Nobody in the know wanted them awake until the next half-hour was done. Why play with fire?

  The officer in charge, a major called Carl Edwards, had briefed his men carefully, and in detail. They were elite troops, and neither they nor he particularly relished this task in bleakest Scotland. In joint briefings with the prison back-up squad, they had not been much impressed. They found the warders unambiguously violent in their attitudes towards the prisoners, and full of resentment that the English soldiers were to go in first and have the fun, as they saw it. The rooftop men were savages, they said, and should have been treated as such – by them, their natural masters.

  Major Edwards, when the prison officers had been re-deployed next door, had said nothing controversial. But his facial expressions were famous to his men, and the sneering curl of his lip and raising of the eyebrows was a classic.

  ‘Contrary to what those chaps believe,’ he said, ‘we’re going in to prevent trouble, or contain it, not foment it. As I told you earlier, we will be deploying certain new equipment that the boys with the billyclubs aren’t privy to at all – instructions from on high. What it all adds up to is that the men up there will listen to reason, and be docile, and will be ready to come down like lambs. The psychiatrists have guaranteed it. Any questions?’

  ‘Do you believe that, sir? I mean, I’ve never met a docile haggis-shagger. And if the psychiatrists say so…’

  There was a ripple of laughter. Major Edwards smiled at the burly soldier who had spoken.

  ‘Stranger things have happened, so let’s wa
it and see.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We move out in five minutes. Don’t slip on any porridge.’

  *

  Ops room. Royal Maben, Buckie

  ‘Right,’ said Donald Sinclair. ‘Five minutes to the off, agreed gentlemen? Which means I leave you to it. If you should need me, I am back in my hotel.’

  The officers around the large oak table were too tense to show much surprise, but they felt it. Far from throwing his weight around as they had all expected, this tall Government man had been a quiet presence who had said not one word out of place. The sort of politician soldiers only dream about.

  ‘No need to go, sir, no need at all,’ said the colonel’s ADC, with barely forced politeness. He waved a deprecating hand.

  Sinclair smiled. He had been standing by the curtained window for an hour now, studying the floodlit outline of the jail. On balance, he could hardly see that anything could go wrong. He let the curtain fall.

  ‘You’re the experts, it’s entirely your show. You don’t want me here, getting under foot.’

  The colonel smiled. There was gratitude in it.

  ‘I assure you, sir,’ he said, ‘you’re more than welcome if you want to stay. There won’t be any…er…unpleasantness, or anything like that.’

  Sinclair smiled.

  ‘I sincerely hope there won’t,’ he said. ‘My intention is that not a drop of blood should flow, not a cheek be so much as even scratched. But that is your task, and I won’t get in the way. Good morning.’

  Their task indeed. He was relaxed as he had ever been. During the course of the evening he had read a book, even managed to sleep a while. If anything did go wrong, at this late hour – he would not even be here to see it happen. He nodded one more time, and left.

  ‘Four minutes, sir,’ a junior officer intoned. ‘Four and counting.’