Prisoner Read online

  Prisoner

  ROSS GREENWOOD

  As long as we know we are trapped, we still have a chance to escape.

  Sara Grant

  Contents

  A Tale of Two Jails

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Message from the author

  More from Ross Greenwood

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  In memory of

  Prison Officer Pat Phillips – 1947 – 2021

  Senior Officer John Veitch – 1960 – 2018

  Prison Officer Adam Jarvis – 1987 – 2018

  Legends.

  A Tale of Two Jails

  HMP Peterborough is the only purpose-built prison in Britain to accommodate both sexes. It holds approximately one thousand men and over three hundred women. They are housed separately and kept out of sight of each other at all times.

  Prison officers generally work either the male side or on the female estate, because, even though you might think they would be the same, they are very different places.

  Call signs and locations have been changed, and the characters and events in this book are purely fictional, but the dangers behind bars are real.

  1

  November last year

  I’ve watched movies where people get shot or stabbed, then stagger and drag themselves for miles to safety. Until this evening, I imagined that was possible, but it isn’t. Not for me. Instead, my eyes begin to close.

  A cool breeze rustles the branches. It chills the sweat that covers my body, except for where the sticky warmth runs down my left hip and leg. My left hand rests on the hole in that side, but it lacks the strength to staunch the flow.

  Twenty metres away, through the treeline, occasional cars roar past. I blink back tears. Perhaps, there is still a chance. I manage to shuffle forwards through the damp leaves, gasping through gritted teeth. A sharp, intense spasm in my stomach forces me to arch my back and look skywards. Through the canopy overhead, the moonlight bathes me. I sense part of me drawing upwards, and my face relaxes.

  My weak legs give way, and I slump to my knees, then topple forward over a felled trunk at the side of the path, but any pain has left me now. As my vision blurs once more, there’s no rush of reminiscences or regrets. Instead, the faces of my children appear in my mind, memories from less than an hour ago. I told them that we would always be a family. Instead, I will die alone in the mud.

  And it’s no less than I deserve.

  2

  Six months before that

  Reaching over, I tap the off button on the alarm clock before it rings at 5.30 a.m. I had the misfortune of seeing the time at midnight and every hour after. It’s not uncommon for me to take prisoners to bed, but it’s been many years since one kept me up all night. But Gronkowski is different. I understood that the moment I met him.

  It’s cold in the bedroom even though May Day has been and gone. Abi, my wife, prefers the heating on, but our last gas bill put an end to that. She’s buried herself beneath the covers next to me with just her nose and mouth poking out so she can breathe. Asleep, she resembles the woman I fell in love with.

  The floorboards on the landing creak as I tiptoe across them, but luckily both my children sleep like the dead. It’s their only similarity. I pop my head around the door into eight-year-old Tilly’s room. Just a thin blanket covers her lower legs. Her pyjama top has ridden up to reveal her plump tummy. I occasionally call her The Beast because she’s warm and toasty whatever the weather, and she’s never sick. She doesn’t seem to mind.

  My five-year-old is the opposite of her, to all children it seems. I step into the box room and stare down at Ivan. A minute I don’t have to spare passes. It’s hard to leave my boy. There’s enough light from the streetlamp outside his window for me to frown at the sheen of sweat on the lad’s forehead. Even so, I envy him his fevered rest. I’m at that level of tiredness where you’re nauseous. Ivan grumbles mid-dream, so I stroke his cheek to settle him. He has the same dimple on the right-hand side of his face as me and my long-dead father. Seeing it always makes me smile.

  ‘Shh, my boy. It’s okay.’

  Ivan’s breathing settles, so I leave the room. I couldn’t be bothered to shower after work yesterday, so I need to have one, but I can’t take more than a few minutes or the water will run cool when Abi washes her hair after breakfast. Then she’ll want to discuss my selfishness the second I step through the door in thirteen hours, after the resentment has spent all day poisoning her.

  After a brief shower, I sneak a final glance at the kids before pulling my uniform on, then go downstairs and fill a bowl with cornflakes and milk. My nose wrinkles at the pungent smell in the kitchen. After three spoonfuls, I slop the remains into a gap in the overspilling bin, despite knowing that the next chance I’ll have to eat anything substantial will be in six hours after lunchtime bang up.

  Letting myself out of the back door, which I gently close behind me, I undo two thick cable locks on my bike and place them over my shoulders like ammo belts. Then I scoot through the rear gate. It’s a still, hushed morning with an insignificant drizzle, and the city holds its breath with anticipation.

  Work is five miles away. If it rains, I sometimes take the car, but then Abi is without it, and she’d be stuck in the house with the kids. The buses are too busy, apparently. The prison provides its staff with big waterproof coats for walking the perimeters, but they are so heavy they make you sweat, so I stick to a light officer’s jacket.

  I cycle hard through Orton Longueville Village, the posh area alongside our estate, and race along the row
ing lake. My warm breath steams ahead of me in the cold air. When I hit Atherstone Avenue, near where the prison is, I spot Fats up ahead. He’s my favourite officer to work with. We joined on the same day, five years ago. Fats started on his thirtieth birthday, and it was only a few months until it was mine, and we have similar interests. Our first conversation was a clue to how our relationship would unfold:

  ‘Hi, I’m Jim Dalton.’

  His enormous hand covered mine as we shook, but he was gentle.

  ‘Tony Domingo. You can call me Fats.’

  He bopped his head ever so slightly as he said it. I thought at the time it was to give me a hint on his nickname, but I later discovered he had a habit of nodding when he was nervous.

  ‘Like in Fats Domino?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t you say Domingo?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  Fats says that a lot, even to the prisoners. It’s incredibly disarming.

  His homesick father had returned to Scotland after his birth, leaving his ogre-like mother to raise him. Her family had a slaughterhouse out in the sticks near Spalding. Fats once showed me a picture of the whole clan in between a big barn and a forklift. I’d never seen such huge people, which was saying something if you consider where I worked – Gronkowski would fit in with them. I suspect Fats was raised in the same way as a young bull: by constant feeding. He weighs nearly twice as much as my trim twelve stone, even though we’re both six feet tall. He isn’t all fat, but neither is he all muscle.

  I soon catch up with him and cruise behind his creaking bicycle.

  ‘Is Hitler struggling?’ I ask.

  Fats laughs and gasps loudly. I’d told him once that if there was a God and such a thing as reincarnation, then Hitler would have been reborn as Fats’s bicycle. He mentions it constantly, as though it’s the best joke ever.

  ‘You on the wing?’ Fats wheezes.

  ‘Yeah, Agony. You?’

  ‘No, just the morning. I’ve got a nicking today, so hopefully they’ll make me GD.’

  An Agony is what the staff call an A shift, 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., whereas Fats’s morning shift will start at the same time, but he’ll leave after lunch at twelve-thirty. A nicking is the adjudication meeting after we’ve put a prisoner on report for poor behaviour. GD stands for general duties such as providing support for the wings when it’s time for medication and methadone, and is much less aggravation than running a landing. We’ve been so short of officers lately that the chances of Fats getting GD are slim, but he’s an optimist.

  I asked him if he fancied a beer when we first started, but Fats said he didn’t drink. I got the impression that if I’d asked him for a coffee or even water, I’d have received the same reply. It doesn’t matter though, because I’m bogged down with family life, so a work friend is all I can handle. Fats lives on the same ropey estate as me with his girlfriend, Lena, whom I’ve never met.

  ‘You hear about Sandringham?’ asks Fats.

  ‘Yes, very sad.’

  I realise that I’ve hardly thought about Sandringham’s death since I was told. Does that say something about the person I’ve become, even if I barely knew him?

  ‘Did you meet Gronkowski yesterday?’ asks Fats.

  ‘Yeah, dangerous guy. He arrived late morning. I had an early, so I only spoke to him briefly. They had better partner me up with someone who knows what they’re doing today.’

  ‘I was on his wing at bang up last night. He gave me a mean look when I locked him in, like we were squaring up in a boxing match. Do you know what he did?’

  ‘Grievous Bodily Harm, wasn’t it? Beat them to a pulp when he was robbing them.’

  We stop talking as we weave through the cars in the prison car park. It’s already filling up. If I bring my own vehicle, it’s usually the most battered one there, unless Fats has driven, although I think his car recently passed away after many illnesses. I enter the code for the staff bike shed, and we stow our bikes. Fats stands in front of me with sweat pouring down his face as I put the padlock back.

  ‘That’s right, sir. Gronkowski was remanded for GBH. They said he beat the couple real bad. The girlfriend is still in Intensive Care but, just before we left last night, we heard that the boyfriend had died. That makes Gronkowski a murderer.’

  3

  I’m glad Fats told me the latest about Gronkowski. Many officers aren’t interested in the crimes of the inmates, but I’d rather know if they’ve received unpleasant news. They may be prisoners, but they’re still human, and a few quiet words might help. Although in Gronkowski’s case, I’m more focussed on the fact he is capable of beating someone to death. It’s hard to imagine what kind of rage could cause a person to commit such an awful act. You’d think your inner spirit would prevent you from taking a life. I suspect we all have murderous thoughts, but only mad or evil people act on them.

  As Fats and I stroll to the gatehouse, I glance up and across at the looming whitewashed walls visible beyond the administration building. There’s a red dawn behind, giving them an ethereal glow. It’s difficult to believe that each dark, barred window hides a compact room where men live out their days. It has never seemed right to me that humans are treated like this. Much of prison life doesn’t make sense, but I’ve got a job to do, and it pays my bills. In some ways, I’m as much a prisoner here as they are.

  ‘Dalton! Fats!’ says Lennox, who is at the front of the queue.

  I wave to her and nod to the other officers as we line up to walk through the security scanners. Some officers bring their phones in and put them in the lockers at the gatehouse because having one inside is a criminal offence. Fats is one of them. What can be so important that you’d need to come out each lunchtime and check your phone? I like that nobody can get hold of me. Numerous officers get caught and sacked for ‘forgetting’ their phone is in their pocket, so I leave mine at home. Occasionally, the security team searches us blurry-eyed officers when we arrive first thing, but today’s just a normal day.

  The jail is awash with illicit items, mostly small phones and drugs. Crooked staff are the main source of the contraband that gets brought in. I despise dodgy officers. The role is hard enough without wondering whether the guy next to you has your back. An officer recently got caught bringing a knife in, which is terrifying. Prison weapons, shanks as they are called, tend to be constructed with razor blades and are for slashing and scarring, not for killing. Deep, puncturing weapons are much more dangerous.

  We reach the front where we collect our radios and keys. I glance down at the detail, which shows everyone’s work location for the morning. Fats has his wish and is GD. I frown, then lean towards the holes in the plastic screen that separates the gate staff from us.

  ‘Delta Eight, please.’

  The Operational Support Officer, or OSO, drops a set of keys in the chute and a radio follows soon after. I pick them out, realising that I’d been praying for a miracle that would place me on a different wing and away from Gronkowski, but no such luck today. At least I’m working with a solid guy called Bishop. I step to the side and wait for Fats.

  ‘Delta Eleven,’ says Fats with a smile.

  Grim-faced, I stare down the long line of queueing officers. There’ll be over a hundred of them on shift before unlock. It’s a tale of two jails. The bigger, older men, some ex-forces, stand with expressionless faces. They will usually be on the male side of the prison. Most of the female officers and a few of the younger lads, some only twenty years old, look relaxed and joke among themselves. They’ll work the female side.

  Fats and I wander to the electronic security door and press the button to request clearance from Comms. The door clicks, and I open it. Then we trudge across the sterile area, our footsteps echoing around the high walls, through two big metal gates and finally towards more double doors. I plug in my radio earpiece, hook the mould over my ear, and squeeze the talk button.

  ‘QP, this is Officer Dalton, taking call sign D
elta Eight.’

  There’s a crackle from my radio, but nothing more. Everyone is signing on at once so it often takes a few attempts. I repeat the words and receive a reply.

  ‘Officer Dalton received. Taking call sign Delta Eight, please confirm First Response.’

  ‘Delta Eight confirms First Response.’

  First Response means that when an officer presses his or her personal alarm, First Response come running. That’s the idea anyway. Most days, we’re down to two officers on a wing of eighty. If the other officer is doing meds or in the toilet, you can’t leave the wing unmanned to help. Assistance for the officer in need might be a while coming, so in the meantime, they will have to fight.