Lifer Read online

  LIFER

  ROSS GREENWOOD

  The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

  FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

  CONTENTS

  Ben

  I. Adult Custody

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  II. Young

  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

  III. Young Offender

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  IV. A Free Youth?

  Chapter 24

  V. Young Offender

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  VI. A Real Job

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  VII. An Adult

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  VIII. Adult Custody - Hostage?

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  IX. Finally Free?

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Author’s note

  Acknowledgments

  More from Ross Greenwood

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  BEN

  My life changed at a football match, but not the way you’re thinking. There wasn’t a glorious goal after magnificent teamwork that inspired me to greater things. As my dad and I watched The Posh slide to another disappointing loss, he told me my mum was ill. That ruined football. We only went to one more game after that and I spent ninety minutes on edge, wondering if he had something else awful to say.

  I’d loved it until then. Not just the game but the whole day out. We went twice a year as we had little money, or anything else decent for that matter. My dad worked long hours to buy tickets, but did so, he alleged, with a smile. It was our thing, together. Of course, we took my friend Jonty, so it was always fun.

  Dad’s words were. ‘Your mother’s got an illness. You’re old enough to understand.’ I wasn’t. There are illnesses and sicknesses. Who’d have known? She had one and, even though I didn’t know it then, he already had the other.

  Considering my line of work, I expect Mum will outlive us all. My dad was sick with a different beast. His was a snarling, relentless entity that would leave this sixteen-stone man a bedridden skeleton in twelve short months, like two sorrowful eyes on shrunken parchment. He was a great man, a kind man, and then a dead man. He didn’t deserve that, and neither did we.

  Life isn’t fair.

  I know that now.

  PART I

  ADULT CUSTODY

  1

  27TH AUGUST 2014

  The banging on the wing reaches a new level of fury and drags me from my daydream. I understand what this means. Decision time.

  I pull the sheet of paper I’ve used to cover the observation panel out of the way and look down the wing. The Senior Officer plods up the steps to the top landing like an enormous, cumbersome troll. It’s him, and that’s bad news. It’s likely we’ll get hurt during the upcoming ‘incident’, but if this man is in charge it’ll be inescapable. He’ll make sure of it.

  I let the paper – which, ironically, is the notice that Jake has been placed on report – drop back into place, and glance round at the other two occupants. One is conscious, one is not. Our cell is what’s affectionately known as a big double. It’s three times the normal size. The ground floor ones are often saved for inmates in wheelchairs. Yes, the disabled break the law too. The upper landing cells like this are usually occupied by those who run the wings. Prisoners, obviously, not staff. If you haven’t been to jail you might assume that given the choice, which most aren’t, you would want your own space. That’s not the case as often the most powerful inmates share with their friends. If you’re locked up for twenty-two hours a day, any company can be safer than your own.

  Our ‘hostage’ is lying on his back on the floor next to the bunks, sweating like a boxer on his stool at the end of the eleventh round. God knows what he’s taken, but he’s currently no use to anyone. It’s a shame because he’s a threatening individual and perfectly suited to our current predicament. Many people remind you of animals and birds, but Donny was the first person I met who resembled a bull. His huge head is perched on comically narrow shoulders, but his back and arms are enormous. His legs, although powerful, are too short for his body and he seems to walk hunched forward as though he’s about to charge. His piggy suspicious eyes usually tell of poor eyesight, but they’re rolled back in his head, indicating no one is home.

  Jake looks like a hungry crow. He’s sizing me up as though he’s eyeing risky roadkill on a motorway, head bobbing from side to side, feeding off the nervous look I’m giving him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s the SO, coming for a chat. The one you said strangled you!’ I shout to be heard over the din.

  ‘The big one? Senior Officer Cave? I told him I’d walk. You were there, you heard me. He smashed my head against the window bars. Grabbed me by the neck, you know, with both hands. It took four men to pull him off me. That man is tapped, and it was him that did Will, I know it.’

  That is another reason for our situation. Someone went in on Jake’s earlier pad mate and beat him senseless. Jake thinks it was Cave. Breakfast was late, as the man had been blue-lighted away. Even though this isn’t an unusual event in a prison, Jake wants revenge. This SO is the eye of Jake’s storm. The man has been present as long as I’ve been coming here. I’ve no idea what happened in his life to make him so full of hate and malice, but it must’ve been truly appalling.

  Rage, frustration and spite pour off him like the smoke from a volcano just before she erupts. To Jake, though, it’s as if every single backhand, clenched fist, missed birthday, broken promise, late night drunken visit, unwanted probing finger and dismissive stare over the past twenty years have evolved into a human being. This creature has then been sent here to haunt Jake. Until I saw it was Cave who had come to talk to us, I wasn’t sure we’d follow our plan through. I know now it is inevitable.

  The main reason we’ve barricaded the cell door and taken a ‘hostage’ is different for all three of us. This is Donny’s cell and I doubt he has a decent motive. For that you need high-order thinking skills, which require a minimum level of intelligence and nurture denied to him. Donny’s previous cellmate was on the wrong end of a screwdriver in the workshop a few days earlier and will be in hospital. Assuming he’s still alive. So, we’re in Donny’s cell, because mine and Jake’s is tiny since we’ve only just arrived. Jake said there will be more room to fight. That comment seemed funny all those hours ago.

  I stare at Donny as I ponder his thought processes
. As I do, his eyes roll back into place and he pants like an exhausted racehorse after an arduous steeplechase. His cellmate was the brains of the operation. If you had met him, you would realise what a worrying statement that was. No wonder they got caught. He agreed to be our hostage because Jake suggested it, and hinted it would be a laugh. It may have seemed that way. Now we are going through with it, the feeling has changed.

  What we’ve done is barricaded Donny’s cell door at final bang up: about 7 p.m. We then told the officer who was locking the doors we had a hostage who we’d hurt if we didn’t get what we wanted. Our barricade is, more or less, some soaking-wet mattresses and a few plastic chairs with some towels on top to make it look more substantial. Pathetic really. The SO could push them over by himself and drag us out by our ears. However, we have obscured the observation panel, so they don’t know what’s going on for sure and will need to follow their procedures. Health and safety, I expect. First, they send in a negotiator to help us see the error of our ways. They’ve sent the wrong guy for that. Cave may be evil but he isn’t easily fooled. He’ll know there isn’t a hostage, and he also knows how it will end. We will lose.

  2

  Donny splutters a strangled, congested cough, and I raise an eyebrow at Jake.

  ‘Do you think he’s going to be OK?’

  Jake comes and stands next to me, and we stare down at Donny, frowning, in the way you might at finding a huge jellyfish marooned by the tide.

  ‘I’m not sure, he looks wasted.’

  ‘What’s he taken?’

  ‘Spice. He loves it.’

  ‘It looks like he’s taken a lot.’

  ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  Spice and other legal highs are the new scourge of the prison system. They’re chemicals produced in dodgy labs that mimic the effects of mind-altering drugs. You’ve a good idea of what will happen if you stick to the old tried and tested drugs, but these newer processed products have crazy side effects, causing fits, seizures and tremors. Someone told me they could make the heart explode. Prison rumour, I should think, but what is true, is many have died taking it. It’s categorised as an unauthorised substance because its formula is not classified as an illegal drug, so it’s hard to prosecute for bringing it in. It also doesn’t show up on mandatory drug tests. Therefore, it is everywhere.

  The law is changing soon, to make it illegal to have anything like this, but that’s not a deterrent. The problem is that it’s cheap and easily available. A friend of ours, Dan, bought some off the Internet once. Cost him twelve pounds and a gall bladder.

  Jake has smoked it in our cell previously. It was as if someone had set fire to a tractor tyre. It was suffocating, and we shouted and screamed to get out of there. The officers thought we were faking it and denied our requests for fresh air. Eventually they released us and Jake got carried to Healthcare. Even he won’t touch it now and he has zero regard for his own welfare, so that is saying something. As my mum used to say, ‘He may be daft, but he’s not stupid.’

  Donny is stupid.

  Jake shrugs.

  ‘Let’s face it, he’s an oxygen waster. It’s not like he’ll be missed. The world will be a better place for his absence too. Besides, I can think of worse ways to go.’

  Harsh. That’s Jake all over. He prides himself on caring about nothing and no one. I shake my head, but I’m not surprised. I wonder if he’d be as disparaging over my twitching body. Jake leans against the window, wearing his best prison face. Everyone here has one. A face that says, nothing bothers me, I don’t care and you can’t reach me. It’s bluster. They hurt. They know they’re wasting time in a vicious warehouse. Locked in cages like animals while their life ticks by. Aware that when they rejoin the world it’ll be to a life that’s broken, and they will lack the money, skills, or knowledge to repair it. Even Jake is different on the other side of the prison gates. He’s not the incredible prick he is in here. There he is fun, still nuts, but almost likeable.

  I saw these faces when I first arrived. Thought what a hard place I had been sent to. I put on my own mask of anger and indifference, and that’s how I know these facades are untrue, because I care. I have things and people to lose. I will ache when they are gone.

  That brings me to what Jake and I get out of it. He’s one of the rare few who have nothing. There’s no one to send him money or clothes, no one waiting for his call, and no one to meet him when he leaves. Jake entered the care system too young to remember his parents, before he was old enough to know what terrible things had occurred. But they still leave a mark. Social services, no doubt trying their best, guided him through more irreparable experiences with people who should not have been within a hundred metres of any child. Until he’d had enough. He dropped out of sight and joined the faceless, anonymous section of society it’s too late to save.

  You can’t take anything from Jake. He has nothing to give. You can only hurt someone if they have something they value. Perhaps that’s the only way people like him can feel in control. Individuals such as these who will do anything, literally anything, to save face and gain position are what makes jail such a dangerous place. Life has battered him so hard that he’s become desensitised to it. The only way he knows he’s alive is by undergoing extremes of emotions. Today serves that purpose. Fear, hatred, pain, anger and no doubt finally, regret, will shortly be in this room.

  At twenty-one, we’re now too old to go to a young offender institution. If you ever have the misfortune to meet a forty-year-old career prisoner, you’ll see a considerable difference. Jake and I are tall and strong, but bigger, harder, more violent men than us live here. So today sends a message: we fight, even if we have no chance. We are not to be underestimated. We are untouchable.

  Despite Jake’s icy, hostile outlook on life, he’s the only friend I have in this soulless place. Sticking together gives us the best chance of survival.

  To conclude, Jake doesn’t care, Donny doesn’t understand, and me, I’m angry It’s a sad indictment of human nature that, in the ensuing madness, our stock in the prison will rise by our efforts to hurt as many prison officers as possible. So that’s part of it. The main reason I have gone along with this reckless plan is that I’m furious. I’m livid with life in general, with God, with my father for dying, with my useless mother, but mostly with myself. Yes, I received a poor hand, but I’ve played it badly.

  What do you do if you’re angry? Go to the gym, see your friends, take a walk, drive, shop, Xbox, drink? Here, these things are taken from you and, lacking the courage to hurt myself, I want to vent my fury on someone else. The prison staff will do.

  I have a toothache too and that’s never a good time to make important decisions. Whatever your imagination pictures a prison dentist to be, it’s probably correct. That’s if you get an appointment with the tooth-removing fiend.

  I’m in Jake’s debt too. It feels bizarre to say it, but he sacrificed himself to save me. Even though he failed, he saw my need was greater. It meant he’d go back to prison, but he did it anyway. You don’t make many friends like that, so I had little choice when he suggested this foolishness. Although, perhaps, if I hadn’t met Jake, none of this would’ve happened. The horrible thought I’d had enough warnings and near misses to know who was to blame ricochets around in my brain. I’m interrupted by the door vibrating with the sound of someone’s leisurely knocks. Three times the door shakes. I stare at Jake.

  ‘Your chum’s here.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him.’ Jake’s face is stern.

  As we wait for the man to speak, we hear a metal squeak and both see the metal plug in the centre of the cell door being unscrewed. A moment of panic hits me as I realise they can just stick the hose in here. That’s what it’s there for: flood the cell with high-powered foam and the fire, or our protest in this case, is over. Clearly inhumane and not permitted, but I have heard it done. Ever the mad men, Jake and I crouch down and stare at an angry bloodshot eye that fills the hole.
r />   ‘Out now, you little pricks.’

  Jake recovers fast. ‘No way. We have a hostage, and if you don’t do what we say, he’ll get hurt.’

  ‘Any requests?’ the officer asks quietly.

  ‘We’re hungry. I’d like chips.’

  ‘Chinese sound good? I believe we’ve got them on speed dial.’

  Some prisons occasionally give food like this if it avoids a violent incident, even though it encourages demonstrations such as ours. There’s no way Cave would fall for that.

  ‘Hmm, I prefer Mexican. They could include a massive cactus. It’ll be for you. You can spin on it.’ Jake smiles.

  That leaves us with a pause. Long seconds pass, with the only sound the drip from the broken sink that Jake kicked off the wall at the start of this journey. The drops become a torrent, surely a bad sign.