Prisoner Page 5
It’s our take on the famous lines from Aliens, one of my favourite films.
There’s a big queue at the gatehouse scanners, so we wait at the back. Sheraton, who came over yesterday with Peasbody, is in front of us. He nods at us. I’m sure I detect a newfound confidence.
‘Hey, Sheraton. How’s your mate, Peasbody?’ asks Fats.
‘Good. He texted me this morning. They’re letting him out later today. No concussion, just a bad bump.’
‘That’s great news,’ I say. ‘He did well yesterday, tell him that. You did, too.’
Sheraton grins and straightens his shoulders.
‘You okay, Dalton?’ asks Fats.
‘No, not great. My wife told me she wants to split up as I was leaving for work.’
‘No way. I’m sorry, man. Was she serious or just lashing out?’
‘No idea. Part of me was relieved. We’re both miserable and lonely despite living on top of each other. I can’t do anything right and I’m so tired most of the time. All this cycling and walking has put me in the best shape ever, but I feel worse than I’ve done in ages. Perhaps I should move out for a bit, get my head together.’
Fats looks upset.
‘You’re going to give up?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘You should never quit on family. Go home, talk to her. Leaving won’t make anything easier, especially not for the kids. Sounds like your boy needs his daddy.’
The queue starts moving through the scanners and, as we traipse forward, I puff my cheeks out.
‘You know, Fats, I checked my phone this morning and there was a Facebook message from a mate of mine called Martin. We haven’t spoken in years. He sent me a picture of him in Nice at this beach party, surrounded by tanned, slim beauties. Apparently, he’s gone there to learn French for three months.’
‘That sounds sweet. Jealous?’
‘Too right. Look how different my life is. My existence is the polar opposite of his. I’m not sure it could get any worse.’
Fats laughs. ‘You haven’t seen the work detail yet. You might be in Male Healthcare. There’s a nutty guy in there who keeps shitting on the floor. Must smell lovely when the sun comes out. Anyway, snap out of it. You got it all, man. Pretty wife, healthy kids, respect in a hard job. Lot of men would give both nuts to be in your position.’
I smile at him, even though I suspect it isn’t true. ‘Both?’
‘Okay, one of them.’
‘I just feel trapped.’
Fats shakes his head at me.
‘You’re not trapped. Lena’s trapped.’
He scans the detail when we reach where we collect our keys.
‘Oh, shit,’ he says.
I take it off him. They’ve put Fats in the block this morning and back on the wings in the afternoon, no doubt to help control Gronkowski when he wakes up. Nasty. I can’t find my surname in there with him or on the wings. Male or female side. Fats double-checks for me.
‘Maybe they think I should have a day off,’ I say, only half-joking.
‘Are you Jim Dalton?’ asks the gatehouse worker.
He’s staring at my name badge, so I raise a tired eyebrow.
‘Oscar One said to report to him when you arrive.’
Oscar One runs both sides of the jail at the weekends. Being called to his office is rarely good news.
‘Did he mention what it was about?’ I ask.
‘Nope. Didn’t look happy, though.’
13
The OSO informs me that Oscar One is in Male Separation and Care, which is the official name for the block. The laughable explanation being that we separate the troubled inmates from main location in there and care for them. I walk over with Fats. Our nostrils flare at the thick stench when we get to Main Street, which is the area of the prison away from the houseblocks where the different specialist departments branch off. It seems the unbalanced man in Healthcare has been busy first thing. We can also hear the rhythmic thud of someone strong kicking the back of their door. That sound is coming from the block.
We open the double doors and the banging is deafening. They’ve asked before if Fats and I would be based in Separation and Care full-time, but Fats said he felt he was helping people on the wings. He didn’t want a job where he only controlled them. The last shift I had in here, a bloke threw a plastic cup containing his spunk at me when I opened him up to deliver his lunch. That put me off the place somewhat.
Fats goes to the office to discuss the day ahead with the other officers. I briefly stare at the line of fifteen cells, which is all they have down here. Some men are in here for months without TVs or visits. What do they do all day? Where do their minds go? I find Oscar One, a grey-haired guy in his fifties called MacStravick, furiously writing in the room where they adjudicate the prisoners who’ve been placed on report.
‘Morning, sir.’
‘Sit down, please, Dalton.’
I pull out a chair from under the table and try not to slump in it.
‘I thought I’d explain what we’re going to do with you.’
‘Okay.’
‘We can’t have you on the landings if your brother-in-law is there. All his co-defendants are here too, and it seems they also know you. They’re a challenging bunch. Two of them flooded their cell this morning before unlock. They are both here now. One of them, who said his name was Bumpy, spat at the nurse. The other one is currently kicking his door. He’s been shouting for someone to fetch you, for some reason. Do you have any idea why?’
‘Who is it?’
‘Igualo. Phil Igualo.’
‘Yeah, I know him, but haven’t heard of anyone called Bumpy. Igualo was Wyatt’s best mate at school. I used to play football with them both after they’d finished school when I first went out with his sister. Igualo was awesome. Tall and brilliant in the air. Arsenal wanted to sign him as a kid at one point, but his mum couldn’t drive him there for training due to work. He’s been angry ever since.’
‘Right, you clearly know him well enough. I don’t want you over here on this side full stop, then. The Shooter Gang, as Igualo insists they’re called, has a trial in two weeks. If they get released afterwards, it’s fine. If they receive a sentence, we’ll transfer them straight to Glen Parva. In the meantime, you’ll work female side.’
I pause for a moment. In the five years I’ve worked here, I’ve only done a handful of shifts on the female side, and nearly all of them were in Reception.
‘Sure, no problem,’ I eventually say. ‘Shall I go there now?’
‘Yes. Igualo needs to learn that kicking doors doesn’t get results. By some miracle, we have a few people spare today, so just do GD on Houseblock One. They’ll allocate you a wing after that or leave you floating.’
I stand and open the door to go.
‘Dalton, find your feet over there. It’s not the same as this side.’ He gives me a tired smile. ‘Don’t get too comfortable though, we’ll want you back.’ He returns to the report he’s writing.
I tell Fats where I’m going. He calls me a lucky bastard, and I set off to the female side. You can walk through two connecting security doors, but it’s often as quick to walk outside the prison buildings and through the sterile area that separates the two sides. I’m not in any rush, and it’s stopped raining. By the time I open the female houseblock doors, I’ve missed unlock, so the prisoners are out and about having breakfast and getting their meds.
The first difference that strikes me is the quiet. I can see a lot of women walking around, but there’s no shouting. The second thing is the odour, or lack of a stomach-churning one. It reminds me of the smell of a cheap hotel I once stayed in. I let out a big breath and relax. My prison mind doesn’t sense any danger. I walk towards the hub, passing a few prisoners on the way.
‘Morning, sir,’ say two passing inmates, each with a smile.
‘Morning,’ I reply.
I stifle a grin. I think I’m going to like it here.
14
Only the senior officer, Nasima Khan, is in there. I’ve only ever said hello to her on a few occasions, but I hear she’s popular.
‘Morning, Nasima.’
She spins her chair around from the computer and eyes me up and down.
‘Oscar One rang to say you were on your way over.’
‘Here I am.’
‘Call me ma’am, please, while you’re here. Not because I’m an arsehole, but because it gives my role gravitas. Then the urchins think they’re talking to the person who runs the prison, and the buck stops with me.’
‘Fair enough, ma’am.’
She stands up and walks over to me. I tower over her by a foot and I’m twice as wide. She has her hair in a bun and her uniform is spotless. I detect dark bags under her eyes. It’s difficult to tell if it’s make-up, her natural colouring, or the result of fatigue. She can’t be more than twenty-five, yet there is a cold maturity within that stare.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘at the very least you’ll be a deterrent. Have you worked much on the female side?’
‘No, hardly at all. I did a few shifts in Female Reception about six months ago. I’ve probably been on a female wing twice in five years.’
‘How is it on the male side nowadays?’
‘Pretty brutal. There’s loads of spice around, so staff assaults happen every day or so. Sometimes it feels like you’re working with a target on your back.’
‘It’s Jim Dalton, isn’t it? I heard your name come up when the powers that be were looking for new SOs. Why didn’t you go for promotion?’
‘The job over there is dangerous. Blood gets spilled, but that’s the way it is. I can handle that now and rarely take it home with me. It’s a good feeling to leave the prison without baggage. I reckon being promoted would change that.’
She retakes her seat and smiles.
‘I have a lot of respect for you guys over there. It must be stressful. I don’t think I’d cope with that level of violence in my life, and I’ve never liked the smell of too much testosterone. The rumours are you were the one who took down that enormous Polish guy. You’re making quite an impression.’
I consider telling her Fats was the real hero, but decide it’s not important.
‘Thanks.’
‘If you want to GD for me today, that would be great. Ease you in nice and gently. Usually we have two officers on each wing, no GD, and they do their own meds. At the weekend, we sometimes drop to one a wing if the prison is short on your side. We’ll do some urine tests this afternoon, seeing as we have an extra body for the day. How long are you here for?’
‘A fortnight at a guess. My brother-in-law and his gang are at court in two weeks. They will plead guilty and, if what he’s told me is true, they’ll get a suspended.’
‘You have to love family. I’ll allocate you a wing if you’re going to be here a while, then. You might even like it. I’ve got two gaps at the moment. One with the young offenders and one with the lifers. They’ve also sent me cover from Mother and Baby. You must know Trudy. You can decide between yourselves who goes where. I’ll put you both on the YO wing tomorrow. Trudy knows all the inmates well because we often use her as cover.’
She holds my gaze for a few moments. We’re both aware one of the gaps is Sandringham.
‘Is it true about him?’ I ask.
‘That he drowned himself? Yes. Apparently, there’s no other reasonable explanation with his shoes placed on the side of the river.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘Isn’t working here enough of a reason?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I read some interesting stats about the subject from an American article – 3 per cent of the public have suicidal thoughts, but that rises to 10 per cent for prison officers. For retired officers, it increases to nearly one in three.’
‘Wow! I’m not sure I wanted to know that.’
‘How are you mentally?’
‘Fine. Better for being over here for a while.’
Khan gestures to the door. Just as I open it, she speaks quietly with an expression that’s hard to describe.
‘Careful out there, Dalton. You’re not in Kansas any more.’
15
I step outside the hub and walk to the med hatch through the area that an elderly orderly is mopping. She doesn’t complain, just mops up my footprints. The med hatch over here is bigger than on the male side and considerably cleaner. The inmates queue respectfully. Trudy Tyler is at the front with the jug of water.
‘Hey, Tex. I’m your GD!’
‘F-A-B, Dalton. What are you doing over here?’
‘They’ve transferred me over here until my brother-in-law finishes at court. Apparently, you’re here for a while, too.’
‘Yeah, Nasima told me. We’re both with the young offenders on Whisky wing tomorrow, so we’ll chat then. X-ray 1 have had their meds and so have Yankee 1, where I’m working today. In fact, this charming lady is my last victim.’
A bedraggled-looking pensioner gives me a toothless smile and a mock salute as she saunters past. I catch a faint whiff of urine.
Tex hands me the jug and disappears. The way it works on both sides of the jail is the inmates get their meds three times a day from a room with a hatch at the far end. Only one prisoner is allowed in the room at a time, the others queue outside. Some meds are kept in their cells, but overdoses are common, so it’s safer to provide them daily under supervision. Drugs with any kind of mind-altering effect, whether it be an upper or downer, have a value in the prison and are easily traded. Things that can kill you are also valued. Those drugs are given out by a nurse in the exact doses prescribed. A prison officer, in this case me, will stand next to the prisoner and make sure the pill goes in their mouth, not their pocket or behind their tongue.
I call it gob watch. I fill their cup with water and they drink the contents. All of it. That way, it’s very hard to hide the tablet in their mouths. Loads of them try it on. Many have missing teeth with a handy socket to conceal pills in. The nasty part is that, to check they aren’t hiding anything, you need to look in their mouths like a dentist, and dental hygiene is low down on the list of priorities for many within these walls. If capital punishment were the sentence for halitosis, this place would be death row. It’s degrading for the prisoners too.
On the male side, it can be a flashpoint, especially first thing. The poor nurse wheels her cart over and then locks herself behind a big, solid, metal door. There’s a barred hatch, and a slot to receive the pills. She gets verbally abused many times per shift by those unhappy with their prescription. Drug addicts think they know best. The officer supervising this circus has to judge the line. Moaning is fine, complaining is okay, shouting and swearing is not. Fighting is likely.
I walk to Whisky 1 wing and open the gates.
‘Whisky 1 meds,’ I holler down the wing.
A young Asian girl walks towards me, holding her jaw. Toothache here is common. I can’t think of a worse place to suffer with that. In prison, the nights are long.
It’s three prisoners out at a time. Male side, many of them leave the gates and veer towards other wings to pass drugs or messages. When challenged they’ll argue as though it’s you who’s out of line. No such problems here.
The male wings have nearly eighty men on them, on the female wings the maximum is thirty-six, yet meds takes longer over here. It seems as if every prisoner is on something. But there’s no real trouble. One girl cries because her sleeping tablets aren’t strong enough, but she’s not rude. The overriding emotion I sense is one of sadness. Are they beaten down by being in prison
, or did life batter them before they arrived?
I have a joke with a few, but they are wary of me. There is a lack of eye contact, which is common to nearly all prisoners. Is that confidence, or a reflection of their upbringing? People don’t look each other in the eye where I live, either.
It’s nearly 10 a.m. before I shout down the final wing.
‘Zulu 1, last call meds.’
A mixed-race woman, a girl really, almost a child, walks past me. She holds my eye from the moment she sees me and maintains eye contact until she reaches the back of the queue. Her black hair is elfin, and so is her size and bearing. A lumbering woman with translucent, greasy skin is last to come out. The grey prison tracksuit she wears looks two sizes too small. She edges by me, leaving a trail of body odour in her wake. I recognise the smell of fear.
When I reach the med hatch, the small prisoner holds out her cup for me to fill with water. She gives me her ID card, which I pass through the bars. She looks young enough to be at school yet she has dead eyes. Her name is Tara Prestwick, which sounds unexpectedly middle class. The nurse rummages in the meds cart. The girl stares grimly at me, yet I definitely detect a sudden crinkle in her eyes.
‘What are you thinking? Is it an elf or a pixie?’ she says.
I look her up and down. She can’t even be five feet tall. It’s hard to believe she must be at least eighteen, but it’s not easy to tell because, unlike in the picture, she has full make-up on now. It looks professionally done and is a little disturbing in such a grim place. It’s as though an assistant from a beauty salon got arrested on the way to work. She has snug pink tracksuit bottoms on and a bright white T-shirt with the word, Tiger! in big pink letters on the front.
‘I was thinking Bride of Chucky,’ I reply.
She gasps. ‘You did not just say that.’
With a face of outrage, she turns to the furtive creature behind her, who gives off the presence of someone tiny despite looking nearly as heavy as I am.
‘You hear that, Broken? Chucky!’