to call you, you’re bleeding barmy.’
The Governor struggled with the alliteration before realizing something else was wrong. ‘And who am I speaking to?’ he asked, mustering what little patience he still retained.
‘The name’s Nailtes,’ said the man, ‘and I’m from the Ipford Evening News and –’
The Governor slammed the phone down and turned on Blaggs. ‘A bloody fine mess you’ve landed us in,’ he shouted. ‘That was the Evening News wanting to know if there’s been an escape.’
Chief Warder Blaggs looked dutifully abashed. ‘I’m sorry if there’s been some mistake …’ he began and brought a fresh torrent of abuse on his head.
‘Mistake? Mistake?’ yelled the Governor. ‘Some maniac rings up with some fucking cock-and-bull story about an escape and you have to poison …’ But further discussion was interrupted by news of a fresh crisis. Three safebreakers, who had been transferred from a cell designed to hold one Victorian convict to another occupied by four Grievous Bodily Harm merchants from Glasgow, known as the Gay Gorbals, had begun to fulfil Wilt’s prophesy by escaping and demanding to be closeted with some heterosexual murderers for protection.
The Governor found them arguing their case with warders in B Block. ‘We’re not going in with a load of arse-bandits and that’s a fact,’ said the spokesman.
‘It’s only a temporary move,’ said the Governor, himself temporizing. ‘In the morning –’
‘We’ll be suffering from AIDS,’ said the safebreaker.
‘Aids?’
‘Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We want some good, clean murderer, not those filthy swine with anal herpes. A stretch is one thing and so’s a bang to rightsbut not the sort of stretch those Scotch sods would give us and we’re fucked if we’re going to be banged to wrong. This is supposed to be a prison, not Dotheboys Hall.’
By the time the Governor had pacified them and sent them back to their own cell, he was beginning to have his doubts about the place himself. In his opinion, the prison felt more like a mad-house. His next visit, this time to Top Security, made an even worse impression. A sepulchral silence hung over the floodlit building and, as the Governor passed from cell to cell, he had the illusion of being in a charnel-house. Wherever he looked, men who in other circumstances he would happily have seen dead, looked as though they were. Only the occasional ghastly snore suggested otherwise. For the rest, the inmates hung over the sides of their beds or lay grotesquely supine on the floor in attitudes that seemed to indicate that rigor mortis had already set in.
‘Just let me find the swine who started this little lot,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll … I’ll … I’ll …’ He gave up. There was nothing in the book of legal punishments that would fit the crime.
7
By the time Wilt left The Glassblowers’ Arms, his desperation had been alleviated by beer and his inability to get anywhere near the phone. He’d moved onto beer after three whiskies, and the change had made it difficult for him to be in two places at the same time, a prerequisite, it seemed, for finding the phone unoccupied. For the first half hour, a girl had been engaged in an intense conversation on reversed charges, and when Wilt had returned from the toilet, her place had been taken by an aggressive youth who had told him to bugger off. After that, there seemed to be some conspiracy to keep him away from the phone. A succession of people had used it and Wilt had ended up sitting at the bar and drinking, and generally arriving at the conclusion that things weren’t so bad after all, even if he did have to walk home instead of driving.
‘The bastard’s in prison,’ he told himself as he left the pub. ‘And what’s more, he’s not coming out for twenty years, so what have I got to worry about? Can’t hurt me, can he?’
All the same, as he made his way along the narrow streets towards the river, he
The Governor struggled with the alliteration before realizing something else was wrong. ‘And who am I speaking to?’ he asked, mustering what little patience he still retained.
‘The name’s Nailtes,’ said the man, ‘and I’m from the Ipford Evening News and –’
The Governor slammed the phone down and turned on Blaggs. ‘A bloody fine mess you’ve landed us in,’ he shouted. ‘That was the Evening News wanting to know if there’s been an escape.’
Chief Warder Blaggs looked dutifully abashed. ‘I’m sorry if there’s been some mistake …’ he began and brought a fresh torrent of abuse on his head.
‘Mistake? Mistake?’ yelled the Governor. ‘Some maniac rings up with some fucking cock-and-bull story about an escape and you have to poison …’ But further discussion was interrupted by news of a fresh crisis. Three safebreakers, who had been transferred from a cell designed to hold one Victorian convict to another occupied by four Grievous Bodily Harm merchants from Glasgow, known as the Gay Gorbals, had begun to fulfil Wilt’s prophesy by escaping and demanding to be closeted with some heterosexual murderers for protection.
The Governor found them arguing their case with warders in B Block. ‘We’re not going in with a load of arse-bandits and that’s a fact,’ said the spokesman.
‘It’s only a temporary move,’ said the Governor, himself temporizing. ‘In the morning –’
‘We’ll be suffering from AIDS,’ said the safebreaker.
‘Aids?’
‘Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We want some good, clean murderer, not those filthy swine with anal herpes. A stretch is one thing and so’s a bang to rightsbut not the sort of stretch those Scotch sods would give us and we’re fucked if we’re going to be banged to wrong. This is supposed to be a prison, not Dotheboys Hall.’
By the time the Governor had pacified them and sent them back to their own cell, he was beginning to have his doubts about the place himself. In his opinion, the prison felt more like a mad-house. His next visit, this time to Top Security, made an even worse impression. A sepulchral silence hung over the floodlit building and, as the Governor passed from cell to cell, he had the illusion of being in a charnel-house. Wherever he looked, men who in other circumstances he would happily have seen dead, looked as though they were. Only the occasional ghastly snore suggested otherwise. For the rest, the inmates hung over the sides of their beds or lay grotesquely supine on the floor in attitudes that seemed to indicate that rigor mortis had already set in.
‘Just let me find the swine who started this little lot,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll … I’ll … I’ll …’ He gave up. There was nothing in the book of legal punishments that would fit the crime.
7
By the time Wilt left The Glassblowers’ Arms, his desperation had been alleviated by beer and his inability to get anywhere near the phone. He’d moved onto beer after three whiskies, and the change had made it difficult for him to be in two places at the same time, a prerequisite, it seemed, for finding the phone unoccupied. For the first half hour, a girl had been engaged in an intense conversation on reversed charges, and when Wilt had returned from the toilet, her place had been taken by an aggressive youth who had told him to bugger off. After that, there seemed to be some conspiracy to keep him away from the phone. A succession of people had used it and Wilt had ended up sitting at the bar and drinking, and generally arriving at the conclusion that things weren’t so bad after all, even if he did have to walk home instead of driving.
‘The bastard’s in prison,’ he told himself as he left the pub. ‘And what’s more, he’s not coming out for twenty years, so what have I got to worry about? Can’t hurt me, can he?’
All the same, as he made his way along the narrow streets towards the river, he
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