Staying Alive Read online

  ‘No, as far as I know there’s only been a couple of cases but the mythology is that everybody knows somebody who knows somebody it happened to. The thing is the recorded actions only occurred when Moorby and Manson were on duty. Guard your arse, Captain.’ He smiled.

  I settled in quickly. I suppose I was used to discipline and that was something that most of my new companions were not amenable to. It seemed to me the atmosphere of threat was lower here than the other prisons I had visited. Perhaps because it was a new prison or perhaps it was the sociological experiment with names. Many of those new to prison looked tired. They clearly weren’t sleeping. I’d always been a good sleeper. I suppose it came from spending most of my school years sharing a dormitory or multi-occupied bedroom and then sharing bedroom space in private student accommodation at university. The cries, calls and snores, the groans, gasps and moans, and the bangs, footsteps and the creaking movement of the building didn’t bother me. For some, this must have been the real punishment of prison, that, together with the lack of privacy. I’d never had a private life: prep school, public school, university, Sandhurst and then the army proper. I suppose officer accommodation was the greatest privacy I’d ever had. No, I suppose, strangely, my privileged life had equipped me for prison. I suppose it must be the mass of people in the middle strata of society that would suffer most with mummy and daddy always around to look after them and their own bedroom and privacy. I assume that those in the top and bottom strata, as children, face a range of life’s stresses that toughen a person up to be independent, with the top end involving more parental interest but less parental contact.

  14

  The next two weeks went fast. I sat in with some of the other teachers and instructors to get a feel for teaching and to try and pick up hints, tips and approaches. Some seemed to me to be really good and others were, quite frankly, rubbish. I went to the library and found some books on teaching and they, at least, gave me some structure. Slowly I integrated into prison life, massively helped by Harry, but my overriding thought was my first visit and I was counting down the days until I would see Sam again.

  When the day finally arrived I was walking from the classroom allocated to me, towards the hub of the building, when two prisoners confronted me. This was a ‘blind’ area of the building. I didn’t know them. It surprised me that it had taken so long before I was challenged.

  ‘Got a visitor today then, copper?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Pity you won’t be well enough to see her.’ The speaker stepped forward, poking my shoulder with his finger.’

  ‘I would prefer it if you didn’t poke me.’

  He grinned and went to poke me again, but the grin quickly transformed into a scream when I broke his finger. He dropped to his knees and I still held his finger while he screamed, pain I supposed, and then I kicked his face. I felt his teeth break on the toe of my shoe. His mate turned and ran. I kicked him twice more; his face was badly damaged. I then stamped onto his right hand and heard the bones crunch. I wiped the blood off the toe of my shoe on the downed man’s trousers and kicked him three or four more times. Undoubtedly, some ribs would break.

  He was still conscious, so I said, ‘Okay, sonny Jim, tell your friends the next one I’ll kill.’ Lesson learned. Message sent. I picked up the books and papers and walked back and into the library. Arthur and Dad, who were in my class, were in there and Jacko the librarian was reading a letter to one of them. All three looked at me.

  ‘I’ve been in here nearly as long as you.’

  They all nodded. They understood; no questions and Jacko restarted reading the letter. The door opened and two prison offices came in, Mary Williamson and Peter Osgood. They stood and looked at us.

  ‘Last one in?’ said Williamson, scanning the four of us.

  ‘That would be me I think,’ I said. ‘Yes, I shut the door. Yes, me, Officer Williamson.’

  ‘How long ago?’ Both the officers were staring at me.

  ‘Ten minutes, um, quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Did you see Bert Connolly?’

  ‘I don’t know Bert Connolly.’

  ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘My classroom. Number seven.’

  She nodded. ‘Okay.’ They stared for a few seconds then they left.

  I asked Jacko to look after my papers and then followed the two officers down the passageway. The central area was like a tableau; it was quiet, prisoners stationary, looking at the entrance to the passageway, their eyes following me as I meandered towards the reception area. Nobody moved towards me. The repercussions of this little confrontation would be interesting.

  Finally, I went into the visitors’ room; I was the last one in. It was the first time I’d been in there. The officer on the door checked my name and asked me whether I had read the rules for visitors. No touching was the one that had registered most strongly with me.

  Each Formica-topped table was square, facing in the same direction, with two chairs on one side and one on the other, all fixed to the floor in perfect lines so the prisoners were facing the entry door. Video cameras were very noticeable around the room. When seated, prisoners were a long arm-stretch from their visitors and prison staff could patrol in any direction. I was pointed to a table at the back of the room; well, I assumed the visitors’ entrance was the front where an officer stood. I could understand the thinking of the designers, low chance of contact, easy viewing of all interactions. There were also vertical boards under the tables, between prisoners and their visitors that went down to just below knee height. Smart these designers: not possible to pass anything even on a shoe, and no hand jobs.

  Many of the tables were occupied, some with visitors and prisoners and the rest with waiting prisoners like me, watching the door. You could feel the expectation, or was that just my excitement? I watched as visitors came in and the prison officer on the door took their names and pointed to where their prisoner was. The room was nearly full when finally Sam came in. She was, as she always was, calm, controlled, beautiful and observant. She saw me almost right away, long before the prison officer pointed me out. Her arrival, however, signalled a hush amongst the other prisoners; it seemed that everyone was looking at her and all talking had stopped. Then a breathless voice, filled with awe, said, ‘Fucking hell!’

  Some laughed at the exclamation that they’d probably controlled and an appreciative growl came from some others. I doubted that many women who looked and dressed like Sam visited people in prison.

  Sam smiled her dazzling smile in the direction of the young man who had spoken and he went bright red. Then she looked back to me and walked through the tables to me, all eyes and sighs were following her gently swaying hips as she weaved through the tables and chairs. The air was tingling, awed by her beauty. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself: slender, gracefully and elegantly moving through the tables towards me. She’d the bumps and curves in exactly the right places, exactly the right shape and exactly the size that made any red-blooded male hold his breath as she moved on those exotic, perfect, long legs. I suppose she’d an air of mystery about her. I’m sure that was what dominated the men who came into Sir Nicolas’s chambers and these men were no different – dominated, dum-founded by feminine beauty as I’d been from the first time I saw her and I still was. I suppose I’d always just accepted that she was beautiful, never thinking about her beauty, just knowing, but more than that, her inner beauty. But, as she walked amongst the tables toward me, I realised that she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. I’m sure I knew that already, but it was just in this environment it hit me like a punch to the solar plexus and clearly it had this stunning effect on the other men in the room and put to shame the lesser beauty of their women.

  She put her bag on the table, sat, leaned across to take my hand and was promptly stopped.

  ‘No touching,’ the female prison officer said.

  ‘I bet you want to touch him,’ said Sam with a smile and a
knowing look at the officer.

  The officer smiled. ‘We can’t always have what we might want, madam.’ She then continued her patrol down the aisles between the tables.

  Sam looked at me and said, ‘Can we talk here?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Your release is going well. Everything is in place to pull the plug when you trigger it. Your solicitor friend has found a real, live, lefty, human-rights nutter who has linked up with some prisoners’ rights nutters and they’re starting to create little waves in another prison to test the authorities reactions before tackling this place. Now let’s talk about you and me. Tell me what has happened to you.’

  ‘I am now a teacher.’

  ‘A teacher, teaching what?’

  ‘I have this class of non readers and I have to get them to learn to read.’

  ‘Don’t they have proper teachers in here, then? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like it came out, it’s just I never would have thought of you as teaching people to read.’

  ‘I know, it’s weird really, but I’ve learned a lot already.’

  We chatted on about my class and then Sam said, ‘Barrow came to see me.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘He said that Sir Nicolas had an anonymous tip that it was probably an individual called Ratty that killed Jase. Not a very nice name. Anyway he sends his regards. I bought a new picture by Henderson Cisz, Morning in Westminster.’

  ‘I bet that cost a few bob.’

  ‘Well, I know you like his pictures.’ I noted that she didn’t tell me the price so it was probably over five grand.

  ‘Where will you put it?’

  ‘You know where St Paul’s, The City is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ll move that towards the door and it will fit in there.’ I could just visualise it. They would look great next to each other. We chatted on about what she had been doing and what was happening at the chambers. June, in the restaurant, had got engaged at last. She had been going out with a civil servant for five years so that was a move forward towards her ambition. We chattered on and the time just flew by.

  The only problem was that half the room was watching us, well, watching Sam. I suppose one of the attractions for our observers was the way Sam used her hands when she was describing things, flowing and expressive, a delight to watch.

  Eventually, visiting time ended. The visitors left, Sam with them, and I had a hollow empty feel, a void. I was missing her before she reached the door, where she turned and blew me a kiss. The prisoners were told to leave row by row, except I was told to stay where I was. The room was empty and two prison officers came and sat opposite me. One was Peter Osgood and the other was a senior prison officer that I didn’t know.

  ‘Where were you at ten fourteen this morning?’ asked the senior prison officer.

  ‘I was in classroom seven or the library.’

  ‘Could you have been in the passageway past the library?’

  ‘Might have been, yes. Probably, I passed the library and then went back.’

  ‘Did you see anybody else?’

  ‘There were three people in the library. They were –’

  ‘No, in the bloody corridor.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You were there at the same time as Bert Connolly and Charlie Adams.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You just said that you didn’t see them.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t.’

  ‘How could you not see them if you were there at the same time?’

  ‘Perhaps I was facing away from them.’

  ‘Did you hear them in the passageway?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  Just then, Senior Officer James, my personal officer came in.

  ‘Problems, Jake?’

  ‘No, ma’am, these officers seem to think I saw somebody that I didn’t.’

  The senior officer and Senior Officer James went to the other side of the room. They called over Osgood then Senior Officer James came back to me and the other two left.

  ‘They don’t believe you, Jake.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘Bert Connolly was seriously injured at about ten fourteen in that corridor this morning and you were there.’

  ‘How do they know?’

  ‘Two reasons: tracking switched onto you because you had an appointment and all those who have appointments are scanned to see if they’re in the right sort of area. The other reason was that you were also seen in the library just after that time.’

  ‘Well that’s right, I told them that, and Officer Osgood saw me in the library. Were they tracking this guy, Bert Connolly, as well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he might have been there earlier or later.’

  ‘Possible, but unlikely. He was on video entering the passageway at ten thirteen.’

  ‘They said somebody else was also there.’

  ‘Yes, and he said he didn’t injure Connolly.’

  ‘Did he say who did?’

  ‘You know he didn’t. He’s not going to grass.’

  ‘So what will he get?’

  ‘Some loss of remission.’

  ‘Good lesson not to pick fights with people.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill Connolly, Jake.’

  ‘Then it couldn’t have been me.’

  Senior Officer James smiled and shook her head. ‘He’ll take some months to fully recover, Jake.’

  ‘Oh dear. What a shame.’

  ‘Yes, you’re very dangerous, Captain Jake Robinson, but I don’t think you’ll be attacked again in a hurry.’

  When I got back to our cell, Sergeant was there.

  ‘You look like shit, Captain,’ he said and I told him what happened. ‘It’s these bloody things,’ he said. ‘Always carry some silver paper then if you want to disappear, cover the transmitter.’ It was so obvious. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Jake. The screws know, but remember they can’t prove a thing.’

  15

  As I had told Sam, I’d found myself teaching reading and writing to a group of illiterates and, strangely, I was enjoying it. Well, two of them weren’t illiterate but they wanted to be in the class with some of the other prisoners so they claimed they were illiterate.

  The chief instructor had given me some methods and books but these guys had been subject to these methods for a year, or in some cases a number of years, and they hadn’t, it seemed, progressed at all. Initially, they were totally demoralised and only came to lessons because it was the best of the options that they had. Their interest level appeared zero and I had to get control or this teaching number was dead before it had begun and no other instructor wanted this little lot. I quickly found that interest in learning to read seemed of little importance to my class. So, I explored it. The odd thing was that they were, in reality, desperate to learn to read, although they didn’t want to say so. They could see all sorts of advantages but the downside was too daunting. The main thing was fear: fear that they couldn’t be successful because the subject matter was too hard for them and it was boring and their span of attention was low. They had also found that if they had a half-decent teacher he would eventually give up on them.

  I could see one problem almost straight away. How on earth can anybody use a phonetic approach to learn to read when he or she doesn’t make the correct sounds when they speak? So we started with learning to say words correctly. The other problem that struck me early on was that English is not a phonetic language, so there is often not a direct relationship between the spelling and the sound. So they were faced with a double problem, but it didn’t seem to be quite the sizable problem I thought when I got hold of some explicit sexual magazines and we practised words they could see through the pictures, such as t-i-t. I would then show the picture, write the word and say the letters. They found this fun and related to the pictures and I would take the words they used and we would work on them to get the sounds. It may not have been good teachin
g practice, but it got some interest and when they got over their embarrassment of doing this out loud, we started to get somewhere. Mind you, I did have some opposition to them using correct pronunciation, as this was posh. A partial answer was to use their words, expletives and all.

  ‘Say after me: shit – sh-ee-t – shit. Sound out the “t” and have the tip of your tongue in contact with the top of your mouth just behind your front teeth – “t”.’

  As they got used to me, most of the time was spent laughing and some of the professional teachers weren’t amused, but I’d interest and my class was working hard, and I was having fun. I quickly understood never to be negative. If something was good I would tell them. I also didn’t let them be negative about themselves or the others in the group. We were building a positive culture and it was very hard work and exhausting. They didn’t understand at first as they were so used to negativity as a mode of communication and were embarrassed to be positive.

  I was surprised by how quickly some of my students, students may be an elevated term, caught on, but some were having difficulties that I just didn’t understand. What was more surprising was that, in many other ways, they were the sharpest people in the class. Then I realised that three of them, Johno, Liz and Spider, were probably dyslexic. I needed to talk to somebody and it turned out that one of the old pros was knowledgeable in this area, a man known as Mr Cratcher. Nobody seemed to know his first name and he’d been teaching in the prison since he retired from teaching at the local grammar school when it became a comprehensive some fifteen years before. He was a cold, scratchy old bastard as far as I could see, and must have been at least seventy-five, probably older. Strangely enough, the cons rated him and that was good enough for me. I managed to capture him in his classroom as the classes broke up.

  ‘Can I have a word, Mr Cratcher?’

  ‘Got a problem then?’ His response verged on a sneer.

  ‘Yes, I think I’ve some people who are dyslexic.’

  ‘You think you know enough to diagnose dyslexia do you?’ His voice was now definitely dismissive of this arrogant amateur.