Borstal Slags (21 page)

They drove in silence for a few moments. And then, quite suddenly, Gene grinned. ‘That fat one with the ’tache, I thought he were gonna have a flamin’ coronary!’

Arriving back in CID, Sam and Gene were confronted by a mountain of photocopy paper.

‘Bobby Moore on a bike, what’s all
that
?’ Gene demanded.

‘Home Office reports,’ said Annie, popping up from behind it. ‘Copies of everything that exists on file about the lads in that borstal.’

‘You’ve been industrious!’ said Sam.

‘Well, I somehow managed to persuade the boys to help me, Boss,’ she replied. She indicated Chris and Ray, who were at the Xerox machine, churning out copies from the original HO files.

‘It’s grand this!’ Chris beamed. ‘Just stick your thingy on the glass, close the lid, press the button, and fire photon torpedoes!’

He obligingly pressed the button and made laser-beam noises as the copier swept its light back and forth.

‘I got to admit, Guv,’ added Ray, ‘it’s sort of therapeutic.’

‘“Therapeutic”?’ sneered Gene, appalled. ‘I’ve just been single-handedly intimidating three grown men plus a gobby nurse, and I come back here and find you’re doing
bird work
! You’re meant to be
blokes
, not secretaries! Now get your arses away from that ruddy robot.’

Looking chastised, Chris and Ray carried over their copies and threw them on the pile.

‘Donner was working in the kitchens with a lad called Tulse,’ said Sam. ‘Tulse got burned. What does the official report say?’

‘Ah, I know where that one is,’ piped up Chris, rummaging. ‘Here we go! Craig Tulse. Coroner’s report. Blah, blah, blah, load of old crap in Latin or summat – here it is. Cause of death: gas explosion from a faulty stove resulting in severe burns to the face, neck and chest.’

‘A faulty gas stove,’ said Sam. ‘Faulty on purpose, I reckon. If those ovens hadn’t been shipped out and conveniently destroyed, we’d be able to check them for ourselves. We’d find signs of tampering.
McClintock’s
tampering.’

‘Conjecture, boss,’ said Annie. ‘And, even if there
was
sabotage, who’s to say it was McClintock?’

‘He was a bit of one, this Tulse,’ said Ray, glancing through the report. ‘Insubordinate. Answering back. Continually being reprimanded. A right gobshite, by the looks of it.’

‘And he paid the price,’ said Sam. ‘Just like Tunning. What does it say about him?’

Ray dug through the paperwork for a moment, then read out, ‘Barry Michael Tunning. Hard man. In for GBH. Whole list of disciplinaries while at Friar’s Brook. Assaulting a warder, assaulting
another
warder, threatening the house master—’

‘How did he die?’ asked Gene.

Ray flipped some pages: ‘Um, committed suicide in his cell during the night. He were found by the screws next morning, hanging from the end of his bunk bed.’

‘Not much of a drop,’ said Annie.

‘Don’t need no drop,’ explained Ray, ‘not if you’re serious about topping yourself. Just get something round your neck, tie it off, and let your body weight do the rest. Slow, bloody painful, but it works.’

‘How come you know so much about hangin’ yourself?’ asked Chris.

Ray shrugged.

‘It happens in prisons all over,’ said Gene. ‘It’s the way it’s done. Horrible, but lethally effective. Like cider, or Ex-Lax.’

‘The boys in Friar’s Brook share cells,’ said Sam. ‘Who was Tunning sharing with the night he died?’

Ray thumbed through a copy of the relevant Home Office report. ‘Um, a lad called … Donner.’

Sam and Annie exchanged looks. Gene drew thoughtfully on his cigarette.

‘The way I see it, there’s three things might have happened,’ said Annie. ‘Number one: it’s like it says in the report. Tunning hanged himself, and for whatever reason Donner didn’t say anything until the cell was unlocked in the morning. Maybe he was asleep. Whatever. Possibility number two: Tunning
didn’t
kill himself. The warders did. They either came into the cell and hanged him, or else Tunning died some other way – maybe undergoing one of McClintock’s punishment sessions – and it was made to look like suicide to cover it up.’

‘And number three?’ growled Gene.

‘Possibility number three is that it was one of the inmates who killed Tunning,’ said Annie. ‘Which in turn would point the finger at his cellmate that night – Donner.’

Sam shook his head. ‘I’m not buying that. My gut instinct says it was a McClintock cover-up.’

‘And
my
gut instinct says it’s time to drop a ton and half down the khazi while reading the paper, but that don’t make my arse a copper,’ opined Gene. ‘Give me something better than a rumble in your belly, Tyler.’

‘McClintock runs that place with a fist of iron,’ said Sam. ‘You’ve seen that for yourself, Guv. He’s obsessed with discipline, order, his precious “System”. He’s a control freak. And it’s not just the inmates he likes to control, it’s everything – you, me, us, the law. He thinks he can punish inmates until they die, then cover it up and just keep on going.’

‘Facts, Tyler!’ Gene boomed at him. ‘No more flowery speeches. Facts!’

‘Every boy who died in that borstal was at odds with McClintock. Tulse was a born rebel. Tunning was a thug who refused to be beaten. Coren was the cheeky little Houdini determined to slip away. All three threatened to make McClintock look weak – and all three died.’

‘All three were also connected directly to Donner,’ Annie said. ‘Tulse worked with him in the kitchen. Tunning shared a cell with him. Coren came to him to write that letter to his brother Derek.’ She glanced at Sam and said, ‘I’m sorry, Boss, I’ve got to say it. I don’t think it’s McClintock we should be after.’

‘Donner’s not a big lad,’ Sam said. ‘Tunning was a bloody gorilla, in for GBH. Are you saying, Annie, that Donner somehow overpowered him at night after lock-up, and forcibly hanged him? Do you really believe he’s physically capable of doing that?’

‘If he attacked Tunning while he was asleep, then yes, Boss, I do,’ Annie replied. ‘Tunning would be half strangled by the time he woke up and realized what was happening – if he ever got a
chance
to wake up.’

‘And what about Coren’s work detail being changed at the last minute? How could Donner arrange that?’

‘He couldn’t,’ said Annie.

‘Well then!’

‘But what if the work detail
wasn’t
changed, boss?’

Sam gave her a look. ‘We know it was changed. McClintock changed it.’

‘And how do we know that? From McClintock himself? From one of the other warders? From the prison governor?’

Sam sighed. ‘No. From Donner.’

‘No, Boss, it weren’t even from him!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘You’re just assuming that! What if Donner wrote that letter for Coren, but
deliberately put the wrong information in it
? He’s smart enough, he had the opportunity. It’s perfectly possible. You got to think more clearly, Sam!’ And then, after a heavily charged pause, she added, ‘I mean Boss.’

Whistles and intakes of breath from Chris and Ray.

Gene scowled through his haze of cigarette smoke. ‘Women’s libbers in today, I see.’

Annie got control of herself and said with measured calm, ‘I’m sorry I spoke like that, Boss. It’s just—’

‘It’s okay, Annie, I understand,’ said Sam, ignoring the kissy-kissy noises Ray was making. He turned to Gene. ‘Guv, Annie went through Donner’s psychiatric reports. She reckons he’s a psychopath. She reckons he’s the one killing inmates at Friar’s Brook.’

‘Motive?’ growled Gene.

‘No motive, Guv,’ said Annie. ‘He don’t need a motive. He does it because he can. It makes him feel good. Makes him feel big.’

‘But I don’t agree with that assessment,’ Sam countered. ‘Donner’s a badly disturbed kid, but so would any of us be growing up with the sort of life he’s had. And let’s not forget Barton, the lad who tipped us off about McClintock in the first place. He told me horror stories about what goes on in that place.’

‘Ex-cons
always
tell horror stories,’ suggested Ray.

‘Electrocutions!’ Sam exclaimed. ‘Water forced down boys’ throats! Some of them have
drowned
!’

‘And this toerag Barton is the one what told you all this?’ said Ray. ‘And you believed it?’

‘Barton accused McClintock of letting boys die in there and then covering it up,’ Sam insisted. ‘He named McClintock. He
named
him, Guv. We
have
to act on this information. It’s all stacking up – we got Donner, we got Barton—’

‘All we got are the tall stories of a couple of borstal slags, that’s what we’ve got,’ interjected Ray.

‘And who says they’re just stories, Ray?’ Sam asked.

‘Lags always lie. It’s a law of nature. And the biggest porkies they tell are about how badly they been treated. Every ex-con’s got more sob stories than Quentin Crisp’s had wangers up his flue.’

Chris winced. ‘Steady on, Ray, I’m still digesting me sausage and beans.’

‘I’m just saying, lads like Barton and Donner, you don’t want to listen to a word they say.’

‘It’s that attitude that lets bastards like McClintock get away with murder,’ Sam declared. ‘I’m not saying these boys are angels, but if they’re victims of human-rights abuses then we have a duty to take what they’re telling us very seriously.’

‘For the record, Guv, I think Donner’s the one we need to be focusing on,’ Annie chipped in. ‘I don’t think it’s McClintock at all.’

‘Choices, choices,’ mused Gene. He peered across at Chris. ‘What do
you
think, Chrissy-wissy?’

‘I think it’s disgusting, obviously,’ said Chris. ‘Wangers up the flue? I can’t see what it’s all about.’

Gene rolled his eyes. ‘Ray? Your instincts are to collar the uptight Jock, I take it, even if it’s just for the fun of it?’

Ray chewed his gum for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Why not haul him in
and
the criminal nipper?’

‘You mean question both McClintock and Donner?’

‘Why not, Guv? Give ’em both the squeeze, see what comes up. Heads you win, tails you win an’ all.’

Gene thought this through, then nodded.

‘Makes sense,’ he declared. ‘And, what’s more, it means that if McClintock
does
turn out to be in the clear, I’ll have had the pleasure of giving him a right goin’ over anyway.’

‘A case of ’avin’ your haggis
and
eating it,’ Ray suggested.

‘Exacta-flamin’-mundo!’ Gene declared, slapping his chest heartily with both hands. ‘Ray, Chris, Tyler – in the motor. Let’s get rolling over to Friar’s Brook.’

Sam saw Annie swallow hard, take a breath, and boldly say, ‘I think I should come too, Guv.’

Gene, Chris and Ray all turned slowly and looked at her.

‘I second that,’ said Sam, backing her up.

‘Sam sticks up for Bristols, what a surprise,’ growled Gene. ‘But the answer is no. A lock-up ain’t no place for a dopey bird. Too much of a liability.’

‘Seriously, Guv, I think I could be of real use to you,’ Annie insisted.

Sceptically, Gene looked her over.

‘Okay, Inspector Jugs, give me one good reason.’

‘My background in psychology, Guv. I think I’d be – I
know
I’d be – the right person to question Donner face to face. And, what’s more, I think he might speak more openly to a woman.’

‘Or he might just get a stiffy and become distracted,’ Gene intoned.

‘Which might be exactly the best way to forge a connection with him,’ Annie said. Gene thought about this, but before he could say anything Annie added, ‘Besides, Guv, you’re more interested in interrogating McClintock. You can have your fun with him while me and DI Tyler question the boy.’

Gene mused, nodded, shrugged. As he turned away, jangling his car keys, he said, ‘For the record, I don’t think it’s right, a bird coming into an all-boy borstal. But, if she really must, she’s your responsibility, Tyler. I’ll leave her for you to look after. Me – I’ve got a kilt-wearing, bagpipe-sucking, sporran-shagging, caber-tossing tosser to break into pieces. C’mon, lads, let’s take the high road.’

And with that he swept out, Chris and Ray striding along behind him.

Annie let out a shaky breath, then glanced at Sam. She was trying to suppress a grin. Sam patted her arm.

‘That was a bold move,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

She beamed a smile at him, and then frowned. ‘I’m sorry I went against you just now, Sam.’

‘Don’t apologize. You’re a police officer, it’s your duty to speak up.’

‘I’m really convinced it’s Donner we should be concentrating on. I don’t see why you’re so hung up on going after McClintock.’

Sam opened his mouth to tell her, but held back. How could he explain?

‘I’ve got my reasons,’ he said.

Annie looked at him for a moment, then said, ‘Well, then. Let’s get out to Friar’s Brook and find out once and for all what’s going on there.’

At the borstal gates, Gene thrust his ID badge into the face of the guard on duty.

‘Open flaming sesame!’

As the gates opened, the Cortina swept in. Just behind it, at the wheel of a midnight-blue Alfa Romeo with Annie beside him, Sam hit the gas to keep up. The cars drew up at the main block and everybody piled out. Gene led the way, marching forward resolutely, with Chris and Ray a step or two behind. Sam and Annie followed along, watching as the Guv swept his way past any warder who dared to challenge him.

In the corridor that led to Mr Fellowes’s office, they saw one of the boys mopping the floor, the brown patch of cloth – the ‘Stain’ – clearly visible on the breast of his denim dungarees. The boy glanced at them as they reached Mr Fellowes’s office door, observing them like a wary, watchful animal.

‘We’d better knock,’ said Gene, and flung the door open with a resounding crash.

Fellowes jumped up from behind his desk, spilling tea over the paperwork he was reading. Monteverdi played serenely from the radio.

‘Sweet Lord!’ Fellowes cried, putting a hand to his chest as if he could forcibly still his suddenly pounding heart. His eyes widened as he recognized Gene’s face. ‘You again!’

‘Me again! And this time I’ve brought the Party 7!’