Borstal Slags (27 page)

‘I was speaking poetically, Tyler. I thought you’d appreciate that. Something about sitting trapped in the dark brings out the poet in a fella’s soul.’

Sam thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘Weirdly, Guv, I think you’re right.’

‘Life ain’t a cakewalk for any of us – except perhaps them born with the silver spoon. You can’t avoid trouble, and you can’t avoid getting shafted. But what counts is how you choose to deal with it.
You’re
in the saddle,
you
tell the horse where to go, not the other way round. We’re all skippers of our own souls, come fair sea or foul.’

The Guv was hopelessly mixing his metaphors, but even so there was a ring of truth in what he was saying. His words were making Sam think of his father, Vic, and the choices he had made. He could have played it straight, earned an honest living, but instead he had looked for the shortcut – and that had taken him into criminality, into violence, even murder. And then, later, when everything had unravelled for him – when CID had been closing in and the game was up – he could have stood by his wife and his young son. It would have meant arrest, and prosecution, and prison – but it would also have meant retribution, atonement, and the chance to stay in the lives of those who loved him, even if he was behind bars.

But Vic Tyler had chosen otherwise.

Not me, though,
Sam thought.
I’ve made my choice – and that is to stand by Annie until the bitter end.

He could not bear to think of her, not while he was trapped hopelessly in the dark, unable to get to her. He shook his head to clear it, fearing that panic and terror would get the better of him, and decided to distract himself by keeping on talking.

‘Tell me, Guv,’ he said. ‘What you were saying just now.’

‘Aye?’

‘Where’d you get the bit about “come fair sea or foul”?’

‘Don’t be patronizing, you saucy get.’

‘Straight up, Guv, I’m not knocking you. I think it’s rather sweet.’

‘All I’m saying, Tyler, is that you spend too much energy trying to understand what makes a villain. Nobody gives a stuff about that! We’re not bloody sociologists, Tyler. We’re coppers. The people out there, them walking the streets and trying to make ends meet, the ones we’re set to protect – all they want is
certainty
. Certainty, Tyler. The certainty that there’s a blue line standing between them and the bad ’uns. The certainty that, for all its faults, the law’s on their side. If you understood
that
, Tyler, you’d be a better copper.’

‘I believe in fairness for all, and that goes for criminals as well as everybody else,’ said Sam. ‘It’s being fair that makes
us
the good guys. The law is an ass – it really is – but it’s still better than all the alternatives.’

‘When asses don’t budge, you gotta whack ’em up, right up the Khyber, and pay no attention to a load of bleedin’ hee-hawing!’

‘You
are
getting poetic, Gene!’

‘That’s your problem, Tyler, you don’t actually
listen
. You’re a mouthy Peter Cook smart alec but you don’t
listen.
You tried to stick up for the shits in this place, and what did you get for your troubles. Eh? You think they give a damn about you and your namby-pamby botty-wiper’s care and compassion?’

‘Shhh!’ hissed Sam.

‘I see, you can’t stand hearing the truth, eh?’

‘No, no, I heard something. Listen.’

‘What, Tyler? What is it?’

‘Hear that, Guv?’

‘If I could hear it, I wouldn’t be asking what it was, would I?’

Dimly, as if filtering through to them from another world, they heard the squeal and squeak of feedback over a megaphone. At once, they caught Chris’s youthful voice, massively amplified.

‘Aye up, Ray, it’s workin’ now!’

‘It’s Chris!’ exclaimed Gene, excitedly. ‘I knew it! Him and Ray got out! They grabbed the shooter and they fought their way out! You see, Tyler – you get further in life with a Magnum in your hands than a—’

‘Shut up, Guv, I can’t hear!’

‘That dopey-tits bird probably got out with them. She’ll be safe and sound out there, filing her nails.’

‘Guv, please be quiet.’

‘I’m dead chuffed! Chris and Ray got out! You see, Tyler? You reckon my boys are just knobheads but it just shows what
you
know!’

‘Guv, for God’s sake …!’

‘School of Gene Genie’s taught ’em everything they know. A couple of Gene Geniuses, my boys.’

‘
Just shut your stupid face!
’ Sam roared.

Invisible in the darkness, Gene went silent.

Sam pressed his ear to what he assumed was the outside wall. He could make out the howl of the megaphone, coming from presumably the far side of the prison walls, and then Ray’s voice echoing out of it:

‘Right! This is the fuzz. The game’s up, the place is surrounded. No point playin’ silly buggers, you ain’t got a hope.’

Gene joined Sam at the wall, listening.

‘That’s it, Ray,’ he muttered. ‘Good ’n’ tough.’

‘You’re all nicked, you hear me?’ Ray went on. ‘I mean, you’re all nicked anyway ’coz you’re in borstal, but now you’re all nicked again.’

Chris’s voice suddenly piped up, ‘Double nicked!’

‘Get your hands off the megaphone, Chris!’

‘I want a go on it!’

‘
I’m
senior officer.
I’m
negotiating.’

‘I don’t care, I want a go!’

‘I said get
off
it!’

‘Gimme the—’

‘Chris, what the hell are ya—’

‘Come out with your hands up!’

There was a high-pitched electronic howl, and then the megaphone went dead.

After a pause, Gene said flatly, ‘When we get out of here, I’ll send ’em on a course.’

‘Shhh!’

‘I’m not happy you shushing me like this, Tyler. it inverts the whole master–servant dynamic.’

‘What’s that noise?’ Sam hissed.

They listened. Metal tapped hesitantly against metal.

‘Is that you chattering your fillings, Tyler?’

‘Somebody’s unlocking the door, Guv!’

A key was clattering in the lock. Sam and Gene both tensed.

‘The second that door opens, rush ’em!’ breathed Gene.

Sam grabbed at him in the dark and got hold of his camel-hair coat. ‘No, Guv!’

‘Off the lapels, Tyler, and get yourself ready to fight your way out of here!’

‘For God’s sake, Gene, that lad out there is showing us
trust
. And we’re going to prove ourselves worthy of that trust!’

‘Prove ourselves worthy?’ Gene sneered. ‘
Prove
ourselves? To
them
shites? Didn’t you listen to nothing I was saying just now?’

‘Listening? Yes. Agreeing? Nah.’

A line of light appeared and gradually broadened as the door edged open. At once, Gene burst forward, flinging the door wide and rushing through it. The lad who had released them – a tall, red-haired boy with powerful shoulders – jumped back, raising a length of lead piping to defend himself.

Gene clenched his fists and swaggered forwards. ‘Thanks for opening that door, Sonny. But don’t think it’s going to save you from beating you so hard your nose’ll end up sticking out your arsehole.’

‘Wait, Guv!’ Sam cried. ‘I know this lad!’

‘Know him?’ Gene rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, typical. Tyler’s got chummy with the lags. He must bloody love ’em!’

‘Priest, it’s me,’ said Sam holding up both hands. ‘It’s okay, nobody’s going to touch you.’

Priest kept his distance. He backed up against a wall and held the strip of pipe in both hands, ready to take a swipe.

‘Why’d you let us out of there?’ Sam asked.

Priest shrugged. ‘Owe you one.’

‘You owe me one? Why? Was it because I stepped in that time you were getting a beating out in the punishment yard?’

‘You didn’t have to stand up for me,’ muttered Priest. ‘But you did.’

Sam turned to Gene. ‘You see, Guv? Treat them like human beings and see what you get.’

‘Curryin’ favour, that’s all,’ growled Gene. ‘That little shit knows what he can expect when our boys come crashing back in here to secure this place.’ He glared across at Priest, then seemed to relent. ‘Fair enough. I’ll put a word in for you, lad, tell ’em what you did.’

‘What’s happening out there?’ Sam asked. ‘Are the boys trashing the place?’

‘It’s pretty mental,’ said Priest. ‘You’re going to have to be careful trying to get out. There’s lads here who’ll have you.’

‘You reckon?’ put in Gene, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes.

‘And what about Annie?’ Sam asked anxiously. ‘You know, the female officer I was with. She got out, right? She’s safe, yes?’

‘She’s still around,’ said Priest vaguely.

‘Still around? You mean she didn’t get out with the others?’

‘She didn’t get out. She’s with Donner.’

‘Donner! Why the hell’s she with
him
?’

‘Her and Mr Fellowes and Mr McClintock, they’re all with Donner,’ said Priest. ‘He had a big knife from the kitchens, so …’ He trailed off with a shrug. ‘P’raps he’s holding them hostage or summat.’

‘Where?’ demanded Sam, grabbing Priest by the denim straps of his prison-issue dungarees. ‘Where?
Where?
’

‘I dunno, honest!’ Priest insisted, his eyes wide. ‘I let you out, remember? I played fair! I been good!’

But Sam had already let go of him and was racing away along the corridor. Gene dutifully lumbered after him.

‘Hold up, Tyler! Me knees ain’t what they were!’

Sam sprinted on. At every corner, he braced himself to find Annie lying sprawled on the floor. His imagination tormented him with every horror it could dredge up.

I brought McClintock’s System crashing down – but I was wrong! McClintock’s not the enemy!

In destroying the System, he had also destroyed the only glue holding Friar’s Brook together. Now, all was anarchy. The boys were running riot – and Annie was lost somewhere amid it all.

If anything’s happened to her, it’s
my
fault! I let her come here, I smashed the System, I unleashed this chaos. Oh my God, is this what was decreed for her? By trying to change Fate, did I just play straight into its hands? What have I done? What have I done?

Running through the borstal, Sam and Gene found nothing but wreckage and ruin. Like a medieval army sacking a city, the boys had rampaged through the rooms and corridors, destroying everything. The once shiny corridors were strewn with trashed furniture and broken glass, the sharp stink of bleach now obscured by the choking smell of smoke. And everywhere – scattered on the floors, tied to the bars on window frames, ripped, burned, trampled – were ragged patches of brown cloth, the so-called ‘Stain’ ordered by McClintock to be worn by every boy as a mark of his criminality, his sinfulness, his fall from grace.

And yet there was no sign of the boys themselves – or, for that matter, the warders.

Turning a corridor, they stopped at one of the huge painted slogans on the wall: ‘SILENCE – RESPECT – DUTY’. It had been defaced with a single word: ‘BOLLOCKS’.

Gene strode over to a door that hung limply on wrecked hinges. Glancing inside, he said, ‘It’s even worse than
your
gaff in there, Tyler.’

Sam looked through the door into what had once been a dormitory. The beds had been violently attacked and smashed to pieces, the broken remains heaped up along with the shredded blankets and ruined mattresses to form a chaotic, smouldering mountain of wreckage.

Gene reached down and picked up a warder’s peaked cap. It had a hole in it, and the lining was stained with what could well have been blood.

‘And you think they’re all innocents,’ he growled.

‘We don’t have time for any of your bullshit, Guv,’ Sam snapped. ‘Our priority is to find Annie.’

‘Well
I
ain’t holding you back,’ Gene barked at him. ‘Where d’you want to start looking?’

Sam looked about him, desperate for some hint or clue as to which way to go. And then he caught the sound of boys’ voices echoing along the corridor. He sprinted off in search of the source, Gene lumbering and wheezing behind him.

At a broken window, Sam skidded to a halt and carefully peered into the yard outside. It was filled with boys, all shouting and jeering. They were massed around the tall punishment frame where Priest and Capps had been abused and beaten, and where Sam had broken ranks and stepped in to defy McClintock’s System. But, instead of inmates hanging from the crossbar, Sam saw two warders, upside down, dangling by their ankles, their battered, swollen faces streaming with blood.

The image of Annie’s father flashed into Sam’s mind.

‘Lynching the screws, are they?’ breathed Gene, stepping up close to Sam and glancing through the broken window. ‘What you going to do, Sam? Go out there and appeal to their better natures? And what about the widows and orphaned kiddies of them warders? What you going to say to
them
?’

But the warders weren’t dead, not yet at any rate. The boys were rampaging about them, armed with splintery chunks of furniture, lengths of metal, even pieces of broken guttering; they aimed blows at the warders, whacking them as if they were pi
Ů
atas, but the warders were still alive and conscious, glaring back at their attackers through the blood that flowed over their faces.

At that moment, something appeared above the perimeter wall of the borstal, rising up slowly. The boys turned and started screaming abuse at it. They furiously threw lumps of wood and shattered bricks and even spit-balls. But the object of their derision was undeterred; it just kept on rising.

‘What the hell is it?’ whispered Sam, struggling to see.

‘It ain’t a “what”,’ Gene replied. ‘It’s a “who”.’

And that particular ‘who’ was Ray Carling, riding high atop a slowly rising cherry picker, peering down into the punishment yard from over the barbed wire that topped the wall. He had discarded his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, heedless of the cold wind that whipped in from across the moors and plastered the pale-blue nylon of his shirt hard enough against his body to clearly reveal the outline of his string vest beneath. His low-slung tie danced and fretted on the wind.