Our Vinnie, page 26
And Sammy had been acting funny just lately, too. She saw lots of the girls – they’d both been such a help with Paula – but over the past few months, since a while before she’d had the baby, come to think of it, Sammy had seemed different – quieter, less full of life, a bit withdrawn. Josie had put it down to her being a teenager, starting her periods, being a bit moody, but as she walked and pondered she felt a chill coming over her; like when a door suddenly blows open, allowing you to see what you couldn’t see before.
And Josie didn’t like what she was seeing. It repulsed her. The question was, what to do? Who to tell? Lyndsey would be worse than useless; she was always worse than useless, because she was off her head most of the time these days. No, perhaps she needed to pop round when Sammy got home from school, take her out for a walk or something and ask her outright. Fuck, she thought. Melvin wasn’t gone and forgotten after all. He’d been forgotten but he had not gone. Just moved away and moved on. And it was going to be up to her to stop him. Starting now.
She looked again at her baby daughter, now gazing up at her with her huge, thick-lashed eyes. A little stunner, he’d said. Josie tightened her grip on the pram handle. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.
Chapter 26
Vinnie took a long slow look around his cell, and realised that what he felt was ill at ease. It was an unnatural feeling for him, being so nervous, and he didn’t like it. Even so, he couldn’t seem to shake it off.
Six years. Six long years he’d called Thorp Arch his home, and now he was leaving it he felt strange. He’d had quite a few cells now, on quite a few landings, but though the company had been different – sometimes good, sometimes not so good – each cell had been basically the same.
Gordon was long gone – since over a year back, his time served. And even he – twice-round-the-block old timer that he was – couldn’t believe they’d made Vinnie serve every single day of his sentence. It was practically unheard of, and though Vinnie didn’t like it – who would? – it at least gave him a certain cachet, a certain notoriety.
Which was about to depart along with him. He was someone in here. Whereas out there … well, if he didn’t have such a solid, focussed plan on his mind, he might be feeling even more nervous than he already was at the probable uncertainty of his new social status.
His thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sound of heavy boots on hard floor.
‘Now then, sir,’ he said, as Mr Malvern stepped into the cell and joined him. ‘I don’t want no tears when I’m gone, okay? I know how cut up you’re going to be without me, but try to hold it together won’t you, sir?’
Malvern laughed and sat down on the bunk alongside him. ‘I’ll try my best, son,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t make any promises. How long before they come for you?’
Vinnie shrugged. ‘Dunno, sir. They said it would be just after dinner but that was over an hour ago. I wish they’d hurry up, though. I got my mate Brendan coming – driving all the way from Bradford and all to fetch me – and he’s not going to wait all fucking day.’
In truth he would. Of course he would. He was as solid a mate as anyone could ever wish for, and thinking about seeing him stilled Vinnie’s nerves a bit.
Malvern nodded. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Listen, son,’ he said, looking at Vinnie intently. ‘I know we’ve had our ups and downs in here and our little misunderstandings, but I hope you know how much I mean what I’m about to say. I really hope you’re going to try hard to stay out of here – and places like here – from now on, Vinnie. It’s not worth it, mate. However much you think it might be when push comes to shove, it really isn’t. And you’re a good lad, son. I know you are. You’re worth more than this.’
Vinnie grinned, and Malvern smiled, knowing exactly what he was referring to. Little misunderstandings? That was the understatement of the fucking year! He had, for a long time, laboured under a massive misunderstanding. That Malvern had been a key part of that set up with Joe Devanney. The cunt was long gone himself now, and good fucking riddance. Hopefully to some prison hell-hole for sub-human species. But his sense of injustice had burned. And along with it had certainty about who’d stitched him up. That it had been the governor and Malvern. That Malvern had been responsible for that long period of isolation he’d endured. For the fact that he’d emerged from it such a different, broken person; with that leaden feeling that something vital had snapped inside him, and lacking the will to care about anyone or anything.
He had almost lost his mind and had definitely lost his will and it had taken many months and lots of proof before Vinnie would allow the possibility that, actually, Mr Malvern had had nothing to do with it. Had been as blind to the set-up as he had.
He would miss him. Along with Gordon, he was the closest thing to a fucking father he’d ever had in here. Yes, he thought as Malvern stood up, he would miss him.
‘Don’t you worry, sir,’ he reassured him. ‘I’ve had enough of bang-up. I’m 23 now – nearly 24! I need to find a bird and settle down a bit. And anyway, sir, you’ve met my mother. You think she’d let me? She’d chop my fucking hands off if I started getting up to no good.’
Mr Malvern smiled and stepped outside again. ‘Good to hear it, lad,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and find out what’s going on for you. Make sure you’ve got everything, won’t you? You done the rounds? Said all your goodbyes and fuck-offs yet?’
Vinnie nodded. ‘Said all I had to say yesterday. Not many of my mates left in here anyway, sir, are there?’ he winked. ‘And I’ve sorted out the ones that matter.’
Malvern nodded. Vinnie knew he understood.
Since the business with the nonce, and the punishment that had ensued, Vinnie had done a great deal of soul-searching. And one of the things that had struck him most forcibly was that, for however long he had left – and it had, after that, become a long time – that he should trust no one. Not on the inside and not on the outside, and it simplified life enormously. If you worked on the basis that no one gave a fuck about you, it absolved you of the responsibility of giving a fuck in return. Gordon was excluded, of course – he was his only real fucking friend in here – and, to a certain extent (he was still a prison officer, working to rules) Mr Malvern too. But Gordon – fuck he missed him, because, in truth, he had saved him. He’d been the only port in such a fucking ugly shit-storm. And that was because he knew that, despite the permanent grin and the ready bravado, Vinnie had been a broken man – hardly a man at all, looking back. A busted kid – literally – after they’d finished with him. Left him with his broken bones, his chipped teeth and his burst eardrum. A busted kid who, protected by Gordon (who peddled the line that he was as fit as ever and not to be messed with), needed a great deal of time and space to heal, and a place of safety in which to find his resolve again.
But he had, he was proud to note, scored a victory. It was soon clear that no nonce would be tolerated on normal landings. Not when Vinnie was about, anyway. And the other prisoners soon got behind him in their droves, leading to what seemed revolutionary at the time, but three years on had become routine: segregation of sex offenders away from the normal landings.
Several other prisons – more forward thinking, perhaps – were already doing this, Vinnie later found out, to the benefit of all. But, even so, from time to time, the odd one or other found their way to a cell with a more run-of-the-mill prisoner, and from time to time – as night followed fucking day, in fact – the nonce would end up getting a beating.
No one would ever convince Vinnie that these episodes weren’t planned. Which was fine as far as he was concerned – nonces got what they deserved – but only if the designated avenging fucking angel wasn’t the one who ended up paying the price.
He stood and stretched. And now it was done. He was free. He was free and going home – ‘home’; what a weird concept that was – and to his mam, who he knew would be just the same as when he’d left. Still slapping on the lippy in front of the mantelpiece mirror, still giving his dad shit about nothing.
But no Titch at home now. Christ, that seemed unbelievable. Unbelievable to think she was a fully grown woman, let alone one with a bloke and a job and a fucking baby. He pulled her letter from his jeans pocket and unfolded it carefully, smiling at the sight of the two snaps of his latest niece. Poor little bleeder, Titch had written. Looks just like you, ha-ha. And Vinnie liked to think she did, too.
It would be weird seeing Titch again, all grown up, all sorted out now. Because she was. She so obviously was. You could tell that from her letters. She’d got things together, clearly. Put the horrible stuff behind her – though, how the fuck did you put shit like that behind you? Being raped by a fucking nonce when you were 11?
Vinnie didn’t know how she’d done it – and maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d just done a good job of burying it. Something Vinnie’d not managed himself. In fact, there was only one thing Vinnie had put behind him – any idea that he should do what the psychologist wankers wanted. Move on in life. Let bygones be bygones. Forget, forgive and all that kind of shit.
He hadn’t forgotten and he would never forgive. He was going home to unfinished business.
That Vinnie hadn’t been able to finish off Joseph ‘call me fucking Joe’ Devanney had, for a time, angered him greatly. It had always been a long shot – and something of a poser in the planning, too. It was tricky having to balance hurting him so hard and fast that he finished him off quickly and doing what his heart said was what really needed doing – and could anything be bad enough for the cunt who was responsible for the photographs of that wide-eyed little girl that still burned so brightly and repulsively in his head?
And perhaps, all said and done, it was good that he survived. Survived fucked up and with his genitals beyond repair. That was good. He survived as a warning to every other cunt like him. And that he survived held another important positive. Had he died then Vinnie would have been done for murder rather than ABH, and those extra three years he served would have been substantially longer. Perhaps long enough that another nonce – the one he really wanted – would have popped his clogs before Vinnie had the chance to take the matter of his demise out of his filthy, child-molesting hands.
It was a watershed moment for Vinnie, deciding on his destiny. Once he’d reached the conclusion that taking Melvin out was the only practical course of action, life in prison had become something of a breeze for him. Once he’d emerged from the ashes of his former self, healed both bodily and mentally, it served simply as a period of time in which to prepare and focus. He ate well. He exercised regularly. He was in the prime of his life and his body responded by becoming fit and lithe and strong and dependable. He played the game – so much so that Gordon would often clap a fatherly hand across his shoulder, saying ‘That’s the way, son’ whenever Vinnie did the mature thing and walked away from bother – and he did that all the time now.
He made ‘friends’ superficially, smiled when social cues dictated it, became angry when circumstances dictated it was expected, settled scores as and when safe and appropriate.
He had become, to all intents and purposes, a version of himself. One that was fit for purpose in any given prison situation, and the only time he was his true self was when he was alone, with his nose and heart and head inside a book. Though he guarded this version of himself diligently. His prison self would do just as the other inmates did, and trade baccy for porn mags, so he had a small stash for recreational purposes. He rarely looked at them, though it was all about conforming to type, obviously, so if you passed his cell you’d see just what you expected to see: an inmate, lying on his bunk, porn mag open in front of him, thinking the same unrequited carnal thoughts everyone else did.
What they didn’t know was that out of sight there would more often than not be a real book – Great Expectations, The Count of Monte Cristo or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – carefully concealed between some slut’s wide-open thighs.
‘You ready, son?’ Malvern said, interrupting Vinnie’s thoughts again. ‘Or d’you love it so much you want to do an extra week or two? Only they’ve asked me to fetch you and escort you down to pick up your things and get processed out of here.’
Vinnie laughed and slapped Malvern across the back. ‘Get me things? I was still reading the fucking Beano when I came in here, sir, so I doubt there’ll be anything much I’m going to want to take with me.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, if anyone’s messed with my Crombie or owt, they, sir, are going to be a dead man.’
They made their way along the landing down the stairs, and through the process of being processed, and Vinnie was pleased to see his precious Crombie still fitted him. Slipping it over his shoulders felt like slipping on a whole new persona and, once he was into it, he found he actually rather liked it. It had the benefit, he thought, as he signed the various papers, of beautiful simplicity.
‘Now, lad,’ Malvern said, as he prepared to finally release him, ‘do you have any plans for the outside?’
Vinnie looked at him, feeling he was at least deserving of his honesty. ‘Not really, sir,’ he said. ‘Not anything you’d want to hear about, anyway.’
And then he was gone. Led out of the main gates and waving across the road to Brendan, who was leaning against the bonnet of a battered green Cortina.
Vinnie walked across to meet him and he didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see Malvern’s look of disappointment. Didn’t want to weaken his resolve.
Chapter 27
Vinnie took a final drag on his ciggie and yawned as he slid into the passenger seat of Brendan’s car. It had been a long night for both of them, but in a good way – the best way – and he was grateful to his mate for being so brilliantly organised. Though who’d have imagined he’d been so clued up about the red-light district in Wetherby? That had certainly been a turn-up.
It had been a good decision to hold off driving back home for a day. It had been a good way to spend his resettlement allowance, not to mention a way of thanking his best mate, but mostly it had re-orientated him, and, yes, settled him. Set him up.
‘I take it you enjoyed your night with the Whore of Babylon then, mate?’ Brendan said, chuckling, as he pulled back out onto the street to begin the long journey home.
‘I’ve had better, our kid,’ Vinnie answered, grinning.
‘You’ve had better?’ Brendan snorted. ‘Fuck off! I’ll bet that place was a fucking riot compared to all the pillow biting you’ve been doing for the last six fucking years!’
Vinnie reached across and cuffed his mate round the back of the head. It was so good to be back. And he intended making the most of it while he could. ‘So,’ he said, once they were back on the motorway to Bradford, ‘before I throw myself into the fray, what’s going down? Anything?’
‘Not a lot,’ Brendan said. ‘Same characters doing the same shit as always. Gerard and Martin have been in and out of Armley nick for the past couple of years, oh, and Martin’s had a kid. You know that Lizzie Conley? Well, she’s bringing up his sprog. They’re not together, like, but I think he still goes round for a bit of how’s your father. Like I said,’ he chuckled, ‘nowt much has changed really.’
‘Speaking of nothing changing, you seen anything of our Lynds?’ Vinnie asked him. ‘What’s she up to? No sign of that freak Robbo sniffing around again, I hope?’
Brendan shook his head. ‘Not sure he even lives round here any more, to be honest.’
‘And she’s not shipped in another smackhead or got herself knocked up again, has she?’
‘No, don’t worry. No danger of that, mate.’ He paused. ‘Look, don’t take offence –’
‘As if. I don’t give a flying fuck what she gets up to.’
‘– but she’s not good these days, Vinnie. If it weren’t for your Josie, those poor girls of hers would be living a fucking awful life. Well, Robbie already is – but then you know that already. But, well, you’ll see soon enough, I suppose …’
‘Honestly, mate,’ Vinnie reassured him, ‘don’t worry about it. There’s not a lot anyone can do about it, is there?’
‘Though actually,’ Brendan said, ‘there is probably something you should know.’
‘Which is?’
‘Mucky Melvin.’ He glanced across at Vinnie.
Vinnie felt himself stiffen. ‘What about him?’
‘I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, mate …’
‘What?’
‘Well, you know I told you when I wrote about him approaching our Kelly’s little ’un on the street a while back? Well, and like I say, I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but someone told Kelly they’d heard – and I don’t know who from – that your Lyndsey’s Sammy’s been running errands for him lately. Like I say, it’s all a bit Chinese whispers, but, well, I thought you ought to know, mate.’
Vinnie digested this piece of information as if it was a piece of particularly resistant gristle in a prison stew. It lodged halfway down and it was a real act of will to swallow it. He’d taken in the information about Brendan’s sister’s girl with a degree of detachment. It was entirely what he’d expected because Melvin was a fucking nonce and that’s what fucking nonces did. It wasn’t so much a guilty one-off as a fucking career for them. And there was always another little ’un on the production line to target. He also knew that Brendan’s sister would keep her little one safe. But as for Lyndsey … He stared ahead for a bit, thinking.
For half a second he thought of telling Brendan the whole story about his own sister. He knew about Robbo trying it on with her, of course, and that Melvin had as well, but no more. And Melvin had tried it on with every child in a fucking skirt, hadn’t he? But something stopped him. Something instinctive. And something rational as well. Would it help anything for Brendan to know? No, it wouldn’t.
