Lying Ways, page 15
‘So if Lofty and Titch run D wing, who runs your wing?’
‘I do,’ he replied.
Craig looked up from his notes. ‘Jack Bell did three years for rape between 2001 and 2004. He was incarcerated on D wing for the whole stretch and the same men were incarcerated with him at the time.’
‘Lofty and Titch?’ Kelly asked.
‘Yes,’ Craig replied. Kelly watched Rickie smile again. This must be the highlight of his year, she thought. He was having such a good time that he’d completely forgotten to keep up the grieving act for his dear friend, and he’d begun so well.
Chapter 25
‘Have you tidied up after yourself?’ Brian Taylor asked his custodial manager. Liam shifted uncomfortably on the spot. Suddenly his new shoes hurt.
‘Always, guv. There’s nothing you should be worried about, the police are just on a fishing trip,’ Liam added.
‘Me, worried?’
Liam watched as his boss’s temper bubble under the surface. His voice was becoming louder and louder and Liam expected an imminent explosion. The governor’s capacity for rage was legendary. All he wanted was a smooth-running ship. If anything went wrong, Brian Taylor hunted for blood until someone was punished. Liam got the feeling that he was next in line.
‘I tell you what, sonny, if any shit hits the fan, it’ll be you covered in muck, not fucking me, is that loud and clear?’
Liam nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that there was a problem for you, at all, sir. I mean, there’s nothing to worry about in any way, that’s what I meant to say.’
‘What the actual fuck is Jeanie Clark doing telling a copper that a con runs one of my wings?’
The governor paced up and down in his office, and when he asked this question, he stopped in front of his prison officer and eyeballed him. Liam was wider, more muscular and taller, but that mattered for nothing when faced with Brian Taylor’s wrath. Everybody who worked in HMP Highton was used to the governor’s colourful language. It wasn’t uncommon. Who could cope working in such an environment without some form of release? Not many, that was for sure. It didn’t offend anyone, it was just something you got used to. Of course, the equal opportunities officer had to massage his reports. On paper, Highton was a model of official inclusion. The fact that most officers were white males didn’t look good, but Brian was working on that. Jeanie Clark was a valuable member of the team because she was a woman working in a man’s world, and that looked good. They couldn’t afford to be seen firing women, but Jeanie had fucked up, and now it was about damage limitation. Liam had seen first-hand what the governor was capable of, and he was not the kind of man who ever got caught out.
‘Sir, if I might point out. The coppers are just looking into Jack Bell and Dean Kirby’s records, they’re not here for anything else,’ Liam said.
‘And now they’re interviewing Rickie fucking Burton!’ Now Brian was shouting, and Liam winced at the emphasis on the expletive. Brian loved the word ‘fuck’. Everybody knew that the governor’s daily mood was indicated by how many times he used his favourite word and with what level of volume. Today it was repetitive and loud.
‘I briefed him before the interview, sir. He’s going to lay everything on Lofty and Titch. It’ll divert them. He’s a natural, sir, trust me, it’ll work out,’ Liam soothed. Brian began to calm a little and sat down behind his desk.
‘I hope you’re fucking right,’ he said. ‘She was asking about the trade in mobile fucking phones!’
‘Sir, if there’s a thorough enough search for wing phones, it’ll cause a full-blown riot,’ Liam said.
‘I know that!’
‘They’re a thousand quid a pop now,’ Liam said. ‘Sir, let me go and check everything is in order. The female copper wants to interview a few of our nonces on D wing now, so it looks like whatever Rickie said had the effect we wanted. He’s a good one, that one, he’s on our side,’ he said. ‘Maybe I can get him to deliver up some drug addicts who’ve traded spice for phones and that’ll put her off.’
Brian nodded and Liam felt relief that he’d averted disaster, for now.
‘Did anyone see this coming? Is it anyone we know? Somebody from another prison perhaps, or an old enemy getting even?’ Brian asked.
‘That was my thought, but both of them? It’s an odd one,’ Liam said.
‘I don’t like that fucking woman nosing around my business,’ Brian said.
‘I know, guv, let me handle it. Rickie knows what to do and it’s not as if he’s going to prison for it, is it?’
Brian smiled at the joke.
‘What’s going on with D wing? Have things settled down? The last thing I need is Lofty and Titch being chased on this and the wing descending into chaos again. I had a long conversation with the prison service about the injuries of the inmate. It’s not enough to say we’re understaffed. His family was considering suing us but they’ve been talked out of it by some fancy barrister working for the CPS.’
‘Privileges have been cut for everyone involved, sir. Lofty and Titch have it in hand. Don’t worry about them being distracted. We’ve upped the meds of a few of them as well so they won’t cause trouble,’ Liam said.
‘If only we could do that with all of ’em. Needles, that’s the way forward! Rehabilitation, my arse, drug ’em up and lock the door! Right, Liam. I feel better.’
Liam nodded. ‘Good, sir. Can I get you a cuppa?’ he asked.
‘Yes, good lad, you can,’ Brian said. He sat on the chair behind his desk and opened his computer. The fifty extra inmates from Altcourse were arriving this afternoon.
The timing sucked.
Chapter 26
Kelly felt decidedly uncomfortable. It was rare that she met someone who freaked her out to this extent. The man sat in front of her was skinny, what her mother would call lanky. He looked insipid, if that was an adjective that could be used to describe a human being. It was all she could think of. She looked at his hands, which were long and thin, like him, and at his clean nails, which were feminine and dainty. A shiver travelled up her spine when she glanced at his eyes. They were black and dead.
His nickname was Titch, but neither Kelly nor Craig found that ironic or funny. It was simply revolting. There was nothing minimal about him, apart from his mouth, which was small and pinched. No matter what she told herself to think, or how she hoped she’d manage her emotions, when faced with a prisoner of his ilk, she couldn’t help but imagine his crimes. Craig had examined the file of the two men who allegedly ran D wing. This one was inside for raping five children aged between three and twelve years old.
Bile threatened to escape from Kelly’s duodenum; her head told her that she had no control over the organ and its collection of the substance from her liver, but digestive physiology wasn’t important here. It was simply that she felt as though she was going to throw up. The very notion of this man’s hands on a child made her feel violently wretched, and angry. She wanted to rip his fucking head off. She sensed that Craig felt the same, but, as good coppers do, they both kept their feelings hidden. Even working with the worst offenders like Titch, detectives had to remain calm and impartial, just in case they decided to confide in you and let a few nuggets of information slip. It had happened many times before. A case could be cracked wide open by a bastard like this trusting you, even for just a second.
With some, of course, you knew you’d never breach their defences. Some enjoyed the game. As she looked at Titch, she knew that he’d keep his secrets to the grave. He was suspected of murder too, but that had never been proven. Craig had given her all the information she needed to know from his file and that was more than she ever wanted to hear.
‘We’d like to have a chat with you about how well you knew Jack Bell and Dean Kirby,’ she said, introducing herself and Craig.
He held a vape in his cuffed hands and sucked on it, and a white cloud of vanilla shrouded him. Something about the combination of sweet and acrid reminded her of the aroma of a ripe corpse. She was struggling to rid herself of images of what this man had done. Spittle left his mouth and stuck to the mouthpiece as he puffed. Kelly knew that the fine balance of power inside a hardcore prison such as this was between those who relied on drugs, and those who didn’t. The addicts were the mules, trading anything they could get their hands on for the spice that was imported into the prison via increasingly ingenious methods. The latest was by drone, controlled by someone on the perimeter and delivered into a broken window, while cons guarded the cell doors. Once inside, the big guys, who stayed clean, traded the shit for favours. A drug addict could be paid in spice to start a fight on the landing outside the cells, which was essentially a diversion, while debt was settled in another cell.
Kelly could tell from his face that Titch didn’t do drugs.
‘I knew Dinger from the last time. He was on D wing,’ he said. Kelly knew that he was from the West Country and the drawl almost made him sound like a jolly farmer. It was an odd paradox.
‘And did you get on?’
‘No, I’m a paedophile, I get on with no one,’ he said. He smiled and Kelly felt her fist clench around her pen.
‘What about Lofty?’ Kelly asked. Slowly, he smiled once more.
‘Yep, he’s like me. We’re cellies.’
Kelly knew this was the common prison term for cellmates. It sounded childlike and thus apt for such a man to use it. Maybe part of being incarcerated was that these criminals never grew up and took responsibility, like the rest of us did.
‘Did Jack get into any trouble here when he was on D wing?’ she asked.
‘There’s always fights on D wing, on account of the crimes.’ He held her stare.
‘Why was he moved to A wing?’
‘Rickie wanted him.’
‘Can I clarify that you mean Rickie Burton?’
He nodded and took another drag of his vape.
‘Why did you allow it? You’re in charge of D wing, aren’t you?’
‘Jack was simple, you know, backward,’ Titch said. ‘He weren’t no use to us.’
Kelly had read that Jack Bell would qualify as having special educational needs. In contrast, Craig told her that Titch’s IQ was a staggering 132, which qualified him for Mensa.
‘He was studying for GCSE English, every Wednesday, with the prison teacher, trying to better himself. That doesn’t sound backward to me, as you put it,’ Kelly said. She found herself defending the dead man.
‘Rickie knows.’ He smiled again and sucked on his vape. His fingers were stained yellow from when he was allowed the real thing.
‘Knows what?’
‘That Jack will do what he’s told. On the inside, that is.’ He smiled again.
‘You know Rickie Burton implicated you in Jack’s murder? Remotely, of course,’ Kelly said, noting the inference in Titch’s statement.
He let out a high-pitched howl and slapped his thigh, chuckling like a child telling a joke. He doubled over and continued to guffaw. It was an ugly sight. Kelly looked at Craig. They waited for the chortling to subside.
‘Is that funny?’ she asked.
‘Hell, yeah. It’s so funny. Me? Why would I do that? Dinger Bell saved my life.’
‘How?’
They listened as he told them the story from years back, when he’d been set upon by paedo bashers. Jack Bell was painted as a hero.
‘I told him not to go to A wing, but he’d been promised something on the outside. Money probably, or a job and a house, whatever it was. I told him he was an idiot and it was a trap, but I couldn’t stop him. And now look. Dean followed him not long after.’
‘What?’ Kelly asked.
‘He was promised the same thing.’
Chapter 27
‘You’re playing piggy in the middle,’ Craig said as they left the building and walked back to their cars. They planned to drive to Seascale and grab a drink over a chat about what they’d learned from their visit to Highton. They could also visit the scene of Dean Kirby’s murder.
‘You’ve got the gaffer of A wing blaming the gaffers of D wing, and vice versa. I’m wondering if any of them really knows what happened and they’re just deflecting from any heat coming their way on our behalf,’ he said.
‘You mean, they’re just playing games to divert any attention at all from their own wings, like children when taken into the headmaster’s office and asked who started the fight. They’ll say anything to get themselves off the hook,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘So we might be looking in completely the wrong place,’ she said.
‘It’s possible. Until we have a motive, it’s difficult to know. Maybe we should concentrate on who they both served time with, who is on the outside now, and has been for some time. These big cheeses in here are really small fry,’ he said.
‘Really? I’m not so sure. I’ve got officers working on that back in Penrith. I’m not ruling out the dynamic inside Highton,’ she said, stopping to look back to the prison. ‘I’m not convinced by the governor or the custodial manager. All they seem to care about is keeping the prisoners happy, and I wonder why that is. I understand how delicate the situation is, but we need a cell search to find the ways the prisoners communicate outside. I assume that any burner phone used to order a murder would have been destroyed by now, but we could concentrate the search on the signals bouncing off the local transmitter over the past couple of weeks,’ Kelly said.
A car drove past and Kelly glanced at the driver, who was a woman with a scarf over her head, sitting low in her seat.
‘That was Jeanie Clark,’ Kelly said to Craig. The car sped off towards the exit and disappeared. ‘She told me she’d been signed off sick. Why would she be coming in to work today?’
‘She forgot something?’ Craig suggested, dubious.
‘Likely story,’ Kelly said.
‘I wonder if she knew Jack did time for rape,’ she added. ‘Do you think people can change?’ she asked Craig. ‘He was a model prisoner when he was here. Do you think he was manipulated by Rickie Burton and then used to carry out something on the outside? Something no one else knew about?’
Movement caught her eye and they watched as Liam Fawcett walked out of the prison towards his car. He acknowledged them tersely. They approached him.
‘Knocking off shift for the day?’ Craig asked.
‘Yep, that’s me done,’ he said, taking off his jacket and opening the back door, throwing it on the seat. He looked perturbed.
‘I thought Jeanie Clark was off sick, I’ve just seen her leave,’ Kelly said.
‘Yeah, I saw her, she needed to come in to get something for her laptop,’ he said.
Kelly eyed him. ‘I thought she was in shock,’ Kelly said.
Liam opened the driver’s door and got in.
‘Can I ask you if you think it odd, a prison officer meeting up with an ex-prisoner for lunch?’ Kelly asked.
‘No, I don’t find it odd at all, plus it’s none of my business,’ he said. He slammed his door and started his engine. Craig beckoned for him to put his window down, which he did. Craig leant in.
‘This shouldn’t be a “them and us” scenario, pal. We’re on the same side, remember. But it does look suspicious when the boundaries between prisoners and their guards get smudged and everyone seems to be withholding potentially important information.’
‘He speaks. What information? You’re jumping to false conclusion after false conclusion. Highton’s no different to any Category A gaff up and down the country. These fellas are pure fucking evil and they’ll sell your granny if you let them. They need a firm hand, and we, as guards, need insider allies. That’s all, end of. Do your job, pal, and I’ll do mine.’
His window went back up.
He pulled away and Kelly watched his car leave the same way Jeanie’s had. ‘We’ve ruffled some feathers here,’ she said.
‘Yep, we sure have,’ Craig said.
* * *
In the pretty seaside village of Seascale, Kelly looked for somewhere to park. Craig had told her that the centre of the small village had a car park near the railway line that split the hamlet in two. The coastal rail route was rugged and windswept and Kelly had once taken it with John Porter, who she believed at the time to be her father, years ago, when he took her and her sister to Ravenglass, to go on the steam train. The car park was near a children’s play area and some kids were there with their parents, who eyed the unfamiliar car suspiciously. It was quite obvious that strangers didn’t often turn up here. With less than 2,000 residents, Kelly guessed that everybody knew everyone’s business. So Dean Kirby, with a dog, should have stood out.
There was an ice cream parlour and Kelly was reminded of her pregnancy cravings. She used to always find an excuse to drop in on her favourite ice cream shop at Glenridding, ordering two scoops of whatever took her fancy. Now her mouth watered. Craig parked next to her. The people at the park stared at them. They must have looked official, or like two office workers meeting for an illicit affair. They locked their cars, took coats and walked to the shop, where Kelly ordered coffee and a slice of cake. She was peckish. Craig added his order and they took a table by the window and peered out across the Irish Sea.
Sellafield, the nuclear plant under decommissioning, was hidden a mile down the coast and the view was of a windswept wilderness, with no clue of the monstrous structure behind the vast sand dunes. The colours on this stretch of coastline were made up of gentle greens, browns and the pure blue of the sea. It was remote and isolated and most of the population was employed by Sellafield. Such a life wasn’t suited to Kelly, and she wondered what business Dean Kirby had here.
‘Have you been notified yet about Dean Kirby boarding a train to Ravenglass?’ she asked. They sat opposite one another and listened to the wind whistling outside. The windows rattled in the background. Craig looked at his phone and nodded. The woman came across with their order and they thanked her as she unloaded her tray. Craig nodded again as she left them to it and showed Kelly an email. She took his phone as he buttered his tea cake. Kelly looked at the email and the attached photograph. Dean had boarded the 1:24 p.m. from Barrow, which stopped at Ravenglass at 2:13 p.m. That fitted with the witness statement. She read the information out loud.
