A Life for a Life (12 page)

A prison officer emerged from a hut and, selecting a key from the huge bunch hanging from his belt, unlocked the gate. Fraser was led forward.

‘Remand prisoner for delivery,’ the Group Four flunkey said as he handed over some paperwork.

They passed through another gate, then another. Into a terrapin hut. He was signed for and his hands uncuffed. The flunkey left and he was told to sit down.

After a few moments, another prison officer came in and gestured to him. ‘This way.’

Another gate and a long passage that he suddenly realised was the gangway to the ship, then yet another gate to be unlocked – did that make five or six?

A reception area, clean, bright, windowless – he was told to strip. His clothes were searched and returned to him. He was told he could keep one spare set of clothes and some books, but his other possessions would be stored.

A senior officer called McIlroy gave him a book of rules and went through some of them with him. Fraser listened, but he was only half there; it was as though he’d been put into a faulty time machine and the other half was somewhere else.

‘… and because of the present overcrowding, you’ll be sharing a cell with two putative illegal immigrants—’

‘
What
?’ His other half returned with a bang. ‘I was told I’d get a cell to myself.’

McIlroy looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Callan, but we are accommodating you in accordance with the regulations laid down for remand prisoners. Maybe in a week or two the situation will improve.’

‘But… these illegal immigrants… who are they?’

‘Romanians. They’re good lads.’

‘Romanians…’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve heard about what goes on in prisons… What if they try to…?’

McIlroy said stiffly, ‘You’ll find nothing of that kind occurring in this prison.’

Oh, great… that’s a real feckin’ comfort…

He allowed himself to be led up a flight of stairs. On the landing, two men in brown prison clothes were cleaning the floor and looked up incuriously as he passed.

They stopped to pick up some bedding, then went up another flight, then another – how high was he going?

There was a smell, the smell of school, of bodies, the smell of institutionalised humanity.

A brightly lit corridor – everything was bright. They stopped at a door. The officer slid it aside and peered.

‘Nobody in, your chance to make yourself at home.’

Fraser followed him inside. The cell was about eight feet by ten. There was a single bed on one side, twin bunk beds on the other.

‘Looks like you’ve got the top bunk.’ The officer tossed the bedding on to it. ‘You make your bed while I fetch your toilet tackle.’

Fraser started to sink down on to the single bed before remembering it was someone else’s. In a daze, he looked round the cell… In one corner was a triangular table and a chair, beside it a small chest of drawers with a bowl and jug. Beside that, in the other corner, was a pale blue rectangular object with a white lid and he realised he was looking at a chemical lavatory.

There was a noise outside, then the door slid open and two men came in. They wore T-shirts and jeans. One had thick dark hair, stubble and deep brown eyes; the other was fair with blue eyes. They both stared at him.

14

He froze as they stood there staring; he’d realised he was going to have to say something when the fair one said carefully, ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ Fraser responded warily.

‘Hi,’ said the dark one, appraising him.

The two of them looked at each other; the fair one said something in what Fraser assumed was Romanian, then turned back to him. ‘You,’ he pointed, ‘in – here?’

Fraser nodded. ‘Yes.’

The fair one pointed to himself. ‘Ilie Groza,’ he said, and held out his hand.

Fraser took it – it was rough and hard with a fierce grip.

‘Fraser Callan,’ he said.

‘Fra-ser?’

He nodded.

The other one said, ‘Petru Branesco,’ as they repeated the handshaking ritual, then hauled a plastic pouch from his jeans, sat on the bed and rolled a cigarette. He offered the pouch to Fraser, who shook his head.

‘No, thanks.’

Petru shrugged and handed the pouch to Ilie. He waited for him to roll, then lit up for them both. The air filled with acrid smoke and Fraser hoped the air conditioning worked.

Ilie looked at Fraser again, then picked up a dictionary from the table and thumbed through it.

‘You,’ he said to Fraser, ‘you – snare?’

Snare…?
He looked at the word Ilie was pointing to, and for the first time that day, smiled.

‘Snore,’ he said, and Ilie repeated it.

‘I don’t think so…’ Fraser said, then shrugged and shook his head.

‘Petru,’ said Ilie, pointing, ‘him – snore. Bad.’

It was at this point that Fraser realised they probably weren’t planning a raid on his virtue that night – then there was a noise from the door and the warder came in.

‘You lads got to know each other all ready then? Good, saves me trying to introduce you.’

He handed Fraser a plastic bag with a string-pull neck. ‘That’s your kit – soap, flannel, toothbrush – and here’s your card for the phone. It’s gotta last you a week, so don’t lose it. If you do, you’ll have to pay for another. OK?’

He nodded to the other two and left. Petru gave his retreating back a one-fingered salute.

‘Bastard,’ Ilie said, but not until he was well out of earshot. It was one word he didn’t have to look up, Fraser reflected.

He was looking something up now, though. He pointed at himself and said, ‘Mech-anic.’ Then at Petru. ‘Boulder.’

Fraser was wondering dimly whether this was a reference to Petru’s bravery or to Peter the rock of the Church when Ilie mimed bricklaying.

‘Ah, a builder.’

‘
Da!
Yes. Bil-der.’ He pointed at Fraser interrogatively. ‘You?’

Fraser took the dictionary from him and looked up doctor, for which the Romanian word was –
doctor
.

‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘Medic.’

The two Romanians looked at each other. Petru said something which Ilie answered in a sharp burst of Romanian. Petru shrugged again – it seemed to be his favourite gesture.

Fraser started making up his bed on the top bunk to cover the moment. The blankets were grey and rather coarse and the sheets looked like linen, although it was more likely to be rough cotton, he reflected. He hadn’t made up an old-fashioned bed since he’d left home, and now it was especially awkward because he had to reach up and over to do it. He’d just about finished when a fist pounded on the door and a mocking voice intoned, ‘Dinner is served, gentlemen.’

The two Romanians obviously knew what this meant. They stubbed their cigarettes, got up and stuffed their baccy pouches into their jeans. Fraser wasn’t hungry, but decided he might as well go with them.

In the corridor, it seemed as though the whole wing was on the move as prisoners streamed out of their cells, some in jeans, some in prison garb. Fraser went with the crowd, keeping close to Ilie and Petru. At the moment, they were the nearest thing he had to friends… discounting Jones, that is, he thought wryly.

They turned into a large dining area and joined a queue. Fraser looked round. He’d subconsciously expected long, school-type benches, but instead there were ranks of tables and chairs for four. Ahead was an army-style canteen where men in chefs’ hats served food across a stainless steel counter.

The queue shuffled slowly forward. Ilie and Petru picked up trays and plastic cutlery. On offer were fried fish, stew with dumplings, vegetable curry and rice, chips, baked potatoes and cabbage. The Romanians had stew and chips. Fraser took stew, potatoes and cabbage.

All the tables near the windows were taken. They sat at one near the middle of the room.

The stew was surprisingly good and Fraser had just realised how hungry he was when his shoulder was nudged, sharply. He looked round to see two big, swarthy men, one of whom indicated with a gesture of his head that he should move to another table. He hesitated, anger fighting with prudence…

‘No,’ Ilie said softly.

The other spoke quickly in Romanian. Petru answered, his voice hard. The other made a mouth and moved on.

Petru winked at Fraser, then pointed to his plate and said, ‘Good.’

Fraser nodded and smiled as the thought struck him that this was probably was better than anything they’d had in Romania.

When they’d finished, they took their trays to a stacking point, then Fraser followed them to a common room. It was thick with smoke and men crowded round a TV in one corner. A clock on the wall said it was nearly seven. Fraser touched Ilie’s arm and mimed a phone.

‘Ah,
telefon
…’ He pointed to the door and indicated right.

‘Thanks.’ He nodded to both of them, raised a hand and went out.

A warder gave him more directions and he followed the corridor round to find a queue of about twenty people waiting for two phones.

Nothing for it, so he joined them.

He thought about his cell mates, their rapid talk in the cell when they realised he was a doctor, the way they’d moved their compatriots on in the canteen… Maybe they thought he was worth cultivating, might be useful to them in some way… He glanced down at the phonecard in his hand. It was for thirty units, that would never last a week, surely—

‘Get a fucken move on,’ a voice called. ‘Yeah, you!’

A rodent-like man in prison garb said a few hurried words into the phone and hung up. The queue moved forward and Fraser reflected that maybe it might last the week after all…

A quarter of an hour later, it was his turn. With shaking fingers, he pushed in the card and keyed in the numbers. Heard it ringing… There was no privacy, not even the spurious comfort of a perspex shell, but at least the gum-chewing man behind him hung back a little.

‘Frances…?’ It was her voice. ‘How are you, hen? How’re you feeling?’

‘I’m all right, darling – what about you? Is it awful?’

‘I’ll survive, I feel better already just for hearing you…’ He told her about Ilie and Petru and she told him about Tom’s visit.

‘At least he’s doing something, Fraser.’

‘Time’s up, mate,’ came a voice from behind him.

‘Gotta go, love,’ he said. ‘Same time tomorrow, love you.’

‘Love you too, Fraser…’

He walked away as the gum-chewing man took his place; her voice was still in his ears and he wanted to sink down somewhere with his face in his hands, but that was one thing you couldn’t do here…

Keep moving, to loiter is to be conspicuous.

He clenched his teeth on his misery and kept moving.

A sign for a bog – might be worth trying to go now, avoid having to use that thing in the cell.

As he turned into it, the smells of ammonia, shit and disinfectant greeted his nostrils and—

Another feckin’ queue…

He joined it. Shuffled slowly forward. A warder stood watching. He went into a cubicle and shut the door – half-door, rather. It shielded the top of the pan and his midriff from view, but not his feet or head.

He dropped his trousers and sat down. The seat was warm. A con shuffled past, not looking at him, but the invasion of this most basic of privacies made his guts seize up. He gave it a minute, then gave up.

‘You’ll get used to it, mate,’ the screw said as he went past him over to the basin.

In the corridor, the screws were shouting for lock-up. Back in the cell, Petru lay on his bed, smoking and listening to a radio. Ilie looked up from his dictionary.

‘Chest?’ he said.

‘Chest?’ repeated Fraser, wondering for a moment if it could be an enquiry as to whether the smoke was bothering him.

Ilie pointed at the word in the dictionary – chess – then pointed at Fraser, ‘You?’

‘All right, Ilie,’ he said with a smile. ‘Why not?’

Ilie brought out a board and set the pieces with incredible speed, then gave Fraser white and indicated for him to start. Fraser absent-mindedly pushed a pawn forward two squares, his mind still full of Frances. About five minutes later, he realised he’d been mated.

‘Bluidy hell!’

They started again and this time he tried to concentrate more and succeeded in delaying defeat for a quarter of an hour. Ilie’s technique was simple: Blitzkrieg. He moved all his major pieces out immediately and commenced slaughter.

‘Another,’ Fraser said grimly.

This time, he thought out his strategy and the game lasted nearly an hour, although Ilie beat him in the end. They shook hands, grinning.

Lights out was at ten. Fraser self-consciously squirmed into his pyjamas, anxious for a moment lest his earlier optimism might be misplaced, but the Romanians ignored him. They slept naked, he noticed.

He thought he’d have difficulty sleeping and he was right. He lay between the rough sheets thinking about Frances, about Jones and the questions he might be asking. He thought about Leo, about how much he’d like half an hour alone with him to put a few questions of his own…

Petru began snoring. Ilie hadn’t been kidding, it was like the foghorn he’d once heard off the Mull of Kintyre.

After a while, he got out of bed and, in the dim light of the security lamp, found some loo paper to chew up and use as ear plugs. He was just wondering whether or not to give Petru a shake when Ilie woke up, reached over and gave him a shove that knocked him a foot sideways. It didn’t wake him, but the snoring stopped.

It started again a few minutes later, but the ear plugs muffled the sound enough for Fraser to drift into a state of semi-consciousness that eventually led to oblivion.

*

After he’d seen Frances, Tom rang Mary Templeton, who said he could come round to her house in an hour, so he decided to go and have a look at the scene of the murder. He found it in the A–Z, then, on impulse, drove to Fraser’s house first.

It was a semi in a fairly modern estate and didn’t have much character, unless you counted the still visible tyre slashes across the lawns and gardens where Fraser had done his runner.

Must have pleased the neighbours.

From there, he drove to Connie’s, taking the route he assumed Fraser would have taken. It took him nearly twenty minutes, but he was sure it would be considerably less for someone who knew the way.

Connie Flint’s house was in a wide, leafy suburb, and was several indices removed from Fraser’s. He negotiated the drive and parked next to the SOC van that was there. A man came out of the house almost immediately and Tom showed him his ID.

‘I’m surprised to find any of you lot still here,’ he said.

‘Just clearing up.’

‘Did you hear me arriving from in there?’ Tom asked.

‘Your car does have rather a distinctive note,’ the man said, nodding at the Cooper.

‘Would you have heard a quieter car?’

‘Couldn’t tell you, mate.’

Tom told him he was going to have a look round and the man shrugged and said, ‘Sure.’

He looked at the steps where Fraser said he’d found the stick and then at the chequered hall inside. The position of the body was still marked out.

‘It’s not as if there’s anyone here to disturb,’ the man said, as though to explain his tardiness.

Tom nodded, then went inside to look at the phone and desk that Callan had suggested Leo Farleigh was so interested in. Nothing there grabbed his attention, so he went outside and followed the gravelled drive round to the back of the house, where there was certainly plenty of room to park a car out of sight.

He returned slowly to the front.

‘Do me a favour?’ he asked the SOC man.

‘Depends what it is.’

‘Drive your van round to the back, switch off, then start up again and drive back.’

‘Sure.’

Standing where the body had been with the door just ajar, Tom heard him start the engine, but nothing more until he reappeared again in the hall. He then asked him to reverse back down to the road, and return slowly to the house. The man agreed, but not quite so readily.