Captives

FORTY-ONE

The door crashed open and slammed back against the wall with such force it seemed it would come off the hinges.

Michael Robinson blinked and sat up, staring blearily in the direction of the noise. He rubbed his eyes and peered down from the top bunk.

The uniformed figure stood in the doorway, eyeing the occupants of the cell impassively.

'Move it,' said the figure. 'Slop out.'

Robinson yawned and swung his feet over the side of the bunk.

'I think this is our alarm call, Rod,' he said, stretching.

From the bunk below him Rod Porter grunted and turned over, as if to resume the peaceful sleep from which he'd just been disturbed.

'Move yourself, Porter,' said the uniformed figure brusquely.

'Fuck you,' murmured Porter under his breath.

Robinson jumped down from the top bunk.

'You interrupted my dream, Mr Swain,' said Porter, hauling himself out of bed. 'I was just getting a blow job from Michelle Pfeiffer.'

'The only blow job you're likely to get is a bike pump up your arse. Now move yourselves, both of yousnapped the uniformed man.

Robinson and Porter both retrieved the small plastic buckets from one corner of the cell and wandered out onto the landing. Robinson smiled as he lifted the plastic cover from the slop bucket to reveal a lump of excrement. He shoved it at the uniformed man's face, watching with pleasure as he recoiled from the stench.

'I think mine is a little bit underdone. Perhaps you ought to have a word with the kitchen staff,' he said, smiling.

In front of him, Porter grinned. The uniformed officer didn't appreciate the joke and pushed Robinson out onto the landing where, already, a steady file of men were spilling from their cells, joining the long line on either side of the landing as they made their way to the toilets.

Whitely Prison was coming to life.

On landings above and below them the same routine was in practice. They had followed it every morning and would continue to follow it until their sentences were up. Man shuffled along over the cold floors, some dressed in grey prison-issue pyjamas, others bare-chested or in boxer shorts. Each of them held a small bucket. Most were filled with excrement. Slopping out was as much a part of prison life as exercise, work and, for the fortunate ones, visits. Robinson and Porter knew it well enough. They'd been sharing a cell for the last two years. Robinson was in for ten years for armed robbery, while his companion was half-way through a twelve-year stretch for a similar crime. His extra two years had come about because he'd shot a security guard in the leg with a twelve-bore.

Both men were in their mid-thirties, and both had spent most of their lives in and out of institutions. Porter had been raised in a children's home from the time he was two years old. He'd run away repeatedly as he'd got older, never with anywhere to go but just anxious to be free of the confining walls and restrictive atmosphere. As the years had progressed a series of petty crimes had seen him in remand homes, borstals and finally prison. It was usually robbery.

Robinson had experienced a more stable upbringing. He was married with a couple of kids. Stealing had come more as a necessity than anything else. His wife had expensive tastes and the kids always wanted new clothes or bikes or games. Both men had come to Whitely from other prisons, Robinson from Strangeways, Porter from Wandsworth.

A large proportion of Whitely's inmates had also come via other gaols throughout the country; prisons where they couldn't be handled adequately. In many cases Whitely was a last resort. Or a dumping ground, whichever way you chose to look at it. It was like a drain where the dregs and filth exuded from all the other prisons in the land had been gathered together; the human refuse brushed aside and locked up in an institution that was a dustbin for the unwanted and unmanageable.

Located in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside, surrounded on four sides by hills, it was a monument to the backwardness of penal reform. A massive, grey stone Victorian building, it housed over 1600 inmates, twice its allotted amount. Remand and convicted prisoners lived side by side.

Robinson nudged the man in front of him and nodded a greeting as the man turned.

The uniformed man noticed the movement and stepped close to Robinson.

'No talking,' he said.

Robinson shrugged and smiled innocently.

'Cunt,' he whispered, stifling the word with a yawn.

Across the landing an identical procession was filing towards their own latrine. Men who had emptied their slop buckets were returning to their cells. There were the odd murmurings, the sounds echoing throughout the large building, but they were quickly quelled by warders anxious to maintain silence.

Porter peered over the landing rail, through the steel netting that was strung from one side to the other, and noticed that, on the landing below, prisoners who had finished slopping out had not in fact returned to their cells but were standing outside, their attempts at entry barred by warders. He frowned, wondering what was going on. His musings were interrupted as he reached the latrine. He and Robinson emptied their slop buckets into the waste chutes provided, rinsed them with boiling water and then made their way back to their cell.

The door was closed, the entrance blocked by another warder, Raymond Douglas. He was a red-faced man with a pitted complexion who always looked exhausted, as if he'd just completed a marathon.

'Stay there,' he said, toying with his key chain, holding up his free hand to add weight to his instructions.

Further down the landing, other prisoners also stood outside their cells. Irritated mutterings grew louder.

'… What's going on?…'

'… Why are we being kept outside?…'

'What's the deal, Mr Douglas?' Porter asked.

'You'll find out,' said the warder. 'For now, just shut it.'

Porter eyed the uniformed man malevolently, then exchanged puzzled glances with his cell-mate.

'Cell search?' Robinson murmured. 'Someone been smoking whacky baccy again?'

'I said shut it,' Douglas snapped.

'Just curious,' said Robinson, gazing around him.

On all the landings men now stood outside their cells, increasingly frustrated and increasingly cold. It wasn't exactly warm inside Whitely and many of them were dressed only in shorts. The babble of discontent grew more insistent, to the point where even the warders couldn't quell it.

'What the hell is going on?' Porter wanted to know.

'SHUT UP.'

The voice boomed around the inside of the building, bouncing off the walls with its ferocity and power.

All heads turned in one direction, peering upwards to find its source.

'Shut up and listen,' the voice continued, and now the inmates could see where the thunderous exhortation came from.

On the uppermost landing, flanked by warders, stood a tall, powerfully-built figure in a dark blue suit, his greying hair slicked back so severely it appeared that he was bald. He gripped the landing rail with hands as large as ham-hocks. He regarded the men beneath him impassively, his eyes flicking back and forth as they looked up at him.

Peter Nicholson, the Governor of Whitely Prison, began to speak.