Captives

FORTY-NINE

The cleaver swung down with incredible power and accuracy, severing the leg with one clean cut.

It sheared through bone and muscle alike, the strident snapping of the femur reverberating inside the room.

Anne Hopper winced as she looked at the remains of the bullock lying on the large wooden worktop in the prison kitchen. As she watched, the tall thin man in the butcher's apron raised the cleaver once again and lopped off another part of the leg.

There were other men in the chill room, all dressed in white overalls. Some of them were spattered with blood from the carcasses that hung on a row of meat-hooks nearby.

'The man with the cleaver,' said Reginald Fairham quietly, cupping his hand conspiratorially around his mouth. 'He isn't a prisoner, is he?'

Nicholson turned and looked at the other man contemptuously.

'You maintain that the prisoners here are worthy of trust, don't you, Mr Fairham?' Nicholson said. 'Some of them have to work in the kitchens.'

Fairham swallowed hard as he saw another portion of the carcass cut away by a powerful blow.

'As a matter of fact the man with the cleaver is one of the warders here. He was a master butcher before he joined the service,' Nicholson explained.

Fairham visibly relaxed.

The procession moved through the kitchen, through clouds of steam from several large metal vats of food.

Clinton inspected the contents of one of the vats, smiling amiably at the man who was stirring the mass of baked beans. The man looked at Clinton indifferently and peered down into the vat. The MP moved on, rejoining his colleagues.

The procession moved through the prison at a leisurely pace, Nicholson answering the visitors' questions with the minimum of elaboration, constantly struggling to hide his contempt for some of the more idiotic queries they presented him with.

What did he think the effects of overcrowding were?

How many men took advantage of the educational courses?

How were prisoner and warder relationships? Nicholson remained slightly ahead of his group so that they could never quite see the expression of disdain of his face. He led them along corridors and walkways until they came to a double set of metal-barred gates.

The warder on the other side, at a signal from the Governor, pressed a button and the doors slid open with a faint electronic burr.

Nicholson led them through to another solid steel gate. This one was unlocked by a warder with a key. As he pushed it open a powerful gust of wind swept in from outside. Led by the Governor, they stepped out into the exercise yard. It stretched around them in all four directions, empty, enclosed by high wire mesh fences.

'How much exercise do the prisoners get?' Clinton wanted to know.

'An hour a day,' Nicholson said, leading them across the yard.

'It isn't long enough,' Fairham observed, looking round the empty expanse of concrete.

Anne Hopper noticed the chapel.

She pointed towards the graveyard beside it and the markers on the handful of graves.

Nicholson explained what they were. How the men buried there had no families, no other place to lie.

'It's a wonder there aren't more of them,' Fairham said.

'It's a pity there aren't more of them,' Nicholson rasped under his breath.

'Mr Nicholson,' Paul Merrick said, brushing loose strands of whispy hair from his face, 'you said you were going to show us some kind of answer to the problems of overcrowding. May I ask when?'

Nicholson glared at him.

'Now, Mr Merrick,' he said, the knot of muscles at the side of his jaw throbbing angrily.

The hospital block was ahead of them.

Nicholson looked up at the grey stone building. It was as dull as the overcast sky. The gaunt edifice appeared to have dropped from the heavens, a lump of the bleak sky fallen to earth inside the prison grounds.

'What's that?' asked Fairham, pointing at a rusted grille set in the concrete close by the wall of the hospital wing. The grille was about a foot square.

'It's one of the vents over the sewer shaft,' Nicholson explained.

'Hardly hygienic, is it?' Fairham noted. 'So close to the hospital.'

'This prison, as you know, is very old,' the Governor explained. 'The whole place is dotted with vents like that. A network of sewer tunnels runs under the prison. It isn't used now and most of it is blocked off. There's no danger to health from the outlets.'

As they neared the entrance to the wing, Nicholson slowed his pace imperceptibly. He looked up one last time at the grey edifice, licking dry lips.

Those inside had been given their instructions. He just hoped to God they had followed them.