Jack Higgins - Dark Side of the Street

"That's hardly likely, sir. He's checked every hour."

"A lot could happen in an hour. On the other hand, if someone was there all the time." He shook his head. "I'm certain a cell mate is the best answer from our point of view and this chap Drummond should do very nicely. Let's have a look at him."

The Principal Officer opened the door and stood to one side. "All right, lad," he barked. "Look lively now. Stand on the mat and give your name and number."

The prisoner moved into the room quickly and stood on the rubber mat that was positioned exactly three feet away from the governor's desk.

"83278 Drummond, sir," Paul Chavasse said and waited at attention.

The light from the desk threw his face into relief. It had fined down in the past three months and the hair, close-cropped to the skull, gave him a strangely medieval appearance. He looked a thoroughly dangerous man and the governor frowned down at his records in some perplexity. This was not what he had expected-not at all what he had expected.

But then, the governor's paradox was that he knew nothing of prison life at all-what he saw each day was only the surface of a pond which Chavasse, in three short months, had plumbed to its depths in undergoing what was known in the legal profession as the due process of the law.

In the three months he had made seven separate court appearances and had already experienced the life of three different gaols. He had spent a month on remand in a place so primitive that the only sanitary arrangements in the cell consisted of an enamel pot. Each morning, he had formed one of the queue of men who shuffled along the landing to empty the nights slops into the single lavatory bowl at the end.

Prison Officers were now screws, men who like the rest of the humanity were good, bad and indifferent in about the usual proportions. There had been some who had treated him with decency and humanity, others who punctuated each command with the end of a staff jabbed painfully into the kidneys.

He had learned that there was little romance in crime-that most of his fellow prisoners were persistent offenders who could have made a better living if they had spent their lives in drawing the unemployment benefit. He had learned that murderers and rapists looked just like anyone else and that often the most masculine prisoners in appearance were sexual deviants.

Most important of all, like any jungle animal intent only on survival he had quickly acquired the customs and habits of his new surroundings so that he might fade into the background with the rest. And he had survived. He would never be quite the same man again, but he had survived.

"Six years." The governor looked up from the record card. "That means four if you keep out of trouble and earn full remission."

"Yes, sir."

The governor leaned back in his chair. "It's really quite distressing to see a man like you end up in this sort of a mess but I think we can help you. But you've got to help yourself as well, you know. Are you willing to try?"

Chavasse resisted a strong temptation to lean across the desk and smash his fist into the centre of that florid well-fed face and wondered whether the governor could possibly be putting on an act. On the other hand that was hardly likely-which must mean that he had accepted the introduction of an undercover agent into his establishment with the greatest reluctance.

"Anyway, you can best help yourself by helping me," the governor said. "I'm going to put you in with a man called Harry Youngblood. He's a longterm prisoner who suffered a stroke some time ago. Now the odds are that he might have another and it could be at night. If that happens I want you to ring for the Duty Officer at once. Speed is vital in these cases so I'm told. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Youngblood works in the machine shop, doesn't he, Mr. Atkinson?"

"That's right, sir. Car number plates."

"Fine." The governor looked up at Chavasse again. "We'll put you in there for training and see how you like it. I'll follow your progress with interest."

He got to his feet as a sign that the interview was over and for the briefest of moments there was something in his eyes. It was as if he wanted to say something more, but couldn't think of the right words. In the end he nodded brusquely to the Principal Officer who led Chavasse out into the corridor.

The other gaols Chavasse had been in had been constructed during the reform era in the middle of the nineteenth century on a system commonly found in Her Majesty's Prisons of four three tiered cell blocks radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a central hall.

But Fridaythorpe was only two years old, a place of quiet and smooth concrete, air-conditioned and warmed by central heating with not a window to be seen.

They reached a central hall and entered a steel lift which rose ten floors before it halted. They stepped out on to a small concrete landing and Chavasse could see a long white corridor stretching into the distance on the other side of a steel gate.

They stood there for a moment and then the gate opened smoothly and silently. They moved inside and it closed again.

"Impressed?" Atkinson demanded as Chavasse turned to examine it. "You're meant to be. It's operated electronically by remote control. The man who pressed the button is sitting in the control centre on the ground floor at the other end of the prison. He's one of a team of five who watch fifty-three television screens on a shift system twenty-four hours a day. You've been on view ever since we left the governor's office."

"Wonderful what you can do with science these days," Chavasse said.

"Nobody escapes from Fridaythorpe-just remember that," Atkinson said as they proceeded along the corridor. "Behave yourself and you'll get a square deal-try to act tough and you'll fall flat on your face."

He didn't seem to require an answer and Chavasse didn't attempt to give him one. They paused outside a door at the far end of the passage, Atkinson produced a key and unlocked it.

The cell was larger than Chavasse had anticipated. There were three small slit windows glazed with armour glass and in any case too small to admit a man. There was also a washbasin and a fixed toilet in one corner.

There was a single bed against each wall and Youngblood was lying on one of them reading a magazine. He looked at them in an almost casual fashion and didn't bother getting up.

"I've got a cell mate for you, Youngblood." Atkinson told him. "The governors afraid you might pass away on us one night without any warning. He'd like someone to be here just in case."

"Well, that's nice of the old bastard," Youngblood said. "I didn't know he cared."

"You just mind your bloody lip."

"Careful, Mr. Atkinson." Youngblood smiled. "There's a thin line of foam on the edge of your lips. You want to watch it."

Atkinson took one quick step towards him and Youngblood raised a hand. "I'm not a well man, remember."

"That's right, I was forgetting." Atkinson laughed gently. "You may be a big man in here, Youngblood, but from where I stand you look pretty damned small. I laugh myself sick every time I lock the door."

Something moved in Harry Youngblood's eyes and for a moment, the habitual mocking smile was erased and he looked capable of murder.

"That's better," Atkinson said. "That's much better," and he went outside, the door clanging behind him with a grim finality.

"Bastard!" Youngblood said and turned to examine Chavasse. "So you're Drummond? We've been expecting you for a week now."

"Word certainly gets around."

"That's the nick for you-we're all just one big happy family. You'll like it here-it's got everything. Central heating, air conditioning, television-all we needed was a bit of class and now we've got you."