Shaun Hutson - Captives

'What is your main complaint with the system as it is at present?' another reporter asked.

'In Whitely, as in many other gaols, remand prisoners are kept in the same sections of the prison, in some cases in the same cells, as convicted men, occasionally even murderers. This is intolerable.'

Scott sipped his drink and continued gazing at the screen.

'… The movement for prison reform has gained momentum in the last three months, ever since the murder of a remand prisoner in Whitely by a convicted killer. Mr Clinton took up the case after relatives of the dead man approached him…'

There was a shot of the Trafalgar Square and Scott could see the protesters milling around the fountains. Clinton stood at the top of the steps and was addressing them but the camera panned across to the reporter standing in the foreground who was addressing his remarks direct to camera.

'… Officials from the Home Office are expected to visit Whitely Prison and a number of other maximum security gaols throughout the country in the next few weeks, to see at close hand how bad overcrowding has become. Mr Clinton himself will lead a delegation to Whitely before the end of the week and a motion to discuss the possible reform of the penal system has been tabled in the Commons.'

The reporter signed off and the pictures of the rally were replaced by the newsreader in the studio. Scott listened for a moment to a story about yet another famine in Africa, to someone appealing for people to send money for food, and then switched off.

Send them money for food, next thing they'll be wanting money for clothes, he chuckled to himself. He pulled the phone towards him and jabbed the digits of Carol's number.

It rang.

And rang.

He glanced at his watch, sure that she wouldn't have left yet. He allowed the phone to ring another five times then tried his own flat, wondering if she might have stayed there until it was time to come in.

There was no answer there either.

He tried her flat once more, and still all he heard was the insistent ringing tone. He pressed down on the cradle and replaced the receiver.

She should be at work soon, anyway.

Ask her where she was.

He decided against that. He just hoped she was all right. Perhaps she'd slipped out for something. Or to see someone.

To see someone? Like who?

Why had she asked him the previous night about what he'd do if he found out she was seeing someone else?

He dismissed the thought. There was no need to be suspicious, she was merely asking out of curiosity. He suspected she'd been surprised by his answer. Scott smiled. Perhaps it would make her realise just how much he felt for her.

He crossed to the window of his office and looked out. It was raining again; the pavements and road were slick with water. The neon signs all around were reflected in the moisture, as if they themselves lit the concrete from the inside.

Scott always thought of London as existing in two different times. There were those who lived and worked by day and those who did so by night. Worlds apart.

The time of darkness had come again.

He smiled.

PART TWO

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste but they detest at leisure…

- Lord Byron

They have the morals of alley cats and minds like sewers…

- Neville Heath, convicted murderer, on women

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.