Slammer

  SLAMMER

  by

  Allan Guthrie

  For Ray Banks

  Revised edition copyright 2011 Allan Guthrie

  Original edition copyright 2009, Allan Guthrie.

  First published by Polygon, 2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by JT Lindroos

  Cover photograph by Keoni Cabral

  Visit the author's website at:

  http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk

  Visit Criminal-E, Allan Guthrie's ebook crime fiction blog, at:

  http://criminal-e.blogspot.com

  Visit the print publisher's website at:

  http://www.birlinn.co.uk

  Version 2-1-3

  PART ONE

  NARRATIVE EXPOSURE THERAPY

  MONDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 1992

  Nick Glass lifted his elbows off the desk and leaned backwards a few inches. The prison shrink's breath was sweet, like hot milk. Not unpleasant, exactly. But it made Glass feel ill. He'd have asked if he could open a window, but the pokey little office didn't have one.

  John Riddell visited once a week, usually on Mondays, and the smell was stronger each time. 'How are you settling in?' he asked.

  Glass said, 'Okay,' thankful that, when he breathed in now, all he could smell was furniture polish.

  Riddell opened the file in front of him. 'Hmmm,' he said, nodding. He slid his specs down his nose and peered at Glass. It was a look he'd clearly practised. 'You sure about that?'

  Glass gave Riddell a look back. Glass could do looks. He'd learned over the past few weeks. That wasn't all he'd learned.

  Riddell said, 'Everything you say in this room is confidential.'

  'Right,' Glass said. As if that mattered.

  'You understand that, Nick?'

  'I'm not a child.'

  Riddell leaned forward. 'I didn't mean to be patronising. I'm sorry.'

  The smell again. Glass saw a lime-green plastic tumbler, milk spilling out as it fell to the floor. Then the image vanished and he only saw what was in front of him. 'Right.'

  'It's just …' Riddell took his specs off.

  'Just what?'

  'This is a chance for you to get it off your chest.'

  'Get what off my chest?'

  Riddell put his specs back on. 'Whatever's on it.'

  'My chest's fine.' But Glass could tell Riddell didn't believe him. He wondered who'd been speaking out of turn. Shouldn't matter, he knew, but the idea that he was being spoken about made him feel as if someone had poured cement down his throat and it was hardening in his stomach. People could be telling Riddell anything at all and he'd believe it too. He looked the sort.

  Riddell fiddled with his pen, eyes straight ahead.

  Glass tried to guess what they might have been saying about him. He should ask. No, he didn't want to go there. You never knew where it might lead.

  Maybe they'd been talking about him and Mafia. Saying they were too close. Making homosexual references. Puerile shite like that.

  Glass wished they'd grow up. He was only twenty-two but he was a damn sight more mature than the rest of them. He'd lived. Seen things, done things, felt real pain, the sort that crushed your bones and scooped all the flesh out of your body.

  Riddell said, 'How are the officers treating you? You okay with the nickname?'

  He might as well have picked Glass up and slammed him headfirst against the wall. What the hell was wrong with Riddell that he had to be such a provocative bastard? Maybe his wife had left him. Packed a suitcase, stormed off to her mother's. Something like that.

  'Can I go now?' he asked.

  Riddell looked at his watch. 'This is supposed to be a thirty-minute session.'

  Glass glanced at the clock on the wall behind Riddell's head. Twenty minutes to go. No way could he endure that.

  'So how about we just pretend?' Glass said. 'Nobody needs to know we cut it short.'

  Riddell sat back in his chair and smiled. 'This session could benefit you. It's not about making you uncomfortable. It's about helping you adapt.'

  Glass said nothing. He was fine. Didn't need any help. He could adapt by himself, thank you very much.

  'Your wife,' Riddell said. 'And daughter.'

  Glass dug his nails into his palms. Yeah, so it could be difficult for families, he knew that. But there was no need to bring Lorna and Caitlin into it. He didn't want to talk about them here. They were part of a different world and none of Riddell's business.

  He'd be curt, maybe Riddell would get the hint. 'Caitlin's settled into school,' he said. 'Lorna's fine. None of us miss Dunfermline.' Glad to be rid of it. Well, glad to be rid of Lorna's mother.

  'Must be tough for Caitlin, though. Difficult age. Remind me. Five, six?' Riddell waited, then broke the silence himself. 'You became a father very young.'

  Glass sat it out, stared at the empty photo frame turned sideways on the desk. Tin. Pewter, maybe. He wasn't sure of the difference. He felt sorry for Riddell, not having a photo to put in it. Maybe his wife hadn't left him after all. Maybe he didn't have a wife. Maybe he had no one. Glass was angry at himself for feeling sorry for the poor sod.

  'Okay,' Riddell said. 'Sign this.' He turned a sheet towards Glass, handed over his pen.

  A list of names. Dates. Times.

  Glass was surprised by how many he recognised. He scrawled his name. Then he levered himself to his feet, turned to go.

  'Thanks, Nick,' Riddell said. 'Any time you feel like talking, let me know. It'll do you good.'

  Prison Officer Nicholas Glass didn't think so. But he nodded, for show.

  *

  'We have to take Mafia to the Digger,' Fox said, half an hour later.

  Glass had been working here long enough to know that Officer Fox was talking about the segregation unit. God alone knew why it was called the Digger. Prison was so full of slang you hardly knew where to begin. And if you asked how one thing got its name, you had to ask about another, and before long you didn't care any more, so you stopped asking.

  The Digger it was.

  Glass looked at his colleague. 'Why us?'

  Fox was at least fifty, fat and proud of it. He was the kind of man who'd walk around all day with his hand down his trousers if he could get away with it. 'Our job, Crystal, isn't it?'

  Glass ignored the nickname. It had stuck. Nothing he could do about it now. At least it was better than what he'd been called at school. Nicholarse Glarse. Arse for short. 'What's he done?'

  'Been at it with Caesar again.' Fox started moving, heels clicking on the polished floor.

  'Is he okay?'

  'He'll live. Caesar just toys with him.'

  'So,' Glass said, finding it hard to believe he was struggling to keep up with the much older, much bigger man, and thinking, not for the first time given all the muscles on show here, that he should start working out, 'how come nothing happens to Caesar?'

  'How do you know what's going to happen to him?'

  'Just guessing.'

  'Well, don't,' Fox said. 'Just do what you're told like a good little boy.'

  It wasn't just that Glass was young. He looked young. Always had done. He wondered if Fox had always looked like a fat bastard. One of these days, he'd ask.

  A cat hissed at them as they moved down C-Hall. Fox kicked out at it, missed. The cat hissed again and turned tail. Disappeared back into the guts of the building.

  The cats were one of the many surprises that had confronted Nick Glass when he'd first arrived here six weeks ago. The Hilton, as they all called
it, was a modern prison. When it was being built, a small feral cat population had decided that the building would make a good home. So they moved in and despite repeated attempts — humane and otherwise — to remove them, years later they were still here.

  Couple of days ago, Glass had spotted a kitten. Terrified little black thing in the corner of the locker room. He wanted to pick it up, take it home, give it to Caitlin. She'd love it. It fled, spitting, before he could get near enough, though.

  He was hopeful he'd catch it another time, and was looking out for it as he and Fox approached the cells on the left. Three levels, called flats, both sides of the Hall. Mafia's peter — his cell — was on the second flat, or, as Fox said, 'on the twos.'

  Up the stairs, past the ginger-bearded Officer McDee who was too busy chatting to one of the few female guards, Officer Ross, to notice Glass. Then past a group of cons. Nods, grunts, shuffling of feet. Glass wondered if Darko was with Mafia, wondered what the hell they'd been up to. Glass might have found out from Fox, but the expression on his face wasn't one to inspire conversation. Fox didn't like any of the other officers paying too much attention to Officer Ross.

  Glass wasn't in a hurry. He'd get told soon enough.

  Fox rattled his keys in time to the music filtering through the cell door. He shoved his key in the lock and twisted it, all in one movement, and walked inside. The radio was blasting out the chorus of a pop tune even Glass recognised: 'Ebeneezer Goode', a song the cons loved cause it was full of drug references.

  Mafia was sitting on his bunk, the lower one, Darko patting his face with a cloth.

  The stink crept up on Glass like it always did when he walked into one of the cells. Damn, he should use the slang. The peters. Fags, sweat, a faint whiff of shit. And an industrial chemical that pervaded the whole place.

  Made him shake. Made him wonder what he was doing here.

  'What you been up to now, you blind fuck?' Fox said to Mafia, snapping off the radio and creating the kind of sudden silence that got him the attention he was so desperate for.

  The reason Mafia got his nickname: he wore dark glasses. Reason he wore dark glasses: eye problems. He had a medical condition that meant he couldn't see further than a couple of inches in front of his nose.

  Mafia was one of the few cons Glass could speak to. Most of them didn't want to be seen talking to the officers. Mafia didn't care what anyone thought, though. They'd struck up a rapport right away, Glass and Mafia. Glass had been wary, having been warned that certain prisoners would try to take advantage if he got too close to them, revealed too much of himself. But Mafia wasn't playing a game. They just liked each other. Glass couldn't see Mafia as a double murderer. Not that Mafia would talk about it, but that in itself was unusual and a sign that he might be innocent. Glass hoped so. On the outside, they'd be drinking buddies. Or at least that's what Glass liked to think.

  He didn't know, though, since he didn't have any drinking buddies.

  Anyhow, Fox was right: Mafia was virtually blind. Claimed he'd been run over nine times crossing the road on account of his terrible eyesight, worst injury being a broken hip. Glass wasn't sure if that made him lucky or unlucky.

  Mind you, everybody lied in prison. Glass believed him, though. It was too imaginative a story to be anything but the truth.

  Glass nodded towards him.

  Mafia tilted his head in response. 'Who's that? McDee? Agnew? Not that fucker, Sutherland. Is it the lovely Officer Ross?'

  'It's me,' Glass said.

  'Don't answer him, Crystal. He's a rude fuck.' Fox stepped closer, pushed Darko out of the way. It wasn't hard. Darko was only just over five foot tall and rail-thin. Caitlin could probably knock him over with a shove of her little hand.

  'Hey,' Darko said.

  'Hey, what?' Fox stuck his chest out, looked like he was trying to poke Darko's eyes out with his nipples. 'Eh? Want to join your cellie in the Digger?'

  Darko said nothing.

  'Good boy. Now fuck off or I'll have you deported back to Yugo-fucking-slavia.'

  'The Digger?' Mafia said. 'You're joking.'

  'Nope.' Fox turned his attention back to Mafia. 'Although it is pretty funny, now you mention it.'

  'You can't put me in there.'

  'Orders,' Fox said.

  'Who from?'

  'Your granny.' Fox stabbed a finger at him. 'Now get on your feet and start moving. And try not to fall down the stairs this time.'

  Mafia didn't budge.

  'You want to do this the hard way?'

  Mafia sighed. Stood. And Glass got a good look at his face. His cheek was puffed up, lip swollen.

  'I'll lead the way,' Glass said.

  'Thanks,' Mafia replied.

  'You pair should just be done with it and shag each other,' Fox said. 'Spare us all the bloody foreplay.'

  *

  A bare cell. No windows. At night, they'd toss in a mattress, maybe a blanket. No need to ask why they used to be called punishment cells. Glass found it hard to believe he was used to it now.

  Mafia was naked, hands cupped over his groin. He looked even more naked without his shades.

  Fox had taken them away along with Mafia's clothes. Not normal practice, just Fox being a bastard.

  Glass had tried to persuade him not to. Got the response he'd expected.

  'Don't you want to see your boyfriend's tackle out, then?' Fox's double chin was like an extra smile.

  'At least leave him his shades,' Glass said. 'He can't see without them.'

  'Can't bloody see with them. And why the tinted lenses anyway?' He looked at Mafia, who didn't respond. 'Huh?' He swatted Mafia with his arm.

  'It's complicated,' Mafia said. 'Just leave me the glasses, eh?'

  Fox folded them, popped them in his breast pocket. 'No chance.'

  'What's the point of taking them?' Glass asked.

  'Man might be a danger to himself,' Fox said. 'Break them. Cut his wrists.'

  'You feeling suicidal?' Glass asked Mafia.

  'More murderous, I'd say.' Mafia looked at Fox, eyeballs wiggling from side to side like they were searching for a way to escape from their sockets.

  'Think I'll bin them,' Fox said. 'Just to make sure they don't injure anyone.'

  'Don't be a cock,' Glass said.

  Fox stiffened. 'You calling me a cock?'

  'Just don't,' Glass said.

  Fox said, 'How much?'

  Glass scratched his finger. 'What?'

  'How much will you pay me for not stepping on them?'

  'Why should I pay you anything?'

  'You shouldn't. But I bet you will.'

  Well, no, he wouldn't. He wasn't going to be bullied like this. 'Go ahead,' he said. 'Do what you want.'

  Fox said to Mafia, 'Sorry, petal. Your boyfriend doesn't love you any more.'

  *

  Glass was glad to be rid of Fox, but he wasn't so keen on supervising the machine shop. The smell of aluminium shavings, the noise of grinding metal. Raised voices. And a sense of danger. He felt the latter all the time, throughout the Hilton. But here it was heightened. And it was soaring today.

  He was standing right by the gate, leaning against the bars, trying to look relaxed. He had a key, but, still, he was locked in. Suppose something happened and he needed to get out. It would take him time to react. Maybe he wouldn't have time. He'd be stuck here with this lot.

  He watched a group of inmates huddled around the big lathe. He knew they gave all the machines names, but he wasn't sure if she was Lydia or Linda. A head rose, looked right at him, gave a smile. Another head, another smile.

  They were talking about him.

  He didn't know whether to smile back or ignore them. His thoughts alternated:

  Don't get too close.

  Don't blank them.

  Don't provoke them.

  Don't let them get off with it.

  Then: Open the gate and run while you can.

  Course, he didn't. He tried to look calm and in control,
the bars of the gate pressing into his back. Probably just as well he was locked in. Otherwise, he might not have trusted himself to stay.

  The group round the big lathe was sniggering like schoolkids. Maybe they were planning on taking him hostage.

  He shivered, like he'd sucked a lemon. He had to get that crap out of his head. Ever since he'd started the job, that'd been his main worry, nagging at him constantly. His imagination took over sometimes, no question, but hostage situations were a real threat in the Hilton.

  Maximum security prison. Three hostage crises in the last ten years. Four officers stabbed. One had lost an eye. One had died.

  And how much training did Glass get in what to do in a hostage situation?

  None. Not so much as a single word of advice.

  In fact, officers had to sign a disclaimer saying that they worked here at their own risk and that no one was under any obligation to try to rescue them should they be taken hostage. Fucking great. You're on your own, pal.

  If you couldn't do the time, you shouldn't be a screw. He knew that. Shitty pay, too. Scottish officers were on a much lower salary than their counterparts in England.

  Glass would give it up right now if it weren't for the fact that Lorna's mother would see him as a quitter. He had to stick it out, prove her wrong. And, anyway, what else was he going to do? He wasn't qualified to do a damn thing. He could strum a few chords on a guitar, but who couldn't? Couldn't make a living busking, which was all he was good for. Not that he played any more, hadn't picked up a guitar in years. He was smart enough. His teachers had had high expectations, but he'd never finished his studies. Caitlin came along and changed everything. He and Lorna had barely scratched a living for five years. But he was a prison officer now, and he had to see it through. It'd get better. He'd get used to it. He just wished he could stop shaking. He did his best to disguise it, but at some point, somebody was going to notice.

  And any sign of weakness, these predators would rip him apart.