Life on Mars: Borstal Slags

From the corner of his mouth, Gene replied, ‘Go on home to your kids, Herb.’ He leant over the groaning man sprawled at his feet, kicked away the now-dented licence plate bearing the name Gertrude, and said, ‘And as for you, sunshine, you’re nicked – what’s left of you.’

CHAPTER TWO: SLEEPING BEAUTY

The truck thief lay motionless in the intensive care ward, a cluster of clumsy plastic tubes tied with bandages to his nose and mouth. Beside him, a ramshackle tower of boxlike machines wheezed, chugged and beeped, keeping the lad in the bed on the very cusp of life. A nurse checked a paper read-out covered with wiggly lines, twiddled a fat dial or two, and fidgeted with the hem of the starched white sheets.

‘You’re not relatives,’ she said to the two men standing at the foot of the bed. ‘What are you? Police?’

‘DI Tyler,’ said Sam. ‘This is DCI Hunt. We’ve just, um, arrested this man.’

‘How? By dropping an anvil on him?’

‘He pranged his stolen motor,’ put in Gene. ‘I think he might have bumped his noodle.’

‘Sorry to have to bother you with this, Nurse,’ said Sam, ‘but does anyone here have a clue as to this young man’s identity?’

‘No.’

‘When he was undressed, was there no ID found on him? No wallet, nothing like that?’

‘His personal things are over there,’ said the nurse, indicating a small wooden locker. ‘But there’s nothing of interest, just shredded rags. We had to cut his clothes off when he came in here – what little clothing hadn’t been cut off him already.’

She stared fiercely at Gene.

‘He tripped on a kerb stone,’ said Gene, innocent as a cherub. ‘Anyway’s up, we need to have a chat with him.’

‘You’ll find that rather difficult, officer. He’s still unconscious.’

‘My uncle’s unwashed pantaloons he’s unconscious! He’s faking it. I can sense it. Sleeping Beauty here can hear every word we’re saying – can’t you, old son?’

‘He’s certainly not faking anything,’ said the nurse, aghast.

‘Is he not? Let’s put it to the test, why don’t we?’ He strode over to the bed, took hold of the truck thief’s ventilator tubes, and gave them a rattle. ‘Wakey, wakey, pretty baby, or I wrench these gizmos out your epiglottis and shove ’em right up your—’

‘For God’s sake!’ the nurse spat, shoving Hunt back. ‘You two are leaving right now. Right now! Or else I’m calling the police.’

‘Calling the police?’ said Gene, fishing out a packet of Embassy No. 6s. ‘There’s a flaw in your logic there. See if you can spot it.’

‘This boy is unconscious, and likely to remain so for some time – assuming he ever recovers at all,’ the nurse said fiercely.

‘I’ve been telling my DCI the same thing,’ said Sam, deeply uncomfortable to be associated with Gene when he was behaving like this. ‘Come on, Guv. This lad’s not going anywhere, we can always see him another time. They’ll let us know when he comes round.’

Truculently, Gene jabbed a cigarette between his lips. The nurse gave him a look: Don’t you dare …! Fixing her with a fierce look of his own, Gene raised his lighter, toyed at the flint with his thumb – then eased off.

‘Don’t take it personal, luv, I’ve had a day,’ he said. ‘Tyler – let’s roll.’

Sam apologized to the nurse for his DCI’s atrocious behaviour, and turned at once to go. He reached the plastic swing doors that led out of ICU into the busy corridor beyond, but found he was alone. Glancing back, he saw Gene rummaging through the small wooden cupboard which contained the tattered, blooded remains of the truck thief’s clothes. As the nurse furiously declared that she was going to get the porters to throw him out, Gene suddenly raised aloft a folded sheet of paper.

‘Nothing but rags?’ he said. ‘This could be vital.’ And to Sam: ‘See what happens if you take these medical birds too serious?’

He shoved the piece of paper into his pocket and – to Sam’s infinite relief – strode briskly through the swing doors and away along the corridor.

‘What a filthy, arrogant, reckless brute,’ the nurse said, shaking her head. ‘He should have been a consultant.’

They emerged into the cold night air outside the hospital. Ambulances clanged by. Gene sparked up his cigarette and drew deeply on the nicotine as if it were the very elixir of life.

‘You need to clean your act up, Hunt,’ Sam challenged him.

‘And you need to unclench those lily-white arse cheeks of yours, Tyler. We’re none of us in this job to make nurses happy – well, not like that, anyway.’

‘She’s got grounds to lodge a serious formal complaint against you. You assaulted a man on life support!’

‘I wobbled his pipes, that’s hardly an assault,’ Gene said dismissively. ‘And you’re forgetting – Uncle Genie had a ferret about and came up this.’

He held up the folded piece of paper. It was dotted with the truck thief’s blood.

‘It better be worth it,’ said Sam, watching Gene unfold it. ‘What is it? Looks like a letter.’

‘A spot of bedtime reading. Let’s see how it compares to Dick Francis, eh?’ Angling it towards the light coming from a sodium lamp, Gene perused it for a moment. ‘Nice handwriting. Very neat.’ And then he started to read it out. ‘“Dear Derek …” That our lad in there, you reckon? “Dear Derek, so brilliant you could make time for a visit. Really good to get time with you again. Tell Auntie Rose not to fret so much.” Gene shot Sam a serious look. ‘I hope he did tell her. I won’t have Auntie Rose worryin’.’

‘Get on with it, Guv.’

Gene peered closer at the letter, falling silent, his eyes narrowing, his expression darkening.

‘Guv?’ Sam asked.

‘My God, Tyler!’

‘Guv, what is it?’

Gene gave Sam an intense look. Gravely, he announced: ‘It’s Fluffy, Sam. She’s back on the tablets.’

Sam looked blankly at him. ‘What?’

Gene read out, “‘Don’t forget to give Fluffy her special tablets – take her to the vet in Lidden Street if she gets sick again.”’ Gene looked up sharply from the letter. ‘Sam, this stuff is dynamite.’ He balled the letter in his fist and bounced it off Sam’s chest. ‘Too exciting for me. I’ll never get to sleep after that.’

Sam retrieved the screwed-up letter, flattened it out, and glanced over the rest: ‘“… if she gets sick again. It’s very important I can trust you to look after her. See you again soon I hope. Love – Andy.” Andy,’ he said. ‘Derek and Andy.’

‘Those names don’t mean anything to me,’ said Gene.

‘Me neither. But look here – there’s a rubber stamp at the top of the letter approving it for posting. It says “HMP Friar’s Brook”.’

‘HMP!’ scoffed Gene. ‘It’s just a bloody borstal, Tyler. A kiddies’ lock-up for scallies whose balls ain’t dropped. That’s where his mate Andy is, is it? Doing a spot of bird in the nippers’ clinky? And what high-profile criminal caper did he mastermind, d’you think? Clocked some old granny for her pension book and Green Shields to pay for Fluffy’s suppositories? Or is he the Mr Big behind the Manchester used-fridge mafia?’

‘Something weird’s going on here,’ said Sam. ‘It’s not those fridges that lad was after, it was something else. But what? And is there a connection between him and the body in the crusher?’

Silently, Sam and Gene stood beneath the black, starless sky, waiting for inspiration to strike.

With an exaggerated sigh, Gene chucked away his dog end and declared, ‘I’ve ’ad enough of this bollocks. Hozzies give me the bleedin’ ’abdabs. I’m closing shop for the day. The Genie wants his beer. C’mon, Tyler, let’s leave chatterbox in there to suck on his pipes and dream of fridges, and get ourselves down the Arms for a few swifties.’

‘I think I’ll give it a miss this time,’ said Sam. ‘I’m going to swing by the station then head on home. I really do need some kip.’

‘DI Tyler needs kip more than beer,’ sighed Gene, rolling his eyes. ‘Kids today. Lightweights. A bunch of ruddy lightweights.’

When Sam got to the station, he found Annie Cartwright’s desk empty, and the sight of her chair and neatly piled paperwork made his heart ache for her.

Carefully, he sealed the letter from ‘Andy’ in an envelope and wrote on the front, ‘See what you make of this – are there any hidden clues???’ He left if tucked into Annie’s typewriter. It pleased him to have any opportunity to show that he took her seriously, that he valued her mind and police skills, that he saw her as an absolutely integral part of the team. Looking at the envelope left in the typewriter, it occurred to Sam that it was almost a love letter, from him to her.

It’s the first time I’ve left a bloodstained love letter! he thought.

A bloodstained love letter. All at once, the humour of the phrase curdled within him. He felt an icy coldness in the pit of his stomach, as if he was suddenly aware of being watched by malevolent eyes.

Sam glanced anxiously about, but the CID office was empty. And yet the fear remained. He knew that somewhere out there, hiding in the shadows but drawing steadily closer, was something evil. He had sensed it first as a vague apparition on the very margins of perception, and tried to dismiss it as a figment of his subconscious. But then, later, he had somehow recognized that same spectral presence reflected in the monstrous tattoos of bare-knuckle boxer Patsy O’Riordan. At the fairground, pursuing Patsy into the ghost train in an attempt to arrest him for murder, Sam had encountered an even stronger manifestation of that same horror – a rotting corpse, standing upright and seemingly alive, dressed in a sixties Nehru suit. The vision had vanished almost at once, but it had struck Sam with more immediacy and reality than just a trick of the mind. Whatever it was, it had been real – and it had been aware of both him and of Annie.

‘The Devil in the Dark …’ Sam murmured to himself. It was the name he had given this abominable thing. And briefly, after Patsy O’Riordan’s death, he had heard its voice, issuing momentarily from the mouth of a young scally Sam was passing in the street:

‘I’ll keep coming at you, you cheating bastard. I’ll keep coming at you until I’ve got my wife back – my wife – mine.’

‘You won’t mess with my mind,’ Sam said out loud, as if the Devil in the Dark could hear him. ‘I’m strong. Annie’s strong. And all your lies and mind games will get you nowhere. Our future is our own – and there’s nothing you can do.’

He found himself holding his breath, waiting for an answer. But there was nothing, just the sound the of the night cleaners starting up their hoovers in nearby offices.

Sam looked back down at the letter resting on the typewriter, silently wished the absent Annie a good night, and then headed out. He’d go home, alone, knock back a couple of bottles of brown ale and fall asleep. A dull, lonesome end to yet another chaotic day on the force with Gene Hunt.

In a corridor leading to the main doors, Sam came across Chris and Ray. They looked red-faced and out of breath. Ray was reviving himself by drawing heavily on a cigarette, wiping the sweat from his blonde moustache with a rough, fag-stained finger. Chris was finger-combing his hair and readjusting his knitted tank top, which had been pulled askew.

‘I hope you two haven’t been fighting,’ Sam said, striding towards them.

‘Not with each other, Boss, no,’ Chris said. There was a zip-up sports bag at his feet, which he picked up gingerly.

‘We just been banging up a poofter,’ announced Ray with contempt. ‘A right little pervert, Boss, delivering filth to some other pervert. We caught ’em at the handover. Show him the bag, Chris.’

Chris thrust the sports bag at Sam.

‘Take a gander inside that, Boss – if you dare,’ Chris said, backing up as if the bag might go off at any moment.

Sam looked into the bad and was confronted by a messy stash of photos. It was all boys together – in bed, in the shower, on a grubby sofa, on a bare floor – with masses of pallid, spotty male flesh on display. The harsh flash used to take the pictures did the models’ skin tone no favours at all.

‘It’s baffling!’ put in Chris. ‘Why would a fella want to look at other fellas’ meat-’n’-two? I mean – a bird wanting a look, yeah, I can get me head round it sort of – but a bloke?’

‘It’s a sickness, is what it is,’ opined Ray.

‘Oh, grow up,’ said Sam, zipping the bag shut. ‘It’s just a bit of gay porn – get over it. And from what I’ve seen, it’s not exactly top quality.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ muttered Ray, uncomfortable with the whole situation.

‘Why’d you even bother nicking somebody for carrying this stuff?’ asked Sam. ‘It’s hardly the great train robbery.’

‘We saw this lad carrying that bag, Boss, acting shifty,’ Ray explained. ‘So we followed him to the park. It was obvious there was going to be a handover, so we waited to see who turned up. We concealed ourselves cunningly in a shrub. But then the lad sort of … spotted us.’

‘What do you mean, “sort of” spotted you?’

‘It weren’t me, Boss, it were ’im!’ Ray jabbed a thumb towards Chris.

‘I’ve got a problem that needs tablets!’ Chris protested. ‘I can’t help meself. The gas builds up and it hurts me tummy. I got no choice but to …’ He mimed a vile pumping action with his fist. ‘If I don’t let it out I could do meself an injury. Blokes die. It’s medical, Boss. I tried changing me diet, but it sent me the other way, all bunged up and solid, you know what I mean? Like trying to drop a lump of coal.’

‘I get the picture, Chris, thank you,’ said Sam.

‘I’m on charcoal tablets,’ Chris went on. ‘They turn your tongue black, but it’s a price worth paying.’

‘I said I get the picture, thank you. Okay, so Chris quite literally blew your cover and the suspect spotted you. What happened next? Run off, did he?’

‘Like a shot,’ said Ray. ‘I shouted at him to hold up but he kept legging it. So I brought him down with a rugby tackle and there was a bit of argy-bargy.’

‘And that set me off again,’ Chris grimaced. ‘Like flippin’ Hiroshima.’

‘We had to nick him, Boss, he was acting so suspicious,’ Ray went on. ‘And besides, we didn’t know what was in that bag. Could’ve been drugs. Could’ve been guns.’

‘Them photos could lead us to an international porn ring,’ said Chris, pointing at the bag. ‘This could be big, Boss!’

‘I doubt it,’ said Sam. ‘These pictures were probably snapped off locally. Look at them, they’ve been taken in somebody’s crappy little flat. It’s small beer. Amateur night. Let the lad go and get back to nicking real villains.’

‘He is a villain, boss!’ Chris insisted. ‘A jail bird. He’s done time before. He told us on the way in here. He did a stretch at Friar’s Brook and he begged us not to send him back there. Practically crying he was.’

‘Like a nancy,’ growled Ray.

Sam’s ears pricked up: ‘Friar’s Brook? He’s done time at Friar’s Brook borstal?’

‘That’s what he said, Boss.’

Friar’s Brook borstal was where the junk metal was being brought in from at Kersey’s yard, and it was also the source of the letter found on the lad who’d stolen the truck.

‘This young man you arrested, what’s his name?’ Sam asked.

‘Barton. We stuck him in Cell 2.’

‘Barton …’ Sam mused. Then he said, ‘You two knock off for the night. The Guv’s already down the boozer, he’ll be missing your company.’

‘You not coming, Boss?’ Ray asked.

‘No. I want to speak to this lad Barton. I’m interested in Friar’s Brook and he might have something useful to tell me about it.’

‘And what about – that?’ Chris indicated nervously at the sports bag full of shoddy gay porn.

‘I’ll hang onto it,’ said Sam flatly. ‘For my private use.’

Chris’s mouth fell open. Ray scowled, uncertain, disturbed.

‘What’s the matter, boys?’ Sam added camply, arching an eyebrow. ‘Afraid of your own feelings?’

‘You shouldn’t joke, Boss, not about stuff like that,’ said Ray darkly. ‘You’ll get yourself a reputation. C’mon, Chris, let’s get down the Railway Arms. The Guv hates to drink alone. And besides, his sense of humour’s more – more normal than some.’

As the two of them headed off together, Sam called out to them, ‘Oh – and Chris?’

‘Boss?’

‘Those charcoal tablets you’re taking. Don’t overdo ’em, they’re carcinogenic.’ And when Chris stared blankly at him, Sam added, ‘They give you cancer.’

‘Give over, Boss!’ scoffed Chris, waving him away. ‘They ain’t no worse for you than fags.’

Sam headed back down to the cells. He reached the heavy door of Cell 2 and opened up the spyhole. Inside he saw Barton pacing anxiously about, sweating and chewing his nails. He was older than Sam had imagined, with rough skin around his neck and face, and collar-length hair that was well overdue for a wash. If he’d been an inmate at Friar’s Brook borstal, it must have been some years ago.

‘Barton?’ Sam called through the spyhole. ‘My name’s DI Tyler. I want a word.’

Barton turned with a start and at once dashed over.

‘Officer!’ he cried. ‘Sir! You gotta get me out of here! Please! Please, sir! I’m begging you! I’m no nonce. I’m just the courier. It’s them what takes the pictures, sir, not me.’

‘I’m not really fussed about all that.’

‘They take ’em in one of the flats on the Hayfield estate. Dirty pictures, sir. I just deliver ’em. They pay me a couple of bob, I need the cash, but I don’t get involved or nuffing ’coz I’m not like that, honest I’m not, sir! Please, sir, please, you gotta let me out of here!’

‘Barton, take it easy. There’s nothing they can charge you with except some trumped-up nonsense about resisting arrest. And if you cooperate with me I can see that charge is completely dropped.’

‘Really? Really, sir?’ Barton pressed his face hard against the spyhole. ‘You’ll let me go? You mean it?’

‘Of course I mean it. But in return, I want to ask you a few questions.’

‘Oh thank you, thank you!’ grovelled Barton, thrusting his fingers through the spyhole and waggling them. ‘I knew you’d help me! I could see you were different, you’re not like the others. You’ve got kind eyes.’

‘I have?’ said Sam, suppressing a grin.

‘Yes, yes, sir, you have, very kind eyes! And a kind face, sir! A very, very kind face.’

Sam laughed.

‘I mean it!’ Barton cried. ‘I know, I know, you think I’m a nonce talking like that. They all thought I was nonce, back in Friar’s. That’s why I don’t ever want to go back there. They gave me a hard time. A hard time, sir!’

‘Friar’s Brook is what I wanted to ask you about. What’s it like?’

‘Terrible, sir! They nearly killed me! It was awful. They said I was a nancy, they said I’d got my dick out in the showers and tried to – they said I wanted to – that I … It weren’t true, I swear it, sir! I never did nothing! I’m no poofter I like big tits and that!’

‘When were you at Friar’s Brook?’ asked Sam.

‘Last year.’

‘Rubbish. It’s a borstal. You’re way too old.’

‘Too old? I’m seventeen.’

Sam was taken aback. The heavy features, the skin roughed by cold shaves and alcohol aftershave and a diet of instant mash and fish fingers – could that really be the face of a teenager?

No moisturizers for men in the seventies. No skincare regimes, no fruit juice, no five-a-day. It’s all harsh winds and fag smoke and chips cooked in dripping for lads like this.

‘I can’t never go back to Friar’s,’ Barton hissed. ‘It’s hell on earth.’

‘The other inmates pretty rough, are they?’

‘Not the inmates, sir.’

‘What, then?’

‘If I tell you what’s so terrible about that place, sir, will you promise to get me out of here?’ Barton pleaded.

‘Sure. I promise.’

‘Okay. Since you’re kind.’

‘I’m all ears,’ said Sam. ‘And kind eyes. Go ahead, tell me what’s so terrible about Friar’s Brook.’

Barton dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. He pressed his mouth against the spyhole and breathed a single word, ‘McClintock.’

And with that, he fell silent.

Sam waited for something more, but he got nothing.

‘Is that it? “McClintock”?’

Barton nodded. He glanced about in terror, as if by uttering the name he was at risk of summoning the devil.

‘And who is this “McClintock”?’ asked Sam. ‘An inmate? One of the warders?’

‘Go and find out for yourself, sir,’ Barton whispered. ‘Then you’ll see. Then you’ll see.’

‘Barton, I promised to help you, and I will. But in return you promised to give me information.’

‘And that’s what I did, sir!’

‘A single name and some veiled hints isn’t much for me to go on.’

Barton crept forward again and peered out through the spyhole. ‘Just remember that name, sir. McClintock. Go to Friar’s Brook, sir. See what you will see.’

Sam shrugged. ‘Well, what can I say? Thanks for your cooperation. Now – you get yourself some rest. I’ll make sure you’re out of here as soon as I can.’

‘You mean that, sir? You won’t be sending me back there?’

‘We’ve got bigger fish to fry, Barton. Now go to sleep. And don’t have nightmares.’

Still anxious, but less so than before, Barton crept back to the mean little seat that ran along the cell’s back wall and settled himself on it. He folded his legs primly, and gave Sam a coquettish smile.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘You’re different. I can see that.’ And, just as Sam closed up the spyhole once more, he caught Barton’s voice, ‘Be dreaming of you, PC Brown Eyes.’

CHAPTER THREE: MRS SLOCOMBE’S PUSSY

Alone in his flat, Sam dumped a set of dirty plates into the sink and left the washing-up for tomorrow. It would take half the night to get enough hot water to fill the basin, and he was in no mood to sit up, not after the day he’d had. All he wanted was beer and a doze in front of the telly.

He carried a bottle of brown ale over to the TV. The screen glowed. Cash registers clinked and clanged. A funky bass guitar started up. A woman’s voice intoned flatly:

Ground floor: perfumery,

Stationery and leather goods.

Wigs and haberdashery.

Kitchenware and food. Going up!

‘A bottle, a chair, and a few old gags about Mrs Slocombe’s pussy,’ Sam said to himself, cracking open the beer. ‘That’ll do me. That’ll do me just grand.’

He swilled back a warm mouthful of brown ale and let his mind drift. But at once he was disturbed by the memory of a voice – a man’s voice, very harsh and brutal, issuing incongruously from the mouth of an immature young scally.

‘I’ll keep coming at you, you cheating bastard. I’ll keep coming at you until I’ve got my wife back – my wife – mine.’

‘Just ignore it,’ he muttered to himself, trying hard to relax. ‘It’s just mind games. Annie’s never been married.’

Annie. Married.

The image floated into his mind of Annie dressed all in white, with a lace veil, appearing in the aisle of a crowded church. The organ struck up the Wedding March. Sam pictured himself, all togged up in his morning suit, getting to his feet and turning to watch her walk slowly towards him.

This beautiful fantasy made his heart turn over. But then, unexpectedly, his dream was invaded by interlopers. Horribly familiar faces appeared amid the assembled guests. First he caught sight of Chris Skelton, uncomfortable in his cheap suit, a wilting flower hanging limply from his button hole as he pulled a leering, Sid James-ish face at Annie: ooh ’eck, cop a load of that!

Beside him, with his collar un-ironed and fag burns on his shirt, stood Ray Carling. He nudged Chris with his elbow – when the boss gets tired of her, he can always chuck her over my way – and swigged flagrantly from a pewter hip flask.