NO KEYS, NO RADIO
Self assured Julia gets a job in a prison library to avenge the manslaughter of her grandad. Six months later, three men are dead.
Present day, November 2022.
8.10pm.
HMP Nayland. Category C men’s prison.
Officers have been searching cells, wings, outbuildings and the grounds for half an hour. James O’Connell, a library orderly, did not return to C wing after his shift. The roll is one inmate short and the prison is on full lockdown.
8.15pm.
HMP Nayland library.
A dead body has been discovered on the floor of the back office. The governor and a senior colleague stand in the doorway, half a metre away from the corpse clothed in pale grey joggers and sweatshirt. The thick, glossy, dark beard against pallor mortis resembles fresh tar. No blood, no signs of struggle. Face up, eyes closed, hands out to the side as if he wanted to make it easy for forensics.
‘First things first, I’ll call the roll in,’ the governor states, reaching for his radio.
The senior officer places a hand on his boss’s forearm. Leaning forward into the room, he shakes his head,
‘Hate to break it to you Gov, but I don’t think that’s O’Connell.’
‘Don’t fuck about.’
‘It’s not him. Looks like him, but there’s no tattoo on his wrist, see?’
‘It’s got to be him, no one else is missing and he was tonight’s library orderly.’
‘Sorry Gov, it’s not O’Connell. Devlin on C wing, in for forgery, tattooed him a couple of weeks ago. His daughter’s initials and a star. Didn’t do a bad job.’
‘Who’s this then?’ The governor squats down in the doorway to get an eye level view, hoping scrutiny will make the tattoo appear.
‘Pretty sure it’s that officer who keeps setting off the key cabinet and took two guys back to the wrong wing after the gym last week, Liam Jenkins. Had his probation extended while you were on a beach swigging Stella.’
‘An officer? What? I can’t get my head round this… where’s O’Connell then?’
Crete, cold beers, his wife in a good mood and a bikini, now seems like years ago to the prison governor. He unbuttons his shirt collar, memories of deaths in custody feel like a lead tie. Years apart, but easily recalled. Four suicides, two heart attacks, a sudden death syndrome and, the most memorable, the severely asthmatic guy who traded his inhaler for a phone card. Blue faced wheeze, trapped words, throat point, silence.
Five years ago, maybe even two, adrenalin would have kicked in and the governor would be buzzing. Age 59, with months to go until retirement, ground down by a chronically underfunded prison system with daily staffing crises, he can’t change up a gear. The body of an officer, probably headed for dismissal, who he has only spoken to couple of times, represents endless paperwork and meetings. Injuries to prison officers are a regular occurrence but there has never been a staff fatality, until tonight. The fact he has left his chicken and bacon pasta ready meal in the fridge at home feels like the final nail in a shoddy coffin.
Leaning against the door frame, the governor is temporarily distracted by the impressive origami swan on the window sill, made by an inmate he knows well. Hundreds of tiny folds, turning the paper back and forth. Time, patience, belief. Low on all three, stomach rumbling, the governor presses the call button on his radio to check with Comms if Jenkins signed off the net. He discovers Jenkins signed off at 7.30pm and left with the library assistant. The governor replaces his radio back in its pouch.
‘Looks like we’ve got a suspicious death and an escape to deal with.’ He pauses to rub the back of his head with his hand as if to fire up his brain cells. ‘They can’t get hold of the library assistant, what’s her name again?’
‘Jules, Julia.’
‘Seems she’s been giving Jenkins a lift every day for the past week. That means… she left with O’Connell who was dressed as Jenkins. Either she didn’t spot the difference or we’ve got a kidnap to add to this shit show.’
‘Whoever dreamt up Movember has got a lot to answer for Gov, half the staff look like inmates this month. It’s the 1970’s all over again.’ Sensing his humour was misjudged, the senior officer adds, ‘Could be Jules is mixed up in all this, we both know why the last library assistant lost her job.’ The two men exchange smirks, ‘… but she comes across as savvy, more in to her sports than sex.’
The governor looks around the small back office of the library, after noting the corpse’s shoelaces are untied. Two filing cabinets, paper guillotine on the small square table and wall shelves stacked high with art materials for the craft club. Pastel coloured tissue paper, glue pots and wooden lolly sticks more suited to a nursery school. Two disposable cups are on the far edge of a shelf.
‘Something dodgy’s gone on here. Can you smell whisky?’
‘Think that’s wishful thinking on your part Gov.’
‘CID have got a job on their hands unravelling all this.’
‘That’s what comes from having to employ kids straight out of uni who think they know it all. Recipe for disaster.’
The news would be all round the prison by breakfast time, the inmates’ grapevine was lightning fast, propelled by boredom and a taste for drama. Aware that any opportunities for quiet thought would be gone once CID descended on them, the governor closes his eyes for several seconds, chin raised up to cold electric light.
‘I don’t get it. Why would O’Connell kill Jenkins in order to escape and kidnap the library assistant, he’s only got around six months to go before he gets his D Cat.’
‘Less than, I reckon. Don’t get it either Gov. Nice guy, clever too. Don’t forget, Ranglin was in the library, drooling over the ballet and yoga books I bet. Maybe Jenkins set him off and O’Connell just took his chance?’
‘Ranglin never loses it, his meds keep him in check.’
‘Either way, if the England match hadn’t been on, the library would have been busier and this wouldn’t have happened. I blame Southgate.’
Ignoring this flippant remark, the governor continues thinking out loud, tucking his shirt back in as he speaks, all plans to lose his holiday beer belly in tatters.
‘At least Ranglin’s back on E wing. Thing is, who took him back – Jenkins or O’Connell?’
‘Fuck knows. Do you think we’ll get CCTV in the education block when CID are through?’
‘Doubt it, there’s not even enough money to repair the boiler.’
9pm.
HMP Nayland E Wing ‘PIPE’ (Psychologically Informed Planned Environment)
Mr Ranglin, never to be addressed by his first name at his request, is staring straight ahead. Motionless, aside from cat slow blinking, holding the library assistant’s shoes in his lap like a holy relic. The on-call forensic psychiatrist shifts in her seat opposite him, looks at her watch and then at the door. Still no sign of CID. Two young prison officers standing guard outside Ranglin’s cell are getting impatient.
‘Wonder if she’ll get any sense out of him’ one whispers, ‘I’ve never even heard him speak.’
‘She needs to, he was the only other person in the library’, his colleague replies.
‘Can’t see how he’d hurt anyone, unless he didn’t take his meds. What’s with the shoes?’
‘Ballet flats, he’s a kinky fucker. CID won’t get word out of him, unless one of them’s a woman with nice feet.’
They both turn round to peer in to the cell, one nudges the other.
‘That psych should have confiscated those shoes, they could be evidence. Might be covered in spice.’
‘Maybe she’s hoping sniffing them will make him talk.’
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