Seizure (8 page)

As he returned naked and refreshed to the bedroom, his woman would be propped up on a bank of pillows, a sultry smile on her face . . .

. . . And Felix Deakin's dream would then abruptly turn sour as the cell lights flickered on behind their protective cage, the screws would start to bang and shout, and another day would begin in Lancashire Prison at seven a.m. All Deakin's pleasant thoughts would evaporate in to the ether and another round of prison life.

He cursed. With an expression of distaste on his rough, unshaven countenance, he swung his legs out of the top bunk and dropped barefoot on to the carpeted cell floor, ignoring the guy on the bottom bunk and the third prisoner squeezed into the cell on a camp bed. He went to the stainless steel toilet affixed in the corner of the cell and pissed away his erection, furious that this was the reality of his life: the fixed routine of a prison where he had no choice about where he was and what he was doing; where it was all chosen for you, whether you liked it or not, even if you wielded a huge amount of power inside the joint, as Deakin did. It had been his routine for almost the last four years, and would be for at least another six unless he did something drastic about it.

‘Hit me with it.'

Deakin's solicitor looked across the table at his client.

‘Bad news, innit?'

The solicitor nodded. Deakin deflated inside. His appeal against his conviction had been turned down, one of his hopes for early release or a retrial at least. Now he faced six more years inside, taking him up to ten of the sixteen-year sentence the bastard Crown Court judge had handed down to him. The halfway mark in a sentence was often when prisoners were released, but that judge had recommended that Deakin serve a minimum term of ten for the crimes he'd committed.

‘On what grounds?'

‘No new evidence, the trial was fair, and you were found guilty of all offences, including witness intimidation,' the solicitor said. His name was Barry Baron, the same solicitor who had represented Richard Last at Blackpool Police Station. He was a much sought-after defence solicitor in the Manchester area, especially by high-level criminals, and made a very good living – particularly from Deakin. Deakin knew he had worked hard behind the scenes at the trial, doing his best to discredit the cops, witnesses and evidence – everything, in fact, including the intimidation – through a third party, of course. Yet still the Crown had won.

Deakin got to his feet, breathed and paced the solicitors' interview room at the prison.

‘Six more years. I'll be forty-four when I get out of this shit hole, and that's only if I stop myself from killing a screw or a queer. Forty-bloody-four. My life will be as good as over.'

‘Forty-four isn't old.'

‘It is if you get sent down at thirty-four,' Deakin snapped. He paced a few more steps then retook his seat, pondering for a while. ‘What other news have you got for me?'

Baron squirmed slightly. ‘Dick Last and Jack Sumner got arrested.'

Deakin inhaled the news, said nothing.

‘The last robbery went tits-up,' Baron said. ‘Dick Last had too much crap up his nose, it clouded his judgement and a security guard got whacked.'

‘Idiots! I said no shooters,' Deakin spat vehemently. He wiped the corners of his mouth.

‘Fortunately the cops are just locking up all the usual suspects and because we're careful, there's no forensic links and the gun's been disposed of. The only way they'll get anything is if either blabs or gets careless. I reckon the cops'll be keeping them both under surveillance for a while now, so we need to keep a low profile.'

‘But other jobs are planned.'

‘I know – we'll just have to keep them on the back burner.' Baron paused, hesitant. ‘There is something else . . .'

Deakin's eyelids half-covered his pupils. ‘That would be?'

‘They're both getting greedy. They want danger money, more of a slab than the thirty-five per cent.'

Once more Deakin allowed the news to filter in. ‘On the whole, this consultation hasn't been very positive, has it?'

Baron could see the tension in the prisoner's being, the calm before the violent storm. Deakin's jaw jutted and he ground his teeth. ‘You tell them they can fuck off, OK? That money is mine. I do the planning, they subcontract whoever to help 'em out and pay them from the takings. That's the way. My money,' Deakin snapped and banged his palm down on the table – just the once. Then he whispered, ‘My retirement fund. Because the bastard cops have virtually seized all my friggin' assets. Money I won't see for another six years at this rate. How much did we take from the job?'

‘Forty thousand, give or take.'

‘That's fourteen grand for them, less four for their hired numpties, which makes five grand each for Last and Sumner.'

‘And you get twenty-six without getting your hands dirty.'

Deakin's triangular features sharpened. His eyes burned into Baron, who held up his hands defensively. ‘Their words, not mine.'

‘OK, forty per cent for the next one.'

‘They want sixty.'

The short, derisive laugh from Deakin said it all. ‘No way.'

‘And at the moment the money from the last one is still in their possession. They won't hand anything over until they make a deal with you.'

Deakin's lips pursed. ‘They're taking the piss.'

‘There is an element of that, but they hold the money.'

‘In that case I'll have to do something about it.'

‘Such as?'

‘How much does Dick Last love his itty-bitty brother?'

A grin spread across Baron's face. ‘A lot, I'd say.'

Deakin sniffed up. ‘But having said all that, my circumstances haven't changed. I'm still in the slammer. I need to be out of here, Barry. Legally or illegally, even if it means on the run – and I'll need all the money I can get if I break out . . . as if I could.'

Baron's face clouded over. Deakin picked up on it instantly. ‘What?'

‘Maybe there is something . . .' he said thoughtfully, eyes narrowing.

The young man was in the gym, working out hard: weights, cross-trainer, rowing machine, the full works. Up to date equipment and even large-screen TVs were dotted around the walls to ease the burden of exercise.

Jamie Last was twenty-three, just a tad too old to find himself in with young offenders. Now he was part of the man's world of grown-up prisons. Not that he cared. He was a tough kid, brought up on the estates of Salford and Moss Side, a gang member, gun carrier and knifer – which is how he'd finished up inside. A gang fight that went too far, guns and knives brought out and hand-to-hand combat on a bleak car park just outside Manchester city centre. He'd found himself tussling with a nasty black kid who whipped a pistol from his waistband, but in the heat of battle dropped it in the grit. Jamie managed to kick it away and plunge a four-inch shiv into the lad's neck. Only the lucky intervention of mob-handed cops and an ambulance had saved Jamie from being up on a murder charge.

But he was happy enough to do time, excited by his promotion into the world of the adult, not in the least afraid.

He was on the mat now: press-ups, sit-ups, burpees. He sweated and pushed himself hard, determined that the day he walked back on to the streets he would be tougher, fitter and harder than ever. He was concentrating, in his own world, not aware that the few other users of the gym had been silently beckoned to leave. Only as he stood up following fifty press-ups did he realize he was alone in the room.

He shrugged, unconcerned, turned to the treadmill facing a wall and a TV screen affixed out of the reach of mischievous hands. He began a slow trot, intending to complete 5k, after which he'd call it a day.

The TV screen went blank.

Again, Jamie wasn't bothered. It was only boring daytime stuff they were allowed to watch. He hunched his head down, controlled his breathing and imagined himself pounding the pavements.

The blow from the dumbbells floored him. Struck with agonizing force somewhere between the base of the skull and the shoulder blades, Jamie went down hard, smacking his face on the electronic control panel of the treadmill, sagging to his knees which were suddenly the consistency of jelly. The momentum of the rubber roadway dragged him back and deposited him behind the treadmill on the gym floor.

Then somebody stomped on his head. It felt as though his skull went out of shape for a moment and he was underwater, until his senses returned. He groaned and twisted on to his back when a 125kg spinlock bar – the steel bar on to which dumbbells are slotted – was slammed across his unprotected throat. Then Felix Deakin's out-of-focus face came swimming into Jamie's vision, his mouth a twisted smile.

‘Mornin', Jamie.'

Jamie struggled to raise the bar, but despite his strength and fitness he could not hope to dislodge Deakin and the men at either end of the bar assisting him. He tried to wrench himself free, but the trio pushed down harder until all their victim's fight dissipated and he gagged for breath.

Only then was the bar raised a little, allowing air to gush into his lungs, and he was allowed to roll away, clutching his throat.

But if the young man had even begun to think it was over, he was cruelly mistaken. With no explanation for their action, Deakin's two heavies began to beat him with fourteen-inch spinlock dumbbell handles, raining blows about his head, neck, arms and lower legs. It was a relentless assault carried out with ruthless efficiency.

Deakin stood back and watched coldly until he said, ‘Enough.' He jerked his thumbs at the two men and they dragged an almost lifeless Jamie across the gym and propped him up against the wall. His head lolled and blood poured out of his busted nose and broken mouth.

Using a digital camera, one of the men took numerous shots of the injured victim. Then they left him and walked out of the gym. Deakin nodded a quick thanks to the prison guard, who entered the gym and took care of the mess.

‘Brief's back to see you.' The screw did not enter Deakin's cell, stood a respectful two feet outside on the landing. The authorities had learned it could be a dangerous place.

Deakin was on his bunk, grinning as he tabbed through the camera holding the digital photos from the recent beating he'd supervised. Jamie Last, brother of Dick Last, was a very nasty mess – at least on the surface. Deakin's two men, the ones he shared a cell with, had done a good job but not gone too far. They were pros and knew how to deliver any degree of assault. Deakin knew Jamie would soon recover. This was just a warning of what could happen should his brother Dick – and Jack Sumner, his partner in crime – get awkward over financial matters.

Deakin sighed at the interruption and propped himself up. ‘He's back again?'

‘Yeah, you know where to go,' the officer said.

‘At least he can deliver the photos,' he said and swung himself down from the bunk. He was puzzled as to why Baron should be back so soon. Still, he thought, solicitor's privilege.

He exited the cell and made his way along the metallic landing, trotting down a staircase into an association area where a number of inmates were watching a big-screen TV. Deakin gave the TV a cursory glance. He had his own TV and DVD in his cell. He saw they were watching some crass mid-morning bollocks but as he turned away he heard a name he recognized spoken by one of the presenters. His head jerked back to the screen and as if drawn by a magnet, he threaded his way between the seated prisoners and stared open-mouthed at the screen. He was in the way of several people, but not even the man he pushed out of a chair in order to sit in his seat complained. He was riveted by what he was seeing. When the piece came to an end, he turned and demanded, ‘Who's got the remote?' Another prisoner held up the black box. ‘Rewind it back to the start of that interview.'

There was no question as to why. The man just did it, using the digital rewind facility that came with the satellite package.

Deakin watched it again, all the way through. Then he rose in a sort of trance and made his way through the gaol to the screws' office on the ground floor landing. After a cursory search during which the digital camera wasn't even challenged, he was shown through to the interview room where Barry Baron waited impatiently.

‘Couldn't they find you or something?' Baron said sarcastically, making a show of checking his watch, then regretting it when he saw the expression on his client's face.

‘Yeah, I went out for a fucking stroll,' he snarled. ‘What are you doing back so soon?'

‘I said I knew there was something,' Baron explained. ‘Which, if it's combined with something else, could give you that
something
you want,' he said mysteriously.

‘And as we're talking in riddles, there's something else just come to my attention which could go into the pot. But what say we cut the crap and say what we mean, OK? We both know this room isn't bugged, not like next door, and we can speak freely.'

‘Trust no one, is what I say,' Baron said. ‘But, yeah, we should be OK in here.'

Deakin said, ‘Just get on with it and stop fartin' around . . .'

Baron smiled grimly. ‘Johnny Cain's due to appear shortly at Preston Crown Court—'

‘I know – so?'

‘You know lots of things about Johnny Cain, don't you?'

‘Enough to send the bastard to prison for a thousand years . . .' Then the realization hit Deakin. ‘Fuck me, that's a good idea.'

It had been another extra long day for Henry Christie. On the previous evening he'd been late at work, then very late at the hospital where his mother had become ‘stable'; then he'd managed about four hours' sleep before crawling back to the hospital for an hour at the bedside, before driving to his office at headquarters for a day of getting everything straight.

Not that there was much chance of that.