The Jump (32 page)

Standing up, she walked across the room and stood at the window staring out into the darkness of the night. She heard Alan moving and sighed. When his arms came around her she pulled herself away from him.

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‘Oh, please. Give me a break, would you?’

‘Look, I’m sorry if I upset you.’ Alan looked contrite. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me.’

Donna licked her lips slowly. ‘Can’t you just try to get on with me? I know you think I’m a liability, but believe me when I say I will be all right. Georgio trusts me implicitly, so can’t you just try and have some of his faith in me? This is difficult enough as it is, without you making it harder for me. I am trying, really trying, to help my husband, to get him home. I tried to do it legally, now I am willing to do it illegally. Whatever you say or do, you can’t change that. Georgio is all I ever had, all I ever wanted. He gave to me for more years than I care to remember, now I want to give something back to him. I want to help him, I need to help him. He’s all I’ve got.’

Alan stared down into her beautiful, unhappy face. Took in the highlights of her hair, the lines around her mouth, and the pallor of her skin. He could smell her odour of cigarette smoke and Chanel Number Five.

‘If he’s all you’ve got, love, then I pity you.’

Donna closed her eyes and turned back towards the window.

‘I wish you’d stop all this.’ His voice was low.

She laughed without humour. ‘I can’t. Now let’s get on with what we’ve got to do.’

She could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

‘All right then, Donna, you win. We’ll do what we have to do - on one condition.’

‘What’s that?’

Alan turned her around gently and stared into her eyes. ‘Promise me that when it does get too much for you, you’ll tell me? Until that time I’ll give you every bit of the respect I would give to Georgio, OK?’

Donna nodded. ‘I promise that if it all gets too much, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘I didn’t say if, Donna, I said when,’

‘The most irritating thing about you, Alan Cox, is that you’re so sure you know everything.’

He laughed. ‘My wife used to say that.’

Donna pushed past him and went back to the sofa. ‘Your wife also divorced you. I can see why.’

‘All right then, this round goes to you, but what I said still stands. When you want out, just let me know. Now let’s finish these sandwiches and get some shut eye.’

Donna poured herself another cup of tea. ‘My sentiments entirely, Mr Cox.’

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them Alan closed his eyes to hold on to his temper. ‘You’ve always got to have the last word, haven’t you?’

Donna bit into another sandwich and said through a mouthful of ham, ‘Yes, actually, I have. Especially where you’re concerned.’

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Mr Ellington and Mr Borga were amazed to be invited into the cell of Eric Mates, normally a quiet man who kept himself to himself. The offer of a cup of tea and a look at his new paintings was too good to miss. Eric Mates was in on what was commonly termed a ‘lump’ - a really big sentence. Convicted of murdering his wife, his children and his wife’s alleged lover, he was not getting out at any time. He had speny fourteen years on the ‘Nutcracker Suite’ - C wing, where the psychiatric cases were - and was noted for the number of ‘tear ups’ he’d had with cons and screws alike. Then he had discovered painting, and that was his salvation.

He painted stark pictures of the world as he saw it. He painted the children of Bosnia, dying, bedecked in flowers. ‘The beauty among the evil’ was what he called it.

His paintings were raffled for charity and he was now getting himself a name in the art world. He was respected by all, an unassuming man who made people forget within five minutes of talking to him exactly what he was banged up for. His days of tearing people to pieces, either physically or verbally, were long gone.

So the offer of a cup of tea and a look at his latest masterpieces was too good to miss. Mr Borga was contemplating the amount he would get from the Sun or the Mirror for this information. Mr Borga always had his eye on the main chance, which was why he got on well with the prisoners. t,,

They could respect that.

As Eric Slowly made the tea, the two men enjoyed looking at the paintings, unaware of what was going on outside the cell door, on the landing.

Benjamin Dawes wanted something, and he had wanted it for years. He had finally seen a way to get it and that was why Eric Mates was keeping the two screws company.

There was an unwritten law in Parkhurst SSB Unit. If you could get something back to your cell without the screws seeing it, it was yours to keep.

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them What Benjamin wanted was beyond the imagination of any of the screws and a good number of the cons themselves. However, when word went round the Wing what was going down, laughter was heard everywhere.

Twenty minutes later, when Mr Borga and Mr Ellington emerged from Eric Mates’s cell, the laughter had died down, joints had been lit, the air was heavy with the scent of cannabis and everything seemed normal.

Except there was a bed out on the landing.

‘Whose bed’s this, then?’

Benjamin Dawes strolled out of his cell.

‘Mine. I don’t want it any more.’

Mr Borga laughed. ‘The old back giving you one up?’

Many of the cons slept on the floor of their cells on a mattress. A bed abandoned on a landing wasn’t really a big deal.

‘Okey doke, I’ll get the cleaning crew to dismantle it. Don’t you want the mattress then?’

Benjamin Dawes laughed. ‘Nan, that’s all right. It won’t fit in here now I’ve got a three-piece suite!’

Everyone laughed and Benjamin walked back into his cell and shut his door.

Three-piece fucking suite! He wishes, eh, lads?’ And Mr Borga creased up laughing and carried on with his work. The bed was gone within fifteen minutes and the Wing went quiet, everyone waiting eagerly for the count-up after lunch. The air was alive with excitement, the men’s spirits were buoyant. The screws put it down to the large amount of skunk on the Wing. No one was that bothered, if as a result the prisoners were relaxed, happy and cheerful.

It made their job that much easier.

‘I want to know where you were, Davey, and I want to know now!’

Davey wiped a hand across his face in agitation.

‘Look, Carol, we’re married, not joined at the fucking hip. I went for a drink with a bloke, and that’s it.’

Carol snorted in a very unladylike fashion.

‘My name’s Gilly Hunt, not silly cunt, and I ain’t changing it for you or anyone else, mate. Now tell me the truth or I swear before God I’ll stick a fucking knife through your guts!’

‘Mum, can I have packed lunch tomorrow?’

Jennie Jackson, used to the violent arguing of her parents, walked casually into the room.

Turning on her daughter like a maniac, Carol bellowed, ‘Ask your father, because if I don’t get any answers here today, I’m fucking off

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out of this house and he can have the lot of you!’

Jennie, raising her eyes to the ceiling, said in a resigned voice; ‘I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?’ She wandered out again.

Carol stared into her husband’s face. Her voice lower now, and with a hint of tears running through it, she said, ‘I mean it, Davey. If you’re out shagging again, that’s it this time. I’ve taken just about all I can. There’s a bill for a restaurant in your trouser pocket, it’s for over a hundred nicker, and you sure as Christ never took me there!’ Davey stared into his wife’s miserable face. He could see the tiny thread veins that ran through her cheeks, from too many nights spent drinking Bacardi while waiting up for him. He saw the deep circles under her eyes and the faded blue of their irises. Her heavy figure, encased as .usual in a dress two sizes too small, was a legacy of the kids and takeaway dinners. He felt a moment’s affection for her. Deciding that with Carol in this mood, and the odds on getting knifed growing shorter by the second, he would tell her the truth. One thing with Carol, if you held your hand up, she was quite fair.

‘Ybu know me, Carol, a pair of bristols and I’m away. She was only a slag.’ ‘Who was it, Davey? Do I know her?’

He sighed heavily. ‘Of course you don’t know her, what do you take me for? When have I ever made a grab for one of your mates? Give me a bit of savvy, would you? I might bat away from home now and again, but I have got some fucking morals, you know!’

Carol grinned now, and Davey knew he was halfway home. He might get a plant around the head, but the knife was no more a threat. ‘I still want to know who it was.’

‘Just some little bird,’ he said wearily. ‘I can’t even remember her name. She had a micro skirt on, plenty of perfume - Opium, I think and loads of make-up. Her boatrace left a lot to be desired, but I’d had a drink.’ His voice was whining now.

‘Fucking hell, Cal, it’s not like it’s the first time, girl, is it? Why do we have to go through all this every time? I come home, don’t I? They’re just dogs. You’re me wife.’

Carol swallowed deeply. ‘You’re a piece of shite, Davey, do you know that?’

Smiling devilishly, he said, ‘So you keep telling me.’ As he walked out of the lounge doorway, a large terracotta plant pot hit him on the back of the head. It only grazed him, but he decided to play up to her.

Holding his head with both hands, he bent over, groaning. ‘Fuck you, Carol, that hurt!’ Jennie, pushing past her father, picked up her jacket from where it

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them was hanging on the banisters and said gaily, ‘See you all later.’

As she opened the front door she stood stock still. ‘There’s a bird out here. Mum.’

Grinning at her father’s white face she tripped down the pathway back to school.

Pulling the door open properly with a meaty arm, Carol glared at the tall thin woman before her and snapped: ‘Yeah? What do you want? A bit off the beaten track here love, ain’t you?’

Bunty licked dry lips and said in her nasal tones, ‘May I speak to Mr Jackson, please?’

Davey, his face devoid of colour, stood behind his wife, slowly shaking his head as if to warn off the woman before him.

‘You’d better come in before the neighbours see you.’

‘Well, they must certainly have heard you, Carol. I heard you from the bottom of the road.’

She frowned. ‘What do you want, Bunty?’

‘I need to see Davey.’

His face was a picture and Carol, noticing this, said: ‘He looks a bit green round the gills because he’s just had a plant pot in the back of the head.’

Glancing at the dirt-covered carpet and broken plant pot, Bunty said sarcastically, ‘I never would have guessed.’

Underestimating Carol Jackson was her first big mistake of the day. Pointing a finger into the older woman’s face, Carol said nastily, ‘You know something, lady? You want to watch that big trap of yours before someone decides to fucking shut it for you - permanently!’

Davey pushed between the two women.

‘All right, Carol, go and make a cup of Rosie Lee.’ Steering Bunty into the lounge, he said, ‘Did your did man send you round here?’

Shutting the lounge door in Carol’s face he lowered his voice, praying in his heart of hearts that his wife wouldn’t insist on knowing what exactly was going on.

She knew too much already.

Stephen was in The Bordello, one of his peepshows in Soho. As he lifted the takings from the manager, they chatted about, the general state of the economy. The manager was saying what everyone in the know in London believed, from black cab drivers to porn merchants and politicians.

‘Listen, boy, if the toms ain’t making it, then there’s no money about. Even the fucking tourists are few and far between, thanks to the IRA, All that lovely American money going to waste, eh? I wish they’d sort something out over there, I really do. I mean, we’re doing

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all right, but fuck me, not like last year, eh? Money was creaming in last year and the birds were right fucking ropey, some of ‘em.’

Stephen nodded in full agreement.

‘It’s been a lousy summer, I grant you that. How much you salting away this year then?’

The two men smiled at one another.

‘Not as much as I could, Brunos, you know that. It’s why you employ me. I never did take the piss.’

Stephen grinned now.

‘Fair comment. How is the place?’

A record came on, a strident rock number, and the small office space was literally shaking with the bass line.

‘How the fuck that bird can even pretend to dance to that crap, I don’t know!’

Before Stephen could answer they heard a loud shriek.

Rolling his eyes at the ceiling, the manager pulled himself from his seat aMd barrelled along the corridor to the work area.

‘OH, bollocks! Micky, get off that door and get down here!’

Stephen watched in amazement as the manager, Terry Rawlings, stepped through a hole in the wall. One of the peep cubicles was completely gone and a heavyset man was laying into a half-naked girl lying on a double bed.

The sheets were already staining with blood.

Black Micky, the bouncer doorman, and Terry pulled the man off her. Holding his arms behind his back, they forced him to a kneeling position.

‘What’s your problem, mate! Fucking calm yourself down, will you?’ Terry’s voice was exasperated.

The man was obviously as high as a kite and his voice, when he answered, had a slight German accent.

‘She was laughing at me. I could see her laughing at me.’

Micky shook his head and smiled.

‘Course she was laughing, mate, that’s her job. You wouldn’t want her crying, would ya?’

Terry tutted. Turning to Micky, he said. ‘Clear this cunt’s pockets. Take his traveller’s cheques and cash the lot. He can pay for this damage. Looks like he could stand a few quid. Then give him a slap.’

Micky dragged the man along the corridor towards the back of the building. He was shouting now in German and English but no one was taking any notice.

Terry tidied his hair with a large bony hand. ‘What a fucking nonsense he was! I tell you, Stephen, we get them all in here.’

The girl was sitting on the bed, her right eye swollen to three times

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them its normal size, blood seeping from wounds to her eyebrow and lip.

‘What about me!’ Her voice was very young-sounding and trembling with shock and fear.

Terry looked at her as if he had forgotten about her, which he had.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, what do I do?’

He checked her face over with a practised eye, careful not to touch the blood.

‘You’ll survive. Get yourself to the hospital. A couple of stitches will sort you out.’

Walking with Stephen back to the office, he said, ‘I’ll get a chippy in. We’ll be back in business in two hours. What a fucking nutter, eh?’

Ten minutes later Stephen pulled away from outside the club in his Mercedes.

The girl was trying frantically to get a black cab, but her attire, the location and the copious amounts of blood guaranteed no one would stop for her.

She was crying.

The men on the Wing were all still high with excitement. Celled up after their lunch, some took a nap while others read; most just got stoned. When Mr Borga began to count, every cell went quiet, waiting for the balloon to go up.

Mr Borga opened the small spyhole with his finger, looked inside and called out the cell number, then ‘present’. But only after he had seen for himself that the people in there were who they should be and were also definitely present.

As he came to Benjamin Dawes’s cell the men heard him shout: ‘Cell nineteen, present.’

Then his footsteps as he moved to cell twenty.

Then they listened to the blakeys on the bottom of his shoes tapping once more across the floor as he retraced his steps and lifted Benjamin Dawes’s spyhole again.

The balloon finally went up ten seconds later when Mr Borga said in a high, shocked, and disbelieving voice: ‘This cunt’s got a fucking three-piece suite in here!’

The whole Wing erupted into laughter.

They heard the door being opened and Benjamin’s voice bellowing, ‘I told you I had one earlier, that’s why I dinged out me bed.’

Georgio and Chopper were crying with laughter as they heard the exchange, as were all the men on the Wing, screws included.

Mr Borga’s voice, still full of disbelief, was heard shouting, Don’t

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you dare try and tell me this was handed in on a visit, Dawes, or I’ll have you on a fucking charge! Where did you get it? Come on, I want to know.’

Benjamin, walking out of his cell so all the men would be able to hear his words, said in a contrite voice: ‘Remember when we used to have the drama classes?’ Mr Borga answered warily, ‘Yeah?’

‘And remember they were stopped because they found out that a lifer was trumping the drama teacher?’