Alan’s heart sank as he walked across the damp car park. The finished building with its massive, black-topped security wall was far more depressing than he’d imagined nearly twenty years ago, when he’d helped dig the Roman site beneath it. To his left he recognised one of their old spoil heaps, which had been tastefully landscaped into a gentle tree-clad bank to protect visitors’ cars from the biting north-easterly winds of early January.
The Home Office had chosen Blackfen because it was deep in the Fens, and like Dartmoor, any escaping prisoner would have to find his way through a cruelly exposed landscape: no rocks or savage hounds, but deep, water-filled dykes. As he made his way towards the Visitors’ Entrance, he could see groups of tired, blowsy women with children clinging to their sides and baby buggies everywhere. They must be the prisoners’ wives, girlfriends and families, he thought, as he approached the double glass doors. It was hard not to feel sorry for them: there was no laughter behind their eyes, which flicked restlessly from one person to another, as if expecting an assault. Nearly every woman was smoking, but not in the relaxed way you see in the outside world; instead, the smoke was sucked down deep, with hollow cheeks and tense, anxious expressions, while bent, nicotine-stained, fingers gripped the filters, as if for dear life.
There was a small queue at the main doorway. He had been trying to fix in his mind precisely where their trenches had been twenty years ago, when a voice from behind two thicknesses of glass sharply demanded his name, and reason for his visit. He fumbled inside the battered knapsack that held his notes and produced the authorisation letter from the Education Service, which he passed through a hatch in the wall next to the window. He heard it fall, and the faint sound of another hatch opening inside. Less than a minute later, the door to his right opened and a uniformed prison officer, complete with a Hollywood-style bunch of keys dangling from a chain at his waist, stood there, reading his letter.
He motioned Alan to come inside. The door slammed behind him. They were now standing in a large, modern entrance hall. Architecturally it was very severe, but then this was a prison.
‘If you follow me, Mr Cadbury, I’ll take you there; but it’s quite a long walk. Would you care to visit the toilet first?’
Alan pushed the Gents door open and found the usual array of cubicles, but no urinals. He was surprised to see a prison officer standing on duty, next to the hand basins. There were rows of individual cubicles along two walls. He chose the nearest one and when safely inside did what he came to do. At first he was too busy feeling the welcome sense of relief to notice that two cameras were looking down at him. The first was in the cubicle itself, and the second in the ceiling of the room outside, high above his head. From time to time his eye was caught by the higher one as it moved from one cubicle to another, but there was no regularity. It wasn’t on auto, but was being moved remotely, by someone, somewhere else. He found himself wondering whether he was being ogled by a pervert in HMP Central Toilet Control, somewhere miles away. It had a strangely inhibiting effect on him. Made him feel dirty. So breaking the habit of a lifetime (his dad had once told him, when an old ewe pissed into his boots, that ‘urine, lad is sterile’), he washed his hands vigorously.
He rejoined his escort officer in the Entrance Hall. He was smiling.
‘Unnerving, aren’t they?’
Alan was in no doubt what he was talking about.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a little intrusive.’ He was aware that sounded ludicrously stiff-upper-lippish, but he continued. ‘Are they everywhere?’
‘What?’
‘The cameras?’
‘Yes, sir. Everywhere.’
‘Even in the officers’ section, in your own part of the prison?’
‘Especially there, sir. Imagine what would happen if there was a hostage situation. You’d want the authorities to know what was going on then, wouldn’t you, sir?’
Alan was speechless. He was quite right, of course you would. But the human cost of such security boggled his mind. He simply couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have no personal privacy. You couldn’t so much as pick your nose, let alone eat the bogey.
Perhaps it was a hangover from his childhood, but he also hated formality; he detested dressing up in smart clothes and being on best behaviour. Even putting on the tie he was now wearing was an unwelcome imposition, and he knew he’d tear it off as soon as he was back in the car park. That’s why he liked the digging life: it was informality taken to extremes. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like living the Blackfen life, whether prisoner or screw.
By now they were walking down a series of brightly lit, dead straight corridors. Sometimes he caught glimpses of the outside. It was a strange, almost night-time, world of blinding sodium lights and no horizon – all views being cut short by the vast block-built wall that both symbolised and enforced their confinement. That wall was immense. As he walked, he briefly closed his eyes, yes, he thought, you could probably see Chatteris, or Tubney out there, across the huge open space that was once Eastrea Mere. They could perfectly well have built a sturdy electric fence; at least you could have seen through it. Only then did he realise that the wall was about more than security. It was retribution. Punishment. Confinement. He had only been there for a quarter of an hour, and was already resenting its presence. Being a true-born Fenman, Alan loved the horizon.
As they made their way along the corridors, his escort had to unlock and open a series of metal doors, seemingly put there at random. Presumably, Alan thought, it was something to do with security. He waited while yet another door was unlocked. But this time the officer also opened a second door, on the left. It gave into a fairly ordinary looking modern classroom, with screen, projector, a green blackboard and a long desk, complete with a box of chalks, at the front. Alan looked around him. The room was still empty, but when eventually they came in, the class would be sitting on six tiers of continuous benches and narrow tables. At a pinch, Alan rapidly estimated, the room could have held about seventy.
The officer pressed a bell by the door and glanced at his watch.
‘They’ll be here in a couple of minutes,’ he said
Alan wondered who ‘they’ might be. He knew it was a patently stupid idea, but he couldn’t get mad axe-men and baby-eaters out of his brain. His mind was starting to race. To calm his thoughts he looked around him. He started to unzip his laptop case to connect it to the projector, when the officer raised his hand, to stop him.
‘I’d wait, if I were you sir, we may not be in here.’ His eyes were raised to the ceiling as he received a message through his walkie-talkie’s earpiece.
He was right. Another officer took them to a classroom further along the corridor. This one was slightly smaller. Alan again started to unpack. But before he had managed to retrieve anything, the second officer cut in
‘Before you unpack, Sir, I’d like to give you a tour of the security arrangements. Normally speaking there will always be two officers with you, but if there were to be an emergency call-out, you would need to be aware of what you can do for yourself.’
There were plenty of panic buttons, and not just around the lecturer’s end of the room. By now, four prison officers had assembled in the room. Alan rummaged inside his bag looking for his notes, and as he did so, one of the officers slipped out and they could hear the sound of doors in the corridor being locked and unlocked.
While they were waiting for the projector, two of the younger officers moved towards the back of the room, presumably Alan thought, to be in place for the arrival of the prisoners. That left an older man with him at the front desk. Alan liked the look of him. He wore his hair less brutally cropped and didn’t seem quite as hard-nosed as some of the younger men. Alan approached him.
‘It’s strange, I’ve done loads of lectures and to all sorts of audiences, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as apprehensive as I do now.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Mr Cadbury, you’ll be fine. They’re not monsters, you know, despite what the press might have you believe.’
‘You’re right, of course. I know that.’ He paused, ‘But I suppose it’s the surroundings. They don’t help, do they?’
‘It’s the same for the inmates. But you’d be surprised how quickly they get used to the place. One of them once told me it’s like a bad smell: after a few minutes you cease to notice it. It never goes away, but you learn to live with it.’
Suddenly, Alan sensed an opportunity amongst the small talk. He leapt on it.
‘Do you know any of the men yourself, personally?’
The older man smiled.
‘I should hope I do, sir. I’m on the long-term prisoners’ welfare council and being the senior officer on J Block.’
‘J Block?’
‘That’s where we are, sir. It’s where we accommodate the Lifers. We try to make it a little bit more relaxed than the rest of the prison.’
‘But hardly free-and-easy.’ Alan added.
‘Quite, sir. But some of these men will never get out. Others could be here thirty years, or more. It’s only human to try to make their lives easier.’
‘Yes,’ Alan replied, ‘what’s the point of a short, sharp shock if you’re in for life? I can see that. So do you get much time alone with the men?’
‘Yes, with those who want to talk. A few don’t. They’re the ones to watch…’
Time was passing. Alan pressed on, eager.
‘I’m having trouble trying to fix my audience in my mind and I do want to pitch the talk right. Each group is different. You might think that Women’s Institutes are the same…’
‘Jam and Jerusalem?’ the officer interrupted, grinning
‘Quite. But they never are. Take the ones around Cambridge. They’re mostly academics’ wives and very knowledgeable about certain things. Out here in the Fens they’re different, but many are farmers’ wives, so you can often learn a good deal of useful stuff about life in remote places. Lecturing, especially the questions afterwards, can be a two-way process.’
The officer thought for a moment before replying.
‘These chaps have plenty of time to read. And many of them do. And of course now there’s the internet.’
‘J Block’s on the web?’ Alan was surprised.
‘Yes, the whole prison is, but it’s strictly supervised by Security and the Education Service.’
‘As you might know,’ Alan continued, ‘I want this introductory talk to lead to an A-level course.’
‘Yes, I did know that. If I were a bit younger I might have enrolled myself. It’s on posters all around the jail. You wouldn’t have seen them. The Lifers did them themselves.’
‘Tell me frankly, do you think I’ve got any chance of getting an A-level group together, or will it flop?’
‘Oh no, I’m sure it won’t flop. There’s quite a lot of interest here. History Hunters is very popular on Sunday evenings. We’ve DVDs and tapes of them in the Lifers’ library and your programmes have been borrowed a lot in the past week. I can tell you, we’re expecting a big turn-out.’
‘Do you know any men who seem particularly interested?’ Alan asked.
He held his breath while the officer thought. Alan could see he was mentally counting them.
‘I reckon there are at least a dozen, that I can think of, offhand. Maybe more, as I don’t know every man personally.’
‘In the outside world most archaeological audiences tend to be a bit elderly and we’re always trying to attract youngster people to join us. Will that be the same here, d’you think?’
Again the officer paused.
‘You’re right.’
Alan’s heart sank at these words
‘Most of them are a bit older, generally in their fifties and sixties.’
His words were cut short by the officer who had gone for the projector. He was now brandishing it triumphantly.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said to the man standing by Alan, ‘had to go all the way to Room 6 to find this. I don’t know what happens to these things. It’s as if someone was nicking them.’
‘What, in a jail? You must be joking?’
‘Piss off, Fred,’ he laughed at the other officer, ‘but I’m sure there were half a dozen back in May. Now we’re down to just two. Bloody ridiculous.’
They reeled out an extension cable and set up the projector. Alan attached his laptop and was about to boot the system, when one of the officers stopped him.
‘Best go to the front,’ he advised in a confidential tone, ‘they’ll be here any moment now.’
A red light started flashing over one of the three doors at the back. Two officers went across and stood either side of it, facing into the room. Meanwhile Alan had instinctively moved behind the desk, where he stood at the centre, with an officer at each end. He felt a distinct sense of trepidation, verging on outright fear.
As he stood waiting he could imagine what the scene would look like from a distance. He could see himself standing alone, with his left hand moving almost imperceptibly towards one of the panic buttons. But he knew he mustn’t touch it. That would screw up all his plans. Then the double doors below the red light opened and the light went out.
Most of the prisoners would not have been out of place catching the early morning train to Waterloo, from somewhere in suburban Surrey. They wore their own clothes and were chatting in a relaxed fashion. A couple waved to Alan (he assumed they were the organisers of the Club) and they then distributed themselves across the benches, like any other group of mature students. After he had been introduced to the class by an education officer, Alan was about to begin, when the red light flashed again and another prisoner entered the room, accompanied by two officers. He sat in a reserved seat by the door. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, he was wearing handcuffs. Alan realised with more than a slight chill who he was.
It must have been thirty years ago, Alan struggled to recall the precise date, when this man had carried out a series of grisly murders, and had disposed of the mutilated bodies in an orchard behind his suburban house. The subsequent hunt for bodies was a scene of disorganised chaos and the public outcry that followed was a major factor behind the growth of the new science of Forensic Archaeology.
This last man sat down in his reserved seat, with an officer beside him. He stared at Alan with an unflinching, blank, emotionless gaze. Alan realised at once he was a psychopath – it was only too obvious. And he wondered why on earth he was here in a civil prison. Surely, he thought, he ought to be in Broadmoor, or a secure hospital somewhere? This man had taken the lives of innocent people, for his own satisfaction and pleasure. This is what a real murderer looked like. Nothing like the vulnerable young man in Lane’s mugshot.
Alan shifted his gaze from the psychopath and started methodically scanning the rows, trying to spot Ali. On his right he could see the Governor’s large form rise to its feet and start walking towards the front desk. Alan instinctively moved slowly towards the right, so that he could return to the centre when introduced. But his eyes continued to scan the rows, even as he stepped to the side. He knew he had to be disciplined about this. He was well aware there were too many people out there for him just to stare and hope one particular face would jump out at him.
Alan was shocked at how many black and Asian faces stared back at him from the assembled audience. His academic brain told him that, statistically, the percentage of non-white inmates did not match the percentage balance of the general population. So, what was this? Some right-wing papers might claim that ethnic minorities were violent for social or cultural reasons. Alan was more inclined to believe in a deep-rooted, prejudice within the police and judicial system. Not a deliberate or vocal prejudice, but a pattern of thought that was so deeply engrained in the subconscious of white Western society that neither judge nor jury would be aware of it. Yet another factor that would surely have affected the outcome of Ali’s trial.
He could hear the Governor start his introduction:
‘It gives me the greatest pleasure to introduce Mr Alan Cadbury, this evening’s speaker. Mr Cadbury studied at the Department of Archaeology at Leicester University, and was instrumental in the excavations prior to the construction of Blackfen Prison, a site which I have done my own extensive research on, as a result of Mr Cadbury’s initial findings…’
The old boy was now talking about himself to a large audience. With any luck, Alan thought, he should hold forth for a good five minutes. Maybe just time enough to check out everyone in the audience.
Row two.
Row three.
Row four. Who’s that? Look up damn you. No, not him. Too thickset and squinting.
Row five. Yes. No. Too tall. Nose the wrong shape.
Alan felt the blood rush to his face as he realised that he, as much as anyone else, had a depressingly blinkered point of view. He had no problem distinguishing between the faces of the identikit white, shaven-headed muscle-bound prisoners. But the Asian men, at first glance, looked all the same to him. He forced himself to breathe. Slow down. Start again.
Row one…
Then slowly he became aware that everyone was suddenly clapping. Bloody hell, it was time to start. He walked to the centre of the desk and turned to the departing Governor.
‘Thank you so much for that splendid introduction, Mr Grant,’ Alan heard himself saying in what he hoped were ingratiating tones. ‘I’ll try to live up to your kind words.’
To his relief nobody seemed to have noticed he’d been miles away.
‘Very well, gentlemen we’ve a small matter of twenty thousand years to get through…’
He had barely begun when some joker shouted out.
‘Bloody hell Simpson, that’s longer than you got!’
This took Alan completely off guard and he laughed as loud as anyone else in the room.
‘Right,’ he continued, ‘I can see I’m going to have to watch what I say. A pity, that.’ He paused. ‘Now, the Governor told me to be sure to discuss the prehistory of oats and most particularly that of porridge.’
A bit heavy-handed, but it got a good laugh and with a throw-away query whether people at the back ‘in the cheaper seats’ could hear him clearly, Alan’s talk had got off to a good start. But throughout, the psychopath’s face remained immobile.
The atmosphere needed to be relaxed, if Alan’s hectic overview of archaeology from the Ice Age to the twentieth century was to go down well. He knew that Ali had been fascinated by the processes of change he witnessed at Flax Hole. He was intrigued by how pits filled-in and how soils grew to cover old surfaces. So Alan discussed glaciers and how they had carved out the landscape of eastern England; how rivers and peats had formed the fens and how medieval farmers had left their telltale fields of ridge-and-furrow. And he linked all these to the ordinary things of daily life left behind by prehistoric communities, just as he had done that afternoon in the site hut in Leicester.
Anyhow, it seemed to have gone down well. Very well. As he showed the final slide of a Cold War microwave relay tower out in the open fen a few miles north of the prison, he glanced up at the clock. Damn, he thought, I’ve overrun. The Governor’s introduction had dragged on for ever. There would be limited time for questions. And he needed time.
As the applause continued and the lights came up, the Governor approached the front desk. He nodded to one of the officers, who opened the double door to the left of the screen. A murmur ran round the room. All eyes were on the tea and coffee urns, plates of biscuits. The Governor raised a hand.
‘That was an excellent talk – and I even learned quite a lot myself.’ Polite laughter. ‘But seriously, I think we’ve had a splendid session and Mr Cadbury deserves a warm round of applause.’
And he got one, plus stamping and piercing whistles. Again the Governor raised a hand.
‘Now as you may know, Mr Cadbury has given this lecture as a sort of shop window to display the delights of archaeology. So I’m very keen that as many of you as possible enrol for his A-level course. And that’s why we’ve organised a small tea and coffee reception.’
‘What no porridge?’
It was the same joker. This time the laugh wasn’t quite as big. The Governor smiled indulgently.
‘As I was saying, please use the next half hour to ask Mr Cadbury questions, but as our time is limited, I must ask you all to be brief. Remember, if you come on the course, there’ll be plenty more time to talk with him at greater length.’
He turned to the two officers standing in the open doorway, who moved to the side. The audience rose and headed into the reception area next door. Alan reckoned there were around eighty men there – seventy-nine now. The psychopath sitting on the back row had been taken away.
Alan and the Governor walked through to the reception and were met by a small queue of men standing to one side of table where the drinks and biscuits were being served. The Governor nodded to a member of the catering staff who poured them both mugs of coffee. Meanwhile Alan had been ambushed by a group of men, who seemed more interested in Craig Larsson, the charismatic presenter of History Hunters, than archaeology at A-level. And there was no sign of Ali.
Five minutes to go, and Alan was beginning to feel very depressed. The prospect of teaching an A-level course, without any interaction with Ali, was grim. And whilst the Lifers seemed, on the surface, polite and enthusiastic, he could tell they were on their best behaviour. There was an undercurrent of tension in the room, like a low-level hum of electricity, a sense of latent violence. Was he really cut out for this? Or was Lane right, was he just an academic idealist – good with rocks and dead things, but totally naïve when it came to the real world.
Alan’s reverie was broken by a light tap on his shoulder. He looked round and there Ali was standing behind him, now fully six inches taller. The skinny youth had been replaced by a well-built young man. More than well-built, Alan reckoned he’d been at the gym. He looked athletic, with a short beard and closely shaven hair. A Number One haircut. But the eyes, that intense, intelligent gaze. That was still exactly the same.
‘Remember me?’ Ali asked quietly.
‘Of course I do,’ Alan replied. ‘Ali Kabul. Best digger at Flax Hole.’
Alan saw a shadow pass across Ali’s face, and then it was gone.
‘Different life,’ Ali shrugged.
Even though the room was full of men, all chattering away, Alan felt the silence stretch between them. And then, as if he was taking pity on Alan, who seemed to have suddenly lost all ability to make normal conversation, Ali continued:
‘You still living out that way?’
‘No. Haven’t for a long time. Seven years ago I landed a big site near Peterborough and moved back to the Fens.’
‘Moved back? So you come from around here?’
‘Yes, I was brought up on a small farm near Crowland.’
‘Good to be back home?’
‘My brother has the farm now. I’m at Tubney.’
Ali was clearly none the wiser.
‘It’s a little village about ten miles away. Near Chatteris. I’m in a grim bungalow. Everything stinks of diesel. The place used to be owned by scrappies.’
Ali smiled ruefully.
‘Sounds like you’d be better off in here.’
‘Except that the Hat and Feathers is next door.’
‘The what?’
‘The village pub. They do excellent local ale. I drink there most nights.’
Ali’s smile was neither hostile nor friendly.
Somewhere outside a loud bell sounded and men started to leave through a door on the other side of the room. Alan could have kicked himself. This might have been his only chance to talk to Ali. And what had he done? Just wittered on about diesel and his local boozer.
Ali glanced up at the clock on the wall, then said with some disdain,
‘I’d better be off. Feeding time at the zoo.’
He turned to go.
Alan put a hand on his shoulder.
Ali spun round, immediately tensed. The instinctive reaction of a caged animal, or a man used to being challenged.
Alan released his grip, and looked directly into Ali’s eyes as he spoke.
‘Will you be coming, Ali? It would mean a lot to me and I think you’d enjoy it.’
He’d expected Ali to be pleased – or to have shown at least a positive reaction. But no, his expression gave nothing away. Alan felt chilled.
‘What, like old times?’ Ali replied, not breaking Alan’s gaze.
‘As near as I can manage. Without the mud and the trenchwork, obviously.’
Alan was talking too fast. His voice was shaking. If Ali noticed, he didn’t show it.
‘I dunno, I mean, all that digging around in the past. Hard to see the point of it now.’
Before Alan could reply, an officer appeared and took Ali by the arm, gently but firmly leading him away. Ali kept his head held high, his back straight as he was ushered out of the door. Alan stood stranded in the centre of the empty classroom. Echoing down the corridor, he could hear the sound of those metal doors slamming shut, one after the other.