Prison. He’d been in plenty of prisons but Stitchford was relatively new, purpose-built as a therapeutic community. It housed enough highly dangerous lifers to make it a category A, so that whatever the facade, the reality was maximum security. It looked it.
They were not very far from the coast so that by the time they were nearing the prison a sea fret had rolled over them, shrouding the buildings. First came a mile or so of flat land, concrete runways to either side, a few disused hangars – even now, remnants of World War II still lingered.
‘Gawd,’ one of the men said.
It was on two levels, concrete and glass, porridge and grey, perfectly camouflaged in the fog. The usual high perimeter fencing, barbed wire bent inwards, cement posts. The usual gate. The usual security. The van stopped and the driver leaned out. A couple of words and they were waved through. A hundred yards to the main gate which opened automatically. Closed behind them. A wide entrance yard. Glass doors. They drew up. A second or two of silence as the engine died and every one of them looked out again, at the prison into which they had struggled and begged and queued to be admitted. Last chance. If it didn’t work here, Jed had said, a paedophile was at the end of the road, locked in with himself for good. Or for bad.
They jumped out one by one and started to bend, stretch, jump, easing limbs and circulation.
‘Like a long-haul flight,’ Brian said.
Simon nodded.
‘Wouldn’t know,’ another said.
Another holding area. Better. Larger. Windows. Tea and a slab of cake. Sports magazines. Plastic flowers and a living pot plant.
The driver and his mate had disappeared.
One of the men got up and went to try the door. It opened.
‘Fuck me.’
‘How far do you reckon you’d get?’
He hesitated. Sat down again. None of the others had moved, apart from reaching for cake.
How much of prison life was spent hanging about, waiting, waiting, doing nothing? How long now? An hour? Two?
The first two men’s names were called before they’d finished drinking.
Then the next.
‘Johnno.’
It was not the fact that it wasn’t his own name that almost caught him out, but the use of a first name. In prison, you were either a number or a surname.
He stood up.
‘Hello, Johnno, I’m Neil. Welcome to Stitchford.’
Hand outstretched. The prisoner he was would not have had anyone proffer their hand to him perhaps for years. Paedophiles expected it least of all. People would sooner shake the hand of a serial killer.
‘Thanks.’
This man does not know who you really are. This man thinks you have sexually abused and filmed others sexually abusing children as young as four years old. This man knows you have been sent down for nine years. This man …
‘I’m a forensic psychologist and head of therapy here. We’ll meet each other again tomorrow morning in your introductory assessment. I hope you settle in quickly – you’ll find everyone wants to help you do that, staff and your fellow inmates. Ask about anything practical and someone will tell you – and there’s a list of everyday info in your room, plus fire drill and so on. Your daily timetable is in there too. You’re on B wing, upper floor, room 6.’
Neil leaned back in his chair. He had a desk in the corner of the room but he was not sitting behind it. Simon had the chair next to him.
‘You asked to come here. You know that, but do you also know that about sixty people a week apply for a place in this community and only a couple are selected?’
‘I got lucky.’
Neil raised an eyebrow. ‘In one sense, you’re dead right. How long ago did you apply?’
‘Fifteen months.’
‘About average. So you understand how much competition there is for a place. Do you know the dropout rate?’
Simon shook his head, though he did.
‘High. High because this therapeutic journey is no walk in the park, Johnno. It’s tough. It drains you. It turns you inside out. It scours you. You expose in public, out loud, the details not only of what you have done – all of it – but how you felt and feel about that. Therapy isn’t a nice lie on a couch with one psychiatrist listening to you talk about your dreams. Forget that. This hurts, there’s nowhere to hide and it’s relentless. It’s why you’re here and it’s what you do, day in, day out, six days a week. Quite a few men think it’ll be a breeze and it finishes them. They’d rather just go back into main prison, with all its misery and risks – and you know what those risks are for paedophiles. They’d face that rather than face up to what they did and what’s inside them and bring it out into the open in front of a dozen or more other people. You’ve been told what happens, you were assessed, you got a place. That’s the start and that’s good. But start is the word. Beginning. Stage one. Are you up for the rest, now you’re here?’
Simon was silent for a minute, looking down. ‘I’ve got no choice. I can’t live with myself like this. I’ve got to stick it out, haven’t I?’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-nine.’
‘Get through this, serve the rest of your time and you’re young enough to start over.’
He stood up. ‘Your kit’s over there. Michael’s outside, he’ll take you up to your room. You’ve got half an hour.’
He had been told only to read a general outline about Stitchford, nothing in detail. That way he would be inquisitive, anxious, alert – like every other prisoner who’d just arrived. He could be surprised, pleasantly or otherwise. He could be whatever he was at a given moment.
He was surprised by the light. Most prisons were dark or in a glare of artificial strip lighting. This one had windows in the roof and high up in the walls, and light-coloured stairwells, walls with bright pictures – presumably done in art therapy. He had been told to make his own decision about art therapy but that to qualify he must show minimum talent and work only in colour. This was not about fine painting, it was about trying to unlock some inner part of himself which had been hidden for a long time. Revelatory, not pretty.
The corridor did not clang, like the metal corridors in other prisons, though footsteps sounded clearly and there was a squeak of rubber soles.
Michael led the way, Serrailler carried his own bag. A man looked out of a doorway, nodded. Someone else came down the corridor wearing a towel and carrying another, trainers in hand, hair wet and flattened onto his head. ‘Y’all right?’
‘Thanks.’
‘Most are helpful, most will be pally. There’s plenty of give and take in here.’
Michael had a shaven head and a small spider tattooed on the back of his neck. The first person Simon had yet seen who looked like a prison officer.
Last few doors, at the window end of the upper corridor.
‘Here you go.’
The small room that would be his home and refuge for however long it took.
‘Looks a bit bare, only you can buy stuff from catalogues – rugs, pot plants, cushions – you earn from whatever work you’re assigned and spend it that way. If you want. If you get invited into anyone else’s room, take a good look round. Sparky in room 11 – his is like Buckingham Palace. OK, four toilets at the end, showers next door to them – you go when you like and if you’re free. No lock-up at night, which might surprise you. Washbasin – you drop down that lid. Light in the ceiling above your bed. You change your bed every week, sheets get left outside your door. Bell goes for your evening meal in about forty-five minutes. Just follow the crowd. Anything you want to know for now?’
‘Can I hang my clothes up anywhere?’
‘Had a nice wardrobe in your other prison, did you? No, you fold them and put them on the shelf. Jacket hangs behind the door. Do your washing in the basement. There’s the bumpf.’
Michael went out, shutting but not locking the door. Someone was shouting loudly on the floor below. Someone else was whistling as they went down the corridor past his room. There was a faint smell of frying fish.
Home.
Simon picked up the duplicated information sheets and lay down on his bed to read them.