Captives

FORTY

'… Police stated that there were anywhere between five hundred and a thousand protesters but that the march was peaceful…'

Jim Scott sat in his office, feet propped up on the desk, his eyes fixed on the TV screen. It flickered every now and then but not enough to bother him or to break his concentration. The black and white images were of a large group of people moving through central London, most of them carrying placards that the cameras managed to pick out.

STOP OVERCROWDING PRISONS NOT ZOOS

Scott looked on impassively.

'… The march was led by the Right Honorable Bernard Clinton, MP for Buxton, whose constituency houses Whitely Prison…'

There was a close-up of a man in his late forties, dressed in a grey jacket and a large overcoat. The fur of the hood matched the white of his own hair. The man was chatting to people on either side of him and looking at the cameras every now and then. Reporters stepped in front of him, thrusting microphones forward.

'What do you hope this march will achieve, Mr Clinton?' asked one.

'Prisons in this country have been overcrowded for too long,' the MP replied. 'Whitely is probably the worst example. It just so happens that it is in my power to do something about it, or at least to make the Government aware of the problem.'

'What is your main complaint with the system as it is at present?' another reporter asked.

'In Whitely, as in many other gaols, remand prisoners are kept in the same sections of the prison, in some cases in the same cells, as convicted men, occasionally even murderers. This is intolerable.'

Scott sipped his drink and continued gazing at the screen.

'… The movement for prison reform has gained momentum in the last three months, ever since the murder of a remand prisoner in Whitely by a convicted killer. Mr Clinton took up the case after relatives of the dead man approached him…'

There was a shot of the Trafalgar Square and Scott could see the protesters milling around the fountains. Clinton stood at the top of the steps and was addressing them but the camera panned across to the reporter standing in the foreground who was addressing his remarks direct to camera.

'… Officials from the Home Office are expected to visit Whitely Prison and a number of other maximum security gaols throughout the country in the next few weeks, to see at close hand how bad overcrowding has become. Mr Clinton himself will lead a delegation to Whitely before the end of the week and a motion to discuss the possible reform of the penal system has been tabled in the Commons.'

The reporter signed off and the pictures of the rally were replaced by the newsreader in the studio. Scott listened for a moment to a story about yet another famine in Africa, to someone appealing for people to send money for food, and then switched off.

Send them money for food, next thing they'll be wanting money for clothes, he chuckled to himself. He pulled the phone towards him and jabbed the digits of Carol's number.

It rang.

And rang.

He glanced at his watch, sure that she wouldn't have left yet. He allowed the phone to ring another five times then tried his own flat, wondering if she might have stayed there until it was time to come in.

There was no answer there either.

He tried her flat once more, and still all he heard was the insistent ringing tone. He pressed down on the cradle and replaced the receiver.

She should be at work soon, anyway.

Ask her where she was.

He decided against that. He just hoped she was all right. Perhaps she'd slipped out for something. Or to see someone.

To see someone? Like who?

Why had she asked him the previous night about what he'd do if he found out she was seeing someone else?

He dismissed the thought. There was no need to be suspicious, she was merely asking out of curiosity. He suspected she'd been surprised by his answer. Scott smiled. Perhaps it would make her realise just how much he felt for her.

He crossed to the window of his office and looked out. It was raining again; the pavements and road were slick with water. The neon signs all around were reflected in the moisture, as if they themselves lit the concrete from the inside.

Scott always thought of London as existing in two different times. There were those who lived and worked by day and those who did so by night. Worlds apart.

The time of darkness had come again.

He smiled.