Dark Side of the Street

3

The governor of Fridaythrope Gaol put down his pen and switched on the desk lamp. It was just after eight with darkness drawing in fast and he went to the window and watched the last light of day touch the rim of the hills across the valley with fire before night fell.

There was a firm knock on the door and as he turned, Atkinson, the Principal Officer, entered, a large buff envelope in one hand.

"Sorry to bother you, sir, but the new man is here-Drummond. You said you wanted to see him personally."

The governor nodded and moved back to his desk. "So I did. Is he outside?"

Atkinson nodded. "That's right, sir."

"What's he like?"

Atkinson shrugged. "A gentleman gone nasty if you follow me." He opened the envelope and placed the documents it contained in front of the governor. "You'll remember the case, sir. It was in all the papers at the time. Forty-five thousand and he almost got away with it."

"Didn't someone inform on him?"

"That's right, sir-an anonymous tip to the Yard, but he was going to seed long before that. He was a Captain in the Royal Engineers-cashiered for embezzlement seven or eight years ago. Since then he's been knocking around South America getting up to God knows what."

The Governor nodded. "Not a very pretty picture! Still-a man of some intelligence. I'm thinking of putting him in with Youngblood."

Atkinson was unable to conceal his surprise. "Might I ask why, sir?"

The governor leaned back in his chair. "Frankly, I'm worried about Youngblood-have been ever since he had that stroke. Sooner or later he'll have another-they always do-and he'll need specialised medical treatment very, very quickly. Can you imagine what would happen if he had such an attack in the middle of the night and died on us!"

"That's hardly likely, sir. He's checked every hour."

"A lot could happen in an hour. On the other hand, if someone was there all the time." He shook his head. "I'm certain a cell mate is the best answer from our point of view and this chap Drummond should do very nicely. Let's have a look at him."

The Principal Officer opened the door and stood to one side. "All right, lad," he barked. "Look lively now. Stand on the mat and give your name and number."

The prisoner moved into the room quickly and stood on the rubber mat that was positioned exactly three feet away from the governor's desk.

"83278 Drummond, sir," Paul Chavasse said and waited at attention.

The light from the desk threw his face into relief. It had fined down in the past three months and the hair, close-cropped to the skull, gave him a strangely medieval appearance. He looked a thoroughly dangerous man and the governor frowned down at his records in some perplexity. This was not what he had expected-not at all what he had expected.

But then, the governor's paradox was that he knew nothing of prison life at all-what he saw each day was only the surface of a pond which Chavasse, in three short months, had plumbed to its depths in undergoing what was known in the legal profession as the due process of the law.

In the three months he had made seven separate court appearances and had already experienced the life of three different gaols. He had spent a month on remand in a place so primitive that the only sanitary arrangements in the cell consisted of an enamel pot. Each morning, he had formed one of the queue of men who shuffled along the landing to empty the nights slops into the single lavatory bowl at the end.

Prison Officers were now screws, men who like the rest of the humanity were good, bad and indifferent in about the usual proportions. There had been some who had treated him with decency and humanity, others who punctuated each command with the end of a staff jabbed painfully into the kidneys.

He had learned that there was little romance in crime-that most of his fellow prisoners were persistent offenders who could have made a better living if they had spent their lives in drawing the unemployment benefit. He had learned that murderers and rapists looked just like anyone else and that often the most masculine prisoners in appearance were sexual deviants.

Most important of all, like any jungle animal intent only on survival he had quickly acquired the customs and habits of his new surroundings so that he might fade into the background with the rest. And he had survived. He would never be quite the same man again, but he had survived.

"Six years." The governor looked up from the record card. "That means four if you keep out of trouble and earn full remission."

"Yes, sir."

The governor leaned back in his chair. "It's really quite distressing to see a man like you end up in this sort of a mess but I think we can help you. But you've got to help yourself as well, you know. Are you willing to try?"

Chavasse resisted a strong temptation to lean across the desk and smash his fist into the centre of that florid well-fed face and wondered whether the governor could possibly be putting on an act. On the other hand that was hardly likely-which must mean that he had accepted the introduction of an undercover agent into his establishment with the greatest reluctance.

"Anyway, you can best help yourself by helping me," the governor said. "I'm going to put you in with a man called Harry Youngblood. He's a longterm prisoner who suffered a stroke some time ago. Now the odds are that he might have another and it could be at night. If that happens I want you to ring for the Duty Officer at once. Speed is vital in these cases so I'm told. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Youngblood works in the machine shop, doesn't he, Mr. Atkinson?"

"That's right, sir. Car number plates."

"Fine." The governor looked up at Chavasse again. "We'll put you in there for training and see how you like it. I'll follow your progress with interest."

He got to his feet as a sign that the interview was over and for the briefest of moments there was something in his eyes. It was as if he wanted to say something more, but couldn't think of the right words. In the end he nodded brusquely to the Principal Officer who led Chavasse out into the corridor.

The other gaols Chavasse had been in had been constructed during the reform era in the middle of the nineteenth century on a system commonly found in Her Majesty's Prisons of four three tiered cell blocks radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a central hall.

But Fridaythorpe was only two years old, a place of quiet and smooth concrete, air-conditioned and warmed by central heating with not a window to be seen.

They reached a central hall and entered a steel lift which rose ten floors before it halted. They stepped out on to a small concrete landing and Chavasse could see a long white corridor stretching into the distance on the other side of a steel gate.

They stood there for a moment and then the gate opened smoothly and silently. They moved inside and it closed again.

"Impressed?" Atkinson demanded as Chavasse turned to examine it. "You're meant to be. It's operated electronically by remote control. The man who pressed the button is sitting in the control centre on the ground floor at the other end of the prison. He's one of a team of five who watch fifty-three television screens on a shift system twenty-four hours a day. You've been on view ever since we left the governor's office."

"Wonderful what you can do with science these days," Chavasse said.

"Nobody escapes from Fridaythorpe-just remember that," Atkinson said as they proceeded along the corridor. "Behave yourself and you'll get a square deal-try to act tough and you'll fall flat on your face."

He didn't seem to require an answer and Chavasse didn't attempt to give him one. They paused outside a door at the far end of the passage, Atkinson produced a key and unlocked it.

The cell was larger than Chavasse had anticipated. There were three small slit windows glazed with armour glass and in any case too small to admit a man. There was also a washbasin and a fixed toilet in one corner.

There was a single bed against each wall and Youngblood was lying on one of them reading a magazine. He looked at them in an almost casual fashion and didn't bother getting up.

"I've got a cell mate for you, Youngblood." Atkinson told him. "The governors afraid you might pass away on us one night without any warning. He'd like someone to be here just in case."

"Well, that's nice of the old bastard," Youngblood said. "I didn't know he cared."

"You just mind your bloody lip."

"Careful, Mr. Atkinson." Youngblood smiled. "There's a thin line of foam on the edge of your lips. You want to watch it."

Atkinson took one quick step towards him and Youngblood raised a hand. "I'm not a well man, remember."

"That's right, I was forgetting." Atkinson laughed gently. "You may be a big man in here, Youngblood, but from where I stand you look pretty damned small. I laugh myself sick every time I lock the door."

Something moved in Harry Youngblood's eyes and for a moment, the habitual mocking smile was erased and he looked capable of murder.

"That's better," Atkinson said. "That's much better," and he went outside, the door clanging behind him with a grim finality.

"Bastard!" Youngblood said and turned to examine Chavasse. "So you're Drummond? We've been expecting you for a week now."

"Word certainly gets around."

"That's the nick for you-we're all just one big happy family. You'll like it here-it's got everything. Central heating, air conditioning, television-all we needed was a bit of class and now we've got you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come off it-you were a Captain in the Engineers before they kicked you out. Sandhurst and all that. I read about it in the papers when you were up at the Bailey."

"I've read about you too."

Youngblood sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. "Where was that then?"

"A book called Great Crimes of the Century. Came out last year. There was a whole chapter devoted to the Peterfield Airport job. Written by a man called Tillotson."

"That clown," Youngblood said contemptuously. "He didn't get the half of it. Came to see me by special permission of the Home Office. I gave him all the griff-no reason not to now-but did he get it right? Gave all the credit for the planning to Ben Hoffa and he couldn't tell his arse from his elbow."

"It was your idea then?"

"That's it." Youngblood shrugged. "I needed Ben, I'm not denying that. He could fly a Dakota- that was his main function."

"What about Saxon?"

"A good lad when he had someone to tell him what to do."

"Any idea where they are now?"

"Somewhere in the sun spending all that lovely lolly if they've any sense."

"You never know your luck," Chavasse said. "They might be making arrangements for you to join them right now."

Youngblood stared across at him blankly. "Get me out you mean? Out of Fridaythorpe?" He exploded into laughter. "Have you got a lot to learn. No one gets out of here, didn't they tell you that? They've got television cameras and electronic gates-they've even constructed special walls of reinforced concrete with foundations twenty feet deep. That's just in case anyone ever thought of tunnelling." He shook his head. "This is it-the big cage-there is no way out."

"There's always a way," Chavasse said.

"What have we got here then? A brain?"

"Big enough."

"It didn't do you much good on that Lonsdale Metals caper. You're here, aren't you?"

"So are you."

"Only because of Ben Hoffa and that bloody bird of his." For a moment Youngblood was genuinely angry. "He tried to drop her and she shopped him. That was the end for all of us."

"But they didn't get the money."

"That's it, boy." Youngblood grinned. "More than you can say."

"I know," Chavasse said feelingly. "I had the same trouble as Hoffa."

He sat there on the edge of the bed staring down at the floor as if momentarily depressed and Youngblood produced a twenty packet of cigarettes and offered him one. "Don't let it get you down. Between you and me that was quite something you pulled off. A pity you still had your amateur status. A bit more know-how and you might have got away with it."

"You seem to be doing all right for yourself," Chavasse said, holding up the cigarette.

Youngblood grinned and lolled back against the pillow. "I'm not complaining. I get as many of those things as I want and don't ask me how. When the blokes in here want snout they come to me and no one else. You fell on your feet when old man Carter decided to put you in here."

"He told me you'd been ill. How bad is it?"

"I had a slight stroke a month or two back. Nothing much." Youngblood shrugged. "Just one of those things."

"I got the impression he was afraid you might peg out on him one of these nights. If he's as worried as that why doesn't he have you trans-ferreed to the Scrubs?"

Youngblood chuckled harshly. "The Home Office would never wear that. They'd be frightened to death one of the London mobs might have a go at breaking me out in the hopes of getting their hot little hands on the lolly." He shook his head. "No, here I am and here I stay."

"For another fifteen years?"

Youngblood turned his head and smiled softly. "That remains to be seen, doesn't it?" He tossed the cigarettes across. "Have another."

He quite obviously wanted to talk and Chavasse lay there smoking and let him. He covered just about everything that had ever happened to him, starting with his years in a Camberwell orphanage and dwelling particularly on his time in the Navy. He wasn't married and apparently had only one living relative-a sister.

"You've got to look out for yourself, boy," he told Chavasse. "I learned that early. There's always some bastard waiting to take away what you've got. When I was a P.O. in MTBs I had a skipper called Johnson-young sub-lieutenant. Bloody useless. I carried him-carried him. We took part in the St. Laurent commando raid; he got hit early on. He just sat there helpless in the skipper's chair on the bridge bleeding to death. There was nothing we could do for him. I took over, pressed home the attack and put two torpedoes into an enemy destroyer. And what happened when we got back? Johnson got a posthumous Victoria Cross-I got a bloody mention in dispatches."

Funny how a story changed according to one's point of view. Chavasse stared up at the ceiling remembering the official report of the action in the file on Youngblood which had been compiled by S2 at the Bureau. The plain unvarnished truth was that Johnson had signed his own death warrant by staying in command on the bridge and undoubtedly aggravating his already serious injuries. Youngblood had done well-and behaved steadily under fire-there was no question about his personal courage, but at all times he had acted under Johnson's direct orders.

He wondered now if Youngblood really believed his own account of the action, but then he had probably told it to others and himself so many times over the years that what might have been had become reality. Somehow in the fantasy version there was even an implication that the V.C. had gone to the wrong person although he himself would probably have indignantly denied the fact.

"According to Tillotson you were hit for smuggling first."

"That's right," Youngblood grinned. "Worked in the Channel run in a converted MTB for a couple of years following the war."

"What were you running-brandy?"

"Anything that would sell and almost anything would in those days. Booze, fags, nylons, watches."

"What about dope? I hear there's a lot of money in it."

"What in the hell do you think I am?" Youngblood demanded. "I wouldn't dirty my hands on that sort of rubbish."

It seemed a perfectly genuine reaction and was completely in character with the facts of his file. Harry Youngblood would never touch drugs or prostitution, two of the biggest money-spinners there were-a nice moral touch that. The newspapers had made a lot out of it at the time of his trial and the public had responded well, forgetting about the pilot of the Dakota hijacked at Peterfield who, in attempting to put up a fight, had been beaten so savagely by Youngblood that his eyesight was permanently affected.

And there were others. Over the years the police had pulled in Harry Youngblood again and again in connection with indictable offenses, mainly robbery which had too often included use of violence. At no time had they been able to make a charge stick and on one occasion, the night watchman of a fur warehouse, clubbed into insensibility, had afterwards died.

Chavasse surfaced and realised that Youngblood was still talking. "Those were the days, boy. We really gave the coppers a thing or two to think about. I had the beast team in the Smoke. One job after another and every one planned so well that the busies could never put a finger on us."

"That must have taken some doing."

"Oh, they pulled me in-every time there was a big tickle they tried to pin it on me. I spent half my time on the steps at West End Central being photographed. I was never out of the bloody papers."

"Until now."

Youngblood grinned. "You wait, boy-just wait. I'll be smiling right off the front page again at the bastards one of these days and there won't be a thing they can do about it."

Chavasse lay there on the bed thinking about the whole business. What was it Tillotson had said about Youngblood in his book? That he had a craving for notoriety that almost amounted to a death wish. Excitement and danger were meat and drink to him. He had enjoyed playing the gangster, being pulled in by the police time-after-time for questioning, having his picture in the papers.

One thing was certain. Here was no Robin Hood. This was a brutal and resourceful criminal whose easy smile concealed an iron will and a determination to have what he wanted whatever the cost.

Chavasse started to unlace his boots. "Think I'll turn in. It's been a long day."

Youngblood glanced over the top of the magazine. "You do that, boy." He grinned. "And don't let the bastards grind you down."

Chavasse hitched the blanket over his shoulder and closed his eyes. He wondered what it was going to be like in the machine shop. Car number plates Atkinson had said. Well, that was a damned sight better than sewing mail bags for a living. If only the screws were decent, life might be quite reasonable.

He frowned suddenly. So now he was even thinking like a con? A fine touch of irony there. Mallory would like that. Chavasse turned his face to the wall and slept.