Killing with Confetti

5

The first indication of trouble is picked up in the control room at 8:10 A.M. The day shift has just taken over and a supervising officer and two operational-support-grade officers are seated with their first coffees in front of a wall of split-screen surveillance monitors. Just about every part of this Category B prison is covered by CCTV cameras, the inner walls, the front gate, every landing of each wing and all the association areas. In theory the staff are supposed to be checking the images constantly, but limited human resources can’t cope with technology on such a scale. Besides, at the start of the day there are vital things to be talked about like the weather and the journey in and last night’s TV. It is ten minutes into the shift before Wendy Hunt looks up and notices an irregularity.

‘Something’s wrong with the second screen, third row. The top two sectors have gone out of focus.’

‘Switch the bugger off and restart,’ Prison Officer Crawley says without even a look. ‘It’s like most of the women I’ve met, temperamental.’ Inside the prison, where almost everyone is given a nickname, Crawley is known as Creepy, but the people who work closely with him call him Creep.

With a shrug, Wendy cuts the power and then restores it.

Same result.

‘Makes no difference.’

Gordon Crawley doesn’t need this. The damned shift has only just started. With his two silver stripes he feels entitled to better back-up than two wet-behind-the-ears female OSGs. He hasn’t much time for gender equality. Privately he is thinking they shouldn’t be doing security work. ‘We’re getting a signal.’

Privately Wendy is thinking Creepy Crawley needs stamping on. ‘That’s what I said, but half of it is blurred.’

‘Everything else is normal. Switch the channel.’ Clear views of four landings in another wing appear on the screen that was giving trouble. ‘There you go. Now back again.’

The blurred view returns.

A tad more concerned, Crawley steps around the console, reaches up and taps the monitor. ‘Funny. Looks like a focusing issue. Fault with the lens. This is C wing second floor, right?’

‘When it’s working.’

‘Okay, call up the officers on that landing and ask them to check the CCTV.’

Wendy switches on the two-way radio, tunes in and speaks into the mic. A short time later she says, ‘I’m getting nothing back.’

‘Oh, come on. They’ve got to be there. They’re on unlock. Move aside.’ Seated at the console he jams on the headset and speaks loudly into the mic. ‘Control room. Let’s hear from you. Over.’

All he gets back is an earful of static.

The second support assistant, Bryony Hall, has offered no opinion up to now, but she speaks up. ‘Take a look at the screen at the end. Something’s bugging that one as well.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Another camera malfunctioning, and — Oh my God, that’s so weird.’

Crawley tugs off the headset, flings it down and stares at the bank of monitors. ‘What is?’

‘Third row at the far end. C wing, top landing.’

Now he can see the strange effect Bryony is talking about, several round or oval shadowy shapes moving about on the screen not unlike beach balls bobbing on a choppy sea. Presently the images are gone, leaving the section of screen as blurred as the one Wendy noticed.

‘What the fuck...?’ Crawley says.

‘If you’re asking me,’ Wendy says, ‘it was somebody’s fingers smearing grease over the camera lens.’

‘Jesus, yes. They’re disabling the CCTV. We’ve got an incident in C wing.’ He reaches across and slams his hand on the general security alarm. ‘What are the bloody officers doing? Why haven’t they reported this?’ His way of coping with the crisis is to shout a series of questions that are barely audible above the piercing beep-beep. ‘What time is it? Have we made a note? Where is everyone? When does the duty governor get here?’

Bryony decides an answer is wanted to the last. ‘Same time as us usually. She’ll be on the road.’

‘She?’

‘Miss Lyle.’

He rolls his eyes. Having a female on the team of governors of an all-male prison is the ultimate imposition for Creepy Crawley.

‘Who’s in charge when she’s not here, then?’ he shouts.

‘You are, aren’t you? Senior person in the control room.’

‘Me?’ It takes half a lifetime to sink in. He turns pale and tugs at his hair. ‘Correct. That’s the protocol. What do I do now? Assess the level of disorder, but I can’t if the officers on the spot aren’t calling in.’ His thoughts are bumping together like the buffers of a shunting train. ‘Oh my God, I was getting static when I tried. Do you think they’re in trouble?’

‘We’d better assume the worst, hadn’t we?’ Wendy shrills, trying to be heard above the alarm.

‘Speak up. I can’t hear you.’

She leans closer and repeats the suggestion.

‘The worst?’

‘If their personal radios are down they could have been taken hostage.’

‘Makes sense,’ Bryony chimes in.

Crawley clutches at his throat. ‘What can I do about that?’

Wendy speaks up again. ‘If it were down to me I’d check with the other wings, see if the trouble is spreading.’

Bryony adds, ‘Especially the segregation wing.’

‘Christ Almighty,’ Crawley yells, imagining the psychos and sex maniacs running free. ‘Do it now.’

But already calls are coming in responding to the alarm, mostly from sections of the prison unaffected by any disturbance. It doesn’t take long to verify that the breakdown in communication is confined to C wing.

So far.

Upwards of two hundred prisoners are housed in that part of the prison.

‘Shall I order a lockdown of the wing?’ Crawley asks. He’s been found out. He is incapable of making decisions.

Wendy has to raise her voice still more. ‘Bit late for that if they’re on the landings disabling the cameras and our guys aren’t answering calls. You may want to lock down the rest of the prison.’

‘Should I?’

‘Definitely,’ Bryony calls out, and adds, ‘isolate and contain.’

‘Isolate and contain.’ The mantra seems to make an impression on Crawley, but he is terrified of committing himself. ‘On second thought the governor may want to decide on that. I’ll hold fire on that one. She should be here soon.’

‘Your choice,’ Wendy tells him, conveying a whole lot more than those two words.

‘Maybe you’re right after all.’ He slaps a hand against his forehead. ‘Yes, do it. Order a full lockdown.’

‘Might be an idea to cut the alarm first,’ Bryony shouts.

Wendy waits for Crawley to act and then announces the lockdown.

The silencing of the electronic beeps comes as a relief. Without that assault on the ears it’s easier to think.

‘I’ve done the right thing there,’ Crawley says, nodding and trying to sound cool. ‘Nothing more I can do until the governor gets here.’

‘Is she definitely due in this morning?’ Bryony asks, more from devilment than uncertainty. ‘She goes to meetings some days. We could be in for the long haul if this is one of her mornings off.’

Crawley looks stricken.

More tense minutes pass.

‘Hold on,’ Wendy says suddenly. ‘I’m getting something from C wing.’

‘Shut down everyone else,’ Crawley says. ‘Let’s hear it.’

The voice coming through on the speakers is saying, ‘Hello, anyone there?’

‘Give me the headset.’ Crawley uses his wheeled chair to shove Wendy’s aside and take over. ‘You’re through to the control room. What the fuck is going on there?’

‘Who’s this?’ the voice enquires.

‘I was about to ask the same thing.’

‘We’re in control here and we want to speak to the governor.’

It is already obvious that the inmates have taken possession of the radio and at least a section of C wing, but Crawley is unable to believe this nightmare. ‘Am I speaking to a prison officer?’

‘Are you deaf, or what? It’s a takeover. Get off the line, jerk, and put the governor on.’

Crawley turns as pale as the whitewashed brick walls. ‘The governor isn’t here. You can say what you want to me.’

The voice from C wing says in what is clearly an aside, ‘It sounds like Creepy Crawley.’

A second, just audible voice says, ‘Tell him to piss off and fetch the governor.’

All this is overheard by Wendy and Bryony, wearing their earphones. They pass no comment and avoid eye contact.

Gordon Crawley tells the offender that he is in charge and anything they want to say should be addressed to him.

‘Creepy’s no use to us,’ the voice in the background says. ‘He’s only a screw. He can’t fix shit.’

The spokesman says, ‘Put the governor on or one of your screws gets it.’

Crawley isn’t amused by what he is hearing. ‘Are you listening? You can speak to me or not at all.’

A scream of pain is heard and it isn’t faked.

‘Bop him another one,’ the second voice says. ‘They didn’t hear.’

‘Cut that out,’ Crawley says. ‘No violence. Say what you want and I’ll see what can be done.’

There is a consultation among the inmates, too indistinct to be overheard.

Their spokesman comes on again. ‘We have certain demands you’d better obey if you want your screws to walk out of here alive. First, no dogs, no snatch squads, tasers, tear gas. In other words, you lot had better stay calm. You have a situation and if you want it to end peacefully you lay off, okay?’

‘I heard you,’ Crawley says. ‘What else?’

‘We’ll speak to the governor when you can put her on, tell her what she needs to come up with. Miss Lyle and no one else. We’re not dealing with pesky screws, got that?’

‘I told you—’

‘And I’m telling you, mate. If you don’t produce her in the next hour one of these screws will be over and out. Over and out, right?’

After the sudden end of radio contact, Crawley, still deathly pale, turns to the others. ‘They’re bluffing, of course. They’d be idiots to kill a prison officer, and they know it.’

‘This place is full of idiots,’ Wendy says.

‘Who have they got?’ Bryony asks. ‘Who was doing unlock?’

Wendy checks the list. ‘Bob Vint and Charlie Rowell, two of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.’

‘Two stupid pricks, to let themselves get collared by cons,’ Crawley says. Any sympathy he might have felt for brother officers has been snuffed out by this emergency. ‘The governor will blow her top.’

‘How are you going to handle this if she doesn’t show up in the next hour?’

‘She will.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right. She’s running late already. Can we phone her?’

‘She won’t answer,’ Bryony says. ‘She wouldn’t use the mobile while she’s driving.’

Wendy tells Crawley, ‘I think you’d better prepare for a no-show.’

‘Fine fucking support you are.’

‘Do it your way, then.’

After a short silence, Crawley tries to justify his management of the emergency. ‘If the governor was here, there’s nothing she could do that I haven’t done already.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Wendy says. ‘She’d alert the Tornado team, wouldn’t she?’

Tornado is a squad of trained prison officers prepared and equipped to deal with riots. Rather than bringing in the police or the army, each prison has its own specialists capable of defusing violent protests, including hostage-taking. At any point in the day or night some of them would be on site on other duties and some at home.

‘I don’t think it’s come to that,’ Crawley says.

‘Alert them, I said. Tip them off so they’re on standby.’

‘They’re supposed to be on standby twenty-four seven.’

‘They’ll want to be informed of a serious incident as soon as possible.’

He chews the end of his thumb. ‘You could be right about that.’

‘Want me to do it?’

‘All right. Do it.’

She calls George Pitman, the Tornado team leader, a prison officer who has served with the army in Iraq. Pitman goes through the disturbance procedure with her, making sure the essentials have been acted on. When she tells him the governor hasn’t yet arrived he asks who is in charge of the control room. She tells him and after an eloquent silence he says he’ll get on the road right away.

‘Will George take over when he gets here?’ Crawley asks.

‘He’s not supposed to,’ Wendy says. ‘He’s got his work cut out leading the Tornado team.’

‘Where’s the governor, then? She’s bloody late.’

Bryony has been watching the monitors. ‘All the cameras in C wing are kaput now.’

‘How did they do that?’ Wendy asks. ‘They’re supposed to be out of reach.’

‘One guy on another’s shoulders, I expect. The grease will be butter or peanut butter.’

‘What do they really hope to get out of this?’

‘Relief from the boredom, for one thing. A sense of empowerment. And publicity. It’s a way of getting back at the system.’

Crawley twitches at the mention of publicity. ‘Who’s going to find out what goes on inside these walls? They can’t possibly escape.’

‘Get real. They’ve got smartphones. They’re smuggled into every prison in the land. They can call the media any time. Prison riot — it’s a juicy story.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘They’ll get people on the roof,’ Bryony says as if it is a done deal. ‘That’s the way it goes. Hang out some sheets with slogans on them. They’re guaranteed to make the front page that way. The tabloids really go for roof protests. They’re probably removing tiles as we speak.’

‘We don’t want that.’

‘We can’t do anything to stop it until the Tornados go in and restore order.’