The prison had been established on Ministry of Defence land on the site of an old RAF base. The original building had been added to many times over the years, each new block seemingly greyer and more depressing than the last, as though the budgets had not run to anything as flash and fancy as imagination. Acres of brick and metal loomed beyond the barrier, and coils of razor wire ran along the top of the green fence that stretched away in each direction from the main entrance.
Nadira stared, unblinking, through the wire. The wind had picked up and was coming hard and noisy across the fields of stubbled corn on either side. When she spoke, Thorne had to lean in close to hear what she was saying.
‘I can’t blame him… ’
She said something else, but Thorne lost it on the wind and it was clear enough that it was meant for no one but herself.
After another minute or so, she turned to Thorne and nodded. She had seen all she needed to see. She turned to walk back towards the waiting squad car, then, after a few steps, she stopped just for a moment and said, ‘I will try and think about what to say to Javed.’
Thorne watched the car turn round and head back towards the motorway, then got back into the BMW and drove up to the checkpoint. He was quickly waved through and directed towards the visitors’ car park, but parked in one of the staff places instead, because it was slightly closer and because he felt like it.
Then he walked towards the building where Amin Akhtar had died.
EIGHT
Roger Bracewell, the governor, was younger than Thorne had been expecting, floppy-haired and well spoken. Hugh Grant with trendy spectacles. He pushed a collection of files across the desk, bound with a thick elastic band and labelled.
A name, date of birth, prisoner number.
‘This is everything on Amin Akhtar,’ he said. ‘Admission papers, progress reports, course assessments and so on.’ He sat back from his desk. ‘I was asked to get everything together in a hurry, so… ’ He waited, as if expecting thanks or explanation, but none was forthcoming. ‘Nobody’s seen fit to let me know the reason for all the rush, but ours is not to question why, I suppose.’
Thorne lifted the files from the desk and dropped them on the floor by the side of his chair. ‘We’re investigating Amin Akhtar’s death,’ he said. ‘ Re -investigating.’ He saw no reason to explain anything to Bracewell. He did not want anyone he would be talking to at Barndale knowing what his agenda might be, besides which they would all know soon enough, when they switched on a television or opened the evening paper.
‘Right,’ Bracewell said.
The governor’s office lay at the far end of a warren of interconnected offices in the prison’s administration block. With modern furniture and venetian blinds at the windows, it was rather less imposing than some Thorne had visited. There were no antique clocks or dusty paintings of hunting scenes on the wall. There was no portrait of the Queen.
‘Horrible business,’ Bracewell said. He reached for the mug of coffee that had been brought in soon after Thorne had arrived. ‘Sure I can’t offer you some biscuits or something?’
Thorne said that he was fine. Took a sip of his own coffee.
‘Worst thing that can happen, obviously.’ Bracewell tapped at the edge of the wooden desk. ‘Thankfully we’ve got a pretty good record as far as suicides go, but it’s always a possibility. They’ll always find some way of doing it if they’re determined enough.’
‘Tell me about Amin,’ Thorne said.
Bracewell leaned back again, cradling his mug. ‘Kept himself to himself,’ he said. ‘Studied hard, did as he was asked. Stayed away from trouble.’ He pointed down to the files on the floor. ‘It’s all in there.’
‘I’ll go through them later on.’
‘We run a mentoring scheme here, something I introduced a year or so ago. We team up the more trusted of the older boys with some of the younger ones who look like they might be having a problem adjusting. A buddy system, if you want to call it that. Amin was certainly one of those I would have asked to do some mentoring for me.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Not much point as he was moving on.’
‘Over there?’ Thorne nodded towards the window, the building a hundred yards away on the other side of a large, well-maintained courtyard. Barndale was a split-site prison, with three separate estates whose inmates were divided by age. The Juvenile site, where Amin Akhtar had been held, housed boys between fifteen and eighteen. The population was fed from a Secure Training Unit holding younger boys and itself fed directly on to the Young Offenders Institution for those aged eighteen to twenty-one. The three sites had different governors and management teams, but while each prison was autonomous, key members of staff moved between them on a regular basis and they shared sports facilities, a reception area and a hospital wing.
‘No,’ Bracewell said. ‘He was being transferred.’
‘Where?’
‘He wanted to do an A-level course in Pure Maths, whatever that is, and unfortunately we don’t do an awful lot beyond woodwork here. He’d applied to do the course at a YOI in the East Midlands. Long Minster?’
Thorne shook his head. He didn’t know it. ‘Anyway, I was happy to approve the application despite some stupidly strong opposition from the Youth Justice Board, and he was scheduled to be transferred… some time this month, I think.’
Thorne made a note of it. ‘He was doing well here,’ Bracewell said.
‘And I can’t say that for too many of the boys. He spent almost all his time on our Gold wing, with better rooms and extra privileges and so on, and presuming things had carried on the same way he would probably have been looking at an open prison well before his sentence was up.’ Bracewell smiled and shook his head. ‘Tragically, all speculation now of course.’
‘It’s very helpful.’
‘Is it?’
‘Building up a picture of him, you know?’
The governor nodded and looked at Thorne. ‘Well, I’d certainly have been sorry to see him go.’
‘But you still approved his move?’
‘Because it was the best thing for him, and it was what he wanted.’
‘So why was the Youth Justice Board opposed to it?’
‘Well, I suppose it would have been a little further from his family than he was here, but sometimes these pen-pushers who allocate placements just like to try and make things awkward, if you ask me. I’m sure you’ve met the type.’
Thorne said that he’d met plenty. That it sounded like a detective chief superintendent of his acquaintance. He glanced at the white-board behind Bracewell’s desk. Various headings had been scribbled: Re-offending Rates; Justification for Remand; Age/Offence/Ethnicity. At the bottom of the board, somewhat incongruously, it said, Buy milk, eggs, smoothies.
‘How did he end up in the hospital wing?’ Thorne asked.
Bracewell shrugged. ‘Looked at someone for a few seconds too long. Or someone didn’t like the fact that he was awarded certain privileges for good behaviour. Sometimes these kids don’t need any reason at all.’
‘What happened?’
‘Someone walked into his cell and slashed his face. In and out, no sign of a weapon.’
‘You had a damn good look though.’
‘We followed all the normal search procedures.’
Thorne nodded. The sharpness of the governor’s response had probably been justified. Thorne knew how hard it was to find any weapon, when a boy determined enough could fashion one from almost anything that came to hand.
