then, hated the bleak hillsides and the icy, clinging rain that had soaked him to the skin and chilled him to the bone, hated the freezing streams that poured into his boots, hated the wind that froze his cheeks and hands. But now he'd give anything to be out in the open, breathing fresh air that hadn't been through the lungs of a hundred other men. 'What time is it?'
Lee squinted at his watch. 'Twenty past seven. They'll be doing roll-call soon.'
'You okay if I keep exercising?'
'Sure,' said Lee sleepily. He rolled over and put his head next to the wall.
Shepherd carried on doing press-ups, sit-ups and leg raises. He heard boots on the stairs, then inspection hatches.
It was Hamilton who opened theirs. 'Macdonald, you get to shower this morning,' he said.
Shepherd frowned. He hadn't requested a shower and it wasn't like Hamilton to offer him unnecessary privileges. He still hadn't come up with a copy of the
'You've got an appointment with the governor at eight forty-five. RSVP isn't necessary.'
The inspection hatch snapped shut. The governor had obviously been told of his presence, and Shepherd was pretty sure that he wouldn't be happy to have an undercover cop in his prison.
In an ideal world, Shepherd would have preferred that no one knew his true role. But HM Prison Shelton was not an ideal world, and there might come a time when he needed a Get Out Of Jail Free card at short notice. The governor would be his only lifeline, so, whatever his reaction, Shepherd would have to handle him carefully.
The secure corridors were filled with inmates when Hamilton took Shepherd to the governor's office. Prison officers stood at the corners of the corridors linking the various blocks. All the connecting doors were open and they watched the prisoners file past, singly and in groups. The atmosphere was relaxed as a university campus between lectures, and other than the prison uniforms and surveillance cameras there was no real sense that they were in a holding facility for the country's most dangerous criminals.
Most of the prisoners were moving from their blocks to the workshops where they spent three hours each morning. Their jobs were mundane - filling the breakfast packs, assembling Christmas crackers for a high-street chain or electrical goods, putting junk mail into envelopes for financial institutions. Lee had told Shepherd there was a small computer department that did freelance programming work but the only prisoners who could work there had degrees and programming experience. Shepherd had been surprised to hear that half a dozen long-term prisoners fulfilled the requirements; most were in for murder.
The governor's office was on the top floor of the administration block. A small outer office contained two middle-aged women, one working at a computer, the other talking on the phone. One side of the room was lined with metal filing cabinets; flow-charts and posters covered the other walls. Hamilton pointed at a plastic sofa and Shepherd sat down. He'd seen most of the posters in the reception area when he'd first been brought into the prison. How not to get Aids. The penalties for racial abuse. How to contact a Listener.
The woman on the phone put her hand over the receiver and smiled at Hamilton. 'Is that Mr Macdonald?' she asked.
Hamilton nodded.
'Mr Gosden says he's to go in,' she said.
Hamilton gestured at Macdonald to stand up, then knocked on the door to the governor's office and opened it.
John Gosden was a stocky man in his late forties, sitting behind a large teak-veneer desk with two stacks of files in wire trays, a desktop computer and a small laptop, both with modem connections. There was a tropical fish tank by the door. A couple of dozen brightly coloured fish were swimming languidly round a sunken plastic galleon and a diver with a stream of tiny bubbles fizzing out of its helmet.
'Thank you, Adrian,' the governor said to Hamilton. 'You can wait outside.' He waited until the officer had closed the door, then got up. He was a head shorter than Shepherd, but his shoulders were broader. He looked like a bodybuilder who'd given up exercising some years ago.
Shepherd thought the man was going to shake his hand, but Gosden walked over to the fish tank and picked up a container of flaked food. 'Do you keep fish, Shepherd?'
'No, Governor,' said Shepherd. 'Don't mind eating them, though.'
Gosden flashed him a cold smile, then sprinkled a small amount of food on to the surface of the water and bent down to watch the fish feed. 'An aquarium is a delicate balancing act,' he said. 'The mass of fish you can support depends on the volume of water in the tank, the surface area, and the efficiency of your aeration pump. The number of fish determines how much food you put in. If any of the variables is out of kilter, if anything is added that isn't planned for, the whole eco-system can fall apart.'
'I get the analogy, Governor,' said Shepherd. 'I don't intend to do anything to upset the equilibrium of your institution.'
'Your presence does that,' said the governor, straightening up.
'Only if the prisoners work out who I am and what I'm doing here. And they won't.'
The governor's lips were a thin, unsmiling line. 'I'm not just referring to the prisoners. The fact that I have allowed you to go undercover in my prison suggests I don't trust my people. And this place runs on trust, Mr Shepherd. It's all we have standing between order and anarchy.'
Shepherd didn't say anything. The governor must have known there was a good chance that one of his officers was helping Carpenter run his organisation from behind bars.
'I'm not happy about this, Mr Shepherd. Not happy at all.'
'I'm sorry about that,' said Shepherd. He was still standing in the centre of the room. Clearly the governor had no intention of asking him to sit down.
'Have you any idea what a dangerous position this puts me in?' the governor went on. He knocked on the side of the tank and the fish darted to the back. 'If the prisoners find out there's a policeman in their midst, there'll be a riot.'
'I think, of the two of us, I'll be the one in most danger,' said Shepherd.
'You think they'll stop with you?' said Gosden. 'If you believe that, you've no idea how a prison functions.' He snorted, then went to sit behind his desk. 'Your mission is to find out what Gerald Carpenter is up to, is that right?'
'He's sabotaging his case. We have to find out how.'
'And the presumption is that one of my people is helping him?'
Shepherd shrugged. 'I've got an open mind, Governor, but his phone conversations and mail are monitored, so that doesn't leave too many options.'
'His family. His legal teams. He has medical visits.'
'Medical visits?'
'He has a recurring back problem, which means he has a weekly visit from an osteopath. And his dentist has visited twice.'
'I thought the prison had its own medical facilities.'
'Apparently the facilities we have aren't satisfactory in view of the state of his spine or his root canals. He's got world-class lawyers, has your Mr Carpenter, and the 1998 Human Rights Act is full of helpful phrases. At one point it was starting to look as if the great Cherie Booth was going to be representing him so we decided to let him have his own way.' At last the governor waved to a chair opposite his desk. 'Sit down. Please.' He looked suddenly tired. He ran a hand across his forehead and rubbed his eye. 'Look, I'm sorry if I sound tetchy but this is a stressful job at the best of times - and I don't like being told what to do by suits who've never been within a mile of a Cat A facility.'
Shepherd sat down. 'I have to say, Governor, I'm as unhappy as you are about being here. But you've been told what Carpenter's doing - what he's already done?'
'My suggestion was that they move him to another prison. Put him in the secure unit at Belmarsh.'
'And they said?'
'That they wanted it dealt with here. Which I presume means that they suspect the leak is in-house.'
Shepherd nodded. Moving Carpenter wouldn't solve anything. If they kept him in Shelton there was a chance that they would find the bad apple in the prison and identify who on the outside was doing Carpenter's dirty work. 'You were a prison officer yourself ?' asked Shepherd. Gosden didn't seem the type to have come into the service at the top.
