The line went dead. The officer smiled to himself. Five hundred quid for passing on a message. Easy money.
Shepherd heard the cell door open. It was Lloyd-Davies. Lee was standing at the washbasin as jittery as a racehorse waiting for the off. 'Association,' she said. Lee slipped out of the door.
Lloyd-Davies entered the cell and stood looking at Shepherd. He lay on his back, his hands behind his neck. 'What's wrong, Macdonald?' she asked.
'I'm fine,' said Shepherd.
'Legal problems?' she asked.
'Everything's fine.' Hamilton must have told her how he'd reacted after the visit from Hargrove.
'Do you want to talk to a Listener? I can send Ed Harris along.'
'I'm fine,' said Shepherd. 'Really.'
'Everyone has their ups and downs,' said Lloyd-Davies. 'The trick is not to bottle up the bad stuff. Talk it through with someone. No one expects you to open up to us, but the Listeners are on your side.'
'Nobody's on my side,' said Shepherd, but he regretted the words as soon as they'd left his mouth. Far better to say nothing.
'Do you want to see the doc?'
'I'm fine, ma'am. I just want to be left alone.'
Lloyd-Davies stood at the end of his bunk for a few seconds more, then left the cell.
Shepherd closed his eyes. All he could think about was Sue. Memories whirled through his mind. Holidays they'd taken. Meals they'd eaten. Arguments they'd had. Films they'd watched. And alongside the memories was the aching certainty that they were in the past and that he'd never hold or talk to her again. They were constant reminders that everything to do with Sue was in the past. Finished. Over.
His future now lay with his son. So why was he still in a cell, surrounded by scum who didn't care whether he lived or died? Why hadn't he just walked out with Hargrove? Even now all he had to do was walk down to the phones and play his Get Out of Jail Free card. One call and he'd be out with his son, where he was needed. Where he belonged.
'Shit, shit, shit.' He clenched his fist and pounded the side of his right hand against the cell wall, relishing the pain. He deserved to be hurt. He'd failed Sue: he hadn't been with her in the car. When they were together she always let him drive, and if he'd been at the wheel maybe the accident wouldn't have happened. Maybe she'd still be alive. 'Shit, shit, shit.'
He sat up and swivelled round so that he was sitting with his back to the wall. Lee had stuck pictures from magazines on the wall opposite - landscapes, forests, desert scenes, a sailboat on an ocean, all the vistas that were denied him on the inside. They were denied to Shepherd, too, but he was keeping himself behind bars. He knew why he hadn't bailed out, why he hadn't told Hargrove that the operation was terminated. Because he wanted to beat Carpenter. It was war, and he was going to do whatever it took to win.
Shepherd heard an officer shouting that association was over, and a few minutes later Lee appeared at the open cell door. 'You're wanted at the bubble,' he said.
'For what?' Shepherd asked.
'Didn't say. Stafford told me to get you down there now.'
'Tell them to go and fuck themselves.'
'What's up with you today?'
'I just want to be left alone.'
'Yeah, well, telling Tony Stafford to go fuck himself is going to get you all the peace and quiet you want,' said Lee. 'They'll send up the mufti squad and you'll be dragged off to solitary. Cardboard furniture and no toilet seat and they put stuff in your food to keep you quiet.'
Shepherd sat up and took a deep breath. He had to get back into character. No matter what had happened on the outside, as far as the Shelton population was concerned he was Bob Macdonald, career criminal and hard man, and if he strayed outside that role he risked blowing the operation.
He walked slowly along the landing. Healey was standing by the door and opened it as Shepherd walked up. He gestured for him to step out of the spur. 'What's up?' asked Shepherd.
'Don't you mean 'What's up, Mr Healey'?' said the prison officer. Stafford was watching from the bubble.
'Forget it,' said Shepherd.
'Any more of your lip and I'll put you on report, Macdonald.'
Shepherd ignoredhim andwalkedover to the entrance of the control office. 'Mr Stafford, Prison Officer Healey is refusing to tell me why I'm being taken from my cell.'
'Just do as you're told, Macdonald,' said Stafford.
'Prison rule six paragraph two,' said Shepherd. ''In the control of prisoners, officers shall seek to influence them through their own example and leadership, and to enlist their willing co-operation.' Seems to me that as a way of enlisting my co-operation, I should be told where I'm being taken.'
Stafford sighed. 'Governor wants to see you.'
'Because?'
'That's for him to tell you.' Stafford turned his back.
'Come on, Macdonald,' said Healey. 'I don't have all day.'
Shepherd figured that the governor wanted to talk to him about Sue's death. It was the last thing he wantedto discuss, but he knew he had no choice. Lee was right: refusing to comply would mean he'd be thrown into solitary.
Healey escorted Shepherd along the secure corridor to the governor's office, and waited outside while one of the secretaries took him in. The door had barely closed behind him before the governor was out of his seat, pointing an accusing finger at him. 'Just what the hell are you playing at?' asked the governor.
'What?' said Shepherd. He'd expected empty words of comfort, not a verbal attack.
'I thought going undercover meant adopting a low profile. Blending in. Now I find you've put half the bloody spur in hospital.'
Realisation dawned. The governor was talking about Jurczak, Needles and Dreadlocks.
'Nothing to do with me,' said Shepherd. He had no choice but to lie. If he admitted he'd assaulted three prisoners the governor would have the perfect excuse to call an end to the operation. And even if he didn't have the authority to have Shepherd taken out of Shelton, he could make his position untenable with just a word in the wrong ear.
'Please don't insult my intelligence, DC Shepherd,' said Gosden. 'I've a man with a broken leg, another who's been cut to ribbons, and a third with broken teeth, kidney damage and a punctured leg. Any one of those cases could get you seven years in here for real.'
'Has any of the men said I attacked them?'
'Don't play games with me, DC Shepherd. You've been in here long enough to know how it works. But the word is out. You're the new hard man on the spur.'
Shepherd shook his head. 'That's not what happened.'
'Then perhaps you'd care to enlighten me.' Gosden sat down behind his desk and picked up a pencil. He tapped it against a metal filing tray.
Shepherd stared at him. The man was presiding over an institution in which the inmates appeared to be in charge, where jobs were allocated by prisoners rather than officers, and where a drug-dealer was able to run his operation unhindered. 'I haven't done anything that hasn't been necessary to resolve this case,' said Shepherd.
'I doubt that your orders include assaulting prisoners,' said Gosden.
Shepherd took a deep breath. There was no way he could explain to the governor that his sole reason for hurting Jurczak was to get the man's place on the cleaning crew. Or that his attack on Needles and Dreadlocks had been a pre-emptive strike and that he'd been in no immediate danger. The governor was a career civil servant, and while he had once worked at the sharp end of the prison service he now dealt with inmates from behind a desk. He'd read the file on Gerald Carpenter, but that didn't mean he knew the man or understood what he was capable of. And that sometimes the end really did justify the means.
'Please don't give me any bullshit about not being able to make an omelette without cracking a few skulls,' added Gosden.
