uniform with the patchwork of blue and yellow squares. He was walking on his own, looking through the wire mesh to the perimeter wall in the distance. Shepherd went over to him. 'How's it going?' he asked.
Davenport was in his early twenties, stick-thin and with a rash of acne across his forehead.
'I'm Bob Macdonald,' said Shepherd.
'The guy that shot the cops. Yeah, heard about you.'
'One cop, and I didn't pull the trigger. You're the guy they caught on the Eurostar.'
Davenport chuckled. 'Nah, I went round to see my girlfriend and the cops were there waiting for me. You can't believe anything you hear inside.'
'Everyone's innocent for a start,' said Shepherd. 'There's not a guilty man in here.'
Davenport giggled like a schoolboy.
'They say you escaped from Brixton,' Shepherd went on.
'Maybe.'
'Did you?'
'That's what they say.'
'Think you could get out of here?'
Davenport giggled again. 'It's escape-proof, this place. Didn't they tell you that?'
'If it's escape-proof, why do they make you wear that gear?'
Davenport looked down at his colourful clothing. 'To punish me - make me look like a twat.'
'It'd make them look like twats, if you did get out.'
Davenport snorted, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His fingernails were bitten to the quick. 'Yeah, that'd show them, wouldn't it?'
'So?'
Davenport shrugged. 'Can't be done.'
'Because?'
Davenport looked at him as if he was stupid. 'Because it's escape-proof.'
'Yeah, well, they said the
'Great movie, wasn't it? That Kate whatsername, I'd give her one.' Davenport started to walk round the yard, his trouser hems scuffing the Tarmac.
Shepherd hurried after him. 'You got over the wall at Brixton, right?'
'They say.'
'Made a ladder in the workshops.'
Davenport giggled again. 'Made it in bits, I did. We made crutches and walkers. You know, those things old folks shuffle about on. I made two walkers that could be taken apart and reassembled with four crutches as a ladder. Went up on to the roof of the workshop, legged it to the wall, up, over and away.'
'What about CCTV?'
'They had it but nobody watched the screens during the day, not when we were working. No point, right? That was the weakness in the system. They thought that because they had cameras covering all the walls nobody would climb over in broad daylight. But the screws in the coms room spent most of their time reading the papers and nattering on about the footie. They had fifty-odd cameras but only six monitors so most of the time the section of the wall I was going over wasn't even on screen.'
'What about when you were on the other side?'
'I legged it.'
'That was it?'
They'd worked their way round the exercise yard and were back at the entrance. Davenport didn't speak until they were out of earshot of Hamilton. 'I wasn't wearing gear like this. I had regular denims on. Just walked to a phone box and called my brother. He drove to south London and picked me up.'
'Could you do it here? Get over the wall?'
'You can't get to the wall. End of story.'
'But if you did?'
'That's an anti-climbing device on the top,' said Davenport, pointing to the top of the wall. 'You can't get a grip on it.'
'Tunnelling out?'
Davenport laughed. 'You've been watching too many prisoner-of-war movies, you have. That wall's thirty feet high. But it goes down thirty feet below ground, too. You can't go over or under. But like I said, you can't even get to the wall, that's the beauty of the design.'
He pointed at a wire fence some six metres away from the wall, topped with razor wire. 'Before you get to the wall, you have to get through or over the wire fence. That's got motion sensors so sensitive that a strong wind can set them off. Between the wire fence and the wall is what they call the sterile area. Inside there are microwave detectors and motion-sensitive cameras.' He grinned. 'You know it's the same design they used in Belmarsh, where they keep all the terrorists?'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah. Four blocks, all linked by a secure corridor. The only way in and out of each block is through the corridor. Every time a prisoner's in the secure corridor, there's an officer with him. And the corridor's covered by CCTV. The officers can open all the doors in the blocks, and all the doors in the secure corridor, but the door out of the corridor is monitored by the control room at the main entrance. If they don't press the button, the door won't open. And they won't press the button until they've checked the CCTV.'
That meant that there was no way of breaking out of the secure corridor, Shepherd thought. Which meant there was no way of getting to the wall. Even if a prison officer was being held hostage and his keys taken, the ones at the gate would simply refuse to open the door.
'That's the way it works in a Cat A,' said Davenport. 'In a Cat A you're escorted everywhere, in a Cat B you're watched everywhere, in a Cat C you have freedom within the walls, and by the time you get to a Cat D, you're practically on the out. You want to know the best way to get out? Keep your nose clean and play the system. Go from here to a Cat B and then a Cat C and by the time you're Cat D you'll be going home one day every fortnight.'
'I was hoping you'd be more creative, Justin.'
'This place was built to be escape-proof,' he said. 'You know I'm on the twos, right?'
Shepherd had seen him coming out of a cell on the other side of the landing from his own.
'All escape-risk prisoners are put in the twos in Shelton- so that we can't dig up or down. Now, how stupid is that? We're observed through the spyglass every hour, right? So how can anyone dig in here? And what would you dig with? We're searched everywhere we go, right? And even if I was to dig my way out, where would I be? I'd be in the secure corridor, which means I'm under CCTV surveillance. And, like I said, you can't go over the wall or under it.' He turned away and lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Hamilton's watching us. Careful, everyone I speak to gets written up.'
Davenport walked away. Shepherd touched his toes and sneaked a look between his legs at the entrance to the exercise yard. The officer watched Davenport for a few seconds, then began patting someone down.
Shepherd swung his arms round, then jogged on the spot. Bill Barnes walked over, grinning. 'You're full of beans,' he said, took out a packet of Silk Cut and lit a cigarette with a disposable lighter.
Shepherd stopped jogging. He wanted to be on his own. He wanted to think. He wanted to be able to let out all the anger that was building up inside him, but he couldn't. He had to stay in his role. He was Bob Macdonald, armed robber and hard man. He couldn't show any emotion, any weakness. 'You told me you sold stolen watches, but I heard you were a cat burglar,' he said.
'Never stole a pussy in my life,' said Barnes.
'But you climb through windows, yeah?'
'It's been known.'
'Could you climb out of here?'
Barnes looked at him. 'What the fuck are you talking about?'
'This is my first time inside. I'm just putting out a few feelers.'
Barnes thrust his head closer to Shepherd's. 'You're talking about getting out?'
'I'm just considering my options.'
