how it runs and to see how well you're all cared for.' He smiled sardonically.
A murmur rose that was quickly silenced.
Nicholson paused for a moment theatrically.
'The members of this delegation will be speaking to a number of prisoners. Asking about conditions, etcetera.' He looked around the upturned faces. 'You may speak to them if you wish. Help them with their questions. You may have some questions for them. If you have any problems or grievances, you're quite free to tell them.'
'Yeah,' murmured Porter. 'And get our fucking heads busted by the screws when they've gone.'
Swain took a step towards him, shooting him a warning glance.
'If any of you have any problems, at any time, you know you are free to speak to the officers in charge of your landing or to me personally,' Nicholson continued.
There was another babble of chatter, and this time it took longer to quieten.
Nicholson looked around once more. His green eyes, like chips of emerald, caught the light and reflected it coldly. He brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve as he waited for the silence he required. Finally satisfied, he continued.
'I want this prison running perfectly for these visitors,' he said. 'I want co-operation between you and the officers. I want the cells spotless. I want them to be impressed by what they see. I don't like people meddling in the way I run-this prison and that's what they're doing. Meddling. I want them to leave here, knowing that this prison is well run and that its inmates are being adequately dealt with. I don't expect them to leave here with a catalogue of stories about what a terrible place Whitely is. As I said, you may speak to them if you wish. That is your prerogative. But bear in mind that if they hear too many bad reports, they'll disrupt the way I run this prison. And I don't like disruptions. I hope that's understood.' He looked around him, then smoothed his hair back once more. 'That's all.'
Nicholson and his officers turned and moved away from the landing rail, out of sight of the other prisoners.
On all the landings the inmates were allowed back inside their cells.
'Breakfast in twenty minutes, get a move on,' said Warder Swain, slamming the door shut behind Robinson and Porter.
'Suck this,' rasped Porter, holding his penis in one fist. 'Fucking cunt.'
Both men started to dress, taking it in turns to wash as best they could in the small sink perched on the cell wall.
'I wonder if anyone will be stupid enough to tell this bunch of do-gooders the truth?' Robinson mused, drying his face.
'Are you joking?' Porter muttered, fastening his grey overall. 'Even the screws wouldn't tell them anything. They're more frightened of Nicholson than most of the cons in here.'
Robinson nodded in agreement.
'A tour of the prison, eh?' he said, smiling. 'I wonder what they'll make of our humble little home.'
'Probably want to move in with us,' Porter quipped. He crossed to his locker and took out a comb, running it through his short black hair. The inside of the locker was a mosaic of photos: naked women, a team picture of Liverpool FC and a couple of postcards all vied for attention. He blew a kiss to one of the women, then closed the locker again.
Robinson was sitting on the edge of the upper bunk. 'I'll tell you one thing, Rod,' he said, 'and I'll bet money on it. There's at least one part of this nick they won't see. Nicholson will make sure of that.'
FORTY-THREE
The office was large, functional rather than welcoming. Efficiency was the keyword. It was a place of work, after all, thought Peter Nicholson, and it had been his place of work for the last sixteen years. He'd seen many changes in the penal system as a whole and Whitely in particular during his days as Governor at the prison. The changes since he first began working in the service had been radical, to say the least. He'd begun back in the fifties as a prison officer. He'd served his early years in Wandsworth. In fact, he'd been one of two warders who had escorted Derek Bentley from the condemned cell to the hangman on January 28 1953. Bentley had been sentenced to hang because his accomplice, Christopher Craig, despite having fired the shot that killed a policeman, had been too young for the rope.
After Wandsworth Nicholson had moved around from prison to prison, serving his time as surely as any of the inmates in those institutions. The difference was that he could go home at the end of every shift. He had an increasingly long key chain to show for his years of service.
His enthusiasm for his work and his intelligence had led to him being appointed Assistant Governor at Wormwood Scrubs. From there it had been only a matter of time until he was given his own prison.
Whitely was all he knew and had known for the last sixteen years.
The penal system he worked in was not the only thing that had changed during Nicholson's time. His own attitude had hardened, too. He'd originally joined the service after his mother had been attacked and beaten almost to death in 1950. He felt that he was acting, by proxy, for her and all victims of crime like her in his role as gaoler. And that was exactly how he viewed his job. He didn't see his task as correcting the ways of men who had strayed into crime and needed help; he and his warders existed to protect society from the kind of human garbage locked within the walls of Whitely.
He stood up, glancing across at the photograph of his wife on the desk. The image smiled back at him as he straightened the frame. He moved over to the window of his office and looked out.
He could see into the empty exercise yard. Beyond it, protected by a high stone wall, was a small chapel in the grounds of which were a number of graves, each one marked by a simple marble marker; some were actually decorated by headstones or crosses. They bore the names of prisoners who had died at Whitely. Men who, with no family on the outside, had nowhere else to rest. Even in death they were confined within the walls of the prison.
A couple of inmates were picking up leaves from around the graves, sweeping them into a large black sack. The skeletal trees that grew close to the chapel rattled their branches in the wind, which whipped across the open ground.
The closest town of any size to the prison was over twelve miles away, across barren land now unfit even for farming. The remains of an open-caste mine, shut down over a decade earlier, lay to the west.
A single road, holed and pockmarked, connected the prison's main gates to a small tarmac road which wound through the hills and moors like a dry tongue in search of water.
The wind rattled the window in its frame but Nicholson remained where he was, keeping vigil, gazing out over his empire.
The buzzer on his intercom interrupted his thoughts.
He turned and flipped a switch.
'The warders you asked to see are here, Mr Nicholson,' his secretary told him.
'Send them in,' he instructed her.
A moment later the door opened and five men in uniforms trooped in. Nicholson motioned to them to take a seat. He leant on his desk top, waiting until the last of them was seated, then stood upright again, pulling himself up to his full six feet. He looked an imposing figure.
'You know what this is about,' he said curtly. 'I want to be sure that everything runs smoothly when this blasted delegation gets here tomorrow. Any hint of trouble, I want it stamped on.' He looked at each man in turn.
'Will you be showing them round yourself, sir?' asked John Niles.
Nicholson nodded.
'How many are there?' Raymond Douglas wanted to know.
'Four. One woman.'
