Left alone, he’d turned on the inbuilt speaker out of curiosity. He soon understood he was listening to a prisoner interviewing a poet who was running a workshop in the prison library that afternoon. It didn’t take long to discover he was listening to Razor Wireless, a radio station run by prisoners. Apparently, Wednesday was Wide Awake Day, when the theme was creativity and educational opportunities. It was clear that although official resources were limited, the inmates had drawn on their own skills to extend their opportunities, from plumbing to cookery. As Tony listened, he started to feel a faint thrill of possibility.
He knew better than to rock up at the radio station without anyone to vouch for him. It had taken him a few days of asking around among the least hostile faces in the canteen and the library, but at last he’d managed to track down Kieran, a twenty-seven-year-old serving three years for, in his words, ‘a shitload of burglaries’.
How had he got involved, Tony wondered. ‘I liked listening to Razor, but I thought the show they were doing about fitness was way too specialised. I like to stay in shape, but all they were talking about was using the equipment in the gym. Now, the kit they’ve got in here isn’t that brilliant to start with, but the big problem is there’s just not enough to go round. Plus a lot of guys, they’re not in shape to start with and they’re not all that keen on trying to work out beside the gym bunnies,’ Kieran explained. ‘And then you’ve got the top dogs and their bitches thinking the gym belongs to them.’
It was more than Tony needed to know, but he understood better than most the value of letting people talk. ‘I know what you mean. I’d feel like a complete wuss beside half the lads in here.’
‘That’s ’cos you are. So I came up with this fitness routine that you can follow in your cell. Dead straightforward stretches and resistance exercises, plenty of reps to build a bit of muscle. Make you a bit more buff.’ He reached out and gripped Tony’s bicep. ‘You could do with a bit of that, Tony.’ He chuckled and rolled his shoulders, showing off his own shape.
‘I’ll check it out. So you just went along and asked to put on a programme?’
Keiran nodded. ‘The guys got me to do a run-through for them, made a few suggestions, then they gave me a weekly ten-minute slot. People liked it, so now I do fifteen minutes three times a week. I had to learn all the other stuff as well – how to do the technical shit like sound engineers do on the BBC and all that. Why are you so interested? You want to tell us all about the serial killers you’ve put away? Give us the inside track? Mind of a murderer, kind of thing?’
‘All that’s ancient history for me now. There’s no way I’ll ever get near a murder investigation again.’
Keiran sniggered. ‘Not now you’ve been on the other end of it. But I’ll bet you’ve got some cracking stories to tell.’
‘I’m thinking about something a bit different. You want to get people fit. I want to help them change their lives in other ways. So, can you get me an introduction?’
‘Sure. Come along with me on Wednesday morning when I’m doing my show. That’s the best day, there’s a bunch of us in then to plan out the rest of the week.’
Wednesday arrived and he found himself standing against the wall in a crowded little room filled with radio equipment and half a dozen men who looked like a random selection from the Grayson Street stand at a Bradfield Victoria game. And not just because they were all white, in startling contrast to the general prison population. A couple were shaven-headed, tattoos decorating their arms and creeping up their necks. One looked like a science teacher, glasses slipping down his nose, fiddling with a screwdriver and a connector of some sort. Another – thirties, neat haircut, watchful eyes, big shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch – would have fitted in perfectly in Bradfield Metropolitan Police canteen. Kieran introduced Tony to the man who clearly ran the room.
‘Spoony, this is Tony. He’s—’
‘Yeah, I know. The shrink. We got no couches in here, Doc. And we’re already shrunk down to nothing by the system. So what d’you want with us?’ Spoony cocked his head, making the tendons in his neck stand out. He was tall and lean, the arms sticking out of his T-shirt resembling an anatomical drawing – here a muscle, there a tendon, here a vein. His face reminded Tony of a tropical bird; all big eyes and hooked nose over a small mouth and a receding chin.
‘I want to make a programme.’
Spoony scoffed. The two shaven heads folded their arms across their bellies and laughed. Tweedledum and Tweedledummer. ‘Just like that? You think you’re something special, just because you made a bit of a name for yourself on the outside?’
