The Freedom Trap

Brunskill: (sharply) Of course not.

Rollins: Did these anonymous communications indicate that the firm of Kiddykars Ltd was owned by the accused?

Brunskill: (uncomfortably) Yes.

Rollins: Is it a crime to own such a firm as Kiddykars Ltd?

Brunskill: (with ebbing patience) No.

Judge: I am not so sure. Anyone who so maltreats the English language as to arrive at so abominable a name ought to be treated as a criminal.

(Laughter in court)

Rollins: Inspector, would you not say it was true that all your work had been done for you in this case? Would you not say it was true that without these malicious communications the accused would not be standing in the dock at this moment?

Brunskill: I cannot answer that question. He would have been caught.

Rollins: Would he? I admire your certitude.

Brunskill: He would have been caught.

Rollins: But not so speedily.

Brunskill: Perhaps not.

Rollins: Would you not characterize your mysterious communicant as someone who ‘had it in’ for the accused at worst – or a common informer or stool pigeon at best?

Brunskill: (smiling) I would prefer to think of him as a public-spirited citizen.

Very funny! Mackintosh – a public-spirited citizen! But, by God, the pair of them had been infernally clever. The first time I had laid eyes on that picnic basket had been in the Kiddykars office, and I certainly hadn’t telephoned Fortnum’s. Mrs Smith had done her shopping to good effect! Nor did I own Kiddykars Ltd – not to my own knowledge; but I’d have a hell of a time proving it. They had delivered me to the law trussed up like a chicken.

There wasn’t much after that. I said my piece, futile though it was; the prosecutor tore me into shreds and Rollins half-heartedly tried to sew up the pieces again without much success. The judge summed up and, with one careful eye on the Appeal Court, directed the jury to find me guilty. They were out only for half an hour – just time enough for a much-needed smoke – and the answer was predictable.

Then the judge asked if I had anything to say, so I spoke up with just two words: ‘I’m innocent.’

Nobody took much notice of that – they were too busy watching the judge arrange his papers and gleefully anticipating how heavy he’d be. He fussed around for a while, making sure that all attention would be on him, and then he began to speak in portentous and doomladen tones.

‘Joseph Aloysius Rearden, you have been found guilty of stealing by force diamonds to the value of £173,000. It falls to me to sentence you for this crime. Before I do so I would like to say a few words concerning your part in this affair.’

I could see what was coming. The old boy couldn’t resist the chance of pontificating – it’s easy from a safe seat.

‘An Englishman is walking the streets in the course of his usual employ when he is suddenly and unexpectedly assaulted – brutally assaulted. He is not aware that he is carrying valuables which, to him, would undoubtedly represent untold wealth, and it is because of these valuables that he is attacked.

‘The valuables – the diamonds – are now missing and you, Rearden, have not seen fit to co-operate with the police in their recovery in spite of the fact that you must have known that the court would be inclined to leniency had you done so. Therefore, you cannot expect leniency of this court.

‘I have been rather puzzled by your recalcitrant attitude but my puzzlement abated when I made an elementary mathematical calculation. In the normal course of events such a crime as yours, a crime of violence such as is abhorrent in this country, coupled with the loss to the community of property worth £173,000, would be punished by the heavy sentence of fourteen years’ imprisonment. My calculation, however, informs me that for those fourteen years you would be receiving an annual income of not less than £12,350 – tax free – being the amount you have stolen divided by fourteen. This, I might add, is considerably more than the stipend of one of Her Majesty’s Judges, such as myself – a fact which can be ascertained by anyone who cares to consult Whitaker’s Almanack.

‘Whether it can be considered that the loss of fourteen years of freedom, and confinement to the hardly pleasant environs of our prisons, is worth such an annual sum is a debatable matter. You evidently think it is worthwhile. Now, it is not the function of this court to make the fees of crime worthwhile, so you can hardly blame me for endeavouring to reduce your annual prison income.

‘Joseph Aloysius Rearden, I sentence you to twenty years’ detention in such prison or prisons as the appropriate authority deems fit.’

I’d bet Mackintosh was laughing fit to bust a gut.

III

The judge was right when he referred to ‘the hardly pleasant environs of our prisons’. The one in which I found myself was pretty deadly. The reception block was crowded – the judges must have been working overtime that day – and there was a lot of waiting about apparently pointlessly. I was feeling a bit miserable; no one can stand in front of a judge and receive a twenty-year sentence with complete equanimity.

Twenty years!

I was thirty-four years old. I’d be fifty-four when I came out; perhaps a bit less if I could persuade them I was a good boy, but that would be bloody difficult in view of what the judge had said. Any Review Board I appeared before would read a transcript of the trial and the judge’s remarks would hit them like a hammer.

Twenty long years!

I stood by apathetically while the police escort read out the details of my case to the receiving officer. ‘All right,’ said the receiving officer. He signed his name in a book and tore out a sheet. ‘Here’s the body receipt.’

So help me – that’s what he said. ‘Body receipt.’ When you’re in prison you cease to be a man; you’re a body, a zombie, a walking statistic. You’re something to be pushed around like the GPO pushed around that little yellow box containing the diamonds; you’re a parcel of blood and guts that needs feeding at regular intervals, and you’re assumed not to have any brains at all.

‘Come on, you,’ said the receiving officer. ‘In here.’ He unlocked a door and stood aside while I walked in. The door slammed behind me and I heard the click of the lock. It was a crowded room filled with men of all types, judging by their clothing. There was everything from blue jeans to a bowler and striped trousers. Nobody was talking – they just stood around and examined the floor minutely as though it was of immense importance. I suppose they all felt like me; they’d had the wind knocked out of them.

We waited in that room for a long time, wondering what was going to happen. Perhaps some of us knew, having been there before. But this was my first time in an English gaol and I felt apprehensive. Maskell’s words about the unpleasant circumstances that attend the high-risk prisoner began to worry me.

At last they began to take us out, one at a time and in strict alphabetical order. Rearden comes a long way down the alphabet so I had to wait longer than most, but my turn came and a warder took me down a passage and into an office.

A prisoner is never asked to sit down. I stood before that desk and answered questions while a prison officer took down the answers like the recording angel. He took down my name, birthplace, father’s name, mother’s maiden name, my age, next-of-kin, occupation. All that time he never looked at me once; to him I wasn’t a man, I was a statistics container – he pressed a button and the statistics poured out.

They told me to empty my pockets and the contents were dumped on to the desk and meticulously recorded before being put into a canvas bag. Then my fingerprints were taken. I looked around for something with which to wipe off the ink but there was nothing. I soon found out why. A warder marched me away and into a hot, steamy room where I was told to strip. It was there I lost my clothes. I wouldn’t see them again for twenty years and I’d be damned lucky if they’d be in fashion.

After the bath, which wasn’t bad, I dressed in the prison clothing – the man in the grey flannel suit. But the cut was terrible and I’d rather have gone to Mackintosh’s tailor.

A march up another corridor led to a medical examination, a bit of bureaucratic stupidity. Why they can’t have a medical examination while a man is stripped after his bath is beyond me. However, I undressed obligingly and dressed again, and was graded for labour. I was top class – fit for anything.

Then a warder took me away again into an immense hall with tiers of cells lining the walls and with iron stairs like fire escapes. ‘I’ll tell you once,’ said the warder. ‘This is “C” Hall.’

We clanked up some stairs and along a landing and he stopped before a cell and unlocked it. ‘This is yours.’

I went inside and the door slammed with a cold sound of finality. I stood for some time, not looking at anything in particular. My brain had seized up – gone on strike. After, maybe, fifteen minutes I lay on the bed and damn near cried my eyes out.

After that I felt better and was able to bring some intelligence to bear on the situation. The cell was about twelve feet by seven, and perhaps eight feet high. The walls were distempered – institutional cream and Borstal green – and in one of them was a small barred window set high. The door looked as though it could withstand artillery fire and there was a Judas hole set in it.

The furnishing was sparse; an iron-framed bed, a wooden table and a chair, a washstand with jug, basin and chamberpot, and a bare shelf. Exploring a prison cell is one of the quickest tasks a man can set himself. Within three minutes I had checked everything there was to find – three blankets, two sheets, a lumpy mattress, another shirt, a pair of felt slippers, a thin non-absorbent towel, a spoon and a mug. Hanging on a nail in the wall by a loop of string was a copy of the Rules and Regulations governing HM Prisons together with an informational pamphlet.

Three minutes and I knew practically everything there was to know about that cell. I wondered what I was going to do for the next twenty years. Right there and then I decided I’d have to ration my curiosity – shut down the dampers on thought. There would be too much time and not enough happening, and every new experience would have to be jealously hoarded.

The walls of that prison suddenly had physical meaning. I felt them looming all about me, thick and strong. It was a claustrophobic quarter-hour before the feeling receded and I was able to stop shivering.

I immediately broke my promise about rationing curiosity by beginning to read the informational pamphlet, but that was absolutely necessary. I was a new boy in this school and the sooner I learned the ropes the better. There were too many tricks that could be played on the newcomer by the old hands and I didn’t want to fall for any of them.

It was an interesting compilation of data. I discovered that the spare shirt in the cell was to be used as a night shirt, that lights-out was ten-thirty, that the waking call was six-thirty in the morning, that I was to be issued with a razor blade to be returned after shaving. There were other helpful hints even to the point of finding a way out of prison.