Scene Twenty-Nine

Muttering under his breath, John Wade finally edged his immaculately maintained BMW into the only very tight space outside HMP Larkhall. The visitor's parking place was whatever was left after the staff had parked their cars. He got out of his car, grasping hold of his shiny black briefcase, wondering about the variety of female lowlifes that he might encounter, the Mr. Plods that he would be reliant on and especially this Fenner character. He faced a ridiculously long walk past the clapped out cars, which were lined up outside this crumbling Victorian ruin. His first experience at the gate was not encouraging, especially being used to lording his professional authority over a grateful deferential client.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I must ask you to empty your briefcase, for security reasons."

"I beg your pardon?" he answered in haughty, astonished tones, indicating that the last thing he intended was begging for anything, quite the reverse. "Do you know just who I am? In my time, I've represented wealthy industrialists and Her Majesty's Government."

"I apologise but rules is rules and I've got the governor to account to if I don't follow them. It's more than my job's worth not to."

"Do you think I'd let some jumped up little traffic warden type tell me what to do?"

"Have it your own way," Ken finally replied, starting to lose his patience." John Wade, eh? We once had a prisoner here called Nikki Wade. No relation, I suppose?"

"Of course not," lied the man, flushing in anger and embarrassment while Ken looked at the guy with shrewder eyes than he was given credit for." Look here, just to keep the peace, here's my briefcase," John Wade said, ungraciously thrusting the case into the man's hands.

Ken studiously searched the briefcase, not hurrying the task too much and sensing the bottled up irritation. He phoned up and was thankful that Selena Geeson, one of the keen young prison officers, was to take him off his hands. This pompous idiot was now someone else's problem.

He couldn't help wincing at the oppressive sense of dinginess about the place and having to be let through the sequences of barred gates. Surely, the prisoners were supposed to be locked up, not visitors. He glanced at the women who approached him and flinched at the suggestive looks that the two skinny blond-haired scrubbers, dressed in short skirts and skimpy tops. Worst of all, an older woman, dressed in leather trousers and jacket and hawk like face stared threateningly at him.

"So who's this new talent on the block, eh?"

The man was staggered that the prison officer just smiled at this cheeky woman and didn't slap down this impertinent woman.

"As it happens, I'm a solicitor and I'll thank you to treat me with respect," he said stiffly.

"Respect, eh?" she said, holding up her hands in an expression of peacemaking. "I don't do respect unless it's earned. If I come across a straight down the line guy, well that's different," said this woman with a playful smile, which he found unsettling. He wasn't used to coming across forceful women like this.

"Yeah, you're in the second oldest profession in the world. Rip people off something rotten, don't you," said the more forceful of the two other women.

"Just find this Jim Fenner for me. I'm an extremely busy man," he said stiffly.

"Come on, Yvonne and Julies, let this visitor pass," Selena said in crisp tones though inwardly, she was disgusted that this solicitor was helping out this slimeball. She could sense the women's playfulness could turn abruptly to anger given half a chance, and she wanted to get him out of the way and fast.

"I shouldn't be subjected to this sexual innuendo. I read in the Daily Mail that prisons are slapdash and this confirms my opinion."

"You have to learn where to draw the line. I'll call your client on my mobile phone and find you an interview room."

Selena drew out her brick sized mobile phone, intoned her message and the various call signs and led the way to a green painted door. She declined to answer the criticism as it was obvious that this man didn't have a clue about real life, however he might pride himself on being Superlawyer. The smart, attractive woman opened up the room to this unbelievably poky hole, with nothing but a hardwood chair that looked totally uncomfortable and a shabby wooden desk. These were totally primitive conditions and left him barely enough space to spread out his papers. He made a mental note to consider lodging a formal complaint as to his general treatment.

He was drumming his fingers on the tabletop, bored out of his skull when his client finally entered the room and they exchanged the usual pleasantries. This Jim Fenner had a reassuringly firm handshake, and was averagely presentable with a suggestion of a military bearing in his manner. He spoke with just the right note of deference to his status as a solicitor. John Wade was becoming reassured by this man's modest demeanour and appearance of solid reliability. It came back to him how many years ago, his father had given him a guided tour of the ship that he had commanded and the memories had now resurfaced. In recognizing the same kind of military environment, it struck him that even if Jim Fenner wasn't quite officer material he would go down very well in the seaman's mess. He was very sure of the people he met in his daily life and could sum them up at a glance, even if he had never been told anything about them.

"Mind if I smoke? It's an occupational habit. "

"Go ahead," the other man said. Necessity is the mother of invention, he thought sourly to himself. "I assume you know why I wanted to see you."

"Someone said something about Karen Betts going up on trial for knocking down that unfortunate pedestrian but I don't see where I fit in."

"In the statement Karen Betts made to the police statement, she claimed that right before she left Larkhall she had a pretty big row with you over some file she'd got on your malpractice and she was going to expose you."

"Ah yes, I see what you're driving at. You want evidence of her state of mind. Well, I could help out," Fenner answered, a look of enlightenment in his eye.

"Were you in any way close to her?"

"What do you mean close?" Fenner said through narrowed eyes.

"I would have thought it was obvious," the other man said, a touch of irritation in his voice." Do you mean friendship or were you in a relationship with her?"

"Yeah, we were close once," Fenner said in a lowered, apparently philosophical tone of voice. "We lived together for awhile and planned on getting married, but it didn't work out. Working at this place, doing long hours, funny shifts doesn't do relationships a lot of good."

"Did she have any resentment towards you?"

This man reflected awhile, and John Wade gave him credit for not speaking straightaway. He knew from his own experience that exposing your feelings to a stranger was somehow indecent.

"It's difficult to say. There's bound to be unpleasantness. It's only human nature. Working together twenty four seven doesn't help."

John prided himself in gradually wearing down the man's obvious shyness and reticence so that, after a while, he started talking freely. It was his magic touch, he thought to himself, and he felt he had got to the bottom of the case. This woman had trumped up some sort of case against him, they had a falling out and she stormed off in a rage. He could picture it all so vividly. It was one of those thousand to one coincidences that he'd been captured on CCTV film just when that car had pulled in and had been dumped.

"You know that the finger of suspicion might be pointed at you. You know that the best form of defence is attack," John Wade warned him.

"You get that sort of thing all the time. One of the cons, sorry I mean, inmates, got deranged and got the mad idea that I'd raped her. I go into her cell one night and she tricks me into getting closer than I like with women prisoners, gets out a broken bottle and stabs me in the stomach. I was lucky in having a good doctor on the premises or else I would have been a goner."

"Good Lord, I wonder you came back to work here after that experience." John Wade exclaimed in horrified tones. This story came far too close to home and his sympathies went out to this man. He was one of those unsung heroes you didn't get to hear of that toiled in the background after the prisoner had been sent down in the full glare of publicity. He obviously didn't want to parade his heroism for all to see but the quiet throwaway manner that he told his story was very revealing.

"I learned to cope and come through the other side. You learn to get through this sort of thing when you've been in the service as long as I have."

"I must say, I take my hat off to you."

The man hesitated as if he had a lot on his mind and had to think about just how to phrase it.

"…………About this court case, I'll have to think this over, you understand."

"I wouldn't want to push you. The choice is yours but my opinion is that you'll make a credible witness. By beating off the attack that would undoubtedly be made in your absence, it will make our case stick," John Wade replied in confident tones.

"Have you been in court before, Jim?" he asked after a reflective pause.

"I've seen the inside of a courtroom before a number of times and occasionally given evidence. I know the drill."

"That's good as at least you'd be prepared if you do agree to be a witness. In that case, I'd run over the case with you in more detail."

They shook hands on the semi deal and just when they left the cell, a thought crossed Fenner's mind.

"I'm sorry but I didn't quite catch your name earlier on."

"My name's John Wade," the other man said while Yvonne and the Julies glared at him.

The response appeared to startle the other man. It was a funny coincidence. No, it couldn't be possible, he thought, as he shook his head.

He went to escort the man to the gates himself to turn everything over in his mind. He knew that while he'd smooth talked his way through this interview, court would be tougher. Even as he had spoken to the brief, he was inclining to go for it but needed the evening to make the final decision. He might blag his way through this one, the same way he had done in every tight corner he had found himself in. He also knew that his guarantee of safety was to make sure that if anyone went down, it wouldn't be him but Betts. His cold sense of looking after number one dictated this.

********

Deep in his lair, Grayling sat alone in his office, holding his head in his hands as a headache clamped his head in a vice. He had been desperate to get rid of that thorn in his side, Karen Betts who perpetually disagreed with and blocked his favourite ideas. He had half suspected that she had worked discreetly behind the scenes when that ghastly sit in started off in the middle of his planned PR triumph in launching Lynford Securities which had ended up sinking his career plan. He had been so determined, to be rid of her, and as part of the deal, he was stuck with the useless, ineffective and spiteful Di Barker. The only alternative had been Jim Fenner and his vision of the man in the job worked out very differently in practice as he found out how conniving the man was.

He'd been spooked by the visit by the very dangerously astute Ms Wade who's parried his best ploys and her sure knowledge of the wing made him feel uncomfortably naked. His nerves had been on edge wondering what was going to drop through the post not knowing from what direction the blow might fall. The final straw was when his sensitive antenna told him that a solicitor had come to interview Jim Fenner. Logic told him that, if it was about the forthcoming Karen Betts trial, was there a possibility that he had something to do with the trial? He just hoped that the wretched file of Karen Betts had been put through the shredder as it was supposed to be. Surely the simplest action like this must have been carried out properly? The worst of it was that he wasn't totally sure if he was backing the right horse. This was a concern that had dominated his entire life.

********

When Fenner finally got home that night, he made an excuse to go to the loo while he let the very cloying Di Barker cook a traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for them both. She never knew when to shut up grumbling about everything, but he didn't want her trying to get inside his head either. He let no one do that to him, ever. Only on his own did he feel secure.

His thought had been churning away all afternoon beneath the lid of outward cold control and now, when he was on his own, they poured out in a stream of internal consciousness. What wound him up was that, up till a month ago, everything had been going smoothly in his life. He had finally packed off Betts safely on her way to the inside of a women's nick, or so the police who had come to drag her off the wing had led him to expect. That had given him total control over the wing, as Di Barker was just a figurehead boss, not a real one. Even Atkins had kept her head down and Hedges had been safely under his thumb. It was Wade's 'inspection' that started the rot in nosing around things that didn't concern her and stirring everyone up. It kicked off a run of disturbing events, the most recent being beaten up by that old man who was kipping at Stewart and Wade's flat. He'd given the lads at work the old flannel about falling down a flight of stairs but he wasn't sure if they believed him. Finally Betts's mad escapade of taking snapshots of him got him really worked up. She should have drowned herself in her favourite bottle of whisky but instead was acting far too cocky for his liking.

Suddenly, all his fears and paranoiacs burst to the surface in the visual form of his enemies, Wade, Stewart and Betts. All too easily, he could picture them all laughing at him and plotting to bring him down. He suddenly fumbled in his inside jacket pocket, brought out the pill bottle, flipped open the top and greedily took a couple of the tranquillizers. He knew full well that he was in danger of running out of his prescription but he knew that he could prevail on Malcolm Nicholson to prescribe him a 'top up' in emergency, the 'all pals together' routine. He needed them, there and then, to calm him down with the trial coming up. They worked better than beer. He started thinking ahead to the trial and tried to comfort himself with the thought that he'd been in court before, so he knew the drill, but this time it was personal and that worried him.

What scared him was that all the threats against him came from outside the comfort zone of Larkhall Prison, outside his normal turf. The irony of it was that he'd got rid of Stewart first and then Betts, while Wade slipped out of his grasp. They had now returned to dog his steps in the public arena where he didn't pull the strings. He felt naked, alone. It was for this reason that he held back from his temptation to dish the dirt to the tabloids about Stewart and Wade. Who knows what might kick off if he got into that game? Besides, he also had known for a long time that he had to look clean and above board with the trial in the offing. He knew very well that Area Management would trace the story straight back to him and they wouldn't thank him for blowing the gaff on them. While he'd given that toffee nosed solicitor the old flannel to perfection, it sharpened his sense that he had to be bloody careful. While he secretly despised the man, he was the meal ticket to Betts being sent down and him being finally secure.

He had got to tough it out, to play things cagey and above all, trust no one except himself.