Part Sixty
Grayling looked round at his comfortable office, soon to be cleared of his personal effects for another governor to take over. It gave him a peculiar feeling of halfway regretting that he was moving on and the long suppressed desire to move onwards and upwards being realised at last. He liked the look and the feel of the office he was going to work in. It brought home to him how drab his environment had been all his working life. He would be working in a more aesthetically pleasing environment, which appealed to his sensitivities. It was strange that only recently did he have the feeling that he was really on top of what was going on as opposed to his fantasies. 'Bloody G Wing' was a single epithet he hurled in disgust throughout all the turbulence and traumas of, yes he was beginning to call it 'his time at Larkhall.' Throughout all this time, he never knew that it would be Karen Betts who would end up being his salvation, his potential successor and his friend. His abiding memory of her was of her intense blue eyes, sparking with anger under a blond fringe and her mouth twisted in contempt. A lot of the past dissolved into an untidy mess but if he thought hard enough about it, he suspected that she was right all along and he was wrong. Well, it was never too late to put things right, he thought, and it reinforced his belief that his recommendation to area was the right thing to do. He reached for his phone.
Karen entered Grayling's office with more of a relaxed frame of mind than she ever had. With his formal courtesy, he gestured to the chair.
"Ah, Karen, I've got some good news for both of us." Karen looked questioningly at Grayling's broad smile. She had no idea of what he could be getting at but, in view of the way he seemed to be changing for the better before her eyes, this was possibly the real thing and no trickery.
"My good news is that I have been appointed to a job in area management at a release date to be arranged." Karen was stunned by the news and genuinely regretful. Life at Larkhall Prison had smoothed down after all the bad times. Grayling had become a permanent fact of life in her job.
"You're sorry to see me go, Karen?" "I am now. I'm used to you and I find working with you comfortable. I'd have to get used to a new Governing Governor." Grayling was touched by Karen's obvious sincerity. He had come to feel all the safer for her solid presence in charge of G Wing but he had news for her that would change her perspective.
"Well, the good news for you is that I've recommended to Area that you are the next governing governor. I move to Area when, hopefully, you take my place." "What?" "Are you telling me that you're not up to the job? I've been going head to toe with Alison Warner that you're the woman for the job," Grayling asked Karen with a breezy, cheery confidence in her.
For once, Karen was speechless. Total surprise and an element of fear battled with the feeling of excitement creeping in on her that she could rise to the challenge in the way she had risen to so many before. Grayling let time pass for Karen to deal with this bombshell and not to rush her.
"It's a big surprise and a real compliment and maybe you're right, Neil. I need a little time to take this all in. But I want to ask you why have you done this for me?" "What you're getting at is, what's in it for me. You've never really trusted me from the word go," Grayling countered with a crafty smile.
"It isn't easy to build up trust once you lose it for someone." "I don't blame you one bit, so I'm going to lay all my cards on the table why I've picked you out of all people." Grayling paused and he took a careful sip of water from the glass tumbler. It enabled him to collect his thoughts together, not that he was thirsty. He was coming to the difficult moment where his past secretive inclinations battled with his newfound strength of character.
"I've got to admit that I've got you seriously wrong ever since I first started here. I've been blind to see who you are, what you stand for and what you've been trying to do for this prison. I don't need to spell it out in detail do I?" To his great relief, Karen nodded at him to continue.
"I did you a disservice when I gave testimony at the Atkins Merriman trial. If I helped at all, it was dragged out of me by that same very tenacious woman who I saw in court recently when Di Barker was on the stand. But most of all, I let you down when you came to me for help after that terrible business you had with Jim Fenner. I believed what you said but I used what I knew for my own purposes. I hardly occupied the moral high ground that time." "I believe everything you say, Neil," Came Karen's soft, compassionate reply. "You haven't explained your reasons for your recommendation in terms of my suitability." "It is as I told you the other day, Karen. You are the best Wing Governor in Larkhall. I couldn't think of it being left in safer hands than yours." "I thought you said that to butter me up to get me to change my mind about transferring Di," Grinned Karen.
"So I was, just a little," Grayling admitted in a way that Karen would once have thought was him being slippery. "But most of it was meant. About eighty-five percent." "After all you've said," Karen breathed as a surge of confidence ran through her, "I'll go for the job if I can get it." "If it will help you," confided Grayling. "Part of my responsibility is for a cluster of prisons, one of which is Larkhall. So if you do get the job and you get a phone call from area, it will be me. You don't get rid of me that easily." Karen stood up and shook Grayling's hand heartily in thanks. This was a prize beyond belief, which she would always be grateful to Neil for. In turn, this was a first for him, as his fastidious nature didn't normally like having his hand shaken.
In the PO's room, the matter of the outcome of Lauren's trial continued to grumble on. Sylvia had been in a permanently bad, cantankerous mood, worse since she had been summoned to see Karen. Karen's brief announcement that Di Barker was staying on in her new wing only made her worse. The others had struggled to keep the peace until she bitched one time too many when Colin, Selena and Dominic were present.
She had glowered into her mug of tea while the others had attempted to be inconspicuous for yet another wearisome tea break.
"It's criminal. Jim Fenner was the longest serving prison officer on G wing and was brutally murdered by that woman. But what happens? That 'do gooder' judge gives her a piffling sentence, and mamby pamby sort of therapy. It's us that need the therapy dealing with the shock when we heard about that cold-blooded murder. All the time I've had dealings with her, she's known exactly what she was doing. It runs in the family." "That scooter of yours looks a nippy machine, Selena, and dead smart. Mind you, you need to watch it if you put too much bank on going round corners or you'll slide sideways straight into the ditch," Dominic interjected.
"Thanks, but if I did come off, my scooter has got more protection than your bike. Your machine isn't really my style." "Doesn't anyone hear what I'm saying?" exclaimed Bodybag at a louder volume.
"We heard, Sylvia. That's why we're not bothering to answer," Came Colin's laconic reply.
"To think that G wing has sunk to the depths that no one will talk about the injustice done to a long serving officer. It gives signals that we're all fair game for any gun-wielding maniac who bears a grudge. Jim Fenner would help anyone out. If Di were here, she'd say the same." "Ah yes, but she's not, Sylv," Dominic interjected.
"Flaming management. It gets worse and worse around here. I'm tempted to make a complaint to the POA. That would make them sit up and take notice." Dominic exchanged a lightning glance with Selena and Colin. It was getting harder work to not have a row than to have a hammer and tongs row with Sylvia and settle it, for once and for all.
"What would you complain about, Sylvia?" Dominic asked with a distinct edge to his tone.
"A lot of things which I don't want to talk about with you, Dominic." "Fair enough but don't make out that you're the voice of the people and lead the POA up the garden path. Don't have them believe that we're unhappy with the way things are going on around here when we're not. As far as I'm concerned, G Wing couldn't be happier." "Me too." "Am I the only one of us with two working ears in our heads?" questioned Bodybag loudly, her mouth agape. "If one of us gets murdered in cold blood and the con gets a slap on the wrist, it opens the floodgates to all the murdering psychos out there. We've got to stand together as no one else will stand up for us, certainly not Joe Public." "Sylv, It was a shock when I first heard what happened to Jim, but at the end of the day, it was the jury who agreed that Lauren Atkins killed Jim Fenner but let her off the murder charge because of the state of her mind." "Poppycock. I saw her in court and her sob story didn't convince me one bit, especially with the way her barrister put her up to it. I don't know who was worse, that gangster's moll's daughter or that stuck up barrister. There was something about her that was too good to be true, something shifty about her." "Lauren Atkins or Jo Mills?" Selena teased in her best innocent tone.
"That barrister of course," Snapped Sylvia.
"Well, I saw Lauren Atkins when that other barrister was trying to pull her to pieces, like you predicted Sylvia," Dominic replied with strained patience, throwing back at her one of her more unpleasant comments. "There's something seriously wrong with her and she needs all the help she can get on the outside, better than we can do for her. That stupid barrister of theirs forced her to pick up the gun and point it at him, as if it was Jim. She freaked out at that. It was just as well that there wasn't a bullet in the gun." "That makes my point," Bodynag shot back smugly. "Once a murderer, always a murderer." There was a long poisoned silence that hung on the air. It was as if Bodybag really did not know that times had changed and that there was no longer an automatic response to her hard boiled, bilious proverbs with which she had lived her life. They couldn't really make up their mind if she really want a full-blown standup row with no holds barred.
"You know, Selena, Noreen Biggs told me once that Sylvia wasn't a fat Nazi like all the other prisoners said. I could have told her different if she wasn't so ill." "It's because Di Barker isn't coming back to G Wing," Selena answered Colin's low-pitched voice in the background.
"More than we are." "That's right, Selena, run her down when she isn't here to defend herself. Madam had her shipped out to another wing and no one lifts a finger." "That's enough, Sylvia," Dominic's patience snapped at last. "Selena and I saw the way that Di Barker behaved in court, the way she was Jim Fenner in absence. I used to have time for her when I was here before, not like you and Jim Fenner. Oh yeah, I remember the old times like you keep banging on about. I was nervous, new and unsure of myself and what did I get for an example to look up to? When Helen Stewart was at Larkhall, you two did the best to pull her down and make her life a misery for her when all she did was to try to get the best out of the prisoners. It was open warfare between the prisoners and us when I started and it was all down to you and Jim Fenner. You've brought all your trouble down on us and we lost a fine Wing governor when Helen left. Don't you let Sylvia tell you any different," Dominic broke off to look at Colin and Selena. "I was there in the good old days.This place is a kindergarten in comparison to the way it was and it's the likes of Helen and Karen who made it that way." "You cheeky young pup," Bodybag started to splutter back.
"Just leave it out. I don't say that much normally so I'm going to make up for it now. You really can't see that I'm not the new prison officer that I used to be. Di Barker has become just as bad as you and Jim Fenner always were. Karen did the right thing in breaking up the pair of you." Bodybag looked round speechlessly. All she could see were the hard eyes of the three prison officers around her.
"You want to step into Jim Fenner's shoes and rule the roost. You can't because we won't let you." The silence was one, which you could cut with a knife. Unknown to her, Bodybag had been on borrowed time. The others had tolerated her mouthing off and had put up with it as they had quietly gone their way. This was a complete overthrow of her position and everything was now out in the open. It had to come to this.
"Morning everyone" a fresh voice broke in on the meeting and Gina's broad smile.
"We were having a talk about the good old days," Selena put in helpfully.
"Good old days, my arse," Gina exclaimed loudly, neatly summarising the discussion in her absence. "Not with Di Barker on the wing. I was going to say that Karen has told me to tell you that it may be some time before we get a replacement prison officer. With Di on loan, we couldn't recruit to replace her but she'll get on the case now as soon as. Will you guys be able to muck in and cover for a while." "I'm sure we'll manage, won't we Sylvia," Dominic responded, his quiet tones having a steely undertone to it.
Gina grinned broadly, taking in Sylvia's red face and the casual reaction, consigning Di along with Fenner to the past. Impotent ghosts of the 'old boys club' would gnash their teeth but would be powerless to change the present. Sylvia was just a leftover relic. She didn't need to intervene as events had resolved themselves naturally.
Grayling looked round at his comfortable office, soon to be cleared of his personal effects for another governor to take over. It gave him a peculiar feeling of halfway regretting that he was moving on and the long suppressed desire to move onwards and upwards being realised at last. He liked the look and the feel of the office he was going to work in. It brought home to him how drab his environment had been all his working life. He would be working in a more aesthetically pleasing environment, which appealed to his sensitivities. It was strange that only recently did he have the feeling that he was really on top of what was going on as opposed to his fantasies. 'Bloody G Wing' was a single epithet he hurled in disgust throughout all the turbulence and traumas of, yes he was beginning to call it 'his time at Larkhall.' Throughout all this time, he never knew that it would be Karen Betts who would end up being his salvation, his potential successor and his friend. His abiding memory of her was of her intense blue eyes, sparking with anger under a blond fringe and her mouth twisted in contempt. A lot of the past dissolved into an untidy mess but if he thought hard enough about it, he suspected that she was right all along and he was wrong. Well, it was never too late to put things right, he thought, and it reinforced his belief that his recommendation to area was the right thing to do. He reached for his phone.
Karen entered Grayling's office with more of a relaxed frame of mind than she ever had. With his formal courtesy, he gestured to the chair.
"Ah, Karen, I've got some good news for both of us." Karen looked questioningly at Grayling's broad smile. She had no idea of what he could be getting at but, in view of the way he seemed to be changing for the better before her eyes, this was possibly the real thing and no trickery.
"My good news is that I have been appointed to a job in area management at a release date to be arranged." Karen was stunned by the news and genuinely regretful. Life at Larkhall Prison had smoothed down after all the bad times. Grayling had become a permanent fact of life in her job.
"You're sorry to see me go, Karen?" "I am now. I'm used to you and I find working with you comfortable. I'd have to get used to a new Governing Governor." Grayling was touched by Karen's obvious sincerity. He had come to feel all the safer for her solid presence in charge of G Wing but he had news for her that would change her perspective.
"Well, the good news for you is that I've recommended to Area that you are the next governing governor. I move to Area when, hopefully, you take my place." "What?" "Are you telling me that you're not up to the job? I've been going head to toe with Alison Warner that you're the woman for the job," Grayling asked Karen with a breezy, cheery confidence in her.
For once, Karen was speechless. Total surprise and an element of fear battled with the feeling of excitement creeping in on her that she could rise to the challenge in the way she had risen to so many before. Grayling let time pass for Karen to deal with this bombshell and not to rush her.
"It's a big surprise and a real compliment and maybe you're right, Neil. I need a little time to take this all in. But I want to ask you why have you done this for me?" "What you're getting at is, what's in it for me. You've never really trusted me from the word go," Grayling countered with a crafty smile.
"It isn't easy to build up trust once you lose it for someone." "I don't blame you one bit, so I'm going to lay all my cards on the table why I've picked you out of all people." Grayling paused and he took a careful sip of water from the glass tumbler. It enabled him to collect his thoughts together, not that he was thirsty. He was coming to the difficult moment where his past secretive inclinations battled with his newfound strength of character.
"I've got to admit that I've got you seriously wrong ever since I first started here. I've been blind to see who you are, what you stand for and what you've been trying to do for this prison. I don't need to spell it out in detail do I?" To his great relief, Karen nodded at him to continue.
"I did you a disservice when I gave testimony at the Atkins Merriman trial. If I helped at all, it was dragged out of me by that same very tenacious woman who I saw in court recently when Di Barker was on the stand. But most of all, I let you down when you came to me for help after that terrible business you had with Jim Fenner. I believed what you said but I used what I knew for my own purposes. I hardly occupied the moral high ground that time." "I believe everything you say, Neil," Came Karen's soft, compassionate reply. "You haven't explained your reasons for your recommendation in terms of my suitability." "It is as I told you the other day, Karen. You are the best Wing Governor in Larkhall. I couldn't think of it being left in safer hands than yours." "I thought you said that to butter me up to get me to change my mind about transferring Di," Grinned Karen.
"So I was, just a little," Grayling admitted in a way that Karen would once have thought was him being slippery. "But most of it was meant. About eighty-five percent." "After all you've said," Karen breathed as a surge of confidence ran through her, "I'll go for the job if I can get it." "If it will help you," confided Grayling. "Part of my responsibility is for a cluster of prisons, one of which is Larkhall. So if you do get the job and you get a phone call from area, it will be me. You don't get rid of me that easily." Karen stood up and shook Grayling's hand heartily in thanks. This was a prize beyond belief, which she would always be grateful to Neil for. In turn, this was a first for him, as his fastidious nature didn't normally like having his hand shaken.
In the PO's room, the matter of the outcome of Lauren's trial continued to grumble on. Sylvia had been in a permanently bad, cantankerous mood, worse since she had been summoned to see Karen. Karen's brief announcement that Di Barker was staying on in her new wing only made her worse. The others had struggled to keep the peace until she bitched one time too many when Colin, Selena and Dominic were present.
She had glowered into her mug of tea while the others had attempted to be inconspicuous for yet another wearisome tea break.
"It's criminal. Jim Fenner was the longest serving prison officer on G wing and was brutally murdered by that woman. But what happens? That 'do gooder' judge gives her a piffling sentence, and mamby pamby sort of therapy. It's us that need the therapy dealing with the shock when we heard about that cold-blooded murder. All the time I've had dealings with her, she's known exactly what she was doing. It runs in the family." "That scooter of yours looks a nippy machine, Selena, and dead smart. Mind you, you need to watch it if you put too much bank on going round corners or you'll slide sideways straight into the ditch," Dominic interjected.
"Thanks, but if I did come off, my scooter has got more protection than your bike. Your machine isn't really my style." "Doesn't anyone hear what I'm saying?" exclaimed Bodybag at a louder volume.
"We heard, Sylvia. That's why we're not bothering to answer," Came Colin's laconic reply.
"To think that G wing has sunk to the depths that no one will talk about the injustice done to a long serving officer. It gives signals that we're all fair game for any gun-wielding maniac who bears a grudge. Jim Fenner would help anyone out. If Di were here, she'd say the same." "Ah yes, but she's not, Sylv," Dominic interjected.
"Flaming management. It gets worse and worse around here. I'm tempted to make a complaint to the POA. That would make them sit up and take notice." Dominic exchanged a lightning glance with Selena and Colin. It was getting harder work to not have a row than to have a hammer and tongs row with Sylvia and settle it, for once and for all.
"What would you complain about, Sylvia?" Dominic asked with a distinct edge to his tone.
"A lot of things which I don't want to talk about with you, Dominic." "Fair enough but don't make out that you're the voice of the people and lead the POA up the garden path. Don't have them believe that we're unhappy with the way things are going on around here when we're not. As far as I'm concerned, G Wing couldn't be happier." "Me too." "Am I the only one of us with two working ears in our heads?" questioned Bodybag loudly, her mouth agape. "If one of us gets murdered in cold blood and the con gets a slap on the wrist, it opens the floodgates to all the murdering psychos out there. We've got to stand together as no one else will stand up for us, certainly not Joe Public." "Sylv, It was a shock when I first heard what happened to Jim, but at the end of the day, it was the jury who agreed that Lauren Atkins killed Jim Fenner but let her off the murder charge because of the state of her mind." "Poppycock. I saw her in court and her sob story didn't convince me one bit, especially with the way her barrister put her up to it. I don't know who was worse, that gangster's moll's daughter or that stuck up barrister. There was something about her that was too good to be true, something shifty about her." "Lauren Atkins or Jo Mills?" Selena teased in her best innocent tone.
"That barrister of course," Snapped Sylvia.
"Well, I saw Lauren Atkins when that other barrister was trying to pull her to pieces, like you predicted Sylvia," Dominic replied with strained patience, throwing back at her one of her more unpleasant comments. "There's something seriously wrong with her and she needs all the help she can get on the outside, better than we can do for her. That stupid barrister of theirs forced her to pick up the gun and point it at him, as if it was Jim. She freaked out at that. It was just as well that there wasn't a bullet in the gun." "That makes my point," Bodynag shot back smugly. "Once a murderer, always a murderer." There was a long poisoned silence that hung on the air. It was as if Bodybag really did not know that times had changed and that there was no longer an automatic response to her hard boiled, bilious proverbs with which she had lived her life. They couldn't really make up their mind if she really want a full-blown standup row with no holds barred.
"You know, Selena, Noreen Biggs told me once that Sylvia wasn't a fat Nazi like all the other prisoners said. I could have told her different if she wasn't so ill." "It's because Di Barker isn't coming back to G Wing," Selena answered Colin's low-pitched voice in the background.
"More than we are." "That's right, Selena, run her down when she isn't here to defend herself. Madam had her shipped out to another wing and no one lifts a finger." "That's enough, Sylvia," Dominic's patience snapped at last. "Selena and I saw the way that Di Barker behaved in court, the way she was Jim Fenner in absence. I used to have time for her when I was here before, not like you and Jim Fenner. Oh yeah, I remember the old times like you keep banging on about. I was nervous, new and unsure of myself and what did I get for an example to look up to? When Helen Stewart was at Larkhall, you two did the best to pull her down and make her life a misery for her when all she did was to try to get the best out of the prisoners. It was open warfare between the prisoners and us when I started and it was all down to you and Jim Fenner. You've brought all your trouble down on us and we lost a fine Wing governor when Helen left. Don't you let Sylvia tell you any different," Dominic broke off to look at Colin and Selena. "I was there in the good old days.This place is a kindergarten in comparison to the way it was and it's the likes of Helen and Karen who made it that way." "You cheeky young pup," Bodybag started to splutter back.
"Just leave it out. I don't say that much normally so I'm going to make up for it now. You really can't see that I'm not the new prison officer that I used to be. Di Barker has become just as bad as you and Jim Fenner always were. Karen did the right thing in breaking up the pair of you." Bodybag looked round speechlessly. All she could see were the hard eyes of the three prison officers around her.
"You want to step into Jim Fenner's shoes and rule the roost. You can't because we won't let you." The silence was one, which you could cut with a knife. Unknown to her, Bodybag had been on borrowed time. The others had tolerated her mouthing off and had put up with it as they had quietly gone their way. This was a complete overthrow of her position and everything was now out in the open. It had to come to this.
"Morning everyone" a fresh voice broke in on the meeting and Gina's broad smile.
"We were having a talk about the good old days," Selena put in helpfully.
"Good old days, my arse," Gina exclaimed loudly, neatly summarising the discussion in her absence. "Not with Di Barker on the wing. I was going to say that Karen has told me to tell you that it may be some time before we get a replacement prison officer. With Di on loan, we couldn't recruit to replace her but she'll get on the case now as soon as. Will you guys be able to muck in and cover for a while." "I'm sure we'll manage, won't we Sylvia," Dominic responded, his quiet tones having a steely undertone to it.
Gina grinned broadly, taking in Sylvia's red face and the casual reaction, consigning Di along with Fenner to the past. Impotent ghosts of the 'old boys club' would gnash their teeth but would be powerless to change the present. Sylvia was just a leftover relic. She didn't need to intervene as events had resolved themselves naturally.