Part One Hundred and Sixty-One
Nikki had a curious feeling as she made her way to work. She was due to have her own appraisal with Karen. This had not happened to her for a long time, not since she was at school. The nearest that she had come to having her behaviour 'appraised' was when she was an inmate. She stopped herself going down there, as it raised too many dark memories of injustice. It took a real effort of will and a cigarette to mentally haul herself back on track , and remind herself just who she was. The trouble was that the ten months since she had started, as wing governor had been a very intense period in her life, which had whizzed past in no time at all. As the time for her appraisal came nearer, she had felt that she had done a lot, but it had all gone into a generalized blur. Only with a real effort of will, had she scribbled down some rough notes at the last minute. Curiously, it was far easier to write up notes on others than on herself. On the other side of the door on Karen's desk, lay Nikki's appraisal report file with a whole host of notes on Nikki's performance in this first year of hers. To do her full justice would take a long time.
She welcomed Nikki in with a friendly greeting and gestured her to a chair the other side of her desk. She could sense a touch of nervousness in Nikki's manner and she made a special effort to reassure her.
"Well, Nikki, now is the time to put your first year in perspective. You will know by now just how time consuming the whole process is, but I can't think of a better way to take stock over the past year. It will help both of us."
Karen paused to light a cigarette to gather her thoughts and handed another to Nikki before continuing.
"You've done a hell of a lot since you set foot in here ten months ago. My problem in doing your report is in making sure that I've got everything down so tell me if I've missed anything. Shall I continue?"
As Nikki nodded mutely, Karen continued.
"I'll work through everything in chronological order and pull it in to your job description. For a start, you wasted no time in talking one to one with your prison officers and, with two exceptions, won them over in very short order. I remember hearing of some very favourable feedback in my travels, and not only from those who were well enough disposed to you in the first place. What you did right was that they knew exactly where they stood with you. You also got them on side from the word go, and you've kept them there since"
"And the exceptions"
"Sylvia and Di, of course. You would never have won them over any more than I ever did in my time. You probably haven't appreciated the fact that you severely limited the damage that they could have done. You prevented them gaining allies that they could have manipulated to their own purposes and set them against you. Again, I must thank you for putting up with two particularly difficult officers, and also your contribution to the events where Di Barker was finally sacked"
"That honestly hadn't crossed my mind"
Karen grinned as Nikki shook her head in amazement. It was so like Nikki to be unassuming about herself.
"I remember very clearly the way you stepped into the breach when my son Ross, when Ross died…..When I finally got back to work, I heard how Neil had to restrain you from becoming acting Governing Governor, but you talked with the other wing governors and, thanks to that, you took a huge weight off my mind when I needed it most. Believe you me, Nikki, I'll never forget that, either officially or otherwise."
Nikki was incredibly touched by Karen's uncharacteristic public display of emotion, and the break in her voice as she referred to Ross. That emotional scar hadn't gone away.
"I really don't know where this figures in your appraisal as it isn't in your job description but I have you to thank for getting me not to work myself into the grave, when I came back from work, not to say during and after I went up on the prison roof after Denny. I'll write something up about it somehow"
"I could see how you were suffering. I couldn't do anything but try to help you." Nikki said softly in tones, that came close to making Karen shed tears of gratitude. She couldn't help thinking that Helen was a lucky woman and how uncomplicated their lives were, compared with hers.
"I must give weight to your very fine performance at the Howard League for Penal Reform , where you certainly gave the entire conference hall a lot of food for thought. You really focused people's minds on what the prison service was actually about. Neil and I were so proud of you , even if you were in danger of upstaging me and stealing half my script. I am absolutely certain that your ideas will crop up in the work of a number of the audience, who will have thought long and hard about what you said."
"I have you to thank for having words with DI Sullivan to put him in his place after Shell Dockley broke into my bedroom. Your words were well said, and he won't dare to be the pain in the arse that he has been. I can't give praise enough for the way that you conducted yourself as a witness at Barbara Mills' trial. Your quick wittedness of thinking and clarity of expression gave Brian Cantwell a very good run for his money. You thoroughly deserve the praise that I understand John lavished on you. Following on from that, you did well in spotting a deficiency in prison officer training in your initiative in training prison officers to give evidence in court. It's one of those things that's so obvious that no one notices unless you have fresh eyes to see it with. I'm proposing to introduce this for the entire wing."
"When I turn to the way that you run the wing, you are a natural at handling budgets and in administration in general. Last but not least, when I turn to the prisoners in your care, what can I say? You came to Larkhall with the potential disadvantage of a conflict of interest with the prisoners whom you've known before and you've turned it to your advantage. One reason why the wing is peaceful is because of what you have done to 'give duty of care' to the prisoners, both personally and through your prison officers. My only apology is that your plans for educational projects have been held up by budgetary constraints. Within the limits of the prison system, you have done all that you possibly could"
"I'm lucky to build on the work that you and Helen did before me," murmured Nikki modestly. Karen knew better. Her experience was that the hard work to build up a good wing could be ruined overnight by an incompetent, lazy or bigoted replacement.
"What makes you unique as a wing governor is your background largely outside the prison service. It does tempt you to go for the simplest, most obvious course of action and I know that you get irritated if any red tape stands in your way. I remember you going a little over the top when we discussed Sylvia coming back to you, but I can't hold really hold that against you. You very gracefully came to terms with the situation. To be fair to you, I know that you will look for any underlying meaning in the rules and regulations and you know that they can help as much as appear to hinder"
"Can be?" questioned Nikki.
"I've worked outside the prison service as well, Nikki." Retorted Karen with a grin. "OK, it is another organization with the sort of hierarchies that you have managed to avoid, but different in some ways. It has given me skills that I have found useful at Larkhall on more occasions than I care to think. Besides, once I learned those skills, I never wanted them to get rusty and out of date, don't ask me why……."
Karen's voice faded as a reflective mood overtook her and her eyes looked far into the distant for a moment. Presently, they sharpened up and she came back to the here and now.
"It does mean that I can see that you inject something fresh and vibrant into this place, that you're not stuck in a rut and indoctrinated to blindly follow orders without question"
"As if"
"It's just that you have to take care just how far you push boundaries , but don't ever go the other way and get totally intimidated by rules and regulations"
"Is this the Governing Governor talking?" Nikki queried with a grin.
"This is me, Karen Betts, giving you the benefit of my knowledge. This bit is off the record"
Karen paused as she rounded to her conclusion.
"I know that I've done all the talking so stop me if there is anything that you want to mention that I hadn't. No? Well then the most difficult part of this appraisal is what mark to give you. To give you an 'average' mark is to insult you. The highest mark I can give you is 'outstanding' and for that you really have to walk on water. The mark in the middle is 'above average' but you have done so much in this year that even this seems a little stingy"
"You do what you think best, Karen"
"Can you let me write up my report and as I do it, I'll decide which way to go. You've written reports so you know how difficult it can get." Karen finally decided, with a touch of impatience with her own indecisiveness.
A huge feeling of satisfaction welled up in Nikki. She knew that Karen thought highly of her, but she hadn't expected to be that highly praised. She had only done what she had done, according to her own standards. This demonstration of public esteem seemed to make up for the undramatic way that she had received her degree certificate from the Open University. In the years before that, she worked hard to build her's and Trisha's club off the ground. Going right back to the beginning to her days at school, she had been built up by the good grades on her 'O' level certificates and was swiftly knocked back down again by her public disgrace and expulsion. "You're very kind and generous, Karen." She said softly. "You don't know how good you have made me feel about myself.."
The two of them fell silent and smoked the last of their cigarettes. Suddenly, Karen began to laugh to herself for no apparent reason.
"Do you remember the first words that you ever said to me"
"Wasn't it something like 'piss off like I told the other tart?" Nikki said diplomatically. She had said worse than that but was too embarrassed to get the words out.
"Not quite" Karen said with a straight face.
"It was 'Is this an interjection or an enquiry after my health"
"Oh really? Not as bad as I feared. Mind you, I always did have a big mouth"
Both of them realized at the same time that this had the makings of a standing joke between the two of them.
"See, I always knew that you were a smart arse. I never realized at the time just how smart."
The way that Karen's tone switched from light-hearted levity to real heartfelt sincerity encapsulated the passing of time and where they were both now.
The secretary looked out from under her mask at Neil Haughton as he stormed into the office. Her survival instinct was in suppressing any expression of her own feelings, and avoiding any attention being drawn to her. Her only irritation was that her presence was noticed hardly more than the coat stand in the corner and equally taken for granted. It was preferable to being singled out as convenient target for his rages. As she spotted the director of the prison service walking in the direction of Neil Houghton's private conference room half an hour later, she was glad that she was a lowly functionary in the system. The director was far higher paid than she was and was paid to be shouted at.
"Just look at this," he snapped at the unfortunate man, shoving a newspaper under his eyes." Some wretched bleeding heart liberal has been sounding off about prison overcrowding as if they don't get enough perks. They get three square meals a day and television. They make it sound as if there's a problem when all they have to do is to budge up a bit."
Already, in a very short period of time, the director of the prison service had the look of a whipped dog in his encounters with the Home Secretary. It was no good him quoting the latest Howard League for Penal Reform at him, which made quite well reasoned points.
Sweet reason got him nowhere fast.
"In a desperate attempt to find empty beds, prisoners are being transported all over the country. In 2001, 37,000 prisoners were being held over 50 miles away from home, for 5,000 of these the distance was more than 150 miles. This cost the taxpayer millions of pounds in transportation costs and in delays to the criminal justice system as a result of late arrivals for court appearances."
There were real complexities at work, but Neil Houghton wasn't in the mood to listen to them. He didn't want to know the details as they only clouded the picture in his mind when bold, clear strategy policies were what both the cabinet and the electorate demanded. Whoever heard of a Home Secretary that was soft on crime? He was the last person to break the mould. His predecessor has said all the right catchphrase but his grip on his ministry was rather lax. He determined to be a 'hands on' minister and keep a sharp eye open for trouble.
"Have you seen the latest figures of the prison population, Home Secretary? The latest figures out for March 2006 show 77,035 and the underlying trend is rising"
"Is that something we should be ashamed of?" Neil Houghton snapped, the look in his blue eyes tending towards the homicidal. It was that mannerism of his that intimidated anyone whose career was in his jealous hands.
"When I took office, it became obvious that we need to lock up more criminals, not less. What's the point of all the tough legislation, outlawing crime if we don't bang them up"
"That is in the hands of the judges and isn't in our remit," the director of prisons bravely pointed out.
"Don't talk to me about judges." Neil Houghton shouted." I intend to bring them into line along with everyone else. What I am horrified at is that word has reached me that the new female wing governor of one of our most controversial prisons is an ex con. Can you explain that one to me?"
"She will have gone through the usual board in fair and open competition," stammered the unfortunate man," or else she would never have got the job"
"So how did she get the job with a prison record under her belt? Her application ought to have been weeded out at the initial sift"
"I would have to check this out to be certain"
"Do so. It's more than likely that she was assisted by some of the malcontents in area management. I strongly suspect that there are a number of them who are not 'on message' , and are pushing their own sinister agenda. There are far too many of that type who would stab me in the back as soon as look as me. This is their way of discrediting me. They're all out to get me"
"She must have had something in her CV to get her a look in."
"That's not the issue, don't you see?" Neil Houghton uttered in spiteful, contemptuous tones." The problem is that she is definitely not 'one of us.' I want something doing about her"
"That's very difficult, unless she's clearly committed any offence and only if there's an internal investigation"
"So we wait for trouble to happen? I might have expected no better from wishy washy types like you. If I had been home secretary last year, I never would have allowed this situation to happen in the first place"
The pressure was on the man to come up with something more practical, as his own job was on the line. If it meant throwing out ballast to ensure his survival, then so be it. His career depended on political expediency.
"The only thing I can suggest is an inspection of Larkhall. There must be something that we can trip her up over, and give us something to use against her"
Neil Houghton bared his teeth in something like a smile, which would have caused dogs and other psychic creatures to bare their teeth or run a mile. He had that effect on his surroundings.
"Do so, and make it immediate. It must turn up something suitably damning"
The two of them were not to know that such a damning report from the Chief Inspector of Prisons report was going to land on his desk two days later, and also hit the press. It would slate Doncaster private prison of 'yet another prison failing to put people before profit' and that 'the private sector could have made a stand against overcrowding but instead has caved into the pursuit of profit at the expense of decent conditions and rehabilitation." This was not the sort of failure that was politically acceptable and would give the spin doctors a real PR headache.