Crime Writers and Other Animals by Simon Brett Read Free Book Online Page A

officers’ attitude seemed to have changed. I was taken back to prison – the remand prison, that is; I was going to another one to serve my sentence – in a van with barred windows. Inside the prison, the guards were leading me back to my cell. I still had handcuffs on, and we were going through one of the corridors, when suddenly this man stood in front of us, blocking our progress.
    I’d seen him round the prison before. He wasn’t a nice man, very rough. He didn’t speak nicely, didn’t have good vowels. He was the kind of man Papa would have told me not to mix with. ‘They’re not our sort of people,’ he’d have said. ‘You steer clear of them, Edmund.’
    And it was good advice. If I could have steered clear of him, I would have done. But there was nowhere to go. It was a narrow corridor. The prison officers who were leading me along just drew back as the man launched himself at me. He hit me in the stomach first. ‘Take that, you filthy fat pervert!’ he said.
    And when I fell down and tried to scramble away from him along the wall, he started kicking me. All over. My stomach, my arms, my legs, even my secret bits. With the handcuffs on, I couldn’t protect myself. He kicked my face as well. Two of my teeth were broken. I could taste the blood and feel their jagged edges.
    Then he stopped and laughed. ‘That’s just a taster,’ he said. ‘A taster of what they’ll do to you when you get in the real nick. They don’t like nonces in the real nick.’
    After he’d finished kicking me, the prison officers came and moved him away. But they’d been there all the time, watching. They could have come to my rescue more quickly, I’m sure they could. I hope the prison officers in ‘the real nick’ are a bit more efficient.
    They took me to ‘the real nick’ in another van with barred windows. When I was leaving the remand prison, they asked if I wanted a blanket over my head. Why would I want a blanket over my head? I’d had few enough chances to see the outside world in the last couple of months. I wanted to see everything I could out of the van’s windows.
    The trouble is, what I did see, when the van emerged from the gates, was a crowd of people. There were photographers, and a lot of women too, women probably about the same age as Bethany Jones’s mother. But they weren’t like women should be. They weren’t quiet and well behaved like Mama always was. No, they were shouting and screaming. As the van went slowly through the crowd, they started banging on the sides. Some of them threw things and spat. I saw one face quite close to mine through the window. It was contorted with hatred. It wasn’t nice.
    The drumming sound they made against the walls of the van stayed with me. It kind of reverberated in my head. And now I’ve arrived at the new prison, I can hear it again. I’ve met the governor, I’ve been through all the entry procedures, and now I’m being led to my cell. The drumming sound comes from all the other prisoners, banging things against the doors of their cells.
    I can hear things shouted too. Not nice things. I can hear that word ‘nonce’ that the man in the remand prison used. I wonder what it means.
    Still, I’m sure it’ll be all right. They may find the person who really did those horrid things to Bethany Jones, and set me free. Or they may reduce the length of my sentence. I’ve heard they do that for some prisoners. They reduce the sentence ‘for good behaviour’. And I’m going to continue to do what Papa told me. All the time I’m here, I’m going to be on my absolute best behaviour.
    I wonder what it’ll be like here. I know there are only certain times when you’re allowed to watch television in prison. Maybe Children’s BBC will be one of those times.
    I hope they have golden syrup in this