‘Welcome to Tetherdowne.’
Was the woman’s name Leverton, or Leverfall, or —‘I’m Doctor Leverthal’
Leverthal. Yes. Hard-bitten bitch he’d met at —‘We met at the interview.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re glad to see you, Mr Redman.’
‘Neil; please call me Neil.’
‘We try not to go on a first name basis in front of the boys, we find they think they’ve got a finger into your private life. So I’d prefer you to keep Christian names purely for off-duty hours.’
She didn’t offer hers. Probably something flinty.
Yvonne. Lydia. He’d invent something appropriate.
She looked fifty, and was probably ten years younger.
No make-up, hair tied back so severely he wondered her eyes didn’t pop.
‘You’ll be beginning classes the day after tomorrow. The Governor asked me to welcome you to the Centre on his behalf, and apologise to you that he can’t be here himself. There are funding problems.’
‘Aren’t there always?’
‘Regrettably yes. I’m afraid we’re swimming against the tide here; the general mood of the country is very Law and Order orientated.’
What was that a nice way of saying? Beat the shit out of any kid caught so much as jay-walking? Yes, he’d been that way himself in his time, and it was a nasty little cul-de-sac, every bit as bad as being sentimental.
‘The fact is, we may lose Tetherdowne altogether,’ she said, ‘which would be a shame. I know it doesn’t look like much ...‘ ‘— but it’s home,’ he laughed. The joke fell among thieves. She didn’t even seem to hear it. ‘You,’ her tone hardened, ‘you have a solid (did she say sullied?) background in the Police Force. Our hope is that your appointment here will be welcomed by the funding authorities.’
So that was it. Token ex-policeman brought in to appease the powers that be, to show willing in the discipline department. They didn’t really want him here. They wanted some sociologist who’d write up reports on the effect of the class-system on brutality amongst teenagers. She was quietly telling him that he was the odd man out.
‘I told you why I left the force.’
‘You mentioned it. Invalided out.’
‘I wouldn’t take a desk job, it was as simple as that; and they wouldn’t let me do what I did best. Danger to myself according to some of them.’
She seemed a little embarrassed by his explanation. Her a psychologist too; she should have been devouring this stuff, it was his private hurt he was making public here. He was coming clean, for Christ’s sake.
‘So I was out on my backside, after twenty-four years.’ He hesitated, then said his piece. ‘I’m not a token police-man; I’m not any kind of policeman. The force and I parted company. Understand what I’m saying?’
‘Good, good.’ She didn’t understand a bloody word. He tried another approach.
‘I’d like to know what the boys have been told.’
‘Been told?’
‘About me.’
‘Well, something of your background.’
‘I see.’ They’d been warned. Here come the pigs.
‘It seemed important.’
He grunted.
‘You see, so many of these boys have real aggression problems. That’s a source of difficulty for so very many of them. They can’t control themselves, and consequently they suffer.’
He didn’t argue, but she looked at him severely, as though he had.
‘Oh yes, they suffer. That’s why we’re at such pains to show some appreciation of their situation; to teach them that there are alternatives.’
She walked across to the window. From the second storey there was an adequate view of the grounds. Tether-downe had been some kind of estate, and there was a good deal of land attached to the main house. A playing-field, its grass sere in the midsummer drought. Beyond it a cluster of out-houses, some exhausted trees, shrubbery, and then rough wasteland off to the wall. He’d seen the wall from the other side. Alcatraz would have been proud of it.
‘We try to give them a little freedom, a little education and a little sympathy. There’s a popular notion, isn’t there, that delinquents enjoy their criminal activities? This isn’t my experience at all. They come to me guilty, broken. .
One broken victim flicked a vee at Leverthal’s back as he sauntered along the corridor. Hair slicked down and parted in three places. A couple of home-grown tattoos on his fore-arm, unfinished.
‘They have committed criminal acts, however,’ Redman pointed out.
‘Yes, but —, ‘And must, presumably, be reminded of the fact.’
‘I don’t think they need any reminding, Mr Redman. I think they burn with guilt.’
She was hot on guilt, which didn’t surprise him. They’d taken over the pulpit, these analysts. They were up where the Bible-thumpers used to stand, with the threadbare sermons on the fires below, but with a slightly less colourful vocabulary. It was fundamentally the same story though, complete with the promises of healing, if the rituals were observed. And behold, the righteous shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
There was a pursuit on the playing field, he noticed. Pursuit, and now a capture. One victim was laying into another smaller victim with his boot; it was a fairly merciless display.
Leverthal caught the scene at the same time as Redman.
‘Excuse me. I must —‘
She started down the stairs.
‘Your workshop is third door on the left if you want to take a look,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be right back.’
Like hell she would. Judging by the way the scene on the field was progressing, it would be a three crowbar job to prize them apart.
Redman wandered along to his workshop. The door was locked, but through the wired glass he could see the benches, the vices, the tools. Not bad at all. He might even teach them some wood-work, if he was left alone long enough to do it.
A bit frustrated not to be able to get in, he doubled back along the corridor, and followed Leverthal downstairs, finding his way out easily on to the sun-lit playing field. A little knot of spectators had grown around the fight, or the massacre, which had now ceased. Leverthal was standing, staring down at the boy on the ground. One of the warders was kneeling at the boy’s head; the injuries looked bad.
A number of the spectators looked up and stared at the new face as Redman approached. There were whispers amongst them, some smiles.
Redman looked at the boy. Perhaps sixteen, he lay with his cheek to the ground, as if listening for something in the earth.
‘Lacey’, Leverthal named the boy for Redman.
‘Is he badly hurt?’ The man kneeling beside Lacey shook his head.
‘Not too bad. Bit of a fall. Nothing broken.’
There was blood on the boy’s face from his mashed nose. His eyes were closed. Peaceful. He could have been dead.
‘Where’s the bloody stretcher?’ said the warder. He was clearly uncomfortable on the drought-hardened ground.
‘They’re coming, Sir,’ said someone. Redman thought it was the aggressor. A thin lad: about nineteen. The sort of eyes that could sour milk at twenty paces.
Indeed a small posse of boys was emerging from the main building, carrying a stretcher and a red blanket. They were all grinning from ear to ear.
The band of spectators had begun to disperse, now that the best of it was over. Not much fun picking up the pieces.
‘Wait, wait,’ said Redman, ‘don’t we need some wit-nesses here? Who did this?’
There were a few casual shrugs, but most of them played deaf. They sauntered away as if nothing had been said.
Redman said: ‘We saw it. From the window.’ Leverthal was offering no support.
‘Didn’t we?’ he demanded of her.
‘It was too far to lay any blame, I think. But I don’t want to see any more of this kind of bullying, do you all understand me?’