To uphold the law the judge had to be beyond reproach, something that did not apply, of course, to the men they were not only judging, but sentencing to prison. They were expected to lie and cheat, that was all part of the game. There was nothing worse than being lectured in a courtroom by someone who you knew to be morally bankrupt. A jury trial was about the police making sure that they had enough evidence to convict the accused; the jury had to have enough facts presented to them to convince them of their guilt. These laws were brought about to safeguard innocent people who, through no fault of their own, may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The police had to establish not only a motive but also gather enough evidence to put the person on trial in that right place at that right time.
Just because someone might look good for a conviction didn't mean they deserved one. The law was there to give them a fair trial. You expected the alleged criminals to lie, you did not expect the trial judge to already have reached a verdict before the evidence was shown or for a policeman to take an oath yet lie, knowing that the job they held made people assume they were telling the truth.
Honesty was supposed to be their forte. Unfortunately, the consumer society they inhabited and the relaxing of the gambling laws had soon put paid to that. This was one of the main reasons why the police and judges were being sought out and bought up, not only as an early-warning system in the case of the police, but also to even out some of the judicial playing fields when court appearances could not be avoided and bail was a necessity.
Lomond was about to find out that, like any grass, filth or criminal, once you perverted the course of justice for your own ends, no one wanted you. No one trusted you and no one cared what happened to you. By the very nature of your dual lifestyle you were well and truly on your own. Lomond was now neither fish nor fowl. The strength of his position had overnight become his biggest weakness. He was now like a tame guard dog. If he worked well enough, he might get fed. But he would also be made to realise that there were plenty more puppies from the litter he came from.
'You don't think he is gonna die do you?' Dicky said.
Lomond was breathing with difficulty now.
Pat shrugged. The man on the dirt-strewn floor disgusted him. 'Who cares.'
Lily walked into the prison and felt her stomach heave.
She hated the smell of the place and she hated the feeling of confinement. The walls were grimy, the aroma was putrid and to crown it all, she was here to pass on a message to someone she didn't even like. Kevin Craig was a man with little imagination, a vicious temper and a vindictive personality.
He suited his surroundings as far as Lil was concerned. Wormwood Scrubs was a shithouse although Du Cane Road had been a nice place in its day. Hammersmith Hospital was next door and there were still some nice houses around and about. She liked the area but hated the prison. Every time she stepped inside she felt as if the walls were coming in on her and she wondered how anyone stood it.
To be locked up was, to her, the worst thing that could happen to anyone. To have no say whatsoever over your life was a terrifying thought, and she should know, her home life had been the same.
The whole place stank of despair and front. The front most people put on for family and friends when they were looking at a long sentence. Front was how you coped with being told by a judge that you were being locked away for the best years of your life, that you were a menace to society and prison was all you would know from now on. Front was pretending that you accepted what had happened. Front was what made you get up in the morning after such an abomination, and was what made you carry on through every day after that. Front was, in the end, all you had to rely on.
Front was also, unfortunately, more often than not what had put the majority of the convicts there in the first place.
Kevin Craig sat down and Lil smiled at him tremulously.
'Thanks for coming.' He afforded her the respect her husband's reputation automatically afforded her. 'That's all right, mate.' Her smile was wide, but her nerves were making her feel faint.
She was heavily pregnant once more and her huge belly was evident as she sat down and tried to make herself comfortable.
As she looked around the visiting room she felt the fear once more. She looked at the women with their kids; dilapidated, scruffy, trying to be cheerful, trying to make some kind of connection with the men who had fathered their children and who might not hold any of them close again for years.
This was all her nightmares come to life, losing her Pat to the prison system. Seeing him banged up and vulnerable and watching him shrink a bit more as every year passed, she knew that her physical make-up would make her seek solace elsewhere even though the man would not, could not, ever match up to the man she had lost through no fault of her own.
Kevin smiled at her then as if reading her mind. 'Tell Pat and Dicky that I have put me hand up, wiped me mouth and took the onus off them. But my old woman has to be taken care of. I am only a bagman, I collected the rents, that's all. Make sure the protection is paid; they owe me, they owe me big time.'
Lil didn't hear the underlying threat in his voice, she just felt relieved; this was something she could cope with, something she knew all about. He was telling her what she was supposed to be telling him. Keep your trap shut, your head down and your arse up and everything would be all right.
Kevin's wife, Amy, was a mate of sorts. They lived near each other and they talked if they met in the market. She knew his kids by sight and she talked to him about them, assuring him that they would be well taken care of. That they would not go without, even though she knew that they would be going without the most important person in their life after their mother.
Although, from what she had heard from Amy, she wasn't so sure about that now. But she knew better than to say these thoughts out loud.
Instead, she told this troubled man that he was not to worry, his family were safe, and at the same time she was praying that she would never have to visit her husband or children in a place like this.
Lil hated the whole depressing aura of prison. It was like a living tomb to her. People lived inside the prison walls, but they might as well have been long dead because they were only existing, and that was not what life was supposed to be about.
'Lil is sorting it, relax.' Patrick sounded far more confident than he felt, but he knew that Dicky would not pick up on that. Kevin had been nabbed completely by accident, and they were all still trying to clear up the mess.
Pat was shrewd enough to know that Kevin had been served up, and he would be very interested to know who the culprit was. It had to be someone close, because he kept his business dealings quiet; even Dicky didn't have any real idea of how enormous his empire had become. But then again, no one did. He used different people for different things. Never telling his right hand what the left hand was doing.
It worked better that way. People only know what you tell them. Well, if you didn't tell them anything then you were safe.
So whoever had put Kevin away had either a working knowledge of his business practices, or a vested interest in seeing Kevin Craig off the pavement. The former he doubted, the latter he suspected.