Three Faces of West (2013) (9 page)

Jack waded into the conversation, “So you’re stuck, even though you can still gain access through the adjacent wing, you cannot leave your post.”

“Exactly.” Replied Davison.

West began to wonder if they were going to be able to speak to Grey at all. He decided to ask all the same just to make sure,

“Are we going to be able to speak to Grey?”

The reply from the wardens was swift and decisive,

“Yes you will. These time locks can only be opened from the inside, not from this side. There is a warden on duty at all times so he will know to let you in.”

John was puzzled by the answer, “Why are the locks only opened from the inside? What if you have an escape?”

“Because if there is an escape, and if the escapee does get out of a particular wing, it prevents him from gaining access to other parts of the prison you see, restricts his movements within the compound.” The warden replied.

After explaining the layout of the security system, he turned round to buzz the door. Taking only a few seconds to pass before the duty guard appeared, he punched in the code to unlock the door. A clicking sound indicated that it was open thus allowing West and Hudson to go through,

“This gentleman will show you through,” He turned to the duty warden, “These two are here to speak to Grey. Show them to his cell will you?”

The duty warden obeyed,

“Follow me; he’s in the cell at the end on the left hand side. I’ll take you to it.”

Both West and Hudson followed the duty warden into the segregation block. First arriving at a small office cubical full of computer consoles, CCTV monitors watching every move made, bordered by bullet proof glass panels reinforced with wire mesh. The floor, shiny, was a complete contrast to the ceiling adorned with plumbing and air conditioning vents. Still, at least the decor was OK; everything apart from a few furnishings was painted in the supposedly uplifting colour of cream white. Swiftly both men was led down a corridor lined on both sides by thin green metal doors, these were clearly the cells. Each door was the same, a thin Perspex window allowing the briefest of glimpses into the world of the individuals who occupy them. The heavy duty silver locks were the main feature of the doors designed to keep the occupants in; beside each door to the right hand side, a small rectangle of whiteboard with the name of the inmate written in ink. The sounds coming from within each cell, voices, banging, thudding all displayed the worst kind of nature from the misfits of modern society. It was better here than on the outside, especially from Hudson and West’s point of view. Eventually they arrived at the end of the corridor, West looked at the whiteboard at the side, written in black ink was the name “Grey”. He knew he had the right one and was about to come face to face with the key to the Finnin murder and possibly more,

“Here we are,” Said the warden, “Maxwell Grey’s cell. You can only talk to him through the window; I’ll be standing just over there.”

“OK that’s fine.” Replied Jack giving the warden the go ahead to rouse their man,

“Grey,” Called the warden through the door, “Come on, someone wants to talk to you.” West looking on at the window could not see anything at all,

“Stop being an idiot Grey, COME ON.” Said the warden sternly.

Through the slim window of the door a figure appeared. Jack could quite clearly see his features as he set eyes on Maxwell Grey for the very first time, a blond haired thin looking man adorned with a tattoo on high left cheek greeted him. The psychopathic stare purported by the convict cut through West and Hudson like a knife through butter. Jack knew he had to get past this if he wanted to uncover the absolute truth,

“You Maxwell Grey?” He asked,

“Who are you?” Came the slightly sarcastic reply,

“Who we are is not important, what we want to know is. We want to talk to you about a poison used in a murder a couple of days ago.”

A wry smile grew on Grey’s face. He had an idea at what West was getting about,

“You mean the murder of that politician? Yeah that was classic.”

“What do you mean ‘classic’?” Asked Jack hoping to get more insight,

“I read about it in the papers, sounds like a professional job. Haven’t you caught them yet then?”

Jack could see the Grey was toying with him. The patronising look in his blue eyes, the sarcasm in the tone of his voice, Jack did not like it,

“You have a history of poisons don’t you Grey. That plot to poison the Mayor’s office, very crafty, quite intelligent too. Takes a real mastermind to pull that one off.”

Grey paused, he was visibly rattled and Jack could tell as the smugness gradually disappeared from his face,

“What’s that supposed to mean? What you think I did it?”

He began getting angry, all three men on the outside could hear Grey banging inside his cell, taking out his frustration on the objects nearest to him. The warden in the background decided to step in, moving forward to restore order. He was only stopped by Jack raising his hand in protest, with John following suit by physical intervention against him. Reluctantly he backed off to let Jack resume his interrogation. He could see that Grey calmed almost as quickly as he piped up,

“You also have form when it comes to violence then. We know about that attack in Russia about eight years ago.” Quoted Jack,

“So? You come to ship me back there have you?”

“No, I’m just trying to ascertain what type of person you are. This knowledge of poisons, comes from your education. You studied at Bristol didn’t you, left with a Masters, very handy.”

“I have a very intricate working knowledge of the world of chemistry. I’m not like other amateurs, they always make mistakes. They lack the intelligence to understand why things work the way they do, not just how.”

West decided to probe ever further into the Finnin’s murder,

“Like what poisons come together to cause madness followed by death?”

Grey stared at Jack before reverting to a wide smile. He had definitely hit something here and he could tell he was dealing with a high intellectual, but the criminal was giving nothing away,

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh come off it, you know exactly what I mean. You into botany?”

“What?” Asked Grey pensively,

“Botany, the study of plants, in particular the Datura plant”,

Grey clicked onto Jack’s line of questioning. Aware now that the person he was talking to was not only on the right track but hot on his heels, realising this he decided the best form of defence was attack,

“You found out who did that bombing at the train station yet?”

Jack thrown slightly by the sudden change decided to counter move,

“We’re working on it. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Better get a move on. Don’t want another bombing to happen do we?” Taunted Grey.

Both Jack and John could tell something was missing here. It wasn’t just the taunting and uncooperativeness from Grey, he knew something. Frustrated from knowing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this approach, Jack decided to go straight in for the kill,

“What do you know about the King’s Cross bombing? Were you involved somehow? I think you were, I’ll tell you what else I think, I believe you masterminded the murder of the politician. I think you arranged to poison him didn’t you? What I want to know is why.”

Grey replied in equally stubborn fashion,

“That’s crap, you can’t prove anything. Besides how am I going to poison someone from in here?”

“Oh you’ll find a way somehow” Replied Jack looking his adversary straight in the eye.

Grey stared back, John watched as the two men carried out this psychological body language battle through the door. Eventually Grey broke the pause,

“I could be a very useful asset to you Jack. But I can’t help you anymore.”

Jack responded, “Or you won’t.”

“No…I won’t.”

Grey turned away from the door and out of immediate view signalling his intention to terminate the interview,

“Well that’s the end of that.” Commented John.

Jack turned to reply, “Seems so.” He said with a slight resignation in his voice.

“Smug isn’t he?” Commented John, clearly citing the obvious,

The warden stepped in, he knew Grey better,

“That’s the way he is. Plays mind games with you, and then loses it.”

“Yes,” Said Jack, “He’s clever but I get the feeling he’s definitely hiding something.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Was John’s reply.

They proceeded to backtrack the way they came out of the corridor. Going past the office they passed on the way in, the duty warden sat at his desk keeping an eye out at all times for any signs of abnormal activity in the secure wing. Approaching the iron gate and the metal detectors cued the accompanying warden to shuffle past them to input the access code. It opened and buzzed despite the computer glitch allowing escape from the isolation cells. At the moment it looked as if they had no other business here in the prison as they passed through safely back into the admittance office. On the way out and passing a coat stand tucked away to one side with some tunics on it, unnoticeable when they went in suddenly caught John’s peripheral vision. It proved fateful,

“Jack,” He said, suddenly stopping him in his tracks, “What about Grey’s possessions?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well when he came in here, he had to have had possessions confiscated. If we could get access to them, perhaps that could reveal some clues.”

West thought on for a second. It seemed a good idea, there had to be a part of the prison complex where items were stored upon induction into the prison. If they could get hold of Grey’s things there could be something there, he turned to warden Davison,

“Is it possible to access the prisoner’s possessions?”

The warden looked somewhat unsure. It was an unusual request, he reverted to protocol,

“It’s possible, why?”

“We need to inspect them. We have reason to believe there may be something else.”

“Like what?” Asked Davison,

“We’re not sure; we’re hoping to find out.” Replied John.

Davison realised he had no authority and no grounds to refuse,

“Well if you need to you’ll have to go back to the admin block and get permission from the governor.”

“We’ll do that.” Said Jack pleased with the green light to go ahead.

The governor’s office was a hive of activity as the technicians flit from one computer to another in their fruitless quest to locate and isolate the source of the technology glitch. By now it was beginning to interfere with the running of the whole prison complex. West & Hudson entered with another warden again as escort to allow safe passage through the quandary of the high security gates. Leaving them to attend to duties found both West and Hudson wanting attention to facilitate their requirements. Their presence could not go unnoticed in the busy room as they were instantly spotted by the secretary,

“You’ll have to excuse the mess; it’s these stupid computer problems. Don’t understand, everything was fine yesterday but this morning all the systems have crashed.”

“That’s OK. We’d like to speak with the governor again if that’s possible. There is a favour that we would like to ask him.” Asked West

The secretary got out of here seat navigating around the wires and I.T. personnel trying to diagnose the source of the tempestuous attitude of the computer systems,

“I’ll just see if he’s free.”

She disappeared again leaving just the computer technicians for company. Clearly having their hands full with their present problems they acknowledged the presence of the two men but were too busy to stop and chat. There was no time as the door to the governor’s office opened with the secretary standing in the doorway,

“Would you like to come in please?”

Upon entering the room they were greeted by Mr Jones,

“Did you speak to Grey? Did you get all the info you needed?”

“Yes we did,” Replied West, “But we have a favour to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“We think there may be clues to what we need to know located in the items of Grey. Governor we require access to the storage of the prisoners items.”

Jones paused for a second. Giving permission to interview the prisoner was one thing, but to give access to the prisoner’s items was another. There were rules and regulations regarding this sort of thing. Jones was no amateur, he had been in the prison service for years, weighing up the request against the need to know dictated his thinking. Given Grey’s volatile nature the request of the men seemed to be not too unreasonable,

“Yes OK, I don’t see why not, Jill take issue them with a cardkey to the locker facility would you?”

“Thank you.” Replied West.

Upon leaving the office the secretary handed Jack a silver card for the locker facility,

“If you want, I can take you to it. It’s just here down the hallway.”

Jack took up the secretary’s offer,

“That will be very helpful thanks.”

They proceeded to leave the governor’s office. Moving out of the door leaving the I.T. technicians to their work, they hadn’t got five paces down the hall when a voice from the office caught Jack’s hearing,

“What’s happening with the computer system? It’s been down all morning. I want it sorted! The time locks on the wings haven’t even been changed for today, just get it done now!”

The governor was clearly not just frustrated but downright angry with the computer system. Taking it out on the technicians in a kind of blame game as to who or what could be responsible for the compromise of prison security.

Taking only a couple of minutes to reach the facility, the secretary led them through the door. They were greeted by a large room lined with locked drawers akin to a bank vault. The solitary clark at the introduction desk provided the only resistance to prying eyes,

“I’ll leave you to it.” Said the secretary. She quickly vacated the room leaving only West, Hudson and the clerk together,

“We’re here to examine the contents of one of your inmates, prisoner Grey.” Proclaimed Jack. Both West and Hudson showed the initially sceptical clerk their security passes which seemed to alleviate the situation somewhat. Opening a small gate to the lockers he guided the two men through the maze of strongboxes and lockers all stacked in alphabetical order to located the one marked Grey. Going through each one seemed fruitless until they stopped at one marked “384788/C - Grey.”