The Death of the Elver Man (15 page)

The Wednesday morning had been the stuff of nightmares for Alex. Naturally reserved and inherently awkward she also reacted to stress by becoming tactless and clumsy. On a day of ‘team-building’ this was a disastrous combination.
Following
the introductions they went on to an ice-breaker, ‘just to help get rid of some of those stuffy inhibitions,’ said Sally. After wringing the last drops of conviviality out of the group she then went on to ‘family trees’, an exercise where each person placed themselves in relation to everyone else.

‘Not so much “family tree” as power play,’ muttered Sue as she shuffled Alex into position.

‘More like the Circles of Hell, if you ask me,’ Alex replied.

She was not the only one suffering or the only rebel. When it came to Lauren she began by setting out the office staff on their knees in a loose semi-circle. Several of the
probation
officers were placed standing behind them and finally she suggested Garry stand on a chair with one arm forward and the other raised above his head. Garry took his place reluctantly as the puzzled staff looked around and tried to work out what was going on. Suddenly Sue and Alex began to laugh as they recognized the tableau. Garry promptly
stepped down and announced it was time for lunch, stalking off as they congratulated Lauren on her ‘charioteer’.

‘Well, I do feel he’s up there cracking the whip and we just all got to keep pulling him along,’ she said as they crowded around the buffet tables. Oh! Is that chicken? Get me some of that will you?’

‘At least the food’s not bad,’ said Sue, as they sat on the terrace after lunch. ‘It’s quite nice getting away for a bit.’

‘If this is your idea of a good time you should get out more,’ said Alex.

‘That’s a bit rich, coming from you,’ Sue countered. ‘You’re the most anti-social person I know. When was the last time you went out, just for fun?’

Alex hesitated, searching her recent memory but all she encountered was work, more work and some solitary gardening.

‘See? You’re a hermit. You don’t go anywhere, you’ve not had a holiday since I’ve known you and you don’t have
people
round either.’

Not for the first time Alex wished she’d not given up
smoking
when she became a student. Financially it was a total waste of money and it was really bad for you, of course, but now she longed for the buzz of the nicotine. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment and released it slowly, willing her cravings away as she did so.

‘All right,’ she said, ‘It’s my birthday at the end of
September
. Let’s have a party or something.’

‘Really? You’re on. I’ll do the planning and you can cook – unless you’d rather do it the other way round.’

Alex laughed in spite of herself. ‘No, let’s try and make it a success shall we – no point in playing to our weaknesses.’

There was the sound of voices from the Seymour Room where the windows were open to let in the warm, fresh air of early summer and Alex gazed at the parkland longingly before reluctantly following Sue back inside.

‘So the new priority will necessitate an increase in the
provision
of practical and work-based activities. Planned and
purposeful engagement of the client – that is the key.’ Garry waved his arms around enthusiastically as he turned back to the flow chart projected on to the back wall.

‘How long has he been going on now? Sue whispered.

‘Um, forty-seven minutes,’ said Alex, checking her watch.

‘And he’s said …?’

‘We need to get the day centre running as soon as possible.’

Garry stopped in mid-sentence and glared at the pair.

‘Is there something you would like to add?’ he demanded.

‘Oh shit,’ muttered Sue, but Alex rose to her feet and said, ‘I was wondering about the implementation of the new orders.’ There was silence in the room as she went on. ‘Will one
person
have to hold all the orders with mandatory attendance or will we need to negotiate and monitor this section of a mixed case-load?’ She sat down, aware of Sue’s admiring grin next to her. Garry blinked at her and turned back to his flow-chart for inspiration.

‘Well, I think these types of issues need to be negotiated on an individual basis, as and when they arise within a team framework.’

Eddie stuck up his hand and said, ‘Due respect Garry but it is one of the main changes to our work. I think it is a bit more important than whether we allow them a pool table’.

Gordon was next. ‘Perhaps it should be a consideration for the SLOP document.’

There was a general nodding of heads around the room. In the corner Sally frowned and beckoned Garry over as she mouthed, ‘Slop? What is Slop?’ As the murmuring in the room grew louder Garry tried to explain the new priorities to Sally in a few words before swinging round and raising his voice at the noise.

‘Team – please – quiet! These are all issues we will examine in due course.’

The hubbub subsided and he continued with his
presentation
, but it was obvious his enthusiasm had evaporated, and barely ten minutes later he dismissed them all, distributing a
depressingly thick document for them to read before the next morning.

Unable to face another night of slicing and dicing, Derek Johns decided to scope out the next of his potential targets. Wednesday evening was always very quiet around town, with most of the pubs half empty as people stayed home and nursed a beer in front of the television. In these difficult times it was hard to stretch the weekly pay packet over a whole week, what with inflation running rampant and the spectre of unemployment looming over the town’s industries. Derek chose a remote garage to put petrol in his car, serving himself and muttering at the ridiculous cost of fuel. Paying in cash, he got back in his car and doubled back around past
Glastonbury
and Street before picking up the main road into town. Lot of shops with sales in Street he noticed, and some closed up in Glastonbury too. At this rate there’d be nothing worth stealing in the whole county.

The police station was sited along the road to Petherton, so he took a rat-run parallel to the river, weaving his way round the cars parked up outside their owners’ terraced houses. Just as he was approaching the roundabout he braked and pulled over, scarcely believing his luck. There was no mistaking Alex’s car – probably the only Citroën like it in the area with the distinctive curly wing where she always seemed to nudge the bins on her way out of the office. There was a parking ticket on her windscreen, he noted. Good. He looked up and down the road carefully but there was no-one in sight and on an impulse he turned off the engine and got out, retrieving the fishing knife from the glove compartment before making his way over to the vehicle. It was the work of a few seconds to slash the two front tyres and he was back in his own car and driving calmly down the road, a grin on his face, before anyone looked out of a window or spotted him.

He pulled in to the car park of the Iron Beehive, a pub along the river near where the main road bridge crossed on its way out of town. It was skittles night and so the bar was
crowded despite the town’s economic malaise. The air was thick with smoke and all eyes were on the long wooden alley where men (and the occasional woman) slid and swung their bodies to hurl the heavy balls the length of the room. Amidst the shouting and heckling no-one noticed the big, dark man who sat quietly in the shadows watching the Combined Police and Ambulance team lose to the home squad. After half an hour, and several pints, Derek slipped out to wait in his car until the visitors left. He scribbled down a licence plate before turning and heading back towards the limited home comforts of his wife.

‘Come on, the men are buying drinks and you might as well enjoy the evening,’ urged Sue from the door. Alex put down the document with a sigh.

‘Have you read this?’ she asked.

Sue shook her head. ‘No and neither has anyone else I
suspect
… except possibly Gordon, hopefully Gordon – I’m going to get him to give me the condensed version. Are you coming or not?’

Alex looked at the papers in her hand, threw them on the bed and followed her down to the bar. ‘What about Garry?’ she said, hurrying along the corridor and down the stairs.

‘Look, if he’s there he’ll only stay for a while and he’ll have to buy a round. It’s the done thing, but he won’t want to spend the evening rubbing shoulders with the peasants. He’s too mean and too snobbish for that. On the other hand, if he’s there and you’re not he’s bound to notice and hold it against you.’

‘So you’re telling me I have no choice in the matter,’
muttered
Alex, as they rounded the corner and reached the door to the bar.

‘Exactly,’ said Sue, flinging the door wide open.

There was a chorus of greetings as they entered.

‘Told you,’ came a voice from a far corner, as Gordon unfolded his length from a small faux-rustic chair and ambled over to meet them.

‘What will you have? Don’t worry, Eddie’s paying.’ He waved his hand vaguely behind him. ‘He lost the bet.’

‘You were betting on whether we’d come down or not?’ asked Alex scandalized.

‘No, of course not. We were betting on whether
you
would. I knew you’d make it – you have a strong streak of pragmatism running through that anti-social soul of yours. Now, come and join us. I don’t suppose you play dominoes do you?’ he added.

Alex grinned at the group around the table. ‘Only for money,’ she said.

The men shuffled round to make some space and Eddie raised his glass to the newcomers.

‘Here’s to you both. Good show today Alex – stopped the
Maestro
in his tracks. Almost as good as Lauren’s little
tableau
this morning,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye. There was a cheer at this remark and toasts were proposed in the direction of a rather embarrassed Lauren.

There was a slight air of tension amidst the revelry, a
glancing
over the shoulder each time the door opened until finally Garry made his entrance, the determinedly cheerful Sally trailing in his wake. Sue had been right in her description of his involvement in the evening. After offering to buy a round he made a point of visiting every table to offer a greeting, a touch on the shoulder, and the occasional joke. They were fairly equally distributed, Alex noted cynically, rather as if he were running on a tape loop. She hoped she would escape the touch on the shoulder and found herself counting the
remaining
people in groups of three, wondering if it would be too obvious if she got up and changed places. When it came to it she got a slightly guarded nod and what sounded suspiciously like a veiled compliment.

‘Good questions today, Alex. I should have known you’d see through to the core of the issues.’ He moved on, towing Sally behind him, but not before she had leaned over, stared at Alex for a moment and added, ‘Ah yes, Alex. Of course …’

Alex glowered at her back as she drifted off in Garry’s
wake. ‘What the bloody hell did all that mean?’ she said.

Gordon leaned over and said softly, ‘Don’t take it to heart. Most people find it threatening to have a subordinate who is cleverer than they are. Now, I believe you were boasting of your prowess at dominoes?’ He picked up the box,
emptied
the dominoes out onto the table with a great clatter and Alex’s chance to respond was lost.

Once Garry had left (taking his familiar with him, as Sue rather waspishly put it) it was quite a good night. Alex had learned to play dominoes in the pubs of south London where elderly men from Jamaica, Antigua and Barbados hunched over battered tables fighting to the death for honour and a free pint. These matches were noisy affairs with shouting, laughter and dominoes slammed down at arms’ length. Alex had watched, then been invited to play a game for a bet and eventually, after two long years and several sprained fingers, found she could hold her own and even win occasionally. The Somerset game was tame in comparison and after a few whitewashes she felt a bit ashamed of taking their money, but when she tried to leave there was a chorus of disapproval from the men.

‘No, now then, you’ve got to give us a chance to win it back – you can’t just clear off when you’re winning,’ said Eddie.

‘I want to work out how you seem to know where the numbers are,’ mused Paul Malcolm. ‘Is it like counting cards?’

‘It’s a “tell” of some kind,’ mused Gordon. ‘You’re
reading
our body language and drawing out the numbers to suit your hand.’

Alex snorted in disgust. ‘Set them up you sad losers,’ she said. ‘I’m just a better player than you are.’ She was feeling warm, comfortable and more at ease than she had since
leaving
London, possibly due to the numerous drinks that kept appearing in front of her.

Some time much later, when Alex, seven colleagues and three boxes of dominoes were involved in a riotous and
physically challenging game, Alex heard herself say to Eddie, ‘Of course I can. I’m actually a qualified life-saver. Why?’

‘Oh, well, it’s always good to know. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, struggling to recall the earlier parts of the conversation, but the pieces had just been dealt and she forgot all about it as she was swept up in the thrill of competition.

It is the norm in prisons that remand and convicted inmates are housed separately. They have different living areas,
separate
recreation rooms and take their exercise at different times but there are points where the two worlds collide. Although the remand prisoners had their own dining room the food was cooked and served by men from the main population and Kevin came to dread mealtimes. Bristol was the temporary home to a small but cohesive traveller population, victims of the government crackdown on the burgeoning ‘New Age’ movement that swept up peace activists, tinkers and Romany with a fine lack of discrimination. Relying on income from fringe enterprises, they were united in their hostility to Kevin from the moment they learned what he was charged with. The Elver Man, it seemed, was one of their own, a respected and vital link in their trading network and his loss had hit them hard. Kevin protested his innocence, loud and long, but it made no difference. He tried to survive by slinking around the wing with his head down, ever vigilant and always afraid. His meagre belongings were stolen or broken, his cell was smeared with excrement and he was constantly jostled and tripped in the exercise yard. He was a marked man.