Free Borstal Slags by Tom Graham Page A

a minimum, but you appreciate that we cannot prevent them entirely.’
    ‘I recently spoke to an ex-inmate of yours,’ said Sam. ‘He suggested there were … irregularities here. What do you think he might have been referring to?’
    ‘I’m very surprised at you, Detective Inspector,’ said McClintock. ‘A man of your experience, giving credence to convicts’ tittle-tattle. The inmates will always cry “foul”. It is in the nature of inmates to do so.’
    ‘True,’ said Sam. ‘But sometimes they have a point.’
    ‘Not here, they don’t,’ McClintock said firmly. ‘There is a system in place here.
The
System. And the boys within these walls will abide by that System. No negotiations. No compromises. The System is everything, and that’s an end.’
    ‘Perhaps a spot of negotiation and compromise is exactly what these boys need,’ Sam suggested. ‘
Treat
them like adults and maybe they’ll start
behaving
like adults.’
    Mr McClintock fixed him with an implacable look. ‘Whether you like it or not, young Detective Inspector, the boys here cannot escape the System. They can run, kid themselves, score a few petty victories, tell themselves they’ll win in the end …’
    Sam frowned. He’d heard these words before. But where?
    ‘But it’s not so,’ McClintock went on, pulling out his fob watch and polishing its shiny casing with a pristine white handkerchief. ‘Everything here is fixed, set in place, unchangeable – like the passing of time itself. You can more easily rearrange the hours of the day, Detective Inspector Tyler, than alter the System.’
    I’ve heard that little speech before – in a dream – in a dream about stars and the cosmos and—
    For a moment, Sam felt his head spinning, his thoughts reeling.
    I’m just a copper – and I’ve got a job to do.
    His gaze was drawn back to the gold fob watch in McClintock’s waist pocket. Its polished surface glinted, and Sam felt a powerful, almost giddying compulsion to reach out and grab it by the chain.
    He forced himself to stay focused.
    ‘What can you tell me about this?’ Sam asked, controlling his breathing as he placed the letter from Andy Coren on Fellowes’s desk.
    Fellowes peered at it, shrugged, and handed it to McClintock.
    ‘Well?’ Sam prompted.
    ‘All correspondences between inmates and the outside world pass by my desk,’ McClintock said proudly. ‘This letter bears my personal stamp. Thus, I approved it.’
    ‘It was written by Andrew Coren and sent to his brother Derek, correct?’
    ‘No, Detective Inspector,
not
correct.’
    Gene’s ears pricked up. ‘Explain what you mean by that, Jimmy.’
    ‘Like many inmates, Coren’s literary abilities did not stretch to the writing of even a simple letter such as this one,’ said McClintock.
    ‘He was illiterate?’ asked Sam.
    ‘No, not at all. Just unhandy with the written word. This letter, gentleman – and I know this from the handwriting – was written by a lad by the name of Donner. He’s an inmate here, although he shouldn’t be, not with the quality of the brain between his ears. He’s too intelligent to be indulging in crime. Perhaps he will mature in time and grow out of these criminal compulsions.’
    ‘So, this lad Donner,’ said Gene. ‘It’s him what wrote this letter on Coren’s behalf?’
    ‘It’s a service Donner supplies,’ said McClintock, passing the letter back to them. ‘Many of the boys here make use of him. No doubt they repay the favour in kind. Do you wish to speak to him?’
    ‘Yes, Mr McClintock, we do,’ said Sam.
    ‘With your leave, then, Mr Fellowes?’
    ‘I have no objections, Mr McClintock,’ said Fellowes, shuffling papers in his desk drawers. ‘But if you might excuse me, I have a great deal to get on with. An escaped inmate is a headache. A dead one is a migraine.’
    ‘But the company of an uptight Jock is always a joy!’ grinned Gene, looming over McClintock. ‘Lead on, MacFanny.’
    McClintock narrowed