has informed me that one of you little fucking heathens has been nicking his communion breads.’ He paused to scowl at them, scanning the boys’ expressions. ‘They were there before your block went to Mass this week,’ he continued, ‘and gone immediately after. So your rooms are being searched as we speak and woe betide the robbing little bastard when we find him. Mr Conlan is conducting the search and you’ll remain out here till he’s done. Anyone got any fucking objections?’
A collective low groan was the only response. Everyone knew what this meant. Conlan was an even bigger bastard than Downey, and anyone who had given him reason to be annoyed with them this week would now get their rooms completely trashed. Which, in turn, would mean a minimum of five days in the block, three of them spent on basic rations of bread and water. Most of the lads didn’t actually mind the five days but, depending on who it was handing out the punishment, that word ‘minimum’ was key. You could get 10 days, if they felt like it – and Conlan often felt like it – or even 15, and that was a killer.
They stood for 10 minutes – time enough to get frostbite, Vinnie reckoned, or, at the very least, your nuts shrunk to raisins – before Conlan and Duffy came outside. And to a collective lowering of anxious shoulders as they saw what Conlan carried, which was a small plastic bag which looked like it held the communion wafers, or, more correctly, the ‘body of Christ’. Well, ‘correctly’ if you believed that shit, anyway.
They walked straight to Downey, and Conlan whispered something in his ear, which immediately elicited a grin. A sadistic grin, too, the kind he was best at. He walked towards the lads then, and then along the rows, stepping on bare feet as he did so, being careful not to miss anyone out.
Vinnie clamped his teeth together and clenched his stomach as Downey passed through his own row, feeling the hot gust of his breath as he paused momentarily, leaning his weight to maximum effect.
That was what Downey did – liked to shit them up, make them wonder if it was their turn, pausing here and there, sometimes backing up and taking a second pass on some hapless quaking fucker. But today it wasn’t Vinnie’s turn – he had better things to do with his time than nick fucking communion wafers, frankly – and Downey eventually fetched up at, and stayed in front of, a half-caste lad in the middle of the second row.
‘So, Francis,’ he said softly, but still loud enough that everyone could hear him, ‘you thieving black bastard. Fancied a bit of Father Duffy’s communion, did you? What’s up, didn’t he have no fucking bananas?’
The lad’s name was Kenny Francis, and he’d been in borstal nine months, for nicking cars. Even with Vinnie’s side-on view, it was clear by his expression that it hadn’t been him who’d committed this particular crime, but if Downey had him singled out it was odds-on that didn’t matter – he must have pissed someone off at some point and was now going to pay for it. Vinnie wondered who the someone was who’d planted it – some full-on cocky sod; must be. Because Kenny Francis wasn’t a lad to be messed with – not if you had any sense. He definitely wouldn’t take this lying down.
Or from Downey either. ‘Fuck off!’ he responded. ‘That’s not come from my room and you know it. Fucking risk the block for a few wafers? Do I look like a spaz?’
‘No, Francis,’ Downey said, leaning in towards his face, ‘you look like a wog.’
Just as everyone knew would happen, the moment the words were spoken, Kenny immediately took a swing for Downey. And just as everyone knew would also happen, Conlan was there in an instant, and both screws started battering him with batons.
He put up a mammoth fight, but he was pinned down within minutes. Vinnie and the rest of the block could only stand there and watch in disgust as the screws dragged him, bloodied and beaten, towards the shower blocks.
‘Let’s hope Father Duffy had a wank this morning,’ Vinnie whispered, to no one in particular, ‘or Francis will get another arse-whipping in the showers.’
Some of the lads around him giggled nervously, but no one answered. They’d all heard the rumours about the priest – and knew they were more than rumours, too; they’d all at one time or another seen the state of the lads who had been summoned to ‘meetings’ with him. If that was what Kenny Francis had coming, no one wanted to even think about it, let alone talk about it.
‘Go on, then!’ Father Duffy shouted now, as he hurried along to join the others in the showers. ‘Get off back to your block, boys, or you’ll miss breakfast!’
‘Well, the rest of us should be safe then,’ Vinnie quipped as he and the others jogged back. ‘You know what they say – once you’ve had black, you never turn back.’
He felt a clip across his head as Mick Hanley cuffed him. ‘Shurrup, you fucking queen, and get a shift on, will you? It’s Friday. Jam duff day. Come on.’
Mick sprinted ahead and Vinnie followed him, the tension dissipated. It was always like that when someone else had it coming, the poor bastard. A pity, but also a relief: it wasn’t him. All his thoughts were now focussed on breakfast.
The atmosphere in the dining hall was predictably subdued. Everyone knew about the room searches and they all knew that somebody from C Block would – right this very minute – be taking some kind of brutal punishment for something they hadn’t done, because of something they had done to annoy another lad higher up the pecking order.
The lads from Vinnie’s block were especially quiet. Each of them knew their rooms would have been well and truly trashed now, and that any precious, tucked-away bits of baccy, sweets or chocolate would have been stolen for the benefit of the fat bastard screws. A shake-down wasn’t pleasant any time and, coupled with the probable fate of Francis at the hands of Duffy, it would, Vinnie knew, set the mood for the rest of the day.
The screws weren’t gone long. The lads were still only halfway through their breakfast when Downey and Conlan returned, expressions set, either side of a now broken-looking Kenny Francis. They escorted him up to the counter to get a tray of food and then quickly guided him back out, through the now silent dining hall. He would be going down to the block for at least five days, everyone knew, and Vinnie wondered what he had really done for them to be so keen to get him off the main landings.
‘He’ll have done fuck all,’ Mick answered when Vinnie asked him. ‘Them cunts are just a bunch of racist bastards. They’re just trying to break him down, that’s all. Just doing it because they fucking can. Scum, the lot of them.’ He shook his head and pushed the remainder of his breakfast away. ‘Poor cunt will have had Father Duffy up his fucking arse, just because his face don’t fit. That’s how it works, Vin.’
Vinnie gave an involuntary shudder. The thought of it was putting him off his jam duff as well. And with the grim image came a sudden and intense sense of claustrophobia. A kind of nausea. He needed to be out of this sick, depraved hell. ‘I’ve got to get out of this fucking hole, Mick,’ he said. ‘If that fucker comes near me, I’ll kill the cunt, I know I will.’
Mick laughed. ‘You’ll be alright, McKellan,’ he said. ‘Duffy’s not into ginger snaps.’ He clapped Vinnie on the back as he scraped back his chair. ‘Must dash, got a fun-packed day building walls ahead. So have you. Or are you doing your Percy Thrower bit? Either way, don’t work too hard, mush, okay?’
Vinnie smiled as Mick left, his mood lifted slightly. He wasn’t that bad, as far as roommates went. He could be quite entertaining when he wasn’t slapping Vinnie about, and today Vinnie needed a laugh. He downed the rest of his chocolate and then went to check the damage in his room in the half hour he had to kill before he was due to meet his team down in the visitors’ grounds.
Once in there, his mood plummeted again. Surveying the chaos in the one place he felt he could let his guard down, he felt a bad feeling mushroom in the pit of his stomach. It was the same feeling that assaulted him regularly these days; a mish-mash of loneliness because he so missed his mum and his little sister, and anger and frustration and weariness. It was exhausting living with constant threat, having to maintain that constant vigilance; of knowing you existed