Cat O'Nine Tales (2006) Read online

  Pat stared out of the tiny square window, and when the vehicle turned south onto Baker Street, realized it had to be Belmarsh. Pat sighed. At least they’ve got a half-decent library, he thought, and I may even be able to get back my old job in the kitchen.

  When the Black Maria pulled up outside the prison gates, his guess was confirmed. A large green board attached to the prison gate announced BELMARSH, and some wag had replaced BEL with HELL. The van proceeded through one set of double-barred gates, and then another, before finally coming to a halt in a barren yard.

  Twelve prisoners were herded out of the van and marched up the steps to an induction area, where they waited in line. Pat smiled when he reached the front of the queue and saw who was behind the desk, checking them all in.

  “And how are we this fine pleasant evening, Mr. Jenkins?” Pat asked.

  The Senior Officer looked up from behind his desk and said, “It can’t be October already.”

  “It most certainly is, Mr. Jenkins,” Pat confirmed, “and may I offer my commiserations on your recent loss.”

  “My recent loss,” repeated Mr. Jenkins. “What are you talking about, Pat?”

  “Those fifteen Welshmen who appeared in Dublin earlier this year, passing themselves off as a rugby team.”

  “Don’t push your luck, Pat.”

  “Would I, Mr. Jenkins, when I was hoping that you would allocate me my old cell?”

  The SO ran his finger down the list of available cells. “ ‘Fraid not, Pat,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, “it’s already double-booked. But I’ve got just the person for you to spend your first night with,” he added, before turning to the night officer. “Why don’t you escort O’Flynn to cell one nineteen.”

  The night officer looked uncertain, but after a further look from Mr. Jenkins, all he said was, “Follow me, Pat.”

  “So who has Mr. Jenkins selected to be my pad mate on this occasion?” inquired Pat, as the night officer accompanied him down the long, gray-brick corridor before coming to a halt at the first set of double-barred gates. “Is it to be Jack the Ripper, or Michael Jackson?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” responded the night officer as the second of the barred gates slid open.

  “Have I ever told you,” asked Pat, as they walked out on to the ground floor of B block, “about the time I tried to get a job on a building site in Liverpool, and the foreman, a bloody Englishman, had the nerve to ask me if I knew the difference between a joist and a girder?”

  Pat waited for the officer to respond, as they came to a halt outside cell number 119. He placed a large key in the lock.

  “No, Pat, you haven’t,” the night officer said as he pulled open the heavy door. “So what is the difference between a joist and a girder?” he demanded.

  Pat was about to reply, but when he looked into the cell was momentarily silenced.

  “Good evening, m’lord,” said Pat, for the second time that day The night officer didn’t wait for a reply. He slammed the door closed, and turned the key in the lock.

  Pat spent the rest of the evening telling me, in graphic detail, all that had taken place since two o’clock that morning. When he had finally come to the end of his tale, I simply asked, “Why October?”

  “Once the clocks go back,” said Pat, “I prefer to be inside, where I’m guaranteed three meals a day and a cell with central heating. Sleeping rough is all very well in the summer, but it’s not so clever during an English winter.”

  “But what would you have done if Mr. Perkins had sentenced you to a year?” I asked.

  “I’d have been on my best behavior from day one,” said Pat, “and they would have released me in six months. They have a real problem with overcrowding at the moment,” he explained.

  “But if Mr. Perkins had stuck to his original sentence of just three months, you would have been released in January, mid-winter.”

  “Not a hope,” said Pat. “Just before I was due to be let out, I would have been found with a bottle of Guinness in my cell. A misdemeanor for which the governor is obliged to automatically add a further three months to your sentence, and that would have taken me comfortably through to April.”

  I laughed. “And is that how you intend to spend the rest of your life?” I asked.

  “I don’t think that far ahead,” admitted Pat. “Six months is quite enough to be going on with,” he added, as he climbed on to the top bunk and switched off the light.

  “Goodnight, Pat,” I said, as I rested my head on the pillow.

  “Have I ever told you about the time I tried to get a job on a building site in Liverpool?” asked Pat, just as I was falling asleep.

  “No, you haven’t,” I replied.

  “Well, the foreman, a bloody Englishman, no offense intended—” I smiled—”had the nerve to ask me if I knew the difference between a joist and a girder.”

  “And do you?” I asked.

  “I most certainly do. Joyce wrote Ulysses, and Goethe wrote Faust.”

  Patrick O’Flynn died of hypothermia on 23 November 2005, while sleeping under the arches on Victoria Embankment in central London.

  His body was discovered by a young constable, just a hundred yards away from the Savoy Hotel.

  The Red King

  “They charged me with the wrong offense, and sen-I tenced me for the wrong crime,” Max said as he lay in the bunk below me, rolling another cigarette.

  While I was in prison, I heard this claim voiced by inmates on several occasions, but in the case of Max Glover it turned out to be true.

  Max was serving a three-year sentence for obtaining money by false pretenses. Not his game. Max’s speciality was removing small items from large homes. He once told me, with considerable professional pride, that it could be years before an owner became aware that a family heirloom has gone missing, especially, Max added, if you take one small, but valuable, object from a cluttered room.

  “Mind you,” continued Max, “I’m not complaining, because if they had charged me with the crime I did commit, I would have ended up with a much longer sentence—” he paused—”and nothing to look forward to once I’m released.”

  Max knew he had aroused my curiosity, and as I had nowhere to go for the next three hours before the cell door would be opened for Association—that glorious forty-five minutes when prisoners are allowed out of their cell for a stroll around the yard—I picked up my pen, and said, “OK, Max, I’m hooked. So tell me how you came to be sentenced for the wrong crime.”

  Max struck a match, lit his hand-rolled cigarette and inhaled deeply before he began. In prison, every action is exaggerated, as no one is in a hurry. I lay on the bunk above and waited patiently.

  “Does the Kennington Set mean anything to you?” Max began.

  “No,” I replied, assuming he must be referring to a group of red-coated gentlemen on horseback, glass of port in one hand, whip in the other, surrounded by a pack of hounds with intent to spend their Saturday morning in pursuit of a furry animal with a bushy tail. I was wrong. The Kennington Set, as Max went on to explain, was in fact a chess set.

  “But no ordinary chess set,” he assured me. I became more interested. The pieces were probably crafted by Lu Ping (1469-1540), a master craftsman of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). All thirty-two ivory pieces were exquisitely carved and then delicately painted in red and white. The details have been faithfully recorded in several historic documents, though it has never been conclusively established exactly how many sets Lu Ping was responsible for producing in his lifetime.

  “Three complete sets were known to be in existence,” continued Max as smoke spiraled up from the lower bunk. “The first is displayed in the throne room of the People’s Palace in Peking; the second in the Mellon Collection in Washington, and the third at the British Museum. Many collectors scoured the great continent of China in search of the fabled fourth set, and although such efforts always ended in failure, several individual pieces appeared on the market from time to time.”