‘You see, so many of these boys have real aggression problems. That’s a source of difficulty for so very many
of them. They can’t control themselves, and consequently they suffer.’
He didn’t argue, but she looked at him severely, as though he had.
‘Oh yes, they suffer. That’s why we’re at such pains to show some appreciation of their situation; to teach them that there are alternatives.’
She walked across to the window. From the second storey there was an adequate view of the grounds. Tetherdowne had been some kind of estate, and there was a good deal of land attached to the main house. A playing-field, its grass sere in the midsummer drought. Beyond it a cluster of out-houses, some exhausted trees, shrubbery, and then rough wasteland off to the wall. He’d seen the wall from the other side. Alcatraz would have been proud of it.
‘We try to give them a little freedom, a little education and a little sympathy. There’s a popular notion, isn’t there, that delinquents enjoy their criminal activities? This isn’t my experience at all. They come to me guilty, broken. .
One broken victim flicked a vee at Leverthal’s back as he sauntered along the corridor. Hair slicked down and parted in three places. A couple of home-grown tattoos on his fore-arm, unfinished.
‘They have committed criminal acts, however,’ Redman pointed out.
‘Yes, but —, ‘And must, presumably, be reminded of the fact.’
‘I don’t think they need any reminding, Mr Redman. I think they burn with guilt.’
She was hot on guilt, which didn’t surprise him. They’d taken over the pulpit, these analysts. They were up where the Bible-thumpers used to stand, with the threadbare sermons on the fires below, but with a slightly less colourful vocabulary. It was fundamentally the same story though, complete with the promises of healing, if
the rituals were observed. And behold, the righteous shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
There was a pursuit on the playing field, he noticed. Pursuit, and now a capture. One victim was laying into another smaller victim with his boot; it was a fairly merciless display.
Leverthal caught the scene at the same time as Redman.
‘Excuse me. I must —‘
She started down the stairs.
‘Your workshop is third door on the left if you want to take a look,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be right back.’
Like hell she would. Judging by the way the scene on the field was progressing, it would be a three crowbar job to prize them apart.
Redman wandered along to his workshop. The door was locked, but through the wired glass he could see the benches, the vices, the tools. Not bad at all. He might even teach them some wood-work, if he was left alone long enough to do it.
A bit frustrated not to be able to get in, he doubled back along the corridor, and followed Leverthal downstairs, finding his way out easily on to the sun-lit playing field. A little knot of spectators had grown around the fight, or the massacre, which had now ceased. Leverthal was standing, staring down at the boy on the ground. One of the warders was kneeling at the boy’s head; the injuries looked bad.
A number of the spectators looked up and stared at the new face as Redman approached. There were whispers amongst them, some smiles.
Redman looked at the boy. Perhaps sixteen, he lay with his cheek to the ground, as if listening for something in the earth.
‘Lacey’, Leverthal named the boy for Redman.
‘Is he badly hurt?’
The man kneeling beside Lacey shook his head.
‘Not too bad. Bit of a fall. Nothing broken.’
There was blood on the boy’s face from his mashed nose. His eyes were closed. Peaceful. He could have been dead.
‘Where’s the bloody stretcher?’ said the warder. He was clearly uncomfortable on the drought-hardened ground.
‘They’re coming, Sir,’ said someone. Redman thought it was the aggressor. A thin lad: about nineteen. The sort of eyes that could sour milk at twenty paces.
Indeed a small posse of boys was emerging from the main building, carrying a stretcher and a red blanket. They were all grinning from ear to ear.