Lewis Billy Rags

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-0-85730-509-1
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

It's the 1960s and Billy Cracken is a hard man to keep locked up. An austere and troubled childhood has given way to life as a hardened criminal and now status as one of the most feared prisoners in England. He has been moved from one maximum security prison to the next. Guards and inmates alike fear and begrudgingly respect the powerfully-built Cracken. But a life doing his porridge, even if as a minor celebrity, isn't the one he wants. A girlfriend and a child await Cracken on the outside and he'll stop at nothing to get to them. While plotting his escape he crosses a powerful mobster who vows to make Cracken's life hell, and if nothing else succeeds at making his escape all the more difficult, something the ever-rebellious Cracken defiantly relishes. The follow-up novel to the wildly successful Get Carter, Billy Rags is a fascinating look into the lives of British inmates serving time in a maximum security prison. Lewis manages once again to tell an exciting, action-filled story with a soul - demonstrated most clearly in a series of brilliant flashbacks to Billy's childhood and in the end conjures a character that will remind readers of both Tom Hardy in Bronson and Lee Marvin in Point Blank.

Born in Manchester, England, Ted Lewis (1940-1982) spent most of his youth in Barton-upon-Humber in the north of England. After graduating from Hull Art School, Lewis moved to London and first worked in advertising before becoming an animation specialist, working on the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. His novels are the product of his lifelong fascination with the criminal lifestyle of London's Soho district and the down-and-out lifestyle of the English factory town. Lewis' novels pioneered the British noir school. He authored nine novels, the second of which was famously adapted in 1971 as the now iconic Get Carter, which stars Michael Caine.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lewis, Ted

Leseproben

I was tidying up the last of the trays when Ray came into the kitchen.

He looked all round the place before he said anything. I didn’t turn round from what I was doing but I knew he’d spotted something.

‘You’ve done them all, then, Billy,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ I said, stacking a load of trays.

‘I just came in to see if you needed a hand.’

‘Well it’s all done, as you can see.’

I dried my hands on the tea towel and looked at Ray.

‘Coming up to watch the box?’ he said.

‘No, I don’t fancy that tonight.’

Why the fuck didn’t he clear off?

I put the towel down. Ray had never been a prime mover in his life but he’d seen a lot of schemes played and he was sharp enough to realise something was on and he was very reluctant to leave the kitchen.

I took out my cigarettes.

‘What’s on tonight, anyway?’ I said. ‘Anything good?’

‘Coronation Street.’

I looked at my watch.

‘Nearly finished,’ I said.

‘I’d better go up then,’ Ray said.

We looked at each other for a minute or two longer. Then Ray turned and went out of the kitchen.

I waited till he was well out of the way, then I dashed into the shower room. Steam was everywhere. Tommy was already getting the bricks out of the wall and Gil was stacking them behind the bench.

‘I think Ray’s on to it,’ I said.

‘Never mind about that,’ Tommy said, ‘open that door and keep a bleeding look out.’

I began to take my clothes off. In the middle of the room was an exercising bicycle that Ray had left there that afternoon when he’d had a quick sweat up and shower. The bicycle should have been put away in the weights cell with the rest of the equipment. There was something out of place about it sitting there in the middle of the shower room. Especially as Ray had been the last one to use it.

‘For Christ’s sake, Billy,’ Tommy said. ‘Get minding.’

‘All right, all right,’ I said, ‘let me get out of my fucking trousers.’

I walked towards the door just wearing shirt and pants. The door opened. We all froze.

It was Ray. He strode into the room, towards the bicycle. But he stopped dead when he saw that the hole had been opened up.

‘Ray,’ Tommy said, his voice a low shriek. ‘What you doing? The bleeding door.’

Ray didn’t move. He just stood by the bike and stared at the hole. Then at Gil. Tommy’s words hadn’t registered at all.

I leant forward and closed the door.

‘What’s happening?’ Ray said.

Tommy bluffed it.

‘What do you mean, what’s happening?’ he said. ‘We’re stashing some gear, that’s what’s happening. And you nearly gave us fucking heart failure didn’t you, my old son?’

Ray kept looking at Gil. Then in a quiet voice Ray said to me: ‘What you told him for?’

The noise of the showers confined Ray’s voice to my ears.

‘It was Tommy’s idea,’ I said. ‘They used to know each other on the Moor.’

Ray still didn’t move.

‘Ray come on,’ I said, arms beseeching. ‘Shift the fucking bike out. If they check the weights cell we’re nicked.’

‘Either that or give us a hand with the bricks,’ Tommy said. ‘Don’t just stand there like a spare prick.’

Ray thought about it. Then he picked up the bike. He’d had the sense to realise the fact that if he’d offered to help with the bricks, and it was right what he thought, we were making one, then he’d have got a bar over his head. So all he could do was to pick up the bike and leave us alone.

I opened the door and let him out and closed the door behind him.

‘Well, that’s it,’ said Tommy. ‘He’ll tell Walter.’

‘It’s too late to worry about that now,’ I said, taking my shirt off. I wanted to go down in my underwear to cut out the risk of snagging on the brickwork.

I was the biggest, so it had been agreed that I should go first.

I climbed into the hole and eased down head first for the second entrance into the cellars. I wriggled my head and shoulders into the cellar opening but my feet were still sticking out into the shower room through the first hole. It was a tight fit round my shoulders and with my feet outside I couldn’t get any purchase to push myself through.

‘Tommy,’ I said, ‘push on the soles of my feet.’

‘Right.’

He nearly broke my fucking ankles but the pressure allowed me to force myself through a little farther. And now my feet were in the chimney so I could brace them on the back of the chimney and force myself through that way. When I was half way through I felt in the darkness for the steel girder Tommy had told me about. It ran across the cellar roof and the only way down was to grab hold and swing, unless of course you went through head first on to the cellar floor.

The cellar was pitch black. My fingers found the damp iron. I heaved and swung and then I let go. I hit the cellar floor and overbalanced and jarred my elbow on the floor. I straightened up and lit a match. The bundles of clothes were on the floor. I blew the match and grabbed my clothes and put them on. Then I picked up Tommy’s bundle and waited for him to drop through. He was only a couple of seconds behind me. I gave him the bundle and he got changed while Gil made his way down. There wasn’t a bundle for Gil. There hadn’t been time. He had to take his chances in what he was wearing.

The hooked rope was in Tommy’s bundle.

‘Got the rope, Tommy?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Christ,’ said Gil. ‘I can’t see a fucking thing.’

I reached out and grabbed hold of Gil and pushed him behind Tommy.

‘Hold on to Tommy,’ I said. ‘He knows the way. I’ll hold on to you.’

We moved off. It was slow going. Tommy knew the way through the cellars, knew how many arches there were to the wall where the tunnel was, but he had to feel his way along. I just hoped his arithmetic was up to scratch.

It took us nearly five minutes to feel our way to the tunnel. I kept wondering what was going on upstairs, whether or not Walter had started creating, whether or not the screws had missed us, whether or not they’d found the hole.

‘Here we are,’ said Tommy. ‘And so’s the ladder, my lovelies.’

Gil and I stopped. There was a short silence, then Tommy grunted as he pulled back the bar he’d cut through.

‘Done it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go through first with the ladder.’

I heard the ladder being pulled through. Then Gil and I felt the bars and found the bent one and crawled through into the tunnel. We had to go bent double like miners in a book of Orwell’s I remembered reading, but at least with the tunnel there was only one way to go and that was forward. After a while I saw dim light ahead of me, drifting down the ventilation shaft.

Tommy was already going up the ladder when I straightened up into the ventilation shaft. He took the padlock off and opened the grille and stepped out into the yard without making a sound.

I followed him out, and then Gil. Now we were all out in the open. Naked. No cover.

But the nick was quiet. No commotion. Nothing had gone off inside. Not yet.

I pointed to the dangling rope.

‘Gil, up there. And don’t make any noise on that plastic. It’s murder.’

We ran to the rope and Gil started up. Tommy went next. He was half way up the rope as Gil pushed himself up through the hole.

He made a terrible racket.

You cunt, I thought. Why the fuck did we bring you?

The sound of the plastic rattled and cracked through the yard’s silence. Then the racket stopped. Gil must have got to the office roof and pulled himself up.

Tommy went through the hole and didn’t make a sound and all the time as I climbed up the rope I was expecting to hear the alarm go off. But it didn’t.

I went through the hole without making any noise.

I was in the open air. I could hear the sound of the city.

I looked towards the office roof. We had to cross it to get at the section of wall we wanted. Gil was outlined against the sky, balancing on the edge of the office roof. Tommy and I began to crawl towards him.

Gil waved us back with his hand. Tommy and I stopped dead. Gil got down on to the plastic and began to crawl back towards us.

‘What in Christ’s name is he playing at?’ Tommy said.

When he got near enough to speak Gil said:

‘We’re rumbled. There’s a screw with a dog looking towards us. He must have heard us on the plastic.’

I felt sick.

‘Us!’ Tommy said. ‘Listen you cunt…’

‘Shut up!’ I said. ‘We’ll have to go the other way.’

‘What other way?’

‘Across the plastic.’

This was the only alternative. Back across the plastic and drop down by the remand wing that butted on to the other side. Then round the end wing to a spot I’d seen when I’d been over the main prison, towards the main gate. I knew we had a good chance of getting over if we could make that spot. In any case, we had no choice. And there was no time left for gut-crawling. We had to leg it.

Gil picked up the rope and wound it round his waist. Tommy went off first, then me, then Gil. The noise was like thunder. As I ran I could see men getting up at their windows in the remand block, silhouetted against their cell lights. Then I...