Good as Dead by Mark Billingham Page A

where Amin Akhtar had been held, housed boys between fifteen and eighteen. The population was fed from a Secure Training Unit holding younger boys and itself fed directly on to the Young Offenders Institution for those aged eighteen to twenty-one. The three sites had different governors and management teams, but while each prison was autonomous, key members of staff moved between them on a regular basis and they shared sports facilities, a reception area and a hospital wing.
    ‘No,’ Bracewell said. ‘He was being transferred.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘He wanted to do an A-level course in Pure Maths, whatever that is, and unfortunately we don’t do an awful lot beyond woodwork here. He’d applied to do the course at a YOI in the East Midlands. Long Minster?’
    Thorne shook his head. He didn’t know it. ‘Anyway, I was happy to approve the application despite some stupidly strong opposition from the Youth Justice Board, and he was scheduled to be transferred … some time this month, I think.’
    Thorne made a note of it. ‘He was doing well here,’ Bracewell said.
    ‘And I can’t say that for too many of the boys. He spent almost all his time on our Gold wing, with better rooms and extra privileges and so on, and presuming things had carried on the same way he would probably have been looking at an open prison well before his sentence was up.’ Bracewell smiled and shook his head. ‘Tragically, all speculation now of course.’
    ‘It’s very helpful.’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘Building up a picture of him, you know?’
    The governor nodded and looked at Thorne. ‘Well, I’d certainly have been sorry to see him go.’
    ‘But you still approved his move?’
    ‘Because it was the best thing for him, and it was what he wanted.’
    ‘So why was the Youth Justice Board opposed to it?’
    ‘Well, I suppose it would have been a little further from his family than he was here, but sometimes these pen-pushers who allocate placements just like to try and make things awkward, if you ask me. I’m sure you’ve met the type.’
    Thorne said that he’d met plenty. That it sounded like a detective chief superintendent of his acquaintance. He glanced at the white-board behind Bracewell’s desk. Various headings had been scribbled: Re-offending Rates ; Justification for Remand ; Age/Offence/Ethnicity . At the bottom of the board, somewhat incongruously, it said, Buy milk, eggs, smoothies .
    ‘How did he end up in the hospital wing?’ Thorne asked.
    Bracewell shrugged. ‘Looked at someone for a few seconds too long. Or someone didn’t like the fact that he was awarded certain privileges for good behaviour. Sometimes these kids don’t need any reason at all.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Someone walked into his cell and slashed his face. In and out, no sign of a weapon.’
    ‘You had a damn good look though.’
    ‘We followed all the normal search procedures.’
    Thorne nodded. The sharpness of the governor’s response had probably been justified. Thorne knew how hard it was to find any weapon, when a boy determined enough could fashion one from almost anything that came to hand.
    ‘Amin was taken to the local A&E to get stitched up, then brought back here the same evening. It’s all in the police report.’
    ‘I haven’t seen it yet,’ Thorne said. He had already decided that the constraints placed upon him by time might be no bad thing in terms of his investigation. Not having had a chance to look at the notes, he would be unprejudiced by the findings of the original inquiry and would have no choice but to investigate Amin Akhtar’s death as if it had just happened. If he came to the same conclusions as Martin Dawes then so be it, but this way he might just be giving himself the best chance of getting at the truth and that was what Javed Akhtar wanted. ‘Best to start with a clean slate anyway, I reckon,’ he said. ‘Compare what I find out today with what my predecessor found out eight weeks ago.’
    Bracewell