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out of the car park, home to his family.
    Shelley watched bitterly. It was all right for some. She called in at the newsagent’s at the bottom of the Lord Hill monument and caught the early edition of the
Shropshire Star
.
    Much as she’d expected, she thought.
    Call had made the headlines. There was plenty about young thugs and antisocial behaviour. ASBOs were the Government’s latest mantra and Hughes, aged thirteen, fittedthe bill perfectly. From being an unknown he had become an object of hatred in just a few hours. A meteoric rise to infamy.
    Nothing, she noted bitterly, as she scanned down the page, about retaliation, nothing about bullying in schools or the need for some targeted youngsters to protect themselves because no one else would. There was nothing but condemnation.
Unprovoked attack
. The words mocked her from the page. She wanted to set the record straight publicly and knew she might not have the opportunity. She dropped the paper into the bin.
8.30 p.m.
    Callum was sick in the back of the truck. He’d always been a bad traveller but the rocking motion together with the confinement on top of the stress all preyed on him so he vomited into a sick bag again and again until his stomach was empty.
    The security guard was sympathetic. He handed him a clean bag. ‘Get a bit of travel problems myself,’ he said. ‘Nasty, ain’t it?’
    Callum eyed him suspiciously. From now on everyone was an enemy.
    The sun was sinking behind the horizon by the time they arrived at the main entrance of Stoke Heath. Callum heard the great gates swing open and clang behind him. He heard it echo round and round his head and knew the sound would stay with him even if the place was silent.
    Suddenly the doors were flung open and an arc light shone in. Callum stared out. The entire courtyard was floodlit. He would soon learn that no corner was to be left dark. Therewould be no hiding place; no crevices under stones. Young Offenders’ Institutes are not designed to be pleasant places but to confine and re-educate, teach the young hoodlums the error of their ways. On the other hand they are not as intimidating as adult prisons.
    The security guards stood up with him and patted him on the back. As Callum stepped out of the van two prison officers stepped forward. The first one, Stevie Matthews, small, plump, with straight, dark hair, was new on the job. This was only her third day. This was her first transfer and her first ever stint of night duty.
    Her colleague, however, was a different case altogether. Walton Pembroke, craggy-faced, cynical, a world-weary divorced father of three girls, had thirty years of service behind him. He was one of the old school. Rough and tumble. Shove ’em around a bit. A don’t-let-them-have-the- upper-hand sort of a guy. Stevie was learning all the tricks from her senior. Walton Pembroke was a man feared by many. And not just the inmates. Heavy and ponderous, with a beer-drinker’s belly and bloodshot blue eyes, he supported the old values. He knew all the tricks of the sly little bastards. He knew where they slipped their drugs, where the beatings happened, what they’d smuggled in via long kisses from their sweethearts or firm handshakes from their mates outside. He knew those that were on the fiddle, those who pushed drugs. He knew the queens and the straight, the sexually predatory and their victims, those who masturbated alone and the ones who cried for their mothers into their pillows at night. He could recognise at thirty paces the racially prejudiced and the oddballs. He could recognise all the breaking points, spot theones who were likely to erupt at any time. He had seen all sorts of trouble and knew all the warning signs. Those who had been in Stoke Heath more than once anticipated him without relish. He was physically strong, not above taking the odd swipe and he took no shit from any of them. He’d classified Callum Hughes before he’d even stepped out of the security van. Scared