By the Left
Chapter 4
After a while I took over Bob Wildman’s job typing out documents for him to sign. I could get anything I wanted by just typing out an order and sending it to administration via the wing office. Bob was really friendly and I soon became good friends with him. He wasn’t around all the time like he used to be as I got used to doing his job.
“Sign for me. Look here’s my signature” Bob said scrawling his signature on a piece of paper on my desk.
I noticed that his signature was a big R Wild that petered out to an indecipherable line. I picked up a pen and copied the signature exactly.
“That’s incredible” Bob exclaimed.
“I you are wild” I said looking at him.
Bob’s eyes widened in a perceptual leap: “I am wild! I never realised it meant that before” he admitted.
“I’m wild too” I said laughing.
“I know that you are a man with a mission” he said.
I knew that it was Lord Longford who had used this description of me saying to me “You are a man with a mission” and he had transmitted that description to the Home Office. “You have access to my record?” I asked.
“Yes I am a criminologist and I work in the Home Office” Bob replied.
14
Danger to the Public
“I bet that my record is really thick?” I joked grinning.
Bob lounged back in his executive swivel chair and grinned his smoothly shaved face stretching, his mouth widening.”They have a room for just you” he informed me emitting a giggle.
I stared at him in disbelief realising that he was serious. “What a room just devoted to me?” I asked.
“Yes your own special room, the Muldoon Room it’s called” he confirmed.
“But why do they spend all that money on gathering intelligence, a lot of it false.” I thought that it must be millions. I remembered Tuppy Owens telling me that a girl was getting paid to spy on me. “Why do they spend all those millions on me? Why don’t they just give me the money?” I asked.
“Because you have some very dangerous ideas” Bob replied.
He worked at the Home Office, “Perhaps he was getting paid to spy on me too” the thought flashed through my head. “I have been classified as a subversive?” I replied.
“Of course you have; remember Maidstone and all that romantic left wing stuff you wrote about Marxism and revolution?” Bob asked.
“Yes the governor was a Marxist” I said trying to remember his name.
“Yes that’s why the New Right got rid of him and replaced him with a Christian Fundamentalist” Bob informed me.
I remembered Governor Tibbs and the little cross that he wore in his lapel. “He got me parole but the prison did tighten up a lot after he arrived” I observed remembering happy days spent in the gym and
15
Danger to the Public
swimming in the open pool before he took over from the Marxist governor.
After a while I would go to the office after breakfast and read The Guardian and when Bob arrived I would make him and I a cup of coffee and we would often discuss politics.
I soon discovered that he originated from the working classes and won a scholarship to Cambridge where he took five degrees, a doctorate in criminology, was on the left politically and hated the British class system.
“I went into a bank once wearing my Cambridge tie and asked for a loan to start up a business” Bob said looking angry. “If I had worn an old school tie I would have got it but because I wore my Cambridge tie I did not” he added pursing his lips.
I had noticed that when he was angry he would he would compress his lips into a thin line of disappointment.
I was sitting typing one day when a screw knocked on the door and opened it. “Sorry Dr Wildman isn’t here at the moment. Can I help you?” I asked.
“I just need some drawing books and things for my kids” he said.
“Okay Sir I’ll get them for you I said opening a cabinet and giving him drawing books, exercise books, water paints, brushes and pens and pencils.
“Thanks Freeman” he said a big smile on his face.
