The Violent Enemy Page 2

  The prison had been constructed in the reform era of the nineteenth century on a system commonly found in Her Majesty’s prisons. Half a dozen three-tiered cell blocks radiated like the spokes of a wheel from a central hall which lifted a hundred feet into the gloom to an iron framed dome.

  For reasons of safety each cell block was separated from the central hall by a curtain of steel mesh. The Principal Officer unlocked the gate into D block and motioned Rogan through.

  They mounted an iron staircase to the top landing, boxed in with more steel mesh to prevent anyone who felt like it from taking a dive over the rail. His cell was at the far end of the landing and he paused, waiting for the Principal Officer to unlock the door.

  As it opened, Rogan took a step forward and the Principal Officer said, ‘Don’t try anything silly. You’ve everything to lose now.’

  Rogan swung round, his iron control snapping for a brief moment so that the man recoiled from the savage anger that blazed in the grey eyes. He slammed the door shut quickly, turning the key in the lock.

  Rogan turned slowly. The cell was only six by ten with a small barred window, and a washbasin and fixed toilet had been added in an attempt at modernization. A single bed ran along each wall.

  A man was lying on one of them reading a magazine. He looked about sixty-five, with very white hair, and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face.

  ‘Hello, Jigger,’ Rogan said.

  In that single moment, the smile died on Jigger Martin’s face and he swung his legs to the floor. ‘The bastards,’ he said. ‘The lousy rotten bastards.’

  Rogan stood looking out through the small barred window and Martin produced a packet of cigarettes from beneath his mattress and offered him one. ‘What are you going to do now, Irish?’

  Rogan blew out a cloud of smoke and laughed harshly. ‘What do you think, boyo? What do you think?’

  As the gates closed behind them, Dwyer was conscious of a very real relief. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from him, and he took out his cigarettes.

  He offered one to Vanbrugh who was driving, his face dark and sombre, but the big man shook his head. When they reached the crest of the hill, he braked, turned and looked down at the prison.

  Dwyer said softly, ‘What do you think he’ll do, sir?’

  Vanbrugh swung round, all his pent-up frustration and anger boiling out of him. ‘For God’s sake, use your intelligence. You saw him, didn’t you? There’s only one thing a man like that can do.’

  He moved into gear and drove away rapidly in a cloud of dust.

  2

  During most of September it had been warm and clear, but on the last day the weather broke. Clouds hung threateningly over the moor, rain dripped from the gutters and when Rogan went to the window, brown leaves drifted across the courtyard from the trees in the Governor’s garden.

  Behind him Martin shuffled the cards on a small stool. ‘Another hand, Irish?’

  ‘Not worth it,’ Rogan said. ‘They’ll be feeding us soon.’ He stood at the window, a slight frown on his face, his eyes following the roof line of the next block to the hospital beyond, and Martin joined him.

  ‘Can it be done, Irish?’

  Rogan nodded. ‘It can be done all right. It took me just over two hours last time.’ He turned and looked down at Martin. ‘You’ll never make it, Jigger. You’d break your bloody neck halfway.’

  Martin grinned. ‘What would I be wanting to crash out for? Nine months and I can spit in their eyes once and for all. My old woman’s got a nice little boarding house going in Eastbourne. They won’t see me back here again.’

  ‘I seem to have heard that one before,’ Rogan said. ‘Can you still work that trick of yours on the door?’

  ‘Always happy to oblige.’

  Martin took an ordinary spoon from his bedside locker and went to the door. He listened for a moment, then dropped to one knee.

  The lock was covered by a steel plate perhaps six inches square, and he quickly forced the handle of the spoon between the edge of the plate and the jamb. He worked it around for several minutes and there was a slight click. He pulled and the door opened slightly.

  ‘Now that’s one thing that always impresses me,’ Rogan said.

  ‘There’s thirty years’ hard graft there, Irish. The best screwsman in the business.’ Martin sighed. ‘The trouble is I got so good they could always tell when it was me.’

  He pushed the door gently into place and worked the spoon round again. There was another slight click and he stood up.

  ‘There have been times in my life when I could have used you,’ Rogan said.

  ‘You don’t want to start consorting with criminals at your age, Irish.’ Martin grinned. ‘An old lag’s trick. Plenty of cons in this place could do as much. These old mortice deadlocks are a snip. One of these days they’ll get wise and change them.’

  He went back to his bed, produced a packet of cigarettes and tossed one across to Rogan. ‘There’s at least six other gates to pass through between here and the yard and most of them are guarded, remember. It’ll take more than a spoon to get you out of this place.’

  ‘Anything can be done if you put your mind to it,’ Rogan said. ‘Come to the window and I’ll show you.’

  Martin held up a hand quickly and shook his head. ‘Nothing doing. What I don’t know can’t hurt you.’

  Rogan frowned. ‘You’re no grass, Jigger.’

  The old man shrugged. ‘We can all be pushed just so far in a place like this.’

  There was a rattle at the door and, turning quickly, Rogan was aware of an eye at the spyhole. The key turned in the lock and the Principal Officer came in.

  ‘Outside, Rogan. Someone wants to see you.’

  Rogan frowned. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A bloke called Soames. Lawyer from London. Something to do with an appeal. Seems you’ve got friends working for you.’

  As he waited in the queue outside the visiting room, Rogan wondered about Soames, trying to decide what could be behind his visit. As far as he was aware, there was no chance of an appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision for at least another year, and to his certain knowledge there was no one working for him on the outside. Since the Organization had gone into voluntary liquidation the previous year, he’d become a dead letter to most people.

  When his turn came, the Duty Officer took him in and sat him in a cubicle. Rogan waited impatiently, the conversation on either side a meaningless blur, and then the door opened and Soames came in.

  He was small and dark with a neatly trimmed moustache and soft pink hands. He carried a bowler hat and briefcase and wore a neat pin-striped suit.

  He sat down and smiled through the wire mesh. ‘You won’t know me, Mr Rogan. My name’s Soames – Henry Soames.’

  ‘So I’ve been told,’ Rogan said. ‘Who sent you?’

  Soames glanced each way to make sure that no individual conversation could be overheard in the general hubbub, then leaned close.

  ‘Colum O’More.’

  A vivid picture jumped into Rogan’s mind at once, one of those queer tricks that memory plays. He had just volunteered to ‘go active’ as they’d called it in the Organization in those days, a callow, seventeen-year-old student. They’d taken him to a house outside Dublin for the final important interview and had left him alone in a small room to wait. And then the door had opened and a giant of a man had entered, the mouth split in a wide grin as he laughed back over his shoulder at someone outside, wearing his strength and courage for all to see like a suit of armour. Colum O’More – the Big Man.

  ‘Are you sure, avic?’ he’d said to Rogan. ‘You know what you’re getting into?’

  Mother of God, who wouldn’t be sure and face to face with such a man?

  ‘So Colum sent you?’ Rogan said.

  ‘Not directly.’ Soames smiled faintly. ‘I believe there’s something like half of a ten-year sentence still hanging over his head in this country. He is in England at the moment, but we’ve only met personally once. Since then I’ve been working through an accommodation address.’

  ‘If you’re thinking of raising my case again with the Home Secretary, you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Soames smiled slightly. ‘To be perfectly frank, Colum O’More was thinking of adopting more unorthodox means.’

  ‘Such as?’ Rogan said calmly.

  ‘Assisting you to leave without the Home Secretary’s permission.’

  ‘And what makes you think I could?’

  ‘A man called Pope,’ Soames said. ‘I believe he shared a cell with you for a year? He was released six months ago.’

  ‘I still have the stink of him in my nostrils,’ Rogan said contemptuously. ‘A cheap, two-a-penny tearaway. The worst kind. Was a peeler with the Metropolitan and got done for corruption. He’d sell his own sister on the streets if you made it worth his while.’

  ‘He tells an interesting story, Mr Rogan. He insists that in 1960 you were caught in the early hours of the morning outside the walls of this prison. That to this day the authorities have never been able to find out how you got out.’

  ‘He has a big mouth,’ Rogan said. ‘One day someone will be closing his eyes with pennies.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Soames said, and for the first time there was an urgency in his voice. ‘Have you a way out?’

  ‘And if I had?’

  ‘Then Colum O’More would be glad to see you.’

  ‘And how could that be managed?’

  Soames leaned even closer. ‘You know the quarry and the hamlet between it and the river – Hexton?’

  ‘I’ve been working there for the past year.’

  ‘Below the quarry there’s an iron footbridge. On the other side of the river you’ll find a cottage. You can’t miss it. It’s completely isolated.’

  ‘Will Colum be there?’

  ‘No, Pope.’

  ‘Why him?’

  ‘He’s proved very useful. He’ll have clothes, a car, even an identity for you. You could be clear of the moor within half an hour.’

  ‘And where do I go?’

  ‘Pope will have full instructions. They’ll take you to Colum O’More. That’s as much as I can tell you.’

  Rogan sat there, a slight frown knitting his forehead, considering the situation. He wasn’t happy about Pope, and Soames was a hollow man if ever he’d seen one, but was there really any choice? And if Colum O’More was behind the organization …

  ‘Well?’ Soames said.

  Rogan nodded. ‘How soon can Pope be ready?’

  ‘He’s ready now. I’d heard you were a man who doesn’t like to let grass grow under your feet.’

  ‘It’s Thursday today,’ Rogan said. ‘Better make it Sunday.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘It’s dark by six and we’re locked up for the night at half past in my wing. From then on there’s only one duty screw who works from the central hall checking blocks. If I’m not missed, and there’s no reason why I should be, they won’t find I’m gone till they turn out the cells at seven on Monday morning.’

  ‘Which sounds sensible.’ Soames hesitated and then said carefully. ‘You’re certain you can get out?’

  ‘Nothing’s certain in this life, Mr Soames, I’d have thought you’d have found that out for yourself by now.’

  ‘How right you are, Mr Rogan.’ Soames picked up his bowler hat and briefcase and pushed back his chair. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss. I’ll look forward to Monday’s newspaper with interest.’

  ‘So will I,’ Rogan said.

  He stood there watching as Soames walked to the door and waited. A few moments later, the Principal Officer came for him and they went back into the corridor.

  As they went back across the courtyard, he said, ‘Any joy?’

  Rogan shrugged. ‘You know what these lawyers are like. Big with their promises and fees, but short on hope. I gave up counting my chickens a long time ago.’

  ‘The best way of looking at things and the most sensible.’

  When they reached the top landing, the bell was sounding for the midday meal and when Rogan went back into his cell, Martin already had the plates ready on the small table. When the door closed, he waited for a moment, then looked at Rogan questioningly.

  ‘And what was all that about?’

  For a moment, Rogan was going to tell him and then he remembered the old man’s words earlier. That in a place like this a man could only be pushed so far. He was right, of course. If Sean Rogan had learned one thing from the thirteen years of his life spent between four walls, it was that no one was ever completely dependable.

  He shrugged. ‘Some friends of mine on the outside have clubbed together and dug up a lawyer. He wanted to meet me personally before trying the Home Secretary again.’

  Martin’s face creased into the perpetual smile of hope of the long serving convict. ‘Hell, Irish, maybe things are looking up.’

  ‘You can always hope,’ Sean Rogan said and moved to the window.

  It was still raining and a slight mist curled across the top of the hill beyond the walls where the quarry lay. If you listened carefully you could almost hear the river; dark, peat-stained, splashing over great boulders on its long run down to the sea.

  3

  Rain dashed against the window as Rogan peered into the darkness. After a while, he went to the door and stood listening, and from below the steel gate clanged hollowly as the Duty Officer closed it after him.

  He turned and grinned tightly, his face shadowed in the dim light. ‘A hell of a night for it.’

  Martin was lying on his bed reading a book, and he pushed himself up on one elbow. ‘For what?’

  Rogan crouched beside him and said calmly, ‘I’m crashing out, Jigger. Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Why, yours, Irish, you don’t need to ask.’ The old man’s face was grey with excitement and he swung his legs to the floor. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Open the door,’ Rogan said. ‘Just that. When I’ve gone, you leave it unlocked, get back on your bed and stay there till they turn out the cells at seven.’

  Martin licked his lips nervously. ‘What happens when they bring me up in front of the Governor?’

  ‘Tell him you got the shock of your life when I opened the door, that you lay there and minded your own business.’ Rogan grinned coldly. ‘After all, that’s just what he’d expect you to do. Any con who did anything else under similar circumstances wouldn’t last twenty-four hours before the boys got to him. The Governor knows that as well as you do.’

  The threat was implicit and Martin got to his feet hastily. ‘Hell, Irish, I wouldn’t do anything to balls things up, you know that.’

  Rogan turned over his mattress, slid his hand through the seam at one side and pulled out a coil of nylon rope and a sling with snap links at the end, of the type used by climbers.

  ‘Where in the hell did you get those?’ Martin asked.

  ‘They use them up at the quarry when they’re placing charges in the cliff face.’ Rogan took out a narrowhandled screwdriver and a pair of nine-inch wire cutters which he tucked into his belt.

  ‘These came by way of the machine shop.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Okay, Jigger, let’s get moving. I’m on a tight schedule.’

  Martin took out the spoon and knelt in front of the door, his hands shaking a little. For a moment he seemed to be having some difficulty and then there was a slight click. He turned, his face very pale in the dim light, and nodded.

  Rogan quickly arranged his pillow and some spare clothing from his locker into some semblance of a human form under the blankets on his bed. He moved to the door.

  ‘I just thought of something,’ Martin said. ‘You know how the duty screw pussyfoots around in carpet slippers?’

  ‘He’ll have a look through the spyhole, that’s all,’ Rogan said, ‘and if he can tell that it isn’t me in that bed in this light, he’s got better eyes than I have.’

  Suddenly, Martin seemed to undergo a change. It was as if ten years had slipped from his worn shoulders and he laughed softly. ‘I can’t wait to see the expression on that screw’s face in the morning.’ He clapped Rogan on the shoulder. ‘Go on, son, get to hell out of it and keep on running.’

  The landing was dimly lit and the wing was wrapped in quiet. Rogan stood in the shadow of the wall for a moment, then moved quickly to the stairs at the far end.

  The great central hall was illuminated by a single light, and above him its roof and the dome were shrouded in darkness. He climbed on to the rail and scrambled up the steel mesh curtain to the roof of the cell block. He hooked the snap links of his sling into the wire, securing himself in place and took out the wire cutters.

  It didn’t take him long, cutting in a straight line against the wall, to make an aperture perhaps three feet long through which he pulled himself. Once on the other side, he again hooked himself into place and carefully closed up the links one by one so that only a close inspection could reveal his passage. His previous escape had been made from B block on the opposite side of the hall and in three years no one had discovered his route out from there.

  Steel supporting beams lifted into the darkness, each one supported on a block of masonry which jutted from the main fabric of the wall. He reached the first one with ease and wedged himself against the wall, judging the five foot gap to the next carefully. A quick breath, a leap into darkness and he was across. He repeated the performance three times until he had completed the necessary half-circle which brought him to the beam close to B block.

  A door clanged and he glanced down and saw the Duty Officer and the Chief walk through the pool of light below to the desk. They were talking together in low tones, the voices drifting up as the Duty Officer made an entry in the night book. There was a burst of laughter and they crossed the hall, unlocked the door leading to the guardroom and disappeared.