JACK HIGGINS

THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Contents

Title Page Publisher’s Note Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen About the Author Also by Jack Higgins Copyright About the Publisher

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

THE VIOLENT ENEMY was first published in the UK by Abelard-Schuman Limited in 1966 and in 1997 by Signet, but has been out of print for some years.

In 2008, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back THE VIOLENT ENEMY for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.

And this one for young Sean Patterson

1

On the crest of a tor where the moor lifted to meet the blue sky in a sharply defined edge, Vanbrugh paused to catch his breath, sat on a stone and took out an old briar pipe and a tobacco pouch.

He was a tall, heavily built man in his middle forties, hair greying a little at the temples, shoulders solid with muscle under the old tweed jacket, and carried about him that indefinable quality that only twenty-five years as a policeman gives, a mixture of strength and authority and a shrewdness that was apparent in the light blue eyes.

A few moments later. Sergeant Dwyer joined him and slumped to the ground, chest heaving.

‘You should do this more often,’ Vanbrugh observed.

‘Give me some leave and I will,’ Dwyer said. ‘I’d like to point out that I’ve been working a seventy-hour week since February and my last day off was so long ago it’s become a fond memory.’

Vanbrugh grinned and put a match to his pipe. ‘You shouldn’t have joined.’

Somewhere in the distance an explosion echoed flatly on the calm air, and Dwyer sat up quickly. ‘What was that?’

‘They’ll be blasting up at the quarry.’

‘Prison working party?’

‘That’s right.’

Dwyer looked out across the moor, narrowing his eyes into the distance, relaxed and at ease with himself for the first time in months, the sharp, clear air driving the taste of London from his mouth. It was a happy chance that the old man should have chosen to make this mysterious personal visit to the most notorious of Her Majesty’s prisons on such a glorious day, but one couldn’t help feeling curious.

On the other hand, one thing he had learned in his two years with the Special Branch was that Chief Superintendent Dick Vanbrugh was very much a law unto himself, as many on both sides in the great game had discovered to their cost over the years.

‘We’d better be moving,’ Vanbrugh said.

Dwyer scrambled to his feet and caught sight of the skeleton of a sheep impaled on a gorse bush in a hollow to the left.

‘Death in life, even here on a day like this.’

‘No escaping it wherever you go.’ Vanbrugh turned and looked across the moor again. ‘Whenever the mist creeps in, this place becomes a waking nightmare. A man can walk all day and end where he began.’

‘No one ever gets off the moor,’ Dwyer said softly. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’

‘Something like that. In the whole history of the place, there’s only one recorded instance of a man getting clean away and he’s probably lying at the bottom of a bog. Some of them could swallow a three-ton truck.’

‘The right sort of place for a prison.’

‘That’s what they thought when they built it.’

Vanbrugh set off down the slope towards the car parked at the side of the narrow road below and Dwyer followed, stumbling over the tussocks of rough grass and patches of marshy ground, water seeping in through the laceholes of his smart town brouges.

When he reached the car, Vanbrugh was already sitting in the passenger seat and Dwyer climbed behind the wheel, pressed the starter and drove away.

He was hot and tired, his feet were wet and his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back. A small spark of temper flared inside him, but he pushed it away with a determined effort.

‘A one-hundred-and-seventy-mile drive, wet feet and the makings of a good sprain in my ankle. I hope he’s worth it, sir.’

Vanbrugh turned sharply and the blue eyes were very cold. ‘I think so, Sergeant.’

Dwyer took a deep breath, aware that one of those violent storms for which Dick Vanbrugh was so notorious was about to break over his head, but the moment passed. Vanbrugh applied another match to the bowl of his pipe and Dwyer concentrated on his driving and on the sheep and wild ponies which frequently wandered across the unfenced road. Ten minutes later they came over a slight rise and saw the prison in the hollow below.

The moors lifted in a purple swell fading almost imperceptibly into the horizon, and at the head of the quarry a red flag danced in the slight breeze.

The explosion, when it came, echoed into the distance, the sound of it beating against the hills like thunder. As a great shoulder of rock cracked into a thousand pieces, smoke drifted in a white pall that curled over the edge of the rock and across the moor like some living thing.

A whistle sounded, and as the convicts emerged from shelter a Land-Rover came over the edge of the escarpment, rolled down the dirt road and stopped.

The youth at the wheel had very fair hair and blue eyes that somehow made him look even younger than he was. His uniform was brand new and he was painfully conscious of that fact as he got out of the Land-Rover and moved past a group of convicts loading a truck.

Mulvaney, the Duty Officer, moved to meet him, a black and tan Alsatian at his heels. He grinned. ‘Hello, Drake. Putting you to work already, are they?’

Drake nodded. ‘I’ve got a chit here for a man called Rogan. The Governor wants to see him.’

He produced a slip of paper from his breast pocket. Mulvaney initialled it and waved towards a small hollow at the bottom of the slope.

‘That’s Rogan down there. You’re welcome to him.’

The man indicated worked stripped to the waist and was at least six foot three, the muscles in his broad back rippling as he swung a sledgehammer above his head and brought it down.

‘God in heaven, the man’s a giant,’ Drake said.

Mulvaney nodded. ‘They don’t come much bigger. Brains and brawn, that’s Sean Rogan. Pound for pound, about the most dangerous man we’ve ever had in here.’

‘They didn’t send anyone with me.’

‘No need. He’s expecting his discharge any day now. That’ll be what the Governor wants to see him about. He’s hardly likely to make a run for it at this stage.’

Drake moved down the slope. Bronzed and fit, his body toughened by hard labour, Sean Rogan looked a thoroughly dangerous man and the ugly puckered scars of the old bullet wounds in the left breast seemed strangely in keeping.

Drake paused a yard or two away and Rogan glanced up. The skin was stretched tightly over high Celtic cheekbones, a stubble of beard covering the hollow cheeks and strong pointed chin. The eyes were grey like water over a stone or smoke through trees on an autumn day, calm and expressionless, holding their own secrets. It was the face of a soldier, a scholar perhaps. Certainly this was no criminal.

‘Sean Rogan?’ Drake said.

The big man nodded. ‘That’s me. What do you want?’

There was no hint of subservience in the soft Irish voice and Drake, for some unaccountable reason, felt like a young recruit being interviewed by a senior officer.

‘The Governor wants a word with you.’

Rogan picked up his shirt from a nearby boulder, pulled it over his head and followed Drake up the slope, the sledgehammer swinging easily in one hand. He dropped it beside the Duty Officer. ‘A present for you.’

Mulvaney grinned, took a battered silver case from his breast pocket and offered him a cigarette. ‘Is it likely at all, Sean Rogan, that I might be seeing the back of you?’

Rogan’s face was illuminated briefly by a smile of great natural charm. ‘All things are possible, even in this worst of all possible worlds. You should know that, Patrick.’

Mulvaney touched him briefly on the shoulder. ‘Go with God, Sean,’ he said softly in Irish.

Rogan turned and walked quickly towards the Land-Rover and Drake found himself trailing a step or two behind. As they passed the group of convicts loading the truck, someone shouted, ‘Good luck, Irish!’ Rogan raised a hand in reply and climbed into the passenger seat.

Drake got behind the wheel and drove away rapidly, feeling uncertain and ill-at-ease. It was as if Rogan had taken charge, as if at any moment he might order him to take the next turning on the right instead of keeping straight on to the prison.

The Irishman smoked his cigarette slowly from long habit, gazing out over the moor. Drake glanced sideways at him a couple of times and tried to make conversation.

‘They tell me you’re hoping to get out soon?’

‘One can always hope.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Seven years.’

The shock of it was like a blow in the face and Drake winced, thinking of the long years, the wind across the moor blowing rain, grey mornings, a brief summer passing quickly into autumn and the iron hand of winter.

He forced a smile. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of days myself.’

‘Your first posting?’

‘No, I was at Wakefield for a while. Came out of the Guards last year. Didn’t fancy another hitch and then I saw this advert for prison officers. It looked a good number so I thought I’d try it.’

‘Is that a fact now?’

For some unaccountable reason Drake felt himself flushing. ‘Somebody has to do it,’ he said defensively. ‘The pay could be worse and quarters and a pension at the end of it. You can’t grumble at that, can you?’

‘I’d rather be the devil,’ Sean Rogan said with deep conviction. He half-turned, folding his arms deliberately, and stared out across the moor, cutting off all further attempts at conversation.

‘It’s certainly one hell of a record,’ the Governor said, looking down at the file on his desk, ‘but then I don’t need to tell you that, Superintendent. I was hoping we’d see the back of him this time.’

‘So was I, sir,’ Vanbrugh said.

‘There are days when I distinctly welcome the fact that I retire in another ten months.’ The Governor pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. In the meantime, I’ve one or two things to do. You make yourselves comfortable in here and I’ll have them send you in some tea.’

The door closed behind him and Dwyer moved from the window to the desk. ‘I don’t know a great deal about Rogan, sir. A bit before my time. Wasn’t he a big man in the I.R.A.?’

‘That’s right. Sentenced to twelve years in ’56 for organizing escapes from several prisons in England and Ulster. Remember the famous invasion of Peterhead in ’55? They went over the wall under cover of darkness like blasted commandos and brought out three men. Got clean away.’

‘He was behind that?’

‘He led them in.’ Vanbrugh opened the file. ‘It’s all here. He spent most of his early life in France and Germany. His father was in the Irish political service. He was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, when he was wounded and caught during a weekend raid over the Ulster border. That would be just before the war.’

‘What did he get?’

‘Seven years. He was released in 1941 at the request of the Special Operations Executive because of his fluency in French and German. That’s when I first came across him. I was working for them myself at the time. He was given the usual training and dropped into France to organize the Maquis in the Vosges Mountains. He did damned well, saw the war out, told them what to do with their medals and demobbed himself the moment it was over.’

‘What did he do then?’

‘Got up to his old tricks. Five years at Belfast in 1947. They let him off lightly because of his war record. Not that it made any difference. He escaped within a year.’ Vanbrugh grinned wryly. ‘He made a habit of that. Parkhurst in ’56, but never got off the island. Peterhead the following year. Three days on foot across the moor, then the dogs ran him down.’

‘Which explains why he was finally sent here?’

‘That’s it. Maximum security. No possibility of escape.’ Vanbrugh started to fill his pipe again. ‘If you examine the file you’ll find a confidential entry at the back. It refers to an incident the Commissioners prefer to keep quiet about. In July 1960 Sean Rogan was picked up in the early hours of the morning crossing the field at the rear of the officers’ quarters.’

Dwyer frowned. ‘Isn’t that outside the wall?’

Vanbrugh nodded. ‘The principal officer had been playing cards late at another house. He had his Alsatian with him and on the way home, it picked up Rogan’s scent.’

‘But how did he get out?’

‘He wouldn’t say. The Commissioners wanted it kept out of the press so the enquiry was very hush-hush. It was finally decided that he must have hidden himself in a car or truck on its way out.’

‘At that time in the morning?’

‘Don’t worry. No one really accepted that one. They had him on maximum security for a couple of years after that. When the Governor finally made things a little easier for him, Rogan told him that it didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to try again. He said that getting out was easy. It was getting anywhere without help once you were out that was difficult. I think he decided to sweat out his sentence and hope for remission.’

‘Which is what he’s just applied for?’

Vanbrugh nodded. ‘When the I.R.A. called off its border campaign in Ulster recently it just about went into liquidation. Most of its members serving sentences in English gaols have since been released. In fact the Home Office has been under considerable pressure to release them all.’

‘And what’s the answer on Rogan?’

‘They’re still frightened to death of him. Now I’ve got to tell him he’s still got five years to serve.’

‘Why you, sir?’

Vanbrugh shrugged. ‘We worked together during the war. Since then, I’ve arrested him on three separate occasions. You might say I’m the Yard’s Rogan expert.’

He walked to the window and stood looking out into the courtyard. ‘England’s the only country in the civilized world that doesn’t make special provision for political offenders, did you know that, Sergeant?’

‘I hadn’t really given it much thought, sir.’

‘You should do, Sergeant. You should do.’

The door opened and the Governor came in quickly. They’re bringing him up now.’ He sat down behind his desk and grinned tightly. ‘I really don’t have much stomach for this one, Superintendent. I’m glad you’re here.’

The door opened again and the Principal Officer came in. ‘He’s here, sir.’

The Governor nodded. ‘Let’s get it over with, then.’

Outside, Drake stood beside the door waiting, and Rogan leaned against the wall, arms folded as he stared through the window at the end of the corridor.

Life was, on the whole, an act of faith. He’d read that somewhere once, but twenty years of hard living, of violence and the dark places had taught him to look only for the unexpected on the other side of each new hill.

Everyone in the place, including the screws, expected his pardon to go through. To Rogan, that was sufficient reason in itself for something to go wrong. When the door opened and the Principal Officer called him in, he was prepared for the worst.

The presence of Vanbrugh confirmed what was already apparent from the atmosphere in the office, and he stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back and looked out of the window over the Governor’s head. He noticed that the trees on the hill beyond the wall were stripped quite bare of leaves now and the untidy nests of the rookery were clearly exposed to view. He watched a rook flap lazily through the air from one tree to another and became aware that the Governor was speaking to him.

‘We’ve had a communication from the Home Office, Rogan. Chief Superintendent Vanbrugh brought it down with him specially.’

Rogan turned slightly to face Vanbrugh, and the big policeman got to his feet, suddenly awkward. ‘I’m sorry, Sean. Damned sorry.’

‘Then there’s nothing to be said, is there?’

The hard shell with which he had surrounded himself was something they could not penetrate. In the heavy silence, the Governor glanced helplessly at Vanbrugh, then sighed.

‘I think you’d better come in from the quarry for a while, Rogan.’

‘Permanently, sir?’ Rogan said calmly.

The Governor swallowed hard. ‘We’ll see how you go on.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Rogan turned and walked to the door without waiting for the Principal Officer’s order. He stood in the corridor, face expressionless, aware of the murmur of voices as the door closed behind him.

‘You can go now, Drake,’ the Principal Officer said, then turned to Rogan and said briskly, ‘All right, Rogan.’

They went downstairs and crossed the courtyard to one of the blocks. Rogan stood waiting for the door to be unlocked, aware from the expression on the Duty Officer’s face that he knew, which wasn’t particularly surprising. Within another half hour every con, every screw in the place would know.

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.

Rogan slipped the sling around the beam and his waist, snapped the links together and started to climb, leaning well out.

The difficulty lay in the fact that the beam itself started to curve, following the line of the wall, leaving only an inch or two for the sling. It was now that his perfect physical condition and massive strength stood him in good stead. He gritted his teeth and heaved his way up into the darkness almost inch by inch and the pool of light receded beneath him. A few moments later, he reached his objective, a large steel ventilation grille, perhaps two and a half feet square.

It was held in place by two large screws on either side and he braced himself against the wall, leaning back in the sling, took out the screwdriver and set to work.

The screws were brass and came out easily, but he left one partly in position so that the grille swung down, no longer obscuring the entrance, but still securely held.

He had now reached the most difficult moment. He carefully unhooked the spring links securing the sling and pushed it into the shaft quickly, then forcing his fingers behind the beam he walked up the wall and pushed himself feet first into the zinc-lined ventilating shaft. Clouds of dry dust arose, filling his nostrils. He choked back a cough and reached out and swung the grille back into place. Very carefully he pushed his fingers through and replaced the screw he had removed, covering his tracks completely.

On his previous attempt he’d had an electric torch, something he hadn’t managed to get hold of this time, and from now on he had to work in darkness, relying completely on memory.

He had worked out the route after a fast ten minutes with a map of the prison’s ventilation system carelessly left on a bench in the machine shop by a heating engineer, but that had been three years ago and there had been structural alterations since then. He could only pray that the section he was using had been left alone.

He moved backwards into darkness, the dust filling his eyes and throat, sweat trickling down his face, and after a while, came to another opening. He went into it head first and slid gently down a shallow slope, slowing his descent by bracing his hands against the sides.

At the bottom, he paused. It was completely dark, no chink of light anywhere. He was boxed in as securely as if he had been in his own coffin. He pushed the idea away from him and inched forward again.

He came to a side shaft and then another and paused. Six or was it seven? No, six before he roped down to the first level. He pushed forward again, counting until he reached the shaft on his left. He ran his hand along the right side and found at once the supporting bracket he had forced from the wall as a support on that other occasion. He pushed forward, then eased himself backwards into the hole. He supported himself with his arms, uncoiled the nylon rope, looped it into a running line around the bracket he had forced out from the wall, then lowered himself carefully down the shaft. Thirty feet below, it curved into a straight line and he moved into it backwards on his belly, pulling the rope down after him. He coiled it carefully and inched backwards.

Light showed through in several places and he paused at a grille and peered down into the main kitchens. There was a light on, but they were quite deserted and he moved on, emerging into a slightly larger shaft. He twisted round and went forward on his hands and knees.

He was now at the far end of the central block and perhaps forty minutes had elapsed since he left his cell. He moved on quickly and came out into the bottom of a wide shaft that lifted vertically above his head, bands of yellow light cutting into it from grilles set at several levels.

The zinc lining of the shaft was held in place by a network of steel stays which provided excellent footholds and he started to climb quickly. His objective was a side shaft at the very top which ran through the roof and out across the courtyard to the hospital on the other side.

He became conscious of a strong current of air and a low, humming sound, and frowned. This was something new and the heart moved inside him. A few moments later he reached the top of the shaft and his worst fears were confirmed. Where there had previously been only the entrance to the link with the hospital, there was now a metal grille protecting an electric extractor fan. He stayed there for a moment, tracing the edge of the grille with his free hand, knowing it was hopeless, then started down.

The first grille he came to was only a foot square and he moved on down to the next. This was perhaps two feet square, a tight squeeze certainly, but possible. He could see into a quiet corridor, dimly lit and remembered that these would be the bachelor quarters for unmarried officers.

He hesitated for only a moment, wedged there in the narrow shaft, then took out the screwdriver and pushed his hand as far between the bars of the grille as it would go, holding the screwdriver by the shaft. He felt for the head of the left hand screw and to his relief it started to move at once. A moment later, the screw fell to the floor and he forced the grille down with all his strength.

He went back up the shaft a little way so that he was able to lower himself through the grille feet first. There wasn’t much room, and for a moment he seemed to stick and then went through in a rush, shirt tearing, landing six feet below in the corridor.

He picked himself up quickly, turned and forced the grille back into position, then moved along the corridor. He could hear a radio playing and there was a quick burst of laughter, strangely muted and far away. At the end of the corridor, he came to the stair-head and looked over the banisters. Three floors below he could see the entrance hall quiet and still in the light from a single yellow bulb. He went down quickly, keeping to the wall.

At the bottom he paused in the shadows, then crossed quickly to the door, then opened it and hesitated in the porch. A lamp jutted from the wall, casting a pool of light to the path below, and he went down the steps quickly and moved into the darkness at the front of the walls.

The rain was falling heavily now, bouncing from the cobbled courtyard like steel rods and he glanced up at the ventilating shaft high above his head stretching across to the hospital. It had originally given him access to the hospital roof, now he had to find another route.

He kept to the shadows of the wall, working his way round the courtyard until he reached the hospital and moved round to one side. It was then that he remembered the fire escape. He found it a moment later and started quickly, head lowered against the driving rain.

The final landing was outside a door directly under the eaves of the roof and he climbed on to the rail, reached up to the gutter and tested it quickly. It seemed reasonably secure and he took a quick breath and heaved himself up and over.

He scrambled up on to the ridge of the building and moved along it, a foot on either side, hands braced against the tiles. It took him a good five minutes of careful work to reach the end of the building and the chimney stack of the incinerator.

No more than fifty feet away from him through the darkness was the spiked edge of the outer wall of the prison, and beneath him an iron drainage pipe cut through space to meet it. Rogan uncoiled his nylon rope, flung one end round the chimney stack and went straight over the edge gripping the double strand tightly.

His feet slipped on wet brickwork and he swung wildly, skinning his knuckles and bruising his shoulder painfully and then his legs banged against the pipe.

He sat on it, legs astride, and pulled the rope down, coiling it again, then he started across. The narrow pipe cut into his crotch and he moved painfully on, pushing away the thought of the cobbles forty feet below, concentrating on the task in hand. Was it now, or was it three years previously? There was no way of telling and life seemed a circle turning upon itself endlessly. His fingers touched stone and he looked up to see the darker line of the wall against the sky.

He carefully stood up, reached for the rusty spikes and pulled himself on top. With hardly a pause, he uncoiled the rope, looped it around a couple of spikes and went over the edge, using the same double strand technique as in descending from the hospital roof. A few moments later he dropped ten feet into wet grass at the foot of the wall, pulling the rope down after him.

He was soaked to the skin and for a moment he lay there, his face in the coolness of the wet grass and then he scrambled to his feet. He coiled the nylon rope quickly, hooked it over his head, turned and moved quickly away through the darkness.

Remembering his previous experience, he gave the married quarters a wide berth, striking up the hillside to the open moor and the quarry.

Darkness was his friend and five minutes later he reached the crest of the valley and paused to look back. Below in the hollow the prison lay like some primeval monster crouching in the darkness, shapeless, without form, a yellow light gleaming here and there and at its feet the houses crouched.

Rogan was suddenly filled with a fierce exhilaration. He laughed out loud, turned and started to run across the moor. It took him fifteen minutes to reach the quarry and beyond it, the river, swollen by rain, tumbled over boulders in the darkness.

Halfway across the iron footbridge, he paused and tossed the rope, screwdriver and wirecutters into the foam. Somehow there was a finality about the act. This time there would be no going back. He ran across the bridge and moved along the bank, and a few moments later the lights of the cottage gleamed through the dark trees of the wood.

4

It was cold in the stone-flagged kitchen and Jack Pope shivered involuntarily as he piled logs into the crook of one arm. He moved back along the passage and went into the living room of the small cottage.

Flames flickered across the oak-beamed ceiling, casting fantastic shadows that writhed and twisted convulsively and he piled more logs on to the already large fire.

He went to the dresser, took down a bottle of whisky and half filled a glass.

Outside the wind moaned, driving the rain against the window with the force of lead shot and he shivered, remembering the place on the other side of the hill beyond the river where he had spent five years of his life. He emptied the glass quickly, coughing as the raw spirit burned its way down his throat, and reached for the bottle again.

There was no sound, and yet a small cold wind touched him gently on the right cheek. He turned slowly, the hair rising on the nape of his neck.

Rogan stood in the doorway, shirt and pants plastered to his body, moulding his superb physique, rain mingling with the dust from the ventilating shafts, washing over him in a patina of filth.

And Jack Pope knew fear, real primeval fear that loosened the very bowels in him so that in the presence of this strange, dark man he was like a frightened child, completely dominated by some elemental force he couldn’t even comprehend.

He moistened his dry lips and forced a ghastly smile. ‘You made it, Irish. Good for you.’

Rogan crossed the room, soundlessly, took the glass from Pope’s hand and poured the whisky down in one quick swallow. He closed his eyes, took a long breath and opened them again.

‘What time is it?’

Pope glanced at his watch. ‘Just after half past eight.’

‘Good,’ Rogan said. ‘I want to be out of here by nine. Is there a bath?’

Pope nodded eagerly. ‘I’ve had the water heating all afternoon.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Laid out in the bedroom. What about something to eat?’

Rogan shook his head. ‘No time. If you’ve got a vacuum flask fill it with coffee and make a few sandwiches. I can eat them on the way.’

‘Okay, Irish, anything you say. The bath’s at the end of the passage.’

Rogan turned abruptly and went out, and immediately the forced smile was wiped from Pope’s face. ‘Who the hell does he think he is, the big stinking Mick. God, how I wish I could turn him in.’

He went into the kitchen, put the kettle on the stove, then he rummaged in a drawer till he found a bread-knife, took down a loaf and started viciously to cut it into slices.

The bathroom was a recent extension to the rear of the cottage and the bath itself was small. Not that it mattered. Rogan filled it with hot water, stripped off his wet clothes and climbed in. For a brief moment only he sat there enjoying the warmth, then he started to wash the filth from his body. Five minutes later, he stepped out, dried himself quickly, then went along the passage to the bedroom, a towel about his waist.

He found everything he needed laid out neatly across the bed. Underclothing, shirts, even the shoes were the right size and the two-piece suit in Glencarrick thorn-proof looked as if it had been made to measure. There was also a battered rain hat and an old trenchcoat. A nice touch that, he had to admit, however grudgingly. He took them with him when he returned to the living room.

Pope followed him in from the kitchen carrying a large vacuum flask and a tin biscuit box. ‘Sandwiches are inside; it’ll save you having to stop.’

‘And just where am I supposed to be going?’

‘O’More wants to see you.’

‘Where do I find him?’

Pope shrugged. ‘God knows. I’ve been working through an accommodation address in Kendal. Do you know where that is?’

‘The Lake District, isn’t it? Westmorland?’

‘That’s right. You’re in for a long drive. It’s all of three hundred and fifty miles from here and you’ve got to be there by seven in the morning.’

Which was the precise moment at which they would be turning out the cells at the prison and Rogan smiled slightly. They were hardly likely to be looking for him in a place like Kendal. It would take them at least three days to realize that he’d got off the moor and even then they wouldn’t be sure.

‘Why seven?’

‘Because that’s the time you’re being picked up. You drive into the car park of the Woolpack Inn – that’s in Stricklandgate – and wait.’

‘Who for?’

‘I honestly don’t know. As I said, I’ve been writing to an accommodation address in Kendal. Maybe it’s just a jumping off place to somewhere else.’

Rogan shook his head. ‘Not good enough, Pope. You wouldn’t go into anything blindfold.’

‘It’s the truth, Irish, as God’s my judge. I’ll admit I opened my mouth about that escape of yours when I got out and the word must have got around among the boys. You know how these things are.’

‘What about Soames, the lawyer.’

‘Been disbarred for the past five years. A villain down to the soles of his feet. He came to see me a couple of weeks ago. Said a client of his had heard this rumour about you having a way out and they’d traced it to me. It didn’t take him long to get down to brass tacks. He’s a downy bird.’

‘And what’s your cut?’

‘For setting this little lot up? A couple of centuries and my expenses.’

Rogan helped himself to a cigarette from a packet on the table and lit it, an abstracted frown on his face. On the face of it, it didn’t make sense – not any of it. And yet Colum was as cunning as a fox. It would be like him to cover his tracks again, making any direct route to him difficult to find.

‘All right, for the moment, I’ll buy it,’ he said. ‘How do I get to Kendal?’

Pope produced a small white folder and grinned. ‘Nothing like being efficient, so I went to the top. Got you an A.A. route guide. It starts at Exeter and takes you straight through to Kendal.’

He went over it quickly, indicating the route on the excellent sketch maps provided. At Exeter, Rogan would pick up the A38 and follow it through Bristol and Gloucester. From there, the new M5 motorway would take him north past Worcester and Birmingham, joining the M6 for the long run up through Lancashire to the Lake District.

‘You’ll find some sections of the motor-ways are still under construction,’ Pope said, ‘but on the whole, you should have a pretty clear run.’

‘What kind of car have you got for me?’

‘Nothing special. A Ford brake, two years old but the engine’s perfect. I’ve had it checked. You’ll find a few samples of animal feed in the back. You’re supposed to be a salesman for an agricultural firm.’ He picked up a briefcase and produced various documents. ‘Here’s a couple of printed business cards in the name of Jack Mann and a driving licence. Hope you can still remember how.’

Rogan shrugged. ‘I’ll get by.’

There were insurance papers and log book, all in the same name. Even an Automobile Association membership card. Rogan tucked them all into his inside breast pocket.

‘You seem to have thought of everything.’

‘We aim to please.’ Pope took out a worn leather wallet and passed it across. ‘You’ll find forty quid in there. No sense in carrying more. If you were stopped and searched it would only excite suspicion.’

‘The police mind,’ Rogan said. ‘You can never get away from it, can you?’

Pope flushed, but managed to force a smile. ‘That’s about it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Almost nine. You’d better be on your way.’

Rogan pulled on the trenchcoat, belted it around his waist and picked up his hat. They went out through the kitchen and Pope flicked on an outside light, opened the door and led the way across the small courtyard to an old barn. He opened a large door, and two cars were revealed.

One of them was a large dark shooting brake, the other a green saloon. Rogan paused in the entrance, looking at them.

‘Two?’ he said.

‘Well how in the hell do you think I’m going to get out of here at this time of night?’ Pope said. ‘It was bad enough having to walk five miles to the nearest bus stop yesterday after driving out here in the Ford. I picked up the saloon in Plymouth this morning.’

Which was a good story had it not been for the fact that the wheels of both vehicles were still damp and muddy from the day’s rain.

Rogan let it pass. ‘I’d better be on my way.’

Pope nodded. ‘Make sure it’s the right one. No detours to Holyhead for the Irish boat.’

Rogan turned very slowly, his face quite expressionless. ‘And what would you be meaning by that?’

Pope forced a smile. ‘Nothing, Irish, nothing. It’s just that the Big Man’s invested a lot of money in you. He’s entitled to see some return.’

The next moment, a hand had him by the throat, pulling him close and the rush of blood seemed to be forcing out his eyeballs.

‘When I do a thing, it’s because I want to,’ Rogan said softly. ‘Always remember that, Pope. Nobody crowds Sean Rogan.’

Pope went staggering back against the whitewashed wall and slumped to the ground. He crouched there, sobbing for breath, aware of the Ford starting up and moving out across the yard, the engine fading into the distance.

A footstep scraped on stone and a voice said calmly, ‘Friend Rogan plays rough. A dangerous man to cross.’

Pope looked up at Henry Soames and cursed savagely. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’ He groaned, swaying a little as he got to his feet. ‘If I’d any sense I’d pull out of this now.’

‘And lose out on all that lovely money?’ Soames patted him on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go back inside and I’ll go over it again. I think you’ll see things my way.’

Round the bend of the road, Rogan parked the car by a five-barred gate and walked back the way he had come. There were several reasons for such a course. In the first place he didn’t like Pope, in the second, he didn’t trust him. And there was the intriguing fact that the tyres of both cars had been wet although the brake had supposedly been under cover since the previous day.

Nearing the cottage, he left the road, pushed his way through a plantation of damp fir trees and crossed the yard at the rear. A curtain was drawn across the window, but when he bent down he could see most of the living room through a narrow crack.

Henry Soames and Pope were sitting at the table engaged in earnest conversation, the whisky bottle between them. Rogan stayed there for only a moment, then turned and retraced his steps.

So – the plot thickened. Most puzzling thing of all, how did Colum O’More come to be mixed up with such people? There was no answer, could be none till he reached Kendal. He leaned back in his seat and concentrated on the road ahead.

5

After midnight Rogan had the road pretty much to himself, although from Bristol to Birmingham and north into Lancashire he came across plenty of heavy transport working the all-night routes.

Just after two a.m. he stopped at a small garage near Stoke to fill up, staying in the shadows of the car so that the attendant didn’t get a clear look at his face.

He made good time, always keeping within any indicated speed limits, and dawn found him moving north along the M6 motorway east of Lancaster.

The morning was grey and sombre with heavy rain clouds drifting across his path, and to the west the dark waters of Morecambe Bay were being whipped into whitecaps. He opened the side window and the wind carried the taste of good salt air and he inhaled deeply, feeling suddenly alive for the first time in years.

He stopped the car, took out the vacuum flask and stood at the side of the road looking out at the distant sea while he finished the coffee. It was difficult to believe, but he was out. For a brief moment, the strange, illogical thought crossed his mind that perhaps this was only some dark, hopeless dream from which the rattle of the key in the lock of his cell door would awaken him at any moment, and then a gull cried harshly in the sky and rain started to fall in a sudden heavy rush. He stood there for a moment longer, his face turned up to it, and then got back into the car and drove away.

He arrived in Kendal just after seven and found the place, like most country market towns at that time in the morning, already stirring. He located the Woolpack Inn in Stricklandgate without any trouble, pulled in the car park and switched off the engine.

It was a strange feeling waiting there in the car, like the old days working with the Maquis in France, and he remembered that morning in Amiens with the rain bouncing from the cobbles and the contact man who turned out to be an Abwehr agent. But then you never could be certain of anything in this life, from the womb to the grave.

He opened the packet of cigarettes Pope had given him, found it empty and crushed it in his hand. A quiet voice said, ‘A fine morning, Mr Rogan.’

She was perhaps twenty years old, certainly no more. She wore an old trenchcoat belted around her waist and, in spite of her head-scarf, rain beaded the fringe of dark hair which had escaped at the front and drifted across her brow.

She walked round to the other side, opened the door and sat on the bench seat beside him. Her face was smoothly rounded with a flawless cream complexion, the eyebrows and hair coal black and her red lips had an extra fullness that suggested sensuality. It was the sort of face he had seen often on the west coast of Ireland, particularly around Galway where there had been a plentiful infusion of Spanish blood over the centuries.

‘How could you be sure?’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I had the number of the car and Colum showed me a photograph. You’ve changed.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ he said. ‘Where do you fit in?’

‘You’ll find out. If you’ll let me get at that wheel, we’ll move out.’

He eased himself across the seat. She slid past him. For a moment he was acutely conscious of her as a woman, a hint of perfume in the cold morning air, the edge of the coat riding above her knees. She pulled it down with a complete lack of self-consciousness and started the engine.

‘I’d like to stop for some cigarettes,’ Rogan said.

She took a packet from her left pocket and tossed them across. ‘No need. I’ve got plenty.’

‘Have we far to go?’

‘About forty miles.’

She was perfectly calm, her hands steady on the wheel as she took the brake with real skill through the narrow streets and the early morning traffic, and he watched her for a while, leaning back in the corner.

A fine, lovely girl this one, but one who had been used by life and not kindly. The story was there in the shadow that lurked behind the grey-green eyes. Hurt, but not broken – the courage showed in the tilt of the chin, the sureness of those competent hands. The pity of it was that she would never let anyone get close to her again and that was the real tragedy.

Her voice cut sharply into his musing. ‘You’ll know me next time?’

‘And would that be a bad thing?’ he grinned lightly. ‘Liverpool-Irish?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘No accent like it in this world or out of it.’

She smiled in spite of herself. ‘You needn’t think you sound like any English gentleman yourself.’

‘And why would I be wanting to?’

‘You were a major in their army, weren’t you?’

‘You seem to know.’

‘I should do. At one time, I used to get the great Sean Rogan for breakfast, dinner and supper and precious little else.’

They were now on the outskirts of the town and she pulled in beside a low stone wall topped by iron railings. A little farther along there was an open iron gate and a sign which read Church of the Immaculate Heart with the times of Mass and Confession in faded gold letters beneath.

‘Do you mind?’ she said. ‘I don’t get in very often.’

‘Suit yourself.’

He watched her pass through the gate, a small girl with a ripe peasant figure and hips that were too large by English standards. So, she still kept to the Faith? Now that was interesting, and proved she wasn’t an active member of the I.R.A. which carried automatic excommunication.

On impulse he opened the door and followed her along the flagged path. It was warm inside and very quiet. For a little while he stood there listening intently and then he sat down in a pew at the back of the church.

She was on her knees by the altar. As he looked down towards the winking candles it seemed to grow darker. He leaned forward and rested his head on a stone pillar. All the strain and excitement of the past twelve hours catching up on him. In some strange way it was as if he were listening for something.

He pushed the thought away from him and sat back and watched as she got to her feet and walked back along the aisle. She became aware of him there in the half darkness and paused abruptly.

‘That was foolish of you. You could have been seen.’

He shrugged, stood up and took her arm as they went to the door. ‘If you think like that you act suspiciously; if you act suspiciously, you get caught. I’m an old hand at being on the run.’

They stood on the step and the wind blew a fine drizzle of rain into the porch as she looked up at him searchingly. She smiled and it was as if a lamp had been turned on inside.

‘Hannah Costello, Mr Rogan,’ she said and held out her hand.

He took it and grinned. ‘A fresh start makes old friends of bad ones,’ he said. ‘A proverb my grandmother was fond of. Would it be too much to ask where you’re taking me?’

‘The other side of the lakes. On the coast, near a place called Whitbeck.’

‘Is Colum O’More there?’

‘Waiting for you.’

‘In the name of God, let us go then. There’s a farm in Kerry my father’s growing too old to cope with. It’s time I was home again.’

The smile vanished from her face and she gazed up at him searchingly. She seemed about to speak, but obviously thought better of it and turned and led the way back to the car.

Dick Vanbrugh was tired, damned tired, and the heavy rain driving against the bathroom window wasn’t calculated to improve the way he felt. He finished shaving and was towelling his face tenderly when the door opened and his wife looked in. ‘Phone, darling. The Assistant Commissioner.’

Vanbrugh stared at her, a deep frown creasing his forehead. ‘You’re joking, of course.’

‘I’m afraid not. I’ll get your breakfast on the stove now. From the sound of him, you’ll be moving off in a hurry.’

Vanbrugh pulled a shirt over his head, tucking it into his trousers as he went downstairs. His tiredness had vanished completely. Whatever this was, it was something big. You didn’t get the Assistant Commissioner on the phone at seven thirty in the morning just because somebody’s warehouse had been turned over.

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