Conor was about to agree, but then thought on his new identity. Conor Finn was a young devil, and would not be satisfied without profit.
‘It’s a passable plan. Most of the elements are there, but what of the three pounds you were paid to beat me?’
Malarkey was ready for this line. ‘One for you, two for me.’
‘I prefer the other way around.’
‘I have a proposition,’ said Malarkey. ‘We go straight down the middle, if you teach me how to use that fork the way you do. Proper fencing is a powerful tool. I could earn some real money, nail me a few officers.’
It was clear in Malarkey’s face that he was eager for this arrangement.
‘And can you keep the Battering Rams from slipping a blade between my ribs?’ asked Conor.
Otto Malarkey shrugged back his long hair. ‘There’s only one way to guarantee that.’ He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the horned-ram tattoo. ‘You must take the ink. Only members of the brotherhood are safe. I’ll stand for you, if you teach me fencing. I could say you took the beatings and have Irish blood in you, though your accent is well-bred Saltee. A Kilmore mum maybe? I think that you’re below army age, but that don’t matter to the Battering Rams. If you’re big enough to hold a pistol, you’re big enough to fire one.’
Joining the Rams was a sticking point. Conor Broekhart would never take up with a criminal gang, but then again Conor Finn would.
‘I’ll take your ink, but I won’t pay any dues nor swear an oath.’
Malarkey laughed. ‘Oath! The only oaths we have in the Rams are foul ones. As for dues, the fencing lessons will do enough.’
Conor rubbed his bicep where the tattoo would sit. ‘Very well, Otto Malarkey, we have an agreement. I expect the money tomorrow.’
‘Not tomorrow,’ said Malarkey. ‘From now on you will be searched every day. Wait until you carry the ram on your arm, then certain guards have hazy allegiances. Their search will be less thorough, for the right price, of course.’
Already Malarkey was proving useful. It could well be that the man’s idle chatter would be a fair trade for a few fencing lessons.
‘Very well, Malarkey, after the tattoo is dry. Until then we fence and dig. First fencing, while the mind is sharp.’
Conor extended his trident, flicking his left arm up behind him.
Malarkey mimicked the stance.
‘So, Conor Finn, you’ll teach me everything you know?’
‘Not everything,’ said Conor, smiling tightly. ‘If I did that, then you could kill me.’
Billtoe waited until Conor supposedly regained consciousness before leading him back to his cell through the subterranean hallways of Little Saltee. For the first time since his arrival, Conor took careful account of his surroundings, counting each step, noting each door and window.
This section of the prison had a bowed look, as if the entire wing had dropped a floor since its construction. Walls leaned in overhead and the floor sank like a drain. Stone arches had lost their soffits or keystones and stood crookedly, like the efforts of a child’s building blocks. The walls were dotted with pitch patches where water had wormed its way through the cracks. Dozens more rivulets had yet to be filled. A gurgling saltwater stream ran down the centre of the collapsed floor.
‘Pretty, ain’t it,’ said Billtoe, taking note of Conor’s roving eye. ‘This place could flood at any second, they say. Of course they have been saying that since long before I put on the uniform. If I was you, I’d try to escape this hellhole. That’s always good for a giggle. You should see what desperate men are willing to try. Jumping off the wall is a favourite. The crabs never go hungry on Little Saltee. Tunnelling is another one. Tunnelling! I ask you. Where does these turf heads think they are? The middle of a meadow? We got barely a spoonful of clay on this island, and yet we have these gaol-crazed prisoners spending every waking minute sniffing out a vein. I tell you straight, little soldier, if you do find some earth on Little Saltee, then you should plant yourself some vegetables.’
Conor knew not to interrupt. After all, in a previous existence he had learned that information saved lives, and there was a wealth of information to be gathered about this place. Luckily Guard Billtoe seemed eager to dish it just as fast as he could get it out of his flapping mouth.
He pushed Conor down a corridor, a full step lower than the rest. The floor ran off at a gentle gradient, water actually flowing under some of the doors.
‘Home again, fiddle dee dee,’ sang Billtoe. ‘The lunatic wing. We got all sorts here. Deaf, dumb, blind. One legged, one armed. Fellas what have got a bump on the noggin. Every class of lunatic you care to mention. We got one fellow who doesn’t do words. Just numbers. All blooming day numbers. Tens and hundreds, thousands even. Like a blooming banker he is. Don’t even know his name, so we call him Numbers – clever, eh?’
Conor stored that nugget. A numbers man could be useful if his counting meant something. There were calculations in any plan.
They arrived at Conor’s cell door. Conor noticed the steel hinges and heavy locks.
Billtoe turned a key in the lock. ‘Big door, ain’t it? These doors are about the only thing we keep repaired around here.’ He winked at Conor. ‘Couldn’t have you simpletons running around during the night, spooking each other with your crying for Mummy and counting and such. I like it better when you stay in your cell and howl.’ Billtoe wiped an imaginary tear from his cheek. ‘It sounds like a choir of angels. Helps me sleep during my time on the island.’
The man was an animal. Base and foul. In a just world he would be the prisoner and Conor a free man. The door swung open, helped along by the slant of the wall.
‘In you go, Salt. Enjoy being on your lonesome.’
Conor was halfway down the ramped floor before the words registered. He turned, but the door was already closing.
‘On my lonesome? Where is Mister Wynter?’
Billtoe spoke through a shrinking slice of light between door and frame. ‘Wynter? That cheeky blind beggar? Why, he’s been released. Solitary for you from here on out, the marshall’s orders.’
Conor felt his weight pulling him to the floor, and was on his knees before he could stop himself.
Murder is the most expeditious way to prevent overcrowding, Linus had said. I pray that we fortunate two are never released.
‘You’ve killed him,’ breathed Conor.
But he was talking to a closed door.
CHAPTER 9: LIGHT AT THE END
This latest disaster had Conor huddled at the back of the cell, sobbing like a baby. He was alone now. Friendship could have brightened time spent even here. But now there was no one. He crawled as far back as he could into the room, and was dully surprised to find the room extended deeper into the rock than he had believed. Behind Wynter’s cot was a deep alcove with roughly the dimensions of four stacked coffins. This he could tell by touch alone as not a glimmer of light extended to the black hole.
He lay there for hours, feeling his determination sliding away like weed sluiced from a slipway. The new identity he had created for himself dissolved, bringing poor desperate Conor Broekhart to the surface.
So he stayed, wrapped in nothing but self-pity, wallowing in dreams of family all night long. Useless, futile dreams. Conor could well have perished in the next few days, dead from a broken heart, if not for one little ray of light.
In the early hours, Conor woke to see a red line flickering on the opposite wall. For a long sleepy moment this line puzzled him, resembling nothing more than a ghostly number one, wavering gently. Was this a message of some kind? Could his cell be haunted? Then he awakened fully and realized that the line was, of course, a shaft of sunlight. But from where?