Evans stood up and crossed to the cupboard under the washbasin. He opened it and took out an ordinary spoon. “Always happy to oblige.”
He pushed Brady out of the way and knelt down in front of the door. The lock was covered by a steel plate perhaps nine inches square. He quickly bent the handle of the spoon and forced it between the edge of the plate and the jamb. He worked it around for a few moments and there was a click. He pulled and the door opened slightly.
“God Almighty!” Brady said.
Evans pushed the door gently into place and worked the spoon round again. There was another slight click and he stood up.
“But that’s incredible,” Brady said.
Evans shook his head. “An old lag’s trick. Plenty of geezers in this place can do as much. Most of these doors are mortice deadlocks, fitted years ago. One of these days they’ll get wise and change them.” He grinned. “Not that it would matter much. Show me any key you like for five seconds and I’ll copy it from memory.”
He went back to his bed and lit another cigarette. “But I don’t understand,” Brady said. “You told me it was impossible to crash-out of this place.”
The old man shook his head pityingly. “Have another fag, son, and let me tell you the facts of life. Getting out of this cell is only the start. You’ve got to get through the cell-block gates downstairs. That puts you in the central hall. From there you’ve got no less than five gates to pass through before you hit the yard, and the main entrance is a fort by itself. Even the governor has a pass.” He shook his head. “This is maximum security, son. Some of the worst bastards in the business are doing time here. That’s why they converted the place.”
“I’ll find a way,” Brady said. “Just give me time.”
But it’s got to be soon, he said to himself as he lay down on his bunk. It’s got to be soon. I can’t take much more of this. He closed his eyes and the face seemed to smile at him out of the darkness, the face that had stayed with him through his trial and the two weeks as a walking dead man in the condemned cell.
Why me? he asked himself. Why me? But there was no answer, could be no answer until he got out of this place and found one. He turned his face to the wall, hitched a blanket over his shoulders and drifted into a troubled sleep.
The days that followed merged into a pattern. Each morning after breakfast, fifty men paraded for the chief officer in the main yard and were allocated their work for the day. The main fabric of the building was already in an advanced state of construction, but there was still a considerable amount of work to do on the steel framework of the fourth storey.
Evans had been working as a welder and riveter up there and Brady was placed in his charge. After seeing the skill with which the American handled a blow torch, the old man sat back and let him get on with it.
“By God, son,” he said. “What I could teach you to do with that torch is nobody’s business. You’re a natural.”
Brady grinned and pushed his goggles up from his eyes. “You’re incorrigible, you old hellion. You’ll come to a bad end yet.”
Evans gave him a cigarette and they crouched down in a corner between crossed girders and looked out over the town. It was a crisp autumn day, the air tinged with a hint of the winter to come. Beyond the gaunt chimneys of the grimy Yorkshire industrial town, the moors lifted in a purple swell, fading almost inperceptibly into the horizon.
“By God, it’s good to be alive on a day like this,” Evans said. “Even in here.”
Brady nodded and glanced briefly down into the main yard below, watching the men working on the brick pile below with the duty screws hovering near by. There could be no illusion of freedom there, not with those dark uniforms standing out so clearly.
He looked across at the glass dome of the central tower and his eyes followed the fall pipe that dropped forty feet to the roof of D block. The block branched out from the central tower like a pointing finger, and stopped thirty or forty feet from the perimeter wall. He sighed and flicked his cigarette end out into space. A man would need wings to get out of this place.
Evans chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking, son, but it just isn’t possible. You’re in a privileged position because it’s all spread beneath you like a map. If you can find a way out, I can get you five hundred quid for the information any time.”
“Maybe I’ll hold you to that” Brady picked up his torch. “Let’s get back to work.”
For the next two weeks he kept his thoughts to himself, but each day, working high on the extension, he used his eyes until finally, every detail of the prison buildings was imprinted on his brain. It would take careful planning, but already there was the glimmering of an idea at the back of his mind.
Just before noon on Thursday, a duty officer called him down and told him he had a visitor. As he waited in the queue outside the visiting room, Brady wondered who it could be. He had no friends in England and both his parents were dead. There was only his sister in Boston, and she had been over already for the trial.
When his turn came, the duty officer took him in and sat him in a cubicle. Brady waited impatiently, the conversation on either side a meaningless blur of sound, and then the door opened and a young girl came in.
She was perhaps twenty, her dark hair closecropped like a young boy, the skin sallow over high cheekbones, the eyes dark brown. She was not beautiful, and yet in any crowd, she would have stood out.
She sat down hesitantly, looking rather unsure of herself. “Mr. Brady, you won’t know me. My name is Anne Dunning.”
Brady frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You knew my father, Harry Dunning,” she said. “I believe you worked together on the Zembe Dam in Brazil.”
Brady’s eyes widened and he leaned forward. “So you’re Harry Dunning’s daughter. How is he? I haven’t heard from him since we parted company in New York after finishing the Zembe job. Didn’t he go to Guatemala?”
She nodded, hands twisting her purse nervously. “He’s dead, Mr. Brady. Died in Coban six weeks ago after a bad fall.”
Brady was genuinely shocked. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said awkwardly. “Your father was a good friend of mine.”
“That’s exactly what he said about you,” she said. “I flew out as soon as word reached me of his accident. I was with him for two days before he died. He’d heard about your trouble. He told me you could never have done such a thing. That you must have been telling the truth. He said you once saved his life.”
“It’s nice to know that somebody believed me,” Brady said.
She opened her purse and took out an oldfashioned silver watch and chain. She held it close to the gauze screen so that he could examine it. “He wanted you to have this. He asked me to see that you got it personally. I suppose I could give it to the governor to put with your other things.”
He shook his head gently. “It’s no use to me here. You keep it for me.”
“Would you really like me to?” she said.
He nodded. “I might be out of this place sooner than you think, then you’ll be able to give it to me personally.”
She slipped the watch back into her purse and leaned forward. “But I understand they’d turned down your appeal?”
“Oh, I’ve got a few things working for me.” He smiled, dismissing the subject. “Tell me about yourself? How did you know where to find me?”
“There was a bit in the newspapers when they moved you,” she said. “I’m with a show playing Manningham Hippodrome this week. It seemed like a good opportunity. I telephoned the governor this morning and he said it would be all right.”
“How’s business?” he said.
She grimaced. “Terrible. We’re supposed to be on a twelve-week run of the provinces, but I think we’ll fold on Saturday night.” She sighed. “I really thought I’d got a break this time. A good second lead and three solo spots, but that’s show business for you.”