“I’d give a hell of a lot to be sitting slap in the middle of the front row tonight when you come on,” Brady said.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she smiled warmly. “And I’d give a lot to have you there, Mr. Brady. I think my father was right. Do you think they’ll let me come and see you again before I leave Manningham?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, but you could write.”
“I’d like to do that,” she said. “I’ll let you have my London address.”
The duty officer touched him on the shoulder and Brady stood up. For a moment she just stood there, looking at him through the gauze and it was as if she wanted to speak, but couldn’t find the words. She turned abruptly and went out and he followed the duty officer down to the dining-hall, thinking about her all the way.
When they paused for a smoke back on the job that afternoon, Evans quizzed him about her. “Who was she, son? I hear she looked pretty good.”
“Is there anything you don’t hear?” Brady demanded.
Evans grinned. “If there is, it isn’t worth knowing.”
Before Brady could think of a suitable reply, the whistle blew signifying the end of work for the day and they packed up and started to descend the scaffolding.
There was a press of men jammed together on the narrow platform which spanned the scaffolding at the third storey. Brady was at the front and as he started to turn to go down the ladder backwards to the next level, a hand shoved him violently in the small of the back.
He went head first into space with a cry of fear and then someone grabbed at his denim jacket, jerking him to one side. His hands fastened over a length of scaffolding and he hung there for a moment before scrambling to safety under the rail.
The whole incident had taken place in a second and the majority of the men hadn’t even noticed it. Brady leaned against the rail and wiped sweat from his face as Evans pushed through the crowd towards him. “I’ve never moved faster,” he said.
“Did you see how it happened?” Brady asked.
Evans shook his head. “There was a hell of a push back there at the top of the ladder. Everyone was in such an all-fired hurry to get down.”
“I guess I was lucky you were on hand,” Brady told him.
But the thought stayed with him, the niggling doubt. A hand had pressed him squarely in the small of the back and pushed outwards into space, of that he was certain. But why? He had made no enemies and his friendship with Evans alone assured him of a privileged position amongst the other prisoners.
He thought about discussing it with Evans, but decided to let it go. He had more important things on his mind. Much more important.
That one omission proved almost fatal. On the following morning, just before noon, he was working on the third-storey catwalk welding a fractured pipe. Behind him, bricks were hauled by hand in a canvas bucket to the fourth storey.
It was pure chance that saved him. He pushed back his goggles to pause for a breather, and out of the corner of one eye, caught a quick flash of something coming towards him. He dropped flat on his face, and the loaded bucket swung lazily out into space over the end of the catwalk, and back again.
He glanced up as it was hauled over the edge of the catwalk above him by a tall, swarthy individual with a broken nose and dark, curling hair. The man returned his gaze calmly for a moment and then walked away.
Brady went up the scaffolding hand-over-hand to the fourth storey, where he found Evans welding angle irons in one of the half-completed rooms at the north end of the building.
The old man pushed up his goggles and grinned. “Time out for a smoke?”
“Someone just tried to make me take a dive off the third storey,” Brady told him.
Evans stood up slowly. “You sure?”
“It’s the second time in two days,” Brady said. “That business at the top of the ladder yesterday afternoon was no accident.”
“Got any ideas?” the old man asked.
Brady nodded. “Come outside and I’ll show you.”
The man with the broken nose was loading a wheelbarrow with bricks at the other end of the catwalk.
Evans frowned. “That’s Jango Sutton. Fancies himself as a bit of a tearaway. Doing a seven-stretch for robbery with violence. Clobbered a seventy-year-old nightwatchman with an iron bar. A real hard man,” he added sarcastically.
“He looks like a foreigner,” Brady observed.
Evans shook his head. “He’s a diddy-coy — a gipsy. Lives here in Manningham as far as I know. Married a local girl.”
“I’d like to know who put him up to it.”
Evans nodded grimly. “That’s easily handled. You get him in here and leave the rest to me.”
Sutton wheeled the load of bricks along the catwalk and they went back inside the room and waited. As the gipsy passed the doorway, Brady reached out, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and pulled him inside with such force that Sutton staggered across the room and hit the opposite wall.
“Here, what’s the bloody game?” he demanded, getting to his feet.
“You’ve tried to make me take a dive twice in two days,” Brady said. “I want to know why.”
“Get stuffed!” Sutton replied and ran for the door.
Evans stuck out a foot and tripped him and the gipsy sprawled on his face. As he twisted and started to get up again, Evans shoved him down with one foot and squatted beside him, the blow-torch in one hand. He adjusted the flame until the steel tip glowed whitehot and grinned wolfishly.
“We only want you to be reasonable, Jango.”
The gipsy licked his thick lips and gazed in fascinated horror at the tongue of flame. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“But I’ll be doing you a favour,” Evans said. “Five seconds of this on your kisser and you’ll be able to put Boris Karloff out of business when you get out. They won’t need to make you up.”
“You’re mad!” Sutton said and his voice cracked slightly.
“I will be if you don’t tell us what we want to know,” Evans told him and suddenly, his voice was cold and hard and utterly ruthless. “You’d better start talking, boy. Who put you up to giving my pal here a push off the catwalk?”
Sutton shook his head from side to side and tried to crawl away backwards. Evans grabbed him by the shirtfront with his free hand and advanced the torch.
Sutton struggled madly, his face contorted with fear. “I’ll tell you,” he said hysterically. “It was Wilma — my wife. She came to see me yesterday morning. Told me there was five hundred nicker for me if I saw that Brady met with an accident. An extra twofifty if it happened by Sunday.”
Brady stood in the doorway, one eye on the catwalk outside in case a screw turned up. “Who put her up to it?” he demanded urgently.
“I don’t know,” Sutton replied. “She wouldn’t tell me.”
“He’s lying,” Brady said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Evans pulled Sutton upright and held the torch so that the heat started to singe the gipsy’s black hair. “It’s the truth,” Sutton screamed. “I asked her who was behind it, but she wouldn’t tell me.”
Evans glanced up at Brady. “Satisfied?”
The American nodded and Evans pulled Sutton to his feet and held him close for a moment. “You put a foot wrong from now on, boy, and I’ll see you get sliced from here to Christmas.”
He shoved Sutton away from him and the gipsy twisted like an eel under Brady’s arm and out of the door. Evans turned off the torch and took a couple of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “Can you make any sense of it?”
Brady shook his head. “Do you know anything about his wife?”