“And your nail-file, you poney twit.”
“Look!” For a moment Evans’s eyes smouldered dangerously, but Jackson was ready for him.
“Orders of the Governor, Evans.” He leaned forward and leered, his voice dropping to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “You want to complain?”
Evans shrugged his shoulders lightly. The crisis was over.
“You’ve got half an hour to smarten yourself up, Evans — and take that bloody hat off!”
“Me ’at? Huh!” Evans put his right hand lovingly on top of the filthy woollen, and smiled sadly. “D’you know, Mr. Jackson, it’s the only thing that’s ever brought me any sort o’ luck in life. Kind o’ lucky charm, if you know what I mean. And today I thought — well, with me exam and all that...”
Buried somewhere in Jackson, beneath all the bluster and the bull-shit, was a tiny core of compassion; and Evans knew it.
“Just this once, then, Shirley Temple.” (If there was one thing that Jackson genuinely loathed about Evans it was his long, wavy hair.) “And get bloody shaving!”
At 8:45 the same morning the Reverend Stuart McLeery left his bachelor flat in Broad Street and stepped out briskly towards Carfax. The weatherman reported temperatures considerably below the normal for early June, and a long black overcoat and a shallow-crowned clerical hat provided welcome protection from the steady drizzle which had set in half an hour earlier and which now spattered the thick lenses of his spectacles. In his right hand he was carrying a small brown suitcase, which contained all that he would need for his morning duties, including a sealed question-paper envelope, a yellow invigilation form, a special “authentication” card from the Examinations Board, a paper-knife, a Bible (he was to speak to the Women’s Guild that afternoon on the book of Ruth), and a current copy of The Church Times.
The two-hour examination was scheduled to start at 9:15 A.M.
Evans was lathering his face vigorously when Stephens brought in two small square tables, and set them opposite each other in the narrow space between the bunk on the one side and on the other the distempered stone; wall, plastered at eye-level with a proud row of naked women, vast-breasted and voluptuous. Next, Stephens brought in two hard chairs, the slightly less battered of which he placed in front of the table which stood nearer the ceil door.
Jackson put in a brief final appearance. “Behave yourself, laddy!”
Evans turned and nodded.
“And these” (Jackson pointed to the pin-ups) “off!”
Evans turned and nodded again. “I was goin’ to take ’em down anyway. A minister, isn’t ’e? The chap comin’ to sit in, I mean.”
“And how did you know that?” asked Jackson quietly.
“Well, I ’ad to sign some forms, didn’t I? And I couldn’t ’elp—”
“You sneaky little bastard.”
Evans drew the razor carefully down his left cheek, and left a neat swath in the white lather. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Jackson? Why did they ’ave to bug me bloody cell?” He nodded his head vaguely to a point above the door.
“Not a very neat job,” conceded Jackson.
“They’re not — they don’t honestly think I’m goin’ to try to—”
“They’re taking no chances, Evans. Nobody in his bloody senses would take any chances with you.”
“Who’s goin’ to listen in?”
“I’ll tell you who’s going to listen in, laddy. It’s the Governor himself, see? He don’t trust you a bloody inch — and nor do I. I’ll be watching you like a bleedin’ hawk, Evans, so keep your nose clean. Clear?” He walked towards the door. “And while we’re on the subject of your nose, Evans, it’s about time you changed that filthy snot-rag dangling from your arse pocket. Clear?”
Evans nodded. He’d already thought of that, and Number Two Handkerchief was lying ready on the bunk — a neatly folded square of off-white linen.
“Just one more thing, Einstein.”
“Ya? Wha’s’ at?”
“Good luck, old son.”
In the little lodge just inside the prison’s main gates, the Reverend S. McLeery signed his name neatly in the visitors’ book, and thence walked side by side with a silent prison officer across the exercise yard to D Wing, where he was greeted by Jackson. The Wing’s heavy outer door was unlocked, and locked behind them, the heavy inner door the same, and McLeery was handed into Stephens’s keeping.
“Get the razor?” murmured Jackson.
Stephens nodded.
“Well, keep your eyes skinned. Clear?”
Stephens nodded again; and McLeery, his feet clanging up the iron stairs, followed his new guide, and finally stood before a cell door, where Stephens opened the peep-hole and looked through.
“That’s him, sir.”
Evans, facing the door, sat quietly at the farther of the two tables, his whole attention riveted to a textbook of elementary German grammar. Stephens took the key from its ring, and the cell lock sprang back with a thudded, metallic twang.
It was 9:10 A.M. when the Governor switched on the receiver. He had instructed Jackson to tell Evans of the temporary little precaution — that was only fair. (As if Evans wouldn’t spot it!) But wasn’t it all a bit theatrical? Schoolboyish, almost? How on earth was Evans going to try anything on today? If he was so anxious to make another break, why in heaven’s name hadn’t he tried it from the Recreational Block? Much easier. But he hadn’t. And there he was now — sitting in a locked cell, all the prison officers on the alert, two more locked doors between his cell and the yard, and a yard with a wall as high as a haystack. Yes, Evans was as safe as houses...
Anyway, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to have the receiver turned on for the next couple of hours or so. It wasn’t as if there was going to be anything to listen to, was it? Amongst other things, an invigilator’s duty was to ensure that the strictest silence was observed. But... but still that little nagging doubt! Might Evans try to take advantage of McLeery? Get him to smuggle in a chisel or two, or a rope-ladder, or—
The Governor sat up sharply. It was all very well getting rid of any potential weapon that Evans could have used; but what about McLeery? What if, quite unwittingly, the innocent McLeery had brought in something himself? A jack-knife, perhaps? And what if Evans held him hostage with such a weapon? Sort of hi-jack-knifed him?
The Governor reached for the phone. It was 9:12 A.M.
The examinee and the invigilator had already been introduced by Stephens when Jackson came back and shouted to McLeery through the cell door. “Can you come outside a minute, sir? You, too, Stephens.”
Jackson quickly explained the Governor’s worries, and McLeery patiently held out his arms at shoulder-level whilst Jackson lightly frisked his clothes. “Something hard here, sir.”
“Ma reading glasses,” replied McLeery, looking down at the spectacle case.
Jackson quickly reassured him, and bending down on the landing thumb-flicked the catches on the suitcase. He picked up each envelope in turn, carefully passed his palms along their surfaces — and seemed satisfied. He riffled cursorily through a few pages of Holy Writ, and vaguely shook The Church Times. All right, so far. But one of the objects in McLeery’s suitcase was puzzling him sorely.
“Do you mind telling me why you’ve brought this, sir?” He held up a smallish semi-inflated rubber ring, such as a young child with a waist of about twelve inches might have struggled into. “You thinking of going for a swim, sir?”