Hana’s screams continued.
Slowly, slowly.
He was breathing too rapidly. He had to think. He checked the bars in the window. Solid iron. This was one part of the building they hadn’t salvaged from cells below the waterline. He couldn’t bend them without leverage. The ends were buried into holes bored deep in the surrounding stones. No way to prise them loose. He paced the cell, looking closely at everything again. Floor, walls, bars, ceiling. A length of chain hung from a hook at the apex of the room. It must have once have been used to support a lantern, but there was no lantern there now. Granger might be able to reach it by standing on the commode, but he couldn’t see how he could get it loose. Everything looked as tough as anything that could be made by man. No way out without explosives. If old Swinekicker had had the resources, he might have built a prison like this.
But not quite like this. The old man had talked at length about the art of confinement: the escapes, the little oversights that could let your income slip away from you, the changes he’d make to his own place if he only had the money. And now Granger examined his own cell with the same cold cynicism. To look into the room from the corridor outside required the guard to kneel on the floor and peer through that narrow food hatch in the bottom of the door. Wealthy prisoners, it seemed, were granted a peculiar degree of privacy. It was the only flaw Granger could discern. How could he use it to his advantage?
Hana’s cries filled the air.
Granger returned to the torn mattress. He scooped out the rest of the hair stuffing and then set to work tearing the blanket into thin strips. He plaited the strips together until he had fashioned two short lengths of rope, one longer than the other. He tied a knot in the end of the shorter.
Then he stripped to his underwear.
He pushed the legs of his breeches down into his galoshes, then stuffed the breeches full of mattress hair. He chewed holes in the hem of his shirt and used his bootlaces to tie the shirt to the belt loops in his breeches. Then he began packing the shirt too. When he’d emptied the mattress of stuffing, he used the remains the mattress itself and then pieces of blanket, keeping only a fistful of scraps aside. Finally, he slid his whaleskin gloves on to the padded-out arms of his shirt and stood back to inspect his creation. He had made a mannequin, a stuffed figure dressed in his own clothes. It wouldn’t suffer a close inspection, but it didn’t have to. He didn’t even bother to furnish it with a head.
Granger climbed up onto the cistern, from where he could just reach the lantern chain hanging from the ceiling. He fed the longer of his two makeshift ropes through the bottom link, until it snagged on the knot at its end. He gave it a gentle tug. It held well enough. He hopped down again, then hoisted up the mannequin and tied it to the rope.
From the food hatch at the bottom of the door, one could see a pair of boots dangling before the window. By pressing his face against the floor, Granger could make out the hanging dummy’s legs and the lower part of its torso and arms. Good enough.
Now he had to get the jailer’s attention. He couldn’t afford to wait until meal-time, whenever that was. He grabbed the last few scraps of blanket and stuffed them down into the washbasin plughole. Then he turned on the taps.
The basin filled and soon began to overflow. Water spilled over the floor, gradually reaching the corners of the cell. As it began to leak out of the gap under the door, Granger wrapped the shorter length or rope around each of his hands and waited.
Less than a quarter of an hour later he heard noises in the corridor outside. A key clunked in a lock. A door slammed. He heard the jailer cursing, his boots sloshing along the flooded corridor.
Two bolts snapped back, and the hatch at the bottom of the cell door clanged open.
Outside, the jailer gave an angry hiss. ‘If you’ve broken that bloody sink, we’ll beat…’ he began. And then he must have seen the hanging mannequin, for he said, ‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.’
Keys rattled.
The door opened.
Granger stepped from his hiding place into the open doorway and kicked the jailer in the stomach. Before the other man had time to register surprise or pain, Granger looped the short rope around his neck and dragged him down. He twisted the rope.
The jailer made a choking sound.
‘We’re walking out of here,’ Granger said.
The jailer opened his mouth to object, but Granger twisted the rope tighter around his neck. ‘Don’t speak,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll crush your larynx.’
A corridor stretched in both directions, with numbered cell doors lining both walls and an iron-banded wooden door at the end of the passage. Granger marched his captive towards this last door. From his initial trip here he knew that the guards’ office lay beyond. ‘How many guards?’ he whispered into the man’s ear. ‘Hold out your fingers.’
The jailer made no move.
Granger tightened the rope.
‘One.’
‘I said don’t speak.’ They had reached the door by now. ‘Unlock it.’
The other man obeyed, fumbling with his keys.
‘Quickly.’
The door swung open to reveal a small windowless chamber, a watch station for the cell corridor – little more than an airlock to separate free men from their captives. Racks of keys hung from pegs along the back wall, each labelled with a cell number. A single guard reclined in a chair, his feet propped on the desk before him. He had been half asleep, but now snapped alert as the two men bustled in: one dressed in underwear, the other turning blue. He looked at Granger and then he reached for his blackjack lying on the desk between them.
‘Leave it,’ Granger said.
The guard hesitated.
‘Throw me your keys or I’ll break his neck.’
‘Break it,’ the guard said. ‘They’ll give me his job.’
Granger pitched his captive across the table and into the seated man. The guard’s chair toppled backwards and he went down, pinned under the thrown man’s weight. Granger stepped around the desk and kicked the guard hard in the groin. Then he dropped to a crouch, slamming his elbow down into the back of the jailer’s head, knocking him out cold.
The guard groaned through his teeth, still trapped under the unconscious man.
Granger spied a bunch of keys hooked to the man’s belt and tore them loose. He picked up the jailer’s keys from the floor. His chest had begun to cramp again. He staggered upright, wincing at the pain, and locked the door to the cell corridor. Then he tried the opposite door, the exterior one. It was unlocked. He opened it a fraction and peered out.
A broad staircase descended several flights to the main foyer. On the opposite side of the landing stood another door, but this was not reinforced. A tall window looked out on the gloomy facade of another building. There was nobody about. Granger glanced back at the fallen guard. Then he stepped out, shut the watch station door and locked it behind him.
He hurried down the staircase, clutching his chest.
When he reached the foyer he stopped. An open doorway to his right led to the prison offices, from where he could hear the susurration of scribes at work. To get to the front door he’d have to walk straight past them, in his underwear. The front door would undoubtedly be locked, and he didn’t know which one of the keys he had stolen would open it. He rifled through the bunch, selecting a couple that looked to be around the right size.
Then he took a deep breath and crossed the foyer to the door.
A shout came from the office. Granger pushed the door, but found it to be locked. He tried the first key, but it wouldn’t turn. Over his shoulder he heard a scribe shouting for the guards. He tried the second key.
The lock turned.
Granger burst out into bright sunlight.
The marketplace was mostly empty. Rows of stalls stood like canvas colonnades. A few costermongers milled around behind them, chatting or stacking crates to be moved to the wharf side, sitting on the steps of the Imperial Administration Buildings. Fishermen and ferrymen lounged in the shadows of the Drowned. A old man sat mending his net. The Hookmen had gone, leaving Hana alone. She was crouching on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees, wailing in a thick broken voice. Not a damn soul paid any attention to her.