around his wrists pulling him up on to the top of the wall where the man had put down a piece of old carpet to cover the wire.
‘Stop! Come back now!’ someone was shouting at them from down below, but his voice was drowned out by the noise of dogs barking and running feet. David didn’t wait. He was already halfway down the ladder on the other side when the prison alarm bells started to go off. He’d never heard anything like it. It was a noise like the end of the world, and the bells were still ringing in his ears when he got to the ground and jumped in through the open back door of the waiting car.
CHAPTER 6
Immediately the car screamed into motion, throwing David back in his seat as it hurtled down the street and around the corner.
‘We did it; we did it!’ shouted Eddie, punching his hand up into the roof of the car in celebration. It must have hurt but Eddie didn’t seem to notice. He was wild with delight. But the driver, the man who’d saved them, showed no emotion. He sat hunched over the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
David felt numb, but looking down, he saw that his hands were trembling uncontrollably. He couldn’t believe they’d actually escaped – it had been such a close-run thing. He could still hear the shouting and the barking and the alarm bells reverberating in his ears, and he kept looking back over his shoulder expecting to see police cars in pursuit.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Eddie, catching his eye. ‘They won’t have seen our number plates. The wall was in the way. And thank God for my torch, eh? I thought you’d had it there for a moment when that screw was pulling on the end of your ladder. But then Corporal Crackshot here takes aim and hits the bastard right on the nose.’
David smiled weakly. As always, Eddie was at his happiest when he was singing his own praises, but David didn’t begrudge his friend his moment of triumph. He knew that without Eddie he’d be rotting back in gaol, one more day into his life sentence, whereas now he was free, free to go where he chose, and he knew where he was going. The outside air rushed against his face through the open window as they sped down New Inn Hall Street, and he clenched his fists, breathing in deeply as he thought of Katya and what lay ahead.
They parked in the station car park. The driver of their car had still said nothing and Eddie had made no effort at introductions. Sitting behind him in the back seat, David had not even seen the man’s face. Now, without turning around, he reached in the pocket of his coat and took out a set of keys, which he handed to Eddie.
‘Which one?’ Eddie asked. It was curious the way Eddie and the driver seemed to have so little to say to each other, thought David.
‘The red Triumph. The one over there,’ said the man, pointing to his right. ‘It’s got a full tank.’
‘Thanks. Come on, Davy,’ said Eddie, opening his door and beckoning David to follow. ‘We need to get a move on.’
Shutting the door, David looked back through the car window, anxious to get at least one look at this stranger who had done so much to help him escape, but it was as if the man had read his mind. In the minute since he’d parked, he’d turned the collar of his coat up around his ears and pulled his hat down over his forehead so that all David got to see was a flash of the man’s black beard before he was gone, driving back down to the road and picking up speed as he went around the corner and disappeared from sight. But the man’s voice stayed in David’s head. It had been high-pitched, effeminate sounding, not at all what he would have expected from one of Eddie’s friends.
‘Who was that?’ asked David, getting into the Triumph beside Eddie, who already had the engine on.
‘You don’t need to know,’ said Eddie in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Do you still want to go to this Blackwater Hall place?’
‘Yes. That was the deal, remember. You promised me, Eddie,’ said David. There was an edge of panic to his voice, as if he was about to lose his self-control.
‘All right, all right, I remember. There’s no need to get all crazy about it. Just try and relax, okay?’
Eddie drove out of the city over Magdalen Bridge and headed out on the Cowley Road at a precise thirty miles per hour. David still kept looking over his shoulder, scanning the night for police cars.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’ he asked impatiently.
‘And get caught for speeding after all we’ve been through? No way. That’s a sucker’s game.’
David leaned forward, drumming his fingers on the dashboard.
‘Where’s the gun?’ he asked feverishly. ‘You promised me a gun.’
‘In there under your fucking fingers. And can’t you stop doing that? It’s driving me crazy.’
‘Sorry,’ said David, opening the glove compartment and taking out the nickel-plated revolver that was lying inside.
‘Christ, there’s a whole lot of money in here too,’ he said, holding up a see-through bag containing a large bundle of banknotes.
‘What the hell?’ said Eddie, sounding angry suddenly. ‘That’s not supposed to be in there.’
‘Where’s it supposed to be then?’
‘With our clothes in the back, away from the gun,’ said Eddie, keeping his eyes on the road as he jerked his thumb behind his head toward a small suitcase lying on the back seat. ‘The gun’s loaded, so be careful, okay?’
David nodded, barely listening. A strange calm had settled down on him since he’d taken hold of the small snub-nosed revolver that he now held cradled in the palm of his hand. Having it made him feel different inside. It meant the end of being told what to do; he could give the orders now. He thought of Claes’s scarred, waxy face, and his hand clenched involuntarily around the handle of the gun. The polished wood felt smooth and hard. It would be different this time.
They passed the Morris car factory on the left, its blue towers illuminated by the moonlight, and David remembered how the bottom of the Cowley Road used to be full of bicycles at five o’clock as the workers swarmed out of the factory on their way home. Like India, or how he imagined India anyway. But now the road was deserted and they were all alone in the night. Under a bridge and past a few straggling houses and they were out in the open countryside. David felt his heart hammering inside his chest: Katya was out there in the darkness only a mile or two away with no idea of what was coming her way.
‘Left, left,’ he shouted at the last moment as the turn to Blackwater came into view, but Eddie seemed to know already, and soon they were climbing the hill that David remembered so well. Past the church and out of the village until they came to the bend in the road and the fence beside the path that led up to Osman’s boathouse; the last place that he’d been as a free man.
‘All right, turn off here,’ said David. ‘You can park under the trees. If you keep your lights off no one’ll see you from the road.’
‘Unless they’re looking,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m waiting here half an hour, okay, like we agreed. Until five past one. Provided no one comes. If you’re longer than that, it’s your lookout because I’m out of here.’
‘Fair enough,’ said David. ‘But then I’ll need this too.’
Reaching into the glove compartment, he opened the bag with the money and helped himself to a wad of notes. Looking at Eddie defiantly, he stuffed them in his pocket.
‘Just in case,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’
But he never saw Eddie again as a free man.
David was grateful for the moonlight, but still there was little risk of his getting lost. He’d been down the path to the boathouse many times. Always the boathouse, never the house, he reflected bitterly, except on that one occasion when Katya had had the place to herself and even then she was as nervous as a cat. Because her uncle didn’t think he was good enough, didn’t like the fact that he didn’t go to the