'I know I risked c.o.c.king everything up, over that d.a.m.ned knife. That it was a mistake,' said Charlie. 'But there's the danger of an even bigger mistake a disastrous mistake if you leave me blind. I've got to know something.'

'I won't leave you blind,' a.s.sured Sampson. 'You'll be told, every step of the way.'

He'd forced it as far as he could as far as Sampson would professionally expect him to force it and become unsettled if he didn't but Charlie recognised it was now time to stop. He said, 'Christ, I can't wait to get out of this b.l.o.o.d.y place!'

'You won't have to, not much longer,' promised Sampson.

The corridor leading into the administration block to which he was still a.s.signed pa.s.sed the former library and as he filed along it to work the following morning Charlie was aware of the partially erected scaffolding, through the window. It was a restricted view and he only looked fleetingly in the direction because he didn't want to attract the interest of any prison officer, but Charlie's impression was that there appeared a lot of it. Charlie a.s.sumed, obviously, that the break would be at night; wouldn't be easy, negotiating all that planking and tubing, in the dark. Certainly not in these pinching, constricting b.l.o.o.d.y prison boots. He didn't expect there would be Hush Puppies, in Moscow. What would there be? he wondered. Difficulty, he decided. A h.e.l.l of a lot of difficulty. With no choice indeed, confronting a positive threat as an alternative he'd had to agree to everything that Wilson had demanded but with the opportunity of proper, sensible examination that had been possible during his period of solitary confinement Charlie recognised it was a near impossible mission. He'd made blind contacts in the past, several of them, but then the authorities hadn't been able to monitor or suspect his doing it. He didn't know but he very much doubted that they'd let him wander around Moscow, going where he liked and doing what he liked. Not at first, anyway. And he didn't intend staying a day over the agreed six months. Or did he? Back in the department, Wilson had promised. Past misdeeds forgotten and everything reinstated. Be nice to go back to a place where it appeared, from what everyone said, he still had a name and some sort of reputation with a brand new coup under his belt. Be like going back with a reference, a testimonial that he was as good as he'd ever been. Be showing he could win, too. That was how Charlie always thought of any operation in which he was successful. Winning. Charlie m.u.f.fin liked to win.

Charlie had been conscious at breakfast that two prisoners from his landing were missing but had not thought overly about it because there could have been many reasons for it, so it was not until he got into administration, where one of them worked, and saw he was absent from there as well that he asked around and heard of the sickness outbreak on his landing. It had started, according to the gossip, on the second day he was in solitary, sudden attacks of convulsive vomiting that the doctor had diagnosed as food poisoning. Almost a dozen men, five from Charlie's landing alone, had gone down with it. There had been a cleanliness check in the kitchens and before he'd been released from solitary special disinfecting of the slop-out rooms. He mentioned it to Sampson, because in the cut off society of prison anything, no matter how inconsequential, is a talking point and this was hardly inconsequential anyway, aware as he did so of the man's smile and not understanding the a.s.surance that they wouldn't go down with the complaint. It was not until the end of the week when they spoke about it again and this time it was Sampson who raised it, smiling as he had on the first occasion.

'Doctor can't seem to get to the bottom of this food poisoning,' he said.

'We've been lucky,' said Charlie.

'No, we haven't,' said Sampson.

What was the self-satisfied b.u.g.g.e.r talking about now? wondered Charlie. 'What do you mean?' he asked.

'Know what an emetic is, Charlie?'

'Of course I do,' said Charlie.

'Apomorphine is an emetic,' said Sampson.

Charlie was fully attentive now, knowing this wasn't a meaningless conversation. 'Where did you get it?' he said.

Sampson sn.i.g.g.e.red. 'From the very hospital where the poor victims are being treated! Isn't that cla.s.sic?'

'How?'

'Miller, the pederast who took the booze to you, when your arm was being treated. Supplied him, too, of course. Until he became dependent and I was able to make the demands.'

'How did you introduce it into the food?'

'Easiest thing in the world, in those canteen lines,' said Sampson.

'What's the purpose?'

'It's already been achieved,' said Sampson. 'Officially there's a salmonella outbreak they can't control. They're used to it and our going down with it will be just another indication of how ineffective they are being, in finding the cause.'

The corridor leading to the now abandoned library linked with the hospital, just one landing higher, realised Charlie. And wasn't separated by the heavy dividing steel doors that part.i.tioned off the individual landings in the main section. 'When?' he said.

'Tonight,' announced Sampson, enjoying the role as master of ceremonies.

'Sick tonight or out tonight?' persisted Charlie.

Sampson hesitated. 'Both,' he said.

Charlie felt a tingle, of expectation and excitement. Apprehension, too. What if he wasn't as good, as he'd once been? It had, after all, been a long time. Four years, nearer five.

'Frightened?' demanded Sampson.

'Yes,' admitted Charlie, because there wasn't any danger in the confession.

'Everything is going to be OK,' a.s.sured Sampson.

'I'd still like to know more,' said Charlie.

Instead of replying, Sampson extended his hand. In the palm lay two small, white pills, unmarked.

'Both?' asked Charlie.

Sampson shook his head. 'Just one. And now, before lock up. I want us to be ill in the sluices, where everyone can see. Where it'll be obvious we're the latest victims.'

The effect of the expectorant was far quicker than Charlie imagined it would be. The sweep of nausea engulfed him within minutes of his swallowing the drug and although he ran, which was officially against the regulations, he still failed to reach the sinks in time, vomiting at first over the floor and then heaving his body racked by retching, over the huge receptacle. Beyond the sound of his own discomfort, he heard Sampson being violently ill in an adjoining basin.

There had been shouts at their running, demands to stop which they ignored and the arrival of prison officers, backed by others who feared some sort of trouble, was immediate.

'Christ,' said a voice from behind Charlie. 'When the h.e.l.l is this going to stop? f.u.c.king doctors!'

The a.s.sembled warders dispersed, sure from the condition of the two men that no danger existed, but b.u.t.terworth remained at the entrance, disdainfully watching while Charlie and Sampson hawked and groaned. It took a long time before the convulsions were over and b.u.t.terworth waited even longer, unwilling to risk the walk to the hospital with men who might suddenly become ill again and foul a landing. Charlie clung to the rim of the sink, uncaring of its usual purpose and his closeness to it, feeling awful. His whole body was slimed with perspiration but it was icy cold, making him shiver. His head ached and he felt physically hollowed, which he was. The worst ache, of course, was his ribs and stomach, stressed and strained by the retching.

'Jesus!' he groaned. 'Oh Jesus.'

'Ready to go?' asked b.u.t.terworth, cautiously.

Charlie nodded, even that movement difficult.

'I need a doctor,' said Sampson, from beside him, playing the part, which wasn't difficult for the man to do.

'Out,' said b.u.t.terworth. The prison officer stood back, as if he feared contamination, as Charlie and Sampson walked unsteadily from the sluice room. The officer gestured them immediately along the corridor towards the hospital where the doctor who had set Charlie's arm did not bother to attempt any sort of proper examination, satisfied from their condition that they were suffering the same mysterious food poisoning as the earlier victims.

'Just when I thought the d.a.m.ned thing was disappearing,' said the doctor.

Charlie didn't understand the remark until he undressed and got into bed and then realised that he and Sampson were the only two people in the infirmary. Sampson was organising everything superbly well, Charlie conceded.

The doctor gave them both medication and put a pail beside their beds and told them to be b.l.o.o.d.y careful if they were ill again not to mess the floor or the bed. Sampson was sick but not much. Charlie lay gratefully in the bed, feeling the ache gradually diminish. By early evening he felt quite well again. There was more medication before the doctor went off duty for the night. He took their pulse and temperature as well and as he left said, 'You'll be all right by tomorrow. Be out of here, with luck.'

'That would be good,' said Sampson, heavily.

Charlie recognised Miller as the night-duty orderly. The duty prison officer was one of the good blokes, a fat, easily pleased screw called Taylor. He had two kids of whom he was very proud and sometimes showed their pictures. Directly above the small office in which they sat was a wall-mounted clock and Sampson and Charlie lay watching the slow progress of the hands.

'When?' demanded Charlie, voice hardly more than a hiss.

Sampson eased himself slightly from the pillow, to ensure that Miller and the officer were beyond hearing and whispered back. 'Ten thirty. They'll be waiting for us outside at midnight but I don't know how long it'll take for us to get over the scaffolding. If we're not out by twelve thirty it'll be off.'

The first uncertainty, thought Charlie. There were going to be a h.e.l.l of a lot more. Charlie felt the tension build up, a physical impression like the earlier aching had been, as the leisurely clock approached ten. On the hour, Sampson began to groan and move in his bed, attracting Miller's attention. The orderly began moving, to come from the office, but Sampson moved first, getting with apparent awkwardness from the bed and setting out towards the lavatories, bent as if pulled over by stomach cramps. As he pa.s.sed Charlie's bed the man whispered, 'Move as soon as I get the screw.'

Taylor was at the door of the office as Sampson approached, shaking his head sympathetically. 'Poor b.u.g.g.e.r,' he said, as Sampson reached him.

Sampson turned as if to enter the lavatory, hand outstretched against the door-jam for support. Taylor was actually going towards him, offering support, when Sampson attacked. He drove his knee up viciously into the groin of the completely unsuspecting officer, driving the breath from him in a contorted squeak of agony. Charlie started to move, as Sampson had told him, and as he ran forward saw Sampson bending over the man, kneeing and punching at him. By the time Charlie got to the office door Taylor was completely unconscious, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Sampson was still kicking at the man's body and Charlie said 'OK, for Christ's sake. That's enough. He's out.'

'And got to stay that way,' gasped Sampson.

Charlie got the impression the man liked inflicting pain.

Miller was pressed back against the wall of the office, eyes pebbled in surprised fear. 'What's happening?' he said, in a little-boy voice. 'Dear G.o.d, what's happening?'

Instead of replying, Sampson entered the room and with the same viciousness as before kicked bare-footed at the orderly, in the groin again, bringing the man down with another muted scream of bewilderment and pain. As Miller fell Sampson clubbed the man on the back of the head and then kneed him, just as he had kneed the prison officer, as the man lay on the ground. 'Stop it!' shouted Charlie again. 'You'll kill him.'

Sampson looked up from the prostrate figure and Charlie saw the man was smiling. 'If he's dead, he can't do anything to stop us, can he?'

'There's nothing he can do now,' said Charlie. 'f.u.c.king psychopath.'

'Tie his hands and legs and gag him,' ordered Sampson, gesturing to the unconscious officer.

Charlie bent, easing the man's belt from his trousers and looping it around Taylor's wrists. The man's breath was snorting from him, an indication Charlie remembered from training as one of deep unconsciousness. He thought there was a danger of the man choking, from the inhalation of his own blood and used the act of securing his hands to turn him on his side, to prevent it happening. Charlie wondered how much damage he was doing if Taylor's skull were fractured.

'Hurry!' urged Sampson, from behind.

Charlie used surgical bandage to secure the warder's legs and hesitated at gagging the man, aware again of the breathing difficulty. If he didn't do it then Sampson would, he realised. And less carefully. Charlie wrapped the bandage as gently as possible around the warder's mouth, trying to arrange it so Sampson would think it sufficiently tight but in reality leaving it quite loose, to enable the man as much air as possible.

'Get the keys,' said Sampson.

They were at Taylor's waist, locked into the securing chain. Charlie unfastened the whole affair from the prison officer's waist and gave them to the impatient Sampson, who was standing by the door making irritated, beckoning gestures with his outstretched hand. Sampson studied the bunch briefly and failed to pick the correct key in his first attempt to unlock the hospital door. He succeeded on the second attempt. He re-locked it, leaving the key and the chain hanging, glanced briefly up at the clock, which still only showed ten twenty-five and said 'OK. Let's get dressed.'

At the door of the office Charlie paused, looking down regretfully at the two unconscious men, then hurried after Sampson. The man was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, thought Charlie. A psychopath, like he'd said.

Sampson was ready before he was, whispering 'come on! come on!' from the doorway. He unlocked it a second time as Charlie approached, easing it back from the frame and staring out. He nodded, indicating that it was clear, leading out into the corridor with Charlie directly behind. There were no cells on this landing, which formed the beginning of the administration section. It was illuminated by the dull green night-lights. The two men still moved cautiously, hesitating every few steps for any noise of approaching officers. The longest pause was at the steps leading to the lower landing, where the empty library room was: the cells began at the far end and if a prisoner were standing against the bars of his cell there was a possibility of their being seen. Sampson mimed a treading motion with his hands, warning Charlie to walk softly, then slowly began his descent. When they reached the bottom of the stairway they stopped again, pulled into the concealing cover of the well. From the far end came the murmur of conversation from the cells. From where they were, it was impossible for Charlie to see if anyone were against the cell door: it was a very common place for prisoners to stand, particularly if they were attempting some sort of contact with a neighbouring cell.

Sampson led again, keeping to the left of the corridor, to bring himself to the library door. Charlie crept behind him, nerves tight for some shout of discovery. What happened if they got caught now?, wondered Charlie. If everything was c.o.c.ked up before it even had a chance to start and Wilson lost his chance would the man come forward and admit to a deal, with a prison officer suffering Christ knows what injuries? And another man as well? Government departments didn't do that, when things went wrong. They put up the barricades and denied everything. Jesus! thought Charlie.

But they reached the door unchallenged. Sampson held the connecting chain in his left hand, to prevent it vibrating and sounding against the door and tried to locate the correct key with his right. What if the officer didn't have the library key on his chain? The fresh fear surged through Charlie. Taylor was attached to the section, so he supposed there should have been a key but the room was disused now and in any case there might be the system of limiting keys, to apply only to the necessary duty. Charlie strained forward, feeling the sweat run in irritating, itching paths down his back.

Sampson opened the door on his fifth attempt, with only two more keys to try. Charlie was aware of Sampson's shoulders sagging, a moment of abrupt relief, and realised the other man had had the same fear as himself. The click, as the lock moved, seemed to reverberate along the corridor and they both stared in the direction of the occupied cells, for any sign that it had been heard. There was nothing. Still Sampson was carefully easing the door open to guard against any squeaking sound and only creating the minimum gap for them to slip through. Sampson went first, then Charlie. Sampson was as careful closing it as he had been opening. The lock clicked shut with another loud-sounding noise and again, momentarily, they tensed. Again, nothing.

The corridor lights and that which came in through the window were sufficient for them to move across the room, which was cleared anyway of everything except the skeletal shelves to be restocked when the outside extension work was completed. Charlie set out immediately for the window, aware as he got closer that the bars had been removed, but his attention was more fully upon Sampson. The man wasn't going to the windows, as he should have done, but standing instead against the shelving by a far wall, legs apart and gazing up, as if trying to orientate himself. As the impression came to Charlie he realised that was exactly what Sampson was doing. The man paced off two divided sections in the shelving and reached up and even from where he stood Charlie detected the grunt of satisfaction.

'What is it?' whispered Charlie, when Sampson came to the window.

The other man held out his hand, palm uppermost. Charlie felt the sensation of sickness, like he'd known earlier in the day after ingesting the drug. Cupped easily in Sampson's hand was a short-barrelled gun. In the poor light Charlie couldn't positively identify it but it looked like a .38, maybe a Smith and Wesson.

'Where the h.e.l.l did you get that?'

'Get anything, with the right contacts,' said Sampson. 'And I didn't b.u.g.g.e.r about, remember? Arranged for my bank to transfer 2,000 into Prudell's account, a month ago. Prudell's sister brought it in, inside a radio just like mine. Idiots didn't check the inside of the case, just that it played when they turned the k.n.o.bs. Didn't think that a small transistor inside a big case left lots of room for something to be hidden.'

'What do you want it for?'

'Don't be ridiculous!'

'Why's it so b.l.o.o.d.y necessary to hurt people!'

Sampson levelled the gun, so that the muzzle was only inches from Charlie's chest. 'I told you nothing was going to stop me,' he said. 'Just like I said I'd kill you if you got in the way. You thinking of getting in the way?'

'The sound of that would bring every screw in the place here in about thirty seconds,' said Charlie.

'But you wouldn't be alive to see it,' said Sampson.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was mad enough to do it, Charlie thought. He said, 'No, I'm not going to get in the way. Let's get to h.e.l.l out of here.'

Without bars at the windows, some attempt had been made at security by meshing barbed wire against the scaffolding frame. Sampson adopted his customary role as leader, squatting on the window ledge and carefully trying to ease the strands aside, to create a sufficient gap, but even when he moved his clothes were snagged on barbs and Charlie was caught when he tried to follow and in twisting, to try to free himself, he drove a point deeply into his hand, wincing at the sudden pain. He felt the warm stickiness of blood on his hand as he crawled forward, through the wire and on to the planking that had been set up, as a walkway, between the metal struts. Sampson was just beyond, hunched impatiently, not talking through the fear of discovery but making his familiar s.n.a.t.c.hing, beckoning movements. Despite Sampson's demand for speed, they could not move fast. The floodlights were on in the yard, but there were canvas sheets hung like a wall along the edge of the scaffolding and while that sheeting provided them with perfect protection against any outside patrol, it meant no lights penetrated their narrow, uneven walkway. They shuffled along, one behind the other, using the metal tubing as both a guide and support. The wind was comparatively strong, occasionally lifting the canvas in a snapping, crackling way and Charlie supposed it was quite cold: he was sweating so much, through nervousness, that he was unaware of it. At each intersection there was more barbed wire. There had been some light by the library window, when they first encountered the obstruction, but now there was none and they had to grope and bend in a tunnel of complete darkness. Ahead Charlie heard the other man grunt in what could have been pain and hoped he'd impaled himself. Hoped it hurt, too.

After about two hundred yards the scaffolding broke away from the main prison building, jutting to the left over some lower buildings where the main extension work was being carried out, raising them in extra storeys to provide additional accommodation. Without the protection of an adjoining wall the wind was stronger here, lifting the canvas more easily. Once it snagged, for several seconds, and through the gap Charlie could see the yellow streetlights of Shepherds Bush and actually hear traffic moving along the streets outside. And in a brief burst of excitement at the thought of freedom any freedom forgot what had just happened back at the prison and what might happen in the future. The wall was very close, close enough for him to see the outline of the bricks and the backward pointing metal bars that would make it difficult for anyone to get over, even if they reached the top and the black threads of the floodlight wire. Reality flooded back very soon too soon but Charlie knew that as much as he hated and despised Sampson and as much as he feared whatever faced him in Moscow if he ever got to Moscow freedom from the life he had known inside prison was going to make a lot worthwhile. Why the h.e.l.l had it been so necessary for Sampson, whose tight a.s.s was jerking only inches from his face in the sudden infusion of outside light, to be as brutal as he had been? In Charlie's time in the service there had been regular, mandatory a.s.sessments, psychiatric as well as psychoa.n.a.lytical, specifically to identify the sort of mental illness he suspected Sampson to be suffering. But was it mental illness? He had a deal, a set-up. If he'd been facing thirty years and had the chance, just one desperate, possible chance, of getting out wouldn't he have done everything possible to have prevented that chance being taken from him, even if it meant pummelling the s.h.i.t out of a fat man who tried to be kind doing a b.l.o.o.d.y awful job, and some eye-twitching s.e.xual misfit? He didn't know, Charlie acknowledged. He didn't think so didn't want to think so but truthfully he didn't know. There had been a lot of times in the service when he'd set people up, either to escape himself or create a situation of advantage and because he hadn't actually pulled the trigger or inflicted the punch or made the arrest that would lead to G.o.d knows how many years in prison he'd still done, by proxy, what Sampson had done back there in the hospital office. So maybe he wasn't a psychopath. Maybe with a different accent and a different background and different breeding Sampson was what he always proudly regarded himself as being: a survivor.

The scaffolding ended abruptly and not as they expected, fifty yards from the outer wall for it to finish at the wall would have been too much to expect with another bundle of wire and with the access ladders removed, another security precaution.

's.h.i.t!' Charlie heard the man in front of him exclaim.

Charlie drew up beside the man, gazing beyond the wire and through the now open end of the scaffolding tunnel even closer to freedom. 'Ignore the wire,' he said. He pushed at the canvas, which gave sufficiently for them to get between it, the scaffolding and the planking and use its protection to scramble, arms and legs wrapped round the tubing, downwards. They did not, however, go right to the ground because the scaffolding was erected at the very end on top of the flat roofs of some outbuildings. Unsure of what was below and apprehensive of the sound they might make they walked as carefully across the roof as they had earlier inched along the occupied corridor towards the library.

They were lucky. It was still an appalling breach of security and one which Charlie, in pa.s.sing, guessed would be seized upon in the enquiry that was inevitable after their escape, but the ladders were laid, neatly one atop the other, beneath the protective parapet. But unsecured, by any chain or locking device. It was obvious, Charlie recognised, that the workers and the prison authorities imagined any danger to be from ladders stored in the yards and that because they were on inaccessible roofs the danger was minimal but it was still a lapse that would earn justifiable criticism.

At Sampson's hand-gesturing sign language, they did not immediately try to move the ladders, instead creeping light-footed the full length of the roof on which they found themselves, reconnoitring for the best advantage. And they were lucky again. The building upon which they stood ran almost to the outer wall, only a narrow pa.s.sageway separating the two. And what formed the roof of that was covered by a supporting structure and then mesh, once again to prevent any upward escape attempt, with no consideration of the advantage it created for someone from above. Without the elevation of the preventative mesh, one ladder length would have been insufficient to reach the top of the wall, but by carefully and quietly selecting the longest from the untethered pile, stepping delicately upon the mesh-support bars and not the mesh itself and using one of those same support bars as the centre base beneath the ladder, they were able to reach right to the very top, actually beneath the protruding spikes and use the ladder steps as footholds easily to manoeuvre over what was supposed to be an escape preventative. On top once again rather than below the spikes they actually provided a convenient platform upon which to crouch and stare over the outer rim, into the side street below. There were the regulated lights and there were lights, too, in several of the opposite houses, which Charlie presumed to be prison officer accommodation but the road itself was deserted.

'Where's the car?' said Charlie, urgently.

'We're early.'

'We'll never be able to get the ladder over that metal lip,' said Charlie gesturing behind him. 'Too much risk of losing our grip and letting it fall back and wake up every b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the nick.'

'We'll have to jump,' agreed Sampson. 'Let ourselves down as far as possible from the edge and then drop the rest.'

Charlie looked down again, concentrating upon the distance this time. 'b.l.o.o.d.y long way,' he said.

'You got a better idea?'

After several moments, Charlie said, 'No.'

'You first.'

'Why?' protested Charlie.

'Why not?'

It didn't make any difference, Charlie supposed. He twisted over, on to his stomach, and wriggled himself backwards, so that first his feet and then gradually the rest of his body first stuck out and then hung over the edge. Charlie clung, at the very point of release and the plunge down to the unseen road beneath, frightened of letting go. And then he did, pushing himself out slightly at the moment of release, away from the rough wall, trying to keep himself loose and ready to roll at the first intimation of contact, as he had been taught during the physical survival courses. He'd never got it right, on the course, when he had been fitter and younger. The ground came sooner than he antic.i.p.ated and he wasn't able to roll properly, jarring sideways instead. The pain, as his ankle twisted, felt like someone thrusting a hot prod throughout the length of his leg.

'f.u.c.k!' said Charlie. It didn't do anything to ease the pain.