The King of Diamonds (6 page)

‘Yeah, Earle; Eddie Earle. He’s all right,’ said David defensively. It wasn’t his fault O’Brien had had to move out.

‘No, he’s not all right. I know him. He’d sell your bloody grandmother if he had the chance,’ said O’Brien. There was an urgency in his voice and a wild look in his eye that David found alarming.

O’Brien moved away as they reached his landing, but, turning round, had time for one last warning before he went into his cell: ‘You watch your back, Swain, you hear me. Or he’ll have you.’

Back in his own cell, David felt unnerved by his encounter. O’Brien did seem a little crazy, but then again why should he be so worried about Eddie? The question gnawed at David for the rest of the afternoon, partly because he too had his doubts about his new cellmate. Why was he so friendly? Why was he so interested in David’s life story? Why did he seem to care so much? David needed answers. And the only way of getting them was to ask Eddie himself.

‘Good visit?’ asked David, looking up from
jesus for prisoners
as Eddie was let back into the cell an hour later.

‘Yeah, all right. What you been doing?’

‘Nothing much. Talking to O’Brien.’

‘Who?’

‘Irish guy who was in here before you. Big guy, into Jesus, got a temper. He doesn’t like you.’ ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, says I ought to watch my back.’

‘And so you should, Davy. So you should. Anyone who doesn’t do that in here’s a fucking idiot.’

David couldn’t see Eddie’s expression. He had his back to the bunks, doing something over by the shelves.

‘Do you know him?’ David asked

‘Yeah, I think I know who you mean, if it’s the same guy. Jesus Joe he was called when I last saw him. Down in Winchester nick a couple of years back. We’ve crossed paths once or twice. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. That’s all. Nothing to write home about.’

There was a casual note in Eddie’s voice that sounded forced somehow. It was like he knew more than he was saying.

‘Why doesn’t he like you?’ asked David, persisting with his questions.

‘I don’t know. He’s stupid and I’m not. I nick stuff and he listens to the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,’ said Eddie, imitating O’Brien’s deep Irish voice surprisingly well. ‘You know what I mean.’

Turning round, Eddie stood looking down at his cellmate for a moment and then came and sat down beside him on the bottom bunk.

‘Got you worried, has he, this Irish bloke?’ he asked, looking David in the eye.

‘No, not really. It’s not that. It’s just, well, it’s just I don’t get why you’re so interested in me, why you keep asking me all these questions, why you’re nice to me. I mean other cons aren’t like that. Some of them are all right, but . . .’

‘They’re not like me?’ said Eddie, finishing David’s question for him.

‘Yes.’

David felt good and bad all at the same time. Good because he’d got out the question that he needed to ask. Bad because he didn’t want to give Eddie offence, and he hoped he hadn’t. Eddie was the only friend he’d got in this God-forsaken place and he didn’t want to lose him.

‘So, if I say I’m nice out of the goodness of my heart, it won’t do for you?’ asked Eddie with a smile.

David shook his head, feeling relieved. At least Eddie didn’t seem to be taking it the wrong way.

Eddie eyed David meditatively for a moment. He looked like a bookmaker weighing up the odds. And then, as if making a decision, he leaned over and clapped David on the shoulder.

‘All right, Davy, I’ll tell you why I’m nice. But don’t you go blabbing if you don’t like what I say.’

He put his forefinger up to his lips, and David nodded.

‘Okay. I’m nice to you because I like you, but it’s also because I need you.’

‘Need me!’ David sounded shocked. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. Eddie was the resourceful one, able to get almost anything he wanted from God knows where. What could he possibly need David Swain for?

‘To escape,’ said Eddie, answering the question.

Escape. It was the thought that was always at the outer edge of David’s consciousness, that he wouldn’t let in because he knew there was no way out of this hell and thinking about it would send him crazy. And yet here it was, spoken aloud as if it was something possible, something that could actually happen. David felt his heart beating like a hammer inside his chest; he put out his hand and held on hard to the metal ladder leading up to the top bunk as if to prevent himself falling, even though he was sitting with his feet on the ground.

‘I need you because it’ll take two of us to get out of here, and I think you want it as much as I do. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that you’ve got to want to escape more than anything else in the whole world if you’re going to have any chance of success. Do you want it that much, Davy? Do you?’

David didn’t answer and so Eddie went back on the attack.

‘Don’t you want to see that Katya woman one more time and tell her what you think, tell her how you feel? Or maybe you’re happy to let her sit there in that great fine house of hers laughing at you while you rot away in here?’

Eddie looked at his cellmate expectantly. David swallowed hard but he still didn’t respond. And yet Eddie knew he’d found his mark. There was a fire in David’s eyes. They were wider open than they’d been since his arrest. He’d been thinking of the world outside – of air and water and trees and grass, but now he thought of Katya and his mouth twisted in a grimace. Eddie was right. She had these things every minute of the day.
Fuck her
, he thought savagely.
Fuck her
.

‘Yes, I want out of here,’ he said. ‘I want it so much it hurts.’

‘All right,’ said Eddie, looking pleased. ‘That’s what I thought. But you’ll have to do as I say. It won’t be easy. Escaping’s no piece of cake.’

David nodded and then looked up instinctively at the tiny window set high in the back wall of the cell. It was tiny, far too small for a man to fit through, even if he could find a way of sawing through the three thick metal bars cemented inside the frame. There was a ventilation shaft in the ceiling above the window, but that too was a hopeless cause. The aperture was a third the size of the window. And the cell door was three inches of solid steel that couldn’t be unlocked from the inside. The only opening in it was a spy hole near the top, the so-called Judas hole, through which the screws could watch their charges without being seen themselves.

Not easy! Getting out of here was downright impossible. It was stupid to even think about it.

Eddie smiled. He knew what David was thinking. He’d watched his cellmate’s expression change from hope to despair as his eyes travelled around the cell.

‘Don’t worry, Davy,’ he said. ‘It’s not this cell we’re getting out of. It’d take more than a year to dig your way out of here. Even if we had the tools, which we don’t.’

‘How then?’

‘You know they’re going to be painting the gym and the rec room over in the new block next week?’

‘No.’

‘Well, they are. They’re putting up scaffolding tomorrow on the top floor. They need it because the ceilings are so high.’

‘How do you know?’

‘A little bird told me. It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is they’re doing it,’ said Eddie impatiently.

‘Sorry.’

‘The point is, Davy, the scaffolding’s an opportunity for us. And opportunities are your best chance. Not tunnelling away for a year and a half just to find yourself moved to another wing when you’re still chiselling away in the small hours.’

‘How’s it an opportunity?’

‘Because we can use it to get at the rec room ceiling, punch a hole in that, and climb out onto the roof. And then down into the rear yard.’

‘But that’s thirty feet. More maybe.’

‘Twenty-eight I reckon. We’ll use dust sheets. They put down plenty of them when they painted the canteen last month, and they’re bigger than the sheets we have in the cells.’

‘How do we get out of the rear yard?’ asked David, growing more sceptical by the minute. ‘There are two bloody great walls to go over once you’re out there. If you get out there. And the perimeter one’s more than thirty feet. I know it is. I’ve seen the top of it over the roof of the new block from the back of the exercise yard, so it’s got to be higher than the rec room. How do we go thirty feet up in the air, Eddie? I doubt the builders left too many footholds.’

‘We don’t need any footholds. There’ll be a rope ladder and a car on the other side. I’ve got connections, or have you forgotten that?’

‘So why do you need me if you’ve got connections?’

‘Because they’re on the outside, not in here,’ said Eddie, sounding as if he was running out of patience. ‘Until we get to the perimeter wall we’re on our own. And so I’ll need you to keep a lookout and help me over the first wall. I’m a lot more worried about that one than the other one, to be honest.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’ve got to find a way to get up it without a ladder. Down’s easy, it’s up that’s the problem. But don’t worry. I’m working on it,’ said Eddie, tapping the top of his head with his forefinger.

David sat back heavily, resting his head on the wall behind him, trying to digest the information he’d been given. He felt like he’d been put through a wringer, catapulted from one conflicting emotion to another with no time to catch his breath and think. He’d felt excitement at first as he dared to think about escape for the first time as a real possibility, then doubt and anger too that he had let down his defences and allowed himself to be suckered into believing in miracles, and then the beginning of a new thought – that maybe Eddie did know what he was talking about, that maybe he could get them out of here.

‘How do you know about all this escaping stuff?’ he asked.

‘Because I’ve done it before.’

‘What? Got out?’

‘Once yes, twice no. You need some luck too, you know. And I don’t use violence. Not like your religious friend,’ said Eddie, pointing over at David’s discarded copy of
jesus for prisoners
.

‘Does violence help?’

‘Sometimes, but it’s hard to get weapons in from the outside. You can fake them, of course. Dillinger got the better of fifteen Indiana state troopers back in the Thirties. Used a dummy gun he’d made in the carpentry shop; whittled it out of wood and blackened it with shoe polish. But I prefer not to be seen on the way out if I can help it.’

‘Why do you do it?’

‘Escape, you mean? Because it gives you hope, keeps you alive. It’s easy to lose yourself in here. Why do you think they have those suicide nets hanging under the landings out there? And this time it’s also because I need to. I’ve got debts I couldn’t collect before I got sentenced and now I’m running out of time.’

Eddie got up and went and stood under the window, looking down at his cellmate. He took a shilling coin from his pocket and passed it up and down between the fingers of his hand several times before he broke the silence.

‘So, are you in?’ he asked. ‘I need to know, Davy, because that scaffolding’s not going to be there forever and I need to make my plans. And if it’s not you I’m going with, I’ll need to find someone else.’

David didn’t answer at first. Part of him still didn’t believe escape was possible. This prison was like a bloody fortress even if it was in the middle of the town. But then again, what did he have to lose? So what if he got a few more years added on to his life sentence. He’d be an old man anyway if he ever got out, way past his sell-by date.

‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But once we’re out, I want money and a gun. Not a fake one like that American bloke’s. A real one with bullets inside. Can you get that for me?’

Eddie looked hard at his cellmate, pursing his lips. Once again David was reminded of a bookmaker weighing up the odds. And then all at once Eddie seemed to make up his mind. He nodded, walked over to David, and held out his hand to seal their agreement.

Vanessa smiled at her reflection in the mirror above the drawing room fireplace and then closed her eyes, willing Titus to return. And, as if in answer to her prayer, the door behind her opened and she turned around to find him crossing the room toward her.

‘I’m sorry, my dear. This wasn’t what I had in mind for our evening,’ he said, taking Vanessa’s hand and leading her over to the sofa where Katya had been lying prostrate a few minutes before.

‘Is she all right? She seemed ill, Titus, really ill. Shouldn’t she go to hospital?’ Vanessa spoke in a rush. It was as if she hadn’t realized until now how much Katya’s sudden appearance and collapse had upset her.

‘No, she’s fine now. She’ll sleep through until morning. She’s had a sedative. Katya’s her own worst enemy, you know. She won’t eat; she won’t sleep. She could be back to her old self if she just tried a little, but she won’t. As I said before, it’s like something snapped inside her after Ethan died and now she’s determined to go the same way. Except that I won’t let her,’ Titus added defiantly.

Vanessa squeezed Titus’s hand, unsure of what to say. She wasn’t used to him opening up to her like this. She felt the pain in his voice, his vulnerability, and her heart ached in sympathy. The last thing she wanted to do was to upset him further, but she felt she had no choice. Certainly it seemed far-fetched that Franz or anyone else was plotting to murder the girl behind Titus’s back, but Titus deserved to be told what his niece had said. But then, just as she was about to speak, Titus forestalled her.

‘When Katya was down here did she say anything, Vanessa, you know, before she passed out?’

Vanessa didn’t answer immediately, taken aback by the apparent telepathy between them. It was uncanny the way their minds seemed to be moving in tandem.

‘I only ask because I have to know what she’s planning to do. I’m the only one stopping her from going back on the streets. And I don’t think she’d survive another relapse.’

‘She said: “They’re trying to kill me.” She didn’t say who. But she really meant it. I could see that. It cost her a lot to get the words out.’

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘No, just that. But who did she mean, Titus?’ Vanessa asked, suddenly urgent. ‘Could it be your brother-in-law’s doing something to her without you knowing? I don’t like the way he looks at me sometimes. It’s like he hates me for some reason.’

Vanessa gripped Titus’s hand as she spoke. She’d kept a lid on her aversion to Franz Claes for too long and now it suddenly erupted into the open. She felt Titus stiffen beside her, taken aback by the intensity of her emotion. He didn’t reply at first but instead released her hand gently, picked up her glass and his own, and went over to the sideboard, where he methodically mixed them two more drinks, standing with his back to her. Then, picking up one of her hands, he wrapped it around her glass.

‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You need it. We both do.’

Vanessa did as he asked. The alcohol did make her feel better, but she continued to look up at Titus expectantly.

‘Two questions, Vanessa, which both need answers,’ said Titus. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. ‘As to the first one, no, no one in this house is trying to kill my niece, least of all Franz. And yet it doesn’t surprise me to hear that this is what she believes. She is being kept in this house against her will, and without the drugs that she craves, she has to use her mind and think, which is terrible for her.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she is what you English call highly strung and her thoughts are full of pain – the death of her parents in the war, the loss of her home, the murder of Ethan, her guilt over his death.’

‘Why should she feel guilty? It wasn’t her fault that that man Swain went crazy.’

‘No, but she thinks it is. And I can understand why she feels responsible. If she’d not started a relationship with Ethan, then Ethan would still be alive today.’

‘But that makes no sense. We’re not Hindus. People have to be allowed to decide who they want to be with.’

‘Like you and me,’ said Titus with a half smile. ‘I wonder what your husband would have to say about that.’

‘He doesn’t like it – of course he doesn’t – but that doesn’t mean he thinks people shouldn’t be free to choose.’

‘Even when they’re married?’

‘Yes, even when they’re married. And your niece wasn’t,’ Vanessa added pointedly.

‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Titus with a sigh. ‘Katya shouldn’t feel guilty, but that doesn’t change the fact that she does. I just wish I could get her to see things differently. As I said, she’s her own worst enemy.’

‘Well, what about getting someone else to talk to her? Maybe a psychiatrist could help?’

‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ said Titus bitterly. ‘She won’t speak to anyone.’

‘There must be something you can do.’

‘Only what we are doing. Giving her our love and keeping her out of harm’s way. And hoping that time will heal her wounds, of course. I’m a great believer in that.’

Titus was silent, lost in his troubles, but Vanessa stayed quiet, certain that he had more to say. It was unusual for him to talk about himself and she didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought. And yet when he spoke again it was to change the subject.

‘You asked me about Franz,’ he said. ‘I am sorry you don’t like him. He’s not an easy person, I know. And he’s not at his best with women. But it’s not because he doesn’t like them or doesn’t like you. I assure you of that. It’s rather that he feels uncomfortable because he doesn’t know what to say. You see, his mother died when he was very young and his father was away, and it was really left to his older sister, Jana, to bring him up. She did her best, but she couldn’t be his mother – if nothing else she was too young. And then afterward he was in the army . . .’

‘The Belgian army?’

‘Yes. For ten years before the war. He did well, but it left its mark. I suppose you could say he has all the virtues and the vices of the well-trained military man. He can be awkward in company, especially with the opposite sex, and he tends to see everything in – how do you say? – in black and white. But he is loyal and true; a man of honour. And there is nothing he would not do for me, Vanessa.’

‘Why?’

‘Because years ago I was able to help him when he needed help, because once upon a time I was married to his sister, because . . .’

Titus broke off in midsentence as if turning away from an unwanted memory. Vanessa couldn’t remember how she had first heard that Titus was a widower, but she’d known it for as long as she’d known him. And yet his dead wife had always been an invisible presence. There were no family photographs in the house that she’d ever seen and he’d never mentioned her until now.

‘What was her name?’ Vanessa asked. Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper, and she felt for a moment like a child pushing open a forbidden door.

‘Amélie.’

‘Was she beautiful?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you miss her?’

‘Sometimes. My child too. But it is painful and so I try not to think about them.’

‘Your child! I never knew you had a child.’ Vanessa was rigid with astonishment.

‘Yes, a son like you, but younger. It is part of what draws me to you, I think, Vanessa. That we have both suffered, both lost what was dear to us. Life is never the same after that.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me before? When I told you about Joe?’

‘Because that conversation was about you, not me. I wanted to know how you felt, not to tell you about me.’

Vanessa sat back in the sofa, trying to cope with the confusion of her emotions. It made no sense that Titus should not have told her about his loss when she told him about hers, and yet it also made perfect sense because of the person he was. She vividly remembered the evening sitting up late in front of the fire in her flat when she’d described the terrible night of the motorcycle accident to Titus and told him in broken words about the shroud of meaninglessness that had hung over her ever since. She remembered the way he’d listened to her so quietly, so intently, so that she felt able to talk about what had happened, about what it meant, for really the first time since the accident. And she realized now that she couldn’t have talked like that, couldn’t have unburdened her soul, if the conversation had been about him as well as her. She felt a sudden wave of emotion, of gratitude toward this man about whom she still knew so little.

‘What happened to them? Your wife and child?’ she asked, leaning toward Titus with sympathy and concern written all over her face.

‘They died in the war. Back at the beginning when the Germans came in. Nothing special about it. There was a lot of bombing and many people lost their families back then. You go out, you go to work, you come back, and what do you find? Rubble. Yes, you English have the right word for it.
Le mot juste
. In the morning a house, a home; in the evening rubble.’

Titus had closed his fist while he was speaking, and now he suddenly opened it empty, like a circus conjuror. And with a bitter, twisted smile he got up and went over and stood by the window, looking out. It was almost dusk and hard to see past the lawn and the rose beds to the lake and the line of trees beyond.

‘
Tramonte
the Italians call it,’ he said musingly.

‘What?’

‘The twilight, the in-between time. It means “across the mountains” in English. And I suppose you could say that that’s where I’ve come from, Vanessa. Across the mountains. Bringing what I could out of the flames. Katya, my niece, more damaged than I am, whom I must try to protect however much she hates me for it, and Franz and Jana. Yes, Franz, Vanessa,’ said Titus, looking at her apologetically. ‘He is my family too, and I cannot turn my back on him even if I wanted to.’

‘But I wasn’t asking you to do anything like that,’ said Vanessa, raising her hands in protest. ‘Your life is your own; it’s not for me to interfere.’

‘But that’s where you’re wrong, my dear,’ said Titus, coming back over to the sofa and raising her right hand to his lips. ‘I want you to interfere; I want you to be a part of my life. Not just now but for always.’

Vanessa looked into Titus’s bright blue eyes and knew exactly what he was saying. She felt like a swimmer being borne out to sea on a riptide. She was falling in love with a man whom she hardly knew.
Whom she hardly knew
– an inner voice repeated the words inside her head, holding her back almost against her will.

‘I’m married, Titus,’ she said in a soft voice.

‘Yes, and your husband hates me,’ said Titus with a sigh.

‘No, he doesn’t. He just hates what you represent. Bill’s always been a fair man. It’s one of the things he prides himself on.’

‘Well, then maybe he’ll be fair to us and give you a divorce. Won’t you ask him, Vanessa?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Vanessa, sounding upset. It distressed her to hear Titus talking about Bill. Because she’d spoken no less than the truth. She did believe her husband was a fair man. He might be unable to express his emotions or to cope with his son’s death; he was certainly unbearable to live with; and yet he was fundamentally decent – good even. It wasn’t that she wanted to go back to him. She was sure of that, but she and Bill had been through a lot together; they’d been happy once, and something inside Vanessa rebelled at the thought of the divorce court, of a legal end to everything that had gone before.

And yet here was Titus offering her a new life, entirely unlike the one she’d left behind. He would take care of her; love her; encourage her to express herself in a way in which her husband had never been able to do. He was wealthy, influential, a man of the world. There would be no more scrimping and saving at the supermarket, no more worrying about the next bank statement. Surely her marriage was over? It was eighteen months since she’d left her husband. Did her independence, her tiny little flat, mean so much to her that she’d turn down the chance of becoming Mrs Osman? Or was it simply that she no longer believed in happiness, didn’t want to put the possibility of it to the test?

‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know, Titus. You must give me more time.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘All the time that you need, dearest Vanessa. It’s enough for me that you will think about it. Love will take care of the rest.’

Titus got to his feet with a smile. He was not discouraged. He’d watched the storm of conflicting emotions pass across Vanessa’s face, and he sensed how close he was to obtaining his heart’s desire.