Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

‘There’ll be ladders. I already told you that. But we’ve got to get there at twelve,’ said Eddie, glancing anxiously at his watch. ‘That’s the time they said they’d put them over, and they can’t leave them hanging there for long or someone’ll see them. So come on, let’s go. Follow me and keep your head down, for Christ’s sake.’

‘What about this?’ asked David, tapping the end of the rope they’d just come down.

‘It’ll just have to stay there. I know. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’ve got no choice. With any luck, we’ll be out of here before anyone sees it.’

And so, leaving the dust-sheet rope hanging down from the roof behind them, a hostage to fortune, they took off round the edges of the courtyard, staying in the shadow of the buildings and doubling down almost to their hands and knees as they passed underneath lighted windows. One was open and they could hear voices inside laughing, but somehow they got past it without incident until finally they crossed open ground to the wall they had to climb. Eddie ran along the side of it a little way, looking for the place they’d be least exposed. Then, once he’d made his decision, he got up on David’s shoulders, raised the swivel chair above his head while David held the dust-sheet rope to which it was attached, took several practice swings, and then threw the chair up and over the wire on the top of the wall. The noise of its impact on the other side was louder than they’d expected and they froze for a moment in a strange eight-foot tableau of man on man, but nothing happened, and Eddie dropped back down to the ground.

‘Okay, start praying,’ said Eddie in a whisper as he took the rope from David and started gently pulling the invisible chair back toward him. At the top of the wall it wobbled and then caught in the wire. Eddie pulled it harder but it didn’t move; it was secure. Silently he pumped his fist, and drew a deep sigh of relief. Still no one seemed to have heard them.

‘All right, I’m going up first, and I’m going to put this down on the wire. It’ll make it easier to get over,’ he whispered, pointing to the folded-up gym mat inside his shirt. ‘Don’t worry, okay. Just do what I say, and you’ll be fine.’

Whatever the reason, whether it was Eddie’s words of encouragement for which he felt absurdly grateful, or whether it was that he found going up easier than going down, David got up to the top of the wall without a problem. And then the moonlight helped with finding a place to stand on the mat while Eddie switched the dust-sheet rope to the other side of the wall. The barbs tore into David’s shirt and trousers, digging into his skin as he began his descent, but he hardly noticed the pain as he concentrated on lowering himself down to the ground.

And then, standing under the wall at the bottom, he suddenly felt hope surge again inside his chest. The prison was out of sight behind his back and they were so close to freedom now that he felt he could almost touch it with his hand. Never in all his life had David been through so many mood swings in such a short space of time.

But Eddie seemed more worried, not less. He kept walking up and down, looking up at the wall above them and then glancing at his watch.

‘Five past bloody midnight,’ he burst out. ‘Where the hell is he? That’s why we waited, so as not to have to sit here in the fucking sterile area waiting to be caught.’

‘Sterile area?’

‘Yeah, sterile. No prisoners allowed. Just screws, walking up and down with fucking guard dogs. God, I hate dogs. Come on, come on,’ he said, hopping from one leg to the other, gazing up at the wall.

And suddenly, as if in direct answer to Eddie’s call, a man appeared in the moonlight above them and threw down two rope ladders toward them.

‘Okay, go, go!’ shouted Eddie.

David didn’t know why he suddenly shouted when he’d been always whispering up to now. Perhaps he’d already seen the guard and the dog coming round the corner, but David was only a little way up when he heard the mad barking just beneath his feet. There was the sound of a whistle and people were calling, screaming, crying out, but he couldn’t make out the words. All he knew was that he had to climb. Near the top he felt someone, it had to be the screw, pulling at the rope from down below and he was half-blinded as a searchlight beam swung round and picked him out. He looked up and there was Eddie taking aim with his pocket torch in his hand. It came down past his head and it must have hit its mark because David heard a cry and suddenly felt the tugging stop. He climbed two rungs, three rungs, forcing his feet forward up the ladder and then suddenly Eddie’s hands were 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.

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.