Brian Freemantle: The Blind Run

‘Told you to move along, stop causing a jam,’ said Butterworth.

Charlie put his pot under the rinse, scouring it out.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Prudell.

‘Why not lend me some perfume?’ said Charlie.

‘Any time, if you’re interested.’

Charlie picked up the line, going out past Hickley and back along the corridor. Inside his cell he looked down, disgustedly, at his stained trousers. Maybe it wouldn’t last long, he thought hopefully. Then again, it might. Hickley had lost face and in a place as miniscule and insular as a prison that was something that grew out of all proportion.

Knowing he would have to avoid any infraction of the regulations, Charlie was ready at the first sound of the washroom bell but inside the ablutions he hung back, waiting for the shaving area he wanted, abutting the wall so that he only had to worry about one side and that in constant reflection. He maintained the caution in the food line, because there were urns with scalding water. The porridge was slopped half in and half out of his bowl. Charlie didn’t protest.

He was as lucky with the seat in the mess hall as he had been in the washing area, with his back against the wall. He saw Prudell smirking two tables away: the companion was new, someone Charlie hadn’t seen before. Dark and very pretty: Greek or Italian, maybe.

Charlie had started eating by the time Eddie Hargrave eased in beside him.

‘Saw what happened at slop-out,’ said Hargrave, his voice hardly above a whisper, talking prison fashion, lips practically unmoving. He was a greying, wisp-haired man who had been a schoolteacher outside. Charlie still found it difficult to believe that after murdering his wife Hargrave had tried to dissolve her body in a mixture of lime and acid, even though Hargrave had talked at length about it and why he’d done it, because he found her in bed with his brother. The brother had been the headmaster, responsible for the school curriculum roster: he’d given the man two free periods by mistake, instead of a history lesson which would have kept him at school. Hargrave had killed him, too. Hargrave was in charge of the prison library in which Charlie worked, as his assistant.

‘The bastard picked on me.’

‘You asked for it, Charlie, scuffing about like that.’

‘Got bad feet.’

‘You cheeked him: shouldn’t cheek someone like Hickley. He’s authority and you can’t beat authority.’

That was something he’d never been able to learn, thought Charlie. ‘Careful it doesn’t involve you,’ he said sincerely.

Hargrave shook his head. ‘No one bothers about me, Charlie. I’m not one of the hard ones but there’s a kind of respect for a lifer.’

‘It’ll pass,’ said Charlie.

‘Be careful, till it does. You’ve got a long time to go.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, distantly. ‘Bloody long time.’

‘Papers have already been delivered to the library,’ said Hargrave.

Charlie mopped the last of his porridge from the bowl with a piece of bread. He supposed it was natural that Hargrave would want to talk about it.

‘Did you know him?’ asked the convicted murderer.

The name given throughout the trial, which he’d followed from the library papers, was Edwin Sampson, although if the man was the KGB agent the prosecution made him out to be then it would obviously have been part of the legend, the cover story to cover his time in England as an illegal.

‘No,’ said Charlie.

‘Papers say he worked in security: thought you did that, too.’

‘It was a long time ago for me,’ said Charlie. ‘And there’s a lot of different departments.’

‘They say he did a lot of damage.’

‘They always do.’

‘Word is that he’ll come here, after sentencing.’

For the first time Charlie started to concentrate. ‘Here?’

‘That’s the word from those who work in the governor’s office; guilty as buggery, so they say.’

‘Hickley said something, at the sluices,’ remembered Charlie.

‘That he was coming here?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Just something about having got another of us bastards. Makes sense of the remark though, if he were coming here.’

The bell sounded, ending breakfast. The departure from the canteen was slow, as usual.

‘I want a drink,’ said Charlie. Like Hargrave, Charlie kept his head bowed, so no one would see even the words his lips formed.

‘What?’

‘A drink.’

‘That means Prudell: he’s the supplier.’

‘I know.’

‘He’d shop you, Charlie.’

‘I know that, too.’

Hargrave remained silent.

‘I’d understand if you said you wouldn’t get it for me,’ assured Charlie.

Hargrave sighed. ‘Money or tobacco?’

‘Tobacco.’

‘How much do you want?’

‘As much as I can get: I’ve saved up half a pound.’

‘It won’t be easy,’ said Hargrave.

‘I appreciate it, Eddie.’

‘Sure.’

‘I mean it. We could share it; the booze, I mean.’

‘Don’t drink, not any more,’ said Hargrave. ‘Pissed when I killed the missus, so I don’t drink any more. If I’d been sober I wouldn’t have hit her so hard. Wouldn’t be here.’

‘It’ll be there, if you want it.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Whatever there is.’

‘I’ve heard there’s whisky. And gin,’ said the older man.

‘Whisky, if there’s a choice.’

The mess hall was almost empty now. Charlie and Hargrave stood at last and joined the line to file out.

‘Thanks Eddie,’ said Charlie.

Hargrave didn’t reply.

The morning was spent re-indexing and replacing on the shelves the books that had been returned overnight but Charlie was ready long before the first borrowing period, the half an hour before the midday break. The dark-haired boy he’d seen at breakfast that morning with Prudell was the first one to enter the library.

‘I want a good spy book,’ said the boy. He lisped.

‘There isn’t one,’ said Charlie.

Sir Alistair Wilson had been disappointed with the Chelsea Flower Show. Or, to be more strictly accurate, with the roses. Because growing them was his hobby they were all he’d bothered to see. He thought the attempt to hybridise the Provence Duc de Fitzjames was a disaster, like sticking the stem into colouring instead of preserving water, which made a mockery of the bloom. And the hybrids themselves were pleasing but not outstanding: only the Mullard Jubilee was worth anything more than a second glance. He left early and considered going to his club but then decided against it. If he entered the Travellers without an obvious luncheon companion he risked being ambushed by bores and he didn’t want to relive an expedition up the Nile when the fallaheen knew their place and were damned glad of it or debate the superiority of mule over husky for an Arctic crossing. Instead he went immediately to the office. Although it was lunchtime and Sir Alistair wasn’t scheduled back until mid-afternoon his deputy, Richard Harkness, was in the office. Sometimes the Director wondered if Harkness slept on the premises.

‘Disappointing show,’ said Wilson.

‘I’ve never been,’ said Harkness.

‘Wouldn’t bother this year, if I were you.’

‘I won’t.’

‘How’s it look?’ demanded Wilson. Instead of going to his desk he went to the window with its view of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament beyond. His right leg was permanently stiff from being crushed under a falling polo pony and it was sometimes more comfortable to stand than to sit. Today was one of those days.

‘Good, I think,’ said Harkness. ‘Five obvious messages, four doubtful.’

‘Imagine the Russians will have intercepted?’