At the bottom he paused in the shadows, then crossed quickly to the door, then opened it and hesitated in the porch. A lamp jutted from the wall, casting a pool of light to the path below, and he went down the steps quickly and moved into the darkness at the front of the walls.
The rain was falling heavily now, bouncing from the cobbled courtyard like steel rods and he glanced up at the ventilating shaft high above his head stretching across to the hospital. It had originally given him access to the hospital roof, now he had to find another route.
He kept to the shadows of the wall, working his way round the courtyard until he reached the hospital and moved round to one side. It was then that he remembered the fire escape. He found it a moment later and started quickly, head lowered against the driving rain.
The final landing was outside a door directly under the eaves of the roof and he climbed on to the rail, reached up to the gutter and tested it quickly. It seemed reasonably secure and he took a quick breath and heaved himself up and over.
He scrambled up on to the ridge of the building and moved along it, a foot on either side, hands braced against the tiles. It took him a good five minutes of careful work to reach the end of the building and the chimney stack of the incinerator.
No more than fifty feet away from him through the darkness was the spiked edge of the outer wall of the prison, and beneath him an iron drainage pipe cut
through space to meet it. Rogan uncoiled his nylon rope, flung one end round the chimney stack and went straight over the edge gripping the double strand tightly.
His feet slipped on wet brickwork and he swung wildly, skinning his knuckles and bruising his shoulder painfully and then his legs banged against the pipe.
He sat on it, legs astride, and pulled the rope down, coiling it again, then he started across. The narrow pipe cut into his crotch and he moved painfully on, pushing away the thought of the cobbles forty feet below, concentrating on the task in hand. Was it now, or was it three years previously? There was no way of telling and life seemed a circle turning upon itself endlessly. His fingers touched stone and he looked up to see the darker line of the wall against the sky.
He carefully stood up, reached for the rusty spikes and pulled himself on top. With hardly a pause, he uncoiled the rope, looped it around a couple of spikes and went over the edge, using the same double strand technique as in descending from the hospital roof. A few moments later he dropped ten feet into wet grass at the foot of the wall, pulling the rope down after him.
He was soaked to the skin and for a moment he lay there, his face in the coolness of the wet grass and then he scrambled to his feet. He coiled the nylon rope quickly, hooked it over his head, turned and moved quickly away through the darkness.
Remembering his previous experience, he gave the married quarters a wide berth, striking up the hillside to the open moor and the quarry.
Darkness was his friend and five minutes later he reached the crest of the valley and paused to look back. Below in the hollow the prison lay like some primeval monster crouching in the darkness, shapeless, without form, a yellow light gleaming here and there and at its feet the houses crouched.
Rogan was suddenly filled with a fierce exhilaration. He laughed out loud, turned and started to run across
the moor. It took him fifteen minutes to reach the quarry and beyond it, the river, swollen by rain, tumbled over boulders in the darkness.
Halfway across the iron footbridge, he paused and tossed the rope, screwdriver and wiiecutters into the foam. Somehow there was a finality about the act. This time there would be no going back. lie ran acioss the bridge and moved along the bank, and a few moments later the lights of the cottage gleamed through the dark trees of the wood.