Jack Higgins – The Violent Enemy

‘The best way of looking at things and the most sensible.’

When they reached the top landing, the bell was sounding for the midday meal and when Rogan went back into his cell, Martin already had the plates ready on the small table. When the door closed, he waited for a moment, then looked at Rogan questioningly.

‘And what was all that about?’

For a moment, Rogan was going to tell him and then he remembered the old man’s words earlier. That in a place like this a man could only be pushed so far. He was right, of course. If Sean Rogan had learned one thing from the thirteen years of his life spent between four walls, it was that no one was ever completely dependable.

He shrugged. ‘Some friends of mine on the outside have clubbed together and dug up a lawyer. He wanted to meet me personally before trying the Home Secretary again.’

Martin’s face creased into the perpetual smile of hope of the long serving convict. ‘Hell, Irish, maybe things are looking up.’

‘You can always hope,’ Sean Rogan said and moved to the window.

It was still raining and a slight mist curled across the top of the hill beyond the walls where the quarry lay. If you listened carefully you could almost hear the river; dark, peat-stained, splashing over great boulders on its long run down to the sea.

CHAPTER THREE

RAIN dashed against the window as Rogan peered into the darkness. After a while, he went to the door and stood listening, and from below the steel gate clanged hollowly as the Duty Officer closed it after him.

He turned and grinned tightly, his face shadowed in the dim light. ‘A hell of a night for it.’

Martin was lying on his bed reading a book, and he pushed himself up on one elbow. ‘For what?’

Rogan crouched beside him and said calmly, ‘I’m crashing out, Jigger. Whose side are you on?’

‘Why, yours, Irish, you don’t need to ask.’ The old man’s face was grey with excitement and he swung his legs to the floor. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Open the door,’ Rogan said. ‘Just that. When I’ve gone, you leave it unlocked, get back on your bed and stay there till they turn out the cells at seven.’

Martin licked his lips nervously. ‘What happens when they bring me up in front of the Governor?’

‘Tell him you got the shock of your life when I opened the door, that you lay there and minded your own business.’ Rogan grinned coldly. ‘After all, that’s just what he’d expect you to do. Any con who did anything else under similar circumstances wouldn’t last twenty-four hours before the boys got to him. The Governor knows that as well as you do.’

The threat was implicit and Martin got to his feet hastily. ‘Hell, Irish, I wouldn’t do anything to ball things up, you know that.’

Rogan turned over his mattress, slid his hand through the seam at one side and pulled out a coil of nylon rope and a sling with snap links at the end, of the type used by climbers.

‘Where in the hell did you get those?’ Martin asked.

‘They use them up at the quarry when they’re placing charges in the cliff face.’ Rogan took out a narrow-handled screwdriver and a pair of nine-inch wire cutters which he tucked into his belt.

‘These came by way of the machine shop.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Okay, Jigger, let’s get moving. I’m on a tight schedule.’

Martin took out the spoon and knelt in front of the door, his hands shaking a little. For a moment he seemed to be having some difficulty and then there was a slight click. He turned, his face very pale in the dim light, and nodded.

Rogan quickly arranged his pillow and some spare

clothing from his locker into some semblance of a human form under the blankets on his bed. He moved to the door.

‘I just thought of something,’ Martin said. ‘You know how the duty screw pussyfoots around in carpet slippers?’

‘He’ll have a look through the spyhole, that’s all/ Rogan said, ‘and if he can tell that it isn’t me in that bed in this light, he’s got better eyes than I have.’

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