Читать книгу The Violent Enemy - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 5

1

On the crest of a tor where the moor lifted to meet the blue sky in a sharply defined edge, Vanbrugh paused to catch his breath, sat on a stone and took out an old briar pipe and a tobacco pouch.

He was a tall, heavily built man in his middle forties, hair greying a little at the temples, shoulders solid with muscle under the old tweed jacket, and carried about him that indefinable quality that only twenty-five years as a policeman gives, a mixture of strength and authority and a shrewdness that was apparent in the light blue eyes.

A few moments later. Sergeant Dwyer joined him and slumped to the ground, chest heaving.

‘You should do this more often,’ Vanbrugh observed.

‘Give me some leave and I will,’ Dwyer said. ‘I’d like to point out that I’ve been working a seventy-hour week since February and my last day off was so long ago it’s become a fond memory.’

Vanbrugh grinned and put a match to his pipe. ‘You shouldn’t have joined.’

Somewhere in the distance an explosion echoed flatly on the calm air, and Dwyer sat up quickly. ‘What was that?’

‘They’ll be blasting up at the quarry.’

‘Prison working party?’

‘That’s right.’

Dwyer looked out across the moor, narrowing his eyes into the distance, relaxed and at ease with himself for the first time in months, the sharp, clear air driving the taste of London from his mouth. It was a happy chance that the old man should have chosen to make this mysterious personal visit to the most notorious of Her Majesty’s prisons on such a glorious day, but one couldn’t help feeling curious.

On the other hand, one thing he had learned in his two years with the Special Branch was that Chief Superintendent Dick Vanbrugh was very much a law unto himself, as many on both sides in the great game had discovered to their cost over the years.

‘We’d better be moving,’ Vanbrugh said.

Dwyer scrambled to his feet and caught sight of the skeleton of a sheep impaled on a gorse bush in a hollow to the left.

‘Death in life, even here on a day like this.’

‘No escaping it wherever you go.’ Vanbrugh turned and looked across the moor again. ‘Whenever the mist creeps in, this place becomes a waking nightmare. A man can walk all day and end where he began.’

‘No one ever gets off the moor,’ Dwyer said softly. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’

‘Something like that. In the whole history of the place, there’s only one recorded instance of a man getting clean away and he’s probably lying at the bottom of a bog. Some of them could swallow a three-ton truck.’

‘The right sort of place for a prison.’

‘That’s what they thought when they built it.’

Vanbrugh set off down the slope towards the car parked at the side of the narrow road below and Dwyer followed, stumbling over the tussocks of rough grass and patches of marshy ground, water seeping in through the laceholes of his smart town brouges.

When he reached the car, Vanbrugh was already sitting in the passenger seat and Dwyer climbed behind the wheel, pressed the starter and drove away.

He was hot and tired, his feet were wet and his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back. A small spark of temper flared inside him, but he pushed it away with a determined effort.

‘A one-hundred-and-seventy-mile drive, wet feet and the makings of a good sprain in my ankle. I hope he’s worth it, sir.’

Vanbrugh turned sharply and the blue eyes were very cold. ‘I think so, Sergeant.’

Dwyer took a deep breath, aware that one of those violent storms for which Dick Vanbrugh was so notorious was about to break over his head, but the moment passed. Vanbrugh applied another match to the bowl of his pipe and Dwyer concentrated on his driving and on the sheep and wild ponies which frequently wandered across the unfenced road. Ten minutes later they came over a slight rise and saw the prison in the hollow below.

The moors lifted in a purple swell fading almost imperceptibly into the horizon, and at the head of the quarry a red flag danced in the slight breeze.

The explosion, when it came, echoed into the distance, the sound of it beating against the hills like thunder. As a great shoulder of rock cracked into a thousand pieces, smoke drifted in a white pall that curled over the edge of the rock and across the moor like some living thing.

A whistle sounded, and as the convicts emerged from shelter a Land-Rover came over the edge of the escarpment, rolled down the dirt road and stopped.

The youth at the wheel had very fair hair and blue eyes that somehow made him look even younger than he was. His uniform was brand new and he was painfully conscious of that fact as he got out of the Land-Rover and moved past a group of convicts loading a truck.

Mulvaney, the Duty Officer, moved to meet him, a black and tan Alsatian at his heels. He grinned. ‘Hello, Drake. Putting you to work already, are they?’

Drake nodded. ‘I’ve got a chit here for a man called Rogan. The Governor wants to see him.’

He produced a slip of paper from his breast pocket. Mulvaney initialled it and waved towards a small hollow at the bottom of the slope.

‘That’s Rogan down there. You’re welcome to him.’

The man indicated worked stripped to the waist and was at least six foot three, the muscles in his broad back rippling as he swung a sledgehammer above his head and brought it down.

‘God in heaven, the man’s a giant,’ Drake said.

Mulvaney nodded. ‘They don’t come much bigger. Brains and brawn, that’s Sean Rogan. Pound for pound, about the most dangerous man we’ve ever had in here.’

‘They didn’t send anyone with me.’

‘No need. He’s expecting his discharge any day now. That’ll be what the Governor wants to see him about. He’s hardly likely to make a run for it at this stage.’

Drake moved down the slope. Bronzed and fit, his body toughened by hard labour, Sean Rogan looked a thoroughly dangerous man and the ugly puckered scars of the old bullet wounds in the left breast seemed strangely in keeping.

Drake paused a yard or two away and Rogan glanced up. The skin was stretched tightly over high Celtic cheekbones, a stubble of beard covering the hollow cheeks and strong pointed chin. The eyes were grey like water over a stone or smoke through trees on an autumn day, calm and expressionless, holding their own secrets. It was the face of a soldier, a scholar perhaps. Certainly this was no criminal.

‘Sean Rogan?’ Drake said.

The big man nodded. ‘That’s me. What do you want?’

There was no hint of subservience in the soft Irish voice and Drake, for some unaccountable reason, felt like a young recruit being interviewed by a senior officer.

‘The Governor wants a word with you.’

Rogan picked up his shirt from a nearby boulder, pulled it over his head and followed Drake up the slope, the sledgehammer swinging easily in one hand. He dropped it beside the Duty Officer. ‘A present for you.’

Mulvaney grinned, took a battered silver case from his breast pocket and offered him a cigarette. ‘Is it likely at all, Sean Rogan, that I might be seeing the back of you?’

Rogan’s face was illuminated briefly by a smile of great natural charm. ‘All things are possible, even in this worst of all possible worlds. You should know that, Patrick.’

Mulvaney touched him briefly on the shoulder. ‘Go with God, Sean,’ he said softly in Irish.

Rogan turned and walked quickly towards the Land-Rover and Drake found himself trailing a step or two behind. As they passed the group of convicts loading the truck, someone shouted, ‘Good luck, Irish!’ Rogan raised a hand in reply and climbed into the passenger seat.

Drake got behind the wheel and drove away rapidly, feeling uncertain and ill-at-ease. It was as if Rogan had taken charge, as if at any moment he might order him to take the next turning on the right instead of keeping straight on to the prison.

The Irishman smoked his cigarette slowly from long habit, gazing out over the moor. Drake glanced sideways at him a couple of times and tried to make conversation.

‘They tell me you’re hoping to get out soon?’

‘One can always hope.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Seven years.’

The shock of it was like a blow in the face and Drake winced, thinking of the long years, the wind across the moor blowing rain, grey mornings, a brief summer passing quickly into autumn and the iron hand of winter.

He forced a smile. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of days myself.’

‘Your first posting?’

‘No, I was at Wakefield for a while. Came out of the Guards last year. Didn’t fancy another hitch and then I saw this advert for prison officers. It looked a good number so I thought I’d try it.’

‘Is that a fact now?’

For some unaccountable reason Drake felt himself flushing. ‘Somebody has to do it,’ he said defensively. ‘The pay could be worse and quarters and a pension at the end of it. You can’t grumble at that, can you?’

‘I’d rather be the devil,’ Sean Rogan said with deep conviction. He half-turned, folding his arms deliberately, and stared out across the moor, cutting off all further attempts at conversation.

‘It’s certainly one hell of a record,’ the Governor said, looking down at the file on his desk, ‘but then I don’t need to tell you that, Superintendent. I was hoping we’d see the back of him this time.’

‘So was I, sir,’ Vanbrugh said.

‘There are days when I distinctly welcome the fact that I retire in another ten months.’ The Governor pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. In the meantime, I’ve one or two things to do. You make yourselves comfortable in here and I’ll have them send you in some tea.’

The door closed behind him and Dwyer moved from the window to the desk. ‘I don’t know a great deal about Rogan, sir. A bit before my time. Wasn’t he a big man in the I.R.A.?’

‘That’s right. Sentenced to twelve years in ’56 for organizing escapes from several prisons in England and Ulster. Remember the famous invasion of Peterhead in ’55? They went over the wall under cover of darkness like blasted commandos and brought out three men. Got clean away.’

‘He was behind that?’

‘He led them in.’ Vanbrugh opened the file. ‘It’s all here. He spent most of his early life in France and Germany. His father was in the Irish political service. He was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, when he was wounded and caught during a weekend raid over the Ulster border. That would be just before the war.’

‘What did he get?’

‘Seven years. He was released in 1941 at the request of the Special Operations Executive because of his fluency in French and German. That’s when I first came across him. I was working for them myself at the time. He was given the usual training and dropped into France to organize the Maquis in the Vosges Mountains. He did damned well, saw the war out, told them what to do with their medals and demobbed himself the moment it was over.’

‘What did he do then?’

‘Got up to his old tricks. Five years at Belfast in 1947. They let him off lightly because of his war record. Not that it made any difference. He escaped within a year.’ Vanbrugh grinned wryly. ‘He made a habit of that. Parkhurst in ’56, but never got off the island. Peterhead the following year. Three days on foot across the moor, then the dogs ran him down.’

‘Which explains why he was finally sent here?’

‘That’s it. Maximum security. No possibility of escape.’ Vanbrugh started to fill his pipe again. ‘If you examine the file you’ll find a confidential entry at the back. It refers to an incident the Commissioners prefer to keep quiet about. In July 1960 Sean Rogan was picked up in the early hours of the morning crossing the field at the rear of the officers’ quarters.’

Dwyer frowned. ‘Isn’t that outside the wall?’

Vanbrugh nodded. ‘The principal officer had been playing cards late at another house. He had his Alsatian with him and on the way home, it picked up Rogan’s scent.’

‘But how did he get out?’

‘He wouldn’t say. The Commissioners wanted it kept out of the press so the enquiry was very hush-hush. It was finally decided that he must have hidden himself in a car or truck on its way out.’

‘At that time in the morning?’

‘Don’t worry. No one really accepted that one. They had him on maximum security for a couple of years after that. When the Governor finally made things a little easier for him, Rogan told him that it didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to try again. He said that getting out was easy. It was getting anywhere without help once you were out that was difficult. I think he decided to sweat out his sentence and hope for remission.’

‘Which is what he’s just applied for?’

Vanbrugh nodded. ‘When the I.R.A. called off its border campaign in Ulster recently it just about went into liquidation. Most of its members serving sentences in English gaols have since been released. In fact the Home Office has been under considerable pressure to release them all.’

‘And what’s the answer on Rogan?’

‘They’re still frightened to death of him. Now I’ve got to tell him he’s still got five years to serve.’

‘Why you, sir?’

Vanbrugh shrugged. ‘We worked together during the war. Since then, I’ve arrested him on three separate occasions. You might say I’m the Yard’s Rogan expert.’

He walked to the window and stood looking out into the courtyard. ‘England’s the only country in the civilized world that doesn’t make special provision for political offenders, did you know that, Sergeant?’

‘I hadn’t really given it much thought, sir.’

‘You should do, Sergeant. You should do.’

The door opened and the Governor came in quickly. They’re bringing him up now.’ He sat down behind his desk and grinned tightly. ‘I really don’t have much stomach for this one, Superintendent. I’m glad you’re here.’

The door opened again and the Principal Officer came in. ‘He’s here, sir.’

The Governor nodded. ‘Let’s get it over with, then.’

Outside, Drake stood beside the door waiting, and Rogan leaned against the wall, arms folded as he stared through the window at the end of the corridor.

Life was, on the whole, an act of faith. He’d read that somewhere once, but twenty years of hard living, of violence and the dark places had taught him to look only for the unexpected on the other side of each new hill.

Everyone in the place, including the screws, expected his pardon to go through. To Rogan, that was sufficient reason in itself for something to go wrong. When the door opened and the Principal Officer called him in, he was prepared for the worst.

The presence of Vanbrugh confirmed what was already apparent from the atmosphere in the office, and he stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back and looked out of the window over the Governor’s head. He noticed that the trees on the hill beyond the wall were stripped quite bare of leaves now and the untidy nests of the rookery were clearly exposed to view. He watched a rook flap lazily through the air from one tree to another and became aware that the Governor was speaking to him.

‘We’ve had a communication from the Home Office, Rogan. Chief Superintendent Vanbrugh brought it down with him specially.’

Rogan turned slightly to face Vanbrugh, and the big policeman got to his feet, suddenly awkward. ‘I’m sorry, Sean. Damned sorry.’

‘Then there’s nothing to be said, is there?’

The hard shell with which he had surrounded himself was something they could not penetrate. In the heavy silence, the Governor glanced helplessly at Vanbrugh, then sighed.

‘I think you’d better come in from the quarry for a while, Rogan.’

‘Permanently, sir?’ Rogan said calmly.

The Governor swallowed hard. ‘We’ll see how you go on.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Rogan turned and walked to the door without waiting for the Principal Officer’s order. He stood in the corridor, face expressionless, aware of the murmur of voices as the door closed behind him.

‘You can go now, Drake,’ the Principal Officer said, then turned to Rogan and said briskly, ‘All right, Rogan.’

They went downstairs and crossed the courtyard to one of the blocks. Rogan stood waiting for the door to be unlocked, aware from the expression on the Duty Officer’s face that he knew, which wasn’t particularly surprising. Within another half hour every con, every screw in the place would know.

The prison had been constructed in the reform era of the nineteenth century on a system commonly found in Her Majesty’s prisons. Half a dozen three-tiered cell blocks radiated like the spokes of a wheel from a central hall which lifted a hundred feet into the gloom to an iron framed dome.

For reasons of safety each cell block was separated from the central hall by a curtain of steel mesh. The Principal Officer unlocked the gate into D block and motioned Rogan through.

They mounted an iron staircase to the top landing, boxed in with more steel mesh to prevent anyone who felt like it from taking a dive over the rail. His cell was at the far end of the landing and he paused, waiting for the Principal Officer to unlock the door.

As it opened, Rogan took a step forward and the Principal Officer said, ‘Don’t try anything silly. You’ve everything to lose now.’

Rogan swung round, his iron control snapping for a brief moment so that the man recoiled from the savage anger that blazed in the grey eyes. He slammed the door shut quickly, turning the key in the lock.

Rogan turned slowly. The cell was only six by ten with a small barred window, and a washbasin and fixed toilet had been added in an attempt at modernization. A single bed ran along each wall.

A man was lying on one of them reading a magazine. He looked about sixty-five, with very white hair, and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face.

‘Hello, Jigger,’ Rogan said.

In that single moment, the smile died on Jigger Martin’s face and he swung his legs to the floor. ‘The bastards,’ he said. ‘The lousy rotten bastards.’

Rogan stood looking out through the small barred window and Martin produced a packet of cigarettes from beneath his mattress and offered him one. ‘What are you going to do now, Irish?’

Rogan blew out a cloud of smoke and laughed harshly. ‘What do you think, boyo? What do you think?’

As the gates closed behind them, Dwyer was conscious of a very real relief. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from him, and he took out his cigarettes.

He offered one to Vanbrugh who was driving, his face dark and sombre, but the big man shook his head. When they reached the crest of the hill, he braked, turned and looked down at the prison.

Dwyer said softly, ‘What do you think he’ll do, sir?’

Vanbrugh swung round, all his pent-up frustration and anger boiling out of him. ‘For God’s sake, use your intelligence. You saw him, didn’t you? There’s only one thing a man like that can do.’

He moved into gear and drove away rapidly in a cloud of dust.