A Life for a Life

by Andrew Puckett

  About ten per cent… ‘There are so many variables,’ he prevaricated, ‘It’s completely unpredictable.’

  ‘That’s what Dr Saunders told me. Fraser, she needs you more than anything – is it possible for you to come?’

  ‘I’ll put in an application as soon as you’ve gone.’

  Which he did.

  Ilie asked him later what was wrong and Fraser told him just that Frances wasn’t too well.

  Ten per cent. One in ten. The numbers went round and round his head… He had to see her…

  He was called to the governor’s office the next day. He knew as soon as he saw his face that it was bad news.

  ‘Dr Callan, I’m afraid I have to turn down your request for leave of absence.’

  ‘Why?’ It came out as a whisper.

  ‘It’s our policy here always to take advice from the police, and they are adamant in this case that you shouldn’t be given leave. This is partly because of the nature of the crime you’ve been accused of, but also because of the fact that you showed violence when you tried to escape arrest. You’ve also been involved in violence since you’ve been here. I’m sorry.’

  Fraser tried to gather his wits. ‘Sir… my fiancée is almost certainly dying and if I—’

  ‘Oh come, that’s rather defeatist, isn’t it? You said in your application that they’re arranging a transplant.’

  ‘Sir, I am a doctor and I’m telling you that her chances are around ten per cent. She could die while I’m stuck in here… I beg you…’

  ‘My hands are tied. I’m sorry.’

  Fraser shouted, ‘You have to let me go!’

  ‘There’s no have to about it, Callan.’ The governor seemed almost relieved to have the argument out in the open. ‘The answer’s no and that’s all there is to it.’ He glanced at the prison officer. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in continuing this discussion.’

  The officer took Fraser’s arm. He shook it off and balled his fists—

  ‘Now, don’t be stupid, Callan.’

  For a wild moment, Fraser thought about smashing his fists into the officer’s face, then something inside him collapsed and he allowed himself to be led away.

  He walked like an automaton, like a man being led to his execution. There were no thoughts in his brain, only the dimmest of existences…

  ‘You stay here for a bit,’ the officer said, not unkindly, when they were back in his cell. He patted his shoulder and left. Fraser sank on to Petru’s bed and sat, not moving.

  Time passed unheeded.

  He dimly realised Ilie and Petru had returned.

  ‘Hi, Fraser.’ Ilie. ‘Hey, sumthin’ wrong, man?’ He sat down beside him.

  Fraser, watching himself in utter astonishment, began to cry. Just tears at first, then snivels, then sobs that reached down into his soul…

  Ilie had an arm round him. There was a noise at the door, then a laugh – it was one of the other Romanians.

  ‘Hey! Copil de tata!’

  In a flash, Petru turned and sank his fist deep into the other’s gut. The breath whistled out of him as he sank to his knees clutching his belly. Petru let out a stream of Romanian and the winded man’s companion dragged him away.

  Petru shut the door and the two of them waited while Fraser cried himself out. Then they listened.

  The next day Agnes visited him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Fraser. I’ve been to see Garrett, but there’s no moving him. I’m going to see whether there are any legal moves I can make.’

  For two days, Frances was too ill to speak to him much, then she recovered a little. Agnes wrote to tell him there was no legal way she could force leave, but she was going to try appealing above Garrett’s head. Fraser, who’d recovered some of his stony composure, told the others.

  ‘Is simple,’ said Ilie after receiving a nod from Petru. He lowered his voice. ‘Fraser, we have plan. We give you, we help you escape.’

  *

  Tom paused at the ward entrance, then pressed his lips together and went in.

  ‘I’ve come to see Miss Templeton,’ he told the sister.

  She’d asked him to come and he felt obliged to, although he didn’t know how he could help. He and Agnes had been working on the problem of tracing the shares and got absolutely nowhere – the size of the market, the sheer numbers of them that passed hands every day defeated them.

  He assured the sister he hadn’t got any infectious illnesses he knew of and went in.

  ‘Hello, Mr Jones. Thank you for coming.’

  For a moment he didn’t recognise her. Her face was a dull yellow and her eyes were sunken in bruised sockets. Drips fed into both her arms.

  ‘It’s the least I could do,’ he said.

  ‘As you can see, I’ve relapsed.’ Her voice at least was unchanged. ‘They’re talking about giving me a transplant but the chances of success are about one in ten. I’ve probably got a few months left, but I could die at any time. I want to see Fraser before…’ Her eyes closed briefly and when she opened them again they were very bright.

  ‘I want to see Fraser and they won’t let him come.’ She explained what had happened and he listened, although he already knew most of it from Agnes. ‘Can you help, please, Mr Jones?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘By putting pressure on the police – I thought your department had some influence.’

  ‘I’m afraid the police have more in this case – you know that they’re behind it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll talk to Agnes and see what legal options we have, then I’ll go and talk to the police.’

  ‘Tell them they can ask Dr Saunders, he’ll tell them how ill I am.’

  ‘I’ll try, but please don’t hold out too much hope.’

  ‘I have to hope,’ she said with intensity. ‘The thought of dying without seeing Fraser again is more than I can bear.’

  He said, ‘Don’t talk yourself into dying, Frances, ten per cent chances do come off.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘D’you have many relatives still around?’

  ‘Dozens.’

  ‘Well, it could be better than ten per cent then, one of them’s probably going to be a match for you.’

  ‘You’re an expert on marrow transplant, are you?’ she flashed.

  ‘No, but my wife works in a haematology lab.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was inexcusable.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  After a pause, she said, ‘I can accept dying, I suppose. I can accept that this has happened to me, although I find myself wondering, Why me, why now?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.’ He realised that she desperately needed someone to talk to and tacitly volunteered.

  ‘I don’t want to die, I’m scared of dying… Having Fraser with me would make it easier to bear.’

  ‘I promise you we’ll do our best.’

  She continued as though he hadn’t spoken: ‘You know they say that few relationships can survive a serious illness – well, ours would – will, I mean. I have absolute faith in Fraser, I’m lucky in that. He’s the only thing I do have any faith in – other than my mother and brother, I suppose,’ The words came tumbling faster. ‘I’ve got no religious faith. Sometimes I wish I had, but I’m a biologist… I read somewhere once that of all scientists, biologists are the least likely to have any… I suppose it’s because we know how the human body works and that when it’s gone, it’s gone. When Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” he forgot to add, “I think with my brain and when my brain ceases to think, I cease to be”… Perhaps I should have been a philosopher…’

  She ran on and Tom listened. After a while, she said, ‘I’m imposing on you, going on like this.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Why am I telling you?’

  He smiled. ‘Sometimes it’s easier revealing yourself to a stranger.’ He didn’t add that people, especially women, often
did tell him things.

  She smiled back as though he had. ‘Perhaps you should have been a Samaritan rather than an investigator.’

  ‘I’d have probably been one of the bad sort.’

  ‘Yes, you probably would,’ she said, looking at him slightly askance. ‘Does your wife have faith in you, I wonder?’

  ‘That, I couldn’t say.’

  ‘You said she’s a biologist like me. Does she believe in anything? – I’m sorry, that’s an impertinence.’

  ‘She believes the same as me – in something, but we don’t know what.’

  ‘You must have some idea… a deity?’

  For a moment, Tom’s eyes were far, far away, then he shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know…’

  ‘How do you know? I might.’

  He said slowly, ‘I had a near death experience once – at least, I assume that’s what it was – when I was twenty…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was in the army, believe it or not. Some of us were horsing round in the gym and it got a bit rough. Someone got an armlock around my throat and I passed out. They couldn’t bring me round and the poor sod thought I was dead…

  ‘Well, I wasn’t. I was in another place, a fantastic place. All I can remember is that it was green and there were trees and water and other people and I was happy. I didn’t realise how happy until there was this pain in my leg and I realised I was being pulled back – back here, that is. I remember begging, pleading, screaming with rage because I did not want to come back. God, I didn’t. But come back I did. The pain in my leg was because it was doubled up under me…’ He smiled. The bloke who’d done it was pleased to see me back, though.’

  After a pause, she said, ‘I’m not surprised. How long were you out?’

  ‘Only a few minutes. I know you’ll say it was all in the mind and I can’t prove it wasn’t, but it was real enough to me at the time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to tell you anything.’

  ‘You see, three years ago, my brother died. He was a haemophiliac and he had AIDS. He was all the family I had and I rather like to think of him being in that other place.’

  She said gently, ‘Let’s hope he is.’

  19

  There were times when Tom hated the police. He’d been a copper himself for ten years before working for Marcus and had been reasonably happy, but now he was reminded of everything he disliked about them. Just some of them, he told himself.

  After leaving Frances, he’d phoned Marcus, who’d told him there was nothing he could do officially about Fraser.

  ‘Your best bet is to try and persuade Garrett face to face. Get him to check on Miss Templeton’s condition himself – when he realises how ill she is, he might change his mind.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be better coming from you, Marcus?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Tom. You’re closer to the situation than me, and prisons are one area I don’t have much influence in.’

  Tom went to see Agnes again (any excuse) and she told him much the same thing.

  ‘It’s one of those areas where the discretion of the prison governor is in effect the law.’ She thought for a moment. ‘We could try and get Fraser’s MP to take it to the Home Office, or maybe even try the Ombudsman, but it all takes time…’

  So there was nothing for it but to go and try Garrett.

  He agreed to see Tom, listened patiently to what he had to say and then said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jones, but the answer’s no. He’s been charged with a very nasty murder, and he offered violence to my officers when they tried to arrest him, inflicting grievous bodily harm to one of them in the process.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for his fiancée’s illness—’

  ‘I dare say a lot of things wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for his fiancée’s illness. Dr Flint would still be alive for one, and my officer wouldn’t have a fractured jaw for another. Besides which, he’s under suspicion for murdering Dr Somersby as well.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence for that?’

  ‘Not yet, I’m still looking.’

  Tom said, ‘Can’t you at least check for yourself on how ill his fiancée is?’

  ‘I don’t need to, Mr Jones. I accept everything you say about her and I’m very sorry, but the fact remains that Callan is, in my opinion, too dangerous a man to allow out of prison.’

  And that was that. It’s only some of them, Tom reminded himself as he left.

  *

  Fraser, meanwhile, was making preparations.

  ‘I need a flat piece of metal an inch wide and about a foot long, with a hook on the end – like this…’ He drew it for them.

  ‘Problem,’ said Ilie. ‘If metal, go bleep…’ He indicated something around himself with his arms.

  ‘Metal detector?’

  ‘Da! I make in plastic?’

  Fraser thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, so long as it’s stiff. I need another piece of plastic too, like a credit card…’ He drew that for them.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘A lock pick? A nail would probably do.’

  Ilie looked at Petru, then said, ‘Maybe we find one somewhere.’

  ‘A screwdriver?’

  ‘Two problem – metal detector, an’ they check stuff after class, count them.’

  Petru said something in Romanian. Ilie listened, then said, ‘We gonna need metal cutter anyway for fence, we have to steal it.’ He paused, then said, ‘If we do this, they close machine shop, men not like us after that.’

  Fraser pressed his lips together, aware of how much they were doing for him.

  Reading him, Ilie said, ‘Is OK, Fraser. When you get out, you help us stay in Britain, da?’

  ‘I’ll do everything I can,’ Fraser promised, thinking, Poor naive bastards, what chance have I got…?

  He spent every minute he could in the exercise yard on top of the ship, watching the comings and goings of all the boats and their owners. He studied the wharf itself and the people who worked round the quayside.

  He chatted up prison officers, different ones each time, trying to find out the dimensions of the Derwent, the depth of water, the tides.

  He went to the gym every day, trying to keep fit and practising his breathing. And he sat, thinking, going over each move, each permutation.

  He phoned Frances every evening and was relieved that she sounded a little better – no worse, anyway. He knew that if he succeeded in escaping, it would damn him even further with the authorities, but when Agnes told him about the failure of Tom’s latest efforts, he told himself he had nothing to lose.

  *

  Tuesday morning, the English class… The teacher was to recall later that the three of them seemed somehow preoccupied.

  Lunch. Ilie and Petru ate a little, Fraser nothing at all. Then the two Romanians went to the machine shop for their class while Fraser went back to his cell. The temptation to check that the plastic tools were still in their hiding places was almost overwhelming, but he resisted – fortunately, since a party of prison officers descended without warning for a spot search.

  After they’d gone, he sat on Petru’s bed and tried to make himself relax, breathing in and sighing out to stimulate the endorphins… Just one chance, he thought, but what have I got to lose…?

  *

  Petru sauntered through the metal detector, but as Ilie followed it emitted a high-pitched bleeping. He was grabbed by a couple of prison officers as he bumped into Petru.

  ‘Hold it, everyone,’ said one of them. He began patting Ilie down and almost immediately found the pair of pliers in his pocket.

  ‘You stupid berk,’ he said, holding them up. Ilie just shrugged.

  ‘It might be a blind,’ said the other. ‘I think we should strip search him.’

  They finished patting him down, then took him to one side and made him strip. The Stanley knife was in his underpants.

  ‘If you want castrating,’ said the first officer, brandishing it in hi
s face, ‘You just ask us and we’ll do it for you.’

  ‘One more caper like this, sunshine,’ said the other, ‘an’ you’ll be in front of the governor…’ They told them all to go. Petru didn’t take out the metal cutters that Ilie had slipped into his pocket until they’d joined Fraser in the cell.

  Fraser quickly packed his wash-bag and suspended it from his waist so that it hung inside his trousers.

  ‘You look like you need good fuck up,’ observed Petru, and the others giggled nervously.

  They made their way up to the yard, Fraser trying to keep between them. The sun blazed down, striking diamonds from the wave tops. Good news, and bad news…

  They walked slowly round the perimeter, pretending to talk, watched by three officers. Gulls wailed. Fraser took off his shirt. They reached the point where Petru had spotted the weakness in the fence and Fraser knelt down, loosened his shoelaces, stood up again. He breathed deeply – in, out… in, out…

  The yard filled. The screws chatted amiably with some of the prisoners, their eyes ceaselessly flicking round the rest.

  ‘OK, Fraser?’ murmured Ilie.

  ‘OK.’ His heartbeats were threatening to spew over into his lungs and he could barely speak.

  Ilie gave a nod, and their two countrymen on the other side of the yard started shouting at each other… then one of them threw a punch.

  The screws ran over, trying to force their way through the ring of men already forming.

  Petru whipped out the cutters and ducked under the bar. He cut down to the deck where the fence had rusted, then upwards, attacking the flat metal between the oblong holes – snip, snip, snip – moving smoothly up like a can opener…

  Once he’d cut to his height, he lashed with his foot, tearing the fencing away from the deck. He bent it outwards, then began kicking the other side, and that’s when the screw saw him—

  ‘Hey!’

  He began running over, but a deftly placed foot tripped him and he sprawled on to the deck as the other two officers struggled to free themselves from the jostling crowd.

  Petru pushed the other side of the fence out, Fraser kicked off his shoes and ducked through, Petru followed, and then Ilie, but he was grabbed by a screw before he could make it…