A Prisoner of Birth

by Jeffrey Archer

  When they left the drawing room and walked out into the hallway, they found Molly standing by the front door clutching Davenport’s overcoat.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Davenport after she had helped him on with his coat and opened the door.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Danny, not shaking hands with Davenport as he stepped out on to the path. Molly almost curtsied.

  Danny turned round and headed back to his study. ‘Molly, I have some calls to make, so I could be a few minutes late for lunch,’ he said over his shoulder. When he received no reply, he turned back to see his housekeeper standing at the door chatting to a woman.

  ‘Is he expecting you?’ asked Molly.

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ replied Ms Bennett. ‘I came on the off-chance.’

  63

  THE ALARM WENT OFF at 2 a.m. but Danny wasn’t asleep. He jumped out of bed and quickly put on the pants, T-shirt, socks, slacks and trainers that he’d laid out on the chair by the window. He didn’t turn on the light.

  He checked his watch: six minutes past two. He closed the bedroom door and walked slowly downstairs. He opened the front door to see his car parked by the kerb. Although he couldn’t see him, he knew Big Al would be seated behind the wheel. Danny looked around – there were one or two lights still on in the square, but no one to be seen. He climbed into the car but didn’t speak. Big Al switched on the ignition and drove for a hundred yards before he put on the side lights.

  Neither of them spoke as Big Al turned right and headed for the Embankment. He had done the run five times during the past week; twice during the day, three times at night – what he called ‘night ops’. But the dry runs were over, and tonight the full operation would be carried out. Big Al was treating the whole thing like a military exercise, and his nine years in the army were being put to good use. During the day, the journey averaged around forty-three minutes, but at night he could cover the same distance in twenty-nine, never once exceeding the speed limit.

  As they progressed past the House of Commons and along the north side of the Thames, Danny concentrated on what needed to be done once they had reached the target area. They drove through the City and into the East End. Danny’s concentration was broken only for a moment when they passed a large construction site with a vast advertising hoarding displaying a magnificent mock-up of what Wilson House would look like once it was completed: sixty luxury flats, thirty affordable dwellings, it promised, nine already sold, including the penthouse. Danny smiled.

  Big Al continued on down Mile End Road before turning left at a signpost indicating Stratford, The home of the 2012 Olympics. Eleven minutes later, he turned off the road and on to a gravel track. He switched the lights off, as he knew each twist and turn, almost every stone between there and the target area.

  At the end of the track he drove past a sign that read, Private Land: Keep Off. He kept on going; after all, the land was owned by Danny, and would still be his for another eight days. Big Al brought the car to a halt behind a small mound, switched off the engine and pressed a button. The side window purred down. They sat still and listened, but the only sounds were night noises. During an afternoon recce they’d come across the occasional dog walker and a group of kids kicking a football around, but now there was nothing, not even a night owl to keep them company.

  After a couple of minutes Danny touched Big Al’s elbow. They climbed out of the car and walked round to the back. Big Al opened the boot while Danny slipped off his trainers. Big Al lifted the box out of the back and placed it on the ground, just as they had done the night before, when Danny had walked the course to see if he could locate the seventy-one white pebbles they had put in cracks, holes and crevices during the day. He had managed to find fifty-three. He’d do better tonight. Another dry run that afternoon had given him a chance to check the ones he’d missed.

  In daylight he could cover the three acres in just over two hours. Last night had taken three hours, seventeen minutes, while tonight would take even longer because of the number of times he would have to drop to his knees.

  It was a clear, still night, as promised by the weather forecasters, who were predicting light showers in the morning. Like any good farmer planting his seeds, Danny had chosen the day, even the hour, carefully. Big Al removed the black jumpsuit from the box and handed it to Danny, who unzipped the front and climbed in. Even this simple exercise had been practised several times in the dark. Big Al then passed him the rubber boots, followed by the gloves, the mask, the torch and finally the small plastic container marked ‘Hazardous’.

  Big Al stationed himself by the back of the car as the boss set off. When Danny reached the corner of his land, he walked another seven paces before he came across the first white pebble. He picked it up and dropped it into a deep pocket. He fell on his knees, switched on the torch and placed a tiny fragment of stem into a crack in the ground. He turned off the torch and stood up. Yesterday he had practised the exercise without the rhizome. Nine more paces and he came to the second pebble, where he repeated the whole process, and then only one pace before he reached the third pebble and knelt by a little crevice before carefully inserting the rhizome deep inside. Five more paces . . .

  Big Al desperately wanted a smoke, but he knew it was a risk he couldn’t take. Once in Bosnia a squaddie had lit up during a night op, and three seconds later he got a bullet through his head. Big Al knew the boss would be out there for at least three hours, so he couldn’t afford to let his concentration slip, even for a moment.

  Pebble number twenty-three was at the far corner of Danny’s land. He shone his torch down a large hole, before dropping in some more rhizome. He placed another pebble in his pocket.

  Big Al stretched and began to walk slowly round the car. He knew they planned to leave long before first light, which was at 6.48 a.m. He checked his watch: 4.17. They both looked up when a plane flew overhead, the first to land at Heathrow that morning.

  Danny put pebble number 36 in his right-hand pocket, taking care to distribute the weight evenly. He repeated the process again and again: a few paces, kneel down, turn on the torch, drop some rhizome in the crack, pick up the pebble and drop it in a pocket, turn off the torch, stand up, walk on – it felt much more tiring than it had the night before.

  Big Al froze as a car drove on to the site and parked about fifty yards away. He couldn’t be sure if whoever was in the car had seen him. He fell on to his stomach and began to crawl towards the enemy. A cloud moved to reveal the moon, just a sliver of light – even the moon was on their side. The car’s headlights had been turned off, but an inside light remained on.

  Danny thought he saw a car’s lights, and immediately fell flat on the ground. They had arranged that Big Al would flash his torch three times to warn him if there was any danger. Danny waited for over a minute, but there was no flashing beam, so he stood up and headed towards the next pebble.

  Big Al was now only a few yards from the parked car, and although the windows were steamed up, he could see that the inside light was still on. He pushed himself up on to his knees and peered through the rear window. It took all his discipline not to burst out laughing when he saw a woman stretched out on the back seat, her legs wide apart, moaning. Big Al couldn’t see the face of the man who was on top of her, but felt a throbbing in his pants. He fell back down on his stomach and began the long crawl back to base.

  When Danny reached pebble number sixty-seven, he cursed. He’d covered the entire area, and somehow missed four. As he walked slowly back towards the car, each pace became more cumbersome than the last. One thing he hadn’t anticipated was the sheer weight of the pebbles.

  Once Big Al was back at base, he still kept a wary eye on the car. He wondered if the boss had even been aware of its presence. Suddenly he heard the sound of an engine revving up, and the headlights were turned full on before the car swung round, back on to the gravel path and disappeared into the night.

  When Big Al saw Danny coming towards him, he removed the empt
y box from the boot and put it on the ground in front of him. Danny began to take the pebbles out of his pockets and place them in the box; a painstaking exercise when the slightest sound might attract attention. Once the task had been completed, he took off the mask, the gloves, the boots and the jumpsuit. He handed them to Big Al, who put them in the box on top of the pebbles. The last things to be deposited were the torch and an empty plastic container.

  Big Al closed the boot and climbed into the front of the car as the boss fastened his seatbelt. He turned on the ignition, swung the car round and drove slowly back towards the gravel track. Neither of them spoke, even when they reached the main road. The job wasn’t finished yet.

  During the week, Big Al had identified various skips and building sites where they could dispose of any evidence of their nocturnal enterprise. Big Al stopped seven times during a journey that took just over an hour instead of the usual forty minutes. By the time they drove into The Boltons, it was half past seven. Danny smiled when he saw a few drops of rain land on the windscreen and the automatic wipers switch themselves on. Danny stepped out of the car, walked up the path and unlocked the front door. He picked up a letter that was lying on the mat and tore it open as he climbed the staircase. When he saw the signature on the bottom of the page he went straight to his study and locked the door.

  Once he had read the letter, he wasn’t quite sure how he should reply. Think like Danny. Behave like Nick.

  64

  ‘NICK, HOW LOVELY to see you,’ said Sarah. She leant across and whispered, ‘Now tell me you’ve been a good boy.’

  ‘Depends what you mean by good,’ said Danny as he took the seat next to her.

  ‘You haven’t missed a meeting with your favourite lady?’

  Danny thought about Beth, even though he knew Sarah was referring to Ms Bennett. ‘Not one,’ he said. ‘In fact, she recently visited me at home and passed my accommodation as suitable, putting ticks in all the relevant boxes.’

  ‘And you haven’t even thought about going abroad?’

  ‘Not unless you count travelling up to Scotland to visit Mr Munro.’

  ‘Good. So what else have you been up to that’s safe to tell your other solicitor?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Danny. ‘How’s Lawrence?’ he asked, wondering if he had told her about the loan.

  ‘Never better. He’s doing a screen test for Holby City next Thursday – a new part that’s been written specially for him.’

  ‘So what’s it called? Witness to murder?’ asked Danny, regretting his words the moment he’d said them.

  ‘No, no,’ said Sarah, laughing. ‘You’re thinking of the part he played in Witness for the Prosecution, but that was years ago.’

  ‘It certainly was,’ said Danny. ‘And it was a performance I’m unlikely to forget.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you’d known Larry that long.’

  ‘Only from a distance,’ said Danny. He was relieved to be rescued by a familiar voice saying, ‘Hello, Sarah.’ Charlie Duncan bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Good to see you, Nick,’ said Duncan. ‘You two know each other, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sarah.

  Duncan whispered, ‘Be careful what you say, you’re sitting behind a critic. Enjoy the show,’ he added in a loud voice.

  Danny had read the script of Bling Bling, but hadn’t been able to follow it, so he was curious to see how the piece would work on stage, and what he had spent ten thousand pounds on. He opened the programme to find that the play was billed as ‘a hilarious look at Britain during the Blair era’. He turned the page and began reading about the playwright, a dissident Czech who had escaped from . . . The lights went down and the curtain rose.

  No one laughed for the first fifteen minutes of the performance, which surprised Danny as the play had been billed as a lighthearted comedy. When the star finally made his entrance, a few laughs followed in his wake, but Danny wasn’t altogether sure that they were intended by the playwright. By the time the curtain came down for the interval, Danny found himself stifling a yawn.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Sarah, wondering if he had missed something.

  Sarah put a finger to her lips and pointed to the critic in front of them, who was writing furiously. ‘Let’s go and have a drink,’ she said.

  Sarah touched his arm as they walked slowly up the aisle. ‘Nick, it’s my turn to seek your advice.’

  ‘On what?’ said Danny. ‘Because I must warn you, I know nothing about the theatre.’

  She smiled. ‘No, I’m talking about the real world. Gerald Payne has recommended that I put some money in a property deal he’s involved in. He mentioned your name, so I wondered if you thought it was a safe investment.’

  Danny wasn’t sure how to reply, because however much he loathed her brother, he had no quarrel with this charming woman, who had prevented him being sent back to jail.

  ‘I never advise friends to put money in anything,’ said Danny. ‘It’s a no-win situation – if they make a profit they forget that it was you who recommended it, and if they make a loss they never stop reminding you. My only advice would be not to gamble what you can’t afford, and never to risk an amount that might cause you to lose a night’s sleep.’

  ‘Good advice,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m grateful.’

  Danny followed her into the stalls bar. As they entered the crowded room, Danny spotted Gerald Payne standing by a table, pouring a glass of champagne for Spencer Craig. He wondered if Craig had been tempted to invest any money in his Olympic site, and hoped to find out later at the opening-night party.

  ‘Let’s avoid them,’ said Sarah. ‘Spencer Craig has never been my favourite man.’

  ‘Mine neither,’ said Danny as they made their way towards the bar.

  ‘Hey, Sarah, Nick! We’re over here,’ shouted Payne, waving furiously at them. ‘Come and have a glass of bubbly.’

  Danny and Sarah reluctantly walked across to join them. ‘You remember Nick Moncrieff,’ said Payne, turning to Craig.

  ‘Of course,’ said Craig. ‘The man who’s about to make us all a fortune.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Danny – one of his questions answered.

  ‘We’ll need all the help we can get after tonight’s performance,’ said Payne.

  ‘Oh, it could have been worse,’ said Sarah as Danny passed her a glass of champagne.

  ‘It’s shit,’ said Craig. ‘So that’s one of my investments down the drain.’

  ‘You didn’t put too much into it, I hope,’ said Danny, embarking on a fishing expedition.

  ‘Nothing compared to what I’ve invested in your little enterprise,’ said Craig, who couldn’t take his eyes off Sarah.

  Payne whispered conspiratorially to Danny, ‘I transferred the full amount this morning. We’ll be exchanging contracts some time in the next few days.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said Danny genuinely, although the Swiss had already informed him of the transfer just before he’d left for the theatre.

  ‘By the way,’ added Payne, ‘because of my political connections, I’ve managed to get a couple of tickets for Parliamentary Questions next Thursday. So if you’d like to join me for the minister’s statement, you’d be most welcome.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Gerald, but wouldn’t you rather take Lawrence or Craig?’ He still couldn’t bring himself to call him Spencer.

  ‘Larry’s got a screen test that afternoon, and Spencer has an appointment with the Lord Chancellor at the other end of the building. We all know what that’s about,’ he said, winking.

  ‘Do we?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Oh, yes. Spencer’s about to be made a QC,’ Payne whispered.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Danny, turning to his adversary.

  ‘It’s not official yet,’ said Craig, not even glancing in his direction.

  ‘But it will be next Thursday,’ said Payne. ‘So, Nick, why don’t you meet me outside the St Stephen’s entran
ce of the House of Commons at twelve thirty and we can listen to the minister’s statement together before going off to celebrate our good fortune.’

  ‘I’ll see you there,’ said Danny as three bells sounded. He glanced across at Sarah, who had been trapped in the corner by Craig. He would like to have rescued her, but was swept along by the crowd as it began a reverse stampede back into the theatre.

  Sarah returned to her seat just as the curtain rose. The second half turned out to be a slight improvement on the first, but Danny suspected not nearly enough to please the man seated in front of him.

  When the curtain fell, the critic was the first out of the stalls, and Danny felt like joining him. Although the cast managed three curtain calls, Danny didn’t have to stand on this occasion, as no one else bothered to. When the lights finally came up, Danny turned to Sarah and said, ‘If you’re going to the party, why don’t I give you a lift?’

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Sarah. ‘And I suspect not many of this lot will be either.’

  ‘It’s my turn to seek your advice,’ said Danny. ‘Why not?’

  ‘The pros can always smell a flop, so they’ll avoid being seen at a party where people might think they’re involved in some way.’ She paused. ‘I hope you didn’t invest too much.’

  ‘Not enough to lose a night’s sleep,’ said Danny.

  ‘I won’t forget your advice,’ she said, linking her arm in his. ‘So how do you feel about taking a lonely girl out to dinner?’

  Danny recalled the last time he’d taken up such an offer, and how that evening had ended. He didn’t want to have to explain to another girl, and particularly not this one. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but . . .’

  ‘You’re married?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘I only wish,’ said Danny.

  ‘I only wish I’d met you before she did,’ said Sarah, unlinking her arm.

  ‘That wouldn’t have been possible,’ said Danny, without explanation.