conspiracy was going on, he must be; it was he who had brought David here. His watch been taken away and there were no windows in the cell, only a light in the ceiling protected by an iron grille, which dimmed during the night; apart from that meals were the only way Frank had of knowing the time of day. If it was dinner time it must be around six.
‘Another cauld night, at least you’re warm in here,’ Ben said. He laid the tray on the floor. Plastic tray, plastic plates and utensils, a chunk of grey fish among soggy vegetables, a bowl containing a bright yellow jelly and, in a plastic cup, next to another containing water, his pills. Frank noticed they were different, the same white colour but bigger.
Ben bent down on his haunches. ‘Come on, pal,’ he said encouragingly. ‘It’s me. Talk to me, Frankie.’
Frank looked at the pills again. They were definitely different. He remembered the stories among the patients about being given something to drink that would make them sterile. Or was it something else Ben was giving him? He couldn’t ask, he mustn’t speak. He stared up at Ben. The attendant sighed and shook his head. ‘Jesus, Frank,’ he said. ‘That’s some nasty look. It was better when you grinned.’ Frank reached over and picked up the glass of water. He put the pills in his mouth and swallowed them, then opened his mouth for Ben to inspect as usual. Ben frowned. ‘Okay, if that’s the way it is.’ Ben nodded at the tray. ‘Go on, get your dinner.’
Frank didn’t want it. He went and sat against the rear wall. Ben sighed heavily. ‘Look, Frank,’ he said, ‘you’ve got to eat. Wilson’ll get worried if you won’t eat on top of everything else.’ His look and words were gentle, but there was still something else in his face, too. Frank closed his eyes. After a moment he heard Ben leave. The smell of the fish on the tray made him feel sick. Soon he began to feel sleepy, and his head nodded.
He woke once and found the main light was off, only a faint glow in the padded cell. It must be night-time. The tray was gone, Ben must have come back and taken it away. How strange he had seemed tonight. Frank remembered David and Geoff coming, how pleased he had been to see David. But he was with the enemy now. He remembered that conversation about appeasement at university, how wonderful it had been to realize that David, that anyone, was actually interested in what he had to say. He felt tears at the corner of his eyes but he was too tired even to cry.
He slept again, deeply this time. He was jarred into sudden wake-fulness by the sound of the door opening. The light was switched on. Frank blinked, disoriented.
He felt himself hauled to his feet. ‘What’s—’
Strong arms twirled him round and Frank found himself looking into Ben’s face. The attendant’s expression was hard, the mouth below the broken nose a thin line. Ben spoke very quietly, but in a deadly serious tone. ‘You’ve tae to come with me, Frank, right now. I’m taking you somewhere safe. Come on. But don’t say anything, don’t pick now to start talkin’, please. Or I’ll have to knock ye oot. I don’t want tae, but I will.’
Frank blinked at him, still in a stupor. Ben took him firmly by the arm and led him out of the room, into the corridor. He blinked again, his mind swimming. The corridor was dark, only the nightlights on. He let Ben lead him away. He thought,
‘Where are you taking him at this time of night?’
‘He’s no’ well. I’m taking him to the duty doctor.’
‘Good luck. Blackstone’s on duty tonight.’
‘Aye, he’ll be stocious by now.’ They passed by.
Ben led him on, past wards where rows of drugged men slept, each with an attendant sitting at his table, reading by the dim light of a lamp. Then Ben opened a side door and freezing cold air hit Frank, who was dressed only in a hospital pullover. He gasped.
‘It’s all right, we’ve just tae walk tae the gate.’ Ben started taking Frank down the path, quickening his pace. Frank stared muzzily round him. It was a clear, cold, moonlit night; frost sparkled on the grass. He began to shiver. They walked right down to the porter’s lodge, by the closed gates. Frank glanced through the little window of the lodge, which was open on the inner side. He caught a glimpse of a man lying sprawled on the floor, unmoving, and saw with horror that his arms were tied behind him with rope, and that there was a streak of blood on the man’s face. He jerked back, terrified. Ben said, ‘He’s okay, Frank. Honest, he’s okay. I’m getting you out of here, Frank, I’m helpin’ ye escape. For fuck’s sake, come on.’
Frank groaned, but let Ben lead him to the gate. His legs were shaking badly. He thought he might fall as Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, a big one, not one of those he carried on his chain. Still holding Frank with one arm, Ben opened the gate. Frank looked back at the dark, blank windows of the asylum.
Ben hauled him through the gate, into the roadway. Their breath steamed in front of them. It was very dark; the road seemed deserted.
Then, a few yards away, headlights came on and Frank saw a car, a big car. A door opened and a tall man in a hat and coat got out and started walking rapidly towards them. Another followed, then a woman. Frank thought,
The man halted a couple of feet away. Frank didn’t want to raise his head and look at him. It would be one of the policemen, the German perhaps. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and a familiar voice said, ‘It’s all right, Frank, it’s me. Geoff’s here too, we’ve come to help you.’
He looked up. ‘David?’
David smiled. His look was full of concern, as it had been when he came to visit. But there was something different about him. In the light lancing from the headlights his face looked years older.
DAVID AND GEOFF HAD SPENT two nights in a flat above a grocer’s shop in Brixton. Natalia had left them there, saying she would come and fetch them on Sunday, when they would drive to Birmingham. Sunday the thirtieth, David thought, the last day of November. It seemed a long time since the demonstration on Remembrance Sunday.
The grocer, Mr Tate, was a middle-aged man with sandy hair and a brusque, cheerful manner. He warned them to keep quiet during the hours the shop was open and David and Geoff spent much of their time in the bedroom assigned to them, reading and playing cards. The room was cold with a sharp smell, a mixture of cheese and bacon, wafting up from below. The grocer brought them food. On the second day he told them how his son had been killed fighting nationalist guerrillas in Burma, and his wife had died from a stroke shortly after. He had joined the Resistance then. ‘We have to stop it, all the killing,’ he said. ‘Make some sort of settlement with those people out East. You can’t even always get good Indian tea any more, because of the strikes on the plantations.’ David asked if there were any news of Sarah but there was nothing yet.
On the first evening, when the shop was shut, David and Geoff sat and talked quietly. Geoff spoke about the woman he had known in Kenya. ‘Her husband was a doctor. He’d come out to work for charity, do good work among the natives. He was a decent enough chap, except he took his work too seriously, he didn’t really consider Elaine. She was left – well – adrift. Local white society looked down on her as a do-gooder’s wife. The irony was she hated the blacks, was really frightened of them, she’d been brought up to that like most people. I think I educated her a bit on that one. A bit.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I suppose we were drawn to each other because neither of us quite fitted in. I asked Elaine to come back to England with me, divorce her husband. But she wouldn’t; she was a Catholic, she didn’t believe in divorce.’ He sighed. ‘So we agreed to chuck it, and I applied for a transfer home. You know what the strange thing was? After we broke up, heaven knows why, she told her husband about us. Why do it then, when it was finished?’ Geoff shook his head wearily. ‘It was all over the town, during my last weeks.’
‘Didn’t she ever tell you why?’
‘I never spoke to either of them again. They avoided coming into town after the news got out. I think Ron – the husband – must have told his colleagues. I saw Elaine, once. I was at one end of the street and she was at the other. She saw me and turned and went into a shop. I thought, well, that’s that.’ He laughed sardonically again. ‘Still, coming home with a broken heart made good cover for me when I started spying for the Resistance.’
‘Have you got over her?’ David asked.
