The Good Provider (50 page)

Though made of wood the door had a vertical iron handle and a huge metal lock. Malone had no notion which of the many keys in his possession would fit the lock. He had no option but to stand at the end of the gallery and fumble, try one key after another until, at last, one dropped the tumblers with a noise, he thought, as loud as the firing of field artillery. He looked down. One young warder was staring up at him through the gridwork. Malone held his breath and then made a sign, a greeting, which the fool returned before going on about his business. Malone pushed open the wooden door, lifted the lantern and stepped into the exercise yard.

To his right, across the yard, was a big square door. It was open. Light streamed from it into the yard. He could see circular tracks on the cinder pad, the section of high wall that he intended to climb. Four hooded arc-lamps had been erected on the prison’s inner gable but apparently they were not connected to the pipes yet and gave no light. He did not like that open door. It was one of only two that led into the yard. He stood in the other. He stepped into the yard, closed the wooden door behind him but did not lock it. He did not dare race for the wall, for that section where old stonework and new brick met. He stood quite still, breathing high in his chest, listening. He could hear, of all things, music. Somebody was squeezing a tune out of a concertina. Behind him and above the cells reared like a great cliff of stone. He did not look up. If any man behind those tiny barred windows spotted him and knew what he was about they would keep silent, of that he could be certain. He was so close to escape, so close. Behind that wall lay the farmlands of Riddrie and horse-tram routes into the city. Glasgow was not far away. He could almost smell the berry, smoky stink that tainted the farm mists that wreathed the prison and made the dark sky grey.

Two warders, laughing, came out of the big door. Malone put his hand on the sword hilt and drew the weapon quietly from its scabbard. He lowered the lamp, watching. The warders came no distance into the courtyard, separated and, to Malone’s surprise and relief, made water against the wall. It would be ‘against regulations’ to do so but perhaps the lavatories were in another block. The men met again, laughed and returned through the big door, closing it behind them, shutting off light and the concertina’s cranky tune.

Malone walked across the cinder, crossed to the corner where new brick met old stone. The wall seemed smoother in the darkness, higher too. At the top were bent metal staves but he did not think that the crown had been wired. He knelt and unlaced Caine’s boots, sat and worked them from his feet. He tied the laces together and hung the boots about his neck. He got to his feet and glanced about him. It was uncannily quiet. He blew out the lantern and discarded it. He approached the rearing mass of the wall, sought a hand-hold, found one, found another. He scrambled for purchase with his stockinged toes and hoisted himself from prison ground.

Luck was still running with him. He could hardly believe it. The junction had not been mortared properly and presented a ladder of hand- and foot-holds. He climbed cautiously but without difficulty and soon flung his arms over the top between two bent staves. There was no wire in place, no glass. He hauled himself up and straddled the wall.

Grasslands sloped away from the prison without impediment, open fields shaped by the mist and, not far distant, the lights of the villages that clung to the hem of the city. Malone breathed deeply, filling his lungs. He could smell Glasgow now all right, hear its pulse. The sensations excited him. He slung his legs over the wall and lowered himself. The outer facement was smoother but provided just enough friction to support him. He dropped the last ten feet to the ground.

As he rolled on to sweet wet winter turf a bell clanged within the prison and, a moment later, a steam siren screamed out. Malone did not flinch. He had left fear behind. He was clear of confinement and surged with confidence. Chuckling, he sprinted down the slope towards a thorn hedge behind which lay lights and a roadway.

He had done it. He had escaped from Barlinnie.

Now he would show the bastards.

Now he would write his name in blood.

The hue and cry that followed the brutal double murder in Barlinnie prison and the escape of felon Daniel Malone involved almost every officer and man in the City of Glasgow and the co-operation of police forces in burghs far and wide, Greenfield not least among them.

Superintendent Affleck was put in charge of a team of detectives and was also consulted by uniformed superiors on the best strategy by which the fugitive might be laid by the heels. Description of the wanted man was telephoned and telegraphed to police stations in all port areas, west and east, and City of Glasgow contract printers were roused to late-shift work to set and run off one thousand copies of a
Wanted
handbill. Before midnight senior constables and sergeants had been despatched to search the dwellings of Malone’s known associates and Noreen Gusset had been dragged protesting to Partick Police Headquarters where Hugh Affleck, in person, interrogated her for over an hour.

Across the city a pair of detectives, Glover and Prentice, had traced the means by which Malone had gotten himself from the wilds of Riddrie into the city centre. The hackney cab driver had been so frightened by the man in warder’s uniform, and by the sabre laid against his neck, that he had put antipathy to blue boys to one side and reported the incident at the nearest cop shop to the Saltmarket, where he had dropped his ‘fare’.

Seasoned veterans of several manhunts, Glover and Prentice extracted every drop of information from the wide-eyed cab driver and had him take them to the exact spot at which the passenger had alighted; just beyond Glasgow Cross and only yards from the doors of the Central Division Police Station, one of the city’s most populous areas.

‘Where did he go then?’

‘Vanished,’ said the cabbie.

‘Into thin air?’

‘You might say so. One minute he was standin’ on the pavement, next he was gone.’

As instructed, Sergeants Glover and Prentice made report by telephone to Superintendent Affleck who was on the point of leaving Partick for Greenfield. Superintendent Affleck suggested to the senior officer at Central that men be despatched to question citizens in the area in the hope, rather faint, that a man in a warder’s uniform, complete with sabre, might have been spotted and remembered. Every straw had to be clutched at and progress made before Daniel Malone could strike again.

‘Do you think he will,’ said Sergeant Drummond, ‘strike again?’

Hugh Affleck sipped from the cup of strong black coffee that had been brewed for him in the room behind the counter in Ottawa Street station.

‘I’m damned sure he will. It’s the reason he escaped. He has nothing but vengeance on his mind, scores to settle.’

‘Did Noreen Gusset tell you that?’

‘Not in as many words. She didn’t collude in his escape, not directly. She visited him once, apparently. All Malone wanted from her was information about Nicholson. The last thing that were Noreen wants is Danny running loose. Nobody wants Danny on the streets, not even his so-called friends.’

‘Especially his so-called friends,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘Have you sent word to Maitland Moss?’

‘I spoke to him on the telephone,’ Hugh Affleck answered. ‘Oh, he pretended to be totally unconcerned but it’s my guess that our Mr Moss will contrive to have urgent business in some far part of the country and will not return until Danny’s caught.’

‘Does Moss have money belonging to Malone?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ the superintendent said. ‘What concerns me is that Malone may have cash salted away. He’s always been extraordinarily clever.’

‘It was not very clever to butcher two prison officers.’

‘He felt, I suspect, that he had nothing to lose.’

‘Except his life.’

‘Have you put a watch on the Maitland Moss yard?’ said Hugh Affleck.

‘One man inside, one on the street.’

‘Enough men for a change of shift?’

‘Everybody on the roster has been recalled,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘Except Nicholson.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘Nicholson.’

‘I went round to see the Walkers, who reside in the same building as Nicholson. They got themselves quietly together and have manned the close, front and back. If Malone is mad enough to make an attempt on Nicholson tonight he’ll find a warm welcome awaiting him.’

‘You’ll need sleep, Hector.’

‘Tomorrow,’ said Sergeant Drummond.

Hugh Affleck finished his coffee and glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Time I was off to report to Mr Organ.’

‘At this hour?’

‘The Chief Constable is deeply concerned, Hector,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘He knows what Malone might do. What sort of man we’re dealing with.’

‘Armed and dangerous?’

‘Very dangerous,’ the superintendent said.

Chief Constable Organ gave no thought to the lateness of the hour or the fact that he had been dragged away from a dinner party at Bailie Smith’s house between the soup and the joint and had eaten nothing since. The circumstances surrounding the arrest of Daniel Malone were still too fresh in his mind, and in the memory of the public at large, to allow him to shirk his most punctilious duty. He had, of course, already spoken with Superintendent Affleck upon the telephone but was anxious to engage the detective in a more prolonged and private conversation and, shut in his oak-panelled office in Percy Street headquarters, wasted not a moment on politeness.

‘Let me ask you, Hugh,’ said Mr Organ, ‘if you believe that Malone will come back to the Greenfield?’

‘I do, Mr Organ.’

‘Because of the statements made by the Gusset woman?’

‘Partly,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘More, perhaps, because of the nature of the man. I think he’s hungry for revenge.’

‘Now that he’s out, however, do you not think he might change his mind and simply make a sprint for it?’

‘No, sir, I don’t. Malone is proud, he’s vicious—’

‘As his slaughter of two prison warders proves, yes.’

‘– and it’s my belief that he’ll come back to the Greenfield in search of Nicholson.’

‘Who shopped him.’

‘We must protect Nicholson at all costs.’

‘It would certainly be a black mark against us if Malone did manage to harm one of our constables.’

‘Nicholson must be sent away.’

Chief Constable Organ stuck his tongue into his cheek, paused, said, ‘Or kept on duty, perhaps.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Day-shift, of course.’

‘Do I understand, sir, that you—’

‘Is he a brave lad?’

‘As brave as the next one, I suppose. But—’

‘If, as you believe, Malone is intent on revenge and single-minded in his purpose then there’s no saying what sort of mischief he might get up to if his purpose is thwarted.’

‘Tether a goat?’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘I’m not for that, sir.’

‘For it or not, Superintendent, it has value as a suggestion, do you not feel?’

‘You can order Constable Nicholson to remain on duty, Mr Organ. It will not, however, be a popular decision with the sergeants.’

‘It’s not my intention to despatch him on to his beat alone and unprotected. He’ll be watched, watched like a hawk at all times.’

‘For how long?’

‘Until Malone shows his hand.’

‘What if Malone does not show his hand?’

‘All well and good. After a reasonable period of time has elapsed we may assume that Malone has evaded our best efforts and has slipped away out of Scotland, and our jurisdiction.’

Hugh Affleck shook his head. The theory had one fatal flaw; the administration of the Force itself. While Craig Nicholson might be willing, even eager, to play the hero and set himself up as live bait, if Malone elected to remain underground for three or four weeks then the sheer cost of maintaining a roster of protectors for one young constable would scupper the watch. Besides there was always the possibility that Malone would not attack during duty hours.

Chief Constable Organ said, ‘Have you considered the threat to yourself, Hugh?’

‘Me?’

‘To your family.’

‘What?’

‘It was at your sister’s house, was it not, that the arrest was made, the ‘trap’, as Malone sees it, sprung? Our desperado might not be too fussy upon whom he wreaks revenge.’

‘Yes, I do take your point, sir.’

‘Can your sister be removed from harm’s way?’

‘If necessary.’

‘What about Malone’s cohorts; Jamie what’s-his-name?’

‘Dobbs. He’s livin’ with Malone’s mistress now, I believe.’

‘Reason enough for Malone to do him harm. What of Malone’s legal wife?’

‘She knows absolutely nothing. She’s heard not a word from Danny since the day of his arrest. I think that line of enquiry would not be profitable, not if I know Malone.’

‘McVoy?’

‘Still in prison.’

‘Ah, yes, of course.’

Hugh Affleck rubbed his eyes with his palms. He had foreseen a long campaign of patient detective work, particularly if Malone had cash hidden away and was able to buy a safe hiding-place or – and he wouldn’t put it past the man – flee from Scotland for five or six months before he returned to pay his debts in blood. He had no doubt at all that, sooner or later, Malone would make an attempt on the life of the Nicholson boy. Perhaps it would be better for all concerned, including the Nicholsons, if it was sooner.