Free The King of Diamonds by Simon Tolkien Page A

statement. Surely her marriage was over? It was eighteen months since she’d left her husband. Did her independence, her tiny little flat, mean so much to her that she’d turn down the chance of becoming Mrs Osman? Or was it simply that she no longer believed in happiness, didn’t want to put the possibility of it to the test?
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know, Titus. You must give me more time.’
    ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘All the time that you need, dearest Vanessa. It’s enough for me that you will think about it. Love will take care of the rest.’
    Titus got to his feet with a smile. He was not discouraged. He’d watched the storm of conflicting emotions pass across Vanessa’s face, and he sensed how close he was to obtaining his heart’s desire.

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    ‘Why do you want a gun?’ asked Eddie as they completed another circuit of the exercise yard. Several hours had gone by since they had reached their agreement to escape, but they were both still in a state of unnatural excitement.
    ‘Because that bastard Claes had one,’ said David. ‘On the night I didn’t kill Ethan Mendel. You remember.’
    ‘So you’re going back there?’
    ‘Yeah, but not for long. You don’t have to take me if you don’t want to.’
    ‘No, I’ll take you. It’s on the way out of Oxford. But what you do in there’s your business.’
    ‘Fine.’
    Here, in the exercise yard, they were in the very centre of the prison and the high walls of the wing buildings surrounding them formed a barrier against the wind that was blowing hard across the city outside, but they still wore the collars of their jackets turned up high against the unseasonable cold, leaning their heads close together when they spoke to hear what the other was saying. Halfway round each circuit, David glanced up at the top of the rec room block on the other side of the yard. It seemed impossibly high to come down from, but at least the roof was reasonably flat so there was less risk of slipping down the tiles on the other side and breaking one’s neck on the ground below.
    And Eddie had been right about the scaffolding. A gang of workmen had just been finishing carrying the poles in through the door to the gymnasium on the ground floor when they’d come out for afternoon exercise, and now David could see their heads moving across the barred rec room windows up at the top of the building as they assembled the scaffold.
    ‘How are we going to get in there? The rec room’s going to be out of bounds while they’re painting it,’ he asked, leaning toward Eddie again and pointing across the yard.
    ‘Yeah, but not the gym,’ said Eddie. ‘They’re painting the rec room first and then the gym. That’s what I heard and it makes sense if you think about it. One’s on top of the other, and they don’t want both out of use at the same time; otherwise, what are they going to do with us? So all we’ve got to do is slip up the stairs from the gym during evening association and then wait until everyone’s back in their cells.’
    ‘Except us! How the hell are we going to get past the head count?’ asked David, suddenly raising his voice so that several prisoners nearby turned and looked over at them with curiosity. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of this before. The screws went round the cells, landing by landing, every evening before lights-out counting the prisoners, making sure they were all there. Except that he and Eddie wouldn’t be; they’d be hiding under a dust sheet over in the rec room, waiting to be caught. Like sitting ducks.
    ‘Keep your fucking voice down, can’t you?’ said Eddie angrily, pulling David over toward a set of steps leading up to B Wing, where they sat down. ‘People have ears, you know. Of course I’ve thought about the count. Do you think I’m an idiot? We’ll make dummies and put them in our beds, and then we’ll go at the weekend when they’re understaffed.