Free Time to Kill by Brian Freemantle Page A

enquiry about you and Howitt trying to pull that escape stunt. My lawyer thinks I’ve got a guaranteed compensation claim. Big bucks for me, goodbye job and pension for you and Frankie. I haven’t decided yet whether to go ahead with it. If anything bad – anything at all – happened to Chambers after I get out it might make my mind up for me. I could call him as a witness. You tell Frankie that, OK? You let him know just how much his fat ass is on the line. And yours, too. You understand what I’m telling you, Gerry?’
    â€˜Uh huh.’
    â€˜The same problem about answering a simple question that you had driving into the airport,’ reminded Mason. ‘I want to hear from you loud and clear that you understand what I’m telling you. So let me hear it, Gerry. You understand everything I’ve said, don’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, I’ve understood,’ mumbled the man.
    â€˜And you’re going to tell Howitt, make sure he understands?’
    â€˜Yes, I’m going to tell him.’
    â€˜That’s good. It’s important that we all completely understand each other.’
    Mason waited until lock-up and the gradual although minimal quietening along the landing before telling Chambers, ‘You haven’t got anything to worry about after I get out.’
    â€˜You sure?’
    â€˜Positive.’
    â€˜How’ve you fixed it?’
    â€˜It’s fixed.’
    â€˜I’m grateful.’
    â€˜You haven’t told me what hotel you’ve chosen for us to meet at, when you get out,’ prompted Mason.
    â€˜The New York Sheraton, on Seventh and 56th. Conventions all the time.’
    â€˜The 28th.’
    â€˜I’ll be there, waiting.’
    So will I, thought Mason. Everything was going like well-oiled clockwork.

Six
    J ack Mason didn’t resort to any histrionics like stopping outside White Deer to gaze up in relief at the heavens or turn back with an obscene gesture, as he’d seen and heard of other long timers doing at their moment of release. Neither was the reservation anything to do with his first experience of relative freedom for the parole hearing, although it had put the disposal of the antiquated broad-lapelled and flaptrouser cuffed suit at the top of his immediate agenda. In the lost environment of penitentiary incarceration such predictable demonstrations were the closely watched and intently discussed stuff of prison folklore and Mason had years ago determined against performing for anyone’s satisfaction or benefit other than his own. He didn’t have difficulty either, in preventing any surprise at seeing Glynis Needham waiting at the wheel of a macho, broad-wheeled Cherokee 4x4, appropriately dressed in jeans, check work shirt and work boots.
    At the car door he said, ‘I’ve got a travel voucher.’
    â€˜I’ve got wheels,’ said the parole officer.
    â€˜It’s a long drive to DC.’
    â€˜We’ve got all day and I like long drives.’
    â€˜You take this care about every parolee?’ asked Mason, getting into the vehicle.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Why me?’ asked Mason, although he believed he already knew.
    â€˜Because I felt like it. And we got things to talk about.’
    To have been waiting outside this early she would have had to have driven over the previous evening and stayed somewhere, Mason calculated. ‘I’m glad you did.’ He wondered how long it would take for her to make her pitch? But it really was a long drive. She didn’t have to hurry.
    â€˜So how’s it feel to be out?’ Glynis Needham asked, firing the engine.
    â€˜Good.’ Which role would she play, bull or bitch? He could allow himself to think about pussy now, after subjugating what had once been a preoccupation. Her shirt was too loose to decide what sort of tits she had, even though they would be off limits to him.
    â€˜You going to miss your