To Harry’s surprise, Newbold began to build another pile, seeming to take his time selecting each item, and all because of the prisoner who’d sat next to him on the bus.
‘Follow me,’ said Hessler when Newbold had completed his task. Harry and Pat grabbed their piles of clothes and charged off down the corridor. There were several stops on the way, as a duty officer had to unlock and lock barred gates as they came nearer to the cells. When they eventually stepped on to the wing, they were greeted by the noise of a thousand prisoners.
Quinn said, ‘I see we’re on the top floor, Mr Hessler, but I won’t be taking the elevator, as I need the exercise.’ The officer ignored him and continued past the shouting prisoners.
‘I thought you said this was the quiet wing,’ said Harry.
‘It’s clear Mr Hessler is not one of the more popular officers,’ whispered Quinn, just before the three of them reached cell 327. Hessler unlocked the heavy iron door and pulled it open to allow the new con and the old con to enter the home Harry had a lease on for the next six years.
Harry heard the door slam behind him. He looked around the cell, and noticed there was no handle on the inside of the door. Two bunks, one on top of the other, a steel wash basin attached to the wall, a wooden table, also attached to the wall, and a wooden chair. His eyes finally settled on a steel bowl under the lower bunk. He thought he was going to be sick.
‘You get the top bunk,’ said Quinn, interrupting his thoughts, ‘on account of you being a first-timer. If I get out before you, you’ll move down to the bottom one, and your new cellmate will get the top. Prison etiquette,’ he explained.
Harry stood on the bottom bunk and slowly made up his bed, then climbed up, lay down and placed his head on the thin, hard pillow, painfully aware that it might be some time before he managed a night’s sleep. ‘Can I ask you one more question?’ he said to Quinn.
‘Yes, but don’t speak again until lights on tomorrow morning.’ Harry recalled Fisher saying almost the same words on his first night at St Bede’s.
‘It’s obvious you’ve been able to smuggle in a considerable amount of cash, so why didn’t the guards confiscate it as soon as you got off the bus?’
‘Because if they did,’ said Quinn, ‘no con would ever bring in any money again, and the whole system would break down.’
3
HARRY LAY ON the top bunk and stared at the one-coated white ceiling that he could touch by reaching up with his fingers. The mattress was lumpy and the pillow so hard that he could only manage to sleep for a few minutes at a time.
His thoughts turned to Sefton Jelks and how easily he had been duped by the old advocate. Get my son off the murder charge, that’s all I care about, he could hear Tom Bradshaw’s father telling Jelks. Harry tried not to think about the next six years, which Mr Bradshaw didn’t care about. Had it been worth $10,000?
He dismissed his lawyer and thought about Emma. He missed her so much, and wanted to write and tell her he was still alive, but he knew he couldn’t. He wondered what she would be doing on an autumn day in Oxford. How was her work progressing as she began her freshman year? Was she being courted by another man?
And what of her brother, Giles, his closest friend? Now that Britain was at war, had Giles left Oxford and signed up to fight the Germans? If he had, Harry prayed that he was still alive. He thumped the side of the bunk with a clenched fist, angry that he was not being allowed to play his part. Quinn didn’t speak, assuming that Harry was suffering ‘first-night-itis’.
And what of Hugo Barrington? Had anyone seen him since he disappeared on the day Harry should have married his daughter? Would he find a way of creeping back into favour, when everyone believed Harry was dead? He dismissed Barrington from his mind, still unwilling to accept the possibility that the man might be his father.
When his thoughts turned to his mother, Harry smiled, hoping that she would make good use of the $10,000 Jelks had promised to send her once he’d agreed to take the place of Tom Bradshaw. With over ￡2,000 in the bank, Harry hoped she would give up her job as a waitress at the Grand Hotel and buy that little house in the country she’d always talked about; that was the only good thing that would come out of this whole charade.
And what of Sir Walter Barrington, who had always treated him like a grandchild? If Hugo was Harry’s father, then Sir Walter was his grandfather. If that turned out to be the case, Harry would be in line to inherit the Barrington estate and the family title, and would in time become Sir Harry Barrington. But not only did Harry want his friend Giles, Hugo Barrington’s legitimate son, to inherit the title, even more important, he was desperate to prove that his real father was Arthur Clifton. That would still give him an outside chance of being able to marry his beloved Emma. Harry tried to forget where he’d be spending the next six years.