A Prisoner of Birth

Nick glanced up to see Danny staring at the ceiling. "Would you like me to read it again?"

"No."

Nick unfolded the second letter. "It's from Alex Redmayne," he said. "Most unusual."

"What do you mean?" asked Danny, sitting up.

"Barristers don't usually write direct to their clients. They leave it to the instructing solicitors. It's marked private and confidential. Are you sure you want me to know the contents of this letter?"

"Read it," said Danny.

"Dear Danny, just a line to bring you up to date on your appeal. I have completed all the necessary applications and today received a letter from the Lord Chancellor's office confirming that your name has been entered on the list. However, there is no way of knowing how long the process will take, and I must warn you that it could be anything up to two years. I am still following up all leads in the hope that they might produce some fresh evidence, and will write again when I have something more tangible to report. Yours sincerely, Alex Redmayne."

Nick put the two letters back in their envelopes and returned them to Danny. He picked up his pen and said, "Would you like me to reply to either of them?"

"No," said Danny firmly. "I'd like you to teach me to read and write."

***

Spencer Craig was beginning to think it had been unwise to choose the Dunlop Arms for the Musketeers' monthly get-together. He had persuaded his fellow members that it would show they had nothing to hide. He was already regretting his decision.

Lawrence Davenport had made some lame excuse for not attending, claiming he had to be at an awards ceremony because he'd been nominated for best actor in a soap.

Craig wasn't surprised that Toby Mortimer hadn't shown up-he was probably lying in a gutter somewhere with a needle sticking out of his arm.

At least Gerald Payne made an appearance, even if he had turned up late. If there had been an agenda for this meeting, disbanding the Musketeers would probably have been item number one.

Craig emptied the remainder of the first bottle of Chablis into Payne's glass and ordered another one. "Cheers," he said, raising his glass. Payne nodded, less than enthusiastically. Neither spoke for some time.

"Do you have any idea when Cartwright's appeal is coming up?" said Payne eventually.

"No," replied Craig. "I keep an eye on the lists, but I can't risk calling the Criminal Appeal Office, for obvious reasons. The moment I hear anything, you'll be the first to know."

"Are you worried about Toby?" asked Payne.

"No, he's the least of our problems. Whenever the appeal does come up, you can be sure he'll be in no state to give evidence. Our only problem is Larry. He gets flakier by the day. But the prospect of a spell in jail should keep him in line."

"But what about his sister?" said Payne.

"Sarah?" said Craig. "What's she got to do with it?"

"Nothing, but if she ever found out what actually happened that night, she might try to persuade Larry that it was his duty to give evidence at the appeal telling them what really took place. She is a solicitor, after all." Payne took a sip of his wine. "Didn't you two have a fling at Cambridge?"

"I wouldn't call it a fling," said Craig. "She's not really my type-too uptight."

"That's not what I heard," said Payne, trying to make light of it.

"What did you hear?" asked Craig defensively.

"That she gave you up because you had some rather strange habits in the bedroom."

Craig didn't comment as he emptied what remained of the second bottle. "Another bottle, barman," he said.

"The 'ninety-five, Mr. Craig?"

"Of course," said Craig. "Nothing but the best for my friend."

"No need to waste your money on me, old fellow," said Payne.

Craig didn't bother to tell him that it hardly mattered what was on the label, because the barman had already decided how much he was going to charge for "keeping shtum," as he put it.

***

Big Al was snoring, which Nick had once described in his diary as sounding like a cross between an elephant drinking and a ship's foghorn. Nick somehow managed to sleep through any amount of rap music emanating from the nearby cells, but he still hadn't come to terms with Big Al's snoring.

He lay awake and thought about Danny's decision to give up the chain gang and join him at education. It hadn't taken him long to realize that while Danny might not have had much of a formal education, he was brighter than anyone he'd taught during the past two years.

Danny was rapacious about his new challenge, without having any idea what the word meant. He didn't waste a moment, always asking questions, rarely satisfied with the answers. Nick had read about teachers who discovered that their pupils were cleverer than they were, but he hadn't expected to come across that problem while he was in prison. And it wasn't as if Danny allowed him to relax at the end of the day. No sooner had the cell door been slammed for the night than he was perched on the end of Nick's bunk, demanding that even more questions were answered. And on two subjects, maths and sport, Nick quickly found out that Danny already knew far more than he did. He had an encyclopedic memory that made it quite unnecessary for Nick to look up anything in Wisden or the FA Handbook, and if you mentioned West Ham or Essex, Danny was the handbook. Although he might not have been literate, he was clearly numerate, and had a grasp for figures that Nick knew he could never equal.

"Are you awake?" asked Danny, breaking into Nick's thoughts.

"Big Al's probably preventing anyone in the next three cells from sleeping," said Nick.

"I was just thinkin' that since I signed up for education, I've told you a lot about me, but I still know almost nothin' about you."

"I was just thinking, and while I know almost nothing about you. You're still dropping the g."

"Thinking. Nothing," said Danny.

"What do you want to know?" asked Nick.

"For a start, how did someone like you end up in prison?" Nick didn't immediately respond. "Don't tell me if you don't want to," Danny added.

"I was court-martialed while my regiment was serving with the NATO forces in Kosovo."

"Did you kill someone?"

"No, but an Albanian died and another was injured because of an error of judgment on my part." It was Danny's turn to remain silent. "My platoon was ordered to protect a group of Serbs who had been charged with ethnic cleansing. During my watch, a band of Albanian guerrillas drove past the compound firing their Kalashnikovs in the air, to celebrate the Serbs' capture. When a car full of them came dangerously close to the compound, I warned their leader to stop firing. He ignored me, so my staff sergeant fired a few warning shots, which resulted in two of them ending up with gunshot wounds. Later one of them died in hospital."

"So you didn't kill anyone?" said Danny.

"No. But I was the officer in charge."

"And you got eight years for that?" Nick didn't comment. "I once thought about going into the army," said Danny.

"You'd have made a damn good soldier."