A Prisoner of Birth Read online

  When they left the drawing room and walked out into the hallway, they found Molly standing by the front door clutching Davenport’s overcoat.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Davenport after she had helped him on with his coat and opened the door.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Danny, not shaking hands with Davenport as he stepped out on to the path. Molly almost curtsied.

  Danny turned round and headed back to his study. ‘Molly, I have some calls to make, so I could be a few minutes late for lunch,’ he said over his shoulder. When he received no reply, he turned back to see his housekeeper standing at the door chatting to a woman.

  ‘Is he expecting you?’ asked Molly.

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ replied Ms Bennett. ‘I came on the off-chance.’

  63

  THE ALARM WENT OFF at 2 a.m. but Danny wasn’t asleep. He jumped out of bed and quickly put on the pants, T-shirt, socks, slacks and trainers that he’d laid out on the chair by the window. He didn’t turn on the light.

  He checked his watch: six minutes past two. He closed the bedroom door and walked slowly downstairs. He opened the front door to see his car parked by the kerb. Although he couldn’t see him, he knew Big Al would be seated behind the wheel. Danny looked around – there were one or two lights still on in the square, but no one to be seen. He climbed into the car but didn’t speak. Big Al switched on the ignition and drove for a hundred yards before he put on the side lights.

  Neither of them spoke as Big Al turned right and headed for the Embankment. He had done the run five times during the past week; twice during the day, three times at night – what he called ‘night ops’. But the dry runs were over, and tonight the full operation would be carried out. Big Al was treating the whole thing like a military exercise, and his nine years in the army were being put to good use. During the day, the journey averaged around forty-three minutes, but at night he could cover the same distance in twenty-nine, never once exceeding the speed limit.

  As they progressed past the House of Commons and along the north side of the Thames, Danny concentrated on what needed to be done once they had reached the target area. They drove through the City and into the East End. Danny’s concentration was broken only for a moment when they passed a large construction site with a vast advertising hoarding displaying a magnificent mock-up of what Wilson House would look like once it was completed: sixty luxury flats, thirty affordable dwellings, it promised, nine already sold, including the penthouse. Danny smiled.

  Big Al continued on down Mile End Road before turning left at a signpost indicating Stratford, The home of the 2012 Olympics. Eleven minutes later, he turned off the road and on to a gravel track. He switched the lights off, as he knew each twist and turn, almost every stone between there and the target area.

  At the end of the track he drove past a sign that read, Private Land: Keep Off. He kept on going; after all, the land was owned by Danny, and would still be his for another eight days. Big Al brought the car to a halt behind a small mound, switched off the engine and pressed a button. The side window purred down. They sat still and listened, but the only sounds were night noises. During an afternoon recce they’d come across the occasional dog walker and a group of kids kicking a football around, but now there was nothing, not even a night owl to keep them company.

  After a couple of minutes Danny touched Big Al’s elbow. They climbed out of the car and walked round to the back. Big Al opened the boot while Danny slipped off his trainers. Big Al lifted the box out of the back and placed it on the ground, just as they had done the night before, when Danny had walked the course to see if he could locate the seventy-one white pebbles they had put in cracks, holes and crevices during the day. He had managed to find fifty-three. He’d do better tonight. Another dry run that afternoon had given him a chance to check the ones he’d missed.

  In daylight he could cover the three acres in just over two hours. Last night had taken three hours, seventeen minutes, while tonight would take even longer because of the number of times he would have to drop to his knees.

  It was a clear, still night, as promised by the weather forecasters, who were predicting light showers in the morning. Like any good farmer planting his seeds, Danny had chosen the day, even the hour, carefully. Big Al removed the black jumpsuit from the box and handed it to Danny, who unzipped the front and climbed in. Even this simple exercise had been practised several times in the dark. Big Al then passed him the rubber boots, followed by the gloves, the mask, the torch and finally the small plastic container marked ‘Hazardous’.

  Big Al stationed himself by the back of the car as the boss set off. When Danny reached the corner of his land, he walked another seven paces before he came across the first white pebble. He picked it up and dropped it into a deep pocket. He fell on his knees, switched on the torch and placed a tiny fragment of stem into a crack in the ground. He turned off the torch and stood up. Yesterday he had practised the exercise without the rhizome. Nine more paces and he came to the second pebble, where he repeated the whole process, and then only one pace before he reached the third pebble and knelt by a little crevice before carefully inserting the rhizome deep inside. Five more paces . . .

  Big Al desperately wanted a smoke, but he knew it was a risk he couldn’t take. Once in Bosnia a squaddie had lit up during a night op, and three seconds later he got a bullet through his head. Big Al knew the boss would be out there for at least three hours, so he couldn’t afford to let his concentration slip, even for a moment.

  Pebble number twenty-three was at the far corner of Danny’s land. He shone his torch down a large hole, before dropping in some more rhizome. He placed another pebble in his pocket.

  Big Al stretched and began to walk slowly round the car. He knew they planned to leave long before first light, which was at 6.48 a.m. He checked his watch: 4.17. They both looked up when a plane flew overhead, the first to land at Heathrow that morning.

  Danny put pebble number 36 in his right-hand pocket, taking care to distribute the weight evenly. He repeated the process again and again: a few paces, kneel down, turn on the torch, drop some rhizome in the crack, pick up the pebble and drop it in a pocket, turn off the torch, stand up, walk on – it felt much more tiring than it had the night before.

  Big Al froze as a car drove on to the site and parked about fifty yards away. He couldn’t be sure if whoever was in the car had seen him. He fell on to his stomach and began to crawl towards the enemy. A cloud moved to reveal the moon, just a sliver of light – even the moon was on their side. The car’s headlights had been turned off, but an inside light remained on.

  Danny thought he saw a car’s lights, and immediately fell flat on the ground. They had arranged that Big Al would flash his torch three times to warn him if there was any danger. Danny waited for over a minute, but there was no flashing beam, so he stood up and headed towards the next pebble.

  Big Al was now only a few yards from the parked car, and although the windows were steamed up, he could see that the inside light was still on. He pushed himself up on to his knees and peered through the rear window. It took all his discipline not to burst out laughing when he saw a woman stretched out on the back seat, her legs wide apart, moaning. Big Al couldn’t see the face of the man who was on top of her, but felt a throbbing in his pants. He fell back down on his stomach and began the long crawl back to base.

  When Danny reached pebble number sixty-seven, he cursed. He’d covered the entire area, and somehow missed four. As he walked slowly back towards the car, each pace became more cumbersome than the last. One thing he hadn’t anticipated was the sheer weight of the pebbles.

  Once Big Al was back at base, he still kept a wary eye on the car. He wondered if the boss had even been aware of its presence. Suddenly he heard the sound of an engine revving up, and the headlights were turned full on before the car swung round, back on to the gravel path and disappeared into the night.

  When Big Al saw Danny coming towards him, he removed the empt