A Prisoner of Birth Read online

  ‘Munro, Munro and Carmichael,’ announced a voice.

  ‘Mr Munro, please,’ said Nick.

  ‘Which Mr Munro?’

  Danny checked the card. ‘Mr Fraser Munro.’

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Nicholas Moncrieff.’

  ‘I’ll put you straight through, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good morning, Sir Nicholas,’ said the next lilting voice Danny heard. ‘How nice to hear from you.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Munro.’ Danny spoke slowly. ‘I’m thinking of travelling up to Scotland later today and I wondered if you might be free to see me some time tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course, Sir Nicholas. Would ten o’clock suit you?’

  ‘Admirably,’ said Danny, recalling one of Nick’s favourite words.

  ‘Then I’ll look forward to seeing you here in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Munro,’ said Danny, just stopping himself from asking where his office was. Danny put the phone down. He was covered in sweat. Big Al had been right. Munro was expecting a call from Nick. Why would he have thought for a moment that he might be speaking to someone else?

  Danny was among the first to board the train. While he waited for it to depart he turned his attention to the sports pages. The football season was still a month away, but he had high hopes for West Ham, who had finished seventh in the Premier League the previous season. He felt a tinge of sadness at the thought that he would never be able to risk visiting Upton Park again for fear of being recognized. No more ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’. Try to remember, Danny Cartwright is dead – and buried.

  The train pulled slowly out of the station, and Danny watched London pass by giving way to the countryside. He was surprised how quickly they reached full speed. He had never been to Scotland before – the farthest north he had ever been was Vicarage Road, Watford.

  Danny felt exhausted, and he’d only been out of prison for a few hours. The pace of everything was so much quicker and, hardest of all, you had to make decisions. He checked Nick’s watch – his watch – a quarter past eleven. He tried to go on reading the paper, but his head fell back.

  ‘Tickets please.’

  Danny woke with a start, rubbed his eyes and handed his rail warrant to the ticket collector. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but this ticket isn’t valid for the express train. You’ll have to pay a supplement.’

  ‘But I was—’ began Danny. ‘I do apologize, how much will that be?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Eighty-four pounds.’

  Danny couldn’t believe he’d made such a stupid mistake. He took out his wallet and handed over the cash. The ticket collector printed out a receipt.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said after he’d issued Danny with his ticket. Danny noticed that he called him sir without thinking about it, not mate, as an East End bus driver would have addressed him.

  ‘Will you be having lunch today, sir?’

  Once again, simply because of his dress and accent. ‘Yes,’ said Danny.

  ‘The dining car is a couple of carriages forward. They’ll begin serving in about half an hour.’

  ‘I’m grateful.’ Another of Nick’s expressions.

  Danny looked out of the window and watched the countryside flying by. After they passed through Grantham he returned to the financial pages, but was interrupted by a voice over the tannoy announcing that the dining car was now open. He made his way forward and took a seat at a small table hoping that no one would join him. He studied the menu carefully, wondering which dishes Nick would have chosen. A waiter appeared by his side.

  ‘The pâté,’ Danny said. He knew how to pronounce it, although he had no idea what it would taste like. In the past his golden rule had been never to order anything that had a foreign name. ‘Followed by the steak and kidney pie.’

  ‘And for pudding?’

  Nick had taught him that you should never order all three courses at once. ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Danny.

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  By the time Danny had finished his meal, he had read everything The Times had to offer, including the theatre reviews, which only made him think about Lawrence Davenport. But for now, Davenport would have to wait. Danny had other things on his mind. He had enjoyed the meal, until the waiter gave him a bill for twenty-seven pounds. He handed over three ten-pound notes, aware that his wallet was becoming lighter by the minute.

  According to Nick’s diary, Mr Munro believed that if the estate in Scotland and the London house were placed on the market, they would fetch handsome sums, although he had cautioned that it could be several months before a sale was completed. Danny knew that he couldn’t survive for several months on less than two hundred pounds.

  He returned to his seat, and began to give some thought to his meeting with Munro the following morning. When the train stopped at Newcastle upon Tyne, Danny unbuckled the leather straps around the suitcase, opened it and found Mr Munro’s file. He extracted the letters. Although they contained all of Munro’s replies to Nick’s questions, Danny had no way of knowing what Nick had written in his original letters. He had to try to second-guess what questions Nick must have asked after reading Munro’s answers, with only the dates and the diary entries as reference points. After reading the correspondence again, he wasn’t in any doubt that Uncle Hugo had taken advantage of the fact that Nick had been locked up for the past four years.

  Danny had come across customers like Hugo when he worked at the garage – loan sharks, property dealers and barrow boys who thought they could get the better of him, but they never did, and none of them ever discovered that he couldn’t read a contract. He found his mind drifting to the A levels he’d taken only days before being released. He wondered if Nick had passed with flying colours – another Nick expression. He had promised his cellmate that if he won his appeal, the first thing he would do was study for a degree. He intended to keep that promise and take the degree in Nick’s name. Think like Nick, forget Danny, he reminded himself. You are Nick, you are Nick. He went over the letters once again as if he was revising for an exam; an exam he couldn’t afford to fail.

  The train arrived at Waverley station at three thirty, ten minutes late. Danny joined the crowd as they walked along the platform. He checked the departure board for the time of the next train to Dunbroath. Another twenty minutes. He bought a copy of the Edinburgh Evening News and satisfied himself with a bacon baguette from Upper Crust. Would Mr Munro realize that he wasn’t upper crust? He went in search of his platform, then sat down on a bench. The paper was full of names and places he had never heard of: problems with the planning committee in Duddlingston, the cost of the unfinished Scottish Parliament building and a supplement giving details of something called the Edinburgh Festival, which was taking place the following month. Hearts’ and Hibs’ prospects in the forthcoming season dominated the back pages, rudely replacing Arsenal and West Ham.

  Ten minutes later Danny climbed on board the cross-country train to Dunbroath, a journey that took forty minutes, stopping at several stations whose names he couldn’t even pronounce. At four forty, the little train trundled into Dunbroath station. Danny lugged his case along the platform and out on to the pavement, relieved to see a single taxi waiting on the stand. Nick climbed into the front seat while the driver put his case in the boot.

  ‘Where to?’ asked the driver once he was back behind the wheel.

  ‘Perhaps you can recommend a hotel?’

  ‘There is only one,’ said the taxi driver.

  ‘Well, that solves the problem,’ said Danny, as the car moved off.

  Three pounds fifty later, plus a tip, and Danny was dropped outside the Moncrieff Arms. He walked up the steps, through the swing doors and dumped his suitcase by the reception desk.

  ‘I need a room for the night,’ he told the woman behind the counter.

  ‘Just a single?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  �€