Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [59]
Now he had to get the jailer’s attention. He couldn’t afford to wait until meal-time, whenever that was. He grabbed the last few scraps of blanket and stuffed them down into the washbasin plughole. Then he turned on the taps.
The basin filled and soon began to overflow. Water spilled over the floor, gradually reaching the corners of the cell. As it began to leak out of the gap under the door, Granger wrapped the shorter length or rope around each of his hands and waited.
Less than a quarter of an hour later he heard noises in the corridor outside. A key clunked in a lock. A door slammed. He heard the jailer cursing, his boots sloshing along the flooded corridor.
Two bolts snapped back, and the hatch at the bottom of the cell door clanged open.
Outside, the jailer gave an angry hiss. ‘If you’ve broken that bloody sink, we’ll beat . . .’ he began. And then he must have seen the hanging mannequin, for he said, ‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.’
Keys rattled.
The door opened.
Granger stepped from his hiding place into the open doorway and kicked the jailer in the stomach. Before the other man had time to register surprise or pain, Granger looped the short rope around his neck and dragged him down. He twisted the rope.
The jailer made a choking sound.
‘We’re walking out of here,’ Granger said.
The jailer opened his mouth to object, but Granger twisted the rope tighter around his neck. ‘Don’t speak,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll crush your larynx.’
A corridor stretched in both directions, with numbered cell doors lining both walls and an iron-banded wooden door at the end of the passage. Granger marched his captive towards this last door. From his initial trip here he knew that the guards’ office lay beyond. ‘How many guards?’ he whispered into the man’s ear. ‘Hold out your fingers.’
The jailer made no move.
Granger tightened the rope.
‘One.’
‘I said don’t speak.’ They had reached the door by now. ‘Unlock it.’
The other man obeyed, fumbling with his keys.
‘Quickly.’
The door swung open to reveal a small windowless chamber, a watch station for the cell corridor – little more than an airlock to separate free men from their captives. Racks of keys hung from pegs along the back wall, each labelled with a cell number. A single guard reclined in a chair, his feet propped on the desk before him. He had been half asleep, but now snapped alert as the two men bustled in: one dressed in underwear, the other turning blue. He looked at Granger and then he reached for his blackjack lying on the desk between them.
‘Leave it,’ Granger said.
The guard hesitated.
‘Throw me your keys or I’ll break his neck.’
‘Break it,’ the guard said. ‘They’ll give me his job.’
Granger pitched his captive across the table and into the seated man. The guard’s chair toppled backwards and he went down, pinned under the thrown man’s weight. Granger stepped around the desk and kicked the guard hard in the groin. Then he dropped to a crouch, slamming his elbow down into the back of the jailer’s head, knocking him out cold.
The guard groaned through his teeth, still trapped under the unconscious man.
Granger spied a bunch of keys hooked to the man’s belt and tore them loose. He picked up the jailer’s keys from the floor. His chest had begun to cramp again. He staggered upright, wincing at the pain, and locked the door to the cell corridor. Then he tried the opposite door, the exterior one. It was unlocked. He opened it a fraction and peered out.
A broad staircase descended several flights to the main foyer. On the opposite side of the landing stood another door, but this was not reinforced. A tall window looked out on the gloomy façade of another building. There was nobody about. Granger glanced back at the fallen guard. Then he stepped out, shut the watch station door and locked it behind him.
He hurried down the staircase, clutching his chest.
When he reached the foyer he stopped. An open doorway to his right