There were actually two walls on Little Saltee. The main outer ring, and an inner wall that circled the prison building. In between the two was the work area where inmates took exercise and toiled over their salsa gardens. This was where Conor wished to land. Where the diamonds were buried.
A thermal suddenly took his craft, causing him to overshoot his preferred landing spot by a hundred yards. Conor kicked the nudge bar to extreme port, and pointed the nose down. This put him into a tail-spinning descent, but his alternative was to land in the ocean. It would be a pity to drown tonight, having flown further in a glider than any man before him.
Victor would be proud.
The thought unsettled him. In prison he had tried not to think of the family and friends from his old life, but since his escape he could think of little else.
I could simply go back. Explain. Father could challenge Bonvilain.
Yes. And be murdered for his pains. Mother too. Best to simply nail the door shut on the past and begin his new life.
Conor dropped quickly. Rocks and hillocks grew from what had been syrupy black space. The glider fought him all the way down, and he fought back, cursing at his infernal craft, refusing to allow it its head.
Once inside the wall’s shelter, the turbulence disappeared and the glider grew docile and sweet, lifting her neck graceful as a swan. Conor’s boot heels dug into soft earth, and he ploughed twin furrows for ten feet before he cranked the wings up behind him with a winch on his belt, and came to a halt.
There was no time to rejoice in his landing, or congratulate himself on the effectiveness of his collapsible wings, though at the moment they were technically only hoisted. To be fully collapsed, two struts had to be removed.
To work, to work.
The diamonds were buried one foot beyond the northernmost corner of each salsa patch. Seven patches, seven bags of diamonds. The nearest prison garden was virtually at his feet. If he worked quickly and was not discovered, he could possibly retrieve three bags tonight.
Conor drew a sabre from his belt, using it to dig into the sod, searching for diamonds, but was distracted from his labour by the sight of a dark and distraught figure rising from the earth.
A trap. I am trapped.
But that was not the truth of it. The shivering figure spoke. ‘What are you? What do you want with Arthur Billtoe?’
Conor felt an anger so intense that it was physical. His brow burned and the sabre’s leather-bound pommel creaked in his fist.
‘Billtoe,’ he growled, springing forward. ‘Arthur Billtoe!’
The speed of his motion caught the air, and the wings jerked skywards. Conor was elevated briefly, but if Billtoe thought he could escape, he was wrong. Conor landed not two feet from the terrified guard, wrapping steel fingers round the man’s gullet.
How the tables have turned. Who is the master now? Not twenty yards from where you bullied and humiliated me.
‘Billtoe,’ he said again, laying his sabre blade flat along Billtoe’s pale throat.
‘A-are you angel or devil, sir?’ stammered the guard. ‘I needs to know. Are you taking me up the ways, or down?’
Conor considered killing him. The urge was strong. In all likelihood, this wretch had murdered Linus Wynter. He indulged this desire to the tune of a small cut on the guard’s neck. But he could not complete the motion.
Still not a killer, Linus might have said.
Stick to the plan. You are a French spy.
‘I can be angel or devil, monsieur,’ said Conor. ‘But in your case, I will always be a devil.’
‘Will you kill me now?’ cried Billtoe.
‘No, monsieur, not now,’ said Conor with more than a touch of regret. ‘But you are making a lot of noise so…’
He struck Billtoe sharply on the temple with the sabre’s hilt, relishing the thump of contact. Funny, the guard did not seem so threatening now, stretched in the grass. A coward without his gun or the weight of authority behind him.
Get the diamonds. One bag at least.
Conor’s plan to unearth three bags was shot. Billtoe could wake at any moment, and, tempting as the notion might be, he could not keep bashing the Billtoe’s skull all night. Neither could he bind and gag the man, as he did not have a rope or cloth. Something to remember for his next visit, should he survive this outing.
Conor returned to his digging, levering clods from the earth with the sabre. It occurred to him then that Malarkey could have lied, and secreted their booty in another spot, but Conor thought it was unlikely. In spite of inauspicious beginnings, Otto Malarkey had become his friend, and the Battering Rams had a strong sense of loyalty. They would mount the gallows’ steps before betraying another man who bore the mark.
Conor’s trust was warranted. His blade soon clinked against a clutch of diamonds. He put away the sabre and scrabbled in the dirt with his gloved fingers, pulling the pouch of diamonds from the earth.
One found. Six more to go.
He was tempted to try for another. With a second bag on his belt, his future would be secure and he could leave for America tomorrow.
Go now. Be prudent. Billtoe could wake at any second.
One more. Just one.
Conor ran to the second salsa bed, all the time imagining that Billtoe regained his senses.
Should I have killed him?
No. A dead guard would raise suspicions. There would be an investigation. Billtoe having conversations with a flying Frenchman on the other hand would be viewed as the ramblings of a drunkard, unless Bonvilain got wind of them.
Too late now. Fetch the second bag.
The salsa bed was further north along the wall’s curve. Conor ran close to the plinth, avoiding the swirling currents that flowed over the island’s hillocks, and also the salty mist that would weigh down his wings.
The glider needs to collapse further, he told himself. The wings catch every breath of air.
The second pouch was as easy to find as the first had been. Otto Malarkey had followed his instructions well. The bag slid from the earth, trailing clods and pebbles. It was the size and weight of a small rabbit.
Heavy enough. Two found.
Now it was most certainly time to fly. To attempt one more search was to invite disaster. Conor had a sudden image of passing the remainder of the night back in his old cell and a shudder rippled along his spine. He must be away.
The guards were doubtless huddled in the northern tower, filling their pipe bowls, so he would make his escape from the south. Conor returned to the base of the wall, and followed his nose until he found the garderobe, a privy hollowed into the base of the wall with a drain running through into the ocean. Garderobes were normally near the stairwell, so the guard would need as little time away from his post as possible.
And, just as he had hoped, the stairwell was a mere three paces past the garderobe, built as a stepped bulwark to the main wall. Conor crab-walked up, keeping his wings behind him, safe from damage, but open to gusts of wind. More than once he was forced to brace his legs against the efforts of his hoisted wings to drag him from the steps.
Not yet. Higher still.
There was neither sight nor sound of a sentry on the wall walk, though he himself would be visible plain enough as soon as he emerged from the stairwell. It was all exactly as planned, but for Billtoe. What in heaven’s name had the man been doing? Sleeping in the outdoors?
Conor lay his body flat along the top steps, peering along the wall’s curve at each side. The cobbles, worn smooth by centuries of patrol, shone orange in the electric light. The crenellated parapet was head high with rows of horizontal gun ports. The wind whistled through each one, sending up an eerie banshee howling.