Ascension Day (85 page)

The nurse lifted her eyes hopefully. ‘But your friend – he’s made it too, senor. He was hurt much worse than you with a stomach wound,
muy malo
… but they’ve already operated and the surgeon thinks he’ll pull through.’

Jac could see from a name-tag that her name was Carmita Terra. He shook his head as he realized she was talking about Truelle. ‘No, not him – another friend. In New Orleans.’

‘Oh.’ She looked blank for a second, then, seeing how distraught he was, tears once again welling, she gave a tight-lipped grimace, her eyes softening. ‘I am sorry to hear about your other friend, senor. So sorry.’

In those last minutes, Larry had stopped looking at the clock.

But everyone else started watching it all the more then; and as the final minute approached, their eyes were riveted to it. They could hardly shift them for one second to look at anything else.

None more so than Warden Haveling as he watched the second hand start on its final 60-second sweep.

And everything suddenly fell deathly silent. Not only in the observation room looking onto the death chamber, but in the prison beyond, inmates looking up from their bunks with heavy, expectant eyes; the protestors outside, having stopped playing their music twenty minutes ago – even the mutter of their voices at that instant died as they looked on at the prison gates, breath vapours pluming gently on the cool night air; and half of New Orleans, too, hands halted mid-air with coffee cups or beers as live newscasts took them to reporters outside the prison gates in those final seconds.

Though two more people didn’t look at the clock then. Josh Durrant, bedroom door shut, face down on his bed as he started sobbing. And Francine, TV off, refusing to acknowledge the time, tried to distract herself by preparing dinner, but her hands felt like lead, hardly able to move or pick up the right things; until, in the end, she wasn’t able to move at all, her eyes gently closing as they filled, feeling those final seconds tick inside her with her laden heartbeat.

All of that silent expectation weighed heavily on Warden Haveling’s shoulders as he watched the second hand make that final sweep; the silence so heavy that you could actually hear the clock ticking, making the seconds seem to pass more agonizingly, before finally, the last few seconds ticking down with the slow deliberation of full-swing axe-blows, Haveling gave a small, solemn nod towards Torvald Engelson.

Engelson acknowledged with equal solemnity, half-closing his eyes for a second, and then he lifted one hand towards the two medics.

They started feeding through the sodium thiopental.

Carmita’s eyebrows furrowed at something Jac had said the moment before.

‘
New Orleo,
senor
?
There have been some calls from there for you. Mickel something?’ She looked towards the corridor outside. ‘Your other friend in white brought your phone with him in case you needed to call anyone.’

Mike Coultaine. Calbrey
. Jac nodded. ‘Yes, I… I might need to make some calls.’ But he was thinking more of calling Alaysha, telling her that he was all right and pouring out his soul, before hearing all the bad news from Coultaine. He wasn’t sure he could face that news right now. But when Carmita returned with his phone a minute later and he tried Alaysha’s number, there was no answer.

He scrolled down and looked at the time of Coultaine’s calls: one forty minutes before Durrant’s execution, no doubt to press for what was happening his end,
Not much time left now
… then two more since, one twenty minutes after and the other just over an hour ago to find out what had happened. Though Coultaine probably already half knew if he’d spoken to the hospital staff or Calbrey. With a tired sigh, Jac pressed to dial Coultaine back.

It answered after the first ring.

‘Mike… it’s Ayliss, uh… Jac.’

‘Jac….
Jac
! Thank God! You’re back in the land of the living!’

‘Yeah… yeah.’ Jac’s voice subdued, not really wanting to share Coultaine’s exuberance at him still being alive at that moment. He exhaled heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Mike… I
tried
. And the damnest thing is, I had the proof right there in my hand at the last moment! Truelle had –’

‘Jac…
Jac
!
Stop
! That’s why I’ve been calling… there’s still time!’

 ‘
What
?’ Jac sat up sharply, sudden lance of pain in his shoulder. ‘What do you mean –
still time
?’

‘Durrant got an injury the night before, which was stitched. But as the first of the knock-out feed came through and he strained against the straps, one of the stitches burst and the wound started bleeding. Head of the execution team, guy called Engelson, stopped it right there. It was re-stitched, medics then had to check and re-check him, the media here meanwhile having a field-day… and finally it was re-scheduled.’

‘
When
?’ Dizzy from sitting up so sharply, the room swam in and out of focus for a second.

‘Midnight. Just over an hour from now.’

Jac’s eyes darted frantically. The tape had been shattered, ruined! His eyes fixed back on the nurse.
Truelle
!

‘Gotta go now, Mike. Got some fast shuffling to do.’ And the second he hung-up, he asked the nurse, ‘My friend shot in the stomach – where is he? And how long before he comes round?’

‘I… uh.’ Momentarily flustered as to which question to answer first. ‘Just around the corner, next
vestibulo
. Not far. And a while.’ She held one palm out. ‘Though I can’t say exactly how long. Only his doctor can answer that.’

‘You’ll need to give me a hand with these. I have to get up.’

‘Senor, you’re not meant to…
por favor
!’

But with Jac already half-up, seeing that he was going to rip all the tubes off in any case, she quickly attended. Detached the monitor links and IV and saline feeds.

‘You’ll have to show me where,’ he said over his shoulder, already breaking into a run, Carmita struggling to keep up a few steps behind.

Jac felt the pain knifing through his shoulder sharper with each stride, the corridor tilting and shifting at one point, Jac bracing with a hand against one wall, afraid that he might be passing out again.

‘His operation was only completed twenty minutes ago,’ Dr Delgado, Truelle’s surgeon, informed Jac when Carmita located him a minute later. ‘So, at least another five or six hours before he comes round.’

Jac’s stomach dived. ‘Any possibility of sooner?’

Delgado shrugged. ‘Three and a half, four hours perhaps. But you’d be lucky to get more than a few words out of him then – he’d still be very groggy.’

Jac cradled his head in one hand, rubbing at his temples, the buzzing back suddenly, the corridor swaying again and tilting away for a moment…
all options sliding away with it
. And towards its end he could see Brent Calbrey sitting, elbows on knees, hands steepled thoughtfully against his chin.

Friends
…
insurance policies
! Truelle said that he’d left details of the whole thing in envelopes with them.

Jac went towards Calbrey and asked him. ‘Left with close friends, apparently. Any idea who they might be?’

Calbrey shrugged. ‘No, sorry. He didn’t mention anything. I didn’t know many of his friends Stateside.’

‘
Both
killed recently,’ Jac prompted. But Calbrey’s expression remained vague. ‘Are you sure he didn’t say anything…
anything
?’ The clinging desperation in Jac’s voice echoing off the corridor walls as Calbrey shook his head.

Jac felt himself swaying uncertainly, the grey edges threatening to drag him back under. And in that moment it struck him that maybe it was better if they did, or if he hadn’t woken up in the first place? To get
two
shots at saving Durrant, and still fail. The cruellest fate of all.

He asked Calbrey the time, 12.07 a.m., fifty-three minutes left now, but it hardly mattered, there was nothing left to –

Briefcase
! As Calbrey checked his watch, Jac recognized it from Truelle reaching for it earlier ‘…
apart from what you’ve now got on tape, there’s something else that will
…’ Jac confirmed with Calbrey that it was Truelle’s briefcase.

‘Yes, I… I brought it with me because it’s got his papers – including his blood group on a donor card.’

But Calbrey became hesitant when Jac pressed that there was probably something in it he needed urgently, and Jac’s patience snapped. ‘
Look
! I don’t have the time to fucking argue with you – I’ve got a man’s life to save! You can sort it out with Truelle later whether or not you were meant to let me have it.’

Calbrey handed the briefcase over with a palms out, hey, I’m not the enemy.
It was me who fished you out the sea, for Christ’s sake
.

Jac opened the briefcase, saw the buff envelope addressed to Truelle at the Sancti Spiritus
apartado
– ripped it open with trembling hands.

Cassette tape, nothing else inside as Jac tipped the envelope up.
Anthony Redmort
written on one side of the tape, no other wording. Jac began to worry that it was nothing to do with Durrant, just another patient’s history.

Jac asked Carmita if there was a tape-recorder somewhere in the hospital, and within three minutes she’d got one from another floor.

As Jac pressed play, Truelle’s voice from twelve years ago – conditioning Durrant with all the details of the robbery and murder of Jessica Roche – echoed eerily along the corridors of the Sancti Spiritus hospital, Jac’s voice crashing in after the first few sentences as he punched the air: ‘Yes, yes…
oh, fucking yes
!’

Pain rocketed through his shoulder, even though he’d used his good arm, but he hardly cared at that moment. He dialled Candaret’s number straight away.

‘Governor Candaret… Jaa…Darrell Ayliss. Larry Durrant’s attorney. Earlier today, I received a full confession from Leonard Truelle, Larry Durrant’s psychiatrist of twelve years ago, that he falsely conditioned Durrant in regard to the murder of Jessica Roche. All of this a conspiracy led by Mr Roche with a certain Nelson Malley doing his bidding – who in fact was probably the real murderer. And now a tape which categorically supports this, which I think you’d want to hear…’ Jac played almost a full minute of the tape over the phone before bringing the receiver back to his ear. ‘I’ve got the entire tape right here, Governor, but I think that’s probably enough there to have given you the flavour.’

‘I don’t know, Mr Ayliss.’ Candaret sighed, Roche’s call still fresh in his mind. White House drifting out of reach. ‘You call me now at the eleventh hour with a completely fresh account of the murder, supported by some tape from years ago played to me over the phone. It’s not exactly conclusive.’

‘The tape I’ve got here,’ Jac’s voice strained, breath staccato with exasperation, ‘goes on for almost an hour – Truelle giving
every
possible detail of Jessica Roche’s murder for Durrant to repeat at his next session. You can’t get more conclusive than that.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Ayliss. But the problem I have with that is one of –’

‘Governor Candaret,’ Jac cut in, exhaling tiredly. ‘I don’t have the time now to fool around. And more to the point, nor does Larry Durrant.’ Jac’s patience was gone. Long gone from hit men, almost being drowned twice, police hunting him like a rabbit on a false murder rap. ‘If you don’t phone Libreville prison right away and stop Larry Durrant’s execution – then when I get back to New Orleans, I’m going to make sure to get on every TV and radio show I can and play this tape. And when I do, I’m going to make it clear,
crystal clear
, that I played this same tape to you now in front of two good witnesses –’ Jac nodded at his end, smiling tightly towards Carmita and Calbrey – ‘and you
still
let Durrant’s execution go ahead.’

Candaret’s sigh was heavier this time, almost a groan. It looked like the White House was sliding out of reach now either way, but it would do so a lot quicker dragged through the media over Durrant than by Roche meddling in the background. He clarified a few details about the set-up between Roche, Truelle and Malley, then asked: ‘And tell me, Mr Ayliss – did Mr Roche know earlier today that something on this front might be happening?’