large leather suitcase with the other, but found that he had to stop and change hands every few paces.
"I'd like to help you, Moncrieff," whispered Pascoe, "but if I did, I'd never hear the end of it."
Eventually they ended up back outside Danny's cell. Pascoe unlocked the door. "I'll return in about an hour to fetch you. I have to get some of the lads off to the Old Bailey before we can think about releasing you." The cell door slammed in Danny's face for the last time.
Danny took his time. He opened the suitcase and placed it on Big Al's bed. He wondered who would sleep in his bunk tonight; someone who would be appearing at the Old Bailey later that morning, hoping the jury would find him not guilty. He emptied the contents of the plastic bags onto the bed, feeling like a robber surveying his swag: two suits, three shirts, what the diary described as a pair of cavalry twills, along with a couple of pairs of brogues, one black, one brown. Danny selected the dark suit he'd worn at his own funeral, a cream shirt, a striped tie and a pair of smart black shoes that even after four years didn't require a polish.
Danny Cartwright stood in front of the mirror and stared at Sir Nicholas Moncrieff, officer and gentleman. He felt like a fraud.
He folded up his prison gear and placed it on the end of Nick's bed. He still thought of it as Nick's bed. Then he packed the rest of the clothes neatly in the suitcase before retrieving Nick's diary from under the bed, along with a file of correspondence marked "Fraser Munro"-twentyeight letters that Danny knew almost off by heart. Once he'd finished packing, all that remained were a few of Nick's personal belongings, which Danny had put on the table, and the photo of Beth taped to the wall. He carefully peeled off the sellotape before putting the photo in a side pocket of the suitcase, which he then snapped closed and placed by the cell door.
Danny sat back down at the table and looked at his friend's personal belongings. He strapped on Nick's slim Longines watch with 11.7.91 stamped on the back-a gift from his grandfather on his twenty-first birthday-then he slipped on a gold ring, which bore the Moncrieff family crest. He stared at a black leather wallet and felt even more like a thief. Inside it he found seventy pounds in cash and a Coutts checkbook with an address in The Strand printed on the cover. He put the wallet in an inside pocket, turned the plastic chair around to face the cell door, sat down and waited for Pascoe to reappear. He was ready to escape. As he sat there, he recalled one of Nick's favorite misquotes: In prison, time and tide wait for every man.
He reached inside his shirt and touched the small key that was hanging from the chain around his neck. He was no nearer to discovering what it unlocked-it unlocked the prison gate. He had searched through the diaries for the slightest clue, over a thousand pages, but had come up with nothing. If Nick had known, he had taken the secret to his grave.
Now a very different key was turning in the lock of his cell door. It opened to reveal Pascoe standing alone. Danny quite expected him to say, "Good try, Cartwright, but you didn't really expect to get away with it, did you?" But all he said was, "It's time to go, Moncrieff, look sharp about it."
Danny rose, picked up Nick's suitcase and walked out onto the landing. He didn't look back at the room that had been his home for the past two years. He followed Pascoe along the landing and down the spiral staircase. As he left the block he was greeted with cheers and jeers from those who were soon to be released and those who would never see the light of day again.
They continued down the blue corridor. He'd forgotten how many sets of double-barred gates there were between B block and reception, where Jenkins was seated behind his desk waiting for him.
"Good morning, Moncrieff," he announced cheerfully; he had one voice for those coming in, quite another for those who were leaving. He checked the open ledger in front of him. "I see that over the past four years you have saved two hundred and eleven pounds, and as you are also entitled to forty-five