Ascension Day

1

October, 2004. Libreville, Louisiana.

At first, Larry wasn’t sure why the sound had awoken him.

He’d become familiar with all the usual night-time sounds: the clunk of the cell doors and the rattle of keys whenever anyone had to be let in or out unexpectedly after last shut-down; the steady, ominous clump of boots along the steel walkways with the regular cell patrols every hour, punctuated by the impromptu sliding back of two or three inspection hatches along the line; the mumble of the guards at the end and the occasional peal of laughter; the jibes and taunts of new prisoners or regulars who’d suddenly fallen from grace; the gentle sobbing of some of those same new inmates that might take up to a week to finally abate; and the klaxon blare of the Amtrak from Baton Rouge to Jackson seven miles away across the Bayou plain, a siren call to the prisoners from the world outside, elusive freedom — only one of eight attempted break-outs over the past thirty years had got even that far, and they’d all been rounded up within the week between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Over the past eleven long years, these sounds had been Lawrence Tyler Durrant’s nightly companions. But this sound was different.

He could recognize the voices of two of the guards, but they were fighting not to be heard: little more than muted whispers along with the soft sliding back of the bolts on a cell door. Normally, their boot-steps would be heavy and purposeful, cell-door bolts would be slammed back like gunshots, whatever the time of night, and the prisoner’s name shouted out, as if by some miracle the clamour of the guards’ approach might not have awoken him along with everyone else on the cell-block row.

This time they didn’t want anyone to hear them.

Larry kept his breathing low and shallow, trying to pick out more. But suddenly his heart was drumming fast and strong, threatening to drown everything out. And when he finally tuned in beyond his own heartbeat, everything was still and silent, as if they somehow knew he was listening in. Then a sudden flurry of shuffling footsteps from five or six cells along.

‘What?… What the ffffmmm!’

Even from that muffled exclamation, before a hand was clamped across to completely strangle it, Larry clearly recognized the clipped Latino intonation: Rodriguez. ‘Roddy’, who’d managed to make him smile and laugh on even the darkest of days; a rare spark of light and life in this pit of gloom he’d called home for over a decade, and one of the closest friends he’d ever had, inside or out. He couldn’t just close his mind and shut his eyes, as he had to so much over the years.

Maybe he could have turned away if he thought they were just going to give Roddy a beating, but he’d seen that look fired across the canteen earlier by Tally Shavell. It was only a fleeting stare, but in Libreville that was often all you got as warning. The last two on the end of that same look from Tally had both been killed; one with a shiv through the neck in the showers, the other garrotted with a guitar string. There was no reason to believe that with Roddy it would be any different, especially after the beating Tally had given him five months back. Tally didn’t issue second warnings.

Larry looked towards his cell’s makeshift altar with its array of photos for inspiration: his mother who’d died after a stroke on year five of his sentence, ten months after his appeal failed; his father who’d died when he was only fourteen, mercifully before he’d started to slip into bad ways; his wife, Francine, who hadn’t visited him for the first five years and after that only infrequently, depending on her current-partner-situation, though they still hadn’t divorced yet; his son, Joshua, now twelve, who, except for some recent e-mail contact, he’d seen at most half-a-dozen times over the years — occasional birthdays and at Christmas-time. The only one not represented from his family was his elder sister, who’d disowned him the day of his incarceration, told his mother — as if she didn’t already have enough heartbreak that day — that as far as she was concerned ‘he no longer exists’.

But swamping his family photos were religious prints: Dali’s Christ on the Cross, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Caravaggio’s St Francis, Raphael’s Madonna and Child.

When word had first got around that Larry had found religion, one of the other inmates, Sal Peretti, had his aunt, who still lived in her native Umbria, send a collection of prints and cards, eleven in all, from the gift shop at Perugia Cathedral, to complete the array on his makeshift altar.

Upon sight of the finished display, given a misty, eerie glow from fifteen interspersed candles, Roddy had commented simply, ‘Christ!’

‘Exactly.’ Larry smiled back drolly.

Now Larry wasn’t looking just at the altar for inspiration, but beyond — his eyes boring through to the hole they’d dug in the wall behind, along the ventilation shaft, then the twists and dog-legs through three hundred yards of ducting barely enough to squeeze through and two more walls before arriving at the vents by the boiler room; then the final sixty-foot waste-pipe slide to the Achalaya river. The passage that the five of them — himself, Roddy, BC, Sal Peretti and Theo Mellor — knew every inch of, had consumed every spare minute they could steal away over the past ten months.

That’s where they’d be taking Roddy, for sure: the boiler room deep in the prison’s bowels, where the clank and hiss of the boilers and pipes and two-foot thick walls would prevent even the loudest screams reaching the cells above.

Larry also knew that if he used their escape passage to get to the boiler room, it would be uncovered, their last hope gone and four of them condemned to die. Those were the odds at Libreville: twenty per cent reprieved, pardoned or commuted to life imprisonment, eighty per cent executed.

That was the choice right there: Roddy’s life saved for four others lost, including his own. And with two or three of them now with Roddy, what chance did he have in any case of being able to save him? Another muted mumble from Roddy, fading quickly with the rapid shuffle of footsteps along the outside walkway, gave him a sharp prompt. He had to decide quickly.

But Larry Durrant stayed staring at his makeshift altar, frozen with indecision. Just when he needed guidance the most, there was nothing.

‘That’s the original trial preparation file. That’s the trial transcript and notes. Appeal preparation…. and appeal transcript and notes.’ John Langfranc piled each file on the desk before him, some of them four inches thick, with an appropriate pause. ‘Finally, any case notes since.’ The last file was thinnest of all. ‘Though to be honest, not much has happened over the last seven years. Lawrence Durrant has been all but forgotten. Until now.’

‘Now that they’re about to kill him,’ Jac said, though his disdain could equally have been aimed at the mountain of paperwork he’d have to plough through over the coming days.

Langfranc raised an eyebrow and smiled smugly. ‘First thing to get clear, Jac, is that the State of Louisiana never kills anyone. They execute, process, fulfil sentencing, lethally inject, expedite and terminate… but they never kill. If you’re going to use a word like kill, you’ll have to get used to putting legally in front. Presumably, that one word differentiates the State’s actions from those of the people they’re killing. Sorry, processing.’

‘Why me?’ Jac asked.

Fair question, thought Langfranc. He shrugged. ‘Time for you to prove yourself, I guess.’ No point in embellishing beyond that, trying to kid Jac that this might be a landmark glory case. They knew each other too well for that now, and with Jac only passing his criminal law bar exams ten months ago, he’d be aware that he was a long way from being handed the firm’s prize cases. ‘You and I both know that if there was a good angle left in all of this,’ Langfranc waved one hand across the files, ‘Beaton would have taken it himself.’

Clive Beaton, senior criminal trial lawyer at Payne, Beaton and Sawyer, New Orlean’s second largest law firm, at which Langfranc was a junior partner. Strange title, ‘junior’, for someone fifty-two years old, Jac had always thought. In a way it further underlined Langfranc’s frustration that he should have been made a senior partner earlier. Perhaps one reason why the two of them had bonded so well, the feeling that the firm’s main head-pats and accolades had gone to others, often less deserving. Though in Jac’s case that was mainly because he’d spent his first years wallowing in corporate and tax law before he’d turned to criminal law. The easy route after his initial years of practice in France; commercial law in Louisiana followed the French Napoleonic code, criminal law didn’t.

Langfranc looked up as the clatter from the general office drifted in.

‘I’ve re-scheduled Donneley for three-fifteen,’ Penny Vance, his PA who Jac also shared as a secretary, said through the half-open door. ‘That will give you a clear hour at Liberty street. Oh, and Jem Payne has called for an update briefing on Borkowski before you head out this afternoon, so you might have to cut lunch short to make the time.’

The information brought a faint slouch, an extra ruffle to Langfranc’s appearance. He always wore the best Versace or Missoni suits with slip-on Italian loafers to match, but with his wild, wavy greying hair, to Jac he still looked somehow unkempt; as if there’d been a strong breeze on his way into work, then the rush of the day simply kept him that way.

‘Thanks.’ Langfranc sighed as the door closed; only ten minutes into the day and already everything was at full tilt. He brought his attention back to Jac and Durrant’s files. ‘It’s a no-goer from the outset. Full confession. Every possible angle exhausted at the appeal. No new evidence since. Your only hope is to try and get our good — or bad — Lawrence Durrant pardoned. Throw all on the mercy of our good — or bad — Governor. The illustrious Piers Candaret. And to a lesser extent, the Board of Pardons.’

Jac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Candaret holds the whip hand?’

‘Without a doubt. He nominates the Board to begin with, and while they’re meant to sift through and review everything on his behalf — when it comes to big cases, he likes to have a hands-on, first look-see. And while he’s also meant to accept their recommendations, in many cases he’s gone his own way. So, you’ll file simultaneously with both of them — but the buck stops with Candaret.’

‘And that’s all there’s left to do — prepare a simple plea letter?’

‘Well, there’s a tad more to it than that. You’re going to have to plough through most of this to get the tone right for the letter. Hit the right notes. Durrant’s apparently very religious. Candaret is too, or at least he pushes Christian and family values at every photo opportunity. And by all claims, Durrant has been a model prisoner. Kept his nose clean. So those are probably good start points. We’re talking about quite a long, considered clemency plea. Six or seven pages, maybe more — plus any relevant file attachments. It might only take a day to prepare the letter, but you could spend a good week in preparation.’ As Langfranc fought to boost the case’s merits, Jac’s quizzical eyebrow merely arched higher. ‘For God’s sake, Jac, this is a big case. For Louisiana murder cases, they don’t come bigger. So don’t make light of it. And whatever might or might not be involved, also don’t lose sight of what’s at stake here. Good or bad or rotten to hell’s core — a man’s life.’

‘I know. I know.’ Jac held up one hand in submission and bowed his head slightly. When Langfranc had first told him he’d be getting the case, he was excited: murder of the wife of Adelay Roche, one of Louisiana’s wealthiest industrialists, the case had occupied more newspaper column inches than any other Louisiana case since the Garrison-JFK investigation. He’d immediately dived into the library on St Charles Street to leaf through clippings. But most of the attention had been at the time of the trial and the appeal. For the past seven years the newspapers, and the world outside, had forgotten about Lawrence Tyler Durrant; though now no doubt there’d be a renewed flurry of media activity. ‘I suppose I’m just disappointed to know that all the main angles have gone, all avenues for appeal already exhausted. All I’m left with is sweeping up the dust of the case.’

‘The only shot at appeal was centred around Durrant’s accident and his resultant memory lapses at the time. And all hopes on that front died seven years ago.’ Langfranc shrugged. ‘And as I said, if there were any angles left, Beaton would have taken the case himself. But it’s still a big case, Jac. The biggest. Life or death for Larry Durrant and every local TV network and newspaper, and some beyond, covering which way it’s going to swing. You might not be Beaton’s golden boy, but the fact that he’s even given you a high profile case like this — even if all that’s left is a clemency plea — means that he’s noticed you. You exist.’

‘Therefore I am.’

Langfranc smiled back thinly. Jac McElroy had set his cap on criminal law with a determination that probably was largely lost on old man Beaton. At thirty-one, with six years practice under his belt, he could have just kept coasting along with corporate law, raking in the big bucks. Taken the easy route. But, no, he’d wanted to do criminal law, so that meant going back to square one and taking a fresh set of bar exams alongside a bunch of fresh-faced graduates while still juggling the remainder of his corporate caseload. So that meant he was either crazy, or it was a real vocation. From Jac’s first ten months of criminal case-handling, Langfranc hadn’t yet made his mind up which.

Jac was thoughtful for a second. ‘What’s Candaret’s track record on pardons and reprieves?’

‘Pardons are rare, and will no doubt now be doubly difficult since the last but one guy pardoned, Aaron Harvey — also African-American, as it happens — killed again just six months back. With commuted to life there’s far more chance, I think running somewhere between one in five or six. But that could be one of the first things to check — along with case histories. Get a feel for what might hit the right note with Candaret.’

‘So, slim chances — but not impossible.’

Langfranc held one palm out. ‘Better than that buffoon in Texas. Like his predecessor, he sends everyone for the chop. No exceptions. Thinks that’s what the public wants, might make him potential White House material. And Florida’s not much better. At least with Candaret there’s some chance.’

Jac studied the files a second longer, then laid one hand firmly on top of them, exhaling wearily. ‘Don’t worry. Slim hopes or not, I’ll give it my best shot. I won’t let Larry Durrant down.’

But belying the brooding look that Jac gave the files, Langfranc caught a fleeting gleam in his eyes — challenge, defiance — that sounded a faint alarm bell. In Jac McElroy’s first year with the firm, Langfranc had often found him sullen and contemplative, which as they’d got to know each other he’d learnt was due to the recent death of Jac’s father — a Scotsman who twenty-odd years ago had taken his family to France to pursue his dream of running an artists’ retreat. But Langfranc had also discovered that nothing lifted Jac out of that slump like a good challenge. Of only eleven criminal cases that Jac had so far handled solo — the most serious a grand-theft auto and representing a colourful local forger, Morvaun Jaspar — he’d turned four of them into major productions. ‘And no grandstanding and glory-searching on this one. No screaming the client’s innocence against impossible odds. That’s not what Beaton wants, nor what the case calls for.’

‘Rest easy, I’ll be a good boy.’ Jac stood up and hoisted the files under one arm, firing Langfranc a strained smile as he took on the extra weight. ‘I’ll do what I’m told and just sweep up the dust.’

Just a look.

There’d been a few derisory looks from Tally to Roddy during the first couple of years, but nothing too intense or worrying. Just a sly, conciliatory smile and shrug, ‘Funny guy,’ as the other inmates guffawed and belly-laughed at Roddy’s latest quip.

None of the comments were aimed at Tally, and on occasion when the target was someone he didn’t like, he’d join in laughing with everyone else. But gradually resentment grew in Tally at Roddy’s constant flow of jokes and jibes, as if, as Roddy’s popularity grew as a result, Tally felt that his power base was being threatened; or simply because humour undermined the mood of menace and fear which helped Tally operate more effectively.

But that was exactly why everyone loved Roddy: a rare, bright light in the stifling gloom, he lifted everyone’s spirits, made them forget, even if for only part of the day, where they were. For Larry in particular, Roddy had been a godsend, a lifeline, arriving at Libreville only five months after Larry’s mother died and his spirits were at their lowest.

Just a look. The first came when Roddy compared the grunts, snorts and hisses coming from the men in the muscle-yard to the pigs at feeding time in Libreville’s farm compound. Tally overheard, and took it as an insult of the muscle-yard men in general, and of him, as their leader, in particular. He warned Roddy that if he was loose with his mouth again, he’d be taught a lesson.

The second came when Peretti complained that his library duties weren’t giving him enough time either for farm duty or general exercise. He was finding it hard to keep in shape.

‘Don’ worry,’ Roddy assured. ‘You got the best end of the deal. Some of those guys on farm duty are worked till they drop. And as for the yard guys, they might be developin’ their pecs and abs — but not much up here.’ Roddy tapped his forehead. ‘The only time they use a fuckin’ tome is as a doorstop or to rest barbells either side o’ their head.’

Roddy had made sure this time that Tally was out of earshot, but one of the other yard-men overheard, and duly reported.

Tally beat Roddy to within an inch of his life, using two of his favourite books: Murder Machine and Hollywood Hulk Hogan.

‘So, we never read tomes, huh?’ he taunted, misquoting selected lines from the books with each blow: “I don’ min’ killing people, I just don’ like takin’ ‘em to pieces…” “But right there, that’s my damn place and nobody can fuck wit’ me…” ’ The irony lost on Tally that if not his choice of reading, then certainly his quotes, simply supported the claims of illiteracy.

The books were heavier in weight than content or merit, cracking two of Roddy’s ribs, bruising his shoulders and chest to the point of bleeding in three places, and breaking his nose and two finger joints where he’d put one arm up to protect himself. Tally warned that if it happened again, he’d be taken out.

That final look, just two days ago, had come when Arneck, BC, Peretti and Roddy had been discussing what had originally landed Tally in Libreville.

‘Some scam involving computer clocks adjusting for Y2K, by all accounts,’ Arneck offered. ‘During the overnight downtime to make the switch, the interest on a score of bank and insurance accounts was routed to an outside account.’

‘Not exactly what you’d expect from Tally,’ Peretti said. ‘White collar crime like that.’

BC huffed. ‘ ‘Cept that’s not what landed him here. ‘Sfor cutting his partner’s throat, when he tried to stiff Tally outta part o’ the fuckin’ take.’

‘So, more like red collar crime,’ Roddy quipped.

Everyone laughed, except Peretti, who was still slightly lost in thought and managed only a meek smile. Peretti shook his head.

‘Still, not the sort of crime you’d expect Tally to get tied up with in the first place — Y2K scam like that.’

Roddy nodded, smiling drolly. ‘Yeah, daresay the closest he’s ever come to that is askin’ Lay-lo whether he wants some KY too?’

The laughs were louder this time, and Peretti joined in as well. Lay-lo was the name given to Maurice Lavine, a soft, doe-eyed Creole African-Mexican drag-review dancer, who, when made up and wearing the right wig, could give J-Lo a run for her money. Lay-lo had earned a life sentence for poisoning a rival dancer who’d started to steal the limelight, and Tally quickly corralled him as his exclusive love interest.

But it was a touchy subject for Tally — never openly admitted. And for all of their liaisons, Tally had Lay-lo dress up in full regalia — J-Lo, Halle Berry, Beyonce, a different fantasy every time — so that Tally could hide away from the fact that he was having a gay relationship. Not good for his tough guy image. And so Tally also liked to kid himself that it was a closely-guarded secret, even though most of the prison knew yet never dared openly talk about it.

Because of the nature of the conversation, they’d made sure that Tally or any of his goons weren’t around — but then Tally walked into the canteen just as Roddy delivered his killer punchline. The guffaws and belly-laughs died as quickly as they’d started under Tally’s stony stare.

Just a look, but in that moment everyone present knew that Roddy’s days, more than anyone else on Libreville’s death row, were numbered.

Larry regretted the decision as soon as he was a few yards into the ventilation shaft. It was pitch black. Peretti always came armed with the penlight for their digging sessions, from his shared library duty with Larry; with his poor eyesight, he used it for highlighting fine text or picking out titles in the darker corners of the library.

But even if Larry had the penlight now, he wasn’t sure he would use it. They never dug at night, and the faint light might be picked out shining through where there were corridor grills. Though the main reason they never dug at night, even if they could dummy up their beds and sidestep lock-up, was due to the noise; the hectic hubbub and clatter of daytime prison activity drowned out their digging and scratching.

Now it was deathly silent, and Larry was aware that his slightest movements seemed to bounce and echo along the steel shaft and sail free into the prison.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as he crawled forward another couple of feet. Anyone close to the shaft could surely hear him. They’d done this journey so many times now that he could picture practically every inch of the prison below him as he went. For another five or six yards, the shaft ran along the back of the cells in his row. Then it crossed a corridor, ran along its side for another eight yards, and dog-logged to run along the back of the cells in J-block.

Careful, eeeassy does it, he told himself as he crawled the first stretch at the back of the cells; though maybe if one of the other inmates did hear him, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and unable to sleep, as he’d done for much of his first year, they wouldn’t give him away. Go on, man. Make it! Make it to freedom! Show some hope for all of us.

He was doubly careful crossing the stretch running by the corridor, edging forward a few inches at a time. The slightest sound reaching the guards on duty, the alarm would be raised in a heartbeat.

Heartbeat. Pounding rapidly, deafeningly, so that he could hardly tell if his movement was making any noise or not. Unconsciously, he’d been holding his breath, and as he came to the final yard of the corridor stretch, he started to ease it loose — then suddenly sucked it sharply back up again. And froze.

Footsteps. Boots on steel. Shuffling to a stop almost directly beneath him. Larry wondered if they’d heard him, were at that moment looking up, appraising. Trying to pinpoint exactly where they’d heard sounds coming from.

His chest ached with the effort of keeping his breath held, his heartbeat rapid as if it wanted to burst through. So loud that surely that alone could be heard by the guard below. Larry stayed deathly still.

Another set of footsteps, the muffled sound of voices. Oh Jesus. All he needed. They could be there half the night talking about the latest Saints game and sorting out the world.

Tally wouldn’t waste time; Roddy’s throat would be slit within the first minutes of reaching the boiler room.

The seconds dragged in time with the heavy pounding of his heart. Indecision now freezing his mind along with his body, afraid to move, breath held, for what seemed a lifetime — though was probably no more than ninety seconds — before the footsteps finally started moving away, the voices receding.

Larry scrambled hurriedly on, letting out his breath in a burst as soon as he was a couple of yards into the turn behind the cells and felt he was out of earshot of the guards.

Just what was awaiting him in the boiler room dawned on him. Tally wouldn’t do something like this without back-up, never did. Two men, maybe three. Then the couple of guards who’d helped get Roddy out of his cell.

Larry had been good in his day, one of the best, but even then taking out four or five at once would have been a tall order. And unlike Tally and his crew, he didn’t spend every day in the muscle yard training up. The hopelessness of what he was attempting weighed heavy on him, telling in the ache in his limbs as he dragged himself through the narrow shaft.

As he came to the junction with the main shaft rising up from the boiler room, the warm air wafting through intensified. He scrambled forward faster, more desperately, not sure whether it was to get away from the intense heat or to ensure that he got to Roddy in time. He’d given up caring whether he was making a noise or not, the thud of his elbows and knees against steel a repetitive, penetrating echo.

He stopped abruptly as he came to the grill by the upper part of the boiler room, hurriedly unscrewed its bolts, and yanked it aside. Still on his hands and knees he kept still, his breathing shallow, taking stock. No sounds or voices that he could pick out.

Though something else reached him in that moment that made him have doubts again: the soft lap and sway of the Achalaya river echoing up through the waste pipe a yard to his side, beckoning, taunting. Elusive freedom. Yet suddenly so tangible, real, that he felt he could reach out and touch it.

Probably his last and only chance. He’d long ago decided that he couldn’t face another day inside, so a commute to life imprisonment held nothing for him. And his chances of a complete reprieve were practically nil — so his only real hope of freedom lay in what he could hear now with the gentle lapping of the Achalaya river. Make the break and find out what was happening with Joshua, hold him in your arms again… stay back and save Roddy… make the break…

Or head back to his cell and they all make the break together in three weeks when the tide would be right, as they’d all originally planned. He wasn’t going to be able to save Roddy in any case. One against four or five, he didn’t stand a chance. Maybe he should…

His thoughts were broken. He could hear voices from the far end of the boiler room.