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that ground themselves into his flesh and organs ferociously.
    He surfaced twenty-four hours later, weak and curiously light-headed, but free from pain. The room was in half-darkness, the only light a small lamp which stood on the bedside locker. One of the screws from the prison, an ex-Welsh Guardsman called Jones, nodded on a chair against the wall as per regulations.
    Doyle moistened cracked lips and tried to whistle, but at that moment the door opened and a staff nurse entered, a towel over her arm. She was West Indian, dark and supple. To Doyle after two and a half years on the wrong side of the wall, the Queen of Sheba herself couldn’t have looked more desirable.
    As she moved across to the bed, he closed his eyes quickly. He was aware of her closeness, warm and perfumed with lilac, the rustle of her skirt as she turned and tip-toed across to Jones. Doyle watched her from beneath lowered eyelids as the Welshman came awake with a start.
    “Here, what’s going on?” he said in some alarm. “Is the Gunner all right?”
    She put out a hand to restrain him. “He’s still asleep. Would you like to go down to the canteen?”
    “Well, I shouldn’t really you know,” Jones told her in his high Welsh voice.
    “You’ll be all right, I’ll stay,” she said. “Nothing can possibly happen—he’s still asleep. After what he’s been through he must be as weak as a kitten.”
    “All right then,” Jones whispered. “A cup of tea and a smoke. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
    As they moved to the door she said, “Tell me, why do you call him the Gunner?”
    Jones chuckled. “Well, that’s what he was you see. A gunner in the Royal Artillery. Then when he came out and went into the ring, that’s what they called him. Gunner Doyle.”
    “He was a prizefighter?”
    “One of the best middleweights in the game.” Jones was unable to keep the enthusiasm from his voice for like most Welshmen he was a fanatic where boxing was concerned. “North of England champion. Might have been a contender if he could have left the skirts alone.”
    “What was his crime?” she whispered, curiosity in her voice.
    “Now there he did really manage to scale the heights as you might say.” Jones chuckled at his own wit. “He was a cat burglar—one of the best in the game and it’s a dying art, believe me. Climb anything he could.”
    The door closed behind him and the staff nurse turned and looked across at the Gunner. He lowered his eyelids softly as she came across to the bed. He was acutely aware of her closeness, the perfume filled his nostrils, lilac, heavy and clinging, fresh after rain, his favourite flower. The stiff uniform dress rustled as she leaned across him to put the towel on the table on the other side.
    The Gunner opened his eyes and took in everything. The softly rounded curves, the dress riding up her thighs as she leaned across, the black stockings shining in the lamplight. With a sudden fierce chuckle he cupped his right hand around her left leg and slid it up inside her skirt to the band of warm flesh at the top of her stocking.
    “By God, that’s grand,” he said.
    Her eyes were very round as she turned to look at him. For a frozen moment she stared into his face, then jumped backwards with a little cry. She stared at him in astonishment and the Gunner grinned.
    “I once shared a cell at the Ville with a bloke who did that to a big blonde who was standing in front of him in a bus queue one day. Just for a laugh. They gave him a year in the nick. Makes you wonder what the country’s coming to.”
    She turned without a word and rushed out, the door bouncing back against the wall before closing. It occurred to the Gunner almost at once that she wasn’t coming back. Add that to the fact that Jones would be at least fifteen minutes in the canteen and it left a situation that was full of possibilities.
    It also occurred to him that with full remission he had only another ten months of his sentence to