Adam didn’t tell anyone else about the clandestine meeting he had witnessed on the perimeter wall. He supposed that he could have gone to Major X, in the hope that telling him would help to clear his own name, but there was no guarantee that the Tally-Hoer would believe him. And anyway, with the memory of Corbett’s knife pressed against his throat still fresh in his mind, Adam didn’t particularly feel like cooperating with the Major.

But why he didn’t tell Doughnut, or Mouthwash, or Paintpot was another matter entirely. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, the matter of the rat had become personal for Adam – the same kind of feeling that had driven him to try and find out more about Luca D’Annunzio. In the crammed dormitories and bustling corridors of the Dial, where there was never any space or privacy, there was something life-affirming about a secret, about owning something you didn’t have to share.

As the summer progressed, the preparations for the upcoming show intensified. Everyone seemed to have a role, whether it was acting or singing, sticking up posters advertising the performance, or making streamers with which to festoon the hall. A newcomer to the prison might have been surprised by the feverish anticipation, but Adam had been inside long enough to appreciate how an event like this – something different to the everyday routine – raised morale. Every afternoon, strangled strains of music emerged from above the classrooms, as insistent as they were out of tune. Whenever possible, they were timed to coincide with one of Echo’s broadcasts, drowning out his sneering pronouncements – much to the amusement of the other inmates. Following his latest run-in with the Tally-Ho, Adam didn’t watch the rehearsals again, but that didn’t stop him from glancing up to the theatre windows from time to time, wondering what sort of perilous activity was being cloaked behind the racket.

There were only two weeks to go before the show when the prisoners were summoned to a special roll call in the exercise yard. Mr Cooper stepped forward, a broad smile on his face as he declared:

“I am pleased to announce that repairs on the Quisling have finally been completed! This afternoon will see its first voyage since the accident, and all prisoners and guards are invited to the Docking Port to wave it off.”

His announcement garnered a mixed reaction: some clapped and cheered, relieved that the airship could finally go back to Earth for desperately needed supplies; others folded their arms and said nothing, aware that the Quisling would not return with food alone. There would be more prisoners; more misery; the walkway would continue to revolve around the Dial.

Doughnut tried hard to disguise his glee, but Adam knew that the fixer needed the Quisling functioning more than anyone.

“I bet you’ll be going to wave it off this afternoon, won’t you?” he teased at lunch, in between mouthfuls of cold stew. “Make sure you take a hankie.”

“I bet everyone will be going this afternoon,” countered Doughnut. “I know Mr Cooper said we’re ‘invited’, but you just try not going. You’ll be off to the punishment cells before you know it – prisoner or guard.”

Sure enough, when the sirens sounded later that afternoon, the inmates trooped across to Wing I as one, sweat dripping down their backs as they congregated in the oven-baked air. They were herded through the docking area into a cordoned-off section of the landing strip, the Quisling rearing up above their heads like a black, leathery beast. Men in overalls scurried around the airship’s gondola, checking the guide ropes and making last-minute adjustments to the engines before take-off.

Back in Adam’s dormitory, the sound of a single dripping tap echoed around the room. The only movement was a ripple of notepad pages in the breeze stealing in through the window.

Then Adam rolled out from beneath his bunk bed.

He knew that what he was doing was crazy. But if Doughnut was right, and everyone in the prison would be down on the landing strip, then the guards’ quarters would be empty. Which presented Adam with the perfect opportunity to find the copy of Luca’s missing record.

He hared out of the dormitory and along the empty corridor, then down the backstairs to the cellar housing Doughnut’s secret tunnel. Earlier in the afternoon, he had taken the precaution of removing the correct key from the fixer’s bedside table as he dozed; now he slipped it into the lock and opened the door. The cellar was as dank and forbidding as ever, and the rotting wooden chest covering the hole was difficult to shift alone. But Adam’s mind was made up – there was no time for second thoughts. He reckoned he had an hour at most before the Quisling went through the warphole and the prisoners returned to their quarters. Heaving the chest to one side, he squeezed through the gap into the tunnel, aware of the ceiling closing in around his head once more. Adam crawled onwards, past the small fissure overlooking the chasm, following the curve of the walls. It felt as though he was moving much more quickly than he had the time he’d accompanied Doughnut, and it wasn’t long before he reached the smooth flagstone ceiling that heralded his arrival beneath the guards’ quarters.

Taking a deep breath, Adam reached up and pushed the loose flagstone to one side, then pulled himself out of the tunnel and into the pantry. The air was cold and still. Ignoring the lure of the crates of food, Adam hurried up the stairs and inched open the pantry door into the guards’ quarters. The corridor was empty, silence ebbing from the surrounding rooms. Doughnut had been right – the guards had also been ordered from their rooms to watch the Quisling’s return flight.

Thankfully, none of the doors were locked. Adam supposed the guards had no reason to worry about anyone breaking into their building. Fighting the urge to fill his pockets with valuables and scrawl graffiti on the walls, he worked his way up from the ground floor, past the games room and the kitchen and the bedrooms on the second floor. On the third floor, he stopped outside a door with the words “Records Office” painted in black lettering on the pane of glass.

Adam hurried inside the sun-dappled room, grateful that the windows didn’t look out on to any of the watchtowers on the perimeter wall. The walls were lined with metal filing cabinets filled with bulging reports on current inmates – and, in their own cabinet, the notorious denizens of the Codex Treacherous. Thankfully, the records were listed alphabetically. Adam quickly located Luca D’Annunzio’s file and pulled it out. He began to read:

 

D’ANNUNZIO, LUCA

EARTH CRIME:		Stealing money from his mother, and then blaming it on his brother.
VERDICT:		Guilty of high treason
SENTENCE:		436 years

 

PRISONER NOTES:

– A popular inmate, D’Annunzio quickly rose to second-in-command of the Tally-Ho Escape Committee, sharing the position with the prisoner known as Caiman.

 

– Unbeknownst to the Dial’s authorities, D’Annunzio and Caiman spent 150 years digging a tunnel to the Docking Port. They planned to wait until the Quisling was timed to leave during a Bucketball game, taking advantage of the lax security to crawl through the tunnel to Wing I.

 

– However, minutes before the Quisling was to depart, the escapees’ tunnel was discovered by guard Hector Pitt, whose pursuit inadvertently caused a cave-in. Caiman was pulled free from the tunnel’s debris, but D’Annunzio was nowhere to be seen. It transpired that he had sent Mr Pitt a letter that morning giving details of the escape. The only sensible conclusion is that D’Annunzio made his way through the tunnel to Wing I early and stored himself aboard the Quisling, which took off before the authorities could stop it.

 

– A thorough search of the aircraft on its return to the Dial revealed no trace of the inmate, and D’Annunzio has never been seen again.

 

– Inmate Caiman was sentenced to six months in solitary as punishment for his role in the plot. A harsh sentence was considered necessary in light of his co-conspirator’s escape.

 

– Though the prisoner’s successful escape should have damaged the Dial’s reputation, D’Annunzio’s betrayal of Caiman has made him a hate figure amongst other inmates. Now reviled as a “collaborator”, D’Annunzio’s actions have – if anything – worked to the regime’s advantage.

 

– After a thorough investigation, Chief Warden Frederick Cooper concluded that Hector Pitt had not colluded with D’Annunzio and aided his betrayal. Exonerated, Mr Pitt was promoted to Assistant Chief Warder on account of his bravery and forthright action.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

– D’Annunzio’s brother Nino is also imprisoned on the Dial – for stealing money from their father and blaming it on his brother. Although they were transported to the Dial on the same voyage, the two brothers share a mutual loathing and have never acknowledged their relationship. Nino is not considered to pose any sort of similar threat of escape.

 

Adam’s brain was struggling to take it all in. So that was why Luca was hated – he had betrayed his friend to escape. No wonder Caiman was so bitter. But it still didn’t explain why the Codex in the library had been damaged – unless it wasn’t anything to do with Luca’s escape at all, but the mention of his brother. Had Adam stumbled across a trail Nino D’Annunzio had been laying? Was it Nino who had written the recipe for “Volcano Chilli”?

Adam was replacing the report in the cabinet when a noise from the corridor made him freeze.

Footsteps.