Jail Bird (16 page)

Just after the builder left, saying that the plasterer would be in within a week to skim the wall, Jack phoned. She picked it up in the kitchen.

‘Money’s running out,’ he said.

‘I’ll see you right,’ said Lily. Money–thankfully–was the least of her problems.

‘I know you will. You okay now?’

‘Yeah. Fine. All things considered.’ Lily still felt embarrassed that she’d weakened in front of Jack. ‘You?’

‘So-so. Monica’s still giving me earache; nothing new there.’ She could hear a smile in his voice.

‘You ought to get back with her,’ said Lily. ‘If you still love her. Which I think you do.’

‘Maybe. You could be right. But only after we’ve wrapped this case up.’

‘Wasn’t that the trouble in the first place? You working too hard?’

‘Hey, what do you want? Me romancing Monica, or helping you?’

‘Helping me,’ she sighed.

‘That’s all I needed to hear. Because I’ve got another one,’ he said. ‘Another one of Leo’s women.’

Lily sat down. ‘Right,’ she said.

‘Listen, I’ve been thinking this is maybe not such a good idea, you talking to these women on your own, or with me. Maybe I should talk to them first, what do you think?’

After I nearly took Reba Stuart’s head off,
thought Lily, filling in the blanks.

‘Whether it’s a good idea or not, I’m doing it,’ said Lily, although she wanted to end this; she felt weary and worried the whole time, and the strong feeling of distaste–even sickness–she felt as each new flaw in Leo’s character was revealed, was draining her of strength.

‘I talked to Alice Blunt’s relatives,’ she said.

‘Okay. And?’

‘And Alice was anorexic, needy and mentally weak. To Leo it might have been a fling, a bit of light relief, but for her it was serious. Probably she clung on too hard and he said, whoa, what is this? It broke her when he dumped her, Jack. Broke her in two.’

Jack was silent.

‘You think the government’s putting out the loot for the clinic?’ asked Lily. ‘Only it’s nice. Good furnishings, nice grounds, even a lake. I just wonder.’

‘I can try and find out.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘Sure.’

‘This other one…’

‘Oh. Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘This one’s a bit closer to home, Lily. Might cause trouble.’

‘What, more than I’ve had already?’ Lily was almost smiling at that. Was he
serious?

Leo’d had Reba Stuart, and dull Matt the accountant’s wife Adrienne, and he’d had poor deluded little Alice Blunt who’d worked in one of his offices back in the day.
Now
what?

‘What is it, some girl who worked in the club?’

‘It’s worse than that. You’d better brace yourself.’

‘Oh yeah?’ She was thinking that he was just building up his part, getting ready to stiff her with an ever-bigger bill.

‘Yeah. We’re talking shitting on your own doorstep here.
Not
very clever.’

Now Lily wasn’t smiling. She straightened and clutched harder at the phone. ‘Who is it?’

‘You know Julia, Leo’s cousin?’

‘Yeah, I know her. Of course I do.’ Leo had a large extended family, all fairly close-knit. Unlike her own. All she had left–apart from Oli and Saz–was her mother. She thought again that she ought to call the old bat. But really, she admitted to herself, it was the last thing she wanted to do. She had liked Leo’s big family when they’d first got married. Felt she was getting not just a man, but a whole clan too. Then, when it all hit the fan about Leo’s death, there had been a whole raft of drawbacks. You crossed one, you crossed them all. You killed one, they wanted you dead too.

‘Well–it’s her. It’s Julia.’

Julia was the beauty of the family, with long, thick, ash-blonde hair, a terrific figure, stunning blue eyes. She was like Nicole Kidman’s twin, Lily had always thought, whenever they had spotted her at family weddings, christenings,
birthday parties. Julia was so arrestingly beautiful that people stared in the street. Her parents had fawned on her too much, and as a result her petulance and vanity were legendary.

Julia was strictly high maintenance, but then most of the women in their group were. These men–bad men, hard men, the sort of men who were used to running the show and pulling no punches–expected high maintenance from their women. Keeping a woman in an expensive manner was all part of the game, giving them extra kudos with their mates. If your wife or mistress was driving around in a Beamer and flaunting her designer labels, then you obviously had the biggest balls in Essex and your pals would pat you on the back and say, you old dog, good going. And what’s she like in the sack?

Lily had always found Julia to be tediously self-absorbed and thin on brain matter. She was like a great painting–fabulous to look at, but no better at conversation than a block of wood. A pretty
thick
block of wood, at that.

But men weren’t interested in conversation when it came to mistress material. Shit, they could get that from their mates. With women it was the looks that counted, and Julia had those in spades.

The last Lily had known, Julia had married Nick O’Rourke. Nick had been a bit of a playboy in the years after Lily, so when he settled suddenly for Julia, their whole social circle had been in a state of shock. Were they still married? Lily didn’t know and she didn’t want to think about it. She’d felt hurt when Nick married Julia, and the hurt had surprised her; she’d believed–all right, she had
forced
herself to believe–that the feelings she’d had for him were dead and gone.

So Leo had been boffing Nick’s wife. And if that wasn’t a motive to blow his brains out, what was? Nick had been
sidelined by Leo over Lily. And now over Julia, too? How would any man take that, coming from a friend?

‘I’ve got to think about this,’ said Lily, feeling bewildered.

‘Yeah, well, take all the time you want,’ said Jack with a sigh. ‘So long as the payroll’s sweet, and you’re comfortable to continue with this, I’m in.’

And he hung up. At the same moment, the buzzer beside the sink started ringing off the wall. Someone was at the main gate. Lily stood up and walked towards it, her pulses picking up speed. It could be anyone. Si. Freddy. That contract killer Tiger some-fucking-thing-or-other. But she was safe now, wasn’t she? Safe behind large gates and a total lockdown system that could be activated at a moment’s notice. The only thing she
didn’t
have in here was a panic room.

Lily flicked the switch and spoke unsteadily into the mouthpiece. ‘Who’s there?’

And an angry female voice came back loud and clear. ‘This is Saz. Who is
that?
’

Oh Jesus,
thought Lily. After a moment, she flicked the switch and let Saz in the gates.

Lily held the kitchen door open and Saz came storming in like a force ten hurricane. Her new husband, Richard, followed behind in silence.

‘What the
hell
is going on here?’ demanded Saz furiously. ‘Where’s Oli?’

Well, Lily had known this was coming. It had come sooner than she expected, though.

‘I couldn’t
believe
it when Uncle Si told me what was going on,’ Saz raged.

Ah, so Si’s responsible for this,
thought Lily. He’d rung Saz and she’d come back to start world war three. Good old Si. You could always depend on that sneaky arsehole to put the knife in when you least expected it.

‘Well, believe it,’ said Lily calmly. ‘Because it’s true.’

‘You’ve got some damned front coming back here,’ said Saz.

Lily squared up to her daughter. Even as she did so she thought,
My little girl, my lovely Saz.
But all she saw in Saz’s eyes was hate. In every twisted line of her lovely face was
disbelief, dismay, horror. That cut Lily like a razor, hurt her deeply.

I can do this,
she thought, I can deal with it. I’ve dealt with worse. But the sheer hatred that was radiating out from Saz, from her own beloved daughter, was already sapping her strength, making her feel tired and hopeless.

‘And what’s happened to the gates? I couldn’t open the damned gates,’ Saz was ranting on.

‘That’s because we’ve changed the security codes,’ said Lily.

‘You
what?
’

‘You heard me, Saz,’ said Lily, struggling to keep her voice low and even. ‘I’ve moved back in.’

Saz’s jaw nearly hit the floor. ‘Are you
mad
?’ she demanded. ‘You think you can just swan back in here when you, you
killed
Dad, you shot him dead?’

‘Catch up with the latest, Saz,’ said Lily. ‘I didn’t do it. Somebody else did.’

‘As if I’d believe that,’ snorted Saz.

Lily stared at her daughter and frowned. ‘Why would you
dis
believe it, Saz? Is it so easy to think that I’m a villain?’

‘I don’t want you here,’ said Saz, quivering with rage.

‘Saz…’ said Richard. Lily thought he was a handsome young man, with treacle-coloured hair flopping over his kind blue eyes. He looked awkward and unhappy. She almost pitied him. It was easy to see who was going to wear the trousers in
this
relationship.

‘Oh shut up, Richie,’ Saz snapped. ‘Stop being so bloody reasonable.’ She turned her attention back to her mother. ‘And as for
you…
’ Saz was literally twitching with rage. ‘…I want you out of here, right now.’

Lily felt anger start to ignite in her gut.
I want you out
from Saz.
I don’t want you coming back here
from Alice’s brutish brother.
What the fuck are you playing at
from Nick O’Rourke.
Stand in line and wait your turn
from the screws inside.

That’s how they all see me,
she thought.
As someone who’ll do as she’s told.

The old Lily, the sweet, accepting Lily she had once been,
that
Lily would have said yes, okay. But twelve years inside had changed her massively. Yes, she had been a model prisoner. Stayed out of rucks, mostly. Kept her head down. Railed against the injustice of it all, but only to herself, only
ever
to herself. Wondered all those long days and nights,
who did this to me?
But she had stayed out of trouble inside and she had done the time. Now, she was
out.
And where had being the nice, biddable little woman indoors ever got her?

No-fucking-where.

Well, she wasn’t about to make that mistake again. That old Lily had died inside. This new one was Lily reborn, remade, forged in the fires of misfortune. And this Lily was
not
about to take any shit, not from anyone.

‘You want me out?’ Lily put her hands on her hips and stared at her daughter. ‘Okay. Here it is. Let me lay it out plain for you. Oli
doesn’t
want me out, and she owns half this place. So I’m staying.’

Saz surged forward. ‘You cow,’ she snarled.

‘Saz…’ Richard made a restraining move, but Saz sent him a poisonous glance and he backed down.

‘No, Richie, I’ve got to say this,’ she said, whirling back to face Lily. ‘You never once got in touch to say sorry or to explain what happened, or to plead your innocence.’

‘I tried to get in touch lots of times, Saz,’ said Lily wearily.
She’d already had this conversation with Oli. That fucking rat Si had a lot to answer for.

‘Oh yeah. Like hell.’

‘I
did.
Si fielded all my calls.’

Saz looked at Lily as if she was something nasty she’d just stepped in. ‘That’s a lie. You’re
lying.
Uncle Si wouldn’t do that. He told me that you never once tried to get in touch with me or Oli.
That’s
the truth.’

Lily shook her head, suddenly feeling exhausted. This was starting to really wear her down. ‘Your Uncle Si’s a bastard,’ said Lily. ‘And rotten to the core. If we’re talking truth here, what about that?’

‘You
bitch,
’ said Saz, and half turned and grabbed at something behind her on the worktop.

When Saz turned back towards her, Lily saw what was in her daughter’s hand.

It was a
knife.

For God’s sake. Lily stood there, dumbfounded. Couldn’t react. Couldn’t even
think.
Her daughter had attacked her first with a bouquet of flowers, knocking her off her feet and onto her arse amid crowds of onlooking wedding guests, and now she was trying it with a
knife?
She couldn’t even begin to take it in. And not believing it, not wanting to believe it, made her slow.

Saz was coming at her with the knife raised.

Richard grabbed Saz, pulled her back. ‘Saz, no!’ he yelled.

Fuck’s sake,
thought Lily dazedly.
She meant to do it. She was going to cut me.

The pain of the knife going into her flesh could not have been more painful than what she felt now. That her daughter, the beautiful girl she’d carried for nine long months and finally, amid sweat and blood and tears and agony, given
birth to—her daughter, her lovely Saz, had been going to knife her.

‘Let me
go,
you bastard,’ shrieked Saz, struggling to get out of Richard’s grip.

Poor Richard,
thought Lily faintly.
Is he wondering what he’s getting into here?

‘Not until you
calm down,
’ panted Richard, having to work hard to hold his new wife still.

Saz was red in the face and fighting to get free, but Richard was strong enough—thank God—to stop her. Finally she just collapsed in his arms, the knife dropping to the floor with a clatter. She started to sob, screwing up her face and staring at her mother through a haze of rage.

‘I
hate
you,’ she gasped out. ‘You bloody
bitch.
’

And that was enough for Lily. She left the room, ran up the stairs, flung herself into the room where she’d been sleeping, threw herself on the bed. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to weep.

Jase knew he’d made a mistake taking Oli back to his flat after that meeting with Si. He wasn’t in the mood for shagging, not after that. Wasn’t in the mood for anything much, really, except possibly getting rat-arsed on his own. Should have gone off down the gym, done a few bench presses, worked it off.

‘What’s wrong?’ she kept asking him.

Oh nothing, except that your fucking uncle has fired me, after all the
effort
I put in with you, you cow.

Well, he couldn’t say that. But by God he thought it. And when Oli started in again with the oh-what’s-wrong crap, is it something I said, are you okay, all
that…
well, he’d lost it slightly, just for an instant, and given her a sharp one across the chops.

Damned steroids, he was going to have to cut back on them one of these days; he was always pumped up and roaring, an aggressive outburst just
this
far away. So he’d lost it with Oli.

Not that it mattered much now. All his plans were in the
shit-heap anyway. He was crazy-mad about it. Oli should have had the sense to leave him the fuck alone, not go whining on about didn’t he love her any more, all that jazz, when he was trying to think of a way out, trying to dream up another scheme.

She stood there in the little kitchen of his flat, her hand to her reddening face, and stared at him.

‘Sorry,’ he’d said straight away, but she’d just gone on standing there, staring.

So he’d belted her one. So what? Nothing to make a big deal over. It was a one-off. He’d been pushed past his limits by that bastard Si King.

Oli left shortly after that. He thought he’d maybe got away with it—she was mad for him, after all. Then he went down to the gym—where he should have gone in the first place. He lifted the weights again, again, again, muscles straining and bulging, sweat streaming from him like a river; and he thought:
Fuck this. That door’s mine. I’m going to take it back. You see if I don’t.

And then he thought of Freddy King saying, Do Lily King. Jase paused, eyes widening.

Do Lily King.

Please Freddy and you’d please Si too. Maybe if he did
that,
like Freddy had asked him to, then maybe he could start to get everything back on track. Yeah, it would be sweet. That’s what he would do.

He would kill Lily King.

Oli couldn’t believe that Jase had hit her. She couldn’t believe it, and yet she couldn’t really say that it had surprised her that much. Jase had changed over the last few months. He had become steadily more aggressive, with a shorter and
shorter fuse. She didn’t like it. That wasn’t
her
Jase, the one she knew and loved. She thought that…well, she suspected that maybe he was
on
something. Some drug or other. She knew he’d once smoked a little weed, didn’t everyone? And then he’d stopped the weed, and before she knew it he was down the pub every night, drinking ten pints and a couple of shorts besides, and what good was that for him? She’d made it clear to him that she was not pleased about that. That he’d ruin his health.

‘Darlin’, you want me to stop the drinking, I’ll stop,’ said Jase, the old Jase, the one she adored.

Not knowing, of course, that Jase
had
to keep her sweet if his plans were ever going to bear fruit.

Oli knew he had his faults. But he was always trying to please her; she loved him for that. So he went on the health kick, always down the gym, toning up,
bulking
up, he seemed to expand in size almost overnight, his neck thickening, his arms growing dense with muscles, his thighs as big around as her waist. Could that be right?

‘I’m taking a few isotonic drinks, that’s all,’ he shrugged when she questioned him about it.

Oli didn’t think isotonic drinks would bulk anyone up as fast as that, or make them so…well, so damned aggressive. She suspected Jase was taking steroids to build up all that muscle. She didn’t question him any more about it. But when he stood there sulkily in his little kitchen, clearly upset, she’d asked him had she done something wrong, what was it?

And then…then he’d hit her. Not hard. But hard enough. Her front teeth had mashed against her lip and her lip had bled a little.

This was
Jase
who’d done this.

Oh, he’d apologized. But so what? It was done. She reeled
out of his flat and sat in her car, shivering and crying. Finally, she’d steadied down enough to drive herself home. Only to find that Saz was back, raging about how could she have allowed all this to happen, how could Oli have let
that woman
back in their home, and what was wrong with her mouth, it was bleeding, didn’t she realize?

Oli said nothing. She just went to bed, and lay there in the dark with her lip hurting and her eyes wide open, picturing Jase, Jase who she loved so much, Jase who had hit her. Somehow, eventually, she fell asleep.