Jail Bird (21 page)

‘Nick?’ Julia stood up too, scooping the ginger cat up into her arms and somehow contriving to keep the right side of her face concealed beneath the long fall of her hair and the bulky body of the cat. ‘God, no. Why should I?’

‘Well, you were married. Once.’

‘Not for long,’ said Julia, ushering them towards the front door, where she stooped awkwardly, cat still clutched to her, and unbolted, unlocked, unlatched.

It’s like Fort Knox,
thought Lily. And again, she was reminded of her own set-up. Living at The Fort, which was rigged out like a high-security outpost – or a prison.

Maybe Julia was right to feel under threat from the outside world. In here, she felt safe. Out there, monsters lurked.

Poor bitch.

‘And anyway,’ said Julia, as she opened the door and the sunlight fell upon her ruined face, ‘it wasn’t much of a marriage.’

Lily and Jack stepped out onto the pavement. Julia moved back, into the deeper shadows of the hall, her hand already on the door to shut the world out.

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Lily, curious.

‘Because he married me on the rebound, didn’t he?’ she said with a dry crackle of laughter. ‘After you took off with Leo. It was
you
Nick really wanted. It was always you.’

Jack and Lily got back in the car outside Julia’s. Lily fastened her seat belt, but Jack just sat there behind the steering wheel, his face blank, his eyes thoughtful as he stared straight ahead at the car parked in front.

‘Jack?’ said Lily. Why wasn’t he starting the damned car?

After a moment he turned his head and stared at her for so long that she began to feel more than a bit uncomfortable. Then he said: ‘What’s going on, Lily?’

Lily looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

Jack was silent, still staring. It was starting to worry her.

‘I
mean,
what the fuck’s happening here?’ he said, and he was looking at her like she was a total stranger.

‘No, you’ve lost me,’ said Lily. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh, well let me just
find
you again,’ he said. ‘Alice drowned. Julia scarred. What’s going to happen next, Lily? What’s going to happen to the others, the others
you’ve
just insisted you have to track down and confront?’

Lily’s mouth dropped open in shock at what he was saying.

‘What – you think
I
had something to do with Alice’s death?’ Lily let out a wild laugh of disbelief. ‘Oh come on. Alice was unhinged. She committed suicide.’

‘That’s just a supposition. No one knows that for sure yet.’

Lily was shaking her head at him, her face disbelieving. ‘You can’t be flaming serious. And what about Julia? I don’t know when that maniac decided to have a go at her, but you know I was inside when it happened. Banged up. No
way
could I have done it.’

Jack sat back, his expression dubious.

‘Come off it, Lily. You were married to Leo bloody King. One of the biggest crooks in the East End, one of the best-known faces in the whole of Essex. One thing he had – and one thing I guess you’d have too – was
connections.
Inside or out, he could have ordered anything done. And so…’

‘And so you think I could too?’ Lily really was laughing now: it was too ridiculous for words. ‘Wrong, Jack. I never had that sort of clout. I was just the little woman indoors; the
one who everyone thinks finally flipped and planted a bullet in her cheating husband’s brain. I didn’t have the contacts; I didn’t have the connections. Leo had it all. Not me.’

‘Yeah? Because I’m sort of puzzled by something.’

‘Go on,’ said Lily, feeling hurt and confused by this sudden and unexpected attack. ‘Let’s have this out in the open.’

‘Si King and Freddy want to do you damage, so you say.’

‘I say it, Jack. Because it’s true.’

‘Then why didn’t they get to you while you were inside? Perfect alibi for them: you in stir and them out in the open. If they wanted your arse so badly.’

Lily slumped back in the passenger seat. He had a point. She knew he did.

She passed a weary hand over her face. ‘I don’t have the answer to that, Jack.’

‘No, neither do I, and that sort of bothers me. And what bothers me even more is that I might be helping you with some crazy sort of vendetta. What bothers me is what’s going to happen to those other poor cows who’ve crossed you.’

‘Jack…’ started Lily desperately.

‘No, listen. You told me you wanted revenge. Is this it, Lily?’ Now he was staring at her face as if looking for the truth there. ‘Is this all you, Lily? Julia scarred. Alice drowned. What are you doing here, picking them off one by one?’

Lily was silent, fuming. How could he think that?

Easily,
she reasoned with herself. He didn’t really know her.

‘What, you got nothing to say?’ challenged Jack.

‘No,’ said Lily. ‘Just drive the damned car, will you? I think we’ve just about said it all.’

‘You
cunt,’
said Freddy King, red-faced with rage.

‘There’s no harm done, Mr King,’ said Jase quickly, trying to get his arse out of the fire while he still could; talking rapidly, persuasively. ‘It was a near miss. Nick O’Rourke was with her, that’s true, but I missed. I missed them both. Next time, I’ll get the cow.’

‘You bloody fool,’ snapped Freddy. ‘You soft-headed…what the fuck you done now?’

They were up in the office above the club, and Freddy was going berserk. Jase was looking shame-faced at the carpet, feeling like seven different kinds of shit was raining down upon his head.

He knew he’d fucked up. Should have looked more carefully, should have got her when she left the house in the taxi rather than waiting until she came out of the restaurant, but he hadn’t been feeling well; actually he’d been feeling like shit, his head aching, his chest hurting. Jesus, he was going to have to let up on those fucking pills and he
would,
just
as soon as he’d got the door back, just as soon as he’d got back in sweet with Si and Freddy.

But now, this. He’d screwed up. Knew he had to take a caning over it. So he stood there and took the abuse Freddy was heaping upon him and thought,
Okay, get it out of your system, you arsehole, call me any fucking thing you like, and then simmer down and forget it.

Only Freddy didn’t seem to be simmering down. And, as for forgetting it, Jase didn’t think so.

‘Look, I’ve been straight with you, ain’t I?’ asked Jase desperately after the arse-kicking had gone on for what he felt was long enough.

‘Oh, that’s all bloody right then,’ said Freddy, thumping a meaty fist down on the desk. ‘That’s just sodding well
fine.
But see – I really hate to piss on your fireworks – you think Nick O’Rourke’s going to stand for this? Nah. He’s gonna be combing the streets to find the little git who had the
nerve
to try a stunt like that. And how long before he gets back to you, you stupid tosser, and then to me?’

‘There’s no way it can be traced back,’ said Jase quickly. ‘I torched it out in the middle of nowhere. There’s
no way,
I promise you.’

‘You promise me!’ Freddy stood up, came around the desk, and although Jase stood a head taller than him he grabbed him around the throat and in an instant had shoved him back over the desk.

Freddy’s leering crazy face was inches from Jase’s own as Freddy put all his considerable weight upon Jase’s chest. Jase didn’t move. Intimidation wasn’t about size, it was about attitude – and Christ did Freddy have that. Not as much as Si, but still, he had it. Jase could hardly breathe, but he didn’t
moan on. Best not to. Best to just keep it buttoned and take this, get it over with. Wasn’t it?

But he
hated
being treated like this. He was the main man, or he had been until Si had kicked him into touch. It had all been going so good, then wallop! Back down the snake. On his arse.

‘Don’t you go giving out promises, you little shite,’ snarled Freddy, with his knee up on Jase’s chest.

Couldn’t
breathe…

‘Your fucking promises ain’t worth
that,’
Freddy snapped the fingers of one hand derisively in Jase’s face. Jase flinched. Felt the anger building. Treating him like this.
Him.
After he’d worked his bollocks off to get where he was today.

‘Mr King…’ Jase started, unsure of what he was going to say, only knowing that he couldn’t take this, it was too much. He’d thought he could handle it, do the crime, do the time, ain’t that what the bitch Lily had done? Kept her head down, taken her punishment? But he couldn’t do that. All right, he’d made mistakes. But that door downstairs was
his
door, and he wanted it back. He was losing cred among his mates on the streets, and now Freddy was kneeling on his chest and he couldn’t
breathe…

Suddenly – violently – he flung Freddy off. He saw Freddy’s mad eyes widen in surprise and he liked that, his blood was up. He gave Freddy a hard smack across the jaw that sent him thudding back into the door.

Bliss.

For an instant, anyway. Then the red haze of rage fell away and sanity returned. Jase realized what he’d done. You didn’t take a poke at one of the King brothers and get away with it. Freddy straightened and put a hand to his jaw. His eyes were on Jase and they were murderous.

Jase had to think, and think fast.

‘What if I told Nick you ordered it done?’ he flung out just as Freddy was launching himself forward.

Freddy froze. ‘You
what?’

Jase’s eyes took on a crazy light as true inspiration hit him. That was it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, bouncing on his toes, his knuckles smarting from the punch he’d doled out to Freddy

Jesus, he’d hit Freddy King,
a sane part of his brain was hollering, but he wasn’t listening; the blood was singing in his ears and he felt as high as a kite because he had it, this was it, this was his way back in.

‘You get me my door back okay? Or when Nick O’Rourke comes looking, I tell him you asked me to do it. How’d you like
that?
After all, it’s the fucking truth. Ain’t it?’

Freddy was silent, his eyes fastened on Jase, one hand cupping his throbbing jaw. Then he dropped his hand. Nodded.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s the truth. Even if you
did
make a complete balls of it.’

‘I can put it right,’ said Jase, wanting to be helpful here. If Freddy was magnanimous enough to concede a point, then damn sure he could too. ‘No charge.’

‘No charge except the
door,
right?’ asked Freddy with a slight smile. Then he winced. ‘Jesus, kid, that’s a good right hand you got there. A real haymaker.’

‘I’m sorry I hit you, Mr King,’ said Jase. ‘Really I am.’

Freddy made a
so what
gesture and went back around the desk. He sat in the chair and looked up at Jase. ‘I like someone who can handle themselves. Someone who can dish it out as well as take it. Forget it.’

‘That’s very big of you, Mr King,’ said Jase. ‘Will you talk to Si? About the door? And we can work something out
about Mrs King, no sweat. I’ll sort it. Best to do her
inside
the house, really. Make it look accidental. Nice and easy.’

‘Sure, sure,’ said Freddy.
The door, the door.
They were in the middle of a serious fuck-up here, and he was moaning on about the fucking
door?
Freddy didn’t want a ruck with Nick O’Rourke; Nick didn’t take any prisoners. Leave it to this arsehole and they’d soon find themselves up to their necks in a gang war. No, it was better that he did Lily King himself. He could see that now. Up close and personal was best.

Jase was thinking that this had gone far better than he’d hoped. He had screwed up, taken a swing at the boss, but he was persuasive. He had talked Freddy round to his way of seeing things. Now he was going to get his door back, restart the charm offensive on Oli and everything would be right back on track, like he wanted.

‘Go down and get yourself a drink,’ said Freddy with a smile. ‘On the house. We’ll sort this out okay? No worries.’

Jase went off downstairs.

Freddy’s smile dropped from his face like a mask.

The little fucker had
hit
him. Rage flooded into Freddy like a hot, bitter tide. And the bastard seriously thought he was going to get another chance after that, screw things up even worse? That little shit had a lesson coming. Freddy sat there, his jaw aching and throbbing, and stared at the closed door. Jase Conway was all out of chances. He’d just used up his very last one.

One day, unannounced, the cellmates Lily had grown used to were moved. Mercy was one of them. She had become a mainstay of Lily’s life, and there had been no time to say goodbye. She sat down on her bunk, wondering who she was going to find to talk to now, when she heard a yell. Standing up, she went over to the cell window.

‘LILY! LILY KING!’

Mercy’s huge, bellowing voice was drifting up from the outside courtyard.

‘LILY KING!’ Mercy was yodelling out there somewhere.

‘MERCY?’ Lily yelled back from the gap in the window.

‘WAVE, GIRL. CAN’T SEE YOU!’

Lily waved and peered out. Across the yard she saw a robust brown arm, waving back.

‘GETTIN’ SHIPPED OUT OF THIS SHIT-HOLE!’ shouted Mercy.

‘HOME? HOME TO JAMAICA?’ bawled Lily.

‘YEAH. SOON.‘

‘GOOD LUCK!’

‘YOU TOO!’

That was the last she ever saw of Mercy.

Lily was surprised when Jack Rackland phoned her a day after their visit to Julia. She’d thought she wouldn’t hear from him again. Oh, she’d get an invoice, but that would be that. And if that was the case, she’d pay his damned invoice and be done with it. Fuck him.

But here he was, phoning her.

‘Oh. Hi,’ she said, still feeling furious with him.

‘I phoned Reba Stuart,’ he said.

Lily counted to ten. ‘Why?’ she said at last. ‘You think I poisoned her?’

‘Lily—’

‘And what about Adrienne, don’t tell me you ain’t checked up on
her
yet? I could have done the brakes on her car, anything. You’re taking a chance.’

‘Lily, will you shut the fuck up and listen?’ said Jack, and she could hear reluctant laughter in his voice now. ‘I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t think you’re a killer. It just…’ he paused, sorting out his words. ‘…It spooked me, that’s all. Seeing Julia all scarred like that. Started me thinking all sorts.
D’you know, I could still smell those damned cats on me even after I got home and took a shower. I had to bin my clothes.’

He was apologizing, that was something. But Lily still felt angry. The damned unfairness. After all the shit she’d been through since Leo’s death, still people were ready to think,
Oh yes, she’s the woman who did her husband. So yeah, of course she could do this too.

‘I’m apologizing here,’ said Jack when Lily said nothing.

‘I know you are. Okay. Apology accepted.’

‘Reba was fine.’

‘Why wouldn’t she be?’

‘Oh and I
did
check on Adrienne.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘You sure you want to go on with this? Find the last two?’

‘You sure I can be
trusted
with the last two?’

‘I thought we’d just covered that.’

‘You
did, Jack.’ Lily felt like putting the phone down on him but, apology or not, she wanted to speak to the last two. She took a breath. Calmed down a notch. ‘Oh, all right. Yeah, let’s press on. Why the hell not?’

‘I’ll be there in an hour,’ he said. ‘Pick you up and we’ll go see Bev and Suki Carmody. They’re a double act – or they were.’

‘What, entertainers?’

‘Strippers. And I ought to warn you, the double act didn’t end on stage, either.’

Oh my God,
thought Lily, and put the phone down. It rang again almost immediately.

‘Hello?’

There was only breathing.

Someone was there

‘Hello?’ she asked again.

Breathing.

Lily put the phone down, swallowing hard.

Someone trying to scare her. And succeeding, too.

She stood up. The phone started ringing again, but this time she ignored it and focused on Bev and Suki Carmody, and finally the damned thing stopped ringing.

Bev and Suki.

Bad enough Leo’d been boffing all these tarts one at a time. Now, if she’d understood Jack correctly, it turned out he’d been doing them mob-handed, too.

‘You still here?’ said a harsh female voice.

Lily looked up. Saz was standing just inside the kitchen door, wearing figure-hugging Versace jeans and a tight white t-shirt. She was looking at her mother with stark dislike.

Lily stood up. She really wasn’t in the mood for another run-in with Saz.

‘Yeah. Still here. And still waiting for a civil word to come out of your mouth, Saz,’ she said quietly.

‘You’ll wait a long time for
that.
’

‘Pity,’ said Lily, ‘because I didn’t kill your dad. And I tried to get in touch with you and Oli too many times to count. Both those things are true. And so is this, Saz – you’re my daughter and I love you very much.’

Saz’s face twitched.

That hit home,
thought Lily.

‘Well,
I
don’t love
you,
’ said Saz, recovering quickly.

Lily smiled wryly. ‘That’s a shame. But you know what, Saz?’ Her eyes held her daughter’s with earnest appeal.

Saz was eyeing Lily suspiciously. ‘No. What?’

‘You’re going to have to learn to get used to me being
here, and sometime – whenever you’re ready – the gloves are going to have to come off, and we are going to have to talk to each other, properly. Because I’m here to stay. And you’re going to have to get over it.’

Saz said nothing.

Lily walked past her daughter and headed for the stairs.

Jack had got it right; Bev and Suki were still a double act. They lived together in a poky little flat in Shoreditch, and seemed to share the attentions of a large, handsome black guy who, throughout Jack and Lily’s visit, hovered in the kitchen with the door open, cooking. The fragrant scent of frying plantains was drifting out, and reggae was chugging away from the radio. In the lounge, the sweet scent of recently smoked weed was nearly overpowering the aroma of frying plantains.

‘You’re Lily King?’ Suki asked, wide-eyed and smiling, as if she was meeting an old pal, not the wife of the man she and her sister had been shagging over a decade ago. ‘I heard you was out.’

Time had been kind to Bev and Suki. They were still very good-looking women, and each of them had a curious spaced-out innocence about them. They were both curly-haired pale blondes, both dressed in hippy-chic gear – fringed buckskin waistcoats, floral peasant blouses, skin-tight jeans and Ugg boots – and they both wore a lot of jangling, silver-coloured jewellery.

Suki settled Lily and Jack down on a shawl-strewn couch.

Meanwhile, Bev was busy taking calls on her mobile and leaving the room a lot.

‘She don’t do this much,’ said Suki when Bev had hurried off into the bedroom clutching her phone for the fourth time.

‘Oh?’ queried Jack.

Suki dropped him a wink. ‘Don’t want the benefit snoops round, now do we?’ she grinned. ‘And who does it hurt? She earns a bit of pin money talking to a few wankers on the end of the phone.’

‘Chatlines are
big
business, man,’ chimed in the man from the kitchen. Lily recognized the warm, syrupy echo of Mercy’s Jamaican
patois
when he spoke.

‘That’s Winston,’ said Suki. ‘He drives. Man and van for hire, that kind of stuff, you know. And I do the tarot.’

Suki looked at Lily and Jack’s faces.

‘For real,’ she added, and smiled. ‘I got the gift.’

‘Mrs King wanted to meet you,’ said Jack, getting down to business. ‘She knows you were knocking off her old man back in the day.’

‘Ah.’ Suki didn’t look particularly chastened at that. ‘Yeah, well. Can’t tell a lie, me and Bev
did
know Leo King pretty well.’ She looked at Lily. ‘Men, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ said Lily. ‘Men.’

‘We were strippers back then. Met Leo. It wasn’t a
love
sort of thing, don’t go thinking that. It was just fun, that’s all. Nothing serious.’

And that makes it okay?
thought Lily.

‘Why did you want to meet us, anyway?’ asked Suki, tilting her head to one side and peering at Lily closely.

‘Curiosity,’ said Lily, but it was more, much more, than that. One of these women could have killed Leo. One of these women could be responsible for her doing twelve years inside. For driving a wedge between her daughters and herself. For causing her all this grief, all this pain.

‘Nah, there’s something else.’

‘I didn’t kill Leo,’ said Lily. ‘I want to find out who did.’

Suki’s eyes widened. ‘Get outta here!’

‘It’s the truth,’ said Lily.

‘What, you done time for someone else?’

‘Got it in one.’

Suki was silent for a moment, taking it in. ‘And what now?’ she said at last. ‘You want – what – revenge? Is that it?’ Suki was shaking her head. ‘Let me tell you, girl, let it go. You let that sort of stuff into your heart, what you gonna get except more heartache?’

Oh Jesus, we’ve got us a philosopher here,
thought Lily.

Now Suki pulled out a pack of cards. ‘Let me do you a reading? Free of charge.’

‘No thanks,’ said Lily. Tarot cards! She didn’t believe in ghosts and ghouls, angels and devils. She’d
seen
hell close up, and it had bars.

‘Shuffle the cards, anyway,’ said Suki, holding them out.

Lily took the pack with an impatient sigh. Shuffled them. Suki took them back and started laying them out on the low table between them.

‘Look,’ said Lily after Suki had laid out the first card, ‘I told you. I don’t want a reading.’

‘Oh come on,’ smiled Suki.

‘No!’ snapped Lily, her face suddenly like thunder. ‘Listen up. Just because you sucked my husband’s dick, that
don’t
make us bosom pals, you got that?’

Suki’s smile dropped from her face in shock.

‘
Got
it?’ reiterated Lily.

Suki nodded.

‘Good. All I want to know is, can you think why anyone would have wanted to kill Leo?’

Suki let out a shaky laugh. ‘How long you got? Seems to me
you
had the best reason of all, and the Bill seemed to think the same. But there were probably others.’

‘
Did
you
want to kill Leo? Or the call-centre queen in there, how about her?’

‘Jesus, why would we want to do that? Leo was
fun.
I was sorry when I heard he’d got done. Really sorry. And when they sent you down for it, I was glad. Because I thought they’d got the one who’d done it. You
really
didn’t…?’

‘I really didn’t.’

‘This is gonna burn in a sec,’ shouted Winston from the kitchen.

Suki was staring at Lily. ‘Let me do the reading, girl,’ she said. ‘Winston can stick the dinner in the oven, keep it warm.’

Lily stood up. ‘I told you. I don’t want your bloody reading. Come on, Jack.’

Jack passed Suki his business card. ‘If you think of anything…’ he said, and she nodded.

They piled off down the stairs. Nothing gained at all.
Now I’ve met them all face to face,
thought Lily as they went out into the chilly night.
Every one of them. And so what? It’s got me precisely nowhere.

Inside the flat, Suki started clearing the table. Winston was a keen cook; he didn’t really like to be kept waiting when he was ready to dish up. Bev was still in the bedroom, busy with another caller. Suki cleared away the bowl of potpourri, the stack of amethyst crystal, a much-thumbed copy of
Heat
magazine – and the single card she’d selected for Lily. Now she paused and after a second she flipped it over.

She gasped. Then she looked at the deck that Lily had just shuffled. After a moment’s hesitation, she started laying out more cards.