Jail Bird (23 page)

She dreamed again that night. Mercy going back to Kingston, back to her home and kids. It was a happy scene, but Lily knew that the flowers, the party, the giggles, the fond reunions, were all a lie because she had heard on the prison grapevine that Mercy had been shot dead within a week of arriving home, killed by the same dealer she’d once been a reluctant drug mule for.

For Mercy, there had been no happy ending.

For Lily, there was just the daily grind, the
endless
grind…but it would end, wouldn’t it, one day? In her heart she couldn’t believe it, but in her head she knew it had to be true.

Rumours abounded in Holloway, and besides the sad news about Mercy she heard other things, scary things: that the remaining King brothers were going to get her while she was in stir, make her pay in blood for Leo’s death.

So it was a relief rather than a sadness when they moved her to Durham. All right, Becks couldn’t visit any more; but she hoped – maybe vainly – that Si and Freddy’s influence
was weaker up north than down south. She did more years there in Durham, watching a new procession of cellmates go by – girls with boyfriends, women with husbands – who had all for one reason or another become embezzlers, crackheads, killers. Girls on suicide watch, others catatonic with fear at being banged up inside. Bullies. Bitches. Bull dykes. Brasses. All human life was there; Lily saw it all.

Time wore on, and sometimes Lily thought that
this
was reality, here, inside; that outside was the dream, something her mind had cooked up to torment her. Outside was the myth, the cruel illusion. Her home, her life, her girls – all fantasy. This was the only reality. Prison.

Finally she was moved to New Hall in Yorkshire, and then there was the staggering luxury of day-release for her last year at Askham Grange. The photo – that precious photo of her and the girls – was dog-eared and faded, but still safely tucked away in her bum bag. Every morning and every night she lay in her bunk and stared at it; it gave her comfort. And time wore on, and on, sunrise, sunset, just like the song…until one day,
at last,
she was released. She was free. Free to find out who had done this to her, and the girls.

Going back to bed after Saz’s escapade, Lily tossed and turned, but eventually fell into a troubled sleep peppered with the same old dreams of stir. She awoke with an aching head and a heavy heart. Cold rain was beating against the windowpane. The weather was an apt reflection of her mood.

She got up, showered, went down to the kitchen and made coffee, then took it into the study with her. The house was quiet and she was glad of that. She didn’t want to talk, only to try and make sense of all the things spinning around in her brain. She closed the study door behind her, and went over to the TV. She plugged it in, switched on, loaded the tape in the old VCR. Pressed ‘play’.

Leo was there.

‘Well babe, if you’re playing this then I’m dead,’ said his voice. On screen, he looked healthy, tanned, prosperous. The old Leo she had known so well.

No, Lily
–
you just
thought
you did.

‘You’ve found the stash and the gun. Keep ’em both safe, girl. Just a bit of life insurance for you. Look after the girls.
If you need a hand, there’s always Si and Freddy.’ He hesitated, glanced down. ‘If you’re
really
in the shit, call on Nick. Okay? The boys’ll help you.’

Oh really?
She wondered about that. Leo had crossed Nick twice – once with Lily, and then with Julia – as if everything Nick had, Leo wanted to snatch away. Had he wanted other things, too, apart from women? A bigger slice of business, maybe?

She wasn’t sure and it was all starting to drive her crazy. Her thoughts about Nick were muddled, her suspicions about him tangled up with that old powerful sexual attraction. She longed to call him, to be on good terms with him again. Their last conversation had rattled her. She’d forced herself to take a step back from him, cool it down, and he’d clearly got the message…but she hated not being in contact with him.

‘What the hell’s this?’ said Oli’s voice from behind her.

Lily sprang to her feet, clapped a hand to her chest.

‘Jesus! I thought you were still asleep,’ she gasped.

‘After Saz’s little floor show last night?’ Oli said, crossing the room and standing there, staring at her father on the screen.

Lily turned down the volume. Leo was mouthing something. Oli was still staring at the screen, awestruck. ‘That’s Dad,’ she murmured.

‘Yeah,’ said Lily. ‘It is. He left the tape for me to find. In case of emergency.’

Oli turned and Lily could see the bright gleam of tears in her dark eyes. ‘I loved him so much,’ she said softly.

‘I know, Ols.’ Lily thought about Oli’s news of her possible pregnancy. If it was true, if she really was, then this would be Leo’s grandchild, a grandchild he would never play with,
never see, never throw laughing into the air. She felt sadness grip her, and anger. All right, he hadn’t been the best of husbands, but someone had snatched his life away, and that someone had yet to pay for it.

But Saz
, she thought suddenly.
What about Saz, muttering apologies to her dead father in her sleep? What about Saz, who even as a child had been used to handling guns…

And now another thought occurred. Saz had hated the smell of guns when they were fired, hated to get the oil and cordite on her hands, so Leo had bought her a small pair of gloves and she had worn them whenever she was shooting with him.

There were only my fingerprints on the gun.

No, it was rubbish. Lily told herself firmly. Saz and Oli had been out that night, Maeve had been babysitting them. But Saz
had
been used to handling guns. And last night Saz’s tormented brain had sent her into this study to get the key and then up to the master suite to apologize. For what?

Lily had a sudden flashback to that awful night. She felt again the shock, the horror. Leo lying dead with his head blown away. The blood. The gun. The horrid, cold slippery weight of it. For a moment she felt a wild leap of hope as she considered that. The weight of it. But she had
seen
Saz lift that gun when she was a child; she knew it wasn’t beyond her.
Oh Jesus, so much blood…

‘You all right, Mum?’ asked Oli, looking at Lily’s face.

Lily shook herself. ‘Yeah. Fine.’ She sat down quickly.

‘Oh my God,’ said Saz’s voice from the doorway.

This is all I need
, thought Lily with an inward wince.

Saz was crossing the room quickly. Now she stood beside Oli and stared at the screen.

‘For God’s sake, what
is
this?’ she demanded.

Not the tearful reaction of Oli. Saz was looking at the screen with something very like horror.

‘Leo left this for me to find,’ said Lily quietly.

‘Did Richard tell you that you were sleepwalking last night?’ Oli asked Saz.

Saz seemed to recoil slightly at that. ‘Yeah. He did.’

‘You were in the master suite.’

‘I know. He told me.’

‘You were like a bloody zombie. You seen those flicks? They walk like this.’ Oli did a stiff-legged zombie stagger.

‘Oh shut the fuck up, Oli,’ snapped Saz, still staring, as if mesmerized, at the screen.

‘Yeah, come on, Oli. Saz can’t help it. Cut her some slack,’ said Lily, watching Saz’s face.

Saz whirled, arms folded, and looked at her.

‘And I don’t need
you
to defend me,’ she said. She turned back to the screen. Stared. Said nothing. Showed not a flicker of emotion.

Lily watched her.

Then, abruptly, Saz turned away from the screen and came over to where Lily was sitting.

‘We’ve been talking, Richard and me, and we’ve come to a decision,’ she said.

‘Oh?’
Now what?

‘Yeah. We’re leaving. Today.’

Lily sat there, gobsmacked.

Then she rallied. ‘Don’t go, Saz. Stay. Let’s work this out.’

Saz shook her head. Lily thought she saw something, some faint shadow like fear in her daughter’s eyes, but maybe she had imagined it. After all, she didn’t know her daughter at all. Not any more.

‘No, I’m not staying here. I don’t want to be here any more. Not with
you
here.’

Lily felt the hurt of that, stabbing into her guts like a knife.

Her lovely Saz hated her. She looked directly at her daughter, her heart feeling as if it was bleeding. Saz had erected an impenetrable wall between them, and she wanted so much to break it down, to find the girl who was hiding behind it. ‘Saz…what are you sorry about?’ she asked gently.

Saz’s face went blank: the shutters were down. Everyone – Lily especially – shut out.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘When you were sleepwalking last night in the master suite, you said the same thing over and over again,’ Lily went on. ‘You said, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” You kept on repeating it.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Saz burst out, her eyes angry. ‘I was sleepwalking. I do that sometimes. It’s none of your business;
nothing
I do is any of your business, you got that?’

‘Come on, Saz…’ started Oli nervously.

‘No!’ Saz turned on her like a snake. ‘Don’t tell me to come on. Christ, you’re so weak, Oli.’

Lily saw the hurt on Oli’s face.

‘You’ve swallowed all her lies whole,’ Saz went on. ‘Well,
I
ain’t. I’m not staying here. You’re
welcome
to each other.’

Jack phoned an hour later, while Lily was in the kitchen, alone, feeling miserable. She didn’t pick up at first, scared it could be
him
, the breather, but finally she thought
oh sod it
and snatched the phone up.

‘Yeah, what?’ she asked, relieved to hear Jack’s broad Cockney accent.

‘And a good morning to you, too,’ said Jack.

‘It ain’t a good morning, Jack. But go on, what’s the news?’

‘Oh, this and that. Found out from one of the nursing home staff that Alice’s brother was none the worse for wear after I decked him.’

‘Pity.’

‘I thought that too,’ said Jack, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘And I had to stump up a ton to get to know who paid her bills. Which will go on
your
bill, naturally’

‘Yeah, sure. And?’

‘Purbright Securities. Paid every month, on the first. You know Purbright Securities?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither. I’ll check it out with Companies House.’

‘Thanks. Anything else?’

‘Oh yeah. That fruitcake phoned.’

‘Which fruitcake? I know so many’

‘Suki the tarot lady’

‘Oh,
that
one. What did she want?’

‘She’s shot away, ain’t she? But hard to dislike. Quite nice, really, in a batty sort of way.’

‘What did she say?’ Lily didn’t think Suki was a nice girl. Nice girls didn’t shag other women’s husbands, not where she came from.

‘She said to tell you that you gotta take extra care. She did your reading after you left, and it wasn’t good, that’s what she told me. Said she turned up the death card and there were other things too. Now the death card, she explained this to me, the death card ain’t always a bad thing. It can mean transformation, she said. But it can also mean—’

‘Death?’ suggested Lily, trying to make light of it. But she felt – ever so slightly – spooked.

‘Got it in one. She said you had a troubled aura, very dark, she said she could see—’

‘Yeah. Enough, already,’ said Lily sharply.

‘Just passing on the message,’ said Jack.

‘Consider it passed. I’ll take care.’

She could hear wheels running over a floor, voices. She turned on the stool and looked through the open kitchen doorway into the hall. Saz and Richard were there, dragging their cases towards the front door. Saz paused, and threw her a poisonous glare. Richard didn’t look at her at all.

Lily sighed and turned away. ‘Was there anything else?’ she asked Jack.

‘I’ll drop the bill in sometime, okay? For services rendered.’

‘Yeah. Do that.’ She put the phone down.

Behind her, she heard the front door close. Saz was gone.

Lily sat there, feeling like shit. Finally, she picked up the phone and gave in. She called Nick.

Winston was singing along to the radio, he was happy. Bob Marley was on there, singing about one love, one heart.

But Winston had
two
loves.

Amen to that. Happy was Winston’s default setting, and why not? He lived here rent-free with two beautiful blonde mamas, he drew the social, he did a little man-vanning on the side, smoked a little ganja, got plenty of ciggies from the local tab house, did a few deals here and there, everything was cool, everything really was just fine, yes sir.

He’d been here three years with Bev and Suki, and he loved it. He loved London; he loved the sights and the smells of the big city all around him. His family were back home in the Caribbean, and he loved them, sent home what he could, but he didn’t miss that life too much, not right now.

He didn’t miss loitering outside the five-star complexes waiting for the rich white females to wander out to shop. He remembered the low wall beside the hotel that he and his mates had targeted, and they sat there smiling big smiles and urging the ladies to join them. They had pieces of foam
to place upon the wall so that the ladies could be comfortable, and many did ‘take the foam’, enticed by buff young bodies and offers of cooling slices of watermelon. As a living, it was pretty okay. The ladies were often lonely and middle-aged, they liked the fit young bucks paying them attention; and the ladies were generous in their gratitude, buying the boys and him meals, drinks, clothes – and dishing out free sex, too.

Here, he didn’t have to work
quite
that hard. Here, he’d met Suki and Bev in a club, and before long they had become not a twosome but a threesome. Suki and Bev seemed to like operating that way, and it suited him too.

So he was happy. He bopped along to the radio as he washed up in the kitchen. It was late; the girls were already in bed – one in his, one in the spare. He didn’t know who he would get from night to night, he never knew, they said they liked to surprise him. He was just tidying up, bopping along to Bob, and yes, he was happy.

Only there was something niggling away at him. Just a little bit. It wasn’t Bev. Bev was no trouble at all with the chatlines, and boy did they pay.

‘I just say naughties down the phone and they come, then it’s over,’ Bev had told him. ‘Money for old rope – ker
ching
!’ And she’d laugh.

Bev was cool. Detached. He liked that. She was a fine woman, a bit edgier than Suki, you had to give her space, respect. Suki was the emotional one, prone to getting all sorts of airy-fairy ideas about how she was in touch with the spirit world and all that crap.

Spirit world, my fine black arse
, thought Winston.

She might believe she had the gift, but that was all bollocks as far as he was concerned. So it was seriously annoying,
how the visit from that King woman and her hired help had unsettled poor Suki.
More
than annoying. He’d picked up Jack Rackland’s card after him and the King woman had left, tucked it into his shirt pocket out of Suki’s way. Winston knew trouble when he smelled it, and any more of this shit with the King woman and he was going to pay a visit, set them straight. He didn’t know where to find Lily King, but Jack Rackland was only a stone’s throw away – Winston noted the address, committed it to memory. Winston wasn’t having anything upsetting his girls, no sir. Jack Rackland would be sorry if he did; that was for sure.

Now Suki was imagining all sorts, talking about Death and how she had gone on to do the full cross spread after Lily had shuffled the cards, and it had been the worst hand she had ever seen.

‘The
worst
,’ Suki kept telling him, and her eyes were spooked. She was really, really frightened about all this. Having dreams, too.
Nightmares.

Which only confirmed Winston’s opinion that it was all bullshit, and
troublesome
bullshit at that, if it could upset their normally happy home the way it was doing right now. He’d been tolerant of her tarot crap, but now he was thinking it was like all this ouija board stuff like that film he’d seen, scary shit,
The Exorcist
, that was the one – and he was thinking that if he could persuade Suki to hang up her crystals and
burn
those cards, then he would. And why should he care about the King woman’s problems?

‘Hey, that’s
her
worry,’ Winston had told Suki. ‘Not ours.’

‘Yeah,’ said Suki, but she looked unconvinced. She had seen something in the cards that had rattled her.

He really hated to see her or Bev upset. They had such a good life here, the three of them. He loved both his women
with a passion, and would protect them with his own life if necessary.

‘You want to talk about this?’ asked Winston, keen to play the supporting role, although it was a pain in the arse.

Suki only shook her head, which surprised him. He was used to Suki running off at the mouth like there was no tomorrow, telling him all about swords and cups and auras and shit.

She’d get over it. Winston cast an eye around the little kitchenette, checked he’d turned off the gas, then put the tea towel on its hook, silenced Bob with regret, switched off the lights, and took himself off to bed.

Hey, nice surprise. Bev tonight, who welcomed him with open arms as he snuggled down naked with her beneath the crisp white sheets. The sex was good, like always. Bev was uninhibited after a toke or two, would do anything, venture anywhere, to give pleasure. So it was cool. And finally they slept, wrapped in each other’s arms. They never heard the dull thud of the lit rag as it dropped onto the doormat downstairs.