One Dead Witness (7 page)

Sands stared blankly at her. Then he blinked rapidly as the
meaning of the words sank in. As she finished, he sighed and closed
his eyes. ‘But Danny, I love you,’ he pleaded pitifully. ‘It’s just
the kids ... you know? I can’t walk out on them.’

‘
In that case, you obviously don’t love me,’ Danny retorted
rather cruelly. In truth she did not want to wreck a marriage,
though on the other hand she thought she loved Sands deeply. It was
a love that was tearing her apart. She knew it had to end now, once
and for all. That was the best way for both of them. To be able to
leave the relationship with some dignity, try to be adult about it,
part as friends if that was possible in the circumstances. ‘So get
dressed and go, please, Jack. It’s got to end now. It’s as good a
time as any, with me getting promoted next week. We won’t be under
each other’s feet all the time, won’t be in adjoining offices,
won’t be able to look at each other all day, every day.’

She clenched her teeth and hardened her jawline, feeling
absolutely gutted by what she was doing.

‘
But. . .’

‘
No! Just get up and go,’ she said sternly. ‘It’s over. Accept
it and then we can both get on with our lives.’

Sands dressed silently and very, very slowly whilst Danny
stood in one corner of the room in her dressing gown, cigarette in
hand. It was all she could do to prevent herself grabbing him and
dragging him back into bed.

Dressed, he paused at the bedroom door, gazed back at
her.

She looked down at her fingernails, refusing to meet his eyes.
That would have snapped her resolve in a second.

Jack closed the door softly.

Danny heard his footsteps descending the stairs. The front
door opened and closed.

She broke down and wept.

And not many miles away, in a tiny bedroom in a sea-front
hotel in South Shore, another female cried quietly to herself, but
for a completely different reason.

Claire Lilton was folded up into a tight ball, her arms
hugging her knees, nightdress pulled securely around her. She
rocked herself with the steady motion of a disturbed person. She
had once seen Polar Bears in a zoo, not long ago on a school trip.
She had watched one of the huge great beasts rock backwards and
forwards whilst it stood there, trapped in its tiny enclosure. She
had looked on in empathy because all she could think was, That’s
me. That’s just me. Rocking, and can’t get away.

God, how she hated the man. The stepfather who abused her
right under her mother’s nose since coming into their lives two
years before. The man her mother loved so much, who could do no
wrong in her eyes. The bastard, the fucking two-faced bastard.
Claire’s mother would never have believed it, even if she’d been
told right to her face that her stepdad was doing things to her,
making her do things to him, forcing himself into her until he
jizzed, sometimes up her bum. Claire didn’t even know the words for
some of the things he did to her, but she knew she was being
‘shagged’ because she had heard other, older girls talking about
it, describing it. Saying how some of the lads did it to
them.

But not their fathers.

Claire stopped rocking. Her eyes stared into the darkness. The
rain beat down against her window.

She also knew enough to understand she might have a baby -
because that was how people got babies, by shagging - especially
now she had started her periods.

The thought terrified her.

But what frightened her even more was the threat that, should
she ever tell anybody -
anybody
- her stepdad would kill her.

Chapter Three

Trent was awake long before the cell lights flickered on the
following morning. He had watched the darkness of the night slowly
fade to the dull greyness of dawn and eventually the brightness of
day. He saw these changes take place through his cell window from 4
a.m. onwards, lying there on his bunk with his hands clasped behind
his head.

His mind was very clear by the, time the key turned in lock
and the screws barked to the residents that the new day had
dawned.

Trent had reached two conclusions.

The first was that if he stayed in prison, whichever prison it
happened to be, this or any other, he would continue to suffer at
the hands of mad bastards like Blake and his cronies. His miserable
life would be continually made worse. Therefore, in order to make
his existence tolerable, Trent knew he had to do something to make
everyone acknowledge he could not be messed about with.

The second was that he’d had enough of being in prison. He
promised himself that if the opportunity ever presented itself, he
would escape. He needed to do this because he had vowed to bring
retribution to the people responsible for putting him in here.
There was no way he could even out that score with another eight
years still to serve.

The sooner the better for both ideas.

And, Trent thought as the cell door was pushed open, if the
two could be combined...

The sea, the sex and the emotional turmoil of the day before
had taken its toll on Danny Furness. She managed to rise at eight
and slope into the shower, but hardly had the strength to dry
herself, put on her make-up to the usual high standard and then eat
breakfast. She did all three in a state of extreme
lethargy.

She drove into work with a jittery feeling in her belly. There
were several busy days to go before her promotion and transfer to
the CID, which meant it would be impossible to avoid Jack who, if
he so chose, could make life very uncomfortable for her.

She hoped he would be okay about the split. She knew, however,
he had a stubborn, sometimes nasty streak to his nature. A smooth
ride was not a foregone conclusion. . .

. . .which was confirmed with a vengeance when she drove into
the police station yard, found a parking space in the covered car
park and spotted Sands in her rearview mirror just before she was
about to get out of the car. He must have been lurking in the
shadows, waiting for her to arrive. She snarled and swore under her
breath. He wasn’t even giving her the chance to get into the
office, for God’s sake!

She pounded the steering-wheel in frustration, got a grip on
herself and clambered slowly out of the Mercedes, mentally
preparing herself for an unpleasant encounter.

Sands stalked up to her, positioning himself between her car
and the next one along, effectively blocking Danny’s
path.

He looked far worse than Danny had ever seen him. His eyes
were sunk in their sockets. His skin hung loosely off his
cheekbones as though he’d lost weight overnight. His hair was in
disarray, his suit crumpled as if he’d slept in it, which he
probably had. He was a million light years distant from the
normally immaculate Jack Sands, dapper Detective
Inspector.

For a fleeting moment Danny’s heart reached out to him. She
had an urge to hug and squeeze him, tell him she was wrong, that
everything was hunky-dory, that yes, she’d continue to be the other
woman. The one he visited twice a week for sex - if he had time;
the one who waited stupidly for his call, the one madly in love
with him, dreaming of being his wife yet knowing for sure she never
would be.

The moment whizzed by and Danny found her will-power. Being on
the pointed end of the eternal triangle was not going to be her
future. Once again, she looked coldly at him.

‘
Danny,’ he gasped, the smell of stale intoxicants on his
breath, ‘don’t do this to me.’

She shook her head. ‘No, Jack - don’t do this to
me.
Let me
pass.’

He drew himself up to his full height, almost six-three. He
was a big, powerful man. Danny saw a look come into his eyes which
made her shiver. That of a desperate man, capable of
anything.

Suddenly she felt queasy. Her legs almost buckled.

‘
Jack, it’s over. I’m sorry, but it’s best for both of us.’ She
tried to sound reasonable. She ducked to one side and made to walk
through the narrow gap between Sands and her car.

His arm shot out, preventing her passing. He side-stepped
smartly to block her with his body.

‘
No,’ he croaked. He was on the verge of either tears or
hysteria. ‘It’s not over. Not unless I say it’s over. I love you,
Danny. You can’t just end it like this. I need you.’

‘
More than you need your wife?’ she rejoined
bitterly.

‘
I’ve told you why I can’t leave her,’ he hissed.

‘
Then it is over, isn’t it? Don’t be a fool. Let me pass. We
both have work to do. This is just silly.’

They were the wrong words to say. Some inner demon overtook
Sands as these last words left Danny’s mouth. He seized her coat by
the lapels and rammed her painfully back against the Mercedes as
though she was a prisoner he was trying to subdue.

Danny’s literal knee-jerk reaction floored him. He emitted a
howl and doubled over. His hands shot down to nurse his groin.
Danny pushed past and walked smartly away whilst he supported
himself on the boot of her car with one hand, the other gingerly
massaging his balls.

Then he spoke the words, which for Danny, finally nailed the
coffin lid on their relationship.

‘
You fucking bitch!’

As the day wore on, Trent’s thoughts about combining an escape
from prison with a revenge attack on Blake became all-consuming. He
could think of nothing else. Escape and revenge, escape,
revenge.

But how, he wondered.

As he strolled around the prison, ignored by virtually
everyone, a few ideas seemed to slot into place as he thought long
and hard about the problem.

Blake and his two colleagues had blighted Trent’s life ever
since their arrival as inmates eighteen months earlier; they had
done the same to every other sex-offender in the place. They had
systematically rooted out all the ‘pervs’, as they referred to
them, and made their whole existence a misery on a grand
scale.

For some solace, and so they could exchange information on
Blake’s intentions and movements, the pervs banded together. About
eight of them formed a sort of club, though Trent tended to keep
his distance from them. Apart from holding them in a kind of
contempt, he didn’t want to be seen to be too pally with them
because he actually felt superior.

But that morning, Trent purposely sought one of them out - an
insipid worm of a man who had been convicted of a series of
indecent assaults on boys in the local authority children’s home
where he was Head Warden and the deaths of two of them. His name
was Victor Wallwork.

Trent found him sitting alone at breakfast, shunned by the
other inmates who were eating at that time. He sat down next to him
and spooned sugar into the grey, lifeless porridge in the bowl in
front of him. It looked more like wet cement than food.

Wallwork did not acknowledge Trent. He munched toast, slurped
loudly out of a mug of tea, his unfocused eyes stuck somewhere in
the middle distance.

Between mouthfuls of his own stodge, Trent said through the
side of his mouth; ‘They got me last night, the bastards. Blake and
his crew. Bastards!’ He spat out the last word.

‘
I know,’ grunted Wallwork. He shifted uncomfortably on his
chair.

‘
You next,’ Trent informed him casually.

Wallwork choked on his tea and toast. He broke into a paroxysm
of coughing and spluttering whilst he tried to clear his throat. He
turned to face Trent. At the best of times Wallwork’s face had a
deathly-grey pallor. Now, what blood there was had seeped away into
his boots leaving him ashen-white.

‘
True. I heard ‘em talking after,’ Trent whispered. ‘I heard
your name. “Gonna get some of his own medicine” I heard’ em say.
Mentioned your name, Vic.’

Wallwork could not even get his mouth to form and project a
single word. His lips opened and closed a few times, making a
popping sound like a fish out of water.

‘
They buggered me until I bled,’ Trent continued, laying it on
thick.

‘
When?’ Wallwork managed to croak. ‘When will they come after
me?’

Trent shrugged. ‘Could be any time. Suddenly they’ll be
there.’

Wallwork closed his eyes hopelessly.

‘
We need to fight back,’ Trent said. ‘We need to make a stand,
otherwise our lives won’t be worth shite.’

Wallwork snorted derisively, but there was a touch of hysteria
in his voice. ‘Yeah, like sure. They’d kill us if we did
anything.’

‘
Are you at the farm today?’

‘
Yeah, why? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘
Plenty.’ Trent sounded mysterious. He laid his spoon down,
turned his face close to Wallwork’s and lowered his voice a couple
of degrees to no more than a hoarse whisper. ‘We need to sort those
bastards out once and for all and you can help me by bringing
something back with you.’