Jail Bird

Lily sprang awake next morning wondering: Where the hell am I? She’d dreamed again. Back inside. Fucking dreams. But now she was lying in a comfy double bed, and sunlight was filtering through the closed curtains, and her first thought was that this was a different dream, another illusion, and that at any moment she would really wake up, and she would be in stir, forever in stir, on a hard bunk bed with a stained mattress and scratchy blankets and snoring cellmates for company. Ready to face the indignity all over again. The degradation, the dire prison food eaten at trestle tables on cheap, uncomfortable chairs, the need to fill the day before lights out and the sweet release of sleep.

But no. Here she was. She was out. Her mind ran back over the events of the past two days. Becks telling her to go – and the relief on her face last night when Lily and the boys had pitched up and collected her things. Joe skulking in the background – keeping out of it; not wanting to get involved. And who could blame him? Jack Rackland, sitting on a bench with her in the park, watching kiddies play…oh, and her kids, her beautiful girls, and then – and this was so painful, so awful – Saz’s face twisted with hate as she’d launched herself at Lily, knocking her flying.

Lily turned over in the bed, groaning, pulling the pillow over her head, trying to block out the image.

Oh, and more of them. Nick O’Rourke laughing at her last night, Nick O’Rourke kissing her. She paused over that. Relived for a moment the old, delicious sensations. But no. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. So what if he’d ferried her off to this neat, unshowy safe flat? So what if the kitchenette cupboards were well stocked with food. So what if she found wearable women’s clothes in the wardrobe, and a man’s, too – what was this, a little love-nest for Nick and some tart? She thought his marriage to Julia had ended long since, she’d heard that somewhere. Probably from Becks.

All right, he’d done all this for her, but she still couldn’t trust him.

Furthermore, she was potless. She hadn’t a bean. Very soon, she was going to have to get her hands on some substantial cash, set herself back up on her feet, get Jack paid and pointed in the right direction. It was going to be a challenge, but she thought: I can do this.

A buzzer went off, very loud. Lily stiffened and emerged from beneath the pillow. What the fuck? she thought, her heart freezing in panic.

The buzzer sounded again, not muffled by the goose-down pillow this time. Very loud indeed. Lily sat bolt upright, pulling the long faded lavender-coloured t-shirt she’d grabbed out of the closet to wear in bed further down, hunching her knees up to her chest. She looked around her with wild, frightened eyes. Where was it coming from? It sounded again, and she pinpointed it. There was a telephone intercom on the wall. Someone was downstairs, leaning on the doorbell.

Oh shit.

Who the hell could it be?

She glanced at the clock beside the bed. It was ten past nine: she’d slept late. She’d been worn out. Now her pulse was hammering away as the fear picked up where it had left off last night. It would be Freddy or Si; they’d tracked her down and if she opened the door they’d kill her.

The buzzer sounded again.

Gulping, crossing her arms over herself for comfort, Lily left the bed and went over to the intercom. Yeah, it would be them. For sure. They’d found her. But…what if it wasn’t them? What if it was Nick, how big a laugh would that give him, hard-hearted murderess Lily King quivering with fear from a doorbell?

She stood beside the damned thing and took a deep, deep breath. She reached out, feeling sick with terror, and picked it up.

‘Hello?’ she said unsteadily into the phone. ‘Who’s there?’

There was silence. Traffic passing by, someone breathing.

Oh God oh help, it’s them, it’s them…

‘Hello?’ she repeated, feeling cold sweat break out all over her body. Because she’d just told them, hadn’t she?, that she was there. She shouldn’t have spoken. Shouldn’t have picked the damned thing up. What was she thinking? Was she completely mad?

There was nothing to be heard but the breathing. Fast, frantic breathing.

Oh for God’s sake just say or do something, she thought. Break the bloody door down, just get it over with. I don’t care any more.

Then an unsteady female voice said: ‘It’s…it’s Oli. It’s Oli.’

Lily sagged against the wall in shock. Oli, her baby girl…

Then she had a nasty thought. ‘Are you alone, Oli?’ Maybe she had Uncle Si with her, maybe this was a blind, a way in, Oli playing Trojan horse for the King brothers. Maybe Oli hated her just as much as Saz did. And why shouldn’t she? God knew she had reason.

‘Of course I’m alone,’ said Oli, in a voice that sounded on the edge of tears.

Do I believe her? thought Lily. Do I dare?

She leaned back against the wall beside the intercom. Reached out a hand, pressed the release. She had to take the chance. She had to.

‘Come on up,’ she said, dry-mouthed with fear.

The first thing that Lily thought when she opened the door and saw Oli standing there – alone, and thank God for that – was, oh my God, my baby, how she’s grown up. She felt an almost overpowering urge to hug Oli, to hold her close. Lily’s second thought was that Oli looked distraught, and that she didn’t look as if she wanted to be held or hugged. In fact, she looked like she was about to freak. Lily held herself firmly in check.

Oli came inside and Lily shut the door and locked it after her. Then she turned, leaning against the door for support, thinking my baby, my baby as Oli turned and looked at her with Leo’s dark blue eyes, eyes that were only just this side of crazy. Oli’s dark hair, long and wildly curling, was dishevelled. She was wearing pale denim jeans and a white puff-sleeved blouse and had about her that same old aura of litheness, of intense nervous energy.

Oli the tomboy. She’d always favoured trousers over dresses – unlike the more stately, feminine Saz – and was always off climbing trees, playing cowboys, camping out in the garden, doing wild, boyish things, while Saz petted her pony and shot clays with Leo.

Lily took a breath. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said, and Oli nodded absently and flopped down into the nearest chair, immediately starting to pick at the arm of it with long, nimble fingers. Her nails were bitten, Lily noticed as her gaze moved avidly over her daughter, taking in every precious inch of her. Oli’s skin was still fine, lightly tanned, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her turned-up nose. Her pouting rosebud mouth was unadorned by lipstick. Her lashes were long, her brows black and slightly bushy. She glanced up at Lily and Lily thought, Oh she’s so pretty. Those beautiful dark blue eyes are going to break a few hearts.

Leo’s eyes, she thought more soberly. Saz had been the real daddy’s girl of the family, but Oli had loved her dad too, so much. And what must she think of her mother, who she believed had killed him?

Lily sat down cautiously, quite a way from Oli; she didn’t want to panic her, make her bolt for the door. Oli looked as if she was on a knife-edge, not certain whether to stay or go.

‘How did you find me here?’ Lily asked her.

Oli made a flicking movement of her hand. ‘I followed you. I…I wanted to see what you…I’ve been trying not to, but I wanted to see you, so I went over to your mate Becky’s place after I’d heard Uncle Si and Aunt Maeve saying you were staying there…’

Jesus God, thought Lily. Oli had found her so easily. And so had Si and Freddy.

‘And when I got there, I bottled it.’ Oli stopped talking and clutched at her head with both hands, mucking up her hair even more. It was sticking out in all directions. ‘I just…I couldn’t come in. I sat in the car. It was getting darker. I didn’t know what to do. And then you arrived with some men, and you all went in there, and I still couldn’t get up the nerve to come in…’ She gulped and rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes like a tired child. Then she dropped her arms and looked at Lily. ‘It’s funny, I thought if I ever saw you again I wouldn’t know you, but I did, I knew you straight away when I saw you standing outside the church. Don’t you think that’s odd?’