Jail Bird

Not nearly light enough, though.

Twelve long, hard, bitter and painful years.

Now she could hear a car coming along the lane, could see the headlights beaming ahead into the darkness, lighting up the overhanging trees. It was a nice, quiet lane, never much traffic, just the odd car or two, and this one was coming at speed.

Too fast.

The noise of the engine was piercing, drilling into her skull. She turned, pressed herself back against the hard, cold metal of the gates. Then–Jesus!–the car came screeching around the turn of the road and headed straight towards her. It was going to go past, she knew it was, but she cringed back against the gates. Who was driving at that speed along dark lanes: a lunatic?

It was going to go past.

No. It wasn’t.

She watched open-mouthed with horror as the car swung wildly to the left and came roaring straight at her, sending gravel flying, the headlights blinding her. She could see the huge shape of the 4x4 now, could see the outline of the bull bars at the front. She screamed, but she couldn’t hear herself screaming above the massive roar of the engine.

She was going to die, mangled between the bull bars of the car and the thick metal of the gates. She was going to die right here and now, and she was never going to know who did this terrible thing to her, she was never going to know the love of her daughters again.

No, she thought fiercely. Please God, no.

Then there was a shriek as the brakes slammed on. The car roared to a halt, just centimetres away from the front of her body. The engine was idling. Lily could hear herself sobbing with shock. The headlights were a screen of white light, she was blinking, screwing her face up, holding a hand up to her eyes and…oh shit…now she could see the man behind the wheel.

She could see him. Freddy King, sitting there grinning cruelly at her.

She waited for him to get out. She couldn’t move; she was trapped, almost half falling over the bonnet of the damned car; she was fucked. As she watched, Freddy raised a finger at her and wagged it slowly from side to side as if saying, Naughty, naughty.

Lily gulped, trying to draw in air, her heart beating crazily. She could feel heat radiating off the bonnet of the car; her nostrils were full of the stench of petrol. He was going to drag this out, relish it; this was the last thing she was ever going to know.

All right then, you fucker, she thought, come on. Come on and finish it.

Freddy threw the car into reverse.

Lily stumbled to her knees, the gravel striking through her jeans, but she barely felt the pain. This time he was going to do it, get her good. She got ready to push herself to her feet at the last minute. She would wait until he gunned the engine again, then make a run for it, take off into the woods; she was fit, she could run. Hours in the prison gym had honed her body down to its fighting weight. She was pretty sure she could outrun heavy, muscle- bound Freddy King. She wasn’t going to make it easy for the bastard, that was for sure.

She waited on the ground, gulping, gasping.

Freddy sat in the car on the road for a heartbeat; then he gunned the engine and roared off into the night.

Oh sweet Jesus.

Lily slumped forward. She couldn’t believe it. He’d had his chance, right there; and he hadn’t taken it.

Because he loved to toy with her, as a cat toys with a mouse.

She fell sideways and lay slumped on the gravel, listening to the car getting further and further away. Heading for Si’s place, probably. He’d followed her here, the bastard. He was never going to let this go. And now another one was coming, just passing through, or–oh God–was it him coming back?

She was going to throw up. Breathless, sobbing, she leaned back against the gates, closed her eyes, fought down the surge of vomit. Her head was spinning. Suddenly the aftermath of that cataclysmic fear hit her legs and she couldn’t get up. She just lay there, powerless.

But the engine note was different. This was another car, smaller. And then the car–going slower than Freddy’s, but still heading straight for her where she sat outside the gates–turned in onto the gravel, blinding her in the glare of headlights once again. Lily put her arms over her head for all the damned good it would do; she was going to get flattened now, this was it.

The car braked hard. Lily lowered her arms and squinted into the headlights’ hideous blue-white glare. She saw a low, sleek car, a red sports coupe. And someone was jumping out of the driver’s seat. She thought, Oh shit, here we go. Eyes down, look in.

‘Mum?’ said Oli’s voice. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

And as her daughter hauled her back to her feet, Lily started to laugh, and then she started to cry.

19

‘Shit, I could have killed you,’ said Oli, putting a mug of coffee in front of her mother as Lily sat, shaking with the aftermath of shock, at the big, marble-topped island in the huge kitchen of the house.

Well I got my wish, thought Lily dazedly. I’m in.

But the question was, how long could she stay in?

Oli rummaged in a cupboard – the cupboards that Lily herself had chosen – and found some brandy. She added a splash to Lily’s coffee, hesitated, then added some to her own too. Lily sat there, in her own damned kitchen, feeling distinctly strange. Feeling that somehow she had slipped sideways in time. Everything was the same, on the surface. But nothing was the same, not really.

‘You scared me witless,’ said Oli, sitting down.

Briefly Oli sank her head into her trembling hands. Then she looked up at Lily with angry and bewildered eyes. Her mother was here. The woman she’d cried for throughout her young life was sitting right here in front of her.

She’d bundled Lily into the car, brought her inside The Fort. Acted totally on impulse. And now…now she hadn’t a clue what to do. Lily was bad, guilty, a terrible person. But Lily was her mother and, much as she might fight it, Oli felt the pull of Lily like a powerful magnet, drawing her in.

‘What the hell were you doing, squatting on the flipping ground outside the gates?’ she demanded.

Well, what had she been doing? Lily wondered about that herself. Revisiting the past, mostly. Looking at what she had lost. It was both painful and alluring, doing that. Seeing all that was old and dear and familiar to her – her home, The Fort – when times had moved on, when she was no longer welcome here.

All she wanted was for the decade never to have happened. To rewind the tape of life, to go back to that night when she had found Leo dead, but in this version, her version, he would not be dead, he would be alive, and they would argue. He would be sorry for what he’d done – for fuck’s sake, Adrienne Thomson of all people! – and there would be only Adrienne, only one mistress and not a veritable legion of tarts there to do his bidding. Leo would grovel (and this was unlikely, she knew it was, because she had never seen Leo grovel in his entire life, but this was her fantasy and that was the way she wanted it to play out), and all would be forgiven, and life would go on.

But it could never have worked out that way, because Lily didn’t do forgiveness and because she had never loved Leo in the hot, heady way she had once loved Nick. Her and Leo had sort of suited each other, though: he was loud; she was quiet. He liked splashing the cash; she had enjoyed spending it. They had the girls to unite them. For a while it had been enough.

Only…then she had found out about Adrienne, and any feelings of affection she’d had for Leo had vanished overnight. They’d just evaporated like mist, leaving her with nothing but bitterness. Truth was, after that he could have had ten mistresses or even a hundred; to her, it was a moot point. The damage was done.

The nip of brandy was steadying her. She felt a little less shaky. She glanced at Oli, who looked even worse