Jail Bird

gleaming and treasured, after one of them had been used to kill Leo.

So, no gun cabinet. Lily sat down in the dark blue leather captain’s chair behind the desk and thought about that, mulled it all over in her mind once again as she had done a thousand, a million times, while she had waited out the hours spent inside. The gun cabinet hadn’t been broken into that night. The house hadn’t been broken into either, which had told the police that whoever had done this had easy access to the inside of the house, or had somehow gained that access. Whoever had killed Leo had known that the household keys – to the gun cabinet, the cellar, spares for the main doors, sets for the outbuildings, had all been kept right here in this desk.

Lily thought of Leo’s tarts. That was the only way she could think of them, the only way she could bring herself to let them enter her mind. Leo’s tarts. One in a lunatic asylum – Alice Blunt; the others she didn’t know about yet. She wondered if Leo had brought Adrienne Thomson back here and screwed her in their bed. Could he really have done that to her? If he had, it was more than possible that he had brought others back here too, up to and including the one from the loony bin. Who must have been a desperate, unstable woman. Who maybe had freaked and decided to blow Leo’s brains all over the master suite.

Maybe.

But there had only been Lily’s prints on the gun.

She hoped Jack Rackland was busy fulfilling his part of their deal, because she was certainly trying hard enough to fulfil hers. She sifted through the drawers, hoping that she would find what she was looking for.

She did. In the bottom left-hand drawer she found a pile of old photos. She looked through them, grabbed one, pocketed it. Underneath the photos were the keys, some of which she remembered, a couple of which she didn’t. She went out to the shed first, and noticed that things were slightly different at the back of the house. There was decking now, and a large seating arrangement with a patio heater. Si and Maeve had clearly made themselves very comfortable while staying at The Fort, in her house. She unlocked the shed, stepped around the ride-on mower and the neatly stacked paint tins and gardening tools. She selected the tool she needed and relocked the shed, then went back indoors.

As she passed through the hall again she glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten thirty and Oli might be back at twelve or even before that for lunch, so she had little time. She hurried back up the stairs, collected the rucksack from the room she’d slept in last night and, with shaking hands put the key in the lock of the master suite and turned it. She stuffed the bunch of keys into her jeans pockets and stood there, suddenly fearful.

Her life had fallen apart the last time she went inside this room. Time had moved on, but in her head there was still a horror movie playing out inside it. Her walking in, angry, wanting a fight, wanting to get it over with, hyped up with adrenaline; and then the shock, the God-awful shock of seeing the body, his body, lying there, the head blown away, the blood, the brains and the gore everywhere. And then the police coming, and the slow sick realization that they thought she’d killed him.

Then, prison. Oh shit, so long in prison. Seven years in Holloway, two in Durham, one in New Hall, then the last two in Askham Grange. Being confined without everything she knew, everything she loved. Her kids torn from her, the boredom and the low, simmering anger because she knew she’d done nothing. She’d contacted her brief, asked should she appeal? He’d said certainly, yes; but the appeal had been turned down. So she stayed there, powerless, marking off the days, the weeks, the years.

And – finally – freedom. But not the total freedom she craved; this was a freedom still hemmed about with limitations. Seeing probation officers. Walking on eggshells, not wanting to do anything that might take her back inside. She was still not completely free, not free as she defined it. She was going to have to win that freedom for herself, bit by painful bit, piece her life back together and find the bastard who’d done Leo and let her hang out to dry for it.

Now she was outside the door to the master suite once again. And even though logic told her that there was nothing inside there that could hurt her, no ghosts, nothing, even so she stood there and felt sweat erupt all over her body at the thought of going inside.

But she had to. She had to.

Lily gulped and steeled herself to do it. She reached out and opened the door. With a moan she pushed it wide open, expecting the horror to replay, Leo lying there, what remained of him, unrecognizable, but unquestionably Leo. Gold rings on his stubby fingers, the familiar old white scar on his left wrist, the thick gold chain around his neck mingling with the blood and the bits of mangled flesh.

But there was nothing.

She stepped inside. Before she could lose her nerve and run she quickly relocked the door from inside. Then she turned and looked around the room she had once shared with her husband, the blood buzzing in her ears and her heart beating so hard in her chest that she thought it was going to break straight out through her ribs.

Nothing.

The bedding was different. Not what she would have chosen. The curtains were different too. But the bed was in the same place, the thick white carpet was…no, it couldn’t be the same one. Those stains would never have come out. It had been relaid.

All remnants of Leo’s death had been wiped from the room. Light streamed in through the windows. The atmosphere was peaceful, not troubled. Lily walked slowly into the centre of the room, laid the rucksack and the tool down. Then she looked at the wall behind the bed. Different colour. It had been cream when she was here, now it had been repainted in a stylish dark red. Red like Leo’s blood had been as it poured out of him. Shuddering, Lily started shoving at the bed: it moved easily; it was on castors. She shoved it hard, pushing it out into the middle of the room, away from the wall.

Panting, she paused. Then she took up the pickaxe. It was damned heavy. She swung it back over her shoulder, pictured Si King’s pudgy, self-satisfied face in front of her and let fly at the wall.

Whack!

It was hard work, hacking through the plasterboard. Leo’s boys had done a bloody good job on relining this wall: too bloody good. Soon she was streaming with sweat but the clock on the wall over the dressing table told her that time was running on, there was no time to rest.

Whack!

She kept belting away at it, picturing Si there on the wall before her, Si her enemy, Si bloody King.

Take that, you bastard!

She was glad now that she’d spent time in the gym during her confinement; before prison, she wouldn’t have had the strength to attempt this. Now new muscles – and hatred – powered her.

She kept hacking away, through a blooming haze of plaster dust, with arms that grew heavy and aching. She was wet through, gasping, and – oh bliss – soon she started seeing small orange bits of insulation material, then a larger section of the stuff as big chunks of plasterboard fell away.

Jesus, she was making such a mess, plaster and dust and shit everywhere, and she didn’t know how she was going to explain any of this to Oli, but then the door had been locked and she guessed that neither of the girls ever came in here. The memories, the feelings evoked, would be too awful. And thank God for that. Because there was no way she was going to be able to clear all this crap away before Oli got home.

Finally she’d made a big enough hole in the board. She dropped the pickaxe and got in there with her hands, pulling at the itchy chunks of insulating fabric with her hands, yanking it out, throwing it aside. And now she really, really hoped that Leo hadn’t let her down. That it would all pan out just as years ago he had assured her it would, telling her that if ever they needed it fast, it would be there, safe and sound. She dug deeper with her fingers, her nose itching as flakes of the fabric flew all around her, her skin itching too; Jeez, she hated this stuff. But then…

‘Oh holy shit!’ she said, and laughed out loud.

Because it was there. She couldn’t believe it, hadn’t dared to believe it, but it was. Her first glimpse of the wads of fifty-pound notes, all neatly bundled up and covered in polythene, was the most beautiful thing she could ever have imagined. She stepped back from the wall, went into the en-suite bathroom and splashed her face and hands to relieve the itching. She cupped her hands and gulped down an icy, delicious mouthful of water.

Then she went back into the bedroom, threw the empty rucksack onto the bed and unzipped it. She started to fill it with Leo’s emergency stash. Bundle after blessed bundle. Leo had told her there was a hundred thousand behind the wall. She took the whole lot and stuffed it into the bag.