Jail Bird

key to the master suite – Leo in his prime, taken on a Lanzarote golf course, Leo wearing white golfing gloves and a sun visor, his five-iron held casually over one meaty shoulder, Nick and some of the other guys there too, all grinning in the sunshine. She held the snap out to Alice, pointing out Leo among the group. ‘See that, Alice? That’s Leo.’

Alice extended one bony hand and took hold of the photo. She stared at it. Then she clasped it to her chest.

What Alice did next was the last thing Lily expected. She opened her mouth wide – she looked like one of those crazy-golf clowns, scary wide-open red mouths painted on hardboard around a gaping black hole. Lily had time to think that; the ones that swallow your ball and look like they would swallow you too, given half a chance – and then Alice started to scream like a fire bell.

Lily almost fell off her chair.

‘Holy fuck!’ she gasped out, while Alice just went on screaming.

Instantly the nurse was back.

‘What happened?’ she demanded, running to Alice. ‘What did you say?’

‘I just…’ Lily was almost in shock. The noise, the freaking noise the woman was making, it was deafening.

The nurse was shaking Alice’s shoulder. ‘Alice?’ she was shouting. ‘Alice?’

Suddenly, just as abruptly as she had begun, Alice stopped screaming. Instead she started to cry, great wracking childlike tears, turning in her chair and clutching at the front of the nurse’s mint-green uniform, pouring snot and salt water all down the front of it.

‘There, there, Alice. There, there,’ cooed the nurse. She turned suspicious eyes on Lily. ‘She hasn’t done anything like this before. Not in ten years.’

Well maybe it’s time she did, thought Lily. Maybe this was a watershed for Alice Blunt. Maybe the sight of Leo would pull her out of the strange state she was in.

Lily stood up. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I upset her.’

The nurse’s eyes softened, just a little. ‘That’s okay. I’m sure you didn’t mean to.’

‘I hate to ask, but Alice’s relatives – could they get in touch with me?’ she asked. ‘It’s just…I’d like to know what happened to Alice, if they can fill in the blanks? When I knew her she was so different. I’d like to talk to them, if they’re agreeable. Could I give you my phone number, and could you ask them to call me?’

The nurse was staring at Lily. Assessing her. Finally, reluctantly, she nodded. ‘Yes, okay’.’

Lily stood up, gathered up her backpack. The nurse found a pad and pencil and noted down The Fort’s number with a promise to get one of Alice’s relations to call. Lily left the poor sad shell of Alice Blunt sitting there, clutching the nurse, as a child would clutch a mother. She didn’t ask Alice to give back the photo; she didn’t think Alice would.

24

Lily got a shock when she dived into The Fort’s indoor pool that afternoon and the water hit her like an ice pick straight between the eyes. Freezing! Whose bright idea had it been to turn the pool heating off? Did Oli like swimming in cold water?

Lily didn’t. She remembered very well that Leo hadn’t, either. He had always kept the indoor house pool at subtropical temperatures, with steam rising off the surface. Leo had loved the heat, the sun, the warmth. Hated the outdoor pool, even though that was heated too. Not hot enough. Too fucking cold.

Shivering, Lily briskly swam a length. She was wearing a borrowed one-piece swimsuit – navy blue, very boring and a couple of sizes too big for her – that she’d found in the changing cubicle at the far end of the pool. They’d always kept a small selection of swimwear in there for visiting guests attending Leo’s famous parties…Jesus, the parties they’d had in this house, way back when. Dancing and drinking and diving into the pool in full evening gear, big shoulder pads on all the women’s dresses, mullet hairstyles, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet blaring out of the sound system, the laughs they’d had – all those bad boys doing their dodgy deals and discussing their moody goods; all the sparkling, glammed-up girls…

And of course thinking about the laughs made Lily think about the tears, too. And how empty those days had really been – oh, filled up with shopping and manicures and spa breaks, but still empty at the core. Empty and unhappy.

She pushed those thoughts away, because thoughts of losing Leo had prompted other thoughts, thoughts of Alice Blunt sitting there in a chair day in day out, speechless, dead-eyed. And then, those unearthly screams. Shuddering, she swam another brisk length: what the hell, it was cold, but it was a pool, her pool, and the sheer luxury of it almost overwhelmed her. She’d had nothing like this, nothing nice, nothing worth a monkey’s fuck really, for twelve long years. She had a lot of catching up to do. In terms of living. And in terms of making peace with her daughters. And she knew that that would only be truly possible if she could find out who had really killed Leo.

Not Alice Blunt, surely. Alice had looked so frail, and that frailty had seemed bone-deep, not merely a result of illness, depression, whatever the hell it was fashionable to call it these days. Lily hoped the relatives would take the opportunity of phoning her, talking to her.

She wanted to know more about Alice. Even though it still – stupidly, she did realize that – stung a bit, to think of Leo shagging half the female population. Not only Alice, but also Adrienne. Not only them, but a woman called Reba Stuart. Jack had phoned again and said they were going to pay this ‘Reba’ a visit, was that what she wanted?

‘Only I know you were upset after seeing Alice,’ he said. ‘You sure you want to go on with this? You can bail out any time, you know. You don’t have anything to prove.’

‘Except my innocence,’ Lily replied stonily, going on the defensive because he was right, seeing Alice had upset her, and she hated that he had taken note of it. ‘And who the fuck are you, my father?’

‘Hey, I’m just saying…’

‘Don’t just say. I’m paying you, okay? I don’t need a nursemaid, I just need you to do your job, all right?’

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then Jack said: ‘All right. Fine,’ and hung up.

She’d hurt his feelings. She knew it, and regretted it. She was getting to like Jack, and to depend on him. But liking and dependency were weaknesses she could not afford. She had to keep strong.

In actual fact, she would rather have had her arse rubbed with a brick than pay a visit to another of Leo’s tarts. But she had to do it; there was no way around it. So yes, she was going to meet Reba Stuart tonight. What a treat.

So cold in here.

She swam another length, then another, and warmed up just a little but not enough. She was going to tweak that heat up later on, make it nice and toasty-warm for tomorrow’s swim. To hell with being stone-cold.

She was making for the steps at one end of the pool, ready to get out, get a hot drink down her, when she saw that Si was standing there, silent, patient, and waiting for her.

A fizzing thrill of panic rippled all the way from Lily’s head to her toes. It settled in her chest, clutching at her heart.

Fuck it, where did he come from?

Instantly she thought of her rucksack, stowed away for now in the changing cubicle with a hundred thousand pounds tucked inside. Safe. A damned sight safer than she was right now. Si the spider had emerged and she was a tiny fly. Damn it, she should have pushed forward to get the locks changed the minute after they’d gone yesterday, but Oli had been upset, doubtful – and she hadn’t wanted to push her too fast.

Now, she could see that her error was going to cost her dear.

Si was there, watching her, smiling, his usual dark bespoke suit covering his bulk. In his hand he was holding the long pole with the net on it, used by the pool man to fish debris from the surface of the outdoor pool, when