Jail Bird

leaves and insects got blown in.

Lily kicked hard for the side but he moved and was there, waiting for her. Si gave a little smile. Then he put the net end of the pole against her breastbone and pushed her back into the cold water.

‘No,’ he said, ‘just stay there.’

Stay here and I’ll bloody well freeze, thought Lily, feeling a deep shiver course through her body, clamping her teeth together to stop them chattering with the cold and the sudden fear.

‘I’m not very happy with you, Lily King,’ he said as Lily moved back into the centre of the pool.

‘Oh? Really?’ Lily forced out. She was trying to clamp down on her rising panic, keep calm, keep thinking. But it was hard. She made for the steps again, but again he moved, blocking her path out of the freezing water, pushing her firmly back with the pole.

‘Yeah, really. It’s not on, girl. Really it ain’t. You doing Leo. Turning up at the wedding and ruining Saz’s day. Pushing back in here, messing with Oli’s head. Showing Maeve up like that. Not on.’

Lily swam over to the other side of the pool. He was there.

Now she was really starting to panic. She found it hard to catch her breath, it was so cold in here. Doggedly she swam another length, trying to keep her body temperature up with exertion, and when she got to the far end, he was there, too. She couldn’t get out. He was going to keep her in here until she drowned.

‘I didn’t do Leo,’ said Lily, and now her teeth really were chattering.

‘Yeah you did,’ said Si calmly.

‘No, I didn’t. Someone else did it.’

‘Did they fuck. You did it.’

Lily made for the steps again – and this time Si came ankle-deep in the water with the pole, and this time he meant business. The end of the pole connected with her neck and she was abruptly submerged, forced under as he bore down on it.

The world was suddenly bubbling and blue-green and she was choking, swallowing mouthfuls of chlorine- laden water. Lily kicked back, away from him, and came up spluttering and gasping in the centre of the pool, her eyes stinging, her throat burning, shivers wracking her body.

Now Si had moved and was reaching towards her with the pole again; it struck her arm, not violently, but hard enough to knock her off balance. She realized that he was doing his best not to mark her; he wanted to make this look like accidental drowning. She fell sideways and was again under the water. She came back up, coughing, blinking, seeing him standing there watching her with that smug, triumphant half-smile on his face.

Bastard.

‘What’s going on?’ asked an anxious female voice.

Lily’s head whipped round. So did Si’s.

Oh thank Christ. It was Oli. She was walking towards Si, looking at Lily in the pool, looking at the pole in his hand. Her eyes were questioning, worried.

‘Oh, Lily was in a bit of difficulty,’ said Si smoothly. ‘Just helping her get to the side. Ain’t that right, Lil?’ And he turned and smiled at Lily with hatred in his eyes.

‘Sure,’ she said, cold through to the bone now, and frightened too, scared shitless in fact.

Now he held the pole out to her.

Lily ignored it. She swam to the steps and hurried up them. She snatched up a towel from one of the loungers and wrapped it round herself quickly. Then she turned and looked at Si, and at Oli standing there uncertainly, frowning. Oli knew something had happened here. She knew, even if her face clearly said that she didn’t want to believe the truth of it.

Lily could almost hear Oli thinking: Jesus, was he trying to push her under with that thing? She thought that Oli knew the answer to that, in her gut. And if Oli hadn’t shown up, he’d have done the job and the verdict would have been accidental drowning.

‘People shouldn’t swim on their own,’ Si was saying to both of them, and now he looked genial, completely convincing. ‘It’s not safe.’

You can say that again, thought Lily.

She looked at Oli, still standing there with that frown on her face, and wondered what she thought of her kind Uncle Si now.

25

‘Blonde joke,’ said Lily as she walked along the shops up West with a reluctant Oli in tow the following day. ‘What do you call a fly buzzing inside a dumb blonde’s head?’

Oli looked at her, perplexed. Then she sighed. ‘Okay, what?’

‘A space invader.’

Oli almost cracked a smile. Almost. She’d been subdued ever since she’d come across Lily and Si in the swimming pool room yesterday. Lily had a feeling there were about a thousand questions queuing up in Oli’s brain, all waiting to be asked.

She looked at her youngest daughter, thinking again how gorgeous she was, and how young, how vulnerable. Her heart twisted with pity for all that Oli had suffered, but she was going to make damned sure someone paid – in blood – for that.

Lily had suggested this shopping trip. What they called a bonding session, and where better to ‘bond’, she’d said to Oli earlier, than in ‘Bond’ Street?

‘Shopping’s so inane,’ said Oli. ‘And very un-PC, think of the credit crunch.’

Fuck the credit crunch. Lily had been reading the papers, she knew all about the banks crashing and shares plummeting through the floor. But she’d been undergoing her very own personal credit crunch for the past twelve years; she had come out of nick dressed in shit order, jeans and t-shirt and a sodding hoodie and trainers, and she had always been a dressed-up sort of woman, her style had always been classic and classy. Well, now she was going to restart her life. Reclaim her style. And she was starting today.

Where to begin?

She was like a kid all of a sudden, staring at the sweeties in the shop window, and–oh thank you, Leo, thank you–now she could buy the entire fucking sweetshop, if she chose. They passed by De Beers and Cartier, Lily lingering and admiring, Oli silent and trudging along at her heels. It was busy; there were crowds of people, tourists, shoppers milling everywhere, black cabs honking up and down the street, traffic moving at a snail’s pace. It was great. Lily looked around her and soaked it all up, the smells of coffee and bread baking, the exhaust fumes, everything–she felt newborn. And the people–black, Asian, pale-skinned English, all going about their lives, all free. Unaware of what a luxury that freedom was. There was an Oriental man moving ahead of them, crossing the street, talking on a mobile phone, his blue-black hair pulled back tight into a ponytail. She loved it all.

They went into Chanel, Miu Miu and DKNY Jeans, then took a leisurely hike through Armani–oh, Lily loved Armani, but Christ her hair was a dreadful mess, she could see it in all the mirrors: chopped about, flattened, pale blonde flecked through with–oh fuck–the odd wiry grey hair. The sheer beauty of the clothes and accessories she was trying out showed up her own deficiencies. Bad hair, tick. Bad nails, oh yes indeed. Hard, calloused feet, too.

Then they were into Savile Row for a dive into Abercrombie and Fitch. Starting to feel a bit footsore, they went on to Conduit Street for a trip into Rigby & Peller to be properly measured and fitted for new underwear. Oli did cheer up a little in there, admiring a purple basque, fingering pale pink chiffon thongs and luscious pin-tucked and ribboned bras. They lurched outside, festooned with bags, did a quick recce in Moschino, and then gave it up, both worn out. They stopped for coffee and cake.

‘I want to talk to you,’ said Oli when they had been seated in a booth and had ordered. ‘Seriously’

‘Seriously? What about?’

Oli stared at her mother. ‘Well, about all this bloody money you’ve got for a start.’

‘Ah. That.’