Jail Bird

yawn but Jack could see that Lily’s last comment had hit home.

‘Listen, you cheap cow—’ said Lily.

‘No! You listen: what did you think, you were marrying a saint in Leo King? Fuck’s sake, get real. Image is what matters to men like that. A mistress is a status symbol, show off to your mates, prove how much money you’re pulling in.’

‘Mistress?’ Lily scoffed. ‘Hardly that, luv. Just a tart.’

‘Yeah? Why’d he keep coming back then? You couldn’t have been keeping him fully occupied in the bedroom department, that’s for sure. Look, a man like that needs a woman on his arm when he’s out on the town. It’s a nice bonus, on top of the four-wheel drive and the luxury home in Chigwell in a couple of acres, the lovely kids and the wife who’s not too bright and don’t suspect a thing—a wife who’s happy to take the cash and not question where it comes from too closely. Am I right or am I right?’

Not too bright.

The words clanged around Lily’s head like a struck gong. Yeah, that was how everyone must have seen her. The little woman indoors. Meek and dim, happy to get down the shops and splurge while Leo was having a splurge all of his own with tarts like Reba, sad clingers-on like Adrienne and head-cases like Alice Blunt.

She’d only suspected Adrienne. Hadn’t had a clue about the rest of them. And there were more. More she hadn’t met yet. She felt sick now, really sick.

‘You smug bitch,’ she said, low-voiced, furious.

Reba’s eyes flashed. ‘Listen, I never hurt anyone in my life, but let me tell you, lady, Leo King was a diamond, so I’m willing to start with you.’

Reba jumped to her feet and was half across the table when Jack caught her around the waist and pulled her back, away from Lily.

‘Now take it easy,’ said Jack, grappling with Reba like an all-in wrestler.

Lily stepped around the table. ‘No, come on, let her go,’ she said. She’d dealt with some lairy old lags inside, she wasn’t afraid of Reba Stuart.

‘No, I ain’t letting her go,’ said Jack, and he looked angry now. ‘Go and wait outside, Lily, for fuck’s sake.’

Lily took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she turned on her heels and walked back through the lounge, still packed with the bevy of bored-looking beautiful girls. They watched curiously as she went out of the front door and slammed it hard behind her.

She waited, breathing hard with suppressed fury. That lowlife bitch. Suddenly she felt weighed down, weary to her bones. She could search and search forever, but was she ever going to find any answers? Suddenly it all seemed hopeless, impossible. She couldn’t win, and she ought to just admit that, give it up.

Jack came out within five minutes.

He stood there, looking at her with concern.

‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ Lily’s teeth were gritted with the effort of keeping control of her emotions. Her whole life had been such a mess. Losing Nick. Losing Leo. Years in stir. And now, nothing but fighting and struggling, and she was tired, just sick and tired and worn out and sad.

‘Don’t act like such a hard-arse. You’re not fine at all, you’re in bits.’

Lily started to walk away, back to the car. Jack followed, caught her arm; turned her back to face him.

‘Listen, Lily,’ he said gently. ‘It’ll all work out. We’ll make it, okay? I’ll help you. Be a friend to you. But don’t keep pushing me away. You’ve got to trust me.’

Lily stared into his kind blue eyes. She could almost believe he meant it; that all he wanted from her was her trust. But she doubted she could even remember how to do that, just blindly believe that someone had her best interests at heart.

‘You poor little bint, you’ve really had a tough time of it, ain’t you?’ he said, and smoothed a big rough hand over her cheek.

And that was it; that was enough. The floodgates opened and, finally, after twelve years, she let it all out and cried bitter broken tears over the front of Jack’s best suit for the wreckage of her life and for the late lamented Leo King. That bastard.

30

You could buy snacks at the prison canteen once a week. You could also spend the remains of your weekly cash limit on coffee, tobacco, stationery, phone cards (although Lily eventually gave up on those: the girls were lost to her, what was the point?) fruit and batteries—one only, apparently you could make bombs with more—for a radio.

Becks had brought her in a bum bag, an item Lily had never possessed but now found invaluable. All her precious items—the most precious being a photo of her with her two lovely girls—she kept in there.

She soon got to know that if you left anything lying about or even in your locker, it was likely to go missing. So Lily quickly learned to keep all her goods on her person. She developed a prison persona. Hands in pockets. Head down. All femininity forgotten. Her and Mercy became a team, blocking out the rest of the prison world. She became numb, faceless, one of the crowd. After a while inside she didn’t bother wondering if she’d ever get her life back. Without hope, without her home, without her children, without everything dear to her, she schooled herself not to care.

31

Lily slept with the Magnum tucked under her pillow—just in case; she wouldn’t use it, she would never use it, or at least she didn’t think so, but until the security codes and the locks were changed, better safe than sorry. The clothes she’d purchased were still in the bags in the far corner of the room, and the rucksack full of the remaining huge stash of readies, and Leo’s video, was right there beside the bed.

When she woke up—starting awake, as always, from dreams of prison, from the belief that she was still in there, that she would never get out—she reviewed last night’s meeting with that rotten hard-faced whore Reba, thought about how she had shed tears outside and how she’d been made to look like a complete fool.

Nothing new there, though.

Leo had been making her look a fool for years—she just hadn’t known it.

She got up, showered, dressed, stashed the gun and the rucksack, and went downstairs feeling about ninety years old. Oli was in the kitchen, and there were two strange men wandering around the house looking at the alarm sensors.

‘They’re here from Sunstyle to change the settings and stuff,’ said Oli brightly. ‘Coffee?’

Lily nodded and sat down.

‘You want anything to eat?’

‘God no,’ said Lily with a shudder.

‘Oh yeah. You never ate breakfast,’ said Oli. ‘I remember now.’

Lily smiled faintly at her daughter. So odd to see her there, full-grown. So odd and so wonderful, too. But she worried over Oli and Saz. They were rich. All right, the money they had in abundance, and this house, were all ill- gotten gains—but try proving that, Your Honour—and they were rich enough never to have to work, never to have to strive.

That couldn’t be good for them, could it? Certainly it hadn’t been good for her, going from a lowbrow school to a kept—although married—woman, with no thoughts of a career, no ambition other than to play house.

‘What you going to do with your life, Ols?’ she asked, curiously.

‘Oh! God, I don’t know.’ Oli paused and looked at her mother. ‘I’d like to have a year in Paris sometime, I