Jail Bird

laughed mirthlessly.

Jack said nothing.

Lily said: ‘What happened to your face, Julia?’

‘Oh, so you’ve decided to talk about the elephant in the room,’ said Julia, half smirking. ‘So…what happened?’ Lily asked again.

‘Someone threw acid in my face.’

Lily took a breath. Wished she hadn’t. But for fuck’s sake, this was horrible. That someone could have done this to beautiful Julia. She’d been the best-looking girl in their crowd. They’d all admired her looks, would have killed for her looks. And now…here she was. Disfigured for life. Wearing shapeless clothes, because what was the point of doing otherwise? No one would look at her now. Not Leo. Not Nick. No one.

‘Who did it, Julia?’

‘I never knew.’ She shook her head. Her lovely long white hands were exactly as they had always been, smoothing over the cat’s back. Its eyes were closed in bliss. A deep purring was emanating from it. ‘I came in one night after I’d been at a party. Got out of the cab, and someone rushed up to me – I couldn’t see who, it was just a dark shape…and flung this liquid. They ran off. And after a little while, it started to sting. And then to burn. And I…I got my key out somehow, came in, splashed water all over my face, but it was burning, I was screaming, it was agony…’ Julia gulped, caught her breath, the stress of remembering that awful night causing her to falter. ‘I…my neighbour heard me. Came running round, phoned the ambulance, I think I passed out with the pain. They got me to hospital…but the damage was done.’

‘Is there…is there nothing they can do?’ asked Lily. ‘Reconstruction?’

‘Oh.’ Julia forced a smile, shook her head. ‘They wanted to. But I couldn’t face it. They couldn’t promise the end result was going to be worth a damn anyway, so why put yourself through all that? Anyway.’ Her mouth set in a grim, twisted line. ‘I’m happy here. I’ve got my cats. Animals don’t care what you look like, you know. You love them and you feed them; they don’t judge you. They don’t turn away if they see you in the street.’

‘But you must go out sometimes,’ said Lily hopefully.

‘Internet shopping. It’s great.’ Julia was smiling again, but it was wearing thin. She glanced towards the window. ‘It’s dangerous out there.’

Yeah, thought Lily. Tell me about it.

She thought of her own situation, of the Kings and what they would love to do to her, and suddenly she could see how a person could end up this way – shut in, imprisoned. She couldn’t let that happen to her. She wouldn’t.

‘Does Nick know what happened?’ she asked.

‘About my face? Yeah, he knows. I suppose he thinks it serves me right. After the Leo thing.’ One bright and beautiful eye stared straight at Lily. ‘I’m sorry about Leo. Our fling, I mean.’

‘Yesterday’s news,’ said Lily. So Nick had been trying to spare her this.

‘Yeah, only it ain’t,’ said Julia. ‘You didn’t do it. So who the fuck did?’

‘That’s what we want to know,’ said Lily.

‘You know what I’d do, if I was in your shoes?’

‘No. What?’

‘I’d leave it. Go far, far away. That’s what I’d do.’

‘I told her,’ said Jack.

Julia looked at him briefly, then turned her attention back to Lily. ‘And you didn’t listen, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You always were the stubborn one. Quiet and stubborn, that was you in a nutshell. Look…can you go now? Please? I’ve got things to do.’

Yeah, like what? thought Lily. Order in twenty tins of cat food and a microwave meal or two – anything rather than set foot out there again?

Lily felt a stab of anger. That someone could have reduced the poor cow to this, living in fear behind closed doors, only her cats for company. Did Nick look out for her, help her? She supposed not. Julia had cheated on him. And Nick really wasn’t the forgiving type.

So is he the type to throw acid in the face of a deceiving woman? she wondered. She didn’t know. Not for certain. That bothered her. Shit, everything about Nick bothered her.

‘Do you see Nick at all?’ asked Lily as they stood up to leave. ‘These days?’

‘Nick?’ Julia stood up too, scooping the ginger cat up into her arms and somehow contriving to keep the right side of her face concealed beneath the long fall of her hair and the bulky body of the cat. ‘God, no. Why should I?’

‘Well, you were married. Once.’

‘Not for long,’ said Julia, ushering them towards the front door, where she stooped awkwardly, cat still clutched to her, and unbolted, unlocked, unlatched.

It’s like Fort Knox, thought Lily. And again, she was reminded of her own set-up. Living at The Fort, which was rigged out like a high-security outpost – or a prison.

Maybe Julia was right to feel under threat from the outside world. In here, she felt safe. Out there, monsters lurked.

Poor bitch.

‘And anyway,’ said Julia, as she opened the door and the sunlight fell upon her ruined face, ‘it wasn’t much of a marriage.’

Lily and Jack stepped out onto the pavement. Julia moved back, into the deeper shadows of the hall, her hand already on the door to shut the world out.

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Lily, curious.

‘Because he married me on the rebound, didn’t he?’ she said with a dry crackle of laughter. ‘After you took off with Leo. It was you Nick really wanted. It was always you.’

Jack and Lily got back in the car outside Julia’s. Lily fastened her seat belt, but Jack just sat there behind the steering wheel, his face blank, his eyes thoughtful as he stared straight ahead at the car parked in front.

‘Jack?’ said Lily. Why wasn’t he starting the damned car?

After a moment he turned his head and stared at her for so long that she began to feel more than a bit uncomfortable. Then he said: ‘What’s going on, Lily?’

Lily looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

Jack was silent, still staring. It was starting to worry her.

‘I mean, what the fuck’s happening here?’ he said, and he was looking at her like she was a total stranger.

‘No, you’ve lost me,’ said Lily. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh, well let me just find you again,’ he said. ‘Alice drowned. Julia scarred. What’s going to happen next, Lily? What’s going to happen to the others, the others you’ve just insisted you have to track down and confront?’

Lily’s mouth dropped open in shock at what he was saying.

‘What – you think I had something to do with Alice’s death?’ Lily let out a wild laugh of disbelief. ‘Oh come on. Alice was unhinged. She committed suicide.’

‘That’s just a supposition. No one knows that for sure yet.’

Lily was shaking her head at him, her face disbelieving. ‘You can’t be flaming serious. And what about Julia? I don’t know when that maniac decided to have a go at her, but you know I was inside when it happened. Banged up. No way could I have done it.’

Jack sat back, his expression dubious.

‘Come off it, Lily. You were married to Leo bloody King. One of the biggest crooks in the East End, one of the best-known faces in the whole of Essex. One thing he had – and one thing I guess you’d have too – was connections. Inside or out, he could have ordered anything done. And so…’

‘And so you think I could too?’ Lily really was laughing now: it was too ridiculous for words. ‘Wrong, Jack. I never had that sort of clout. I was just the little woman indoors; the one who everyone thinks finally flipped and planted a bullet in her cheating husband’s brain. I didn’t have the contacts; I didn’t have the connections. Leo had it