Jail Bird

There. She’d admitted it to herself.

She hated the thought, but everything was pointing Saz’s way. Even Saz’s anger against her mother could be nothing more than her own guilt eating away at her.

Shaking, she walked to the edge of the pool and slumped down before she fell down. She crouched there with her head in her hands, thinking, Please, no. Not Saz. She felt devoid of energy, all the fight had gone out of her. If Freddy barged in right now and throttled her, she wouldn’t care. Saz had killed Leo. She knew it. It made her sick to her stomach to even think it, but there it was, staring her in the face.

Saz had the means to get in somehow. Saz could handle Leo’s shotgun. Saz was exhibiting signs of unbearable guilt.

Wake up and smell the coffee, you silly cow, she thought in despair. Saz did it.

Oh God. Lily straightened, pulled her hands through her hair, wondered if she was going to throw up. Blinking back tears of weariness and distress and terror, she looked up at Maeve and did a double-take.

Maeve was holding the Magnum, and it was pointing straight at Lily.

69

Lily was so shocked that she could only stare, her mouth open, her eyes wide with disbelief.

‘What the…?’ she managed to get out at last.

‘Freddy’s out in the hall. With Si. Sorting out that loser.’

Not good news. Freddy was bad enough, but Si was deadly. Why weren’t they in here, finishing her off? They had their chance now. All her defences were down. But then – they knew she was cornered. They had time enough to get rid of Jase’s body while Maeve held her down here. They could afford to be leisurely about all this. She was trapped. And here was Maeve – dumpy, rather laughable, little Maeve – pointing Leo’s gun at Lily’s head.

‘Maeve, what on earth are you doing?’ asked Lily faintly, standing up shakily.

Maeve gave a little laugh. ‘Taking this gun off you. You tried to shoot me with it, we struggled, and I shot you. By accident.’

‘What?’

‘You just had to go stirring things up, didn’t you?’ Maeve went on, as if Lily hadn’t spoken at all. ‘You just had to do it, even though everyone told you not to.’

Lily’s eyes were glued to the gun. The great black maw of the Magnum’s barrel seemed to yawn at her like a chasm. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ she said.

What the hell was happening here?

‘I’m on about that silly cow Adrienne, and her list.’

‘But…’ Lily was frowning, trying to make her panicking brain think about anything other than the fact that Maeve was standing there, rock steady, pointing the Magnum at her head. She gulped and tried again…‘But Adrienne didn’t tell anyone about that list. I asked her twice. She swore. How the fuck do you know about it?’

Maeve smirked. ‘Matt told me. He was working from home, and he went looking for some paper and he found the list, tucked away in Adrienne’s desk drawer. He came in to work all upset next day and I wheedled it out of him, asked him what was wrong. Boy, was I in for a surprise! He showed me a copy he’d taken. Showing all the tarts Leo was shagging. And why would Adrienne have such a thing? Matt put two and two together – he’s an accountant, after all – and he came up with the correct number. Adrienne was boffing Leo and she was jealous of these others: so jealous she’d had them tracked down. Of course I said that him and Adrienne were sound, so why start stirring things up? And he agreed. He’s such a loser, he worships the ground that daft bint walks on. I said it was best to just trash his copy of the damned list and forget it; and I screwed it up and binned it right in front of him. Of course, the minute he was out of the office I was in that bin like a long dog, getting it back out again.’

‘What are you telling me, Maeve?’ Lily asked, dry-mouthed. ‘When did all this happen?’

Maeve was silent for a beat, watching Lily.

Then she said: ‘Nineteen ninety-six. Not too long before Leo went off to the great golf course in the sky. The bastard.’

But she’d always thought that Maeve liked Leo. Lily stood there, shaking, watching this woman who she thought she knew and yet was suddenly strange, different.

‘He laughed at me, you know,’ said Maeve.

‘What?’ Lily shook her head, tried to clear her thoughts. It was hard to think with that thing pointing at her. And now, over Maeve’s shoulder, she saw Saz step through the hall door into the pool room. Saw her start forward, her mouth opening, eyes widening, as she saw her aunt Maeve holding a gun on her mother.

No, Saz, thought Lily desperately. Go away. Keep out of it.

But then Si appeared behind her. Saw the two women at the far end of the pool. Grabbed Saz’s arm, held her still.

‘He had you, and he had all these others,’ Maeve was ranting on. ‘A whole fucking procession of them. You know what? I was going to leave it. But then I saw the list, I saw that fucking list and I couldn’t bloody well believe it. He had all of them, and yet…when I approached him, me, one night in the club, you know what he did? He laughed in my face. Called me a fat little nobody; said he wouldn’t screw me even in the dark. He said he would never screw around with his brother’s wife, you never touched kin, what was I thinking of, what sort of slut was I? Which is funny, because he seemed to like sluts. And then he said I was ugly, and did I think he was desperate or something? He was a cruel bastard, your husband.’

Lily kept her eyes on Maeve, although she was terribly aware of Saz standing there in horrified silence at the other end of the pool; aware too that Si was hearing this, hearing how his wife had propositioned his own brother – and been rejected.

She couldn’t take this in. Maeve had seen the list, had known Leo was fucking around. And she had been jealous of the women on the list. Pretty women, all of them. Sleek, blonde creatures, not dumpy little self-important Plain-Janes like Maeve.

‘You always looked down on me,’ said Maeve. ‘You all did. You. Becks. Mary. Adrienne. Julia. All of you.’

‘That ain’t true.’

‘Yeah it is. And you were all so good looking. Not like me. I even had my hair done like yours, Lily King. Tinted to the same shade, cut in the same style. I even started to dress like you. I wanted to be you. But that still wasn’t enough for him. You had Leo. He had the looks, the real sparkle. Si’s a dull bugger. He didn’t ever care about me. I was just the wife, her indoors, helping out with the books sometimes. We had no kids, no nothing. And Freddy’s a fool. Leo was the real prize and by God didn’t he bloody know it?’

‘You don’t have to tell me any of this, Maeve.’ Lily could feel Si’s presence there, taking all this in. A dull bugger. He and Saz had drawn closer; they were halfway down the side of the pool now.

‘Yeah, I do. I want you to know what sort of a shit you were married to. And that all he got, he fucking well deserved.’

Lily stared at her sister-in-law in horror as it all sank in. ‘For fuck’s sake. You killed him. I was talking to his mistresses, I even…good God, I even suspected my own daughter, and all the time it was you.’

It was beyond belief. Maeve had done it. Maeve had left her to stew inside for twelve years. This woman, this stroppy little cow, she was the one responsible for Lily’s suffering; she was the one who had robbed the girls of their father and convinced them of their mother’s guilt.

She’d been jealous of Leo’s mistresses, and jealous of Lily’s life. She’d wanted Lily’s life, Lily could see that now. She’d wanted her husband, for starters, and when she couldn’t have him she had killed him instead. Then, unable to have children herself, she had happily grabbed Lily’s girls, played the doting aunt.