Jail Bird

She’d made them depend on her while their mother served time for doing their father. Poor little mites. How skilfully she must have poisoned their minds against Lily.

Lily thought of Saz coming in here tonight. Saz had somehow bypassed the security systems. There was a way in. Saz knew it; maybe she had known it even as a child. Maybe she had even told Maeve about it. Lily knew that Maeve had been at The Fort often on Sundays; she knew Maeve had seen Leo get the key to the gun cabinet from the desk drawer on several occasions. Leo had loved showing off the Purdeys to Si, and they had enjoyed shooting clays together in the grounds some weekends.

Then she thought about Leo’s mistresses. Thought about Alice. Clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God. Alice. You didn’t…’

Maeve’s expression was sneering. ‘You see? That’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. If you hadn’t started arsing about with that list, none of this would have had to happen. You went and saw that nutter in the home, didn’t you? Somehow seeing you made her come out of whatever cloud-cuckoo-land she’s been in for all these years.’

Not me, thought Lily. Leo. The picture of Leo.

‘And she started talking. Alice Blunt was in the club the night I talked to Leo, the night I…came on to him. She heard. She saw. She was hanging off his arm and grinning; they were both laughing at me. She knew he’d turned me down, and you had to go and see her and start her talking, and I thought, what if she talks about that? How long then before you started putting it all together?’

‘You killed Alice,’ said Lily, horrified.

Maeve gave a ‘so what?’ shrug. ‘She was wandering about the place. I just led her into the lake, that was all. It was easy. Told her she was going to be with Leo again. Looked just like she’d drowned herself. Of course, I was the one who put the stones in her cardigan pockets, not her.’

Lily was thinking frantically now. Jesus. She was thinking about Reba getting raided. She was thinking about Suki, killed in the fire at the flat, and Bev, who was still in intensive care suffering the effects of smoke inhalation.

Lily’s stomach lurched with realization as it hit her. ‘You’re doing them all. You’re making it look as if it’s me.’

Maeve gave a tight little smile.

‘You are,’ said Lily with sudden ferocity. ‘You torched Bev and Suki’s place.’ Which had led on to Winston freaking out and attacking Jack. ‘You grassed Reba Stuart up to the police – didn’t you?’

‘See? You can work it out, if you try.’

‘But what about Julia? Someone threw acid at her when I was inside – you couldn’t pin that on me.’

‘I never intended to.’

‘Then why do it to the poor bitch?’

‘Why do it to beautiful, exquisite Julia?’ Maeve looked thoughtful. ‘Oh, let me see. Her head was so fucking big she could hardly get it through a door. She knew how good she looked; she knew that she only had to enter a room and every man in it was gobsmacked. She was on that fucking list. I knew she was doing Leo behind Nick’s back. I thought I might tell him…but then I thought, no. Then she came to our tenth anniversary party and she was bragging, actually bragging about how men chased after her. And I thought, lady, I’m going to take you down a peg or two. And I did.’

Lily felt red-hot rage envelop her then. That poor cow Julia. All right, she’d been a pain in the arse in her younger days, she was vain; she was arrogant and proud of her beauty. But what Maeve had done to her had been cruel beyond belief.

‘And what about Adrienne?’ So far as Lily knew, Adrienne was fine.

‘Saving her until last,’ said Maeve gloatingly. ‘I like Matt. He’s a nice man. He don’t deserve a slapper like her for a wife.’

Jesus, the price they’d all paid just because Leo wouldn’t give Maeve a leg-over. ‘You stupid, malicious cow,’ Lily spat out, unable to stop herself.

‘Hey!’ snapped Maeve, raising the gun. ‘Pot, kettle, black,’ she said, and pulled the trigger.

70

Lily dived sideways, into the pool. The gun went off, a huge explosion of noise that set her ears ringing, and she had a feeling that it had been this close, that bullet, too close for comfort. Then she was under the blue, blue water, and she thought, Oh shit she’s going to fire at me again, I’m a sitting duck in here, and she swam off under water, waiting for the fatal impact.

She tried to stay under, stay deep. Under the water, bullets would be slowed – wouldn’t they? – and Maeve’s visual perception of her exact whereabouts would be distorted. That was the plan.

It was a good plan.

Only…she was running out of breath. Her lungs felt as though they were bursting. She was getting a feeling, a powerful feeling that she just had to take in air, or water, or something, but she had to open her mouth, her body was telling her: breathe or die.

She kicked further down the pool, as far as she could go, cringing, expecting at any moment to feel the shocking pain of a gunshot, but she knew she was going to have to come up for air.

Lily broke the surface of the pool near the shallow end, the end at which Si and Saz had been standing. She whooped in lungfuls of air, her head whipping round. Si was gone. Saz was gone. There was shouting going on at the other end of the pool, Saz and Maeve grappling…

Then Lily saw what had happened, saw why Maeve had missed her when she fired.

Saz had made a run for it and grabbed her. Saz had tried to protect her mother from Maeve. She saw Maeve push Saz roughly aside, saw the gun swinging around towards Saz.

‘No!’ Lily shrieked.

But Si was there, pushing Saz aside. Husband and wife confronted each other. The gun in Maeve’s hand was steady, aimed at Si’s chest. Saz stepped back nervously. Lily froze.

Si was staring at his wife as if he had never seen her before. Finally he said: ‘You did it.’

Maeve’s chin tilted upwards. ‘Yeah. It was me. I did it.’

‘You killed my brother, just because he wouldn’t betray me? Wouldn’t jump my wife like she wanted?’ Si was shaking his head; he couldn’t take it in.

Maeve was silent, but she had grown pale.

‘And all these years, all these years, you let us think it was her? You let her take the rap for you? You were going to just stand back and let us get even for what she’d done, when all the time she hadn’t fucking well done it?’

Now Maeve looked uncertain. Si’s rage was not something anyone would want to incur, and he was visibly trembling with fury now. ‘He had all these women,’ said Maeve weakly.

‘That was Leo!’ shouted Si. ‘That was who he was: we all knew that. What was it you said? Si’s a dull bugger, Freddy’s a loose cannon, but Leo had the sparkle. You got that right. Leo did. He charmed the knickers off more birds than you could count – that was him. You came on to my brother, and because he didn’t bite you just killed him.’ Si raised a hand and clutched at his head as if it ached. ‘Shit,’ he moaned.

‘He had all these women,’ repeated Maeve.

Si straightened. ‘Give me that bloody gun,’ he said.

For a moment Maeve’s face tightened. Her hand was gripping the Magnum so hard that her knuckles were white. Lily thought: She’s going to shoot him; she’s going to shoot Si right now. She saw Saz standing near to the couple, tense with dread, shivering as if with cold, and mentally willed her daughter not to intervene again, not to risk it.

But then Maeve’s hand dropped. Si stepped forward, and took the gun from her. They were nose to nose, eye to eye. Si grabbed Maeve’s arm with one hand. He pocketed the Magnum and then half turned away. Suddenly he turned back, and smacked her full-force across the face. Maeve’s head jerked back and she let out a pitiful cry.

‘You stupid cunt,’ snarled Si.