Jail Bird

She saw Saz’s head turn, saw the uncertainty in her face. Her eyes caught Lily’s. No sweetheart, keep still, keep out of it, for the love of God don’t come in between them, thought Lily desperately, and shook her head.

Saz kept still.

Maeve was crying now, great fat tears rolling down her face. Si kept hold of her arm and started walking her back to where Lily was still in the pool, half submerged in the water. Maeve’s feet were dragging, but Si was yanking her after him, and now she was saying, Please Si, I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t mean it.

Twelve years too late. Lily stood there waist-deep in water, her hair plastered to her head, her clothes sodden. Si stopped walking and looked down at her in the pool. His face looked gaunt, grey. All of a sudden she knew what Si King was going to look like when he was an old, old man.

‘I didn’t mean to do it, Si, I didn’t,’ Maeve was gabbling on, tears pouring down her face.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ said Si.

Maeve fell silent.

Si looked down at Lily.

Shit, he’s not going to say sorry, is he? wondered Lily, and she felt a freakish desire to laugh, or cry. She wasn’t quite sure which.

‘I’ll sort this,’ he said instead. He stared down at Lily for long moments. ‘Okay?’

Lily gulped down a breath, aware suddenly that she hadn’t dared breathe at all for some time. She looked up at Si, who had been her enemy for so long that she had almost become accustomed to the fact. The last time they had been like this – her in the pool, Si looking down on her – he had been trying to drown her. Si had hated her just about forever. But now they both knew the truth.

Lily nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said.

And Si King, brother of the late lamented Leo, pulled his wife from the pool room. He didn’t leave Leo’s Magnum behind, and Lily was glad about that. Let the damned thing go now, what did she care?

The door slammed shut behind them.

71

Feeling close to collapse, Lily swam to the side of the pool and dragged herself out. She sat there, exhausted, slowly getting her breath back. She was aware of Saz moving at the other end of the pool, but she couldn’t focus on anything right now. Saz came and sat down beside her, handing her a towel. Lily nodded. She didn’t feel she could speak. Not yet.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Saz. ‘I thought she was going to kill you.’

Lily let out a mirthless laugh. ‘You know what? So did I.’

She started drying her face and hair.

‘What d’you think’s going to happen to her?’ asked Saz quietly.

‘How the hell should I know?’ snapped Lily, and now she did feel like speaking, she felt angry, she felt furious. She had to spit some of this bile out, or bust. ‘How did you get back in here, Saz? Come on. Tell me. How the fuck did you get in here, and lead all that straight in after you?’

Saz shrugged and her face clouded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Stuff your sorry, Saz.’

‘I…I always had a way in. It was like a game, beating the security systems.’

‘A game?’ Lily turned her head and stared hard at her daughter. Her cheek wasn’t bleeding any more, but there was a lump the size of an egg coming up there that was going to be one hell of a bruise. ‘You brought Jase in.’

‘Only because he said he wanted to surprise Oli, propose to her!’ Saz’s face was naked, pleading. ‘They’d had a row and he told me he wanted to get back in her good books. I couldn’t see any harm in it.’

Lily was silent, thinking. ‘Is Oli okay?’ she said at last.

Saz nodded. Then her face grew troubled. ‘I think…I think Jase is dead.’

Lily had a brief horror-flick running in her brain when Saz said that. Freddy grabbing Jase’s neck and wrenching it round. The noise. Crack!

She shuddered. Then she looked at Saz. ‘Tell me what you were sorry about,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘When you were sleepwalking. You kept saying over and over, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” What was that about? Do you know?’

Saz lowered her head. ‘I came in that night. The night he died.’

I’m sorry, Daddy…

The words echoed in Lily’s brain, Saz’s voice, the voice of a nine-year-old girl coming from the mouth of a woman.

Leo with one of his tarts in the master suite, Saz coming up the stairs. Surprise, daddy! And then seeing what was happening on the bed, seeing and maybe even understanding; thinking, But I’m his best girl. And that ain’t Mummy.

Lily could see it in her mind’s eye. Saz creeping back downstairs to the study, slipping on those special gloves Leo had bought for her, getting the key to the gun cabinet out of the desk drawer, opening the cabinet, loading the gun, she was used to loading the gun, Leo had taught her how. And then going back upstairs…and blowing Leo away.

‘I was going to surprise him,’ Saz said. ‘I climbed up the stairs, and I thought I would surprise him, I loved him so much.’ Her eyes filled with tears. After a moment’s hesitation, Lily reached out a hand and squeezed her daughter’s hand.

‘But,’ Saz went on, heaving a heavy sigh, ‘he wasn’t alone.’

‘Oh Saz,’ said Lily mournfully. ‘Did you see him in bed with another woman?’

‘No. I saw…’ Saz’s head whipped round and she stared into Lily’s eyes. Then she closed her eyes tight, blocking the memory, her face screwing up with pain.

‘It’s okay. Go on,’ said Lily reassuringly. She was holding Saz’s hand tight now. ‘What did you see, Saz?’

‘Oh God,’ said Saz, and she started to cry. ‘I saw you.’

Lily stared at Saz. ‘What?’ she said faintly.

‘I saw you,’ sobbed Saz. ‘I…I saw you. But it wasn’t you, was it? I’ve been so stupid. I saw a blonde woman in a dark suit, holding the gun. It was smoking; there was the smell of the stuff, cordite, and I could see that Daddy was on the floor. The woman was in the doorway of the master suite; she was facing away from me. It was your hairstyle, and you always wore those dark suits, you remember?’

Lily remembered.

I wanted your life, Maeve had said.

‘But it wasn’t you at all, was it? I thought it was you, but it was Aunt Maeve.’

‘Shh,’ said Lily, and put an arm around Saz’s shuddering shoulders. ‘Hush, it’s all right. It’s all over now. Tell me why you were sorry, Saz. Just tell me that.’

‘I was sorry because I…I didn’t protect him,’ wailed Saz. ‘You’d been arguing a lot in the weeks before that, do you remember?’

Oh yeah, Lily remembered. She’d thought Leo was playing around, taking the piss. And he’d said she was going off her head. She had actually started to believe him, had started to think she was going crazy. She remembered the rows. Remembered them well. But she had tried – they had both tried – to keep all that shit away from the girls. Obviously they hadn’t tried hard enough.

‘I thought you’d finally lost it and killed him. I saw you there. So I was glad when they locked you away. I was glad.’

Saz started to cry again, but more softly now. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. And I’ve been phoning you, and saying nothing. Trying to freak you. I’ve been a total bitch, I’m so sorry.’

Lily’s, eyes filled with tears too. For the first time in twelve years, Saz had called her Mum. It was a moment