by Julie Shaw
Lucy wished she knew what the evidence Jimmy kept mentioning was. He said he didn’t know, because it would have been against the law for his father to tell him. But she still bet he did know. She’d have put money on it. But being at the scene didn’t mean she had anything to do with it. How’d he know Paddy hadn’t beaten her as well? It was all a mess. Why the hell wasn’t she telling the truth? How much more psycho (as Jimmy’d put it) did your boyfriend have to be before you ran for the bloody hills?
‘But I know if I can just see her I can talk some sense into her. I know I can. Which is probably why she won’t see me. Because she knows that.’
And all too well, because Vicky hadn’t budged an inch. Lucy had tried three times to get a visiting order organised, without success, and her half dozen letters had all gone unanswered. Vicky had even refused to see her mum (‘She reckons she’ll be out soon, so there’s no point me dragging there,’ Mrs Robinson had told her in an unashamedly relieved tone) and there was no way she’d agree to have Chantelle go to see her – Lucy knew that before Vicky’s mum had even told her.
But she had a plan. She’d been speaking to one of the solicitors in her office, and she’d written a long letter to Vicky in which she’d highly embellished the truth. She’d said that if Vicky continued to refuse to see both her and Chantelle, then it would be like she was an unfit mother – not bothered about her kid – and that she could even lose her altogether. Chantelle might be taken into care because of it. That would be enough, surely, to make her change her mind.
Jimmy started the car. ‘You know, you might need to brace yourself, Luce. You’re so sure Vicky wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but you don’t actually know that. She’s changed. You already know that. Since Paddy’s been back, she’s changed. Dumped you like a hot brick, the minute he clicked his fingers, and—’
‘No,’ Lucy said.
‘Seriously, love, you don’t know what happened. You weren’t there. Think about it. She does everything that bastard tells her to. Everything. I’m not saying she did it. I’m not saying she had a big part in it. But she was there. They were there together. Love, you’ve got to accept the possibility that she at least stood by and let him.’
‘No,’ Lucy said again. ‘I refuse to believe it. She loved Gurdy as much as I did. No, either he’s got something on her – made some threat – God, maybe even against the baby – I wouldn’t bloody put it past him. Either that or he’s convinced her that they can’t possibly have any evidence, and she’ll be safe. Either way, I’m going to find out.’
The plan worked so well and so quickly that Lucy almost felt guilty. But only up to a point because, actually, Vicky could lose Chantelle if she persisted in her lunacy. Not that she was planning on actually taking her along, despite what she’d said. That could wait till next time.
Though, God willing, there wouldn’t be a next time. She felt sure that she only needed to talk some bloody sense into her friend and she’d snap out of whatever spell she’d been put under. Because there was one weapon that was more powerful than any other – that Paddy couldn’t physically get to her. Yes, they could write – another thing she’d asked one of the solicitors at work – but only in the blandest of tones, because everything would be vetted by the prisons. God, she hoped he went down for ever.
The trip to New Hall was fiddly and very time-consuming. First a train, then another, then a walk, then a bus, and with her memories of what Vicky had told her about visiting Armley, she expected the whole business to be grim.
She was shocked, therefore, to find herself walking up a bright, leafy lane, to what, if you ignored the discreet perimeter fence, didn’t look like a prison at all. In fact, the first brutal shock of the reality of her friend’s incarceration was Vicky herself, who she saw from across the sunny visiting room, wearing something not dissimilar to the overalls Jimmy wore to do his plumbing, which hung off her. She had lost a lot of weight. More shocking still was to see quite how different she looked. With her hair unstyled and lank, and her face free of make-up, she looked ridiculously young. Just a girl.
The expression on Vicky’s face, though, was chilling. There was shock – Lucy had forgotten that she’d lied about Chantelle – and then a steel that Lucy hadn’t seen before.
All too soon though, the moment passed and they were in one another’s arms, both crying, both overcome with emotion. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Lucy said, pulling tissues from her jacket pocket. ‘Chantelle’s fine, she really is. And I’m so sorry I had to lie to you. And I have photos. I borrowed a girl from work’s Polaroid camera. They’re not the best, but here you go.’ She pulled these from her other jacket pocket and placed them on the table. Though Vicky didn’t immediately pick them up. ‘So it’s not true?’ she asked instead. ‘The social aren’t really sniffing around? Only some of the girls in here, the things they’ve told me … God, I’d go mad, Luce. I’d lose it, I know I would.’
Lucy nudged the pictures towards her. ‘No, I promise. And I hated to lie to you. But I had to, Vic, I had to. I had to come here and see you.’ She lowered her voice, conscious of the prison officer standing just feet away. Did they listen in? Did they have to report stuff? She had no idea. ‘I had to come,’ she said, ‘to try and make you see sense.’
Vicky was now looking at the pictures of Chantelle, however, and if she’d taken in what Lucy had just said, she made no sign of it. ‘God, I can’t bear it,’ she said finally, lifting a picture to her mouth and kissing it. ‘Is she missing me?’
‘Course she’s missing you, you div! But your mam’s doing fine. She really is, Vic. And don’t look so shocked. She’s coping. Probably be the making of her, truth be told. And I’m helping all I can; I try to pop round every day, and I have her the odd night, to give her a bit of a break. So you don’t have to worry, okay?’ She leaned forward. ‘But, Vic, look, you know why I’m really here. What the hell is going on?’
Vicky dropped her gaze, then put the pictures in a pile and raised her eyes to Lucy’s again. ‘I didn’t do what they are saying, Luce. I would never hurt Gurdy.’
‘Christ, I know that. Course I do. But – look at me, Vicky – you’ve got to tell them the truth.’
‘I am telling the truth,’ she said. ‘I’d never hurt him, ever. I—’ She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
‘But you were there, Vic,’ Lucy persisted. ‘They know you were. You’ve got to come clean about it now. There’s just no point – look, I know what’s going on. You’re protecting Paddy, aren’t you? You—’
‘Will you shut the fuck up?’ Vicky hissed, gesturing towards the nearby officer. ‘Paddy was with me. That’s what I told the police, and that’s what I’m sticking to.’
‘But it’s not true!’
‘That’s what I told the police and that’s what I’m sticking to,’ Vicky said again, looking even more childlike with the tears that were coursing down her face. ‘I have to. Because … because, you know, Lucy. Because I have to. He’s Chantelle’s father, and she needs him, and I have to see this through.’
Lucy lost her rag, she couldn’t help it. ‘And you’re her mother! And let me tell you, she needs you a great deal more than that murdering bloody monster!’
‘It’s not him. It wasn’t him, Lucy. You just don’t realise. It was the drugs!’
So an admission at least, finally. She couldn’t backtrack on that now. Lucy pressed home her advantage. ‘Yeah, but it’s not the drugs that go to trial, is it? It’s not the drugs that go to prison. It’s you. Because you will, you know. You’re not going to get off this. Whatever he’s told you, Vic, he’s wrong. You are not going to get away with this. They have evidence. You know that. Why are you being so bloody naïve?’
‘They don’t. I know they don’t. He’s lying just to scare us.’
‘What’s all this “us”, for God’s sake? Vicky, are you completely deranged? Jimmy’s dad isn’t lying, mate. You’re an accessory to murder, and unless you tell the truth you’re
going to make everything so much worse!’ She snatched up the photos and shook them in her friend’s face. ‘Think, Vicky, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what he’s said to you, but think of this one. She needs you. Is that what it’s come to, that you believe his shit over everyone, now? Is that it? Despite having watched him kill someone? Vic, you’re insane.’
Vicky snatched the photos, leapt to her feet and scraped her chair back.
Lucy was confused at first. Visiting time was no way over yet. Could she just leave then?
‘Can I go back, please,’ Vicky said to the officer, turning her back on Lucy. The officer nodded. Apparently so.
Lucy stood too. ‘Please, mate,’ she said, casting an apologetic glance towards the prison officer. ‘Please, mate, don’t chuck your life away. Not for him.’ She stood and waited. Nothing. ‘Look, you know I’ll be there for you,’ she went on. ‘And Jimmy and I, you know we’ll take care of Chantelle for you. Okay?’ Again she waited. This was unbelievable. It really was like Vicky had been irrevocably brainwashed. Lucy tried again. ‘Okay, Vic?’
But her friend just walked away.
Chapter 28
Lucy didn’t realise. She was so stuck on her hatred of Paddy that she couldn’t see an inch beyond her nose. Which was why there was no point in arguing with her. Or trying to explain how things were. How things could be, and would be. How her Paddy, another victim in all this, was clean now, and he was never going back to drugs again. He’d made her a promise and he was already proving he could stick to it.
He’d written daily. Lengthy letters full of loving words and reassurances. Always measured – the fucking screws got to read everything, obviously – but always clear, even if she did have to read between the lines a bit, that she needed only to stick to the statement she’d made. That they couldn’t touch either of them, because they weren’t there.
And though she wished she could talk to him, and have a proper chat about it – about the real ‘it’ rather than the fiction – she’d accepted and believed that was the way it was going to be. That they’d be unable to convict them because they couldn’t without evidence. Didn’t matter about anyone seeing Paddy’s car, or whatever other cock and bull they’d come up with – without physical evidence, they couldn’t convict anyone. And there wasn’t any evidence. So they were safe. Whatever Lucy said – and God knew what lines Jimmy had told her to spin her – Vicky knew what she was talking about. There was no way in the world anyone would find the crowbar – it was a million-to-one shot. A billion-to-one shot. All she had to do was hold her nerve.
Lucy had written too, of course. A huge long letter which came two days after she’d made her visit to New Hall. Saying the same thing; that she must think of Chantelle. But didn’t she realise? That was exactly what she was doing. If she changed her story – she couldn’t quite think of it as ‘Tell them Paddy had killed Gurdy’, as he hadn’t been Paddy when he’d carried it out – then he might, probably would, go to prison for murder. Because, as Mr Grey had kept pointing out (hypothetically, obviously, since they hadn’t been at the scene, had they?), she would then become a witness to the crime. And if Paddy was tried for murder, which there was no question he would be, then she’d almost certainly be tried as an accessory to murder (Mr Grey had explained that also, at length) which, though he kept saying they’d be lenient, since she’d be ensuring Paddy’s conviction, meant that she’d be convicted and given a custodial sentence too. And where did that leave her baby daughter? Christ! An orphan.
She had had so much time to think. That was the thing no one realised. And she’d thought, and she’d thought and she’d worked everything out. Which was why it angered her so much that Lucy couldn’t even see it. She wasn’t being stupid – much less ‘deranged’, as Lucy’d called her. She was being smart. Trying to find the silver lining in the biggest cloud of her entire bloody life. Standing by Paddy wasn’t the lunatic behaviour of a stupid ‘brainwashed’ girlfriend. Looked at every which way, it was the only thing she could do.
But now she was beginning to fray around the edges. She was in the showers, having just played a game of netball. She’d been in New Hall five weeks now and, exactly as she’d thought when she’d first swept through the gates in the security van, it really was a lot like being back in school. She was in a dorm now – twelve of them in there – like something out of a Mallory Towers book. And, just like in school, they were very into exercise. Feeling low? Get some exercise. Feeling angry? Get some exercise. Feeling like you want to slit your throat? Get some sodding exercise. And though she’d been reluctant at first, to say the least, they had turned out to be right: it was the main thing that was keeping her sane.
But this morning, even being hot and sweaty and gasping couldn’t stop the edges fraying. She’d not heard from Paddy in three days. And however hard she tried to push them away, Lucy’s words kept returning. That he’d drop her in it in a heartbeat if the boot were on the other foot. That he had no loyalty to Vicky whatsoever.
Sod her, she thought, as she turned her face up to the shower head. It wasn’t like she had a choice, was it? And there would be a good reason. Perhaps he’d reached his quota – who knew? Perhaps the post had been delayed. There could be all sorts of reasons why she hadn’t heard from him. And he was clean now – that was the main thing. Able to think straight at last. She felt a pang of sympathy. For all that she had so many horrors to deal with, he was going to have to live with what he’d done for the rest of his life. God, it must have hit him hard. She hoped he was okay.
‘He might even be in lock-up,’ Susan, one of the girls in the dorm, suggested when she returned from the showers and confirmed she was once again letterless. ‘Got into some fight, or other, and be banged up – they don’t get access to letters or materials when that happens.’
Susan knew about that sort of thing. Knew all sorts of things about a world that Vicky didn’t. Her boyfriend was apparently an ‘accomplished thief’ – her words – who had been responsible for a spate of armed robberies on jewellery shops in Leeds and Middlesbrough. And she herself was inside for stolen cheque books and forgery, and would apparently be in New Hall for two years this time – it wasn’t her first sentence. She’d been to prison previously for the same offence.
That must be it, Vicky reassured herself, when there was nothing from Paddy the next day. Just a scrawl from her mam, droning on about how Chantelle was teething and giving her all sorts of headaches, and, irritatingly, some rant about what was going on on one of her bloody soaps on TV. Paddy had a short temper at the best of times, and withdrawing from coke and weed (and God only knew what else) was hard, so he would have been in a foul mood before he started. And if someone had wound him up, well, he would have definitely been up for a scrap.
Thank God New Hall was nothing like that. But then it wouldn’t be, would it? It was more like a kind of holding pen for women who couldn’t quite get their lives together mostly. One girl, Tanya, had laughed when she’d explained, in all seriousness, that whenever her kids were getting too much to handle, she’d go on a shoplifting spree with the express intention of getting nicked so she could have a few weeks’ peace and quiet.
‘But what about your kids?’ Vicky had asked her, astonished.
‘Oh, me mam has them. Or they go to foster homes,’ she’d explained. ‘They’re used to it. They quite like going to foster homes, actually. You should see all the clothes and toys and shit they come back with.’
It was another world, though not one she ever felt inclined to share with Paddy. He’d only write back and moan about her having it so easy while he was marking out time in the hell-hole of Armley.
‘If you write back at all, that is,’ she said to his picture as she lay down that night. Her mam – hold the front page – had sent it in a package. A double-sided picture, that she’d protected with loads of Sellotape. A photo of Chantelle on one side and Paddy on the other. She slipped it back under her pillow and tried to drift away. It was hard, sl
eeping, these days, even without Chantelle to wake her, because the horrors and heebie-jeebies always came during the night. She’d often wake up terrified and sobbing, after some mish-mash of what had happened had swirled in her brain, creating the recipe for the perfect nightmare.
Was this a nightmare? She had no idea what time it was. Only that the dorm was dark. Unusually dark. When she opened her eyes she could see no more than she’d been able to when they were shut. Which was weird on its own. There was always a little light to see by. It came in under the door, from the always lighted corridor. But it wasn’t just the blackness. It was that weird sleep paralysis thing she sometimes got, when she had to fight her way out of a nightmare when she couldn’t move to run away.
But this wasn’t that. She realised she was being pinned to her bed. By rough hands. Strong hands. Hands that were gripping her shoulders and forearms. More than one person. What the fuck was going on? She opened her mouth to shout out, but it was immediately silenced by something. Something bulky, shoved between her lips, making her retch. She could barely even groan. Whatever she’d been gagged with was pushing on the back of her throat.
Then, suddenly, a spray. Some sort of liquid. Her face wet. She tried to swing it from side to side but it made no difference. The sharp smell of chemicals. What the hell was being done to her? The wetness, the coldness, all over her head and face and neck. What was it? Fuck, it smelled like hairspray! But why would anyone want to spray hairspray all over her? She squeezed her eyes shut as hard and as tight as she could. Who was this? What were they doing? This was New Hall. Like a school! Where were the warders? Why weren’t they protecting her?
She jerked and bucked. Where were Susan and Amanda and bloody Marlene? Where were all the others? Was this one of them? Two of them? Was this some kind of sick joke they were playing on her? More hairspray – it was that, she was sure of it, bloody hairspray being sprayed on her! She tried desperately to make a sound – any sound. Why hadn’t someone come to help her? Then a new sound. A rasp, and it all become obvious. A white blinding light, and a whump, her scream silent, then searing pain, as her whole head exploded into flames.
