by Julie Shaw
Chapter 29
Vicky came round to the sound of something beeping.
It sounded like a smoke alarm – the one in the back room at work. The one that always went off when she or Leanne tried to use the crappy toaster.
Or the alarm by her bed. On and on and on, it went. Shit. She had overslept. She should wake up and get the fuck on with it. She’d be late otherwise, and Lee would give her so much shit.
But she couldn’t seem to do it. She felt sick. Dizzy as well. As if she’d downed too many vodkas. And her head hurt. She frowned. Which made it hurt even more. Enough to make her cry out in pain.
‘Hush, sweetheart.’
She nearly had a heart attack – who the hell was that? Not her mam. Her mam never called her sweetheart. She tried to open her eyes, so she could see who was talking to her. That hurt as well. But she couldn’t seem to get them open, try as she might. And then the memory – and the horror, and the terror – all flooded in.
Scared witless now, Vicky tried to put her hands to her face, but one was jerked back immediately, as if restrained. And the other was immediately grabbed between strong hands. ‘Shhh,’ said the voice again. Female. One she recognised. Then, ‘Nurse, nurse, can you come, please? She’s awake.’
Imprisoned in darkness, Vicky felt her fear writhe inside her like some parasitic animal trying to escape. She felt suffocated as well as blind, aware, even as she tried to cry out, that her mouth wasn’t working properly. She could only writhe herself, and moan, unable to form words.
‘Shhh,’ the kindly voice soothed. ‘You’re going to be okay, love. You’re in hospital,’ she added, to Vicky’s as yet unasked question, ‘being taken care of, okay? There’s nothing to be scared of. Try to lay still. The nurse is on her way.’
Vicky recognised the voice. Or thought she did. Was it Miss Teague? The friendly prison officer? She rattled her restrained hand, and heard a metallic rattling close by.
‘Shhh, love,’ came the voice again. ‘Don’t get yourself in a panic. It’s just a restraint. I’ll see if I can get it taken off for you, okay?’
Vicky, remembering more and more now, heard a grotesque wail come from somewhere deep inside her. The smell of hairspray. The heat. The violence done to her. What had been done to her?
And how did she get here? She didn’t even know what day it was, let alone what time of day. Had no memory of anything bar the violence that had been done to her. The monsters who had come in and attacked her in her own bed.
She gulped in air, painfully, through lips that were cracked and dry. Then felt a touch on her cheek and a dabbing of something cool. ‘There you go,’ came another female voice. ‘Here, open your lips a little. That’s the way. It’s a straw. Have a suck, it’s just water.’
She tried to suck, but it was as if there was some strange swollen growth where her lips had formally been and it was hard to keep them tight around the straw. She knew she was dribbling, because she could feel it dripping down her throat, but over a chin she couldn’t feel, like she’d had an injection at the dentist. The fear writhed inside her again. What had been done to her?
‘You’ve been attacked,’ said Miss Teague later on. How much later? She’d been aware of waking up, being given something, then drifting off again. And had no concept of day and night. But here Miss Teague was, at her side again. She could smell her too-strong and musky middle-aged perfume eddying around her. And, now she’d been given more painkillers, could at least get her mouth around the things she wanted to ask.
It had been two nights ago. ‘In your bed,’ said Miss Teague, ‘while you slept. They set fire to your hair, love,’ she added, patting Vicky’s arm as she said that. ‘It was pretty bad.’ Pretty bad. How did you work out what pretty bad meant? Did she have any hair left? Was she blind? Was she horribly disfigured?
‘Your eyes are going to be fine,’ Miss Teague reassured her. ‘That much I can tell you. You’ve just got to keep the dressings on for a bit while the skin heals. I expect they’ll change them later on, then you’ll be able to see for yourself. And yes, you’ve got some nasty burns, I’m afraid. And your hair …’ She stopped talking.
‘Has it all gone?’ Vicky whispered, slurring through her unwieldy lips.
‘For now,’ Miss Teague told her. ‘But it’ll grow back, they think, in time. And, really, thank God it was just your hair. You could so easily have been blinded …’
She seemed almost as upset about it as if she was Vicky’s mam, and Vicky wondered if she had a daughter herself. Or, well, perhaps not her mam. Did her mam even know? Did anyone know? Lucy? Paddy? Christ, who’d done this to her?
She could feel her panic rising once again, and heard Miss Teague click-clacking off to ask the nurse to come and see to her. Heard the words ‘more morphine’. But she didn’t want morphine – she wanted to know who had done this. Who had she upset? Who had she annoyed? Why had it been done to her? She knew bad things happened in prisons. Had heard all kinds of lurid stories about bad things happening late at night, in dark corners and secret places. Knew too that the correct course of action if it was happening to someone else was to act like it wasn’t. Her former room-mate Susan had told her that right at the start, hadn’t she?
So did they stand by and listen? Could they have even been involved?
Miss Teague returned, and confirmed, having listened to Vicky’s slurred entreaties, that, yes, she did know what had happened, and that the perpetrators had yet to be found and ‘dealt with’. ‘But you can be sure they will be,’ Miss Teague said, more briskly. ‘And, once you’re feeling a little better, perhaps you can help us out with trying to piece together something from what we do know.’
‘What do you know?’ Vicky whispered.
‘Not now, love. You need some painkillers. We can deal with that once you’re feeling a bit more up to it,’ Miss Teague said.
‘I’m fine,’ Vicky managed to say, though she couldn’t have been feeling less fine. ‘Tell me – what do you know? Please, Miss Teague. Tell me.’
There was a pause, then a sigh. ‘Only that you had a piece of paper stuffed in your mouth.’
Vicky gasped, remembering it. Remembering that particular piece of violence. Being unable to speak. Of gagging on it. Suffocating. ‘What did it say?’
Vicky could hear footsteps. The sound of one of the nurses approaching, in their sensibly quiet shoes. She was becoming attuned to it now. Then Miss Teague cleared her throat.
‘Vicky, love, we need to talk to you about Patrick Allen.’
Chapter 30
Paddy. Lucy stared at the words swimming in front of her. If he’d been standing in front of her at that moment, she thought she might be able to kill him with her bare hands. But it was the guilt that clutched at her heart the most.
‘Oh, God, babes,’ she said to Jimmy. ‘This is all my fault!’
Jimmy snatched the letter from Lucy’s hands, with one of the sheets beginning to rip because it was so damp from her tears. She’d read and re-read it, and she’d been unable to stop crying, her tears plopping down and mingling with Vicky’s, already dried onto the cheap lined prison paper. Like everyone, she knew the expression ‘tear-stained letter’, but had never seen one before. Well, now she had.
‘It is not your fault!’ Jimmy said, for the umpteenth time, irritably. ‘For Christ’s sake, you’ve got to stop this! It was that bastard burned her. Not you. Not you,’ he said again, gripping her wrists.
It had happened three whole weeks back. It had been three whole weeks before she’d even known. And all that time, Vicky holed up in some recuperation place, in terrible pain. And the worst of it was that she must have felt so alone.
And there was no getting round that horrible, horrible truth. That, whatever Jimmy told her, she still felt so certain that she’d been key in the attack happening in the first place. If Paddy thought Vicky had grassed him up, then there must have been a reason. Because she’d never wavered. Not once had she caved in and talked. She had
stuck doggedly by her man from the very first. Even though it was clear to everyone else on the planet that he was not a man at all. He was a monster.
And even with his paranoia – part of his basic personality, whatever nonsense about drugs Vicky had tried to convince her – the one thing he knew she’d been as solid on since the day they’d been arrested was that no way in the world was she going to grass him up. She’d said as much to Lucy, face to face, even as she’d pretty much admitted that he had killed Gurdy. That she was going to stand by him, for Chantelle’s sake, for her own sake, forever, because she still believed that they were both going to get off. And he’d have known that. They’d been writing to each other regularly, both of them clearly off their heads. Not on drugs this time, but sheer stupidity.
But then she’d come along, hadn’t she? And changed everything. Not with her visit. Because Vicky’s position – protecting her bastard murdering boyfriend, for her entirely crazy reasons – had not changed an iota. No, it had been after that, when, frustrated that she’d been unable to talk any sense into Vicky, she had decided to take action.
Though not even action; all she’d wanted was to find out where Vicky really stood. If the evidence didn’t stack up, could they really get away with it? Was it really true that, without a witness, and if the evidence was only circumstantial, they wouldn’t be able to make a conviction stick? And if she did change her plea and agree to give up Paddy, what would her position be then? How would she be able to convince a court, assuming he told them she was an accomplice (which he would) that she was innocent? And if she didn’t, would she go to prison for life as well?
It had seemed to Lucy to be the only way to proceed. In order to help her friend, it was no good trying to guess at things. She needed to know what her options were. And since she worked at a solicitors, it was the most natural thing in the world to ask one of the criminal lawyers. Who, she realised later, knew Paddy’s hot-shot lawyer and who would of course spend time chatting to him on a day-to-day basis. They all did – sworn enemies in court they might be, but outside of it most of them were friends. And even she hadn’t really seen the seriousness of the situation. Hadn’t really considered how much Paddy’s lawyer would encourage him to change his plea. He obviously knew he’d done it – everyone with half a brain knew he’d done it. So when she’d merrily chatted to the guy at work, it never occurred to her that the business of her even asking in the first place might be construed as the long-awaited broaching of Vicky’s defences; a signal that, finally, she’d been persuaded to see sense and tell the truth. And, of course, why wouldn’t he merrily chat away to Paddy’s lawyer about it? It was an interesting case, wasn’t it? A big one.
‘It is,’ she told Jimmy now. ‘I know it is! It must be. That bloody lawyer will have told Paddy to expect the worst now, wouldn’t he? Put two and two together, knowing I was asking about what would happen if she did give him up. What else would he think? He’d think she was about to. Oh, God, Jimmy, I’ve caused all this, I know I have.’
That it had been Paddy who’d arranged the attack wasn’t in any doubt. No need for incriminating evidence in this case. He’d held his hands up to it immediately, because there was no point in doing otherwise. Convinced he was going down for life, he hadn’t even done it as a warning. He’d arranged for Vicky to be attacked for pure revenge. He must have. Why else have some sick woman write ‘Love Paddy’ for him on the note that had been stuffed in Vicky’s mouth?
Jimmy folded the three sheets of flimsy paper. ‘Love, I’ve got to get to work. And so have you. But, look, stop this, okay? You don’t know any of that. And even if it is true, it makes no difference. Think about it rationally. What do you want? What does Vicky’s mam want? What does Chantelle want? Come on – what do we all want to happen most?’
‘For Vicky to stop lying for him.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jimmy, before draining his coffee and picking up his car keys. ‘For Vicky to return to bloody earth and see that cunt for what he is. And tell the truth.’
Jimmy rarely used the ‘C’ word. And only ever in relation to Paddy Allen. Lucy wondered if it would be reserved for that exclusive use till the end of time. ‘Yes, I know that,’ she said, ‘but—’
‘No buts. Because this was always going to happen.’ He waggled the letter in front of her before putting it down on the kitchen table. ‘It was always going to happen, the very minute she opened her mouth. Always,’ he said again. ‘Doesn’t matter what prompted it to happen. But the minute it did – it still does, God willing – he was going to lose his rag and get his revenge. Love, there’s nothing you could have done about it, don’t you see that?’
‘God, it’s unbelievable. How? I mean, that’s what’s really chilling. That he can even orchestrate something like that while he’s in another bloody prison! And who’d do that for him? Who? What sort of woman would calmly set someone on fire? I can’t believe anyone would do something so vile. Christ, and to someone like Vicky.’
Jimmy shook his head. Then put his arms around her, while she sniffed against his chest. ‘Then you need your head testing, trust me,’ he said softly. ‘Babe, you don’t know the half of it. And you don’t want to. Specially not where that bastard is concerned.’
‘But does your dad? I mean, really? Is it really that cut and dried? Isn’t there still a chance he could get off? God, can you imagine? Him walking around free? The guy I spoke to at work says it’s not that straightforward – that if they both keep denying they were even there, then it’s almost impossible to do either of them for murder. They need Vicky’s testimony, don’t they?’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘No, they don’t. I mean, Christ, if she doesn’t speak up now, she must be seriously deranged. But they can place her at the scene anyway so they will be able to break her if she doesn’t.’
‘You keep saying that,’ said Lucy. ‘But can they? Can they really?’
‘She was sick, babe,’ Jimmy said. ‘They have her vomit to use in evidence. And if you tell that to a living soul, I am in serious trouble. Or, rather my dad is, so don’t, babe, not to anyone. Ever.’
Which gave Lucy a whole new dilemma. Vicky wouldn’t see her. Didn’t want Lucy or Chantelle – especially Chantelle – anywhere near her. Not when she looked like she did. Bald, she’d said. Fucked-up. A mess. Like a gargoyle. And still, if what she’d put in her letter was to be believed, convinced that her only choice was to stick to her story. Paddy had done what he’d done and she knew him for what he was now. But she’d thought long and hard – apparently – and decided she still couldn’t risk changing her plea now, because if she admitted she’d been there, which she’d have to, to give up Paddy, they would also put her away for years and years, because there was little doubt that he’d want to take her along with him. So she had to hope – Vicky had treble underlined the word ‘hope’ – that, without sufficient evidence to convict her as an accessory for murder, they could only do her on some more minor charge.
Noooooo, Lucy thought, as, after Jimmy had left for work, she read the letter through again. Who the hell was advising Vicky? Who was her lawyer? How could she think in that way? But there was no getting away from it, Vicky was between a rock and a hard place. Damned if she did tell the truth – possibly with a long sentence in prospect (and in this Lucy’s heart bled for both Vicky and Chantelle) – or damned if she didn’t. Because Lucy knew that if she continued to lie for Paddy, she would be in mental anguish about Gurdy for the rest of her life.
So how the hell did she begin to find a way to help her?
Or did she have to accept her own truth? That she couldn’t.
Chapter 31
She had deep second-degree burns – that’s what the physio woman told her, anyway. Burns that weren’t like when you accidentally touched your hair tongs. Deeper than that. Nastier. Still so incredibly painful. Yet a mere three weeks after she’d first been returned to the prison hospital wing to recuperate came the news that she was being discharged back to
the general population.
‘The scarring will fade, love,’ the woman said, smiling the sympathetic but still undeniably breezy smile of someone who wasn’t horribly disfigured. ‘And we must be grateful for small mercies, mustn’t we?’ she added briskly. ‘You’re lucky there’s no scarring to the scalp tissue. Which means your hair will grow back.’
‘Will it, though?’ Vicky asked her. Losing her hair had left her more traumatised than anything.
‘Yes,’ the physio woman told her. ‘In its own time – which might be quite a time, so don’t be too impatient. But it will, love. At least you can hang on to that.’
Vicky wasn’t sure she had the strength to hang on to anything currently. What good was her hair to her anyway? Not when she couldn’t even bear to look at her own reflection. Let alone show her face to the world. To her daughter.
It was such a painful trigger now. Every time she thought of Chantelle – which was often – she cried. Chantelle would recoil from her, she knew. She would be frightened to look at her. Vicky could see it so clearly. How she would run to her mam, to Lucy, to anyone. How she would recoil in disgust at the monster who was her mother and would run to anyone, in fear, to escape her.
The crying hurt, bleeding salt into already angry wounds. Tears that mingled with the liquid that seeped from her constantly. Plasma, the nurse had said. The body’s response. Like her body was weeping at the devastation of her life too.
‘Why can’t I stay in here at least till I look a bit better?’ she asked the physio. ‘Everyone’s going to be staring at me. I don’t think I can bear it.’
