by Jessie Keane
‘You’re telling me you weren’t? Straight up?’
‘No way was I the only one,’ said Adrienne, and she wasn’t laughing now – in fact she looked sad. ‘Sodding Leo.’
‘Tell me about the other one, then,’ said Lily flatly. She felt as though she’d just stepped into a new nightmare.
‘Other one?’ Adrienne shook her head and let out a guffaw. ‘God’s sakes, Lily! Other one! That’s priceless!’
So Adrienne went on to tell her about the rest of Leo’s ‘girls’, and how she’d hated that there’d been others.
‘I tracked them down,’ she said, and there was a glint of triumph in her eyes as she said that. ‘I tracked them all down. I even had a list of their names and addresses.’
7
Freddy King was in the pub with his brother Si. There was an empty place at the table they always occupied in their local. It was Leo’s place, and Freddy nearly choked with emotion every time he saw it. No one sat there, unless they wanted to start wearing their arse as a neck ornament.
‘She’s out,’ he said to Si.
‘I heard,’ said Si, who was older than Freddy, and wiser. He watched Freddy, who was now tapping a beer mat on the table, tap tap tap. He was on edge, and who could blame him? She was out.
‘So what we gonna do?’ asked Freddy.
‘Do?’ Si lifted a finger and caught the barman’s eye. He indicated their table. The barman nodded. ‘What do you mean?’
Freddy leaned forward. ‘You know fucking well.’ Tap tap tap. ‘That cunt wants sorting.’
The barman came hurrying over and put two more pints on the table.
Si nodded his thanks. Took a leisurely mouthful of beer. Looked at his brother. ‘She’s done her time,’ he shrugged.
‘She ain’t anywhere near paying for what she done, and you know it,’ spat Freddy angrily. He threw the beer mat down and it skidded off the wet table. ‘Twelve years? What the fuck is that? – it’s taking the piss! Our brother’s dead; he ain’t coming back and walking free like that bitch is.’
‘All in good time,’ said Si. He leaned in and lowered his voice. ‘What, you want to get yourself banged up? Do anything right now and the Old Bill won’t have far to look, will they, you tosser? You’re always in a fucking rush, that’s your trouble.’
Freddy’s face worked, his jaw clenching and unclenching. He knew Si was right, but that made it worse. Like he had no control over any of this. Like that cow was in charge, not him, not the King boys.
Si reached out and clasped Freddy’s meaty forearm.
‘Look, Fred,’ he said urgently. ‘Wait a bit. That’s all I’m asking. Give it a year, two years; you can do the bitch any way you want, but right now? Forget it.’
‘Forget it?’ Freddy leapt to his feet and shouted the words. Heads turned. Si gave him a ‘shut up’ look. ‘No, you forget it, Si. I fucking well won’t.’
And he was off, barging across the bar, bumping into punters in his headlong rush for the door. A bloke with a pint slopped all down him said, ‘Hey! Watch it, mate,’ and that was enough.
‘I ain’t your mate!’
Freddy started in, punching the man hard in the jaw. Glass and beer flew into the air. The man reeled back and Freddy piled in on him, punching, kicking, red-faced with fury. Si was there in a second and grabbed his brother, dragging him back, shoving him hard towards the door.
‘Get out of it, you silly bugger,’ he snarled, and Freddy went, the red rage still gripping him – but this was Si, and he always took notice of Si.
They lurched, panting, out into the car park, wary punters skirting around them, shouts and curses following them out.
‘Just keep walking,’ said Si, hurrying towards the car, jumping in, starting the motor. He’d had three pints, but who gave a toss? Laws were for other people, not for him, not for the King boys. Freddy jumped in too. In minutes they were a mile away and Si was just clipping on his seat belt and telling his brother to calm down.
‘You want to keep a lid on that temper,’ said Si irritably.
He felt like he’d been saying that to Freddy ever since the silly git turned two years old. Freddy had never understood the word subtle, but Si did. Si knew that sometimes you just had to think things through and bide your time. He didn’t want Freddy blundering about upsetting Saz and Oli. The bitch was their mother, after all. He had to tread carefully. He would act, but discreetly, choosing his moment with care.
‘Hey! I got every right to be mad,’ said Freddy. ‘She’s out, and now you’re telling me there’s not a thing I can do about it.’ Freddy swore to himself that he was going to sort that cow. He owed it to Leo. Usually he paid attention when Si made his feelings clear, but not this time, no way.
Si sent his brother a sidelong glance as he tore through the lanes. Crisis over, he thought. Freddy seemed calm again. For now. And thank fuck for that, because tomorrow was the wedding, their niece was getting married. Si was giving her away. The last thing any of them needed right now was Freddy kicking off.
8
Lily was sitting in Becks’s kitchen, her head in her hands. Becks put a mug of coffee in front of her, and sat down opposite.
‘So what did Adrienne say? Was it bad?’ asked Becks, chewing gum.
Lily dropped her hands. She stared at Becks.
Becks stopped chewing. ‘What?’ she asked nervously.
‘Did you know about the others?’
A wary smile formed on Becks’s lips. ‘Others?’
‘Leo’s other women.’
Becks’s mouth dropped open. ‘What other women?’
‘Are you bullshitting me, Becks?’
‘No! Absolutely not. What other women? I knew about Adrienne, shit, everyone did.’
Yeah, thought Lily. Everyone did.
The court case had brought that right out into the open. Adrienne’s involvement with Leo had been all over the tabloids, along with photos of Lily, the wronged wife turned murderess.
Adrienne had told her that although the police had questioned her about Leo, she had never said a word to them or to anyone else about the other women in his life. The list was her private property, and the detective who had tracked down ‘those tarts’ was bound by client confidentiality, she’d told Lily smugly.
‘You didn’t think to tell me about Adrienne,’ said Lily to Becks.
Becks looked pained. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Lils. I nearly told you a dozen times, but then I thought, would I want to know? And I backed off from it.’
‘You mean you wouldn’t want to know? If Joe was shagging about the place? Really?’
Becks shook her head, her jaw moving rhythmically as she chewed the gum. ‘Nope. Ignorance is bliss, Lils, that’s what I say. Not that Joe would do that. Not his style. And anyway, I’d have his balls for earrings if he did. But come on. My Joe? No way.’
Lily thought back to when ignorance had nearly driven her half mad, with Leo saying she was imagining it all and her own mind playing tricks on her; she’d got more paranoid and more miserable by the day. It hurt her that Becks had kept this huge, awful secret from her. But that was Becks. She’d been a great friend. She’d visited Lily inside – while she was in Holloway, anyway; always cheering, always cheerful, when no one else had bothered. Lily would never forget that. But sometimes, you only ever got half the story from her. And sometimes, you didn’t get the story at all.
‘So what are you saying? What, is there more than one?’ Becks asked, curiosity eating her up.
‘Keep going,’ said Lily, sipping the hot, strong coffee.
‘Two then?’
Lily shook her head.
‘Get out. More than two?’
‘More than three,’ said Lily.
‘Four?’ Becks’s eyes were huge with amazement, her jaw moving like a piston. ‘You’re having a laugh.’
‘Try six,’ said Lily.
‘What the…?’ Becks was gazing at Lily as if she’d gone mad. ‘No. You can’t be seri
ous.’
‘Got it straight from the horse’s mouth. Adrienne’s, to be precise.’
Lily gave a grim smile even though inside she felt sick with the betrayal of it. To learn that Leo had been unfaithful to her with one woman was bad enough; to be told straight out that he was a serial adulterer was painful. All right, they hadn’t exactly been love’s young dream: Adrienne was right about that. Leo had been second-best for Lily, and maybe he had sensed that, who knew? But six women? That was really taking the piss.
Although, thinking about it, she supposed there was a pattern here. The three brothers, Leo, Simon and Freddy, had been sired by a philanderer, after all. Old man Bobby – or ‘Bubba’ as he was more commonly known – King had put it about all over the place, everyone knew that, right up until he fell off the twig. Leo was just following the parental example. Freddy was still single and fancy-free, he could do what he liked. But if Leo had followed his old man’s example and cheated, then it was entirely possible that Si was doing the same, married or not.
If I was Maeve, Lily thought, I’d have my eye on Si right now.
She thought again of Leo, screwing around and then coming home to her. For God’s sake! Their love life hadn’t been all that, but she could have got a dose of anything, the selfish bastard. Anything at all. The thought of that repulsed her, gave her the dry heaves. And it filled her with rage, too. That he’d treated her with such total disrespect; treated her like an idiot.
Lily sipped at the coffee. Tried to get a grip even though she felt she was losing it. Six women. Not one. Six, including Adrienne.
And even if Adrienne’s in the clear, any one of those others could have had a reason to blow Leo’s brains to kingdom come, she thought.
‘Adrienne had him followed,’ said Lily as Becks sat there transfixed. Lily let out a harsh laugh. ‘Can you believe that? She had a private detective on the job. His mistress didn’t trust him. Didn’t mind him shagging the wife, but anyone else? Forget it. Apparently she suspected there was another woman tucked away somewhere, and she wanted to know who. So she hired this guy and he turned up a whole stable of whores, of which she was just one.’
‘Holy shit,’ said Becks faintly. ‘So who are these others?’
‘I don’t know yet. But it certainly puts a different complexion on things, don’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said Lily patiently, ‘I didn’t kill Leo, but someone did. And they were happy to let me do time for it.’
‘You think one of these women…?’
Lily shrugged and stood up. ‘Dunno.’
‘Yeah, but Lily…look, if whoever did it was crazy enough to blow Leo’s brains out, then…well…for God’s sake, they could do it to you, too.’ Becks raised troubled eyes to her friend’s face. ‘You know what? If I was you, I’d just let it lie. Let it go. It’s all past now, anyway. Try and forget it. Move on.’
‘I can’t move on, Becks.’ Lily’s fist hit the table in frustration. Becks jumped. ‘Not until I find out who stitched me up. Lost me my freedom. My home. My kids. Everything I had, they stripped it off me. And I’ve got to know who. And why.’
Becks was shaking her head, her face solemn. ‘Don’t do it. Don’t start in on this, Lils. Bad things could happen to you if you carry on with this, I’m warning you.’
Lils reached over and patted Becks’s shoulder. ‘You’re a good friend, Becks, but come on, get real. Bad things have already happened to me. And I think it’s about time they started happening to someone else. Now, I need to use your phone, is that okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Becks doubtfully, and Lily went off into the hall, closing the door firmly behind her.
When Becks checked the landline later – Lily was in the bath again; Jesus, how many baths could one woman take? – she found that Lily had keyed in 1-4-1 before making her call, so that neither Becks nor her husband Joe could easily find out who she’d been in contact with.
When Lily came downstairs wearing Becks’s spare bathrobe, her smile was hard and cold. Becks looked at her nervously.
‘So!’ said Lily brightly. ‘What am I going to wear to this big wedding then? Hope you’ve got something suitable I can borrow.’
Oh Gawd help us, thought Becks.
9
‘What do you think, Aunt Maeve?’ asked Saz King, turning back and forth before the big cheval mirror in her bedroom, holding out her ruffled skirts, inviting favourable comments.
Saz was feeling pretty damned pleased with herself. She loved being with Richie and couldn’t wait to be married to him. Richie made her feel special, adored. He was a little older than her – eight years – and sometimes she did think: What’s all that about? Was she looking for a father figure because Dad was gone?
Well, maybe she was. Whatever, she felt happy today. She relished being the centre of attention and was eager to marry stoic, stable Richie because yes, all right, with him she felt safe.
Maeve King, Si’s wife, looked at her niece and thought, She’s the most beautiful girl in the whole world but my God! – she’s the spitting bloody image of her mother.
Incredible to think that Saz was twenty-one years old, astonishing to think how fast the years had flown by; how one minute she’d been a bewildered and grief-ridden nine-year-old child, and then the next, pow! All grown up. And so eerily like Lily, too.
‘Oh Saz! I think you look lovely,’ said Maeve, choking back a tear.
She was determined to make this a happy day for Saz, the best of her entire life. She thought of what Si had told her last night, about his brother Freddy kicking off because Lily was out. Maeve thought that Freddy was mental, a bit of a mouth-breather. Si and Leo had always been the brains of the outfit. No one had told Saz that Lily was out. Si would have thrown a fit if they had. He had discussed it with Maeve, of course he had; but they’d agreed it was best that she didn’t know.
‘Do you think the veil’s too much?’ asked Saz.
‘No, it’s perfect,’ said Maeve.
She thought that Saz couldn’t have looked more exquisite if she’d tried. Money was no object, of course; never had been, not in the King family. If a King woman wanted something – a swimming pool, a diamond necklace, a designer wedding dress, voilà! It appeared as if by magic.
Saz was turning and preening in front of the mirror, smiling secretively at her reflection as sunlight poured through the big balcony windows, highlighting her shimmering loveliness in fairy motes of gold and silver.
‘You got your garter on?’ she asked.
Saz smiled and raised the ruffled hem of the dress to reveal white silk Jimmy Choos, white stockings and a blue berib-boned garter. ‘Right here,’ she said.
‘Don’t let him twang it,’ warned Maeve with a laugh. ‘That’s a family heirloom, that is.’
Think your mother wore it too, shot through her brain, then she wished it hadn’t. She frowned. Why did she have to keep thinking of Lily today?
The answer was simple: she was taking Lily’s place; so, even if Lily wasn’t here, her spirit was hovering over the proceedings like a rotten odour. They’d all moved on with their lives. Maeve and Si had become guardians to their two nieces, and to lessen the upheaval for the girls they had rented out their own place just up the road and moved into The Fort. They had never used the master suite; too many memories, and all of them unsettling.
‘Where’s the car? Isn’t it here yet?’ Saz was now demanding fretfully, going to the window, looking out.
Saz might look like Lily, but deep down she wasn’t like her mother at all. Saz was quicksilver, but Lily had been like rock: calm, immovable, a bit of a house mouse really, but with an aura of stillness and strength about her. Maeve could still remember the first time she’d ever seen Leo weave his testosterone-and-bling-laden spell over Lily. They’d all been crowding around his flash car after school – they’d all been mates, all familiar with each other – and the other, bolder girls, Mary and Becks, Adrienne and Julia, had been a
ll over Leo and his pals like a rash: teasing, flirting, flashing their big smiles, their coltish legs and their pert, perfect teenage boobs. Maeve had joined in a bit, although she was no beauty, not like some of the others; but Lily had hung back, uninterested.
Maeve shook herself.
This was Saz’s big day and she was going to make sure that she enjoyed it. It was not Lily standing there, but Saz, Maeve told herself firmly. But Maeve remembered that she had been a bridesmaid when Lily had married Leo in eighty-seven. Maeve had thought Lily might go for a Princess Di-type thing, all puff sleeves and full skirts, but Lily had stayed true to type and worn a simple ivory shift – with a large bouquet of cream roses to conceal the bump of her pregnancy.
And here was the result of that pregnancy, standing before Maeve now. A beautiful full-grown woman who shared her mother’s bone-deep and effortless brand of glamour. Lily had always looked good – Maeve had envied her that. Maeve had to work hard at looking good, particularly now an early menopause had hit her like a ton of shit and she’d gained two stone almost overnight.
Maeve had made a special effort today, because she was acting as ‘mother of the bride’, wasn’t she? Today of all days, Maeve had to look good. So she had squeezed her short, dumpy form into pull-in pants and a fuchsia pink silk dress and matching jacket, with a little ‘fascinator’ clip-on waterfall of feathers and flowers sitting atop her streaked blonde new Judy Finnegan-type hairdo.
But looking at her lovely niece she had to admit that, beside Saz King, she just looked like mutton done up as spring lamb.
Jesus, just look at her, she thought.
Saz was wearing a tight-fitting pearl-studded gold satin bodice that showed off her full breasts to their best advantage, tapering down to display a neat waist before flaring out into a huge, impossibly full skirt that was a cascade of opulent cream silk ruffles. The train was small, balancing the massive length of the skirt. Saz’s long blonde hair was swept up behind a pearl-encrusted tiara. Her face, with its neat nose, large, serious, navy blue eyes (now those weren’t like Lily’s, and thank God for it) and wide, smiling mouth had been professionally made up. She glowed with radiance. Suddenly she turned to Maeve and grinned.
