Jail Bird

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Let me go, you bastard,’ shrieked Saz, struggling to get out of Richard’s grip.

  Poor Richard, thought Lily faintly. Is he wondering what he’s getting into here?

  ‘Not until you calm down,’ panted Richard, having to work hard to hold his new wife still.

  Saz was red in the face and fighting to get free, but Richard was strong enough—thank God—to stop her. Finally she just collapsed in his arms, the knife dropping to the floor with a clatter. She started to sob, screwing up her face and staring at her mother through a haze of rage.

  ‘I hate you,’ she gasped out. ‘You bloody bitch.’

  And that was enough for Lily. She left the room, ran up the stairs, flung herself into the room where she’d been sleeping, threw herself on the bed. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to weep.

  36

  Jase knew he’d made a mistake taking Oli back to his flat after that meeting with Si. He wasn’t in the mood for shagging, not after that. Wasn’t in the mood for anything much, really, except possibly getting rat-arsed on his own. Should have gone off down the gym, done a few bench presses, worked it off.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she kept asking him.

  Oh nothing, except that your fucking uncle has fired me, after all the effort I put in with you, you cow.

  Well, he couldn’t say that. But by God he thought it. And when Oli started in again with the oh-what’s-wrong crap, is it something I said, are you okay, all that…well, he’d lost it slightly, just for an instant, and given her a sharp one across the chops.

  Damned steroids, he was going to have to cut back on them one of these days; he was always pumped up and roaring, an aggressive outburst just this far away. So he’d lost it with Oli.

  Not that it mattered much now. All his plans were in the shit-heap anyway. He was crazy-mad about it. Oli should have had the sense to leave him the fuck alone, not go whining on about didn’t he love her any more, all that jazz, when he was trying to think of a way out, trying to dream up another scheme.

  She stood there in the little kitchen of his flat, her hand to her reddening face, and stared at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he’d said straight away, but she’d just gone on standing there, staring.

  So he’d belted her one. So what? Nothing to make a big deal over. It was a one-off. He’d been pushed past his limits by that bastard Si King.

  Oli left shortly after that. He thought he’d maybe got away with it—she was mad for him, after all. Then he went down to the gym—where he should have gone in the first place. He lifted the weights again, again, again, muscles straining and bulging, sweat streaming from him like a river; and he thought: Fuck this. That door’s mine. I’m going to take it back. You see if I don’t.

  And then he thought of Freddy King saying, Do Lily King. Jase paused, eyes widening.

  Do Lily King.

  Please Freddy and you’d please Si too. Maybe if he did that, like Freddy had asked him to, then maybe he could start to get everything back on track. Yeah, it would be sweet. That’s what he would do.

  He would kill Lily King.

  Oli couldn’t believe that Jase had hit her. She couldn’t believe it, and yet she couldn’t really say that it had surprised her that much. Jase had changed over the last few months. He had become steadily more aggressive, with a shorter and shorter fuse. She didn’t like it. That wasn’t her Jase, the one she knew and loved. She thought that…well, she suspected that maybe he was on something. Some drug or other. She knew he’d once smoked a little weed, didn’t everyone? And then he’d stopped the weed, and before she knew it he was down the pub every night, drinking ten pints and a couple of shorts besides, and what good was that for him? She’d made it clear to him that she was not pleased about that. That he’d ruin his health.

  ‘Darlin’, you want me to stop the drinking, I’ll stop,’ said Jase, the old Jase, the one she adored.

  Not knowing, of course, that Jase had to keep her sweet if his plans were ever going to bear fruit.

  Oli knew he had his faults. But he was always trying to please her; she loved him for that. So he went on the health kick, always down the gym, toning up, bulking up, he seemed to expand in size almost overnight, his neck thickening, his arms growing dense with muscles, his thighs as big around as her waist. Could that be right?

  ‘I’m taking a few isotonic drinks, that’s all,’ he shrugged when she questioned him about it.

  Oli didn’t think isotonic drinks would bulk anyone up as fast as that, or make them so…well, so damned aggressive. She suspected Jase was taking steroids to build up all that muscle. She didn’t question him any more about it. But when he stood there sulkily in his little kitchen, clearly upset, she’d asked him had she done something wrong, what was it?

  And then…then he’d hit her. Not hard. But hard enough. Her front teeth had mashed against her lip and her lip had bled a little.

  This was Jase who’d done this.

  Oh, he’d apologized. But so what? It was done. She reeled out of his flat and sat in her car, shivering and crying. Finally, she’d steadied down enough to drive herself home. Only to find that Saz was back, raging about how could she have allowed all this to happen, how could Oli have let that woman back in their home, and what was wrong with her mouth, it was bleeding, didn’t she realize?

  Oli said nothing. She just went to bed, and lay there in the dark with her lip hurting and her eyes wide open, picturing Jase, Jase who she loved so much, Jase who had hit her. Somehow, eventually, she fell asleep.

  37

  Some evenings there was ‘free association’ for the lags, a real luxury. Lily and Mercy would wander around the wing, chat to people, shower, read papers. Lily became a bit of a gym bunny, worked off some of her frustration that way, but more often she’d just sit and watch some TV with Mercy.

  ‘You killed your old man,’ said Mercy while they slumped there, inert.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lily.

  She had long since stopped protesting her innocence. And she had learned that her reputation as a killer gave her a certain kudos inside; it made others keep their distance. She wasn’t about to let that small advantage go, not even in a private conversation with a friend.

  ‘And you got kids with the man,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Yeah. Two girls.’ Lily showed Mercy the photo of her and Oli and Saz; all together, grinning happily. Leo had been behind the camera. She’d shown Mercy the picture before. This was a little ritual of theirs; it comforted them both.

  Mercy looked at it. ‘They’re so beautiful. I got kids too, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, you said.’

  Lily glanced at Mercy. Tears were snaking down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.

  Lily reached out and squeezed her hand.

  There was nothing she could say that would make Mercy hurt less, nothing at all.

  38

  ‘Jesus! Your lip’s cut, Oli. What happened?’ asked Lily the next morning.

  She’d made some phone calls and had been sitting in the kitchen alone, enjoying—or trying to—a solitary cup of coffee, and wondering what the hell else was going to kick off today. She’d slept badly again; the dreams still plagued her and she wondered if they always would. Then Oli walked in, her hair wild and her eyes looking as if she hadn’t slept in a month. She was wearing dungarees and a flowery top—and her lip was cut.

  Lily started off her stool, alarmed. Oli made calm down motions with her hands, and helped herself to a coffee.

  ‘I fell over on the driveway,’ she said with a half-smile. The smile quickly became a grimace as a spasm of pain lanced through her mouth.

  ‘It looks awful. Does it hurt?’ Lily was peering closely, wanting to do something to help. ‘Did you put anything on it?’

  ‘Yeah, some cream. Look, what can I tell you? I drank a bit too much with Jase last night and after he dropped me off I stumbled and fell. It’s nothing.’

  It didn’t look like nothing to Lily. And what was Oli talking abo
ut? She had heard Oli’s car coming up the drive last night, not Jase’s flashier, faster motor. Oli was lying to her. But the closed, obdurate expression on her daughter’s face made her drop it.

  ‘Did you know Saz is back?’ she asked instead.

  ‘God, yes. Saw her last night. She wasn’t meant to be coming back until today.’

  Lily’s mouth twisted. ‘Your Uncle Si phoned her and gave her the glad news. So she cut the honeymoon short. Couldn’t get in of course because we’ve changed the security arrangements. She gave me a right earful.’

  And came at me with a knife, added Lily silently.

  Would Saz really have done her damage? She wasn’t sure, and that hurt. She thought of all the grinding, horrible years inside, of how she’d dreamed one day of seeing her girls again. She’d known that Si and Maeve would taint them if they could, would try their hardest to turn them against her. She’d managed to get Oli onside. But Saz…Saz wasn’t Oli. Saz took up a position and defended it to the end. If Saz was your enemy, then she’d probably stay your enemy until her last breath.

  But I’m not her enemy, thought Lily with piercing sadness. I’m her mother.

  ‘Saz…took it all very hard,’ said Oli, frowning. ‘You know how close she was to Dad.’

  Yeah, Saz had been the daddy’s girl of the family. Always hanging on Leo’s coat-tails, sitting on his lap when he was at his desk in the study, shooting clays with him in the grounds, being twirled around by him as he threatened to dunk her in the fish pond, both of them laughing and wrapped up in each other. Saz and Leo. Funny how things divvy up in families. Saz and Leo, Oli and Lily. Two different teams occupying the same camp.

  Yeah, Oli was the easy part, thought Lily. Saz is something else.

  But she could do this. She told herself that, over and over again. She could do this. Believing it was half the battle. Doing it was the other half. And she would.

  ‘So what’s on the schedule today?’ she asked Oli.

  Oli shrugged and frowned. ‘Dunno.’

  Something had really taken the wind out of Oli’s sails. Lily waited, but nothing else was forthcoming.

  Oli sipped gingerly at her coffee and sighed. Then she glanced up at her mother. ‘Think I’d better hang around here in case Saz does any more kicking off.’

  ‘Okay. But that’s unlikely, ’cos I’m going out.’

  ‘She’ll want to change the codes back again,’ fretted Oli.

  ‘She can’t do that,’ said Lily. ‘Unless you agree to it.’ She neatly sidestepped the fact that Oli had already changed the security codes without Saz’s say-so.

  ‘She’ll try.’ Oli looked uneasily at Lily. ‘This is really awkward for me, you know. I don’t want to upset Saz. But…I think she’s wrong about you.’

  ‘I’m pleased you think that.’

  ‘I do.’ Oli’s face pinkened. ‘I…I love having you back. I don’t believe you’re a bad person. I can’t believe that.’

  Lily smiled softly. Those were the sweetest words she’d ever heard from Oli.

  ‘But,’ said Oli with a frown, ‘if I side with you against Saz…well, I can’t do that. We’re really close, Saz and me. We had to get that way, I suppose, after it all kicked off with you and Dad. I’m…I’m really worried that I’ll lose her, over this.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll lose her,’ said Lily, trying to reassure. ‘She loves you.’

  Oli gazed at Lily. ‘She loved you once, too.’

  Lily couldn’t answer that; she felt too choked up. Instead she swallowed and said: ‘Look, if Saz tries to alter anything, talk her out of it. You can do it. Convince her that all she’ll succeed in doing is making a prat of herself.’ Lily had already had a word with Sunstyle Securities, telling them that if anyone tried to alter things, they were to check the new password, the new secret address, security codes, everything, with Oli or her, no one else, at which point they would quickly discover that person had no authority to act.

  So they had that covered. And now Lily was going to have a day out. First into town to get her hair and nails sorted, and then on to a lunch appointment to get something else sorted. Something that could maybe solve the mystery of who killed Leo.

  39

  He was waiting at the restaurant. As she came in and the maitre d’ showed her over to one of the best tables, by the window overlooking the river, he stood up and Lily thought: Yeah, he’s just as hot as he ever was. Maybe even more so.

  She was glad now that she’d made an effort today, dressed in her new sharply tailored and scoop-necked navy Gucci suit and high-heeled gladiator sandals, and carrying a quilted Chanel bag. Her naturally golden-blonde hair was freshly highlighted and fell in soft, shining waves onto her shoulders, her make-up was light but faultless, her gel nails gleamed; she felt good for the first time in…oh, twelve years. And she looked good too. The expression in Nick O’Rourke’s eyes confirmed it.

  Lily was seated, and Nick sat back down too. They looked at each other.

  ‘Lily King, you look fucking wonderful,’ he said in that deep, gravelly voice of his.

  ‘You too,’ said Lily. It was true enough. He did look great. Black suit, sharp white Turnbull and Asser shirt, discreet tie.Black hair trimmed and tamed into gleaming submission. Clean-shaven. Strong face. Dark and swarthy skin. Perfect teeth revealed in a smile. His eyes swept over her, settled on her lips—as if he was thinking of kissing her—and then they lifted to meet her eyes. Oh, he was more than handsome. Distinguished. The waiter came with the wine Nick had ordered, took their food order, and left. Silence fell between them.

  ‘So…why the summons?’ asked Nick, his eyes resting on her face. ‘I thought I was persona non grata to you at the moment. After all, you threw my safe flat back in my face. And when I told you that you were being stalked up and down Bond Street, you seemed more angry at me than at that little fucker Tiger Wu.’

  ‘What’s happened to Tiger Wu?’ she asked, curious.

  ‘Oh now come on. Do you really want to know the answer to that?’

  No. She didn’t. Lily took a sip of wine. It was like nectar. She thought of the contraband hooch she and her mates had supped in prison, real gut-rot stuff. Everything was so fresh, so new. So wonderful. The fine restaurant, Nick sitting there looking so damned irritated and so hot. No, she didn’t give a stuff about what had happened to Tiger Wu.

  She remembered that Leo used to bring her here, back in the day. Pop stars and celebrities came and went, table-hopping and being feted by the chef and the owners. The diners way back then had been affluent, civilized. They still were. But dark, brooding Nick was sitting opposite her now, not big, ebullient Leo. The background was the same, the situation completely different.

  ‘I had to talk to you about something,’ said Lily, wondering how best to broach the subject.

  ‘Well that makes a change. Usually you don’t want to talk to me at all.’

  ‘It’s serious.’

  Nick opened his mouth to speak, but the waiter was back. They ordered and the man departed. Nick took a taste of the wine and sat back, watching her expectantly.

  ‘Okay then. Go on,’ he prompted.

  ‘Julia.’ Lily took another gulp of the wine. Suddenly, her mouth was dry. ‘Julia…and Leo.’

  Nick’s gaze was very steady on her face, his eyes unblinking. He pursed his lips and nodded his head, very slowly. ‘I didn’t think you knew about that,’ he said at last.

  Lily let out a breath. ‘I didn’t. Until yesterday. What—you mean you did?’

  Nick was silent for a beat. Then he said: ‘I divorced her as soon as I found out about it.’

  Lily stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘For what? Leo was the first, but I’m sure there would have been others.’ He was twirling the stem of his glass around on the table.

  Lily looked at his left hand. No wedding band, thought Lily. Should have noticed that earlier.

  ‘Julia was in love with herself,’ he went on. ‘O
ne man—or even two—was never going to be enough for her. She had to have constant admiration and attention. It gets wearing, let me tell you. Very wearing indeed. And at least,’ he added with a tight smile, ‘I did the civilized thing. I didn’t just blow her bloody brains out.’

  Lily looked at him steadily. ‘You really think I did that? Blew Leo’s brains out?’

  ‘Only under extreme provocation. And Lily, if you didn’t, who did?’

  ‘Now let’s have a think.’ Lily paused and made a great play of looking deep in thought. ‘Oh yeah. You?’

  Nick threw back his head and laughed. ‘God in heaven, what an imagination you’ve got there.’

  ‘You’ve got to admit, him boffing your wife’s a pretty good motive,’ said Lily.

  ‘I suppose it would have been, had I given a toss either way by then.’ Nick poured them both a little more wine. ‘Which, by the way, I didn’t. Julia might have been wonderful to look at, but I’m telling you, the woman was boring as tits.’

  ‘You must have loved her once.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose I must have.’ And he looked at her so intently that Lily started to feel awkward, as though she had missed something important.

  ‘And there was no jealousy about it?’ she asked. ‘None at all?’

  ‘Not on my part,’ said Nick, his dark eyes boring into hers. ‘How about yours? You sure you didn’t know about Julia and Leo at that stage?’

  ‘No, I was pretty much in the dark,’ said Lily with a tight smile, ‘about Julia, and about all the others. You did know there were others, didn’t you?’

  Nick nodded slowly. ‘Leo was a player. Everyone knew about Adrienne. And there were others, a lot of others. Leo liked variety. I thought you understood that when you married him.’