Jail Bird

by Jessie Keane

  Well, here I am, taking care, thought Lily as Nick drove with casual grace through the streets.

  And now she was here, at Jack’s office.

  ‘You want me to come in with you?’ asked Nick, setting her down in the side road just off the High Street.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ She didn’t want Nick loitering around

  Jack’s office, listening in and disapproving about what they were discussing.

  Lily got out and walked over to the office. The door was half open.

  ‘Hey, Jack?’ she called out to silence. She felt a shiver of apprehension creeping up her spine.

  She was just rattled over Suki, that was all. Suki was dead. Bev was in intensive care. Winston was fuck-knew-where.

  She pushed forward, went into the office where she and Jack had sat and chewed the fat over Adrienne’s list.

  ‘Hey…’ she started, and then she sagged against the door as a dizzying spiral of shock travelled all the way up from her toes to the roots of her hair.

  There was a bloodied bag of bones sitting in Jack’s chair.

  It was just blood, and sinew, and…well, it had a head, but even that was covered in gore. There were splashes of blood up the walls, and there was blood coming out of a big cut on the thing’s left arm, it was pumping, it was pumping, oh fuck it was arterial blood, of course it was. She saw the dirty-blonde tufts of hair sticking up, stiffened with gouts of blood, on the thing’s head. The phone dangled loose on its cord, brushing the bloodied floor.

  She felt vomit rise hot and sour into her mouth and turned to one side, half choking on it.

  Oh my God, Jack.

  She stood there, swaying on her feet, aware that someone some distance away was moaning, and then she realized that it was her.

  ‘God – Jack…’ she groaned out.

  And then the door swung slowly shut behind her. Lily half turned, all the hair on the back of her neck standing up, a hot spasm of fear clutching at her. Winston was standing there, big as a barn door and clutching a bloody machete against his soiled grey t-shirt. He was staring at her, and he was weeping.

  ‘Winston…?’ Lily gasped out. ‘Oh Jesus, Winston, why…?’

  The death woman was there. That was all Winston knew. She was standing right there in front of him, the one who had brought death to their happy home. Suki was dead, and Bev…who knew? She might not pull through either. Their home was wrecked. Their life was wrecked. And all because they had opened the door to the death woman and her helper.

  ‘You didn’t have to go an’ do that,’ he sobbed. ‘Not jus’ ‘cos she slept with your man. Why’d you have to go and do a thing like that?’

  ‘Winston,’ said Lily, aware that her voice was shaking, aware that she was in extreme danger here. He thought she was responsible for the fire…? ‘Winston, listen. No. I didn’t…’

  Shockingly suddenly, he lifted the machete and charged at her.

  Lily pulled out Leo’s Magnum from her bag without the slightest intention of doing so. It was slick, automatic – self-preservation. She didn’t want to die, oh shit, she couldn’t end up like poor bloody Jack, cut to ribbons…so she held the Magnum steady and pointed it two-handed, straight at Winston’s huge barrel of a chest, and shouted: ‘Hold it!’ in a voice she didn’t even recognize as her own.

  He stopped in his tracks, snorting like a bull, tears and sweat and snot pouring down his face, the machete raised ready to strike her down.

  Jesus, Winston, don’t make me have to shoot you, thought Lily, nearly paralysed with shock, fear clawing at her and making her light-headed.

  She was holding the Magnum steady, although it was heavy and she was scared of it going off. Leo’s gift to her – thanks Leo – but oh God she didn’t want to have to use the bloody thing, she didn’t want to have to shoot anyone, she didn’t, she didn’t.

  She’d have to go back inside if she did. She couldn’t go back inside…

  But Winston stood still, crying, staring at her. The machete dropped from his hands, adding another scarlet splatter to the ruined carpet. Then he turned on his heel and half ran, half fell out of the door and was gone.

  Lily stood there like she’d been turned to stone.

  Then, behind her, she heard a groan.

  She turned.

  Blood was still pumping out of the thing in the chair, and she thought, Wait. Dead bodies don’t pump blood because the heart ain’t beating.

  Jack was alive.

  And now he was stirring, trying to move.

  She put the Magnum away and leaned out of the open door, looking for Nick’s Mercedes. She spotted it parked up a hundred yards away and shrieked at the top of her lungs. ‘Nick! Nick!’

  Nick was out of the car like a shot.

  He came at a run, surging in through the door, nearly knocking her flat on her arse. He looked at the thing in the chair, which was now trying to speak, bloody froth bubbling on its lips.

  ‘ Fucking hell,’ said Nick, as Lily took out the old mobile

  she’d borrowed off Oli and started with shaking fingers to call for an ambulance.

  He snatched it out of her hand, shoved it into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of leather driving gloves and pulled one of them on. He gave Lily the other one. ‘Don’t leave your prints anywhere, okay? And not your mobile phone, dummy. Use his landline, but we’re going to do this first. Now what we’re going to need,’ said Nick, ‘is your tights. Get them off. We got to tie off that arm before he bleeds out. Then we fuck off. Quick.’

  ‘Is he going to die?’ Lily asked shakily, pulling on the glove.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Nick with crushing brutality. ‘We’ll do what we can.’

  57

  Kings was buzzing and Si and Freddy were happy with their new Head of Security, Brendan Gibbs. He was a tough bastard but not a loose cannon like that fucking Jase – who was still hanging around like a bad smell, propping up the bar, acting like he was still cock of the walk. Freddy watched him and promised himself he was going to sort him, very soon.

  ‘Saz is in with the new hubby,’ Freddy told Si as they sat upstairs in the office throwing back a few single malts.

  The news that his niece was in was not particularly welcome to Si. He had plenty of punters in here, the evening was going with a swing, and he knew most of them were high as kites on E and cocaine. Which was fine, but he didn’t want to hear that about his own niece. She was better than that – or she fucking well should be.

  ‘Have Brendan keep an eye out,’ said Si.

  Freddy nodded. Maeve came bustling in with the books; she helped Matt out sometimes in the office. Freddy couldn’t stand the stroppy cow, sister-in-law or not. He gave her a curt nod, threw back the last of his malt and went off downstairs.

  Jase pushed through the writhing punters and got to the bar and caught sight of Saz. She had that limp dick Richard standing sullenly alongside her. Saz was wearing a brown polka-dotted halter-neck dress that was way up her arse and plunging to show off her boobs. She looked hot, but he wasn’t interested in that. He felt down tonight, and he kept shooting edgy looks at Brendan, who was patrolling the place in DJ and bow tie, patrolling Jase’s place, ordering Jase’s boys around. The boys kept their heads down and just did as he said, their eyes never meeting Jase’s. It was as if he had ceased to exist.

  Christ, that made him furious.

  Not long ago he had been in charge here. Now Jase was being treated like wallpaper. But all that would change, he knew it would change, the minute he came through for Freddy and did Lily King like he’d promised. Freddy and Si would fall all over him then; they’d be so bloody grateful, he could write his own cheque, have his door back, anything.

  If only he could get to the bitch. He frowned. When she wasn’t safely tucked inside The Fort now, she was being squired around by bloody Nick O’Rourke, and he’d already had one near-miss in that department, so how to do it? He was driving himself apeshit, trying to think of a way. And Oli could never k
now. He’d make sure of that. After he’d offed the old girl, Oli would need a shoulder to cry on, she’d be back on side in no time. But…how? How was he going to get to Lily King?

  As the strobes zoomed and flickered and the DJ cranked up Lily Allen’s latest, he looked at Saz standing there jigglingher bits at the bar. He elbowed through the punters and pitched up at her side. She glanced at him, gave him a spaced-out smile. She’d been on the old happy pills, he saw straight away.

  ‘Hiya, Jase!’ she yelled, and leaned over and gave him a smacker straight on the lips.

  ‘Hi, Saz,’ returned Jase, trying not to laugh out loud at the expression on Richard’s face as he witnessed the clinch. Jase gave the wuss a look that said, Want to make something of it? and Richard looked away.

  Jase tried to catch the barman’s eye. Yeah, he was invisible. He’d become the invisible man in here.

  ‘How are you, sweetie?’ Saz asked him, sipping her drink.

  He leaned in close to her so as to make himself heard. ‘Cool. Don’t usually see you in here.’

  ‘Wanted a night out,’ said Saz. She cast a disparaging look at her husband. ‘Richie hates it here.’

  And you don’t give a shit about that, thought Jase.

  He’d never liked Saz. Saz was everything Oli was not – snooty, shallow, a real pain in the rear. If he was Richard, he’d yank her out of here right now and take her home and give her a stiff talking-to.

  Saz’s eyes were glassy. ‘Heard Oli and you had a bit of a row.’

  ‘Yeah. A bit.’ He didn’t want to discuss that with her. He tried again to catch the barman’s eye. Another one ignored him.

  ‘I heard you’d split,’ said Saz. ‘Jeez, get me another drink, Richard, will you? I’m parched.’

  Her loving husband gave her a look that said, You’ve had enough.

  ‘Look, I can’t stand this bloody racket, I’m going home,’said Richard, giving her a cold stare and Jase a look of blank dislike.

  ‘Okay. You go. Uncle Si’ll drop me home later.’

  Richard looked taken aback. He thought she’d go with him, thought Jase. How little the poor sap knew his own wife.

  Richard gave Jase an uneasy glance. Then he looked at Saz.

  ‘Oh go on, Richie. I’ll be fine.’ She flapped a dismissive hand at him.

  He nodded and reluctantly turned away and was suddenly lost in the surging crowds.

  ‘Let me get that,’ said Jase, what the hell, and he signalled for the barman and was again ignored.

  ‘I’ll get ’em in,’ said Saz. She held up a hand and the barman was there like lightning. Jase stared at the tosser while she placed the order, voddy and orange for her, a lager for him.

  ‘Oli and I ain’t really split up,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We had a fight, that’s all.’

  The drinks came and Saz fell on the voddy and orange. The E was making her so thirsty.

  The barman was turning away when Jase said: ‘Hey.’

  The man’s eyes wouldn’t meet Jase’s. Jase saw red. He leaned over and caught the dipstick’s tie and yanked him forward, over the bar, cracking his forehead hard into the man’s nose.

  The barman let out a yell and fell back, blood pouring out of his hooter like Niagara Falls. He was staggering, blinking, eyes watering, blood sploshing all down the front of him.

  ‘Next time you see me, you fucking well serve me, yeah?’ snapped Jase.

  The barman weaved unsteadily away. Jase glanced around, feeling buzzed. A couple of the bouncers – his men – were watching him. As he stared back, they looked away. He turned his attention back to Saz.

  ‘Whew!’ she said with a laugh. ‘Very macho.’

  Silly tart.

  ‘Oli’s stupid,’ said Saz, her eyes playing with Jase’s. ‘You’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Tell her that, will you?’ The state Saz was in, he could make her drop her drawers if he chose to. Which he didn’t. But while she was here…Jase was thinking busily. He spun out a hopeful line. ‘It’d be nice to surprise her with something,’ he said. ‘Something real special. I may as well tell you, Saz, I want to propose to her.’

  ‘That’s so romantic,’ sighed Saz with a smile, leaning into Jase, her hand caressing the hard muscles of his forearm.

  ‘Yeah, I know she’d like that,’ said Jase. ‘But it ain’t possible, is it? The place is in lockdown, I heard.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah,’ said Saz, shrugging regretfully.

  ‘It’s a pity, because she’d love it.’

  Saz glugged back the last of her drink. ‘Fill me up again, Jase, will you?’

  Jesus – at this rate he was going to have to carry her out of here. He reordered for her, not for himself. It was a different barman, and this one didn’t ignore him. Better, he thought.

  ‘It’d make Oli so happy,’ he went on. ‘But there’s no way, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s right.’

  Saz was frowning now, peering at Jase. She felt a little sick, to be honest. And suddenly she felt uncertain too,sorry that she’d let Richard go. Richard was sweet, dependable, the best. Either you had the type of man you could rely on, the plodder, the unambitious one, who bored the arse off you most of the time if you were honest but who at least never tried laying the law down, or you had the type who excited you, who wanted to dominate you, who thrilled you but caused you tears and a world of hurt, a lion of a man.

  Her dad had been a lion of a man. Named for the lion that had been his star sign. Leo King. She thought of her wedding day, the day when her dad should have walked her down the aisle, but he hadn’t been there.

  Saz’s eyes filled with tears.

  Uncle Si had stood in, but it wasn’t the same. It had never been the same, ever since…oh shit, ever since that awful night.

  ‘But I guess it’s out of the question, right? All locked up tight,’ Jase was saying.

  ‘What?’ Saz asked vaguely.

  ‘The house. Locked up. That right?’

  ‘Oh! Locked up, yeah,’ said Saz, and grabbed at the drink the new barman had placed in front of her.

  ‘Pity,’ said Jase. ‘That’s a terrible pity, don’t you think?’

  ‘It is, it is.’

  ‘Oli would have loved a surprise like that.’

  ‘Well, she would.’ Saz turned to him, tears forgotten, bright-eyed, smiling now. She nodded and tapped her nose. She nearly missed it.

  Jesus, talk about rat-arsed, thought Jase. ‘And why not, yeah? You can do it, Jase, and you know why you can do it?’

  Jase shook his head.

  ‘You can do it, because there’s a way in.’ Saz frowned, asif some stray thought had troubled her. She turned her face up to him and suddenly she looked sober, solemn.

  ‘What?’ Jase hardly dared breathe. What was she saying?

  Saz shrugged. ‘I loosened some bricks in the wall when I was little. When it was first built and the mortar was soft. The security system’s always switched off on Thursday afternoons because the gardener’s in the grounds. I could always come in and out without anyone knowing, and I still can. Only on Thursdays, though.’ She looked at him and half smiled. ‘So it’s lucky that’s tomorrow. Right?’

  58

  When Lily got home she was sick at heart and shaking like a leaf. She double-checked all the doors and windows, then went straight into the sitting room, thankful that Oli was out and not able to see the state her mother was in and to start demanding explanations. Lily poured out a brandy and knocked it back in one. Her eyes watered. She slumped down on the couch. Shit, she never wanted to go through anything like that again, not ever.

  Oh God. Jack.

  All she could see was Jack propped up there in the chair behind his desk, a Jack that was unrecognizable, covered in blood, wrecked, dying…and then when she heard the noise and turned and Winston was there.

  She’d thought right then that she was dead, too, all hope gone – just like Jack.

  But maybe there was a
sliver of hope for Jack. She and Nick had legged it after they’d applied the tourniquet to his arm to stem the bleeding and called the ambulance from Jack’s own phone.

  There were CCTV cameras on the High Street but not on the smaller side road where Jack’s office was located, but even so they’d gone out carefully, separately, one at a time and no running, no calling attention to themselves. Even so, Lily was braced for a call from the Bill. There would be stuff in Jack’s office to link her to him, she’d been inside, she was…oh Jesus, she couldn’t go inside again.

  She fetched another brandy and threw that one back too. Felt a tiny bit warmer, an iota calmer. Her hands shook a little less. She felt slightly less likely to vomit.

  No. Nick had assured her. Had said that there was no way the Bill could put them together with this: they’d wiped any trace of themselves away.

  ‘But your car,’ said Lily as they stood in the blood-spattered office, ‘the car. The CCTV. They’ll see the plates.’

  ‘They’re fake, stupid.’

  Stupid. Even in the depths of her terror and bewilderment, that had rankled. But maybe that’s exactly what she was. Probing around in things she didn’t understand. Nick had warned her, and he was right, as usual. It would have been bad enough if it had been her hacked to pieces. But Jack. Poor bloody Jack, who’d doubted her a few times, who’d advised her to call the whole thing off, but who had still stood by her, staunchly supporting her; and look where that had got him.

  He could die.

  He probably would die.

  Oh God, please don’t let me have Jack’s death on my conscience, she thought in anguish. But she knew that it was a faint hope her prayers would be answered. God hadn’t listened to her in a long, long time.

  She sat there and her eyes fell on her bag. She put theempty glass to one side and pulled the bag onto her lap. She took out the Magnum and sat there dumbly, looking at the gun and thinking, I could have killed someone today.

  When the situation in Jack’s office had arisen, her own reactions had both stunned and appalled her. Survival mode had kicked in almost instantaneously. She was not a violent person. She had never been that. But she had seen Winston there, bloodied, demented, looking at her, and the machete, and immediately the synapses in her brain had started screaming, Threat, threat, threat!