Jail Bird

6

Bright and early next morning, Lily was up, showered and dressed. It was either that or sleeping, and dreaming. She dreamed a lot. Last night it had been the court case. No, she’d rather be up and doing than asleep and at the mercy of the dreams.

Becks lent her the pink car and Lily drove over to where she wanted to go. It felt funny, being behind the wheel after so long inside, being free to just come and go—within reason. But it felt good. Powerful. She liked it.

She checked in with her probation officer first, a dour-looking, overworked woman with an office pallor, thin dull hair and a fistful of blackheads on her nose.

‘All going well?’ the woman asked, not unkindly.

‘Fine,’ said Lily, and told her about her plans to stay with Becks and to look for a job soon. A lie, but so what? She planned to be too damned busy to waste time becoming a wage slave.

‘I’ll need to visit you sometime soon at that address,’ said the officer, and got out her diary.

Jesus, Lily thought, but this was the deal, she was a lifer out on licence, this was it for the foreseeable future.

‘Fine,’ she said, and they made an appointment for the following week, then Lily left to press on with the real business of the day.

When she banged on the door of the smart detached house near Romford, Adrienne Thomson opened it and her jaw nearly hit the floor.

‘Fuck!’ she gasped out, and started to shut it again.

Lily stuck her foot in the door and put her shoulder to it. Lots of gym sessions in the nick had made her harder, stronger. She wasn’t weak little Lily any more. That Lily was gone.

‘That’s hardly friendly, Adrienne, is it?’ asked Lily, forcing her way into Adrienne’s neat and painfully clean hallway. ‘Trying to shut the door in an old friend’s face.’

If Adrienne Thomson had expected a visit from anyone, it certainly wasn’t Lily King. No one had told her that Lily was coming out. In the back of her mind, Adrienne had known it had to be soon, but she had shied away from that, tried not to think about it. She didn’t want to go there, not now, not ever. It had been bad enough at the time. The police had questioned her for hours on end and it had all come out at the trial. It had caused terrible ructions with Matt. She just wanted to forget the whole thing, and let it lie.

Only it looked as if she wasn’t going to be allowed to.

Lily walked on into the big, sunny lounge and Adrienne followed slowly and stood just inside the door, wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

‘What have you come here for, Lily?’ she asked urgently. ‘Matt’s only just left, he could have seen you…’

Matt was the firm’s accountant – bent, of course, and clever as buggery at manipulating figures, moving money and generally keeping the taxman stumbling around in the dark while the boys enjoyed a very comfy lifestyle.

‘I know he just left. I watched him go.’ Lily turned to her old friend with a frigid smile. ‘I know you wouldn’t want him to see me. I respect that, Adrienne. Why rub the poor bastard’s nose in it, eh?’

Adrienne at least had the grace to look ashamed at that.

Lily looked at her with disdain. Adrienne was still a very good-looking woman, Lily had to give her that. Long, thoroughbred legs, almost as shapely as Lily’s own, and even longer. Her body buffed and golden, toned and tanned. Hair streaked blonde. Pretty dark eyes; nice straight teeth – due more to a dentist’s skill than nature. Wearing a neat white t-shirt, figure-hugging jeans, a huge plaited leather belt slung low on her thin hips, and a lot of gold jewellery. But her face was a fraction too long for beauty, her jaw too pronounced. And she had a miserable face on her, as if life had proved a disappointment. Well, it probably had, married to a dull man like Matt, with his nose always buried in the accounts and – if the rumours were to be believed, and Lily thought they were – a prick like an acorn.

Adrienne had wrapped her arms around herself, as if feeling a sudden chill. It was warm, though: summer. Sunlight was beaming in on all the carefully dusted and polished furnishings.

‘I…I never got the chance to apologize to you, did I?’ Adrienne mumbled. Her eyes rose and they anxiously searched Lily’s coldly set face. ‘I’m sorry, Lils. Truly I am. That thing with Leo…’

‘Thing?’ Lily gave a bark of laughter. ‘Oh, you mean your affair with my husband?’

‘I know it was bad.’

‘Oh yeah. But then that was you, wasn’t it, Adrienne? Always ready to put out at a moment’s notice.’

‘That’s not fair,’ said Adrienne shakily.

‘Oh, so now we’re talking about what’s fair?’ Lily came up to the taller woman and glared at her. ‘How about being banged up for twelve years for something you didn’t do, Adrienne, what do you think about that? Do you think that’s fair?’

‘But you…’ Adrienne’s voice faltered. She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.

‘But I what?’ Lily leaned in close and Adrienne flinched and jerked back. ‘What, Adrienne? Come on. Finish the sentence.’

‘But you…you were found guilty. You…’ Adrienne’s voice trailed away again. She gulped convulsively. ‘You…you killed Leo. They said so at the trial. That he knocked you about and…and had an affair with me…and that night, that same night he’d been with me, he went home, and then…you killed him.’

‘And you believe that?’ said Lily.

Adrienne nodded slowly. ‘You were convicted. You did it.’

Lily nodded. ‘And poor bloody Matt. The poor sod’s still with you, after all that?’

‘We talked it through. I said maybe we ought to split, but he didn’t want to. So we made a go of things.’

‘And you never did anything like that again, after Leo?’

Adrienne shook her head. She’d gone almost pale under her fake tan; it was giving her a jaundiced look.

‘Pardon me if I fucking well laugh,’ said Lily. ‘Bet you’ve had more men than I’ve had hot dinners. You always were the gang bike.’

‘Look, you’ve got no right coming in here, barging into my home saying things like that to me,’ said Adrienne, and her eyes were fiercer now, although bright with unshed tears. ‘Your husband wasn’t exactly fucking perfect, you know. And you couldn’t have been all that, judging from how keen he was to bed me.’

‘You bitch,’ spat Lily, and slapped Adrienne, hard.

Adrienne grabbed at her burning cheek, and suddenly she looked frightened.

She didn’t recognize this person. This wasn’t the Lily she’d known years back. This Lily looked as though she really could kill someone in cold blood.

‘You know, you ought to watch your step,’ said Lily, pushing in even closer. ‘You think I’m a murderess, remember? I do things to people, ain’t that what the judge said? I’m a danger to society! You ought to remember that, next time you feel like reminding me of you and my old man dancing the horizontal tango.’

Now Adrienne was sweating. ‘Look, I didn’t mean…’ she backtracked hastily.

‘Yes you did. You meant every word. And to think he tried to deny it. Did you like the flowers, and – oh yeah – the Tiffany bracelet, the one he never gave me?’

Adrienne looked blank. ‘What Tiffany bracelet?’ she asked.

‘Oh, don’t give me all that old pony.’

‘Leo never gave me anything like that.’

‘Bollocks!’

‘He didn’t! What would have been the point? I couldn’t wear it, could I? Matt would have spotted it straight away and asked where it came from, and I never wanted to upset Matt, not really, he was so good to me.’

‘He was a bloody fool. Turning a blind eye to all your goings-on because he liked a nice, quiet, cosy domestic life.’

‘Matt’s a good man,’ retorted Adrienne.

‘Yeah, but boring as fuck. Or else why were you crawling into my bed and shagging my husband, Adrienne? With Leo constantly denying everything, telling me I was going nuts, and you know what? After a while I actually started to think he was right, I was just going crazy, I was paranoid, just like he said I was. When all the time I was right. Him and you were getting cosy, and all the time there I was being made a fool of. You and him. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ blurted Adrienne, tears spilling over and streaming down her face, making ugly tracks in her foundation. ‘I loved Leo. I’d have left Matt for him, I told Leo I would, but he didn’t want that.’

‘And what about me in all this?’ shouted Lily in rage. ‘Leo was married. To me. And he had two little kids. How the hell could you have done that, split up my marriage?’

‘For God’s sake!’ Adrienne erupted, throwing her arms wide. ‘You didn’t even love him! You never got over your infatuation with Nick bloody O’Rourke, did you? So can you really wonder that he looked elsewhere?’

You didn’t even love him, thought Lily.

‘You know I’m telling the truth,’ said Adrienne, pushing home her advantage when she saw Lily’s sudden uncertainty. ‘And it’s not as if I was the only one.’

Now Lily stood frozen in shock.

There was a long, long silence.

Then she said: ‘What did you say?’

‘I wanted to be the only one.’ Adrienne swiped irritably at her cheeks, leaving blotchy streaks in her make-up and mascara stains under her eyes. ‘I wanted him to love me like I loved him. But he didn’t. There were others…’

Others, thought Lily in a daze. What the fuck…?

‘What are you talking about? There were no others,’ she said, drawing back, looking at Adrienne incredulously.

And suddenly Adrienne was laughing. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she gasped.

‘If you’re getting fucking hysterical I’m going to give you another belt round the chops,’ Lily warned her. ‘Now shut it. And tell me what you’re on about.’

‘Oh Lily, and you talk about Matt being a fool. You were so innocent, so bloody little-wifey-indoors that you didn’t even know what time of day it was, did you? You still don’t. You seriously believe it, don’t you? You seriously think I was the only one.’

‘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 serious.’

‘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.