The van juddered to a halt and the officers unlocked the back door of the van, and led the prisoners into a large yard. Adele looked around at the imposing Victorian building and the high walls bordering the yard.
As the other women chatted, Adele was besieged by panic. Overwhelmed by the constraints of the prison. The muscles tightened around her chest and she drew in shallow gasps of air. She felt dizzy. Claustrophobic. Petrified! What was familiar to the other women was alien and threatening to Adele.
She tried to control her feelings of fear as the officers led them into the building and then to a holding room. The tense wait inside the room was punctuated by visits from prison officers who summoned individual prisoners at intervals.
When Adele’s turn came she was led to a smaller room where her details were taken. Then she went to see the doctor who also took some details from her. Once that was done she went back to the holding room where she awaited the next stage of the process.
‘Adele Robinson!’ called a grim-looking female prison officer with cropped blonde hair and an attitude.
It was the second time Adele had been summoned from the holding room. On this occasion the officer led Adele to a different room.
‘Right, now we’re going to search you,’ said the officer who had accompanied Adele to the room.
Adele braced herself while the blonde officer gave her a thorough pat-down, her hands lingering for a few seconds too long on the most intimate areas of Adele’s body. Then it was over and Adele was forced to wait once more in the holding room until she was finally called out again.
This time Adele was issued with her bedding and crockery before being led to a cell. She followed the female prison officer along the lit corridors clutching her bundle. The officer looked friendlier than the blonde one but, nevertheless, she remained tight-lipped as she led Adele through the prison.
There were three levels inside the building but they were open, their balconies looking out onto the floor below. Adele glanced up at the dome-shaped ceiling, its skylights and additional lighting casting an eerie glow on the cream-painted, coarse brick walls. Each of the levels was lined with cells along one side and a barrier on the inner side, which overlooked the ground floor.
Everything about the interior of the prison was menacing; from the ceiling height to the profusion of metal. Adele felt unnerved as she took in the metal stairways, metal handrails and metal gates separating different areas of the prison. But the most daunting was the wire mesh leading from one side of the first floor level to the other; presumably to stop prisoners from leaping over the upstairs corridors in a suicide attempt. The thought made Adele shudder.
Despite the amount of electric lighting, the corridors felt draughty and cold; perhaps because of the sheer size of the interior and the abundance of metal.
It was night-time by now and the prisoners were locked in. Nevertheless, Adele was aware of their presence as she heard their screams and shouts echoing around the open corridors. Some were even engaged in loud cell-to-cell conversations.
Although Peter had spoken to her at length about life behind bars, the reality was more cutting. Adele was frightened of this strange environment and worrying thoughts raced around inside her head. What types of people were ensconced behind the cell doors?
After they had spent a while walking through the corridors and up and down the squeaking metal staircases, the officer came to a halt. Adele followed suit and waited while the prison officer sifted through the large bunch of keys, which hung from a chain attached to her uniform.
When she had found the right key, she lifted it up to the door. Adele tensed at the grating sound of metal against metal as the key turned inside the lock. The officer swung the door open and nodded her head in the direction of the cell’s interior.
‘Here you go,’ she said, and she gave Adele a gentle nudge in the back.
Adele stepped inside the cell and her eyes adjusted to the dimness within. The officer slammed the heavy door shut and turned the key once more. She shivered as the banging of the door echoed around the tiny cell.
Once inside, Adele presented a pitiful, almost Dickensian character as she hovered close to the cell door; her body language painting a picture of fear and abhorrence. Adele’s body had closed in on itself; back rounded, knees bent and head bowed. Her arms were turned in against her torso clutching the bundle tightly to her chest.
She spotted movement to her right and peered across at the bunk beds that dominated most of the cell. A huge woman was splayed across the bottom bunk, wearing only her bra and pants. The woman’s ample flesh was hanging about in voluminous folds, spilling over the sides and top of her ill-fitting bra. Her stomach formed an apron, covering most of her briefs. A pang of fear zipped through Adele.
The woman rose from her bed and lumbered towards her; a heavy, aggressive movement, which made Adele flinch.
‘Well! What have we got here then?’ she asked. ‘You’re a tasty piece. I think this might just be my lucky day.’
She then stuck out her tongue through fleshy lips, narrowed it to a point and flicked it provocatively up and down. Adele felt a tug of repulsion in her gut as she eyed the woman’s features. She had a square jawline, which was far too masculine to be considered pretty, her hair was dark and cropped short, and her skin was pockmarked. She wore an earring in one ear and had a tattoo of a swallow at the top corner of her right cheek.
‘Well, aren’t you going to come inside then?’ she asked.
Adele took a tentative step, noticing the woman’s eyes drinking her in.
‘I don’t bite… Promise,’ she grinned. Then she snorted loudly before sticking out a manly hand and declaring, ‘I’m Anna Tomlinson, by the way. You’d do well to remember the name cos I carry a bit of clout around here.’
Adele returned the gesture, enabling Anna to crush her fingers in an effusive grip.
Then, nodding towards the bunks, Anna said. ‘You’re on top,’ chuckling at the double entendre.
Adele stared back at the woman, a look of barely concealed contempt on her face as her brother’s words rang in her head. Whatever you do, don’t show any sign of weakness or they’ll fuckin’ have you. She straightened herself up, crossed the room and placed her things on top of the bed.
‘I’m Adele,’ she said. ‘Adele Robinson. You might have heard of me in the news, so I think you’d do well to remember the name. I’m Peter Robinson’s sister.’
Adele watched with satisfaction as the woman’s face dropped in horror at the realisation of who she was dealing with. The news story of Adele’s violent killing of her father must have reached the prison. She also had no doubt that Peter’s reputation as a hardened criminal preceded him.
She continued to put her things in place around the cell while her cellmate did her best to accommodate her. The woman’s attitude had changed from intimidating to ingratiating and Adele smothered a smirk.
She had won a small battle in what was to become a protracted war against both prisoners and prison officers. Adele would heed all of the advice her brother had given her during the past few months. Nevertheless, she knew she was going to have to call on all her reserves, both mental and physical, if she was going to survive this place over the coming years.
We hope you enjoyed this book!
If you loved Born Bad, look out for more of Adele’s story, coming in winter 2017
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Acknowledgements
About Heather Burnside
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Acknowledgements
I have many people to thank for helping me bring this book to market. This is my first novel with Aria Fiction and I have found the whole team helpful and great to work with. In particular I’d like to thank my publisher Caroline Ridding for support and advice, Sarah Ritherdon for her i
nvaluable input at the editing stage and Yasemin Turan for her marketing efforts.
For help with the research for this book, I am grateful to the following people: Jim Coulson, Olwyn Taylor, Alan Dyde, Sara Cox, Haseeb Waheed and Pascoe Mannion regarding matters of law and police procedure, and Diane Wilson and Vicky O’Neil regarding banking procedure.
I would like to thank all the readers who continue to buy my books and recommend them to friends. Thanks also to Kath Middleton and Sophia Carleton for offering to take part in my blog tour.
And last but not least, I would like to thank all of my family and friends who have stuck by me and have always been there to offer support.
About Heather Burnside
Heather Burnside previously worked in credit control and accounts until she took a career break to raise her two children. After ten years as a stay at home mum, she decided to move away from credit control and enrolled on a creative writing course.
She started her writing career eighteen years ago when she began to work as a freelance writer while studying towards her writing diploma. As part of her studies Heather wrote the first chapters of her debut novel, Slur, which became the first book in The Riverhill Trilogy. During that time she also had many articles published in well-known UK magazines.
Heather later ran a writing services business, and through her business, she has ghost-written many non-fiction books on behalf of clients covering a broad range of topics. However, Heather now prefers to concentrate on fiction writing.
If you would like to find out more about the author, you are invited to subscribe to her mailing list by following the link: Heather’s readers. As a subscriber you will be among the first to find out about forthcoming publications.
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Addictive Fiction
First published in the UK in 2017 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Heather Burnside, 2017
The moral right of Heather Burnside to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781786692542
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Born Bad Page 28