The Dead Ex

by Jane Corry

‘Guilty.’

  Mum gives a little cry.

  I yearn to run over and hug her, just as I’d done when I was small and things went wrong.

  Yet I also want to scream at her. If she hadn’t broken the law right at the beginning with our games, we could have had a normal life together as mother and daughter.

  And now we are right back to where we were when Mum had first been arrested. With one important difference.

  I am no longer a child.

  But before long, I will be responsible for another.

  61

  Vicki

  16 September 2018

  One minute, a life sentence is stretching out before me. The next, comes the phone call from my solicitor, which I took in the governor’s office, to say that Zelda has been arrested for the murder of Tanya and for attacking Patrick. Thank God my old friend was all right.

  Even when Zelda was found guilty, they couldn’t release me immediately. Technically, I was a convicted murderer. These things take time. An application has been made for my conviction to be quashed. Eventually, I might even seek compensation, according to my solicitor. But I’m not going to. It’s not always easy to decide who is guilty and who is not. When I was in charge, I knew there were probably a handful of inmates who were there for crimes they had not committed.

  In the meantime a bail hearing was set and held in my absence. At last I am allowed out! The officer hands me a plastic bag containing the possessions I came into prison with. As luck would have it, they had ‘found’ the Welsh love spoon which my father had given my mother. I take out the spoon now and trace its heart-shaped handle with my finger as my mother might have done herself. It calms me, as does the scan picture of baby Patrick, which reminds me that, once, he really did exist.

  I walk through the prison gate, gulping in the fresh air, and head for the taxi rank. The local drivers know a good market when they see one.

  A tall figure walks towards me. It’s raining, so it’s hard to make out the face. My heart gives a little thud inside. But it’s not who I thought. It’s my solicitor. I try to hide my disappointment.

  ‘How kind of you to meet me,’ I say. ‘I was going to get a cab.’

  ‘I brought my car.’ Penny waves her hand towards a dusty navy-blue estate a few yards away. ‘I thought we could talk. There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about your ex.’

  My mouth goes dry. ‘Is he all right?’

  I hate myself for even asking the question. Surely I don’t care any more – especially after what he said in court.

  Penny’s lips tighten. ‘Men like David will always be all right.’

  We get into her car. She doesn’t start the engine. Instead, she talks. ‘The thing is that I’ve got a good friend or two in the police force. Every solicitor needs one.’

  There’s a short silence. I want to break it, but something makes me wait.

  ‘I’ve found out a few things. You were right. David was involved in something illegal. In fact, he was dealing in arms. He got into it when he was in the army, apparently, and got chummy with an American serviceman in Afghanistan. Your ex-husband and his American friend set up together using their contacts. They did very well. I’m not an expert on this, I must confess. But from what I can tell, the property business was the perfect front. These men always hide behind a veneer of respectability.’

  She paused for a minute to let that sink in. ‘But they needed to hide their tracks. You were right once more when you thought David was laundering money through buying houses. It’s one of the most common methods.’

  A burst of adrenaline hits me, along with anger and sorrow. ‘And the police knew?’

  She shook her head. ‘Only Interpol. They’d been watching him for months, it seems, but it was hush-hush. When he said on the stand that he’d been in a retreat, that was true. But he was actually there because he’d been threatened by one of his arms-dealing clients. This coincided with Zelda’s daughter telling him she was pregnant, which gave him even more reason to get out of the country.’

  He’d got her pregnant? It feels like a punch in the stomach.

  ‘Interpol flushed him out of the retreat and offered him a deal,’ continued my solicitor. ‘If he gave them details of his arms dealings, they would grant him a safe passage back and offer protection. He wanted to get home to see his daughter. But the police over here got wind of the fact that Interpol had known where he was all the time and were not happy. They were convinced you were guilty of Tanya’s murder and still needed more evidence. So as a “sweetener”, Interpol told David that he had to give evidence against you.’

  ‘And lie about me being violent?’

  Penny shrugged. ‘I don’t know exactly how the conversation went.’

  ‘And now where is he?’

  ‘Staying with his daughter under police protection.’

  ‘So he’s free?’

  There’s a sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s unfair, given that he lied under oath. I wanted you to know from me. Obviously you could go to the newspapers but if you want my advice, I’d let it go. You’ve been given a clean start.’

  62

  Helen

  12 October 2018

  Here again. This prison is different from the last. It’s modern. Warmer. I hand over my paperwork and place my right forefinger on the identification pad. An officer then takes me to one side, instructing me to hold out my arms so I can be frisked.

  It’s all too familiar.

  The process makes me feel as if I’ve done something wrong myself. Perhaps I have. I was there at Tanya’s house. If I hadn’t worked for David, I wouldn’t have got pregnant. That would mean Mum wouldn’t have gone to the Goudmans’ house, and Tanya would still be alive.

  I’m joining a queue now to get into the visiting room. There’s a small girl holding her mother’s hand. Instinctively, I want to reassure her and say it will be all right one day. But I can’t find the words. Besides, it might not be true. That little girl might end up like me.

  Mum is already sitting at a plastic table; so are a dozen other prisoners. She looks wan. Frail. Her arms are stick thin. If physical contact wasn’t forbidden, I would put my own arms around her and hug her. Even though she’s killed someone, she’s still my mother.

  ‘Thank you for not telling them about me,’ I whisper, not wanting anyone else to hear.

  Mum’s eyes become fearful. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Of course she does. Yet her denial sounds so convincing. She is a natural liar.

  ‘You know, Mum,’ I say slowly, ‘I love you with all my heart. But there are times when I don’t know whether you’re telling the truth or not. We’re a team, remember? And teams need to work together. We can’t do that without total honesty. So is there anything else you’d like to tell me?’

  There’s a flicker in Mum’s eyes indicating that I’ve struck a nerve. After all, look what happened last time I asked.

  ‘No,’ she says hesitantly.

  ‘You’re not saying that as though you mean it.’

  Mum puts her head in her hands. I get a horrible sense of foreboding.

  Then she lifts her head. Her face is raw with grief. ‘I thought someone might bring it up at Vicki Goudman’s trial but they didn’t.’ She wipes her eyes.

  ‘Just tell me. Please.’

  ‘I couldn’t say before because you were too young, and after that, there didn’t seem a right time.’

  I’m really scared now.

  Mum sighs. ‘When they took me from you in the park that time, I was pregnant.’

  What?

  ‘The dad was one of my friends.’

  I think of the various ‘uncles’ who had flitted in and out of the house, giving me fruit-and-nut chocolate or rides on a motorbike.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The thing is, he didn’t want anything to do with it.’ She sniffed. ‘Apart from you, the baby was the only thing that kept me going when I was
inside. We lived in the prison mother-and-baby unit, but I was only allowed to keep her until she was eighteen months old.’

  I hadn’t been allowed to visit my mother after her sentence was extended because of her behaviour, but I do have a dim recollection of her wearing a baggy dress. At the time I hadn’t given it much thought. Now I realize she must have been pregnant.

  ‘Her?’ I repeat disbelievingly. ‘I have a sister?’

  Mum’s eyes are wet. ‘The prison authorities made me have her adopted. I begged the panel – including Vicki Goudman – to see if she could be fostered instead. That way, I’d be able to keep in touch with her. But they said that with my record and behaviour, adoption was “in the best interest of the child”.’

  She gives a little sob. ‘They wanted to have you adopted too, but because you’d been in the fostering system and were getting older, they allowed you to carry on. If you had been adopted, you’d have been someone else’s child instead of mine.’

  My mind is whirling. ‘Where is my sister now?’

  ‘That’s the thing, love. I’m not allowed to know. Nor are you. She’ll be about ten now. We can only hope that when she’s eighteen, she’ll try to find us.’

  ‘What did you call her?’

  ‘Alice.’ Tears are streaming down Mum’s face. ‘After Alice in Wonderland. Remember how it was one of your favourite stories?’

  This is too much to bear. A sister? What does she look like? Is it possible that I’ve actually passed her on the street? Supposing she doesn’t try to trace us when she’s older? Supposing she does and Mum is dead by then?

  And that’s when I make my decision. My initial feeling after David had gone missing was that I couldn’t possibly go ahead with a pregnancy that hadn’t even been planned. But then my body changed. Food started to taste metallic. My breasts became sore. I was sick every morning. How could a little tiny seed do this? The picture of ‘it’ sucking its thumb on the three-month scan made me realize I couldn’t have an abortion. Instead, I’d go for adoption and give my child a better life. But to be honest, I began to get doubts from the moment I felt the first kick. Now the discovery that Mum had to give up my sister – and the effect on her – has helped me finally make up my mind.

  ‘I’m going to bring up the baby myself,’ I blurt out.

  Mum’s eyes instantly brighten. ‘I’m so glad! A grandchild will give me something to live for.’

  I feel both relief and terror. I’m due to give birth any day. How are we going to cope?

  ‘You’ll need a DNA test as soon as it’s born so you can get maintenance,’ adds Mum, her eyes narrowing.

  I shake my head firmly. ‘I’m not going to bother.’

  ‘Why the fuck not?’

  ‘I don’t want to be constantly chasing him for payments. And if there is an inheritance at some point, I don’t want his dirty money. I’d rather manage on our own.’

  I almost add the words ‘like we did’, but that wouldn’t be truthful. We hadn’t managed.

  Instead, I vow to myself, I will do things differently.

  DAILY TELEGRAPH, 7 NOVEMBER 2018

  The body found at Deadman’s Creek in Cornwall has been identified as 49-year-old Jackie Wood, a former prison officer.

  A witness saw the deceased hovering at the top before finally leaping to the rocks below. A suicide note was later found at her home. The police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the death.

  63

  Vicki

  15 November 2018

  I’ve taken my solicitor’s advice and stayed put in Penzance. Despite my fears that I’d be the centre of curiosity or pity or ridicule (or all three), the town has become almost protective of me.

  ‘Some journalist was sniffing around here yesterday,’ one of my neighbours informs me. ‘Sent him packing. Thanks for the treatment, by the way. I’m sleeping a lot better now. Funny. I’d never have thought of aromatherapy until you moved in.’

  It’s heart-warming. I’ve even joined a yoga class, although I have to quietly tell the teacher that I suffered from epilepsy. ‘I haven’t had a seizure for a while now,’ I say, with my fingers crossed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassures me. ‘My niece has it too, so I know what to do. It’s more common than we realize.’

  Very true.

  I spend my spare time walking up and down the seafront. The open air gives me an immense wave of freedom. I read. But never the news.

  Yet I still can’t get rid of a nagging feeling that something isn’t right. It’s not just that Patrick has failed to get in touch. I thought that his pursuit of Zelda meant that he still cared for me in some way. But obviously not.

  And then comes the brown envelope from my solicitor. I receive it one morning when I am sitting at the bay window overlooking the sea. There’s a white sail bobbing on the horizon. I open it, expecting a bill. Then I take in the contents, disbelievingly. After that, I do as instructed and read the accompanying letter inside the envelope. It’s a photocopy. The handwriting is neat. Regular. Precise.

  To whoever finds this. Please pass the contents to Vicki Goudman. It is self-explanatory.

  Vicki,

  You might have seen me at your trial. You probably thought I was there to give you support. I know you are short on family, like me. We used to talk about that, remember? But you had an advantage. You had this strong personality and a certain look about you that made men turn their heads. You just didn’t realize it. I admit I was jealous.

  No one realizes what hard work it is in prison, do they? The responsibility. The stress. If something goes wrong, the staff are always the first in the firing line. It’s hard to relax – remember how we talked about that too? It was OK for junior officers who could let their hair down but we had to keep our dignity. No snogging some random bloke for us at the socials. Not much pay either. I got less than you – something you didn’t seem to remember when it was my turn to pay for the rounds. I needed to make a bit on the side.

  But then I began to get too bold. That mobile that the prisoner was found with? He said I gave it to him, but your loyalty to me meant you didn’t believe him. He got shipped out for that. The drugs which that woman on C wing got? That was me too. Still you didn’t guess. I needed extra money by then to fuel my own habit. That’s right. I took drugs too. Loads of us did. It was the only way to handle the stress. But not you. Oh no. You were too good for that.

  Then you fell in love and got promoted to governor – a job I could only dream of. Of course, I’d always known you’d go far. Why else do you think I worked hard at being your friend? I hoped it would rub off on me and you’d take me with you to the next job – which you did. But it was your relationship with David that I was really jealous of. You came back so vibrant from those days off with him. So different. I wanted a piece of that too. Who was this man, I used to wonder.

  When you finally introduced me, I felt an electric shock right through me. He was gorgeous. Not only that but clever and interesting. I couldn’t believe it when you asked me to give you away. Such an honour! Yet at the same time, I was seething. Why couldn’t I have a man like David?

  But it was the ‘bad boy’ bit underneath the charm that I was really drawn to. The bit you never saw. How had you got someone like that? Then I realized. He wanted you for your position. That’s what he told me later. His work was ‘complicated’. Close to the legal line. If he was married to a prison governor, he’d be under less suspicion.

  He didn’t fancy you. He told me that too. He fancied me. I’d known that from the moment he held my hand during the dancing at your wedding reception. The touch of his thumb stroking my skin made me melt. When we came off the floor, he put his hand briefly in the small of my back. Anyone else might think he was guiding me through the other guests. But I knew it was deliberate.

  It was soon after your honeymoon that he called me. We started seeing each other on the quiet. Did I feel guilty? I should have done. But I wanted what you had. When y
ou got pregnant, I could barely hide my disappointment.

  Then came my break. David was furious because you wouldn’t sign those deeds. ‘What’s the point of marrying the prison governor if she can’t be useful?’ he kept saying. ‘If she’s going to be like this, I’ve got no use for her.’

  Then he started talking about leaving you for me. I felt flattered. Excited. And in love. I soothed him when he came to me stressed because of ‘stuff at work’. He said I was the ‘only one who understood’.

  ‘Vicki’s really getting on my nerves,’ he said during one of our stolen nights in a motel halfway between the prison and his London place. ‘I thought that being pregnant might make her more loyal, but if anything, she’s become more of a stickler for the rules than before. I should be with you – not her. Sometimes I just wish she was dead.’

  A scared but excited thrill shot through me. Prisons were dangerous places. We all knew that. It’s what made them so addictive. Supposing you had an accident?

  It was wrong. I know that. But you had the man I wanted. And you were expecting his baby. When you said you’d do outside exercise duty that day, I seized my chance. I always thought it was crazy, having a snooker table in the rest area, but you didn’t listen. Remember? You said the women needed their leisure time and that you ‘trusted’ them.

  It only took a few tenners to convince a friend to switch off the lights at the crucial point. And it wasn’t difficult in the dark to grab a ball, put it in a prison regulation sock and hit you with it. All I had to do was sprint upstairs and plant it in one of the troublemakers’ cells. Zelda Darling was the obvious candidate – she was jealous of your baby after her own had been taken away. That big bust-up that the two of you had just before the ‘power strike’ made her look even guiltier. Afterwards, I stole a prison key chain from your locker and planted it in your box of possessions when you left, along with a nicked mobile, hoping you might get into trouble over it somehow. I was livid because David was with you still. I laughed when I realized they were using it to implicate you in Tanya’s murder. Fate was on my side.