Jail Bird

by Jessie Keane

  Becks shook her head. ‘When Oli turned eighteen back in February, they moved out–back to their own place just up the road. The girls are still there, though.’ Becks felt uncomfortable talking about this. Lily had lost her home. A con couldn’t profit from their crime, so her share of the house–which would have been the full share had Leo died peacefully in his bed–had passed into a trust for the girls, administered by Leo’s brother Si and his wife Maeve, who were appointed trustees and guardians of the girls by the courts.

  Lily sipped her wine, but it tasted sour to her now. She was remembering all those frantic, tearful times when she had phoned out from prison. The very first time she had phoned The Fort, thinking that the cleaner or someone would pick up, Si had answered the phone, told her to fuck off, and put the phone down on her.

  Becks was darting furtive looks at Lily.

  ‘Now what?’ Lily asked.

  Becks shook her head. ‘No, it don’t matter.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Becks, spit it out,’ sighed Lily. She looked tired all of a sudden, tired and irritable.

  Becks sighed. She knew she ought to listen more to Joe and what he told her. Joe was the epitome of sensible. For instance, he’d kicked off about Lily coming here, but Becks had insisted. And now she could see the error of her ways, because with Lily in such close proximity she found that she just couldn’t keep this huge secret from her. It wasn’t fair. Lily had been through enough.

  She couldn’t help remembering Lily standing there outside the prison gates, looking lost, her eyes blank, her expression hopeless. Her old mate, Lily. She’d stuck with her, because for God’s sake this was Lily. They’d known each other all their lives. And if Lily–of all people–had blown Leo away, then she must have been goaded beyond all reason. So she owed the poor cow the truth, at least. Didn’t she?

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you,’ said Becks.

  ‘Tell me what?’ asked Lily.

  ‘About Saz’s wedding.’

  ‘You what?’ Lily shot upright, slopping wine over the arm of the chair.

  Saz! Her baby girl. She hadn’t seen her or heard a word from her in twelve years. And now…

  ‘Wedding? What the fuck’re you talking about?’

  ‘She’s getting married. Tomorrow. And I’m not supposed to tell you that, you didn’t hear that from me, okay?’

  Lily sat there, gobsmacked. When she had last seen Saz, she had been nine years old. Now she was twenty-one. A fully grown woman. And she was getting married. Her eldest daughter. Her lovely girl.

  ‘Where?’ asked Lily. ‘What time?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Becks, shaking her head. ‘No, Lils. Don’t even think about it. The King boys see you within ten miles of that, they’ll go apeshit.’

  ‘There’s nothing in my licence that says I can’t contact the girls–or anyone else, come to that.’

  ‘No! Lils, don’t. The Kings…’

  ‘Hey,’ said Lily with sudden sharpness, ‘I’m a King. Remember?’

  Becks was taken aback. The Lily she’d known had never snapped like that. I guess becoming a murderess changes a person, she thought with a shudder. And what the hell was she doing, helping a murderess out like this? Joe was right. She was mental to get involved. And now she’d opened her fat gob and put her foot straight in it. As usual.

  ‘Freddy King said he’d kill you if he ever clapped eyes on you again,’ Becks reminded her. ‘He was outside the sodding jail, Lils. Think about this. He drove all that way and waited, just so that he could scare you.’

  Freddy was hot-headed and stupid, Lily had always thought that. Not like Si. Si was a thinker. Leo had been smart too–but not, as it turned out, quite smart enough.

  ‘Freddy King’s full of crap,’ said Lily.

  ‘He’ll do for you if you go there,’ warned Becks seriously.

  Lily shrugged and glugged back the last of the wine. She turned and looked Becks dead in the eye. ‘Like I care,’ she said. ‘And Becks…?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Leo.’

  Becks gulped. ‘You what?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I know you all thought I did. Everyone did. Including the police who investigated the case. Including the judge. No one bought that shit about him beating me up and me killing him being justifiable. People knew he was screwing Adrienne Thomson. They were convinced I cracked and killed him for it. But I didn’t.’

  Becks took a long swallow of her wine. She needed it. Was Lily bullshitting her? But why would she do that? She’d done her time, what would it profit her to start spinning fairy tales?

  ‘So who the hell…?’ she asked Lily.

  Lily shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ she said.

  She looked straight at Becks and Becks felt dread take hold of her. ‘But I’m going to start with Adrienne. She was all over Leo’s bits like a dose of the clap, ever since school days. She was Matt Thomson’s missus, but he didn’t do it for her, did he? We all knew that. Apart from firing blanks, poor bastard, she went round telling everyone he had a tiny dick.’ Lily emptied her glass and grimaced. ‘Yeah. I’ll start with her.’

  And after Adrienne, I’ll go on to anyone else who might have done it, she thought. And when I find them, when I finally find out who did this to me, then God help them.

  5

  1997

  Lily King was twenty-seven years old and standing in number one court in the Old Bailey. 1997, and no one believed that the Millennium Dome would ever come in on budget or that Princess Diana was going to be dead within months. Everyone, however, believed that one day soon Tim Henman would win Wimbledon, and for sure everyone believed that Lily King, wife of ‘entrepreneur’ Leo King, was guilty of his murder.

  The jury were filing back into the court, and now here came the judge. A low, excited murmur buzzed around the jam-packed courtroom. Lily stared straight ahead, willing herself not to break down, not to cry. Terror gripped her, and disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her.

  The jury had reached their conclusion after just forty minutes of deliberation. Her brief had been reassuring when they’d spoken before the trial, but now when she tried to catch his eye, he was looking away. She’d put her blonde hair back in a French pleat and dressed in a sober black suit for the trial, on his recommendation.

  ‘Don’t look too glamorous. Keep it plain, keep it simple,’ he’d said.

  But Lily had the strong feeling that she could have been wearing spangles and a leotard, and she’d still be fucked.

  The court clerk was taking the verdict form from the leader of the jury, and was now handing it up to the judge. Now there was no excited murmur. The whole courtroom was silent, waiting for the axe to fall.

  Lily’s eyes were fixed on the florid-faced judge in his sombre grey wig and robes. He put on his glasses, unfolded the paper and read it. Then he passed it back to the clerk, cleared his throat and started to speak. Lily didn’t hear a word he said, over the roaring tumult in her head. Didn’t want to hear what she feared the most.

  When he stopped speaking, there was a moment of total silence. Then pandemonium broke out. Suddenly the whole court was in uproar, the press were storming toward the doors, Leo’s family were stomping and yelling in triumph, Freddy and Si were glaring their hatred at her. Becks was sitting there, pale-faced and wretched. Nick O’Rourke was there too, silent amid the noise, as if carved from stone. The judge was yelling for silence, but nobody was taking any notice.

  Lily King was going down for the murder of her husband, Leo King. She had blown Leo’s brains out after finding out he was having an affair with Adrienne Thomson. Both motive and evidence pointed to Lily: her fingerprints had been on the gun–no one else’s. Her charmed life was over. Her fate was decided. She stood there, dazed, as hell erupted all around her. Her eyes sought her brief’s again, but he was looking away, tidying his papers.

  Bastard.

  How the fuck could this be happening?

  But it was. A guard ap
peared on either side of her. She turned numbly. They led her back down to the cells.

  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 const
antly 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.’