by Jessie Keane
Who the hell could it be?
She glanced at the clock beside the bed. It was ten past nine: she’d slept late. She’d been worn out. Now her pulse was hammering away as the fear picked up where it had left off last night. It would be Freddy or Si; they’d tracked her down and if she opened the door they’d kill her.
The buzzer sounded again.
Gulping, crossing her arms over herself for comfort, Lily left the bed and went over to the intercom. Yeah, it would be them. For sure. They’d found her. But…what if it wasn’t them? What if it was Nick, how big a laugh would that give him, hard-hearted murderess Lily King quivering with fear from a doorbell?
She stood beside the damned thing and took a deep, deep breath. She reached out, feeling sick with terror, and picked it up.
‘Hello?’ she said unsteadily into the phone. ‘Who’s there?’
There was silence. Traffic passing by, someone breathing.
Oh God oh help, it’s them, it’s them…
‘Hello?’ she repeated, feeling cold sweat break out all over her body. Because she’d just told them, hadn’t she?, that she was there. She shouldn’t have spoken. Shouldn’t have picked the damned thing up. What was she thinking? Was she completely mad?
There was nothing to be heard but the breathing. Fast, frantic breathing.
Oh for God’s sake just say or do something, she thought. Break the bloody door down, just get it over with. I don’t care any more.
Then an unsteady female voice said: ‘It’s…it’s Oli. It’s Oli.’
Lily sagged against the wall in shock. Oli, her baby girl…
Then she had a nasty thought. ‘Are you alone, Oli?’ Maybe she had Uncle Si with her, maybe this was a blind, a way in, Oli playing Trojan horse for the King brothers. Maybe Oli hated her just as much as Saz did. And why shouldn’t she? God knew she had reason.
‘Of course I’m alone,’ said Oli, in a voice that sounded on the edge of tears.
Do I believe her? thought Lily. Do I dare?
She leaned back against the wall beside the intercom. Reached out a hand, pressed the release. She had to take the chance. She had to.
‘Come on up,’ she said, dry-mouthed with fear.
The first thing that Lily thought when she opened the door and saw Oli standing there – alone, and thank God for that – was, oh my God, my baby, how she’s grown up. She felt an almost overpowering urge to hug Oli, to hold her close. Lily’s second thought was that Oli looked distraught, and that she didn’t look as if she wanted to be held or hugged. In fact, she looked like she was about to freak. Lily held herself firmly in check.
Oli came inside and Lily shut the door and locked it after her. Then she turned, leaning against the door for support, thinking my baby, my baby as Oli turned and looked at her with Leo’s dark blue eyes, eyes that were only just this side of crazy. Oli’s dark hair, long and wildly curling, was dishevelled. She was wearing pale denim jeans and a white puff-sleeved blouse and had about her that same old aura of litheness, of intense nervous energy.
Oli the tomboy. She’d always favoured trousers over dresses – unlike the more stately, feminine Saz – and was always off climbing trees, playing cowboys, camping out in the garden, doing wild, boyish things, while Saz petted her pony and shot clays with Leo.
Lily took a breath. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said, and Oli nodded absently and flopped down into the nearest chair, immediately starting to pick at the arm of it with long, nimble fingers. Her nails were bitten, Lily noticed as her gaze moved avidly over her daughter, taking in every precious inch of her. Oli’s skin was still fine, lightly tanned, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her turned-up nose. Her pouting rosebud mouth was unadorned by lipstick. Her lashes were long, her brows black and slightly bushy. She glanced up at Lily and Lily thought, Oh she’s so pretty. Those beautiful dark blue eyes are going to break a few hearts.
Leo’s eyes, she thought more soberly. Saz had been the real daddy’s girl of the family, but Oli had loved her dad too, so much. And what must she think of her mother, who she believed had killed him?
Lily sat down cautiously, quite a way from Oli; she didn’t want to panic her, make her bolt for the door. Oli looked as if she was on a knife-edge, not certain whether to stay or go.
‘How did you find me here?’ Lily asked her.
Oli made a flicking movement of her hand. ‘I followed you. I…I wanted to see what you…I’ve been trying not to, but I wanted to see you, so I went over to your mate Becky’s place after I’d heard Uncle Si and Aunt Maeve saying you were staying there…’
Jesus God, thought Lily. Oli had found her so easily. And so had Si and Freddy.
‘And when I got there, I bottled it.’ Oli stopped talking and clutched at her head with both hands, mucking up her hair even more. It was sticking out in all directions. ‘I just…I couldn’t come in. I sat in the car. It was getting darker. I didn’t know what to do. And then you arrived with some men, and you all went in there, and I still couldn’t get up the nerve to come in…’ She gulped and rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes like a tired child. Then she dropped her arms and looked at Lily. ‘It’s funny, I thought if I ever saw you again I wouldn’t know you, but I did, I knew you straight away when I saw you standing outside the church. Don’t you think that’s odd?’
Lily didn’t answer.
‘When you all came out of Becky’s, I followed the car. At a distance. I was careful the men didn’t see me. I parked over the road. Then they went away, and the lights were still on up here, so I thought, I’ll go over, she’s alone, I can talk to her, ask her why she did it.’
‘Oli—’ said Lily.
‘But I couldn’t!’ Oli let out a wild little laugh. ‘I bottled it again. Then the lights went out. And I thought, all right, I’ll wait until morning.’
‘You’ve been sitting out in the car all night?’ Lily asked.
Oli nodded, wrapping her arms harder around her body, her feet tapping on the floor, her movements frenetic, jittery.
Again Lily had to quash the urge to hug her. Instead she stood up. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea, and some toast, and we’ll both start to feel a bit better.’
She went into the little kitchenette and made the tea, found bread in the freezer and put four slices in the toaster. Then she found butter, jam, milk, cups, plates, cutlery, put it all on a tray and came back into the small sitting area. She put the tray on the coffee table, poured out the tea, buttered the toast and slathered jam on it. Then she pushed a mug and plate over to Oli.
‘Here. For God’s sake eat something and drink some tea, you must be frozen.’
‘What, playing mother? It’s a bit late for that,’ said Oli sharply.
Lily flinched, but she knew how Oli must be hurting. She had to soak it up. ‘Better late than never I s’pose,’ she said lightly, and started in on the toast although she was almost choking with nerves. Her daughter, her lovely little Oli, was sitting right here in front of her, looking as though she might leg it at any second, but she was here, thank God, she was here.
Lily swigged down some tea; it steadied her a little. She could see the food and drink having a similar effect on Oli, although she was only nibbling at the toast, she was too uptight to relish it.
‘They said…’ Oli’s eyes suddenly filled with tears as she spoke. ‘Aunt Maeve said he was having an affair with that horrible woman, that Adrienne Thomson. And that he’d been hitting you.’ A tear spilled over and ran down Oli’s face. She pushed her hands into her hair. ‘You know, I don’t remember much of what happened when Dad…when he died, or when you were taken away.’
‘Much?’ queried Lily.
‘All right, I don’t remember anything around that time. Except that you were both there…and then you were gone.’ She threw her half-eaten toast down and shoved the plate away. ‘I can’t eat this.’
Lily pushed hers away too. Her throat had closed as she saw the misery in Oli’s eyes. ‘Oli,’ she
said urgently. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘What?’ Oli was looking at her open-mouthed. Then she shook her head. ‘You were tried and convicted. You were found guilty.’
Lily was shaking her head. ‘No…’
‘Yes,’ said Oli, shouting now. Now the tears were falling, she was sobbing, nearly hysterical. ‘I never saw him hit you. Not once. Saz never saw that either. That was a lie.’
‘Oh Jesus, Oli…’ Despite herself, Lily found herself reaching out, trying to bridge the huge, horrible gulf between them.
‘Don’t you touch me!’ Oli snapped, cringing back.
Lily held up both hands and slowly drew back. Okay, okay.
‘I didn’t do it, Oli. That’s the truth. Someone fitted me up for it. That’s the truth too. I would never, ever have done such a thing to you. I would have slit my own throat first, Oli. I promise you that.’
Oli was silent now, watching her. She swiped a hand over her eyes. Picked up the mug of tea and sipped it, tried to gather herself.
Poor little cow, thought Lily. How the hell has she managed to cope with this? No mother. Her father dead. And the horror of knowing what had happened to bring all that about. Oli was eighteen, a young adult now; but in her eyes Lily could see nothing but the frightened, bewildered child she had been back then.
‘The silly thing is,’ said Oli finally, ‘I want to believe you.’
Lily took a gasping breath. Oh, Jesus, could she make this right? Could it really be possible? She didn’t dare believe it, not yet. But she could see that Oli was having doubts. And if she was clever enough, cunning enough, then she could open that tiny crack in Oli’s armour, get inside and win her daughter back.
Saz would be quite another matter. But Saz wasn’t here.She’d have to face that particular battle later, and she wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
‘They on honeymoon? Saz and…what’s his name, the groom?’ she asked.
‘South of France. Only for a week,’ said Oli, her eyes fixed on Lily’s face. ‘Richard’s got work to get back to: he works in the business for Uncle Si and Freddy. Him and Saz are going to move into our place when they get back.’
‘Ah.’ Lily knew that ‘the business’ covered a multitude of sins–literally. Ask any of the King brothers or Nick O’Rourke where they earned the vast amounts of dosh to pay for mansions, fast cars, holidays in the Caribbean and extremely high-maintenance blonde girlfriends and wives, and they would say ‘import and export’. It was only true insofar as ‘the business’ was a blind for other, more lucrative and less law-abiding activities.
‘Oli,’ said Lily. ‘I’d like to come home.’
Oli stared at her mother, her expression at first puzzled and then, as she took in the full meaning of what Lily had just said, horrified. ‘You what?’
Lily decided it was time to start milking it. ‘I can’t stay here. It’s strictly temporary, one night only, a favour from Nick. Becks and Joe don’t want me there. I’ve got nowhere to go to, Oli. Nowhere at all.’
It wasn’t true, and she hated lying to Oli, but fuck it. She wanted to go back to her own home. She had to go back there. She was prepared to kick any obstacle out of the way to achieve that goal, too. Up to and including Maeve and even Si King–somehow. She didn’t know how yet. Si King wasn’t so much an obstacle as a fucking great concrete wall, but somehow she was going to have to break the bastard down. If he didn’t break her down first.
Oli jumped to her feet. ‘You can’t be bloody serious,’ she burst out. ‘Home? You ruined our home, destroyed it. How can you, how do you fucking well dare say that to me?’
‘I’ve got nowhere else, Oli,’ said Lily. She was going for the sympathy vote, exploiting the softness she sensed in Oli, the willingness to be persuaded that her mother wasn’t a murderess after all.
She had to get back into The Fort. It was essential; everything depended upon it.
‘Forget it,’ snapped Oli, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t…I really don’t know why I came here…’ she said, dragging a hand through her hair.
‘You came here because you wanted to see me,’ said Lily. ‘And because you don’t believe I was guilty, not really.’
‘You were convicted.’
‘I was framed. I didn’t do it. And I need…’ Lily hesitated, choosing her words carefully now…‘I need to come home, Oli. I need to be home with you.’
In Oli’s eyes, Lily could see despair, desperation. Oli wanted her mother back. Oli had missed her. She could see it. She hated playing with Oli’s emotions this way, but it had to be done.
Oli shook her head.
‘Oli…’
‘No! I can’t talk about this now,’ said Oli, and ran to the door, and was gone.
And there went that chance. Lily sat there, feeling shattered and frustrated. To see Oli so close…but so distressed, so tormented. She’d blown it; all her soft words hadn’t worked. She felt tears start in her eyes, tears of anger and self-pity, and blinked them away. She refused to cry. She sighed deeply, stood up, started gathering up the breakfast things.
She had other things she had to be doing. She was going to have a long shower, dress in someone else’s clothes and go and have another chat with her late husband’s mistress. One of them, anyway.
16
‘You know what? That ain’t enough,’ said Tiger Wu.
Freddy King stared at the man. ‘You what?’ he asked. ‘You’re having a laugh.’
They were standing in a clearing in Epping Forest, way off the beaten track, both of them dressed as ramblers in dark green hoodies and walking boots. Freddy felt a cunt but it was important that they weren’t seen to be out of place here. They had to blend right in to the background in case anyone was about. There was stillness all around, and summer greenery and birdsong, all that nature shit. Freddy hated it. He liked the Smoke. Plenty of action, noise, people. Silence always made him jittery.
Duncan ‘Tiger’ Wu shook his head. He was half-Chinese, half-Scot. He had the sallow skin and exotic eyes of his mother, and his dad’s height and strong Glaswegian accent. He wore his blue-black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was much feared and revered around the East End, known as a good refuse collector–in other words, he got rid of people, for a hefty fee.
The fee was getting heftier by the minute.
Tiger prided himself on keeping his ear to the ground, knowing who was inside or out, who would have need of his services, who were the movers and shakers among the East End mobs and the Essex boys. He knew that Lily King had done her husband over, and that Si and Freddy King had been chomping at the bit ever since, wanting to do the cow a bit of harm in return. Freddy more than Si. Si was a reasonable man, within limits. Freddy was a headcase. Tiger knew that. But he was a rich headcase, and that made this whole conversation really interesting as far as Tiger was concerned.
‘Five up front and five when the job’s done; that’s not a bad day’s pay,’ said Freddy.
‘Does Si want this?’ asked Tiger.
Freddy puffed himself up, his face reddening angrily. ‘Si ain’t doing this deal, I am.’
‘Only I wouldn’t want to tread on Si’s toes,’ said Tiger.
‘Understood. Si’s agreeable, okay?’ lied Freddy. Fuck Si and his let’s-wait-until-doomsday speeches. He wanted this bitch sorted, soonest. He would have done her right after the wedding, but Si had said, no, wait. That was all Si ever said–no, wait. Freddy was sick of waiting.
‘Okay. So seven, yes? Seven thou up front, seven when it’s done.’
‘Go and piss up your kilt,’ said Freddy with a snort of disdain. He had ten in his pocket, but if Wu stopped at six and a half, he’d be pleased with the deal. Wu had a reputation of being keen on the money and was the butt of a lot of Scots jokes around the manor because of it. Rumour was he’d skin a turd for tuppence. ‘Six. That’s all I’m prepared to go to, we either shake on it now or I walk,’ Freddy relented, spitting in his hand and holding it out to seal the deal.
Wu was hesitating. ‘Six and a half,’ he said.
‘Done. And don’t forget. No comebacks, no way to trace it back to me. You got that?’ Si would have his guts if any mud came flying their way, Freddy knew that. He didn’t want to go upsetting Si.
They shook hands; the contract was agreed. Tiger Wu was going to get rid of Lily King.
And not a fucking minute too soon, thought Freddy, paying Tiger his wedge and tramping back through the mud to where they’d parked up. He was smiling. He felt better already.
17
‘So what you got?’ asked Jack Rackland from behind his desk, stretching and running his hands through his dirty-blond hair, when she pitched up at his modest little office in a quiet road off the busy High Street later that same day.
‘All sorts,’ said Lily, sitting down gratefully. Her feet throbbed and she was getting a headache in the summer heat. Pink or rainbow-coloured, suddenly she missed Becks’s horrible motor. Bloody buses. Packed full, airless, never on time; you had to wait fucking hours for the things, then walk a mile to get to where you really wanted to go. She’d dressed in a borrowed pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, dug out her old trainers. Heels were great, but sometimes you had to move, sometimes you had to walk.
‘And the payment, how’s that coming along?’ He was looking at her with his keen blue eyes, anticipating deception. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Strong, well-muscled forearms. Altogether a good-looking man, and she had been a sucker for attractive men in the past. She had a fine appreciation of beauty in all things but in men in particular, and look where that had ended; so she wasn’t going to start all that old crap over again.
‘It’s coming along,’ lied Lily. He was right to look at her like that, but it galled her. She’d pay him when she could; she wasn’t a rogue like Leo with his dodgy deals and his crooked ways. She didn’t screw people over, particularly not people who were trying to help her.
‘I said a week, then you pay up,’ he reminded her.