Jail Bird

No answer.

Fallen asleep again with the telly on, thought Lily irritably.

He’d be laid out on the bed in his underpants, mouth open, snoring: not a pretty sight. She sighed and dumped her case on the hall floor. She put her handbag on the consul table under the big Venetian mirror. Her reflection stared back at her. It gave her a bit of a turn, looking at herself caught unawares. She saw not the happy girl she’d once been, but a woman weighed down by troubles. Yes, she was blonde and she looked good. Slender, dressed in designer clothes and wearing foot-fetish shoes, buffed to bronze with fake tan, sporting long acrylic nails and a lot of expensive make-up. But her face said it all. An unhappy woman stood there, her mouth turned down and her eyes, brown with tigerish flecks of gold, lacking any spark of life.

Lily looked behind her reflection at the vast hall, at the chandelier she’d sourced so carefully, the cream marble on the floor, the watered silk Dupioni drapes that had cost a bloody fortune, and she thought: Hey, guess what? It’s true. Money doesn’t buy you happiness.

Lily moved away from the mirror, not liking what she saw. She felt a huge sense of emptiness eating at her guts, a sense of complete futility. Tonight she didn’t even have the comfort of Saz and Oli to relieve it. They were staying over nearby at Si and Maeve’s for the week. If Lily was away, then that was just the way it had to be–Leo King didn’t babysit kids, even if the kids were his own. That was women’s work, not men’s.

‘Leo!’ she called again. She couldn’t hear the telly going in their huge lounge, or up there in the master suite. Maybe he was in the games room. He wouldn’t be in the heated indoor pool: Leo was a morning swimmer.

No, it was late. He would be upstairs, asleep. Nice and peaceful, the bastard. Lily gritted her teeth and thought again about the things she’d found over the last few months. The receipts for jewellery. A gold bracelet from Tiffany, a Patek Philippe ladies’ watch that she had never received. Expensive bouquets of flowers that she’d never seen hide nor hair of. And a bill from a classy restaurant–not the sort of place he’d take his hoodlum mates to.

She’d phoned the number on the bill, saying she’d been there with Leo King on that date, and she thought she’d left her scarf behind. Had it been handed in? They told her no, but it was the manager’s day off, they’d check with him tomorrow–and she’d be coming in as usual with Mr King, wouldn’t she, next week? If the scarf was found, they’d put it aside for her.

‘Thanks,’ said Lily. She’d hung up and checked the calendar. Leo had last been to the restaurant on Wednesday lunchtime.

The following Wednesday, she drove there and sat outside in her car and waited. And there he was, walking into the restaurant–with Adrienne Thomson, wife of the company accountant.

Leo was taking the mickey, making her look a bloody fool. And now she’d had enough. Now the games were going to stop. She was going to lay it out for him, spell it out plain: either he stopped, or she was walking away, and she was taking the girls with her and he was going to pay, pay and pay again for making her look like such a total schmuck.

Grimly, Lily started up the stairs.

All right, marriage to Leo had for her always been a compromise. But she had worked at it, made a life, a family, a home. But this was the final straw for her.

Lily had never been the confrontational type. She had always felt she’d struck lucky, marrying a bloke who could keep her in style. She lived well. Lunches with the girls. Spa breaks. Holidays in Marbella and Barbados. The works.

She’d grown up poor, with parents who’d been forced to penny-pinch to get by. She knew it had scarred her. This life–her life–was so different. Her mum could never quite believe it when she called–and being Mum she was always quick with the snide remarks, the ‘getting above yourself’ lectures, all that sour inverted-snobbery stuff. What did she want, the miserable bitch? That her daughter should have to scrape along through life, cleaning other people’s lavvies like her?

‘Pride comes before a fall,’ Mum would sniff, glaring disdainfully about at her daughter’s opulent lifestyle. ‘Salt of the earth, the working class, don’t you forget that, my girl.’

Lily ignored her. She knew that she, Lily, had never changed, that she never had and never would put on airs and graces. She was still herself, still true to her roots–she was still quiet, awestruck Lily Granger, who had been painfully dumped by Nick O’Rourke and then been amazed that his pal Leo King fancied her and not any of the other, more exuberant girls in her circle. She was the same Lily Granger who had become Lily King, the biddable, reserved and faithful wife of Leo King.

Biddable.

Lily’s lip curled in bitterness as she thought of what a prize idiot Leo had taken her for. Yeah, she might live in luxury, but she’d been made to look a twat. She was sure his mates and his business ‘colleagues’ would know what he was up to, would pat him on the back and think him a big man for cheating on his wife with poor Matt Thomson’s old lady.

‘You dog,’ they’d say admiringly.

And if the boys knew, then her friends knew too.

Leo was a major Essex ‘face’, and he and his boys were behind many a heist. Leo, his brothers and Nick O’Rourke led a cadre of suited-and-booted villains, all deeply dangerous and mired in running ‘front’ companies. Lily didn’t know much about their business, and she didn’t want to. The money poured in; that had to be enough. So she’d put the blinkers on, kept her head down and ignored the rest.

There was always a price to pay in this life. She had come to know that over the years, shedding her girlish innocence as she got to know the man she’d married. There was a price to pay–and that price was her dignity. And just lately that price seemed too fucking high, by about a mile.

She was outside the closed bedroom door now, and her heart was beating hard with the tension of it. Because he would kick off. She knew that. Leo had never once hit her–he never would–but his temper was formidable, his rages seemed to fill up the space all around him, to suck all the oxygen out of a room. She didn’t ever like to upset him, but now she’d been pushed too far.

Yeah, the worm’s finally doing a U-turn, she thought.

‘Leo!’ she called again, wanting to wake him quickly, wanting more than anything to get this over and done with.

He’d deny it. She knew damned well that he’d deny it. But there were things she knew for sure now; there was proof, and she had right on her side.

‘Leo, will you wake up? I want a word,’ she said, nerves making her voice harsh and demanding as she swung the door wide open, crashing it back against the wall in her haste to get in there and get the damned thing said.

And then she saw the blood–splatters and loops and obscene thick skeins of blood–and the body with its head shot clean away. She stopped dead in the doorway, all the strength draining from her limbs in an instant, her lips mouthing words that would not come.

Her long nightmare had begun.

3

2009

Lily King was out. She was standing at the gates of Askham Grange nick, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, a grey hoodie and white trainers, clutching a black bin bag full of her worldly possessions.

The first thing she knew of her friend Becks’s arrival was the horn of the car. It blared out a merry eight-tone tune as Becks whipped round the corner in it. The second thing that announced Becks’s arrival was the colour of the car. The daft bint had a pink open-topped car. Lily cringed a bit as Becks tore along the road, waving madly, her white-blonde hair whipping out behind her in the warm June wind. So much for hopes of a quiet departure. Becks never did a damned thing quietly. Lily should have known that.

‘Lils, Lils! Hiya Lils!’ she was hollering even before she brought the car to a screeching halt.

Becks was her best mate. Only Becks had visited her inside while she’d been down south in Holloway. And Becks was the only person who’d offered to drive all the way up to Yorkshire to pick her up now she was no longer to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. She’d offered her temporary accommodation too, to keep the probation officer sweet.

Becks is a very kind girl, thought Lily as the pink monstrosity barrelled to a halt right in front of her. Barking, sure. Mad as a hatter. But kind.

‘Lils babe, jump in!’ Becks was trilling over the loud thump and grind of the Foo Fighters. She grabbed the black bin bag and lobbed it onto the back seat. ‘Jesus, it’s so good to see you.’

Lily was clutched around the neck in a tight hug. Becks’s jaws were working, chewing gum as always, and the scent of Wrigley’s surrounded Lily in a haze of sweetness. She smiled into Becks’s perfumed hair and then she looked up and stiffened.

A bull-barred 4x4 that had been parked across the street was slowly pulling out. As it drew level with Becks’s car, the darkly tinted electronic window slid smoothly down. A bulky man was behind the steering wheel, a man with a shaven head, snub nose, cleft chin and piggy dark blue eyes.

Oh shit, thought Lily.

Freddy King, Leo’s psycho youngest brother was sitting there in the driving seat staring right at her.

Becks felt her grow rigid and she drew back. Looked at Lily’s eyes. Saw where they were directed. Becks looked around, following Lily’s gaze, and saw Freddy there.

‘Fucking hell,’ Becks muttered under her breath.

Both women froze, wondering what the hell he was doing here, what the hell he was intending to do. Lily’s heart was threatening to bust its way straight out through her ribs. Suddenly she wished she was back inside. She’d felt safer inside.

Now she was out…and here was Freddy.

Freddy started to grin. Lily felt her stomach tighten with fear. Freddy had a grin like a crocodile. It wasn’t intended to convey warmth, only threat. He lifted his hand and pointed a finger at her, mimicking the pointing of a gun.

Lily gulped.

He was mouthing something now. Lily stared at his face, a face she had last seen twelve years ago whooping and hollering in triumph across a crowded courtroom. Big heavy features, pitted skin the result of childhood acne, black eyebrows that met in the middle. Freddy had never been the brains of the King outfit–and by God it showed–but he was certainly the brawn. He exuded an air of casual menace. Lily looked at that sneering mouth and tried to make out the words.

When she did, it gave her no comfort at all.

You won’t see it coming, but trust me–it is.

And then he gunned the engine, and was gone, roaring off along the road.

‘Creep,’ said Becks with a shudder.

Lily felt as though someone had just stepped heavily on her grave. Leo’s two brothers hated her, and they had reason. She just hadn’t expected they’d make their intentions clear quite so soon. Her mouth felt dry and it was as if a cloud had passed over the sun.

She looked along the road. The 4x4 was gone, but the feeling of menace lingered. She took a breath, opened the car door, and slid into the passenger seat of Becks’s ludicrous pink motor.

‘Blonde joke,’ said Lily. ‘What’s the first thing a dumb blonde does in the morning?’

Becks looked at her doubtfully.

‘She introduces herself,’ said Lily.

Becks raised a thin smile.

‘And what’s the second thing a dumb blonde does in the morning?’ Lily asked.

Becks shook her head.

‘She goes home.’ And where the hell is home, now? she wondered.

Becks smiled obligingly, but her heart wasn’t in it. ‘You think he knew the day you were getting out, and followed me all the way up here?’

Lily didn’t answer, but yes–she thought Freddy had done exactly that. For the sole purpose and pleasure of scaring the shit out of her.

‘He was saying something, wasn’t he?’ Becks was frowning now. ‘I couldn’t tell what it was. Did you see what he was saying, Lils?’

You won’t see it coming–but trust me, it is.

‘Nah,’ said Lily. ‘Couldn’t make out a word.’

She looked at the prison. Twelve years out of her life. Twelve years. But the nightmare had started before that, on the night she came home to accuse her husband of having an affair.

4

‘What you thinking about, Lils?’ asked Becks.

Lily came back to the present with a jolt. She forced a smile. Banished the image of all that blood, that huge splatter of blood, from her mind once again. ‘Nothing much,’ she said, realizing that she’d been back there again, reliving that awful night.

She was wrapped up in Becks’s spare towelling robe, having soaked in the bath for ages. She’d washed her hair, scrubbed herself all over, but still she couldn’t get the stink of prison off her skin. It was Friday evening, earlyish. Watch the soaps, go to bed. That was their grand plan. They’d eaten–just the two of them; Joe, Becks’s lankily attractive husband, who worked for one of the East End mobs, had taken himself off somewhere–and they were now polishing off the last of the wine.

Becks flopped down beside Lily and looked at her, sitting there bolt upright, blank-faced. Becks popped a piece of gum in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Lily knew what her friend was thinking: that Lily had changed. The Lily Becks had known–before the Leo thing had kicked off–had always been quiet, smiley, not a hint of attitude on her. This Lily had grown a tougher skin, altered into something different, something alien.

Her best friend, thought Lily. She was sitting here with her best friend, and now she hadn’t a clue what to say to her. She knew that her presence was starting to make Becks feel uneasy. Lily had just done twelve years for killing Leo. Sure, there were a lot of people who’d wanted to kill Leo–shit, they’d been queuing up around the block–but everyone believed that Lily had actually gone ahead and done it. Blown his head clean off. Becks had remained a friend despite that, over all this time, visiting, making an effort. But she had to be wondering how the hell anyone could do that, take a life, even if sorely provoked.

Becks was staring at Lily.

‘What?’ asked Lily.

‘Nothing.’ Becks shook her head.

‘Come on.’

Becks looked back at Lily. ‘I just…well…what’s it like? Killing someone, I mean?’

Lily smiled faintly. ‘You just point and shoot, I suppose. Easy.’

Becks swallowed. Lily was really making her nervous. The way she’d said that. So cool. So flippant.

‘It can’t be easy,’ said Becks with a shaky laugh.

‘It could be. Supposing you hated the person you were shooting. Supposing he had–for instance–been poking someone else. Or beating you up. Stuff like that.’

Becks nodded. ‘Right.’

Becks had been at the trial. She remembered that the defence had used that, told the jury that Leo had beaten the crap out of Lily on a regular basis, tried to lessen the sentence. Becks had doubted that was true; she still did. The defence counsel had been clutching at straws, but everyone could see that Lily was going down for a long stretch.

‘You know what, Lils? You still look bloody good.’ Then she grinned. ‘Forty’s the new twenty, y’know.’

Lily sighed. She’d always looked younger than her years. ‘I’m not forty yet. Not till next April.’

‘Mine hits next June,’ said Becks. ‘Scary, or what?’

Silence.

Then Lily said: ‘Si and Maeve. They still living with the girls at The Fort?’

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 appeared on either side of her. She turned numbly. They led her back down to the cells.