Jail Bird (12 page)

You’ll never see it coming. But it is.

Lily remembered Freddy’s mouthed words to her outside Askham. They drifted through her brain at the weirdest times, like now, when she had left Oli at the table with all their bags, and asked the waiter where the loo was. He directed her into the back of the coffee shop, and she went down a corridor and turned right at the bottom, and all at once she had a feeling that someone was behind her, walking steadily in her footsteps, and then she could
hear
a heavier tread behind her, a man’s footfalls.

You’ll never see it coming. But it is.

Terror rocketed up from her heart to her brain, and all the time she was thinking,
Don’t be stupid, it’s just one of the staff,
and she tried to chide herself, to make herself look round, but she couldn’t, she was too afraid that it would be Freddy, huge, shaven-headed, pug-nosed, cleft-chinned Freddy with the cruel laughing eyes, and he would catch her and kill her, all the while saying,
You see, Lily? You see it now, don’t you? Now it’s coming. Now it’s here.

She quickened her step and she was at the loo door now, reaching a trembling hand for it. There was a little thing on the cheap brown wood-effect door–a white stick-on plaque depicting a dumpy little skirted cherub peeing into a pot. What a tacky, ridiculous thing to become your last memory of life on earth.

She was turning the handle, moving quickly, but she knew she would never be quick enough. It was Freddy, he’d come for her, this was it. A big hand clamped down on hers and she was spun round. Another hand went over her mouth, stifling the scream that was starting there.

Jesus. Oh God, help me.

‘Lily King,’ said Nick O’Rourke, his black-on-black eyes glinting with fury, ‘what the
fuck
you playing at, girl?’

Lily sagged back against the loo door. Nick took his hand away.

‘What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck are
you
doing, you arsehole?’ she snapped, feeling giddy, her heart beating crazily with the fright he’d just given her. ‘Jesus! You nearly gave me a sodding seizure!’

Nick looked mad enough to spit. He leaned back against the wall and stared at her like he was debating whether to wring her neck or jump her bones. Lily found to her annoyance that she was still finding him fiercely attractive, with his dark hair and his intense face and his good height, shown off really nicely by a slick suit that looked like Hugo Boss if she was any judge.

All right, enough,
she thought. She’d been banged up for too long and it had made her bloody rampant. But did she really want to start down
that
road again, lusting after high-powered bad boys and ending up in the sort of trouble she couldn’t hope to deal with?

‘You ain’t got a clue, have you?’ He was staring at her in wonderment.

‘A clue about what?’

‘You’re being
stalked,
you silly cow.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve got Tiger Wu tracking you up and down Bond Street–didn’t you even fucking well notice?’

‘Tiger…Tiger
who?’
Lily stammered. What the hell was he talking about?

‘He’s a removal man, Lily. Oriental in appearance, with a ponytail. And what he removes is people.’

Oriental in appearance with a ponytail.
Jesus!
She’d seen the man out there, crossing the road in front of her and Oli.

For God’s sake, what the hell was happening here? Nick was saying she had some git on her tail, and therefore on Oli’s tail too.

‘What the hell are you thinking of?’ Nick demanded. ‘Don’t you think you should have
told
me where you were going when you decided to check out of the safe flat, so I didn’t think some damned thing had happened to you–like Freddy King going off on one and whacking you, or getting some other cunt to do it for him?’

Lily cleared her throat. Her mouth was suddenly dust-dry. Good God, first Si had a pop at her, and now it looked as if Freddy was having a go. None of this was good news.

‘Is he still out there?’ asked Lily, thinking of Oli, her precious Oli, sitting alone in the coffee shop.

One of the waiters was coming down the corridor. Nick gave him a glare. ‘It’s out of order, pal,’ he said with a face like thunder.

The waiter looked at Nick’s expression and backed quickly up.

‘No, he’s not still out there,’ said Nick, turning back to Lily. ‘Good job I had someone keeping an eye on you. My boys have taken him for a little trip.’

Lily let out a heavy breath of relief.

‘Word on the street is you’re back at Leo’s place,’ said Nick.

Now Lily’s eyes flashed. ‘It’s my home, Nick.’

‘You think they’re going to stand for that?’

‘Don’t look like it–does it?’ sniffed Lily. He’d scared the crap out of her. And for fuck’s sake, what made him think he could pile in here and start playing the big I-am? She was her own woman. Oh, she never used to be. She
used
to be quiet mousy little wife Lily King, ruled and practically bloody
owned
by Leo–and look where
that
had landed her. Now she was going to stand on her own two feet. Fuck men.

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at, Lily,’ said Nick. ‘But I don’t like it.’

‘And who died and made
you
God, Nick O’Rourke?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t have to answer to the King brothers, and I
certainly
ain’t going to start answering to you.’

Nick straightened. She could see he was royally pissed off with her now, but she didn’t give
that.
Fuck the lot of them, what had they ever done for her?

Had she been in a calmer state of mind she would have admitted–if only to herself–that in fact Nick had done things for her, quite a few things really. Got her into the safe flat. And now, he had–apparently, but she only had his word for that–saved her from a contract killer.

But she was too angry to be grateful. Because gratitude was what they always wanted from you, wasn’t it, these men? Be grateful and then do as you’re bloody told, wasn’t that always the way they wanted to play it?

Well, not now. Not with
this
girl. She’d been there and done that–and got caned for it.

Nick stared at her with those cold, cruel dark eyes. He shrugged. ‘If that’s the way you want it to be, fine. You go ahead. Only don’t come crying to me next time the King brothers cut up rough.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lily, and she brushed past him and walked off, back up the corridor to the coffee shop, even though she’d been dying for a pee. Her pride wouldn’t let her take one, not with Nick O’Rourke loitering outside the door. ‘I won’t,’ she threw back over her shoulder.

Oli went out that afternoon. ‘You going to be all right?’ she asked Lily worriedly before she left.

‘Sure,’ said Lily, but she felt jumpy. She hadn’t told Oli about Tiger Wu, or Nick’s intervention–fortunately the coffee shop was large and it had been packed with punters, so Oli hadn’t seen Nick passing through. But soon it would be evening, and she knew that Si could get in here any time he damned well pleased–and so could Freddy, too.

‘You phoned the security company to get the entry codes changed, and the locks, everything?’ asked Lily.

‘Yeah, it’s done. They’re coming tomorrow morning.’

It couldn’t come soon enough as far as Lily was concerned. For tonight she was going to sleep with Leo’s Magnum under her pillow and fuck the Firearms Act. Which reminded her. ‘Hey, Oli, is there a VHS recorder in the place?’

Oli looked wide-eyed and smiling at her mother. ‘A
VHS
recorder? Mum, that’s really old shit. Seriously, that’s so over. It’s all flat screens and Blu-Ray now.’

‘Right,’ Lily sighed.

‘But I think there’s a load of old stuff, video recorders and cameras, things like that, in the study somewhere.’

‘Oh.’ Maybe she was in luck after all. ‘So what are your plans today, Oli?’

‘Nothing much. Just hanging out with the girls.’

‘Well, have fun.’

And then Oli was gone. Lily sat there and thought over all that had happened since she got out of prison. She really felt she was making progress with Oli, and that was nothing short of a miracle. She was still pissed off with Nick. She didn’t understand him at all, but then she never had. Sometimes she had the feeling that he was on her side, then he started laying down the law and her back went up. Shit, if he knew what she was
really
up to, he’d be even more put out. Because he knew her of old. He knew that once she started chewing on a thing, she wouldn’t let up until it either squeaked or died. But maybe…and this was an uncomfortable thought…maybe he was just trying to throw her off the scent. Maybe Nick had an idea what had really happened to Leo. Hell, maybe
Nick
was the one she should be looking into more closely. Who the fuck knew?

A sweet memory drifted into her brain: her and Nick dancing at a youth club do, just smooching head to head, so close, so cosy–but then Leo had cut in; Leo
always
cut in. Maybe Leo had cut in in other ways, too–screwed Nick on a deal. Nick might be a pretty straight shooter, but she had always known that greed was good in Leo’s eyes. Wave a fat wedge of cash under his nose and he might have been persuaded to do the dirty on anyone. Not Lily. Not the girls. Not Si or Freddy. They were family. But anyone else? Even Nick? She couldn’t swear that Leo would have always trod the line the way he should.

The house was silent around her, waiting. No ghosts here, though, only memories. Not just bad memories, either. Leo might have been a cheating heel, and–all right–there hadn’t been much love lost between them; but he had cared for his family and treated them well, on the whole.

She went out into the hall and into Leo’s study. Looked around. There was a TV in the corner and an oldish computer on the desk. There were still big storage cabinets built into the far wall and she went to those. Leo’s love life might have been a mess, but in business and where cash was concerned, she knew he wouldn’t overlook the tiniest detail. She started throwing open doors, pulling out old encyclopedias and books and folders, none of which looked as though they’d been touched in years.

No good.

She went to the next set of cupboards beneath an impressively bulging bookcase (Leo had never read a book in his entire life) and she looked in there too.

Nothing.

Another set of cupboards, old golfing trophies in here, Leo had loved his golf. She dragged some of the silverware out onto the floor, tossed out some dusty old back-issues of
Pro Golfer
and found a VHS recorder sitting there with a Scart cable wound up on top of it.

‘Oh yes,’ she muttered, and pulled it out and went over to the TV in the corner and started fiddling with the connections. When she thought she had it right, she went up and fetched the tape and came back down again and switched on both TV and player. Then she started playing with the remotes. There was Sky on the thing; it was linked in to satellite. Everything had changed so much since she’d been put in the slammer.

She sat there and fiddled with the damned thing until she felt like shrieking and hurling all the remotes right across the room. Then she got it. Keyed in the aerial connection, bypassing the satellite dish. Pressed ‘play’ on the video, and it was playing.

First just white noise, a snowy screen.

But then the white noise stopped.

The screen cleared.

Suddenly, Leo King was in the room.

‘Hiya Lily girl,’ he said.

Lily’s legs turned to water. She flailed backwards and sat down hard on the captain’s chair at the desk.

‘Holy fuck,’ she moaned, feeling all the blood drain out of her face with the shock of it.

Leo was there, on the tape. Leo wearing a red open-necked Lacoste polo shirt, and she could see the thick gold chain around his brawny brown neck. His hair was cropped short, the way he always liked to wear it, his eyes were clear dark blue, brilliant against his tanned skin. It was the Leo she’d known, lived with, given children to, alive and well and sitting in–yes, he was sitting in the very same chair she was sitting in now, with the cabinets lined up behind him.

‘Oh Jesus,’ mumbled Lily, feeling the room spin around her, wondering if she was going to throw up or faint or both.

‘Well, Lily girl, if you’re playing this tape, I’m dead.’

She didn’t throw up. But the room went black, and then she was gone.

She came round with her face scrunched down into the Berber rug. It was scratchy and it was hurting her. She pulled her
head off the rug, wondering what the hell happened, where she was, was she still inside?

But she could hear Leo’s voice–loud, booming, just like always. She must be going mad. Then she remembered the tape. She took a gulping breath and prised herself up from the floor, flopped back up onto the chair and looked at the screen again. Leo was still there but he had stopped speaking. She pressed the pause button with a shaking hand and sat there, looking at the frozen, flickering image of her dead husband. Tears slid down her face unheeded. All right, he’d been a bastard. But he was
her
bastard. And now he was gone forever.

Taking a gulping, teary breath she rewound the tape. Pressed ‘play’.

‘…if you’re playing this tape, I’m dead. Also, you’ve got hold of the emergency stash and the gun. That’s good. Take care of the girls, Lily.’

Take care of the girls.
Not knowing that she wouldn’t be given a chance to do that. Not knowing that she’d be fitted up with his murder.

‘Oh, Leo,’ she groaned sadly.

‘The boys’ll look after you,’ he went on.

Christ, if only you knew,
thought Lily. She put a hand over her mouth. Felt like she was going to hurl.

The phone was ringing. She glanced at it, then back at the screen. It kept ringing. She stopped the tape, switched off the TV. Snatched up the phone from the desk. Had to swallow several times just to get a word out. ‘Hello?’

‘You know Alice Blunt freaked out when you showed her that photo of Leo?’ said Jack Rackland’s light cockney voice.

Lily sighed, her mind still focused on Leo, looking so vital and alive when now he was dead, just bones lying in a cold
grave. She rubbed at her eyes, pushed back her hair, tried to think straight. ‘Yeah,’ she said. She didn’t think she’d ever forget that little episode with Alice.

‘Well this one shouldn’t do too much freaking–she’s a tough nut. I’m free this evening, we can give her a visit.’

‘And what was this one’s name? Reba, was it?’
This one.
One of many women that her husband had been shagging while she’d been raising his kids, tending his home.

‘That’s it, Reba Stuart.’

Lily stood there feeling sad and so alone. She wished Leo was here right now, if only because he was familiar to her, a fixed point of reference. Right now she had no one to turn to. And another four women to find after this: women who thought nothing of sleeping with someone else’s husband, who maybe thought nothing of
killing
someone else’s husband too, and letting someone else get stitched up for it.

‘Mrs King? Lily? You still there?’ asked Jack.

‘Yeah, I’m here.’

‘You want to do that? Tonight?’

‘Yeah,’ she said on a sigh. ‘Let’s do it.’

She put the phone down and pressed ‘play’, and listened once again to her dead husband talking to her. It was oddly comforting.