Jail Bird. Jessie Keane

thinking?’

      Lily swallowed hard, blinked back more panicky tears.

      ‘I wanted…’ she gulped. ‘…I just wanted to see them. Saz getting married, how could I miss that?’

      He was shaking his head, his eyes moving over her. Lily cringed, very aware of what she looked like: mud-spattered, crumpled, tear-stained; a complete and utter wreck.

      ‘And look at the fucking state of you,’ he said in irritation.

      As if that’s going to matter now, she thought.

      ‘I just…had to be there,’ she said lamely.

      ‘No, Lily, you didn’t. Si was there. Freddy was there. You didn’t have to be there at all, are you totally insane? Do you for one single minute think that your daughters wanted to see you there today? Do you think they behaved as if they were glad to see you? I suppose that silly cow Becks told you about it?’

      Lily shrugged. She wasn’t going to drop Becks in it; she couldn’t grass up a mate – even if Becks had made it clear to her that she wasn’t welcome any more. That wasn’t her fault, anyway. Becks was just frightened, and she was right to be frightened: her and Joe didn’t want trouble with the Kings.

      ‘Yeah, I bet it was,’ he went on. He looked exasperated. ‘Fuck it, Lily, how long you been out?’

      ‘Yesterday. I got out yesterday,’ said Lily.

      ‘And today you’ve upset the whole bloody applecart. Jesus, that must be some sort of record.’

      Lily swallowed hard. All right. She knew she’d messed up. But she’d been desperate, couldn’t he see that?

      ‘They’re my girls,’ she said, and her voice was a little fiercer, a bit stronger.

      ‘They. Don’t. Want. To. Know. You,’ he said with brutal emphasis.

      ‘No…’ Lily shook her head, denying it, blanking it out even though she knew he was right.

      ‘Yes, Lily. It’s the damned truth. How would you feel, if your father’s murderer pitched up at your wedding?’

      Lily was still shaking her head, biting back more bitter tears. She’d dated Nick O’Rourke before she got involved with Leo but now she wondered why. He was such a bastard. Leo had been all flash, gold rings winking in the light, thick gold chains around his neck, everyone’s big brother, the one with the barrel chest and the big booming laugh; you could hear him in the next street, doling out cash and champagne and bonhomie to all and sundry. But Nick…Nick had been her very first love, her forever regret in life. She’d been seriously and hopelessly in love with him before Leo had come on the scene. Seeing him in the years that followed at parties, weddings, christenings, always with a new girl on his arm – Nick the playboy – had hurt badly at first, but the hurt had been dulled over time. And then he had married the exquisitely beautiful Julia, Leo’s cousin. That had hurt Lily, too, but only distantly; the pain wasn’t so fresh, she wasn’t a besotted young girl any more. Life had gone on; they had taken different paths. She had accepted that.

      Nick was so different to Leo. Quieter, darker – cleverer and more cunning, she had always thought. If Leo was sun and brightness, then Nick was the magnetic pull of the dark. Nick didn’t put all the goods out in the shop window for all to see; he kept something back. He was a thinker. It made him more dangerous than Leo could ever have hoped to be.

      And who better to get Leo out of the picture? thought Lily suddenly. His business partner. His oldest and best friend. Suspicion would never fall on Nick, but Leo could have screwed him on a deal. Nick was a brooder; he remembered every slight inflicted upon him back to the cradle. Nick could have decided he’d had a gutful.

      ‘You’re such a bastard,’ she said it out loud, felt better for it.

      ‘Yeah, but I’m the bastard who’s pulled your arse out of the crap today,’ said Nick, unmoved by her words. ‘Freddy went ballistic when you showed up, he was saying he was going to do all sorts.’

      Lily stared at him. ‘And you thought you’d come in on your white charger and whisk me away, did you?’ Her voice was trembling with emotion. Most of it was rage. He’d scared her witless, him and his bloody boys. And now – was she hearing this right? – he was saying that he’d had her snatched, brought here, just because Freddy King was mouthing off as usual?

      ‘Something like that.’ He gave a thin smile.

      ‘Freddy’s always threatened all sorts,’ she said.

      ‘Lily, he meant it. You’re staying with Becks and Joe, yes?’

      ‘Not any more. She’s told me to go.’

      ‘That’s a damned good idea, for them and for you. Where, though?’

      Lily shrugged and slumped further down into the sofa. She felt exhausted with the aftermath of all this shit, and bewildered by Nick’s motives. And bloody angry too: he’d really scared her.

      Nick stood up and went to the empty hearth. For such a big man he moved with a panther-like grace – silent and deadly. Which he was, she knew that. He was a hard man and a dangerous one. He’d grown up – like Leo – delving deep into the protection rackets and dabbling in large-scale bootlegging. Then he’d graduated to the criminal equivalent of the Premier League, working with an elite network of tough, trusted men at the highest level, and running rings around the cops and Customs & Excise.

      There was a set of keys on the mantelpiece. Nick picked them up and they jingled.

       That sound.

      One of the older cons had told her she would feel like this. ‘Just the sound of a set of keys jingling is gonna make you jump out of your skin for the rest of your life. You heard how men used to come back after World War One, shell-shocked from the Somme? Anyone so much as popped a cork near them, or a car backfired. They just dived for cover. And that’ll be you, Lily girl. Every time you hear a set of keys.’

      Nick tossed the keys into her lap. Lily flinched.

      ‘There’s a safe flat across town. The boys’ll take you back to Becks’s place to get your things, then take you on over there. All right?’

      ‘What you doing this for? Guilty conscience?’ asked Lily.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Did you…you didn’t have anything to do with Leo’s death, did you?’ she stumbled out.

      Nick looked surprised. Then he laughed. ‘That’s a good act, Lily. And that’s a really good line to take, particularly with Si and Freddy King after your blood. So let’s get this right – you were an innocent, banged up by mistake? It was a miscarriage of justice? Someone else did it? Me, maybe? Oh Lily. That’s a bloody good one.’

      Lily stood up. She’d been frightened, abused, accosted by her own kin and now the bastard was laughing at her.

      ‘It’s not funny,’ she snapped.

      His laughter stopped suddenly. He moved forward and stood facing her. Suddenly she felt very small.

      ‘Oh, too right it ain’t. It’s far from that.’ He was staring at her face. ‘Twelve years in stir and you’re still fucking beautiful. How’d you manage that Lily King? So beautiful. And so bloody deadly, too.’

      ‘I didn’t do it,’ said Lily through gritted teeth.

      ‘Yeah, that’s a good one. I’d stick with that if I were you.’

      Now Lily was getting mad. She lashed out, wanting to wipe that smirk off his face. He caught her wrist, held her there.

      ‘Now don’t start that with me,’ he advised. ‘If you hit me, I swear to you, I’ll hit back, and you know what? I can hit a lot harder than you. So