Jail Bird. Jessie Keane

didn’t do it,’ she said again. ‘And I’m going to prove it’s the truth.’

      ‘Ha! Lily, you did it. I knew you. You were a shy, quiet girl and all I can think is that Leo pushed you too far, pushed you beyond reason, and you finally snapped.’

      ‘You think I killed your best friend? Truly? Then you ought to hate me for that.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Nick was staring at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re right. I should.’

      He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

      Lily didn’t struggle: she was too stunned to do that. She kept very still and tried not to respond. She couldn’t afford to let him see even a tiny bit of softness or pliability in her; she had to stay tough, stay in control. But – hell – it was difficult. It had been a long, dry time in prison. And if Nick was helping her – God knew why, she’d try to figure it out, if she could – then maybe she’d be wise to exploit any weakness for her he might still have.

      He pulled back, and stood there looking at her from inches away. ‘You know what I’d like to do now?’ he said.

      Lily gulped. Her lips were throbbing, and other parts were too. She shook her head.

      ‘I’d like to take you upstairs,’ he said, then his mouth tilted up in a cynical smile. ‘And I would – if it wasn’t for fear that I might wake up with what’s left of my brains splattered all over the room.’

      ‘You bastard,’ said Lily. ‘I told you…’

      ‘Yeah, that you didn’t do it.’ There was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He let go of her wrist, pushed her firmly back, away from him.

      Lily told herself she was glad about that. Keep strong, she told herself. Keep focused. It was hard though. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said. ‘I’ll prove it.’

      ‘Look, Lily, don’t show me anything and don’t try to prove anything to me, I’m not biting, okay? Just keep out of trouble, or I promise I am going to give you such a seeing-to one of these days.’

      Promises, promises, thought Lily. Then she clamped down on the thought, clamped down on the feeling. Her blood was fizzing from that unexpected kiss, but she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to get mixed up with anyone. Getting involved with hot, dodgy men had got her into this mess. She wasn’t going to go there, not any more. Even if Nick wasn’t Leo, Leo of the dazzling charm and the secret stable of tarts, he was still a bad ’un and he was best avoided.

      ‘Now,’ he went on, crossing to the inner door. One of the bruisers, the one who had told her to shut up on the joyride over here, was standing there. Nick turned back to Lily. ‘Keep out of Si’s way. And if you see Freddy coming, for the love of God leg it fast in the opposite direction. Okay?’

      Lily nodded slowly, although she knew that she was planning to do only one of those things.

      ‘Nige’ll drive you,’ said Nick, looking expectantly at her. ‘A thank you would be nice,’ he said.

      ‘Fuck you,’ said Lily, and the last thing she heard as she and Nige headed out of the house was Nick bloody O’Rourke laughing his bollocks off at her. Again.

       14

      It was her first day in Holloway. She thought she would choke with terror at the sensation of being hemmed-in, shut away. A prison officer at reception checked and logged her belongings, then allowed her to buy two phone cards with her own private cash.

      ‘Should be just one,’ said the officer. ‘But as you’re new in, two, okay?’

      Then she was strip-searched for the first time, adding indignity to fear, and locked in a room with six other prisoners. Three of them were heroin users, one of which had turned on her violent boyfriend, nearly braining him with a candlestick, and she joked that his head was so hard it had broken the bloody thing, and she was sorry about that because the candlestick had been a gift from her mother.

      One of the others was an intimidatingly tall, twenty-stone Jamaican woman with dreadlocks and a bass-baritone voice, called Mercy. She’d been done for importing cocaine and spoke in a fast patois that Lily at first struggled to comprehend. After a while, she developed an ear for it, and could talk to Mercy and understand her fully. Mercy had three kids at home in Jamaica, and had taken the coke with her on her first-ever trip to England because she had been told that if she didn’t, her eleven-year-old son would be killed.

      ‘Do you know if he’s safe now?’ Lily had asked her later on.

      ‘He’s in hiding with his grandma,’ said Mercy, and Lily thought then that her own life had been a picnic compared to this poor woman’s. After that, they each had a rudimentary health check and then Lily was pronounced ‘processed’ and was put on D3, the intake wing, in a four-bed dormitory.

      Like boarding school, she thought.

      ‘It true you killed your old man?’ asked one of the heroin junkies in the dorm. The girl had told Lily she’d decided not to sign on to the methadone programme because she said they were all loony-tunes in the hospital wing: she’d tried it before and she wasn’t trying it again. She’d rather go cold turkey.

      Lily didn’t answer. She was blank-faced with shock at finding herself here, inside.

      The heroin girl took her silence as an admission of guilt. They’d all read about the case in the papers; many of them had been the victims of violent husbands, boyfriends, pimps, and Lily had turned the tables. Struck a blow for the sisterhood.

      ‘Hey girl – respect,’ said her cellmate with a grin.

       15

      Lily sprang awake next morning wondering: Where the hell am I? She’d dreamed again. Back inside. Fucking dreams. But now she was lying in a comfy double bed, and sunlight was filtering through the closed curtains, and her first thought was that this was a different dream, another illusion, and that at any moment she would really wake up, and she would be in stir, forever in stir, on a hard bunk bed with a stained mattress and scratchy blankets and snoring cellmates for company. Ready to face the indignity all over again. The degradation, the dire prison food eaten at trestle tables on cheap, uncomfortable chairs, the need to fill the day before lights out and the sweet release of sleep.

      But no. Here she was. She was out. Her mind ran back over the events of the past two days. Becks telling her to go – and the relief on her face last night when Lily and the boys had pitched up and collected her things. Joe skulking in the background – keeping out of it; not wanting to get involved. And who could blame him? Jack Rackland, sitting on a bench with her in the park, watching kiddies play…oh, and her kids, her beautiful girls, and then – and this was so painful, so awful – Saz’s face twisted with hate as she’d launched herself at Lily, knocking her flying.

      Lily turned over in the bed, groaning, pulling the pillow over her head, trying to block out the image.

      Oh, and more of them. Nick O’Rourke laughing at her last night, Nick O’Rourke kissing her. She paused over that. Relived for a moment the old, delicious sensations. But no. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. So what if he’d ferried her off to this neat, unshowy safe flat? So what if the kitchenette cupboards were well stocked with food. So what if she found wearable women’s clothes in the wardrobe, and a man’s, too – what was this, a little love-nest for Nick and some tart? She thought his marriage to Julia had ended long since, she’d heard that somewhere. Probably from Becks.

      All right, he’d done all this for her, but she still couldn’t trust him.

      Furthermore,