Jail Bird. Jessie Keane

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.

       6

      Bright and early next morning, Lily was up, showered and dressed. It was either that or sleeping, and dreaming. She dreamed a lot. Last night it had been the court case. No, she’d rather be up and doing than asleep and at the mercy of the dreams.

      Becks lent her the pink car and Lily drove over to where she wanted to go. It felt funny, being behind the wheel after so long inside, being free to just come and go—within reason. But it felt good. Powerful. She liked it.

      She checked in with her probation officer first, a dour-looking, overworked woman with an office pallor, thin dull hair and a fistful of blackheads on her nose.

      ‘All going well?’ the woman asked, not unkindly.

      ‘Fine,’ said Lily, and told her about her plans to stay with Becks and to look for a job soon. A lie, but so what? She planned to be too damned busy to waste time becoming a wage slave.

      ‘I’ll need to visit you sometime soon at that address,’ said the officer, and got out her diary.

      Jesus, Lily thought, but this was the deal, she was a lifer out on licence, this was it for the foreseeable future.

      ‘Fine,’ she said, and they made an appointment for the following week, then Lily left to press on with the real business of the day.

      When she banged on the door of the smart detached house near Romford, Adrienne Thomson opened it and her jaw nearly hit the floor.

      ‘Fuck!’ she gasped out, and started to shut it again.

      Lily stuck her foot in the door and put her shoulder to it. Lots of gym sessions in the nick had made her harder, stronger. She wasn’t weak little Lily any more. That Lily was gone.

      ‘That’s hardly friendly, Adrienne, is it?’ asked Lily, forcing her way into Adrienne’s neat and painfully clean hallway. ‘Trying to shut the door in an old friend’s face.’

      If Adrienne Thomson had expected a visit from anyone, it certainly wasn’t Lily King. No one had told her that Lily was coming out. In the back of her mind, Adrienne had known it had to be soon, but she had shied away from that, tried not to think about it. She didn’t want to go there, not now, not ever. It had been bad enough at the time. The police had questioned her for hours on end and it had all come out at the trial. It had caused terrible ructions with Matt. She just wanted to forget the whole thing, and let it lie.

      Only it looked as if she wasn’t going to be allowed to.

      Lily walked on into the big, sunny lounge and Adrienne followed slowly and stood just inside the door, wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

      ‘What have you come here for, Lily?’ she asked urgently. ‘Matt’s only just left, he could have seen you…’

      Matt was the firm’s accountant – bent, of course, and clever as buggery at manipulating figures, moving money and generally keeping the taxman stumbling around in the dark while the boys enjoyed a very comfy lifestyle.

      ‘I know he just left. I watched him go.’ Lily turned to her old friend with a frigid smile. ‘I know you wouldn’t want him to see me. I respect that, Adrienne. Why rub the poor bastard’s nose in it, eh?’

      Adrienne at least had the grace to look ashamed at that.

      Lily looked at her with disdain. Adrienne was still a very good-looking woman, Lily had to give her that. Long, thoroughbred legs, almost as shapely as Lily’s own, and even longer. Her body buffed and golden, toned and tanned. Hair streaked blonde. Pretty dark eyes; nice straight teeth – due more to a dentist’s skill than nature. Wearing a neat white t-shirt, figure-hugging jeans, a huge plaited leather belt slung low on her thin hips, and a lot of gold jewellery. But her face was a fraction too long for beauty, her jaw too pronounced. And she had a miserable face on her, as if life had proved a disappointment. Well, it probably had, married to a dull man like Matt, with his nose always buried in the accounts and – if the rumours were to be believed, and Lily thought they were – a prick like an acorn.

      Adrienne had wrapped her arms around herself, as if feeling a sudden chill. It was warm, though: summer. Sunlight was beaming in on all the carefully dusted and polished furnishings.

      ‘I…I never got the chance to apologize to you, did I?’ Adrienne mumbled. Her eyes rose and they anxiously searched Lily’s coldly set face. ‘I’m sorry, Lils. Truly I am. That thing with Leo…’

      ‘Thing?’ Lily gave a bark of laughter. ‘Oh, you mean your affair with my husband?’

      ‘I know it was bad.’

      ‘Oh yeah. But then that was you, wasn’t it, Adrienne? Always ready to put out at a moment’s notice.’

      ‘That’s not fair,’ said Adrienne shakily.

      ‘Oh, so now we’re talking about what’s fair?’ Lily came up to the taller woman and glared at her. ‘How about being banged up for twelve years for something you didn’t do, Adrienne, what do you think about that? Do you think that’s fair?’

      ‘But you…’ Adrienne’s voice faltered. She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.

      ‘But I what?’ Lily leaned in close and Adrienne flinched and jerked back. ‘What, Adrienne? Come on. Finish the sentence.’

      ‘But you…you were found guilty. You…’ Adrienne’s voice trailed away again. She gulped convulsively. ‘You…you killed Leo. They said so at the trial. That he knocked you about and…and had an affair with me…and that night, that same night he’d been with me, he went home, and then…you killed him.’

      ‘And you believe that?’ said Lily.

      Adrienne nodded slowly. ‘You were convicted. You did it.’

      Lily nodded. ‘And poor bloody Matt. The poor sod’s still with you, after all that?’

      ‘We talked it through. I said maybe we ought to split, but he didn’t want to. So we made a go of things.’

      ‘And you never did anything like that again, after Leo?’

      Adrienne shook her head. She’d gone almost pale under her fake tan; it was giving her a jaundiced look.

      ‘Pardon me if I fucking well laugh,’ said Lily. ‘Bet you’ve had more men than I’ve had hot dinners.