Blood Sisters: Part 2 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?

Blood Sisters: Part 2 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death? Julie Shaw It’s 1983 and best friends Vicky and Lucy swear that they will always be there for each other, that they’ll never let anyone come between them. But fast forward 4 years and life on the Canterbury Estate has gotten very messy.Lucy has fallen for local policeman’s son, Jimmy. And Vicky is madly in love with Paddy, the charming but ruthless local bad boy. The boys are bitter enemies and determined to keep the two girls apart. But then Vicky is accused of murder, and even her drug-dealer boyfriend wants her mouth shut, permanently. Maybe Lucy is the only one who can save her…Love, murder, revenge. Who can you really trust when there’s blood on your hands? (#ufa6f54e1-63cc-5f14-88b0-b326c4e7698a) Copyright (#ufa6f54e1-63cc-5f14-88b0-b326c4e7698a) Certain details in this book, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy. HarperElement An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published by HarperElement 2017 FIRST EDITION © Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee 2017 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017 Cover photographs © Alexander Vinogradov/Trevillion Images (posed by model); Paul Gooney/Arcangel (street scene) A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. 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Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/green) Source ISBN: 9780008142797 Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008142766 Version: 2018-09-13 Contents Cover (#uf099b2f4-2e1c-52f8-beb7-1d6fb65fde99) Title Page (#ud38d4dcf-901e-5e9c-9bb0-66edbfb50a20) Copyright (#u3784beca-63df-5217-9ed7-5ec848fef8c8) Chapter 11 (#u85c828d8-2617-514b-bf96-5f58bfc8f5b4) Chapter 12 (#ud77f7728-cc1d-5251-ac56-7d3020fb40a5) Chapter 13 (#u86787934-c03a-581c-be5c-7a5826c4a62f) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Part Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#ufa6f54e1-63cc-5f14-88b0-b326c4e7698a) Vicky looked down at the blue line on the stick in her hand and stared. It was a busy Thursday, and she was already a good ten minutes late for work. But, though she knew that, she couldn’t move: she was transfixed. In the fairy-tale scenario she’d fashioned for herself, the baby had been conceived on a Monday. The Monday night before Paddy had been led away and taken off to prison, which made it a child that would be born of love. Of commitment, and passion, and also of promises. That they would love one another always. That they would always be together. That she would wait for him, like a wife torn from her husband by war. That he would do right by her. Return to her. Stay with her. She had walked home on the Sunday morning, carrying her slingbacks by their straps, having borrowed a pair of Lucy’s old pumps. And despite her assurances to her friend that she was done with him completely, she’d still felt a pang when Lucy told her he’d come to find her, and a similar rush of unwelcome emotion as she rounded her corner to see his Capri parked outside. She tried to steel herself, even so, calling to mind – which wasn’t hard – what she’d seen in the nightclub, with Lacey. And, as she approached, she was heartened to see that he’d not ventured into the house. It would make it all the easier to tell him to sling his hook. She saw him first, walking silently in the old Dunlop plimsolls, and, as always happened (and perhaps always would, more was the pity), she felt the fluttering of butterflies in her gut. He was half-sitting, half-standing on their gate, smoking a cigarette in the watery sunshine. He was so beautiful, she thought, even though she didn’t want to think it. And she wondered just how he would cope if – when – he got incarcerated. She’d heard the stories. And she’d seen documentaries on the telly, too. He was a good-looking man – but only just a man, really. In prison terms, eighteen was no age at all, was it? Yes, a world away from sixteen – to Vicky, Paddy was a man through and through. But in prison … She shuddered. There would be men in prison – older, harder, stronger men in prison – who’d feel the same attraction to Paddy as she did. And when he saw her – when he turned to flick his spent cigarette into the kerb – that sense of his vulnerability was even stronger. Just his face, his swollen cheek, his look of shame, his look of love, were sufficient to make her completely rethink her decision, and consider going with her feelings after all. But she held firm. There was too much pain and anguish to bear. She stopped on the pavement, and nodded towards the car. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. So, please, just go away, Paddy, and leave me alone.’ She was surprised by the calm way she’d managed to get the words out. And mindful, which made her resolve that bit stronger, that what Lucy had said about her naivety wasn’t true. She had been here before. She might be here again. Probably would be, if she didn’t end it now. ‘Vic, babe, please,’ he began, opening his walnut-brown arms out to her. She walked around them, eyes down, and started up her path. ‘Please, Vic. I love you. Vic, please hear me out.’ She ignored this as well, and reached into her handbag for her key. But it was her mother who opened the front door. She heard Paddy mouth ‘Fuck’. Vicky took in the sight. The haystack hair. The old trackies. The frayed jumper. But her mam looked reasonably sober, which was something, at least. But she shouted at Paddy, even so. ‘Just piss off, you little pipsqueak! You hear me? Bugger off!’ Then she yanked Vicky roughly over the threshold and slammed the door. ‘Spoke to Lucy,’ she explained. ‘Once you’d left.’ That had been that. Even Paddy – local bad boy and hard man that he was – wouldn’t want to get embroiled in a set-to with Vicky’s mum. Not because he couldn’t pulverise her, either mentally or physically, but because he had a reputation to protect. An old lady? You just didn’t go there. So he called. She never answered. But the phone rang incessantly. Till, by teatime, her mam – Vicky had pleaded that she didn’t – picked up the receiver and roared down that at him as well. And then silence. Till around eleven, when Vicky went to put a note in one of the milk bottles, and found the most enormous bunch of deep, blood-red roses. A couple of dozen, at least. And on a Sunday. Where on earth had he found them? Her mother, half way down her second bottle of cider, squinted at them through her cigarette smoke. ‘Undying love?’ she slurred. ‘Yeah, and I’m the bloody pope.’ He’d called again then – had he been waiting somewhere, watching to see she’d got them? And every inch of her, angry and full of hurt though she still was, wanted to rush into the hall again and answer the phone. ‘I mean it, girl,’ her mother said, though Vicky had made no actual move to pick the receiver up. ‘You do that and I’ll cut the fucking cord.’ So it was Monday before Paddy was able to pin her down finally. After work. And on a day when – surprise, surprise, surprise – Lacey had called in sick. There’d been flowers there, too, another big blowsy bunch of them – this time gerberas and chrysanthemums and tiny pearls of gypsophila, driving Leanne into a frenzy of speculation. ‘Come on, spill,’ she kept saying, knowing nothing about Lacey apart from her apparent illness. ‘What’s he done? Come on, tell me – he must have done something.’ But, determined not to air the whole humiliating episode in public, Vicky held her line – that it was just because he might, almost certainly would, be going away tomorrow, and wanted to send her flowers while he still could. The irony of her fiction wasn’t lost on her. Because Paddy only made such gestures when he’d wronged her in some way. ‘You got me. I’m your gift,’ he’d always joke. ‘What other presents do you need?’ And then, eventually, it was Lucy who did for her. She called in her lunch break, as any caring best friend would, to check she was okay, to check she’d stayed firm. To check she hadn’t ‘caved in, like you know you always do, in the face of his pathetic floral offerings’. It might have been the words she’d used. It might have been the looming court case. But, either way, when Leanne found her later, after Lucy’d left, and between clients, she was sobbing her heart out in the back room. And of course, Vicky told her what had happened. ‘The fucking tart,’ was Leanne’s considered opinion of Lacey. Then she shook her head. ‘So that’ll mean we’re an apprentice short again, won’t it? I doubt she’ll show her face again here, will she?’ She grinned, and clapped Vicky on the back while she snivelled. ‘Still,’ she added, ‘you can do lots of overtime, can’t you? You’ll have a bit of time on your hands after all …’ She grinned at Vicky. ‘That’s a joke. To make you laugh. You dozy mare! But seriously, Vic, you want my honest opinion?’ Vicky nodded. ‘Well – and don’t hate me, but if the poor sod’s being carted off to the nick in the morning, shouldn’t you at least give him the benefit of the doubt? He’s clearly sorry. Bloody hell – and that’s my kind of sorry!’ Vicky had already told her about the roses. ‘And he obviously loves you. Why else would he go to such lengths? And it’s not like you have to do anything other than listen. That’s what I’d do,’ she finished, crossing her arms across her chest. ‘Though chance would be a fine thing, of course.’ So Vicky did give him the benefit of the doubt, even though there had never been any, when he arrived at the salon ten minutes before closing, exactly as she’d always known he would. And there was a certain power in being so desperately needed, so she not only listened, she let him take her back to his house where – his mam and dad being up to their elbows in flour down at the bakery – she allowed him to apologise, and apologise, and apologise, and then, because no one understood him like she did, she allowed him to make love to her, as only he could. And forgave him, as only she would. But that night of passion ten days back, though she’d love it to have been so, had not been the one that had resulted in this fairy-tale conception. She knew it hadn’t. Well, it might have, but that was academic now anyway. She’d known she might be pregnant for a good three or four weeks before that, because she’d already missed one period and the next one hadn’t happened yet, hence the realisation. And the purchase of the test. She’d still kept her fingers crossed, of course, and a part of her, albeit a tiny one, had still believed she might not be. Not just because Paddy was always so careful, but also because she knew periods didn’t always happen when they were supposed to. Specially when you’d not been having them that long. Her mam’s didn’t settle down till her twenties, she’d said. God, her mam. Having to tell her mam she was pregnant … She couldn’t even think about that right now. Then there was Lucy. Lucy’s periods were all over the place and always had been. She never knew when to expect them, and she missed them loads, too. It had gone on so long that she was even under the doctor about it. They were trying her on the pill now – about which Vicky had been pretty jealous – just to see if they could get them sorted out. God, how she wished she could talk to Lucy about it. But she couldn’t – well, couldn’t have up to now, at any rate, since she’d decided not to tell Lucy about her reconciliation with Paddy. What would be the point in getting her all cross again, after all? Because the following morning (they’d said their goodbyes that night) he’d been sent to Armley Prison, as promised. And Gurdy had since reported (Gurdy had been at the magistrates’ court, giving evidence) that he was expected to serve nine of the eighteen-month sentence he’d been given. Nine whole months. The time it took to make a baby. Which was apparently already growing inside her. Vicky wiped the stick with some loo roll and shoved it in her handbag. She felt sick. Though she now had a reason for all that. But most of all, heady, intoxicated, strangely brave. Now she would have to tell Lucy. It felt like a relief. There was a client already in and having a hood dryer lowered over her rollers when Vicky flew in. Leanne looked across, her expression first one of predictable irritability – Vicky was rarely late, but with only the two of them in the salon today, Leanne was obviously cross. Her expression changed though, seeing Vicky’s flushed cheeks and addled expression. ‘You alright, love?’ she asked. ‘What’s up?’ ‘I’m so sorry, Lee,’ she said, yanking off her jacket and hanging it on the hook. ‘I’ll make it up, I promise. I’ll work through my lunch.’ Leanne gave her client, one of their elderly regulars, a copy of The Lady to read while she waited for her curls to set. ‘And I’ll bring you a cuppa and a custard cream,’ she shouted to her, over the noise of the hood. She then nodded at Vicky. ‘Come on, you,’ she said, heading towards the back room. ‘You’re looking terrible. You sure you don’t want me to give the boss a ring? Sure he can get one of the Saturday girls to come in and help me if you want to go home again.’ Leanne’s kindness made Vicky feel tearful. Was that how it was going to be now? Because that was what pregnancy hormones did to you, wasn’t it? Made you emotional and faint, made your boobs hurt, made you nauseous, made you burst into tears for no reason. God, how she needed to tell someone. But it should be Paddy first, surely? He had the right to know first, didn’t he? Then Lucy, no question. But she was just so full up with it all. Full to bursting. She shook her head. ‘I’m okay,’ she said, ‘Just been a rush today. Better after a coffee though.’ She added a third mug to the two Leanne had already put out. ‘You don’t look okay,’ Leanne said, scrutinising her minutely. ‘You sure you’re not going down with something?’ She put a hand to Vicky’s forehead. ‘Are you feeling hot?’ It was such a sweetly maternal thing to do – not that she’d ever had much of that – that tears instantly welled in Vicky’s eyes. ‘Hey, Vic, what? What is it?’ Leanne said, putting both arms around her. ‘What’s happened?’ Vicky couldn’t stop herself. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘You’re what?’ Leanne let her go and inspected her again. Then pulled her close again. ‘Oh, shit, Vic. Bloody hell. No wonder you look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost!’ She let her go again. ‘You just found out? Jesus – how far are you gone? Does Paddy know?’ ‘He has no idea. I’ve literally only just done the test.’ She reached for her bag and pulled the stick out. ‘That’s why I was late.’ ‘Shit,’ Leanne said again, perching on one of the chairs. ‘Christ, Vic.’ She frowned. ‘Christ, what will your mam say?’ Vicky didn’t give a shit what her mam might have to say. That maternal boat had long since sailed. She said so. ‘But what about Paddy?’ Leanne said. ‘I mean, are you even going to tell him? I mean, under the circumstances …’ She stood up again, to fill the kettle. ‘I mean, have you even decided what you’re going to do?’ Vicky was confused. ‘What do you mean, what I’m going to do? Do about what?’ Leanne blinked at her. ‘Well, you aren’t thinking about keeping it, are you? Shit, you are, aren’t you?’ she said, presumably reading Vicky’s expression. ‘Fuck’s sake, Vic – really? God, you’re too young! Seriously,’ she added, ‘you have to think about this, Vicky. Who knows where you’ll be … what you’ll be doing … who you’ll be with … It’s odds-on you won’t be with Paddy, that’s for sure. And what then?’ She spread her hands. ‘Who’ll want you with a kid as part of the package?’ Vicky was more stunned than she’d been when the blue line had begun appearing against the white. The thought of getting rid of it had never even occurred to her. Should it have? No. She couldn’t even countenance such a thing. ‘Of course I’m going to keep it,’ she said. ‘I’m a Catholic, for one thing. And for another, it’s Paddy’s, and as far as I’m concerned, we are going to be together. Why wouldn’t we be? Christ, Leanne, I’d never abort his baby!’ Leanne shook her head, then sighed. Then patted her arm. ‘Alright, calm down.’ ‘I am calm.’ ‘And, look, I didn’t mean anything by it – just, well, you know, I didn’t realise you felt like that, honest I didn’t. I mean, you know, what with him going to prison and that. D’you think he’ll feel the same though? D’you think he’ll actually want the baby?’ Which was a question Vicky hadn’t even allowed herself to think about. She stuck her chin out. ‘Of course he will,’ she said. Chapter 12 (#ufa6f54e1-63cc-5f14-88b0-b326c4e7698a) Vicky wished she’d had the foresight to get some travel sickness pills. The journey from Bradford Interchange to Leeds wasn’t only interminable, it was like sitting on the axle of a go-kart, as the bus wheezed and strained its way to Leeds. Not that it was hilly, or particularly windy – just stop-start, stop-start, in the endless traffic. The thought of doing this every fortnight weighed heavily. And she wouldn’t even be there when it reached its destination, either. She still had to find a taxi to take her the rest of the way to the prison. ‘Best way,’ Gurdy had told her. ‘Or you’ll be faffing about with another load of buses. And it won’t cost you much. It’s only a couple of miles or so from there.’ He’d spoken with great authority – authority he really didn’t have. Or, at least, shouldn’t have. Since when did Gurdy know all about this stuff? Vicky knew he’d asked around for her – he’d said as much, sweetly. He’d been so anxious to help her out – had even offered to go with her, even though she knew that, at least this time, she must go alone. But it niggled at her that dear, sweet, good Gurdy seemed to have such ready access to the sort of information she required. It sometimes felt, lately, that she was being sucked into a world she wanted no part of. Or, rather, catapulted – headlong. It had all happened so quickly. It was one thing to turn a blind eye to whatever ‘business’ Paddy got up to (something – as Lucy had always been quick to point out – that she’d been managing to do nicely these past couple of years), but here she was, on a bus bound for another, distant city – a city which housed the prison in which her boyfriend was now incarcerated. Her boyfriend, the convict. Her boyfriend, who had a record. And now she – and she couldn’t help but cradle her still barely visible bump with her hands – had become a prison visitor. They’d stretched out on Paddy’s bed that last night before the trial, both looking up at the ceiling, Paddy drawing on a cigarette, defiant to the last, in the face of his mother’s fury when she came into his bedroom the following morning and could smell he’d been smoking in there. ‘Why should I care?’ he’d said, flicking ash into the ashtray which was nestled among his chest hairs. ‘I’ll be out of here, won’t I? And they’ll fucking disown me anyway.’ They since had, pretty much. ‘So it’s you and me, kiddo,’ he’d told her tenderly. ‘You and me against the world.’ They were words that she’d clung to while she’d cried into her pillow every night since. Him, her and their baby, against the world. And he’d explained everything to her, carefully, as if to a child. That, once he’d arrived in the nick, he had to apply to the governor for something called a VO, which apparently stood for visiting order. That he’d be allowed two a month (unlike Gurdy, who’d needed to ask, Paddy knew exactly how prison worked), and that since his ‘lousy fucking parents’ obviously wouldn’t want one, he’d request both for her, which meant she could go and visit him once a fortnight. ‘Keep an eye on what you’re up to,’ he’d said then, teasing her, running a proprietorial hand over her naked breasts. ‘Make sure you’re not getting up to anything you shouldn’t be.’ And Vicky had laughed then – as if – feeling secure in his embrace, all thoughts of him snogging the likes of bloody Lacey, or any other random slapper, spirited away. So she’d sought to reassure him – both in word and, for another languid hour, in deed. And when it could no longer be in any doubt that she was carrying his baby, she had felt a welling of something approaching joy. No, it wasn’t the best timing. Yes, she was obviously far too young. No, she wasn’t sure how he’d react – he had a lot on his plate, didn’t he? And, yes – yes, of course she was scared. But she was carrying Paddy’s child. Which meant she was carrying a part of him inside her. Which, since he had been taken from her, felt exactly as it should be. Or would seem so, once the small matter of her telling him about the baby had been dealt with. She’d pretty much decided now that she wouldn’t. Had decided that almost as soon as she’d spoken to Leanne, in fact. After all, she should wait till it was properly confirmed, shouldn’t she? By the blood test she was going to get down the doctors this coming week. Though, in reality, she knew she was simply looking for reasons to put it off, because it was such a momentous thing she had to do. She rehearsed it constantly in her head – how she’d broach it, the way she’d look, the exact words she’d say to him. But every time, she stalled at the next bit of the conversation, because she simply had no idea how he’d react. Having a child together wasn’t something they’d discussed, ever. Not even in jest. Not like Lucy had with Jimmy, who apparently talked about such things all the time. Well, so Lucy said. She only had her word for it. But her and Paddy, never. So it was uncharted territory. He might be in raptures or he might go apoplectic – even if (and she told herself this constantly, to reassure herself) he would, without question, come round in the end. And strangely, so strangely, the one other person she had told had reacted in a totally unexpected way. She’d expected Lucy (who she’d rushed to tell, feeling guilty she’d told Leanne first) to rail at her, fume at her, drag all sorts of Paddy-avoidance promises from her. Yet she hadn’t. She’d gone misty-eyed. Lucy! It had been surreal. Her friend had even cried with her, seemingly overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. It was like being braced for a whack by her mam and not getting it – all her emotional muscles had been stiff with disbelief. ‘Of course you must keep it,’ Lucy had told her. ‘It’s your child. Doesn’t matter that it’s his’ – this word being hissed, so no change of heart there – ‘it’s your child. How could you possibly even consider getting rid of it? Be rid of him, yes, but, never, never, your baby. How’d you know this isn’t your one shot at being a mum? How could you know?’ And when Vicky had pointed out that she’d never once considered getting rid of it, even if her mam kicked her out on the street, that had been when Lucy had spilled all those tears. ‘And I’ll support you, you know that, don’t you?’ she’d promised. ‘Sod your mam – I’ll support you. Money. Time. Anything you need. Blood sisters, remember? I’ll help you look after it. Her … him.’ She’d wiped her tears away then. ‘I wonder what you’ll be having?’ her eyes all shiny. And they’d hugged and they’d hugged and it had all been so lovely (not to mention reassuring) but still all so weird. Vicky gazed out of the bus window now, trying to breathe through the constant waves of nausea, seeing the leaves turning on the trees and the fields and hedgerows slowly greying – almost as if to match the city looming darkly ahead. And she was struck by the thought that by the time Paddy was returned to her, the winter would have come and gone and it would once again be spring. And she’d have had her baby. There was absolutely no doubt about that now. There couldn’t be. Nine months minimum, the solicitor had said. And the baby due in about seven. The baby Paddy didn’t even know existed. She’d written daily. Long letters. Since the day he’d been taken. Long chatty letters, full of day-to-day minutiae and, because she was mindful that her letters would be read by other people, only very lightly sprinkled with coy references to sex. In return, despite him having all the time in the world, she was in possession of just the one reply. Which had at first upset her, it being full of self-pity and recriminations, and the sort of ‘me, me, me, me’ stuff Lucy was constantly pointing out to her. And very little, bar a crude ‘I hope you’re keeping it warm for me’, in the way of wondering how she was getting on. But when Vicky read to the end she understood things a little better. Paper and stamps both cost money (a prison reality she’d never thought about) and why would he need to be the one writing the letters to her anyway? He was stuck in a prison, with nothing to tell her, so why waste money on paper when he could at least buy a few cigs – anything to help him get through the endless grey days. And Paddy’d never been much of a one for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Why would that suddenly change? And would she want it to? She’d never been one for wet lads, after all. No, her letters to him were the things that most mattered. And now, in a matter of less than half an hour, she’d be seeing him in the flesh, the thought of which gave her butterflies. And made her heart leap, as if anxious to get there quicker. HMP Armley looked like a castle, Vicky thought. Not a fairy-tale castle – it could never be that – but with its towering stone walls, its giant doors and its turrets, the sort of castle you’d see in a film about the olden days – you could almost imagine it being stormed by knights on horseback. As it was, it was being stormed – albeit quietly and politely – by a small army of visitors, mainly women and children, some with babies hooked around their hips, many done up to the nines for their men. (Keeping it warm? The phrase couldn’t help but return to her.) But most of them wore the same sombre, almost defeated expressions of people who had to be somewhere they didn’t want to be. Joining the queue for entry, and clutching her vital piece of paper, Vicky wondered at the way the next few months were going to go. The curious business of her being ordered here once a fortnight (it was a visiting ‘order’ after all) in much the same way that Leanne had told her she’d be summoned to the baby clinic to check on her and the baby’s progress. ‘First time?’ Having been silent for so long now, and still trying to take everything in, Vicky started at being spoken to. It was by an older woman – in her thirties, perhaps, and accompanied by two whey-faced children – who was behind her in the signing-in queue. The woman smiled. One of her front teeth was missing, and Vicky found herself wondering if the man she had come to visit had been the one to knock it out. She’d been studying everyone with the same ghoulish fascination, wondering what the men they were visiting were in for. Whose partner was a murderer? Whose son was a burglar? Whose brother was convicted of rape or assault? ‘Thought so,’ the woman said, seemingly pleased at her deduction. ‘You got that look about you. Don’t worry though. The natives are friendly. Well, mostly!’ She nudged Vicky’s arm and laughed. ‘My Don has his moments,’ she added brightly. The woman’s words struck a chord, and Vicky found herself looking into a future that she did not want to see. How often did these children get to see their father? Once a fortnight, for an hour? And for how long had that been? And for how long would it be? Half their childhoods? If she resolved anything – which was hard, because Paddy did what Paddy wanted – it was that she would do anything she could to ensure he was never locked up again. Still, the woman, for all that her life seemed to be the one Vicky least wanted, was helpful and cheerful and reassuring in the face of all the strangeness. She explained that after signing in, being patted down and surrendering her handbag to a locker, she’d be given a number and shown into a waiting room. There, amid a batch – there were various concurrent visiting sessions – she’d hear her number called and a guard would take her in. ‘They let you keep your purse, love,’ the woman explained. ‘You’ve brought some money with you, have you? There’s vending machines, see. So you can have a cuppa together. They like to be a bit spoilt on a visit, of course.’ She smiled. ‘And there’s usually home-made cakes and stuff, and all.’ As if it was a school fete, or something. As if all of this was normal. The vending machine was the first thing Vicky did see – standing like a sentinel at the back of a room full of tables, at which of each sat a prisoner. The tables were set in rows, like exam desks laid out in a school gymnasium, except here, in place of invigilators in suits, who smelled of chalk, there were prison guards, unmoving, like stone pillars. Her batch of visitors began to stream out around her. And soon the silence was replaced by a hubbub of noise. Chairs being scraped back. Throats being cleared. Greetings, exchanges of kisses, the whoops of excitable children. The sharp shushings of mothers and soft cooings of fathers. It was almost like Vicky imagined a reunion after a war. She felt nervous and exposed, anxious to pick Paddy out in the sea of blue prison garb, but at the same time anxious about meeting his gaze, as well. Glancing around, watching women sitting down opposite their menfolk, she wished she’d decided to dress differently. Here, in the uniform world of the prison, the sense of occasion was only heightened further. Painted fingernails. Giant hairdos, glued in place by cans of hairspray, tight jeans, killer heels … even in her best jeans and a little white broderie anglaise top Paddy liked her in, she felt she’d not made enough effort. Was that what you did, though? Tarted yourself up to remind them what they were missing? Had she read how you did this all wrong? But there he was, and the look in his eyes reassured her. And his smile. It was just so obvious how pleased he was to see her. Perhaps absence really did make the heart – his heart – grow fonder. Perhaps this enforced separation would be good for them both. ‘Alright, babe?’ he drawled, as she hurried across to him and pulled her chair out. Then he half stood to embrace her, and kissed her hard, on the mouth. He smelt different. Clean, but still different. Vicky took her seat, feeling embarrassed by the ardour of Paddy’s kiss. She glanced across at two officers who were talking in low voices. About her? ‘Ignore the screws,’ Paddy said, his hands palm up on the table, ready to grasp hers. She placed hers in his. ‘You look nice, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Like I remember.’ Like he was remembering. Remembering her unclothed. He didn’t need to say it. ‘It’s only been a fortnight, babes,’ she said. ‘How much was I going to change?’ He squeezed her hands, sliding his thumbs back and forth over her palms. ‘I’m just so glad you didn’t plaster your face like the rest of the slappers that come in here. Bunch of tarts. Fuck me,’ he added, leaning in towards her, ‘I’ve missed you.’ Relaxing now, she smiled at him. ‘How are you coping, babe? I miss you too.’ And as he squeezed her hands again, so gently, she almost told him, but he spoke first, glancing from side to side, as if he was a spy or something. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘But I tell you what, babes, I’ve had time to do some serious thinking. And I’ve worked it out. It’s all down to that fucking Jimmy Daley.’ ‘What is?’ ‘Don’t be dense, babe. The reason I’m fucking in here. How else would his dad have known? I’ve worked it all out, babe, like I said. He’s got someone on my case. And he grassed me up to his dad. It had to be him. Who else could it have been?’ Vicky knew she wouldn’t have been the only thing on Paddy’s mind. But even so, his insistent tone made her anxious. ‘But how would Jimmy have known?’ She wasn’t about to say so, but she knew Paddy had lied to her about that evening. And Gurdy too, albeit to protect her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but she had proof that he’d lied about the video recorders, because she’d since found out that he’d pleaded guilty to some of the car-related charges. Why would he do that if he could prove that he hadn’t even been there? ‘Because fucking Gurdy knew!’ Paddy said. ‘Or at least he had half an idea, the little Paki fucker.’ ‘Gurdy? Grass you up? He’d never do that, babe, never.’ Paddy let go her hands, leaned back, and then leaned in again. ‘He must have. I can’t think of any other explanation, can you?’ ‘But he’s your friend—’ ‘And his too. They’re both up each other’s fucking arses, aren’t they?’ ‘No they’re not. Paddy, Gurdy is your friend,’ Vicky insisted. ‘He wouldn’t say anything, especially not to Jimmy. He knows how the two of you are. Honestly, babe,’ she added, hating that she had come all this way – all this fucking way – and having to sit here and to defend bloody Gurdy. She still had to though. ‘Babes, he just wouldn’t.’ All the warmth seemed to drain out of Paddy’s face. ‘Why’d you do that?’ he asked her. ‘Do what?’ she said, ‘Do that.’ He waved a hand languidly in her direction. ‘Go against me.’ ‘I’m not going against you. I’m just saying—’ ‘Where’s your fucking loyalty? Seriously, Vic. I mean, shouldn’t you be on my side in this?’ ‘It’s not a question of sides, Paddy,’ she told him, feeling her hackles rise despite herself. ‘I just think – no, I know – you are barking up the wrong tree. Gurdy adores you—’ ‘Yeah, but you don’t.’ ‘Babes, you know I do—’ She snaked a hand across the table. He withdrew his. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the nearest guard was watching. Paddy pouted now, and she knew he was tempering his response for their benefit. He stretched his hand out, then his other. She enveloped both, feeling ridiculously as if they were about to play that school game, where you kept pulling out the bottom hand and slapping it down on top. ‘Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,’ he said mildly. ‘You think all your mates are such fucking goody two-shoes, don’t you? But I’m telling you now, Vic,’ he added, in the same incongruously mild tone of voice. ‘None of them, none of them, can be trusted, you hear me?’ A different prison guard stopped by their table, making Vicky start. ‘We’re not having any problems here, are we?’ he said softly. ‘Only, you are looking a little bit agitated, Mr Allen, and we can stop a visit if it proves to aggravate a man.’ He turned to look at Vicky. ‘Hmm?’ She smiled at the officer. ‘Everything’s fine here, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘So,’ she added, turning back to Paddy, ‘shall I get us some cake?’ The taxis were lined up and waiting when Vicky emerged. Plenty for everyone who wanted one. A bumper profit day. And she was lucky to get a bus almost immediately once back in Leeds, for the hour or so’s trip back to Bradford Interchange. It had got better. A little better. He had calmed himself down. They’d eaten cake – something with poppy seeds that lodged in her teeth – about which they’d laughed, and which he’d tenderly got rid of. She’d hang on to that. The words he’d mouthed as he’d touched his nail to her tooth. The way he’d slipped it along her gum, mouthing things that made her blush. The way he’d told her how he physically ached for her. Yes, she’d hang on to that. Not the stuff about her not going out. Not the stuff about how there were people on the inside who knew all about what happened on the outside. Not the stuff about how it would be best if she didn’t hang around with Lucy – with any of them – not till he was out and he could look after her properly. ‘I can look after myself,’ she’d told him, chin up, defiant. ‘You think you can, babe,’ he’d said, ‘but, trust me, you can’t.’ No, she’d definitely stop trying to figure out what he’d meant. Just hang on to those last words. That he physically ached for her. And loved her. He’d been sure to tell her that. And as they’d hugged, it had occurred to her that his protective streak was a good thing. He would surely feel the same about his baby. Chapter 13 (#ufa6f54e1-63cc-5f14-88b0-b326c4e7698a) ‘So you haven’t told him anything?’ Vicky’s tone was incredulous. Lucy shook her head, feeling irritable and tearful all of a sudden. And all of a sudden wishing she had stuck to her guns and told Vic she’d prefer to get her results alone. It would be almost comical if it wasn’t so awful. Sitting here, in the waiting area of the packed gynae clinic only a week after sitting in the ante-natal one with her friend. Just a corridor and a whole world away. ‘No, of course not,’ she said now, feeling guilty for sounding snappy. ‘There’s nothing to tell him yet, is there?’ ‘No, but … you know. About your periods and that …’ ‘No, Vic. I haven’t.’ ‘Alright, mate,’ Vicky said, putting an arm around her shoulder. Which act of tenderness – almost maternal tenderness – just made it worse. Lucy had never been one for horoscopes or fate or other such spiritual nonsense. There was a girl at the solicitors – an articled clerk, so no doubt pretty clever – who read her stars in the paper daily, and, since she’d begun there, Lucy’s too. And Lucy (wondering how someone who had letters after her name could take any notice of such nonsense) would smile politely and agree that it would be nice to ‘come into some money’, or ‘see a welcome shift in a special relationship’, or whatever other guff was in the paper that day. And yet this morning – she’d taken the afternoon off for her appointment – astrology had warned her to be ‘braced for bad news’. ‘Though your natural Sagittarian optimism will help you overcome any obstacles,’ Marie had continued brightly, before dumping the paper and returning to her work. Lucy had picked it up and re-read it, trying to see it for the rubbish it was. And yet, was it? It had been such a strange and disconcerting few weeks. Vicky pregnant. Vicky pregnant. Vicky going to have a baby. As her mam had commented when she’d told her the astonishing news, it seemed only yesterday that the pair of them were babies themselves. ‘Running round the garden in your pants and vests,’ her mam had finished. She’d sighed then. ‘Where did all those years go?’ And it did feel exactly like that, despite everything. Despite the fact that they’d both been with their boyfriends for ages. Despite the fact that they’d both been having sex. God, was it really so astonishing that Vic should fall pregnant? That was the way nature had designed humans, wasn’t it? To have sex and make babies while they were young and fit and fertile. Well, at least in Vicky’s case, anyway. ‘I’m so jealous,’ Vic had wailed to her when she explained about the GP having put her on the pill. ‘You know, Vic,’ Lucy had said, feeling chippy about it all. ‘There’s nothing stopping you from going to the family planning clinic, you know.’ ‘Er, how about my mam?’ ‘Vic, you’re sixteen. She doesn’t even need to know.’ ‘Yeah, but you think I’d manage to keep it from her? Not a chance, mate. She’s like bloody Sherlock!’ Which struck Lucy as a bit of a ridiculous thing for Vicky to say, since her mam could barely rouse herself enough to get off the sofa, much less start ferreting around in her daughter’s sex life. No, the truth was much simpler: she just hadn’t got around to it. That and the business of being brought up Catholic. And the ‘fact’ – if fact it was, and Lucy’s doctor had said it wasn’t anything like a given – that if you went on the pill you immediately put a stone on, and might get a thrombosis as well. But it was that stone – that was the main thing. Lucy knew how Paddy’s mind worked. He monitored Vicky’s size like it was a project he was micro-managing. If she put on so much as an ounce he’d be on at her that she was letting herself go. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/julie-shaw/blood-sisters-part-2-of-3-can-a-pledge-made-for-life-endure-bey/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.