‘Oh, you know, same shit different day.’
Alex noted immediately that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
Good.
‘How’d the visit with Rod go?’
Jesus, casual small talk was an effort.
‘He didn’t come,’ Lisa said, picking at the bobbles on the coarse grey blanket.
Of course he hadn’t. The visits from her boyfriend were getting scarcer.
She’d identified Lisa as the perfect candidate for her plan about a month ago.
It wasn’t the first time the twenty-four-year-old had graced the cells of Drake Hall. Two years ago, she’d been inside for fencing stolen goods. During her nine-month stretch she’d got herself together and had left as a poster child for the rehabilitation process.
All had been rosy until she’d bumped into one of her old cronies, who had persuaded her to store some stolen jewellery. She’d only agreed because she and her boyfriend were broke, and she’d just found out she was pregnant and knew she could do with the extra money.
Someone tipped off the police, her house was raided and she was back in the slammer for a five-year stretch. Because of previous convictions, the judge had disregarded the heavily pregnant woman’s pleas and had handed her the maximum sentence.
Up until the birth, Lisa had tried everything to get transferred to one of the six prisons in the country with mother and baby units, but there had been no spaces available. The boy had been removed from her care within hours of being born.
Lisa had fallen into a deep depression which was sad for her but fortuitous for Alex. Prison was not the place to develop mental-health problems. The staff tried their best, but they weren’t trained enough to spot the signs or how to handle it. Luckily, Alex was on hand to help them out.
‘So you didn’t get to see the little one again?’ Alex asked.
For the life of her she couldn’t remember the little boy’s name.
Lisa’s eyes filled instantly with tears as she shook her head.
Good.
Raw pain was the best kind of pain to work with. She didn’t want it easing off. She wanted the woman to be experiencing the sharp end of loss and loneliness.
‘It’s weird cos I can still feel the imprint of his tiny body against my chest. I can see every detail of his scrunched-up face. I just don’t know how I’m going to bear being away from him until I’ve served my time.’
Alex did her usual trick of staring hard without blinking. Her eyes began to water.
‘You have kids?’ Lisa asked.
Alex paused before shaking her head slowly. ‘Not anymore.’
The closest she’d ever come to having kids was the photo she had of two boys on her desk years ago, taken from a catalogue for the sake of appearances.
‘I had two boys,’ Alex said, sniffing.
‘Had?’ Lisa asked.
‘Yes, when we divorced, my husband sued for full custody. As he’d taken all our money, I couldn’t even fight him. He won and then took them to live in New Zealand. Men move on so quickly.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry to—
‘It’s okay.’
‘Tell me,’ Lisa insisted.
‘Oh, you don’t want to hear all that,’ Alex said, knowing full well that she did. In her fog of despair, Lisa wanted some kind of reassurance that things would get better. That there was hope.
‘Please tell me and then maybe I won’t feel so alone.’
‘Oh, I tortured myself first of all with visions of my husband with other women.’
Lisa paled. ‘Oh my God, you don’t think Rod…?’
‘No,’ Alex said, holding up her hand. It was fine. The thought had been placed and she didn’t need to labour it. ‘It’s different for you. I was working long hours and wasn’t available for him. He had an affair which turned to love apparently. I never suspected a thing.’
Alex began to insert pauses into her mini speeches. Time for Lisa to digest what she was saying. And right now, she’d be wondering how she’d find out anything from in here.
‘His meetings went on later, and there was always an excuse why he didn’t come home before midnight. Obviously, that’s different for you. Rod comes to see you every chance he gets.’
‘H-His van broke down,’ she said miserably.
‘Of course it did,’ Alex said. ‘Anyway, we tried to work on it for the sake of the boys. He loves his kids so much.’
Lisa brightened. ‘Rod loves Josh so much.’
‘But neither of our hearts were in it. I told him that things would be better in a few years once I’d built my practice. If he could just be patient for a couple of years, we’d have the life he always wanted.’
Just like Rod has got to wait for you for a couple of years. This point was worth labouring.
‘But he couldn’t wait. A couple of months into our fresh start, the late nights started up again.’
Lisa’s face fell just an inch as her fingers began picking again at the blanket. ‘And the boys?’
‘The more I fought to hang on, the harder it was on them. For their sake I had no choice but to let him go.’
Alex sighed heavily so that Lisa would appreciate her martyrdom and her sacrifice. She needed to leave lots of little seeds to germinate in her mind.
‘Once they’d left, I tortured myself with visions of him finding someone else. I used to lie in bed picturing them together. I worried that my boys would forget me. The thoughts turned to him falling in love, him marrying someone else. Of my boys getting attached to someone else as their memories of me faded away. I was tortured by pictures of someone else putting them to bed, some other woman reading them a story. Of another woman’s face being the last thing they saw before falling asleep.’
Alex paused as she could see the terror building in Lisa’s eyes.
‘But the worst thing I could imagine, and there being absolutely nothing I could do about it, was the thought of them calling someone else mummy.’
A strangled cry escaped from Lisa’s lips even as she covered her mouth in horror.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded like that. Our situations are completely different. I’m sure, I mean, I wouldn’t have thought any of that would happen to you, but the pain is still so raw, even after six years. It doesn’t take much for it all to come spilling out.’
‘It’s… it’s okay,’ Lisa said, trying to get her thoughts in order.
Alex shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone else this,’ she said conspiratorially, ‘but when the pain was at its worse, I’m surprised that I found the strength to carry on.’ She stood and headed for the door. ‘Most days I just wanted to die. It’s a pain that never goes away, and as a mother yourself, I know you understand.’
Alex offered one last half-smile before turning and leaving the cell.
The half-smile turned into a real one.
Yes, this part of her plan was definitely on track.
Thirty-Four
Butler Building Limited was located on a small trading estate just outside Quinton. From the car park, Kim could see that the business had grown over the years and had taken the premises either side of it. To the right of the two-storey building was a double metal gate that appeared to be for equipment and materials storage.