Chapter 16
‘Kelly Green?’ Tom says.
‘Kelly Green. I can’t leave it like that.’
‘You should, though. It won’t do you any good, poking round there. You’ve been questioned on suspicion of her murder.’
She looks at him, shakes her head. ‘They let me go. You didn’t see what it looked like. The blood . . .’ she says. ‘I should have helped her. If only I hadn’t taken that pill . . .’
‘Pill?’
She swallows. ‘I took a pill before she was brought into the cell. Something my pad mate gave me – sorry, my cell mate. A tranquilliser. Just to help me sleep.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘I was worried for a moment that it had made me kill her – people do weird shit when they’re on that sort of medication, don’t they? I was scared the police might think so. Or you.’ As she says it, she sees for the first time the full absurdity of the idea.
‘I told you I believed you,’ he says. ‘I still do. More, if anything, having spent a bit of time with you.’
‘Yeah, I present so well. Filthy, exhausted, trying to sneak off first thing in the morning. Such innocent behaviour.’
‘It’s not that,’ he says, not rising to her sarcasm. ‘It was what happened last night.’
‘What about last night?’
‘The car,’ he says. ‘The car running you down.’
‘It was an accident,’ Anna says. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘I wasn’t sure what it was I was watching, but I saw it happen,’ he says.
‘I saw the whole thing, just as I walked out of the gate. You were standing next to the bus stop, on the edge of the pavement. I saw the headlights of the car. It seemed to slow down before it turned, very deliberately, and drove straight at you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Anna says, her fingers tightening into the dog’s fur.
‘Someone ran you down, Anna,’ Tom says.
‘It was just an accident,’ she says. ‘You know what drivers can be like.’ Her words fade away.
‘I saw it, I tell you. A little white car, heading straight for you, revving its engine.’
‘Who would have wanted to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Is there anything else you’re not telling me?’
A ripple of that terror she felt in the cell runs through Anna, the whispered words I thought I could trust you an echo in her mind.
Tom’s face is guileless, his eyes bright.
She could go through the hidden phone with him in search of any clues.
Maybe he could help her work out who Kelly was talking to.
At the thought of that conversation, something tugs in Anna’s brain.
Kelly said she was nicked at the Westgate Centre.
There’s a Westgate Centre in Oxford – Anna’s sure of it.
She remembers it from her university days.
It makes sense that Kelly would have come from somewhere round here, given the proximity of the prison to the city. She mentioned a hostel, too.
Tom lives in Oxford. Maybe he’ll know where the hostels are where Kelly might have stayed. She opens her mouth to ask him, shuts it again.
On the face of it, she can trust him, but her gut’s telling her not to.
This isn’t her secret to share. Yes, he’s open, maybe too much so.
She remembers the girl she bunked with, back at the start of her sentence.
She was open, too, full of useful information, warnings about who to avoid in the prison, who to befriend.
Anna told her everything, only to find rumours of it everywhere she went, twisted and distorted and used against her throughout the rest of the wing.
Her former friend smirked in the background when Anna was jumped in the shower by the resident hard nut screaming ‘CHILD-KILLER!’, punching her in the face in time to the yells.
She made no effort to help Anna or point out that the accusation was false, that Toby had not in fact died.
Tom doesn’t seem untrustworthy, but nor did that early pad mate. Anna is going to figure this one out on her own.
‘If you take my advice, you’ll leave this one alone. It’s nothing to do with you. Just keep your own side of the street clean,’ he says. ‘Promise me you’ll keep your nose out of it.’
She raises an eyebrow at his insistence, keeps quiet. Time to change the subject.
‘I’m going with you,’ Tom says again. She had tried and failed to convince him that she could manage her trip to London alone.
‘I can look after myself,’ she says. She’s trying to withdraw from him, though he’s not making it easy for her.
‘It’s probation. I don’t want you to get in any trouble for not staying in the hostel last night,’ Tom says.
‘I thought you said it was sorted.’
‘I left a message,’ he says. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. But we don’t need any problems with your licence before it’s even begun.’
Anna glares at him, about to have a go, before remembering how tired she’d been, how little she’d wanted to fight her way into London and find the bed she’d been allocated for the night.
‘It would have been too late anyway,’ she says. ‘By the time I got out. It was a total shitshow.’
‘You could say that,’ he says, and suddenly they’re both laughing, the mundanity of the words in the face of the horror she’s faced so ridiculous it’s the only possible response.
‘I’m serious about coming with you,’ he continues.
‘I want to explain what happened to probation. The important thing is that you’re there on time, but just in case .
. . What will you be doing? Do you have a job lined up? ’
Anna looks at him, the moment of mutual understanding now gone, collapsed to earth. He has no idea.
‘A job? Me? That’s the last thing on my mind.’
‘You’ll need to support yourself somehow,’ he says.
He’s right. She knows he’s right, but having any kind of future, taking care of herself in any way – that hadn’t been the plan. She hasn’t caught up with the change yet.
‘Look, I know it seems a bit remote given what you were thinking, what you were going to do when you got out. That was before, though. You’re not going to find out about Kelly overnight.’
She opens her mouth to argue.
‘Hear me out,’ he continues, without giving her a moment to speak. ‘I know what we’ve just discussed about that car, too. You might be at risk, there’s no way of knowing for sure. But one thing is certain: you’re safer here than out there, in a hostel – or worse, sleeping on the streets in London.’
She nods. Maybe he’s got a point.
‘So. You were a lawyer before you went inside,’ he says.
‘I was. A former solicitor. Now, with a disciplinary record. Not to mention prison. There aren’t many firms that would take someone on with a conviction like mine,’ she says.
There’s another pause. The conversation has become awkward, all elbows and knees.
‘We can give you a job,’ he says.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘We have stacks of work that we need to have done. Case preparation, sorting out bundles, writing up statements. Going through the unused material that the prosecution invariably dump on us at the last moment. Everything.’
‘I can’t work on people’s cases. I’ve got a serious criminal conviction. I’m on licence for the next three years. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never done any criminal work other than what we covered at law school and my own case.’
‘None of that matters. Not if you work under my supervision. I mean, obviously you wouldn’t be able to appear in court or anything like that, but I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t work for us in the office.’
‘You must be desperate,’ Anna says. It’s a tempting offer, she can’t deny it. The letter she received from the Law Society striking her off as a solicitor was one of the worst moments of the last few years for her, although it was a punishment she knew she more than deserved.
‘To be perfectly honest, we are desperate. You may not have realised how bad things have got, but the system is in meltdown with all the cuts to Legal Aid. I mean, we won’t be able to afford to pay you much, but we need someone starting yesterday, even.’
‘Prisoner slave labour, eh?’ Anna says, but she’s smiling, at least for a moment, indulging the fantasy of it before reality hits again. ‘I’m meant to be in London, though. That’s the terms of the licence. Maybe working in a café or something. I don’t know exactly.’
‘If we turn up there and tell them you’ve got a proper job already lined up and somewhere to stay, too, they’ll be overjoyed. I can assure you of that.’
‘I don’t have anywhere to stay, though,’ Anna says, before realising that his face is pregnant with meaning. ‘No. Absolutely not. I can’t do that. I can’t stay here.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s obvious. You don’t know me. I’ve been in prison for three years. All the reasons.’
He holds his hand up. ‘I know what you did,’ he said. ‘I know it’s bad, but it’s not dishonesty. I’ve spent several hours with you yesterday and today. I’m a pretty good judge of character. I think we can risk it.’
Anna sighs. He’s not making this easy for her. ‘You’re my solicitor. Not my friend. You’re getting over-involved.’ The irony of this hits her. ‘Keep your own side of the road clean.’
Tom grimaces. ‘Touché,’ he says. ‘Fair point. I’ve got a good feeling about you, though.’
She’s getting nowhere with him. Besides, the thought that there might be a future for her in which she could use some of her experience, some of her skillset, is too tempting. It’s a fantasy, but a hard one to refuse.
‘I’m going to find myself somewhere to live, though,’ she says. ‘You can’t argue me out of that.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he says. ‘Look, we’ll give this address for now, OK? Then we’ll find something else. There’s a charity helping women prisoners – I’ll put you in touch with them when we get back from London. Maybe they can help you find somewhere.’
‘Thank you,’ Anna says. ‘You’re too kind.’
He flushes pink, his hair flopping down over his eyes. Anna feels a sudden urge to reach out and smooth the lock back. She grips her hands behind her back.
‘We should get on,’ Tom says, not acknowledging her thanks, his tone now brisk.
She’s lost all energy for the fight.
Bus, train, tube. Finally, it’s happening: a bus to Oxford station, a train to Paddington, a tube to Camden.
They navigate using Tom’s phone, which he’s used to pay for her ticket, too.
She’s still got the money stuffed in her bra, moulded to her like a talisman.
Thoughts slide into her mind – the secret phone, being hit by that car the night before.
She’s still carrying the bruises. When a bus honks its horn at her as they cross the road to the Probation Service, she nearly jumps out of her skin.
They step back on to the pavement, and it’s only then that Anna sees how shaken Tom looks, too. He’s clutching on to her arm so tightly she can feel his fingers jabbing hard into it. It’s affected him, too, finding her knocked out like that the night before. She’s already put him through too much.
They find the office easily enough, and Anna announces herself at the front desk.
The appointment isn’t until 4pm and they’re ten minutes early, an efficiency for which she’s grateful as she watches another woman rush in, dishevelled and upset, to be told that she’s likely to face sanctions for being half an hour late.
As she looks around the waiting room, it hits Anna just how lucky she is. Straight out of a three-year stretch and she’s come up smelling of roses, job and accommodation sorted, a nice young man catching her arm and saving her from possible death under the wheels of a bus.
Not that it’s real. She doesn’t deserve this, any of it. There’s blood on her hands, on her conscience, dripping into every part of her that was once clean, that was once real. She imagines her sister standing in front of her, head bowed, watching, waiting . . .
‘Anna Flyn?’ Her spiral is interrupted. It’s time.