Epilogue
Lucy loved the prison library. Apart from the chicken enclosure – where she was guaranteed to be alone and unbothered, nobody but her and the hens – it was her favourite place at Franklin Grange. Recently she had begun to volunteer as a library orderly, helping to keep the place organised, even volunteering to assist some of the prisoners who struggled with reading. She didn’t do this out of the goodness of her heart, of course. It just stopped her getting too bored, and it was always sensible to have people in your debt.
Another good thing about working in the library was that she got to put out the daily newspapers, which meant she could read them before anyone else. For the past couple of weeks she’d been avidly following the trial, which had featured prominently in both broadsheets and tabloids, of the unnamed child who stood accused of murdering two people: Fiona Woodfield and Emma Dove. She had also been charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of an old woman named Iris Green.
Children who killed were the ultimate modern folk devils – even more so than ‘angels of death’, the category Lucy fell into in the language the newspapers always pulled out. So the fascination with this case was so great that it would have cut through to the population here even if one of the victims hadn’t spent part of her sentence in Franklin. A lot of the women remembered Fiona well. They knew she and Lucy had been friends. Some of them also knew Fiona had visited Lucy last summer.
None of them knew, of course, that Lucy had known all about the child and that she had even spoken to Rose’s father the day all of this had happened. They didn’t know she’d had a visit from the police, who wanted to know about the phone Ethan Dove had found hidden in Fiona’s kitchen, and the subsequent conversation she’d had with him.
And they would have gone wild if they’d known she’d offered her services as a witness for the defence, and about her plans to tell the court how Fiona had groomed Rose, that anything Rose did would have been because she was in Fiona’s thrall. Lucy would have enjoyed having a day in court, not being the one on trial this time. But, in the end, the defence lawyers had decided that having a notorious serial killer as a witness wouldn’t do much to help their cause.
Shame.
So this child, according to the lawyer Lucy had spoken to, was denying killing her mother and claiming that Fiona had done it; she admitted to stabbing Fiona but only in self-defence. She denied any involvement in Iris’s murder. It was the kind of story a jury could easily believe, especially when faced with a cute little girl who acted like butter wouldn’t melt. The problem was Ethan, who had testified that Rose had done all of it and confessed it all to him before trying to kill him too.
Lucy had passed some of these details on to the other inmates – she liked them to know she had inside information – which had led to a debate about whether Ethan had betrayed his own daughter by handing her over to the police and giving evidence against her. Most of the women here hadn’t had great experiences with their own dads. Personally, Lucy couldn’t blame Ethan for wanting to lock Rose up to protect himself and his son.
Because she understood. She knew exactly what Rose was capable of. And she was still so young, had so much growing to do. If Lucy were Ethan, a mere member of the lowing herd, she wouldn’t want an apex predator in her house either.
But what Rose really needed was a proper mentor. One who knew what they were doing. Fiona had been such a disappointment in the end. Not keeping her promise to torment Jamie and Kirsty, blundering her way through her own revenge scheme – and then getting herself killed by a twelve-year-old!
What a letdown.
But Lucy had a strong feeling Rose would not be a disappointment. If Rose was taken under the wing of someone who had, yes, made a couple of mistakes, but who had mainly been the victim of bad luck, someone who truly understood how to go about things, the girl would go a long, long way.
All Lucy had to do was wait. The girl, who was almost certain to be convicted, would go into the juvenile system first. It would be a few years before she ended up in a women’s prison. The chances were she wouldn’t be sent to Franklin Grange. But that was fine. Maybe Lucy could transfer to where she was. She would find some way of getting to her. Because she had a feeling it was fated; that she had met Fiona because it was her destiny to encounter Rose and to become her teacher.
Then Lucy would show Rose how to get revenge on her dad and brother. Jamie and Kirsty too. Anyone else who had ever wronged either of them. Because Rose was only thirteen. She wouldn’t be in prison forever.
She was exactly what Lucy needed.
They were going to be the perfect match.