Chapter 23 #2
‘You gave me that, didn’t you? I read about that in the book as well.’
‘Got me through some tough times, that pig.’
I handed him back to her. ‘I don’t want him anymore. You have him.’
‘That’s not fair. You can’t put him in prison just for the mistake of once having belonged to me. He’s happy where he is.’ She handed him back. ‘He’s yours. He loves you.’
I grimaced at her. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘Hey, if you can see your dead dad in your dreams, I can make up fictitious scenarios for my former toy pig, all right?’
I took Jon back, Rhiannon’s fingers grazing mine as I reached for him. I stuffed him in my pocket out of sight and wiped my fingers on my hoody.
Ten minutes had passed.
Rhiannon clasped her hands in front again. ‘Anything else you want to ask, or bollock me about? It’s open season for the next fifty minutes.’
‘What’s it like in prison?’
‘Fun as fuck.’ She did that crunchy laugh again. ‘I have good friends who’d do anything for me. I even have enemies who’d do anything for me. I established dominance quickly, see, that was the key. My dad taught me that. You come from a line of bad asses, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘First day here I smashed a nonce in the face. Broke her jaw. From then on, everyone knew I meant business. They keep the nonces as far away from me as possible now but it’s not a big place.
I’m on Enhanced Prisoner Status, so I’m on the big-wig wing with all the names.
And I’m on an Access to Learning pathway now too; gonna get my Master’s.
Maybe a PhD. Just for the fuck of it really.
Finally got my Maths GCSE too last year. That killed a few months.’
‘Just forever to go?’ I scoffed.
She smiled. ‘The screws are good to me, on the whole. I have job satisfaction, regular access to a gym, a little garden full of vegetables, a ton of fan letters and I answer them all – I just sign ’em, I get my minions to do the admin for me and bank the cash for the commissary.’
‘What’s commissary?’
‘Spends; people send me money. Money, Sylvanian Families, Maoams. One guy sends me his pubes glued into a heart, every Valentine’s. Bless.’
‘Urgh.’
She leaned in. ‘I’ve got one minion in here who killed her science teacher because of me.
He kept feeling her up after class and she tortured him with a Bunsen burner and stabbed him with the same knife she’d just dissected a frog with.
Best part of all – she’s fucking terrified of me.
They all are. It’s like I can just give them this look and they’ll do exactly what I want. ’
‘What look?’ I asked.
And she did it, right then, gave me this look which froze my spine from top to bottom.
Sweet to sour in one facial wipe. It was the most unnerving thing I’d ever seen.
If I hadn’t been in the room with her, I’d have sworn it was AI generated.
But it wasn’t – it was her actual face. And I couldn’t help thinking it was the same face my dad saw, just before she killed him.
The same face they all saw. And then in a flash, she thawed out before my eyes.
‘That look,’ she said proudly, now the sweetest of all possible peas.
‘Why do you have so many privileges? It’s hardly fair.’
‘It’s my human right.’
‘What about my dad’s human right?!’ I shouted, as both officers made towards the table again. This time I didn’t care.
‘No shouting – that’s your last warning, Ivy,’ said the ginger officer.
‘Come on,’ said Rhiannon. ‘You can’t leave without telling me what you want from me. Why you asked to meet me. It’s only fair.’
‘There’s only three things I want from you.’
‘Name ’em.’
‘OK. Call off River, that’s number one. I don’t want him following me or trying to help me anytime I get into a scrape again.
You’re putting him at risk, you’re undermining me and it’s not fair to make him spend his whole life at your beck and call.
He wanders the earth like a ghost with no real purpose but to wait for your orders. ’
‘He wants to do it. He enjoys it.’
‘No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what he wants. Since Elliot Mansur imprisoned him, he’s stayed in a cage of his own making. He does what YOU tell him to because that’s what he’s used to. Let him live his life on his own terms. Let him go.’
Rhiannon nodded slowly. ‘Granted. Wish number two?’
‘You’ve left a trail of destruction in your wake that now I have to clean up – I read about them all in Freddie’s books. Dean Bishopston, Lana Rowntree, that fortune teller you smashed across the head with a crystal ball. My dad. Your legacy is pain, Rhiannon.’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t hear a wish there.’
I glanced up at the clock – twenty past. Only forty minutes to go. ‘I want to hear you say you’re sorry, for what you did. To all of them, to everyone you killed. Every single one. Even ones the police don’t know about.’
‘But I’m not sorry.’
‘Not even for AJ?’
‘Mmm,’ she thought. ‘Maybe.’
‘Say it properly.’
‘No. Gimme number three.’
I swallowed the lump of pain in my throat and turned to ask Blonde Officer for a glass of water. She left momentarily and returned with a paper cup half-filled. I swigged it down and handed her the empty. Then I turned back to Rhiannon who hadn’t moved. ‘I want to know where my brother is.’
Her face came to life in the sweetest way. It was a contagious sort of smile but I bit mine back. Her voice lowered as she leaned in, lips barely moving. ‘He’s with his dad.’ My breath caught. I couldn’t decide if she was telling the truth or not. She seemed to sense it. ‘I’m not lying.’
‘The papers said you killed Rafael.’
She nodded. ‘Because I wanted them to. If they arrested me, they’d have to bring him too and then God knows what would have happened to our son.’
‘NO WHISPERING, PLEASE,’ shouted the ginger officer at the back of the room.
Rhiannon winked at me. Thirty-five minutes to go.
I shook my head. ‘You’re a lying sack of shit; you did kill Rafael.’
Rhiannon frowned. ‘I’m not lying.’
I breathed deeply and squeezed Jon Hamm for comfort, thinking of Mum and what she would say if I ever went to kick off.
Breathe easy, it’s all right, Dolly Bird.
You’re all right, Mumma’s here. Breathe easy.
I hated that this disease came from Rhiannon but the cure came from Mum.
God, I wished she was sitting next to me.
And I said the stupidest thing, out of sheer anger.
‘I fucking hate you.’
But Rhiannon just nodded, like she already knew.
‘I hate you for killing my dad. He would have loved me so much. And you took him away. No good reason, just because you could. You shouldn’t be anywhere near freedom, someone like you. You should be dead.’
Rhiannon scoffed. ‘Well, aren’t we little miss holier than thou today?’ She still hadn’t blinked. There was an endless silence, which was only about a minute I suppose. Time seemed to have stopped so I couldn’t be sure. I think I wanted her to cry or something, but there was no reaction at all.
And then she said, ‘So I take it you’re not going to watch my big interview then? Friday night, prime time. The whole nation will be tuning in.’
‘There are just as many people bored by you as obsessed with you.’
‘A TV interview with the country’s worst serial killer don’t impress you much then?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen them on YouTube – Gacy, Dahmer, Bundy. Bored me to tears.’
‘That’s not a very nice thing to say for their victims now, is it?’
‘They weren’t speaking about their victims. They were speaking about themselves. Like you do. Dull dull dull.’
‘Advertisers are paying a fortune for the slot. What do you think of Majors? The Fresh Prince of Bell End?’
‘He’s a knob.’
‘Mmm,’ Rhiannon agreed. ‘It’s one of my goals in life to make him piss himself.
He’s been badgering me about this interview since they first hauled me in.
Became a prison trustee just so he could grease some palms. I think it’s finally happening partly because E Block failed an inspection due to rising damp so they’re desperate to raise cash.
And I’m their biggest cash cow. I said I’d only do it if I could see you. You know we have to do photos?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why do you need me to apologise for AJ? Why’s it important to you?’
‘It just is.’
‘Tell me.’
I wiped away a tear and didn’t look at her. ‘You slept with his body. You must have wanted him somehow, in some way. You didn’t want him to leave you so you killed him, right? You loved him. And he would have loved me.’
Rhiannon stayed silent.
‘WOULDN’T HE?’ I was aware how loud my voice was getting so I grit my teeth to say it. ‘Tell me you loved him and it was a mistake.’
She shook her head. It was the worst thing she could have done, under the circumstances.
But then she said: ‘I wasn’t ready for love until I met Rafael.
Maybe if AJ and I had stayed together and he hadn’t been such a little bitch, and I wasn’t flooded with pregnancy hormones as well as serial killer ones …
’ But the sentence petered out to a shrug. ‘I hear you’re going to Australia.’
‘How do you know?’
‘My minion keeps me informed. Apparently they’re all idiots, the Thompsons. You don’t have to go with them,’ she said.
‘Yes, I do. And I can’t wait. I can’t wait to leave the UK and be as far away from you as possible.’
‘Living with people you don’t know and who don’t really want you.’
‘They do want me.’ But my assertion lacked any conviction and Rhiannon seemed to be able to smell it on me.
She leaned in. ‘There is an alternative, you know. But you have to be brave. And I’m not sure you’re there yet. Are you feeling brave?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No whispering,’ Blonde Officer reminded us.
‘Sorry,’ said Rhiannon, smiling sweetly back at her. ‘Hey, Ivy, do you speak Spanish?’
‘To exam level, yeah.’
Rhiannon nodded and pursed her lips. ‘Good enough.’ And then she started speaking in diction-perfect Spanish. I translated it in my head: Go to them instead of going to Australia. They want you to be with them.
‘Que? Me quieren?’
‘Si.’