The Good Life (21 page)

Blokko had a tame screw who worked the gym. He was a handsome, muscular young man who would let Blokko use his phone for a price and who would drop down on his knees now and again and give him a blow job. Blokko was only queer on the inside, never on the out. It was another anomaly of the prison system. But needs must when the devil drives, as the old saying went.

He decided he would make a few calls and see what he could unearth. He liked Cain Moran, and people getting fucking murdered for nothing didn’t sit well with him. It completely devalued the real killings that were performed for serious reasons; murder wasn’t something that should be taken lightly by anyone.

As he wandered towards the gym, he saw Cain eyeing James’s cell and he wondered if the boy would be dead come dinnertime. If that was the case, he would be well pleased. But he still wanted to know the score. Blokko could be quite nosy when the fancy took him.

‘I’ve got his suit freshly cleaned, and Cain Junior’s clothes are perfect too. Oh, I can’t believe it’s only two days away! I will finally be Mrs Cain Moran! Woohoo!’

It was a hen night of sorts, but it was enough for Jenny. They were in The Highwayman and they were having a lovely time. It was nice because people kept coming over and offering them drinks and congratulations. Jenny was a bit worse for wear and Molly was keeping a beady eye on her; she knew she wasn’t a drinker as such. Unlike her mother, of course − Eileen was putting the drinks away like there was no tomorrow! God, that woman must have hollow legs.

Someone put some music on the jukebox, it was ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ and, as Coolio started to sing the lyrics, Caroline Moran suddenly appeared in front of Jenny, her enormous bulk intimidating in its sheer size.

It took Jenny a few seconds to realise who it was. When she did, she sighed heavily. ‘What now, Caroline?’ Her voice sounded measured and bored; she had learned the hard way how to treat this woman.

‘So he’s marrying you, is he?’ There was a threat in her words, but that was par for the course with Caroline Moran. She thrived on intimidation.

‘Jesus! You must be hard up for a fight, Caroline, if you’ve ventured all this way just to state the fucking obvious.’ This from Eileen who hated Caroline Moran with a vengeance. She had stolen her daughter’s ability to have children and that was something no woman should have to endure. Eileen was standing up now and, as she grabbed a glass to use, if necessary, on Caroline’s fat, smug face, Jenny pulled her back into her seat with a surprising strength.

‘Sure it will get that far, darling? He might be dead by then. Or he might be on the block. A lot can happen in a few hours.’ Caroline’s voice was dripping venom, and her hands were shaking with her anger.

Jenny looked at the women she despised and wondered at a person who could maintain such bitterness for so long.

‘Do you know something, Caroline? I felt sorry for you once. I know how I’d feel if Cain left me. But you just can’t fucking leave anything alone, can you? You have to taint everyone and everything with your bitterness and your fucking bile. Yes, he is marrying me like he always wanted to. It would have happened years ago if you hadn’t stood in the way. It won’t be the wedding of the year, thanks to you, but that’s the difference between me and you. He doesn’t need to buy me. He never did.’ Jenny was smiling now, her lovely face lit up with happiness. ‘I will be a Moran too. Be like relatives, won’t we? Now, take your fat fucking carcass and get out of my sight, because this time, lady, I’m going to fucking hit you back. You’ve done enough damage.’

The whole place was quiet − someone had even unplugged the jukebox. There was an air of menace closing in on Caroline and she could feel it. She knew she had no friends in this place − she had no friends, period.

As if on cue, Bella Davis walked into the pub, late as usual, and seeing the scene before her she rushed to her friend’s side.

Molly stood up and, taking Caroline gently by the arm, she said kindly, ‘Come away now, Caroline, this isn’t the time or the place . . .’

Her voice seemed to spur Caroline into action. She pushed the old woman away and screamed at her, ‘He was mine, Molly, and she fucking stole him from me! He was mine and I loved him.’ There were tears streaming down her face now, and she was clenching her fists with frustration and rage.

Everyone was staring at the enormously fat woman, with the make-up and hair and the black silk muumuu. There were still traces of her former beauty beneath the fat. It was like seeing the destruction of a beautiful painting, she looked so obese and so bloated. But it was the perfectly made-up face that was so haunting, especially screwed up into a mask of hate as it was now.

‘He was never yours, Caroline. You made sure of that with what you put him through. And look at how you’re carrying on now. All these years later you’re still holding a grudge.’

Molly sounded so normal, so sensible, that for a few seconds Caroline almost found herself agreeing with her. Then she looked at Jenny, beautiful, slim Jenny Riley, who would soon have her name and her son’s name, and who would legally be the main woman in Cain Moran’s life. That’s when she launched herself across the table, and all hell broke loose.

‘All right, James? Can I talk to you for a few moments? Nothing funny, I swear.’

James shrugged. ‘’Course.’ He was wary, though, in case Cain was going to go for him and get this over with.

‘I need a favour from you, James. I know you think you have an axe to grind, and that’s your prerogative but I want to call a truce until after my wedding. My Jenny is a great girl − she’s kind and soft and a really nice person who wouldn’t hurt a soul. I’m asking for her, really.’

James smiled suddenly. ‘’Course, mate. I’m happy enough to do that.’

Cain Moran smiled back.

Jenny Riley was on top of Caroline Moran, battering her to within an inch of her life. The years of upsets and late-night phone calls spewing abuse, all the insults to her child and the aggravation and demands for money were finally taking their toll on Jenny. But it was the woman’s battering of
her
that she really wanted to pay her back for. The beating that nearly ruined her life and that stopped her from ever having another child and that could have killed the only child she would ever have.

The people in the pub were as amazed as Molly, Eileen and Bella, as they watched Jenny give a woman at least three times her size the hiding of a lifetime. It was cold and it was calculating. Jenny was concentrating on her enemy’s eyes and nose, which were bloody and raw already and, worst of all, it was done without Jenny uttering one word. Eventually Jenny was dragged off Caroline by Freddie Marks, who pushed her out of the pub with the aim of calming her down. He had hoped he might see Jenny there, but when he walked in on the scene before him he thought he was hallucinating. Lovely, gentle Jenny Riley was beating up that fat bitch and doing it like a professional. Wonders would never cease.

Jenny was struggling to get back inside and finish what Caroline Moran had started all those years before. She had never in her life felt so angry and full of hatred. They heard the police arrive before they saw them, and the car was closely followed by an ambulance. It was the sound of sirens that finally allowed the reality of what she had done to sink in, and Jenny slumped into Freddie’s arms. Then the tears came. Freddie was quite happy to hold her and comfort her until it was time for him to deal with the authorities on her behalf. He felt like he was rescuing his very own damsel in distress.

Blokko was in a quandary. He wasn’t sure what he should do with some new-found information. His telephone calls had uncovered a very strange scenario, one he had never imagined before. He was annoyed that someone else could be so fucking snidey. Snidey but clever − very, very clever. It was so calculated, he couldn’t for the life of him work out how he could even attempt to rectify it without getting involved personally.

And personal involvement wasn’t something he cared for. He was a lifer, and in a nick like this he was a sitting target − they all were. You only had to look at this shit with Cain Moran and that fucking moron Banks. Everyone acting like it was none of their business when, if they were on the outside, everyone would be telling Cain to shoot the cunt and get it over with. But in here real life was suspended, and it was all pretend niceties. That was what was wrong with this whole fucking set-up. They were living a life of pretence, forced to share their space with people they would cross the road to avoid on the out.

In here you had to be accepting, had to make allowances for people, like the youngsters skagged out of their tiny minds because they couldn’t hack the boredom, and didn’t know how to cope with their sentences. They had never allowed for the fact they might get caught and end up with a lump and a half, spending the best years of their lives in a top security prison, watching their youth fading away while their friends on the outside married, fathered children and went off every day to mundane jobs and had holidays in the sun.

He made his way to Cain’s cell. He had to tell him the score. The man had been treated badly − he deserved a fucking break and, more to the point, a heads-up. This was far more involved than any of them had thought.

As Blokko walked through the unit, he looked around and sighed at the futility of a life wasted − and a life that was on hold for the foreseeable future.

Freddie Marks was pulling in favours left, right and centre, and finally they were getting somewhere. The DI on the case was a woman called Kate Desmond, and she was obviously in full sympathy mode with Jenny. It seemed that Caroline Moran’s knack of making enemies stretched to the police force as well. But it was Jenny he was worried about. She looked dreadful.

Molly and Eileen had been sent home in cabs; the last thing they needed now was Eileen sticking her oar in and causing more trouble. Freddie was happy to be left alone with her to help sort out her problems. He had rung a few mates and that had softened everything so far − there had been no charge as yet. It was up to Caroline now; if she pressed charges that was it. He hoped the few well-placed calls he’d made would dissuade her from that course of action.

What a fucking mess! Jenny had cried her make-up off, though somehow she still looked good; it occurred to him that he must really be on a love job. She was dangerous but he didn’t care − all caution had gone out of the window.

Kate Desmond was in a quandary. She had, in her station, Jenny Riley − soon to be Moran if the rumour factory was true. Jenny was known as a good ’un − the fact she had battered the fuck out of that big-mouthed Caroline Moran was a shock in itself. And now she was being championed by Freddie Marks. Kate sighed heavily. The last thing she needed was the aggro of this kind of situation. They never ended well − and there was the obvious grudge match as they both wanted the same man.

Why did women want these kinds of men? It had always amazed her. She had raided houses where young girls, with their whole lives ahead of them, already had two kids and a black eye from the local bullyboy. It was heartbreaking knowing the kind of existence these girls had unwittingly signed on for. Old before their time, visiting various nicks, as their good looks faded and their men looked elsewhere for excitement and youth. Kids whose earliest memories were their mattresses being split open with knives in case the loving father had hidden drugs or guns in them. Christ, she had once taken a ten-inch blade from under a cot mattress. If the toddler sleeping in there had got hold of it . . . There was certainly no accounting for taste, she knew that much. When she thought of the shouting and screaming that accompanied these raids, from girls no more than children with a misguided sense of loyalty, she could scream herself.

Then there were the Jennys of this world, decent women who had genuinely fallen for the wrong man, who had not actively sought out the local nutter. And where had it got the poor lass? It had got her under caution while everyone decided the best way to handle this particular scenario, that’s where. It had also got her into the clutches of Freddie Marks who, by all accounts, was fast turning into the new Cain Moran. Sometimes Kate hated her job. The only good thing was that everyone in the pub had said the same thing: Caroline Moran had thrown the first punch and caused all the aggro. Not that it made it any easier for Kate, of course. She didn’t want to arrest any of them.

She sighed as she excused herself and made her way to the hospital.

Caroline was in extreme pain, and she was also in extreme shock. Her sheer size usually guaranteed her the edge when it came to a fight, so to have that skinny little mare defeat her had really knocked her for six. It was a public humiliation, even though she knew it was her own fault. She had wanted to send that bitch to her wedding with two black eyes − that had been the reasoning behind her confrontation. Never in the wildest stretch of her imagination had she thought the girl would fight back at all, let alone so vehemently. It was still sinking in. She had been royally trounced, and the people who had witnessed it seemed to think she had got what she deserved.

She saw the nurse walk past her room and bellowed once more, ‘Oi! Bring me a fucking mirror!’

She needed to see the damage. It hurt like fuck, she knew that much, and her nose was throbbing. That whore had actually broken it! She was a strong fucker, she could see that now. Jenny Riley had systematically battered her as if she had been waiting for years to do just that. Caroline knew in her heart that she had driven her to it, with all the obstacles she’d put in front of a divorce, determined to keep Jenny from getting the one thing of Cain’s she had left – his name. There was a tiny part of her that was ashamed of her behaviour, even though she couldn’t stop herself. It was like a mania with her − she’d never come to terms with the fact that Cain had left her for that council-house rat. God, she wished her mum was still alive. She missed her every day.