Part Fifty Two
The heat from the fire could be felt in Karen's face and the smoke stung her eyes and she fought for self control in the chaos and confusion. She turned away from the sight and tears washed some of the particles from her eyes. Even now, she could only partly accept the evidence of her senses that the day to day Larkhall was wrenched out of her experience and she was catapaulted into a dream like environment of something terrifying and unknown which she wished she could wake up from.……….
She looked down outside a window at the fire engine in the yard, hosepipes snaking their way from the hydrant that the firemen had found in the nick of time. In an inspired fury of activity, the hosepipes had shot a solid stream of water through the grills in the nick of time. Clouds of smoke were still billowing out the window where five of them had been shut up though the walls and ceiling were now dripping with water.
Karen stood dazedly trying to hold onto her professional self in giving out the necessary orders on automatic pilot. The ambulancemen had crashed their way through the wreckage of the library corridor and Karen could see the smoke blackened figures of the 2 Julies, Babs, Buki, Al and Denny as they were pulled out on stretchers, one, two, three four and five, Buki being the most seriously burnt.
She shivered with self-reproach to think that Larkhall prison had the firehose which had stood from time immemorial in the landing and no one had thought how far the hose would stretch. Typical old time Larkhall that Grayling's thin veneer of managementspeak had done sod all to check. No one even thought of it as being a problem as no one had started looking, noone had had that imagination. Including herself, as she had a stab of self reproach. Twenty feet too bloody short.
And, in the most charred part of the blaze, the side door, burnt to a cinder that had powdered into dust when the firemen's axe had tapped it, was Shaz Wiley lying on her face and her clothes badly singed. Karen had had to hold onto her stomach when she saw it herself and when she had told Denny the news, Denny had burst into tears and sobbing had clung on to her. Karen could remember stroking the cheek of the woman who clung to her and whispering "shh" "shh" into the top of her mop of frizzy hair. It seemed the natural thing for her to do with her long training as a nurse..
Karen couldn't remember what happened next, where Denny went too next but she remembered feeling that she was being well taken care of so she was free to look further at the wreckage. The metal framework of the library racks leant over into the corridor, warped and twisted by the heat while the library books were turned into a heap of ashes. Ugly jagged holes punctured the library wall from the impact of the first blast from the explosion. This was like something like out of a war film as she had watched occasionally on the telly in a moment of boredom.
Once again, Karen felt the heat and the smoke but this cannot be as everything was under control, wasn't it. This wasn't going to go away as easily as the workmen could repair the place, stripping out all the damaged area and tacking new panelling into place. All it takes is that and fresh white paint slapped on the walls and have the place as good as new. She could remember later on her tour of the library wing later on as the proud workmen showed her round the clean fresh area, all sharp clean right angles still smelling of gloss paint on the skirting boards. It's a pity that burns and nightmares take longer to heal. She had been a nurse so she should know.
"How are you feeling, Julie" Karen asked, smiling kindly at the woman in the hospital bed.
"Like shit, Miss Betts." Julie Saunders replied, smiling weakly at her. "Hope you've caught whoever torched the place. We was thinking we'd better get fitted for some wings, if 'eed have us, when the fire brigade rescued us."
"Rescued us," the inevitable delayed echo came from Julie Johnson."Still, you'd better watch Babs over there." Julie S pointed to a sleeping shape turned away from them on her side, huddled under bedclothes. "We was calling out to her earlier, like but she couldn't hear us. When we was in the fire, there was blood coming out of her ear."
A tear came to Karen's eye, easily wiped away when she reflected on the way they had brushed aside their own sufferings in place of someone worse off than them. A real smile of appreciation formed itself easily on Karen's face of the unselfconscious down to earth normal women .They succeeded in rooting her feet to the ground when she needed it and even their singed hair and surface slight burns weren't the visible reproaches she might have feared from them.
…….."Yes, Julies, I'll do everything in my power to get to the bottom of this one , how in hell this infernal bomb, or whatever it was, exploded…..Have no fear on this one."
The nurse came up and explained that they were weak and needed plenty of rest and Karen nodded agreement with their professional opinion as the Julies smiled and closed their eyes. She remembered that first resolve and what happened since………..
Karen turned to walk out of the ward but her normally smooth fitting tailored suit seemed to ride awkwardly on her and seemed to get twisted on her. She walked out through the double doors which swung back shut and went into the ladies to adjust her uniform…
Suddenly, through the door of the cubicle , Fenner's dark form looked, sneering with a mixture of contempt and anger.
"Don't you dare let on and tell tales out of school, Karen Betts, or I'll have you. Stewart's gone, Dockley's gone, Waddle's gone. I got rid of them all one way or another. Looks like your new boyfriend, Atkins's son is next for the chop. I wouldn't like to think what nasty end will happen to him, sooner or later. Nothing I've done will ever see the light of day but it'll be nicely covered up, just where it belongs. You know what I mean…….."
Karen couldn't make head nor tail of this. What did she have to do with Ritchie Atkins anymore ? She twisted away sideways in a frantic effort to escape him and…..she felt a hard lump of metal and the cold evil voice of Snowball and the peculiar personal viciousness with which she said it, conveying every willingness to use the weapon at the first chance.
"Remember I'm an actress. If you don't play this straight, you'll get it."
"Oh yes, Snowball. Like Shaz got it and half of G Wing burnt in the fire that your bomb started but I suppose you didn't mean that to happen." Karen replied sarcastically.
She still felt that wave of real fear sweep over her at the thought that perhaps she was pushing this cow too far when she saw the expression of pure hate on Snowball's face and from the crazy way she's pointing that gun at me.
Jesus, why has she got it in for me so much when Yvonne is her main enemy on the wing. Those scratch marks on the side of her face are hardly marks of friendship.
"You can turn back to Larkhall anytime, Snowball, "Karen urged "You'll just pile more years on your sentence if you don't. You don't want to end up in the dock again on more charges."
"Actually, I do have a good reason to waste a bullet on you, don't I." Snowball's mouth curled with vicious anger." You didn't stop me getting free last time. But don't think you're that important. You're just Ritchie's old shag."
"I'll finish you, you dried up old slag. Leaving me for your new boyfriend, that gangster's moll's son." Fenner's disembodied voice came from behind her in the rear passenger seat. She glanced in the rear view mirror but couldn't see him. But these mirrors had their blind spot and that bastard must really be there.
I can't believe these two. Who are they talking to, Karen Betts? They've got some weird idea that I'm desperately in love with Ritchie and I'm going to shag him just to spite them. Both these two are totally evil but now they're deranged and absurd. I'm the only person making sense around here. They don't know me.
The car sped onto a rough track where she was bundled into the boot of Ritchie's car.
She was wedged tight in total blackness with hardly any sensation except the bumping sounds as the car sped along. She felt a peculiar sensation of being pulled sideways as the car drove. Thank God Fenner's disappeared. Hope him and Snowball keep each other company. They deserve each other. Karen was now just pissed off and irritated and bracing herself with her knees and hands to stop being thrown around in the car. A large assorted metal lump which she supposed to be car tools was digging painfully into her back.
"You can't get away from me, Karen." A loathed voice suddenly spoke into her ear."No matter where you go, I'll always find you." She could feel his breath on her cheek though strangely, she couldn't feel any part of him touching her in such a confined space..
"That's just where you're wrong, Fenner." Karen took fire. She brought her knee sharply forward aiming in the direction of where it hurt most.
Fenner let out an agonised yell as her knee contacted something solid and he faded away into nothingness. Karen smiled with grim satisfaction that, for once in her recent experience, she was making sense of her environment and that she was able to change it. Something right was happening in her life. Anything you can do, Mark Waddle, I can do just as well, and in a much more difficult situation. That's the answer, she thought to herself with satisfaction, deal with your enemies one by one. It's a pity that that deranged cow wouldn't stop the bloody car so I could deal with her.
Suddenly the car gathered speed by the sensations she was experiencing. She could detect by a screech of tyres as the car cut a corner too tight. Oh shit, car chase film never did impress me. And I'm in the wrong bloody place anyway . Karen groaned as the car hit a bump in a road that was clearly some rough track and not some smooth dual carriageway. Now she was thrown all over the place and she had to exert all her strength to avoid being injured. The car tools were working around in the boot but by bracing her back against it with all her strength, it stopped them becoming a dangerous missile to be flung against her. She couldn't see a thing as her hair was falling all over her eyes. She must look a right sight, hair all tangled and her makeup all messed up. .
Suddenly the car gave an almighty swerve to the left that nearly threw her into the opposite corner of the boot. Every muscle in her body fought back but , just when she was about to give in to the enormous pressure, the car suddenly straightened up , slowed down and she sensed the feel of smooth tarmac from the movement of the car. Karen drew a huge sigh of relief that at least that danger had passed.
The car gradually slowed down and she could feel the brakes grind the car to a halt. Suddenly, an enormous rectangle of sky and cloud opened up in front of her and Snowball's scowling face leaning into the space.
"OK, out, bitch" Snowball sneered, manhandling Karen and knocking her to the ground. Karen lay full length on the ground and shouted 'Jesus' at her and looked down the length of Snowball's revolver pointing straight at her. Even though part of her was frozen with fear, the part most in control was damned if she was going to let Snowball have that satisfaction of sensing that fear. That cow gets off on that sort of thing.
"OK Merriman, freeze. I've got you covered" A loud, very familiar voice leapt out of nowhere, no voice that was more welcome or more precious. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the unmistakable slim hawk like silhouette of Yvonne Atkins. But something was strange. Instead of her familiar leathers. Yvonne was wearing jeans, shirt and a brown leather waistcoat. A Stetson hat was perched on her head, incongruously and, round her waist, a gunbelt. She was covering Snowball with a regulation Colt 45
"Mum, don't shoot." Ritchie called out in fear, torn between his mother and girlfriend and indecisive as usual in a moral dilemma.
Snowball's scowling face turned to her hated rival and her pistol cracked, her shot going wide. Yvonne's gun cracked in reply and winged Snowball in her left shoulder. The impact of the shot flung her back against the car where Ritchie instinctively grabbed hold of her.
Karen struggled to her feet, immediately aware that some grotesque trick of fate had transformed her appearance into the classic damsel in distress, Doris Day Cowboy Western style, complete with flouncy dress.
"I can't remember putting this bloody dress on first thing in the morning even though I know I'm half asleep. The whole of Larkhall must have been laughing their heads off at me. This day has been a nightmare from beginning to end."
Totally mortified yet pleased to be rescued, Karen started to walk towards Yvonne in these ridiculous shoes to match that destiny had chosen her when she felt a frightful wrench to the ankle and fell over headlong and this stupid dress seemed to wrap herself round her legs and ……..
and……and, she rolled sideways and toppled down with a bump onto the floor, pulling the quilt with her on top.
"Where the hell am I?" Karen asked feeling dazed and confused, mentally in dreamland.
"You've been tossing and turning keeping me bleeding awake half the night." Yvonne mumbled sleepily, "and not for the right bleeding reasons. Come on, you'd better come back into bed and tell me what happened,"as Yvonne poked her head over the side of the bed. In her understated matter of fact way that was exactly what Karen needed at that point to get her bearings.
Karen scrabbled at her surroundings to ease herself up off the corner of the floor and the bed where she was stuck. She half flopped, half slid sideways back into her double bed that she had somehow fallen out of. She snuggled up next to Yvonne's warm comforting body to make her feel real again.
"I dreamed that I was in a Wild West film with you and Snowball was trying to kill me after I got dragged out of the car boot……….And you came to rescue me."
"Oh, yeah, and I was dressed as bleeding Wyatt Earp with a six shooter, Karen." Yvonne joked, trying to get her head round this one.
"Nearly right, Yvonne." Karen said with a straight face."And I was also back in time at the time of the fire."
She stumbled on searching for words in disjointed phrases as much as she could make sense of her nightmare. As much as anything else, Yvonne's down to earth Cockney accent and her physical presence did wonders in dragging her back from her grotesque nightmare that she had lived so that and ease her into the early morning sunshine.
Hazy thoughts passed across her mind like the first taste of ground mist on an otherwise sunny day that Snowball and Ritchie had to be faced, for real, across the great divide between the visitor's gallery and the dock where the two accused awaited justice. Perhaps today, the ghosts that haunted her dreams would have a decent burial. But till then, after her unconscious had been grappling all night with this in its scrambled way, she deserved to lie in blissful limbo in her bed with the tenderness and comfort of Yvonne's warm body to hold onto.
The heat from the fire could be felt in Karen's face and the smoke stung her eyes and she fought for self control in the chaos and confusion. She turned away from the sight and tears washed some of the particles from her eyes. Even now, she could only partly accept the evidence of her senses that the day to day Larkhall was wrenched out of her experience and she was catapaulted into a dream like environment of something terrifying and unknown which she wished she could wake up from.……….
She looked down outside a window at the fire engine in the yard, hosepipes snaking their way from the hydrant that the firemen had found in the nick of time. In an inspired fury of activity, the hosepipes had shot a solid stream of water through the grills in the nick of time. Clouds of smoke were still billowing out the window where five of them had been shut up though the walls and ceiling were now dripping with water.
Karen stood dazedly trying to hold onto her professional self in giving out the necessary orders on automatic pilot. The ambulancemen had crashed their way through the wreckage of the library corridor and Karen could see the smoke blackened figures of the 2 Julies, Babs, Buki, Al and Denny as they were pulled out on stretchers, one, two, three four and five, Buki being the most seriously burnt.
She shivered with self-reproach to think that Larkhall prison had the firehose which had stood from time immemorial in the landing and no one had thought how far the hose would stretch. Typical old time Larkhall that Grayling's thin veneer of managementspeak had done sod all to check. No one even thought of it as being a problem as no one had started looking, noone had had that imagination. Including herself, as she had a stab of self reproach. Twenty feet too bloody short.
And, in the most charred part of the blaze, the side door, burnt to a cinder that had powdered into dust when the firemen's axe had tapped it, was Shaz Wiley lying on her face and her clothes badly singed. Karen had had to hold onto her stomach when she saw it herself and when she had told Denny the news, Denny had burst into tears and sobbing had clung on to her. Karen could remember stroking the cheek of the woman who clung to her and whispering "shh" "shh" into the top of her mop of frizzy hair. It seemed the natural thing for her to do with her long training as a nurse..
Karen couldn't remember what happened next, where Denny went too next but she remembered feeling that she was being well taken care of so she was free to look further at the wreckage. The metal framework of the library racks leant over into the corridor, warped and twisted by the heat while the library books were turned into a heap of ashes. Ugly jagged holes punctured the library wall from the impact of the first blast from the explosion. This was like something like out of a war film as she had watched occasionally on the telly in a moment of boredom.
Once again, Karen felt the heat and the smoke but this cannot be as everything was under control, wasn't it. This wasn't going to go away as easily as the workmen could repair the place, stripping out all the damaged area and tacking new panelling into place. All it takes is that and fresh white paint slapped on the walls and have the place as good as new. She could remember later on her tour of the library wing later on as the proud workmen showed her round the clean fresh area, all sharp clean right angles still smelling of gloss paint on the skirting boards. It's a pity that burns and nightmares take longer to heal. She had been a nurse so she should know.
"How are you feeling, Julie" Karen asked, smiling kindly at the woman in the hospital bed.
"Like shit, Miss Betts." Julie Saunders replied, smiling weakly at her. "Hope you've caught whoever torched the place. We was thinking we'd better get fitted for some wings, if 'eed have us, when the fire brigade rescued us."
"Rescued us," the inevitable delayed echo came from Julie Johnson."Still, you'd better watch Babs over there." Julie S pointed to a sleeping shape turned away from them on her side, huddled under bedclothes. "We was calling out to her earlier, like but she couldn't hear us. When we was in the fire, there was blood coming out of her ear."
A tear came to Karen's eye, easily wiped away when she reflected on the way they had brushed aside their own sufferings in place of someone worse off than them. A real smile of appreciation formed itself easily on Karen's face of the unselfconscious down to earth normal women .They succeeded in rooting her feet to the ground when she needed it and even their singed hair and surface slight burns weren't the visible reproaches she might have feared from them.
…….."Yes, Julies, I'll do everything in my power to get to the bottom of this one , how in hell this infernal bomb, or whatever it was, exploded…..Have no fear on this one."
The nurse came up and explained that they were weak and needed plenty of rest and Karen nodded agreement with their professional opinion as the Julies smiled and closed their eyes. She remembered that first resolve and what happened since………..
Karen turned to walk out of the ward but her normally smooth fitting tailored suit seemed to ride awkwardly on her and seemed to get twisted on her. She walked out through the double doors which swung back shut and went into the ladies to adjust her uniform…
Suddenly, through the door of the cubicle , Fenner's dark form looked, sneering with a mixture of contempt and anger.
"Don't you dare let on and tell tales out of school, Karen Betts, or I'll have you. Stewart's gone, Dockley's gone, Waddle's gone. I got rid of them all one way or another. Looks like your new boyfriend, Atkins's son is next for the chop. I wouldn't like to think what nasty end will happen to him, sooner or later. Nothing I've done will ever see the light of day but it'll be nicely covered up, just where it belongs. You know what I mean…….."
Karen couldn't make head nor tail of this. What did she have to do with Ritchie Atkins anymore ? She twisted away sideways in a frantic effort to escape him and…..she felt a hard lump of metal and the cold evil voice of Snowball and the peculiar personal viciousness with which she said it, conveying every willingness to use the weapon at the first chance.
"Remember I'm an actress. If you don't play this straight, you'll get it."
"Oh yes, Snowball. Like Shaz got it and half of G Wing burnt in the fire that your bomb started but I suppose you didn't mean that to happen." Karen replied sarcastically.
She still felt that wave of real fear sweep over her at the thought that perhaps she was pushing this cow too far when she saw the expression of pure hate on Snowball's face and from the crazy way she's pointing that gun at me.
Jesus, why has she got it in for me so much when Yvonne is her main enemy on the wing. Those scratch marks on the side of her face are hardly marks of friendship.
"You can turn back to Larkhall anytime, Snowball, "Karen urged "You'll just pile more years on your sentence if you don't. You don't want to end up in the dock again on more charges."
"Actually, I do have a good reason to waste a bullet on you, don't I." Snowball's mouth curled with vicious anger." You didn't stop me getting free last time. But don't think you're that important. You're just Ritchie's old shag."
"I'll finish you, you dried up old slag. Leaving me for your new boyfriend, that gangster's moll's son." Fenner's disembodied voice came from behind her in the rear passenger seat. She glanced in the rear view mirror but couldn't see him. But these mirrors had their blind spot and that bastard must really be there.
I can't believe these two. Who are they talking to, Karen Betts? They've got some weird idea that I'm desperately in love with Ritchie and I'm going to shag him just to spite them. Both these two are totally evil but now they're deranged and absurd. I'm the only person making sense around here. They don't know me.
The car sped onto a rough track where she was bundled into the boot of Ritchie's car.
She was wedged tight in total blackness with hardly any sensation except the bumping sounds as the car sped along. She felt a peculiar sensation of being pulled sideways as the car drove. Thank God Fenner's disappeared. Hope him and Snowball keep each other company. They deserve each other. Karen was now just pissed off and irritated and bracing herself with her knees and hands to stop being thrown around in the car. A large assorted metal lump which she supposed to be car tools was digging painfully into her back.
"You can't get away from me, Karen." A loathed voice suddenly spoke into her ear."No matter where you go, I'll always find you." She could feel his breath on her cheek though strangely, she couldn't feel any part of him touching her in such a confined space..
"That's just where you're wrong, Fenner." Karen took fire. She brought her knee sharply forward aiming in the direction of where it hurt most.
Fenner let out an agonised yell as her knee contacted something solid and he faded away into nothingness. Karen smiled with grim satisfaction that, for once in her recent experience, she was making sense of her environment and that she was able to change it. Something right was happening in her life. Anything you can do, Mark Waddle, I can do just as well, and in a much more difficult situation. That's the answer, she thought to herself with satisfaction, deal with your enemies one by one. It's a pity that that deranged cow wouldn't stop the bloody car so I could deal with her.
Suddenly the car gathered speed by the sensations she was experiencing. She could detect by a screech of tyres as the car cut a corner too tight. Oh shit, car chase film never did impress me. And I'm in the wrong bloody place anyway . Karen groaned as the car hit a bump in a road that was clearly some rough track and not some smooth dual carriageway. Now she was thrown all over the place and she had to exert all her strength to avoid being injured. The car tools were working around in the boot but by bracing her back against it with all her strength, it stopped them becoming a dangerous missile to be flung against her. She couldn't see a thing as her hair was falling all over her eyes. She must look a right sight, hair all tangled and her makeup all messed up. .
Suddenly the car gave an almighty swerve to the left that nearly threw her into the opposite corner of the boot. Every muscle in her body fought back but , just when she was about to give in to the enormous pressure, the car suddenly straightened up , slowed down and she sensed the feel of smooth tarmac from the movement of the car. Karen drew a huge sigh of relief that at least that danger had passed.
The car gradually slowed down and she could feel the brakes grind the car to a halt. Suddenly, an enormous rectangle of sky and cloud opened up in front of her and Snowball's scowling face leaning into the space.
"OK, out, bitch" Snowball sneered, manhandling Karen and knocking her to the ground. Karen lay full length on the ground and shouted 'Jesus' at her and looked down the length of Snowball's revolver pointing straight at her. Even though part of her was frozen with fear, the part most in control was damned if she was going to let Snowball have that satisfaction of sensing that fear. That cow gets off on that sort of thing.
"OK Merriman, freeze. I've got you covered" A loud, very familiar voice leapt out of nowhere, no voice that was more welcome or more precious. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the unmistakable slim hawk like silhouette of Yvonne Atkins. But something was strange. Instead of her familiar leathers. Yvonne was wearing jeans, shirt and a brown leather waistcoat. A Stetson hat was perched on her head, incongruously and, round her waist, a gunbelt. She was covering Snowball with a regulation Colt 45
"Mum, don't shoot." Ritchie called out in fear, torn between his mother and girlfriend and indecisive as usual in a moral dilemma.
Snowball's scowling face turned to her hated rival and her pistol cracked, her shot going wide. Yvonne's gun cracked in reply and winged Snowball in her left shoulder. The impact of the shot flung her back against the car where Ritchie instinctively grabbed hold of her.
Karen struggled to her feet, immediately aware that some grotesque trick of fate had transformed her appearance into the classic damsel in distress, Doris Day Cowboy Western style, complete with flouncy dress.
"I can't remember putting this bloody dress on first thing in the morning even though I know I'm half asleep. The whole of Larkhall must have been laughing their heads off at me. This day has been a nightmare from beginning to end."
Totally mortified yet pleased to be rescued, Karen started to walk towards Yvonne in these ridiculous shoes to match that destiny had chosen her when she felt a frightful wrench to the ankle and fell over headlong and this stupid dress seemed to wrap herself round her legs and ……..
and……and, she rolled sideways and toppled down with a bump onto the floor, pulling the quilt with her on top.
"Where the hell am I?" Karen asked feeling dazed and confused, mentally in dreamland.
"You've been tossing and turning keeping me bleeding awake half the night." Yvonne mumbled sleepily, "and not for the right bleeding reasons. Come on, you'd better come back into bed and tell me what happened,"as Yvonne poked her head over the side of the bed. In her understated matter of fact way that was exactly what Karen needed at that point to get her bearings.
Karen scrabbled at her surroundings to ease herself up off the corner of the floor and the bed where she was stuck. She half flopped, half slid sideways back into her double bed that she had somehow fallen out of. She snuggled up next to Yvonne's warm comforting body to make her feel real again.
"I dreamed that I was in a Wild West film with you and Snowball was trying to kill me after I got dragged out of the car boot……….And you came to rescue me."
"Oh, yeah, and I was dressed as bleeding Wyatt Earp with a six shooter, Karen." Yvonne joked, trying to get her head round this one.
"Nearly right, Yvonne." Karen said with a straight face."And I was also back in time at the time of the fire."
She stumbled on searching for words in disjointed phrases as much as she could make sense of her nightmare. As much as anything else, Yvonne's down to earth Cockney accent and her physical presence did wonders in dragging her back from her grotesque nightmare that she had lived so that and ease her into the early morning sunshine.
Hazy thoughts passed across her mind like the first taste of ground mist on an otherwise sunny day that Snowball and Ritchie had to be faced, for real, across the great divide between the visitor's gallery and the dock where the two accused awaited justice. Perhaps today, the ghosts that haunted her dreams would have a decent burial. But till then, after her unconscious had been grappling all night with this in its scrambled way, she deserved to lie in blissful limbo in her bed with the tenderness and comfort of Yvonne's warm body to hold onto.