Part Fifty Five
Coope was busy finishing off the paperwork on the huge Crown versus Atkins Pilkinton file. The bulky evidence folder and certificates of conviction were being tagged together and bound in manila tape ready to go to the court records office. She was acutely aware that a very fidgety John Deed was fingering his chin, in deep contemplation, on the point of asking a question and then backing away from it.
"Is there anything else you wanted me to do, Judge?" she asked, not beating about the bush.
"Coope, you are a lifesaver," John Deed replied in hearty ringing tones.
Hang on, he hasn't even asked me what it is he wants me to do , Coope thought. This can't be my usual doctor's receptionist role of delicately putting off persistent casual girlfriends popping by on the off chance because 'the judge is busy discussing a client's case with Mrs Mills in chambers.'
"Well, I can hardly promise to be a lifesaver unless you tell me what you want help with," Coope archly replied.
"Er no," John stammered, temporarily stuck for words." But it's like this, Coope. I want a bit of advice on cooking a meal."
That means that he wants me to stay discreetly in the background cooking the meal for some girlfriend of the moment whom he wants to impress, Coope thought to herself, wrongly just for once.
"I'm cooking a meal for Mrs Mills tonight. Something special for her." John smiled looking expectantly at Coope in the same manner as Mimi did to him, with the collar and lead gripped between her teeth, ears pricked up and hoping for the magic word 'walk' from John.
"But Mrs Mills normally cooks when you go to see her. An excellent cook or so I hear," Coope replied in that maddeningly reasonable way.
"All right, all right," John Deed capitulated in despair. "I had a bet with Mrs Mills and I lost. My wager was cooking a meal for her."
"Just what was the bet about, if you don't mind me asking?" Coope asked in her most innocent tones. From his manner, John very much minded explaining what the bet was about but he was clearly desperate.
"I bet Mrs Mills that Yvonne Atkins and Karen Betts were not, a couple. The idea was absurd, or so I thought." John's jerky tones were forced out of his mouth as if it were a confession extracted under torture.
"Well, of course they are," Coope responded in the blandest, most matter-of-fact manner."Even from my limited position, I could have told you that one ages ago if only you had asked me. Still, I suppose you thought you knew best. You are, after all, the judge."
"Yes yes yes," John Deed cut in to head off Coope winding him up even more. His hands were waving like windmills. Give him five rounds with a histrionic George at her most venomously plate throwing, he could deal with that but not this feeling of helpless dependency. All he wanted was a recipe, not a lengthy cross examination.
"Just an easy recipe for a learner cook, that's all I need Coope."
"And at your age? A woman's work is never done or so you'll find out." Coope's smile split her face from ear to ear. At the end of her sustained teasing, she relented. It was the pleading expression in his eyes which showed up how desperate the poor man was.
"Right, one tin of tomatoes, one onion, carrots, some salad garnish, an eight ounce pack of minced beef, dried spaghetti, one lemon, beef stock cubes. A jar of Dolmio sauce for spaghetti bolognese, a large packet of smoked salmon, Parmesan cheese, strawberries, cream, a small Granary loaf and, last of all, a bottle of Jo's favourite wine." John muttered to himself."Shouldn't be hard. People do it everyday."
If the truth be known, he was talking to himself to bolster his own spirits rather than demonstrate to the world how thoroughly he was in command of the situation. He needed the choice of wine badly, not for the alcohol content but to grasp at the one item he felt confident in choosing.
He drove his pride and joy, his grey open top sports car to the local out of town Sainsbury's supermarket which Coope had recommended. What the devil was he doing here rather than lying back in contemplation, his favourite Mozart symphony soothing his nerves from the long drawn out slog of the trial. Captain Scott, if he had returned from discovering the South Pole, and coming home to his nearest and dearest would have felt similarly put out if his wife had told him go down to the local butchers to queue up for a joint of best sirloin as she didn't know he was coming back quite so soon from the frozen wastes of Antarctica. What bruised his spirits most was seeing the broad smile on Jo's face when he announced that he was going to 'pop out and do a bit of shopping.'
"I'm looking forward to this one, John. It isn't often that I'm treated to a meal cooked by someone else after all these years of cooking for my sons."
John didn't answer. Why was Jo being so insufferably right about that little bet that he had so confidently entered into. It seemed like a brilliant surefire idea at the time.
John followed the directions and was confronted by the sight of a huge carpark stretching for miles, or so it seemed. Where the devil was he supposed to park his car, he wondered? Eventually, after much inching back and forth, he manoeuvred his car into a slot and looked nervously behind him in case some careless individual scraped the side of his car. He followed his destiny into the huge open mouth of the supermarket which greeted him with the most hideous Muzak which offended his artistic sensibilities.
Good God, supermarkets have changed since the time I used to do the shopping when I was living with George. They were small friendly places. He remembered ruefully clutching his list written in George's firm writing and still firmer directions. Where in hell was he supposed to start, he wondered. He was not interested in men's and ladies' clothing off the peg, or books about gardening which were first to hand. Why in hell didn't those responsible for planning supermarkets set them out in any logical order. He just wanted some food, dammit, so why shouldn't the food be first to sight when he went in. The sheer scale of the place overwhelmed him, checkouts stretching as far as his eye could see and aisles of assorted shopping only going so far. The ghastly thing was an abomination of nature.
A brainwave struck his reeling senses and a flashback of the time that he had been taken round the famous Hampton Court maze when he was young. His sense of the absurd told him at that time to try to avoid at all costs getting to the centre of the maze and in that way, you will find the centre and vice versa when you wanted to get out. He had overridden his father on this in the commanding way that even then had become part of his nature and, lo and behold, the plan had worked with marvellous simplicity. Likewise, he had set forwards along the most irrelevant part of the shop, never intending in his conscious mind to find anything. Sure enough, he had only travelled a short way when the vast range of lettuces and tomatoes, row on row came in sight. All he had to do was to pick the veg that he wanted.
"Excuse me," John Deed asked a little old lady, ingratiatingly after every form of fruit and veg presented itself but the few he wanted."can you tell me where the carrots and onions are?"
"Second aisle that way," she pointed without hesitation."Right at the end. You can't miss it."
"Thank you, Madam," John replied. She wouldn't miss it but he might, he thought to himself. With utter gratitude, he selected his purchases and set off for the remote far reaches of the hypermarket where no man had set foot before.
Focussing his eyes upwards, he spotted huge overhead hoardings indicating certain categories of purchases, most of which seemed either irrelevant or hopelessly unspecific. Where does one find a Dolmio sauce bottle, is it amongst 'sauces' or whatever. Sighing, he trudged manfully onwards, trying to shut his ears off from the dreadful Muzak. If ever a civil court case presents itself against the retail food network for invasion of human rights for subjecting hapless shoppers to musical purgatory, he would wrest the files out of the hands of Niven or Legover Everard himself. None of them could do heartfelt justice to the matter.
"I'm ever so sorry, madam," John said, his musings having distracted him from the art of navigating a shopping trolley with one wonky wheel round a supermarket so that his trolley had collided into another.
The woman took one glance at the harassed man and her temper subsided in an instant, seeing the look of stress on the man's face, courteously told him where the Dolmio sauces were and went on her way. John smiled a little sheepishly to himself as he realised that the sauces were only at the end of the aisle that he was on. How the devil did she know where it was. When he got to the display, he was thrown into a state of confusion at the next decision he had to make. Even in that small section, there was an endless choice of "Original Dolmio", "Dolmio with mushrooms" etc.How the devil was he going to decide that one as Coope had not forewarned him of the bewildering range of choices he had to make and, for once, he had left his mobile behind. Meditatively, he inspected three jars and checked the ingredients and desperately racked his brain in an effort to work out what would add most to the meal that he had obsessively set himself the task to produce come what may. His mind froze in a lock of indecision until the oldest answer to his dilemma flashed into his mind, the toss of a coin. The same female shopper was very much bemused by the sight of a middle aged man flipping a fifty pence coin to himself and shouting 'That's the one I really wanted' in satisfied tones. You meet all sorts in supermarkets, she thought philosophically.
In John Deed's haphazard wanderings round the hypermarket, he rounded an aisle and, there before his eyes, the heavenly dream in the middle of the living nightmare, the wine section. Instantly, his chaotic thought processes turned to gleeful precision as he selected the bottle of Chablis that he, or rather Jo, favoured out of the endless array of near identical bottles. This was a different matter altogether. He lingered over the selection of wines for future plans on what he might buy for the next four possible social events. Nothing like advance planning in these matters, John thought.
He had a sickening thought as he realised that he had forgotten salad garnish, bread and cream as his uncrossed off list and shopping trolley stared back at him accusingly. Now where in hell does a normal shopper find these items, his upturned eyes asked a practical joker of a fate despairingly.
By what dazed process that John Deed found himself at the checkout a lifetime later, he could not recall except the grim satisfaction of a mission achieved. The slow trudge by which he found his way to the front of the queue was something that, after all he had endured, nothing else mattered, even the totally captive position with which the Muzak malevolently held him at its mercy. He eyed up the shop assistant in some attempt to restore his spirits but the damned inconsiderate chairman of the board had decreed that a shapeless fitting smock would cover the contours of the female form that nature should have decreed should be exposed. Was nothing going right tonight except that he had survived so far.
Once he had settled up, the open exit beckoned the spectre of freedom to John and he was out and away. John Deed came out of the supermarket, totally harrassed, pushing the trolley to the car. After he had manoeuvred out of the car park, his fingers desperately found the tape that Charlie had left for him. Nothing but Black Sabbath could possibly match the total angst that he felt and Ozzy Osborne wailing "Paranoid" to Tony Iommi's power chord guitar thrash wafted far out behind him. He cut past Lawrence James's' surprised face as his wife was set to drag him round clothes shops to add an exquisite edge to the absolute torture of that trial and the dressing down that Sir Ian had given him. Somehow he was to blame for everything going wrong and his wife had got that spending look in her eye and was not to be denied her pleasure , disregarding the deaf mute shuffling three paces behind her. Likewise, the strident sounds competed with and dominated the bass boosted sounds of the local boy racer that John Deed was temporarily next to in the traffic jam. The power of rock lives on forever.
John sat back blissfully in his driving seat, the music still battering at his ears and disturbing life, both humankind and bird, in his path until he completed the all too short distance to his digs and the serenity of the judiciary were greeted by the far from dulcet tones of Black Sabbath.
"What the devil is going on?" Michael Niven complained as he strode out to the front door. "Has this neighbourhood been chosen for a gathering of Hells Angels."
Half expecting a crowd of hairy Hells Angels, complete with dirty jeans, boots and chain studded leather jackets, Michael Niven was disconcerted by the sight of a respectably besuited John Deed holding a plastic Sainsbury's carrier bag.
"Have you seen where that frightful row was coming from, Deed?" Michael Niven asked, trying to assess the situation and proceed delicately.
"Oh, that was me, Michael. Black Sabbath, you know. Charlie bought it for me." John Deed replied in a tone that suggested that the flying saucer that had landed in the field was perfectly normal, the Martians were perfectly friendly and he had everything perfectly under control.
After smashing his door down, Deed goes heavy rock, Niven shook his head. What will happen next. In the good old days, this used to be such a peaceful respectable place.
"I'm glad everything is under control. Perhaps we can have some peace now," Michael Niven said with a certain amount of edge as he retreated to the safety of his rooms. It isn't safe out here.
"I'm just going out anyway, Michael. No problems," John Deed assured him. You may be all right, Michael, but I've got to cook a damned meal, John Deed said under his breath after he had got a few personal things ready for staying the night with Jo.
His car slid out onto the main road once again, Black Sabbath still trailing behind him though not at the original volume that any self respecting rock musician would have pumped out. Somehow this new quirk of John Deed's complex personality had taken shape, however uneasily it sat with the virtuoso violinist playing Schubert. Then again, both type of performers had the knack of pulling the birds.
The last guitar chords were switched off as John Deed's car came to rest outside Jo's mews cottage and he knocked at the door with the one finger that wasn't holding either shopping or personal stuff..
"Had a good time food shopping?" Jo asked brightly."You know where the kitchen is, John but mind you, don't make a mess in there," she finished in that forceful female tone that could repel an invasion of Nazi Stormtroopers with voice alone if they showed her sanctum any similar disrespect.
Snowball sat staring at the dull, gray walls of her cell. Straight down the block they'd sent her, supposedly for her own protection. but she didn't care. She would have quite liked to spend a last evening with some of the girls, at least with those who'd arrived after the fire, but it wasn't to be. No more would the likes of Denny Blood or al McKenzy look on her with a mixture of scorn and loathing. No more would she fear to walk along the landing or to take a shower. But they'd see. They'd regret every bad word they'd ever said about her, especially that bitch Betts. She should have blown Betts' brains out when she had the chance. But Ritchie just had to interfere didn't he. Just because he'd had his dick inside Betts once or twice, he thought that meant he had to save her pathetic, worthless life. Not that she thought Betts had been much good in the sack anyway. Not like her, not like Snowball Merriman, who could put on any show Ritchie asked for. She could remember all the good times they'd had together. She'd dress up for him sometimes, playing any part he wanted. Snowball had hated having to sit there in court, day after day, listening to those two barristers trading ideas about what Ritchie and Betts had got up too. Even that petite posh bitch who was supposed to be defending her and Richie, she didn't give Betts anything like the verbal going over she deserved. But Ritchie had told them all. If nothing else, she was proud of him for this. Snowball smirked as she relived this memory. He'd told them exactly what Karen Betts was, how she liked it rough, how she begged Ritchie to hold her down and fuck her senseless. A hard, cruel smile crept over Snowball's face as she thought of what Karen Betts and Ritchie's cow of a mother would think after this night was out. They'd feel guilty as hell, the pair of them. They'd both stood up in court and did nothing but slag her and Ritchie's every move. Yvonne Atkins ought to know better than to go against one of her own. Perhaps the only thing Snowball regretted about what her and Ritchie would do this night, was that they hadn't been able to make love one last time. The last woman to give him pleasure wouldn't be her, his rightful lover. No, the last woman to give Ritchie an orgasm would forever be Karen Betts. She pulled a grotesque face at herself in the tiny mirror when she thought of this, but in mid-maniacal glare, she reminded herself that very soon, she would be with Ritchie for ever. Never again would they be parted, as long as Ritchie went through with it and Snowball had no reason to think he wouldn't. They would be together, as they should be, and Ritchie would be able to walk again. No more would prison bars and a fractured spine keep them apart. Not nothing nor no-one, not even Yvonne Atkins or Karen Betts would be able to separate them then. What she'd managed to say to Ritchie at the back of the old Bailey would be enough. They'd been able to exchange a few letters here and there via the unofficial postal system that was often more reliable than the real one, and in those letters they'd made their plan. If they were sent down, which even Snowball was realistic enough to know might happen, they would finish it once and for all. The Judge's words briefly flitted in to Snowball's mind and she realised he was right, their charade would be over. Like Romeo and Juliet they would end their lives for the sake of love and love alone. Was Yvonne playing the part of the mother of the house of Montague, determined that her son would never marry the evil temptress Juliet? Well, she wasn't about to have any choice in the matter, and Karen Betts who had taken the part of the nurse a little too far, no more would she be able to interrupt and interfere at every crucial moment. They would be gone far from prison, far from pain. Snowball had no real doubts that Ritchie would go through with it. After all, with no legs and no lover, what else did he have to go on living for. As she picked up the razor blade that she'd kept hidden for weeks now, in wait for this very purpose, her last thought as she cut deep in to her radial artery, was a prayer that Ritchie wouldn't be long in coming to her.
John looked nervously around him at the kitchen, the part of Jo's flat with which he was least familiar. This was where he was long accustomed to seeing her pottering about making a meal while he stretched luxuriantly on the sofa reading the Guardian.
"Don't mind me, John, I'm just popping in to put the Chablis and the Moet in the fridge to keep them chilled. I'll be reading the paper while you cook dinner," Jo called out.
Something is very wrong here, John thought to himself. Then again, his world had not been right since he had seen Yvonne and Karen kissing. Such a waste, he thought, as it still got to him.
He looked nervously round Jo's spick and span kitchen, hoping not to annoy the saucepans as he assembled his tools for the job. This preliminary action gave him a flicker of satisfaction. How in hell does this peeler work ,John thought, as he started gouging at the outer layer of the skin of the carrots until he gradually became a little more used to it. Such an ineffective tool, he reflected as he painstakingly tipped the peel into the wastebin. The carrots are a bit small, but never mind, now for the onions. John's eyes smarted as his knife sliced up the onions which made it difficult for him to pick out the fiddly bits of outside skin which he'd forgotten to peel off to begin with. When he came to dice the carrots according to Coope's emphatic instructions to keep them small, he never realised how an inoffensive looking vegetable could be provokingly fiddly, especially in having its revenge by scattering some of itself on the floor. In a panic, John discreetly picked them up and strained them through a sieve as there wasn't much to spare.
"Oh, tomatoes," John said to himself to keep himself on track and he resolutely attacked the tin of tomatoes with a tin opener at just the right cutting angle.
"Right now," John said with determination when he followed the next instruction in Coope's manual and scattered the diced vegetables into a large heated frying pan and hastily turned the heat down low as the damp carrot fragments began to spit and splutter back at him.
"Are you getting on all right, John?" Jo chirped up hearing the sounds of muttering seeping through the closed door like some gas.
"Yeah, fine." John replied shortly at which point Jo smiled even more and started to study the financial section of the Guardian. This is the life, she thought.
By tenderly nursing the dinner as if it were his first born as, in a way it was, he had the veg at the mystical point where he could confidently gently fry the mince and, in a moment of enthusiasm, started to sing a snatch of operatic aria to himself which a hugely grinning Jo overheard as her feet reclined on the footstool. Her radar hearing was finely attuned to what she imagined was happening in the kitchen. When John added the stock cube and the tinned tomatoes he was in his element and with a flourish, added a touch of garlic and vigorously stirred the mixture.
"The pasta," John shouted. "When do I start the pasta, Jo?"
"Look at the instructions on the side, John," Jo called out clearly "and start boiling the water in the kettle at the time the bolognese cooking time coincides with the pasta cooking time. You can leave the bolognese to gently simmer apart from an occasional stir."
"How the devil can Jo see through walls and know how far I've got with the meal. And how do you do two things at the same time?" John asked himself.
"Very easily, for a woman." Jo's audible grin could be heard by a mortified John.
At that point, the neglected spatula acted as if some malign poltergeist inhabited it by flopping out of the pan and clattering on the floor complete with a few spots of bolognese. In a total panic, John grabbed feverishly at a strip of kitchen roll and scrubbed and scrubbed at the floor, hoping Jo wouldn't notice afterwards. Nevertheless, the man who kept his nerve in the most abstruse trials persevered and somehow, he found that he was able to manage both jobs side by side and he even had time to prepare the smoked salmon first course and serve the strawberries into some cut glass dishes.
"I'll uncork the wine, John." Jo helpfully called out
"Just like a woman," John muttered in an aggrieved tone to himself."Takes the easiest job."
John wiped his forehead. He was sweating and every bone ached in his body. In comparison, the entire trial hadn't physically taken it out of him in the hard graft that cooking this banquet demanded of him. He glanced round the kitchen an every square inch of work space was covered by plates and cooking utensils of all shapes and descriptions.
At that moment as he stirred the gently bubbling bolognese mixture, Jo sidled past the kitchen door elegantly smoking a cigarette to duly inspect the handiwork
"Take that damned cigarette out of my kitchen!" John said tersely at this interloper.
"Sorry, John," Jo meekly replied."I just came by to see how you're going on. Don't worry, the meal smells wonderful."
John smiled weakly and resumed his industrious cooking. Now that he was near the end, the pressure on him was easing.
"Dinner is served," called John , determined to fulfil his word to the letter as, with a flourish, he carried in two plates of smoked salmon, with salad garnish, lemon quarters and neat slivers of granary bread.
"What about the chef's hat and pinafore?" Jo asked with an impish smile.
"Forget the uniform," John exclaimed with heartfelt emotion and they sat down to the first course on a candlelit table in a dimly lit room. The sun was setting with a glorious splash of red, bathing them both in a golden glow. When John will have recovered from the physical and nervous strain, it will have been a perfect end to the day if he did but know it.
They sat back, contented with the appetiser until, with a theatrical flourish, John produced two large portions of spaghetti bolognese with a neat sprinkling of parmesan cheese on it with a proud expression on his face. Jo concealed the thought that she had produced meals like that every day and fulsomely congratulated John for his efforts as the taste of the whole meal was exquisite, with strawberries and cream to nicely round it off. Then again, someone else's cooking always is brilliant if it is a rare treat..
"I always keep my word on a promise," John explained emphatically.
The expression on Jo's face was distant at that point when she reflected on some of John's casual affairs of the past but, outside the sexual sphere, John was an upright honest man whom she had long admired for that. She was accustomed to be sharply aware of the peculiar limits of John's dependability but, tonight, nothing seemed to matter, nothing existed outside her house.
"So long as you admit that you aren't always right," Jo replied lightly.
"I promise that I, John Deed, am not akin to the Pope as he is bound by the decree of Papal Infallibility and I am not infallible. Besides," John continued with a wicked grin, "non Popes have more fun."
Jo smiled indulgently as the end of a typical day was completed by John sexually propositioning her, yet again. Will anything change, she asked herself. As the sometime lover, friend and human being was settled down snugly on the sofa next to her, Jo clicked on the TV remote control where brash showbiz music announced the finals of 'Pop Idol' and that, the phonelines are open, it only took a phone call to vote for your idol and , after all, it's your vote that counts.
"Good God, turn that rubbish off," John exclaimed. As someone who was becoming increasingly aware of how much the Sir Ians and the Lawrence Jameses of the world will very discreetly hem in your options if you let them, it wasn't just the manufactured music that appalled him. Voting for Pop Idol and choosing your favourite brand of whatever at the supermarket aren't exactly poles apart. Jo clicked over channels to Panorama and a temporary fault appeared in the sound transmission of Neil Houghton and the Conservative Shadow Minister speaking in reply in what must be a pre recorded television debate.
"They don't look much different from each other, do they?" John Deed observed drily as they snuggled down together that evening while waves of tiredness overtook them. Jo wondered how George was getting on with Neil and even worrying about her, a new experience in her life in the same way that cooking for Jo was for John. They still couldn't believe that the intensity of the two weeks had ended as the phantom train carriage, with them in it, carried on rattling through the night.
Ritchie lay on his bunk. He'd made sure he had everything he wanted, and once sprawled on his bed, he gave the wheelchair a violent shove so that it rolled silently over to the other side of the cell. It was now exactly where he wanted it, out of his line of vision, therefore figuratively out of mind. When he did what he was about to do, he didn't want his last thoughts to be of what he'd become. Even though he still couldn't feel the physical presence of his legs, they were still his legs, still attached to his body and therefore still a part of him. Those legs had once made him able to dance the night away with some nameless but attractive bird, to stand at the bar and buy said bird a drink, and to finally fuck said bird senseless in some nameless bedroom. but he could no longer do any of these things. He couldn't even have a shower or put on his clothes without help from some nameless and often faceless prison officer who were always telling him how they had better things to do. But he didn't want to dwell on all that. He wanted to remember the good times. A lascivious smile crossed his face as he remembered some of the women he'd had in his time. Like Karen Betts, for example, she was one of the best he'd ever had. She'd never given him any of that soppy love stuff that even from Snowball sometimes drove him mad. She'd been as up for it as any woman he'd ever known. But something had been a little out of the ordinary the first time she'd come to him. After the cryptic text message which she'd later told him was a song lyric, they'd exchanged several more, establishing where and when they would meet. The last one he'd sent her had said, "How do you like it?" They could almost have been talking about how she preferred her steak. Her reply had surprised him. Instead of saying something like slow and long, or simply well done, she'd answered him with hard and rough. He didn't really think anything of this at the time. After all, some women did like it rough. But the first time, she really had wanted it rough. After receiving that text message, he had played along with her, but been perfectly ready to do things differently if she'd decided that rough wasn't for her. He'd been slightly nervous of taking her at her word, because Atkins men never raped their women. They may treat them like shit, but they never had to rape a woman. But she'd stood there, cool as you like, and said, "I won't break." He'd made some crack about how the bed might, but she'd fixed him with such a piercing gaze that he realised this meant more to her than just a good screw. He'd virtually thrown her down on the bed and himself on top of her. She'd moved to put her arms round him, but he'd held them down. The look that had passed between them held so many words. He could remember the intensity of it now. Half of its meaning asked, no compelled him to treat her like a whore, and the rest simply begged him not to ask questions. Above all, don't ask questions. So, he had held her down, and taken everything granted to him by that fabulous body of hers. Afterwards, they lay replete, satiated, like a lioness and her mate after feasting on the body of a plump adult rhino. He looked over at her and saw unshed tears in her eyes. It hit him that this went much deeper with her than a simple need to be thoroughly fucked. There was something different here, something wrong. He asked,
"what was all that about?" Her answer had mystified him.
"Just laying a few ghosts, that's all." She'd turned on to her side with her back to him so as to hide her weakness.
At the time, Ritchie had wondered what she'd meant. It was probably this that had provided the misgivings about his continuing to see Karen. But what Snowball wanted, she usually got, and the next few times he saw Karen, she acted perfectly normally. Sure, she knew exactly what she wanted, and didn't mind telling him so, but like he'd said, he loved that in a woman. But when she was up on the stand the first time, and that stupid idiot who backed out of representing him and Snowball had flung a supposedly fake rape allegation at her, everything began to fit in to place. If he'd been asked, he could have told any jury who cared to listen that this was no fake allegation. She'd been getting something out of her system that first time he'd slept with her, no doubt about it. If there was one thing he'd inherited from his mother it was her sensitivity. It wasn't often he used it, but he could if he had too. After all, he would never have got as close to Snowball as he had if he hadn't been able to see right through her porn star persona. He couldn't explain what had drawn him to Snowball. There was something different, intriguing about her. But look where the stupid cow had landed him. He loved her to bits, but that didn't stop him from cursing her for shooting him. As his thoughts drifted over that day, he knew one thing for certain. He couldn't have let Snowball just shoot Karen in cold blood and for no real reason. Even if he had to go back and repeat the events of that day, he knew he wouldn't do anything differently. As he took the first two of the barbiturates he'd managed to buy on the black market with phone cards, he switched on the Discman Yvonne had sent him, knowing only too well how long the prison days could be. Robbie Williams Angels was playing and two things struck Ritchie simultaneously. The first was that he'd been listening to this CD on the last night he'd spent with Karen, and the music brought various images and remembered sounds of that night in to clearer focus. The second thing to raise the head of significance, was that his mother used to call him her little angel. He steadily swallowed the stash of tablets he'd accumulated over the last few weeks, and played the Angels song over and over again. When he could feel the drowsiness gradually creeping over him, he made sure that the two letters he'd written, one to his mother and one to his sister, were safely on the bedside table. As the words of the song gently lulled him in to unconsciousness, he kept seeing snatches of how Karen had looked, sprawled on his bed, flushed from the heat of orgasm, breasts as ripe and firm as two peaches, though far more generous in size. She'd thought he was soppy for liking this song, but it hadn't stopped her from putting her arms round him and laying her head on his chest as the words had washed over them. His last thought before his eyes closed, wasn't of Snowball or anything remotely connected with her, it was a combined image of Karen at her most seductive and his mother at her most loving. As his heartbeat became slower, and the rise and fall of his chest became shallower, the song Ritchie had so loved again reached its end, and having no human finger to set it going again, drifted in to silence, taking with it the life of a man who had once had everything and now had nothing.
Coope was busy finishing off the paperwork on the huge Crown versus Atkins Pilkinton file. The bulky evidence folder and certificates of conviction were being tagged together and bound in manila tape ready to go to the court records office. She was acutely aware that a very fidgety John Deed was fingering his chin, in deep contemplation, on the point of asking a question and then backing away from it.
"Is there anything else you wanted me to do, Judge?" she asked, not beating about the bush.
"Coope, you are a lifesaver," John Deed replied in hearty ringing tones.
Hang on, he hasn't even asked me what it is he wants me to do , Coope thought. This can't be my usual doctor's receptionist role of delicately putting off persistent casual girlfriends popping by on the off chance because 'the judge is busy discussing a client's case with Mrs Mills in chambers.'
"Well, I can hardly promise to be a lifesaver unless you tell me what you want help with," Coope archly replied.
"Er no," John stammered, temporarily stuck for words." But it's like this, Coope. I want a bit of advice on cooking a meal."
That means that he wants me to stay discreetly in the background cooking the meal for some girlfriend of the moment whom he wants to impress, Coope thought to herself, wrongly just for once.
"I'm cooking a meal for Mrs Mills tonight. Something special for her." John smiled looking expectantly at Coope in the same manner as Mimi did to him, with the collar and lead gripped between her teeth, ears pricked up and hoping for the magic word 'walk' from John.
"But Mrs Mills normally cooks when you go to see her. An excellent cook or so I hear," Coope replied in that maddeningly reasonable way.
"All right, all right," John Deed capitulated in despair. "I had a bet with Mrs Mills and I lost. My wager was cooking a meal for her."
"Just what was the bet about, if you don't mind me asking?" Coope asked in her most innocent tones. From his manner, John very much minded explaining what the bet was about but he was clearly desperate.
"I bet Mrs Mills that Yvonne Atkins and Karen Betts were not, a couple. The idea was absurd, or so I thought." John's jerky tones were forced out of his mouth as if it were a confession extracted under torture.
"Well, of course they are," Coope responded in the blandest, most matter-of-fact manner."Even from my limited position, I could have told you that one ages ago if only you had asked me. Still, I suppose you thought you knew best. You are, after all, the judge."
"Yes yes yes," John Deed cut in to head off Coope winding him up even more. His hands were waving like windmills. Give him five rounds with a histrionic George at her most venomously plate throwing, he could deal with that but not this feeling of helpless dependency. All he wanted was a recipe, not a lengthy cross examination.
"Just an easy recipe for a learner cook, that's all I need Coope."
"And at your age? A woman's work is never done or so you'll find out." Coope's smile split her face from ear to ear. At the end of her sustained teasing, she relented. It was the pleading expression in his eyes which showed up how desperate the poor man was.
"Right, one tin of tomatoes, one onion, carrots, some salad garnish, an eight ounce pack of minced beef, dried spaghetti, one lemon, beef stock cubes. A jar of Dolmio sauce for spaghetti bolognese, a large packet of smoked salmon, Parmesan cheese, strawberries, cream, a small Granary loaf and, last of all, a bottle of Jo's favourite wine." John muttered to himself."Shouldn't be hard. People do it everyday."
If the truth be known, he was talking to himself to bolster his own spirits rather than demonstrate to the world how thoroughly he was in command of the situation. He needed the choice of wine badly, not for the alcohol content but to grasp at the one item he felt confident in choosing.
He drove his pride and joy, his grey open top sports car to the local out of town Sainsbury's supermarket which Coope had recommended. What the devil was he doing here rather than lying back in contemplation, his favourite Mozart symphony soothing his nerves from the long drawn out slog of the trial. Captain Scott, if he had returned from discovering the South Pole, and coming home to his nearest and dearest would have felt similarly put out if his wife had told him go down to the local butchers to queue up for a joint of best sirloin as she didn't know he was coming back quite so soon from the frozen wastes of Antarctica. What bruised his spirits most was seeing the broad smile on Jo's face when he announced that he was going to 'pop out and do a bit of shopping.'
"I'm looking forward to this one, John. It isn't often that I'm treated to a meal cooked by someone else after all these years of cooking for my sons."
John didn't answer. Why was Jo being so insufferably right about that little bet that he had so confidently entered into. It seemed like a brilliant surefire idea at the time.
John followed the directions and was confronted by the sight of a huge carpark stretching for miles, or so it seemed. Where the devil was he supposed to park his car, he wondered? Eventually, after much inching back and forth, he manoeuvred his car into a slot and looked nervously behind him in case some careless individual scraped the side of his car. He followed his destiny into the huge open mouth of the supermarket which greeted him with the most hideous Muzak which offended his artistic sensibilities.
Good God, supermarkets have changed since the time I used to do the shopping when I was living with George. They were small friendly places. He remembered ruefully clutching his list written in George's firm writing and still firmer directions. Where in hell was he supposed to start, he wondered. He was not interested in men's and ladies' clothing off the peg, or books about gardening which were first to hand. Why in hell didn't those responsible for planning supermarkets set them out in any logical order. He just wanted some food, dammit, so why shouldn't the food be first to sight when he went in. The sheer scale of the place overwhelmed him, checkouts stretching as far as his eye could see and aisles of assorted shopping only going so far. The ghastly thing was an abomination of nature.
A brainwave struck his reeling senses and a flashback of the time that he had been taken round the famous Hampton Court maze when he was young. His sense of the absurd told him at that time to try to avoid at all costs getting to the centre of the maze and in that way, you will find the centre and vice versa when you wanted to get out. He had overridden his father on this in the commanding way that even then had become part of his nature and, lo and behold, the plan had worked with marvellous simplicity. Likewise, he had set forwards along the most irrelevant part of the shop, never intending in his conscious mind to find anything. Sure enough, he had only travelled a short way when the vast range of lettuces and tomatoes, row on row came in sight. All he had to do was to pick the veg that he wanted.
"Excuse me," John Deed asked a little old lady, ingratiatingly after every form of fruit and veg presented itself but the few he wanted."can you tell me where the carrots and onions are?"
"Second aisle that way," she pointed without hesitation."Right at the end. You can't miss it."
"Thank you, Madam," John replied. She wouldn't miss it but he might, he thought to himself. With utter gratitude, he selected his purchases and set off for the remote far reaches of the hypermarket where no man had set foot before.
Focussing his eyes upwards, he spotted huge overhead hoardings indicating certain categories of purchases, most of which seemed either irrelevant or hopelessly unspecific. Where does one find a Dolmio sauce bottle, is it amongst 'sauces' or whatever. Sighing, he trudged manfully onwards, trying to shut his ears off from the dreadful Muzak. If ever a civil court case presents itself against the retail food network for invasion of human rights for subjecting hapless shoppers to musical purgatory, he would wrest the files out of the hands of Niven or Legover Everard himself. None of them could do heartfelt justice to the matter.
"I'm ever so sorry, madam," John said, his musings having distracted him from the art of navigating a shopping trolley with one wonky wheel round a supermarket so that his trolley had collided into another.
The woman took one glance at the harassed man and her temper subsided in an instant, seeing the look of stress on the man's face, courteously told him where the Dolmio sauces were and went on her way. John smiled a little sheepishly to himself as he realised that the sauces were only at the end of the aisle that he was on. How the devil did she know where it was. When he got to the display, he was thrown into a state of confusion at the next decision he had to make. Even in that small section, there was an endless choice of "Original Dolmio", "Dolmio with mushrooms" etc.How the devil was he going to decide that one as Coope had not forewarned him of the bewildering range of choices he had to make and, for once, he had left his mobile behind. Meditatively, he inspected three jars and checked the ingredients and desperately racked his brain in an effort to work out what would add most to the meal that he had obsessively set himself the task to produce come what may. His mind froze in a lock of indecision until the oldest answer to his dilemma flashed into his mind, the toss of a coin. The same female shopper was very much bemused by the sight of a middle aged man flipping a fifty pence coin to himself and shouting 'That's the one I really wanted' in satisfied tones. You meet all sorts in supermarkets, she thought philosophically.
In John Deed's haphazard wanderings round the hypermarket, he rounded an aisle and, there before his eyes, the heavenly dream in the middle of the living nightmare, the wine section. Instantly, his chaotic thought processes turned to gleeful precision as he selected the bottle of Chablis that he, or rather Jo, favoured out of the endless array of near identical bottles. This was a different matter altogether. He lingered over the selection of wines for future plans on what he might buy for the next four possible social events. Nothing like advance planning in these matters, John thought.
He had a sickening thought as he realised that he had forgotten salad garnish, bread and cream as his uncrossed off list and shopping trolley stared back at him accusingly. Now where in hell does a normal shopper find these items, his upturned eyes asked a practical joker of a fate despairingly.
By what dazed process that John Deed found himself at the checkout a lifetime later, he could not recall except the grim satisfaction of a mission achieved. The slow trudge by which he found his way to the front of the queue was something that, after all he had endured, nothing else mattered, even the totally captive position with which the Muzak malevolently held him at its mercy. He eyed up the shop assistant in some attempt to restore his spirits but the damned inconsiderate chairman of the board had decreed that a shapeless fitting smock would cover the contours of the female form that nature should have decreed should be exposed. Was nothing going right tonight except that he had survived so far.
Once he had settled up, the open exit beckoned the spectre of freedom to John and he was out and away. John Deed came out of the supermarket, totally harrassed, pushing the trolley to the car. After he had manoeuvred out of the car park, his fingers desperately found the tape that Charlie had left for him. Nothing but Black Sabbath could possibly match the total angst that he felt and Ozzy Osborne wailing "Paranoid" to Tony Iommi's power chord guitar thrash wafted far out behind him. He cut past Lawrence James's' surprised face as his wife was set to drag him round clothes shops to add an exquisite edge to the absolute torture of that trial and the dressing down that Sir Ian had given him. Somehow he was to blame for everything going wrong and his wife had got that spending look in her eye and was not to be denied her pleasure , disregarding the deaf mute shuffling three paces behind her. Likewise, the strident sounds competed with and dominated the bass boosted sounds of the local boy racer that John Deed was temporarily next to in the traffic jam. The power of rock lives on forever.
John sat back blissfully in his driving seat, the music still battering at his ears and disturbing life, both humankind and bird, in his path until he completed the all too short distance to his digs and the serenity of the judiciary were greeted by the far from dulcet tones of Black Sabbath.
"What the devil is going on?" Michael Niven complained as he strode out to the front door. "Has this neighbourhood been chosen for a gathering of Hells Angels."
Half expecting a crowd of hairy Hells Angels, complete with dirty jeans, boots and chain studded leather jackets, Michael Niven was disconcerted by the sight of a respectably besuited John Deed holding a plastic Sainsbury's carrier bag.
"Have you seen where that frightful row was coming from, Deed?" Michael Niven asked, trying to assess the situation and proceed delicately.
"Oh, that was me, Michael. Black Sabbath, you know. Charlie bought it for me." John Deed replied in a tone that suggested that the flying saucer that had landed in the field was perfectly normal, the Martians were perfectly friendly and he had everything perfectly under control.
After smashing his door down, Deed goes heavy rock, Niven shook his head. What will happen next. In the good old days, this used to be such a peaceful respectable place.
"I'm glad everything is under control. Perhaps we can have some peace now," Michael Niven said with a certain amount of edge as he retreated to the safety of his rooms. It isn't safe out here.
"I'm just going out anyway, Michael. No problems," John Deed assured him. You may be all right, Michael, but I've got to cook a damned meal, John Deed said under his breath after he had got a few personal things ready for staying the night with Jo.
His car slid out onto the main road once again, Black Sabbath still trailing behind him though not at the original volume that any self respecting rock musician would have pumped out. Somehow this new quirk of John Deed's complex personality had taken shape, however uneasily it sat with the virtuoso violinist playing Schubert. Then again, both type of performers had the knack of pulling the birds.
The last guitar chords were switched off as John Deed's car came to rest outside Jo's mews cottage and he knocked at the door with the one finger that wasn't holding either shopping or personal stuff..
"Had a good time food shopping?" Jo asked brightly."You know where the kitchen is, John but mind you, don't make a mess in there," she finished in that forceful female tone that could repel an invasion of Nazi Stormtroopers with voice alone if they showed her sanctum any similar disrespect.
Snowball sat staring at the dull, gray walls of her cell. Straight down the block they'd sent her, supposedly for her own protection. but she didn't care. She would have quite liked to spend a last evening with some of the girls, at least with those who'd arrived after the fire, but it wasn't to be. No more would the likes of Denny Blood or al McKenzy look on her with a mixture of scorn and loathing. No more would she fear to walk along the landing or to take a shower. But they'd see. They'd regret every bad word they'd ever said about her, especially that bitch Betts. She should have blown Betts' brains out when she had the chance. But Ritchie just had to interfere didn't he. Just because he'd had his dick inside Betts once or twice, he thought that meant he had to save her pathetic, worthless life. Not that she thought Betts had been much good in the sack anyway. Not like her, not like Snowball Merriman, who could put on any show Ritchie asked for. She could remember all the good times they'd had together. She'd dress up for him sometimes, playing any part he wanted. Snowball had hated having to sit there in court, day after day, listening to those two barristers trading ideas about what Ritchie and Betts had got up too. Even that petite posh bitch who was supposed to be defending her and Richie, she didn't give Betts anything like the verbal going over she deserved. But Ritchie had told them all. If nothing else, she was proud of him for this. Snowball smirked as she relived this memory. He'd told them exactly what Karen Betts was, how she liked it rough, how she begged Ritchie to hold her down and fuck her senseless. A hard, cruel smile crept over Snowball's face as she thought of what Karen Betts and Ritchie's cow of a mother would think after this night was out. They'd feel guilty as hell, the pair of them. They'd both stood up in court and did nothing but slag her and Ritchie's every move. Yvonne Atkins ought to know better than to go against one of her own. Perhaps the only thing Snowball regretted about what her and Ritchie would do this night, was that they hadn't been able to make love one last time. The last woman to give him pleasure wouldn't be her, his rightful lover. No, the last woman to give Ritchie an orgasm would forever be Karen Betts. She pulled a grotesque face at herself in the tiny mirror when she thought of this, but in mid-maniacal glare, she reminded herself that very soon, she would be with Ritchie for ever. Never again would they be parted, as long as Ritchie went through with it and Snowball had no reason to think he wouldn't. They would be together, as they should be, and Ritchie would be able to walk again. No more would prison bars and a fractured spine keep them apart. Not nothing nor no-one, not even Yvonne Atkins or Karen Betts would be able to separate them then. What she'd managed to say to Ritchie at the back of the old Bailey would be enough. They'd been able to exchange a few letters here and there via the unofficial postal system that was often more reliable than the real one, and in those letters they'd made their plan. If they were sent down, which even Snowball was realistic enough to know might happen, they would finish it once and for all. The Judge's words briefly flitted in to Snowball's mind and she realised he was right, their charade would be over. Like Romeo and Juliet they would end their lives for the sake of love and love alone. Was Yvonne playing the part of the mother of the house of Montague, determined that her son would never marry the evil temptress Juliet? Well, she wasn't about to have any choice in the matter, and Karen Betts who had taken the part of the nurse a little too far, no more would she be able to interrupt and interfere at every crucial moment. They would be gone far from prison, far from pain. Snowball had no real doubts that Ritchie would go through with it. After all, with no legs and no lover, what else did he have to go on living for. As she picked up the razor blade that she'd kept hidden for weeks now, in wait for this very purpose, her last thought as she cut deep in to her radial artery, was a prayer that Ritchie wouldn't be long in coming to her.
John looked nervously around him at the kitchen, the part of Jo's flat with which he was least familiar. This was where he was long accustomed to seeing her pottering about making a meal while he stretched luxuriantly on the sofa reading the Guardian.
"Don't mind me, John, I'm just popping in to put the Chablis and the Moet in the fridge to keep them chilled. I'll be reading the paper while you cook dinner," Jo called out.
Something is very wrong here, John thought to himself. Then again, his world had not been right since he had seen Yvonne and Karen kissing. Such a waste, he thought, as it still got to him.
He looked nervously round Jo's spick and span kitchen, hoping not to annoy the saucepans as he assembled his tools for the job. This preliminary action gave him a flicker of satisfaction. How in hell does this peeler work ,John thought, as he started gouging at the outer layer of the skin of the carrots until he gradually became a little more used to it. Such an ineffective tool, he reflected as he painstakingly tipped the peel into the wastebin. The carrots are a bit small, but never mind, now for the onions. John's eyes smarted as his knife sliced up the onions which made it difficult for him to pick out the fiddly bits of outside skin which he'd forgotten to peel off to begin with. When he came to dice the carrots according to Coope's emphatic instructions to keep them small, he never realised how an inoffensive looking vegetable could be provokingly fiddly, especially in having its revenge by scattering some of itself on the floor. In a panic, John discreetly picked them up and strained them through a sieve as there wasn't much to spare.
"Oh, tomatoes," John said to himself to keep himself on track and he resolutely attacked the tin of tomatoes with a tin opener at just the right cutting angle.
"Right now," John said with determination when he followed the next instruction in Coope's manual and scattered the diced vegetables into a large heated frying pan and hastily turned the heat down low as the damp carrot fragments began to spit and splutter back at him.
"Are you getting on all right, John?" Jo chirped up hearing the sounds of muttering seeping through the closed door like some gas.
"Yeah, fine." John replied shortly at which point Jo smiled even more and started to study the financial section of the Guardian. This is the life, she thought.
By tenderly nursing the dinner as if it were his first born as, in a way it was, he had the veg at the mystical point where he could confidently gently fry the mince and, in a moment of enthusiasm, started to sing a snatch of operatic aria to himself which a hugely grinning Jo overheard as her feet reclined on the footstool. Her radar hearing was finely attuned to what she imagined was happening in the kitchen. When John added the stock cube and the tinned tomatoes he was in his element and with a flourish, added a touch of garlic and vigorously stirred the mixture.
"The pasta," John shouted. "When do I start the pasta, Jo?"
"Look at the instructions on the side, John," Jo called out clearly "and start boiling the water in the kettle at the time the bolognese cooking time coincides with the pasta cooking time. You can leave the bolognese to gently simmer apart from an occasional stir."
"How the devil can Jo see through walls and know how far I've got with the meal. And how do you do two things at the same time?" John asked himself.
"Very easily, for a woman." Jo's audible grin could be heard by a mortified John.
At that point, the neglected spatula acted as if some malign poltergeist inhabited it by flopping out of the pan and clattering on the floor complete with a few spots of bolognese. In a total panic, John grabbed feverishly at a strip of kitchen roll and scrubbed and scrubbed at the floor, hoping Jo wouldn't notice afterwards. Nevertheless, the man who kept his nerve in the most abstruse trials persevered and somehow, he found that he was able to manage both jobs side by side and he even had time to prepare the smoked salmon first course and serve the strawberries into some cut glass dishes.
"I'll uncork the wine, John." Jo helpfully called out
"Just like a woman," John muttered in an aggrieved tone to himself."Takes the easiest job."
John wiped his forehead. He was sweating and every bone ached in his body. In comparison, the entire trial hadn't physically taken it out of him in the hard graft that cooking this banquet demanded of him. He glanced round the kitchen an every square inch of work space was covered by plates and cooking utensils of all shapes and descriptions.
At that moment as he stirred the gently bubbling bolognese mixture, Jo sidled past the kitchen door elegantly smoking a cigarette to duly inspect the handiwork
"Take that damned cigarette out of my kitchen!" John said tersely at this interloper.
"Sorry, John," Jo meekly replied."I just came by to see how you're going on. Don't worry, the meal smells wonderful."
John smiled weakly and resumed his industrious cooking. Now that he was near the end, the pressure on him was easing.
"Dinner is served," called John , determined to fulfil his word to the letter as, with a flourish, he carried in two plates of smoked salmon, with salad garnish, lemon quarters and neat slivers of granary bread.
"What about the chef's hat and pinafore?" Jo asked with an impish smile.
"Forget the uniform," John exclaimed with heartfelt emotion and they sat down to the first course on a candlelit table in a dimly lit room. The sun was setting with a glorious splash of red, bathing them both in a golden glow. When John will have recovered from the physical and nervous strain, it will have been a perfect end to the day if he did but know it.
They sat back, contented with the appetiser until, with a theatrical flourish, John produced two large portions of spaghetti bolognese with a neat sprinkling of parmesan cheese on it with a proud expression on his face. Jo concealed the thought that she had produced meals like that every day and fulsomely congratulated John for his efforts as the taste of the whole meal was exquisite, with strawberries and cream to nicely round it off. Then again, someone else's cooking always is brilliant if it is a rare treat..
"I always keep my word on a promise," John explained emphatically.
The expression on Jo's face was distant at that point when she reflected on some of John's casual affairs of the past but, outside the sexual sphere, John was an upright honest man whom she had long admired for that. She was accustomed to be sharply aware of the peculiar limits of John's dependability but, tonight, nothing seemed to matter, nothing existed outside her house.
"So long as you admit that you aren't always right," Jo replied lightly.
"I promise that I, John Deed, am not akin to the Pope as he is bound by the decree of Papal Infallibility and I am not infallible. Besides," John continued with a wicked grin, "non Popes have more fun."
Jo smiled indulgently as the end of a typical day was completed by John sexually propositioning her, yet again. Will anything change, she asked herself. As the sometime lover, friend and human being was settled down snugly on the sofa next to her, Jo clicked on the TV remote control where brash showbiz music announced the finals of 'Pop Idol' and that, the phonelines are open, it only took a phone call to vote for your idol and , after all, it's your vote that counts.
"Good God, turn that rubbish off," John exclaimed. As someone who was becoming increasingly aware of how much the Sir Ians and the Lawrence Jameses of the world will very discreetly hem in your options if you let them, it wasn't just the manufactured music that appalled him. Voting for Pop Idol and choosing your favourite brand of whatever at the supermarket aren't exactly poles apart. Jo clicked over channels to Panorama and a temporary fault appeared in the sound transmission of Neil Houghton and the Conservative Shadow Minister speaking in reply in what must be a pre recorded television debate.
"They don't look much different from each other, do they?" John Deed observed drily as they snuggled down together that evening while waves of tiredness overtook them. Jo wondered how George was getting on with Neil and even worrying about her, a new experience in her life in the same way that cooking for Jo was for John. They still couldn't believe that the intensity of the two weeks had ended as the phantom train carriage, with them in it, carried on rattling through the night.
Ritchie lay on his bunk. He'd made sure he had everything he wanted, and once sprawled on his bed, he gave the wheelchair a violent shove so that it rolled silently over to the other side of the cell. It was now exactly where he wanted it, out of his line of vision, therefore figuratively out of mind. When he did what he was about to do, he didn't want his last thoughts to be of what he'd become. Even though he still couldn't feel the physical presence of his legs, they were still his legs, still attached to his body and therefore still a part of him. Those legs had once made him able to dance the night away with some nameless but attractive bird, to stand at the bar and buy said bird a drink, and to finally fuck said bird senseless in some nameless bedroom. but he could no longer do any of these things. He couldn't even have a shower or put on his clothes without help from some nameless and often faceless prison officer who were always telling him how they had better things to do. But he didn't want to dwell on all that. He wanted to remember the good times. A lascivious smile crossed his face as he remembered some of the women he'd had in his time. Like Karen Betts, for example, she was one of the best he'd ever had. She'd never given him any of that soppy love stuff that even from Snowball sometimes drove him mad. She'd been as up for it as any woman he'd ever known. But something had been a little out of the ordinary the first time she'd come to him. After the cryptic text message which she'd later told him was a song lyric, they'd exchanged several more, establishing where and when they would meet. The last one he'd sent her had said, "How do you like it?" They could almost have been talking about how she preferred her steak. Her reply had surprised him. Instead of saying something like slow and long, or simply well done, she'd answered him with hard and rough. He didn't really think anything of this at the time. After all, some women did like it rough. But the first time, she really had wanted it rough. After receiving that text message, he had played along with her, but been perfectly ready to do things differently if she'd decided that rough wasn't for her. He'd been slightly nervous of taking her at her word, because Atkins men never raped their women. They may treat them like shit, but they never had to rape a woman. But she'd stood there, cool as you like, and said, "I won't break." He'd made some crack about how the bed might, but she'd fixed him with such a piercing gaze that he realised this meant more to her than just a good screw. He'd virtually thrown her down on the bed and himself on top of her. She'd moved to put her arms round him, but he'd held them down. The look that had passed between them held so many words. He could remember the intensity of it now. Half of its meaning asked, no compelled him to treat her like a whore, and the rest simply begged him not to ask questions. Above all, don't ask questions. So, he had held her down, and taken everything granted to him by that fabulous body of hers. Afterwards, they lay replete, satiated, like a lioness and her mate after feasting on the body of a plump adult rhino. He looked over at her and saw unshed tears in her eyes. It hit him that this went much deeper with her than a simple need to be thoroughly fucked. There was something different here, something wrong. He asked,
"what was all that about?" Her answer had mystified him.
"Just laying a few ghosts, that's all." She'd turned on to her side with her back to him so as to hide her weakness.
At the time, Ritchie had wondered what she'd meant. It was probably this that had provided the misgivings about his continuing to see Karen. But what Snowball wanted, she usually got, and the next few times he saw Karen, she acted perfectly normally. Sure, she knew exactly what she wanted, and didn't mind telling him so, but like he'd said, he loved that in a woman. But when she was up on the stand the first time, and that stupid idiot who backed out of representing him and Snowball had flung a supposedly fake rape allegation at her, everything began to fit in to place. If he'd been asked, he could have told any jury who cared to listen that this was no fake allegation. She'd been getting something out of her system that first time he'd slept with her, no doubt about it. If there was one thing he'd inherited from his mother it was her sensitivity. It wasn't often he used it, but he could if he had too. After all, he would never have got as close to Snowball as he had if he hadn't been able to see right through her porn star persona. He couldn't explain what had drawn him to Snowball. There was something different, intriguing about her. But look where the stupid cow had landed him. He loved her to bits, but that didn't stop him from cursing her for shooting him. As his thoughts drifted over that day, he knew one thing for certain. He couldn't have let Snowball just shoot Karen in cold blood and for no real reason. Even if he had to go back and repeat the events of that day, he knew he wouldn't do anything differently. As he took the first two of the barbiturates he'd managed to buy on the black market with phone cards, he switched on the Discman Yvonne had sent him, knowing only too well how long the prison days could be. Robbie Williams Angels was playing and two things struck Ritchie simultaneously. The first was that he'd been listening to this CD on the last night he'd spent with Karen, and the music brought various images and remembered sounds of that night in to clearer focus. The second thing to raise the head of significance, was that his mother used to call him her little angel. He steadily swallowed the stash of tablets he'd accumulated over the last few weeks, and played the Angels song over and over again. When he could feel the drowsiness gradually creeping over him, he made sure that the two letters he'd written, one to his mother and one to his sister, were safely on the bedside table. As the words of the song gently lulled him in to unconsciousness, he kept seeing snatches of how Karen had looked, sprawled on his bed, flushed from the heat of orgasm, breasts as ripe and firm as two peaches, though far more generous in size. She'd thought he was soppy for liking this song, but it hadn't stopped her from putting her arms round him and laying her head on his chest as the words had washed over them. His last thought before his eyes closed, wasn't of Snowball or anything remotely connected with her, it was a combined image of Karen at her most seductive and his mother at her most loving. As his heartbeat became slower, and the rise and fall of his chest became shallower, the song Ritchie had so loved again reached its end, and having no human finger to set it going again, drifted in to silence, taking with it the life of a man who had once had everything and now had nothing.