Part Sixty Nine
On the Friday morning, one week after the funeral, two weeks since the end of the trial and exactly four weeks since she'd first gone to Yvonne's for dinner, Karen was sitting at her desk, preparing for several induction interviews she had to do that day. There seemed to have been an upsurge in the amount of women being sentenced to fairly lengthy stays in prison. She briefly wondered if this was as a result of the blazing hot weather that had taken over most people's lives throughout July and August. Heat always creates a rise in bad temper and therefore a dramatic increase in spur of the moment violent crimes. Finding that she had half an hour to spare before the new inmates began arriving to see her, Karen left her office and walked down on to the wing. There was something slightly comforting about the sight of the two Julies, one up on the 2's and one down in the association area, mopping away with gusto. Karen found herself thinking that her wing wouldn't be quite the same once they left, though that wouldn't be for another few years yet. As sad as this notion was, they'd been part of Larkhall since her arrival, two of the fixtures and fittings so to speak. Tina was sat at one of the tables, clearly wrestling over some work for one of her education classes. After her initial reluctance, Tina had been persuaded to take up education again in an effort to ensure her some sort of employment once she got out, which wouldn't be all that long now. She called to Karen as she passed.
"Miss, have you got a minute?" Karen stopped next to her.
"What is it, Tina?"
"Yesterday, I got given this for homework, only I've forgotten how she said to do it," She said, clearly talking about her tutor. Taking a seat beside her, Karen looked over her shoulder at the GCSE Maths textbook.
"It's a very long time since I did Maths at school, Tina, but I'll try anything once."
"Only, you're always faffing about with budgets, at least that's what Miss Barker always says, so I figured you'd have to be good at this." Thinking that Tina had a valid point, Karen glanced at the simple algebra problem Tina was working on and attempted to explain it to her.
"But what I don't understand," Said Tina after a while. "Is when you have say 12X and 3Y, what does X and Y actually mean?"
"They don't actually mean anything," Replied Karen, "X and Y are simply there to make the two values separate from each other."
"So, what's the point of that then?" Asked Tina, clearly mystified. Karen smiled.
"Would it help you to understand it better if they meant something tangible, something you could actually see?"
"Yeah, I think so." Karen stood up and walked over to the servery counter, returning with a handful of forks and teaspoons. with the use of these prison issue bits of plastic, she was able to explain the simpler points of algebra to Tina in a manner easier for her to grasp. As she left her at the table, pushing the plastic cutlery around to help her answer the list of problems the tutor had set her, Karen fondly remembered the times she'd helped Ross with his homework. If only he'd let her help him now. She would if he asked for it, if he really wanted the help, but he didn't. He was insisting on having his independence yet making no move to do anything with his life.
"You should have been a teacher, Miss," Said Julie Johnston, coming over with her mop and bucket, clearly having watched the little scene.
"Thirty fourteen-year-olds who clearly don't want to be there?" Said Karen with a slight shake of the head, "No thanks."
"Sounds a bit like here," observed Julie.
"How's Rhiannon?" Asked Karen, remembering the mouthy sixteen-year-old who'd been in for shop lifting.
"Well, she's got herself a job and has gone back to college," Replied Julie, "But I got a letter from her this week saying she'd been living with some bloke who was knocking her around. She's left him now though, thank god."
"Men, eh," Said Karen, in clear criticism of the entire male population.
"Yeah," Replied Julie, beginning to mop the floor of the servery, "It's no wonder so many girls change sides." A soft smile crossed Karen's face as she thought of her budding relationship with Yvonne. They'd not seen too much of each other over the last week, and they certainly hadn't made love since the end of the trial, but Karen knew this would pick up again when the time was right. Simply knowing the other was there, in thought if not in body, seemed to be enough for the moment. Yvonne was struggling to sort herself out after Ritchie's death, and Karen was quite prepared to give her as much time and space as she needed. She was brought back to the present when Julie asked,
"Have you heard how Yvonne is, Miss? Only we heard you was at court with her all through the trial. Me and Julie was going to ring her, but we didn't like to intrude."
"I'm sure she'd love to hear from you," Replied Karen. "I think she could do with knowing that her friends are there for her right now."
"Oh, right. Well, we might give her a ring later then."
"Have you seen Denny?" Asked Karen, realising that one of the usual group of inmates was missing. Julie called up this enquiry to Julie Saunders who was still up on the 3's, but came to look over the rail.
"Try the gym. She said something about wanting to kick the shit out of someone and that at least she wouldn't get any more time if it was a punch bag." As Karen walked off towards the gym, she got the feeling that her round this morning had felt like she was checking on her flock, her brood, her little clan of whom she was in charge. This was ridiculous, she sternly told herself. After all, most of them were fully grown women and in some cases far better at looking after themselves than she had ever been.
As Karen approached the gym, she could hear Denny's voice, clearly screaming insults at some hopefully imaginary being. She opened the door slightly, not wanting to startle Denny when she was obviously in a mood for violence. Denny was laying in to one of the punch bags, really giving it hell with both fists and one of her feet. As Karen watched her, she became aware that Denny was treating the punch bag as if it were Snowball. There were tears running freely down Denny's face, and she was letting go all her rage, not just for Shaz's death, but clearly for Snowball having taken the easy way out. Slowly, very slowly, Karen approached her. She didn't say anything, didn't try to interrupt Denny as she thought this was something Denny had needed to do for a long time. For Denny, raging was a necessary part of the grieving process. As Karen stood and watched from the sidelines, a line from John Grisham's The Pellican Brief came to mind.
"The soul needs a brief, very intense period of grieving, then it moves to the next phase. But it must have the pain. It must suffer without restraint before it can move on." It was a while ago that Karen had read this book, but the quote seemed to fit. When Shaz had been killed, Denny hadn't been able to go through this initial, necessary phase of grieving. Karen was forced to admit that this was mainly because Denny had been housed on the same wing as Shaz's killer and so had been forcefully reminded of the brutal way in which Shaz had died every day since. It seemed that Denny was only able to as Grisham had put it, "Grieve without restraint", once Shaz's killer had also died. When Denny finally ran out of energy, she slid to the floor, great tearing sobs wracking her entire body. Knowing that it was now safe to approach her, Karen knelt down beside Denny and put her arms round her. Not knowing or not caring who it was, Denny clung to Karen as if some invisible force were trying to tare her away. Karen murmured words of comfort until Denny eventually began to calm down. Realising that Denny had hit crisis point, Karen gently helped her to her feet and took her arm to lead her out of the gym. As they walked along the wing, Sylvia appeared.
"Blood, where've you been? You should be stuffing envelopes."
"Denny's going to my office with me," Karen smartly replied. "And she won't be stuffing any envelopes for the rest of the day. Is that clear?"
"Why, what's wrong with her?" Asked Sylvia scornfully.
"Sylvia, is it totally beyond your capability to occasionally show a small amount of sensitivity?"
"The likes of Denny Blood wouldn't know sensitivity if it banged them up and through away the key," Sylvia observed.
"Well, it's lucky for Denny that I don't agree with you," Said Karen, letting herself and Denny through the gate at the end of the wing and walking towards her office.
Once Denny had been seated in a chair and handed a box of tissues, Karen lit them both a cigarette. She had known this time might come, when Denny would need to release all her pain, break a hole in the badly constructed and maintained dam of her feelings, and she'd been ready for it. Denny needed to do this, as in her own way Yvonne was doing. But unlike Denny, Yvonne had been allowed to begin her grieving process immediately, instead of having to wait until the cause of her grief was dead and gone. Karen took a chair near Denny and simply waited. This wounded child needed no prompting, for her story would spill out of her soon enough. Karen did not have to wait long.
"Shaz was the only one who ever believed in me right from the start," She began shakily. "I didn't have to prove myself to her, I wasn't useful to her, she just liked me. No-one had ever done that, not even my own mother. She was the craziest girl I ever knew, but she was mine. She'd only been in here two days when we snuck out and she made Bodybag think the wing had a ghost." Remembering the episode of the supposed poltergeists or gremlins, Karen briefly smiled. "Shaz was a total nutter, but none of that mattered. Even when I got out for that six months with Shell, Shaz still forgave me. But then she had that run in with Maxi and nearly got fitted up for killing Yvonne, and that's where everything went wrong. She had a score to settle with Maxi after that, and nothing was going to stop her. Maxi wanted that fight as much as Shaz did, but no-one thought Maxi would top herself. I mean, she was a Purvis and they didn't do things like that. When Shaz got ghosted, she couldn't even write to me because Bodybag kept binning her letters. I only knew because Babs rescued a few of them for me. Then my mum died, without even once coming off the drink or trying to see me again. When I found out Shaz was coming in on the open day, it was like I couldn't see any further than that. It was the only thing I cared about. She brought in some magic mushrooms with her and we got stoned. We was on this boat, and we could see the stars. I ain't ever been anywhere so beautiful. We could feel the waves, gently rocking the boat, and Shaz kept saying I had to save her from the sharks." At this beautiful illustration of a drug-induced fantasy, Karen again found herself thinking of Grisham and The Pelican Brief, of the law student Darbi Shaw, who had escaped from everything she feared to the small harbour of Charlotte Amilie on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. This was in effect what Shaz and Denny had done, escaped by way of a few magic mushrooms to their own sweet, safe haven. But Denny's story worked in reverse to that of the legendary Darbi Shaw. Denny's began with pain, with the soft, seductive twilight in the middle, followed by even more pain. Darbi Shaw had almost been killed alongside her lover, but had been spared by the mere fact that she refused to get in the car with a man intent on driving under the influence. Denny ought to have been killed alongside Shaz in the grand scheme of things, and had only been spared because she had a higher tolerance to illegal drugs than Shaz did. The slightly mutated similarities and differences of these two stories struck Karen as odd, as if some writer way up there had jumbled up the facts. It was almost as if the interfering hand of some unknown deity had handed out to both Darbi Shaw and Denny Blood the haven to which they could escape at a time of crisis, and the guilt of being spared only by a chance of fate when their lover's by coincidence were killed amidst enormous explosions. There, they parted company, the fiction and the fact. Darbi Shaw spent two weeks running the length and breadth of America, hiding from the FBI, the CIA and a serial terrorist named Carmelle. Denny Blood on the other hand was tormented for more than a year by having to live within close proximity to the one who had caused Shaz's death. Strange though that one story had been about a law student and the other a criminal.
"What did you want to happen to Snowball, Denny?" Karen asked softly.
"I wanted her to suffer, like my Shaz suffered."
"Do you not think that maybe she did? It's not every day that people commit suicide."
"You ain't been in the job long enough if you think that, Miss. Snowball cut her wrists because she was shit scared of spending another twenty odd years in this dump. She still hadn't got it in to her thick head that she killed Shaz, and almost killed a load of others. She thought that because she didn't mean it, it wasn't her fault. I just hope she's suffering wherever she is now, but I doubt it. Things like that never happen to them that deserve it most, Crystal told me that. She came out with a load of bollocks most of the time, but there'd be the odd thing that made sense."
"Where do you see yourself going from here?" Asked Karen, knowing it was a stupid question, but needing to ask it.
"The only one as ever really loved me ain't here no more, so I don't know."
"I know someone who needs you now a lot more than you seem to think she does, Yvonne." Denny briefly cast a wistful gaze at the packet of cigarettes and Karen handed her one.
"She's got Lauren, innit," Said Denny succinctly, taking a long drag.
"Yes, she has," conceded Karen, "But that doesn't mean she doesn't need you too. She lost her son in probably the worst way possible two weeks ago, and she needs all the love and support she can get."
"From what I could see," Said Denny conversationally, "She's getting plenty of that from you." Karen briefly blushed, not altogether happy with discussing her private life with an inmate.
"I'm not talking that kind of support," Replied Karen, not committing herself to anything that hours later might be turned in to G wing gossip.
"Are you really sure she wants me around after I get out?" Asked Denny.
"Yes," Replied Karen without hesitation. "The way she sees it, the sooner you get out the better. I'd like to do a deal with you. Now that Snowball's gone, you can begin to think about getting on with your life, really thinking about getting out. Will you try to knuckle down, try to behave for the rest of your sentence, maybe get a better job or do some education classes which would certainly give the parole board something to think about. You wouldn't just be doing this for you, you'd be doing it for Yvonne."
"Miss, you said deal. What's your side of it?" Karen lit another cigarette for herself, not looking forward to what was coming, though it was made much easier by the fact that any long-term prisoner has ears on elastic.
"Some time last year, I was raped."
"I know," Said Denny, leaving Karen utterly gobsmacked. "It was Fenner, wasn't it?" Asked Denny after a short silence. Recovering her momentary loss of equilibrium, Karen asked,
"How did you know?"
"You hear things in this place, sometimes things you shouldn't. I heard it said that the dick of a barrister who was working for Merriman at the start of the trial tried to ask you about an allegation you'd made against Fenner."
"Where did you hear this?"
"Bodybag's got a big mouth, Miss." Privately vowing to bang Sylvia up in her very own cell, Karen said,
"What made you so certain it was true."
"Jesus, you've got a lot to learn," Replied Denny scornfully. "If someone accuses Fenner of rape, it's true. There's never any doubt. You weren't here in the old days when he had the pick of the place, even before Miss Stewart came. Shell Dockley and Rachel Hicks was only two of them." Karen stared at Denny slightly agog, never having heard such words of bitterness and wisdom come out of the mouth of anyone like Denny.
"Well," Went on Karen, continuing her explanation. "The barrister who prosecuted Snowball, offered to help me put a case together against Fenner and what with everything that's happened over the last four weeks, I've avoided thinking about it. If you agree to keep your nose clean and to get out as soon as you possibly can for Yvonne, I'll contact this barrister and start a serious case against Fenner. Do we have a deal?"
"It's gonna be as hard for you to do that as it is for me to be good, innit Miss?"
"Yes."
"Then yeah, you've got a deal." Karen and Denny formally shook hands over their pact, because this was as serious a bargain as either of them had ever entered in too.
When Karen had escorted Denny back to the wing, she returned to her office and picked up the card that had been leering at her for three weeks now. It simply said Jo Mills QC, and gave her office address, e-mail address and telephone and mobile numbers. Lifting the receiver, Karen punched in the number that would eventually lead her in to the unknown territory of being considered a suspect or at the very least an accessory to murder. When she was finally put through to Jo Mills, she said,
"Jo, it's Karen Betts." After a moment's hesitation, Jo answered,
"I wondered if I might hear from you. How are you?"
"I appear to have committed myself to a deal with an inmate that leads me to require your services," Replied Karen.
"Not as defence, I hope." Karen laughed nervously.
"No. Would your offer of three weeks ago still be open?"
"If you mean am I still willing to help you put together a case against James Fenner, then the answer's yes."
"Then, I'd like to take you up on it."
"Other than your deal with a prisoner, is there any particular reason why you've arrived at this decision? Because I think we both know it'll be a bumpy ride."
"Bumpy ride or not, let's just say that it's about time that the odd coffin was treated to a few nails."
On the Friday morning, one week after the funeral, two weeks since the end of the trial and exactly four weeks since she'd first gone to Yvonne's for dinner, Karen was sitting at her desk, preparing for several induction interviews she had to do that day. There seemed to have been an upsurge in the amount of women being sentenced to fairly lengthy stays in prison. She briefly wondered if this was as a result of the blazing hot weather that had taken over most people's lives throughout July and August. Heat always creates a rise in bad temper and therefore a dramatic increase in spur of the moment violent crimes. Finding that she had half an hour to spare before the new inmates began arriving to see her, Karen left her office and walked down on to the wing. There was something slightly comforting about the sight of the two Julies, one up on the 2's and one down in the association area, mopping away with gusto. Karen found herself thinking that her wing wouldn't be quite the same once they left, though that wouldn't be for another few years yet. As sad as this notion was, they'd been part of Larkhall since her arrival, two of the fixtures and fittings so to speak. Tina was sat at one of the tables, clearly wrestling over some work for one of her education classes. After her initial reluctance, Tina had been persuaded to take up education again in an effort to ensure her some sort of employment once she got out, which wouldn't be all that long now. She called to Karen as she passed.
"Miss, have you got a minute?" Karen stopped next to her.
"What is it, Tina?"
"Yesterday, I got given this for homework, only I've forgotten how she said to do it," She said, clearly talking about her tutor. Taking a seat beside her, Karen looked over her shoulder at the GCSE Maths textbook.
"It's a very long time since I did Maths at school, Tina, but I'll try anything once."
"Only, you're always faffing about with budgets, at least that's what Miss Barker always says, so I figured you'd have to be good at this." Thinking that Tina had a valid point, Karen glanced at the simple algebra problem Tina was working on and attempted to explain it to her.
"But what I don't understand," Said Tina after a while. "Is when you have say 12X and 3Y, what does X and Y actually mean?"
"They don't actually mean anything," Replied Karen, "X and Y are simply there to make the two values separate from each other."
"So, what's the point of that then?" Asked Tina, clearly mystified. Karen smiled.
"Would it help you to understand it better if they meant something tangible, something you could actually see?"
"Yeah, I think so." Karen stood up and walked over to the servery counter, returning with a handful of forks and teaspoons. with the use of these prison issue bits of plastic, she was able to explain the simpler points of algebra to Tina in a manner easier for her to grasp. As she left her at the table, pushing the plastic cutlery around to help her answer the list of problems the tutor had set her, Karen fondly remembered the times she'd helped Ross with his homework. If only he'd let her help him now. She would if he asked for it, if he really wanted the help, but he didn't. He was insisting on having his independence yet making no move to do anything with his life.
"You should have been a teacher, Miss," Said Julie Johnston, coming over with her mop and bucket, clearly having watched the little scene.
"Thirty fourteen-year-olds who clearly don't want to be there?" Said Karen with a slight shake of the head, "No thanks."
"Sounds a bit like here," observed Julie.
"How's Rhiannon?" Asked Karen, remembering the mouthy sixteen-year-old who'd been in for shop lifting.
"Well, she's got herself a job and has gone back to college," Replied Julie, "But I got a letter from her this week saying she'd been living with some bloke who was knocking her around. She's left him now though, thank god."
"Men, eh," Said Karen, in clear criticism of the entire male population.
"Yeah," Replied Julie, beginning to mop the floor of the servery, "It's no wonder so many girls change sides." A soft smile crossed Karen's face as she thought of her budding relationship with Yvonne. They'd not seen too much of each other over the last week, and they certainly hadn't made love since the end of the trial, but Karen knew this would pick up again when the time was right. Simply knowing the other was there, in thought if not in body, seemed to be enough for the moment. Yvonne was struggling to sort herself out after Ritchie's death, and Karen was quite prepared to give her as much time and space as she needed. She was brought back to the present when Julie asked,
"Have you heard how Yvonne is, Miss? Only we heard you was at court with her all through the trial. Me and Julie was going to ring her, but we didn't like to intrude."
"I'm sure she'd love to hear from you," Replied Karen. "I think she could do with knowing that her friends are there for her right now."
"Oh, right. Well, we might give her a ring later then."
"Have you seen Denny?" Asked Karen, realising that one of the usual group of inmates was missing. Julie called up this enquiry to Julie Saunders who was still up on the 3's, but came to look over the rail.
"Try the gym. She said something about wanting to kick the shit out of someone and that at least she wouldn't get any more time if it was a punch bag." As Karen walked off towards the gym, she got the feeling that her round this morning had felt like she was checking on her flock, her brood, her little clan of whom she was in charge. This was ridiculous, she sternly told herself. After all, most of them were fully grown women and in some cases far better at looking after themselves than she had ever been.
As Karen approached the gym, she could hear Denny's voice, clearly screaming insults at some hopefully imaginary being. She opened the door slightly, not wanting to startle Denny when she was obviously in a mood for violence. Denny was laying in to one of the punch bags, really giving it hell with both fists and one of her feet. As Karen watched her, she became aware that Denny was treating the punch bag as if it were Snowball. There were tears running freely down Denny's face, and she was letting go all her rage, not just for Shaz's death, but clearly for Snowball having taken the easy way out. Slowly, very slowly, Karen approached her. She didn't say anything, didn't try to interrupt Denny as she thought this was something Denny had needed to do for a long time. For Denny, raging was a necessary part of the grieving process. As Karen stood and watched from the sidelines, a line from John Grisham's The Pellican Brief came to mind.
"The soul needs a brief, very intense period of grieving, then it moves to the next phase. But it must have the pain. It must suffer without restraint before it can move on." It was a while ago that Karen had read this book, but the quote seemed to fit. When Shaz had been killed, Denny hadn't been able to go through this initial, necessary phase of grieving. Karen was forced to admit that this was mainly because Denny had been housed on the same wing as Shaz's killer and so had been forcefully reminded of the brutal way in which Shaz had died every day since. It seemed that Denny was only able to as Grisham had put it, "Grieve without restraint", once Shaz's killer had also died. When Denny finally ran out of energy, she slid to the floor, great tearing sobs wracking her entire body. Knowing that it was now safe to approach her, Karen knelt down beside Denny and put her arms round her. Not knowing or not caring who it was, Denny clung to Karen as if some invisible force were trying to tare her away. Karen murmured words of comfort until Denny eventually began to calm down. Realising that Denny had hit crisis point, Karen gently helped her to her feet and took her arm to lead her out of the gym. As they walked along the wing, Sylvia appeared.
"Blood, where've you been? You should be stuffing envelopes."
"Denny's going to my office with me," Karen smartly replied. "And she won't be stuffing any envelopes for the rest of the day. Is that clear?"
"Why, what's wrong with her?" Asked Sylvia scornfully.
"Sylvia, is it totally beyond your capability to occasionally show a small amount of sensitivity?"
"The likes of Denny Blood wouldn't know sensitivity if it banged them up and through away the key," Sylvia observed.
"Well, it's lucky for Denny that I don't agree with you," Said Karen, letting herself and Denny through the gate at the end of the wing and walking towards her office.
Once Denny had been seated in a chair and handed a box of tissues, Karen lit them both a cigarette. She had known this time might come, when Denny would need to release all her pain, break a hole in the badly constructed and maintained dam of her feelings, and she'd been ready for it. Denny needed to do this, as in her own way Yvonne was doing. But unlike Denny, Yvonne had been allowed to begin her grieving process immediately, instead of having to wait until the cause of her grief was dead and gone. Karen took a chair near Denny and simply waited. This wounded child needed no prompting, for her story would spill out of her soon enough. Karen did not have to wait long.
"Shaz was the only one who ever believed in me right from the start," She began shakily. "I didn't have to prove myself to her, I wasn't useful to her, she just liked me. No-one had ever done that, not even my own mother. She was the craziest girl I ever knew, but she was mine. She'd only been in here two days when we snuck out and she made Bodybag think the wing had a ghost." Remembering the episode of the supposed poltergeists or gremlins, Karen briefly smiled. "Shaz was a total nutter, but none of that mattered. Even when I got out for that six months with Shell, Shaz still forgave me. But then she had that run in with Maxi and nearly got fitted up for killing Yvonne, and that's where everything went wrong. She had a score to settle with Maxi after that, and nothing was going to stop her. Maxi wanted that fight as much as Shaz did, but no-one thought Maxi would top herself. I mean, she was a Purvis and they didn't do things like that. When Shaz got ghosted, she couldn't even write to me because Bodybag kept binning her letters. I only knew because Babs rescued a few of them for me. Then my mum died, without even once coming off the drink or trying to see me again. When I found out Shaz was coming in on the open day, it was like I couldn't see any further than that. It was the only thing I cared about. She brought in some magic mushrooms with her and we got stoned. We was on this boat, and we could see the stars. I ain't ever been anywhere so beautiful. We could feel the waves, gently rocking the boat, and Shaz kept saying I had to save her from the sharks." At this beautiful illustration of a drug-induced fantasy, Karen again found herself thinking of Grisham and The Pelican Brief, of the law student Darbi Shaw, who had escaped from everything she feared to the small harbour of Charlotte Amilie on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. This was in effect what Shaz and Denny had done, escaped by way of a few magic mushrooms to their own sweet, safe haven. But Denny's story worked in reverse to that of the legendary Darbi Shaw. Denny's began with pain, with the soft, seductive twilight in the middle, followed by even more pain. Darbi Shaw had almost been killed alongside her lover, but had been spared by the mere fact that she refused to get in the car with a man intent on driving under the influence. Denny ought to have been killed alongside Shaz in the grand scheme of things, and had only been spared because she had a higher tolerance to illegal drugs than Shaz did. The slightly mutated similarities and differences of these two stories struck Karen as odd, as if some writer way up there had jumbled up the facts. It was almost as if the interfering hand of some unknown deity had handed out to both Darbi Shaw and Denny Blood the haven to which they could escape at a time of crisis, and the guilt of being spared only by a chance of fate when their lover's by coincidence were killed amidst enormous explosions. There, they parted company, the fiction and the fact. Darbi Shaw spent two weeks running the length and breadth of America, hiding from the FBI, the CIA and a serial terrorist named Carmelle. Denny Blood on the other hand was tormented for more than a year by having to live within close proximity to the one who had caused Shaz's death. Strange though that one story had been about a law student and the other a criminal.
"What did you want to happen to Snowball, Denny?" Karen asked softly.
"I wanted her to suffer, like my Shaz suffered."
"Do you not think that maybe she did? It's not every day that people commit suicide."
"You ain't been in the job long enough if you think that, Miss. Snowball cut her wrists because she was shit scared of spending another twenty odd years in this dump. She still hadn't got it in to her thick head that she killed Shaz, and almost killed a load of others. She thought that because she didn't mean it, it wasn't her fault. I just hope she's suffering wherever she is now, but I doubt it. Things like that never happen to them that deserve it most, Crystal told me that. She came out with a load of bollocks most of the time, but there'd be the odd thing that made sense."
"Where do you see yourself going from here?" Asked Karen, knowing it was a stupid question, but needing to ask it.
"The only one as ever really loved me ain't here no more, so I don't know."
"I know someone who needs you now a lot more than you seem to think she does, Yvonne." Denny briefly cast a wistful gaze at the packet of cigarettes and Karen handed her one.
"She's got Lauren, innit," Said Denny succinctly, taking a long drag.
"Yes, she has," conceded Karen, "But that doesn't mean she doesn't need you too. She lost her son in probably the worst way possible two weeks ago, and she needs all the love and support she can get."
"From what I could see," Said Denny conversationally, "She's getting plenty of that from you." Karen briefly blushed, not altogether happy with discussing her private life with an inmate.
"I'm not talking that kind of support," Replied Karen, not committing herself to anything that hours later might be turned in to G wing gossip.
"Are you really sure she wants me around after I get out?" Asked Denny.
"Yes," Replied Karen without hesitation. "The way she sees it, the sooner you get out the better. I'd like to do a deal with you. Now that Snowball's gone, you can begin to think about getting on with your life, really thinking about getting out. Will you try to knuckle down, try to behave for the rest of your sentence, maybe get a better job or do some education classes which would certainly give the parole board something to think about. You wouldn't just be doing this for you, you'd be doing it for Yvonne."
"Miss, you said deal. What's your side of it?" Karen lit another cigarette for herself, not looking forward to what was coming, though it was made much easier by the fact that any long-term prisoner has ears on elastic.
"Some time last year, I was raped."
"I know," Said Denny, leaving Karen utterly gobsmacked. "It was Fenner, wasn't it?" Asked Denny after a short silence. Recovering her momentary loss of equilibrium, Karen asked,
"How did you know?"
"You hear things in this place, sometimes things you shouldn't. I heard it said that the dick of a barrister who was working for Merriman at the start of the trial tried to ask you about an allegation you'd made against Fenner."
"Where did you hear this?"
"Bodybag's got a big mouth, Miss." Privately vowing to bang Sylvia up in her very own cell, Karen said,
"What made you so certain it was true."
"Jesus, you've got a lot to learn," Replied Denny scornfully. "If someone accuses Fenner of rape, it's true. There's never any doubt. You weren't here in the old days when he had the pick of the place, even before Miss Stewart came. Shell Dockley and Rachel Hicks was only two of them." Karen stared at Denny slightly agog, never having heard such words of bitterness and wisdom come out of the mouth of anyone like Denny.
"Well," Went on Karen, continuing her explanation. "The barrister who prosecuted Snowball, offered to help me put a case together against Fenner and what with everything that's happened over the last four weeks, I've avoided thinking about it. If you agree to keep your nose clean and to get out as soon as you possibly can for Yvonne, I'll contact this barrister and start a serious case against Fenner. Do we have a deal?"
"It's gonna be as hard for you to do that as it is for me to be good, innit Miss?"
"Yes."
"Then yeah, you've got a deal." Karen and Denny formally shook hands over their pact, because this was as serious a bargain as either of them had ever entered in too.
When Karen had escorted Denny back to the wing, she returned to her office and picked up the card that had been leering at her for three weeks now. It simply said Jo Mills QC, and gave her office address, e-mail address and telephone and mobile numbers. Lifting the receiver, Karen punched in the number that would eventually lead her in to the unknown territory of being considered a suspect or at the very least an accessory to murder. When she was finally put through to Jo Mills, she said,
"Jo, it's Karen Betts." After a moment's hesitation, Jo answered,
"I wondered if I might hear from you. How are you?"
"I appear to have committed myself to a deal with an inmate that leads me to require your services," Replied Karen.
"Not as defence, I hope." Karen laughed nervously.
"No. Would your offer of three weeks ago still be open?"
"If you mean am I still willing to help you put together a case against James Fenner, then the answer's yes."
"Then, I'd like to take you up on it."
"Other than your deal with a prisoner, is there any particular reason why you've arrived at this decision? Because I think we both know it'll be a bumpy ride."
"Bumpy ride or not, let's just say that it's about time that the odd coffin was treated to a few nails."