Part Seventy Eight
"So after days of work, the firm's not got as much as a hint as to where Miss Stewart is hiding out, is that it, Lauren?"
"Whatever she's done, she's done a better job of hiding her tracks than the guys who pulled off the Great Train Robbery," Came the succinct reply.
This led to a long meditative silence as two very sharp female minds ran over the impossible conundrum which had also baffled Grayling's 'old boys' network. The only difference was their intelligence network used different contacts and ran on slightly more illegal lines of operation and control.
"How do you find an ex Wing Governor of a prison who doesn't want to be found?" Yvonne said meditatively, helping herself to a glass of wine and reaching for a cigarette .
"Simple. By tracing her girlfriend as well and where the trails meet, there they are," Lauren said promptly, a blinding revelation illuminating her hopes. Why in hell had they used straight line thinking up till now?
"What if they've split up? It happens."
"Is that the voice of experience talking?" Lauren asked mockingly.
"We've got to use every possible lead, however daft it sounds. But then again they could have done a runner overseas. Nikki was always talking about going to San Francisco. That's the place they all head off to."
"Never knew that Nikki wanted to hang out with all the hippies," Lauren said teasingly at which point Yvonne threw a cushion in Lauren's direction, half playfully, half in exasperation.
"What did Nikki do for a living before she got banged up?" Lauren said in a slow meditative voice.
A light visibly dawned on Yvonne's face as that priceless bit of data was retrieved from an obscure neglected corner of her massive memory bank and she grabbed for a phone.
"Cassie Tyler here, what can I do for you?" answered the very businesslike tone far removed from her usual manner of speaking.
"It's Yvonne here, you dickhead," came the friendly banter in the unmistakeable voice that did not need any enlightening as to which Yvonne that might be of her wide circle of business and personal contacts that might be. "I want you to track down a list of gay clubs for women and phone me back straight away."
"Is this the Yvonne Atkins that once gave me the brush off saying that she was interested only if there was a six foot hunk of man on the end of it?" Cassie asked teasingly, her grin very audible.
If only there was a way of lobbing a very hard object down the phone that it would clout that smartarse pisstaker round the ear, she thought with gritted teeth much to Lauren's amusement. So long as it was meant in fun, Mum was so good to wind up. She rises to the bait every time.
"Not for me, you stupid plonker," Yvonne's robust tone of voice reverberated down the phone in forcible tones that a sergeant major on a parade ground would admire. "I want to trace Nikki Wade or Helen Stewart. Nikki's the likelier one."
"Hold on, Yvonne," Cassie said as she took the phone away from her ear and gave the luckless office junior who came through the door an earbending. "As you know, I've been out of circulation on the singles scene so I'll have to contact some of my more disreputable friends to help me out. I'll pop in on that gay bar I took Lauren to a month ago and she got me pissed. I'll phone you back."
Yvonne raised her eyebrows at this very interesting fact but shrugged her shoulders. The main thing was that Cassie was on the case and she could be depended on to come up with the goods.
Cassie left work and zoomed off in her blue Peugeot car like a woman on a mission. After cutting past a series of dithering drivers, she reached her destination and was relieved to see the early evening revellers already in their places though it was quiet this time in the evening. Approaching her was a likely source of information, the most promiscuous woman she had ever known and therefore the likeliest to be informative. The downside was that she was totally treacherous.
"Well hello, Cassie. And how is married life suiting you or are you going off the idea?" that irritating ex of hers smiled invitingly. "I must say, I liked the look of that dark haired girlfriend that you sneaked off with."
The place gave her a peculiar but half pleasurably nostalgic feeling of past experiences, past existences but Cassie was in no mood to tell that treacherous posh bitch that she was way off the mark as usual.
"Never you mind the mate I was having a friendly drink with, Virginia," Cassie snapped, laying heavy emphasis on the word mate and sarcastic emphasis on the woman's grotesquely inappropriate name. "I am sure that you are the same sleeparound woman that I've known you to be. I'm asking you as a friend for the names of the gay clubs. Not the big cattle markets, just the smaller more intimate places."
"You should know. You've been to them all, Cassie darling," The woman with the long dark hair teased her.
This woman is going to play stupid games, Cassie thought and I'm going to be stuck here forever.
"I'll let you into a secret, Virginia," Cassie said in a low confiding whisper. "I do want to pull that bird I brought in that night only she's a bit nervous. It's her first time. I need the name of a few places that won't scare her off."
An evil smile spread over Virginia's very made up face. She loved all the juicy gossip and the thought of spoiling Cassie's virtuous act gave her malicious pleasure. She would have loved to be the one to take Cassie off the straight and narrow but that woman Cassie was with would do very nicely.
"Well, if I were taking a woman out on her first night, Cassie, I couldn't do better than taking her to 'Chix'.I'll write down the address for you," and she fished around in her handbag for a pen and paper. "Very discreet, very friendly. If you take her there, she'll be yours. You tell me how you got on. As you know, I love to hear all the gossip."
"I'm sure that you do, Virginia," the smile on Cassie's face pulled at her unwilling facial muscles. "You'll be the first to hear when I shag her."
She's fallen for that one, hook line and sinker, Cassie thought with grim satisfaction. If she had made a request on straight friendship grounds, she would have been stuck here all night with that bitch acting hard to get and she would have had to offer to spend the night with her to get the information. Once she appealed to the meanest lowest human motives imaginable, she gets the information at once. Briefly, the very attractive memory of kissing Lauren at that spin the bottle party flashed into her mind but this cow wasn't going to know that.
"You're not staying for a drink,Cassie?" drawled Virginia.
"Some other time. I've got a hot date waiting for me. At least, she will be when I've finished with her." Cassie smiled, making her best theatrical exit in her brief role as seductress before zooming off in her car to be welcomed by her beloved, Roisin and their kids. Before she put the key into the ignition, she reached for her mobile.
"Right, Lauren. I'm off to this 'Chix' place. How do I look?" Yvonne asked nervously. "I've never been in a place like this before."
Lauren sighed at her mother who, most unusually, was nervous and was obvious about it.
"You're going to be all right. You're going to see Nikki, remember. She said that Mondays are quiet nights. You'll have time to talk and catch up on the old days and everything. Now, leave it to me, you need a little bit of adjustment," And Lauren straightened Yvonne's clothes in the same way that mum did for her when she was little and about to set off for school.
Yvonne turned off the main thoroughfare where middle England walked the streets and left up a quiet sidestreet, past the glass windowed office front. She looked up and spotted the sign in question. Before entering the front door, she hesitated a second while she plucked up her courage. This place isn't bleeding Sodom and Gomorrah, you stupid cow, she thought to herself, I'm one of them now anyway. You've gone into some dodgy criminal dives in your time that would make anyone else run away screaming in fright.
With that thought in mind, she opened the door and tried to adjust her eyes to the relative gloom. The place was nice and welcoming, the sort of place she could go with Karen quite easily.
"Yvonne!" A familiar well modulated voice carried across the club and Nikki virtually ran over to her with a huge smile on her face. She gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek.
"It's been so long since I've seen you. What are you having? The drink is on me for a change."
Immediately, warm nostalgic memories flooded back into both their minds and the taste of the little miniature bottles of spirits was all the sweeter and more precious as it was so rare and was thanks to Yvonne's resourcefulness. Now both women were on the outside, both more prosperous but both were alike in not forgetting the days of poverty and deprivation. For that memory alone, both women were not the same as the women who were first taken through the prison gates in a white prison cattle truck.
"Can you two see to everything. I'm going into the back room with an old friend of mine. Any problems, then you come and see me," Nikki called out to the barmaids in a voice of authority. Her evident air of command impressed Yvonne greatly who had direct experience of her background for the first time in her life. Back in Larkhall, ultimately it didn't matter who you were before you were banged up. It was the person you were that mattered and you were stripped of all the accessories from the outside world that were labelled and packaged away until your release.
"I've heard about you and Karen Betts. Tell me, was it the uniform that attracted you the same way that it did for me and Helen?" Nikki's eyes danced with mischief. She couldn't believe her ears when she had heard about the ultra straight Yvonne and the equally ultra straight Karen.
"Piss off, Nikki," Yvonne retorted with all the genuine affection that she had always felt for her.
"I want to say how really sorry I felt for you when I read about the death of your son," she said, every intonation in her voice expressing her heartfelt sorrow for her. That is Nikki all over, Yvonne felt with a tear in her own eye. If those words had come from some bleeding politician, she would brush it and the person away as bullshit but not Nikki.
"I mean I never knew him but if I had, I would have felt for him. Me and the Julies had to deal with Monica Lindsey when she tried to OD on tablets and I remember that kind of desperation in her," She stammered."Why did you never talk about him before?"
"We fell out when Charlie tried to nail Ritchie to the floorboards. I took Charlie's side. Ritchie never forgave me." Yvonne looked away, speaking in flat bitter words that chopped off all emotion on the surface but told an astute observer like Nikki all she needed to know about her real feelings on the matter. The terrifying absence of any mention of Ritchie and the memory of her obvious deep affection for Lauren spoke volumes .Till she read about it in the sort of impersonal newspaper that is usually sold over the counter, she had never known from the very real flesh and blood Yvonne that she even had a son.
"That isn't what I came to see you about, Nikki, not even to talk about old times," Yvonne said presently, her eyes that had been staring vacantly away into the distance and were now being focussed on the other woman. "There are plans to nail Fenner and we were wondering if Helen would help, that is, if you are with her."
"In what way,Yvonne and what sort of plans," Came the sharp reply. The words spurred the old adrenaline rush of the two of them together in another partnership though the mention of Helen's name rang a tiny warning bell at the back of her head.
"Karen wants to land Fenner in the dock on a charge of rape. And we could do with Helen's testimony as Wing Governor as she investigated a lot of Fenner's dirty dealings. Dockley, O'Kane, Rachel Hicks She's an ex suit and you must know that that has more clout than a couple of ex cons."
Nikki was about to flare up in anger at Yvonne to hear herself described that way until a visual flash of the tearful yet authoritative evidence provided by Sally Ann Howe ,a one time police colleague of DC Gossard was instrumental in discrediting him and securing her own release. Things were not the same as when they were in Larkhall. Her own abilities in either running a gay club or running up against the hated screws at Larkhall weren't enough.
"Yeah, Nikki, it's amazing what the difference the right way of presenting a case in court makes. I've had a ringside seat in watching how that murdering tart and my son were nailed up far tighter the legal way than any of my mob could do it. The judge who sent them down is a decent man and I never even knew that such people existed."
Nikki shook her head in wonder and disbelief at Yvonne's new found respect for the law and that ,in contrast, Yvonne of all people, accepted the limits of her own power in the same breath as defining Nikki's.
"So where do I come in, Yvonne?" she asked.
"Can you talk to Helen and persuade her to give evidence in support of Karen."
Nikki bit her lip as the first onrush of delight in seeing Fenner get what was coming to him died down. The vision of Fenner in the dock was totally irresistable and it was much more satisfying and permanent than the time she scared him rigid with his very real fear that she would stick a broken milk bottle in his neck in the same way that she had done for Gossard. The pause for thought recalled Helen's total blind panic at the thought of being slightly involved with the goings on at Larkhall, even in a righteous cause. She knew only too well from Helen her passionate scorn and feelings of hurt that Karen ,of all people, had taken Fenner's side, even to the point of threatening Helen with charges of harassing Fenner of all people. If she was honest with herself, she had mixed feelings about getting involved with a part of her past that she was trying to move on from. There were bittersweet memories of all the blind anger against injustice, all the close feelings of friendship, all the love she had felt for Helen and the pain also. Certainly, Fenner had it coming to him but why them? Surely, they had bled enough from the crucifixion for long enough. Do they have to get up, once again, on the cross?
"I don't know, Yvonne," She said to the other woman's dismay. The light of battle which had so inspired Yvonne in her own will to resist in the past was fading off Nikki's face. "there are a lot of problems with this one. For a start, I know how strongly Helen feels about the way that Karen stood up for Fenner against her even to this day. She had warned her right from the very start what he was really like. For another, Helen is petrified at the thought of going back to a part of the past which she escaped from by the skin of her teeth. She's been having nightmares recently ever since the papers came out with all that trial stuff………"
"That's got bugger all to do with Fenner. He was only one of the witnesses that were stacked up against that murdering tart and her boyfriend."
Nikki winced at the way that Yvonne distanced herself from her own son when he was mentioned in the same breath as his girlfriend.
"You're thinking logically, Yvonne," She patiently reasoned back at her. "The fact that the trial is in any way connected with Larkhall is what she's afraid of."
"Fenner ought to be the one that is bleeding scared of us, not the other way round. I threatened him that he'll be finding out what's on the bottom of the Thames as I had my fingers round his throat if he laid one more finger on Karen," Came the vengeful reply.
"Still the same Yvonne," Nikki grinned broadly at the entrancing vision before her eyes.
"Why don't you talk to Helen. See what she says. She may surprise you and me and herself," Yvonne pleaded with Nikki, something she very rarely did.
"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll talk to Helen about it but I'm making no promises as to whether or not she'll agree to it. You must understand this and why. In the meantime, why don't you stop here for another drink, Have a look round the place," Nikki said expansively and proudly.
Yvonne followed Nikki through the door to the club where women were starting to drift in and she couldn't get over the fact that this was a place where women together was perfectly natural. The monumental row she had with Lauren was something she would not lightly forget. Neither was the way that these women must have worked out their identities in the same way that she and Karen were doing.
"So after days of work, the firm's not got as much as a hint as to where Miss Stewart is hiding out, is that it, Lauren?"
"Whatever she's done, she's done a better job of hiding her tracks than the guys who pulled off the Great Train Robbery," Came the succinct reply.
This led to a long meditative silence as two very sharp female minds ran over the impossible conundrum which had also baffled Grayling's 'old boys' network. The only difference was their intelligence network used different contacts and ran on slightly more illegal lines of operation and control.
"How do you find an ex Wing Governor of a prison who doesn't want to be found?" Yvonne said meditatively, helping herself to a glass of wine and reaching for a cigarette .
"Simple. By tracing her girlfriend as well and where the trails meet, there they are," Lauren said promptly, a blinding revelation illuminating her hopes. Why in hell had they used straight line thinking up till now?
"What if they've split up? It happens."
"Is that the voice of experience talking?" Lauren asked mockingly.
"We've got to use every possible lead, however daft it sounds. But then again they could have done a runner overseas. Nikki was always talking about going to San Francisco. That's the place they all head off to."
"Never knew that Nikki wanted to hang out with all the hippies," Lauren said teasingly at which point Yvonne threw a cushion in Lauren's direction, half playfully, half in exasperation.
"What did Nikki do for a living before she got banged up?" Lauren said in a slow meditative voice.
A light visibly dawned on Yvonne's face as that priceless bit of data was retrieved from an obscure neglected corner of her massive memory bank and she grabbed for a phone.
"Cassie Tyler here, what can I do for you?" answered the very businesslike tone far removed from her usual manner of speaking.
"It's Yvonne here, you dickhead," came the friendly banter in the unmistakeable voice that did not need any enlightening as to which Yvonne that might be of her wide circle of business and personal contacts that might be. "I want you to track down a list of gay clubs for women and phone me back straight away."
"Is this the Yvonne Atkins that once gave me the brush off saying that she was interested only if there was a six foot hunk of man on the end of it?" Cassie asked teasingly, her grin very audible.
If only there was a way of lobbing a very hard object down the phone that it would clout that smartarse pisstaker round the ear, she thought with gritted teeth much to Lauren's amusement. So long as it was meant in fun, Mum was so good to wind up. She rises to the bait every time.
"Not for me, you stupid plonker," Yvonne's robust tone of voice reverberated down the phone in forcible tones that a sergeant major on a parade ground would admire. "I want to trace Nikki Wade or Helen Stewart. Nikki's the likelier one."
"Hold on, Yvonne," Cassie said as she took the phone away from her ear and gave the luckless office junior who came through the door an earbending. "As you know, I've been out of circulation on the singles scene so I'll have to contact some of my more disreputable friends to help me out. I'll pop in on that gay bar I took Lauren to a month ago and she got me pissed. I'll phone you back."
Yvonne raised her eyebrows at this very interesting fact but shrugged her shoulders. The main thing was that Cassie was on the case and she could be depended on to come up with the goods.
Cassie left work and zoomed off in her blue Peugeot car like a woman on a mission. After cutting past a series of dithering drivers, she reached her destination and was relieved to see the early evening revellers already in their places though it was quiet this time in the evening. Approaching her was a likely source of information, the most promiscuous woman she had ever known and therefore the likeliest to be informative. The downside was that she was totally treacherous.
"Well hello, Cassie. And how is married life suiting you or are you going off the idea?" that irritating ex of hers smiled invitingly. "I must say, I liked the look of that dark haired girlfriend that you sneaked off with."
The place gave her a peculiar but half pleasurably nostalgic feeling of past experiences, past existences but Cassie was in no mood to tell that treacherous posh bitch that she was way off the mark as usual.
"Never you mind the mate I was having a friendly drink with, Virginia," Cassie snapped, laying heavy emphasis on the word mate and sarcastic emphasis on the woman's grotesquely inappropriate name. "I am sure that you are the same sleeparound woman that I've known you to be. I'm asking you as a friend for the names of the gay clubs. Not the big cattle markets, just the smaller more intimate places."
"You should know. You've been to them all, Cassie darling," The woman with the long dark hair teased her.
This woman is going to play stupid games, Cassie thought and I'm going to be stuck here forever.
"I'll let you into a secret, Virginia," Cassie said in a low confiding whisper. "I do want to pull that bird I brought in that night only she's a bit nervous. It's her first time. I need the name of a few places that won't scare her off."
An evil smile spread over Virginia's very made up face. She loved all the juicy gossip and the thought of spoiling Cassie's virtuous act gave her malicious pleasure. She would have loved to be the one to take Cassie off the straight and narrow but that woman Cassie was with would do very nicely.
"Well, if I were taking a woman out on her first night, Cassie, I couldn't do better than taking her to 'Chix'.I'll write down the address for you," and she fished around in her handbag for a pen and paper. "Very discreet, very friendly. If you take her there, she'll be yours. You tell me how you got on. As you know, I love to hear all the gossip."
"I'm sure that you do, Virginia," the smile on Cassie's face pulled at her unwilling facial muscles. "You'll be the first to hear when I shag her."
She's fallen for that one, hook line and sinker, Cassie thought with grim satisfaction. If she had made a request on straight friendship grounds, she would have been stuck here all night with that bitch acting hard to get and she would have had to offer to spend the night with her to get the information. Once she appealed to the meanest lowest human motives imaginable, she gets the information at once. Briefly, the very attractive memory of kissing Lauren at that spin the bottle party flashed into her mind but this cow wasn't going to know that.
"You're not staying for a drink,Cassie?" drawled Virginia.
"Some other time. I've got a hot date waiting for me. At least, she will be when I've finished with her." Cassie smiled, making her best theatrical exit in her brief role as seductress before zooming off in her car to be welcomed by her beloved, Roisin and their kids. Before she put the key into the ignition, she reached for her mobile.
"Right, Lauren. I'm off to this 'Chix' place. How do I look?" Yvonne asked nervously. "I've never been in a place like this before."
Lauren sighed at her mother who, most unusually, was nervous and was obvious about it.
"You're going to be all right. You're going to see Nikki, remember. She said that Mondays are quiet nights. You'll have time to talk and catch up on the old days and everything. Now, leave it to me, you need a little bit of adjustment," And Lauren straightened Yvonne's clothes in the same way that mum did for her when she was little and about to set off for school.
Yvonne turned off the main thoroughfare where middle England walked the streets and left up a quiet sidestreet, past the glass windowed office front. She looked up and spotted the sign in question. Before entering the front door, she hesitated a second while she plucked up her courage. This place isn't bleeding Sodom and Gomorrah, you stupid cow, she thought to herself, I'm one of them now anyway. You've gone into some dodgy criminal dives in your time that would make anyone else run away screaming in fright.
With that thought in mind, she opened the door and tried to adjust her eyes to the relative gloom. The place was nice and welcoming, the sort of place she could go with Karen quite easily.
"Yvonne!" A familiar well modulated voice carried across the club and Nikki virtually ran over to her with a huge smile on her face. She gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek.
"It's been so long since I've seen you. What are you having? The drink is on me for a change."
Immediately, warm nostalgic memories flooded back into both their minds and the taste of the little miniature bottles of spirits was all the sweeter and more precious as it was so rare and was thanks to Yvonne's resourcefulness. Now both women were on the outside, both more prosperous but both were alike in not forgetting the days of poverty and deprivation. For that memory alone, both women were not the same as the women who were first taken through the prison gates in a white prison cattle truck.
"Can you two see to everything. I'm going into the back room with an old friend of mine. Any problems, then you come and see me," Nikki called out to the barmaids in a voice of authority. Her evident air of command impressed Yvonne greatly who had direct experience of her background for the first time in her life. Back in Larkhall, ultimately it didn't matter who you were before you were banged up. It was the person you were that mattered and you were stripped of all the accessories from the outside world that were labelled and packaged away until your release.
"I've heard about you and Karen Betts. Tell me, was it the uniform that attracted you the same way that it did for me and Helen?" Nikki's eyes danced with mischief. She couldn't believe her ears when she had heard about the ultra straight Yvonne and the equally ultra straight Karen.
"Piss off, Nikki," Yvonne retorted with all the genuine affection that she had always felt for her.
"I want to say how really sorry I felt for you when I read about the death of your son," she said, every intonation in her voice expressing her heartfelt sorrow for her. That is Nikki all over, Yvonne felt with a tear in her own eye. If those words had come from some bleeding politician, she would brush it and the person away as bullshit but not Nikki.
"I mean I never knew him but if I had, I would have felt for him. Me and the Julies had to deal with Monica Lindsey when she tried to OD on tablets and I remember that kind of desperation in her," She stammered."Why did you never talk about him before?"
"We fell out when Charlie tried to nail Ritchie to the floorboards. I took Charlie's side. Ritchie never forgave me." Yvonne looked away, speaking in flat bitter words that chopped off all emotion on the surface but told an astute observer like Nikki all she needed to know about her real feelings on the matter. The terrifying absence of any mention of Ritchie and the memory of her obvious deep affection for Lauren spoke volumes .Till she read about it in the sort of impersonal newspaper that is usually sold over the counter, she had never known from the very real flesh and blood Yvonne that she even had a son.
"That isn't what I came to see you about, Nikki, not even to talk about old times," Yvonne said presently, her eyes that had been staring vacantly away into the distance and were now being focussed on the other woman. "There are plans to nail Fenner and we were wondering if Helen would help, that is, if you are with her."
"In what way,Yvonne and what sort of plans," Came the sharp reply. The words spurred the old adrenaline rush of the two of them together in another partnership though the mention of Helen's name rang a tiny warning bell at the back of her head.
"Karen wants to land Fenner in the dock on a charge of rape. And we could do with Helen's testimony as Wing Governor as she investigated a lot of Fenner's dirty dealings. Dockley, O'Kane, Rachel Hicks She's an ex suit and you must know that that has more clout than a couple of ex cons."
Nikki was about to flare up in anger at Yvonne to hear herself described that way until a visual flash of the tearful yet authoritative evidence provided by Sally Ann Howe ,a one time police colleague of DC Gossard was instrumental in discrediting him and securing her own release. Things were not the same as when they were in Larkhall. Her own abilities in either running a gay club or running up against the hated screws at Larkhall weren't enough.
"Yeah, Nikki, it's amazing what the difference the right way of presenting a case in court makes. I've had a ringside seat in watching how that murdering tart and my son were nailed up far tighter the legal way than any of my mob could do it. The judge who sent them down is a decent man and I never even knew that such people existed."
Nikki shook her head in wonder and disbelief at Yvonne's new found respect for the law and that ,in contrast, Yvonne of all people, accepted the limits of her own power in the same breath as defining Nikki's.
"So where do I come in, Yvonne?" she asked.
"Can you talk to Helen and persuade her to give evidence in support of Karen."
Nikki bit her lip as the first onrush of delight in seeing Fenner get what was coming to him died down. The vision of Fenner in the dock was totally irresistable and it was much more satisfying and permanent than the time she scared him rigid with his very real fear that she would stick a broken milk bottle in his neck in the same way that she had done for Gossard. The pause for thought recalled Helen's total blind panic at the thought of being slightly involved with the goings on at Larkhall, even in a righteous cause. She knew only too well from Helen her passionate scorn and feelings of hurt that Karen ,of all people, had taken Fenner's side, even to the point of threatening Helen with charges of harassing Fenner of all people. If she was honest with herself, she had mixed feelings about getting involved with a part of her past that she was trying to move on from. There were bittersweet memories of all the blind anger against injustice, all the close feelings of friendship, all the love she had felt for Helen and the pain also. Certainly, Fenner had it coming to him but why them? Surely, they had bled enough from the crucifixion for long enough. Do they have to get up, once again, on the cross?
"I don't know, Yvonne," She said to the other woman's dismay. The light of battle which had so inspired Yvonne in her own will to resist in the past was fading off Nikki's face. "there are a lot of problems with this one. For a start, I know how strongly Helen feels about the way that Karen stood up for Fenner against her even to this day. She had warned her right from the very start what he was really like. For another, Helen is petrified at the thought of going back to a part of the past which she escaped from by the skin of her teeth. She's been having nightmares recently ever since the papers came out with all that trial stuff………"
"That's got bugger all to do with Fenner. He was only one of the witnesses that were stacked up against that murdering tart and her boyfriend."
Nikki winced at the way that Yvonne distanced herself from her own son when he was mentioned in the same breath as his girlfriend.
"You're thinking logically, Yvonne," She patiently reasoned back at her. "The fact that the trial is in any way connected with Larkhall is what she's afraid of."
"Fenner ought to be the one that is bleeding scared of us, not the other way round. I threatened him that he'll be finding out what's on the bottom of the Thames as I had my fingers round his throat if he laid one more finger on Karen," Came the vengeful reply.
"Still the same Yvonne," Nikki grinned broadly at the entrancing vision before her eyes.
"Why don't you talk to Helen. See what she says. She may surprise you and me and herself," Yvonne pleaded with Nikki, something she very rarely did.
"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll talk to Helen about it but I'm making no promises as to whether or not she'll agree to it. You must understand this and why. In the meantime, why don't you stop here for another drink, Have a look round the place," Nikki said expansively and proudly.
Yvonne followed Nikki through the door to the club where women were starting to drift in and she couldn't get over the fact that this was a place where women together was perfectly natural. The monumental row she had with Lauren was something she would not lightly forget. Neither was the way that these women must have worked out their identities in the same way that she and Karen were doing.