Part Fifty-Seven
"…..Take her down…….." Those words had a finality similar to that of a coffin lid slammed shut. It was not the first time she had heard them. It had happened many years ago when she had been sentenced to four years imprisonment and later when that tart Merriman and her son Ritchie got what was coming to them. But now?
'You are perhaps, one of the most loyal, caring, utterly devoted mothers I have ever had the pleasure to meet, so I know you can do that.' That was the judge's own verdict on her and after sweating out the last weekend and all those months, he had bloody acquitted her. The year that her Lauren got sounded as near to bleeding freedom as she dared hope for. Roisin and Cassie flanked her on either side. Both exchanged anxious glances at her and, together with Babs, knew full well from their experience in the Merriman Atkins trial that Yvonne would have to run the gauntlet of the press. Helen and Nikki had more distant memories to draw on, Nikki with her own trials and Helen who had accompanied Monica Spencer when she was released all those years ago. All of them sharpened their minds to be ready for anything. Karen trailed alongside George as players in the scene who were forced to remain low profile.
Yvonne's legs felt like rubber as she walked through the foyer and her mouth was dry. She had no sense of where she was heading. A dazzling white rectangle of light opened up in front of her and a confused hubbub of noise confused her. "Steady, Yvonne. You're going to have to get clear in your mind what you're going to say to those sharks out there," Helen advised her in her own practical and forward thinking style. "I got to say something to you all now." A wave of emotions engulfed Yvonne as her throaty voice was choked off after the first few words. She was speechless for a minute or two and oblivious to everything round her.
"I may not get a chance to say it later on, but I want to say it now. I wouldn't have made it through till today and neither would my Lauren if it hadn't been for all of you standing by us - yeah and Denny back there in Larkhall, and Jo Mills and the judge. You're all family to me and anytime you want to call round to my place, you've only got to ask." Yvonne dissolved into tears as the full weight of the emotions broke over her.
"Come on, Yvonne Atkins. The press want to get your story for the news headlines." "Give us five minutes and we'll be out," Helen's very carrying voice shut the man up.
"We wouldn't have missed this for the world, Yvonne." "There's no way we would have sat back and not been there for you." "We'll take you up on your offer. Besides, I want to top up my suntan this summer, and your place is the only place private enough so I don't get strap marks with nosy neighbours around. Here, you borrow my mirror so you can fix your makeup." It was a combination of Nikki and Helen's heartfelt words and Cassie's typical mixture of light heartedness. Yvonne hugged the three women in turn and attended to her makeup with her usual skill.
"Are you going to be all right now?" Babs asked anxiously.
Yvonne grinned, her confidence restored. She would have them eating out of her hands and make mincemeat of any young upstart that ran up against her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Karen," and here, for the first time, Yvonne looked directly at the other woman. "Can you make sure that Lauren is looked after when she gets back to Larkhall." "You have my word on it." The way that Karen looked at her straight in the eye and her solid dependability removed her last doubts as to what she knew she must do.
"Mrs. Atkins, don't you think that the absurdly soft sentence that your daughter got would cause the British Public to lose confidence in the legal system?" "Well, Mr. Pressman, it all depends on what sort of tall stories you care to tell them. I wouldn't blame the public for thinking the worst of me if they don't get told what really happened." "Who are all those women with you?" "My friends. They've put themselves out to watch the trial from the visitor's gallery these last two weeks. I can't remember seeing you around." "So how do you explain why an ordinary prison officer is brutally murdered and your daughter is virtually let off?" "I don't want to slag off Mr. Fenner, but if he had been an ordinary Prison Officer, my Lauren would never have laid a finger on him." "That's right. I was once Mr. Fenner's boss," Helen's clear tones rang out and stopped the baying press in its tracks.
"Your son Ritchie Atkins got ten years for merely helping his girlfriend set off an explosion in Larkhall prison, when one person was killed. Your daughter Lauren Atkins who murdered a Prison Officer, gets one year. She was quoted at the time her brother was sent down as saying that he 'got what was coming to him.' Does she feel the same about herself?" Yvonne stared down in contempt at this more dangerous man who had leafed through a pile of press clippings. The other reporters were crude thugs armed with a reporter's notebook but this guy was clever and vindictive. They were as bad as the worst screws she had known.
"Yeah, she does. She has got a five year suspended sentence and has to see a psychiatrist. That's to make sure she stays on the straight and narrow and to sort her out because of the way her father, Charlie Atkins messed with her mind. He's the one who was guilty of murder and not Lauren." "That's what they all say," the hard-boiled press reporter said.
"Look here, I want to make a statement about what I feel, not what you are trying to make me say. My Lauren is a good woman who I'm proud to call my daughter. If it hadn't been for a number of things, her father's upbringing, my son who wrote to my daughter just before he committed suicide and, unknown to me, put this plan to kill Mr. Fenner in her head and, most of that Mr. Fenner has a record as long as your arm for abusing women, my Lauren wouldn't have done what she did. I'm not trying to cover up for her, she'll do her time and she'll come out and you'll never hear from any of us again. Now, you go and print that. I have nothing more to say." Helen and Nikki moved in from behind and forcibly cleared a way through the press, which blasted off flashbulbs and yammered for Mrs. Atkins. Cassie and Roisin flanked her either side while Crystal and Babs, the smallest of them all, brought up the rear.
Yvonne stared straight ahead of her while Nikki, Helen, Cassie and Roisin repeated the same mantra until they were sick of it and of the whole disgusting nightmare. "Move out of the way," "Give us space," "No, Mrs. Atkins isn't talking," "She's got nothing more to say," were hurled at the baying pack of pressmen who were scuffling for the exclusive quote. Nikki, the tallest of them, steered their progress in the direction of their car and was alarmed that some of the pressmen whom they had passed were running full pelt along the other side of the road parallel to the directing they were pushing towards.
"Want to come to our place, Yvonne?" An exhausted nod answered Nikki. She had an overwhelming urge to be kept safe from the mindlessly intruding mob and what better minders could she get than them?
Helen opened the back passenger door and pushed Yvonne inside. Nikki slid sideways into the car while Helen took the wheel and revved the engine in urgent warning. To her horror, even then they refused to give way.
"Back off, back off," Cassie yelled in desperation, glaring at the crowd and led the others to push and shove the press back. For the first time in her life, Cassie could not care less as picture after picture that was blasted off at her. Gradually, Helen's car edged forward and gained momentum as she periodically tooted the horn. She seized the chance of a sudden break in the crowd, rammed the gears into second, trod hard on the accelerator and the car roared its way off down the road.
"This makes me feel like a bleeding prisoner on the run," Yvonne's muffled voice sounded from the back.
"Yeah, and you wouldn't be the first one I've ever driven."
Back at Larkhall, the smoke-ridden air on G Wing carried a more electric excitement and anticipation than the usual bored indifference of slumping before a flickering screen. Denny was treated pride of place on the front row next to the Two Julies and they had sat through Trisha's problem programme and a rerun of some hard luck soap called 'Family affairs.' To them, it was agonising waiting for those sun-tanned spoiled argumentative brats to disappear off the TV screen and the opening credit to roll for the one o'clock national news. "Shut up everyone, the news is on," Shouted Denny at the more self-centred childish prisoners who were oblivious of everything.
Suddenly, a camera shot of the front of the Old Bailey appeared on the TV screen and a surging crowd of pressmen. The familiar hawklike profile came into view, surrounded by all the finest of Larkhall. They could see Yvonne speaking but she was drowned out by the irritatingly smug and authoritative tones of the 'voice over.' "The daughter of gangland boss, Charlie Atkins, was given a surprisingly light sentence of one year for the killing of James Fenner, prison officer from Larkhall Prison, whose body was discovered buried in Epping Forest. When asked for her reaction, Mrs. Atkins promised that her daughter would go straight and blamed the crime on her father. An official spokesman declined to comment at this stage." A brief five second shot of a milling crowd outside cut away to the next item that the latest monthly crime figures had shown an upward trend and the Home Secretary's face appeared on the TV screen.
"That's bollocks, man," Denny shouted. "Yvonne would never have come out with stuff like that." "Well, it's on the news. They were there and you weren't," came the vacant credulous tones on the new girl who really got on her tits by just existing, let alone talking.
"We'll find out more when Lauren gets back. We know more about Yvonne and Lauren than John bleeding Snow, pompous git." "He's a man, ain't he. He don't know what it's like," Julie Saunders echoed Julie Johnson's more determined tones.
Far from the fuss and fanfare of the press, John had retired to the peace and quiet of his chambers. It was at moments like this that he wished he could take his beloved Stradivarius violin out of its black case but he kept that in the safety of his digs. Very well, he would have to find another way to cut himself off from the world. He groaned to himself as the sound of approaching footsteps told him that either option was not to be. This time, the determined, almost military tramp warned him of impending danger and he was sure as to its nature.
"John, in all my time in the LCD, I have never seen such a perversely lenient sentence as that which you passed on that Atkins woman. Not only will the right wing press crucify you in print for your sentence and hang you in effigy, they will bay for the blood of all the brethren. They and we, will be dragged down together and publicly ruined." The door had been flung open and they marched over, cutting out any pretence at pleasantries. John sprang up from his sofa, cold anger propelling him to move with more agility than he thought he was then capable of and turned to face his enemies.
"You have followed the proceedings from the very start of the trial, and you have heard my reasons for the short sentence I passed. You will have heard me explain the strings I attached to it and exactly why I decided on them. You know very well the wide scope I am permitted in the case of manslaughter. Exactly what problem do you have with it?" "Even Peter Mandelson couldn't sell this to the public, John." Sir Ian's sneering laugh answered John's low tones with a very precise emphasis on the consonants, indicative of cold rage.
"Why do you talk of 'buying' and 'selling', Ian? Lauren Atkins is not a commodity, she's a human being who has been failed by the system." "You think you can continue to thumb your nose at the LCD and the government? Someday, the government will devise ways to curb the actions of maverick judges Who bring the legal system into disrepute," Snarled Sir Ian, frustrated by John's defiance and his very pointed questions.
" Neil Houghton tried that one time if you remember. 'Curb', as take away such freedoms that still remain in this country by fair means or foul. 'Maverick' as in standing up for the values that you and I were taught in school which you abandoned for self-advancement. Selling your soul for thirty pieces of silver. I am tired and I am ready for a rest. Now get out." John's ominous opening retort brought back memories of how the fanatical and ruthless CEO of One Way mobile phones had dragged the establishment into the criminal and immoral, by planting child pornography in John's laptop computer to force his resignation. It showed that the significance of his acquiescence in such an appalling deed had not been forgotten by John, much less forgiven. Driven, as they were to exert the maximum pressure on John, they slunk out of the door.
John stared for ages at the accumulated library of learning contained in the history of legal judgements. He fumed at the sheer impertinence at the way that, over a glass of sherry, the establishment discreetly operated. He did not know that from the inside but intuitively sensed it from the way that he continually ran up against it. It had lightly determined that Lauren Atkins was this week's sacrificial victim to be cast into prison for many years. Monty Everard would surely have sealed her fate despite the sincere efforts of so many helpers. His blood boiled over at such injustice before sinking into the warm comforting feeling that it had not come to pass. It was not in any vainglorious spirit that he acted as he knelt at the feet of justice as a disinterested servant. He sank into a meditative trance of his most private moment. Completely unbidden, Karen's hurt expression appeared in his mind's eye, and his cold words telling her 'I don't want to have to pick up the pieces when you get bored of playing instructor' after 'moving in on someone who means far more to me than she ever could to you.' His still simmering anger turned against his cursed imagination, which ran away with itself at moments of weakness at the end of an exhausting trial. Karen just looked at him silently, reproachfully and disagreeable pangs of conscience started to nag at him. Such cold dismissiveness was the preserve of Sir Ian, Lawrence James and their kind. It disturbed him that his quest for knowledge had such disturbing side effects and would not let him rest even when he felt that he was most deserving of reward.
Lauren passed back through the iron gates, hands clutching the plastic bags with all her belongings. They were packed last night in the unreal hope that she would not be coming back to Larkhall. Her feelings were confusion of pleasure at seeing her friends and depression at returning to drabnesss of the same bolts and bars regime when one day is just like another. It seemed like a dream that her sentence had been reduced to one year and that she had imagined the trial. "You ought to get some rest, Lauren. You look a bit peaky. Only natural for what you've been through. We'll make sure that none of the girls start asking you questions till you're good and ready. Denny'll look after you." The honeyed words of Julie Johnson made Lauren feel looked after and protected when she needed it most. It was as if they were an extension of Yvonne's maternal care and was a tiny moment in her drive to go straight just like the judge told her to. Impulsively, she hugged these two thoughtful and sensitive women. Denny put an arm round her and led her to their cell.
It all looked bare when she looked inside. The board her side was bare of all the pictures and photos she had pinned up and her side of the wardrobe was empty.
"Do you want a hand to put everything away? Make it look nicer," Denny softly offered, wondering if that was the right note to strike.
Lauren nodded and both of them set to work.
Much later on, Yvonne was tucked up in a strange bed at Helen and Nikki's. She was in the cosy, homely spare room where shadows from the bookcases created strange shapes.
Her bed was a narrow single one furthest away from the front basement window. The street lamp cast a friendly glow through the basement window leaving the foreground dark. The door was open so that she was within easy earshot and speaking distance of Helen's bedroom.
"It's nice here, Helen, nice and friendly and off the beaten track from headcases with cameras."
"Once we'd thrown those bastards off the track, everything's fine. They'd better not turn up on my doorstep or they'll have me to reckon with, and all the worse for them if Nikki's back from the club." Yvonne had that same comfortable feeling when she used to have a late night friendly chat to a friend in the next door cell at Larkhall. After two weeks of Helen's company, it didn't feel as if there was any difference. "We meant it when I said we'd keep in touch, Yvonne." "I know that, Helen." The casual, drifting words of conversation were no polite meaningless offer. Yvonne knew enough about Helen to realise that that wasn't her style, never had been.
The front door was opened by the key, turned by the other woman who belonged there who was no intruder.
"Hi, Yvonne. Has Helen been looking after you?" "She couldn't have done better." The spare bed wasn't very wide but it felt comfortable. She felt that she was safely barricaded in by Nikki and Helen and everything was secure. This was a small scale, intimate continuation of the female support group that had sustained her. In any case, her house felt too big and empty tonight after everything that had happened.
"Hey, Helen. I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry I got all those guitars shipped in to cause all that trouble with that Larkhall Tabernackle choir. I wasn't trying to take the piss out of you." Helen laughed loudly and heartily accompanied by Nikki's faint top harmony.
"You bring that up after all these years? Stubberfield ordered closed visits against my wishes. It wasn't my problem that you were serenading Sylvia." Yvonne chuckled at Helen's witty description of one of her fondest memories. "Night night, Yvonne." "Sweet dreams, you two," Yvonne called back.
The only things missing that peaceful night were the swingers outside.
"…..Take her down…….." Those words had a finality similar to that of a coffin lid slammed shut. It was not the first time she had heard them. It had happened many years ago when she had been sentenced to four years imprisonment and later when that tart Merriman and her son Ritchie got what was coming to them. But now?
'You are perhaps, one of the most loyal, caring, utterly devoted mothers I have ever had the pleasure to meet, so I know you can do that.' That was the judge's own verdict on her and after sweating out the last weekend and all those months, he had bloody acquitted her. The year that her Lauren got sounded as near to bleeding freedom as she dared hope for. Roisin and Cassie flanked her on either side. Both exchanged anxious glances at her and, together with Babs, knew full well from their experience in the Merriman Atkins trial that Yvonne would have to run the gauntlet of the press. Helen and Nikki had more distant memories to draw on, Nikki with her own trials and Helen who had accompanied Monica Spencer when she was released all those years ago. All of them sharpened their minds to be ready for anything. Karen trailed alongside George as players in the scene who were forced to remain low profile.
Yvonne's legs felt like rubber as she walked through the foyer and her mouth was dry. She had no sense of where she was heading. A dazzling white rectangle of light opened up in front of her and a confused hubbub of noise confused her. "Steady, Yvonne. You're going to have to get clear in your mind what you're going to say to those sharks out there," Helen advised her in her own practical and forward thinking style. "I got to say something to you all now." A wave of emotions engulfed Yvonne as her throaty voice was choked off after the first few words. She was speechless for a minute or two and oblivious to everything round her.
"I may not get a chance to say it later on, but I want to say it now. I wouldn't have made it through till today and neither would my Lauren if it hadn't been for all of you standing by us - yeah and Denny back there in Larkhall, and Jo Mills and the judge. You're all family to me and anytime you want to call round to my place, you've only got to ask." Yvonne dissolved into tears as the full weight of the emotions broke over her.
"Come on, Yvonne Atkins. The press want to get your story for the news headlines." "Give us five minutes and we'll be out," Helen's very carrying voice shut the man up.
"We wouldn't have missed this for the world, Yvonne." "There's no way we would have sat back and not been there for you." "We'll take you up on your offer. Besides, I want to top up my suntan this summer, and your place is the only place private enough so I don't get strap marks with nosy neighbours around. Here, you borrow my mirror so you can fix your makeup." It was a combination of Nikki and Helen's heartfelt words and Cassie's typical mixture of light heartedness. Yvonne hugged the three women in turn and attended to her makeup with her usual skill.
"Are you going to be all right now?" Babs asked anxiously.
Yvonne grinned, her confidence restored. She would have them eating out of her hands and make mincemeat of any young upstart that ran up against her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Karen," and here, for the first time, Yvonne looked directly at the other woman. "Can you make sure that Lauren is looked after when she gets back to Larkhall." "You have my word on it." The way that Karen looked at her straight in the eye and her solid dependability removed her last doubts as to what she knew she must do.
"Mrs. Atkins, don't you think that the absurdly soft sentence that your daughter got would cause the British Public to lose confidence in the legal system?" "Well, Mr. Pressman, it all depends on what sort of tall stories you care to tell them. I wouldn't blame the public for thinking the worst of me if they don't get told what really happened." "Who are all those women with you?" "My friends. They've put themselves out to watch the trial from the visitor's gallery these last two weeks. I can't remember seeing you around." "So how do you explain why an ordinary prison officer is brutally murdered and your daughter is virtually let off?" "I don't want to slag off Mr. Fenner, but if he had been an ordinary Prison Officer, my Lauren would never have laid a finger on him." "That's right. I was once Mr. Fenner's boss," Helen's clear tones rang out and stopped the baying press in its tracks.
"Your son Ritchie Atkins got ten years for merely helping his girlfriend set off an explosion in Larkhall prison, when one person was killed. Your daughter Lauren Atkins who murdered a Prison Officer, gets one year. She was quoted at the time her brother was sent down as saying that he 'got what was coming to him.' Does she feel the same about herself?" Yvonne stared down in contempt at this more dangerous man who had leafed through a pile of press clippings. The other reporters were crude thugs armed with a reporter's notebook but this guy was clever and vindictive. They were as bad as the worst screws she had known.
"Yeah, she does. She has got a five year suspended sentence and has to see a psychiatrist. That's to make sure she stays on the straight and narrow and to sort her out because of the way her father, Charlie Atkins messed with her mind. He's the one who was guilty of murder and not Lauren." "That's what they all say," the hard-boiled press reporter said.
"Look here, I want to make a statement about what I feel, not what you are trying to make me say. My Lauren is a good woman who I'm proud to call my daughter. If it hadn't been for a number of things, her father's upbringing, my son who wrote to my daughter just before he committed suicide and, unknown to me, put this plan to kill Mr. Fenner in her head and, most of that Mr. Fenner has a record as long as your arm for abusing women, my Lauren wouldn't have done what she did. I'm not trying to cover up for her, she'll do her time and she'll come out and you'll never hear from any of us again. Now, you go and print that. I have nothing more to say." Helen and Nikki moved in from behind and forcibly cleared a way through the press, which blasted off flashbulbs and yammered for Mrs. Atkins. Cassie and Roisin flanked her either side while Crystal and Babs, the smallest of them all, brought up the rear.
Yvonne stared straight ahead of her while Nikki, Helen, Cassie and Roisin repeated the same mantra until they were sick of it and of the whole disgusting nightmare. "Move out of the way," "Give us space," "No, Mrs. Atkins isn't talking," "She's got nothing more to say," were hurled at the baying pack of pressmen who were scuffling for the exclusive quote. Nikki, the tallest of them, steered their progress in the direction of their car and was alarmed that some of the pressmen whom they had passed were running full pelt along the other side of the road parallel to the directing they were pushing towards.
"Want to come to our place, Yvonne?" An exhausted nod answered Nikki. She had an overwhelming urge to be kept safe from the mindlessly intruding mob and what better minders could she get than them?
Helen opened the back passenger door and pushed Yvonne inside. Nikki slid sideways into the car while Helen took the wheel and revved the engine in urgent warning. To her horror, even then they refused to give way.
"Back off, back off," Cassie yelled in desperation, glaring at the crowd and led the others to push and shove the press back. For the first time in her life, Cassie could not care less as picture after picture that was blasted off at her. Gradually, Helen's car edged forward and gained momentum as she periodically tooted the horn. She seized the chance of a sudden break in the crowd, rammed the gears into second, trod hard on the accelerator and the car roared its way off down the road.
"This makes me feel like a bleeding prisoner on the run," Yvonne's muffled voice sounded from the back.
"Yeah, and you wouldn't be the first one I've ever driven."
Back at Larkhall, the smoke-ridden air on G Wing carried a more electric excitement and anticipation than the usual bored indifference of slumping before a flickering screen. Denny was treated pride of place on the front row next to the Two Julies and they had sat through Trisha's problem programme and a rerun of some hard luck soap called 'Family affairs.' To them, it was agonising waiting for those sun-tanned spoiled argumentative brats to disappear off the TV screen and the opening credit to roll for the one o'clock national news. "Shut up everyone, the news is on," Shouted Denny at the more self-centred childish prisoners who were oblivious of everything.
Suddenly, a camera shot of the front of the Old Bailey appeared on the TV screen and a surging crowd of pressmen. The familiar hawklike profile came into view, surrounded by all the finest of Larkhall. They could see Yvonne speaking but she was drowned out by the irritatingly smug and authoritative tones of the 'voice over.' "The daughter of gangland boss, Charlie Atkins, was given a surprisingly light sentence of one year for the killing of James Fenner, prison officer from Larkhall Prison, whose body was discovered buried in Epping Forest. When asked for her reaction, Mrs. Atkins promised that her daughter would go straight and blamed the crime on her father. An official spokesman declined to comment at this stage." A brief five second shot of a milling crowd outside cut away to the next item that the latest monthly crime figures had shown an upward trend and the Home Secretary's face appeared on the TV screen.
"That's bollocks, man," Denny shouted. "Yvonne would never have come out with stuff like that." "Well, it's on the news. They were there and you weren't," came the vacant credulous tones on the new girl who really got on her tits by just existing, let alone talking.
"We'll find out more when Lauren gets back. We know more about Yvonne and Lauren than John bleeding Snow, pompous git." "He's a man, ain't he. He don't know what it's like," Julie Saunders echoed Julie Johnson's more determined tones.
Far from the fuss and fanfare of the press, John had retired to the peace and quiet of his chambers. It was at moments like this that he wished he could take his beloved Stradivarius violin out of its black case but he kept that in the safety of his digs. Very well, he would have to find another way to cut himself off from the world. He groaned to himself as the sound of approaching footsteps told him that either option was not to be. This time, the determined, almost military tramp warned him of impending danger and he was sure as to its nature.
"John, in all my time in the LCD, I have never seen such a perversely lenient sentence as that which you passed on that Atkins woman. Not only will the right wing press crucify you in print for your sentence and hang you in effigy, they will bay for the blood of all the brethren. They and we, will be dragged down together and publicly ruined." The door had been flung open and they marched over, cutting out any pretence at pleasantries. John sprang up from his sofa, cold anger propelling him to move with more agility than he thought he was then capable of and turned to face his enemies.
"You have followed the proceedings from the very start of the trial, and you have heard my reasons for the short sentence I passed. You will have heard me explain the strings I attached to it and exactly why I decided on them. You know very well the wide scope I am permitted in the case of manslaughter. Exactly what problem do you have with it?" "Even Peter Mandelson couldn't sell this to the public, John." Sir Ian's sneering laugh answered John's low tones with a very precise emphasis on the consonants, indicative of cold rage.
"Why do you talk of 'buying' and 'selling', Ian? Lauren Atkins is not a commodity, she's a human being who has been failed by the system." "You think you can continue to thumb your nose at the LCD and the government? Someday, the government will devise ways to curb the actions of maverick judges Who bring the legal system into disrepute," Snarled Sir Ian, frustrated by John's defiance and his very pointed questions.
" Neil Houghton tried that one time if you remember. 'Curb', as take away such freedoms that still remain in this country by fair means or foul. 'Maverick' as in standing up for the values that you and I were taught in school which you abandoned for self-advancement. Selling your soul for thirty pieces of silver. I am tired and I am ready for a rest. Now get out." John's ominous opening retort brought back memories of how the fanatical and ruthless CEO of One Way mobile phones had dragged the establishment into the criminal and immoral, by planting child pornography in John's laptop computer to force his resignation. It showed that the significance of his acquiescence in such an appalling deed had not been forgotten by John, much less forgiven. Driven, as they were to exert the maximum pressure on John, they slunk out of the door.
John stared for ages at the accumulated library of learning contained in the history of legal judgements. He fumed at the sheer impertinence at the way that, over a glass of sherry, the establishment discreetly operated. He did not know that from the inside but intuitively sensed it from the way that he continually ran up against it. It had lightly determined that Lauren Atkins was this week's sacrificial victim to be cast into prison for many years. Monty Everard would surely have sealed her fate despite the sincere efforts of so many helpers. His blood boiled over at such injustice before sinking into the warm comforting feeling that it had not come to pass. It was not in any vainglorious spirit that he acted as he knelt at the feet of justice as a disinterested servant. He sank into a meditative trance of his most private moment. Completely unbidden, Karen's hurt expression appeared in his mind's eye, and his cold words telling her 'I don't want to have to pick up the pieces when you get bored of playing instructor' after 'moving in on someone who means far more to me than she ever could to you.' His still simmering anger turned against his cursed imagination, which ran away with itself at moments of weakness at the end of an exhausting trial. Karen just looked at him silently, reproachfully and disagreeable pangs of conscience started to nag at him. Such cold dismissiveness was the preserve of Sir Ian, Lawrence James and their kind. It disturbed him that his quest for knowledge had such disturbing side effects and would not let him rest even when he felt that he was most deserving of reward.
Lauren passed back through the iron gates, hands clutching the plastic bags with all her belongings. They were packed last night in the unreal hope that she would not be coming back to Larkhall. Her feelings were confusion of pleasure at seeing her friends and depression at returning to drabnesss of the same bolts and bars regime when one day is just like another. It seemed like a dream that her sentence had been reduced to one year and that she had imagined the trial. "You ought to get some rest, Lauren. You look a bit peaky. Only natural for what you've been through. We'll make sure that none of the girls start asking you questions till you're good and ready. Denny'll look after you." The honeyed words of Julie Johnson made Lauren feel looked after and protected when she needed it most. It was as if they were an extension of Yvonne's maternal care and was a tiny moment in her drive to go straight just like the judge told her to. Impulsively, she hugged these two thoughtful and sensitive women. Denny put an arm round her and led her to their cell.
It all looked bare when she looked inside. The board her side was bare of all the pictures and photos she had pinned up and her side of the wardrobe was empty.
"Do you want a hand to put everything away? Make it look nicer," Denny softly offered, wondering if that was the right note to strike.
Lauren nodded and both of them set to work.
Much later on, Yvonne was tucked up in a strange bed at Helen and Nikki's. She was in the cosy, homely spare room where shadows from the bookcases created strange shapes.
Her bed was a narrow single one furthest away from the front basement window. The street lamp cast a friendly glow through the basement window leaving the foreground dark. The door was open so that she was within easy earshot and speaking distance of Helen's bedroom.
"It's nice here, Helen, nice and friendly and off the beaten track from headcases with cameras."
"Once we'd thrown those bastards off the track, everything's fine. They'd better not turn up on my doorstep or they'll have me to reckon with, and all the worse for them if Nikki's back from the club." Yvonne had that same comfortable feeling when she used to have a late night friendly chat to a friend in the next door cell at Larkhall. After two weeks of Helen's company, it didn't feel as if there was any difference. "We meant it when I said we'd keep in touch, Yvonne." "I know that, Helen." The casual, drifting words of conversation were no polite meaningless offer. Yvonne knew enough about Helen to realise that that wasn't her style, never had been.
The front door was opened by the key, turned by the other woman who belonged there who was no intruder.
"Hi, Yvonne. Has Helen been looking after you?" "She couldn't have done better." The spare bed wasn't very wide but it felt comfortable. She felt that she was safely barricaded in by Nikki and Helen and everything was secure. This was a small scale, intimate continuation of the female support group that had sustained her. In any case, her house felt too big and empty tonight after everything that had happened.
"Hey, Helen. I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry I got all those guitars shipped in to cause all that trouble with that Larkhall Tabernackle choir. I wasn't trying to take the piss out of you." Helen laughed loudly and heartily accompanied by Nikki's faint top harmony.
"You bring that up after all these years? Stubberfield ordered closed visits against my wishes. It wasn't my problem that you were serenading Sylvia." Yvonne chuckled at Helen's witty description of one of her fondest memories. "Night night, Yvonne." "Sweet dreams, you two," Yvonne called back.
The only things missing that peaceful night were the swingers outside.