As the situation on the ground returned to as near normality as it could in the circumstances, Grayling found time to turn to Nikki who was totally unsure if she was still required to be on hand.
"I'll deal with anything else that needs dealing with, Karen, G Wing, the lot."
"If that's all right with you."
"You've somehow held the fort till Karen, me and a high court judge could come on the scene. I think that's called acting beyond the call of duty," Grayling spoke firmly.
Nikki smiled in gratitude. She was relieved that someone was allowed to forcibly take responsibility off her. In her club days, she would have been the last to leave after an emergency.
"Were you going anywhere special?"
"Yvonne's fiftieth birthday."
Neil grinned broadly. He had the suspicion that the hospitality would be lavish or she would be in mourning.
"Well, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. If you are asked about the events of today, I leave entirely to your discretion what you say to everyone, the one proviso being that nothing gets leaked to the press. As before, this stays entirely within my control."
Nikki reeled out of the gate and made her way to the car. Before setting off, she phoned up Yvonne to say that she was on her way and made a second call to Helen.
"Hi babe, I'm off to Yvonne's. Are you on your way there."
"I'm with Karen. I'll explain later."
Nikki shut off her phone and took her car slowly down the road. She was emotionally drained from watching and waiting for what seemed like hours till help came and more so in watching helplessly from the ground while Karen negotiated desperately with Denny and the one heart stopping instant when they wrestled on the edge. She'd been through that movie before and it brought back a whole confusion of emotions when Helen teetered on the edge, not on top of the roof but in later finally admitting her love to Nikki.
At Yvonne's party, the drink and good spirits were flowing freely in equal measure and background music was playing softly. Trigger wandered around from one human being to another, basking in the attention of so much company. He was as well away as the others. They were vaguely aware of the passing of time and it was not till Yvonne's phone bleeped and her perceptions were dulled not to notice the flat expressionless tones in which Nikki spoke.
"That was Nikki, girls. Cassie, be sure to offer her a double when she gets in," grinned Yvonne.
"Cassie's idea of a double is my idea of a triple," Blabbed Roisin to all and sundry.
Crystal was lying back, looking zonked out, as the level of hospitality was more than she was used to. She wasn't against the odd tipple but two very young children severely limited her time to let her hair down.
Lauren was finding her feet back in her own house. It wasn't feeling quite so strange now and all the people she used to see regularly were with her now. It would seem strange seeing Nikki who she had seen much of but in an entirely different role.
Soon, there was a quiet knock at the door and Lauren eased herself to her feet and answered the door.
"Hi Nikki," She called out exuberantly and flung her arms slightly drunkenly round her shoulders. "Come and join the party."
Trigger was soon behind Lauren and denoted his approval, wagging his tail. Nikki let herself be led towards where the sounds were loudest. The splash of colour and luxury were a real contrast to her austere surroundings at Larkhall. When she entered the lounge, all her friends were there and it brought tears to her eyes. If it weren't for the bad news she had to relate, she would have felt as if she had come home .
"You nearly missed out on the drink. Thank yourself lucky there's anything left," Cassie greeted her.
Nikki's smile was rather strained and Roisin's sharp eyes detected that Nikki was bringing her own troubles with her but was too polite to inflict them on the rest of the crowd and in fact felt positively embarrassed about it.
"It's great to see you, Nikki. I've not seen you for far too long."
"Well I couldn't have come at a better time than with Lauren. I can't claim the credit for
all that."
Yvonne's eyes were brimming with tears. She knew right enough that Nikki had, in her quiet way, enabled Lauren to come back to her, not someone whom prison had worn down and diminished but someone with a quieter maturity about her. She came towards Nikki and hugged someone who was probably her oldest friend. They went back a good few years now she came to think of it.
"Bollocks, Nikki, I can tell."
"So how's Denny been keeping? You've not let her go back to the way she used to be?" Crystal asked lightly. This was more or less a rhetorical question, a bit of small talk for all she knew.
Nikki promptly sat down with her drink and swallowed a generous mouthful of the spirits. She needed that. The room went suddenly quiet while she framed her words in her mind to speak. She really hated to spoil the party and wanted to join it as much as anyone but saw no way of holding out on Yvonne whose glance in her direction told her that she was gradually sensing the truth.
"I'm sorry but Denny has not been at her best to put it mildly."
"What do you mean, Nikki?"
"I was all set to leave early to come here when I saw Denny up on top of the hospital roof."
The shockwaves from that flat, understated remark radiated round the room. Roisin discreetly switched the CD off so they could hear.
"What the frigging well happened. Nikki?"
"Don't ask me, Yvonne. This one blew up out of nowhere," Nikki snapped back, tired and momentarily stretched beyond breaking point. "I'm sorry, Yvonne. I know how much Denny means to you and Lauren. I can assure you that I've checked with Gina and Dominic and they are as surprised as anyone. You know them, if there was anything slightly wrong, they wouldn't let it pass. I was wondering if you might know, Lauren."
Guilt at wallowing in her own release and apparently forgetting about Denny made Lauren bite back.
"Are you asking me as wing governor, Nikki, for some sort of investigation?"
"For your information, Lauren, once anyone, and I mean anyone gets out of prison, the rules change. That's the same the moment I got out and I got back with Helen, former acting governing governor of Larkhall. That's the way I felt when we were kissing right outside the club for everyone to see. I'm Nikki, you're Lauren and as you see, rank doesn't matter right now. I want you to tell me anything you might know, as believe it or not, I still believe that prisoners hold the key to a lot of what goes on in prison. Whatever I use, I'll use officially where I have to. Now, I'll repeat the question, Lauren, if you have the slightest clue what went on, for god's sake tell me."
Lauren and Yvonne felt a huge wave of guilt wash over them. Nikki deserved better from them. Roisin put her arm round Nikki's shoulders as it pained her to see her emotions breaking loose as her battle to keep up her controlled restrained tones was finally lost.
"I'm really and truly sorry, Nikki. I've been a right cow. You're right, I should have spotted what was going on but didn't."
"We'll leave that for later, girls. What happened next?" Yvonne pronounced softly in those tones, which took them all back to when they were nearly all together in Yvonne's cell, holding some sort of conference.
"Karen was off work so I phoned her at George's. She and John, I mean the judge, came at
the double. It seemed to take a lifetime but I dare say they were quick enough. Karen insisted on going up on the roof, same as Helen did for Zandra."
"You must be joking," Yvonne's flat tones concealed her utter horror and shock. She suspected that Karen was not in her right mind.
"I did all I could to stop her though I admit that if it hadn't been for Karen, Denny might not have come down as she did. At least she's safe now and that's the main thing."
Nikki added the last words with particular emphasis. She could not in all conscience say to Yvonne and Lauren 'by the way, Denny had taken a razor to herself.' No one should bear that amount of guilt, certainly not right then.
"Were we around at the time?" Cassie asked sharply.
"You'd all gone by then. I'd gone back to the wing and did some more work and was just about to come over here when I first noticed Denny up on the hospital roof," began Nikki in a tired flat tone. She hesitated a little as she had the feeling that she was repeating herself and rambling. "Anyway, Karen wouldn't listen. I had to get her at least to take a radio and she climbed up that metal staircase without any care for herself…..I think she did that as, in her words, if anything happened to Denny, Yvonne would never forgive her …."
Tears formed in Yvonne's eyes and not just for Denny. Oh sister, why didn't you believe in me more, or rather believe in yourself, grieved Lauren.
"……she got up there and they shared a cigarette, just as if they were sat in a Starbucks café somewhere, not four floors up on a prison roof. She got Denny to talk and, yes, it was a reaction to you getting out, feeling that she'd be on her own, that everyone she's known had died or got sent to Ashmoor, like Shaz, Shell, her mother. She tried to tell her that ……"
"…she helped me to pack. She seemed fine," Lauren gasped in horror.
"That sounds like Denny," Crystal said in a low voice.
"…..anyway Karen tried to reason with her, she explained that she'd just lost Ross and it was the way she talked about him that made me feel that Karen was not that much better off emotionally than Denny….she really gave me the feeling that she didn't give a damn about her life…"
Nikki's eyelids were drooping down as she sounded very tired and paused momentarily. What came over was an uncertain trickle of human emotions, how it felt, not a dispassionate incident report as she would have to write up when she got back to work. She was with close friends now and they had seen enough of Larkhall to pencil in the gaps.
"The poor woman," Roisin spoke in melting tones. It could have applied to Denny, or Karen or even Nikki.
"I'm losing the plot. In the end, the situation changed suddenly. Denny made a move and Karen went for her and wrestled her down on the edge of the roof. That was the most mad, frightening, dangerous bloody wonderful thing I've seen in my life."
The others could visualise everything and feel everything even with Nikki's sparse description. Crystal had been there the last time around and the others had heard enough to paint a picture in their own minds, which was unbearably vivid. The room sank into gloomy silence while Nikki's eyes closed momentarily and she swam uneasily into confused formless nightmares of her own. The others were torn between intense pity for Denny and Karen in equal measure and, by extension, Yvonne and Lauren for their acute guilt of celebrating Lauren's return. The fact that it was irrational made no difference. A few minutes later, Nikki started mumbling her way through the cloudy nightmare around her, still just functioning.
"Neil was on the scene, Neil Grayling. He was around after I phoned him and he ended up suspending Karen from duty for two weeks."
She knew that she was unnecessarily clarifying Grayling's identity but that was the last thing to matter.
"Bastard," Cassie shouted, her sympathies awash for her friend who had achieved a bloody miracle only for some insensitive clod of a man to kick her in the teeth.
"No, Cassie. He did it for Karen's own good. She's in danger of cracking herself right up in working too hard. She should never have come back to work when she did. Sure, she did brilliantly but she went at it in a totally crazy way and took way too many risks. I was there and I was scared out of my wits for her. I saw everything and so did Grayling and the judge."
Nikki's persuasive tones made for food for thought for all of them. Suddenly, wheels started turning in Yvonne's mind. There was something here that was left unexplained.
"There's something I don't get, Nikki. How the bleeding hell did Denny get on the roof. She didn't fly there like Mary bleeding poppins? Last I was there, that part of Larkhall is bolted and barred."
"Oh, didn't I tell you? Denny nicked Sylvia's keys. Denny dropped her in it." Nikki answered with the first faint smile on her face since she entered Yvonne's house.
"Oh, and is this Sylvia as in Bodybag?" Yvonne enquired, savouring the delicious flavour of what she saw was coming.
"Of course. Who else? I can't call her Bodybag now she works for me though I've come close to slipping," Came the perfectly logical reply.
There was a pause for precisely thirty seconds and the whole room exploded in laughter. This was too rich. This was the perfect release of all that misery and guilt which had grown up as Nikki's tale was told. They laughed so much that it started to hurt their sides. Then, when they had regained their breath, the comments started flying.
"Send her down the block."
"Put her in strips."
"……..and play 'Kumbaya' all the time to her."
"Take all her chocolate fingers away from her."
Nikki laughed along with all the rest of them till they subsided in sheer exhaustion. This moment, at Yvonne's house and seeing everyone happier after telling some of the bad news made her feel better, more relaxed.
"Seriously though. Karen has given me a free hand in deciding what punishment fits the crime. Third time unlucky, eh. I have to stick to the rules, you know how it is but I shall take time to make sure it will cure her or kill her. I am the boss on G wing, after all. She has to answer directly to me," She finished with a self satisfied smirk.
Nikki's glass was refilled and she drank gratefully of the spirits and of the friendship all around her. You didn't get it much better than this. This was a spirit she had chased all her life, always believing in it, no matter how bad life got.
"What about Helen?" Roisin asked anxiously. After making one mistake of overlooking Denny, she wasn't going to do the same with Helen.
"She's spending the night looking after Karen. She needs someone like her around more than anything else in the world I can think of. She'll stay safe at least for the night," Came the fervent and immensely reassuring reply. Karen's future was full of questions but that was another day.