A/N: This is the sequel to A Question of Guilt.
Till Death do Us Part
Part One
As the cattle truck rumbled its way along the busy London streets, Barbara clung to any handhold she could find. She had a feeling of deja vu, being noisily hurtled from the magistrates' court to god knows where. The only part of Barbara that was capable of forming any kind of coherent thought, was alternating between wishing she were dead, and praying that she wouldn't end up back at Larkhall. Oh, to be taken away from her current bone-shaking environment, to be transported to wherever Henry was now. He would be at peace now, going through no more heartache, but most of all, feeling no pain. What on earth would he think of her if he could see her now, being carried back to prison with the likes of Michelle Dockley and Tessa Spall? No, no, she mustn't start thinking about that. If she did, if she dwelt too closely on the practical elements of her predicament, she would go mad, just like last time. That was one little bonus, she thought cynically, at least she knew vaguely what to expect this time round.
Nikki and Karen arrived at work, at roughly the same time on the Tuesday morning, Karen catching Nikki up as she was being given her keys. Neither of them had slept particularly well on the Monday night, with Nikki worrying about Barbara, and Karen dreading everything from the way John would be with her the next time she saw him, to the physical punishment that she knew the morning after pill would give her. "You look a bit rough," Said Nikki in greeting, as Karen took her keys from Ken. "Are you all right?" "I believe its punishment for my excesses of the weekend," Karen answered bleakly, as Nikki let them through the first set of gates. "But you didn't drink anywhere near as much as me and Helen did," Nikki replied, looking a little nonplussed. "In fact, you and the judge disappeared quite early on the Sunday night." Nikki stopped, as if only just realising what she'd said. "Exactly," Karen told her with a lop-sided smile, but Nikki still didn't seem to understand. "As you are entirely gay, Nikki, you will never have to take the morning after pill," Karen tried to explain. "Something for which you should be unendingly grateful." "Oh, I see," Nikki said in dawning comprehension. "Sorry, the old brain's obviously not quite woken up yet." To change the subject, Karen raised the matter of Barbara. "As soon as I've had a call from the magistrate's court, I'll let you know what's happening, and if necessary, put the wheels in motion." But on reaching her office, Karen found that she already had an e-mail waiting for her, from the administration officer she knew at the local magistrate's court, to tell her that several inmates were destined for Larkhall that morning, including one Barbara Mills.
Since becoming Governing Governor, Karen had found it useful to forge working relationships with various court officials, to ensure that she was often given prior warning of particularly dangerous or troublesome inmates, who might be on their way to her prison. It meant that officers could be warned in advance, and that arrangements could be made as to where to house such inmates. Others before her, such as Simon Stubberfield, might have used such a position to avoid taking a particularly violent inmate, or a prisoner with any difficult to manage health problems, but Karen liked to think that she used it to the women's advantage, not her own, though she was usually wise enough to admit that it was a bit of both. Feeling that this day had already begun at a speed she could easily do without, she picked up the phone, and wondered just what else could possibly happen before nine o'clock. When Nikki answered, Karen told her simply that yes, Barbara had been placed on remand, and that she would at some point be on her way to them. "Right, what do we do?" Nikki asked, having a momentary lapse in confidence that she could cope. "We act as normally as possible," Karen told her gently but firmly. "Yes, Barbara is a friend to both of us, but she is also a prisoner on remand, no matter how much you and I might believe her innocent, and we still don't know whether she is or not, you must remember that." "Yeah, I know," Nikki said miserably. "But what do I tell the others?" "You tell her friends nothing at all," Karen said decisively. "They'll find out soon enough. As for the officers, you warn any who know her from her previous incarceration, to play it well and truly by the book. I will not have a prisoner victimised, just because the likes of Sylvia will no doubt bear a pretty significant grudge. You'd left by then, but Sylvia had a bit of a thing for Henry when he was here, so this news is going to affect her most of all." "Are you sure Barbara should be put on G wing?" Nikki asked, thinking that this situation was going from bad to worse. "Yes," Karen said without hesitation. "Because you can look after her. As you said yesterday, Barbara didn't deal very well with prison last time, so I shouldn't imagine that this stretch will be any less traumatic for her. She suffers from claustrophobia, so she needs to be handled very carefully. Got any ideas where you're going to put her?" "Difficult one," Nikki mused, switching on her computer and waiting for it to boot up. "There's no one in at the moment who I could imagine her sharing a cell with, but then I'm not sure that being on her own will be the best thing for her." "She might prefer it, if we can manage it," Karen said with sincere empathy for Barbara's plight. "Henry only died on Sunday, and if nothing else, Barbara needs the space to grieve." "There is a spare single cell on the ground floor, next door to Phyl Oswin and Bev Tull," Nikki said, after scrolling through the table that illustrated at a glance where each and every prisoner on her wing was housed. "Or there's a double cell empty on the landing above, next door to the Julies." "Yeah, put her there," Karen said, making the decision for her. "It might be better for her to be close to people she knows." "If we get a massive influx of new ones, we might have to think again."
As Nikki walked into the officers' room on G wing, she couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. Di and Sylvia no doubt would have no end of righteous things to say on Barbara's being put on remand, Dominic would probably have some sympathy for Barbara, and Gina would definitely be cynical. Why, oh why were her subordinates quite so bloody predictable on occasions such as these? Why, just for once, couldn't Sylvia be sympathetic, and Dominic be righteously angry? It would certainly make a very welcome change, which was why it would never happen, not in a million years. To the likes of Selena, Barbara was just another new inmate, no more no less. "Anything crazy happen while I was away?" She began, after pouring herself a cup of tea and lighting a cigarette. "Hmm," Sniffed Sylvia. "It's all right for some." "You should have said, Sylvia," Nikki broke in with a perfectly straight face. "I'd have brought you back an after eight, if I'd known it meant that much to you." "Whole box more like," Gina put in with a laugh as the others tittered. "Learn anything useful?" Dominic asked, always eager to further his education, prompting Nikki to think that she might just take him with her next time. "If it's anything I want to put into practice, I'm sure you'll find out in due course," Nikki replied with a smile. "Oh, great," Muttered Sylvia darkly. "More namby pamby lefty nonsense, that's all we need." "Before we get into that particular argument, which I'm sure we can all do without first thing on a Tuesday morning," Nikki broke in, thinking that if she got through this week without wringing Sylvia's neck, it would be a miracle. "There's something you all need to know. One of the new inmates coming to us this morning is known to some of you. Barbara Hunt, or Barbara Mills as she is now known, is being sent here on remand. Her husband, the Reverend Henry Mills, died from lung cancer at the weekend, and the police have charged Barbara with his murder." "Oh, no," Sylvia said into the silence, sounding truly upset for once. "That lovely man, murdered by that supposedly Christian believing, god fearing bigamist? Well, let's hope she gets what she really deserves this time." "And that is precisely the kind of thing I will not tolerate on my wing," Nikki said firmly, looking Sylvia straight in the eye. "She is only on remand, which means, Sylvia, that she is innocent until proven guilty, as are all remand prisoners placed in our care." "Rubbish," Sylvia almost snarled. "That one's as guilty as a Judge seen coming out of one of Virginia O'Kane's knocking shops." Privately concealing a smile at the thought of John Deed patronising such an establishment, Nikki nevertheless strove to be firm. "I mean it, Sylvia, and this goes for the rest of you. I will not have any single one of you making either an example or a victim, of any prisoner, either because you know her, or because you may bear her a grudge. Any hint of this, and I can promise you that I will put you in strips myself. Is that clear?" They each and every one of them knew she couldn't actually do this, but the threat was evident. "If you all try to remember the saying that a person is innocent until proven guilty, we will all get along just fine." "And there's another saying we could all do well to remember," Sylvia put in acidly. "That a con is a con is a con, no matter how posh they sound, or how many books they can write." "Does that apply to me then?" Nikki asked, the lightness of her tone belying the stern glare in her eyes. "I was only saying..." Sylvia began and then faltered, her face turning an unhealthy tinge of pink. "Well, try and think, before you speak," Nikki told her quietly. "Have you got any idea where you're going to put her?" Dominic asked, eager to stop this developing into a row. "Yes," Nikki said with a sigh of weary acceptance at his calming influence. "The double cell on G2, next to the Julies, just for now anyway." "Do you reckon she did it?" Gina asked, also living up to Nikki's expectation. "I haven't got a bloody clue," Nikki told her, her eyes scanning the entire group of officers. "Do you know something," She said, her tone sounding almost bored. "Virtually every single one of you has reacted in precisely the way I thought you would. Do you have any idea how depressing that is?" "This job is depressing," Sylvia said curtly. "Get used to it." "I thought when I came in this morning," Nikki continued. "I thought that maybe, just for once, at least one of you might surprise me, that one of you might perhaps behave in an entirely different fashion for a change, but I can see I was barking right up the wrong tree hoping for that one. So, what are you all waiting for?" She finished, now wanting to get on with the rest of her day. "Oh, and Sylvia," She added as they all made for the door. "Can we please try to avoid a case of mistaken identity this time? I don't want Barbara being sent down the block, just because you're stupid enough to think she's Tessa Spall."
When the lorry came to a stop, Barbara almost didn't want to look. She didn't want to see the not so kind, and all too condemning faces of the officers she knew, the kind but possibly stand offish faces of Nikki and Karen, or the drab, familiar surroundings of Larkhall. But when she was led out of the van, she forced herself to open her eyes. It was as bad as it could have been. She was back at Larkhall right enough, and there was Dominic McAllister and Sylvia Hollamby to meet her. "Well, well, Hunt," Sylvia greeted her curtly. "Back again are we?" Barbara opened her mouth to speak, but unable to find anything to say, she closed it again. "Get inside," Sylvia told her, giving her a forceful shove in the direction of the steps that led into reception. As she passed Dominic, she tried to meet his eyes, receiving a slight smile of sympathy in return. As she sat on the row of plastic chairs, clutching her handbag, the only thing she'd had with her when she'd been charged, she looked anew at the place she couldn't remember from last time. The walls were full of the same dingy posters as the rest of the prison, the ones about drug addiction, self-harm, suicide, and basic prison conduct. "Hunt," Sylvia called out eventually, but achieving no response. "Hunt, didn't you hear me?" She said, walking up to Barbara and staring her in the face. "My name, is Mills, as well you know," Barbara told her with a hiss, the tension of her confinement finally beginning to get to her. "Hmm, a lovely, kind man gives you his name, and you kill him for it," Sylvia said bitterly. "Nice way for a Christian to behave." "I didn't," Barbara insisted, the tears rising to her eyes, because she knew that this was just the first in a long line of protestations, that she would inevitably be forced to make to the people of this place. "Innocent until proven guilty?" Sylvia huffed in disgust. "Remand my eye. You're going nowhere, Hunt. When they eventually find you guilty, they'll send you back here for life, and here you'll stay." Sylvia sounded so venomous, so certain of Barbara's fate, that Barbara felt momentarily afraid of her. "Get over there," Sylvia ordered. "And get your clothes off." "Sylvia, give it a rest, yeah?" Dominic tried to intervene, seeing that Sylvia wasn't about to let up on Barbara at all. "Oh, don't come the nancy boy act with me, Dominic," Sylvia told him scornfully. "That one deserves everything that's coming to her, justice or no justice."
When Barbara had been searched and photographed, and her permitted possessions returned to her in a prison issue plastic bag, Sylvia yet again addressed her by her former name. "Hunt, oh, sorry, Mrs. Mills," She added in a sickly sweet tone. "Your wing governor wishes to see you." Then, returning to her former bitterness, she said, "Seems she thinks she can give you special treatment, as you're a friend of hers. Still, all cons together, I suppose." Biting her tongue, because she didn't want to make the situation with Sylvia any worse than it already was, Barbara followed her up through the maize of familiar dingy gray corridors, the clang of every gate seeming to reverberate around her skull. She dreaded seeing Nikki, desperately not wanting to meet that look of either pity or scorn in the eyes of the only person who managed to keep her sane, the last time she was in prison. "Your old cell mate," Sylvia said almost conversationally as they walked. "Seems to think she's a cut above the likes of you these days, got herself a set of keys, as well as the suit. Wonder what she'll think of you now, landing yourself back here, right under her nose." When Nikki bade them to enter, Sylvia pushed Barbara in ahead of her. "She's had fingerprints, dry bath and photos," She told Nikki without any further explanation. "But you asked to see her before we could grant her the privilege of a reception phone call." "Fine," Nikki replied, clearly brooking no argument. "I'll sort that out myself, and I'll bring Barbara down to the wing when we're ready." Without further ado, Sylvia turned on her heel and strode out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Nikki walked slowly over to Barbara, seeing a look of combined fear and uncertainty on her face. "How are you?" She asked quietly, thinking this a particularly pointless question in the circumstances. "Oh, Nikki," Barbara said, the tears finally breaking free. "Why am I here?" She asked, as if Nikki could provide all the answers. "I don't know, sweetheart," Nikki told her, wrapping her friend in a warm embrace. Barbara clung to her, seeing in one glance that Nikki neither scorned nor pitied her. All she could see in Nikki's face was kindness and sympathy, two attributes that hadn't been present in anyone who had spoken to her over the last couple of days. "I shouldn't be here," Barbara insisted when she calmed down a little. "I'm serious, Nikki, I didn't do it. Not even for Henry would I risk being sent to prison again." "Are you telling me the truth, Barbara?" Nikki asked, drawing slightly back from her so that she could look Barbara in the face, remembering all too clearly the one occasion on which Barbara had lied to her, lied to them all, over the money she had inherited from Peter. "I promise you, Nikki, I no more helped Henry to die, than Karen helped her son to die." "Okay," Nikki replied, seeing and hearing the sincerity in Barbara's words. "Then we'll have to see what we can do about it, won't we." After guiding Barbara into her visitor's chair, Nikki asked her secretary to bring them some tea.
When Barbara had taken a sip of the strong, sweet warmth, usually the perfect antidote to shock, Nikki said, "Now, seeing as you didn't get your phone call, you can make it from here." "I need to phone Yvonne," Barbara said, putting the cup down. "I could do with someone picking some clothes and things up for me, and I suppose I'd better ask her to contact a barrister." "Jo Mills would be the obvious choice," Nikki said quietly. "And I'm half tempted to ask someone who I've never met before," Barbara replied. "After getting to know Jo and George, not to mention the judge, during Lauren's trial and 'The Creation', I don't know if I could ever look any of them in the face after this." "Barbara, that's what they do," Nikki told her with a smile. "Defending people who are innocent until proven guilty, that's what Jo and George do. Jesus, if Jo can defend Lauren Atkins, knowing she killed Fenner, then she'll without doubt stand up for you, you know she will." "I know," Barbara said miserably. "I just feel so, I don't know, so humiliated, so vulnerable. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but no one else does." "I do," Nikki told her with total certainty. "So will Karen, and so will Jo. For now, that's all that matters."
When Barbara had telephoned Yvonne, asking her if she could possibly bring her in some clothes, as well as contacting Jo, Nikki took her down to the wing. "I've put you next door to the Julies, because we both know that you need to be around friends if at all possible. You've got a double cell to yourself for now, because I thought you might prefer to be on your own, but I can't promise that'll last." "Thank you, for doing all that you are, Nikki," Barbara said, her words sounding foreign in the bleak surroundings. "I'm doing what I would for any prisoner in your situation," Nikki assured her. "I'm going to make Dominic your personal officer for the time being, and if you have any problems, anything you want to talk about, you come to him or to me. If the claustrophobia puts in an appearance, and you want some medication to calm you down, just in the beginning, ask Dominic to get you an appointment with Dr. Waugh." "You know," Barbara said with a slight smile. "You really do sound like a wing governor." "I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing," Nikki said ruefully. "But Sylvia keeps me in my place by reminding me of my roots."
When they appeared through the gates on G wing, they were approached by the Julies. "Eh Babs, what're you doing back here?" Julie Saunders said in surprise. "Barbara's been put on remand for a while," Nikki told them quietly. "I'm putting her in the double cell next to yours, and I want the two of you to look after her." "Course we will," Julie J responded, taking Barbara's small bag of belongings from her. "What's happened?" Barbara opened her mouth to tell them, but found that she was unable to formulate any kind of an answer. "Let her settle in first, eh Julies," Nikki said calmly. "And she'll tell you in her own time." "Yeah, best to sort yourself out first," Julie J agreed as they walked towards the stairs. "Then we'll get you a cup of tea," Julie S promised. "And you can tell us all about it." As Nikki stood, and watched the Julies escort Barbara upstairs, she blinked a few tears away, thinking that this was the beginning of her longest professional road yet. She was going to find it immensely difficult to remain professionally detached with Barbara's case, to stay on the screws' side of the wire, as if Barbara were nothing more than just another prisoner. Barbara wasn't just another inmate though, was she, she was a friend, a firm, sincere friend who had kept Nikki going through some of her darkest moments in Larkhall, who had kept her focused when it looked as though all with Helen was lost. "You all right, Nikki?" Dominic asked, coming up to her and laying a brief hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, fine," Nikki replied, trying to force her professional mask back into place. "I just never thought I'd see her back in here, that's all. I mean, someone like the Julies, or Denny, you get used to seeing them round the place, because the old joint wouldn't quite be the same without them. But Barbara, she knows more about me than I probably know myself, and it just feels wrong that I've now got to lock the door on her, keep the bars between us as if we never shared a cell, as if we never spent many a night whinging about the screws, or talking about some of the darkest times we've ever had." "I know it's a bit deep for a Tuesday morning," Dominic replied with a sympathetic smile. "But don't you think that that's how Helen felt, every time she banged you up in the old days. Every time she had to pull rank on you, she probably felt something very similar." "Yeah, I guess she did," Nikki said, smiling back at him. "But I'm not about to resign, just because of divided loyalties. Barbara needs all the help I can give her."