Life at Larkhall went on its routine way despite funerals and tragedies and the early morning routine of the check of the morning post went on, outgoing and incoming. As luck would have had it, Di was in the PO room sorting through a neat pile of post with a slitter placed to the right of her. With practiced easy, she separated the incoming post out. She always worked that way so that she could concentrate the most on the envelopes headed "HMP Larkhall." She reached for her blade and slashed each envelope angrily open with a practiced, assured mannerism and eased each letter out. She ran her eye rapidly over every illiterate scrawl and nearly all the time, the letters were harmless, if pathetic. From her experience, all human life was there, the curiously empty, love struck letters from partners on the outside requesting visiting orders. All manner of human life were scrawled on the raggedy pages. Di laughed cynically inside at the sentiments. Odds were that within a month or so, half of them were shacked up with another con. Some of the prison officers weren't much better and, to cap it all, G Wing was headed by that notorious lesbian of them all. Inwardly, Di hated while her smooth face erased all signs of inner conflict. It was best that way. She had to also watch out for the other threat, the attempt to smuggle in drugs or anything dangerous, especially in parcels. It happened sometimes. She worked quickly through one pile and soon the first heap was done. Nearly all the time, she was able to let the letters go through to their destination and they were sorted for Colin to take to their particular destinations. There was no objection to this invasion of privacy. Sooner or later, prisoners accepted the fact of life that any letter at any time would at least be casually scrutinized. It was a fact of life.
Outgoing mail was a different matter and required more discretion. There were some respectable people on the outside. Sometimes mothers weren't responsible for what their daughters got up to. Mothers and daughters, eh? Story of her life, she dreamed, her mind not quite in focus. She blinked her eyes as she remembered that some of these kids might have gone to the bad but their parents were ready to object to any casual intrusiveness. She got to the last letter and immediately she picked out Denny's familiar script and gave a start. This time, the letter was addressed, not to Yvonne Atkins but to a shockingly familiar name "Michelle Dockley, Ward 18, Ashmoor Special Psychiatric Hospital."
The letters jumped out at her. Shell Dockley had left Larkhall about three years ago but the memory of her had not faded, that mixture of the scheming dangerous woman and the most recent one of the loving mother. She was unpredictable and doubly so, was her influence on Denny. The fact that Denny was writing to her testified to her influence on Denny, for good or bad. She placed that letter on one side, swiftly worked her way through the remaining letters and, at the end, handed these letters to Colin. "These are sorted, Colin. I'm just nipping off to see Nikki about an urgent matter."
Colin raised his eyebrows with surprise at the apparently friendly way she spoke of her and her genuine concern.
"See you later, Di"
"I'll be back on the wing soon enough. Can't let the side down, eh," Di replied, a soft smile playing on her face and a tone of brisk enthusiasm in her voice.
Colin carried on with his job, his back to her and head bent over a ledger. He was starting to log into a valuables book a number of cheques and a recorded delivery letter which
had been in the post. He was a precise sort of man and always took care not to make any slipups in the recording. This was money for which he was accountable and responsible if there are any discrepancies. Besides, it gave him an excellent opportunity to bury himself in his work and avoid chatting to Di. It meant that, at most, only a quarter of his attention had to be devoted to her.
Di strolled out onto the wing and, glancing round to check if Nikki were around, very unusually headed for her office where Nikki was hard at work catching up with a pile of paperwork which had built up incredibly rapidly with the one day away at Henry's funeral.
"Hi, come in. What can I do for you?" she said politely enough. Her mind whizzed at breakneck speed wondering what made Di Barker go out of her way to see her.
"I was wanting a bit of advice. I was wondering what to do with this letter that Denny's written to Shell. I thought of opening it but I wasn't sure how that would go down seeing as she's under hospital treatment. You never know what's going on with her"
Nikki took the point. She was able to lock onto that mental structure which pushed to one side Dockley as her one time hated enemy as slippery, treacherous and as vicious as a rattlesnake in the undergrowth and replace it as an unpredictable ex inmate with more than her share of problems. She took a sip of her tea and indicated the seat in front of her desk but Di remained standing. Oh well, can't say I didn't try, she thought to herself.
"Have you got the letter with you?" came Nikki's instant response.
Di nodded and laid it on the table. Gingerly, Nikki picked it up. It was strange being in the position of peeking into someone else's private thoughts. It brought back very strong memories of receiving Helen's necessarily cryptic postcards from even such a friendly a soul as Dominic. It felt like an invasion and now, this time, she was going to be the invader. Then the practical side of her took over. She had responsibilities, to prison officers and prisoners alike. She picked up the slitter on her own desk and sliced the envelope open. To the surprise of both of them, a slightly faded and tattered news clipping fell out onto her desk. It was a full page out of the 'Sun', which splashed in uncouth details the whole horrific details the tragedy, which Nikki was trying to forget.
With an effort, Nikki dragged her mind to the necessities of the job in hand.
"Should we let the letter go to Shell, Nikki? It's not right, surely?" queried Di with wide-open guileless blue eyes.
"We ought to let it go, Di. It's something that Shell Dockley will probably know anyway. It can't do any harm. I will make a point to tell Karen about this and keep her up to speed on it. Does that make sense"
"Perfectly," Di smiled freely.
"In the meantime, reseal it and send it on its way and you tell the others to keep their eyes skinned for any return post and any changes in how Denny is getting on. Anything that should be reported, I want to hear about"
Nikki spoke in her most relaxed, friendly fashion while Di remained just long enough to appear, resisting the temptation to rush off immediately. She made vacuous small talk which Nikki patiently endured before she spoke the words that were foremost in her mind.
"I best be getting along, Nikki and get it sorted out"
She laughed slightly nervously and went out the door, displaying suitable keenness for the job in hand. Nikki sighed and lit up her cigarette for the day as a break before attacking the mountain of files. Her mind had been so focused on the job that she forgot to say farewell to Di. She shrugged her shoulders. It didn't matter.
It took till lunchtime for Nikki to be able to clear all her work. It was funny but files landed on her desk in the same way that London busses appeared, nothing for some time and, out of the blue, loads of them. Finally, she made her way over to Karen who had been similarly quiet, at least she had not had a phone call from her all morning, which was unusual. She knocked politely at the door to see Karen's eyes glued to her computer. She was intently focused to the screen and it took her a few minutes for her to be aware of Nikki's presence. Despite her rather forced smile, Nikki sensed that Karen was not exactly at her best. Her eyes looked tired as the clue as there is only so much that makeup will cover.
"I thought I'd let you know that we've picked up a letter sent from Denny to Shell," Nikki started without preamble, still in her 'hurrying through the work' mode of thinking.
Karen's head swiveled round, totally taken aback by that voice to one side of her, out of the corner of her vision. Her eyes flitted round nervously, looking fairly blank to begin with.
"What do you mean, Nikki? Is that all you came to tell me?" she replied rather testily after an untypically long pause.
"There's more to it than that, Karen," came Nikki's rather more gently phrased answer.
"I opened the letter and there was a newspaper clipping of when you were in the papers after Ross died"
"After he abandoned his life in the same way that he lived it," Added Karen's bitter response. "They say that death comes in threes, first Ross, next Henry and tomorrow, who knows"
Nikki winced at the raw edge in Karen's voice. She was doing what she always did in a crisis, put on a deliberately hard unfeeling shell to mask the pain. It didn't sound good.
Her eyes kept flitting back to the computer screen. She could so easily lose herself in the depths of the electronic universe, far easier than the real one. She didn't have to talk to anyone but could hide her face in the shelter of an E-mail identity. She resorted to keeping matters light and bright to distract her though exactly why she should, totally escaped her.
"Those superstitions belong to the age of Sylvia's mother of which we've all heard so much. Remember, the one who was responsible for spreading enlightenment and humanity to so many. Never believed in them myself"
"Nikki, I know you're trying your best to cheer me up but right now, it isn't working.
Thanks for trying but you'd better leave me on my own"
There was a dull, defeated tone in Karen's voice that made Nikki think twice about reasoning with her to come out into the light and the life around her. It was no good, she realized, she would have to just let her be and hope that whatever was disturbing Karen would blow over. She turned for the door and gently clicked the door behind her. It was only five minutes later that she remembered that she'd forgotten to tell Karen that she would keep her up to speed on the matter but it would definitely not be a good idea to pop back and see her. This had to be a first and it worried her.