“Not a problem.”

“Now you havetaken something.”

“I am getting money. I’m getting five grand any day now, and when it’s all sorted, another, wait for it, forty-five grand. Makes fifty. Fifty grand.”

Donna stared at her. She didn’t argue. Natalie hadn’t taken anything. Natalie didn’t say things she didn’t mean. She wasn’t any kind of a dreamer. Donna waited.

“Next door.”

“Ed, you mean? If that’s why you want to move, I’m not surprised.”

“It is and it isn’t. I’m sick to death of having people knock on the door and peer through the windows and hang around outside. I’m sick of looking into that garden and—”

“—wondering what’s buried.”

“T’ain’t a joke, Donna. You heard the news last night?”

“I know. Couldn’t get my head round it. That could have been your Kyra. Could have been Danny. Bloody hell. What’s it got to do with money anyway?”

“I rang up a paper. I had a reporter come.”

“Christ, Nat.”

“I know. It’s my story. ‘I lived next door to Ed Sleightholme.’ Mine and Kyra’s. She’s coming again Thursday. I’ve started off but we’re going to have to see each other a few more times. She takes it all down on tape.”

“I thought they couldn’t print things when there hasn’t been a trial and that?”

“They can’t. Only it’ll all be open and shut and they pay me some money now after I’ve signed the contract—I have to say I won’t talk to another lot—and then when the trial’s over, they print the whole thing and I get the rest.”

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

“It’s a lorra lorra money, Donna.”

“Jeezz.”

“And the point is, I get five thousand soon as it’s signed, up front. That’s enough for us to move on. How much notice do you have to give the council?”

“Month.”

“Right, same with my landlord. By the time we’ve done that, I’ve got the money and we’re off. We need to sort out where, find a place to rent—we’ll have to share to start with, no point in wasting money.”

“Hang on. What was the idea? You said you knew how we’d start.”

“Right. You know sandwiches? You get rubbish in most sandwiches and you buy a sandwich from a garage, more than rubbish. They’re disgusting. OK, we suss out a place which has four or five garages with shops c and we sell them sandwiches. Good sandwiches. Sandwiches women would want to buy, lady reps and that, not truckers, they only want grease. Nice salads, good bread, organic maybe, and done up nice, little cardboard plate, napkin c and home-made cakes in slices c cost, what, about three quid a cake to make, less, sell them for one fifty a slice. They get petrol on their credit cards, they look round, grab all sorts of stuff, drinks, crisps c well, they’d grab our sandwiches, our cakes c What?”

“Just thinking what you said. ‘Lady reps.’”

“Oh Christ.”

“Seems kind of c”

“Appropriate.”

Donna poured herself more tea. Her face was sad. Natalie wanted to shake her.

“Big step, Nat. I mean, it all sounds great, only—”

“Listen, you get a chance. One. This is ours. If you’re not on, I’m still doing it, Don. Just rather have a mate to do it with.”

“Right.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what? What?”

“Nothing.” Donna looked at her. “I was just imagining it. Living by the sea.”

They looked at one another.

From the living room came the sounds of Danny singing to the Rugratsmusic and of Milo working up to a scream.

Sixty-four

It was what heaven would be. Once they had given her drugs to take the pain away for hours at a time, it was what heaven would be. No one else was in the hospital wing for three of the four days she was in there. The walls were white and there was a window through which the sun shone, on to the white walls and the white bedcover and the white pillow.

No one bothered her. She could lie for hours listening to the quiet and looking at the sun on the white walls.

She had said nothing about how she got hurt. There had been a load of questions.

“Don’t know.” “Don’t know.” “Don’t know.”

So in the end they’d given up.

But this morning heaven had gone. There was no sun. Another woman had come into the wing and made retching noises half the night.

She ate breakfast. Saw the doctor. Got dressed.

Then it hit her. It hadn’t hit her until now, until she was putting her feet into her shoes. The wall was grey not white and the woman was being sick again and it hit her that this was it. It. For however many years. Life. What did life mean? Life. It wasn’t temporary, it wasn’t a few weeks or a misunderstanding. She knew that now. They knew it, she knew it. Nothing was said. Nothing might ever be said. Didn’t need to be.

Things would happen of course. People. Journeys. Questions. Courts. However long it took, it would all happen, but at the end of it, that would be that.

Ed picked up her cup and hurled it at the wall, and when it smashed, the dregs of tea dribbled down the greyness. She watched the drips. It was hours before they stopped her from watching them and made her leave and then it all started up, more of them talking at her, more questions, the doctor, the shrink, the Governor.

The sun came out and went in again. She saw it now and again through windows or reflecting on different walls.

Once she heard a noise. She was being taken down a corridor, to see someone else, and the noise started, a hissing noise that grew and seemed to be coming at her from all sides, as if someone were spraying the sound out of a hose. They’d seen her then. They knew. Someone shouted. The hissing stopped.

She was moved. Not just out of the hospital wing. Moved to another section of the prison. She seemed to have spent the entire day walking about.

“My back’s bloody killing me.”

“Not time for your painkillers yet.”

“Jesus. Where’s this?”

She stood in the doorway of the new room. It was smaller. Different. There was a glass panel in the wall. An outer lobby with a chair.

“What’s this for?”

“You’ve been moved.”

“I liked where I was.” The woman shrugged. She had two hairs on a mole under her chin. Ed wanted to pull them out. “Where’s Yvonne?”

“Who’s Yvonne?”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“I said, you’ve been moved. You’re on special watch.”

She had said nothing, answered none of the questions, but it was as if they’d got a tin-opener to her brain and taken out what they wanted.

“What for?”

“Your own protection.”

It had been decided then. They knew what she’d done, so now she was on her own, no socialising, no work, no library, no gym, no canteen. Exercise in a patch on her own, in her own separate time. And watched through the glass panel twenty-four/seven.

She sat on the bed. The red-hot poker was screwing round again deep in her lower back. She lay down carefully.

It hit her again, a wall of water crashing on top of her. This was it. This room or another like it, with the glass panel. This.

She’d rather be rammed in the kidneys and made to suffer agony for it than this.

This.

The walls were beige and the window was too high for the sun to touch them. It.

Ed brought her knees up and pressed her back into the low bed against the pain.

Sixty-five

Once there had been bands playing on Sunday afternoons. The bandstand was still there, paint peeling a bit, rust showing through, but it could easily be spruced up again, Dougie Meelup thought, stopping to look. People still played in bands, didn’t they? Why had it been let go?

It was hot but the park was quiet. A couple of boys threw a frisbee, a few mothers and prams were gathered on a bench.

He wandered down to the pond. The ducks had been invaded by Canada geese, which made a disgusting mess. The council had tried to round them up and get rid of them, but there’d been an outcry from some daft activists, and anyway, it would only have been temporary. Canada geese would always be back. Mothers didn’t let their toddlers near to feed the ducks now, the geese were so big and pushy.