The Dead Ex(76)

The last thing I needed after all this was to go to some smart dinner and put on a bright face. But it had more or less been an order and, besides, it would give me the chance to plug the cause for our own mother-and-baby unit, which desperately needed money to expand. So I’d made a particular effort with my appearance and had my hair styled more softly. Instead of trousers, I’d treated myself to an expensive lime-green suit which flattered my curves and my hair, according to the assistant (even though some of the prisoners on C wing who’d walked past me as I was leaving took the Mickey out of me). To top it all, I was wearing high heels for the first time in years!

When a tall man with a charming smile and a striking, craggy face slid into the gap next to me – extremely late – I was relieved to have someone else to talk to. ‘Tell me about your life,’ he’d said, even though it emerged during the evening that he’d clearly done his homework: David knew all about my career and my campaign for more MBUs. He asked the right questions. His admiring glances indicated he thought I was attractive. For the first time since Patrick had left and Dad had died, I felt a lightness in my heart.

So when David gently touched my hand again (he’d been doing a lot of that during dinner) and suggested a ‘nightcap’ back at his place, I found myself in bed with him. Why not? If I couldn’t take a chance at forty with a handsome near-stranger, when was I going to?

David was totally different from Patrick but he showed me how to have a good time. After the austerity of the prison, everything about him was refreshing. During my days off, he took me to nice places to have lunch and bought me beautiful clothes from the sort of shops in Knightsbridge that I had only walked past before. Once we actually went to Ronnie Scott’s – something I’d always wanted to do but had never had the opportunity before. I’d never thought of myself as the kind of woman who would be interested in this sort of thing. Yet it was lovely to be spoilt! But it was David himself who really made an impact on me. Such charm and wit! He impressed me with his knowledge. For someone like me from such a restricted environment, he seemed to be so wise. And, of course, there were all the charities he supported – proof to the world that he was a good man.

Nearly every woman we passed on the street would look at David admiringly. Then their gaze would rest on me, and I could feel them wondering what on earth he was doing with me. It was the same if we went out to dinner or to parties. He’d engage the women in conversation and make them feel as though they were the only ones he wanted to talk to. Then, just as I began to be jealous, he would stroke my leg under the table or squeeze my hand.

‘What do you see in me?’ I’d ask, more often than any self-respecting girlfriend would.

He’d trace the outline of my breast and nibble my ear, making me squirm with pleasure, before answering. ‘You’re different, Vicki. You’re the strongest person I know. You’ve done things that no one else I’ve met has ever done. You don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t or attempt to flatter me like the others. You’re just … you.’

It was as though I was living in another universe – one that was as far from prison as I could imagine. Sometimes I felt guilty. Sometimes it was relief.

Then came a weekend trip and a ‘spontaneous’ visit to an antique shop where David slipped an emerald ring on my finger. I hadn’t needed to think twice before saying yes.

‘Are congratulations in order?’ asked the head of the prison trustees when he spotted it a few days later.

I nodded, both embarrassed and flattered.

‘I hope this won’t mean you’re going to turn down our offer,’ continued the trustee head.

My mouth went dry. Did he mean …

‘You’ve achieved a lot here with your mentoring schemes for the newly released offenders and the awards for the mother-and-baby unit. The way you handled the drug scam was most impressive. So we thought you might like to try your hand at running your own show. You’re aware that the governor is stepping down for health reasons. We’d like to put you forward as acting governor. With a view to making it permanent.’

David cracked open a bottle of champagne when I broke the news during my next visit down. ‘It’s an amazing promotion. My future wife. Number One Guv!’

Female governors are few and far between. So my promotion thrust me into the public eye. The features editor of the Daily Telegraph rang to ask if she could interview me. This resulted in a whole page on the ‘attractive woman’ in charge of a high-security HMP who had just got engaged to a handsome property developer. The journalist enthused about my ‘radical ideas for prison reform’ and described how the ‘happy couple’ had also just bought a house in Kingston, close to the river, for ‘chill-out time’.

‘You’ve given our David some respectability,’ said a man at one of his many ‘business dinners’ that I now attended.

‘What do you think he meant by that?’ I asked later in bed.

‘He’s jealous.’ My fiancé drew me to him. ‘That’s all.’

The old me might have probed further. But a new one had taken my place.





40



Helen

9 January 2018


‘Eight o’clock,’ David had said. ‘Don’t be late.’ I’m not. In fact, I’m five minutes early. I press the DG button on the security pad and wait.