The Dead Ex(86)

‘The baby.’ David was sobbing. ‘You’ve lost our baby.’

‘No!’ I screamed.

A nurse took my hand. David was now standing up, moving away from the bed as if he wanted to distance himself from me. There was a policeman too, I suddenly noticed. Awkwardly, he came forward.

‘Unfortunately, Mrs Goudman, the power failure took out the CCTV as well as the lights. But we found a snooker ball in a sock in one of the prisoners’ cells. It matches the injury to your head.’

I tried to absorb this. The snooker table in the leisure area had been my idea. Lots of prisons have them, I’d argued when one of the officers had suggested that the balls could be ‘misused’.

I struggled to sit up. ‘Which prisoner?’ I hissed.

‘Does it matter?’ wept David. ‘We’ve lost our son.’

‘It was a boy?’ We’d chosen not to know at the scan. I pummelled the bed with my fists, tears streaming down my face.

‘We had to put you under, dear, while we got him out,’ said the nurse. ‘You were haemorrhaging badly and –’

‘I want to see my son!’

The nurse glanced at David. ‘Your husband thought it was best if he was taken away …’

‘How could you?’

‘How could you?’ he roared. His eyes were red. Furious. ‘If you’d transferred to a less dangerous prison when I said, none of this would have happened.’

‘That’s not true. You never suggested that.’

‘Yes I did.’

This wasn’t the first time David had sworn he’d said something when he hadn’t.

‘Whose cell did you find the snooker ball in?’ I demanded.

There was a silence.

‘Tell me!’ I screamed.

‘Zelda Darling,’ said the policeman quietly. ‘She’s under arrest.’

Penny is holding my hand as if she’s a friend rather than my solicitor. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier about this?’

I pull my hand away. ‘Because it’s too painful to talk about.’

‘I get that.’

Has she lost a child, I wonder. It strikes me that I know very little about the personal life of the woman who is trying to stop me getting life myself.

‘Do you know where Zelda is now?’ my solicitor asks.

‘Still in prison, serving time for her attack on me. They extended her sentence.’

Penny writes something down.

‘You think this is relevant?’

‘I don’t know.’ She continues writing. ‘I need to look into it.’





48



Helen


I’m about to knock when I hear footsteps coming towards the door from the inside. It wasn’t meant to be this way round. I’m the one who’s meant to be calling the shots by summoning her, rather than Vicki Goudman discovering me on her doorstep. Of course, it doesn’t matter – not really – but it throws me. So I run back down the path and over the road. There’s a stone wall. I sit on it, pretending to fiddle with the laces on my ankle boots. When I look up, I see her making her way towards the promenade. I follow at a discreet distance. There are others between us, so it doesn’t look obvious.

Vicki seems a bit unstable. Twice she stops to grip the railings as if she’s trying to get a hold on herself. On each occasion, I have to stop too and hang back. The waves are angrier than they were when I walked past a few minutes ago, as if they can sense the tension.

My fists tighten into a ball. I could easily kill this woman.

Then she stops again to hang on to the railings. Once more I do the same, but someone behind bumps into me. It’s a woman with a small white dog. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says even though it’s my fault for halting so abruptly.

‘It’s fine,’ I say in a low voice. But the dog begins to yap as if in protest at having its walk interrupted. Vicki Goudman hears the commotion and looks back. Her eyes lock with mine.

She can’t know who I am. Yet I sense her wondering if she’s seen me before. I watch her take in my face. There’s a flicker of recognition.

I try to speak but my words freeze in my mouth.

Then she falls to the ground. Her arms and legs begin to writhe as though she is trying to swim on dry land. Froth is coming out of her mouth. What is going on?

‘Dear Lord,’ says the woman, whose dog is tugging her towards the body. ‘The poor thing is having a seizure. Quick. Ring for an ambulance.’

But if I do that, the police could trace me. I haven’t done anything wrong. Yet. But even so I’d rather not be around when the cops come.

‘Sorry,’ I lie. ‘I’m out of battery.’

‘Sit.’

For a minute, I think she’s speaking to me but it’s to the dog. She gets out her own phone. ‘Ambulance. On the seafront. By the Lido.’

I take a quick glance at Vicki Goudman writhing on the ground underneath a bench. Part of me feels this is no more than she deserves. The other part feels sorry for her. And then I run.





49



Vicki

11 July 2018


‘Legal for Vicki Goudman,’ comes the announcement.

‘Again? Has your solicitor got the hots for you?’ snorts my cellmate.