The Guilty Couple(87)
‘Awake, are you?’ the woman says.
Nancy narrows her eyes. ‘Piss off.’
The woman laughs and puts the bed pan down on the tray at the end of the bed and tucks the pin into the seam of her prison sweatshirt. ‘I know who you are. You were all over the papers.’
‘I’m surprised you can read.’
The smile freezes on the woman’s face and anger sparks in her eyes. She picks up the bed pan and hurls the contents at Nancy, covering her face, hair and chest with a day’s worth of urine and faeces, then throws the pan at her too.
‘I’ll see you soon, Nancy.’ She turns to go, leaving Nancy gasping and retching, trying to shake the shit from her hair. ‘I’m keeping an eye on you.’
Chapter 57
DANI
Dani turns off the shower, wraps a towel around her body and steps out of the cubicle and into the ladies’ changing rooms. She dries herself quickly then opens her locker and takes out her clothes and her bag. The bag bleeps as she places it on the wooden bench and she closes her eyes briefly, steadying herself before she takes out her phone. The name on the notification says ‘Dom’. It’s not him but changing the name would mean acknowledging that she’s trapped. It would mean accepting that she missed the most vital piece of evidence that connected her to Dominic Sutherland. This is her life now, and the lack of control makes her feel sick.
She clicks to open the message. It’s a single word:
Well?
Done, she types back.
It hadn’t been difficult to discover what time Dominic’s flight was. In the hospital corridor Olivia had mentioned that he was leaving in the afternoon, and there was only one flight to Dubai between lunchtime and evening the next day. When she arrested him and destroyed the SIM cards and the repayment plan, she thought it was over – the shitstorm she’d found herself in. DI Fielding accepted her bullshit reason for being near Heathrow when the APB had come through, and there was no way Dominic could throw accusations her way without digging himself a bloody great hole. But when Olivia Sutherland turned up at New Scotland Yard to be interviewed, Dani’s relief morphed into fear. Evidence or no evidence, if Olivia told the investigating officer that Dani had helped frame her to disguise the fact Dominic had murdered Jack there would be a full investigation supervised by the IOPC.
Only nothing happened.
No whispering in the corridors, no suspicious glances from the DI, no snide remarks from Reece Argent. Maybe Olivia was waiting until the trial to drop Dani in it? She listened to every word Olivia said in the witness box with her nails digging into her palms, but the accusation never came and when Olivia walked out of the court she cast the briefest of glances in Dani’s direction. There was a look in her eyes that Dani couldn’t read. Maybe Olivia had let her off the hook because she’d let her leave the airport with Grace. Or maybe Olivia just wanted to move on and put what had happened behind her. Dani could relate. She wanted to get on with her life too – her life with its Casey-shaped hole.
Good, comes the reply now.
Dani grinds her teeth in irritation. Good? That’s it? She had to shell out five hundred quid of her own money to pay off Beth for moving a prisoner to cleaning duty on the health ward of HMP Bronzefield. So much for her being a mate.
Her phone pings again. Did Theresa do as she was asked?
Yes. Beth had described in great detail what Theresa had done to Nancy Ritchie. Apparently, the smell was so vile that the whole ward had to be deep-cleaned.
As she should. I protected her in prison and she owes me for the punches I took.
We’re square now then? Dani replies.
Square? Olivia’s reply is typically speedy. We’re not done yet, Dani. Not by a long shot. You work for me now. And you’re not getting paid.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks as always to my editor Helen Huthwaite for her positivity, hard work and uber efficiency. Also for her ‘pernickety’ edits (her words not mine!) that helped polish the The Guilty Couple and pull it together. Thanks also to Thorne Ryan who stepped in when Helen went on maternity leave. Thank you Thorne for steering The Guilty Couple (and me) through publication. Helen couldn’t have left us in safer hands.
A huge thank you as always to everyone in Team Avon for all your hard work: Sammy Luton, Ellie Pilcher, Hannah O’Brien, Becci Mansell, Elisha Lundin and Charlotte Brown. And to freelancers Rhian McKay, Anne Rieley and art designer Henry Steadman. Thank you to all at HC360 for introducing my books to readers in the US and Canada: Jean Marie Kelly, Hannah Avery and Peter Borcsok.
Thank you to my incredible agent Madeleine Milburn and everyone at the agency, especially Liane-Louise Smith, Rachel Yeoh, Liv Maidment, Hannah Ladds, George Simmonds, Valentina Paulmichl, Giles Milburn and Emma Dawson for your support and hard work finding new homes for my books.
I couldn’t have written this book without the help and advice from the following people: solicitors Martin Bourne and Jackie Phillips (partners at Knights plc) for clarifying how prison licences work and the legal issues Liv would face when she tried to reconnect with her daughter. Criminal lawyer Helen Da Silva and barrister (and author) Tony Kent for answering my sentencing and court questions, ex-detective (and author) Neil Lancaster for being incredibly patient and helpful when I bombarded him with questions about bent cops and how much they could realistically get away with, and the kind of duties they’d do day to day. Thank you to ex-probation officer (and author) Noelle Holton for answering my questions about the role of a probation officer.