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  Carole gripped her hand tightly.

  ‘It’s done my heart good to see you, love. We’ll have to get out one night. Tie one on like the old days.’

  Marie removed her hand and shook her head sadly.

  ‘I couldn’t cope with all that now. Those days are gone and I want to leave them like that.’

  Carole’s face creased into a frown of concern.

  ‘Well, how are you going to live?’

  Marie sipped at her coffee to give herself time to think before she answered.

  ‘They’re going to help me get a job and eventually a place to live.’

  Carole lit another cigarette and blew out smoke noisily.

  ‘Are you telling me you’re going to go and work in a factory for a couple of ton a week when you could earn that and more in a night?’

  Marie nodded.

  ‘I done a degree inside. I also did computer studies, IT. I’ll get by without flashing me clout.’

  She tried to make it sound like a joke but it fell flat. She knew Carole was in complete and utter shock.

  ‘You! You did a degree? What in, for fuck’s sake - blow jobs?’

  Marie closed her eyes tightly before answering.

  ‘No, actually, it was in English literature. And I did a certificate after that. I could teach if I wanted to.’

  Carole grinned.

  ‘I know they’re crying out for teachers in this day and age but I expect even sink estates would think twice about a double murderer, don’t you?’

  Marie didn’t answer, just stared at her with dark blue eyes that seemed to look into Carole’s very soul.

  ‘I’m sorry, that was out of order,’ she said nervously.

  Marie stood up.

  ‘It was true, and even I can’t argue with the truth. But I’ll keep me head down and see what happens. I’ll be in touch, eh?’

  Carole nodded.

  ‘If you need anything, Marie, you only have to ask.’

  ‘I know, mate. Thanks.’

  As she walked away from the flat she was aware of her friend’s eyes boring into her back. Marie knew she had made a mistake. Carole had always had a loose lip and now word of Marie’s visit would be all over Silvertown within hours. But she had not known where else to go for information.

  Seeing Carole had reminded her of a life she wanted to forget. She could still smell the odour of decay on her clothes as she stepped on to the bus.

  Amanda looked at Marie as she sat down in the office of the halfway house. As duty probation officer Amanda had seen her fair share of murderers come and go but there was something different about Marie Carter.

  She was self-contained, but then a long stretch did that to a body. This was different in that the woman before her seemed to have stopped living. She was just going through the motions and it showed. It was almost painful to watch her.

  ‘How was the Job Centre?’

  ‘OK.’

  Amanda had long since realised that it was like pulling teeth, getting any reaction from Marie, so she took a deep breath and commented, ‘You were a long time.’

  ‘I was walking. It’s so long since I could wander around, look in shops . . .’

  Marie’s voice trailed off.

  ‘I understand. How are you adjusting?’

  ‘OK. It’s early days.’

  Amanda nodded reassuringly.

  ‘It gets easier.’

  Marie didn’t answer her.

  ‘Is there anything specific you want to ask me?’

  ‘My children?’

  It was out before Marie knew what she was saying.

  Amanda had been expecting the question. Had been surprised not to be asked immediately. She smiled again, uneasily this time.

  ‘They have been approached and both have declined to see you. I’m sorry . . .’

  Marie nodded. She had expected as much. Standing up, she picked up her bag.

  ‘I think I’ll go out and walk again, if that’s all right? Try and get used to the area.’

  ‘Certainly. Grab a coffee and get your bearings. Don’t forget you have a curfew - six-thirty.’

  Marie didn’t turn back to face or answer her. Instead she walked from the office and closed the door quietly behind her.

  Out in the street tears slid down her face and she wiped them away angrily. It was what she had expected, but it didn’t make it any easier. They had blanked her. Her own kids had blanked her.

  And who could blame them?

  Lucy walked out of work and made her way to the bus stop. A red car pulled up beside her and she looked down into the face of Mickey Watson, her boyfriend.

  ‘Have I done anything wrong, Luce?’

  His voice was heavy with fear and she felt a moment’s sorrow for the way she had treated him. She got into the car and smiled gently at him.

  ‘It’s me, Mickey. Something happened and I’ve been worried about it.’

  ‘What’s wrong, mate? You can tell me.’

  She looked into his big moon face. He might not have the looks but he was a decent, kind man and that was what she wanted. When she was with him she was a nice person – he made her nice. Made her feel nice inside. Since childhood Lucy had had a nasty streak in her. It all stemmed from her jealousy of her sister. She knew that, but it didn’t help. In fact it just made it worse because she couldn’t control the urge to hate, and hate deeply, unequivocally.

  ‘Marie’s out.’

  She saw his change of expression.

  ‘Your mum won’t like that, Mickey, will she? The murderer’s loose again.’

  He didn’t answer her.

  ‘Is she living back home then?’

  Mickey was terrified of his mother’s reaction and it showed.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody wet! Of course not.’

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know where’s she’s living? Why would I want to know. I’m telling you before someone else does, that’s all.’

  ‘All right! Calm down, Luce, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘I hate her, Mickey. She ruins all our lives and then thinks she can just waltz back in as if nothing happened.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see your mum giving her house room, can you? It’ll be a nine-days wonder and then everyone will forget about it.’

  She could hear the hope and desperation in his voice.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  He nodded vigorously.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me and you, is it?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I suppose not. But your mum . . .’

  ‘Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  He kissed her on the lips.

  ‘Stop worrying. What can she do to us?’

  Lucy didn’t answer. She knew exactly what her sister was capable of, especially when she found out about her kids, and she would find out. She had always been a sifter, had Marie. She sifted information and calculated what it meant to her. The fact she had come to their front door spoke volumes. She was out . . . and out for revenge if Lucy knew anything about it. She herself would be, in her sister’s place, Oh yes, she would settle a few old scores if she was in Marie’s shoes.

  But she didn’t voice her opinion. As Mickey said, they’d cross the bridges as they came to them.

  They had no other choice.

  Chapter Two

  Marie answered the loud knocking at her door, frowning to see a woman standing there. She had dark back-combed hair and heavy black eyeliner. She smiled at Marie, her false teeth too big for her mouth.

  ‘Marie Carter?’

  It was a statement more than a question.

  Marie nodded.

  The woman held out her hand in a friendly manner.

  ‘Sally Potter. I’m next door.’

  Marie shook hands, saying nothing.

  ‘You can call me Sal,’ her visitor said encouragingly.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The woman grinned.

>   ‘I done a lump, love, murder like yourself. Been out nearly eight months. ’Course, I topped me old man, and give his bird something to think about and all. I thought I would introduce meself, that’s all. I ain’t trying to pry or nothing. If you fancy a bit of company give me a knock, OK? It takes a few weeks to acclimatise, like.’

  She smiled again and walked off.

  Marie shut the door, her heart hammering in her chest. She sat on the bed and listened as the radio blared through the thin wall. Closing her eyes, she sighed heavily. She wanted out of this place and she wanted out soon. Everyone wanted to pry into her business, everyone wanted something from her and she had nothing to give.

  She felt dry, empty.

  Even friendship frightened her these days and yet once, friends had been everything to her. She closed her eyes and saw once more the two bloodied bodies, saw the carnage her drink- and drug-fuelled rage had caused, and felt the familiar bile rise into her throat.

  Friends were not an option any more. She was much safer alone.

  Everyone was safer if Marie could just stay alone.

  Carole Halter sat in the club alone. It was early, most of the girls wouldn’t be in till later, but she liked to have a few drinks under her belt before she started her night’s work.

  The bouncer, a young blond body builder called Declan, looked her over and obviously found her wanting.

  ‘Had your look?’

  She challenged him from habit, neither of them really caring about the other’s opinion. He put himself above her and she saw herself as beneath him. It worked for them both.

  ‘Have you seen anything of Tiffany?’ Carole asked.

  He shook his head. Didn’t even bother to answer properly.

  ‘Why the fuck would I want to see her anyway?’

  ‘I was only asking!’

  Carole’s voice was loud and aggressive now.

  She carried on sipping her drink, eyes prowling the club in case a punter had crept past her. A small good-looking blonde girl came in. Though heavy-breasted she was otherwise practically anorexic in build. Long bleached hair hung like a curtain across her face. She pushed it away with one slim hand, violet-painted nails looking dangerously long.

  Carole smiled at her.

  ‘All right, Tiff ?’

  The girl stared at her for a few seconds.

  ‘It’s OK, Carole, I know. I was told earlier.’

  She carried on walking to the cloakroom that also doubled as the strippers’ changing room and Carole followed her.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  The girl pushed the door open with surprising force and shrugged.

  ‘Do? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Well, she is your mother.’

  Tiffany grinned into the dirty mirror above the sinks.

  ‘So I hear.’

  Carole was alarmed at the girl’s attitude and it showed.

  ‘I don’t think you quite realise the strength of her, Tiff. She is strong, not just physically – and we all know the truth of that. But mentally she’s like man mountain Dean. If that fucker wants to see you bad enough, she will.’

  Tiffany shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, so? Shall I practise my curtsey now then?’

  Carole shook her head sadly.

  ‘Listen to me. She is still your mother, love. No matter what. She loved you in her own way . . .’

  Tiffany waved her hands angrily.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Left us for hours on end by ourselves, drugged out of her fucking brain! Well, Carole, that kind of mother love I can do without, OK? Now if you don’t mind I have to get undressed.’

  ‘But I’ve had her round my gaff, Tiffany . . . She won’t give up. Especially if she finds out ’bout little Anastasia.’

  The girl rolled her eyes in exasperation.

  ‘Yeah? So? If I don’t want to see her, then I won’t. Now piss off !’

  Her voice was hard, uncaring, and Carole knew better than to push it. She left the room quietly, her heart heavy at the thought that her one-time friend’s daughter wanted nothing to do with her. And if Marie found out that Carole actually worked with Tiffany and had not said so, what would be the upshot? It was this that worried Carole more than anything.

  Tiffany stared into the cracked mirror and then began to apply a thick layer of foundation to hide the acne scars in her skin. As she brushed on her blusher she knew she was just putting on an act for everyone. In fact she was frightened of what her mother might stir up. As Carole said, if Marie wanted to see her she would.

  Tiffany’s eyes registered her grimy surroundings and she shuddered. What would Marie make of her daughter’s life and job? ‘History repeating itself ’ was how Pat described it, saying she was just like her mother at the same age.

  Well, fuck her mother! She had in effect dumped Tiffany when she was a baby so she had no right to any respect now. And if pushed, Tiffany would tell her that.

  Oh yeah, she would tell her that to her face.

  The girl remembered her mother as a force to be reckoned with. The neighbours had all been terrified of her. Marie could make even men nervous when she was out of it. There was an air of violence about her that people picked up on pretty quickly. Pat had regaled her with stories of her mother’s marathon temper bouts and drinking and drug binges. Tiffany knew enough about Marie to realise she didn’t want her anywhere near her own child. A double murderess was hardly the kind of person she wanted around her Anastasia, thank you very much. But inside she wondered exactly what can of worms would be opened by her mother’s release into society.

  Ten minutes later Tiffany was ready for her first act. Stripping was lucrative and Pat had promised to get her into a lap dancing club where the money would be even better. It was her ambition in life to buy a little place of her own, and she was determined to do it. Her daughter deserved the best, and she would see that Anastasia got it.

  Tiffany cut herself a line of coke to give herself an edge. As she went through the ritual of cutting, cleaning and snorting it, she felt more relaxed inside.

  Unlike her mother she used drugs, and not vice versa. All she needed was a little lift now and then, just a lift to give her an edge.

  And after the revelations of today, she needed that lift more than ever.

  Louise Carter listened to her daughter’s mother-in-law-to-be, gritting her teeth. Mary Watson was a busybody, a two-faced, interfering bastard of a woman.

  ‘I hear she walked up to the front door, large as life and twice as pretty . . .’ The last was a jibe at her son’s girlfriend and they all knew it. ‘But then she was always a good-looking girl, you can’t take that away from her. Fair’s fair in that respect. Marie was a looker.’

  ‘For all the good it did her. Now if you don’t mind, Mary, I would rather we dropped the subject.’

  Louise’s voice was dangerously low and Mary suppressed a small triumphant smile.

  Lucy stood up abruptly and said in a false bright voice, ‘Shall I make more tea?’

  She left the room and Mickey followed her.

  Louise stared at the woman before her, took in the brown rat-like eyes and tightly pursed mouth, and wondered how her daughter could want to join a family with this vicious old bitch at its head. It never occurred to Louise that she was looking at another version of herself. The two women hated one another because, as Mickey had pointed out on many occasions, they were too alike to get on.

  Though no one had yet had the guts to say that to either of them.

  ‘So, I suppose it will all be dragged up again, won’t it? The violent murders. The drink, drugs, whoring . . . It will give this lot round here grist to their mills for a while.’

  Louise didn’t answer the taunt. She dropped her eyes and concentrated on a small stain on the carpet, fighting an urge to swing back her arm and fell the woman sitting on her sofa. Instead she plastered on a smile and said gaily, ‘The wedding will likely take the edge off the gossip anyway. You know, the murderess’s sister m
arrying your only son.’

  She saw the barb had hit home. Mickey was a mummy’s boy and everyone knew it. But Lucy was well able for him and his mother once the marriage was a fact. They both fell silent, but the animosity in the room was almost tangible.

  Marie watched the activity in the Spitalfields gym. It was eight-thirty in the morning and people were already there working up a sweat. She observed them from a small café opposite and marvelled at the women working so industriously to keep their bodies in shape for men. It was the same in prison; most women were only in there because of a man yet their one aim in life was to get out and get another as soon as possible. It had amazed her.

  Marie was happy to be alone. She was an expert in it nowadays. As she sipped her coffee she kept an eye out for Pat Connor. The thought of facing him scared her, but she knew she had to. He owed her, owed her big time, and although she was wary of him there was no real fear of him any more. There was nothing he could do to her now, say to her now, that she hadn’t done or said to herself.

  One thing about prison, it made you mentally strong if nothing else.

  He arrived at nine-thirty-five in a black BMW convertible. He looked good, but the old feelings she’d harboured for him were long gone. Once his body had drawn her like a beacon. He looked better these days, toned, well-dressed, but she knew what he really was now and he no longer attracted her.

  She paid her bill, gasped at the thought that three cups of coffee had cost nearly six pounds, and as she crossed the road to the gym told herself she would have to walk back to the hostel because she was skint.

  Marie gathered a few admiring glances despite her old clothes. She was a good-looking woman even without make-up or expensively styled hair. But she ignored them. She was on a mission and she was going to complete it. She was smiling as she walked into Pat’s Gym.

  Patrick Connor was sipping herbal tea and totting up his night’s takings when Wednesday, his young secretary, told him a woman was outside insisting she wanted to see him.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  The girl shrugged.

  ‘Blonde, not bad-looking but scruffy . . .’

  Before she could finish Marie had walked into the room.

  ‘Hello, Pat. Long time no see, eh?’

  She enjoyed seeing the fear in his eyes, and the greyness that was appearing underneath his chocolate-brown skin.