‘You bitch,’ spat Lily, and slapped Adrienne, hard.
Adrienne grabbed at her burning cheek, and suddenly she looked frightened.
She didn’t recognize this person. This wasn’t the Lily she’d known years back. This Lily looked as though she really could kill someone in cold blood.
‘You know, you ought to watch your step,’ said Lily, pushing in even closer. ‘You think I’m a murderess, remember? I do things to people, ain’t that what the judge said? I’m a danger to society! You ought to remember that, next time you feel like reminding me of you and my old man dancing the horizontal tango.’
Now Adrienne was sweating. ‘Look, I didn’t mean…’ she backtracked hastily.
‘Yes you did. You meant every word. And to think he tried to deny it. Did you like the flowers, and – oh yeah – the Tiffany bracelet, the one he never gave me?’
Adrienne looked blank. ‘What Tiffany bracelet?’ she asked.
‘Oh, don’t give me all that old pony.’
‘Leo never gave me anything like that.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘He didn’t! What would have been the point? I couldn’t wear it, could I? Matt would have spotted it straight away and asked where it came from, and I never wanted to upset Matt, not really, he was so good to me.’
‘He was a bloody fool. Turning a blind eye to all your goings-on because he liked a nice, quiet, cosy domestic life.’
‘Matt’s a good man,’ retorted Adrienne.
‘Yeah, but boring as fuck. Or else why were you crawling into my bed and shagging my husband, Adrienne? With Leo constantly denying everything, telling me I was going nuts, and you know what? After a while I actually started to think he was right, I was just going crazy, I was paranoid, just like he said I was. When all the time I was right. Him and you were getting cosy, and all the time there I was being made a fool of. You and him. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ blurted Adrienne, tears spilling over and streaming down her face, making ugly tracks in her foundation. ‘I loved Leo. I’d have left Matt for him, I told Leo I would, but he didn’t want that.’
‘And what about me in all this?’ shouted Lily in rage. ‘Leo was married. To me. And he had two little kids. How the hell could you have done that, split up my marriage?’
‘For God’s sake!’ Adrienne erupted, throwing her arms wide. ‘You didn’t even love him! You never got over your infatuation with Nick bloody O’Rourke, did you? So can you really wonder that he looked elsewhere?’
You didn’t even love him, thought Lily.
‘You know I’m telling the truth,’ said Adrienne, pushing home her advantage when she saw Lily’s sudden uncertainty. ‘And it’s not as if I was the only one.’
Now Lily stood frozen in shock.
There was a long, long silence.
Then she said: ‘What did you say?’
‘I wanted to be the only one.’ Adrienne swiped irritably at her cheeks, leaving blotchy streaks in her make-up and mascara stains under her eyes. ‘I wanted him to love me like I loved him. But he didn’t. There were others…’
Others, thought Lily in a daze. What the fuck…?
‘What are you talking about? There were no others,’ she said, drawing back, looking at Adrienne incredulously.
And suddenly Adrienne was laughing. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she gasped.
‘If you’re getting fucking hysterical I’m going to give you another belt round the chops,’ Lily warned her. ‘Now shut it. And tell me what you’re on about.’
‘Oh Lily, and you talk about Matt being a fool. You were so innocent, so bloody little-wifey-indoors that you didn’t even know what time of day it was, did you? You still don’t. You seriously believe it, don’t you? You seriously think I was the only one.’
‘You’re telling me you weren’t? Straight up?’
‘No way was I the only one,’ said Adrienne, and she wasn’t laughing now – in fact she looked sad. ‘Sodding Leo.’
‘Tell me about the other one, then,’ said Lily flatly. She felt as though she’d just stepped into a new nightmare.
‘Other one?’ Adrienne shook her head and let out a guffaw. ‘God’s sakes, Lily! Other one! That’s priceless!’
So Adrienne went on to tell her about the rest of Leo’s ‘girls’, and how she’d hated that there’d been others.
‘I tracked them down,’ she said, and there was a glint of triumph in her eyes as she said that. ‘I tracked them all down. I even had a list of their names and addresses.’
Freddy King was in the pub with his brother Si. There was an empty place at the table they always occupied in their local. It was Leo’s place, and Freddy nearly choked with emotion every time he saw it. No one sat there, unless they wanted to start wearing their arse as a neck ornament.
‘She’s out,’ he said to Si.
‘I heard,’ said Si, who was older than Freddy, and wiser. He watched Freddy, who was now tapping a beer mat on the table, tap tap tap. He was on edge, and who could blame him? She was out.
‘So what we gonna do?’ asked Freddy.
‘Do?’ Si lifted a finger and caught the barman’s eye. He indicated their table. The barman nodded. ‘What do you mean?’
Freddy leaned forward. ‘You know fucking well.’ Tap tap tap. ‘That cunt wants sorting.’
The barman came hurrying over and put two more pints on the table.
Si nodded his thanks. Took a leisurely mouthful of beer. Looked at his brother. ‘She’s done her time,’ he shrugged.
‘She ain’t anywhere near paying for what she done, and you know it,’ spat Freddy angrily. He threw the beer mat down and it skidded off the wet table. ‘Twelve years? What the fuck is that? – it’s taking the piss! Our brother’s dead; he ain’t coming back and walking free like that bitch is.’
‘All in good time,’ said Si. He leaned in and lowered his voice. ‘What, you want to get yourself banged up? Do anything right now and the Old Bill won’t have far to look, will they, you tosser? You’re always in a fucking rush, that’s your trouble.’
Freddy’s face worked, his jaw clenching and unclenching. He knew Si was right, but that made it worse. Like he had no control over any of this. Like that cow was in charge, not him, not the King boys.
Si reached out and clasped Freddy’s meaty forearm.
‘Look, Fred,’ he said urgently. ‘Wait a bit. That’s all I’m asking. Give it a year, two years; you can do the bitch any way you want, but right now? Forget it.’
‘Forget it?’ Freddy leapt to his feet and shouted the words. Heads turned. Si gave him a ‘shut up’ look. ‘No, you forget it, Si. I fucking well won’t.’
And he was off, barging across the bar, bumping into punters in his headlong rush for the door. A bloke with a pint slopped all down him said, ‘Hey! Watch it, mate,’ and that