So she followed Aunt Min up the stairs, knowing that even if by some miracle the pregnancy did go full-term, she was going to give birth to a corpse.

35

Dickie Cole sat in his cell day after day and regretted his decision to get in with Frank Pargeter and his crew of thieves. He had thought himself a hard man, ready to handle anything, but now he knew he was marshmallow inside. Soft as fluff. He wished there had been someone to warn him, tell him not to go down that path. To keep away from these people, because they were poison, they were dangerous, they were death in fancy overcoats and expensive suits.

Now he knew better.

Now, when it was all too late.

He was going to spend the best part of his life in prison because of Frank Pargeter. Frank had used him. Dickie sat there, listening to the echoing cries in the night, the clang of metal bars, the steady tread of a warder’s feet. He was locked in. Imprisoned.

Oh Jesus.

He couldn’t do it. He knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t tough. He wasn’t old-school. He wasn’t even a proper villain, not really.

He lay down on his cold bunk and decided that tomorrow he was going to speak to the governor. Tell him it had all been a big mistake. Of course there were dangers to taking that path. Fatal ones, if he wasn’t very careful. But the governor would keep him in solitary after he’d explained everything to him, safely away from the other cons, until it was all sorted and he was set free. Then he was going to do what he should have done right from the start: run for the fucking hills. With his decision made, he was at last able to fall into a fitful, churning sleep.

36

Dickie felt better after he’d seen the governor. The man, stick thin and with weary compassionate eyes, had listened to his outpourings with close attention. Dickie had a long list of grievances to air against Frank Pargeter, Dickie held his hands up, he was no innocent, he should have known better than to play around on the edges of the gangs, they were evil, and Frank was the worst of them all.

‘So,’ said the governor, watching Dickie over steepled fingers when finally Dickie came up for air. ‘You are saying the statement you made at the time of Anthony Dillon’s murder was a lie? That you confessed under duress?’

‘It was a lie,’ said Dickie. ‘He paid me to do it, I can give you everything, all the details, where the money is, anything you like.’

‘And so you wish to appeal your sentence?’

‘I never should have been put in here in the first place! It’s . . . it’s a fucking – sorry, sir – it’s a travesty of justice, I shouldn’t be here.’

‘Very well,’ said the governor, and called for the warder to take Dickie back to his cell.