Jessie Keane: Jail Bird

Then she had a nasty thought. ‘Are you alone, Oli?’ Maybe she had Uncle Si with her, maybe this was a blind, a way in, Oli playing Trojan horse for the King brothers. Maybe Oli hated her just as much as Saz did. And why shouldn’t she? God knew she had reason.

‘Of course I’m alone,’ said Oli, in a voice that sounded on the edge of tears.

Do I believe her? thought Lily. Do I dare?

She leaned back against the wall beside the intercom. Reached out a hand, pressed the release. She had to take the chance. She had to.

‘Come on up,’ she said, dry-mouthed with fear.

The first thing that Lily thought when she opened the door and saw Oli standing there – alone, and thank God for that – was, oh my God, my baby, how she’s grown up. She felt an almost overpowering urge to hug Oli, to hold her close. Lily’s second thought was that Oli looked distraught, and that she didn’t look as if she wanted to be held or hugged. In fact, she looked like she was about to freak. Lily held herself firmly in check.

Oli came inside and Lily shut the door and locked it after her. Then she turned, leaning against the door for support, thinking my baby, my baby as Oli turned and looked at her with Leo’s dark blue eyes, eyes that were only just this side of crazy. Oli’s dark hair, long and wildly curling, was dishevelled. She was wearing pale denim jeans and a white puff-sleeved blouse and had about her that same old aura of litheness, of intense nervous energy.

Oli the tomboy. She’d always favoured trousers over dresses – unlike the more stately, feminine Saz – and was always off climbing trees, playing cowboys, camping out in the garden, doing wild, boyish things, while Saz petted her pony and shot clays with Leo.

Lily took a breath. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said, and Oli nodded absently and flopped down into the nearest chair, immediately starting to pick at the arm of it with long, nimble fingers. Her nails were bitten, Lily noticed as her gaze moved avidly over her daughter, taking in every precious inch of her. Oli’s skin was still fine, lightly tanned, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her turned-up nose. Her pouting rosebud mouth was unadorned by lipstick. Her lashes were long, her brows black and slightly bushy. She glanced up at Lily and Lily thought, Oh she’s so pretty. Those beautiful dark blue eyes are going to break a few hearts.

Leo’s eyes, she thought more soberly. Saz had been the real daddy’s girl of the family, but Oli had loved her dad too, so much. And what must she think of her mother, who she believed had killed him?

Lily sat down cautiously, quite a way from Oli; she didn’t want to panic her, make her bolt for the door. Oli looked as if she was on a knife-edge, not certain whether to stay or go.

‘How did you find me here?’ Lily asked her.

Oli made a flicking movement of her hand. ‘I followed you. I…I wanted to see what you…I’ve been trying not to, but I wanted to see you, so I went over to your mate Becky’s place after I’d heard Uncle Si and Aunt Maeve saying you were staying there…’

Jesus God, thought Lily. Oli had found her so easily. And so had Si and Freddy.

‘And when I got there, I bottled it.’ Oli stopped talking and clutched at her head with both hands, mucking up her hair even more. It was sticking out in all directions. ‘I just…I couldn’t come in. I sat in the car. It was getting darker. I didn’t know what to do. And then you arrived with some men, and you all went in there, and I still couldn’t get up the nerve to come in…’ She gulped and rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes like a tired child. Then she dropped her arms and looked at Lily. ‘It’s funny, I thought if I ever saw you again I wouldn’t know you, but I did, I knew you straight away when I saw you standing outside the church. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

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