Death Row - Mark Pearson [10]
The girl rolled onto her front again and lifted her nightdress. There was no point talking. She had learned the hard way that to pretend to want him just meant it was worse when he had finished. That she was to blame. That it was all her fault. She knew better, and she knew the angers that raged within him were beyond his control. She knew why her aunt had got drunk and shitfaced and had taken herself away with needles in her arm until one day she just took herself away for good. She knew why he only wanted her like a boy. The thought of it now chilled her to the bone as she realised that everything was changing. Time was running out.
She heard the porcine grunt, felt his filthy hands hold her, felt him enter into her. Her eyes pricked with the pain at first, tears that she blinked back, willed back, and then her eyes went as cold and dark as the sky outside, as flat and still as water under a full moon.
Better her, she thought. Better her.
His time was coming.
*
Kate closed the door quietly behind her. It was one o’clock and the house was quiet. She glanced into the lounge, but the lights were off. She eased off her shoes with her feet and went quietly into her bedroom. A soft gentle snoring told her that Jack had let himself in, and she was glad. She slipped out of her clothes, shrugged into her bathrobe and, closing the door quietly behind her again, walked to the bathroom, a foolish smile playing on her lips. Jack was all kinds of trouble, she knew that. It was like bringing a whirlwind into her life, but the thing was … she couldn’t picture life without him any more. She held a hand to her normally flat stomach and felt a slight swelling there now, as though she ought to be cutting back on the four-seasons pizzas. Except that Kate knew it wasn’t due to an unhealthy diet, it was due to Jack Delaney. The father of her child.
She let her bathrobe fall to the floor stepped into the cubicle and turned the shower on, adjusting the temperature. She stood underneath the powerful jets of water and felt the tension easing from her body as the water pummelled her flesh. A few months before and she would have had the water a lot hotter, punishing her flesh. Scourging the demons within. Burning the pain and the hurt and the guilt away. Now she just had it hot. Hot enough to wash the smoke and the grime and the smell of the city off her, but not hot enough to hurt. Not any more.
Kate gasped as a large powerful hand snaked around her waist and pulled her backwards against him. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard him enter.
‘Room for a little one,’ said Jack Delaney.
Kate laughed. A musical, deep-throated laugh that came from deep within her.
‘I thought you were getting up early?’
Delaney leaned in and whispered in her ear. ‘I am.’
Kate pressed back against him and smiled again as she reached around with her own hand. ‘That you certainly are.’
SATURDAY
Outside Bayfield Prison. Morning. Six-thirty. The dawn only just about breaking. Dark but getting lighter by the minute. Not getting any warmer, though. Dampness hung in the air like a very fine mist. Not raining, at least, which was about the only good thing you could say about it, thought Melanie Jones as she adjusted the belt on her raincoat, folded her arms and flapped her hands against them, trying to coax some warmth into her shivering body. The raincoat had been bought from Aquascutum on Piccadilly for a small fortune and might well have kept the rain out but it certainly didn’t keep any heat in. It wasn’t the money she’d spent that she objected to, either: it was the fact that she needed to buy a raincoat at all. Bloody England – that was the problem. London in particular. Sodding London. Sodding rain-sodden London. She was still here! If she had her way she’d be out on the west coast of America where the news stations knew how to respect talent and you only