FRY

Chapter Twenty-Three

And so I languish in prison.

Due to the seriousness of the charges against me, I am denied bail and transferred to the notorious Gillmore women’s prison; a place I had previously only heard of from newspapers and TV. A place synonymous with riots and serial killers. And if I had imagined myself waiting it out in solitude, maybe getting a little reading done, I’d have been horribly mistaken.

Setting foot in Gillmore is one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. Every fibre of my body screams at me to turn around and run, but the place is too heavily guarded. There is no way out.

“I’ll be watching you, fire-starter!” jeers one of the prison guards, as I’m herded into the admissions area – a small, confined room with a number of other prisoners. A huge lump builds up in my throat as I realise what’s coming:

“We’re going to be strip searched!” the woman in front of me hisses. I get the feeling most of them have been here before.

Salt tingles on my tongue.

I will not cry.

The prison guard watches impatiently as I wriggle out of my jumper, T-shirt, jeans and socks.

“And the rest! Come on, don’t be shy.”

Warily, I undo my bra and fold my arms over my chest.

“We haven’t got all day, Princess!”

I let my knickers drop to the floor.

The prison guards have already made up their minds about me. I am every bit a criminal. I do not have the luxury of a cell all to myself as I did at the police station. I have to share. And the truth is, I am terrified of my fellow prisoners, even though most of the ones I come into contact with have yet to be convicted. But they wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t been accused of some terrible crime, would they? And a little part of me thinks there must be some grain of truth to the allegations against them. There’s no smoke without fire – isn’t that what they say? And yet, I find myself in the same position, counting down the days until my trial. Wondering if I will ever be vindicated, or if this is just the beginning of a terrible new life.

Gillmore is four hours from Queensbeach – far from everyone I know and love. My heart aches for my home, my friends, for my old comfortable routine, for Fluffy. For much of the time, I am cooped up in my cell, forced to perform the daily rituals of washing, dressing and even using the toilet, in front of a constantly changing stream of cellmates and the ever-watchful eyes of the prison guards, who peep blatantly through the Judas hole. I am allowed out for a short spell in the exercise yard each day, but even this is high risk. I am terrified of who I might encounter.

You see, I am surrounded by broken, damaged people; many of them drug addicts, hungry as vampires for their next fix. Volatile and unstable, these are not the type of people I want to be around. I suppose I make a few friends, but I have no intention of seeing any of them again – if I ever get out, that is. Fights break out daily, usually over the distribution of drugs, but anything can set them off; the slightest gesture, a comment, even an ill-advised glance. A packet of cigarettes is swiped off me the first time I set foot in the yard, but I move on, act like it never happened.

The first few nights, I find it impossible to sleep, but after that I get used to it – the constant banging on the bars, the yells, the shrieks and the moans. It all seems to blend into the background. It becomes almost… normal. Prison cures my insomnia. I suppose that’s the one good thing to come out of all this.

One day, I’m standing in the lunch queue, waiting for pudding to be slopped onto my tray, when the inmate next to me suddenly turns on the woman serving:

“What are you looking at, bitch?”

I jump back quickly as she flings scorching hot coffee in her face. My reflexes are sharp these days. They have to be. The woman screams in agony. I feel sorry for her, but I leave it to the prison officers to cart her off to the healthcare wing. I do not want to get involved.

“Hey, Princess!” calls Patty, the prison officer who singled me out when I arrived. “Did you see what happened?”

“No.”

Patty is always on my back, wanting me to tell her who did what to whom. But I’m no snitch. I keep myself to myself and keep my nose out of other people’s business.

“You think you’re better than everyone else, don’t you, Princess?”

“No.”

But deep down, maybe I do.

The only time I can really relax is when I’m with my lawyer, churning over the facts of my case. But in my third week at Gillmore, the man who comes to see me is not the lawyer I was assigned.

“Isabel?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Brian Crawford. I’m your new lawyer.”

“I can’t afford a new lawyer!”

Not one who wears this season’s Gucci suits, anyway.

Actually, he looks kind of familiar. I think I saw him on TV a few weeks ago, defending a politician who everyone said was guilty as sin. If I remember rightly, I think he won.

“You’re not to worry about the cost,” Brian says, opening his briefcase.

“Your friend’s going to take care of that.”

“What friend?”

I only have one friend who could possibly afford a swanky new lawyer – Deacon.

Can I let him do this?

I swallow. I’ve always prided myself on my independence. I’m not the sort of woman who likes to think of herself as ‘kept’ in any way. I’m not even comfortable with letting a man pay for my dinner, unless I’m planning on returning the favour. And yet…

Can I afford not to?

With the odds stacked against me as they are, there’s a very strong chance I will go to jail for a long time. The man sitting opposite me is probably my only chance of freedom, or, at the very least, a lighter sentence. Like it or not, I don’t have much choice but to accept.

Brian is meticulous in his search for the facts. It’s quite exhausting, going over everything, again and again.

“I already explained all this to the other lawyer,” I say, as he quizzes me about the fire at Robertson’s again. “Didn’t he give you his notes?”

“I know it’s a pain, but I need to hear it from you. I need to be sure he asked all the right questions. There might be something he missed. I need every little detail, no matter how tiny. In a case like this, we need to be extremely thorough.”

Throughout it all, my main hope is that Holly will come round and tell everyone that this has all been a terrible mistake – that I’m innocent and they should let me go. But poor Holly lies in a coma, stuck in the passageway between life and death. The more time passes, the more unlikely it becomes that she will ever recover.

“Is there any news of Holly?” I ask, each time I see Brian.

But the answer is always the same.

“Sorry, no change.”

I steel myself as a prison officer walks up to me at the end of lunch one afternoon.

“You’ve got a visitor.”

A visitor?

I’ve been so alone, so disconnected that I was beginning to think the whole world had forgotten about me. I’m sure my friends would have liked to come and see me, but it’s such a long drive from Queensbeach and they’d have to take a day off work.

The prison officer escorts me down to the visitor’s area, leaving me with Patty, who lingers longer than strictly necessary over the mandatory checks and searches. I glance anxiously at the clock on the wall.

Come on! Visiting time is almost over…

But Patty takes a sadistic delight in holding me up. By the time I am allowed to step into the visitor’s room, there are only 20 minutes left. Still, I can’t wait to find out who’s waiting for me:

“Deacon!”

It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the night of the fire. It seems unnatural not to run up and hug him, but the prison rules keep us at a platonic distance. He returns my smile but looks distracted, like his mind is on many other things. His demeanour betrays little emotion. He is brisk and businesslike as he goes over my case, my options, and my chances. He doesn’t talk about us and he certainly doesn’t talk about Alicia. I’m going to have to be the one to ask.

“Have you seen her?”

“No. She was gone when I came home from the hospital. Rhett didn’t even see her leave.”

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“Don’t worry about that right now. We have to concentrate on getting you out of here.”

“But what if she comes back? She could set light to the house, or… or… anything!”

I must have raised my voice a bit too much, because the people at the next table turn round to stare.

“Don’t worry about me, Isabel. I can look after myself.”

You can’t fool me. I know you’re scared. We both are. Alicia could come back any time.

I long to reach out and squeeze his hand, but I’m not sure I’m allowed. I’m also not sure how he’d respond. I couldn’t bear it if he rejected me. Not here. Not now. Not when I need every ounce of my strength just to survive.

After Deacon’s visit, I begin to get a few more. Kate, Rhett and Sonya all visit over the next few months. They barely mention the case at all but I find it hard to relate to their idle gossip. I suppose they are trying to keep my spirits up, but never once do they say: “I know you’re innocent.” Never once do they imply Alicia’s guilt. And if my friends think I’m guilty, how on earth can I expect anyone else to believe me?

I sink into a deep despair, don’t even care when a nasty prison officer pours gravy in my yoghurt, or when other inmates nick all my chocolate and cigarettes.

Then, just as I’m beginning to think all hope is lost, I receive a phone call from Brian and finally get the news I’ve been waiting for.

“Holly’s awake!”

I nearly drop the phone.

“Is she going to be OK?”

“Too soon to tell.”

As the days pass, news filters through that she’s getting better. Not her memory though, apparently. She still doesn’t remember what happened.

Or doesn’t want to remember.

“But her memory could come back at any time, couldn’t it?” I ask Brian, hopefully.

“It’s possible. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

He sounds just like my Mum did when I wanted something when I was a kid. Never an outright ‘no’, always a vague, indistinct answer – as if she hoped I’d just forget it.

I’m screwed, aren’t I?

Even if Holly does remember, that doesn’t mean she’s going to tell. If Alicia and Jody can turn my own brother against me, they can easily turn Holly. She is not going to be my ticket out of here. No one is.

My cellmate, Rachel, is undergoing a harsh process of detoxification. It’s not fun for anyone. There’s a lot of moaning and vomiting. The smell is enough to make me want to be sick too, so I keep right out of her way. I spend most of my time lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out how my life took such a rapid nosedive.

But it’s not just the other inmates I’m scared of. It’s her… Alicia. I get glimpses of her every now and then – a curly head at the other end of the exercise yard; dark, smouldering eyes in the queue for breakfast. Even the little doe-eyed girl in the visitor room. She is everywhere. I never get a moment’s peace. Not even here.

And although I sleep more deeply these days, I dream badly. My dreams are littered with cryptic memories:

I turn around urgently, looking for Wednesday Adams.

“You were going to tell me something,” I beg her. “Something important.”

She looks at me, derision in her face. Suddenly, she is not little Wednesday anymore. She is grown-up Alicia. And her eyes blaze with fire.

“You had your chance and you blew it. Now I’m taking matters into my own hands.”

“No, don’t! Come back and talk to me. I promise this time I’ll take you seriously. I promise I’ll listen.”

She fixes me with a terrible scowl. “It’s too late now. The damage is already done.”

And she spins on her heel and storms off.

The long months I spend at Gillmore might as well be years, or decades even. I have gone from outright panic to gloomy acceptance of my fate. This is where I belong now. This is my home.

The night before my trial, Rachel is carted off to the healthcare wing so I have the whole place to myself for once. A little quiet before the storm. Before I climb into bed, I do something I can’t really explain. I get down on my hands and knees and pray to a god I don’t believe in. Pray that I will be spared from this life of misery and torment. Pray for a sign that everything will be all right. My prayers are met with the banging of cell bars and the abrupt descent of darkness – lights out.

I lie down but I can’t get comfortable. I fumble under my pillow. It feels like there’s a rock under there. My hands close around something cold and hard.

A mobile phone.

Mobiles are strictly forbidden in Gillmore. Either someone is trying to get me in trouble or they want to get in touch with me. I stare, stupefied, as the display lights up. It’s ringing.

“Hello?” I whisper, grateful for the nosy wailings of my neighbours in the next cell. I really can’t get caught doing this. Not on the eve of my trial. And yet something compels me to continue.

“You really don’t remember, do you?” says the voice in the darkness.

“No.”

I hear an elongated sigh.

“I had hoped you would by now. Lord knows I’ve done my best to jog your memory.”

“I know you have.”

“I came to you in confidence and told you my deepest, darkest secret. I risked everything to tell you. I looked up to you. I thought you would help me.”

“You were ten years old. Just a kid…”

“Yes, I was just a kid. But you were an adult. You were supposed to do the right thing.”

“I…”

“Instead, you laughed in my face. Told me not to be so dramatic. Then you repeated everything to my dad, as an amusing story on Parents’ Day.”

“That’s all I thought it was.”

“You could have looked into it. You could have checked the facts. He burned me that night, you know. Branded that word into me as punishment for telling you. Burned it into me.”

“I… I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t try. It’s a terrible thing, to not be believed, Isabel.”

“I know. I know that now.”

“And I’m never going to let you forget.”

I flush the phone down the toilet. The hours tick slowly by till morning, a long, arduous journey into my personal day of reckoning. The day I’ve waited for, for so long now. My chance to prove my innocence – to finally get out. But it doesn’t feel as I thought it would. There is no sudden burst of adrenaline. No flicker of hope. Just resignation and reconciliation to my fate.

“Ah, Isabel. How are you feeling?” asks Brian, at our final meeting before the trial. His breath smells faintly of the espresso he had at breakfast. “I hope you managed to get some sleep? I just wanted to go over a few things before we go in.”

Without thinking, I put my hand up to stop him.

“Brian, wait. I’ve changed my mind. I want to plead guilty.”