Chapter 10
“Well, as I live and breathe,” Shell Dockley yelled as
she saw Nikki emerge from her cell. “Nice to see you back, Nikki.”
“Piss off, Dockley!” Nikki exclaimed. “Or you won’t be
living and breathing much longer!”
“Oh, I’m frightened of the big bad baby-killer!”
Dockley mocked.
Nikki’s face darkened angrily and she set off in
Dockey’s direction.
Karen Betts had just come onto the wing and heard the
exchange. She quickened her steps and managed to step in front of Nikki just
before she reached Dockley. “I’d like a word, Nikki, please. Wait for me at the
gate.” The tall lifer started to object but Karen stared her down and she
stalked off. The Wing Governor turned to Dockley. “And you can count yourself
lucky that I got to Nikki before she got to you. Next time you might not be so
fortunate.”
“It ain’t my fault she’s a psycho killer!” Dockley
retorted.
“Yeah, well, she’s not the only one,” Karen muttered
as she turned and went after Nikki. “Come on, let’s go to my office.“ The two
women walked to the Wing Governor’s office in silence. “Sit down, Nikki,” Karen
commanded as she closed the door. She perched on the edge of her desk and
regarded Nikki intently. “What on earth’s got into you? Before you were shipped
out, you seemed to have got your act together. Now, just a few days later,
you’re back to square one. I will not have you brawling on my wing!”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Nikki snapped as she
started to rise.
“Well, I do. Sit!” She took a packet of cigarettes
from her pocket and offered the packet to Nikki before taking one herself.
“Tell me what’s gone wrong, Nikki?” she asked gently as she held her lighter
flame to Nikki’s cigarette.
“I rang my housekeeper,” Nikki began softly. “It seems
you were right, I did put my trust in the wrong person…Helen shopped me.” She
took a drag at the cigarette and Karen noticed her hands were shaking.
“I’m really sorry,” she replied sincerely.
“I don’t need your sympathy!” Nikki retorted as she
viciously stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray. Her face crumpled and, to
her dismay, she burst into tears. “Oh, Karen, what have I done to deserve all
this?” she asked despairingly.
Karen ground out her own cigarette then crouched down
in front of Nikki and put her arms around her. “Don’t, Nikki,” she soothed her
gently. “I hate it when you’re like this. You’re usually so strong.” She held
her until her tears abated.
They drew apart and Nikki regarded her with a tearful
smile. “Your husband’s a lucky man. You’d be so easy to love.” She stood up,
drawing Karen with her then crossed to the door.
“So would you,” came the soft reply.
Nikki turned. “Thanks, Karen, for everything,” she
replied before leaving the office to be escorted back to the wing.
Helen drew into the car park of Trik’s nightclub, five
minutes early for the meeting she had arranged with Eddie Barton, Trish’s
business partner. It was two days since Monica had told her to leave and after
her talk with Dominic, he had invited her to stay in the spare room at his
parents’ cottage for a couple of nights, an offer she had gratefully accepted.
She went inside the club and found the cleaners busily
at work. “I have an appointment with Mr Barton, could you tell me where I might
find him, please?” she asked of a short, blonde woman.
“Not too sure, love. ‘Ere, Ju, do you know where
Steady Eddie is?” she called to a tall, thin, blonde.
The woman walked up to them. “Think e’s in the office,
Ju.”
“You’ll find ‘im through there, love.” The short
blonde pointed to a set of double doors.
“…past the main bar.”
“…through the door marked ‘private’.”
“…down the corridor.”
“…door at the end.”
Helen looked at the two women in amazement as she
tried to follow their directions. “Thanks, I think I should be able to find
it,” she replied, not totally convinced.
She found the office and Eddie Barton opened the door
to her knock. “Come in, Miss Stewart,” he said cordially, when she had
introduced herself. “Take a seat. Can I get you a drink?” She declined and he
went and sat behind his desk.
Helen sat down opposite him and took out her notebook.
“As I told you, Mr Barton, I’m doing a series of articles on nightclubs around
Britain, so if I could just ask you a few questions.” As they talked, she
scribbled down notes for effect but she hadn’t come to find out about
nightclubs, she had come to find out about Eddie Barton’s relationship with Trisha.
“I was wondering, Mr Barton…”
“Call me ‘Eddie’, please,” he interrupted smoothly.
“I was wondering…Eddie,” she began tentatively. “If
the tragic death of your partner last year had an adverse effect on the club.”
Barton looked at her through narrowed eyes then his
face cleared. “Some people have a morbid fascination with death, so if anything
it brought the punters in. It was a real tragedy, Trisha was a lovely girl.”
“So I’ve been led to believe,” she murmured.
“I was away on holiday when it happened. Shocked me to
the core, I can tell you. Me and the wife caught the first plane back when we
found out.” He looked at her curiously. “Surely you don’t need to know about
this for your article, do you?”
She smiled at him disarmingly. “Sorry, I am
digressing, aren’t I? Well, I won’t keep you any longer, Eddie.” She stood up,
extending her hand. “Thank you for your time.” Her hand was taken in a
vice-like grip.
“Don’t suppose I could interest you in a little
dinner?” he asked hopefully.
“Don’t suppose you could, but thanks anyway.” She
gritted her teeth and forced a smile to her lips as she dragged her hand free.
“I’ll see myself out.” Outside in the corridor, she breathed a sigh of relief
and then frowned. She was rapidly running out of suspects. That was another one
off the list, two, if you counted his wife. She went back into the club where
the two cleaners were standing chatting.
“Did you find ‘im, love?” the short blonde woman
called to her.
“Yeah, thanks very much,” Helen answered with a smile.
“Have you worked here long?”
“Couple of years, ain’t we, Ju?”
“Yeah, must be, Ju,” the tall blonde agreed.
“So, you would have known Trisha Marshall?”
“Oh, we knew Trisha alright,” short Ju informed her.
“Din’t we, Ju?”
“Oh, we did.”
Helen smiled to herself. The pair obviously liked
nothing better than a good gossip. “Were you working the day she died?”
“We were. I said to Ju…”
“Did you notice anything odd about her?” Helen interrupted
swiftly. “Did she appear to be upset or anything?”
“Funny you should say that.” Short Ju wagged a finger
at her. “What did I say to you at the time, Ju? ‘Trisha’s in a state’.”
“You did, Ju. I remember vividly. ‘Specially after
she’d ‘ad the argument…”
“She had an argument with someone?” Helen interjected.
“Do you know who with?”
“That’s right, she did,” short Ju agreed avidly. “No
idea who it was, love. We could just ‘ear Trisha and a man shoutin’ at each
other in the office.”
“Did the man sound young or old?” Helen probed.
“Old, I think.”
“Yeah, definitely old.”
“Well, thanks very much.” Helen smiled at the two
women. “You’ve been a big help.” She went out of the club and got into her car.
As she sat there, her thoughts turned to Nikki. She couldn’t believe how much
she was missing her. Maybe Monica had some news of her. She took out her mobile
and nervously dialled the number for Nikki’s house.
“Hello,” a male voice spoke at the other end of the
line.
“Dominic, it’s Helen. Is Monica there, please?”
“She’s not here, Helen,” he informed her. “Nikki sent
her a visiting order, so she’s gone to see her. She should be back later. Do
you want to leave a message?”
“It doesn’t matter, Dominic,” she replied
disappointedly. “I just wondered if she knew how Nikki was. See you later.” She
ended the call with a deep sigh and decided to go back to the cottage.
Dominic’s parents were a charming couple who obviously
doted on their only child. John McAllister was paralysed down his right hand
side and he could barely speak but his wife, Meg, seemed to know exactly what
he wanted without being asked.
Helen went in the back door of the cottage and was met
by Meg McAllister in an agitated state. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she cried
with relief. “It’s my husband, I can’t waken him!”
“It’s really good to see you, Monica,” Nikki said
sincerely, as they sat together in the visitors’ room.
“It’s good to see you too,” her housekeeper smiled.
“Dominic sends his love and a gardening magazine. I’ve left it with the
officer, the magazine, that is.”
“Thank him for me, will you?” She smiled secretively.
“And tell him to check the drainpipe outside the guest bathroom.”
Monica looked at her with a puzzled frown. “Check the
drainpipe?”
“Don’t worry about it, Monica. Just tell Dominic to
get it fixed.” She looked around the room and then at Monica, knowing that she
couldn’t put off any longer what she wanted to ask. “Have you heard from
Helen?”
“No and I don’t want to hear from her!” Monica replied
sharply. “Bloody journalists!”
Nikki looked at her in surprise. In all the years she
had known her – and it must be six or seven – she had never heard Monica swear!
“What brought that on?”
“Well, it just amazes me the lengths they will go to,
to get a story!” she exclaimed. “I’m surprised you didn’t see through her.”
“Hang on, Monica. What are you talking about?” Nikki
demanded.
“Helen ‘bloody’ Stewart, that’s what I’m talking
about!” she retorted. “Wheedles her way into everyone’s affections and all the
time, she’s a journalist.”
“Monica, I know Helen is a journalist.”
“You know!” Monica rounded on her. “But you’ve always
hated journalists and kept well away from them.”
“Helen was helping me.” Nikki looked at her guiltily.
“Monica, you must know I didn’t kill Trisha, Helen was helping me find out who
did.”
Monica put her hand to her face in horror. “And I
threw the poor girl out.”
“Well, after you said she’d shopped me, she deserved
it,” Nikki replied bitterly.
“I didn’t say she’d…shopped you. I did say she’d
betrayed you but that was after I’d read the article she had written.”
Nikki’s face lit up. “Then she didn’t turn me in to
the police?”
Monica shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought so.
She was as upset as I was to learn you had been captured.”
Nikki stood up and hugged the older woman across the
table.
“Sit down, Wade!” Sylvia Hollamby ordered from the
other side of the room.
“Old Bodybag!” Nikki muttered as she sank back into
her chair but even Bodybag couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. Helen hadn’t
shopped her! “So, do you know where she is? Did she go back home?”
“The last I heard, she was staying with Dominic.”
“Dominic?” Nikki echoed. She laughed bitterly. “Well,
she didn’t waste much time, did she?”
“I’m so sorry, Dominic,” Helen said softly as they
watched the paramedics take his father’s body away. “If there’s anything I can
do – anything at all – you only have to ask.” The telephone shrilled. “Would
you like me to get that?”
The young man nodded, unable to speak.
She picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Helen?” a voice queried from the other end of the
line.
She frowned. “Yes. Who is this?”
“You’ve soon forgotten me,” the voice said
sarcastically.
Helen’s face broke into a smile. “Nikki! I can’t
believe it. How did you know I was here?”
“Monica told me. Did you have to lie to me about Dominic?”
“Lie to you?” Helen repeated.
“You said you weren’t getting close to him,” she
accused. “But it must be a great comfort to you to know you can still pull the
boys!”
“What the hell are you talking about, Nikki?” she
demanded. “Dominic’s just a friend. If you must know…”
“I don’t want to know anything!” she retorted. “You’re
nothing but a two-faced tart!”
“Sod you then, Nikki!” Helen exclaimed then slammed
the receiver down. After what had happened between them, how could Nikki think
she was interested in Dominic?
“Helen,” Dominic spoke behind her.
She turned as his face crumpled and she held her arms
out to him. She would have to help Dominic through this first then try and get
to see Nikki and sort out the mess between them.