Two weeks earlier. Friday 5 October, 6 p.m.
In the small front room of a terraced house in the moorlands town of Leek, Staffordshire, on the first grey day of what threatened to be a long and harsh winter, Kath Whalley was pissed and pissed off. In fact, she hadn’t really sobered up since she’d left prison a few months ago. She was sitting in the cramped room, dimly lit by one solitary sixty-watt bulb, with her three mates, Fifi, Debs and Chi. Her father was letting her use the terraced house he owned. ‘For now,’ he’d warned. Then added, ‘Best if you go it alone, Kath.’ As he’d spoken he’d watched her warily, anticipating a violent response.
She’d stared him out so he’d changed his timescale to, ‘Long as you like, love.’ She’d entered the house ahead of him before grabbing the keys, turning around and slamming the door in his face. No need for words. Her dad understood her only too well. She’d go when she was ready.
He’d shifted off the doorstep and headed back home as fast as he could.
And so, months later, she was still in residence.
The room bore scars of previous tenants as well as of Kath’s rages: walls painted cream with patches of damp and marks where objects had been thrown or spilt, and the door pockmarked with holes on which Kath had pinned up a crude picture she’d drawn of a woman, anatomically and explicitly correct, bright blue eyes, thick, curling dark hair and – to remove any doubt of the person’s identity – around the neck she’d drawn a placard with the name, Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy. The detective’s large blue eyes worked perfectly as dual bull’s-eyes. But there were other equally good, larger targets.
‘Damn.’ She’d only gone and missed the eye, stuck one on the bitch’s nose. It quivered for a moment before dropping to the floor. Kath leaned against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.
She was held together by the sticky tape of hatred and the burning need for revenge. Kath considered herself a tough character. But last time the prison she’d ended up in had not been Drake Hall, the local women’s open prison, but some stinky place in bloody Derbyshire. Called a ‘reoffender’ now, the open prison had been swapped for the closed establishment which meant no little trips out for drugs, booze or liaisons (not that Kath was into blokes, her attitude being that they had their uses but most of the time they were just plain useless). In this prison the inmates were not crime virgins but women with experience. They had taught her a thing or two but, being away from Staffordshire and home, her friends and family hadn’t been able to visit. Or else they hadn’t wanted to make the journey. Initially, before she’d made a couple of friends, she had felt isolated, her anger compounding by the hour while she’d plotted her revenge. With help.
Isolation had been a new experience for Kath. Surrounded by her like-minded family they had normally worked together. But sending Kath to one prison, Hayley to another, Tommy to yet another and Ma and Pa to Winson Green she had, for the first time since her birth, been alone.
She’d sat in her cell, seething.
Until this prison sentence, Kath’s assaults had been instinctive, a sudden flash of fury that resulted in fists, feet, head making contact, bones crushed, blood spurting. She didn’t plan it. It just happened (which had not impressed the prosecution at her trial for an assault on an elderly lady). And afterwards she neither reflected nor regretted her actions. They just happened and were forgotten within minutes – at least by her. Maybe the victims spent some time in hospital, maybe not. It wasn’t her business. But Piercy had got under her skin, made a passionate plea at the trial. Impressed the jury; even her defence (a weak, lily-livered guy with odd eyes and a broken nose) had admitted, admiringly, that the DI had been a worthier opponent.
Kath had noted the words. So how much more impressed would the good townsfolk of Leek be when she finally beat her enemy? Now all she needed was a plan. She threw another dart and this time struck gold – the black pupil in the centre of the left eye.
As she’d been sent down she’d started to think. The stretch had been shit but she had used the time wisely, working things out with help from some of the other inmates who had been full of ideas and suggestions. And when she’d come out her three henchwomen had been waiting.
Hardly taking their eyes off her, she was watched by them now as she chucked her fag on the floor and ground it out in the carpet, leaving yet another scorch mark. She smelt the melting nylon and screwed up her face. Disgusting. One day she’d give up. Just not yet.
She kept her eyes closed while her three mates waited for her to speak. But they would have to wait. Kath was occupied in her half-dream world, her mind testing out various scenarios, each one ending in a different torture. Rip nails, stamp on face, gouge out eyes, punch her till her teeth all fell out. And the final triumph? She would kick her belly until it emptied and she bled the child away. And then she’d watch while her blond husband left her.
Prison had taught her things. The other inmates hadn’t known her reputation, so she’d stayed quiet for almost a week.
Until … She’d grabbed someone who’d pissed her off once too often, got her in a headlock and crashed her against the sink until she’d flopped to the floor. Not quite unconscious. They’d made such a fuss, alarms and screws rushing in; it had earned her an extra six months on her sentence, but it had also earned her the respect she’d expected. From then on no one dissed her. Not even the screws. There is only one way to earn respect in prison.
Kath opened her eyes, looked at her three mates with a sense of satisfaction and took in a long, deep breath. They were only too aware that the Kath who came out of prison was a different version of the same person who had gone in six and a half years earlier. Tougher, crueller, cleverer, even more of an expert in the art of inciting fear. Never knowing when someone will come up behind you, try to gouge your eyes out, slam you on the head, break your jaw, trip you up on the stairs, gives you a heightened awareness. There are a thousand ways to vent your hatred on someone both in and out of prison. But whatever her status ‘inside’, none of the inmates had feared her like these three stooges. The stretch had left its mark but she had learned things in there too. Prison had its uses. It is an educational establishment as well as a correctional one. In her case the correctional part missed out in favour of the education she’d received. She chewed her cheek.