Patricia tugged and tugged at the handle of the door but it was bolted top and bottom as well as being locked. She knew the exercise was futile, but she had to try, hoping against hope one of them had made a mistake.
After all, hadn’t Sian Carter escaped?
But they had tightened security since then. She knew somebody would be sitting outside the door, always silent, forbidden to speak to detainees, but there nonetheless.
Patricia collapsed in a heap on the floor and curled up into a foetal ball.
What could she do?
Images of Cherie flashed though her mind. On the promenade at Blackpool, a kiss-me-quick hat on her head and a stick of rock clamped between her teeth. Bent over a hot stove stirring away, drinking a gallon of white wine. Getting ready for bed in the middle of winter, wearing knee-high purple socks and clutching a plastic hot water bottle across her chest.
Would she ever see her again?
‘Let me out!’ she screamed. ‘LET ME OUT!!’
There was no response.
She began to sob, her chest heaving.
She would never see Cherie again, she knew that now.