LITMIR.BIZ

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realised she was gripping the phone so hard her knuckles were white, and she couldn’t process the words coming through.

      Until she heard ‘Parole Board’ and her guts twisted further.

      Ethan and herself had been asked to attend a meeting with them a few months before, but she had let Ethan deal with it. Afterwards, he had seemed pretty certain that the general consensus was that Terry Prince wasn’t getting out any time soon. But then Ethan always had the knack of hearing exactly what he wanted to hear and no more.

      ‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that please?’ Lucy said, her voice sounding far away. Inside she was screaming no no no, because she didn’t want to hear what she suddenly already knew.

      ‘Terry Prince is to be released on parole tomorrow. You and Mr Randall are of course being made privy to this information before it goes public.’

      ‘How considerate,’ she said with just a trace of sarcasm, her throat still feeling as if it had been sandpapered. ‘But why were we not made aware when the decision was made?’

      She wondered if they had told Ethan yet, or if she was the first to know. The first to be told when it was too late to do anything about it.‘It was decided it was in the public interest…to avoid a media furore…’

      Lucy gave a hollow laugh and sat down on the leather arm of the chair, the words floating over her and forming into sentences that made no sense. Public interest. Exactly who was this public? Not her, or her family. Not all the mothers who had read about Jack’s murder and clutched their own children that bit tighter, kept them that bit closer for a few weeks until the news stories had been replaced with something else and Jack’s murder had become yesterday’s drama.

      ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,’ Lucy had said, her voice sharp and cutting into the speaker’s less than confident explanation, ‘how can he be released? He killed my son.’

      She said the last dispassionately, a wave of calm settling over her. The body’s way of shielding itself from trauma. As a child, whenever she had felt threatened or scared, that same calmness would settle over her, just for long enough to get her through. Lucy’s mother always said she was strong, especially in the aftermath of Jack’s death when she hadn’t tried to kill herself or stay in bed for a year. When Ethan had left her for another woman and she had barely reacted. When her oldest son Ricky had his…problems.Lucy however knew that it wasn’t strength, more the ability to hide, but the day would come when there would be no more hiding and she would have to face it all head-on.

      And then, she thought, she might finally break.

      The voice continued. Talking about good behaviour, rehabilitation, how every care had been taken to ensure Terry Prince was fit for release. How he would have a new name; a new address away from Coventry. How he would be monitored and on licence for life; how the smallest misdemeanour would see him back inside. Lucy didn’t care about any of that. There was only one question, would only ever be one question now, instead of the ‘why?’ that had echoed in her mind all these years.

      ‘Where is he?’

      Another throat clear.

      ‘That’s classified information I’m afraid, Mrs Ran…Wyatt. Ms Wyatt.’

      Lucy put the phone down on him while he was offering her an appointment with a Family Liaison Officer ‘to discuss any concerns’. She held her breath for as long as she could, fully aware that the moment she inhaled, life would come rushing in, and everything would be once again irrevocably changed.

      Chapter Two Wednesday

      Detective Inspector Matt Winston rolled over in bed, saw the back of his girlfriend’s head and sighed. She wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t sure exactly how he knew that; perhaps because she was too still, her breathing too controlled, or just because he could feel the animosity rolling off her like a stench. He sat up taking most of the covers with him, and she didn’t flinch. Definitely awake. Carla was a light sleeper and she would have turned and made that cute murmuring noise that she did when her rest was disturbed, following by a burrowing down beneath the pillows.

      Matt got up, flinging the covers back over her and going into the adjoining bathroom for his usual morning routine. Shit, shower, shave. In less than ten minutes he was back in the bedroom and lifting his shirt and trousers from the hanger. Carla hadn’t moved. He began the countdown in his head, knowing she would speak before he left, and that she wouldn’t be able to hold her tongue all day.

      Sure enough he was sitting on the end of the bed pulling on his shoes when her voice came, cold and clipped. Trying not to betray any trace of the hurt he knew she was feeling. Perhaps he should be more sympathetic, but as far as Matt was concerned her pain was self-inflicted. He had been straight with her, had promised nothing because he knew he couldn’t deliver, and she pulled this shit on him now? But at the same time he knew it had been coming, had seen the inevitable in her eyes, and knew he should have called time on the situation before it ever reached this stage. He pushed away the gnawing guilt. It was easier not to feel, and that was precisely the reason Carla was mad at him.

      ‘So,’ she said, her voice muffled by the pillow, ‘where do we go from here, Matt? Should I take my things today, is that what you want?’

      Matt shook his head, feeling instantly like a bastard. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t say yes, just go, and in all honesty he didn’t want her to, or at least he wouldn’t have if she hadn’t started all this where are we going? crap. He didn’t see what was wrong with the way things were, or at least, he tried to tell himself that.

      ‘I never said I wanted that,’ he said, cursing himself for sounding defensive, ‘just as I have always made it clear I don’t want the whole marriage and babies thing. I told you when we got together.’

      ‘Three years ago, Matt!’ she snapped, sitting up in one fluid, angry movement. Even first thing in the morning and with her eyes puffy from crying, Carla was beautiful. Her jet-black hair – all natural – and piercing green eyes against flawless ivory skin gave her the look of an old-time Hollywood star. Any man with any sense would have a ring on her finger before she could escape. Unfortunately for her, Matt wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be, more that the barrier he had erected round himself where relationships were concerned was too high for even Carla to scale.

      ‘I meant it, Carla. Five years, ten years, it isn’t going to make any difference. That just isn’t what I want.’

      ‘You mean you just don’t want it with me.’ She narrowed her eyes at him like a cat. ‘Is there someone else? Is that it?’

      ‘Of course not.’ God forbid he would have to deal with this from two women. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later, okay? I’ll come to your house, bring a Chinese.’

      Carla glared at his pathetic attempt to placate her and as he stood up and reached for his jacket she sighed dramatically and lay back against the pillows, lifting her hands in a gesture of resignation.

      ‘Fine. Call me later.’

      Matt leaned over to kiss her goodbye but she turned her face away, giving him a perfectly drawn profile, and his lips just brushed her hair. He straightened, murmured a goodbye and left the room and his apartment without his usual coffee, relieved the morning hadn’t brought the showdown with Carla that he had anticipated.

      He had to let her go. It was only fair, but he also had to admit to himself that he would miss her. She was great company, witty, beautiful, great in bed and, with a flourishing journalistic career of her own, didn’t complain – too much – about his long hours. His girlfriends loved her and his male friends wanted her. She was a great girlfriend; but that was all he was ever going to want her to be. Not his wife and certainly not the mother of his children. It wasn’t her, but like most women she wouldn’t believe that and would start trying to change him. Then when that failed, to change herself, making herself into the sort of woman she thought

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