LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 5

      The exercise yard was a bleak place with the high barbed wire walls and the officers keeping a keen eye. Groups of women stood smoking and talking. Kara was alone and had no idea where she would fit in. A few necks craned her way, and she could feel the tension as the other women whispered and laughed. Her blood was rampaging through her veins like spears of ice, and she could feel her heart beating wildly.

      Then, she saw Vic and didn’t know whether to go over or keep away. She was surrounded by a crowd of hard-looking women, with tattoos, meaty arms and scars, cold smirks, and toothless smiles. There was no one like herself. The black inmates huddled together, a few Chinese formed their own group, and then there was Big Vic. She was like a showpiece, with a following all looking up to her.

      Kara was completely out of her depth. She looked who she was: a well-off person who would have been at home perhaps in one of the enclosures at Epsom Racecourse, but here, standing on Larkview Prison’s exercise yard, she was ill at ease. What was even worse was the rest of the inmates knew it. But try as she might to find someone like herself, she couldn’t.

      But, then, who was she? All she’d ever been was Justin’s girlfriend. She didn’t have friends, too busy with her head stuck in a book. Now, she was still a nobody, but she was a nobody who was caught in a car’s headlights, ready to become roadkill. Vic looked her way, and for a second, Kara was gripped with fear. Had the cream worked? God help her, if it hadn’t. Vic flicked her head for Kara to join her. Reluctantly, she ambled over and smiled nervously, searching her face for any small indication that she was about to get her head kicked in.

      ‘This is Posh. She’s a doctor, a friend of mine.’

      As if all her fears collapsed at once, Kara could breathe. She acknowledged the others, with a shy nod.

      The short heavyset skinhead, with massive jowls, laughed. ‘Ya mate? Yeah, Vic, she don’t look like your kinda pal.’

      A deliberate glare from Vic to the skinhead changed the atmosphere immediately and everyone stood around feeling tense. ‘Listen, if I say she’s me mate, then she’s me fucking mate. Now, if ya wanna argue the point, Teri, me and you are gonna fall out big-time.’

      Teri, the skinhead, stepped back, realising she’d engaged her mouth instead of her brain. ‘Ahh, nah, nah, Vic, I was just saying she looks, well, ya know, soppy, like.’

      With a deep, raspy laugh, Vic heavily patted Teri’s shoulder. ‘Posh, ’ere, is far from soppy. She will burn ya in ya fucking bed, if ya even look at her the wrong way, and if she don’t, Teri, I fucking will. Got it?’

      Teri’s eyes widened, as she peered over at Kara. But Kara knew what Vic was doing. She was protecting her, by giving her a reputation that she didn’t really deserve. She’d never had a fight in her life.

      ‘Er, sorry, Posh, I mean, not that you look soppy, ya just look kinda cute, if ya know what I mean.’

      Another wrong move. Vic’s hand gripped Teri’s shoulder, pushing her down. ‘And she ain’t into women either, so touch her, or even wink her way, and I will seriously fuck you up.’ She eyed the others in the group: it was a warning to everyone.

      Vic walked away with her arm around Kara. ‘It worked, kiddo. That silly ol’ cunt of a doctor put his glasses on and had a closer look, and then he gave me the cream, just like you said.’ The older woman looked at the downtrodden expression on Kara’s face and sighed. ‘I know, love, it’s hard, trust me. I’ve spent most of me life inside. Ya don’t belong ’ere, and that’s a fact.’

      She stopped talking and turned to face Kara. ‘I must be going soft in me old age, but ya did me a favour. I owe you one, not that I ever owe any fucker anything, like, but you, I do. Any nonsense from the bitches in ’ere, you tell me, all right?’

      Kara was nodding like her head would fall off. ‘Thank you, Vic, you’re right. I’m so out of my comfort zone, I’m scared to death, to be honest. Those women look as though they could eat me for breakfast.’ She looked back at the coven of inmates whispering in their little circle.

      Vic laughed out loud. ‘That lot are a bunch of fucking pussies, but ganged together – ’cos they can’t fight one-on-one – they are nasty. You stick with me and you’ll be all right … Aw, before I forget, ol’ Deni is sick. She ain’t left her cell. In agony, she is, the poor cow. The doc reckons she’s got a migraine, but I’ve never seen her cry in pain before, so take a look for us, will ya?’

      ‘Deni?’

      ‘Yeah, everyone calls her Deni. Her real name is Denise Rose Denton – famous, her crime, ya know.’

      Kara swallowed hard. She wasn’t a GP and had only received three years’ training in medicine before she became an epidemiologist, but how could she say no? ‘Yes, of course, I’ll take a look.’ Her upbeat tone, she thought, should instil confidence, if not in herself, at least in Vic. She closely followed her new best friend, hoping that she wouldn’t get stopped by one of the officers because she had absolutely no idea of the rules. She was still in shock and struggling to take it all in, although she needed to learn fast.

      However, Vic seemed to know the ropes. She wondered what she was inside for. It must have been pretty bad, if she’d spent most of her life locked up. Her thoughts returned to her own predicament and what her life had mapped out for her. She wouldn’t hold her breath, that was for sure.

      Just as they were about to enter B Wing, an officer, Vic’s personal officer,

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