The thought terrified her.
But what frightened her even more was the threat that, should she ever tell anybody — anybody — her stepdad would kill her.
Chapter Three
Trent was awake long before the cell lights flickered on the following morning. He had watched the darkness of the night slowly fade to the dull greyness of dawn and eventually the brightness of day. He saw these changes take place through his cell window from 4 a.m. onwards, lying there on his bunk with his hands clasped behind his head.
His mind was very clear by the, time the key turned in lock and the screws barked to the residents that the new day had dawned.
Trent had reached two conclusions.
The first was that if he stayed in prison, whichever prison it happened to be, this or any other, he would continue to suffer at the hands of mad bastards like Blake and his cronies. His miserable life would be continually made worse. Therefore, in order to make his existence tolerable, Trent knew he had to do something to make everyone acknowledge he could not be messed about with.
The second was that he’d had enough of being in prison. He promised himself that if the opportunity ever presented itself, he would escape. He needed to do this because he had vowed to bring retribution to the people responsible for putting him in here. There was no way he could even out that score with another eight years still to serve.
The sooner the better for both ideas.
And, Trent thought as the cell door was pushed open, if the two could be combined…
The sea, the sex and the emotional turmoil of the day before had taken its toll on Danny Furness. She managed to rise at eight and slope into the shower, but hardly had the strength to dry herself, put on her make-up to the usual high standard and then eat breakfast. She did all three in a state of extreme lethargy.
She drove into work with a jittery feeling in her belly. There were several busy days to go before her promotion and transfer to the CID, which meant it would be impossible to avoid Jack who, if he so chose, could make life very uncomfortable for her.
She hoped he would be okay about the split. She knew, however, he had a stubborn, sometimes nasty streak to his nature. A smooth ride was not a foregone conclusion…
… which was confirmed with a vengeance when she drove into the police station yard, found a parking space in the covered car park and spotted Sands in her rearview mirror just before she was about to get out of the car. He must have been lurking in the shadows, waiting for her to arrive. She snarled and swore under her breath. He wasn’t even giving her the chance to get into the office, for God’s sake!
She pounded the steering-wheel in frustration, got a grip on herself and clambered slowly out of the Mercedes, mentally preparing herself for an unpleasant encounter.
Sands stalked up to her, positioning himself between her car and the next one along, effectively blocking Danny’s path.
He looked far worse than Danny had ever seen him. His eyes were sunk in their sockets. His skin hung loosely off his cheekbones as though he’d lost weight overnight. His hair was in disarray, his suit crumpled as if he’d slept in it, which he probably had. He was a million light years distant from the normally immaculate Jack Sands, dapper Detective Inspector.
For a fleeting moment Danny’s heart reached out to him. She had an urge to hug and squeeze him, tell him she was wrong, that everything was hunky-dory, that yes, she’d continue to be the other woman. The one he visited twice a week for sex — if he had time; the one who waited stupidly for his call, the one madly in love with him, dreaming of being his wife yet knowing for sure she never would be.
The moment whizzed by and Danny found her will-power. Being on the pointed end of the eternal triangle was not going to be her future. Once again, she looked coldly at him.
‘ Danny,’ he gasped, the smell of stale intoxicants on his breath, ‘don’t do this to me.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Jack — don’t do this to me. Let me pass.’
He drew himself up to his full height, almost six-three. He was a big, powerful man. Danny saw a look come into his eyes which made her shiver. That of a desperate man, capable of anything.
Suddenly she felt queasy. Her legs almost buckled.
‘ Jack, it’s over. I’m sorry, but it’s best for both of us.’ She tried to sound reasonable. She ducked to one side and made to walk through the narrow gap between Sands and her car.
His arm shot out, preventing her passing. He side-stepped smartly to block her with his body.
‘ No,’ he croaked. He was on the verge of either tears or hysteria. ‘It’s not over. Not unless I say it’s over. I love you, Danny. You can’t just end it like this. I need you.’
‘ More than you need your wife?’ she rejoined bitterly.
‘ I’ve told you why I can’t leave her,’ he hissed.
‘ Then it is over, isn’t it? Don’t be a fool. Let me pass. We both have work to do. This is just silly.’
They were the wrong words to say. Some inner demon overtook Sands as these last words left Danny’s mouth. He seized her coat by the lapels and rammed her painfully back against the Mercedes as though she was a prisoner he was trying to subdue.
Danny’s literal knee-jerk reaction floored him. He emitted a howl and doubled over. His hands shot down to nurse his groin. Danny pushed past and walked smartly away whilst he supported himself on the boot of her car with one hand, the other gingerly massaging his balls.
Then he spoke the words, which for Danny, finally nailed the coffin lid on their relationship.
‘ You fucking bitch!’
As the day wore on, Trent’s thoughts about combining an escape from prison with a revenge attack on Blake became all-consuming. He could think of nothing else. Escape and revenge, escape, revenge.
But how, he wondered.
As he strolled around the prison, ignored by virtually everyone, a few ideas seemed to slot into place as he thought long and hard about the problem.
Blake and his two colleagues had blighted Trent’s life ever since their arrival as inmates eighteen months earlier; they had done the same to every other sex-offender in the place. They had systematically rooted out all the ‘pervs’, as they referred to them, and made their whole existence a misery on a grand scale.
For some solace, and so they could exchange information on Blake’s intentions and movements, the pervs banded together. About eight of them formed a sort of club, though Trent tended to keep his distance from them. Apart from holding them in a kind of contempt, he didn’t want to be seen to be too pally with them because he actually felt superior.
But that morning, Trent purposely sought one of them out — an insipid worm of a man who had been convicted of a series of indecent assaults on boys in the local authority children’s home where he was Head Warden and the deaths of two of them. His name was Victor Wallwork.
Trent found him sitting alone at breakfast, shunned by the other inmates who were eating at that time. He sat down next to him and spooned sugar into the grey, lifeless porridge in the bowl in front of him. It looked more like wet cement than food.
Wallwork did not acknowledge Trent. He munched toast, slurped loudly out of a mug of tea, his unfocused eyes stuck somewhere in the middle distance.
Between mouthfuls of his own stodge, Trent said through the side of his mouth; ‘They got me last night, the bastards. Blake and his crew. Bastards!’ He spat out the last word.
‘ I know,’ grunted Wallwork. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair.
‘ You next,’ Trent informed him casually.
Wallwork choked on his tea and toast. He broke into a paroxysm of coughing and spluttering whilst he tried to clear his throat. He turned to face Trent. At the best of times Wallwork’s face had a deathly-grey pallor. Now, what blood there was had seeped away into his boots leaving him ashen-white.