Thirty-Six
The day of Lilian’s release came around fast. Faster than she actually wanted. She may have expected to hear from Kurt. Nonetheless she was chilled by his message.
With Kelly’s encouragement, she asked Jean Carr to push for her to be granted lifelong anonymity. Jean was not optimistic. She pointed out that whilst there were a number of people in the UK living under new identities through the witness protection scheme, there were only six criminals throughout the country who had been given lifelong anonymity, in each case because the crimes they had committed were so notorious.
Lilian was relieved that she did not fit into that category, but disappointed to be reminded that she remained, in law, a convicted criminal. She was even more disappointed that the persistently positive Jean Carr held so little hope.
Predictably enough Jean proved to be quite right, and Lilian’s cellmate quite wrong. Neither the police nor the courts would even consider providing her with a new identity.
Jean continued the legal battle to force Kurt to provide Lilian with funds. But the process, complicated by Lilian’s conviction for committing grievous bodily harm against her husband, threatened to be endless and had yet to produce a penny.
She would have found herself released with nothing more than a discharge grant with which to attempt to restart her life, had it not been for Kelly, who arranged for one of her dubious associates to collect the Hockney from Kate and Charlie and sell it. Lilian ultimately received only a fraction of its real value, of course, but she hoped it might be enough for her to start a new life.
She called Kate, now the mother of a little girl, and explained that she was going to do her best to go to ground, and she had no idea when she would be able to call again. Lilian actually thought it was quite possible she would never feel able to call Kate again. But she didn’t say that.
Kate sounded both taken aback and saddened. She was warm, concerned and slightly apologetic.
‘One of Charlie’s police contacts has told him they now believe the South African High Commissioner and the government minister who claimed to be having lunch with Kurt when you said he’d confronted you, here in Islington, may both be on his payroll,’ she said. ‘I guess we shouldn’t have doubted you. But it does still seem a little far-fetched.’
‘Not to me it doesn’t,’ muttered Lilian.
With the help of various prison charities Lilian was able to acquire a shorthold tenancy on a studio flat in Reading, which seemed like a suitably anonymous sort of place in which to hide. And Lilian had no doubt that was what she needed to do. Jean arranged for her name to be changed by deed poll. It wasn’t the same as being given a new identity, but, hopefully, it would help. She had her red-blonde hair cut very short and dyed an unattractive mousey brown. She hoped it would not only radically change her appearance but also help make her inconspicuous, somebody no one would bother to look at twice. She also took to covering her distinctive freckles with high quality concealer and foundation. All she wanted was to disappear into the background wherever she was.
The studio flat was far from the kind of accommodation she had been used to. Just a posh name for a bedsit, in Lilian’s opinion, and this one was not even a posh bedsit. She had also acquired a job, stacking shelves in a supermarket, again a far cry from what she had once been used to. But none of this bothered her at all. She desired only to be left alone. And she was grateful for any kind of peace in her life. Although she was a long way from finding any real peace, and indeed doubted that she ever would.
At first she just could not believe that Kurt would fail to find her again. And quickly. She wasn’t really living. Just waiting. But eventually she did allow herself to relax a little, to risk a casual friendship with one or two workmates, and even to build the beginnings of something resembling a social life, going to the cinema or the pub occasionally.
Then, just as she was beginning to dare to wonder if maybe Kurt had walked away from her after all, perhaps even found someone else, or even that he had lost his touch, and couldn’t find her — he turned up.
It was late afternoon on a Sunday. She had been to the cinema with a workmate who had come back to her second-floor flat for a coffee, and only left a minute or two before. Lilian’s guard was down. It had been almost a year since her release from jail. A year that had passed without incident, and without any sign of Kurt or his people. The communal front door downstairs was permanently locked and operated by an intercom system. When the doorbell to the studio rang, Lilian just assumed her workmate had returned for some reason. She opened the door at once, without even attempting to check who was outside. Kurt was standing there, smiling a huge smile. He immediately lunged forward through the doorway, unceremoniously pushing her to one side.
Fearfully she backed into the room. He kicked the door shut behind him, dropped his coat and briefcase carelessly onto the floor, and moved closer to her, until his face was just inches from her face. He was clutching the biggest bouquet of flowers she’d ever seen. With cool indifference he tossed it onto the bed then grabbed hold of Lilian by the shoulders. His fingers dug into her flesh.
‘You can have it the easy way or the hard way, Lilian,’ he remarked conversationally. ‘Why don’t you make it the easy way?’
Lilian had always known better than to try to resist Kurt, and he was well aware of that. This time, it seemed, he was not even going to bother to pretend to court her. He just wanted sex straight away. He slapped her, once, twice, maybe three times, across the face. His usual foreplay. Then he forced her down on the bed, ripping and tearing at her clothes and his own. She lay quite still, in order that he would hurt her as little as possible. She even began to try to give the impression that she was enjoying their sex session. She scratched his chest with her fingernails. He scratched her back, only rather more viciously. On her arms, her breasts, and her belly. His fingernails were perfectly manicured, and kept slightly longer than most men’s, just as they had always been. She so wanted to make it stop. But he kept on going. And he kept on hitting and scratching her. Then, somehow, perhaps he was climaxing, she neither knew nor cared, she managed to wriggle from under him.
It had all gone too far again. Much too far. Just like at the hotel in Bristol. Lilian was bleeding from her nose and mouth. She could only open one eye. She ran for the door. Half-naked. Terrified. She just wanted to get away from him. But, as before, he had no intention of letting her leave. He came for her again. There was a struggle. A violent struggle. Like the last time. But different.
This time there was a gun. A small lethal handgun. And suddenly, in the middle of what turned into an ill-matched wrestling match, Lilian had the gun in her hand. She fired it, barely aware of what she was doing. It was point blank range. The gun’s barrel was almost touching his flesh. The room exploded in a flash of fire and a blaze of light. And so did Kurt St John’s chest.
He dropped like a felled animal onto his back on the floor. There was a hole in the middle of his body. Blood, tissue, and bits of bone spewed everywhere, including all over Lilian. This time there was no doubt about it. This time she had killed him.
Kurt St John was dead.
Thirty-Seven
Vogel was thoughtful as he ended the call to Helen Harris.
He wondered if Helen was playing him. Certainly he felt she was holding back, that she at the very least knew something he did not.
He and Saslow were together in his office. Both with laptops.
‘What background do we have on Helen Harris?’ he asked.