Chapter 38

Carol had been our doctor since the Hall opened, and was used to human drama, but this was more than she'd ever had to cope with before. She rose to the occasion, took over with a professional tourniquet which let me rise from my bloody duties and see to Em, who had come round, but was as weak as a kitten, and couldn't stop crying. I helped her onto a chair by the back door, wrapped her in a blanket, and while Carol called the ambulance and the police, I yanked off my blood soaked t-shirt and mini-skirt, and raced around the house semi-naked, on a mission of concealment. I briefed Em and Carol as best I could in the circumstances, and Carol swore to tell our version of the truth. I was back in my charnel house garb by the time the police arrived. They never saw the revolver, the block and tackle, the S&M equipment, the ample evidence of our sexual preferences that was normally just beneath the surface at Keepers. Before anyone arrived, I'd cleared everything away and hidden it deep in the woods, everything but the iron hooks on the beam, and I hung bunches of dried flowers from them. Em had to go to hospital as well; we were worried about the baby, how the beating might have shocked the foetus.

The police stormed in a minute or two after the ambulance. You'd think they'd be grateful to have an escaped prisoner returned to them, even a wounded one, even after that prisoner had tried to kill an innocent member of the public, but as soon as they realised who I was, they insisted on letting me know that they still didn't like me; they still tried to trip me up. Once a con, always a con; their attitude was as clear as day. I treated their ridiculous, entirely speculative accusation that I had helped Sarah to escape with the contempt it deserved, challenging them toe to toe. Felicity was in court in London that day for one of our women, but I was not the silly girl they had pushed around in 1973. I had gained my law degree and a huge amount of experience with their like, since I founded WOOP. I no longer feared them, and once they understood that, I received a little more respect. I insisted that before I tell them my story, they tell me theirs, just like in the school playground, but that's the way they wanted to play it.

Sarah's escape was on of those things that should never have happened, but sometimes they just do. In some bizarre re-shuffle designed to make a set of statistics look better, they had decided that as Sarah hadn't been any trouble for several years, she could make way for someone more deserving of high security. They were moving her from Durham to a medium security prison in Hertfordshire. They stopped for petrol, and Sarah said she needed to go to the toilet. She'd been taking her drugs and treatments like a good girl, calming down long since from her storming psycho rages into a blankly docile state. The screws knew her and didn't expect trouble. When they were in the toilet, the screw accompanying her took off the handcuffs. But Sarah wasn't as doped as they thought, and she was still incredibly strong. She knocked out the guard who had accompanied her, popped the back window of the toilet, climbed out and ran. They were less than thirty miles from Elvestone. Like a huge homing pigeon, Sarah covered that in one night, on foot.

I told the Police the version of the truth that best suited all three victims, and challenged them to prove otherwise, which I knew they couldn't. Just before they took her away, Sarah come round for a few seconds. She looked up at me, and it was shattering, like she was just waking up to what she had done, what I had done to her, and she knew everything. She just smiled reached for the hand that I held out to her instinctively, and squeezed it as if to absolve all of us. Whether she lived or not, she had the choice of silence, and I knew in my heart she would take it. I let the Police have the billhook and a piece of knotted rope with blood on it to account for Em's body scars. That was all. If Sarah made any kind coherent of statement we would deny everything.