Two Women (46 page)

She shook herself mentally. Things could change again now she was nearer to them. Rosie could start to see her more often and she could get up a relationship with her at last.

She brushed her hair with greater care in case the visit was from the kids. She wanted to look nice for them.

Matty came back into the cell and smiled at her, pleased she was washed and brushed up.

‘I hear you’ve got a visit?’

‘News travels fast in this place.’

‘Shall I do your hair for you? Make you a bit more presentable?’

She was eager to please and Susan suddenly felt a wave of tiredness. She wouldn’t cope for long with this woman, she knew she wouldn’t. She’d end up on another murder charge.

But ten minutes later she had a neat chignon and had even been talked into wearing a bit of make up. When she looked in the mirror Susan was surprised at the difference. Matty laughed, pleased with herself.

‘You look almost pretty. What you need now is a good skin care routine and a few nice clothes and you’ll be a stunner.’

Susan snorted grumpily.

‘Listen, darlin’, if I won the fucking pools and went to a plastic surgeon I still wouldn’t be a stunner. Not with my body anyway. I reckon I might have a bit more luck with me boatrace, though.’

She admired the difference once more in the mirror and hoped it was the kids coming. She had one reception visit to use, and she wanted to use it wisely.

‘You’d get that weight off if you tried. Stop eating stodge and keep to the veggies.’

‘What is it with you, Enderby? Have you taken it on yourself to be my fucking personal assistant or something?’

Matty smiled annoyingly.

‘That’s one way of putting it. You have a good rep. Even Rhianna is wary of you and she isn’t worried about anyone else.’

Susan didn’t answer her.

Matty didn’t push it. Instead she picked up some nail varnish and, smiling, informed Susan she was going out for some recreational nail painting.

Susan shook her head in disbelief at the woman’s vacuous existence even in nick.

Matty stood at the cell door then and said seriously, ‘Actually, I was a legal secretary - I hold a surgery here every day for the other girls. Giving advice and so on. You should look in, I might be able to help you. I might look like a bimbo but underneath all this is a brain like a computer.’

She blew Susan a kiss and walked from the cell. Susan poked her tongue out at the door and sighed. This bird was a head case, she was convinced of it.

She knew that her sojourn in Durham had made her reputation.

A lesbian had taken a shine to her, and Susan had explained that she liked her as a friend but that was as far as it went. The woman, a tall blonde amazon, had not been pleased.

Unused to being refused, she had taken serious umbrage, leaving Susan in a quandary. Julia Stone had made Susan’s life unbearable. Everywhere she went, showers, toilet, exercise, Julia was there, looking angry, trying to intimidate her. Susan had heard through the grapevine that she was going to net her in the showers. She did not want to be raped, and she knew that Julia, being the type of personality she was, would not listen to reason. As far as Julia was concerned, Susan was going against her.

Placing a billiard ball in a sock, Susan had taken her walk to the showers and then she had hospitalised Julia Stone for two months. This act had achieved two things, Julia Stone had lost her status and Susan had acquired it. Which was the reason Rhianna was wary of her now, was the reason most people were wary of her.

Even the PO’s were impressed.

But Susan did not want to be like Rhianna any more than she had wanted to be like Julia.

It was survival, no more and no less.

 

The private visiting room was painted a dull green. It was supposed to make people calmer. Susan thought it looked like puke. Green bile-coloured. She sat at the table and bit her nails, the little bits of nail she had left anyway. When the door opened she sat up straight, her heart in her mouth as she waited for one or all of her children to walk in.

Instead it was a young man of about thirty, casually dressed. Too casually to be a brief but Susan didn’t worry too much about that. He had brown hair that looked like it had been cut with a knife and fork, deep green eyes that were twinkling and merry, and a full mouth.

‘Hi, Susan, pleased to meet you at last.’

She noticed he had nice teeth, even and straight. She could see him as a regular attender at a dental surgery. All caps, crowns and fillings. Pity he didn’t worry so much about his hair.

‘Colin? ’ He could hear the disappointment in her voice and smiled to cover his nervousness.

‘Colin Jackson, we spoke on the phone.’

Susan nodded, taking in his scruffy jeans and well-washed jumper.

‘So you’re the hot shot lawyer who’s going to handle my appeal then?’

Her tone of voice said everything and he had the grace to blush.

‘I know I look very casual today but I have had quite a lot to do. I saw your children this morning.’

He saw her face light up and sighed inside himself.

‘They’re bringing them in on Friday. Friday afternoon.’

He saw her face drop.

‘That’s days away.’

Her voice was flat, dead-sounding.

He tried to jolly her along. Opening his briefcase, he took out a file. It was about five inches thick.

‘I have all your papers here, everything pertaining to your case.’

‘How thrilling. Well, you can argue what you like, I have nothing more to add. I took the hammer and I killed him. Simple as that.’

Colin smiled half-heartedly. ‘It’s not as simple as that though, is it, Susan? Something triggered that violent action. We know he beat you regularly, we know he was a violent criminal. I know he beat you badly a few days before you killed him. Why didn’t you kill him then?’

She smiled nastily.

‘I didn’t feel like killing him then. I was sore, hurt, my ribs were broken and my face looked like someone had jumped on it. But the last trial proved that none of that matters. Mine was a premeditated act of murder, I’m surprised they’re even allowing an appeal.’

‘Well, things have moved on since then, haven’t they? You only ever made one statement, on the night the incident occurred. In that statement you claimed you had had enough and that it was time for him to die. Those were your exact words. Now of course we can plead just cause. We’d have to prove he was going to harm you again, that you were terrified of him. If we can convince the court of that, I think we can get the sentence reduced to manslaughter then get you out on time served.’

He smiled, pleased with himself. Expecting her to be as pleased as he was.

‘I have to pretend I was nutty at the time, is that it?’

Colin looked suitably chastened.

‘I don’t want you to think I’m asking you to lie . . .’

Susan shrugged.

‘Listen, Colin, when I hit that ponce with the hammer it was the sanest I had ever been in my life. Now I know that might sound strange to you, but that’s tough. I should have done it years before.’

Colin recognised the truthfulness of her statement. It was in her voice, in her eyes. Seeing her today, with her hair neatly put up, her face clean and scrubbed, she looked a different person from the one in the newspaper photographs of two years before.

Then she had looked fat and frightening. Her face so hard-looking. So bereft of anything remotely like remorse or even worry, certainly nothing like fear. She had sat stone-faced through her trial; her brief, realising what he was dealing with, did not put her in the witness box. Each and every psychiatrist had written the same report. Undecided on her mental state. Refuses to discuss the night in question. Refuses to acknowledge what she did was wrong. Same words each time. Just reiterates that it was time for her husband to die.

In the end the judge had given her a life sentence for murder, saying that he had no option as Mrs Dalston refused to tell anyone what had happened that night and still refused to acknowledge her part in it in any way other than as his killer. The police statement she signed had her admitting she would do it again if she ‘had the chance’. The police had clapped themselves on the back, the tabloids had had a field day and Susan had disappeared into prison and away from everyone’s attention and consequently their minds.

But her four children adored her and it was evident she loved them.

In short Susan had done everything possible to be put into prison. It was as if she’d wanted to be separated from her kids. Wanted to be classed a murderess. She refused to use intimidation or threats from her dead husband as an excuse. She came across as a woman determined to kill, and therefore the judge had to sentence her accordingly.

But Colin’s boss was determined to get her out and had campaigned for an appeal. Now they had just a few months to put forward a new case. Everyone had thought she might finally tell the truth about that night. It seemed they were wrong.

‘Listen, Susan, if you’d only see sense we could maybe get you out. Back home to your children, back to your life.’

She stared at him blankly.

‘We know what he did to you, we’ve looked through your medical records, everything. It’s no shame to have been badly hurt and to retaliate. We’re all capable of it.’

She didn’t answer him for a minute. Finally she spoke as if to a child.

‘But I didn’t retaliate, did I? You forget that. It was five days after he’d last hit me that I killed him. He was unconscious and drunk at the time. A sitting duck. But I tell you something, Colin, and you can write this in your little notebook - when I brought that hammer down on his skull it was the best feeling in the world. I just kept repeating the action. It was better than drink, drugs or sex. I’m locked up here but at least I released my kids from him and what he was. I ain’t making excuses for what I did because I’m glad I did it and two years on I would do it again if I had the chance. Unlike Barry, I’ll pay for my past deeds. Though he paid too in the end.’ She grinned. ‘Oh, he paid all right. I made fucking sure of that.’

Colin stared at her then. He was shocked by what she’d said though inside himself he knew she was in the right. Susan was an eye for an eye person. He understood that and after reading her medical files also understood how someone could reach the point where they would take no more.

If only she could see that they could get a case together for her, get her out on time served. But it was almost as if she relished being locked up, relished her punishment.

When the judge had passed sentence on her, Susan Dalston had laughed. It was the only time she had shown any emotion throughout the whole proceedings. She had refused her counsel’s advice to introduce her previous medical history in evidence. She had refused to do anything, in fact, that would help her case.

In short, she had locked herself up and thrown away the key.

‘What’s happening with me kids?’ she asked Colin.

He smiled.

‘They’re doing well. In fact they’re coming in this week as you know. But all of them are doing fine. Rosie, is it, the youngest? She’s settled well with her foster parents and they adore her. Is there no one you know who could take the others on, though? The eldest, I believe, lives part of the time with a friend of yours, Roselle Digby? Could she not maybe take the others too?’

Susan shook her head. ‘Nah, she can’t. I wish they’d let me mate Doreen take them. She was up for it.’

Colin nodded. ‘I’m afraid social services wouldn’t allow her to take them at any cost.’

Susan grinned.

‘She might be a bleached blonde slapper with five kids by different fathers but I tell you something, mate, she’s a wonderful mother and a wonderful person. It’s all relative, ain’t it?

‘What will be the upshot with the kids anyway? No one seems to tell me anything really.’

Colin couldn’t answer her as he didn’t know himself. He had a meeting with the children’s social workers later in the week.

‘I’ll know more after I’ve spoken to Miss Beacham, the social worker.’

Susan nodded again and lit another cigarette.

‘So what are you going to do then?’

Colin shrugged.

‘Doesn’t look like there’s a lot I can do, does there?’

‘I’ll just do me time quietly then. I’ll be out in four, maybe a bit earlier. I don’t know why you’re still bothering with me anyway. I’ve nothing to add to what I said before.’

‘I don’t either to be honest. I’d like to ask you one thing, though, Sue. Think about your four children and what it must be like for them growing up without their mother. They love you very much and as a mother you received nothing but praise. Though where you ever learned to be one, I don’t know.’

Susan did laugh now.

‘You’ve met with me own mother then? Old bitch. She sold her story to the papers and made a pile.’ She shrugged. ‘Good luck to her really, I expected no less. But to answer your question, I did the opposite to her with mine, I made sure of that.’

‘Well, I can’t see any of your children murdering anyone.’

Susan’s face blanched and she shook her head.

‘No, Colin, neither can I.’

Standing up, she terminated the interview.

 

‘Look at her, she really thinks she’s something special.’

Susan didn’t answer, but seeing Matty hold one of her surgeries was an eye opener. She watched as Rhianna took money or goods for Matty from each of the women who had come seeking the professional advice of a convicted murderess.

Susan saw the hope on the women’s faces as they consulted her, saw their worries partially lifted after they had spoken to her, and decided that if Matty wasn’t having anyone over then good luck to her.

Susan moved nearer the table so she could listen properly.