‘What do you mean?’ Anna says, her fingers tightening into the dog’s fur.
‘Someone ran you down, Anna,’ Tom says.
‘It was just an accident,’ she says. ‘You know what drivers can be like.’ Her words fade away.
‘I saw it, I tell you. A little white car, heading straight for you, revving its engine.’
‘Who would have wanted to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Is there anything else you’re not telling me?’
A ripple of that terror she felt in the cell runs through Anna, the whispered wordsI thought I could trust youan echo in her mind. Tom’s face is guileless, his eyes bright. She could go through the hidden phone with him in search of any clues. Maybe he could help her work out who Kelly was talking to.
At the thought of that conversation, something tugs in Anna’s brain. Kelly said she was nicked at the Westgate Centre. There’s a Westgate Centre in Oxford – Anna’s sure of it. She remembers it from her university days. It makes sense that Kelly would have come from somewhere round here, given the proximity of the prison to the city. She mentioned a hostel, too.
Tom lives in Oxford. Maybe he’ll know where the hostels are where Kelly might have stayed. She opens her mouth to ask him, shuts it again.
On the face of it, she can trust him, but her gut’s telling her not to. This isn’t her secret to share. Yes, he’s open, maybe too much so. She remembers the girl she bunked with, back at the start of her sentence. She was open, too, full of useful information, warnings about who to avoid in the prison, who to befriend. Anna told her everything, only to find rumours of it everywhere she went, twisted and distorted and used against her throughout the rest of the wing. Her former friend smirked in the background when Anna was jumped in the shower by the resident hard nut screaming ‘CHILD-KILLER!’, punching her in the face in time to the yells. She made no effort to help Anna or point out that the accusation was false, that Toby had not in fact died.
Tom doesn’t seem untrustworthy, but nor did that early pad mate. Anna is going to figure this one out on her own.
‘If you take my advice, you’ll leave this one alone. It’s nothing to do with you. Just keep your own side of the street clean,’ he says. ‘Promise me you’ll keep your nose out of it.’
She raises an eyebrow at his insistence, keeps quiet. Time to change the subject.
‘I’m going with you,’ Tom says again. She had tried and failed to convince him that she could manage her trip to London alone.
‘I can look after myself,’ she says. She’s trying to withdraw from him, though he’s not making it easy for her.
‘It’s probation. I don’t want you to get in any trouble for not staying in the hostel last night,’ Tom says.
‘I thought you said it was sorted.’
‘I left a message,’ he says. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. But we don’t need any problems with your licence before it’s even begun.’
Anna glares at him, about to have a go, before remembering how tired she’d been, how little she’d wanted to fight her way into London and find the bed she’d been allocated for the night.
‘It would have been too late anyway,’ she says. ‘By the time I got out. It was a total shitshow.’
‘You could say that,’ he says, and suddenly they’re both laughing, the mundanity of the words in the face of the horror she’s faced so ridiculous it’s the only possible response. ‘I’m serious about coming with you,’ he continues. ‘I want to explain what happened to probation. The important thing is that you’re there on time, but just in case . . . What will you be doing? Do you have a job lined up?’
Anna looks at him, the moment of mutual understanding now gone, collapsed to earth. He has no idea.
‘A job? Me? That’s the last thing on my mind.’
‘You’ll need to support yourself somehow,’ he says.
He’s right. She knows he’s right, but having any kind of future, taking care of herself in any way – that hadn’t been the plan. She hasn’t caught up with the change yet.
‘Look, I know it seems a bit remote given what you were thinking, what you were going to do when you got out. That was before, though. You’re not going to find out about Kelly overnight.’
She opens her mouth to argue.
‘Hear me out,’ he continues, without giving her a moment to speak. ‘I know what we’ve just discussed about that car, too. You might be at risk, there’s no way of knowing for sure. But one thing is certain: you’re safer here than out there, in a hostel – or worse, sleeping on the streets in London.’
She nods. Maybe he’s got a point.
‘So. You were a lawyer before you went inside,’ he says.
