Cat and Mouse by Tim Vicary

orator, and had only spoken in public once or twice before, but here in the crowded airless cell she provided a welcome distraction. Her audience was captive, but sullen, frightened and cynical too.
    ‘Look at us all here now! How many of you would be in prison at all if you were paid a decent wage by men instead of half what they get? If you had a proper education, if there were women lawyers as well as men — if the laws were made by women? If women had the V . . .’
    ‘Sal would!’
    ‘What?’ Sarah shook her head, confused, as the fat woman's laughter interrupted her. She was pointing at one of the two women sitting beside Sarah — a slim woman in a blue print dress, handsomer than most of the others, who might have been pretty if it were not for a certain hard strength to her chin, and the plucked eyebrows which Sarah loathed.
    ‘Sal likes doing it, lady! Can't get enough! She'd be 'ere whoever made the laws — wouldn't yer, Sal?’
    ‘You shut your mouth, you old pissbag! If I had a decent flat of me own I wouldn't need to be 'ere at all, 'course I wouldn't! Just because no one but a blind drunk beggar's been near you in the last . . .’
    The two women got up, facing each other, and in a moment the cell erupted into conflict, which lasted until two large policemen waded in to restore order. Quite how serious the turmoil had been Sarah was not sure, but it was obvious no one was prepared to listen to her arguments any more. She relapsed into silence, and desultory conversation resumed all around her. After a while she became aware that the two women beside her were discussing children. Sal, the woman next to her, was advising her friend about her daughter.
    ‘I told you, didn't I? They'll look after her. She's a looker, ain't she?’
    ‘I know that, but not yet. She can show it off if she wants to, but she's just a kid. Thirteen next July. I wanted something better.’
    ‘Like what? Look, face it. She's got six months now to fend for herself without you — what's the choice? She could go into service and get up at five every morning shovellin' ash out of grates, and then scrubbing floors and polishing silver all day till eight or nine at night — would that make her happy? Or she could get a job wearing the skin off her fingers stuffin' bristles into brushes ten hours a day for one and six a week — is that what you want?’
    ‘It's straight, in' it?’
    ‘Yeah, it's straight. Straight way to death by exhaustion, I say. I know, I done it, dearie. Look, if Mavis has come and asked you already, your kid must be a looker, mustn't she? It's her chance, ain't it — are you going to stand in her way? That Mavis, she may look like a pig but she gets some of the best clients in the business, she does. Listen, there's a kid I know, Rachel Hargreaves. Mavis took her on a couple of years ago. Found her in that charity hostel when her ma was in Holloway — Lord knows what Mavis was doing there. Anyhow, she started her out at that place in Hackney, Red Lion Street, the one that doctor owns, Armstrong. Just like your little one she was, couldn't have been more'n thirteen then, and now I swear she earns more'n I do. In demand all over the place, top hotels, Kensington, the lot — sends her old ma four or five quid a week, never mind the rest.’
    The other woman wavered. ‘I could do with that, God's truth I could. And my Linda would send it to me, she's a good girl, she is.’
    ‘Well, there you are then. Play your cards right and you never need work again. And you'll get a good bonus for her being pure.’
    The other woman sighed. ‘I know, I know. I just wish it could wait a year or so, that's all.’
    ‘Well, it would have waited, if you hadn't quarrelled with your Dan and got forced out on the street again. But you're getting on, dearie, we all are, you got to look out for number one. At least this way your kid has a good lie in, keeps her looks, and has a chance of going somewhere . . .’
    The cell door