Faith by Lesley Pearse Page B

about her new shoes and a jumper Mum had bought her to show any concern as to why her sister was in bed.
    It came to Laura during that long night when she couldn’t sleep that there was no alternative for her but to leave the house for good. She knew it would be too much of a strain living here after what had happened, and besides, Vincent might do it again.
    But that meant she would have to leave school and get a job. That would be the end of her plans for university and a career.
    Hate was an emotion she’d never felt for anyone until that night. She had never hated her father, even though he wasn’t much of a one. She didn’t hate the girls at school who had bullied her either. But she learned to hate Vincent in the early hours of the morning as she lay there seeing her plans and dreams shattered.
    She couldn’t even get her revenge on him, not without putting her family at risk. If it had just been her mother she wouldn’t have cared, for it struck her that Vincent had spoken the truth about her, at least in part. But Meggie, Ivy and Freddy were little innocents; she couldn’t do anything that would backfire on them.
    ‘But I can wait to get my revenge later,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I’ll go, disappear where you’ll never find me. But I’ll keep tabs on you and pay you back one way or another.’
    A scream further down the block brought Laura sharply back to the present. Someone was fighting again and before long others would join in. She had no intention of going out there to see what was going on, but she got off her bed and washed her swollen eyes with cold water.
    ‘The question is, do you want Stuart to visit you or not?’ she asked her reflection in the small mirror.
    Her head was telling her that the only reason he wanted to come was to gloat at her misery.
    But her heart told her to send him the visiting slip anyway. If nothing else, it would be good to talk to someone who had cared deeply for Jackie. And maybe she could take the opportunity to apologize for the hurt she had caused him in the past.

3
    ‘Visitor for Brannigan!’
    Laura started in surprise as the prison officer’s voice boomed out along the block. She had been longing for her name to be called, but from the moment she opened her eyes this morning, she’d felt sure Stuart wouldn’t come.
    She didn’t stop to check herself in the mirror, for she was already disappointed that the prison hairdressing salon hadn’t been able to achieve the rich, deep brown colour she’d hoped for. It had come out far too red, but at least they had cut it well, and it was now a neat bob to her shoulders.
    In the absence of anything smart or pretty to wear, she’d opted for jeans and a pale blue tee-shirt. The other women had said she looked great, but then they’d never seen her without pale blotchy skin, or in the kind of elegant clothes she used to wear. Most of them had friends or relatives who could bring in new clothes from time to time, but she was stuck with the things her lawyer, Mr Goldsmith, had collected from her flat after her trial. With his wife’s help he’d picked practical, comfortable clothes that would wash well, though with only four sets, they all looked shabby and frumpy now. But then Laura hadn’t imagined she would ever care what she looked like again.
    As she made her way in the warm sunshine from Bravo Block across the prison grounds to the visiting room, it occurred to her that if she had to be in prison, it was probably better here in Scotland than in England.
    She recalled seeing pictures of Holloway Prison in London, a grim Victorian place built like a fortress, and other women here spoke of prisons where they had been locked in their cells almost all day. At Cornton Vale there were no high walls, only metal fences, and the grounds were quite attractive, with grass, trees and even a pond with ducks. Each block had its own exercise yard, and there was a view from almost every cell, either of the hills or of the