The Rebel by Jaime Raven: Guest post

The Rebel by Jaime Raven

Release Date: 5th April 2018
Publisher: Avon

Genres:  Crime / Thriller

Sometimes you have to take the law into your own hands…

DI Laura Jefferson will do whatever it takes to bring down London’s most notorious crime boss. When her team receives a deadly threat – stop their investigation or the police and their families will be targeted – but they aren’t willing to back down…

Then the killings begin.

A new body turns up every day, and with no leads, Laura knows she has to take action. Her family is innocent and she’ll stop at nothing to protect them.

When someone close to her is hurt, she’ll break every rule in the book to get vengeance.

 

GUEST POST

TIME SERVED

SHORT STORY

BY JAIME RAVEN

Author of THE REBEL

I’ve had my scary moment, of course. The times when I thought my number was up.

I can still taste the blood in my mouth from Tommy Butcher’s fist when he lost it after they told him he wasn’t going to get parole. And then that time when I was attacked with a makeshift knife by a loser who was high on drugs.

There were other bruising encounters, too numerous to mention. But that’s the reality of life in a prison with 1500 inmates and only 700 staff. Things get out of hand, trouble flares, but is hardly surprising given the plentiful supply of drugs and booze.

‘So have you got any immediate plans?’ Bill asks me and I tell him about the party my son has arranged.

‘It’s at a pub in Camberwell tonight,’ I say. ‘One of my old haunts. He’s even gone to the trouble of booking a Frank Sinatra tribute act.’

Just thinking about my boy brings a lump to my throat. He stuck by me even though I broke his heart when I tore my family apart.

‘You did a bad thing,’ he once told me. ‘But you’re still my dad and I love you. And I’m old enough to know that everyone makes mistakes.’

The mistake I made ruined my life. I lost my wife, my self-respect. And the home I’d loved and lived in during ten years of marriage.

I also scuppered the plans I’d made for the future. Susan and I were going to spend our twilight years soaking up the sun by the pool of a Spanish villa.

Susan did move to Spain but with a man she met a year after our divorce. I actually cried when my son broke the news to me. It was like having salt rubbed into the wound.

Even now it’s hard to accept that I won’t be spending the rest of my life with Susan. That she’s not waiting for me outside the prison gates. That she won’t be at the party tonight and dance with me to my favourite Sinatra songs.

I have to remind myself yet again that it’s all my own fault. If only I hadn’t done what I did then things would be very different. The future would look bright instead of dark and dismal.

‘I wish you all the luck in the world, John,’ Bill says as he bids me a final farewell and shakes my hand. ‘Please try to enjoy your retirement. You certainly deserve to after spending twenty five years as a prison officer, over fifteen of them in this hellhole.’

But how can I possibly enjoy life without Susan? I betrayed her, you see. Five years ago I cheated on her with her best friend. It was only one night of passion, but in Susan’s eyes it was a heinous crime and one she could never forgive.

Jaime Raven