Anna: Re-Invented

By Rene Bird

Anna has once again landed in jail. First, she poisoned her lover’s wife and served ten years in prison. On her release, she meets her lover once more and becomes romantically involved, only to find out he deceived her from the very beginning. She only meant to harm him for the harm he had caused her, but she went too far. Anna now has another sentence to serve and struggles to look forward to some sort of future. To do this, she must reinvent herself and survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796003604

Rene Bird

After a career as a Private Secretary and Personal Assistant, Rene decided to use the talents she was blessed with for her own purpose. Rene lives at the seaside on the outer reaches of Melbourne, Australia. She is an avid reader herself and has always found time the time to read, not only as a relaxing tool but also to open her mind. She graduated from college and then traveled before settling down and marrying. Her two daughters and their four children keep her busy. At 55 years of age Rene has found writing a great past time and stimulates her thinking.

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Copyright © 2019 by Rene Bird.

ISBN:                Softcover                            978-1-7960-0361-1

                          eBook                                978-1-7960-0360-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/05/2019

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Other books by the same author:

Anna

Anna – again

Three Views

Jennifer’s Dad

Children’s book:

I didn’t Know That!

Biographies:

2 Private (not published)

Dedicated to

my husband,

my cousin Pamela,

and to the many friends who

have encouraged and

listened.

Anna opened her eyes when her sense of smell brought her back to the reality of where she was.

The Great Wall of China was built during the seventh century BC. It was erected to protect those people living inside the wall from others wishing to harm them. It was not built to contain those living within the wall.

Anna adopted this same line of thinking when she was again sentenced to twenty years incarceration. Within the prison walls she was safe from harm, both emotionally and financially.

She was first sentenced to twenty years at the age of twenty-eight for premeditated murder, but good behavior and her ability to help others rehabilitate themselves, saw her released after serving only ten of those years.

At the tender age of twenty-two Anna had lost both parents in a car accident. As their only child her parents had ensured she would be financially looked after if they were not around to do so themselves, but their absence and the happy family atmosphere they created for their daughter was something they could not recreate for her or even arrange for her.

Anna desperately set herself a goal to be as happy in a relationship as her parents had been and to achieve that end result she had tried, endured and suffered through relationship after relationship, all failing miserably.

To boost her morale after a devasting end to a relationship where she bellowed down to a suicidal level Anna organized a holiday in Europe. Over a year in Europe where every toss of the dice worked in her favor – and she made it so – she moved back to her Sydney apartment and her employment as a Social Worker.

Within a few months she was right back mentally to where she started. Looking for a man to share her life. A man she could look to for strength and a man who would help her shoulder all the ups and downs that came across in day to day life.

And then she found him. The only drawback was that he was married with a family. Anna deliberately clouded her own good judgement and then after moving into his residence on the pretense of assisting his hopeless wife and their little girl Cherie, she put her plan into action.

Andrew and Michelle welcomed Anna not only into their home but also into their family. Over a short period of time she had made herself indispensable, driving Cherie to school, paying household bills for Andrew and even taking Marley the dog for walks.

When Andrew’s wife Michelle became ill with a virus and was bedridden for two days, Anna set in motion what

she envisaged to be the perfect murder to dispose of Michelle. With Michelle out of the way Anna would have Andrew, his child and his home all to herself. A little ready made family.

Over the next three to four months Anna introduced the syrup she had boiled from Oleander leaves into Michelle’s food. Each week she increased the dosage until Michelle was so ill she could no longer leave her bed.

When Anna assumed that Michelle’s organs were about to collapse she purged Michelle’s skeletal body with litres of water. If Michelle was not able to drink more than one full glass of water at a time, Anna would hold her head back, force her mouth open and pour the water down her gullet.

Anna thought she had masterminded the perfect crime when standing next to Andrew at his wife’s cremation. It was such a relief to Anna that she had been able to convince Andrew and Michelle’s family that cremation was what Michelle had requested in her dying moments. All traces of poisoning would be eliminated.

It all came crashing down around Anna when the locum doctor who attended to Michelle one week before she died took a bed sore scab as a specimen. Months later when Anna, Andrew and Cherie were about to leave on an extended overseas holiday, latent results were given to

police to follow up as botanical poison was found to be present.

A humiliating process then began for Anna. Her arrest, court case, sentencing and ultimate incarceration drove her once again to suicidal action. Prison authorities were used to such scenarios and new inmates were carefully monitored.

Anna awoke from her self injurious coma to find herself in a padded cell. She spent two weeks in a solitary padded cell until she was able to converse sanely with Doctors and nurses. From a padded cell she was then placed in a cell block where non-violent prisoners were housed.

After an interview with the Warden, Anna decided to make the best of her situation and when her solicitor Mr. Lionel Adams suggested he submit the diary she had kept all the time she was poisoning Michelle to a publisher, it was a very small beginning to a new chapter in her life.

Under the pseudonym of Tania Price, she received great interest in her book, so much so that she began to write books detailing other stories from inmates. Every prisoner had a story and Anna had the ability to elaborate and hold a reader’s interest until the end of each and every story.

Not only was Anna reaping the benefits financially from each new book she produced, the inmate whom the story

was derived from also received an income. As no prisoners were permitted to earn monies while being incarcerated, Mr. Adams set up trust funds in which to invest royalties until the prisoner was released.

This system worked extremely well for Anna as she was seen to not only help rehabilitate other inmates but also assist them financially upon their ultimate release. It was surprising, even to Anna, to recognize her previously untapped writing skills. She had also, by a correspondence course with The University of New South Wales, completed her Masters Degree in Social Work on Penal Institutions and Systems. Her thesis had been acclaimed by the University and the Social Justice Department.

With time on her hands she could probably set a task for herself and endeavor to attain a PhD. Her Masters thesis had encompassed treatment of inmates and possible enhancement in these areas. A thesis for her PhD could possibly be written on how the administrative function of a prison be adapted performance wise via both manual labour and accompanying computer system. Anna would let that thought rumble around in her brain for a while.

So here she was once more standing before the Warden of a Women’s Prison waiting to hear what her future held for her within the prison. She had been incarcerated originally in a prison many kilometers from Sydney. This prison however was much closer to the city and was only approximately thirty kilometers away. If there was a positive to be gained at all it was the availability of her solicitor Mr. Adams.

All had not gone well for Mr. Lionel Adams, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and had handed most of his working practice over to his son Gary. Gary had done all his homework and when Anna was standing before the Warden, Gary’s paperwork lay on the desk in front of her.

Gary had made a submission on her behalf to the Warden to utilize Anna’s skills in the Administration Block, emphasizing her desire to better herself by proceeding with her thesis for her PhD. At the same time he had lodged an Appeal against her sentence on the grounds that even though she had deliberately slowly poisoned Andrew’s wife Michelle, Andrew had been in full knowledge of the unfolding events and even took advantage of not only Michelle’s death by the insurance cover but also the fact that he was in the process of defrauding Anna of her inheritance and the funds she had earned through writing novels.

The Warden, Jane Collins, had progressed to her position as Warden through the ranks. She had first begun working in the penal system when she was nineteen years of age. She had seen, and dealt with, every type of inmate possible. She was therefore able to very quickly ascertain the likelihood of problems or acceptance of prison sentences.

In Anna’s personal presentation, and the written statements from the Warden of her previous incarceration, Jane felt confident that Anna would work congruent with other inmates in a semi-controlled environment and not cause disruptions or show aggressive behavior. She was always willing to give inmates a chance to turn their lives around should they show they were recalcitrant and sorry for the deeds which lay cause to their sentences.

From the moment she had been arrested Anna was in full control of her emotions. This time she did not try to commit suicide and self-talked herself to keep calm and accept her sentence and make a plan to work through the years with a view to being released in twenty years with a doctorate in her name. She kept sane and very level headed through the arrest, court proceedings and ultimate sentence.

From the holding cell at the court house she was transferred to the new penal institution. She was not fazed by being dehumanized through the undressing, showering and body search system. It worried Anna not at all. She had learned from experience that if you create waves they will affect the way in which the guards treated you. If on the other hand if you accepted orders and did exactly what you were instructed to do, there were few problems.

So here she was again, standing in front of the Prison Warden, holding her breath and crossing her fingers that her productive record would give her credence to a better existence inside the penitentiary walls and allow her to expand her knowledge, not to just her own advantage but to the advantage of the penal system as well.

Jane Collins, the Warden, had been duped many times before by trusting an inmate, only to be faced with a problem later on. In Anna’s eyes she saw an intelligence rarely seen in prisoners. Nevertheless, with due respect to the many years in the penal system, she decided to put Anna on a three-month probation period.

Anna would be housed in Cell Block E with inmates incarcerated for non-violent crimes. If she performed well in the Administration Block and started her preparatory work for a PhD, she would be moved to the trustee block as she had been in her previous prison.

After Anna left the Warden’s office the Warden perused her file and records for a second time. In her opinion Anna had so much going for her and yet had twice committed murder. A beautiful girl, with electrifying auburn hair and perfect skin, a brilliant brain as well, spending the majority of life interned was beyond the Warden’s comprehension.

A prison cell in one penitentiary is a mirror image of a prison cell in any other penitentiary – the only difference being where the small window was placed, which would be over the head of the cot or over the toilet cistern.

Anna’s new cell had the window over the toilet cistern. She had a fleeting thought that when lying in bed