Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

“I must see you. It is most urgent, a matter of life and death you could say.”

       Winter stared at the answering machine and played the message again. There could be no doubting that Audrey Ellis was in a state of near panic. He picked up the receiver, dialled 1471 and hit the required 3.  It struck him, as it always did, how strange it felt not to be clutching the mobile although he’d never understand why since land line phones had been around a good deal longer.

Less than a two hours drive later, found Winter comfortably ensconced in Audrey Ellis’ sitting room sipping tea poured straight from the pot.  The little woman was as repetitive as she was profuse with her apologies. “I feel such a fool,” she kept saying, “What must you be thinking?”

“You say you were watching a programme about Canterbury?”                       

“That’s right, yes. My late husband, Peter and I both grew up there. So, you see, I was especially interested.  He and I used to love watching the cricket every summer. I still love the game,” she sighed, “but I can’t get out and about to matches like I used to. Besides...” hesitating before she added, “…it’s not half as much fun going on your own is it?”  Tears filled her eyes then, suddenly, the lined face brightened. “Oh, but I do so love cricket, don’t you?  It’s such a clean, gentlemanly game.  No hooligans, on or off the pitch. The occasional high spirits perhaps, but nothing like the disgraceful behaviour you can expect to find at a football match these days.” She sighed again, “Dear Peter. He’s been dead a few years now, of course...”

 Winter let her ramble on until he judged that she was ready to return to the matter in hand. “You say the camera homed in on a crowd scene and that’s when you thought you saw Liam Brady?”

“Well, yes.” She started in her seat, blushed and raised her eyes to heaven. “So I telephoned you at once, didn’t I?  How silly of me! I suppose it’s because we’d been talking about him only the other day. It must have been playing on my mind more than I realised.  The camera stayed with the young man a good second or two. He was with a very pretty girl, you see.  I have to say, he was the spitting image of young Liam. But I realize now, of course, that’s all it was, an uncanny likeness.  What can I have been thinking of? I can’t apologize enough, Mr Winter.”

“So why didn’t you call me again and say you were mistaken?”  She became flustered. “Could it be because you’re not convinced you were mistaken?” he put it to her bluntly. She became even more flustered. “I have a friend at the BBC. I dare say I could obtain a copy of the programme...” he began.

“Oh, there’s no need for that, none at all. I videoed it, you see. As I said, Canterbury is my home town so I was especially interested.”

“Excellent. So let’s see it again shall we? Just stop when we get to the young man who resembles Liam Brady.”

“Well, if you’re sure? I don’t want to waste any more of your time than I already have.”

“I might as well take a look while I’m here,” he pointed out, “Besides I’m very fond of Canterbury myself. My late wife’s parents lived there for some years.”

“Oh! My, what a small world it is!” She clapped her hands like an excited schoolgirl, crossed the room and ran a video that was already in the machine.  Winter smiled inwardly, certain that she’d had no intention of letting him leave without seeing it. “There!” She knew exactly where and when to hit the pause button and he guessed she must have done it umpteen times already.

The young man had dark hair, roguish good looks and what might have been designer stubble or the start of a beard. An earring, in the shape of a cross, dangled from his right ear. Winter spotted it at once. “Did Liam Brady wear an earring like that?”

Not that I recall,” Audrey Ellis admitted and launched into further apologies. Winter was only half-listening. He stared hard at the screen, looking for some resemblance to Carol and saw none. He had no recollection of Sean Brady whatever but recalled seeing a wedding photograph on the sideboard in her sitting room and made a mental note to take a closer look next time.  There would have to be a next time, he’d already decided, without caring to examine either his motives or his conscience.

“How about the woman with him, have you ever seen her before?”

“Never,” she was sure of that at least.

“But he could be Liam Brady?”

“Certainly, although...well, he can’t be, can he? Liam Brady is dead. But I was so sure at first. When the camera closed in, I got into such a state. I thought I was having a heart attack, I really did. I just had to tell someone. As soon as I felt able, I telephoned you. Now I’ve had more time to think, I realize...well...it can’t be him, can it?” she repeated agitatedly.

Winter hit the rewind button on the remote. “May I borrow the video for a while?  I’d like to show it to Carol Brady.”

“Do you think that’s wise?  I mean, that would be awfully upsetting for her surely?”

Winter shrugged. “It has to be worth a try.”

“But why…?  Or do you think there might be something in it?” Audrey Ellis whispered. “There can’t be, of course but...well...they never found a body did they?”

“It’s highly unlikely anyone could survive a crash like that. I’ve made a few enquiries and it appears Brady wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car probably snagged on a ledge or something and flung him through the windscreen.  The water’s very choppy around there at the best of times. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“You know the area?” She made no attempt to conceal either surprise or curiosity.

Winter pretended not to hear. He did not want to talk about Helen. “It’s a nasty bend. People have been crashing there for years.”

“But there must be warning signs, safety barriers and such like, surely?”

“Yes, of course. But there’s no telling some people. They think they’re invincible, that driving with due care and attention is for wimps.”

Audrey Ellis continued to fret long after the video recorder had ceased its whirring noise, emitted a loud click and let her retrieve the tape. “Even so,” she began, “No body means...”

“It means just that, no body. So don’t let’s get carried away, alright?” He almost snapped and could almost hear Miss Parker telling him to mind his manners. .

Audrey Ellis merely nodded. “I’ve read far too many crime novels, isn’t that what you’re saying?”

He grinned. “Well, if the cap fits...” He took the video from her and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to show Mrs Brady?”

“No more than you’re sure that this young man isn’t Liam Brady. Now, how about we have another cup of tea?”

“Touché, Mr Winter.” A tremulous smile playing on the thin cracked lips broadened considerably as she hastened to oblige.

Winter watched the blue-veined hands at work and wondered what an earth he thought he was playing at.  Since he was in no doubt that the young man in the video was not Liam Brady, why, indeed, show Carol?   Grudgingly conceding that his interest in this whole business may be less than professional, there had to be more to it than curiosity, surely? He turned his attention to a standard lamp. “Forgive me for asking, Miss Ellis, but why do you keep the lamp on in broad daylight?”

“Oh, that! Another of my little fantasies, I’m afraid. My late husband had poor eyesight and it helped him to see better when he was reading. I like to leave it on. It makes me feel he’s in the room with me. Silly, I know. But it’s a comfort...if you can understand that. It makes no sense, of course, none at all.”

Winter understood perfectly.

...........................

“You can’t be serious?” Carol Brady was angry and upset. “It’s bloody obvious you haven’t any children. If you had, you’d know better than to ask such a thing.”

“All I’m asking is that you take a look at it,” he repeated smoothly. “The old lady is very anxious that you should. It would put her mind at rest.”

“Oh, yes, and what about mine? Do you honestly expect me to put myself through the wringer just because some old biddy has a bee in her bonnet?  You have no idea what you’re asking, none at all.  You always were an unfeeling bastard.”

“There was a time you thought I was Mr Wonderful,” he reminded her gruffly.

“There was a time when dinosaurs walked the earth but that doesn’t mean we want them back,” she retorted. “Clear off, Freddy, just GO.”

“Can I at least borrow a recent photograph so I can compare for myself?”

“Damn you, Freddy, but if that what it takes to get rid of you...” She left the room. Winter crossed to the sideboard and examined the wedding picture in its cheap frame. Try as he might, he couldn’t make out the faintest resemblance between the groom and the young man in the video.

“Here you are,” Carol re-entered the room holding out a small photograph. “And make sure you give it back. If you don’t, I’ll make your life such a misery, you’ll wish you’d never been born.” 

He didn’t doubt her for a moment. She flung him another scathing look. A lesser man may well have bolted there and then. Winter, however, was not finished with her yet.  “Where was this taken?” he asked without thinking.

 “Look again.”

 He studied the photograph and recognized the pub even before squinting to read the sign that read The Fox and Hounds. “Monk’s Tallow,” he murmured and it was a while before he could shake off a tingling sensation. It was the weirdest feeling, as if someone had just walked over his grave. He’d often wondered what the old saying meant. Now he thought he knew.

Liam Brady, Winter had to admit, bore more than a passing resemblance to the young man with the earring. He could well see why Audrey Ellis had thrown a wobbly.

“Well?”

“Let’s just say the old biddy hasn’t entirely lost her marbles, shall we?”

“There’s a resemblance then?”

“Striking, I’d say,” he muttered, “earring or no earring,” then “Are you sure you won’t...?”

“Do you want some coffee?” she cut in abruptly.

“Tea would be nice.”

“Come through and I’ll put the kettle on.”

Winter followed her through to the kitchen. It was small but bright and boasted more than its fair share of mod cons, very different to the one in Dorking where he had rather enjoyed chatting with dear old Audrey Ellis. Not that he wasn’t enjoying Carol’s company, he was. But a tangible tension remained between them stretching across a gap of some twenty years and widening. Small wonder then, he supposed, that he didn’t feel anywhere near as relaxed as the last time he’d sat here enjoying spaghetti Bolognese.  He chuckled. If Julie Simpson reminded him of Miss Parker, Audrey Ellis had to be everyone’s favourite granny.

“What’s so funny?” He told her.

“She sounds like an interfering old bat me,” was Carol’s verdict. “What’s her interest in Liam anyway?”

“Very little, as far as I could tell. She only met him a couple of times but enough to give her a nasty shock when she thought she saw him on TV.”

“Believe in ghosts, too, does she?”

Winter said nothing but watched her reach for some tea bags. It crossed his mind that Audrey Ellis would not have approved as he glanced again at the snapshot in his hand. “A fuller beard would have suited him, even an earring,” he mused absently.

Carol Brady looked, saw what he was doing and uttered a fruity little laugh. “Just about anything and everything suited my Liam,” she said. A fierce pride in her voice cut him to the quick. “He was that good looking and had his father’s charm too. Shove Sean in a dung heap and he’d always get up smelling of roses. Liam was the same.

“He took after his mum then,” Winter observed and meant it. They both laughed. It went a long way towards easing the tension between them. “You’re still a good looking woman, Carol.”

“And you’re still a man who likes to get his own way even if it means charming the birds from the trees. Well, this bird’s not for charming, Freddy, so be warned.” She was smiling, her tone joking. Winter, however, knew better than to ignore the warning and nodded, an uncertain grin speaking volumes. She seemed on the verge of saying something else but turned away. “It happened to me once.” She said suddenly, her back still turned.

“What?”

“I thought I saw Liam on TV. It was about a year ago and I was watching a programme about the Foot and Mouth outbreak. This publican was being interviewed about its effect on trade. The camera started panning this huge room that was two thirds empty. It lingered on this couple in a corner and they both looked up. Only for a split second, you understand. But I was so sure it was Liam I took the next train to York.” She turned and faced him. “Yes, York, not bloody Canterbury.”

Winter hardly recognized her for an instant, such was the raw pain etched on Carol Brady’s face.  A lump came to his throat. Nor would it budge as he watched that pain give way to a look of grim determination. “They had no idea at the inn where the TV interview was shot.  As far as they were concerned, Liam was just another anonymous customer who hadn’t even been staying there.  Even so, I spent two weeks, two bloody weeks, trying bars, cafés, shops, you name it, shoving that snap you’ve got there under people’s noses, asking - practically begging - if they had seen him.”  She gave an unfunny laugh. “They must have thought I was the original madwoman escaped from the attic.”

Winter, felt much as he imagined a spider might, suspended by a single thread, and could only observe as she caught her breath, the violet eyes peering at him as if through a fog.

“One day, a young woman told me she’d seen Liam working in a record store. I ran nearly all the way.” Carol shrugged. “It wasn’t Liam of course, nothing like him.” She shrugged again. “That was it, I’d had enough. It was like losing him a second time, worse even.” She turned her back and continued making the tea.

Winter knew when to leave well alone and did not mention the video again. He pocketed the photograph of Liam and they chatted for a good hour, over endless mugs of tea, about everything and nothing.

Carol saw him to the front door and closed it after him without waiting to watch him drive away. He experienced an inexplicable sense of disappointment as he approached the blue Volvo parked a few yards away. Something made him pause and turn. Carol ran up to him and grabbed his arm. “What were you saying about an earring?” she demanded.

“Earring…?”  Winter was momentarily perplexed. Seconds later, the penny dropped and he realized she was referring to the video. “That was ages ago!” he protested laughing, “Why the sudden interest?”

“I was only half-listening but never mind that now,” she said in a rush, “What did you mean?” He told her. “But that’s...the weirdest thing.”  She stuck a thumb in her mouth and stared at him wide-eyed. Suddenly, her panic evaporated and she was much calmer.

“What on earth’s the matter?”

“It’s probably nothing. You had better come back inside.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Are we going to watch this bloody video or not?” she flung at him and returned to the house without waiting for an answer. Winter pocketed his car keys and followed, aware that the tingling sensation had returned.

Carol put the video in the machine herself and went to hand Winter the remote but her hand seemed to stick fast to it and she would not, could not let go. “Liam and I were having lunch in Monk’s Tallow,” she began. “It was the day Sarah Manners joined us and she passed some remark about a young man who was sitting at one of the tables with his girlfriend and wearing an earring. Sarah said she liked it but I made it clear I didn’t. Liam sided with Sarah, even said he’d seen one in some jewellery store or other and thought about treating himself.  I over-reacted, I’m afraid. I didn’t give a sod about the damn earring. It was the way he took her side against me that got up my nose. I saw red, I guess. Anyway, I lost it with both of them. Then the barman came over and told me to shut up or get lost. Well, in so many words, he was more polite than that, certainly more than I deserved.” She managed a rueful grin. “So I shut up and stuffed myself with salted peanuts while they made cosy small talk as if I wasn’t even there.”

“What kind of earring?”

“A cross...”

“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Winter was quick to point out.

“I know,” she muttered, relinquishing her hold on the remote.

Winter hit the play button.  He misjudged the scene in question and had to hit rewind and play several times either side of it. Finally, he froze the screen at precisely the moment when the young man glanced up and, unknowingly, looked into the camera. Carol gave a little squeak. Winter’s eyes did not leave her face. “Well?” he asked after she had been staring at the screen, thumb in mouth, for several interminable minutes. Suddenly, she grabbed the video remote and hit the stop button. An old black and white movie leapt out at them, snarling like an alley cat. Winter looked around for the TV remote, eventually found it and turned the damn thing off. “Well?” he asked again.

“You were right about the old biddy. She isn’t cuckoo, far from it.”

“It could be Liam?”

“Of course it can’t be Liam,” she snapped.

“Supposing Liam is alive?” he ventured.

“But he isn’t, is he? He’s dead.”

“But if he were alive?” Winter persisted, despising himself for it. Her face was a wreck.

“If he were alive,” she said slowly, violet eyes fixed on the blank screen, “I’d say that was my son.”  She began to tremble violently and made no attempt to push him away as he put an arm around her and pulled her close.

Neither spoke. Nor did they move away from the sofa even after Carol had stopped trembling and disengaged herself. “It’s like him, very like him, that’s all.” She said at last in a small voice that he barely heard.

“So you’ll come to Canterbury with me?” he pressed her gently.

Carol jumped to her feet and glared down at him. “Not on your life, Freddy Winter, not on your bloody life!” she screamed and slammed out of the room.

The door swung on its hinges. Winter heard another door slam and guessed, correctly, that she had shut herself in the bedroom. He gazed, quizzically, at a leaf pattern on the carpet for some minutes before getting up and letting himself out. “What next, Fred?” he kept asking himself over and over on the drive home, “What bloody next?”

Two boys dashed out from behind a line of parked cars. Winter slammed on the brakes. Both lads stopped short. One poked out his tongue and raised two fingers.  The second youth looked badly shaken and put up no resistance when his friend grabbed an arm and all but dragged him to the kerb opposite. They scampered into an alleyway without looking back.

Winter muttered “Shit!” and drove on but had to pull up again barely a mile down the road. His hands on the wheel were shaking and he was sweating heavily. In anyone else he’d have put it down to an understandable reaction. But he was a copper, trained to deal with the unexpected.  “Ex-copper,” he reminded himself ruefully and with a bitterness that surprised him. Did he really miss the job so much that the prospect of a wild goose chase to Canterbury, let alone Monk’s Tallow, was as good as it gets?

Winter grimaced, declined to answer, and drove on.

To be continued on Friday

Catching Up With Murder - Chapter 3

Bloody hell, Fred, you’re slipping! Winter remonstrated with himself as soon as Carol Brady opened her front door to him an hour later. He recognized her at once. 

True, Brady was a common enough name but the fact it had meant nothing to him didn’t say much for his copper’s nose, not to mention his memory. She was older, of course, but she’d kept her figure and could still turn heads, he’d bet on it.  It had to be a good twenty years, surely, since her husband, Sean, was shot in cold blood in his own house?  And Liam, what of the child who could only have been about five years old when he’d seen his father gunned down?  (How could he have forgotten the child’s name?)

“Well, well,” murmured Carol Brady, also remembering, “If it isn’t Freddy Winter. They must have made you a Chief Super by now, surely?”

“Err, Inspector. Well, ex-Inspector. They pensioned me off. It will be nearly two years soon.”

“So what brings you to this neck of the woods? Helen kicked you out for getting under her feet all the time, has she?”

“Helen died a year ago.”

Carol Brady looked genuinely sorry and opened the door wider. “I suppose you had better come in.”

As he entered the ground floor flat of a terraced house in North Street, he couldn’t refrain from mentally kicking himself. How could he have forgotten her? Only, he hadn’t, had he? He’d simply blocked her out because it was convenient and made him feel less uncomfortable. What sort of copper did that? More to the point, what did it say about the kind of man he was? 

Winter brushed both questions aside. He was getting sick and tired of being relentlessly cross-examined by his alter ego.        

“It’s a small world,” Carol Brady was saying as she showed him into a sitting room at the front of the house. “But not that small,” she added meaningfully. “Sit yourself down and I’ll fix us a drink. I have a feeling I may need one and you look as if you’ll fall down without a double.  I take it, you had no idea I was living here?”

“No drink, thanks. I’m driving. To be honest, I didn’t even know you’d moved back to London.”

“Honestly?”  The heavily pencilled eyebrows shot up and he took her meaning. Neither, though, was prepared to put into words what hung over them like the sword of Damocles. “It wasn’t easy, I can tell you. But I missed the place. You know what they say. East, west, home’s best.”

“But you’re from Leeds. I thought that was why you went back, to be home.”

“Yes, well, so did I but...” She sighed, ‘There always has to be a ‘but’, right?”

“So…?”

She shrugged. “I was wrong. End of story.” She handed him a large whiskey. He shook his head. “Go ahead.  It’s not as if we can’t both use one. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you drown in black coffee later.”  Matching her grim smile with one of his own, he accepted. They touched glasses. “Here’s to…whatever and… whatever.”

“To whatever...”

They drank and she refilled both glasses before placing the bottle a hand’s reach away on a low, glass top coffee table. “So, if this isn’t a social call and it can’t be official since you’re retired...to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m sorry about Liam.” He drained his glass and reached for the bottle but had second thoughts.

She flung him a look of wry surprise and had no such compunction about topping up her own glass.  “You always did have a nose for everything, Freddy Winter. It’s like they say, I guess…once a copper always a copper.” He winced. No one else had ever called him Freddy. “So come on, cough. What the hell do you want?”

He told her about Julie Simpson’s visit and how Audrey Ellis had accused her, Carol, of being less than kind to Ruth Temple.

“So what damn business is it of yours anyway?” she wanted to know.

Winter shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve been asked to clear up some loose ends shall we?”

“Poke your nose in, you mean,” she retorted. Her eyes flashed angrily. She had lovely eyes, he reflected involuntarily.  “How dare you walk back into my life, cool as you please, and accuse me, ME, of upsetting that silly cow?  It’s me who’s lost an only child. I’m the one who should be a candidate for the funny farm, not her”.

“She’s dead,” he reminded her.

“Oh? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. She was just the type to...”

“Commit suicide?”

“You said it. I’m telling you, she was a bag of nerves.”

Winter frowned. Carol Brady’s assessment did not fit the image of Ruth Temple he had so far. “So why be so hard on her?” he asked with a directness that had her reaching for the two-thirds empty whiskey bottle.

“I wasn’t. If anything, it was the other way around.” She drained her glass, refilled it and sat back in an ugly, shabby armchair without relinquishing the bottle. “She came to the funeral service we had for Liam. That’s about as far as you get when you haven’t got a body,” she explained with a cynical matter-of-factness that he would never have expected from the bubbly, warm-hearted woman he’d known years ago. “They said he might be washed up somewhere along the coast but, there again, he might not. He wasn’t.” She paused and took another sip from the glass. “We gave him a good send-off all the same.” She smiled as if remembering...

Her smile conveyed the oddest expression, not so much wistful as resentful but not quite that either.  Winter was disconcerted. It disturbed him no end to see her like this. He waited.

“She was okay at the service, the Temple woman I mean,” Carol went on, “She kept saying how sorry she was and it really got on my nerves but not half as much as she did later on. She kept phoning to ask how I was, and then she’d start asking all sorts of questions about Liam. I couldn’t do with it, Freddy, I really couldn’t.  She blamed herself for Liam’s getting a ‘thing’ about Monk’s Tallow. It was true enough, but she didn’t know the half of it. I told her to leave well alone and move on.  For heaven's sake, Freddy, I’m his mother! If I can make a stab at moving on, so could she. But she was having none of it so I changed the bloody phone number, didn’t I?  But did that put her off? No such luck. She started writing, still asking about Liam. Talk about taking liberties! I mean to say, she hardly knew him for heaven’s sake. It was driving me nuts.”

Winter grimaced, the irony not lost on him that, according to Audrey Ellis, Ruth had used the same phrase with reference to Carol. .

“What else could I do? I went round there and had it out with her, told her to leave me alone in no uncertain terms.”

“She agreed?”

“Not really, no. She did lay off Liam for a bit but then she wanted to know all about some friend of hers in Monk’s Tallow that she hadn’t seen for donkey’s years.”

“Don’t tell me…Sarah Manners?”

“That’s the one. I told here she was flogging a dead horse.” She paused, uttering a dry laugh as the familiar phrase hit home. “Are you sure you don’t want another drink?”  Winter shook his head. Carol Brady shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“How well did you know Sarah Manners?”

 “I can’t say that I knew her at all, really.  I only met the woman once and then only because I was concerned about how much time Liam was spending in Monk’s Tallow. It was unsettling him. So I went down one day to have it out with him. Sarah Manners joined us for lunch in the pub. Not that you’d call it lunch as such, just a few beers and a packet of peanuts. She kept going on about the weather. I can’t say that I took to her one bit.  Not that I took against her either, if you know what I mean. Well, maybe I did,” Carol grinned artlessly, “but she was harmless enough, I suppose. I dare say she was only trying to make up for Liam barely saying a word.  No matter how hard I tried, Freddy, I couldn’t get into his head during that last year, never even came close. So she’d hardly have a clue, would she, the poor cow?  She probably had us down for a lost cause as far as mother-son relationships go.” 

Tears filled the striking violet eyes and she blinked them away. “Damn and damn it!” This time she took a swig straight from the bottle.

Grief, or was Carol Brady an alcoholic?  Winter did not care to hazard a guess and pressed on. “What did Ruth Temple want to know? What kind of questions did she keep asking?”

“About Liam, do you mean, or Sarah Manners?” 

“Either or both…whichever comes to mind.”

“You do know you’re being a real pain in the neck, Freddy?  I don’t need this hassle. So why don’t I just kick you out now and be done with it?”

 “And forgo the pleasure of drowning me in black coffee? I don’t think so,” inviting her to respond to a twinkle in the eyes as he knew she would. Hadn’t she always?

“Damn you too, Freddy Winter,” she chuckled.

It was a dry, hoarse sound but he thought he detected a faint hint of the fruity chuckle that had led him to be unfaithful to Helen. It had been his only lapse. He’d confessed. She had forgiven him. Their life together had never been quite the same of course but how could he have expected otherwise? Nor had he expected, or deserved  that, in time, both their marriage and their love had grown stronger than ever. “You were saying about Ruth Temple?” he prompted Carol.

“Why didn’t you come to see us after Sean died?” she put to him instead.

Winter shrugged. “It wasn’t my case.”

“Is that all I was by then, a case?” she spluttered into her glass and took another sip.

“We’d split up,” he reminded her, “It was none of my business.”

“I thought it was a copper’s vocation to mind everyone else’s business?”

 “Not another copper’s business, it isn’t,” he replied evenly and tried not to let her see that she had rattled him. Her expression told another story. Even after all these years, she knew him too well not to realize she was sailing close to the wind and was relishing it.

 “Liam kept asking for you.”

 Winter winced. “It wouldn’t have been appropriate,” he insisted.

“To hell with appropriate, Freddy! We needed you. But not a word from you, not a bleeding word. You didn’t phone. You didn’t write. Ralph Cotter could have shot all three of us for all you gave a toss.  You can’t begin to imagine what it was like, no one could. I was left with a dead husband they wouldn’t let me bury for weeks on my hands and a five-year-old in shock who’d seen his dad murdered before his very eyes. And did everyone come rushing to help? Like hell they did. Oh there were all the usual suspects that go with a big police job of course, not to mention a shrink who was supposed to be brilliant with kids. Huh! She never got the chance to prove it with my Liam, I can tell you. He couldn’t stand her from the off.”

“Did he ever talk about it?”

“Not much and what he did say was down to me. He needed to talk, get it out of his system. Any fool could see that. I told ’em to leave it to me but, oh no, everyone else knew better. I was only his mum, after all. So they let the so-called experts scare him half to death and he never did open up properly. He turned in on himself, the way kids do sometimes. He was stubborn, too, like his dad. No power on earth was going to make him talk if he didn’t want to. Not that he didn’t want to, I think he did,” she corrected herself, “But he was just five and small for his age. It must have seemed to him like he was being got at by aliens, the poor kid.”

“I seem to recall that he and Sean were close.”

“Like hand and glove. That’s what made it so awful. He never asked about his dad, you see. Not till he started going down to Monks bloody Tallow, he didn’t, anyhow.  I could have strangled Julie when I found out. As for her Auntie Ruth...” She paused and gave a long sigh. “No one’s fault really of course...” as the fingers of one hand played idly with a wedding ring on the other. “He’d ask for his teddy bear all the time but never his dad.”

“His teddy bear…?”

“As far as anyone could make out, Liam came downstairs with his teddy bear just as Ralph shot Sean. We think Liam ran after Ralph and tried to get into the car. Ralph often took him for rides.  I know it sounds daft, with his dad lying on the floor bleeding to death, but he must have been terrified and, well, they were best mates him and Liam. Ralph must have pushed Liam away and, for whatever reason, took off with the bloody teddy bear. The bane of my life for years, it was, that bear. It was one of a pair that used to belong to Liam’s grandfather.”

“Tweedledeaf and Tweedledumb…” Winter murmured and was more than slightly taken aback that that such a distant, inconsequential memory should have sprung, unbidden, to mind. 

“Fancy you remembering that! Yes. One with its ears ripped off and the other one with no gob!”  She paused again, lost in thought. “It was poor old deafie we lost. Liam spent hours, years, comforting the bear that got left behind. I suppose he must have identified with it or something.”

“Or something...” Winter agreed and added, almost as an afterthought, “I’m sorry. It must have been terrible for you both.”  He spread his hands apologetically.

She recalled the gesture vividly. Hadn’t he said and done the self-same thing all those years ago when he’d told her it was over and he was going back to Helen?  She’d always known he would of course. Helen Winter had everything…looks, style, charm…the lot. She had also just had a second miscarriage and Freddy was having a bad time of it too. There was no point in crying over spilt milk. Besides, she’d done with crying over men. It troubled her, though, that she hadn’t even been able to cry for Liam.

“Ruth Temple was like a dog at a bone,” Carol resumed suddenly. Winter started but was instantly all ears, the more so for being let off the hook so easily. “She wasn’t going to let go so, in the end, I suppose you could say I really gave her something to chew on.”

Winter waited.

“Did you ever meet Ralph Cotter?”

He became fidgety. She wasn’t going to let the past alone, was she?

“Not personally, no.”

“It probably felt as if you did though, right? Seeing his face plastered all over the media for weeks"

 “I remember it of course. But Helen and I were away a lot of the time.”

“So you were, I forgot. You pissed off to a fancy villa in Spain.”

 “A time share apartment,” he corrected her.

“Whatever. So were you back in time for the grand finale? You do remember what happened?”

  “Cotter had some kind of accident, I believe.”

  “You believe? Didn’t show much interest, did you? I wonder why?”

  “What has all this got to do with Ruth Temple?” he countered testily. 

"I'd have thought that was obvious. They found what was left of Ralph  in the burnt out remains of his old Ford... at the bottom of a cliff in Monks Tallow. I tell you, Freddy, if I believed in such things I’d say the damn place has a curse on it.”  

  Winter’s stomach turned a double somersault. “You told Ruth Temple about Cotter?”

  “I gave it to her lock, stock and smoking barrel. She went a real funny colour. People do, you know, when you mention murder. Well, of course you know, more than most, I imagine. They have a ghoulish curiosity that gives ’em goose pimples, so long as it’s far enough away from their own front door. Any nearer and they’re running for the loo.”

“Did Ruth Temple run for the loo?” Winter could not resist asking.

“I’ll say. And nearly tripped over her feet,” Carol Brady’s laugh was spontaneous this time. The drawn features instantly relaxed. A cloud in the violet eyes was replaced by a brief, mischievous twinkle. An image passed across Winter’s inner vision of someone lighting a candle then having second thoughts and feeling obliged to snuff it out. “Some coffee, I think...”

Carol got up and left the room but left the door ajar.  While it occurred to Fred Winter that momentum would undoubtedly be best served were he to follow her, a pressing need to get his head together took priority.  Instead, he lay back in the shabby but comfy sofa, listening to kitchen sounds and reflecting on how a small, small world was getting even smaller all the time.

Details of Sean Brady’s murder cane flooding back as if the grisly event had taken place only the day before. It was true what he’d said about not being on the case so less involved that he might have been. He had simply neglected to tell her how he’d specifically asked not to be put on the case at the outset. Not only would their affair have become public knowledge and undoubtedly compromised his whole career but his marriage was in deep enough trouble already without giving the tabloids a field day. So he’d taken the compassionate leave he’d refused immediately after Helen’s miscarriage and absented himself from the entire ugly mess.

In Spain, he and Helen began to build bridges although it would take far longer for any wounds to start healing. He hadn’t confessed his affair with Carol Brady from choice. She’s somehow got whiff of it and asked him outright. A week later, Sean Brady was shot dead in his own sitting room in front of his young son.

Winter stroked his beard. No definitive motive behind Sean Brady’s murder ever came to light as far as he was aware.  There had been much media speculation at the time of course. While most newspapers favoured the theory that Sean Brady was having an affair with Cotter’s wife, their editors were careful how they fed such tit-bits to their readers.

For a short while, Brady’s murder caught the nation’s morbid fascination. The two men had been best mates since schooldays. Each had acted as best man at the other’s wedding. That a five-year old should have witnessed the shooting gave society a golden opportunity to make a meal of such favourite pastimes as wringing hands at rising crime levels and crying for a revision of gun laws, not to mention weeping for the loss of innocence and laying odds that grieving relatives knew a sight more than they were letting on.

Winter rebuked himself shamefacedly. Carol was right. He should have found a way to get in touch.  It had been too easy to close the file on her and young Liam. He groaned. As if there was any such thing as a closed file...

Carol returned with a tray, kicked open the door, ignored his half-hearted offers to assist and banged it down on the table. “I’m guessing that you still take it black, no sugar…right?”

“I’ll help myself to sugar if you don’t mind.” He leaned forward and heaped two teaspoonfuls into the nearest mug.

“What’s this? Not sweet enough as you are any more?”  She spoke lightly and appeared to be teasing but Winter could all but feel the perfect rows of teeth sinking into his neck as she added, “And there was me thinking old habits die hard...”

Ignoring this barbed innuendo, Winter asked the question on his mind. “So what did Ruth Temple make of your stunning revelations?” he enquired, evenly enough but unable to suppress more than a touch of sarcasm.

Carol Brady shrugged, reached for a cigarette packet, changed her mind and let it fall where it had lain undisturbed since they had entered the room.  “One minute she couldn’t tell me how sorry she was and the next she was asking me if I thought my son killed himself.”

“And do you?” he felt compelled to ask.

“You don’t deserve an answer to that any more than she did,” replied Carol Brady, perfectly calm, violet eyes shooting daggers.

“But did she get one?” he wanted to know.

“No, she bloody didn’t.”

“And what would it have been if she had?”

She bristled, reached for a cigarette again and changed her mind a second time. “I’m his mother, Freddy. It was an accident of course.”

He watched her reach for the packet, take a cigarette and light it from a heavy silver table lighter.  It was one of the things he had always admired about her, an uncanny ability to reply to a question without answering it. He remembered telling her she should go into politics and was hard put to resist laughing aloud. “Do you happen to have an address for Sarah Manners?”

“I dare say she’s in Liam’s address book but why the interest? Leave well alone, can’t you? You can talk to her till the pair of you are blue in the face and it won’t change a thing.  What is it about coppers that you’re never happy unless you’re raking over old bones?”

“Maybe it’s because, more often than not, it’s a sure way to get to see the bigger picture,” he growled more defensively than he intended.

“Ah, yes, the famous bigger picture that has everyone with their own mind-boggling interpretations as to its hidden depths. Tell me about it.”

 “Don’t you want to know the truth?”

“Truth…?  Truth…? I have my truth, Freddy. It stares me in the face every time I look in the mirror. It’s every knock on the door, every time the phone rings. But I can live with it, just about. I don’t need some clever-arse copper (pardon me, ex-copper) to come along with another version of the truth to get my leg over. It’s done and finished.  Read my lips, Freddy. I DON’T GIVE A TOSS.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Give me strength!”

“You must be curious, Carol, surely? It’s only human nature,” he persisted.

“So what, exactly, must I be curious about, Freddy?  Curious about why my husband had to die or what the devil Ralph Cotter was doing in a godforsaken hole like Monk’s Tallow just so that my son could work himself into such a state about it some twenty years later? You know, it got so that Liam didn’t even know what day of the bloody week it was half the time. Or maybe you think I should be curious as to why Ruth Temple chose to give a damn good impression of being a schizophrenic? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. If that’s your bigger picture, you can stuff it.”   She reached agitatedly for a second cigarette while the first was still smouldering in the ashtray.

“That’s no picture at all, it’s just a muddle.” Winter attempted reasoning with her while, at the same time, wondering if he wasn’t simply trying to convince himself. “The Monk’s Tallow connection, it has to be worth following up. Don’t you see? That’s where the bigger picture lies, damn it. Three people are dead and not one from natural causes, four if we include Ruth Temple. Think about it. Three people drive off the same damn cliff…Cotter, James Morrissey and your Liam.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “It’s too much of a coincidence. And this Sarah Manners, how the devil does she fit in?”

“By all means let’s think about it,” she snorted and took several puffs of the cigarette in quick succession, “Why not? The more the merrier! Let’s throw in Sean for good measure and make it five, shall we?”      

“Forget Sean...”

“I wish!”

“You know what I mean...”

“Too right, I do. We forgot about him once before, remember?”

 Winter ignored the dig. “On the face of it, there is no real connection between these people. Ah, but there is. There’s Monk’s Tallow. That’s our centrepiece. All we have to do now is fill in the surrounds and, well, who knows what we might find?”

“The bigger picture?” she sneered and blew a near perfect smoke ring.

“Don’t knock it Carol. We’re all a part of it, just like it’s a part of us.”

“You haven’t changed much, Freddy. I thought you had at first but you haven’t. You’re still the same pompous bugger playing at being the thinking man’s copper. Do you want to stay for supper, by the way, there’s plenty?  It’s only spaghetti Bolognese but you used to have a passion for it, I seem to remember.”

“I still do,” he managed to say, caught off guard by her sudden change of tack.

“Then let’s go and grab us some passion, shall we?” She rose, stubbed out first the second cigarette then the one she’d abandoned, reached for the packet then had a change of heart. “I’m trying to give up the damn things...”

“Good luck,” he said and meant it.

“Fat chance, you mean!”  She shrugged, picked up the packet and went to the door. Winter was already on his feet. She paused at the door and looked him straight in the eye. “Why is it, Freddy, that your bigger picture always has to be murder?”

He shrugged. “Good question,” he conceded mutely and followed her out of the room into the kitchen.

To be continued on Monday

           

Dog Roses - Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Why? I kept asking myself, Why Ben, of all people? What was he doing at The Connie anyway? It wasn’t as if he had ever bothered before, so why now?

My mother proceeded to make more choked, sobbing noises.  Yet another surge of guilt coursed through my veins as I realised I must have voiced my tormented thoughts aloud. I started to reach out with my free hand to comfort her, but let it drop.  Comfort, did I say? Some comfort! I groaned inaudibly. What use, comfort? It would not bring Ben back or Baz or Liz or my dad. Oh, how I wished Dad was here! He would know what to say, what to do. All of a sudden I had the strongest sense of his presence and, yes, it was a comfort.

I reached out again and caught my mother’s hand in mine.

“Poor Ben, he came to the house looking for you,” she said after a long, weepy silence, “I saw the message on the pad was gone, the one from Shaun, so suggested he try The Connie. He said he didn’t think he’d bother. I pressed him, said I thought you’d be over the moon to see him. You should have seen how his face lit up…” She began to cry again. “Why, oh why, did I say that? I could just as easily have said to call back another time.”

“You were right though,” I tried to sound reassuring, “I was over the moon. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him.” It hit me between the eyes then that I would never see Ben again, and I blacked out. Seconds later, I opened my eyes. Mum was still holding my hand and regarding me anxiously. “I’m okay,” I lied.

We kept an unbearable silence for ages, Mum with tears streaming down her face and sniffing into one tissue after another, the handkerchief no longer fit for purpose, while I attempted in vain to shrug off a horrible detachment from everything. It struck me that I hadn’t even cried for Billy. What is wrong with me? People are dead, one a dear friend. So why can’t I even cry for them?  Yes, I told myself repeatedly, Ben was a dear friend, even if we had somehow drifted apart.

I watched my mother crying softly and envied her capacity for tears.

Dimly, I was aware of my father’s fingers in my hair as real as my mother’s hand in mine. It was as if the kernel, the very hub of me, was being dangled in front of my eyes, like bread on a string hung out for birds, only to be jerked out of reach whenever my senses rid themselves of a stubborn inertia just long enough to let me make a grab for it. I grasped, perhaps for the first time, that I needed to confront whatever or whoever was jerking the damn string.

“It will get better, dear. Don’t ask me how or when, but I promise you it will get better,” Mum assured me, smiling weakly through her tears. If for no other reason than she was my mother, I believed her. Moreover, from that moment, I experienced a new if tenuous, confidence in myself. It was nothing as dramatic as off with the old and on with the new, but I was dimly aware of a subtle difference. How ironic, I wryly confided to my alter ego, that this burst of quiet optimism should be coming at me out of nowhere while I felt so sick at heart and anything but confident.

“I’ll be okay, Mum.” I looked right at her as I said it and could tell from her relieved expression that it was all she wanted to hear. While any conviction it might be true may have been tenuous on my part, it was enough to see me through an interview an hour later with an irritatingly pedantic police constable. It also helped keep my blood pressure down when my temperature shot up and the hospital refused point blank to discharge me.

My mother came every day, sometimes with Peter Short. My brother Paul came just the once. He was on his own and brought some grapes. But the tension between us was embarrassing and he did not stay long. I had several other visitors, in addition to the dour constable, who took innumerable notes and grew impatient with my hazy recollections of the fire, but was at least able to reassure me the Crolleys would be brought to book for it.

Bo and Gabby brought a huge bunch of flowers.

Clive dropped by and told me not to worry, he would see to everything. He was keen to put forward a view that The Connie’s fortunes were far from irretrievable and seemed confident we would be back in business within six to eight weeks. While his enthusiasm was commendable and helped lift my spirits, I couldn’t help thinking it was a totally unrealistic timetable. Even so, if it was little more than a brave attempt to cheer me up on Clive’s part, it certainly gave my morale a welcome boost to take his predictions at face value.

Bo, making a second visit on his own, appeared to share Clive’s optimism. At the same time, he pooh-poohed any suggestion that the man might be concerned with sparing my feelings. “Clive is never, but never sentimental about business. You know that as well as I, dear heart. If Clive says a veritable phoenix will rise from the ashes, you can be sure a veritable phoenix we shall see.”

“In six to eight weeks?” I was sceptical.

Bo shrugged. “Who knows what plenty of overtime and a healthy bonus incentive might achieve? But enough of Clive’s wish list. It’s good to see you looking so much better.” His beaming face was more effective than any tonic.

“It’s so good to see you,” I said, laughing for the first time in ages.

“You too, dear heart, and I have to say you’re looking halfway human again too. Gabby and I left before the fire. When we heard the news, well, there were some bad moments when we feared the worst I can tell you.” He frowned but the sober expression lifted soon enough. “Yet, here you are, as safe as houses and raring to go!”

“Then you need glasses,” I sighed wearily.

“Surely you want to get out of this place? Hospitals give me the creeps, I’ll say they do!” He gave an exaggerated shudder.

I had to smile, but couldn’t keep up the pretence for long. “Then what…?” I put to him, “Another inquest, more aggro from the press and more…” My voice trailed off miserably.

“More funerals, yes, I fear so,” Bo murmured.

I was grateful to him. No one had cared to mention the deaths. Everyone, even my mother after that first time, had contrived to avoid the subject. “I don’t think I can go through it all again,” I said, “First Dad, then Billy Mack…”

I had only ever mentioned Billy to Bo in passing and was briefly tempted to tell him the truth until it struck me like a sledgehammer that this was neither the right time nor place. Instead, I went on, “Ben Hallas and I were very close, you know. That is, we were once. We sort of drifted apart. My fault, that, not his…” I found myself confiding.

Bo said nothing. 

I talked for a long time. Bo made no attempt to prompt me whenever I fell silent, suggest answers to the many rhetorical questions I’d put to myself or pass any comment.  I might have been talking to myself. Only, I could not have handled it on my own. Grief, guilt, pain…I held all these things and more up to the light of Bo Devine’s consummate silence.

Now and then, I’d pause for breath. Bo would smile encouragingly, and I’d struggle on, fumbling for words that, if not quite making sense of what had happened, at least put me in touch with my feelings in a way I hadn’t been able to do for a long, long, time.

An expurgation process had begun.

Bo sat chewing on an unlit cigar, uttering no word of recrimination, judgement or sympathy. It was as if he understood that I needed to work these things through for myself. So it was I continued to explore my conscience and deal as best I could with whatever I found there. No one could help me square things with Ben any more than with Billy. But Bo, bless him, lent me the full weight of his friendship that afternoon in support of my clumsy efforts to make sense of the world according to Robert E. Young.

A watery twilight had filled the space above my head and begun to dip a darker hue before I let myself drift, drained, yet at the same time curiously refreshed, into a kaleidoscopic reverie of things, events, people, that represented all the good things in my life from which (and whom) I felt able to take…Yes, comfort. At the same time,  even as I took what I could, I remained painfully aware of an acute lack of giving on my part. Inevitably, the kaleidoscope stopped turning and pieces of a pattern fell into place.

“Matthew!” I sat up with a jolt, wide-awake.

An elderly man in the next bed leaned across to tell me that Bo had slipped away hours ago. I glanced up and twisted my neck, the better to see through the window above my bed. As I settled down to sleep, I carried with me the image of a solitary star, lighting up a tiny patch of midnight among windswept clouds intent on snuffing it out. My last conscious thought was that the clouds might do their worst, but the star would be back. The old adage crossed my mind about losing battles and winning wars…

The next day my temperature was normal, and it was with eager anticipation of being allowed home that I awaited the po-faced Mister Shaw on his rounds. Shortly before he was due, Maggie flung open the double doors at the end of the ward and sauntered up to my bed. “Hi,” was all she said before plonking herself in the chair beside my well propped-up pillows.

“How’s Shaun?” I asked immediately, as I always did of anyone I thought likely to have some idea.

Maggie gave a characteristic shrug. “You know…Holding his own.”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking,” I said testily.

Maggie refused to be riled. “He’ll be okay, you’ll see. And look at you. Aren’t you the lucky one? I mean…” If she could have chosen a kinder turn of phrase, at least she had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Yes, lucky,” I agreed.

“Lou sends her love.”

“How is she?”

“Oh, she’s fine, apart from being exhausted.”  Maggie ran both hands through her hair in that old familiar gesture I remembered so well. “She’d have come with me, but I told her to rest. Not that you get any rest with a new baby,” she added with a wry grimace, “but her mum’s been helping out a lot while Shaun…”

“Baby, you say?” I had to interrupt, “But it wasn’t expected until…”

“A few weeks yet, that’s true. But, well, what with the shock of…everything. She went into labour on the night of the fire.” I felt as though an awkward pause was building a wall between us, but Maggie was having none of that, tossed her head and said gaily, “Babies, eh? It’s not as if the little tykes even wait until they’re born before they start calling the shots! She’s got Lou and just about everyone else wrapped around her little finger, this one, believe you me.”

“She…? It’s a girl then.”

“She’s usually are,” Maggie giggled.

“What’s her name?”

“Lou’s waiting until Shaun is well enough to help her choose one. They were so convinced it was going to be a boy, you see. If it had been me, I’d have wanted to know. But Lou didn’t for reasons best known to her. As for Shaun, he was so sure it was going to be a boy. I think Lou’s a bit worried he might be disappointed….” She chattered on. Now and again, I had the feeling she was holding something back then remonstrated with myself for being over sensitive.

“Shaun won’t care what it is, boy or girl. He’ll just be so happy to be a dad,” I commented.

“That’s what I keep telling her,” Maggie agreed, “and so should you be, seeing as how you’re a godfather.”

“Too right, I am.” I hadn’t forgotten. A warm glow settled on my stomach and took most of a persistent chill away.

“How’s Ed?” She had my complete attention so I missed neither a telltale reddening of the cheeks nor a change of tone reflecting a subtle edginess in her manner.

“Ed’s just glad to be alive, like the rest of us,” she replied, unconvincingly. But if something was wrong, it was hardly my business to pry. 

Glad to be alive. Yes, I, too, was glad to be alive, and how!  Moreover, for the first time in days, I began to feel alive. Suddenly, I was not only anxious to leave the hospital and get on with my life but also found myself considering the prospect with growing excitement.

“Mind you…” Maggie was saying, “He’s none too happy about the local rag rating him hero of the hour,” she giggled again, “so he’s playing hard to get, the idiot. That’s why he’s not been to see you, by the way. He’s terrified you’ll try and thank him for saving your life. Oh, Ed can make out he’s a hard case as much as he likes. But take it from me, under all that macho there’s a real sweetie. One of these days, he’ll make some lucky woman very happy…”

But not you, I acknowledged wordlessly without having to be told. Even so, I could not resist asking, “Do you love him?”

“So what’s love when it’s at home?” she countered, “Cleaner, nurse maid and production line all rolled into one if a girl’s not careful. Oh, and for what? All Ed Mack’s worldly goods...? I don’t think so somehow.”  How could someone so young, vivacious and beautiful be so cynical, I wondered?  I was thinking, too, and not for the first time, how much she reminded me of Gabby Devine when Maggie added softly, “Yes, I love him.”

“So why are you wearing Clive’s ring?”

“Why do you think? I’m going to marry the man, for heaven’s sake.”

“But if you’re in love with Ed, and I imagine he’s in love with you…”

“Of course he’s in love with me. But that’s our business. It’s certainly none of yours or anyone else’s for that matter. And don’t look so damn disapproving either. You may be my boss but you’re not my keeper or Ed’s.” She ran both hands through her flaming hair and gave me a glare that told me I looked picture of self-righteous indignation.  Hastily, I attempted to modify my expression. She was right, after all. It was none of my damn business.

Maggie laughed. I felt the colour rush to my cheeks. “Look,” she went on, “Ed could have died, you and he both. And where would that have left me, eh? I’ll tell you. Broken hearted and stony broke, that’s where. Now, if I marry Clive, Ed will see to it that the heart stays in good nick and should Clive should ever snuff it, bless him, I’m well taken care of. He gets to die happy while Ed and me…”

“Live happy ever after, I suppose?”

“That’s the idea.”

“It’s horrible, so…cold-blooded,” I stammered.

“And marriage isn’t?” she flared. “As an institution it stinks. All the more reason to bleed it dry, if you ask me.”

 “It’s sick!” I retorted, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. A thought struck me. “Besides,” I challenged her with some conviction, “Ed will never see things your way.”

The grey-green eyes flashed wickedly. “Oh? I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you. He’ll love it once he get used to the idea. Playing the ‘other man’ will tickle his ego no end. And we both know how big an ego Ed has…” She gave a feisty chuckle in the way some women have of being intensely maddening and incredibly sexy at the same time. Again, I was reminded of Gabby Devine. “Even if Ed does decide to be bloody minded, it won’t last. Trust me. As soon as Clive and I have a joint bank account, Ed will see things differently.”

“Why, you calculating little…”

“Yes, I’m a bitch.” She laughed aloud. “You can say it to my face, you know. I couldn’t give a damn. It’s only what people say behind my back that bothers me. I like to be sure they get their facts right, you see. It’s only fair, after all. Don’t you agree? I mean, look at what people say about you behind your back….” She laughed again.  “No one likes to be misrepresented do they?”

Was she winding me up? If so, she was succeeding. Moreover, she was doing a damn good job of pulling me all ways at once. “Clive is nobody’s fool,” I said flatly. Even so, I couldn’t be sure whether I intended the inflexion of my voice to convey a warning, threat, or grudging admiration.

Maggie sighed and I caught a glimpse of the teenager who used to hang out with Billy Mack’s crowd. “I am fond of Clive, you know. All he really wants is for us to play Mums and Dads so why not if it will make him happy?”

“You’re pregnant?” I gulped.

“Don’t look so shocked. It does happen, you know. Be flattered you’re the first to know.”

“Whose?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“What does it matter whose?”  She pouted angrily, piled up her hair and let it drop, partially covering her face, “Who cares, so long as it’s healthy and guaranteed to carry on the Rider dynasty?”

“There are no guarantees in this life,” I remarked abjectly.

“Honestly, Rob, you can be so bloody pompous sometimes!”  She roared with laughter, tears in her eyes, “Why do you always have to be so damn right all the time too?”

“Chance would be a fine thing!” I said with feeling and then found myself, a trifle bewildered, in fits of laughter as well. My flesh may not have been quite up to it, but my spirit most certainly was.  In spite of everything and whatever my feelings about Maggie’s revelations, it was good to know I could still laugh.

“Call me a bitch as much as you like, but, I promise you this. My kid is going to have the best of everything. So is Mum…or you’re no pain in the proverbial yourself, Rob Young.” She leaned forward ad kissed me on the lips. “Sorry,” she giggled, “I don’t suppose you like girls kissing you?”

“I can bear it in small doses,” I conceded dryly and we both burst out laughing again. As the sound died, we regarded one another warily, not quite ready yet to admit we each liked what we saw. At this point, a junior nurse came and begged us to keep the noise down. Apparently, Doctor Shaw had begun his rounds and the ward Sister was in a foul mood.

In less than two hours I had been discharged and was knocking back cranberry juice at my mother’s kitchen table, happy to be ‘home’ and sad because I wasn’t ‘home’ at all. I sighed. Where was ‘home’? I sighed again and answered myself with another question. Where, oh where, was Matthew? He must have heard about the fire so why didn’t he come to see me in hospital? Do I matter so little to him? Had I hurt him too much?

Glad to be distracted, I turned my mind to more practical matters. Earlier, Mum and Peter had broken the news that they were planning a June wedding, less than six weeks away. Leaving me alone to digest this sobering thought, they had departed for the supermarket almost immediately. I considered my options. They had made it clear I was welcome to make my home with them, but…How could I? It didn’t feel right. I don’t belong here any more. But dare I return to the flat? What if Matthew threw me out? It was not an unlikely scenario, after all.

Whatever, I had to find a place to live. As for belonging anywhere, that was something else.