The Ladykiller

by Martina Cole

  ‘Let’s go over next year, shall we, George? We could easily afford it, and you and Edith have always been close. It would be a great holiday for us.’

  George caught her excitement. ‘Yes, let’s. Oh, Elaine, let’s.’ He looked into her eager face and almost loved her.

  ‘Right then, George, I’ll see to it after the holidays! Now, I’m going in to watch the film. Are you coming?’

  ‘In a little while, my love. I’ll drink my coffee out here, I think, make some plans.’

  ‘Okey doke.’ She left the kitchen, beaming.

  George sat at the white Formica table and smiled. Then he remembered the redundancy. He clenched his fists. Elaine still did not know that he was going to lose his job. The redundancy money would be quite a bit but that was not the same as having a wage coming in.

  He brightened. He could take the redundancy money and put it in a separate account! Then he felt discouraged again. Where could he go all day? No, Elaine would find out. She always found out. There was nothing for it but to tell her the truth.

  They would go out to Florida and see Edith, though. He was determined on that.

  He remembered Edith as she had been when a girl. She had been exquisite. Not too tall, and she had developed early. She had the same mousy brown hair as George himself, except on her it looked right. It had a slight curl in it that made her look soft somehow. She had porcelain white skin that showed the blue veins perfectly, especially on the swell of her breasts. She had fine grey eyes that were heavy lidded, giving her a sensual look, a tiny rosebud mouth and soft round pink cheeks. His mother had always hated Edith.

  Then one day she had gone away. Only George knew that she had run off to Brighton with a salesman, but his mother had guessed as much and beaten her daughter’s whereabouts out of him with a belt. He had told on his sister, poor Edith. The scene when Nancy had turned up at the Shangri-La guest house must have been terrible. As always his mother had had the upper hand. Edith had been pregnant and alone, the salesman abandoning her when she had told him her condition.

  How his mother had made her pay! Oh, how. She had taken a delight in reproaching Edith at every opportunity. The mother who swore to everyone that she loved her children!

  Edith had lost weight while other pregnant women bloomed. She had looked like a spectre; all the fight and vitality were gradually sucked from her. Then, when she had finally gone into labour, Edith had been left to birth alone in her bedroom with only their mother’s reprimanding voice to help her along. George had sat outside and listened.

  ‘All children come into the world in pain, Edith, but none as painfully as a bastard child.’

  He clenched his teeth. He had only been thirteen then, but had wanted to burst into the room and strike his mother to the ground. The groans and cries of his sister had broken his heart. He sat up all night and into the next day until he heard a soft mewling sound like a kitten and knew that the child had been safely delivered after all that pain.

  Edith had loved the boy. Loved him with all her heart and soul, thinking in her ignorance that her mother would allow her to keep him because adoption had never been mentioned. Believing in her heart of hearts that Nancy would soften towards her and the child once it arrived and made a niche in her heart. But it was not to be. When the boy was two months old they had come to take him away. A big woman from an adoption agency, with hard steely blue eyes and cherries in her hat, and a smaller woman, kinder, with watery eyes and a big grey folder. Edith had screamed, pleaded and begged on her knees but her mother would not relent. She had enjoyed it.

  In the end, the big woman with the cherries in her hat had dragged the now screaming child from his mother’s arms, pulling poor Edith along with her for a few steps until she had dropped sobbing on to the linoleum. Then it was all over. Edith’s son was gone from the house and from her life. And she had been left bereft, broken-hearted. The next day George had seen his mother forcing her to drink a cup of cold tea full of Epsom salts to help her get rid of the milk in her breasts. He had finally hated Nancy on that day. When Edith had met Joss Campbell a few years later he had been so glad for her, because Joss was older than Edith and was more than a match for Nancy. When his mother had told him, as she always told any man interested in Edith, about the bastard child, he had just smiled. Smiled and said he would have her under any circumstances. George had loved Joss for that one sentence alone.

  Yes, he would go and see Edith. Even if it took every penny of his redundancy money. He was fifty-one now and Edith fifty-five. Life was drawing on, and he wanted to see her before it was too late.

  He drank his now cold coffee and was grateful for the whisky that Elaine had put in it.

  Somewhere in the world was a man, a thirty-eight-year-old man, who was probably married with children of his own. Who, because of his grandmother’s warped mind, would never know the kind and gentle woman who had borne him.

  George washed up his cup and saucer carefully and placed them in the plastic drainer. Then he joined Elaine to watch the film. But thoughts of Edith stayed with him all that evening.

  Kate glanced at her watch. It was five forty-five. She had been interviewing people since nine that morning and was tired. She sat in her car and turned the heater on while she wrote her comments on a piece of paper. The man she had just interviewed, a Mr Liam Groves, had not been too happy to be interviewed on Boxing Day. He was not at all impressed by her explanation that it was just to eliminate him from their inquiries. In fact, he had told her in no uncertain terms to go forth and multiply. Only not in the biblical words!

  She finished her notes and looked at the list of suspects. Peter Bordez, Geoffrey Carter, John Cranmer . . . the list still had over fifty names on it. She decided to call it a day.

  Placing the file on the passenger seat, she started up her car. The little Fiat pulled away quickly and Kate put on the radio. ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’ blared out. Frowning, she turned it off. She was not into Christmas this year. Maybe next year she would be able to enjoy it.

  Dan had taken Lizzy and her mother to a pantomime of all things. Which left her free, on Boxing Day, to get on with her work. She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. She scanned the houses in the streets, looking at the Christmas trees in gaily lit windows, the decorations that were hanging from ceilings. She knew that behind a similar door somewhere, the Grantley Ripper was sitting by his fireside, stuffed full of Christmas goodies. He could have children sitting at his feet. His wife might even be sparing a thought for the murdered women’s families, never guessing that the man she was married to had been the perpetrator.

  Kate wished she was at the pantomime. Wished that she was laughing and joking and shouting out ‘Behind you’ and ‘Oh no you don’t’ to the dame on the stage of the theatre. She wished she was anywhere but Grantley at this moment.

  Dan was doing his utmost to be helpful and she appreciated it. At least this Christmas she didn’t have to feel guilty because Lizzy didn’t have either of her parents with her. Oh, her mother was good, she worshipped her grandchild, but sometimes Kate felt a twinge of guilt at the amount of time she herself spent away from Lizzy. It was a joke really, because if she was one of the male officers then she would not have given it a second thought. But being a woman, she had to juggle her home life and her police work with expert precision. She consoled herself with the fact that her daughter understood. And Lizzy, bless her, really did.

  She knew how important Kate’s job was. How it kept the roof over their heads as well as helping the community. How many times had Kate snuck into a school hall, late for some school event, her male driver beside her cringing with embarrassment at the childish antics on stage. But she knew that Lizzy appreciated her turning up, and that her reputation as a DI had not suffered because of her being a mother. On the contrary, male CID officers admired her. Well, if she was honest with herself, only the older ones.

  She was finished today, though. She’d had enough. This
inquiry was getting to her. What she wouldn’t give for a nice warm lap to rest her head in. She didn’t go as far as to say a nice warm man to slip into bed with, but that was not far from her mind. Dan’s arrival had aroused all her dormant sexuality. Sex with him had always been good. It had been wonderful in fact. The trouble was, Dan liked it so much he tended to spread it around and that was no good to Kate. No good at all.

  She stopped at the crossroads that took her towards her house and, instead of going right, as she normally would, went left towards the outskirts of Grantley. To the large eighteenth-century house that belonged to Patrick Kelly.

  She decided that she would drop in and see how he was.

  Patrick Kelly sat on his daughter’s bed. She was all around him. The bedroom smelled of her musky perfume; on the floor by the bed was her diary. On the dressing table inside the large bay window all her cosmetics and lotions stood vacantly, as if they knew they would never be used again. There, all alone, stood a large framed photograph of himself, Renée and Mandy. They were all laughing. It had been taken in Marbella, just before Renée’s death. Now they were both gone. He turned his head at a slight tap on the door. It was Willy.

  ‘That detective bird’s downstairs, I shoved her in the drawing room.’

  ‘Thanks, Willy, I’m just coming. Get cook to make up a tray of coffee will you?’

  The man nodded and left the room. Standing up slowly, Patrick walked from the room. He walked down the staircase, his shoulders bowed as if by a great weight, and Kate saw him pull himself erect. He walked towards her with his hands outstretched, and she clasped them warmly before she thought about what she was doing.

  ‘Ms Burrows. Very nice to see you.’

  Kate smiled. ‘I was passing and I thought I’d just pop in and see how you were.’

  Both knew it was a lie. No one was ‘just passing’ Patrick Kelly’s house.

  ‘That was very kind of you. I’ve ordered some coffee.’

  Kate followed him into the morning room. A roaring fire was in the grate and the room was pleasantly warm. It was like going back a hundred years. Kelly sat on the settee beside her and smiled sadly.

  ‘Actually, I’m glad of the company. My sister’s no good at times like this. I’ve told her I’ll see her at the funeral, though I suppose it won’t be for a while. But I need company. My friends, or people I call friends, aren’t really close. I never realised until now that in fact I have very few people I can trust. Only my daughter, and my wife when she was alive.’

  Kate looked into his haggard face, so different from Dan’s blond smoothness.

  ‘I see so much unhappiness in my work, it’s hard sometimes just to switch off.’

  They sat together on the settee.

  ‘What about your family? Won’t they be wondering where you are on Boxing Day?’

  ‘My daughter’s sixteen, and today my ex-husband has taken her and my mother to a pantomime.’ She saw the flicker of pain cross his face as she spoke of Lizzy and guessed that he was thinking of his own daughter. She hurried on, ‘So I have a couple of hours to myself.’

  Patrick Kelly heard the underlying loneliness in her voice and knew instinctively that they were two of a kind. Loners who worked and worked, and at the end of the day had nothing except their families. And when the families were no more, they had nothing at all to show for their efforts.

  ‘Have you eaten today?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Not since this morning.’

  ‘Then why not have lunch with me? I could do with the company and Mrs Manners has still got enough turkey to feed the third world and the poor Albanians. Unless you have to get back of course.’

  ‘That sounds lovely. I’d love to have lunch with you, Mr Kelly.’

  ‘Patrick . . . The name’s Patrick. Right then, I’ll go and sort it out.’

  Kate felt inordinately pleased at his offer, even though she was astute enough to know that it came from a desire for any company, rather than hers specifically. She was still thrilled to be there.

  She self-consciously fiddled with her hair, tidied up her clothes. She wished she had worn her new suit, but she consoled herself that at the moment he didn’t care what she looked like.

  Willy brought in the coffee and smiled at her. Kate smiled back but inside she shuddered. The man looked like something from a bad nightmare. Half of one ear was missing, and his nose had obviously been broken more than a few times. He grinned at her from a toothless mouth.

  ‘Shall I pour for you, love?’

  Kate shook her head.

  ‘I’ll do it, thank you.’

  Willy looked relieved and left the room.

  Patrick Kelly returned. Lunch would be ready in twenty minutes. Leaving Kate with her coffee, he slipped into the library to use the phone.

  Dimitrios Brunos, a London Greek, was one of the best ‘minders’ in the West End. He was also one of the most violent.

  ‘Mr Kelly, how are you?’ His voice was solicitous.

  ‘Listen to me carefully and pass on what I say to all the others. My Mandy is dead and I’m upping the ante. There’s half a mil’ for whoever finds the ponce, right?’

  Patrick heard a sharp intake of breath and smiled grimly. That should get some results.

  ‘Also, I’ll be looking for the slag personally, so I reckon between us we should find him. Whoever gives me his name gets the money, OK?’

  ‘Yes. Please accept my most sincere condolences. Your daughter was a . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. All right, Dimitrios. I ain’t got that far myself yet. Just let the others know the score.’

  Patrick put down the receiver and closed his eyes tightly. He was going to hound the slag into the ground. He would find him and pay him out if it was the last thing he ever did. Pulling himself upright, he squared his shoulders. First thing tomorrow he was going to phone the Chief Constable to request copies of everything the Old Bill found out. Patrick intended to get to the suspects first.

  He went back in to Kate and sat beside her. Even though she was an Old Bill, a Filth, he trusted her somehow. She had the same quietness and serenity his Renée had had.

  Patrick liked her.

  George and Elaine had opened a bottle of wine. She was tipsy and they were watching a comedy film on TV. The curtains were pulled and the lamplight gave a cosy glow to the room. In fairness, George thought, Elaine was an exemplary housewife. Never in all their years together had he lacked an ironed shirt or clean underwear. His suits always went to the cleaner’s on time, and his meals were always cooked for him. Admittedly, Elaine’s cooking often left a lot to be desired, but she was at least conscientious. A good woman.

  His mother, whatever her faults - and they were legion - had been the same in the housewifely stakes. Hate her or love her, the children were always well fed. She made sure they were the best dressed, the cleanest, the brainiest. Her house was the best furnished and kept spic and span. She had been proud of her Nottingham lace curtains, her wooden beds . . .

  George jumped.

  Elaine had placed her arm around his neck. He looked at her from the corner of his eye. She was resting her head on his shoulder.

  Oh God!

  ‘Give us a kiss, George.’ Her voice was low and slurred.

  He concentrated on the television screen. Bette Midler and Danny DeVito were fighting it out. Ruthless People the film was called. Ruthless People? He was the ruthless one. Hadn’t he proved it?

  ‘Come on, George, give us a kiss.’ Elaine pulled his face round and planted a wet, sticky mouth on his own.

  George kissed her. He didn’t know what else to do. For the first time in over sixteen years, Elaine showed some signs of interest in him! He shuddered.

  ‘I’ve had a lovely day, George. A lovely day. And next year we will finally have a good year. Three hundred and sixty-five days of happiness. I’m going on holiday with you, to Florida to see our Edith. And I’m going to Spain with the girls.’ Elaine was having trouble forming the words
now and George guessed that if he kept quiet she would fall asleep. He put his arm around her with difficulty and held her close to him. She snuggled into him and closed her eyes.

  Please God make her go to sleep.

  His prayer was answered. Within moments the wine, the heat and the excitement of the day caught up with her and she began to snore softly into his thick cable-knit cardigan.

  George breathed a sigh of relief.

  He would do many things to keep her happy, but sex was not one of them.

  Picking up the remote control, he turned the TV on to video. Mandy appeared on the screen. He had set the video up earlier in the evening while Elaine was making supper. He had been waiting for her to go to bed. Now he turned the sound down and watched the action on the screen. The element of risk gave it an added excitement.

  So Mandy went through her nightly ritual and Elaine snored and George was happy, his finger poised over the TV button on the remote control.

  In a funny way he wished that Elaine would open her eyes, but she was blind drunk and slept. And George just sat and watched.

  Kate had enjoyed her late lunch with Patrick Kelly very much. They had opened up to each other. Now she sat with her own family and listened to their account of the pantomime.

  ‘Oh, Mum, it was really funny. You should have seen the dame! He was hilarious. Joanie was there with her brothers. They sat with us and we had the greatest time.’

  ‘Considering you didn’t really want to go.’ Evelyn’s voice was jocular. ‘“I’m too old for pantomimes, I’m an adult.” And when we got there she was shouting louder than anyone!’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed it.’

  ‘Dad was really funny, he made jokes all through it. I wish you could have been there, Mum.’

  ‘So do I, Lizzy. It sounds great.’

  ‘Oh, it was. Dad’s gone up for a bath.’ Lizzy looked at the kitchen clock and squealed. ‘Oh my God, if I don’t get a move on I’m going to be late.’

  ‘Where you off to then?’

  ‘Oh, me and Joanie are going to a party tonight.’ She twisted her hair around her fingers. ‘I’m sure I mentioned it.’