The Faithless

by Martina Cole

  Gabby nearly said, ‘Well, she would not be happy to be referred to as “Cynth”!’ Instead she said, ‘She’s fine, you know me mum!’

  It was meant in jest, but the woman nodded, then said seriously, ‘Oh, I know Cynthia all right! Tell her she still owes me for the dry cleaning bill.’

  Gabby laughed then. ‘What dry cleaning bill?’

  Jeannie Proctor paused for a few seconds as if she was wondering if she should speak, then she said candidly, ‘It was a long time ago, so I don’t suppose it matters now. She torched the house – for the insurance, like. She had spent so much on it that they could never get the price it was worth, so she torched it. Left fags all over the place, she did, and open cans of paint and turps. Looked like she was decorating, see. She was a fucking girl, her. Mind you, in those days you could get away with murder with insurance companies. Can’t any more, they’re wise to everything now.’

  The woman was laughing, but Gabby could feel herself going cold.

  ‘I had my bedroom windows open, and the smoke damage was atrocious, as you can imagine . . . Here, where you going?’

  Jeannie Proctor watched as the girl hurried away from her. ‘Well, what on earth rattled her cage?’

  Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Seven

  Gabby sat in her car and thought back to what Jeannie Proctor had said to her. Somehow she knew that the woman was telling her the truth. But did that mean her mother had burned her house down too? Had killed her baby boy? Somewhere inside she knew that was what had happened.

  It was all falling into place now. She had been on the verge of getting the kids back, she had straightened herself out. In her heart she should have known her mother would not have countenanced that. Her mother had always wanted those children more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Gabby had actually deemed that at one time her mother’s saving grace – the undeniable love she had for those two little mites. It was the love she had never had for her own kids, but she had lavished it on her grandchildren. Gabby had been so grateful to her, had felt so indebted to her for all her help. She recalled how badly her mother had taken little Vince’s death; Gabby had assumed, like everyone else, that it was because she had loved him and cared for him. But it had been guilt. The wicked bitch had been consumed with guilt.

  Even as Gabby’s heart was trying to deny what she was telling herself, her brain was telling her that it couldn’t have been her brother who started the fire. The brother who her mother had said had visited her a few days before, and who she subsequently admitted had threatened them all with death, pain, torture and destruction, was well and truly dead by then.

  Gabby remembered her mother’s devastation at the kids having to leave her to go home to their terrible mummy. How she had kept saying Gabby wasn’t ready to have the kids back yet, that she still needed to sort herself out. It was exactly what she had said about Cherie coming back to her after the fire. Gabby had believed her mother was doing her a favour by keeping Cherie with her then. Cherie, who could have died as well if she had not slept in her bed that night, who would have been in the same room as little Vince, who had been so determined to leave her great-granddad’s house because of Cynthia’s bad mouthing.

  She could see that her mother hadn’t intended to kill them. She had believed they were at her granddad’s that night. Cynthia had burned the place down thinking it was empty, but she had done it to make it look like Gabby was incapable of looking after her own children. A big fire would make them think twice about letting the children come back home, especially when there was no fucking home for them to go to. Gabby could almost hear her mother saying to the social workers how irresponsible she was to have left a fag burning, and imagine if the children had been in there with her.

  Well, they were in there with her. While her mother was creeping around her house with every intention of burning it down, she had been asleep upstairs with her babies. It all made perfect sense now – her mother would have had to keep the children at least until she was re-housed, and back on her feet. And that would have been months, if not years.

  Cynthia had done it deliberately, and she had done it for no other reason than to get what she wanted, as she had always got what she wanted. Gabby had lost not only her little boy in that fire, but all her photos, the memorabilia of her life, of her kids’ lives, of her nana Mary and her all-too-little time with Vincent. Her mother had been willing to leave her with nothing in her determination to keep those kids, and instead she had murdered her little boy.

  Gabby thought back to how her mother had always made sure she got whatever or whoever she wanted – by hook or by crook. Cynthia had taken Jonny from poor Celeste, she had taken the kids from her own daughter, and she had been the reason her husband had killed himself. She had murdered in cold blood once – to save her sister she claimed, but she had done that to save herself too. It would always be about her, and what she wanted. It would never, could never, be about anyone else.

  And what about poor James Junior? Cynthia had blamed James from the get-go. She had put him in the frame with her lies about him going round there and threatening all sorts. Was there nothing she wasn’t capable of?

  Gabby was outside her mother’s flat, parked up all neat and tidy, but she had no memory of driving there. She got out of the car, and she felt as if she was walking through water, so heavy and awkward did her limbs feel.

  Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Eight

  Gabby was throwing up in her mother’s toilet, and all she could hear was her mother’s voice going on and on and on.

  ‘I don’t feel well, Mum. I feel ill and out of sorts.’

  ‘Well, whose fault’s that then? Pregnant again, aren’t you? He’ll leave you like he did the last two times. He won’t keep out of the nick, love – it’s all he’s fucking fit for. And I can tell you now, I’m not looking after any more kids either. You’re on your own this time, lady. I told you when you met that idiot Vincent O’Casey, I said then, and I stand by my words, he has the brains of a fucking rocking horse and the face of a Tonka toy. But would you listen to me? You should get shot of that baby. How can you have another one? I mean, I ask you, how long before he’ll be banged up again?’

  Gabby was frightened of the hate spiralling inside her. She was terrified of the feelings consuming her, and the thoughts that were spinning out of control inside her head. She didn’t want to hurt her mother, she mustn’t hurt her – not yet anyway, not until she had found out the truth, no matter how painful it might be. But she had to know.

  She took a deep breath and said calmly, ‘Have the police spoken to you yet?’

  Her mother went quiet at that, and then she asked warily, ‘What about? Why would they want to speak to me? More likely they were after your old man. What’s he gone and done this time?’

  ‘Vincent? My Vincent ain’t done nothing, but it seems they have found James.’ She saw her mother’s face pale, and she wanted to smile.

  ‘Where? Where did they find him? Have they charged him? The murdering little fucker.’

  She was good, Gabby would give her that. What was it the psychiatrist had said about mimicking emotions? Oh, that was her mother all over.

  ‘Well, where is he? Is he in custody? Have they collared him or what?’

  Gabby could almost feel the panic emanating from her mother, and she knew then that she would enjoy bringing her down, she would love every second of exposing her for the liar she was. ‘He’s in a morgue up in Leicester. He’s been dead for over a year, Mum. You do realise what that means, don’t you?’ She saw Cynthia trying to take onboard what she had said to her. ‘It means he couldn’t have been the one who set fire to my house, and it also means that you couldn’t have spoken to him a few days before like you said you did. Because he was dead then. Unless you saw him through a fucking medium, you lying, treacherous, fucking whore of a woman.’

  Cynthia was taken aback by the vehemence of her daughter’s accusations. She knew only too well that her daug
hter was telling the truth. Now she had to find a way out of her lies and subterfuge. Trust that fucking James to be dead! That was so like her kids – they always let her down.

  ‘I know what I saw, and it was not long before the fire, but it might have been a few weeks before – I was confused, I was upset. For fuck’s sake, Gabriella, it was a terrible time. What are you trying to prove here?’

  Gabby laughed harshly. Oh, she was really good. Her acting was of Oscar standard. Move over, Dame Judi Dench, you are an amateur in comparison with Cynthia Callahan. ‘What I am trying to prove? I am trying to prove who was responsible for the death of my little boy, Mum, that’s what I am trying to prove. And, by all accounts, it wasn’t my brother, your son, James, so who does that leave?’

  Cynthia just shook her head in utter disbelief, stalling for time. She was thinking on her feet now, trying to work out how she was going to explain it all away. ‘I don’t know, darling – maybe he got someone else to do it, or it was someone after your Vincent. You know what villains are like – he probably fucked someone over in stir, and that door of yours was never safe, was it? One good push and it was open.’

  Gabby just stared at her mother, the woman who had carried her in her belly, and who had never in her life given her a thing that was worth having. The very same woman who was now trying her hardest to talk her into believing that her house burning down and her son dying was all some kind of conspiracy by persons unknown, as the police would put it. She had burned that house down to stop Gabby having access to her own children. That was the truth of it all. Cynthia had done it to get what she wanted, Just as she had always got what she wanted all her life, no matter who suffered because of it. It was a wicked, calculated act that had been the cause of her little son dying, choking to death in thick black smoke. She could hear his voice calling for his nanny over and over – that made it even worse. He hadn’t called for his mummy – only his nanny who had made sure he wanted her over his own mother. Even Cherie didn’t want her, or her father either, come to that. She was a spoiled, rude and arrogant little girl who, if she had not been so fucking ruined, would not have made them all leave her granddad’s house.

  ‘It was Cherie, you know, who made us come back that night. She didn’t like it at your dad’s – she said it stank. You have always drummed into her how your mum and dad smelt, and were not nice people, and that I can’t be trusted to take care of them. And so, to please her, to make her happy, I brought them back to my house. The house where her brother died, because her adored nanny tried to burn the place down while we were sleeping in our beds. How the fuck do you sleep at night! Knowing what you did, how the fuck do you sleep a wink? Is that why you went on the drink? Because you drink a lot now, Mum, don’t you? Does it drown out the knowledge that you fried your grandson in his cot?’

  Cynthia tried not to react to that; it was a truth which ate away at her every day. She had to get Gabriella onside again. ‘What would I know about starting fires, you silly girl. You’re overwrought, Gabriella, listen to yourself, for fuck’s sake! You haven’t been right since that child died, and I understand that, babe, I feel the same way . . .’

  It was ‘babe’ now; Gabby could see she was really pulling out all the stops. ‘No, you don’t, Mum. You’ve never cared about anyone or anything in your life. You’re a fucking leech. You take everything from people. You pretend you care, but you don’t, you don’t know how to. You’d even blame poor James – James who you sent off his fucking rocker in the first place . . .’

  ‘You are not going to make me listen to this shit, Gabriella. You are wrong, very wrong. Use your bloody head, girl! I loved that little boy with all my heart . . . and, as for your brother . . . I don’t believe a word of it – they must have the wrong person.’

  But Gabby could see the fear in her mother’s eyes and she knew that it was true. Every word of it.

  ‘I met your old mate, Jeannie, today. That’s how I know everything – she told me all about the house in Ilford.’ She could see her mother’s head working, trying to figure out exactly what she was saying, could almost hear her brain whirring as she tried to lie her way out of what they both knew was the truth.

  ‘What the hell have you been taking this time, eh? What the fuck are you on, Gabriella, to make you come out with this shit?’

  Gabby found she’d picked up a large bronze statue of a cat. As she held it in her scarred hands she felt the weight of it. Her mother kept talking. The world according to Cynthia Tailor who, along with God Himself, was almost omnipotent in the lives of her family, who ruled everyone around her with a rod of iron. She could see her mother’s mouth moving constantly, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying any more; all she was conscious of was a rushing noise in her ears. Then she struck her.

  She lifted the bronze statue back over her head and hit her mother across the face with it, using all the force she could muster, and enjoying the feeling of total retaliation. For once it was her doing the hurting, and that felt good. She hit her over and over again, watching the spray of blood as it spurted from her mother’s head, enjoying her mother’s pain, and her mother’s suffering.

  She knew that this had been a long time coming, and that she should have done it years ago, should have done it when she was a young girl. She could have saved so many people so much heartache. She was determined now, determined to shut her mother up once and for all. Shut her up for good.

  Cynthia fell sideways on to the white leather sofa. She could hear a gurgling noise that was almost comical. The blood was still spraying out everywhere like a crimson mist, and she was glad, glad the lying, two-faced, murdering whore was finally shutting her big, filthy mouth up. She hoped she was in as much pain and terror as her little boy had been when he was fighting for his last breath, expecting to be saved by this woman who had started the fire in the first place so she could get what she wanted.

  Gabby hit her mother again and again, each blow easing the knot inside her, each blow easing the hate she had inside her for this woman who had been the bane of her whole life.

  She looked down at the bloodied form and, for the first time in years, she felt almost at peace. Her mother’s face was unrecognisable, a deep red gash that was pumping out blood at an alarming rate.

  Gabby looked at the woman she had hated nearly all her life. Then she sat down on the ladder-backed chair her mother was convinced was an antique, put her face into her bloodied hands and cried.

  Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Nine

  ‘Fucking hell, Vince, when your lot go they don’t muck about, I’ll give them that!’ Bertie Warner’s voice held a tinge of admiration in it. ‘Maybe I should give her a job on the firm!’ Bertie laughed at his own joke.

  Vincent looked around the room, and shook his head in amazement that his Gabby was capable of this kind of violence. But then, after what she had told him, he understood it to an extent. All her life Cynthia had done everything possible to destroy those around her, and it seemed that now, finally, one of those people had retaliated and in a spectacular fashion.

  Gabby was still sitting on the ladder-backed chair. Her face and hair and clothes were sprayed with blood, but the strangest thing was, for the first time in years, she actually looked at peace.

  ‘She did it, Vince, she fucking killed our baby. She torched our home so she could keep our kids with her. Keep them in her power. Everyone had to be in her power, had to do what she wanted; she would never be happy with anything else.’

  Vincent went over and held her gently. She felt so frail, her body was so slender still, even with the pregnancy, and he knew that this had been coming for a long time. He blamed himself – if he had not been away so long, none of this would have happened. He should have been there for her and for his kids, instead of rotting away in prison. But that was the chance you took in his game, and you had to accept that or you would go off your head. His old cellmate used to say hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it was fucking foresight that people nee
ded.

  Bertie looked at young Vincent, as he still thought of him, and wondered at a man who could be so calm in the face of such carnage. Gabby had literally taken her mother’s face off – this was the act of someone who had reached the end of their tether.

  He nudged Cynthia’s body with his foot none too gently; if she groaned he would finish the slag off himself. He smiled. Just as he thought – as dead as the proverbial dodo. Good riddance to bad rubbish, he was glad she was gone. He had had his own axe to grind with her; after all, she had taken out one of his closest friends. He cleared his throat noisily and said, ‘We better get this place cleared up before Lily Law comes a-snooping! You take her home and sort her out, son. I’ll deal with this little lot.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Thank fuck she lived in this end house – bit more privacy, if you know what I mean!’

  Chapter One Hundred and Sixty

  Gabby was lying on the bed; such was her relief at the knowledge her mother could never interfere in her life again she almost felt lighter in her body. Even the pain of her hands couldn’t bother her. It was as if the heavy weight she had carried all her life had been taken away from her and, consequently, she felt better than ever, mentally as well as physically. She felt no remorse for what she had done. Thank God that Cherie was having a sleepover at her friend’s house; she was going straight from school, so no one would be any the wiser about Cynthia’s disappearance until tomorrow when she didn’t pick up Cherie from school. Vincent said it would all be sorted; all she had to say was that she went round there and she wasn’t in, so she had left her a voicemail message and then come home again.

  She pulled herself on to her back, and stretched her arms above her head. She felt a luxuriousness overwhelming her, as if she had finally found the secret to eternal happiness. Knowing that Cynthia was gone was like receiving the greatest gift ever. It meant that her life would change drastically in every way. She could do what she wanted, when she wanted; there would be no Cynthia to stick a spoke in the wheel, no Cynthia to shoot down her hopes and her aspirations, no Cynthia to make her feel inadequate any more. And no Cynthia to burn her children to death or turn them against her.