My Mother, the Liar

by Ann Troup

  ‘She’s got five hundred quid in cash; she’s gone to London,’ he said, already back in the lounge searching for his keys. ‘I’m going to get her.’

  ‘You think she’s going to want to see you after this?’ Delia demanded, waving her hand across the room, framing the chaos for him as if he hadn’t noticed the significance of it himself.

  ‘I’m not prepared to give her the choice. Besides, it was you who told her Rachel was dead, not me. I didn’t have a choice but to go along with it, did I?’

  Delia set her mouth into a grim line. ‘It was for the best,’ she said defensively.

  Charlie slammed on the door with his fist. ‘What, so she could find out like this? Did you honestly think Rachel would stay away for ever, that one day it wouldn’t all come out?’ he yelled, making Delia jump.

  ‘Don’t you bloody well blame me for this mess! All I did was to help make the best of a bad job, clear up after yet another of your balls-ups. She agreed, the day she left, she agreed Amy should think she was dead. It was the best way, the only way. If it were up to her she would never have come back, but you, you had to keep pushing it, going up there, pushing her and pushing her. You’re like some filthy dog, having to go back again and again to smell your own shit!’

  Charlie stared at her, confused. ‘What did you say? The day she left – what about the day she left?’

  ***

  Delia looked away from him. Her temper had got the better of her and she had said too much.

  Charlie leapt across the room, grabbing her by the arm, pinching the loose flesh and shaking her. ‘YOU SAW HER, DIDN’T YOU?’ he yelled.

  Delia closed her eyes and tried to pull away from him.

  He dropped her arm and turned away from her, a look of disgust on his face. He clutched at his head as if it were a bomb, about to explode. ‘Nineteen years, Mum. Nineteen years you’ve let me believe that she dumped my daughter on your doorstep and walked away. Why would you do that? Why would you let me despise her for something she didn’t do? You talked to her, you saw her, and you let her go.’ He was shaking his head in anguish.

  Delia couldn’t answer him. Grief and regret were overwhelming her, causing her whole body to tremble. Her world was falling apart and she didn’t know what to do to stop it. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ was all she could say.

  ‘Tell … me … what … happened,’ Charlie demanded through gritted teeth.

  Delia shook her head, having to hug herself to stop the shaking. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. She came round with Amy, and she was in such a state. She was in bits. She told me to tell you she’d abandoned her. She knew you would never let her go if you didn’t have a reason to hate her.’

  ‘Damned right I wouldn’t have let her go! She and Amy were everything to me, my whole world. We would have been OK; we would have coped. Once I got her away from that damned family she wouldn’t have had the fits anyway – you know that. She was always all right when she was away from them. I know she was scared, but we would have been OK. So what was it, Mum? Did she come to you for help? Did you talk her out of staying, so damned glad to see the back of her that you persuaded her to go? Tell me how it was – tell me what you thought was better about letting her go and destroying our lives?’ he spat. She had never seen him so angry.

  Delia was in bits herself now. Everything she had tried so hard to hold together was slipping away. Amy had run away and her son could do nothing but look at her with hate in his eyes. All she had ever done was do her best to protect him, protect all of them.

  That day there had been no choice. To tell him the truth would have destroyed him completely. What she had done had been the lesser evil, the choice with the least collateral damage attached. He needed to know that. He needed to hear the facts, and then he would know that she had never done anything other than shelter him and Amy.

  She took a breath. ‘All right. I’ll tell you how it was, but you’re not going to like what you hear, so we’d better both sit down and pull ourselves together.’

  Charlie dropped heavily into a chair and stared at her, waiting, his jaw twitching with rage.

  Delia lowered herself wearily onto the sofa. ‘Yes, you can look at me like that and blame me for everything that’s gone wrong for you. Why change the habit of a lifetime? Always someone else, isn’t it? Everyone always out to get you, aren’t they? Well, son, did it ever occur to you that this whole, vile mess all comes back to you?’ She looked at the expression on his face. ‘Yes, Charlie Jones. You, and believe me it is a vile mess too.’

  She paused. ‘As for Rachel, I loved that girl like she was my own. I would never have hurt her, not in a million years. But you, you hurt her deeper than anyone ever could have and you didn’t even know it because you were so wrapped up in yourself. If anyone has a right to be bitter and hard, it’s that poor girl, and she was the one left alone to shoulder the lot, while you screwed your life up feeling sorry for yourself.’ She shook her head in a gesture of weary resignation.

  Charlie sighed. ‘Are you ever going to get to the point, or would you just like to carry on digging at me?’

  Delia rounded on him. ‘Shut up! You arrogant sod! You have no idea what you are asking me to tell you here, so shut up and have the decency to hear me out, or by God I’ll slap that look off your face once and for all! I’m seventy-seven years of age and about to tell you about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, so show me some damned respect, you little shit! You might be the big man in your own mind, Charlie Jones, but you’re still a kid in mine!’

  She took a breath, and crossed her arms. ‘That day Rachel had gone back to the house, to tell them that you and her were married, that Amy was yours, and that she was leaving for good. You knew that. You were the one who wanted her to do it, stand up to them – remember? Yes? So don’t sit there looking all innocent. Anyway, I got a visitor that day, Her Ladyship herself deigned to call, and she had something very interesting to say. Oh yes, Valerie came round. Got your attention now, have I? Good.’

  She took another deep breath, her face creasing in distaste as she went on. ‘She had a tale to tell all right. Quite a tale. You see, Charlie boy, it turns out that she isn’t Rachel’s mother after all, Frances is. Yes, Frances, your little playmate way back then. Pregnant at fourteen. Of course Valerie couldn’t face the shame of it, so she took Frances away, and came back telling the world that the baby was hers. Remember that? Yeah thought you might. No one was any the wiser, were they?’

  Charlie looked bemused.

  ‘Yeah, a bit of a shocker admittedly, but what does it have to do with Rachel leaving?’ he asked with a shrug. ‘Makes no difference to me who her mother is; the fact that it’s not Valerie is a bonus in my mind.’

  Delia shook her head from side to side several times. ‘See there he goes with the arrogance again,’ she said, looking heavenward. ‘So how do you think she reacted when she found out who her father was? Eh?’

  ‘What the hell are you on about, Mum? Get to the point will you!’ he said, his tone laden with exasperation.

  Delia stood up; she didn’t want to be sitting down when she said the next words. ‘Put it this way – how do you think Rachel felt when she heard that she and Amy have the same father?’

  ***

  Nothing happened for a minute or so. No sound intruded, save the ticking of the clock. Nothing stirred except the shifting look of horror that crossed Charlie’s face again and again. His stomach erupted, sending a torrent of thick yellow bile up into his throat until he had no choice but to spew it out onto the carpet until he was empty and there was nothing but spasms of pain in his gut.

  ‘I’m sorry, son. I never wanted to tell you, but you gave me no choice. Perhaps now you’ll understand why she left,’ Delia said eventually.

  Charlie, head hanging over the side of the chair and gulping in air to stop the retching, turned to her. ‘I was a fourteen-year-old kid, Mum,’ he gasped.

  ‘I know – doesn’t make it a
ny less the truth,’ she said sadly, a look of extrinsic shame on her face.

  Charlie gripped the arms of the chair, anchoring himself to its structure because it felt so much more solid to him than his own body did. ‘Truth? Truth? I can’t remember the last time I heard a word of that from anyone’s mouth. Are you telling me you actually believed what that poisonous old bitch told you? That I had got Frances pregnant?’

  He felt feverish, he felt weak. The implications of what he had just heard were bombarding his brain like a swarm of angry hornets. Sweat beaded his forehead and a sense of panic was wrapping itself around him like a straitjacket.

  Delia didn’t speak.

  ‘Like I said, I was a kid. Fourteen.’ He was running it through his head, the past, going over it again and again, just to make sure he had it right. Could he have forgotten something like that? Could a man forget his first sexual experience? No. Without a doubt, no. ‘It never happened. She was lying. If you want to know the truth, Patsy was the first, and I didn’t meet her until I was seventeen.’ Christ, at fourteen he had barely discovered that you could do anything else but piss through it!

  Delia just stood there, blinking like a dumb animal caught in the beam of a torch.

  He started to laugh in a dull, almost baying howl. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? You never believed I was capable of murder – you stood by me through all that. But ask if a man is capable of keeping it in his pants and you don’t believe a word of it! Thanks, Mother, thanks a lot!’

  ‘No one would lie about that, surely?’ Delia said, seemingly not even to him, but to the ether as if it could give her a more convincing answer.

  ‘They lied about murder, why not that?’ Charlie reasoned, still bitter. Then he roared in frustration. ‘How many years of my life does that family want? How many pounds of my flesh?’

  Delia started to shudder again. She looked defeated and he could see every one of her years hanging off her bones like lead weights.

  In that moment, he could feel nothing but disgust for her. He stood up, watching her flinch away from him as he moved across the room. ‘I’m going for a shower. I need to think. When I come out I want you gone.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she whispered, her voice trembling.

  ‘Go and find my daughter, and my wife – and fix this mess.’

  Chapter 14

  Of all the calls from people claiming they had seen Stella Baxter, only one warranted a follow-up in Mike Ratcliffe’s opinion. Putting anything in the papers always brought the cranks and the hoaxers out of the woodwork, but a phone call from the NHS didn’t fit that category. There was a chance he might have caught two birds with one stone.

  He had a reasonable suspicion that he had tracked down William Porter too. Only he was known as Bill Smith now. Which was odd as Ratcliffe remembered Bill as a sozzled old tramp who’d been just one of the banes of his life when he’d been in uniform. The old vagrant hadn’t crossed his mind in years, yet Ratcliffe could picture him now as clearly as if he’d seen him yesterday.

  Ferris had completed her work-up on Roy Baxter and was currently awaiting the DNA results on the hair that was found on his body. With a bit of luck they’d be able to close the file soon and he could get DI Benton off his back and take a bit of time off. A fishing trip, alone and away from home, might be a good idea. A beatific smile came to his lips at the thought.

  ‘Looking smug, boss – what’s making you so happy?’ Angie asked, placing a mug of tea down in front of him.

  Ratcliffe grinned at her. ‘Nothing more gratifying than a plan coming together, Ange. We all sorted for this afternoon?’

  ‘All ready to go. Apparently our woman always visits at two o’clock. We’ll be in place well before then. We need to set off from here by ten at the latest.’

  Ratcliffe leaned forward and rubbed his hands together in fervent anticipation. ‘Bring it on DC, Watson, bring it on.’

  ‘I contacted Roy Baxter’s sister about the body being released for burial,’ Angie said, perching on the edge of his desk, and then standing again quickly when he raised his eyebrows at her.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Didn’t want to know. In fact her exact words were: “You can shove him in a bin bag and stick him on the local tip for all I care.” Nice woman,’ she added with a wry grin.

  ‘I think we can safely say that he was not a popular man then. Better contact the relevant authorities and get them to sort it.’

  ‘What about the baby? Doesn’t seem like anyone wants to sort that out either.’

  ‘Same goes,’ Ratcliffe said with a resigned shrug.

  Angie nodded, though putting an innocent child into an unmarked mass grave didn’t seem right to either of them judging by the look on her face.

  ***

  The director of nursing didn’t want either his staff or his patients involved in the arrest of the suspect. He insisted that whatever intervention the police were planning, it must take place outside the unit.

  Given that the unit couldn’t be accessed without a key code, it wasn’t likely that they would miss Stella – if she was Stella – when she arrived. The plan was to intercept her calmly as she made her way to the building. Two officers would be inside the building just in case, and uniformed units were stationed discreetly at all exit points.

  As they were dealing with a small, nondescript middle-aged woman, Ratcliffe didn’t anticipate too many problems. After all, she was hardly likely to pull a gun on them and start shooting, but it was best to be prepared because you never knew what was going to pan out. It always paid to be one step ahead of the game.

  The staff on the unit informed him that her habit was to arrive at around two o’clock. She always signed herself in as Barbara Smith, never engaged in conversation with the staff, and left promptly an hour later.

  The biggest risk of the day was that she would have seen the media coverage and would know that she was likely to have been recognised by someone, ergo she wouldn’t turn up and Ratcliffe would have to justify some expensive policing to the powers that be. But the unit staff had said that she looked very similar to the photograph, just older. So it didn’t seem that she had gone to any great lengths to disguise herself.

  Having arrived early, they had attempted to interview Bill Smith, but had been unable to get any sense out of him at all. He hadn’t even remembered that he’d had a visitor – let alone who she was.

  Peter Haines had told them that William Porter died in 1970, leaving his family practically destitute having lost the family money through bad management and ill temper. Their only means of support was the income from the haberdashery shop run by Stella. It had been closed down when Valerie Porter had suffered a stroke and needed Stella to care for her.

  Peter had urged them to sell the house and put Valerie into a nursing home, but Stella had refused to budge on the issue. Even Frances had been surprisingly reluctant according to Peter, who’d explained that his wife hadn’t been close to her mother. Of course, it was now apparent that if Bill Smith were in fact William Porter, then the house couldn’t have been legitimately sold, notwithstanding the fact that someone had concealed dead bodies on the premises. Given that information, Ratcliffe felt he could safely conclude that Stella knew her father was still alive. Had she bolted from the house after Valerie’s death because she knew the game was finally up?

  Sitting there in the car park, waiting for his first glimpse of her, Ratcliffe was impatient for answers.

  ‘Do you know what I don’t get?’ Angie said as they scanned the area. ‘How come no one ever questioned that Baxter or Porter had disappeared?’

  Ratcliffe thought it was a fair point, and something he’d been giving a good deal of thought to. ‘Well, the way I see it is that someone would have to give a shit about you to notice you were gone. As we’ve established, there are no friends, no relatives who give a damn. No work colleagues, not even a bloody milkman, hence no one to notice and no one to make a report. Porter was a recluse, and B
axter was a bastard, so it was good riddance to Baxter – and Porter, Porter who? No one missed him, except Stella.’

  He knew Angie had to agree; she had done most of the interviews with the neighbours, and had the misfortune of meeting Baxter’s sister, Maureen. None of the neighbours could remember William Porter as all of them had moved in after 1970. Besides, not many of those big detached houses were private homes any more – not many people could afford them.

  The house next door had been a dentist’s surgery for the past thirty years. The house opposite had been converted into bedsits in the 1980s and had an ever-shifting population, most of whom were too busy trying to avoid the landlord to be paying any attention to anyone else. Another was a bail hostel, one a residential home for the elderly, another owned by an elderly woman who had fallen foul of Valerie Porter somewhere back in the annals of history, and as a result had stoically ignored her existence ever since.

  Nobody knew and nobody cared. Even the family GP had to get the medical notes out of long-term storage and couldn’t recall ever having seen any of them. His predecessor was the one who had treated Rachel’s epilepsy, and there was no mention of any maternity care for any of them. Stella had done all the shopping, banking and paying of bills, and she had been so faceless that people had struggled to place her at all.

  As for Roy Baxter’s family, they had a ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ attitude. He had left home at sixteen and hadn’t kept contact since. The few people Angie had managed to track down and talk with who had known him as an adult had all repeated the same story: that he had left his mousy little wife for pastures new and no news was good news. One or two people still claimed he owed them money, so they had figured his no-show was par for the course. In any case, he had never been a popular man.

  Angie had said that she found it hard to believe that people could live like that – almost completely devoid of contact with others. The only ones who appeared remotely normal were Frances and Peter. They had successfully distanced themselves from the rest of the family right up until Valerie’s death. From what Ratcliffe could surmise, they’d only got involved then because Haines had thought the house would be worth money – but he was being solidly unhelpful since he’d found out that William Porter might still be alive.