by Roberta Kray
Helen gave a nod. ‘I know.’
Shirley stared back at her, her expression full of concern. ‘I hope you don’t.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean… no, he’s never… he just…’
‘Yeah,’ Shirley said. ‘He’s a nasty little sod and there’s no getting away from it.’ She took a long drag on the cigarette and knocked the burnt end into the ashtray. A few seconds passed before she added, ‘You’re Lynsey’s kid, aren’t you? Mouse, yeah?’
‘Well, Helen really, but everyone calls me Mouse.’
‘Helen,’ Shirley repeated softly.
‘Did you know her?’ With only Moira to talk to about her mother, Helen was interested to find someone else who might be prepared to share their memories.
‘Yeah, course I did. She was a lovely kid. I’ve been in Kellston all my life, love. I was around when Irene ran the Fox.’ Shirley topped up her tea with the vodka again and gazed wistfully into the middle distance. ‘God, they were the days. I could turn a few heads then, I can tell you.’
Helen smiled at her. ‘Tommy doesn’t talk about her much.’
‘Well, it was terrible what happened to your mum, just terrible. The poor girl didn’t deserve that.’ Shirley stubbed her cigarette out and fumbled for another. It was then, just as she was lifting the fag to her mouth, that she dropped the bombshell. ‘Why would someone want to do that to her? Why would someone kill a beautiful girl like that?’
Helen almost jumped out of her chair. Her heart missed a beat and her pulse began to race. She could feel the colour draining from her cheeks. ‘W-what?’ she stammered.
Shirley glanced sharply across the table.
Helen began shaking her head, as if by the very action she could shake the words right out of her mind. ‘She wasn’t… it wasn’t… she died in a fire. It was an accident.’
Shirley’s mouth had dropped open. As if suddenly shocked into sobriety, she had a look of horror on her face.
‘It was an accident,’ Helen continued to insist. ‘Tommy told me. He said there’d been an investigation. She fell asleep and left a candle burning. The flat caught fire and—’
‘Just forget it, hun,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m getting confused. Sorry, sorry. It’s just the booze talking. I never think straight when I’m on the voddie.’ Flustered, she rose hurriedly to her feet, grabbed the bottle and headed for the door. ‘I’d best be going. Ta for the brew. Don’t get up, sweetheart. I’ll see myself out.’
Helen wanted to run after her, to stop her from leaving, but her body felt paralysed. She tried to call out, but her throat was so constricted that only a croak emerged. She gazed at the unlit cigarette that Shirley had dropped and left lying on the table. Murdered. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.
29
It was a quarter to three before Helen heard the familiar sound of Tommy’s footsteps on the stairs. She glanced at the clock on the wall, surprised to find that so much time had passed. She had been sitting there for well over an hour. But what did time matter anyway? For her, the clocks had stopped ticking from the moment Shirley had opened her battered, broken mouth and uttered those devastating words.
Tommy bounded into the kitchen, patting her shoulder as he passed by her chair. ‘Hey, Mouse. Good day at school?’
Helen didn’t reply. She studied him carefully, as if seeing a different Tommy to the one she had lived with for the past four years. She couldn’t figure out how you could think you knew someone and yet not really know them at all. Her gaze took in his big, solid hands as he turned on the tap and let the cold water swoosh into the kettle. Safe hands, or so she’d always thought. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Tommy took the kettle back to the counter, switched it on, and then, as if sensing her eyes on him, twisted around to look at her. ‘You okay, love?’
She swallowed hard and then quickly cleared her throat. ‘I need to ask you something.’
‘Ask away, sweetheart.’
Now was the moment. But still Helen hesitated, aware that once she started down this road, there could be no turning back. There was a wide gap, she realised, between hearing the truth and being able to bear it. ‘It’s about… about Mum,’ she finally managed to stutter out.
Tommy’s expression instantly grew serious. He leaned back against the kitchen counter and folded his arms across his chest. ‘What is it?’
Helen took a deep breath. ‘Is it true she was murdered?’
Tommy flinched, a physical reaction that he couldn’t disguise. ‘Who told you that?’ he snapped.
Her heart sank at his answer. Not Of course it’s not true or That’s just ridiculous, or any other of a hundred mundane denials that would have swept the horror from her soul. ‘It doesn’t matter who told me. Was she?’
Tommy opened his mouth and then closed it again.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘I need to know.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’ve been told, but—’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she pleaded. ‘I can find out. There are plenty of ways of finding out.’ She wasn’t quite sure exactly what these were, but presumed that the police kept records and that a daughter would have the right to know if her mother had been murdered or not.
Tommy pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. ‘I was going to say that it wasn’t straightforward, hun. There was… there was a suspicion that she might have been, but with the fire and everything, they couldn’t be sure. The coroner reckoned that the evidence wasn’t conclusive.’
Helen raised a hand, briefly covering her face. She didn’t want it in her head, that dreadful image of the flames licking at her mother’s body. ‘What evidence?’ she forced herself to ask.
Tommy’s mouth twisted. He glanced away, staring at the wall for a few seconds before looking back at her. ‘There was some… some damage to the skull, but it could have been caused by a fall. She might have tripped and banged her head, knocked herself unconscious. Maybe the candle tipped over at the same time. And then there was the fire, and…’ Tommy’s voice trailed off. His shoulders lifted and dropped in a regretful shrug.
‘But maybe not.’
He reached out and placed his hand over hers. ‘I’m sorry, love. I really am.’
As if she’d been burnt by the contact, Helen quickly pulled her hand away. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? All these years, and…’
Tommy stared at the rejected hand for a moment and then used it to rake his fingers through his hair. ‘Because you were only eleven, Mouse, and you had so much else to deal with. And we didn’t know for sure. No one did. We thought… we thought you’d be better off believing that she died in an accident.’
‘So who else knew?’
But Helen only had to look at his sheepish expression to realise that this was hardly the world’s best-kept secret. ‘Yvonne?’
He nodded. ‘And Dad.’
‘And Moira?’
Tommy nodded again.
Helen gritted her teeth, this betrayal feeling far worse than the others. All the times she had chatted to Moira about her mum, and not once had the woman even hinted at the truth. They were supposed to be close, but now it all felt like a sham. Her hand curled into a fist, the nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm. She would never forgive her for this. Never!
‘There was an inquest,’ Tommy said. ‘People hear about stuff. You can’t always keep it quiet.’ He paused, and then added, ‘But not the girls, not Karen and Debs. They don’t know anything.’
‘Just the three of us, then,’ Helen said tightly.
‘Don’t be angry, Mouse.’ He gazed at her pleadingly. ‘No one wanted you to get hurt. That’s the only reason we kept quiet about it.’
Helen mentally brushed his excuses aside. ‘So instead I have to find out from—’ But she swiftly bit her tongue. If she told on Shirley, Connor might take his fists to her again. And none of this was Shirley’s fault. ‘How do you think it makes me feel when everyone knew about it but me?’
‘I�
�m sorry,’ Tommy said again. ‘I was wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing, but…’
Helen fought back her tears. She was as upset as she was angry, dismayed at being deceived by the people she’d trusted. ‘It wasn’t the right thing. It wasn’t right to lie to me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I see that now.’
‘Do you think…’ The breath caught in her throat and she had to start again. ‘Do you think that she was murdered?’
Tommy lifted his hands and dropped them back down to his thighs. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’
Helen gazed sadly back at him. Even now, she felt that he was being deliberately evasive. Pushing back her chair, she stood up and went over to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Tommy asked.
‘To my room. I’ll see you later.’ Helen ran up the stairs and into the bedroom, flinging herself on the lower bunk and curling up into a ball. She hoped Tommy wouldn’t come after her. She needed time to think, time to absorb it all.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she stared at the wall. Murder. It was a hard, cruel word. If she’d been told earlier, when it had happened, she might have been able to come to terms with it. Or was it something you could never come to terms with? She realised suddenly that Janet must have known, and her grandmother, too. No wonder Janet had been so eager to be rid of her. She was the kind of person who valued respectability above all else – and murder always came with a hint of scandal.
There were tear marks on the wall where posters had been ripped down, small ragged stripes of white showing through the purple paint. After Joe had moved out, Karen had decamped downstairs and Helen now had the room to herself. She hadn’t bothered to replace the pictures. It would have felt too much like tempting providence, as if the very act of personalising the space would provoke the fates into snatching it away from her. Despite Tommy’s declarations that she was a Quinn, that she would always be welcome at the Fox, she was secretly afraid of being moved on again.
There was still one poster remaining on the wall which Karen had either forgotten about or maybe just hadn’t wanted. David Cassidy, in fur boots and jeans, smiled down at her from across the room. She had long outgrown her crush on him, but there was still something comforting about his presence. It reminded her of Saturday evenings at Gran’s, when she’d curled up on the sofa to watch The Partridge Family.
Over the years, Helen had learnt to cope with a lot of things, but the prospect of change still disturbed her. Murder made everything different. How couldn’t it? But who would want to kill her mother? No sooner had she asked herself the question than Joe Quinn’s angry face sprang into her mind. But surely even he wasn’t capable of that. She shivered, hugging her knees even tighter.
It was getting on for five o’clock when Karen opened the bedroom door without knocking and said, ‘Tea’s ready.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
Karen stared at her. ‘You sick or something?’
‘Yeah, something like that.’
Karen looked at her some more, then gave a shrug and left.
Helen rolled over on to her back, put her hands behind her head and gazed up at the springs of the upper bunk. It wasn’t a lie: she did feel sick, sick to her stomach. Every time she thought about the murder, it made her want to retch. To think there was someone out there who had killed her mother and got away with it. No one had been punished, no one brought to justice. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. Why hadn’t Tommy done something about it? Lynsey Quinn had still been his sister, even if they had gone their separate ways.
Ten minutes later, Yvonne yelled up the stairs, ‘Mouse? Moira’s here to see you. Shall I send her up?’
Helen leapt off the bed, flung open the door and leaned over the banisters. ‘No!’ she said. ‘I don’t want to see her!’
Yvonne peered up. ‘Are you sure. She says—’
‘I don’t care what she says. I don’t want to see her. Not ever! Tell her to go away.’
Yvonne gave a shrug. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is.’
‘Okay, I’ll tell her.’
Helen thought she saw a sly glint of satisfaction in Yvonne’s eyes as she turned away and went back towards the living room.
30
Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and bent over to untie his shoelaces. He was dog tired and ready for some kip, although whether he would get any was another matter altogether. Mouse had stayed in her room all evening and he’d missed her presence in the pub. Not just because of the hard work she always did, but because he liked having her around.
‘Do you think I should have tried to talk to her again?’ he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
Yvonne, propped up by a couple of pillows, was flicking through the pages of a magazine. She looked up, her expression vague. ‘Huh?’
‘I was saying, do you think I should have tried to talk to Mouse again? I don’t like to think of her shut up in that room all on her own. All this, it’s been a right shock to her. It’s knocked her for six.’
‘She’ll be fine.’
Tommy eased off his shoes and then removed his socks. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, dropping them on the floor.
‘For God’s sake,’ Yvonne said, ‘there’s a perfectly good chair two inches away from you. Why can’t you put your clothes on that?’
Tommy leaned over, picked up the bundle of clothes and shoved them on to the chair. ‘Happy now?’
‘Thank you.’
As he crawled into bed, he took a moment to study his wife. Her hair was in curlers, her face covered with a greasy-looking cream. Not the prettiest sight in the world. He thought regretfully of Shelley Anne, sleeping alone in her little flat in Hoxton. Now there was a woman that could give a man some comfort when he really needed it.
‘What?’ Yvonne asked, sensing his eyes on her.
‘How do you know she’ll be fine?’ Tommy asked. ‘She might clear off like the last time she was upset. I mean, someone tells you that your mother might have been murdered, it’s hardly the easiest bit of news to come to terms with.’
‘She was only a kid back then.’
‘She’s not much more than a kid now.’
Yvonne sighed and put down the magazine. ‘Well, I told you, didn’t I? I said it was no good keeping it from her, that it was bound to come out eventually. But oh no, you and Moira knew best. Now look where it’s got you.’
‘Ta, that’s really useful. I told you so. Just what I needed to hear.’
Yvonne’s mouth took on a sulky pout. ‘I’m only saying. No point having a go at me because it’s all gone tits up.’
Tommy lay down and turned on his side so that he had his back to her. The worst thing was that she was right. In fact, Moira had wanted to tell Mouse the truth, but he’d persuaded her not to. And now the poor woman was getting the cold shoulder. He remembered Moira’s face as she’d left the pub this evening, her eyes full of tears. Shit, he’d really fucked up this time.
He closed his own eyes, not wanting to think about it any more. A couple of minutes later, Yvonne turned off the lamp and the room was in darkness. Tommy lay very still, willing his mind to stop whirring. Mouse would come round eventually. He was sure she would. He’d have another talk with her tomorrow and try and smooth things over.
Yvonne’s breathing changed as she slowly drifted into sleep, but Tommy remained wide awake. Mouse wasn’t his only problem. The rift between Connor and Joe hadn’t improved in the last few days either. In fact, if anything, it had grown worse. Now the two of them weren’t even on speaking terms. He wasn’t sure what it was all about and he didn’t want to become involved. Getting caught in the middle of that pair was always a big mistake.
‘How long is he going to be here for?’ Yvonne had asked this afternoon. ‘Why can’t he go back to his own place?’
‘You know why not.’
‘Well he can’t sleep on our bloody sofa for ever. He was stark bollock naked
when I got up this morning, not even a blanket over him. The girls don’t need to see that when they come down for breakfast.’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll talk to him.’
He hadn’t, though. And thinking of Connor reminded him that he’d never changed the locks. And what about the missing baseball bat? Where the hell had that gone? He tried to recreate the scene when his brother had smashed the bat down on the table, and the altercation that followed. Terry Street had taken the weapon off him, but what had happened to it then? Terry said that he’d left it by the side of the table. Well, it wasn’t there now. Still, any of the customers could have picked it up and taken it home with them. He’d have to get another one.
Unable to sleep, Tommy blinked open his eyes again. At first the room seemed black, but gradually it took on shades of grey, until he could make out the outlines of the dressing table, the window and the door. Was Mouse awake too? He thought of the day they had gone to the cemetery and scattered the ashes in his mother’s grave. Poor Lynsey. He had let her down badly, and now he had let her daughter down too. Fucking up, it seemed, was his speciality. Now all he had to do was figure out how to put things right.
31
Helen roamed through the empty rooms of the Fox, dragging the cloth across the tables in an absent-minded fashion. It was three months now since she had learned the truth about her mother’s death, and she was still trying to come to terms with it. Winter had turned to spring, the snow replaced by blue skies and sunshine. The sun was currently slanting through the windows, skinny stripes of light that danced with motes and turned the floor a honey colour.
She hadn’t seen Moira Sullivan since that fateful day when Shirley had tottered across the car park with a bottle of vodka in her hand. Moira had tried to heal the breach between them, calling round to the flat on half a dozen occasions and phoning maybe twenty times, but Helen’s answer had always been the same. I don’t want to talk to her. A few weeks back, she’d even received a letter, but she’d torn it up without reading it and thrown the pieces in the bin. Since then, she’d heard nothing more.
