17
Though he was desperate to retrieve the gun and store it safely, Alan did not visit Haverscot during his next leave. Instead, he found a flat in a part of Reading largely occupied by transients; an anonymous area where people came and went unchallenged as long as they paid their rent. He paid his for two months in advance, telling the landlord that his job involved travelling and he would be away a lot.
‘No problem,’ said the landlord, happy with the cash. His new lodger looked respectable enough, clean, with trimmed hair and wearing dark trousers and a corduroy jacket. Alan had always been a sharp dresser.
He spent the weekend in the flat enjoying sybaritic pleasures such as lying in a steaming bath, and sleeping late. On Saturday night he went out to dinner in an expensive restaurant, eyeing the other customers; in this place, many were middle-aged, enjoying what they ate and drank, living in the moment. Alan looked at the women, most of them well dressed, some overweight, some pretty, prepared, in his opinion, to lie and cheat to get what they wanted from their dupes, the men. He scorned them all, but later, in the bar, he picked one up, a smart tart who had a room not far away. He’d boast of that to Mick, when he went back, make a good story from their short encounter. He felt nothing for her: that was not her function. Still, she was better-looking than some and he soon showed her who was in charge. Sex was not important to Alan; power was.
The flat was barely furnished, but it was adequately equipped for what he and Mick would need. There were two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom, and a sitting area. It was spacious after what he was used to. He could hide the gun here, once he’d got it out. He examined the floorboards; they could be prised up and it could lie there safely. So could the cash; he’d remove the rest from the building society as soon as he was out for good.
Alan stayed in bed for most of Sunday morning, but then he went out looking for a bank to rob, one that was well placed for leaving promptly, where a car could be left nearby. He marked down several, and disqualified others. Mick, he knew, had contacts, people who would make it easy for them to go abroad once the job was done. There was nothing for him here, in England: not now. He’d find it hard to get a worthwhile job with status, after what had happened, but if he’d inherited The Willows and the money, he could have started up a business of his own, gone straight. He had been unlucky; June had spoiled everything for him in Billerton. Alan conveniently forgot that until he went there, he had never stayed in one place long because an action of his own had always ended in some sort of trouble.
All women were traitors, even his mother. On her final visit to him in the prison, she had told him that he was not Tom’s son. She was pregnant by another man when they were married, and Tom still didn’t know the truth, but she could bear her secret no longer; after telling Alan, she was going to reveal the truth to Tom. He had been her childhood sweetheart and, while he was a prisoner of war, they had corresponded. Meanwhile, she had met someone else. Then Tom returned, just as she and the other man ended their transitory romance when she discovered that he was going out with another girl. Later, by chance, she and the man had met again and had spent their only night together; he had cajoled her, and she had given in, knowing at once that she had made a terrible mistake and that Tom was the man she really loved. They were married within a few weeks, and by then pregnant, she resolved that Tom should never know that he was not the father. In those days, abortion was illegal and difficult to arrange. Saying nothing was the easiest way out and anyway, perhaps she would miscarry; but she didn’t, and on Alan’s infant face she saw a likeness to his natural father. This recurred throughout the years that followed, but it was more a facial expression than a physical resemblance. Both of them, though, were selfish individuals; no one mattered other than themselves. That was why she had succumbed, that night; she could not say that she was raped, but she had been a most reluctant lover.
She had spent her whole life trying to make up to Tom for her deception. She’d hoped for other children, but none had come along, part of her punishment, she told herself. Tom, meanwhile, had never failed Alan, always there, trying to mitigate the consequences of his actions, always a good example of what a man should be.
She would not tell Alan who his real father was.
‘I heard he’d died,’ she said. ‘We’re all old now.’
After this revelation, Alan had brooded on his new knowledge, wondering if he had half-brothers and sisters, other relatives, curious about the man himself. Was he successful? Was he rich? Since his mother knew that he was dead, she would know the answers to the questions crowding in his mind. Alan mentally ran through his parents’ circle of friends: was any of those men his father? Was there one in whom his mother showed interest? Did he look like any of them? He was not in the least like Tom, and now that was explained.
Dorothy Morton knew that Tom had blamed himself for Alan’s failings. Now, at long last, she would release him from unnecessary guilt. If heredity had any bearing on the matter, Tom was not culpable.
After her confession, she gave up on life, eventually dying more of despair than any precise illness, and then Tom changed his will. He owed Alan nothing, and it was a relief to know that he was not the father of a murderer, but was a tendency to kill inherent? Surely not, and surely upbringing could counteract a leaning towards violence? Every family had its black sheep; all that might be needed to trigger a latent impulse was a certain situation, and perhaps poor June provoked the worst in Alan, by default. Tom’s sorrow was immense. Now he understood Dorothy’s gentle fading through their life together; all the sparkle she had had when young had gradually disappeared, but she had loved the boy – there was no doubt of that.
Alan, in prison, concocted various stories which satisfactorily removed responsibility from himself for any misfortune, large or small, real or imaginary, that had occurred during his entire life. For want of another villain – he would not cast his mother in that role – his wrath was concentrated on Tom. Punishments were remembered: pocket money docked; chores enforced; his bicycle locked up, its use forbidden for a period. That was a favourite act of retribution, imposed because it curtailed Alan’s freedom. By the time he reached The Willows in November, all Alan’s old wounds were reopened, raw, and he was eager for revenge.
He supposed his mother had carried out her intention of telling Tom the truth. She might have chickened out; there had been no reaction, no angry letter or irate visit, simply silence from the pair of them, although his mother had continued paying money into his building society account. After she stopped coming to see him, he had no visitors; she had been his only one. He hadn’t requested an official prison visitor; he did not need a stranger prying into his affairs. When, at last, he reached the open prison, with its rehabilitation programme, including shopping trips and work experience outside the premises, life expanded for him and he saw there was a future.
In spite of his mother’s revelation, it never occurred to Alan that when Tom died, he would not inherit: after all, there was no other child. He’d barely known his cousin and it did not cross his mind that Tom might prefer her, a blood relation and without a criminal record, as his heir. If he’d known that there would be nothing for him after Tom’s death, he might have killed him in November. But those two boys were in the house, those tiresome kids who seemed to have made themselves at home. They’d say that he’d been there. Of course, he could have killed them, too, but even Alan drew the line at killing children, and they had not annoyed him, personally; it was their mere presence that was the nuisance. Besides, a visit to an invalid parent plausibly explained his presence; a beaten-up or dead old man would end all chances of parole.
While the boys were in the house, he’d suppressed his rage, but after they left, he had watched the old man shrink back into his seat as Alan taunted him.
‘I’m glad I’m not your son,’ he’d sneered. It wasn’t true. He’d been proud of the man he had thought was his father, boasted to his schoolmates about To
m’s war record and had taken a genuine interest in aviation until, in adult life, he had rebelled.
‘I’m glad, too,’ Tom had answered. ‘You’ve shamed me, and your mother.’
Alan had hit him then, hard, in the stomach, where bruising would be hidden, and the old man, winded, winced, but made no sound beyond a tiny groan. He’d surrendered his immediate funds without protest.
‘You’ve destroyed everything you’ve touched, Alan,’ he’d said, when he was able to speak. ‘Yourself, as well as your mother and your poor, unhappy wife. What do a few pounds matter after that?’
Alan had not taken his credit card; using that could cause problems. It had taken Tom a few more weeks to die.
He’d go to The Willows when he got out. He had to find the gun, and make sure it worked. Mick had said the ammunition must be checked for damp.
‘You could use a hair-dryer on it,’ he’d suggested. Alan didn’t know if he was joking; you couldn’t always tell with Mick.
While Alan was finishing his sentence, the days began to draw out: you always noticed this in January, said Ivy. She was worrying about Steve, who, as the weeks went on, was coming in too late at night.
He told her that he’d been with friends watching videos, or at the resurrected youth club. Sometimes these replies were true but Ivy was suspicious about a new pair of trainers he’d acquired, and a smart navy donkey jacket. How had he paid for them?
He said he’d bought them from a friend, that they were misfits, bad buys.
Then Sharon, who had a part-time job at the supermarket now, saw him pocketing cans of lager in the store. She did not tell her mother, but she tackled him.
‘You were lucky not to get caught,’ she told him. ‘How do you think Mum would feel if she heard you were down at the nick?’
Like most thieves, Steve didn’t expect to be caught, and he said so.
‘If you go on with it, you will be, one day,’ Sharon said. ‘I’ll have something to say about it, if you bring trouble on us. Your dad was good to us and Mum’s treated you like her own son. What a way to act, after all that.’
‘He shouldn’t have died,’ Steve muttered, scuffing the ground.
‘Well, he did. People do,’ said Sharon. ‘I don’t think much of some of your friends,’ she added. She had seen him with a group of tough-looking, slightly older boys, a few of whom she remembered from school, which she had left only two years ago herself.
‘You should talk. Look at you – a kid with no father,’ Steve retorted.
‘Adam has got a father. He’s an absent one, that’s all,’ said Sharon. ‘No one thinks anything of that these days. Besides, he’s got a good home, and so have you.’
Steve paid no attention to her advice. He had had an idea. The Willows’ key still hung on Ivy’s dresser; now that the place had been sold, there’d be stuff there to steal. There’d be money, probably, and a television and video. He could enter without breaking in, and take whatever he could carry. Greg Black’s brother had a mate who sold things on at boot sales; he asked no questions about where they’d come from.
Steve asked his stepmother who had bought the place and Ivy said she’d heard it was a retired lady, Miss Darwin.
She’d be old, Steve decided. Perfect.
He’d never burgled a house before, but people did it all the time and got away with it. Once he’d offloaded the goods, he could brag about it; no one could pin it on him then. He dreamed about large sums of money: hundreds of pounds which he could spend on trips to London or to Birmingham, where there would be amusement arcades and clubs, bright lights and excitement. Steve was bored. He was lazy at school, scraping through his tests and sometimes playing truant, though not yet often enough to have been in big trouble. The group of boys he’d fallen in with couldn’t wait to leave, despite an uncertain future. Though there were jobs in Haverscot, the town had suffered in the recession and factories on the perimeter had had to cut staff. However, there was work for those who really wanted it and did not expect to start out as managing director. Steve saw no point in working for peanuts when you could lift things for nothing, and either use or sell them. After all, he had no living expenses; Ivy fed and housed him, and clothed him too, though not in the style he’d choose himself, and some of what she bought for all of them came from jumble sales. He never thought that this would end when he left school: that it might be reasonable, then, to contribute to the household budget.
Steve took the key one Thursday night. He walked along the street in his new stolen trainers, and turned into Wordsworth Road, continuing past the first houses till he reached The Willows. It was so isolated, just asking to be done, he thought. If this went well – and it would – he could return, once there’d been time for the insurance to pay up so that the old lady could replace what he’d taken, and do it again. After all, she wouldn’t lose; he might be doing her a favour as she’d get the latest models for her replacements, each time he visited.
He’d brought a holdall with him. Without wheels, he wouldn’t be able to take away a television unless it was a portable. Steve didn’t feel confident about lifting a car yet; he needed practice.
Turning in at The Willows’ gate, sauntering up the drive, just as if he were about to call on old Tom, Steve had a sudden memory of his father and of Joe’s wrath if he could see him now. Joe had never beaten him, but he would for this, Steve knew for certain. He felt a squirm of indecision but he shrugged it aside. His dad had left him, so he must do what he could to help himself, and thieving brought him things which Joe, if he’d been around, would have provided.
Was the old girl in? The place looked quiet, but there was a light showing in the hall. Old people went to bed early, so she’d be upstairs by now and he could move about below without disturbing her. Maybe she’d forgotten to turn out the light. He walked on, more confidently, and as he approached the front door a security light flooded him in sudden brilliance. He halted. Tom had had no lights like this.
He changed his plans, dumping his holdall under a nearby bush and striding firmly to the door. He would ring the bell, and if she answered, he would ask if she had any jobs for him – he’d come back and do them on Saturday, he’d say.
He rang the bell, but no one came. Marigold, now a regular member of Haverscot’s Choral Society, was rehearsing for a performance of Elijah. Steve opened the door, and entered.
While he was there, Steve took a look around the house. Painters were working in the bedroom at the front; trestles and dustsheets were in position and the walls were bare, rubbed down. In Tom’s old room, overlooking the garden and the river at the back, there were sea-green curtains patterned with tiny flowers, and the single bed was covered with a quilted matching spread. The room where all the books had been was now painted a warm primrose colour, and there were bright curtains at the window, printed with some sort of plant, each with its name below in funny writing. They were herbs, but Steve did not investigate that far. There was a table and a small, neat desk against one wall, and a chair. It was a sort of study, he supposed, not looking at a few books stacked neatly on the freshly painted shelves.
In what had been the dining-room, there was a large table covered with oilcloth and spread with heaps of vari-coloured paper, pots of glue and tins of varnish, and a row of wooden boxes, differing in size. On it, there was also a cylindrical tin; it looked like a waste paper basket and it had bits of mottled paper stuck to it. She was pasting paper on it, prettying it up; what a waste of time.
Then he saw a decorated box. It stood on a small table with some other objects Marigold had nearly finished. This one, hinged, was covered in flowers, matched and patched, darkly varnished; it looked like a sort of captured garden, Steve thought. It had a catch to hold it shut. It could be used for storing bits and pieces – costume jewellery, love letters, photographs. Ivy would love it.
When Marigold returned, her portable radio had gone; so had her new toaster, and the video. Steve had taken her jewellery; there wasn’t mu
ch, just some things that had been her mother’s. He hadn’t touched the silver; he was still a small-time crook. She did not discover the burglary until the next morning when she could not make her breakfast toast.
She called the police, but the thief’s mode of entry was not obvious. No window had been broken and no door was forced. She knew she had left nothing open, not even a fanlight; it was too cold for that. Then she remembered Mark, for whom she had equipped the haunted room and where he sometimes came to do his homework. She hadn’t had the locks changed, and he still had a key; she’d never got it back from him.
Could he have taken the video? Was he big enough to carry it and the other things that had gone?
Perhaps he’d brought an accomplice with him: Terry?
18
The police sent a detective round to dust for fingerprints. He made a mess of Marigold’s clean surfaces, and, as she expected, threw up a child’s handprint here and there, though not in her bedroom, from which the jewellery had been taken. She did not mention whom she suspected. A child had visited her, she said; adult prints might be those of the two painters working in the house. The thief had not ransacked the place; Steve had been a tidy pilferer when he stole from Tom, and this time he had been restricted by what he could carry away. There was no second set of child’s prints but Terry, taller than Mark, might have larger hands and his, Marigold thought, could have been one of the unidentified sets revealed. He would have known that she was out, with his stepfather, at the choral practice. Mark knew there was no dog to see them off – not that Sinbad would have deterred a burglar; he was more likely to have welcomed an intruder with a wagging tail and friendly licks.
All the stolen property could easily be sold, but Marigold had marked the television and the video with the postcode at her old address, using the recommended pen which would show up the writing under ultra violet light. She had been wearing, on her right hand, as she often did, her mother’s ruby and diamond engagement ring, and her pearl necklace, but she was sorry to lose a gold locket which contained a lock of her grandmother’s blonde hair; such things were common in Edwardian times. There was a garnet brooch, too, and some other things. She hadn’t photographed them. The police were not optimistic about her chances of regaining them.
Serious Intent Page 18
