‘You fear for your life?’ Christine asked, her mouth remaining open after the question had left her lips.
Frank nodded. ‘As I said before, she terrifies me. There’s a special kind of coldness in your daughter. I regret having to say this, but for me, she’s as hard and as chilled as the article that destroyed the Titanic.’
Norma blinked back some unexpected wetness; she was going to be a granny. ‘Elaine sits in her car looking for you, Frank. We’ve been told about that by the detective whose people have been keeping an eye on her. And you think she could do something terrible?’
Frank had no idea, and he said so, because he might have been wrong. ‘The fact is, we all have opinions and those opinions are not necessarily the truth. My truth and yours could be miles apart. We all make judgements that may often be wide of the mark.’
Christine nodded thoughtfully. ‘When her dad died, something in my daughter died, too. She kept the grief inside, where it festered, no doubt.’
Without processing his thoughts, Frank simply reacted. ‘Psychopaths are born, not made,’ he said, wishing immediately that he could bite back the harsh statement. ‘Again, just my opinion, but backed up by a little reading in the Picton Library.’
White-faced, Christine stared at him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’
‘You think my daughter is—’
‘Mrs Lewis, I’m no doctor; I’m just an ordinary bloke with a junk shop. All I know is she’s different, absent, unable to connect at certain levels. That coldness of hers freezes my blood. But she does have control when it comes to her working life, so that’s good. Yet at the same time, I’m afraid that one day she’ll crack wide open and do something unspeakable. She’s a mess, but it’s not your fault. You’re a good woman.’
Norma spoke up. ‘You’re frightening Christine, Frank. I didn’t bring her here to make things worse for her. This woman’s my only friend, son, because I’ve never been kind or gentle or generous like she is, but she’s taught me more about life than . . . than . . .’ She turned away from him. ‘Christine, come on, let’s get you home.’
‘No, Norma. I’ve always valued Frank’s opinion. He might not be an Oxford graduate, but he’s a clever young man.’ She dashed some saline from her cheeks. ‘Frank, I don’t know where to turn. What do we do next?’
‘I wish I knew,’ he said.
‘So do I.’ Christine wrung her hands.
Norma knew. ‘We have to wait till it happens. Because no one would believe she’s not normal until she does something or other. You read about stuff like this all the time in the papers, people who do things while their balance of mind’s disturbed. For the most part, families and work colleagues had no idea that the person’s mind was disturbed at all.’
‘Nearly always suicides,’ Christine mused aloud.
‘She won’t do that.’ Frank went to make more tea. ‘She’ll look after herself at all costs, Mrs Lewis,’ he said as he walked towards the door.
‘Call me Christine. She is selfish. Correct in her way, but selfish.’
‘Correct in that she remembers your birthday and buys groceries,’ Norma said. ‘That proves she does know the proper thing to do, so she’s well aware of the difference between right and wrong. So it looks as if she falls down when it comes to relationships with people her own age. Perhaps she’ll straighten herself out in time. People go through things. When Frank was born, I cried for about three months, didn’t know where to put myself. It passed. He stopped having colic and I stopped the weeping.’
In the kitchen, Frank waited for the kettle to boil. The truth about Elaine was that she couldn’t put herself in anyone else’s shoes, was unable to sympathize with another person, to feel pity, to offer comfort, to give real affection. To a lesser degree, his mother had been like that. He warmed the pot.
According to the Bible, God had breathed life into the human animal. Elaine was one of the exceptions, and the fact remained that although she seemed cruel and thoughtless, it was possibly not her fault. She was rather like a telephone line with a break in it. But could she be mended? He pictured her sitting in a corner of some institution for the rest of her life; as bad as she was, surely she didn’t deserve that? Yet everyone else needed to be safe. Oh God, was there ever a clear answer?
He returned with a fresh brew and some biscuits. ‘Christine?’
She raised her head. ‘Yes?’
‘Running on fumes can harm your engine, so take a bit of fuel, please.’
‘I can’t. I’d be sick, sorry.’
He offered the plate to the other occupant of the sofa. ‘Mother?’
‘No thanks, Frank. I’m counting points to save my kidneys, apparently.’
‘Good for you, Mother. Glad you got a grip on it at last.’ She’d definitely lost many pounds and looked better for it.
‘What can we do?’ she asked her son yet again.
He explained that little could be achieved by seeing a doctor on Elaine’s behalf, because doctors had to keep quiet about patients. ‘You might register your concerns with him, but you can’t make him treat her or talk to her about your worries. Talk to him, so that if anything does go amiss, he knows that you were anxious about her. Beyond that, I have no idea at all.’
‘And when it’s too late?’ Norma asked.
‘I know what you mean, Mother. But she’s a law-abiding citizen who’s also a successful solicitor, and her cleverness helps her to hide what’s going on beneath the surface. The subsidence has started, and cracks have begun to appear, only she’s broken no rules thus far. Until her foundations crumble completely, there’s little to be done. It seems a pity that we can only hang on until she goes too far. If you try to reason with her, she won’t even hear you.’
Christine agreed. ‘She is deteriorating. I’m afraid, too. She looks right through me sometimes.’
Frank glanced at the clock, then at his watch. ‘I must go shortly, or Polly will be anxious. She’s having a hard time of it, morning sickness and permanent exhaustion. I just hope she’s better for the wedding. It’s an afternoon job, so fingers crossed . . .’
‘She’ll improve,’ Norma said. ‘I couldn’t keep a thing down for the first few months of pregnancy, but I learned after a lot of hit and miss that plain, semi-sweet biscuits settled my stomach. After that, I went mad for orange peel. I used to give the oranges to your dad or to neighbours’ children, then sit there chewing on the peel. I knew a woman who liked apple dipped in malt vinegar. Pregnancy is weird. She’ll stop the vomiting soon, so don’t worry. Make sure she drinks plenty. Try her with some arrowroot biscuits.’
Frank frowned thoughtfully. Mother sounded almost normal and approachable. ‘Will you come to my wedding?’ he asked. ‘You too, Christine, but not . . . well, just you. I’ll send invitations, of course.’
Norma’s face lit up. ‘I’ll be there, Frank. Christine?’
‘I hope so. But I seem to have a lot on my plate.’
‘You do,’ Norma agreed. ‘She’ll come if she can, Frank.’
‘I understand.’ He did. He understood better than most.
It was late, and evening was casting its thickening shadows, and there was no sign of her mother. Everything was going wrong, and the whole caboodle was beyond the reach of Elaine Lewis who, try as she might, was unable to control the world and its quirks. Mum, on the other hand, was organized and dependable to the point where she might be elected to supervise time zones right across the planet. So where was she? Predictability was one of Christine Lewis’s many strong points.
Every evening, Elaine walked in from work to a welcome, a meal, and the kindest companion she had ever known. But Mum noticed things. Just lately, communication between the two women had become stilted, almost formal, because the younger one had been otherwise engaged, while the older had become . . . What had Mum become? Quiet, worried, then almost part of the wallpaper. ‘I’ve neglected the only person who cares about me. Right. I’d better
go and find her, because I can’t just sit here going over and over what’s happened, or I’ll go mad. Men. Bloody men.’
There were no lights on at Brookside Cottage, but Elaine knocked and rang the bell anyway. So, wherever they’d gone, they were probably together. She walked round to the back of the house, but found no sign of occupation. What if— No. Mum knew absolutely nothing about the mess with Bob Laithwaite, so . . . so where? Mrs Charleson wasn’t speaking to Frank, because he was going to marry the girl from the Scotland Road cafe, and— God, no.
She returned to her car. For a while now, she’d been followed. Not that she’d actually seen anyone, but her body had been on red alert, as if trying to tell her something. Frank? Had the two women and Frank got together? Would he run to his mummy for help because a nasty young woman had practically propositioned him? If that were the case, would her mother be involved? Where the hell were they?
As she drove towards Rice Lane, recent events played over and over in her head like a film at the cinema. First, Frank had dismissed her out of hand; second, a man who had worshipped her for months had consigned her to the waste basket, just another mistyped piece of work at the office. Now, her mother, always punctual to a fault, seemed to have altered the rhythm of life without leaving as much as a note of explanation.
After driving further along Rice Lane on this occasion, she parked and watched Aladdin’s Cave. Her hands were shaking so badly that the car was rather less than parallel with the pavement’s edge. Norma Charleson’s vehicle stood outside her son’s shop. The place was closed, but lights upstairs advertised the presence of a person or persons, and curtains were drawn. There was clearly a plot on. If her mother betrayed her by contributing to said plot, Elaine would have nowhere to turn. ‘How can you do this to me, Mum? How can you help people to gang up against your only daughter? It isn’t fair.’
The shop door opened. Norma and Mum stepped onto the pavement, Frank behind them as they walked to the car.
A white, searing hot fury cut its way through Elaine Lewis’s body. It was a physical pain she remembered from years ago, when her father had died; she’d been angry with him for leaving her. Slowly, carefully, Elaine had placed her trust in Mum, and Mum had now turned on her. ‘I’m an orphan,’ she whispered. They had been talking about her. They’d had a meeting about her. They’d probably had her followed by a private detective . . .
Had they been there today, those followers? Had they pursued her and Lanky Laithwaite to his house in Woolton, and had they seen anything untoward?
This was betrayal on a huge scale.
Constable Peter Furness, off duty and in moleskin trousers with a sports jacket, was led into Father Christopher Foley’s living room. ‘They already think I’m mad because I’m a Woolly and don’t talk like them. If I start clacking on about little Billy Blunt and his dreams, I’ll finish up in cell three with a straitjacket. It’s all right for you, Father. You don’t have to go and make a fool of yourself. I’m the one who’s being asked to act like a madman and send the whole station rolling about the floor in hysterics.’
‘Oh, sit you down and be quiet, man. I’m a permanent fool; it’s my greatest achievement so far.’
Peter sat. ‘So the farm sounds like Rovers, she’s Glad, could be Gladys, and he’s Don. Staffordshire, Derbyshire, John o’ Groats, back of the bus terminus in Burnley – where do we kick off? And who’s the blooming referee for this stupid match? We can’t get plain-clothes officers in on a kid’s dreams, can we? We’ve no idea where the farm is, anyway.’
He took a measure of whisky from the priest.
‘The child came here one morning, Peter, to ask me what was a bothy. Bothy is a Scottish word. Glad says she has a bothy, but Billy says she talks more like a Woolly than a Scot. It’s possible that itinerant labourers named the place a bothy, but Billy didn’t make it up, I’m sure.’
‘And?’ The policeman’s eyebrows travelled up his forehead. ‘Well?’
‘Phone calls,’ was Chris’s reply.
‘Whose phone?’
‘Mine, for a start. We have to practise lying and pretending we’ve gained information in a more acceptable form. I’m reporting to you now the supposed fact that I took an anonymous phone call. A muffled voice told me that Eugene Brennan’s thinner, living with a Gladys on a farm that sounded on the phone like Rovers, that he calls himself Don and keeps secrets in a locked box under piles of wood in a bothy.’
The policeman sighed and shook his head. ‘Madness.’
‘Then you and your fellow officers must make hundreds of calls till he’s found.’
Peter took a sip of whisky. ‘This is the first time I’ve been asked by a priest to break a commandment. Do you have a hit list while we’re at it? I could knock off a few Protestants for you, blackmail some sinners, rob a bank.’
‘Not just yet, thank you. Oh, and sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’
‘Neither does dark blue, but I’m forced to wear a uniform when on duty. Look. How come you believe the child?’
‘Because miracles are not the exclusive property of people with haloes. ‘Because he’s seen things before, always connected to Brennan who beat the daylights out of him. It’s a gift. His grandmother had it.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Father—’
‘It is, indeed, for God’s sake. Father Brennan killed a monk after battering that poor child. We have to find him, so I’ve written down my statement about the phone call, and I know I can trust you to back me up.’
Pete drained his glass and stood up. ‘I should have saved a drop so we could raise a glass and toast lying priests. I’m off. See you soon.’
‘Wait a minute. Just listen to me. I was in my bed one night when there came a knock at the door. No one there. Just a shadow like a piece of fog beckoning me. So I got the oils and the stole and my little crucifix and followed this grey shape. I don’t need to tell you any more, do I? Because I was needed that night by a man outside whose house the fog disappeared. But I’ll never be a saint. Billy will never be a saint. Miracles happen. Messages get through. So take that lying message of mine and let it do its job. Behind the lie is a miracle, and don’t forget that.’
‘All right, Father.’ Peter left the room, calling over his shoulder, ‘I think we’re both in the wrong jobs, Father Foley.’
Chris stayed where he was. If a policeman couldn’t find a door he’d already used, there was no hope for anyone, was there?
Frank felt her presence before actually seeing her; an icy shiver crept the length of his spine. When the two women were installed in Norma’s car, he bent down and spoke through the open passenger door. ‘Don’t turn round whatever you do. She’s about fifty yards away on the other side of the road. Is the boot locked?’
Christine shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered, shocked and worried because the thought of her own daughter being in the vicinity made her feel physically ill. It wasn’t right; she’d never felt like this before. Or had she?
‘Right. I’ve an early Victorian sewing table inside the shop, so I’ll carry it out and put it in the boot. Don’t move or make a fuss. Don’t cry, don’t scream, breathe only if you must. Christine, you saw my advertisement in the papers, and you forced Mother to come with you because you wanted to make us speak to each other. Be calm. You’ve won a lovely octagonal table, anyway. The pedestal is hollow for the storage of knitting needles, and there are compartments under the hinged lid for all your other sewing requirements.’
When he had gone, Norma reached for her companion’s hand. ‘We’re acting normally,’ she said, shaking her own shoulders with pretend laughter. ‘Where the hell are you going to put the sewing table in such a small cottage?’
‘I’ll find a corner for it, don’t worry.’
‘Are you afraid of her?’
Christine found no answer.
‘Stay with me if you like. Pretend I’m ill.’
‘Well enough to come shopping, though. Well enough to sit here shaking with la
ughter while she watches. No, we have to carry on as usual.’
Frank brought the small table and manipulated it into the boot. He returned to the passenger side. ‘I think she’s gone, but I won’t look directly. Drive extra carefully because you may be shaky. Don’t let her win. Don’t let her rule you. If it gets too much, throw her out, and if she won’t go, give the cottage back to the estate and I’ll store your furniture while you sort yourself out. Off you go. Bye.’
Frank stood and waved till the car disappeared from view. Would Madam buy the story about a sweet, well-restored early Victorian sewing table? Probably not. Her instinct for self-preservation was well honed; Frank feared for both mothers. Yet he knew he couldn’t follow the car, since that might prove to Elaine that she had been discussed.
He was powerless and angry with himself. If he’d sent the customers away and closed the shop, he could have seen Mother and Christine earlier, and Elaine would have been at work during that time. He would leave his car outside now, cut through a couple of streets and collect the van. Before setting off, he penned a note for Al, his neighbour. She’s been outside this afternoon. I suppose you noticed. Take care, because she’s running out of patience. Custard creams in the barrel, digestives in the Jacob’s tin, a bit of ham in the fridge if you fancy a sarnie. Frank.
While double-checking locks he noticed the shadow of someone entering the open porch. The bell sounded. ‘Who’s there?’ he called.
‘Bob Laithwaite.’
‘Who?’
‘I work with Elaine Lewis. My name’s Robert Laithwaite.’
Frank hesitated. Was this another of her tricks? And he needed to get back to Polly who, in spite of the apparently tough outer shell, was currently fragile underneath all the laughter and cheek. He drew back the bolts and opened the door. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
A Mersey Mile Page 31
