The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery)

by Valerie Laws

  She remembered that day, when she’d found the puffin’s skull, and collided with Will Bennett. She remembered the feel of his body under hers. Who knew, when she was feeling stronger … though he was such an annoying guy.

  31

  A month later

  Stony Point

  Stonehead had a strange, empty feel, as if its heart had been torn out. Mickey’s hostel closed; Hex Tower House shuttered, closed off from the people who had admired it and then more recently thrown bricks through its windows and daubed ‘paedophile’ across the door. Due to their age and previous clean record, Liz and Seymour had been granted bail, though Liz was to stay away from Erica. She did. Unfinished business, which could be seen to at a later date …

  Seymour, brought face-to-face with the consequences of his actions, had sought refuge in whisky, and steadily drunk himself into liver failure. He’d always used alcohol to dull his conscience and subdue his logical faculties; so he could keep believing Molly was happily alive somewhere. Now he was in hospital, gravely ill. Liz was pulling any string she could to get him a transplant. She had tried so hard to protect him, but people blamed him, not her, for what had happened. Her long record of compassionate medical service and her adoration of Seymour had created sympathy for her. She’d done what she did to protect her man, it was said, though he was a worthless incestuous abuser and a drunk into the bargain. Brought up his baby … ok, she’d lost the plot a bit at the end, temporary insanity, her daughter gone missing, her sister as gaga as her mum Lily Travis, no wonder she’d had a run-in with Erica. Who was none the worse for her experience anyway. Liz’s lawyer, a woman whose baby she’d saved, was sure she could get Liz a relatively light sentence when she’d finished playing on this. But it would be jail time, probably, and she’d have to face it as she’d faced so much. Arrest … Lucy wouldn’t see her, and wouldn’t let her see Toby either. Hadn’t even asked her to the wedding. That hurt.

  But Lucy would come round. Liz was sure of it. She’d do her time, be a model prisoner, get out on parole, and retire, look after Seymour and Peggy and Lucy, Steve and Toby if they’d let her. She’d always looked after the family. That’s all she ever wanted to do.

  Not that people would understand. They didn’t realise the decisions a doctor had to make. Life and death decisions. Peg wouldn’t understand, bless her. Never very bright. No, thought Liz, sitting in a hired car in the car park of the Stone Arms in the autumn night, watching the dark water breathing with the swell of the tide, she could never have explained it all. All that she’d done, and concealed, all those years ago.

  It all came to a head in the weeks after Molly left home. Liz was torn all ways, the only one who knew what was going on. She came home one day from work to find Seymour drunk in the house. He couldn’t look at her, though he was especially charming and placatory. Liz knew the signs. He’d been seeing someone. She said nothing. She didn’t want to know. Some last vestige of self-preservation told her that to cause a big scene with him might drive him to leave. Sometimes she was so bloody tired. What if she lost Seymour to someone who could give him children?

  Until the day Molly phoned, desperate, in tears. ‘I can’t go home, ever again. Please, you’ve got to help me.’ Of course she would.

  Seymour used to go fishing in his little motor launch, which he moored in the harbour. He didn’t often go now, so various locals, his drinking buddies from the pub in the village, would borrow it from time to time. Liz would use it to pick up Molly, chugging down the coast to the next harbour where Molly would be waiting. Liz wore fishing clothes, a hat pulled down, in case anyone noticed the figure in the tiny cabin.

  That time, Molly stepped on board the rocking boat, and she looked awful. Ill. White-faced. She fell sobbing into her aunt’s arms. It didn’t take a consultant obstetrician to tell that she was pregnant. She must have been seeing that callow youth Paul Reed on the quiet all along. And of course, with no pills …

  Even in the depths of her pity, Liz felt the rage of jealousy and frustration boiling inside. Why was Molly pregnant, when she didn’t want to be, while Liz couldn’t have the baby she so wanted?

  Molly wanted to have an abortion. Liz could help her to get one discreetly so she could go home if she wanted, or start a new life somewhere else. A new life. They could all do with that.

  Liz was listening to her pathetic desperate pleas, when suddenly something seemed to gel in her mind. Surely the miracle had happened! Instead of fuming at Molly’s unwanted pregnancy, Liz suddenly saw serendipity. Molly’s baby. It could be hers! She used all her influence to persuade Molly not to have the baby aborted. Already she thought of it as hers. No-one was going to kill her baby. She offered Molly money, an allowance to live on while she incubated the child, and then Liz would deliver it, and Molly could choose either to go home and make it up with her parents, or leave the area and start again. Either way she’d support her.

  Calmer now, Molly was packed off to the B&B with a supply of money, and Liz promised to keep paying the rent and food bills. She’d visit regularly to check up on her progress. In the meantime, Liz went home and told Seymour she was pregnant. She’d been so right after all not to tell him anything before! It was meant to be, so he could have his baby! He was speechless. Then joyful. It was a new start for both of them. He seemed almost fearful of Liz, so careful was he. Like he too had been granted a miracle, though he couldn’t have known. He actually cried!

  Liz reminded him about her previous miscarriages. She’d need to be extra careful this time. She told him she couldn’t have penetrative sex or even orgasm, for fear of jeopardising the pregnancy. She kept him happy with her skills, in between faked bouts of nausea. Liz knew how to fake a pregnancy better than most. She told your colleagues she was being treated elsewhere. She took Seymour other people’s scans home for him to see, telling him it was his baby coiled in the picture like a drawing in light. She ate more, put weight on, let her belly stick out, wore bigger clothes. Peg and Lily, distracted though they were, were delighted too. At least something good has happened, they said. Oh, Liz was doing the right thing. She’d always realised Peg needed protecting. Now she was protecting her from knowing about Molly’s lapse. And it was mainly Peg’s fault after all. If she’d not driven Molly away, destroyed her pills, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

  Liz and Molly were once more living parallel lives as the aunt mirrored the changes taking place in her niece’s body. Molly was so young, typically the pregnancy didn’t show much for a long time. She got a job in a café, for more spending money, under a false name, cash down, no questions asked. She’d dyed her hair blonde with a temporary rinse. She bloomed, after the nausea went. Her young skin glowed. But she was getting bored. She missed her friends, missed school. Missed her best friend, Julie. At the same time, she was exultant to be away from that life. Though a defiant, reckless spirit showed itself at times. A real mixed-up kid, as they said.

  Liz were happy. Excited. Things were going right at last. She was using all her skill, to help people. Helping Peg, by protecting her and eventually restoring her daughter. Helping Molly, alone and pregnant, despite the permissive society talked of in the Seventies press, still a serious thing in a village like Stonehead. Giving Seymour his longed-for child. Giving the baby a perfect home and family.

  Christmas was approaching. At Liz’s insistence, Molly occasionally contacted the Westfields to say she was alive and well. Peg seemed more worried about what Molly was doing, away from her authority, to endanger her immortal soul. Better dead than dishonoured, even. Soon it would all come to fruition, Molly would have no trouble delivering this baby for Liz. It was meant to be. Liz’d delivered so many young women, their youthful muscles had no trouble squeezing a baby out and closing up again.

  Towards Christmas, Molly’s bump was beginning to show. She had mood swings, kept saying she’d like to go back to Stonehead and show all her friends she’d got away. Or more wistfully, that she’d like to see what t
hey were all doing. She kept dropping strange hints about a mysterious new boyfriend. A boyfriend with lots of money. This was good news, if true. A new boyfriend wouldn’t want to be saddled with a baby. Molly would definitely not want to keep the baby now, a possibility Liz sometimes had to push away to the back of her mind in the early hours, sleeping next to Seymour. Molly kept saying she’d bet Julie, her best friend, would have ‘got off with’ Paul Reed by now. She now thought he was pathetic, had lost interest in him.

  One night Liz got home to find Molly in the porch. She was cold, but triumphant. She’d been drinking, Liz could smell it, something cheap. She was wearing a flying suit, the latest fashion, and a chain belt, and her old coat. She’d washed out the blonde dye. She’d been to some boy’s party in the village. Liz couldn’t believe it. She’d turned up at Stonehead and displayed herself for all to see. Got a lift from someone staying at the B&B. Liz could hardly breathe. Rage surged within her, as she contemplated the ruin of all her hopes yet again. Such a silly girl, no wonder with Peg as a mother. Liz managed to control her temper, but she couldn’t sound other than cold and angry. ‘What are you thinking of, turning up here, you’ve been seen by half the village!’

  Molly just grinned. ‘Yeah, I showed them all right.’

  Liz forced herself to speak. ‘Showed them?’

  ‘Oh, not the baby. Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t show in this outfit, unless you know to look. After all you’ve done for me, Auntie Lizzie, and all you’re going to do for me, I wouldn’t do that. I just showed them I’m still around, that I’m going places. Paul was dancing with Julie, that didn’t take them long did it? Don’t worry about mam and dad, they weren’t at the party, I don’t suppose they’ve ever been to a party in their lives poor things. I get bored, you know. Dead bored, hanging around that place, I don’t know anybody.’

  Liz made cocoa, still controlling herself with an effort. It was late. She could hardly chuck Molly out into the winter night now. ‘You can stay the night, then tomorrow you can hide under a rug and I’ll drive you back. Please don’t take risks like this again.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do at Christmas? Stay all on my own?’

  ‘I’ll come to see you, take you out. Don’t worry.’ She’d have to keep a closer eye on Molly, take care of her baby. She obviously couldn’t be trusted. Liz was beginning to see what teenage girls could be like. Stubborn, awkward, sullen, smug, boastful, ungrateful.

  ‘You should be thankful, Molly, for all I’m doing for you.’

  ‘Well I could make the father pay for the baby, you know.’

  A stab of panic. ‘No need for that, Molly love, we’ll look after the baby, you can have a new start, be free. No need to tie yourself to Paul. Think of the trouble it would cause in the village. This way, nobody needs to know you ever got into this situation at all. I know it must have been hard, watching Paul with Julie, but he has no money anyway. You can do better than him, darling.’

  ‘I know, auntie Lizzie. Much better, in fact I already have.’

  ‘Look Molly, this isn’t the time to go getting another boyfriend…’

  ‘What makes you think Paul is the baby’s father?’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  Suddenly the blasé, boastful façade crumbles. Molly’s little girl eyes look out from her pale, tired face. She looks frightened. Her hands round the cocoa cup start to shake.

  ‘It was Uncle Seymour!’ she gasps out.

  So real is her fake pregnancy now, Liz’s hands automatically close protectively over her belly as if someone had just kicked her. Everything goes black, then swimmy, and all she can truly see are Molly’s eyes, huge, scared and defiant at once. She should scorn this vicious lie, smack her across the face, but she can only see those eyes, and Molly’s hunched, cringing body. The truth. Can it be the truth? She says nothing, her eyes and Molly’s are connected by an umbilical cord.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s a whisper. ‘He said it would be alright. He – he talked me into letting him. After I ran away, one time I went to your house and you were out, he was there. He said he was lonely. I was lonely too. I didn’t know what to do. I was all alone. And he said I was – pretty.’ Molly looked absurdly young.

  No, no no, Liz’s mind screamed, but she still said nothing. She’d seen enough distraught young girls caught out by older men, even family members. She felt, and hated herself for feeling, that she was telling the truth.

  ‘Auntie Lizzie? Please, I don’t know what to do!’ Big fat tears were rolling down Molly’s cheeks. In a mirror image of her aunt’s gesture, she placed her hands on her rounded young belly. Liz’s baby, growing in there, hers and Seymour’s. Liz took Molly in her arms, stroked her hair, calmed her down, told her she’d look after her. A strange feeling, a feeling of power, was growing inside. Liz would make it all right, and she would have her baby. There would be no danger of Molly trying to keep it. How could she, her uncle’s child? How could she ever go home unless she’d freed herself of that evidence of sin?

  And Seymour; no more need to deceive him. The damage to his reputation from this escapade, if it ever got out, would be fatal both professionally and socially. Liz would rise above her justified fury, and Seymour would be hers forever. It would all be in her hands. Her baby; it would be Seymour’s baby too. It might even look like him. Probably would to some degree at least. She would be giving him his own child. After all, maybe this was part of how it was meant to be. Molly was just a silly girl, but she was pretty, and Seymour had a weakness for pretty women and girls. He couldn’t help himself.

  Liz put Molly to bed, and waited for Seymour to come home. He was drunk, as so often nowadays. He came in, hair falling over his forehead, as beautiful still as a poet, a romantic figure, her prize, still shining despite all that fate had done to him. It wasn’t his fault after all that his wife was infertile, that she’d been difficult to live with lately.

  Calmly, Liz told him Molly was upstairs. She told him about the schoolmate’s party. She fixed his hazel-green eyes with hers and told him, ‘She’s pregnant.’ He went white. Liz knew now for sure that it was true. He sat down like he’d been chopped off at the knees, his key dropped from his hand, and it was his turn to shake. She felt the pity and the power.

  First, he must be punished, so he could understand how much he owed her. She told him she’d known all along, went into detail about the consequences if it ever got out. He was rocking himself now, tears on his cheeks, tears of fear and self-pity. He began to explain, how Molly had tempted him, seduced him, modern girls knew so much. He’d thought she was on the pill; hadn’t concerned himself with all the details of her row with Peg. She’d used him, he said, she was so keen, she insisted, he realised now she was using him to get at her religious parents, excited by committing the sin of – he couldn’t say the word incest. Liz let him talk, standing before him like a judge. He went over everything he’d lose, would he go to prison? He’d be an outcast … when he’d talked himself out, he looked up at her with the same pleading hope as Molly had.

  Then she told him. How she wasn’t really pregnant. How she’d covered it all up for his sake. How she and Seymour would have the baby to bring up as their own, and Molly would either go home or leave to start a new life, and no- one need ever know. His relief was pathetic. He needed Liz so much. Even his affairs were like rebellions against his god, his mother, his lover. He sobbed like a child in her arms, so sorry, so sorry, he’d never do anything like that again, and so on. She felt his hot tears soak into her breast as Molly’s had. She felt like the mother of the world. They all needed her to save them. It was worth anything to have Seymour’s baby to mother too.

  Liz and Seymour were closer than ever, just as she’d hoped. Molly got bigger, the child, hers and Seymour’s, grew, and Liz walked heavily with her chin pulled in to look double and people said when’s the baby due? Molly seemed grateful too, she kept away except when Liz called her for check-ups.

  Liz had to comfort Peg too, as Mol
ly made no more appearances, she’d heard about the party. It seemed to show an unrepentant attitude. Peg was desperately worried and distressed, and her sister was a tower of strength. She genuinely felt sympathy for Peg, but what else could she do? She would be even more devastated to find out her daughter had conceived a child by her uncle, a man whose money the Westfields had taken with gratitude. Molly had to keep away until after the baby came. Then Liz would, she really would, try to reconcile mother and daughter.

  Then it all went wrong. Molly needed money, she was almost at her time, Liz was on maternity leave. That awful meeting between them, when the stubborn, bad Molly suddenly surfaced again. The Molly not fit to have Liz’s child. And she said she was keeping the baby, and going away with the baby. And the Seatons had to send her money to live on, until she could get a job, and after that for ever because it was Seymour’s child and he had to pay for its keep. And if he wouldn’t, she’d tell what he’d done, and ruin him. And she’d tell what Liz’d done, keeping her secret, and faking pregnancy, and she’d lose her job. Molly didn’t want to tell, but she needed the money. It was her baby, and she was going to keep it. She didn’t seem to understand it was Liz’s baby, hers and Seymour’s. The Seatons would be living under this terrible dark threat of exposure, Seymour’s reputation in the dust, Liz’s career so long fought for destroyed, Peg’s total moral condemnation and total moral victory, and worst of all, even if she avoided that, and paid up, she’d never see that baby, it would grow up without her somewhere unknown. Her baby. Liz knew what to do.

  32

  It wasn’t hard. Collecting a few things from the hospital; getting the money out of the bank. A thousand pounds. It was a lot, in 1979. Arranging to see Molly to give her the cash. Picking her up on the boat, then mooring outside the harbour as if night fishing. Such a struggling, slippery fish she caught that night.