Bad Faith

by Gillian Philip

  ‘Four flights up,’ I said. ‘That tiny square of yard with a drying green at the back. Buildings all round. And Dad took me up the close once. It was narrow and the stairs were bare stone. No carpet but it had those gorgeous green tiles halfway up the walls.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mum dropped her hands to smile at me. ‘Four flights up, and it must have been a health and safety risk because Bunty had her sash windows up and down so often, they could open themselves. If she wasn’t flinging the window up to shout some gossip to a neighbour, she was eavesdropping on somebody else’s, or yelling at rowdy kids with a football. God, we didn’t need mobile phones in those days, Cass. We just opened a window.’

  I grinned.

  ‘Ah, but we loved it. It was the size of a cupboard, so it was, but I miss that flat. And Bunty had the window open that night, that’s how she heard the noise. So would half the neighbourhood, if they’d been there. It was still the old government back then, and they were getting desperate, spending a fortune for our votes. What they could afford, anyway. So they were moving everyone out while they revamped the flats. Our upstairs neighbours moved out the day before, the next door lot were long gone, and we were due to move out a few days later. Holy Joe must have thought the place was empty. Must have, or he’d never have brought the girl there. He couldn’t have known Bunty was listening for her trollop of a daughter, all the lights out, waiting to thrash her. He’d have approved of that! Almost funny, isn’t it?’

  ‘Almost,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘Bunty had ears like a bat, so she’d hardly miss a clatter and a muffled cry in the close, where it opened onto the back yard. And I wasn’t asleep, I crept through and watched her bend down and glare out the window but she never opened it further to lean out. It squeaked, though it was opened a million times a day, and she didn’t want them to know she was coming for them like the Avenging Angel of the Lord. She thought it was Abby, you see.’

  ‘But it wasn’t.’

  ‘No, but Abby did her hair the same way as that wretched girl, and the light was poor down there. Now, Bunty could move like a very well-built cat when she wanted to. She wedged the door of the flat open, because it banged if you left it, and she tiptoed down the stairs. Stone stairs that didn’t creak, wouldn’t betray a mother stalking her errant daughter with a rolling pin.’

  ‘Rolling pin,’ I echoed.

  ‘Honestly, Cass. Like something out of the Beano. I was right behind her and I wanted to laugh and I wanted to shout and warn Abby, but I didn’t dare, and just as well. Bunty crept up on what she thought was Abby, and I think she really would have given her a hiding.’

  ‘What happened? When she saw it wasn’t Abby?’

  ‘Oh, Bunty had her wits about her, thank God. She was no fool. My mother knew the difference between sex and strangulation, even in a bad light.’ Mum bit her lip, as if she’d got carried away and said too much. I wanted to snap at her, I’m fifteen, Mother. What do you think I don’t know? But I didn’t want to open that can of worms.

  ‘My mother beat Holy Joe to death with a rolling pin, Cass.’

  I was neither as shocked nor as horrified as I ought to be. Somehow it seemed perfectly reasonable behaviour. It’s in the genes.

  A gull screeched, squabbling over a sodden crust, and Mum shook herself back to the moment. ‘First one blow, that got him turning with shock in his eyes. Pale, brilliant eyes, Cass; I hope you never see anything like them.’ She drew in a breath with the memory. ‘And then another blow, and another, because his shock had turned into rage and she was frightened. And then she hit him again, and I suppose it was just harder and harder to stop.’ She was staring at nothing, as if she was back there and watching it all over again. ‘She’d gone too far, and besides, she’d seen what he was doing. Bunty had a sense of justice, Cass, and a temper. Oh Lord, she had a temper.

  ‘Abby walked into the close as we were standing over him, and Gabriel was with her ’cause she’d met him on the way. Your father walked her home because he was that besotted with me, he wanted to impress my sister. Bless him.’

  I chucked my cardboard cup into the lake. Being a litterbug didn’t seem so bad. The rain pattered on it, spun and turned it. It drifted, grew waterlogged and sank.

  ‘Lucky for Abby Bunty had spent all her temper on Holy Joe, and anyway we had other things to think about. The girl was sobbing like a banshee but Bunty just told her to shut up, and let me tell you, when Bunty told you to shut up you did, and no questions asked.’

  ‘I know. I remember.’ I wished I had my cup back to chew on. ‘Didn’t you tell anyone?’

  Mum looked askance at me. ‘What? We knew the rumour, that Holy Joe had friends in dangerous places. We were half-crazy with fear. We weren’t going to hand over our mother to explain herself to the police. And if it had been the militias? To them he was Robin Hood, Cass, he was a hero. They’d have shot us in the back of the neck and put us in an unmarked grave. Do you think I’m exaggerating?’

  I picked at my fingernails, not wanting to answer. The truth was, I didn’t want to understand. I didn’t want to think my mother had done the right thing, the only thing. But that was just my mood, and it would pass. I knew she had. They all had.

  ‘There was a poky wee flat next door to us, the landowner had crammed it in, in Victorian times. Well, the council had decided to knock it through, split the space between the other two flats on that floor. So they were bricking up its old chimney and putting in modern radiators and a new electric stove. They’d just about finished closing off the chimney so we got Holy Joe into a big old suitcase, and we wrapped it up in lots of black plastic bags and taped it up, and stuck him in the chimney space. Gabriel spent all night bricking him in. He did a good job, that’s for sure, because there was never a smell, or never a noticeable one, and if we imagined an odour we’d just open the window.’ Lamely she said: ‘We were always opening the window...’

  ‘Mum,’ I said, rubbing my temples. ‘Mum, wasn’t there blood?’

  ‘Oh, yes, blood and brains. Quite a lot. But next morning Bunty was out there before six, scrubbing the step and the tiles. We were moving out, but she always did that, and if anyone saw her they’d have thought it was perfectly normal. We were house-proud in those days.’

  ‘House-proud,’ I echoed. I had a terrible urge to laugh. ‘What was Dad thinking?’

  ‘Your father...

  Look, Holy Joe was a serial killer. He was a brute, Cass, an animal. Worse than an animal. Those girls he murdered, who did they ever hurt?’ She glared at me, daring me to argue. I wasn’t there, after all. I never felt the fear.

  ‘Of course your father had doubts! But Bunty swore him to silence, told him she’d hunt him down and rolling-pin him to death like Holy Joe if he ever breathed a word – and by the way he could forget about marrying me if he did. But Bunty liked things done right, and she asked Gabriel to read the last rites over the bricked-up chimney. So he did.’

  I could picture that. Holy Joe wouldn’t have troubled Dad’s conscience; he’d have kept his mind on the girls. He’d be perfectly happy with what he’d done, and perfectly happy with reading the rites. Religion. It’s a get-out clause. Maybe sometimes there’s a good reason for that.

  ‘The girl, she was Abby’s best friend’s...’

  ‘Boyfriend‘s sister? Coincidence, love. Irrelevant. We never knew that till later. Poor child: she was so grateful for not being dead she’d have agreed to anything. We cleaned her up and gave her tea and cheap whisky to settle her nerves, and she swore never to say a word about it. She wore a scarf to hide the bruises and she kept her mouth shut. Do you think she wanted the militias on her heels, any more than we did?’

  ‘But people knew,’ I protested. ‘I used to tell the story at school. He walked her home and he disappeared when he saw other people and...’

  ‘Uh-huh. People saw her and Holy Joe together, of course they did. Well, they thought he looked awful like Holy Joe’s description. But she’d survi
ved, and by the time the story got around to the police, and inevitably to the militias, the bruises had faded. When folk asked, she said the man had walked her home, right enough. But he’d drifted away.’ Mum turned into a fluttery mimic, high-pitched and panicky. ‘That nice man was Holy Joe, but? Really do you think so? Holy God, I’ll be down on my knees to thank the good Lord for my deliverance. How could anyone say it was otherwise?’

  I stared at the greasy surface of the boating lake, pitted and dappled with rain. It was heavier again, worsening, bouncing off the water and the tarmac path, and the patter of it on the sycamore leaves had turned to a drumming. Mum’s hair and clothes were drenched. So were mine, I realised with shock.

  ‘The last known sighting of Holy Joe,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Till they knocked down the tenement last week and found him.’

  18: The Return of Todd

  When I pushed open the bedroom door Ming was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, hands clasped on his chest like a dead mediaeval knight, except his eyes were open and his feet were bare and instead of a hound lying at them, there was a fat complacent cat.

  He didn’t even bother to look at me. Righteous fury constricted my throat again.

  ‘I’ll come back later,’ I said coldly. ‘Unless you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Cass!’

  I turned back. There was alarm in the way he’d said my name, but now his eyes were closed, as if he’d given himself away a little.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Come here,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Say again? I didn’t catch that.’

  ‘Come here,’ he moaned again, ‘please.’

  That’s better, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite get it out. Conflicting impulses were battling it out in my brain and my heart, because I was still furious with him.

  Ming had opened his eyes and rolled his head round, and if there’s a girl on earth who could have resisted the spaniel look he gave me, I’d like to know how. Of course, most of the girls on earth weren’t fanatically in love with him against their better judgment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, then.’ I flopped onto the bed beside him.

  He rolled over and put his arms round me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I wanted to be angry with you because life would be easier. I wanted to be angry so I could be on my own again and curl up and be miserable and not be responsible for you. All right? So I made myself angry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I said I’d have liked to do it, didn’t I? I’d have liked to kill him, and I know fine you didn’t. So that’s that.’

  ‘How do you know I didn’t kill him?’ I said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Yeah, you do. You know you didn’t do that. You couldn’t kill a spider, Cass.’

  We just looked at each other, then spluttered with nervous laughter.

  ‘Okay, bad example. Spiders and rabbits, that’s all. You couldn’t kill a person, Cass, not even in your sleep.’

  If Ming thought that was true, it was all that mattered. Right or wrong, his was the only opinion I cared for right now. I didn’t even care for mine. Actually I was afraid of my own opinion.

  ‘Do you still want to be on your own? Do you still want me to go away?’ I was afraid of Ming’s answer.

  ‘No,’ he said, blinking at me, ‘cause I thought you were going to, there, for a minute. And I really, really changed my mind. Okay?’

  I smiled. ‘Okay.’

  ‘What about your aunt? What’s the Holy Joe thing?’

  ‘Um.’ I stroked the side of his face with my forefinger. ‘Okay. Well, my grandmother murdered the old psycho because he was strangling some girl in her close. So Abby and Mum and Dad hid the body. Stuffed him in a hole and bricked him up. Now they’ve knocked down the tenements and the demolition workers have found him.’ I gave Ming a bright Tanya-Moonfleet smile. ‘Holy Joe, that is.’

  Ming looked at me for absolutely ages. He took a breath occasionally, or opened his mouth like he was going to start asking questions, but obviously the questions were inadequate, because each time he shut his mouth again and frowned.

  ‘Um,’ he said at last. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Aunt Abby insisted on taking the whole blame, apparently. She’s told the police Mum was asleep in bed that night and Dad was nowhere near the place. She told them the truth about Bunty killing him and why she did it. And how she helped hide the body.’ I nestled my head into the pillow, still following the contours of Ming’s face with my finger. ‘When the redevelopment started, they all realised the body was bound to turn up. That’s why they’ve been so antsy about it. Abby said to Dad that Bunty’s dead and gone, and she doesn’t have kids herself, so why shouldn’t she take the blame? They argued with her till they were blue and pink in the face but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  Ming put his hand over mine against his face, and curled his fingers round it. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ma Baxter’s not going to make a big political issue out of him, she’s not stupid. The militias loved him, but he was a serial killer! Who’s going to want justice for him? He’s already got it!’

  ‘Ah,’ intoned Ming, ‘but he was very much the People’s Psychopath.’

  I giggled, not quite deciphering the look in his eyes. ‘Community service for Abby, Dad reckons, and a criminal record, but no jail. Be ironic if she’s put to work down the Laundries.’

  Ming sighed, took my ear lightly between thumb and forefinger and wriggled close for a kiss. ‘You’ll be joining her there if anybody catches you doing this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This.’

  ‘Oh.’ I curled my body happily against his. ‘This!’

  • • •

  ‘I’ll get some toast,’ mumbled Ming.

  I wasn’t arguing. While he pulled on his jeans I snuggled under the duvet, liking the way his jeans sat on his hips, and the vertebrae in the small of his back, and his shoulder blades, and the long muscles down either side of his spine. I liked most things about him. No, everything.

  When he was gone, I reached for the remote with the tips of my fingers. I made a game of it, letting as little of myself as possible touch the cool air. I was enjoying the enfolding warmth of the duvet and the contrast of it with the batter of rain against the window. Actually I shouldn’t need the remote at all; in the tiny bedroom the antiquated little television was jammed up close by the bed, and if I weren’t so lazy and cosy I’d just reach right out and press a button.

  I snatched the remote into my cocoon, ducked my head under the duvet, then opened a tiny tunnel onto the world to click on the TV. I was hoping for Angels and Martyrs but it was the news again. Must be an extended edition. I was about to click it off again when Ma Baxter appeared at her podium. She managed to make her black designer dress look like something anybody’s grandma might wear. But only in deepest mourning.

  Her eyes, dark raisins in her pudding-face, were hard and determined, and her fingers gripped the podium as if she was only just managing to contain her righteous wrath.

  ‘Our worst fears are confirmed,’ she said. There was a well-judged break in her voice, just the right degree of grief to show she was bravely overcoming her devastation. ‘But he has come back to us after all this time, even in death, to help us track down his killers. We owe him that.’ Swallowing, she closed her eyes. ‘I owe him that.’

  I shoved off the duvet and knelt up in bed. I couldn’t be that wrong, could I? She couldn’t use Holy Joe for a sympathy magnet, she couldn’t.

  ‘All our hopes and prayers have come to nothing. Now all we can do is pray for his soul, safe in the care of God.’ Raisin-eyes glittered in the pop of flashbulbs. ‘And find the monsters responsible for this appalling crime.’

  A sound at the bedroom door made my head jerk round. Ming was standing there, pale and drawn as death, a tray in his hands with two mugs on it and a toast rack. I don’t know why I was crying but I was. Even through my
tears I could see the toast rack was empty, he’d forgotten the toast. Behind the sound of the vengeful screaming mob on television, I could hear the burble of the kitchen radio from the room below.

  Ming’s hands shook, and coffee was slopping onto the tray, but his voice was perfectly level and calm.

  ‘He’s washed downstream. Todd’s been found.’

  And then the phone rang.

  19: Weather Change

  The rain had stopped. Finally. That was sod’s law, I thought bitterly. Wasn’t life full of these little ironies?

  Mum and I stood under the dripping rowan above the river valley. Above us the clouds were ripping and fraying like an old shroud, letting patches of watery sunlight spill through. Where the weak rays lit the trees in the gorge, they glowed with fresh summery green. The whole world was brightening and clearing, the sky lifting away from the earth. Atmospherically speaking, it was all very inappropriate.

  Only the river was as it should be, churning and raging, still well beyond its banks. Some smaller trees had been dislodged, smashed top-first into the brown torrent.

  Somebody had to say something. I guess it had to be me. ‘Dad’s lost his faith, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘Don’t ever repeat that, will you? Especially not now.’

  I licked my lips. Poor Dad. ‘Does anyone else know?’

  ‘Only Wilf. Apostasy is a serious matter, Cass.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe it’s like Griff said. Maybe all he’s lost is his religion.’

  ‘That’s semantics, isn’t it?’ What a cynic I was turning into. ‘It doesn’t matter what you call it. That’s just a game.’ QUIT GAME?