Authors: Minette Walters
‘My sympathies with the criminal classes are a trifle
frayed at the moment,’ he said after a moment. ‘More
accurately, my sympathies in general are frayed.’
‘Classic symptoms of stress,’ she said lightly,
watching him. ‘Under pressure we always reserve our
compassion for ourselves.’
He didn’t answer.
‘You said the O’Briens are inadequate,’ Roz
prompted. ‘Perhaps they can’t rise above their
situation.’
‘I believed that once,’ he admitted, toying with his
empty wine glass, ‘when I first joined the police force,
but you have to be very naïve to go on believing it.
They’re professional thieves who simply don’t subscribe
to the same values as the rest of us hold. It’s
not a case of
can’t
, but more a case of
won’t
. Different
ball game entirely.’ He smiled at her. ‘And if you’re a
policeman who wants to hold on to the few drops of
human kindness that remain to you, you get out quick
the minute you realize that. Otherwise you end up as
unprincipled as the people you’re arresting.’
Curiouser and curiouser, thought Roz. So he had
little sympathy left for the police either. He gave the
impression of a man under siege, isolated and angry
within the walls of his castle. But why should his
friends in the police have abandoned him? Presumably he had had some. ‘Have any of the O’Briens been
charged with murder or GBH?’
‘No. As I said, they’re thieves. Shoplifting, pick-pocketing,
house burglaries, cars, that sort of thing.
Old Ma acts as a fence whenever she can get her hands
on stolen property but they’re not violent.’
‘I was told they’re all Hell’s Angels.’
He gave her an amused look. ‘You’ve been given
some very duff information. Are you toying with the
idea, perhaps, that Gary did the murders and Olive
was so besotted with him that she took the rap on his
behalf?’
‘It doesn’t sound very plausible, does it?’
‘About as plausible as little green men on Mars.
Apart from anything else, Gary is scared of his own
shadow. He was challenged once during a burglary –
he didn’t think anyone was in the house – and he
burst into tears. He could no more have cut Gwen’s
throat while she was struggling with him than you or
I could. Or for that matter, than his brothers could.
They’re skinny little foxes, not ravening wolves. Who
on earth have you been talking to? Someone with a
sense of humour, obviously.’
She shrugged, suddenly out of patience with him.
‘It’s not important. Offhand, do you know the O’Briens’
address? It would save me having to look it up.’
He grinned. ‘You’re not planning on going there?’
‘Of course I am,’ she said, annoyed by his amusement.
‘It’s the most promising lead I’ve had. And now that I know they’re not axe-wielding Hell’s
Angels, I’m not so worried about it. So what’s their
address?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Think again, sunshine,’ she said roundly. ‘I don’t
want you queering my pitch. Are you going to give
me the address or must I look it up?’
‘Number seven, Baytree Avenue. You can’t miss it.
It’s the only house in that road with a satellite dish.
Nicked for sure.’
‘Thank you.’ She reached for her handbag. ‘Now,
if we can just settle my bill, I’ll leave you in peace.’
He unfolded himself from his chair and walked
round to draw hers back. ‘On the house,’ he said.
She stood up and regarded him gravely. ‘But I’d
like to pay. I didn’t come here at lunchtime just to
scrounge off you and, anyway’ – she smiled – ‘how
else can I show my appreciation of your cooking?
Money always speaks louder than words. I can say it
was fabulous, like the last time, but I might just be
being polite.’
He raised a hand as if he was going to touch her,
then dropped it abruptly. ‘I’ll see you out,’ was all he
said.
ROZ DROVE PAST
the house three times before she
could pluck up enough courage to get out and try
the door. In the end it was pride that led her up the
path. Hal’s amusement had goaded her. A tarpaulined
motorbike was parked neatly on a patch of grass beside
the fence.
The door was opened by a bony little woman with
a sharp, scowling face, her thin lips drawn down in a
permanently dissatisfied bow. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.
‘Mrs O’Brien?’
‘’Oo’s asking?’
Roz produced a card. ‘My name’s Rosalind Leigh.’
The sound of a television blared out from an inner
room.
The woman glanced at the card but didn’t take it.
‘Well, what do you want? If it’s the rent, I put it in
the post yesterday.’ She folded her arms across her
thin chest and dared Roz to dispute this piece of
information.
‘I’m not from the council, Mrs O’Brien.’ It
occurred to her that the woman couldn’t read. Apart
from her telephone number and address, Roz’s card
had only her name and her profession on it. Author,
it stated clearly. She took a flyer. ‘I work for a small
independent television company,’ she said brightly,
her mind searching rapidly for some plausible but
tempting bait. ‘I’m researching the difficulties faced
by single parents with large families. We are particularly
interested in talking to a mother who has problems
keeping her sons out of trouble. Society is very
quick to point the finger in these situations and we
feel it’s time to redress the balance.’ She saw the lack
of comprehension on the woman’s face. ‘We’d like to
give the mother a chance to give her side of the story,’
she explained. ‘There seems to be a common pattern
of continual harassment and interference from people
in authority – social services, the council, the police.
Most mothers we’ve spoken to feel that if they’d been
left alone they wouldn’t have had the problems.’
A gleam of interest lit the other’s eyes. ‘That’s true
enough.’
‘Are you willing to take part?’
‘Maybe. ’Oo sent you?’
‘We’ve been conducting some research in the local
courts,’ she said glibly. ‘The name O’Brien popped
up quite frequently.’
‘Not surprised. Will I get paid?’
‘Certainly. I’d need to talk to you for about an hour now to get a rough idea of your views. For that
you will receive an immediate cash payment of fifty
pounds.’ Ma would turn her nose up at anything less,
she thought. ‘Then, if we think your contribution is
valuable and if you agree to be filmed, we will pay
you at the same hourly rate while the cameras are
here.’
Ma O’Brien pursed her meagre lips and proceeded
to splatter aitches about the place. ‘Han hundred,’
she said, ‘hand h’I’ll do it.’
Roz shook her head. Fifty pounds would clean
her out anyway. ‘Sorry. It’s a standard fee. I’m not
authorized to pay any more.’ She shrugged. ‘Never
mind. Thank you for your time, Mrs O’Brien. I’ve
three other families on my list. I’m sure one of them
will jump at the chance to get their own back at
authority and earn some money while they’re doing
it.’ She turned away. ‘Look out for the programme,’
she called over her shoulder. ‘You’ll probably see some
of your neighbours on it.’
‘Not so ’asty, Mrs. Did I say no? Course I didn’t.
But I’d be a mug not to try for more hif there was
more to be ’ad. Come in. Come in. What d’you say
your name was?’
‘Rosalind Leigh.’ She followed Ma into a sitting
room and took a chair while the little woman turned
off the television and flicked aimlessly at some non-existent
dust on the set. ‘This is a nice room,’ said
Roz, careful to keep the surprise from her voice. A three-piece suite of good quality burgundy leather
ringed a pale Chinese rug in pinks and greys.
‘All bought and paid for,’ snapped Ma.
Roz didn’t doubt her for a moment. If the police
spent as much time in her house as Hal had implied,
then she was hardly likely to furnish it with hot goods.
She took out her tape-recorder. ‘How do you feel
about my recording this conversation? It’ll be a useful
gauge for the sound man when he comes to set levels
for filming, but if the microphone puts you off then
I’m quite happy to make notes instead.’
‘Get on with you,’ she said, perching on the sofa.
‘I’m not afraid of microphones. We’ve got a karaoke
next door. You gonna ask questions or what?’
‘That’s probably easiest, isn’t it? Let’s start with
when you first came to this house.’
‘Ah, well, now, they was built twenty year ago, near
enough, and we was the first family hin. There was
six of us, including my old man, but ’e got nicked
shortly after and we never seen ’im again. The old
bastard buggered hoff when they let ’im out.’
‘So you had four children?’
‘Four in the ’ouse, five in care. Bloody hinterference,
like you said. Kept taking the poor little nippers
hoff me, they did. Makes you sick, it really does. They
wanted their ma, not some do-good foster mother
who was only in it for the money.’ She hugged herself.
‘I always got them back, mind. They’d turn up on
my doorstep, regular as clockwork, no matter ’ow many times they was taken away. The council’s tried
everything to break us up, threatened me with a one-roomed
flat even.’ She sniffed. ‘’Arassment, like you
said. I remember one time . . .’
She required little prompting to tell her story but
rambled on with remarkable fluency for nearly three-quarters
of an hour. Roz was fascinated. Privately she
dismissed at least fifty per cent of what she was hearing,
principally because Ma blithely maintained that
her boys were and always had been innocent victims
of police frames. Even the most gullible of listeners
would have found that difficult to swallow. Nevertheless,
there was a dogged affection in her voice whenever
she referred to her family and Roz wondered if
she was really as callous as Lily had painted her. She
certainly portrayed herself as a hapless victim of circumstances
beyond her control, though whether this
was something she genuinely believed or whether
she was saying what she thought Roz wanted to hear,
Roz couldn’t tell. Ma, she decided, was a great deal
smarter than she let on.
‘Right, Mrs O’Brien, let me see if I’ve got it right,’
she said at last, interrupting the flow. ‘You’ve got two
daughters, both of whom are single parents like you,
and both of whom have been housed by the council.
You have seven sons. Three are currently in prison,
one is living with his girlfriend, and the remaining
three live here. Your oldest child is Peter, who’s thirty-six,
and your youngest is Gary, who’s twenty-five.’ She whistled. ‘That was some going. Nine babies in
eleven years.’
‘Two sets of twins in the middle. Boy and a girl
each time. Mind, it was ’ard work.’
Unmitigated drudgery, thought Roz. ‘Did you
want them?’ she asked curiously. ‘I can’t think of
anything worse than having nine children.’
‘Never ’ad much say in it, dear. There weren’t no
abortion in my day.’
‘Didn’t you use contraceptives?’
To her surprise, the old woman blushed. ‘Couldn’t
get the ’ang of them,’ she snapped. ‘The old man
tried a rubber once but didn’t like it and wouldn’t do
it again. Old bugger. No skin off ’is nose if I kept
falling.’
It was on the tip of Roz’s tongue to ask why Ma
couldn’t get the hang of contraceptives when the
penny dropped. If she couldn’t read and she was too
embarrassed to ask how to use them, they’d have
been useless to her. Good God, she thought, a little
education would have saved the country a fortune
where this family was concerned. ‘That’s men for
you,’ she said lightly. ‘I noticed a motorbike outside.
Does that belong to one of the boys?’
‘Bought and paid for,’ came the belligerent refrain.
‘It’s Gary’s. Motorbike mad, ’e is. There was a time
when three of the boys ’ad bikes, now it’s just Gary.
They was all working for one of them messenger
companies till the bloody coppers went round and got them sacked. Victimization, pure and simple. ’Ow’s a
man to work hif the police keep waving ’is record
under the boss’s noses. Course, they lost the bikes.
They was buying them on the never-never and they
couldn’t keep up the payments.’
Roz made sympathetic noises. ‘When was that?
Recently?’
‘Year of the gales. I remember the electricity was
off when the boys came ’ome to say they’d been given
the push. We’d got one blooming candle.’ She firmed
her lips. ‘Bloody awful night, that was. Depressing.’
Roz kept her expression as neutral as she could.
Was Lily right, after all, and Hal wrong? ‘The nineteen
eight-seven gales,’ she said. ‘The first ones.’
‘That’s it. Mind, it ’appened again two years later.
No electricity for a week the second time, hand you
get no compensation for the ’ardship neither. I tried
and the buggers told me hif I didn’t pay what I owed
they’d cut me hoff for good and all.’
‘Did the police give a reason for getting your boys
the sack?’ asked Roz.
‘Hah!’ Ma sniffed. ‘They never give reasons for
nothing. It was victimization, like I said.’
‘Did they work for the messenger company long?’
Old eyes regarded her suspiciously. ‘You’re mighty
interested all of a sudden.’
Roz smiled ingenuously. ‘Only because this was an
occasion when three of your family were trying to go
straight and build careers for themselves. It would make good television if we could show that they were
denied that opportunity because of police harassment.
Presumably it was a local firm they were working for?’
‘Southampton.’ Ma’s mouth became an inverted
horseshoe. ‘Bloody silly name it ’ad too. Called theirselves
Wells-Fargo. Still, the boss was a ruddy cowboy
so maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.’
Roz suppressed a smile. ‘Is it still in business?’
‘Last I ’eard, it was. That’s it. You’ve ’ad your ’our.’
‘Thank you, Mrs O’Brien.’ She patted the tape-recorder.
‘If the producers like what they hear I might
need to come back and talk to your sons. Would that
be acceptable, do you think?’