As she drove away she passed a large school, advertising itself with a tired sign beside the gate. Parkway Comprehensive. Children milled about the tarmac, the sound of their voices loud in the warm air. Roz slowed the car to watch them for a moment. Groups of children played the same games whichever school they went to, but she could see why Gwen had turned her nose up at Parkway and had sent her girls to the convent. Its close proximity to the Barrow Estate would worry even the most liberal of parents, and Gwen certainly wasn’t that. But it was ironic, if what Lily and Mr Hayes had said was true, that both Gwen’s daughters had succumbed to the attractions of this other world. Was that in spite of or because of their mother? she wondered.
She told herself she needed a tame policeman to give her the low-down on the O’Briens, and her road led inevitably to the Poacher. Being lunchtime the door to the restaurant was unlocked, but the tables were as empty as ever. She selected one well away from the window and sat down, her dark glasses firmly in place.
‘You won’t need those,’ said Hawksley’s amused voice from the kitchen doorway. ‘I don’t intend to put the lights on.’
She smiled, but did not remove the glasses. ‘I’d like to order some lunch.’
‘OK.’ He held the door wide. ‘Come into the kitchen. It’s more comfortable in there.’
‘No, I’ll have it in here.’ She stood up. ‘At the table in the window. I’d like the door open and’ – she looked for amplifiers and found them – ‘some loud music, preferably jazz. Let’s liven the place up a bit. Nobody wants to eat in a morgue, for God’s sake.’ She seated herself in the window.
‘No,’ he said, an odd inflection in his voice. ‘If you want lunch, you eat it in here with me. Otherwise, you go somewhere else.’
She studied him thoughtfully. ‘This has nothing to do with the recession, has it?’
‘What hasn’t?’
‘Your non-existent customers.’
He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Are you going or staying?’
‘Staying,’ she said, standing up. What was this all about? she wondered.
‘It’s really none of your concern, Miss Leigh,’ he murmured, reading her mind. ‘I suggest you stick to what you know and leave me to deal with my affairs in my own way.’ Geoff had phoned through the results of his check the previous Monday. ‘She’s kosher,’ he had said. ‘A London-based author. Divorced. Had a daughter who died in a car accident. No previous connections with anyone in the area. Sorry, Hal.’
‘OK,’ Roz said mildly, ‘but you must admit it’s very intriguing. I was effectively warned off eating here by a policeman when I went to the station to find out where you were. I’ve been wondering why ever since. With friends like that you don’t really need enemies, do you?’
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Then you’re very brave to accept my hospitality a second time.’ He held the door wide.
She walked past him into the kitchen. ‘Just greedy,’ she said. ‘You’re a better cook than I am. In any case, I intend to pay for what I eat unless, of course’ – her smile didn’t reach her eyes either – ‘this isn’t a restaurant at all, but a front for something else.’
That amused him. ‘You’ve an overactive imagination.’ He pulled out a chair for her.
‘Maybe,’ she said, sitting down. ‘But I’ve never met a restaurateur before who barricades himself behind bars, presides over empty tables, has no staff, and looms up in the dark looking like something that’s been fed through a mincing machine.’ She arched her eyebrows. ‘If you didn’t cook so well, I’d be even more inclined to think this wasn’t a restaurant.’
He leaned forward abruptly and removed her dark glasses, folding them and laying them on the table. ‘And what should I deduce from this?’ he said, unexpectedly moved by the damage done to her beautiful eyes. ‘That you’re not a writer because someone’s left his handprints all over your face?’ He frowned suddenly. ‘It wasn’t Olive, was it?’
She looked surprised. ‘Of course not.’
‘Who was it, then?’
She dropped her gaze. ‘No one. It’s not important.’
He waited for a moment. ‘Is it someone you care about?’
‘No.’ She clasped her hands loosely on the table top. ‘Rather the reverse. It’s someone I don’t care about.’ She looked up with a half smile. ‘Who beat you up, Sergeant? Someone you care about?’
He pulled open a fridge door and examined its contents. ‘One of these days your passion for poking your nose into other people’s business is going to get you into trouble. What do you fancy? Lamb?’
‘I really came to see you for some more information,’ she told him over coffee.
Humour creased his eyes. He really was extraordinarily attractive, she thought, wistfully aware that the attraction was all one way. Lunch had been a friendly but distant meal, with a large sign between them saying: so far and no further. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Do you know the O’Brien family? They live on the Barrow Estate.’
‘Everyone knows the O’Briens.’ He frowned at her. ‘But if there’s a connection between them and Olive I’ll eat my hat.’
‘You’re going to have galloping indigestion then,’ she said acidly. ‘I’ve been told she was going out with one of the sons at the time of the murders. Probably Gary, the youngest. What’s he like? Have you met him?’
He linked his hands behind his head. ‘Someone’s winding you up,’ he murmured. ‘Gary is marginally brighter than the rest of them, but I’d guess his educational level is still about fourteen years old. They are the most useless, inadequate bunch I’ve ever come across. The only thing they know how to do is petty thieving and they don’t even do that very well. There’s Ma O’Brien and about nine children, mostly boys, all grown up now, and, when they’re not in prison, they play box and cox in a three-bedroomed house on the estate.’
‘Aren’t any of them married?’
‘Not for long. Divorce is more prevalent in that family than marriage. The wives usually make other arrangements while their men are inside.’ He flexed his laced fingers. ‘They produce a lot of babies, though, if the fact that a third generation of O’Briens has started appearing regularly in the juvenile courts is anything to go by.’ He shook his head. ‘Someone’s winding you up,’ he said again. ‘For all her sins Olive wasn’t stupid and she’d have to have been brain-dead to fall for a jerk like Gary O’Brien.’
‘Are they really as bad as that?’ she asked him curiously. ‘Or is this police animosity?’
He smiled. ‘I’m not police, remember? But they’re that bad,’ he assured her. ‘Every patch has families like the O’Briens. Sometimes, if you’re really unlucky, you get an estateful of them, like the Barrow Estate, when the council decides to lump all its bad apples into one basket and then expects the wretched police to throw a cordon round it.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘It’s one of the reasons I left the Force. I got sick to death of being sent out to sweep up society’s messes. It’s not the police who create these ghettos, it’s the councils and the governments, and ultimately society itself.’
‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ she said. ‘In that case why do you despise the O’Briens so much? They sound as if they need help and support rather than condemnation.’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s because they’ve already had more help and support than you or I will ever be offered. They take everything society gives them and then demand more. There’s no quid pro quo with people like that. They put nothing in to compensate for what they’ve had out. Society owes them a living and, by God, they make sure society pays, usually in the shape of some poor old woman who has all her savings stolen.’ His lips thinned. ‘If you’d arrested those worthless shits as often as I have, you’d despise them, too. I don’t deny they represent an underclass of society’s making, but I resent their unwillingness to try and rise above it.’ He saw her frown. ‘You look very disapproving. Have I offended your liberal sensibilities?’
&nb
sp; ‘No,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I was just thinking how like Mr Hayes you sound. Remember him? “What shall I say?” ’ – she mimicked the old man’s soft burr – ‘ “They should all be strung up from the nearest lamppost and shot.” ’ She smiled when he laughed.
‘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.
Ten
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.
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