Death of a Perfect Mother

by Robert Barnard

  On one of his bee-like hops from group to group Gordon found Brian temporarily alone, and stopped.

  ‘How did it go? Anyone notice I was gone?’

  ‘No. Nobody would, not in this shambles. Gord, there’s something I want to say—’

  ‘Not here, you fool. The mugs have ears.’ And with a smile in which only Brian could detect signs of strain Gordon sailed into his next all-boys-together encounter.

  And now it was all songs. You had to end the evening with a song, didn’t you? And then another. The plasticated imitation oak rafters rang, and Methodist households streets away shut their windows and doors. The beer-loosened voices rose in ecstatically scatological songs of praise, and in the unholy din Brian did not hear the phone ring in the landlord’s little den behind the bar, or see him disappear into it. But minutes later he registered with bleary surprise the figure of the landlord coming round the bar with an odd, unaccustomed expression of worry and uncertainty in his face and bearing—not like Jack Perkins, life and soul of the party except with his wife and kids. And Brian saw him enquiring something of one or two of the less drunk, saw him move towards Gordon, saw him bring him over, heard him say through the haze of beer and song and smoky bonhomie:

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, you boys, I’ve just had a message—you’d better—well, you’d better cut off home—it’s rather serious—it’s your mum—she’s—’

  ‘Ill?’

  ‘Well, sort of, but worse. I’m sorry, lads. They say she’s dead. I couldn’t hear right well, you know, not through all this. But they said she’d been killed.’

  Brian felt Gordon keel over towards him, crumpling at the knees and up the strong trunk of his body. Then with a powerful effort he righted himself, clutched on to the table uttering great racking sobs. Suddenly he cried ‘Killed!’ and then shoved his way bodily through the crowd and out of the bar door. Brian ran in his wake and followed him in his first fast sprint up Balaclava Road. Two hundred yards from the pub Gordon stopped by the lamppost and heaved mountainously and noisily. And as Brian caught him up and stood over him, helpless, Gordon gazed at him through his heaving and retching, his face blotched hideously red, his eyes wet with grief and disappointment, and said:

  ‘Some bastard’s gone and done it instead o’ me. She was mine. I had it all worked out, you know that, down to the last detail. Some bastard’s got there first. Now I’ll never be able to throttle the life out of her.’

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Brian, shaking himself into taking control. ‘He said she’d been killed. He probably meant an accident. Don’t crack up.’

  And with a last mountainous heave and a shake Gordon did seem to get a grip, stood up, took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Then he took off like a professional sprinter up the dark road. He faltered a little as they ploughed their way through the blackness of Snoggers Alley, and Brian caught him up so that together they could run the last stretch home.

  Home. Lill’s nest for her boys. But now transformed with lights, with two large police cars outside, and with a little knot of shameless neighbours and their children, watching the comings and goings. They made way for Gordon and Brian, gazed at them with ravenous, awkwardly respectful curiosity, stayed silent as they pushed their way through the front gate.

  And Brian’s most abiding memory of the day was the open front door, the hall blazing with light, and Fred meeting them, his skinny frame racked with sobs, his face red with rage and grief, tears running down his wrinkled cheeks, his voice cracked with shock and outrage.

  ‘Somebody’s done her in,’ he shouted. ‘Some bugger’s been and killed our Lill.’

  CHAPTER 8

  THE MORNING AFTER

  Morning. Waking. A dull sense of activity around the house. A sense of policemen in the house. Heavy feet and low, muffled voices. The aftermath of a murder.

  Brian struggled to consciousness through a thick blanket of reluctance, hangover, and sense of impending disaster. It was seven o’clock. He had had, perhaps, five hours’ sleep. He and Gordon, long, long after midnight, and after questions dimly understood and haltingly answered, after cups of thick black instant coffee, had staggered up the stairs and—silent, almost, uncertain where they stood—had thrown themselves on to their beds and sunk into welcome, immediate oblivion.

  Or not quite oblivion. Brian had had terrifying dreams of Lill, blue, strangulated, hideous, dead but still active, stalking the house where once she had reigned, intent on revenge. He knew too that Gordon had cried out in the night, without knowing how he knew. A sharp cry of pain or triumph. Lill was there in his sleep too. Of course she was. What else could one expect? Demons are not to be exorcized so easily.

  In the next bedroom Fred, similarly wafting towards consciousness, turned his meagre, flannel-pyjamaed frame over in the bed and felt the space where Lill always slept. It was empty. Good old Lill, he thought: she’s making the tea. Then he struggled upright, his thin body racked by coughs till tears came to his eyes.

  Next door Mrs Casey lay wakeful in bed. Now that she was old she found she needed very little sleep. She lay in bed most nights thinking about her life, about what the Lord had given her and what He had withheld, about the lives and doings of her family and neighbours, about sin and retribution and kindred subjects. She was never bored. Last night after she had heard, she had thought about her daughter, about her life and death, so perfectly in accord with each other, and no doubt ordained that way by a Higher Power. She imagined Lill’s face blue with strangulation, then remembered it thick with pancake make-up, mascara and lipstick. There was a rightness about the comparison that pleased her and brought a thin smile to her face. Lill had lived vilely and died violently. Mrs Casey stolidly turned back the bedclothes and began the process of getting up. Now no doubt there would be interviews and questions. The police would be round. That was only right. They had their jobs to do. But she did not expect them to discover the murderer of Lill. She had an odd idea that the murderer of Lill enjoyed the protection of the Lord.

  • • •

  The Hodsdens gathered downstairs, haggard, pale grey around the eyes. Debbie’s right eye had something more than mere greyness round it, and she felt the flick of an eye as one of the policemen noticed it. That was the new policeman, the one from Cumbledon, come to take over the investigation.

  They all looked at him, the one who had not been there in the horrible, frenzied session late the previous night. He’s very good-looking, Debbie thought. And he was too, in a self-conscious way. Very fair hair, damped down close around his head. Blue eyes—so much more policeman-like than brown. A rounded, regular sort of face on a sturdy neck. He looks a capable sort of chap, thought Fred. He coughed portentously and came forward to shake him by the hand.

  ‘We’re all hoping you’re goin’ to find the rotten bastard that killed our Lill,’ he said.

  The policeman nodded, rather superior. Of course he was going to find the bastard that killed their Lill, seemed to be his message. Brian suddenly thought: he looks stupid. He hides it well, but really he’s rather dim. Brian analysed his feelings, not quite sure whether to be glad or sorry. One thing he was certain of: he did want to know who it was had killed Lill. That didn’t mean he wanted them punished.

  The policeman cleared his throat and looked around him, using his clear, blue, frank eyes in a way he often practised in front of the bathroom mirror. Female shoplifters often went weak at the knees and confessed in the face of that gaze. The Hodsdens looked suitably impressed, which gratified him.

  ‘My name is McHale,’ he said, in a voice resonant with officialdom. ‘I’ve been called in to take charge of this case. Believe me, I realize what a distressing time this must be for you. But I expect you’d like to know how far we’ve got.’

  ‘Aye, we would that,’ said Fred, who seemed anxious to make an impression on McHale as head of the family, something he never had been.

  ‘Well, as you know, your wife—your mother—was strangled along Balaclava Road,
just up from the little cutting that takes you through to Windsor Avenue here.’

  ‘Snoggers Alley, that’s what we calls it,’ said Fred.

  ‘Really . . . ?’ (The pause suggested he found the Hodsdens rather common.) ‘Where she was strangled there’s a garden wall jutting out on to the pavement, making a dark little corner. It’s very likely the murderer hid himself there—if he aimed to surprise her, that is, which seems likely. The killing took place, we would imagine, somewhere between eight-thirty and ten past ten, when the body was found. Any questions?’

  ‘Can’t they be more exact than that, these doctors?’ asked Fred. ‘It’s so vague, anyone could have done it.’

  ‘No, it’s only in books the doctors are willing to be so exact about the time of death. But no doubt as time goes by we’ll narrow it down by other methods.’ Chief Inspector McHale oozed self-confidence. ‘Now, just one or two more details: Mrs Hodsden’s handbag was open and her purse had been ransacked—it was empty, in fact. Was there likely to have been much in it?’

  ‘We’re not rich folks,’ said Fred.

  We are poor, but we are honest, thought Brian, victims of old Lily’s whims . . . What’s Fred up to, answering all these questions as if he was somebody? He’s a changed man. Lill’s death has gone to his head.

  Perhaps Gordon thought the same, for he spoke for the first time: ‘Mum never had much on her, and she wouldn’t have had last night, not on a Thursday. She’d have got the housekeeping on Friday . . . today.’

  ‘Makes you think,’ said Fred, gazing ahead.

  An expression of irritation crossed McHale’s bland, handsome face, as if he were used to a better class of murder victim. ‘At any rate,’ he said, ‘what there was in the purse is gone. We’ll also have to ask you to look at the contents of Mrs Hodsden’s handbag to see if anything else is missing.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked Fred.

  ‘Oh . . . valuables . . . you know . . .’

  Fred shook his head, bewilderedly. ‘We’re ordinary folks,’ he said.

  Christ, thought Brian. Somebody ought to offer us starring roles in The Diary of a Nobody. Fred Pooter and all the junior Pooters. Aloud he said:

  ‘Mum was very careful: she wouldn’t have carried anything valuable around with her.’ Like the latest tray of diamond trinkets sent on approval from Cartier’s, the Farbergé Easter eggs she had purchased from an impoverished survivor of the Russian Imperial family. My God, I can’t stand it. If Fred’s going to go through this investigation waggling the banner of our ordinariness I’ll have to put him down. At least before we were Lill’s brood, objects of pity mingled with contempt. By the time the murder fuss has died down we’ll be nothing minus, if Fred has his way.

  It seemed as if Fred couldn’t keep himself quiet. He said greedily: ‘What did the bugger strangle her with?’

  ‘Probably wire,’ said McHale with reluctance and some distaste. ‘A length of wire. There may have been some sort of makeshift handle on the ends, so he could grip it better.’

  Brian felt sick. In fact, all but Debbie looked green. Lill had been garrotted. They shifted uneasily in their chairs and gazed at the floor.

  ‘Well,’ said McHale, putting on an expression of deep sympathy and beginning to collect his things together. ‘There’s nothing much I can say, is there? You have my deepest sympathy, but the best service I can do for you is to get the chap who did it, as you say. I’m afraid I’ll have to talk to you all later, at the Station. I don’t think at the moment there’s anything more I can do here.’

  ‘Will we be able to get the funeral over soon?’ said Debbie suddenly.

  McHale shot a quick, surprised look at her, then smoothed over his features into their habitual officially bland expression. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible until after the inquest. I hope that won’t be too long hence.’

  ‘Awful to think of her lying there—like that—in that morgue,’ said Fred mournfully, wiping away a feeble tear. ‘That’s what’s worrying our Debbie—isn’t it, Debbie?’

  After a pause Debbie nodded. It was half the truth. Until Lill was buried, burned, disposed of away from mortal sight, she still had a horrible marginal existence. She was still here. Debbie wanted her underground. Then her liberation would be complete, and she could begin the business of life, unshackled . . .

  ‘I’ll call you in, then, when I want you,’ said McHale, ‘and I hope you’ll all be thinking about this, trying to put your finger on something that might be of use to us.’ He once more indulged in his sweeping look around the assembled Hodsdens and their ineradicably lower-middle-class front room, then took himself self-importantly out. Left on their own, they looked at each other, feeling somehow truncated, and found they had nothing to say. Finally Fred cleared his throat and said: ‘Well, we’d better all lend a hand with the breakfast, and then I’ll be off to work.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Fred,’ exploded Gordon. ‘You don’t go to work on the day your wife dies!’

  Fred looked bewildered. It was Friday. A working day. What was one to do if one didn’t go to work? ‘I suppose I could prick out those petunias out the back,’ he said.

  • • •

  Where were they to talk? Over breakfast—interrupted by policemen coming in and out of the back door and marching all over the house on odd errands—the problem exerted both Brian and Gordon, and they threw significant glances in each other’s direction over Debbie’s scrambled eggs. A strange fear gripped the two of them: they felt watched, spied on, overheard; they felt like Embassy officials in Moscow, walking in the parks to escape ubiquitous bugs in their offices. Where could they go? In the house the police were everywhere. They could hardly go for a walk without attracting comment. If they went into the garden, even, what would people think—that slimy bastard Fawcett from next door, for example—at the sight of the two of them strolling up and down the path in low, urgent conversation?

  In the end it was eleven o’clock, when the police infestation of the house had somewhat abated, before the pair of them, obeying a silent signal from Gordon, could disappear to the bedroom and begin to thrash the matter out.

  ‘If you could talk French,’ said Brian, ‘we wouldn’t have this difficulty.’

  ‘Cut it out. If I could talk French so could your common-or-garden policeman. And what the hell would he think if we started jabbering away in Frog? Come to that, I didn’t notice you were so bloody fluent when we were in Tunisia. You never wanted to translate, I remember.’

  Tunisia.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Gordon, ‘there’s no problem now. Any copper comes up those stairs and they’ll creak to high heaven. This house was jerry-built before we were born and it’s housed Lill for twenty-five years or more. That would wreck the Tower of London. You can hear every goddam thing everybody does.’

  ‘We don’t want it to look as if we were conspiring, getting our stories right,’ said Brian obstinately.

  Gordon sat forward in the little bedroom chair, shoulders hunched, intense, blazing: ‘For God’s sake, what is this? We’re not guilty, remember? Why the hell should we get our stories right? All we have to do is to say to the police what we were going to say . . . tell the truth.’

  ‘Which?’ said Brian, still with a mulish expression on his face. He stood by the little fireplace in the bedroom, boarded up, and with a pathetic little electric fire set in the boards, a useless crusader against the mists and damps of winter. He looked down at it, the long straight lock of hair coming forward as usual over his eyes and making him look even younger and more defenceless than he was.

  ‘Look,’ he said: ‘we plotted. We intended to do it. We wouldn’t want that known. Right?’

  ‘Of course we wouldn’t want that known. Why the hell should it be? There’s only you and me know.’

  ‘All I’m saying is, we’ve something to hide. For example, you must have been in the bog in that pub timing yourself for hours, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Didn’t you
notice I’d gone, then?’

  ‘No. To tell you the truth I forgot all about it.’

  ‘My God, what a partner you make,’ groaned Gordon in disgust. ‘Well, I was there thirteen minutes. You don’t say anything about that, natch.’

  ‘All right, then. But you see what I mean. I feel guilty. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t do it. Morally it’s the same.’

  ‘You’ve got too much bloody imagination. And what’s all this about morality? If I plan a murder again I’ll get a partner who’s all solid muscle and a head six inches thick. You do bugger all, and then you get eaten up with guilt. Forget it, for Chrissake. For all we’ve done to the contrary, Lill would still be alive now.’

  ‘Just,’ said Brian.

  ‘Well, don’t you forget it. That policeman’s going to be giving you the once-over. I don’t want you blubbering and saying “we planned it, Mr Grouser, sir; we’re morally guilty.” Remember: we’ve done nothing, boyo.’

  ‘OK. But somebody did. Somebody got in first. Don’t you even want to know who it was?’

  ‘Some day I might. As of now I just want to get through the next few days. Devoted son mourning his much-loved Mum. After that, I might like to find out. If it was some mugger I’d like to bash his face in. Doing me out of my fun.’

  Brian flinched, then left the mantelpiece and came over to him. ‘Some mugger—OK, that will be all very convenient. But what if it was our Debbie? Or old Fred?’