The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  The policeman lifted the flap and came to stand by Flash. The poor old lad was probably in shock, because colleagues had described the condition of the victim. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘It’s not the Ritz, but we’ll do our best.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said the tramp. For the first time in his life, he would welcome the sight of a cell. As for the widow who expected him, she would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Diddy Costigan flew along the corridor. In spite of her bulk, she was well in front of Billy. Someone had hurt Maureen. Like a tigress, Diddy was ready to take out the eyes of the creature who had injured one of her young.

  A woman in a dark-blue dress pursued the couple. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  Billy stopped. ‘We’re looking for our daughter. One of the police recognized her. Maureen. Maureen Costigan.’

  The ward sister fixed an eye on Diddy’s back. ‘She can’t run about like that, you know. This is a hospital. There are a great many sick people here.’

  Billy, whose knees were shaking, stared hard at the nurse. ‘Don’t you dare tackle her.’ He waved a hand at his wife, who was just about to disappear round a corner. ‘Or she’ll flatten you. Right? Now, tell me where Maureen Costigan is before I lose my temper.’ He was too traumatized for tantrums, but he wasn’t going to admit that, not to somebody with a face like a smacked bum and what looked like a half-eaten wedding cake perched on her head.

  The woman indicated the direction in which Diddy had launched herself. Billy cursed his disobedient legs and staggered after his wife. He found her in an open doorway with two policemen who were trying to hold her back. He watched while she rained blows on the nearest man, decided that he did not have the energy to go to the aid of Diddy’s innocent victims. For a larger than average male, Billy was certainly a weakling at the moment. The law had arrived at the Holy House half an hour ago, had advised him that Maureen had taken a battering.

  Diddy clouted a constable. ‘She’s my daughter—’

  ‘The doctor’s with her,’ said the second policeman. ‘Trying to save her life.’

  Diddy began a verbal attack, her voice loud enough to wake the dead. ‘If my little girl’s dying, I have to be with her.’ The tears flowed, but she continued furiously. ‘You’ve no right to keep me away from our Maureen.’

  Billy sank into a hard wooden chair. ‘Did,’ he shouted, ‘stop it.’

  She looked at him. He was grey about the mouth, and a film of sweat covered his face. ‘Billy, I want to see her.’

  The relieved officers stepped back and closed the door before resuming their positions of guardianship.

  ‘They’re sorting her out,’ Billy Costigan told his wife. ‘They can’t have folk interfering while they’re trying to mend her.’

  ‘We’re not folk, Billy,’ she cried. ‘We’re her mam and dad, we’re her next of kin.’

  A young nurse hove into view. She carried a tray. ‘I’ve brought you all a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Please don’t upset yourselves. We’re doing all we can.’ She set the tray down on another chair, then squatted down beside the weeping woman. ‘Try to drink some tea. I’ve put sugar in.’

  Diddy knew full well that she would be sick if she drank anything. The seriousness of the situation was beginning to filter through at last. This wasn’t a case of a lost tooth or a broken limb after a fall. Most of her children had damaged themselves at various stages of their lives. But the police were here. Doctors toiled at the other side of a door where Maureen was lying between life and death. ‘I’ll be quiet,’ she told the nurse.

  Billy accepted a cup, lost most of the contents because he was shaking like a leaf. He dabbed at his jacket with a handkerchief, kept an eye on his wife. It wasn’t like Diddy to give in and sit quietly.

  ‘She’s so pretty,’ announced Diddy suddenly. ‘I don’t know where she came from, because she’s nothing like the rest of us.’

  ‘Keep praying,’ said Billy. ‘That’s all we can do now.’

  Diddy dragged a rosary from her pocket, tried to say the words in her head. But all she could hear was Billy screaming at her as he came up the street. She had been standing at the door waiting for Maureen to come home. Maureen had not come home, but Billy had run up from the pub, grabbed his wife and told her about Flash Flanagan finding Maureen on St Martin’s recreation ground. Anthony Bell’s Valerie had been found near a church, she remembered. Yes. St Sylvester’s.

  The door opened and both Costigans rose to their feet. A doctor smiled kindly at them. ‘I think she’ll make it,’ he told them.

  Diddy charged at the startled man and hugged him almost to a pulp. ‘Thank you,’ she wept. ‘Oh, thank you.’

  With the help of the policemen, the doctor was released from Diddy’s powerful hold. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ he said, recovering spectacles and dignity. ‘She will need a lot of care and nursing.’

  Billy mopped his face with the tea-stained handkerchief. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

  ‘She was attacked and beaten, probably without much warning,’ the medic replied.

  Diddy lifted her head and looked at the nearest officer. ‘Get him,’ she said. ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll find him and kill him myself.’

  The doctor bowed his head. This was not the time to tell this mother that her daughter had been half-strangled, that the poor girl had been raped, too, probably while she was unconscious. The truth would have to come out, but not now, not yet. ‘You will be able to see her for a few minutes later on. Meanwhile, try not to worry.’

  When the doctor left to tend his other patients, Diddy kept watch over the police who, in turn, were keeping watch over Maureen. In spite of all advice, she worried about her little girl and prayed constantly.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Billy in an effort to comfort his wife.

  ‘Will it?’ she asked. ‘Will our Maureen ever be all right again?’

  To this question, Billy found no answer.

  Nine

  Bridie walked out of the house and fixed her eyes on the landscape. She hadn’t expected anything quite like this. Bolton lay below her, a sepia-stained place with dozens of factory chimneys that belched steam and smoke into the sky. But here, on the outskirts, moors rolled away like a carpet of many greens, square-patterned by boundary walls and hedges. It was lush, beautiful, teeming with fertility. She remembered the area around Liverpool as flat and uniform, but Bolton’s setting undulated gently towards the horizon. ‘It’s lovely,’ she told Edith. ‘So very pretty. Like a green counterpane trying to settle on a bumpy bed. It’s not fierce, you know, like mountains. This is friendly and peaceful.’

  Edith nodded. ‘We’re used to it, I suppose. Mind, I wasn’t always used to this. My mother and Sam’s mother grew up together and worked together there.’ She indicated the hollow in which the city-sized town sat. ‘Aunt Theresa was a doffer and my mother was a weaver. They were born in a tiny house just off Deane Road and in the middle of all the mills. Aunt Theresa married a sea captain and went off to Liverpool. My mother and father remained in the Deane Road area. Theresa and Ida – my mother – had just one child each. So there’s Sam and there’s me.’

  Bridie looked over her shoulder and cast an eye over Edith’s magnificent house. It was like the mansions that belonged to landowners at home, broad and tall, with many windows.

  ‘I married well,’ said Edith.

  Bridie nodded. ‘Richard is a nice man.’

  ‘And wealthy, I suppose. Money isn’t everything, but it helps.’ Edith watched the children playing with Noel. ‘Those two are your riches,’ she informed her guest.

  Bridie felt Edith’s sadness. This woman would have loved children, would probably have made a good mother, too. And a house of this size cried out for a family to enliven it.

  ‘I lost three,’ said Edith softly. ‘Two girls and one boy.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Yes, it is a pity.’ The older woman’s gaze was fixed on C
athy. Yesterday, when the guests had arrived, Edith had spent some time with Cathy. The child was alert, eager for knowledge. She needed an education, a proper chance in life.

  Bridie scolded her untidy daughters and took them into the house which was called Cherry Hinton. They lingered for a while in a wide hall with a fireplace, a sofa, some Queen Anne chairs and a huge, circular table covered in items of black Wedgwood. A cabinet next to the fire boasted Waterford and Stuart crystal. In this entrance room, a family of five or six might have lived without being cramped.

  They ascended a curving stairway, their progress muffled by dense carpet in a dark maroon colour. Noel followed them, overtook them, lay in waiting on the wide landing. According to Edith Spencer, Noel was a mess, but he was one of the family. Even the dog was subdued and well-behaved, as if recognizing and respecting such opulence. Large, gilt-framed paintings lined the wall to their right, while on the left, the hall remained visible through intricate banisters of carved and varnished wood.

  Bridie and her daughters had been allocated two rooms with an interconnecting bathroom between. She told the girls to wash, then went to sit in her own temporary home, a green-and-cream palace with carpet, wall tapestries and the most comfortable bed in the world. It was odd, but she felt settled here. Richard and Edith were very normal in their ways, were not the sort of stuck-up people one expected to find amid luxury such as this.

  In the bathroom, Cathy washed her little sister’s face. The towels were beautiful, far too pretty to dirty, so she made sure that Shauna’s face was sparkling before allowing the child to dry herself. This room was gorgeous. The taps were made like fishes and the soap bowls were all shaped into shells. Next to the bath lay a rug with a leaping porpoise woven into it. A collection of shells and pebbles was spread across the window-sill, and some of the tiles were decorated with sea horses. Cathy loved it.

  Shauna dabbed at her face with a thick, soft towel. Once dry, she looked for something to add to her collection, picked up two of the shells. While Cathy was engrossed in sea horses, Shauna ran into their pink-and-gold room and placed the bounty in her little case. She would take them home and show them to Charlie. In less than a day, she had acquired two tiny matchcases in silver, a small book with gold on the edge of its pages and a pot with roses on the lid.

  ‘Put those things back.’

  Shauna jumped, turned and looked at her big sister. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I want them.’

  Cathy stood her ground. If she told Mammy about Shauna’s stealing, Mammy might decide to go back to Uncle Sam’s right away. Also, Mammy might blame her older daughter for the younger’s delinquency. After all, hadn’t Cathy been involved in schemes set up by Cozzer and Tildy to provide for the vast Nolan family? She wrenched the case from Shauna’s hand.

  Shauna screamed. In Cathy’s opinion, Shauna’s screams might have put to shame the sirens of large ships on the Mersey.

  Bridie rushed in. ‘Whatever is it?’ she asked.

  Cathy sighed, gave the case to Mammy. ‘Aunt Edith’s things,’ she said, ‘Shauna has been taking them, and they were for herself, too, not for people who need them.’

  Bridie relieved Cathy of the stolen goods. ‘Shauna, these things are not ours. You must put them back where you found them.’

  Shauna looked from Mammy to Cathy, then turned again to her mother. ‘I want them,’ she said clearly.

  ‘Why?’ asked Bridie.

  ‘To show to Charlie. Charlie shows me things in the shop.’

  Bridie sank onto Cathy’s bed. Two of them. She had two of them growing up with no morals at all. Where had she gone wrong? She had tried to teach them the early sections of their catechism, had explained about commandments and sins. Of course, Cathy had picked up her waywardness from the Costigans. In a sense, Bridie had come to understand the Costigans’ dual standards. But now, Shauna was becoming a thief, too.

  ‘Don’t read too much into it,’ said a voice from the doorway.

  Bridie jumped to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Edith. Shauna’s only a baby. She doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, not yet.’

  Edith eyed Shauna. The child knew, all right. She had been mollycoddled, overindulged because of her slightness of frame and her unwillingness to eat a full meal. Shauna O’Brien might well grow up believing that the world existed just for her amusement. ‘She will return those things. Won’t you, Shauna?’

  Shauna looked at the unsmiling lady. Something in Aunt Edith’s expression made Shauna realize that no foolishness would be tolerated. She took the case from Mammy and went to put back the treasures.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bridie.

  ‘It’s no matter,’ said Edith, her tone reassuring. ‘Most children do that sort of thing. We must remember that Shauna is not turned four yet.’ All the same, Edith Spencer could not quite manage to like Shauna. Which was ridiculous, she tried to tell herself firmly. Children of Shauna’s age were not fully formed, were still growing and learning. She smiled at Cathy. Cathy had stolen in order to help her friends who, in their turn, were keeping alive a family of twelve. Instinctively, Edith knew that Cathy would never steal on her own behalf.

  Cathy broke the tension. ‘Aren’t we going to see our horses today?’ she asked.

  ‘Indeed we are,’ replied Edith. ‘It’ll mean boots, because there may be mud. Boots are kept in the rear porch.’

  Cathy ran down to invade Mrs Cornwell’s kitchen. The cook grinned, sighed, thought wistfully of her mistress’s sad lack of children.

  Bridie took Edith’s hand. ‘Thank you for stabling the animals,’ she said. ‘And for understanding about Shauna. She misses her daddy. They both miss him.’

  ‘And you?’

  Bridie knew that she would miss Eugene for the rest of her life. But she was married to this lady’s cousin. ‘I’m over it,’ she lied.

  Edith heard the lie and said nothing.

  Anthony Bell was living in a cottage on Far Moss Lane. From his upstairs front window, he could see Cherry Hinton if he stood on tiptoe on a chair. Which, he told himself, was an extremely silly position for a man who was headmaster of the local school. Also, he would never see Bridie from here, not without some very strong binoculars.

  He stepped down from his perch and sat on the bed. Had fate dictated that Bridie should be sent here? Anthony had left Liverpool for two reasons. Firstly, he needed to keep a great many miles between himself and Liam. Secondly, the feelings Anthony had for his father’s wife were not appropriate. He remembered the touch of her hand when she had nursed him, the sound of her voice, the kindness that seemed to radiate from her.

  He was content in his work, happy with the cottage. Built of stone, it stood alone on the lane. Opposite the house was one of the farms owned by Richard Spencer. The Spencers had been gentleman farmers in these parts for several generations, but Richard had broken the mould by becoming a doctor. Now, the crops and animals were tended by tenant farmers, though Richard maintained his deeply ingrained love of the land. Whenever he had time to spare, Richard Spencer could be seen striding about in long boots and old trousers. He birthed calves, ploughed fields and looked after all who worked for him.

  Anthony loved the tranquillity here, though he missed many of Scotland Road’s colourful characters. This district was quiet and sparsely populated, a far cry from the hum and bustle of Anthony’s birthplace. At the bottom of the lane, in a slight pleat between two moors, rested the village of Astleigh Fold. It boasted a public house, a post office, a few dozen houses and the school where Anthony worked. Children from other villages travelled to Astleigh Fold Junior Mixed and Infants, but the numbers were still low enough for the classes to be of a decent and manageable size.

  So he should be happy. He stared at the brass bedstead as if his distorted reflection in one of its decorative orbs could give him some answers. But there were no answers. He had loved Val, had lost her. He had fallen almost in love again, this time with a woman who was totally out of reach.

&n
bsp; His hands curled into tight balls. He knew. He carried the knowledge in his head, and it was heavy, far too weighty for any one man to support. Sometimes, he thought he would go insane, because his nerves had been worn to transparency by the near certainty that Father Liam Bell had murdered Valerie. There was no proof, nothing tangible that could link the then newly ordained priest with that heinous crime. How on earth could Anthony have stuck to his guns? Apart from one small outburst in the police station, he had nursed the feelings close to himself, because no-one would ever believe him. A priest? A Catholic priest committing rape and murder? The desk sergeant and his officers had declared Anthony to be out of control due to shock. And the scratches on Liam’s face had been made by an illmannered dog belonging to a parishioner . . .

  No! Anthony leapt up and smashed his fist against the nearest wall. The pain seemed to cleanse him, because he was calm in an instant. Was he like Liam, then? Was his temper just a fraction below the surface, was he capable of damaging others while in a rage?

  He forced himself to sit down again. Red-hot needles of agony shot through the digits of his right hand. Mercifully, the school was closed for Easter, so he would not need to write for a couple of weeks.

  Liam. Liam had bribed away most of Anthony’s girlfriends. The twins had been young then – fourteen or fifteen. But about a year later, just before entering the seminary, Liam had begun to conduct his own social life well away from Scotland Road. Once he had managed the spoiling of Anthony’s friendships, Liam had hunted elsewhere, in the seedier areas of the city centre. Girls had been beaten; some had been scarred for life. The man who had assaulted them had worn a balaclava helmet and an eye mask. Both Anthony and Liam had been bigger as youths than most grown men.

  So, ladies of the night who had plied their trade on Lime Street had taken to walking in pairs and threes. When Liam had gone into the seminary, no further attacks had occurred. Of course, none of those anonymous women had been murdered, because Liam had saved his worst behaviour for Val. He had punished the prostitutes, had killed the one woman who had been close to his twin brother. Had he prayed over the corpse? Anthony wondered.