The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Would you like to check your answers?’ asked Sister Ignatius.

  ‘No, thank you.’ The test had been fairly easy. For the first few minutes, Cathy had been tempted to put down all the wrong answers, but she did not wish to appear stupid in front of this tiny, hard-faced woman. Anyway, Mammy had promised that Cathy didn’t have to think about going to Sacred Heart until she was eleven. Four years was a tremendous length of time. Anything could happen before Cathy reached the grand age of eleven.

  ‘Then you may go.’

  Cathy leapt up and made for the door with Noel hard on her heels.

  ‘Have you nothing to say to me child? Normally, these examinations are held at the school. Because of my friendship with your aunt, I took the unprecedented step of interrupting the Easter holidays to bring the mountain to Mohammed.’

  Cathy had seen no mountains, and Sister Ignatius had travelled in Aunt Edith’s car, so the little girl failed to see what all the fuss was about. ‘Thank you for coming, Mother,’ she said. ‘Come on, Noel.’ The dog shot like greased lightning across the room.

  ‘Very well. You may go.’ Sister Ignatius waited until child and dog had left, then she fetched the test paper from the bureau. She scanned the first couple of pages, assessed the score. As expected, the child had achieved satisfactory marks in a test that was usually aimed at girls of ten or eleven years.

  Edith appeared in the doorway. ‘How did it go, Sister?’

  ‘Caitlin O’Brien’s intelligence quotient is high. I shall work it out later, but she has an adult reading age and her comprehension is excellent. We shall probably offer her a place. If she cannot take it up now for the kindergarten, we shall see her again at a later date. But she has passed the entrance hurdle.’

  Edith smiled. Cathy was a clever girl. Now, all Edith had to do was court her away from Scotland Road. Sacred Heart was one of the best schools in the country. It could hold up its head with the finest of them, and Edith wanted to be around when girls from so-called working class families started to attend universities. With any luck, there would be more scholarships soon and further help from national and local governments. ‘We need female doctors, lawyers and the like from all walks,’ Edith told her friend. ‘Not just from the ranks of the rich.’

  Sister Ignatius agreed wholeheartedly. ‘You find brains and stupidity in every class,’ she remarked. ‘And a school such as ours should cast its net wide to find the pick. That girl is a case in point. She needs us, Edith.’

  ‘I know.’

  The door opened and Liam Bell entered the room. He came to a dead stop when he saw the visitor, ran his eyes over the uncomely guest. ‘Ah. Good afternoon, Aunt Edith. Sister?’

  ‘Ignatius,’ replied the seated woman.

  ‘Liam Bell. Father Liam Bell.’

  Mother Ignatius stared at the collar and tie, waited for further information, received none.

  ‘It’s a long time since you were here, Liam.’ Edith was anxious to fill the awkward pause. ‘And I see you’re in civilian clothes.’

  Liam made a quick response. ‘Ah well, no-one takes notice of a man in a suit. The dog collar does tend to give away a priest’s position. I’ve been working on the dock road, trying to get some of the women off the streets.’

  Mother Ignatius nodded just once, the small movement emerging stiffly. This man had not been scouring the streets of Liverpool for fallen women. His mode of dress was wrong for such a role and anyway, he must have been travelling for much of the day. When had he found time to walk the dock road? And weren’t the street women called ladies of the night? Surely they would have spent the mornings asleep?

  Liam approached the chair in which the headmistress sat. ‘Parish duties have kept me away from my aunt and uncle,’ he said. ‘So I decided on a whim to visit today.’

  Priests were not allowed whims, had no time for such luxuries. Mother Ignatius smiled faintly, picked up Cathy’s paper and walked to the door. ‘I must take this chance to have a walk in your lovely gardens,’ she said. ‘I shall see you later, Edith. You too, Father Bell.’ She laid great emphasis on the ‘Father’. ‘I shall find Cathy’s mother and talk to her about the child’s promising result.’ She left the room, closing the door quietly.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Oh.’ Edith closed the lid of her writing desk. ‘We’re thinking of securing a place for Cathy at Sacred Heart.’

  ‘Really?’

  Edith noticed the curl of his upper lip, heard the sneer in his tone. ‘She is an exceptional child.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Edith.

  Liam kept his mouth closed. He and his twin would probably figure in the last will and testament of Edith Spencer and her husband. So he needed to take care and put a rein on his tongue. ‘It’s very generous of you to help,’ he said. ‘I hope the child and Bridie are grateful.’

  Cathy was far from grateful, and Edith was well aware of that fact. The child was enjoying her stay in the country, though the idea of living here did not appeal, not yet. In time, Cathy would come to realize that everyone was acting in her best interests. ‘I’m sure they are grateful, Liam.’ She kept the edge in her voice, allowed him to hear her displeasure.

  He cleared his throat. ‘So my father’s wife is enjoying her stay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Edith had never found conversation with Liam easy. ‘I think so.’

  ‘And . . . er . . . Anthony?’

  ‘He is settled.’

  ‘In a non-Catholic school.’ This was not a question.

  ‘Anthony is a Christian,’ replied Edith. ‘Wherever he teaches, he will instruct the children to love and respect God.’

  Liam coughed again. ‘Do he and Bridie get on all right?’

  Edith shrugged. ‘I suppose they do, yes. They seem polite to each other, at least.’

  He decided to hold his tongue. If the Irishwoman had quarrelled with Anthony, Aunt Edith might well be unaware of any such argument.

  Edith muttered something about tea before leaving the room. Liam, momentarily alone, sat at the table and looked through the window. His heart did not flicker as he saw Maureen Costigan walking towards the house. She was from another time and another place, and she had merited her punishment. Now, she was here in Astleigh Fold, was living within a stone’s throw of Anthony. In fact, the way things had turned out was probably to her advantage.

  When the door opened, he did not turn.

  Maureen came in and replaced a book she had borrowed.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Liam.

  ‘Hello, Father Bell.’

  He glanced at her. She was a decorative girl, rather striking with that dark hair and clear eyes. But she was not right for Anthony. ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  Maureen put her head on one side. ‘I’m all right.’ He was horrible. He didn’t care how she was, wasn’t concerned at all. There was no expression in his tone, nothing on his face. He might have been asking about the weather.

  ‘And the man who attacked you? Do you remember him?’

  There was just a smell. She had seen no part of him, not even a foot or a hand. ‘No,’ she replied. The smell still eluded her. It was a familiar odour, yet her mind seemed to have blanked it out.

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  Maureen dropped her chin and stared at her shoes. A finger of ice crept partway up her body, though the day was warm and sunny.

  ‘Have you seen my brother?’

  She shrugged. ‘He came for his dinner once. And I think I saw him walking down the lane the other day. But I’ve been busy looking after Shauna and Cathy. Mrs Bell’s been at the stables a lot.’

  He breathed more easily after that. Maureen Costigan had lost interest in Anthony, it seemed.

  ‘When are you coming back?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not.’ She straightened and looked at him. ‘Mam says I can stay here for a while.’

  ‘Ah.’ So she was being careful. She was deliberately
pretending not to care about Anthony. He would have to keep a watch on this situation, though supervising the young madam was going to be difficult. How on earth could he be in two places at once?

  Maureen shifted from foot to foot. This was not the sort of man to be alone with. He was a priest, but he was not good. In fact, there was something quite nasty about him, as if he were criticizing people all the time, as if he considered himself to be a cut above everybody else. ‘I . . . I’ll go and help in the kitchen,’ she said.

  Alone once more, Liam Bell sat down and stared into space. Maureen Costigan had emerged very well from her ordeal. She would be living in comparative splendour, would be close to the object of her desire. Liam’s hands closed into tight fists. She should have died. He would think about this later, would try to come up with a plan. A marriage between a Bell and a street urchin must be avoided, no matter what the cost.

  Thirteen

  Anthony picked up a book, flicked through the pages, scanned pale and closely packed print. Somewhere inside a volume such as this, he might find a clue, perhaps a whole set of ideas that could account for his brother’s madness. He sighed, took a mouthful of tea. There were probably no answers. At best, one of the tomes would contain reasons, diagnoses, explanations of syndromes, suggestions about treatments and medications. He was not about to discover a solution to the problem by reading, though literature was as good a place as any to start, he supposed. The main question was how to get his twin brother removed from society. ‘How?’ he asked himself quietly. ‘Who the hell will listen to me?’

  The chapter on psychopathic disorder fell open, as if previous borrowers of this library copy had perused that particular part more frequently than the sections covering more mundane matters like anxiety and insomnia. His eye flew across the lines, searching greedily for a prompt.

  The word ‘psychopath’ covered a multitude of sins and omissions, it seemed. The term referred to all kinds of sufferers, including those who failed just minimally to integrate with society. ‘Eccentric?’ mused Anthony. ‘No, this is more than mere eccentricity.’ He read on, discovered a few alarming paragraphs whose subject was nearer to home. Sweat beaded his forehead, dripped into his eyelashes. Liam was here, was written down and accounted for.

  He raised his head. A strange feeling of comfort began to mingle with the fear in his chest. Someone knew. Whoever had written this book had seen the signs, had made notes about people like Liam. Father Liam Bell was odd but clever. Although the author of the borrowed book tended to concentrate on patients of low intellect, he had outlined a case concerning a mentally sick doctor who had damaged many in his care. Anthony quoted, ‘Some disordered personalities function quite well within the confines of respectable professions. Many manage not to offend for long periods. However, colleagues may notice a certain oddness, an occasional tendency to offer inappropriate replies to questions. Sufferers occasionally fail to hear instructions or forget what they should be doing at a certain time. Nonetheless, the gifted psychopath can conceal his problem for much of the time.’

  Anthony leaned back and remembered. How careful the young Liam had been when in the presence of adults. ‘Me?’ Liam would ask, the dark eyebrows arched in convincing dismay. ‘It wasn’t me. I’d never do a thing like that.’ The embryonic monster had developed into a teenage terrorist whose targets had been chosen with meticulous precision. Liam had sharpened his illness to perfection while tormenting girls from areas other than Scotland Road, had graduated into manhood by ‘punishing’ prostitutes. Anthony swallowed. By the time Val had come along, Liam had been honed and ready for murder.

  Maureen. Would Liam try again? Would he attack Bridie, too? After all, Bridie had married Dad, and Liam had expected to fare rather well after the demise of Sam Bell. ‘God, will You please tell me what to do?’ groaned Anthony. ‘No-one will listen. Everybody thinks he was a young tearaway who straightened himself out and became a priest. Come on,’ he pleaded. ‘Omnipotence. Do something with Your omnipotence, Lord.’

  The handbook for psychiatric staff rambled on about behaviour and emotional reactions. Reactions. Liam seldom reacted unless angered. Anthony could not recall a solitary positive response. Had Liam ever loved at all? No. Liam cared for no-one, pitied no-one. A few sentences leapt from the page. ‘The patient presents himself as hard and uncaring. He suffers no guilt, pity or remorse. Concerned only with himself, he sometimes experiences, very briefly, a slight amount of pleasure or satisfaction when interfering successfully with another person’s life.

  ‘On the other hand, he may occasionally overreact as a result of some imagined slight, or he may enthuse disproportionately over a trivial matter.’

  There followed a case history of a woman who had set out to destroy the lives of her relatives. She had haunted a sister’s husband for weeks on end in order to ‘prove’ his infidelity, had divided the family into factions by means of malicious gossip, had sent ‘anonymous’ letters to her many victims. This unhappy female, having found herself to be unloved and unlovable, had assumed a power that might have compensated for her terrible loneliness had her plan worked. Having endured years of ill-treatment and bullying, the unfortunate husband of the sick woman had been admitted to a mental hospital. After questioning this man, doctors had realized that the wrong patient had been locked away.

  A movement in the garden caught Anthony’s eye. He stared through the glass, tried to smile as his heart sank. Maureen was here. Surely all that silly business was not about to start all over again? He would have to get rid of her. Liam had been on the loose in the neighbourhood. He might be planning to follow the girl, might be plotting another attack. Anthony dived through the house, threw wide the door and stepped outside. Except for Maureen, the lane was deserted.

  ‘I came,’ she said proudly. ‘All on my own.’ Today, she had taken the giant step of venturing out unaccompanied. It had something to do with Father Bell, she suspected, because the desire to get away from him had been so strong. Still, whatever the reason, she was now able to walk about without an escort.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Maureen sniffed and dashed a suspicion of moisture from her cheek. ‘I’m going for Mrs Cornwell’s messages in the village,’ she told him. ‘For meat and stuff, like. And I thought I’d call round here and say sorry. For . . . for what happened.’ He was a decent bloke, she told herself. Just an ordinary, good-looking man who worked in a school and made people happy. It was a pity about his brother, though. Father Bell was a dull, nasty bugger.

  Anthony scratched his head.

  ‘When you were ill and I kept on visiting you.’

  ‘Oh. That’s all right.’

  She stepped back. ‘Are you looking for somebody?’

  ‘No.’

  Maureen felt the man’s nervousness. She knew all about fear, could sense it here and now.

  ‘Have you seen Liam?’ he asked, his tone measured.

  ‘Yes.’

  Anthony cleared his throat. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Talking to some nun in Mrs Spencer’s garden. The nun came about Cathy going to her school.’

  He studied the unwanted visitor closely. She did not flinch when speaking of Liam. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  She blinked slowly, looked as if she might be emerging from a reverie. ‘He was tall.’

  Anthony folded his arms and leaned against the jamb. ‘Who was tall?’

  ‘The man. The one who hurt me.’

  Anthony shuddered.

  ‘I could tell he was tall. He had long arms. I’ve not told anybody about his long arms. He was as big as you.’

  Here came the truth, then. Well, as much of the truth as Maureen was capable of recalling. Anthony’s fingers bit into his upper arm as he fought the rising panic. He could say nothing, could do nothing. But at least she was talking. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t remember.’ On the fringes of her memory sat another factor. It might have been a smell. She was almost sure t
hat it was a smell or a taste. ‘It was dark,’ she added lamely. ‘I couldn’t see nothing. And I went and passed out ’cos he strangled me.’

  ‘Maureen.’ He stepped nearer to her. ‘You’re a survivor. You come from a family of survivors. Please look forward, not backwards.’

  Maureen attempted a smile, though the result was unsure and watery. ‘I can talk to you,’ she told him. ‘We all can, all the Scottie Road kids. And I will look forward, ’cos I’ve a lot to look forward to. Mrs Spencer’s sending me to a dancing school in Manchester. She’s nice. So is the doctor. He said the same as you. I’m young and I’ll get better. Anyway, thanks for everything, Mr Bell.’

  If only she knew how little he was doing, how limited he was. But if one syllable of Anthony’s suspicions about his twin reached Diddy’s ears, she would send her Billy out to deal with Liam. No matter what ideas he came up with, Anthony was powerless to act.

  ‘I don’t think he should have been a priest.’

  Anthony inclined his head. Poor Maureen’s thoughts were all over the place. Perhaps an almost inaccessible part of her mind had connected with Liam—

  ‘Nobody likes him,’ she added.

  ‘I know.’

  She sniffed. ‘I don’t think Father Brennan likes him, even. Nobody goes to confession when Father Bell’s on. I’m sorry, ’cos I know he’s your brother, but—’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Maureen. We can’t choose our families, can we? Fortunately, we do get to choose our friends.’

  She put her head on one side. ‘Mr Bell’s all for him, isn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And you belted Father Bell a long time ago.’

  ‘Five years ago, yes.’

  ‘Why?’ She blushed. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s your own business, not mine.’

  He reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘Go and do your shopping, Maureen. Don’t worry about me and mine, just concentrate on yourself.’ He stood and watched as she walked towards Astleigh Fold. Was it his imagination, or were those black curls of hair stiller than they used to be, less bouncy and free? Suddenly, Anthony realized that he was watching a woman, not a girl. Maureen Costigan was almost fourteen, and she was almost old.