Murder of Innocence

by Veronica Heley

  Diana swooped on her son with a cry of horror and retrieved the brush, which made Frank yell and Gus start to wakefulness. He gazed around, bleary-eyed. All the fire had gone out of him. He looked sixty and was probably forty.

  Ellie returned to the kitchen, where Kate was assembling plates and glasses.

  Ellie said, ‘I’ve just had what my mother would call a very naughty idea.’

  Kate stiffened. Ellie had a silent conversation with the back of Kate’s head. It was surprising how expressive the set of a head and shoulders could be, even when the face was turned away.

  Ellie: I’m going to offer him a room for the night.

  Kate: You know the risks. He’s a drunk.

  Ellie: But reformed for twenty months. Isn’t that worth something? Besides …

  Kate: It’s one in the eye for Diana. You’ll make it an excuse to get her out of here.

  Ellie: YES! YES! It’s perfect.

  Kate turned her head and winked at Ellie. ‘You’re a wicked girl, do you know that? And a bad influence on me. But before I egg you on, one last throw for sanity. Shall we find out why he fell off the wagon?’

  Ellie nodded. She carried the macaroni cheese through into the living room and set it on the table. Kate brought in a tray containing plates, glasses, a jug of water and the tomatoes.

  ‘Grub up,’ said Ellie. ‘Stewart, fetch Frank’s high chair from the kitchen, will you? And Gus can sit at my right hand.’

  ‘Mother, really! You aren’t expecting us to sit down at table with him, are you?’

  ‘Certainly, dear. Feed the hungry, you know. All that Christian stuff. And I wouldn’t turn a dog out on a day like this.’ Gus was surveying his possessions, strewn over the carpet. Ellie patted the chair next to her. He levered himself out of the armchair, then passed his hand over his chin. Looked at himself in the mirror over the fireplace, and winced.

  ‘I don’t think I …’

  ‘You shall have a bath and a shave after we’ve eaten,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Hrrrm!’ said Kate. ‘First things first …’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Ellie, dishing out steaming macaroni cheese. ‘First things first. How did you come to fall off the wagon on Tuesday, Gus? Something happened after you’d finished mending my gate?’

  ‘There was some big boys, off the bus. Teasing a little un. Hitting him. Made the little un cry. I knew I oughta keep out of it. But I shouted at ’em and they turned on me instead. The little un ran away. I’d been shopping, got some food. Always hungry at that woman’s place. The boys took my food, smashed it up. Too many of ’em. All over me. When they’d done, I sat there in the gutter and thought, What’s the use …?’

  Diana wrenched her chair back, sitting as far from him as she could. ‘You should have called the police.’

  He laughed, lifted his spoon and fork and hesitated. Looking at Ellie he said, ‘Gonna say a grace, missus?’

  Ellie felt a shiver run down her back. When had grace last been said at that table? She didn’t know how to say grace, herself. Had never been asked to do it before. She held Kate’s eyes. Kate folded her hands in front of her and bowed her head. When had Kate last been to church, or heard grace said at table? Beyond Kate, Stewart finished strapping Frank in and sat down with bowed head.

  Ellie had a moment of inspiration. Stewart had been brought up in a church-going family, hadn’t he? ‘Stewart, would you say grace for us?’

  Without a flicker of surprise Stewart folded his hands and said, ‘For friends, fellowship and good food, we give thanks to you, O Lord.’

  Ellie dumped a helping of macaroni cheese on her own plate and sat down.

  ‘Well, isn’t this nice. I’ll put the immersion heater on after lunch so that Gus can clean up while Stewart takes Diana and Frank back to their flat. Kate can help me change the sheets so Gus can stay the night. Tomorrow

  – well, we’ll see what happens then, shall we? Tomatoes, anyone? Just peaches and tinned custard for afters, I’m afraid.’

  Five

  E

  llie was enjoying herself. Diana threw down her spoon in a fury but couldn’t speak properly because her mouth was full. Frank imitated her. Stewart tucked his head in, and got down to demolishing his plateful. Kate mopped up little Frank, grinning to herself. Gus looked from one to the other, bemused.

  ‘Mother, you can’t possibly!’

  ‘Of course I can. Eat up while it’s still hot.’

  ‘I won’t let you!’

  ‘Try me.’ Ellie put some ice in her voice. Gus followed Stewart’s example,

  tucking his head in, picking up his fork and starting to eat as if there were no tomorrow.

  ‘You know I can’t move back into the flat. There’s a gas leak …’

  ‘No, there isn’t. I had the Gas Board check it out. There was a message on the answerphone about it being all clear. You could have rung them yourself, if you’d thought about it.’

  ‘You can’t invite a … a criminal … to stay in your own home.’

  ‘Gus isn’t wanted for any crime that I know of so why shouldn’t I invite him to stay the night, if he behaves himself? Anyone for seconds?’ said Ellie, brightly.

  ‘I’d love some,’ said Stewart, handing his plate up. ‘It’ll set me up nicely for the drive back.’

  Diana bit her lip and toyed with her food. Ellie scraped the dish out for Stewart. ‘Any news on the sale of your house up north yet?’

  Stewart glanced at Diana for permission to give out information. She sulked, hunching her shoulder at him, so he said, ‘Yes, we have a buyer, should be exchanging contracts tomorrow. The furniture removers are booked for Friday, if everything goes according to plan.’

  This was news indeed. Ellie wondered if Diana had intended her furniture to come down to this house … while Ellie and her bits and pieces would be shoved out to their furnished flat? Forewarned is forearmed.

  ‘That’s good news,’ she said, bracing herself to be cheerful. ‘I suppose it will all go into store till you’ve found yourself a place to buy down here.’

  Stewart reddened. He glanced at Diana, who was refusing to eat, glaring out of the window at the rain. ‘We haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘You’d better hurry up, then,’ said Ellie, determined not to read the subtext. ‘Storage costs money, though I suppose it’s cheaper to store the furniture up north than it is to bring it down here. We don’t seem to have had any time to talk lately. How’s your job going? How are you getting on by yourself up there? Have you got yourself some digs to move into?’

  Stewart concentrated on pouring himself a glass of water. ‘Didn’t Diana tell you? I’ve been made redundant. I finish on Friday. Diana says jobs down here are few and far between. She wants me to look for a new job up north.’

  Ellie said, ‘I see.’ In fact, she saw rather more than Diana perhaps wished her to. The sale of Stewart and Diana’s big house up north would release capital which Diana could use for a better lifestyle, while Stewart – being no longer the breadwinner – might be quietly sidelined. Ellie collected dirty plates and took them out to the kitchen, with Kate helping her.

  Kate hissed, ‘Is Diana planning to dump him?’

  ‘Over my dead body.’ Together they collected the peaches, custard, bowls, spoons and took them back to the dining table.

  Ellie felt a quiet fury building up inside her. First Tod, and now this! She hadn’t realized before how fond she was of her inoffensive son-in-law. Aunt Drusilla had foretold that Diana would get rid of Stewart if he couldn’t keep pace with her. Aunt Drusilla had also wondered aloud about giving him a job managing some of her other properties, if the worst came to the worst. Something about setting up a dummy company to run them, so that neither Diana nor Stewart would know who employed him.

  ‘Stewart, I heard only the other day of a job going down here that might suit you. Something similar to what Diana is doing, but managing bedsits and flats in large converted houses. Being old, the houses need a lot more m
aintenance than the block of flats which Diana looks after, but I don’t suppose you’d mind that. In fact, I think your flat is in one of the houses concerned. Would you be interested?’

  ‘Indeed I would.’ Stewart was hearty. ‘Thanks, mother-in-law. You’re a brick.’

  Diana turned a nasty shade of grey. Little Frank watched her face in fascination and hit her on the arm with his spoonful of food to attract her attention. Diana gave an angry squawk and tried to rub the custard off with her hankie.

  Someone banged on the front door and rang the bell, hard.

  Everyone at table jumped. Ellie got to the door first. Mrs Coppola, wearing outdoor clothes with court shoes this time, but still in a state.

  ‘Sorry to bother you again, but – yes, I’ll come in for a minute, if I may

  – I did ask my sister but she’s got her own family, had to go back home again, her varicose veins are playing up, of course. Anyway, they said I had to take him home, they needed the bed, and he is eating and drinking and toileting and that, and it’s all outpatient appointments now and I may be able to get some time off tomorrow, I think, but I can’t leave him alone in the house, I just daren’t, so then I thought of you, and you will do it, won’t you?’

  ‘Tod is home? With you? He’s all right?’

  ‘All right is not what he is but there, what can you do when they say they need the bed, and I had to get a cab there and back and the day after tomorrow I have to go back to work, or I’ll lose my job and what with the mortgage to pay and having had so much time off to look after him last week, I’m at my wits’ end, I really am.’

  ‘You’ve got him home, but he has to go for outpatients’ appointments, is that right?’

  ‘It’s only during the day, when I’m at work. I think I can get time off to do it tomorrow, because there’s three different people he has to see, doctors and shrinks and police and that and yes, of course I can get time off for that. I’d resign if they didn’t give me it – though I daren’t resign really, you never know but they’re looking for an excuse to get you out nowadays. But Tuesday on? You could just sit with him, couldn’t you? I really don’t like to leave him on his own, poor little tyke. He could come round here. He likes it here and at least your house is warm, which mine isn’t with the central heating on the blink and they say it all needs tearing out and I’m not made of money, am I?’

  ‘You want me to look after him for you while you’re at work? And take him to these hospital appointments? You know I don’t drive.’

  ‘He won’t talk yet, you see. Shakes his head when he’s asked what he can remember. So it’s going to be all playing about with his head and I’ve heard these people always want to know if you’ve been abused as a child, which as you know he never has been, well, not up to now he hasn’t, and I’ve never held with them, but what can you do?’

  ‘Counselling?’

  ‘Therapists, they call them. They say it will do him a power of good because he won’t speak or even watch the telly. Nor listen to his Walkman, and I spent a fortune on those CDs for him …’

  ‘His father …?’

  A bitter laugh. ‘Couldn’t care less. Not even living in this country, now. Got a job in Spain.’

  Ellie thought of all the problems current in her life: Diana and Stewart, baby Frank, the builders, Aunt Drusilla … With a start she remembered that she’d missed her weekly computer lesson last Wednesday when they’d found Tod had gone missing. She’d been getting on so well with it, too. What a pity. But she couldn’t take Tod to that, or to visit Aunt Drusilla, or shopping or … anything. Or could she?

  ‘Say you’ll do it?’ The woman had tears in her eyes. Useful weapons, tears.

  ‘I’ll come over to have a chat with you this afternoon, and then I’ll decide whether I can cope or not.’

  ‘Of course you can! Oh, bless you, I knew I could rely on you. I’ll tell him you’re coming round straight away.’

  ‘In about an hour …’ But the woman had gone, clop-clopping on her high heels up the drive. The rain appeared to be slackening off.

  It was only then that Ellie remembered she’d just taken in a new lodger.

  The rain stopped and the sun came out. But inside the nursery, it was still dark. The digital camera lay on the workbench. The video camera and tripod had been pushed into a corner and covered with a sheet. The locked drawers of an old-fashioned green metal filing cabinet contained innocuous material: tourist brochures, family papers and photographs. These photographs were unremarkable. They could be shown to anyone. But nearby there was a crack in the skirting board and if you knew how to press and pull, a large section of the woodwork came away. Behind it was a cache of videos and discs. The images on those were not at all innocent.

  Stewart got back into his car to drive north again – for the last time, he hoped. Diana complained she’d never get the custard stain out of her new blouse and took Frank back to their flat. Kate rummaged next door for some of Armand’s old clothes, then helped Ellie clear away, wash up, put all Gus’s clothes through the washing machine, make plans.

  Gus had a bath and shave. He put on some of Armand’s old clothes and came down, he said, to make himself useful. Of course, the washingup had been done by then. Now that he’d cleaned himself up, he looked less like a tramp and more like an OAP down on his luck. He blinked a lot, bewildered by the turn of events.

  Kate said, ‘What do you do with yourself all day, Gus?’

  ‘Old soldiers’ club up the Avenue. Lunches at the Catholic church down the other end of the park. Sit in the public library where it’s warm. Do you want me to leave, missus? I don’t want to cause no more trouble.’

  ‘You’re staying tonight, and tomorrow we’ll talk about it again. Maybe you can stay for a bit if you behave yourself,’ said Ellie, though she was far from certain that she’d done the right thing. ‘Take a kitchen chair into the conservatory with the papers, if you like. It’s nice there now the sun’s out. Don’t use the sitting room; that’s mine. I shan’t give you a key for the moment but I’ll provide breakfast and supper on a day-to-day basis. We’ll have a chat tomorrow morning, work out how much you pay me. I have to go round now to visit someone, be back in about an hour, all right?’

  ‘That woman’s not coming back, is she?’

  ‘My daughter? No, I shouldn’t think so. Look, I’m only going three doors up the road to visit the little boy that got hurt the other day. You can come round for me there, if you need me.’

  Kate left the house with Ellie. Rain was scudding along the road, driven by an east wind. Phew! They turned up the collars on their coats.

  Ellie said, ‘Have I done something really stupid? Shall I get back to find all the silver and Gus missing?’

  ‘Nah. He can’t believe his luck. He’ll be all right for a day or two, then I suspect he’ll either make a pass at you …’

  Ellie snorted. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘… or go on another bender and disappear.’

  ‘He was sober for twenty months. Why shouldn’t he be so again?’

  They paused at the gate.

  Kate said, ‘The trouble with you, Ellie, is that you still think a good woman can reform her man. And don’t remind me that I reformed Armand when he was beating me up. True, I did. But only by scaring the daylights out of him. You couldn’t throw a scare into that little runt; he might die of a heart attack.’

  Ellie went along to the Coppolas’. Mrs Coppola, still wearing her outdoor coat, let her in. ‘What took you so long? He’s upstairs in his room. You know the way, don’t you? I’m just on the phone …’

  Ellie shivered. It really was cold in this house. She kept her coat on to go upstairs into Tod’s room. He was half lying and half sitting on the bed, as limp as a rag doll. He no longer wore a helmet of bandages on his head and they’d done a neat job with stitches, but he still looked rough. The bruises were fading around his eyes and mouth, and only one wrist was still taped up. They said he must have been tied up w
ith wire at some point.

  His eyes were empty and he didn’t stir when she came in. His panda was on the floor under the chair. She picked it up and tried to put it in his arms, but he made no move to accept it. She touched his hand. His skin was chill. She wanted to howl with grief, to snatch him up in her arms and take him home with her. She took off her coat, wrapped him in it and pulled him on to her knee. He didn’t resist in any way but she thought his breathing quickened a little. She rocked him to and fro, humming – how absurd we are at times like this – humming a lullaby.

  Down below she could hear his mother on the phone, talking – no, chatting. Laughing. Flirting. Oh well. What else could one expect of her? Divorced, having to work for a living. Single parent. Difficult.

  Ellie’s back began to ache but she ignored it. Tod was getting warmer by the minute. His legs were outside the coat. She rubbed them, careful to avoid the bruises, the marks of a whip. How could he treat a little boy so badly, that man, that pile of filth, that murderer of innocence? Anger stirred again, deep inside her.

  His mother was coming up the stairs, calling out, ‘Whoohoo!’ His mother would hate to see her son being cuddled like a baby in Ellie’s arms. She managed to get Tod back into his original position. Then found that somehow or other he had got one of his hands into hers. A warm hand. A hand that clung. A hand that was hidden under the coat. Ellie shivered. Without her coat she was chilled to the bone. The house was icy cold. She could even see her breath.

  ‘How are we doing?’ asked Mrs Coppola. ‘I’ve just got to pop out for half an hour. We’re out of all his favourite foods and a friend’s just offered to give me a lift to the supermarket, won’t take long, you can leave him if you like.’

  The hand inside Ellie’s strengthened its grip on her. ‘No, I won’t leave him.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ The phone call had rejuvenated the woman. A little while back, she’d been unwilling to leave the lad alone and now listen to her!