Mud Pie

by Emma Lee Bole

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Moonlight

  I would have got nowhere without that moon. It laid my path out for me like a map engraved in silver. If I was made conspicuous by its blaze, so would my pursuer be; a villain picked out by the spotlight the moment he crept on stage. At first I kept on ducking down into the heather while I gazed around, but no villain appeared. The land was silent.

  Ashamed of my curses now, I told the moon she really was a goddess, no doubt about it, a pure, strong mother holding up her lantern. A brilliant, shining mother who never threw her shoes out of the window or fed her children nothing but tinned soup for a week. Having the earth as a mother, I thought, would not be so clean or satisfactory. Not so predictable. A lot more like the real thing.

  The heather gave way underfoot with the sticky sharpness of frost, pulling at my feet. Home to mother! If only. Maybe when I was four or five she was still someone to go home to. Memories nudged me as I plodded across the moorland: my mother dressing me, something hand-knitted though probably not by her, too small and itchy but I didn’t tell her so, and a trip on the bus to see the giant Father Christmas that climbed up Manchester Town Hall, me sitting on her knee.

  I heard a gurgle of water and stopped to drink from a stream. The water was icy and lip-numbing. Where was my mother now? Did she walk the Salford streets by moonlight on her way back from a lock-in at the Anvil? What would she say if she saw me?

  Stupid. She wouldn’t say a thing. Perhaps What trouble have you got yourself into now? with the offhand, dismissive, faintly aggressive air she had long since established with me. Do your own thing. As long as you don’t come begging for money. Don’t think I’ll help you there. You’ve cost me enough.

  She begrudged me all her lost drinks. So many thousand of them she’d had to forgo; she could have bought oblivion so much sooner if she hadn’t had to pay the milk bill. And she looked askance at my nose: it was a reproof to her. She’d hit me with a bottle of Baileys that I tried to wrestle off her. Luckily only the nose had broken, not the bottle.

  I never tried to get a drink off her again. Told my classmates I’d fallen over on borrowed roller-blades. Told the same to a concerned teacher and the school nurse. Assured them I’d been to the doctor with it, which I hadn’t, and they checked up because the surgery rang my home asking me to make an appointment. I went eventually, when it was healing and already too late.

  They did try, I suppose, but I closed up like a book. I didn’t want the questions or the social workers. I could sort myself out, look after Karl and Mikey, no problem. Easy.

  You think it’s easy? You kids, you bloody kids, you drive me up the wall, said Mum. I paused in mid stride, my shoe crushing the frost.

  We must have been screeching. We did a lot of that, me and Karl, with our fights and hunts and races up and down the communal stairs. We played pirates and the banisters got broken. We played robbers and next-door’s window got smashed. I suppose we were trouble. Did she drive us to trouble, or did we drive her to drink?

  Like AnneMarie, unable to cope, propped up with giant columns of pills. Bottles with Mum. Ashamed to know what to do with them all. Crept down the recycling tubs early in the morning. I started walking again.

  We were hard work, us kids. And Mikey. He was a mistake, in all respects. Maybe it was easier to just blame him, poor unlovable snivelling Mikey whom nobody wanted. It didn’t matter anyway. All done with. Buried.

  And now I was off the moors and back onto tamed, cropped pasture, frost burnishing it like a steel sink right down to the flat ridges of the draining board. Remnants of old walls maybe. Over the top, to the start of downhill. The antique etching of the landscape spread before me, cold and sharp, thin-lipped fields in grey skirts laced with filigree trees. A church spire caught my eye: a pair of lights shone down in the hollow a mile or two away. The moon went out.

  A finger of cloud had switched it off. As my eyes adjusted, though, I could still see my surroundings, grey lumps against the black. And I knew where I was. Those lights were Grindal, four miles from Brocklow over the tops but a good ten round by the road. Grindal was where I must go, then decide where I must go next.

  I followed the lights and found myself glugging across pasture too waterlogged to have frozen. My feet were squishing in their shoes: the smell told me whenever I hit the landmine of an unseen cowpat. Climbing over a wall, I tangled myself in barbed wire and had to switch my dumbphone on to use its light. At last I was over the final wall and standing in the graveyard.

  I draped myself over a convenient gravestone, feeling very tired and sorry for myself. I could ring someone from here. They’d come and fetch me now I had an address. At three in the morning? With misgivings, I dialled the Woolpack’s number. It dropped the call: still no signal. Bloody countryside.

  I tried to get into the church, but when I twisted the huge iron torc of a handle, it was locked. Thought they weren’t meant to lock churches. I sat down heavily on the stone seat in the porch. Maybe I could spend the night here. I leant back and tried to doze, almost succeeding for a while until I came to with a shiver. The stone was as cold as death, already pulling the remaining life from my legs: if I slept here I would drift into hypothermia.

  Keep moving. I dismissed the thought of a friendly vicarage. Apart from the church, Grindal only possessed two farms – one of whom owned the lights – and a clutch of empty holiday cottages. No pub, no petrol station, no jolly vicar. I walked into the road and saw a sign that told me Macclesfield was eight miles to my right.

  So I set off. The road was a mere glimmer in the dark until the clouds around the moon relented, and the land leapt forward at me again, cloaked in grey and silver, more haunted than ever with dark ranks of trees along the road and the urgent fretting of an owl somewhere above me.

  I wished I might stay in that grey world forever. Be swallowed up in the hillside, disappear down a tunnel into the muddy depths and be never seen by mortal man again. Especially mortal men in lean black cars that sniffed me out at midnight.

  The road unwound before me, mile after wandering mile. There was a diversion when I took a wrong turn up a farm track and set all the dogs barking, and another when I had to negotiate my way through an unknown village – the Macc road being unmarked until I was out the other side. But no black cars drove past me. At last I rounded a corner and saw Macclesfield lying below. It was just before six.

  An early train was rattling away towards Manchester. I trudged down the hill, past the station and up again into town, a bedraggled worker on the early shift, or maybe finishing a late. There were a few other people around. But I got odd looks from them, and peering at myself in a shop window realised that of course I had mud all over my face and clothes.

  I tried to unsmear myself with my handkerchief before going into a surprised newsagents to buy a Coke and a Mars bar. While he loaded up the paper boys, I sneaked a look through the Cheshire Street Plan on the shelves. Outside, I drank the Coke too fast and burped my way through the Mars bar as I tramped the last mile, counting roads until I found the place that I’d been looking for: Cheltenham Mews.

  It was a set of flats disguised as a Georgian house. Maybe really was a Georgian house, buffed and polished. Very clean. The grimy white van looked out of place in front of it. I leaned on the bell nearest the van until Frank came to the door.

  He had just got dressed. Jeans, bare feet, sweatshirt, crumpled hair.

  “Sorry, Frank,” I said.

  “That’s all right. I was getting up.” He showed no particular surprise as he let me in. The hall was clean and crisp, with a hospital feel, and warm. Warm! I could have curled up on its beige carpet there and then, limp with relief.

  Instead I followed Frank into a neat kitchen. It had urban black and red surfaces and frilly gingham curtains, a boxer in a pinny.

  “I’ll get the kettle on,” said Frank. “Sit down, Lannie. What’s up? Christ! You’re a bit mucky. What you been doing? Swimming across Arthur’s ya
rd?”

  “Somebody came to get me,” I said. “I’ve been walking all night.” I sank onto a chair. The minute I sat down, my legs turned to concrete.

  “Came to get you?”

  “Came to the house at midnight. Banged on the door. Chased me over the hill.”

  “Christ! Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I do know. It’s a long story. It starts in Salford.” I rested my elbows on my knees, closed my eyes and told the briefest version I could manage to the laminate floor.

  It didn’t get any better. Grassing on my brother. I could hardly say it. The gun at Tzabo; Charlotte’s shop. Then, trying to keep the whimper out of my voice, the moonlit chase. It came out like an old fairy tale, hardly believable: the car gliding out of nightmare, the juddering earth that wrapped itself around me.

  Frank listened, silently, until I finished. Then saying, “Drink that,” he pushed a cup of tea into my hands. He’d put about five sugars in it.

  “I can’t go back to live in Nan’s house,” I said, grieved.

  “Are you sure it was who you think it was? Salford gangsters, all the way down here?” He sounded dubious.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “How could they have known where you were?”

  “Charlotte’s stepmother told them.” Oddly, now that I was warming up, I started to shiver again. My teeth rattled and clashed against the lip of the mug.

  Sue came in, wrapped in a sensible dressing gown and slippers. I heard cogs turn in her mind. “My goodness me. Whatever’s happened?”

  Frank told her a truncated version. No grassing. More emphasis on man breaking into house, less moonlight. Sue was indignant.

  “Prowlers and perverts! I’d lock them up,” she said. “You must have been scared stiff! And are you hurt? No, but I can see you’re frozen through. You need to go and have a nice warm bath. And I’ll heat you up some, what, soup?”

  “Nothing to eat,” I said.

  “Have you rung the police yet?”

  I shook my head. “Couldn’t get a signal up there.” But I got my phone out now and found Grimshaw’s number. My fingers were cold and clumsy.

  “I’ll talk to him,” said Frank, taking the phone gently from me. I heard my story told for the third time, though not, apparently, to Grimshaw.

  “They’ll ring back,” said Frank. He poured himself a bowl of pattering cereal. Rice Crispies. I could have cried.

  “Honestly, nowhere’s safe these days,” said Sue. “You’d think Brocklow, of all places.”

  “Did she tell them Brocklow?” asked Frank.

  “He must have followed me from the pub,” I said.

  Sue raised her eyes to heaven and hustled me into the bathroom. Pale grey and white, everything new, and wonderfully warm after Nan’s pitted enamel bath that sucked the heat from the water even as it filled.

  Sue put on a professional nurse’s manner. Although she can’t have liked me being there, she hid it well.

  “I’ll put your clothes in the dryer,” she said. “But we’ll have to lend you some trousers. Your jeans are just covered. And your shoes…! Don’t have the water too hot, now, and don’t lock the door. Shout if you need me.”

  I sank into the bath and let the night drain away from me. I’d never known anything feel so good as that hot water. It lifted the weight of knowledge from me and let me drowse, for a while.

  Eventually I got out of the bath with crab-red skin and eyes, put on the baggy tracksuit bottoms Sue had left for me and trailed back into the kitchen.

  “I’ve got to go to work,” said Sue. She was brisk and dismissive in her nurse’s uniform. I realised I must have taken all her bathroom time. “Frank will sort you out. The police rang: they want to meet you back at Brocklow at nine o’clock. Frank will take you. But you must have something to eat first. Get her something to eat, Frank.” She kissed Frank on the cheek and gave him a meaningful look before she left.

  “I’m sorry, Frank,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it. Breakfast?”

  “Rice Crispies, please,” I said meekly. They work for a hangover, after all. Frank watched me thoughtfully as I crunched my way through them.

  “These people,” he said, “would they really come all this way out here to find you?”

  “Yes. It’s not the first time. They came for me before and found Becki.”

  Frank took a deep breath like man about to go underwater.

  “You think they killed Becki.”

  I nodded. “Mistaken identity. But the police don’t agree.”

  “Why did you come here instead of straight to the police?”

  “You were closer,” I said between crunches, although that wasn’t the whole reason. Frank was solid, that was the reason: I could trust him with my fears and secrets. Grimshaw would dissect them with his scalpel stare. As I prised on my soggy shoes and climbed into Frank’s white van, I wondered apprehensively if Grimshaw would think I’d made the whole thing up, attention-seeking again.

  The police car was already parked outside Nan’s house. Grimshaw was standing by it, drumming his fingers on the roof. He was accompanied by a monosyllabic fingerprint man called Ed.

  “I’ll leave you here,” said Frank. “Be okay, now, won’t you? I’ve got a man to see about a shed.” Before he left, I took them all round the back and made sure he witnessed the splintered lock on the door. Ed got busily to work with little brushes and tape, while Grimshaw squinted up the fell behind us.

  “You went all the way up there?”

  “And over the top.” We walked to the wall and looked over it for footprints. I saw several that matched my shoes, and thankfully, some larger, broader ones, though a sheep had been over them since. Nevertheless, Ed was happy.

  “He was tall?” said Grimshaw. “How tall?”

  “Over six foot. But it was dark, and I was scared…I suppose he could have seemed taller than he really was.”

  “But you have no idea who it was?”

  “I know who it was,” I said. “One of Karl’s friends.”

  “Did he introduce himself, then?”

  “All he said was my name.”

  “Nothing familiar about his voice?”

  “It was hoarse. From running, I suppose.”

  “What sort of car was it?”

  “Long,” I said. “Black. Well, dark, anyway.”

  “Dark?”

  “It looked black. I suppose it could have been dark blue. Or even dark red. I couldn’t tell in that light.”

  “Make? Number plate?” He was starting to sound resigned.

  “I didn’t stop to look,” I said. Seeing Grimshaw’s expression, I added, “I don’t know car badges. I don’t drive. I’m not a car person.”

  “Evidently. All right, let’s take a look inside.”

  He led me into the house and had me retrace my steps of the previous night, whilst not touching anything. At least he was taking this seriously.

  “He went upstairs?”

  “I saw the light go on in the back bedroom. I suppose he might have gone into the front one too. I couldn’t tell.”

  “Wait down here.” Grimshaw went upstairs. I sat in the parlour and listened to his feet moving around. Time to go to Scotland, see the Highlands, maybe the Western Isles. That should be far enough. It had been a terrible mistake to think this was.

  Grimshaw was taking his time. He called Ed upstairs. More footsteps, things being moved about, while I looked around the parlour. The paper would look good when it was all done. With a new kitchen and bathroom, and central heating put in, this place would fetch a fair bit. What would Nan think? I listened, but there was no sign from her. I realised that Nan had been silent for a long time now. Maybe Nan had already moved out.

  Grimshaw reappeared at last, wearing plastic gloves and carrying plastic bags.

  “Whose is all the stuff in the back room?”

  “Frank’s. Can I go up and pack my bags now?”

  “Y
ou’re moving out?”

  “I’ll have to. In case they come back.”

  “Have you got somewhere to go?”

  “I’ve got a tent. Or maybe I can bed down in the Woolpack.”

  He nodded. “That’s probably not a bad idea. How long will it take you to pack?”

  It took me hardly any longer than the first time, less than four months ago. A lifetime ago. I’d not acquired much. A couple more Oxfam jumpers to squeeze into the holdall, and that was it. I collected my knives from the kitchen.

  “Is this yours?” said Grimshaw, plucking a jacket off the back of the kitchen door.

  “No, that’s Frank’s. Will I ever get my big knife back?”

  “Eventually,” said Grimshaw. “I’ll drive you down to the Woolpack now. We’ll drop the keys off with Frank when we’ve finished.”

  “Serves me right, I suppose,” I said.

  “What does?” He put his patient, non-judgmental face on.

  “Being pursued for justice. Like Karl was when I shopped him.”

  He could have told me to stop moaning and get a grip. Instead, he considered it, and then said seriously, “Revenge is not the same as justice. There are no good motives for revenge.”

  “What about good motives for shopping your brother?”

  “That depends on the balance between the suffering your brother was likely to cause, and the suffering you were likely to cause him. No question, I’d say.”

  “Someone will have just stepped into the breach,” I said. “Taken Karl’s place. Someone who cuts their speed with strychnine instead of glucose.”

  “Does that make a difference?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.