The Perfect Widow

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The Perfect Widow Page 24

by A. M. Castle


  I still long more than anything to be wrapped in her arms, as though she could make all this go away. It’s kind of her to spare me a thought in her grief. Losing a son is so much worse than the fate that’s befallen me. She seems to be dealing with it better, though. Her sorrowing eyes are now dry, and she can almost always talk about Patrick without faltering. I try and avoid thinking about him as much as possible, except when I’m here, in his childhood home.

  She thinks she’s being frightfully modern, embracing psychobabble. And she’s transparently worried about the effect my blubbing will have on the kids. She doesn’t know that I hold it together much better when I’m with them. I have to, I know I am the responsible adult. Well, when wasn’t I? But now it’s official.

  People want to put a label on things, and she’s no different. They need to be able to classify people. He’s a player. She’s a shopaholic. It just makes it easier. Makes it quicker to spot the anomaly in your midst. And then you can deal with it, make sure it never happens again. Patrick’s mum just wants me fixed and categorised and tidied up and sorted – and I completely get it. She thinks I’m not coping.

  We disagree on that. I think I’m doing fine, under the circumstances. But as ever, I like to keep everyone happy. I don’t mind going through the motions. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sessions. The fun thing is that, as usual, I know the answers, even as the counsellor is blundering through the fog, trying to work his way towards a diagnosis. But I don’t want to make things too easy, spoil the journey. Like dealing with any expert, if you face them up with the truth from the start, they’re apt to ignore it, mansplain it back to you, or try to make another theory fit, just to prove themselves right and you wrong. It can be tiresome.

  Instead, I’m leading the lovely psychotherapist Trevor Goodwin by the hand. We are tip-toeing together through the recesses of my mind. I’m trying not to scare him by having too many nasty bogeymen jump out all at once. No, they are forming a queue, each one adding its own grain to my unique make-up. Sometimes we both get terribly upset, have to stop. He proffers tissues, I sob a little.

  Sometimes, I admit, I get carried away. For it is a horrible tale. And when we get to some bits, well, it’s pitiful. But as usual, I do have to be a bit careful. It’s a fine line, between a convincing performance and a farce.

  He’s confided to me that he thinks I may, just possibly, have had an abusive childhood. I affect astonishment. You could be right, Trevor. Then he goes a bit further, suggests diffidently it’s possible I may have some narcissistic traits. Now I draw back, frankly offended. Aren’t we all more fascinated by ourselves than by others? And anyway, I’ve always been a lot more interested in my children than anything else, myself, my marriage, Patrick …

  I’m not denying that I have an ego. And I suffer from that self-consciousness that afflicts all of us, from time to time. For instance, when we walk into a room and aren’t quite sure of our reception. Or my constant dread, that I have somehow misread a bit of social code I didn’t even know existed, and managed to get a crucial element of my outfit or conversation wrong.

  But I’ve done a bit of DIY work on this subject, over the years. You remember the self-help section I kicked under the bed, long ago, when Pete first came round? You thought it was just those Women Who Love Men Who Don’t Love Them books that were so popular back then, didn’t you? When women were told they came from Venus and men were allowed to hope they were from Mars. Nope. I had enough hardcore psychology textbooks there to keep most uni libraries going for decades. There’s not much I don’t know about the murky messes of the mind – or the way people like to analyse it, anyway.

  I’ve always known I was unusual. Surviving life on the estate, getting out from under, leaving Mum behind – even taking Mephisto with me. These were all singular acts. Then, when I started having the flashbacks, the panic attacks, I knew I had to sort myself out. They weren’t surprising, when you put them in the context of all I’d seen and done. It would have been more astonishing if I’d been entirely unscathed.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder was my first diagnosis. Living in terror will do more than make a kid wet the bed, it will warp every part of their personality, train them in modes of vigilance and avoidance that would exhaust the rest of you.

  My childhood was a blur of hiding, placating, attempting to broker deals – not only with my mother, so that she would stop hitting me, consider feeding me, and possibly even protect me, but also with the nasty men who hung around her like flies on dung. But, by the time I was in my teens, the story was changing. My mother was ageing rapidly, in dog years almost, as junkies will. Meanwhile, I was blossoming.

  That was our problem. Mum didn’t enjoy our role reversal, and nor did I. She, however, was prepared to use it – and me – to her advantage, happy enough to pimp me out for her next wrap or rock. I’d put up with a lot, by this stage. I was well versed in the art of hiding in plain sight. I could become invisible, in my own head at least, and have a little que sera, sera moment, to distance myself from uncomfortable reality. But enough was enough.

  Never say nothing comes of nothing. There is a set of skills that become honed with abuse. I was preternaturally able to tune in to other people’s moods. My survival, thus far, had depended on my ability to judge just how drunk Mum was, or how desperate. If she’d got beyond a certain point in booze, she might well be aggressive, but the blows wouldn’t connect. If she was itching for a deal, then she was at her meanest, and my best bet was to make myself scarce. If the door wasn’t locked.

  Look, none of this was fun. But it did teach me to read people. And, by the time I got back from school that day when I was 16, I could tell as soon as I opened the door that there was trouble brewing.

  There had been certain aspects to having a child that suited my mother. Mostly, she was just a weak person, but a weak person in charge of someone powerless can become as strong as a minotaur. She did to me what others did to her. Why not give me up for adoption, you may ask? But what would she have done when I was gone? Who would she have to torment then? She would have been alone. It’s hard to imagine that she thought it would be worse, but apparently she did.

  Until the age of 16, a compensation for my wearying company and all my assorted needs was that the state paid her to take care of me. A pittance, yes. But to a pauper, a pittance is a fortune. My mother needed that money.

  Then, at 16, my child benefit stopped.

  My birthday wasn’t marked, of course. The family was long gone, the social workers by now sporadic as I’d done such a good job of surviving. The only post that day was a manila envelope from the government telling my mother that I was no longer a source of income.

  I hadn’t expected a cake, presents, even a card. If anyone had asked me about my hopes for the day, I would have been stumped, but would have probably settled for another day of skulking around the corners of my mother’s life, an animal who’s learned how to avoid those random kicks. I hadn’t been expecting the worst present of all; her rage. I knew it well, of course, it was almost an old friend. But today it was as though the true, terrifying breadth and depth of it had been contained in a box, all these years, and tied up with a blood-red ribbon, waiting for just this occasion. Once unpacked, it was a thing to behold. Almost a separate person, it transformed her from enfeebled junkie into a stormtrooper. As strong as a raging fire.

  The actual fire was an accident.

  My mother, anger now burned out, was already slumped unconscious on the sofa. She had been railing long and hard against me stamping out her income stream – all my fault of course, how dare I get older – but she wasn’t yet so poor or so ugly that she couldn’t find a bit of smack around the walkways and stairwells of our home sweet home. The drug had wafted her from our malodorous flat onto the stretching sands of Xanadu, where she was languidly searching for her own Kubla Khan.

  I sat in the kitchen, stony-faced, with the cupcake I’d bought myself from the corner shop. I put it on the tabl
e, fished out a pink-and-white striped candle from the box in my fourth-hand school blazer. I jammed it down into the rubbery sponge. From my other pocket, I took the box of matches.

  I swear, it was just unfortunate. Before I lit it, I turned the cake this way and that, and the white stripe seemed to spiral up the candle. The effect was so pretty, it took up all my focus. I allowed the smeared walls, the greasy clotted counter-top, the mess of bottles, the dripping tap, smell of mildew, even the drugged snores of my mother, to fade into a pleasant blur around me. She wasn’t the only one who could tune out reality when it suited her.

  There had been cheaper matchboxes at the corner shop, its usual policy being never mind the quality, look at the price. But I’d chosen this fancy one, the crisp white swan swimming across the green, the box as bright and yellow as my cake. The gritty sandpaper at the side was rough against my fingers as I fumbled to strike. The box had a touch of style about it. A birthday present to myself.

  The candle flame leapt pleasingly upwards, unfurling as I had, from unpromising beginnings to new maturity. Sixteen years – of this. The match flickered too, still alight. I didn’t want to blow either out, not yet. I let my eyes close. It’s your birthday. Make a wish. Ouch, I can still feel that smart as the fire reached my fingers, burned them. A reflex, I dropped the match. Watched it fall, almost in slow motion, into the puddle of vodka. The sheet of blue shot up with a boom, a warm wind that rapidly turned scorching, forced me back, out of the kitchen, out of the flat.

  I just had time to get my backpack. And the cat.

  Chapter 63

  Now

  Becca

  The Super and the Sarge both looked at Becca as though she were a bad smell. ‘Oh, come, now, Holt. You’re suggesting this Leanne Butcher, this teenager was responsible? That is a massive leap to take. And it hardly left her in an enviable position, surely? Alone in the world. I imagine the father wasn’t in evidence? One shouldn’t make assumptions, but …’

  Becca knew she was losing their interest, coming over as a crackpot. What had the diagnosis been before? ‘Obsessive delusions.’ And this time she had clambered all over police procedure as well. But she’d come so far now. She had no choice but to crash on.

  ‘Exactly right, Sir. No sign of the father. Lots of wannabes auditioning for the role.’ The Sarge raised his eyebrows. ‘Or, that is to say, her mum had a lot of sleazy boyfriends.’ Becca looked down at the battered folder. ‘I don’t think any of them stuck around long enough to make much of an impression on Leanne’s upbringing.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ the Sarge said. Becca decided sourly he was thinking of his own pampered brood. They’d probably seen little enough of their dad when they were small, she reckoned. Daddy’s working late again. Don’t bother Daddy, he’s had a tough day at the office. But at least he’d been around, nominally at least. And making sure they had all the extras. Her own dad had, she knew, been pretty average, but had managed to make her feel loved. Compared to Louise, she had to admit she’d been lucky.

  ‘In this case, probably a blessing. I doubt any of these men were thinking of taking Louise to extra netball practice, helping with her homework, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Sounds like she didn’t need much help with schoolwork, though. Smart enough girl.’

  ‘Oh yes, Sir,’ Becca said. ‘And they thought that was one of the reasons why the fire got out of control so quickly. Her books. They kept themselves to themselves, the pair of them. But according to one neighbour who’d managed to get her nose inside the door, there were books floor to ceiling in Louise’s room. Wouldn’t have taken much to send that lot up in flames.’

  ‘And she would have known that full well, I suppose you mean, Holt?’

  ‘Yes, Super. But it’s more than that. The fire that killed Patrick Bridges has a similar MO.’

  The Super crossed his arms more firmly and looked at Becca, hard. ‘Most fires have a similar MO. Light a match, and off you go.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. But with respect, Sir, there’s more to it here. They were both suspicious fires. Why was all that vodka in Butcher’s flat? And with Patrick Bridges, a faulty electrical item, in this case a portable heater? I’d question its place in a set-up like Bridges’ office. Swanky, newly done up, all the mod cons – why did he need a crappy little heater? It seems off to me.’

  The Super paused, rubbed his chin, looked at the Sarge. ‘I don’t know, Holt. You’re not suggesting this 16-year-old bulk-bought vodka in order to burn her own home down, are you? That sounds insane. As far as the heater goes, I quite like a bit of extra warmth on the toes. Was this positioned under his desk?’

  ‘It was, Sir,’ said Holt unwillingly.

  ‘Well, then.’ He sat back, looked to the Sarge, who nodded along happily.

  ‘Yes, but, Sir—’

  ‘There’s no similarity between a heater and a lot of vodka. No, it sounds like these two fires were very different. And we don’t have anything placing Louise Bridges at the office, do we?’

  ‘Well, no, Sir, but—’

  ‘Holt, it’s very laudable that you’ve taken on all this, um, extra research, but we have to be wary of officers going off at their own tangents. You have your own assignments to do, jobs which you’ve been given by superior officers, tasks which we expect you to complete. We simply don’t have time for this kind of, for want of a better word, witch-hunt. Do you understand?’

  ‘But, Sir—’

  ‘No, Holt. Just listen.’

  ‘Yes, Sir, I am—’

  ‘So why are you still talking, then?’

  ‘But, Sir, think back. It was a heatwave. One of those, what do you call them? Indian summers. Roasting, during the days. Why would he have needed a heater?’

  ‘Because it got cold in the evenings, Holt. Right, now, that’s enough. You’ve overstepped the mark on this by a considerable margin. First, by taking paperwork, which would taint any evidence trail, we don’t even need the CPS to tell us that.’

  He paused for a moment. Becca hoped he might be thinking better of it, considering everything she’d said, seeing the germ of truth there … but it turned out he was just gathering strength to knock down the rest of her painstaking arguments.

  ‘Secondly, frankly, everything you’ve got on this woman suggests she escaped a horrible life and managed to better herself, then her husband had a tragic accident. Nothing off in the pathologist’s report. Nothing odd according to the fire chief. The man used an electric heater on a cold evening, even if that followed a hot day. Then a malfunction, whatever, and there we have it.’

  All three of them looked at each other. Becca, leaning forward a little, her eyebrows arching to the ceiling, begging for leeway, for that chink which meant belief was going to creep through the cracks, chase uncertainty away. The Super had retreated into his suit, mind made up. The Sarge, undecided, swivelled between the two, head moving like a Wimbledon spectator. The silence lengthened. Becca squirmed, sweating through her polyester uniform blouse. She wished she could pretend this didn’t matter to her. But it really, really did. She thought again of Louise Bridges. Whatever her background, the woman was a cold-blooded murderer. Why couldn’t they see it?

  She looked again at the Super. He blew through his lips, glanced at the Sarge, then finally stared at her, very hard. Her heart sank. It was all over. Back to her desk, to a lifetime of paperwork and listening to Tom Burke pontificate. The only bright spot would be the occasional caution she’d mete out to hapless members of the public with faulty brake-lights or foul-mouthed children, who’d hate her and the police force with a vengeance from that day forward. Her shoulders sank as she exhaled and accepted her fate. Maybe her mum was right, it was time to apply for something else. Something with a uniform that didn’t make her look, all too appropriately, like a pig in a blanket.

  The Sarge burst into speech. ‘Maybe it is a little odd, after all …?’

  Becca’s head shot up. Was there hope? Could there be?

  It was all t
he Super needed. His brows came down, his lips pursed upwards. ‘No, Holt. You’ve over-reached yourself. All right, I understand your enthusiasm,’ he said, talking resolutely over her protest, ‘but this has gone far enough. We don’t want anyone saying we’ve launched a personal crusade against this unfortunate woman for, ahem, any reason,’ he finished, staring hard at Becca. Immediately, she knew all the buttons on her shirt were straining, while her thighs pressed at the seams of her trousers. She’d never felt so flabby.

  ‘Quite right, Guv,’ said the Sarge, nodding sagely. Sucking up frantically. Becca could see it all too clearly. He didn’t want to be on the wrong side of this decision. That was her fate, and hers alone.

  ‘All right, then. Off you go, to your proper duties, mind,’ the Super said, not unkindly. But as Becca showed herself out, both the men were chuckling behind her back. She didn’t need to be a genius to know who the butt of the joke was.

  Chapter 64

  Now

  Louise

  I blame that old film, The Silence of the Lambs. That was when everyone decided psychopaths were sexy. Male ones, of course. There’s something about that arrogance and control that makes Mr Darcy morph into Mr Darkly, and still come out the most eligible bachelor for miles around. A man calling the shots like that? It plays straight into those fantasies of domination that we women hide so coyly. Enough to make you go all shivery. We have a sneaking sympathy for the big bad wolf. Feel his silky fur. My, what sad eyes you have. We can be the one to tame him. Then, surprise, surprise, he eats us all up.

 

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