A Taste for Malice (22 page)

‘I believe you are friendly with Mrs Hogg?’ I say.

‘I know Mrs Hogg. Friendly is not the word to describe our relationship.’ She flashes her teeth at me.

‘What would be a more adequate word?’ I ask, matching her smile.

‘Not sure.’ She twists her face to the side. One eyebrow moves up. ‘Colleagues? I’ve known Violet for a few years. We have …’ she pauses ‘…causes in common. Violet is not one to make friends.’

‘Oh?’

‘Right. Okay. Coffee,’ she says and stands up so abruptly it takes me by surprise. ‘Let me put the kettle on.’ She wags a finger at me. ‘I need coffee. And something tells me this is going to be more than a one cup conversation.’

Mrs Conroy returns carrying a tray. ‘Would you mind sitting at the table? I prefer to stand and it feels odd if you are sitting low on the sofa. The dining room chair is not as bad.’

I move over to the dining table.

'Also do you mind if I dispense with the DI thing and just call you McBain?’ she smiles and holds out a mug of coffee to me. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar.’

‘Not at all,’ I say as I take the mug and consider the abbreviation of my name and title. This might have felt rude with someone else, but it seems to match her staccato delivery and speed of movement.

‘I’ll sit for a minute,’ she sits. ‘But don’t be alarmed if I stand up. Car crash. Back injury. The pain is bloody awful if I stay in the one place too long.’

I realize that murmurs of empathy won’t interest this woman so I go straight back to the reason I am here.

‘I believe you and Mrs Hogg both help raise money for MS?’

‘My husband suffered from it. Not sure why she got involved, but yes, that’s how we know each other.’

‘Did you ever get to meet her friend, a Miss Hepburn?’

‘Something always struck me as odd about that relationship. And if her name is Audrey Hepburn then I’m Grace Kelly.’ She takes another long drink.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Everything about that girl is false. Never trust anyone with a famous namesake, McBain. Apart from me. Or yourself even,’ she laughs. A sharp note in the air. I realize, not only does she bullet point her speech, she does the same with her laughter. Maybe it hurts her to laugh on a more prolonged basis. ‘Let me tell you about Violet Hogg. Okay, she does this woe is me widow thing to perfection, but she’s as sharp as a blade. Whatever that girl is up to, Violet Hogg is aware of it.’

‘My husband had a particularly aggressive form of MS. His decline was rapid. The day after his funeral Violet Hogg came to see me. She sat in that chair where you are sitting now and with the expression of a kindly aunt she told me that she had also been through the death of a husband while she was still young. She then told me that I was in for a long and lonely life. Best get used to it.’

‘Lovely lady,’ I say.

‘Describes the woman to a T,’ she says and stands up.

‘Why did you say there was something odd about her relationship with Hepburn?’

‘Just that Violet Hogg doesn’t tend to make friends. Everyone is kept at arm’s length while she acts at caring. And here there was this young woman regularly in her company. Odd.’

‘What we know of this young woman is that she is extremely manipulative. Could she be pulling the wool over Mrs Hogg’s eyes?’

‘Anything is possible, McBain. Violet may have been taken in partly. But not all the way. She would have been aware something didn’t quite add up.’

‘What did you get to learn about Hepburn?’ I ask and my eyes are momentarily drawn out of the back window. The house has a long and narrow back garden, bordered by a dark brown ranch-style fence. The grass is trim and appears to be weed-free as do the borders that are planted with a variety of small trees, shrubs and flowers. The sky is cloudless and the sun shines hard on the garden, glinting off the metal table and chairs on the patio down the far end.

‘Only that she worked at the Southern General. Not sure in what capacity. She made me feel uncomfortable so I didn’t spend much time in her company.’

‘Uncomfortable? In what way?’

‘The way she looked at me.’ She sits back down again, reaches out for the cafetiere and tops up her mug. She then takes a long drink. Her eyes cloud over and then brighten again. ‘As if she was …I dunno …measuring me for a coffin.’ She grimaces at the dramatic impact of her words. ‘I’m sure the poor woman has some redeeming characteristics.’

‘Did you ever get drawn into a conversation with her?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘Anything of interest?’

‘My recollection is that we talked about the disease. Or rather, I talked and she asked questions.’ She looked at the ceiling above my head briefly. ‘I remember thinking it wasn’t unusual for people to want to know more about the disease, but her whole demeanour was …it was like she was less looking for information and more trying to …I dunno …it was all about what an MS patient might not be able to do. People usually come to us to work out what they can do. Goodness me.’ She laughs. ‘The police come to visit and you come over all drama queen, Patricia.’ She made a face of apology. Then her eyes probe mine, looking to see if I understand.

I understand perfectly. Hepburn would have been working with the Brownings at the time. A predator can save itself much energy if it understands the weakness of its prey.

‘Coffee?’ asked Jim. He turned and half-faced the back door, his mind full of questions. What was that?

Anything
.

Was it a genuine offer of help? A come-on? He could still feel the heat from Moira’s hand on his chest.

‘Hot milk,’ said Moira. ‘We both need some sleep.’ She walked ahead of him into the house. His steps were slow and measured. Deliberately so. He needed time to think. He preferred the distant Moira, the one who appeared to have a thing about his wife. The hot milk and sympathy Moira was much more difficult to deal with. That meant being alert. Jim wasn’t doing
alert
much these days.

When he stepped into the kitchen, Moira had a pot of milk warming above a gas ring. He sat down. No one spoke until the milk was served. Jim sipped. Moira must have added some sugar. Nice. His mother used to do this for him when he was a boy on the rare occasion he was out late. He picked up a teaspoon and skimmed a layer of skin from the top of his milk like a welcome memory; he examined it and draped it over the side of his mug.

‘I owe you … you both, an explanation,’ said Moira. Her expression was grim and full of self-loathing.

‘You don’t need …’

Moira ignored him and began to speak. The words were delivered in a monotone as if the act of speaking itself was taking up the last reserves of her energy. She took a deep breath, held on to it as if coming to a decision and then let it out in a long, slow exhalation. ‘The thing is, Jim …I haven’t been completely honest with you and Angela …’ she paused and stared into a fixed point in the distance. ‘And you guys have been so good to me. I feel so bad about it.

‘Erskine’s father and I had a bit of a falling out. When Erskine was just a baby.’ Her hands were balled into fists on her lap. ‘I had a great pregnancy. A wonderful birth. He was all I could have wished for, you know? The right numbers of limbs and digits.’ She sniffed. ‘But I was tired, know what I mean? I was in labour for about twelve hours. I actually cried when the doctors handed him to me. This little screwed up face, pissed off at the world for pulling him out of his cocoon. How much energy he could use just to scream! He never stopped.’

Where was this going, Jim wondered? What kind of falling out had she had? If it was true why was she not marching straight to the police station?

‘The thing is, you guys have been so nice, so helpful.’ She looked over at him, ‘And you … you must have had your suspicions about me. You’d never met me before and suddenly I was all over your wife and son, sticking my big oar in,’ her smile of apology shamed Jim.

‘Not at all,’ he argued. ‘I …’ She had voiced his concerns and hearing them aired so frankly made him feel unsure of himself.

‘It’s okay, Jim, really. I would have been the same. I just feel so bad about misleading you both. You’ll think I’m some sort of nutter.’

‘Not at all,’ he repeated, and the words sounded forced even to his ears.

‘Anyway … when they put the little bundle of energy in my arms, I cried. And I didn’t stop for about six months.

‘Post natal depression is a terrible thing. It was like looking into the world from the end of a black hole. And poor Erskine. No matter how much I tried I felt nothing for him. How can I even say that?’ She sobbed. ‘I was a mother who felt nothing for her son.’ She steeled herself to continue her story. ‘When Erskine was six months old I was hospitalized. Six months of therapy later I was released back into the big, bad world,’ she took a deep breath, ‘only to find that my husband and son had disappeared.’

‘Oh my god. How terrible.’ Jim commiserated. Was this the truth? What did he really know about this woman? There was something in the cast of her eyes; the way one finger rubbed at a non-existent stain on the tabletop.

Surely she couldn’t be lying about this. Jim had really worked at lying over the last few weeks and months. He well knew the effort it took.

Would she tell such a lie?

His mind was a jumble of thoughts. His body ached with fatigue.

Surely she was telling the truth. It was bad enough to be so ill, but to work at getting better for months, only to get such a kicking. Poor woman.

The question thrust itself out through his mouth before he could consider it.

‘But how…Erskine… How did you…did you win him back?’

She turned away from him to look out of the window. Silence was ticked off in the room by the clicking and quiet groaning from the fridge.

‘Please don’t think badly of me when I tell you this…’ Moira edged into the silence, her voice becoming louder with each word. ‘…I didn’t win him back. I
took
him back.’

‘Oh.’

‘I found where he and his father were staying. I didn’t intend stealing him at first. I just wanted to see my son, you know?’

Who wouldn’t? Jim thought. A thought that of course led on to the question, what would he do in the same situation? Anger and an equal measure of fear surged through him at the thought of someone taking Ben.

She can’t possibly be lying, he thought. There was just too much happening here.

‘Listen, Moira, I’m not going to sit here in judgement of you. You were being denied a fundamental right you have as a parent. And you did something about it.’ Jim moved his focus from his mug to her and saw that she was pleased with his words.

‘So, you went along to have a look at your son?’

‘Yes. It was all a bit cloak and dagger at first,’ she grimaced at the memory, ‘hiding behind bushes and all that stuff. Anyway, I quickly found out that Bob was taking Erskine to a nursery. A nice place. It had a wee garden in the front with swings and stuff. I used to park my car just around the corner, where I could get a reasonable view and where I wouldn’t rouse any suspicions. I’d sit there for hours waiting for just a glimpse of him.’ She sniffed and wiped away a tear prompted by the memory with the back of her hand.

‘Could you do me a wee favour,’ she asked. ‘I don’t want Angela to know any of this.’

‘Why not?’

‘She has enough on her plate.’

‘We’re husband and wife, Moira. You’re staying with us. She’s going to want to know what’s going on.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Jim, but please, don’t tell her anything. I couldn’t bear it if it made her think badly of me.’

‘Why do you think she would take it like that? Even the most level-headed person would have done the same thing.’

‘Please, Jim. I’m begging you. I don’t want Angela to know.’ The force of her expression surprised him.

‘Well …if that’s the way you want it …’

‘I drove over to the nursery to watch Erskine for days and days. Can you imagine how desperate I was to hold him? I would spend hours in that car imagining what it would be like to just walk up to him, see him smile in welcome and hold out his arms for me to pick him up. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t worried about what Bob and his lawyers might do. It was Erskine that worried me. He wouldn’t know me. He’d never known me. What if he saw this strange woman walking towards him and started screaming?’ Tears rose fresh along her lower eyelid. ‘My son didn’t know me, Jim. We’d never met.’

Jim felt himself respond to her pain. No one was this good at lying. He reached out and placed a hand on hers. He was simply another parent sharing her pain.

‘So, one day …it was a beautiful summer’s day, all of the kids were in the garden with about one member of staff to three children. Ben… sorry Erskine …’ she smiled an apology for her lapse, ‘…was crying. I don’t know why. Probably something silly. Before I knew it I was out of the car and striding across the road towards the garden. Then came a terrible commotion from inside of the house. All the staff ran indoors and started carrying out more children. Each one carrying one or more screaming kids. I heard someone say a fire had started somewhere inside. Anyway, and I’m not proud of this, Jim, I leaned over the fence and picked Erskine up. And he did start to cry. But what was one more screaming child in that melée. I stood there holding him, trying to keep him calm in the face of all the noise. I was just one more woman holding a crying child, no-one noticed, so I turned and made for the car.’ She paused. ‘It was easy. Frighteningly easy.’

They sat quietly as Moira waited for some sort of reaction from Jim.

‘So how long did you have Erskine before his dad snatched him back?’

‘Two years.’

Two years is a long time in a child’s life. A long time without his father.

‘Wasn’t there a way for you guys to work this out?’ Jim asked. ‘Couldn’t you find a way to share him?’

‘I asked myself that very thing a thousand times. The loser in all of this is ultimately Erskine. She looked into the distance, rubbed at her face and turned to him. ‘I’ve been there, Jim. I’ve asked all of those questions, but Bob just wasn’t listening. He wanted Erskine all to himself and me as far away as possible. Preferably behind bars.’ Her eyes searched Jim’s, looking for understanding. ‘So now you know why I haven’t gone to the police.’