A Taste for Malice (25 page)

‘Goodness me, no,’ Mrs Hogg holds her hands over her heart. ‘Whatever happened to you as a boy to make you think Jesus would want children to suffer?’

‘It seemed to me that we were all here to suffer, Mrs Hogg. The nuns never tired of saying that we were born with the mark of original sin on our souls. If Jesus said we were to suffer it kind of made sense.’ I stare at the floor. ‘But it didn’t tie in with the man who helped all those dying and hungry people.’

‘Matthew, chapter 19, verse 14. Jesus said to his disciples to suffer the little children and forbid them not, to come unto me. He was telling off his disciples for scaring away the children. The actual use of the word
suffer
comes from the old English translation, I believe.’

‘Did you regret never having children, Mrs Hogg?’

‘No.’ She crosses her arms, a hand cupping each elbow. She smiles, but the light in her eyes didn’t change. Didn’t reveal the thought behind the smile. ‘Children were not in my gift, DI McBain.’ Her stare is strong and forceful. A stare that tried to inform that she never wanted children.

She takes a sip from her cup and places it on the saucer with a gentle clink. ‘That’s one of the nicest sounds in the world,’ she says. Her expression goes through a number of changes. It finishes with one that says she wants to know more about me.

‘I’m guessing you didn’t have an easy time as a child?’ she asks. I consider the motivation for the question. Her demeanour shows interest, but lacks real compassion. Even as she asks a very personal question I can sense a distance. Perhaps the role she has given herself necessitates she behaved in this manner. It’s as if she has tried to learn how to empathise from a book.

‘I refuse to see myself as a victim, Mrs Hogg. I’m a survivor.’ Jeez, that was a bit dramatic. I sound like someone on Oprah. Need to rein it in a little. ‘How many of us can say we had an idyllic childhood? We like to portray childhood in a certain way, don’t we? But it’s largely the figment of our collective imagination. Especially if you’re in the care system. Our society doesn’t do well with the vulnerable.’ Now for some fiction of my own. Serve up lies with a dollop of truth and it works everytime. ‘I never knew my parents, Mrs Hogg and I was placed in an orphanage run by nuns. Mostly they were good women. One or two of them should have been stripped of their habit and locked up.’ I pause and allow her imagination to fill in the blanks.

‘You surprise me, DI McBain,’ she says. My heart gives a jolt when I think this means she doesn’t believe me. ‘You don’t present yourself as someone with a troubled past.’

‘I was lucky, Mrs Hogg.’ I hide my relief and prepare for some more fiction. ‘I was adopted by an elderly couple. Good church-goers like yourself.’ I allow a far away smile to grow on my face. ‘Don’t know where I would be today without them.’ I pick up my cup and sip. My tea has gone cold. ‘I’m guessing that’s what drew you to Audrey? You recognised a troubled soul and tried to help.’

‘I did help, DI McBain,’ she replies quickly and I gain a flash of insight. She refuses to accept failure. She sought to, and succeeded in, offering a solution for Hepburn’s basic human needs. Her emotional ones were not her responsibility. A roof, heating and food were freely on offer. Love and affection had dried up in this woman on the day her husband died.

‘I’m sure you did, Mrs Hogg. And it’s a shame Hepburn’s subsequent actions didn’t repay that kindness,’ I say and move on before she can protest. ‘Tell me about the first time you met Audrey.’

‘It was a church do. We needed money for the roof.’ She laughs. ‘That’s such a cliché in fund-raising terms, don’t you think? I was working on the book stall. Up to my eyes in books by writers like Margaret Thomson Davis and Jessica Stirling. It was as if people wanted to prove how Scottish they were by donating books by local authors.’ She issues a small huff of disapproval. This suggests she is one of those people who, in that uniquely Scottish way, think that if something comes from Scotland then it can’t be up to much. ‘One of the ladies, can’t remember who, brought Audrey over to my stall. Said she was my help for the day.’ She pauses and exhales on the first word of her next sentence. ‘She didn’t say much for a few hours. One syllable answers. Then I managed to get through.’ As she says this one hand strokes the bare flesh of the other arm. She looks at me, completely unaware of the movement of her hand. Long fingers slowly move the length of her upper forearm to the wrist as if she is remembering the touch of a lover. ‘And we became firm friends.’

Oh good Christ, I see it now. The old woman fell in love with the girl. Not that she would ever have described it as such. In her youth “gay” had a completely different connotation. She would never have recognised the feelings the younger woman stirred in her, nor would she have acted on them. However, she would have acted on her need to be near Hepburn and what better and more innocent way than to offer food and shelter. Hogg was lonely and unfulfilled. She was ripe for the picking and would immediately fall on to the radar of a predator like Hepburn.

It all makes sense now. This explains her reluctance to pass on more information. Out of some sense of loyalty she refuses to believe that someone she felt a strong connection to would behave in such a dangerous and hurtful manner.

‘You asked me what was wrong with me, Mrs Hogg. The truth is I really am struggling with this case. I was harmed as a child. As I’m sure Audrey was.’ I pause. ‘But she has gone on to harm others in turn. Three little boys that we know of.’ I look out of the window trying to pick my words with care, but reason and wit are failing me. Old hurts surface with a speed that frightens me. ‘The crimes we inflict on each other more often than not go unpunished.’ I stop. ‘Our legal system places crimes into pigeon holes that fail miserably when it comes to taking into account the effects on the victims. Rape and abuse, are after all just words. Sure, they strike fear in us. But unless we have experienced them for ourselves we can’t really understand.

‘We might gasp in horror, consider briefly “what if” and then go back to our tea and toast. They’re categories that do nothing to describe the humiliation, pain or emotional injury. The effects of these crimes go way beyond the court case and the jail sentence.

‘Did you know the law applies a time-bar to bringing a prosecution? Twenty-one years. The clock goes ping and things that happened to me as child are supposed to fade into somewhere beyond memory. Twenty-one years …’ Whoa, McBain, getting way more personal than you expected.

I rub my forehead and eyes with both hands. ‘Sorry.’ I say. ‘You didn’t need to hear that. It’s just so …I feel betrayed. I was betrayed by those I trusted as a child. And that betrayal carries on even now when I am an adult.’ I take a deep breath. Calm down, McBain. I look at Mrs Hogg. She seems rapt in my behaviour and my story. So there is a person in there somewhere.

Her face is pale and her eyes shine just a little too much. Could that be a tear?

My words are having an effect and even though my emotion takes me by surprise, I decide to go with it and allow a little more to leak through.

‘Sorry,’ I say, and hear the feeling in my voice. ‘Seeing those kids. Listening to what happened to them brings it all back.’

‘Audrey wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ Mrs Hogg’s voice is small and full of uncertainty.

‘Betrayal can hurt more than a knife wound, can’t it, Mrs Hogg?’

She looks at me, her face thick with denial. She mouths a silent “No”.

‘The blood stops dripping, the skin grows back. But when someone betrays our trust we lose a little of our soul. We’re lessened by someone else’s actions and that’s part of the tragedy.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she says and stands up. Her face is white, her mouth pinched with suppressed emotion. ‘Please leave.’

‘We surprised you with what we said the last time. But now you can see the truth.’

‘Please leave now, DI McBain.’

I stand up and move closer to her. ‘She betrayed your Christian trust and kindness, Mrs Hogg. While she was living under your roof she went to work and hurt three innocent little boys …that we know of.’

‘Shut up,’ she has her hands over her ears.

‘She hung one wee boy on a curtain wire until he almost died and then pretended to save him.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Can you imagine the effort that must have taken? To hold the wee boy down, with the cord round his neck while he kicked and screamed …’

‘Please …’ her eyes are shut tight as if she is fighting against the mental images my words bring.

‘Another she threw down some stairs because he refused to hurt his brother. He broke his arm in the fall. He was only ten.’

Her voice is nothing but a whimper. ‘Go please. Go.’ She falls on to her chair.

‘Please help me, Mrs Hogg. Help me find Hepburn before she harms another innocent.’

After I leave Mrs Hogg’s house I go straight home, change into my running gear, do three sets of thirty press-ups and the same of ab-crunches and then I go for a run. Without conscious thought I make towards the Necropolis on Cathedral Hill.

It’s one of those overcast days that Scotland seems to specialise in. The clouds are low and uniform grey, the rain falls in a constant deceptive drizzle. Smirr we call it. A mist of rain that falls like a light shower, barely registering, barely touching skin. It’s only as the minutes pass that you realise the world is more than damp and your clothes are stuck to you like a second skin.

In the summer months it’s great weather to run in. Today my muscles feel strong. My breathing is even and my heart is beating in a rhythm I know will last me to the end of my run. My thighs only protest after I cross the Bridge of Sighs into the old cemetery and work at the sharp ascent to the top of the hill.

The view from the top across the city has been dimmed by the weather. Looking around me it appears that the world of grey has brought the city in closer. The Glasgow conurbation has shrunk in the rain. I stand under the John Knox memorial and with a nod of apology to the spirit of the man above me, I lean against the plinth and give each hamstring a wee stretch.

On the way down, the angle is harder on my knees so I take my time. My thoughts turn to my meeting with Mrs Hogg and those large, dark eyes of hers as she considered the truth in my words.

‘There are families out there who have been destroyed by this woman,’ I said. ‘I need your help to make sure no one else …’

‘She laughed at me once,’ Mrs Hogg interrupted me. Slumped in her chair, shoulders low, hands between her knees. ‘I can’t remember why, what caused it. And it only lasted moments.’ She brought the fingers of her left hand up to her mouth. ‘It happened so quickly I dismissed it.’ She shook her head. ‘I imagined it, I kept telling myself.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I do have a sense of humour, DI McBain. And I can handle it if the joke’s at my expense. But this was different. This wasn’t a friend laughing with a friend. There was no humour in that laugh whatsoever. It was a moment. A glimpse into the real person. And I ignored it like a silly old woman.’ She sat back in her chair and brought her arms to her waist, like she was hugging herself. The changes in her eyes highlighted the emotions that scored through her mind.

‘She was using me, wasn’t she?’

I said nothing, but offered a small smile of commiseration.

‘I thought we had, you know, a connection? It’s just …I remember that laugh. The coldness in her eyes … for only a moment and I know…’ Her voice is just above a whisper as she fights back the tears, I know she could be capable of those terrible, terrible things.’ She looked away sharply to her left. I felt deeply uncomfortable as if it was me who was responsible for her feelings.

‘Her room,’ she paused. ‘The
spare
room is just as she left it. I’ve only been in to hoover and dust it.’

‘Did she leave anything behind?’ I asked more in hope than expectation.

She shook her head. ‘She never had much in the first place. Just a hold-all with casual clothes and a toilet bag. You can go and have a look if you want, but it’ll tell you more about me than it will about her.’

‘If you don’t mind …’ I stood up.

‘Up the stairs. It’s a loft conversion.’

I walked out of the room and the muscles in my back flexed as if expecting a blow. The role of messenger has never been an easy one and I’ll have to move quickly and get what I need before she turns her resentment outwards and aims it at the only other person present.

The stairs were tucked away at the back of the hall. I climbed them and found myself in a room with a large floor space, but little headroom. I had to walk down the middle of the room as at either side the roof sloped sharply. The room contained little but a double bed, a matching pair of bedside cabinets and a bookcase. I looked through the cabinets and under the bed. There was nothing. Fuck. Surely she had left something of herself behind. No one was that careful.

I looked at the bed and tried to imagine Hepburn lying there in the dark of night, thinking about her latest actions and taking delight in them. Did she lie there and hug herself at the thought of the pain she inflicted? Did she plan her next deception? Conjure up ways to hurt the parents as well?

What would make a young woman behave in such a way? Her victims are all boys so far, so who is she enacting revenge on? Her father? Uncle? Brother? Or just the world and men in general? Had she been abused herself? There has been no sexual element to the crimes so far, so does that mean the abuse she suffered was physical? The twisted way in which she treated the Browning boys would suggest there had also been some mental abuse.

The bookcase had three shelves. I turned my head to the side to read the spines. These would give nothing away as they would have been Mrs Hogg’s choice. They were mostly classics; Austen, Brontë and Stevenson, with a couple of books that looked like they had been bought at one of the charity book stalls Mrs Hogg mentioned earlier. One has been pushed further in. The obsessive compulsive in me slid it back into line. It’s called
Resolution
and it’s by Denise Mina. I pulled it out and opened the cover. According to the writing in pencil it sold for “50p”.