Death of a Perfect Mother (17 page)

‘Didn't want to upset you,' muttered Wilf, looking as if he wanted to make a dash for it.

‘Why should it upset me, though, I wonder?' she asked, her mouth twisted and ugly as she looked towards the ceiling for inspiration. ‘I've never to my knowledge set eyes on the woman.'

Wilf Corby cleared his throat. ‘Murder's always upsetting,' he hazarded. ‘Didn't want you to hear—'

‘But you know I
dote
on murder! Murder's my greatest stimulant!' She flapped a pudgy paw at the pile of books on her dressing-table. ‘In fiction, as second best to fact.'

‘You wouldn't like murder as close as this.'

‘Close?'

‘Just down the road here. Hardly any distance—'

‘Really? Now isn't that odd? My best friend killed within a few hundred yards of my own house.' A spasm of genuine irritation crossed her perpetually discontented face. ‘Thursday night. How annoying. I took one of my draughts. Otherwise I would have heard all the fun . . . Did you hear all the fun, Wilf?'

‘I watched telly. Then I turned in early.'

‘Not much of an alibi. Still, you hardly need one . . . or do you? And how was she killed?'

‘Strangled, they say.'

‘They say strangled, do they?' The voice caressed the word oddly. ‘Would any great strength be required, do they say?'

‘Average. Moderate.'

‘You're hardly in condition, are you, these days, Wilf? Not even average. Not even moderate. But your hands are carpenter's hands—I remember them so well.' She shivered ostentatiously. ‘Rough. Calloused. That was before they started to shake.'

‘Is there anything you want?'

‘Want? Oh no. I shall enjoy myself now. Just lying here and thinking. In the course of time, perhaps, I shall want
to talk to the police.'

‘Police be buggered,' Corby shouted. ‘You'll do no such thing.'

‘Coarse as always. And still imagining you rule the roost. Really, Wilf, you never do have the last word—you should know that by now.'

The voice died away to show she was content to leave it at that. Wilf Hamilton Corby fussed off downstairs, fuming impotently. Drusilla Corby lay back, her pink filmy nightdress emphasizing the bony fragility of her body, the odd pudgy hands clutching the turned-over top of her sheets. She gazed at the ceiling, the day-long screen of her own thoughts and plans, with a smile on her wide, unlikeable mouth and a sparkle in her black-rimmed eyes.

‘Everyone's been very good,' said Fred, looking meditatively at the knife which had just carved its way through an underboiled potato.

‘What makes you say that?' said Gordon aggressively. Everything Fred said these days became the subject for scrutiny or contradiction. As though they were competing in some way—over a woman, or a patch of land.

‘All the sympathy. Everyone's had a word to say.'

‘And hurried on double quick when they've said it.'

‘That's natural,' said Brian, desperately fed up with this petty bickering and anxious to avoid another futile uprush of temper. ‘People do find death—well, sort of embarrassing.'

‘More especially murder,' said Debbie flatly.

It was the first time the word had been used in the family.
Killed, after all, is an expression that clutches a few shreds of ambiguity around its bareness. Murder says it all. Trust Debbie to be the one to use it.

Sunday dinner, even before that, had not been going well. Debbie, who took after her mother in so little, walked doggedly in her footsteps as a cook. But they had had to accept gratefully from Lill; Debbie aroused no such instincts of cowardly acquiescence. In fact, they all felt vaguely hostile towards her, even before the blushing pink pork chops and the cricket-ball potatoes: it was almost as if they thought her delinquencies had led to Lill's death, though consciously they knew this was not so. And anyway two of them, at least, had no objection to Lill's death.

‘The fact is,' said Gordon, ‘we're an embarrassment to people. They don't know how to behave. I expect it'll be like that for months. Or until the police nail someone.'

‘Shouldn't be long now,' said Fred, chewing, as well he might, a nasty piece of underdone pork. ‘That McHale isn't one to let the grass grow under his feet, I'll be bound. Looked a capable chappie.'

‘He could probably spot a parking offence at twenty feet,' said Brian.

Fred blinked. ‘No call to be sarky. You young people are so sharp these days you cut yourselves. Remember it's your mother's death he's investigating. And I say he'll get him.'

‘Well, let's hope he gets him double quick,' said Gordon. ‘I don't like the way people are looking at us.'

‘I was wondering,' said Fred, the old uncertainty taking over from the new, almost confident self, ‘if I might just slip out and have a drink tonight. Of course, it wouldn't have done last night, not a Saturday, but Sundays is always a quiet night . . . it's very
quiet
always, of a Sunday . . . I don't know. What do you think?'

‘Providing you choose a very
quiet
pub,' said Brian satirically.

‘Oh, I would,' said Fred, missing the satire in his haste to clutch the straw. ‘I know it sounds downright heartless, but I missed my pint last night.'

‘Anybody'd think we were in the nineteenth century,' complained Debbie. ‘Life doesn't stop, just because . . . she's gone. I'm going out tonight, anyway.'

‘Where?' Gordon's voice rapped out, sharp and loud.

‘Mind your own business, nosey.'

‘None of your lip,' cut in Fred. ‘I'm your father and I've a right to know.'

‘Well, he's my brother, and he can mind his own business. If you want to know I'm going round to Karen Dawson's like I always do on Sundays. Any more questions?'

‘Just you mind your tongue, my girl,' said Fred, getting up and beginning to stump off to the living-room to doze in front of the television. ‘Now your mum's gone it's me 'as got to keep an eye on you. It's plain as the nose on your face that you need it.'

As he closed the kitchen door, Debbie put her finger to her nose in a gesture of derision.

‘Look, my girl,' said Gordon, turning the whole force of his personality on her and fixing her with an angry, smouldering stare, ‘let's get this straight. There's nothing changed by Mum's death as far as you're concerned. You've been disgracing us, and you're going to take the consequences now. You've got to account for all your movements, and be in by ten o'clock every night. We want to know where you are and who you're with. And if you so much as exchange a word with that black bastard, you'll be locked up in your room like you were on Thursday.'

‘Gordon—' warned Brian.

‘Oh, don't worry, Bri. I'm not bothered by Gordon,'
said Debbie, unconcernedly inspecting her nails. ‘I know him too well: he's muscle-covered cotton-wool. He's all bluster and no guts.'

‘You little bitch!' Gordon grabbed her by the wrists and twisted her hands down on to the table. ‘Look at me, damn you! Someone's got to get you in hand, and if it's not old Fred then it's going to be me—'

‘You can shout and bully as much as you like,' said Debbie, returning his gaze with equal intensity. ‘But I know you. Did any of you protect me from Mum when she was alive? You all saw her picking on me, and you did bugger all. I respect Brian more than you because he doesn't pretend to be anything else but a mother's boy. You're both milksops at heart. Why should I take any notice of a gutless pair like you? The only person who rules my life now is me.'

She got up from the table and took herself over to the door. ‘ 'Bye, Brian. Enjoy the washing-up.'

‘Little bitch,' said Gordon under his breath. ‘I'll show her who's boss. She's been running wild. If we don't rein her in she'll be the talk of the town.'

‘Well, Mum's methods never did much good,' said Brian.

‘Who's going to use Mum's methods? I'll come down on her a damn sight harder than Mum ever did if I catch her with that Achituko.'

Brian, pensively clearing away, said nothing for a bit. Obviously Gordon in this sort of a mood was past reasoning with. But when he did speak, what he said was not to Gordon's liking: ‘In the long run I don't suppose we can do much about it. She'll soon be seventeen. And it's probably not all that important.'

‘Not important! A girl of that age sleeping with a bloody black!'

‘What age did you have your first girl, Gordon?'

‘You know bloody well that's different.'

‘What bothers you is that he's black.'

‘Too right it bothers me, and it would you too if you hadn't got all those namby-pamby notions you educated buggers get. But that's not the only thing. If she goes on the way she's going now, she'll be the town bike before she's twenty. She'll be dropping 'em so fast there'll be scorch marks on her thighs. She'll make us the laughingstock of the town. What this family needs is a bit of discipline.'

Brian thought sadly to himself: I don't think that's what I need. He said: ‘What do you think the police are doing? Have you heard any rumours?'

‘Talking to the neighbours as far as I know.'

‘Do you think they'll get anywhere?'

Gordon shrugged, still hunched over the table and puffing at a cigarillo. ‘Maybe. I'd have thought it was pretty sure to be one of them, if it's not a mugger. Or Corby. Or—God knows, there were enough who hated her.'

‘If it wasn't one of the family,' said Brian quietly, scrubbing at a plate with his mop.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake!' said Gordon, stubbing out his fag. ‘We've been over this already. Who've you got in mind now? Fred again? He hasn't got the strength.'

‘You think strength's just a matter of being big, and being in training. It's not. Fred may be small, but he's been a gardener for thirty years and more.'

‘Look, Bri,' said Gordon, getting up and coming at Brian from behind, turning him round to get his words across, ‘you know and I know that Fred never made a decision in the whole of his married life. He's bloody feebleminded. Then all of a sudden he makes a decision to murder Lill. Don't be bloody potty.'

‘Debbie could have done it.'

‘Debbie was locked in.'

‘Debbie had a duplicate key in the room. She's practically admitted it. She could have sneaked out any time if
Fred was dozing. Come to that, Grandma Casey could have done it.'

Gordon let out a great hoot of laughter. ‘Oh my Lord! That really takes the cake, that does! Poor old Gran at seventy-five strangling her own daughter!'

‘She's as strong as an ox.'

‘She wields a hefty rolling-pin, that's about the extent of her strength. You don't seem to realize, baby brother, that strangling someone isn't like tying a knot in a bit of string. And what the hell
is
this, anyway? Why this sudden urge to prove one of us is a murderer?'

Brian swallowed and turned back to the sink. ‘We were going to do it,' he said. ‘Or we said we were going to do it.'

‘We
were
going to.'

‘Perhaps it runs in the family.'

‘Oh my God,' muttered Gordon. ‘This is like some . . . some ruddy superstition. “Keep away from that family—there's bad blood there.” Give over. That's just melodramatic.'

‘Well,' said Brian, ‘I tell you I won't be happy until they've got him. As it is, I just look around, at us, and I think—'

‘You think too bleeding much. It's none of us. I can think of three or four who're more likely than us.'

‘Who, then?'

‘That black. Old Corby. Fawcett next door.'

‘I hope you're right, that's all.'

‘Of course I'm right. Meanwhile we've got to present a front . . . as a family. Keep up our public image. Give them the idea we're one big happy family, temporarily desolated by the loss of our beloved mum. And I tell you I'm not having Debbie destroying that by playing hot-pants with a wog. I'm not having
anybody
stepping out of line—get me?'

He walked to the door, then turned and insistently
repeated: ‘See?' Brian nodded miserably, seeing Gordon's point but hating his way of putting it. Then, desolately, he trailed through after him towards the sitting-room, through the door of which they could hear the television going.

‘Forget it,' hissed Gordon. ‘You're just getting the willies. Come on—there's athletics on the telly.'

He opened the door. The set was going full blast, and in the armchair Fred was snoozing, mouth open, with the Sunday paper over his face.

‘Look!' said Gordon. ‘The head of the family.'

• • •

By the time McHale came to interview Mrs Casey she was so upset by her apprehensions of scandal in the Hodsden family and uncertainties about the morally correct course to take that he found something very different from her usual rocklike self. In fact, she was butter in his hands.

Of course he had the advantage of knowing the type. Every policeman knew the type. After a mugging, or a bank raid, the only totally reliable source of information would generally be a Mrs Casey—someone whose sharp eye was undimmed, whose brain was unfuddled by excess, who took in better than any camera the colour of the attacker's shoes, whether he wore a moustache or glasses, his approximate height. The Mrs Caseys of this world see, register, collate and disapprove.

So, after trailing through the details of her activities on Thursday night—all irreproachable and quite uncheckable—McHale leaned forward in his armchair, in the specially opened front room, redolent of pre-war Leicester and enshrining relics of Alfred Casey, plumber, departed, and said in a solemn voice: