Death of a Perfect Mother (20 page)

‘She wouldn't have been blackmailing you to make you more keen, would she?'

‘Blackmail? What the hell would she have on me?'

‘That,' said McHale, ‘is something I shall be trying to find out.' He got up. ‘Well, Mr Corby, I'm sorry to have to leave you dangling like this—'

‘Wha'd'ye mean—dangling?'

‘Uncertain, so to speak. Of course, if you were to act sensibly and come
completely
clean—'

‘Wha'd'ye mean—completely clean? You've screwed my whole private life out of me—'

‘Oh, I don't think so, Mr Corby. I really don't. I'm afraid we're going to have to follow this up very completely indeed if you don't come over with the complete story. You were, after all, the last man to see Mrs Hodsden alive. Your wife says your affair with her had lasted two years or more—'

‘My wife! My God! What have I done to deserve a woman like that? What did I do, marrying a treacherous cow like her?'

McHale paused at the door and waved a hand at the shipbuilding yard beyond. ‘She brought you—all this, didn't she, sir?'

He left Corby staring after him vindictively, with a sense of having said something rather neat.

McHale acted swiftly in the matter of Achituko, but in the event matters did not sort themselves out as quickly as he had hoped. Fetched from his lodgings at Mrs Carstairs's on Monday night by a peremptory pair of police constables (McHale chose the largest and thickest in Todmarsh), Achituko displayed admirable self-restraint and forbearance during the inquisition about his row with Lill Hodsden and his activities thereafter (by ten o'clock on the night of the murder he was sharing a chaste cup of Maltino with Eve Carstairs, but before that his doings were difficult to check). It was when the talk turned to his relationship with Debbie Hodsden, and in particular when the word ‘deportation' was airily slotted into the conversation by McHale, that Achituko showed his metaphorical teeth and made it clear that he was no illiterate wog picked up on the streets without an entry permit and easy to bully into damaging admissions. He knew his rights, and stood on them; he knew English law, and he invoked it; he knew the techniques of opposition, and he used them. The thing developed into a duel between two obstinate personalities, and of the two Achituko was much the more subtle.

By Wednesday morning a stalemate had been reached. Achituko had mobilized on his side the Comparative Religions Department of the University of South Wessex, and McHale was having to face the prospect of figuring in a national civil rights scandal, with articles in the
New Statesman
and questions to the Home Secretary in Parliament. This was not how he had imagined achieving
prominence in the larger national context. With a sigh he released Achituko into the custody of one of the defrocked clergymen on the staff of the Comparative Religions Department, on the understanding that he would not return to Todmarsh or attempt to make contact with Debbie Hodsden. Achituko enjoyed the duel and felt flattered by the friendly interest of his teachers at South Wessex. By the end of the week, though, he was finding the interest of the defrocked clergyman a good deal friendlier than he liked.

This was the news that McHale was able to give Gordon Hodsden when by chance he drove past him early on Tuesday evening, McHale on his way to talk to Guy Fawcett, Gordon out on his training run. Gordon bent over attentively at the window of the car, and when he got the details his saturnine face lit up with pleasure.

‘Thanks,' he said, ‘I appreciate what you've done.' And then he continued on his run.

As he jogged efficiently along the drab sea-front of Todmarsh he felt a warm, satisfying feeling in his bowels at a difficult job well done. Now Mum was gone, thank God, someone had to keep the family together. Fred's attempts to step into her shoes were ludicrous, as they all could see; and if it wasn't to be Fred, then who else could it be but he himself? There wouldn't be any problem about that, aside from Debbie. Fred had always done as he was told, and would do so again, when he got used to the new regime. Brian was pretty docile, and might be expected to get a place at South Wessex in autumn, and do well. It was Debbie who was the green, useless sucker shooting from the Hodsden bush. She had gained an unruly independence during her years of fighting with Lill which was going to have to be knocked out of her. She complained she'd had to fight her own battles. Didn't everyone? Life didn't present you with your victories on a plate. Now that Achituko was gone, there could be a new
start for Debbie: firm discipline, hard work, and something worthwhile and respectable when she left school. Something in an office, with good prospects. It would all work out all right if she was treated with a firm hand.

Gordon smiled. He was a young man who lived for the moment. Everything was beginning to look rosy for the future. His whole body felt suddenly relaxed from tension. He broke his training rules and turned, track-suited and sweating, into the Rose and Crown for a drink. His luck was in. Ann Watson was in there, for a casual hour's drink with a friend. Clutching his pint in his big carpenter's hands, he went over and sat down with them. They both welcomed him with smiles. Yes, the future was beginning to look brighter.

• • •

‘OK, so I went into her house,' said Guy Fawcett, walking around his own front room, red-faced and blustering. ‘So what? We were neighbours. Neighbours do drop in on each other. I know who told you about it, and you can take it from me, she's an evil-minded old woman.'

‘She struck me, in fact, as an exceptionally truthful and observant person,' said McHale coolly.

‘She'll be sorry she squealed to you, I can tell you that,' burst out Guy Fawcett, unwise in his agitation, and letting the bully show through.

‘Are you threatening a witness?' asked McHale, raising his voice to an authoritative roar. ‘I can assure you if you do that, it's
you
that will be sorry.'

‘Just a joke,' muttered Fawcett, cringing. ‘I can't stand these nosey-parkers.'

‘The fact is, the pair of you were leading each other on, and then you went off into the house, with your arms round each other, and you doing God knows what with your hands. I suppose you'll say you were going to borrow a gardening book.'

Which put Guy Fawcett into a quandry, because that was precisely what he had been going to say, and he couldn't for the life of him think of anything better.

• • •

When Ann Watson's friend had gone, Gordon began to feel for the first time that they were really getting on well together. No mystery about why. Now there was no reason why the subject of Lill should embarrass them. There was no reason why it should come up at all. Instead they sat at their little table, companionably, talking about the army, about being an army wife, about Northern Ireland.

‘It's the women I'm sorry for,' said Gordon. ‘Always was. I'd never have got married if I'd stayed in the army. No sort of life for them at all.'

‘Oh, I quite liked it,' said Ann Watson, talking freely with him because with his background he was one of the few people she knew who might understand. ‘Of course there was the loneliness, and the separations, and you saw some of the wives going off the rails—but at least there wasn't any question of getting
stale.'

‘Most women would hate it,' said Gordon.

‘Well, the army was his life, so it had to be part of mine. Some of my friends seemed to think I ought to be mildly ashamed of that, but I never was. The army's a job like any other . . . Of course, when he had a tour of duty in Northern Ireland, that was different . . . terrible.'

‘Aye, it was that,' said Gordon, remembering. ‘Still, it wasn't so bad for us on duty. It made a man of you.'

‘Oh?'

‘You've no idea how quickly you grow up when you know the boy down the end of the alley may have a gun in his pocket. It makes you think—about yourself, about life. In the end, you're on your own in Northern Ireland: your mates can't help you much and you can't help them—all you can do is get a bit of your own back after
wards. When you've seen your mates blown up, you don't give a f—, you don't give a damn about the rules and the bloody procedures anymore. It's you against the rest, and you've just got your fists and your rifle.'

‘Yes,' said Ann sadly. ‘I suppose that's how it gets you.'

Later, when he walked her home, Gordon tried to slip his arm around her, but she put it aside quite coolly: ‘Don't.' But she talked away quite naturally, and listened when he told her about himself, about how rootless he felt, how uncertain about the future, lonely. Wasn't she lonely too?

‘Yes, sometimes. But it's not really an unhappy feeling. Sometimes I almost like it.'

‘But it must be difficult for you—just yourself and the child. And having a job too.'

‘In a way. I wish I could care more about Beth. I wish I could give more of myself to her. She needs it, but I can't.'

They stopped by her gate, and Gordon put his hand on the post, loomed over her and kept her with him. ‘You need to come out of yourself more. Get around a bit. You'd find it helped.'

‘Everyone says that. But I don't think it would.'

‘We could go out next weekend. There's a disco in Cumbledon. Would you come?'

‘Oh, I don't think so. I used to love them, but that was years ago, and I was a different person.'

‘Come on. It'd do us both good . . .' Gordon put his arms around her and very quickly drew her close to him. ‘You know it's what we both need.'

‘No—don't.'

‘Come on. Relax. All I want's a kiss.'

‘No, no.' She pushed his chest and stooped from under to fumble with the latch of the gate. ‘I'm sorry, Gordon.'

‘Come on. Why won't you? You like me.' He caught her hands in his strong grip and pulled her back to face him.
‘Admit it: you want me, don't you?'

‘I like you,' she said gently. ‘I don't want you.'

‘Why?
Tell me why?'

Ann Watson seemed to make a decision. ‘It's funny. Sometimes . . . even at times like now . . . you just don't seem to be
there.'
She escaped into her front garden, and then seemed overcome with remorse. ‘I expect it's something in me.'

Gordon swore loudly and charged off down the road.

• • •

‘All right,' said Guy Fawcett at last, sweating—McHale thought he had been here before—but with a wry, lopsided grin on his face which was the prelude to an all-chaps-together act, ‘I'll admit it: we had a bit of the old one-two. Heavens above, you're a man of the world. You can see what kind of a weed old Fred Hodsden is. Old Lill could eat up ten of him before breakfast and still be ready for more. She needed someone who knew what it was all about. And this wasn't the first time she'd marked down something she fancied and grabbed it with both hands, I can tell you.'

‘I'm sure it wasn't,' said McHale with distaste written all over his face, side by side with the enjoyment. ‘Unfortunate that in your case it happened to be only a couple of days before she was murdered, wasn't it?'

‘Well, so what? Just a coincidence. We'd been eyeing each other off for weeks.'

‘You're implying this was the first time, are you?'

‘ 'Course it was the first time. Ask old Mother Casey. We wouldn't have been going through the whole fandangle if it wasn't. Even that old battle-axe must have realized that.'

‘Possibly. Or you could both have been putting on an act for her benefit.'

‘We didn't know she was
there,
fer Chrissake. If we had it'd have been different, I can tell you. We'd have been
round the front garden for a start. It was the first time—and the last.'

‘Ah—so that was the kind of affair this was, was it? Just a once-off?'

‘God, yes. I'd have seen to that.'

‘Oh? You mean she'd have liked something more permanent?'

‘Given half a chance.' Guy Fawcett swelled like an athletic bull-frog. ‘I've got what it takes.'

‘How interesting. Well now, let's recap on the situation: she was trying to nail you down, and you wanted out. Does that about sum things up?'

‘No, no!' An expression of panic came over his face. ‘I didn't mean that at all. I'm being misrepresented!'

‘It sounded like that to me, sir. Perhaps we'd better go into this a little more closely.'

‘Oh Christ,' muttered Guy Fawcett, regretting—not for the first time in his life—the too indiscriminate employment of his one great talent.

• • •

Gordon arrived back home in a foul mood. He felt the bile rising in him, and the urge for a fight—not a fight to liven up the day, such as Lill had enjoyed after a dull Sunday, but a fight to the kill, such as Lill had engaged in when she'd been thwarted.

Only Brian and Debbie were in—Fred having been emboldened to go out for the odd half pint for the third night running. Debbie, as usual, was crouched over a blockbuster, while Brian was watching some trendy media man condescending to the arts on BBC 2.

Inevitably it was Debbie who caught the full force of Gordon's mood. There had been only one thing in his day to give him any satisfaction, and he brought it out with a snarl of grim triumph.

‘Well, I've settled your black stud's hash,' he said.

The unfamiliar word took a moment to get through to
Debbie, but when it did she flinched, and, raising her dark, dangerous eyes from her book said: “What do you mean?'

‘I say I've settled his hash. You won't be seeing him again.'

‘I'm seeing him tomor—' She put her hands to her mouth.