The Bells of Scotland Road (25 page)

This free soul, whose life was dedicated more or less to drink and to the entertainment of children, ambled his way up from the dock road, a tambourine clattering in the cart, one foot rather
damp where cardboard in his boot had failed to keep out the rain. He paused, opened the beer and took a swig, looked round for a place where he might relieve himself. Several gentlemen of the road
had been arrested of late for indecent exposure, so he took himself well off the beaten track. Even in the gloom, some folk round here could see for miles, it seemed.

He stumbled across grass and narrowed his eyes to look for a discreet spot before parking his cart. A man had to be careful these days, because things got stolen even from a poor itinerant. As
he fumbled with buttons, he heard the first groan. Flash was a gentleman, so he forgot his own needs and followed the sounds. ‘Hello?’ he called softly from time to time.

A bundle of rags lay on the ground. He bent, touched what felt like wool, allowed his hand to travel until it found flesh. With shaking fingers, he struck a match and caught a brief glimpse of
the body before a skittish breeze extinguished the flame. It was a girl. He was in the middle of a field in the dark with a dead girl. No, she wasn’t dead, because she was still moaning.

He left his cart and ran out of the recreation ground. From a torn pocket of his army greatcoat, he took a whistle and blew until he felt his lungs would burst. Doors opened and a couple of
people stepped out into Sylvester Street. ‘Get the police,’ shouted Flash. ‘Somebody’s been hurt.’

He turned round and went back to the playing field. She was very still now, but he knelt and heard her rasping inhalations. As quickly as he could manage, Flash removed his dilapidated coat and
covered the girl. She had been beaten, he thought. Someone had tried to murder this poor young girl. His hand made contact with something soft and silky, so he struck a match and examined the find.
It was a priest’s stole. A cross was appliqued to the centre of the vestmental piece. Someone must have pinched this from a church. Either that or the attack had been committed by a . . .
no.

Flash straightened, pondered for a moment. Although not a regular attender of mass, Flash had been reared Catholic. The Church must be protected. From layman to cardinal, all the Church’s
members must strive not to hurt the faith. For a split second he paused, then rammed the stole down the neck of his jersey. A girl lay half-strangled, and the weapon was holy. Still, the less he
told the police, the better. If they got their teeth into him, they might keep him for days answering their questions.

A policeman arrived and dragged Flash away. ‘What happened?’

Flash held onto his dignity. ‘I found her,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened.’ The police were not Flash’s favourite set of people. They were always
moving him on, always going on about where he had been when things had gone missing. ‘I only found her,’ he repeated.

A crowd gathered, then ambulance men fought their way through with a stretcher. Flash stood and watched helplessly while torches pierced the dark to reveal the true horror of what he had found.
The girl had been hit about the face. A dark weal across her throat confirmed that some crazed person had tried to strangle her. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he kept saying. She had been
garotted by a priest’s stole. ‘I found her.’

A young policeman came to Flash’s side. ‘Don’t worry, Flash,’ he said. ‘Nobody will suspect you. You did all you could.’

Flash swallowed. ‘Is she dead?’

‘Not far off,’ was the bald reply.

The old tramp was taken to the station and given hot, sweet tea and some biscuits. He drank the former, gagged at the thought of food. ‘Who would do something like that?’ he asked
the sergeant.

‘A sick man,’ answered the seasoned lawman. ‘Sick or evil – take your pick.’

Flash Flanagan looked at his belongings which had been parked opposite the desk sergeant’s counter. He didn’t fancy the idea of going out again, was afraid that his legs might not be
up to it. ‘Got a spare cell?’ he asked. ‘Because I don’t feel like walking.’

The policeman lifted the flap and came to stand by Flash. The poor old lad was probably in shock, because colleagues had described the condition of the victim. ‘Come on, then,’ he
said. ‘It’s not the Ritz, but we’ll do our best.’

‘Thanks,’ said the tramp. For the first time in his life, he would welcome the sight of a cell. As for the widow who expected him, she would have to wait until tomorrow.

Diddy Costigan flew along the corridor. In spite of her bulk, she was well in front of Billy. Someone had hurt Maureen. Like a tigress, Diddy was ready to take out the eyes of
the creature who had injured one of her young.

A woman in a dark-blue dress pursued the couple. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

Billy stopped. ‘We’re looking for our daughter. One of the police recognized her. Maureen. Maureen Costigan.’

The ward sister fixed an eye on Diddy’s back. ‘She can’t run about like that, you know. This is a hospital. There are a great many sick people here.’

Billy, whose knees were shaking, stared hard at the nurse. ‘Don’t you dare tackle her.’ He waved a hand at his wife, who was just about to disappear round a corner. ‘Or
she’ll flatten you. Right? Now, tell me where Maureen Costigan is before I lose my temper.’ He was too traumatized for tantrums, but he wasn’t going to admit that, not to somebody
with a face like a smacked bum and what looked like a half-eaten wedding cake perched on her head.

The woman indicated the direction in which Diddy had launched herself. Billy cursed his disobedient legs and staggered after his wife. He found her in an open doorway with two policemen who were
trying to hold her back. He watched while she rained blows on the nearest man, decided that he did not have the energy to go to the aid of Diddy’s innocent victims. For a larger than average
male, Billy was certainly a weakling at the moment. The law had arrived at the Holy House half an hour ago, had advised him that Maureen had taken a battering.

Diddy clouted a constable. ‘She’s my daughter—’

‘The doctor’s with her,’ said the second policeman. ‘Trying to save her life.’

Diddy began a verbal attack, her voice loud enough to wake the dead. ‘If my little girl’s dying, I have to be with her.’ The tears flowed, but she continued furiously.
‘You’ve no right to keep me away from our Maureen.’

Billy sank into a hard wooden chair. ‘Did,’ he shouted, ‘stop it.’

She looked at him. He was grey about the mouth, and a film of sweat covered his face. ‘Billy, I want to see her.’

The relieved officers stepped back and closed the door before resuming their positions of guardianship.

‘They’re sorting her out,’ Billy Costigan told his wife. ‘They can’t have folk interfering while they’re trying to mend her.’

‘We’re not folk, Billy,’ she cried. ‘We’re her mam and dad, we’re her next of kin.’

A young nurse hove into view. She carried a tray. ‘I’ve brought you all a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Please don’t upset yourselves. We’re doing all we
can.’ She set the tray down on another chair, then squatted down beside the weeping woman. ‘Try to drink some tea. I’ve put sugar in.’

Diddy knew full well that she would be sick if she drank anything. The seriousness of the situation was beginning to filter through at last. This wasn’t a case of a lost tooth or a broken
limb after a fall. Most of her children had damaged themselves at various stages of their lives. But the police were here. Doctors toiled at the other side of a door where Maureen was lying between
life and death. ‘I’ll be quiet,’ she told the nurse.

Billy accepted a cup, lost most of the contents because he was shaking like a leaf. He dabbed at his jacket with a handkerchief, kept an eye on his wife. It wasn’t like Diddy to give in
and sit quietly.

‘She’s so pretty,’ announced Diddy suddenly. ‘I don’t know where she came from, because she’s nothing like the rest of us.’

‘Keep praying,’ said Billy. ‘That’s all we can do now.’

Diddy dragged a rosary from her pocket, tried to say the words in her head. But all she could hear was Billy screaming at her as he came up the street. She had been standing at the door waiting
for Maureen to come home. Maureen had not come home, but Billy had run up from the pub, grabbed his wife and told her about Flash Flanagan finding Maureen on St Martin’s recreation ground.
Anthony Bell’s Valerie had been found near a church, she remembered. Yes. St Sylvester’s.

The door opened and both Costigans rose to their feet. A doctor smiled kindly at them. ‘I think she’ll make it,’ he told them.

Diddy charged at the startled man and hugged him almost to a pulp. ‘Thank you,’ she wept. ‘Oh, thank you.’

With the help of the policemen, the doctor was released from Diddy’s powerful hold. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ he said, recovering spectacles and dignity.
‘She will need a lot of care and nursing.’

Billy mopped his face with the tea-stained handkerchief. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

‘She was attacked and beaten, probably without much warning,’ the medic replied.

Diddy lifted her head and looked at the nearest officer. ‘Get him,’ she said. ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll find him and kill him myself.’

The doctor bowed his head. This was not the time to tell this mother that her daughter had been half-strangled, that the poor girl had been raped, too, probably while she was unconscious. The
truth would have to come out, but not now, not yet. ‘You will be able to see her for a few minutes later on. Meanwhile, try not to worry.’

When the doctor left to tend his other patients, Diddy kept watch over the police who, in turn, were keeping watch over Maureen. In spite of all advice, she worried about her little girl and
prayed constantly.

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Billy in an effort to comfort his wife.

‘Will it?’ she asked. ‘Will our Maureen ever be all right again?’

To this question, Billy found no answer.

Bridie walked out of the house and fixed her eyes on the landscape. She hadn’t expected anything quite like this. Bolton lay below her, a sepia-stained place with dozens
of factory chimneys that belched steam and smoke into the sky. But here, on the outskirts, moors rolled away like a carpet of many greens, square-patterned by boundary walls and hedges. It was
lush, beautiful, teeming with fertility. She remembered the area around Liverpool as flat and uniform, but Bolton’s setting undulated gently towards the horizon. ‘It’s
lovely,’ she told Edith. ‘So very pretty. Like a green counterpane trying to settle on a bumpy bed. It’s not fierce, you know, like mountains. This is friendly and
peaceful.’

Edith nodded. ‘We’re used to it, I suppose. Mind, I wasn’t always used to this. My mother and Sam’s mother grew up together and worked together there.’ She
indicated the hollow in which the city-sized town sat. ‘Aunt Theresa was a doffer and my mother was a weaver. They were born in a tiny house just off Deane Road and in the middle of all the
mills. Aunt Theresa married a sea captain and went off to Liverpool. My mother and father remained in the Deane Road area. Theresa and Ida – my mother – had just one child each. So
there’s Sam and there’s me.’

Bridie looked over her shoulder and cast an eye over Edith’s magnificent house. It was like the mansions that belonged to landowners at home, broad and tall, with many windows.

‘I married well,’ said Edith.

Bridie nodded. ‘Richard is a nice man.’

‘And wealthy, I suppose. Money isn’t everything, but it helps.’ Edith watched the children playing with Noel. ‘Those two are your riches,’ she informed her
guest.

Bridie felt Edith’s sadness. This woman would have loved children, would probably have made a good mother, too. And a house of this size cried out for a family to enliven it.

‘I lost three,’ said Edith softly. ‘Two girls and one boy.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Yes, it is a pity.’ The older woman’s gaze was fixed on Cathy. Yesterday, when the guests had arrived, Edith had spent some time with Cathy. The child was alert, eager for
knowledge. She needed an education, a proper chance in life.

Bridie scolded her untidy daughters and took them into the house which was called Cherry Hinton. They lingered for a while in a wide hall with a fireplace, a sofa, some Queen Anne chairs and a
huge, circular table covered in items of black Wedgwood. A cabinet next to the fire boasted Waterford and Stuart crystal. In this entrance room, a family of five or six might have lived without
being cramped.

They ascended a curving stairway, their progress muffled by dense carpet in a dark maroon colour. Noel followed them, overtook them, lay in waiting on the wide landing. According to Edith
Spencer, Noel was a mess, but he was one of the family. Even the dog was subdued and well-behaved, as if recognizing and respecting such opulence. Large, gilt-framed paintings lined the wall to
their right, while on the left, the hall remained visible through intricate banisters of carved and varnished wood.

Bridie and her daughters had been allocated two rooms with an interconnecting bathroom between. She told the girls to wash, then went to sit in her own temporary home, a green-and-cream palace
with carpet, wall tapestries and the most comfortable bed in the world. It was odd, but she felt settled here. Richard and Edith were very normal in their ways, were not the sort of stuck-up people
one expected to find amid luxury such as this.

In the bathroom, Cathy washed her little sister’s face. The towels were beautiful, far too pretty to dirty, so she made sure that Shauna’s face was sparkling before allowing the
child to dry herself. This room was gorgeous. The taps were made like fishes and the soap bowls were all shaped into shells. Next to the bath lay a rug with a leaping porpoise woven into it. A
collection of shells and pebbles was spread across the window-sill, and some of the tiles were decorated with sea horses. Cathy loved it.

Shauna dabbed at her face with a thick, soft towel. Once dry, she looked for something to add to her collection, picked up two of the shells. While Cathy was engrossed in sea horses, Shauna ran
into their pink-and-gold room and placed the bounty in her little case. She would take them home and show them to Charlie. In less than a day, she had acquired two tiny matchcases in silver, a
small book with gold on the edge of its pages and a pot with roses on the lid.