The Corner House (30 page)

Maria’s brown curls bounced in agreement.

‘Go now. I have some thinking to do.’

Alone again, the housekeeper sat down and stared at the wall. It had taken a long time to collect the money. Living frugally and taking most of her own food from downstairs, Theresa had struggled to provide for her daughter’s future. But Theresa’s post called for decent clothing, while Jessica, who had won a place at a girls’ grammar school, required several pounds each month for food, books, uniform and other clothing. Still, the several hundred stashed in the Co-operative bank should suffice as deposit on a decent property once Jessica came of age.

Theresa would not live to see her daughter’s twenty-first birthday. Although no doctor had been consulted in recent years, Theresa recognized her own deterioration. Her heart was getting worse. The missed beats and near black-outs were now an everyday
occurrence. ‘There has to be enough saved,’ she murmured. ‘There’s hardly any time left.’ Strangely, she did not fear death. Jessica would scarcely mourn her, as the child had been raised for six years by another woman. Dying might well be a release, a way out of a life that had been hard. But there were things to be done, and they must be done soon. Dying before dealing with the three creatures was unthinkable. ‘Live,’ she commanded herself. ‘Live long enough to destroy them.’

She closed her eyes, leaned back and dozed. Maurice Chorlton was dead, had finished up suffocating in his own safe. The police had had a field day with the contents of the strongroom, while many Bolton families had eventually been able to reclaim stolen valuables from the shop’s cellar. Roy, left comfortably off but unloved and unmarried, had closed the business and started out on his own venture.

Alan Betteridge had been taken to a hospital for drying out, had returned to Bolton, had been removed again rather smartly during a fit of delirium tremens. The furniture shop had fizzled out due to neglect, so Teddy Betteridge now ran an ironmongery stall on Bolton Market. The jeweller’s son was well set up in a double-fronted clothing shop, his business just a cockstride away from Teddy Betteridge’s stall near the centre of Bolton.

Theresa opened her eyes. Two eggs in adjacent baskets, though Chorlton would be the easier, as he worked inside a building. Her heart raced, fluttered, faltered, so she took in air, blew it out slowly, filling and emptying her lungs until the breathing eased and her heart settled to a grudging steadiness.

Ged Hardman, still clinging to his mother’s skirts,
was the only supposed success among the three rapists. Lily, a remarkable woman, had given up men completely in order to take on the world. According to Eva Harris, the recycled virgin had turned very prim and proper, a credit to the leather business and to Bolton as a whole. Mrs Hardman now led a decent, God-fearing life. She ran her tannery for six days a week, attended church twice every Sunday. She kept her distance from the minister, mended no hymn books and entertained no callers. All her energies were directed into the business, which she had turned round for her doltish son. Ged Hardman, whose face had never been pretty, was pock-marked to the point of hideousness. Following years spent indulging a morbid need to pick at eruptions, the man had reaped a bitter, nasty harvest on his face. He was reputed to snarl angrily at his workforce, treating only his mother with a grudging respect.

Only one of the rapists had married. Teddy Betteridge had hitched himself to a blowsy woman, a fat piece who, in Eva Harris’s book, was no better than she ought to have been. Driven by pregnancy into marriage, Elsie Marsh had produced two children, one of each kind. She spent her days gossiping on the market, standing in for her husband on the ironmongery stall, then going home to drink more gin than was good for her.

The other two, in their early thirties, remained stacked on the shelf, ugly, selfish and unwanted. A corner of Theresa’s mouth flickered. Two would die lonely young men; the third would die married and harassed.

‘Theresa?’

The eyes flew open. ‘Hello?’

Maggie Courtney entered. The years had not treated Maggie well, but she bore her wrinkles with an air of gratified acceptance, referring to them often as her scars of battle. Her preference for purples remained apparent, as did her love for long, dangly earrings with blobs of glass depending from silver wires. She placed her hands on her hips and gazed at Theresa. ‘Well? Have I to get it or not?’

‘I suppose so.’

Maggie eased herself into the second armchair. She glared hard at her companion, causing forehead lines to turn downward between heavy eyebrows. ‘I tried, but I can’t get none no cheaper, queen. Captain Tom knows more about …’ As if expecting to find an audience, she glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her tone. ‘About guns and ammo and all that than anybody else I’ve met. And he says you’ve to remember to lose it afterwards, like. He doesn’t want nothing tracing back to him.’

Theresa sighed heavily.

‘Is there no other way?’ Maggie asked.

‘Not that I can think of, no,’ answered Theresa.

The visitor adjusted a frill of violet lace on her blouse. ‘Well, I can’t for the life of me see the need to kill nobody – there’s no sense in bringing trouble on yourself. Better off to leave the buggers alive, because there’s more suffering in this world than the next. Shoot some daft sod and he’s getting off easy. And I mean – how long ago did all that business happen?’

‘Thirteen years, all but a few months.’

‘Then put a stop to this – let it go.’

‘I can’t.’

Maggie shook her head, causing much-dyed magenta curls to bounce free of hairclipped moorings.
‘Rape’s terrible. I know, because I’ve had it done to me more than once and never got paid for it.’ It was plain from her tone that Maggie considered non-payment to be a crime far worse than molestation. ‘But you’re not well,’ Maggie continued. ‘You’re not well enough to be gallivanting about with guns all over Bolton and—’

‘I’m dying, Maggie.’

The older woman, who had developed a soft spot for Theresa, bit hard on her lower lip before speaking again. ‘If you must go, love, do it peaceful. No point in taking them bastards with you.’ Maggie, a dedicated Catholic, had remained fastened to her faith throughout a long, arduous career in prostitution. In spite of her advancing years, Maggie retained a solid core of regular clients who needed her ‘special’ abilities. She concentrated on what she called penance, enslaving her ‘boys’ and forcing them to sweep, scrub and polish while she waved a leather whip. Despite that, a simple soul, she placed her faith in God’s willingness to forgive most kinds of sin. ‘You have to go in a state of grace, Theresa,’ she insisted.

Theresa, smiling grimly, managed not to laugh. Firstly, there was her accent, a very interesting mix of soft Southern Irish and harsh Scouse. Then, there were the homilies, the lessons in morals. Maggie’s lectures were always long, very serious and well intentioned. The woman could see no wrong in her own attitude – she could lay down the whip and pick up her rosary in one movement.

‘You want heaven, not hell,’ concluded the older woman.

Theresa could not remember being in a state of grace. Since 1939, her prime concern in life had
been revenge; her strongest emotion, repugnance. She loved Jessica with all her heart, yet her most powerful feeling was often a terrible, passionate hatred for the attackers. Sustained by the need for justice, Theresa staggered on through life, hanging on by the skin of her teeth at times.

Now, while clock and calendar marked the passing of each day, Theresa had to make herself ready for her last terrible stand. And here was Maggie Courtney, a whore, saying all the things Stephen would have said, a woman to be trusted alongside that educated, wise and good man.

‘How ill are you?’ asked Maggie.

‘Bad enough.’

‘Near the end?’

Theresa lifted a shoulder. ‘I’ve felt better.’

‘See a doctor, queen, and—’

‘No.’ Often, while Maggie preached, Theresa thought about Stephen Blake, about his wonderful nature, about his suffering, about how he had lost his twin brother during the war. But Dr Blake, the man she loved, was an enemy. He and others of his kind might well lock Theresa away again because of the cough, because of her lungs.

‘Why not? Even if you can’t be cured, you could get some medicine.’

Theresa had told no-one of her time in the sanatorium. After all, tubercular people were not exactly welcomed with open arms. ‘I don’t like doctors.’

‘Neither do I, but I’d have been dead with the clap if I’d taken your bloody attitude.’

Theresa shook her head. ‘Maggie, I’m on borrowed time. I don’t need to hear somebody say there’s nothing to be done. I’ve heard it all before, you see. Rheumatic fever left its mark.’

‘And you’re going to kill three men?’

‘I hope so.’

Maggie played with some imitation pearls at her throat. ‘What happens when you get caught?’

‘I won’t get caught.’

‘How do you know? What makes you so clever?’

‘Years of planning.’ She stood up. ‘I’m sending Maria to Bolton,’ she said softly. ‘To do a bit of business. Don’t tell Monty. I know Monty’s on our side, but he has to answer to his masters.’

Maggie closed her mouth with a snap. ‘To Bolton? Maria couldn’t find her way to the corner shop without a map and a bloody guide dog. What’s she going for?’

‘To spread a little happiness,’ replied Theresa.

Maggie pondered, then sent her eyebrows up to meet a shock of dry, treatment-battered curls. ‘She’s not dripping with it again, is she? I’ve told her to make sure they’re clean—’

‘They look clean, Maggie. You know yourself that it’s hard to tell who’s got it and who hasn’t.’

‘But what …? I mean why are you …?’ Maggie jumped to her feet. ‘Are you expecting her to pass it on to anybody in particular? Like three people in particular?’

Theresa nodded.

‘But how will she do that? How will she know who they are and how to find them?’

‘King’s Head, once a week at least,’ replied Theresa smartly. According to Eva, the three leopards had never changed their spots. ‘I’ll make sure she knows what she’s doing. After all, young Maria seems to enjoy entertaining groups.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘I’m booking her a room. They can do what they like with her, then they can pay for it.’ Her spine tingled as
she spoke. Years ago, when those three had snatched away Theresa’s virginity, she had been able to do little beyond taking money for Jessica. Now, this idea was so sweet, so wonderful. This was justice, because they, too, would suffer as a result of sexual activity. ‘Oh yes, they’ll pay,’ she murmured.

‘In more ways than one, eh?’

‘Exactly.’

Maggie was painfully aware that she was sharing space with a woman who was more than furious. This was the cart driving the horse all right, because the anger was keeping Theresa going, was fuelling the frail body. ‘You can’t die till you’ve punished them – am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘The only thing that’s keeping you alive is hatred.’ Maggie’s voice was sad. ‘You know, love, I’ve been a very sinful woman. I’ve sold my body hundreds of times and I’ve been driven by hunger to steal more than once. But I’ve never felt what you feel. People do bad things, Theresa. You’ve had bad things done to you, but you have to make your peace with God. Murder’s a mortal sin. You’ll go straight to hell.’

‘I’m already there.’

Maggie rooted in the canals of her mind for some idea that might alter her friend’s intended course. ‘What about Jessica?’ she asked.

‘She’s got Eva.’

‘Not for ever. What if anything happens to Eva? Who’ll have Jessica then? That crazy sister of yours? That Ruth, the one who keeps trying to bribe your child with toffees? The one who beat her own daughter until the girl went mad? The one who’d love to get her hands on Jessica?’

Theresa suppressed a shudder. Thus far, Ruth had
failed in her attempts to charm Jessica. She was always turning up on Eva’s doorstep for a chat, a bag of sweets in her hand for Jessica. Irene, Ruth’s ill-treated and unstable daughter, had escaped, had married herself off at nineteen to a daft lad who did exactly as he was told. ‘Ruth won’t get my daughter,’ she replied.

‘How do you know? You won’t be there. You’ll be dead, or you’ll be waiting in a cell for the hangman’s noose.’

Theresa ran a hand over her hair. ‘Look, I’m dying anyway. Jessica’s going to be without a mother no matter what happens. I can’t start what-iffing over Eva and our Ruth. But I can make damned sure that Chorlton, Betteridge and Hardman are out of the way. God, they sound like a firm of solicitors, don’t they?’

‘Theresa—’

‘No, my mind’s made up, Maggie. Get me that gun and say no more about this, please.’

But Maggie persisted. ‘Hell is for ever,’ she intoned. ‘Hell’s the torment of eternity away from God.’

The jaded conversation was beginning to rattle Theresa’s nerves. Time after time, Theresa’s past had been mulled over in this very room. Maggie would keep Theresa’s secrets, but she would never come to terms with her friend’s attitude.

‘What if you die when you’re in the middle of battering a policeman or a bank manager? There’d be no time for confession if you passed on with the whip in your hand.’

Maggie lifted a shoulder. ‘God forgives me. You should know that, anyway, because you’re supposed to be a bloody Catholic yourself.’

‘A priest forgives you.’ False patience was etched deeply in the words.

‘On God’s behalf.’

Theresa let out a long-drawn breath of impatience. ‘You’d die in sin unless a priest was at the receiving end of the whip. An ordinary man can’t give you the last rites. So unless you get a priest on your menu, there’ll be no chance of confession.’

‘But you are deliberately planning to take lives, Theresa. You are deliberately setting out to kill. And don’t be talking about Catholic priests like that. They don’t need what I have to offer.’

‘Oh, shut up, will you?’ Theresa picked up a small framed photograph of Jessica at Eva and Jimmy’s wedding. Homeless, wifeless and once tubercular, Jimmy was now Eva’s second husband and Jessica’s adopted uncle.

‘You’re thinking about her,’ said Maggie. ‘And rightly so. Poor child will have a murderer for a mother.’