The Faithless (45 page)

Now she was pregnant again, although she was too frightened to get excited about it. Vincent was over the moon; he saw it as a chance for them to start again with the family they both had always longed for. Gabby wouldn’t allow herself to get too caught up in his dreams. She had never been lucky in that way – every time she had believed her life was back on track it had been destroyed.

She had a lot of trouble with her hands still. It didn’t bother her that they were scarred, but it was difficult to pick up small things, like pins or stamps. Even a knife could be quite difficult for her, but she was doing a lot of physio, and soon she would have another skin graft and then things would be even easier. She supposed they might put that off now until after the baby was born.

She hoped it was a girl; she didn’t want to replace little Vince with another boy, but she knew that Vincent was hoping for a son he could take to the park and play football with. He wanted a little lad he could lavish all his time and energy on. She wouldn’t begrudge him that – he had been her rock in so many ways, helping her through her grief and her guilt. Because she did feel guilty about what had happened, and would bear that guilt for the rest of her life.

It hurt that her own brother hated her so much he was willing to do that to them all, was capable of setting fire to her home, when she was the only one who had always tried to do what she could for him. In her own way she had kept in contact with him and, consequently, she had brought him into her children’s lives. What a price they had paid for her stupidity!

It was hard getting through the days, and she still had very black moods when she wondered at what was going on with the world and she questioned everything. Why had this happened to her? Why she had been singled out for so much heartache? She had no answer. But it meant she would not celebrate this new baby until it was born – anything could happen between then and now.

As she combed her thick hair into place, the phone rang and she answered it carefully, making sure not to drop the receiver. It was the police. She listened for a few moments, before asking, ‘Is this about James?’

She hoped they had found him; the thought of him out there after what he had done was worse than anything. Supposing he
came back to finish the job? That was her nightmare – him sneaking back to burn them to death in their beds. He was capable of murder as they all knew – look at that Dougie person he had killed. She shuddered at the thought. Plus, if they caught him, then that meant her Vincent could not get his hands on him. Revenge wasn’t worth doing life over. Her greatest fear was that Vincent would be banged up for the rest of his days. She knew he spent hours trying to track James down and had put a price on his head. Anyone with information could get twenty-five grand if it led to him being found. That was a big incentive, and she knew it.

‘I beg your pardon, are you sure?’ She listened for a few more seconds then she said in a dazed voice, ‘No, I’ll tell my mother, I don’t think she should hear this over the phone.’

She put the receiver back in its cradle and went into her kitchen. Sitting at the kitchen table, she looked around her for a few moments, unable to get to grips with what she had just been told.

James was dead. He had been dead for over a year, although he had only just been found in a squat in Leicester. He had died of a heroin overdose, and he had been lying there all that time, undiscovered. They had deduced that it was James through his belongings, despite the body being in a state of decay. They would confirm with a DNA test, but they were more or less certain it was him.

If James was dead, then who had tried to burn her house down? Who had killed her little boy? And, more to the point, who had been at her mother’s a few days before the fire? None of it made any sense. The person they had found could not have been James, surely? She decided to ring Vincent. He would know what to do.

Cynthia was happier than she had been for a long while. She was finally getting over losing that little child and his awful death. She still needed a drink to get her through the day – and especially the nights – but she was beginning to feel she had it all under control.

Vincent had not taken to his daughter, and she had not taken to him, thank God. Cherie looked down her nose at him, and so she should. Cynthia had drummed into the child to expect better in life and she would make sure she got it. It had worked out quite well for her. Well, it had worked out as well as could be expected, all things considered. At least she had Cherie who, at ten, was so like her at the same age it was uncanny.

Now that silly cow was pregnant again. Didn’t she ever learn? The girl was a total bloody idiot where Vincent was concerned. She could not see further than his dick, and that was about the strength of their relationship. He fucked her, he got her in the club, and then he left her. Gabriella believed it was third time a charm. As if that oik would be able to keep out of prison long enough to fucking see it born! If only he could find James before the police did – that would make sure Vincent wasn’t around to interfere for a
very
long time. Even if her daughter
was
once more pregnant by him, she would happily see him put
away for good – especially if it meant James was out of the picture too.

She had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to have too much to do with this new grandchild. She decided that, if she used her loaf, this would be the perfect opportunity to get Cherie away from them both for ever, and keep her for herself.

As she poured herself another of her ‘black’ teas – her euphemism for whisky and water – she pondered on how she could talk them into letting her move right away with Cherie. She couldn’t stand to be in London any more – everywhere she looked she was haunted by memories of baby Vince. Every road, park and zoo reminded her of him and she could hear his voice asking her things, making her laugh. Oh, how he had made her laugh – he had been such a dear little fellow. She realised she needed to get as far away from those memories as possible.

Gabriella had phoned to say she would be here soon. She wondered what she had to talk to her about? Probably wanting help with that baby she had on the way.

Gabby had parked her car by the new Somerfield’s at Chrisp Street Market; she needed to pick up a few bits for Vincent’s dinner, before calling at her mother’s. She couldn’t drive for long with her hands as they were but she could manage the automatic Vincent had got for her to get around locally. Vincent was as mystified as she was about the news about James. He said he’d dig around a bit for some more information. As she walked out with the trolley, she was startled from her thoughts when she heard someone call her name.

‘Is that you, Gabby?’

Gabby looked into the woman’s face, unable to place her. She grinned at her before saying in a friendly manner, ‘Sorry, do I know you?’

The woman smiled; she was in her late forties and she had kind eyes and heavy legs. ‘I’m Jeannie Proctor. I lived next door to you in Ilford when you were a nipper.’

Gabby smiled back. ‘Oh, really? I’m sorry, I don’t remember.’

The woman looked her over, and she said in wonderment, ‘You are the living image of your mother – that’s what made me recognise you. Beautiful, just like her. How is Cynth these days?’

Gabby nearly said, ‘Well, she would not be happy to be referred to as “Cynth”!’ Instead she said, ‘She’s fine, you know me mum!’

It was meant in jest, but the woman nodded, then said seriously, ‘Oh, I know Cynthia all right! Tell her she still owes me for the dry cleaning bill.’

Gabby laughed then. ‘What dry cleaning bill?’

Jeannie Proctor paused for a few seconds as if she was wondering if she should speak, then she said candidly, ‘It was a long time ago, so I don’t suppose it matters now. She torched the house – for the insurance, like. She had spent so much on it that they could never get the price it was worth, so she torched it. Left fags all over the place, she did, and open cans of paint and turps. Looked like she was decorating, see. She was a fucking girl, her. Mind you, in those days you could get away with murder with insurance companies. Can’t any more, they’re wise to everything now.’

The woman was laughing, but Gabby could feel herself going cold.

‘I had my bedroom windows open, and the smoke damage was atrocious, as you can imagine . . . Here, where you going?’

Jeannie Proctor watched as the girl hurried away from her. ‘Well, what on earth rattled her cage?’

Gabby sat in her car and thought back to what Jeannie Proctor had said to her. Somehow she knew that the woman was telling her the truth. But did that mean her mother had burned
her
house down too? Had killed her baby boy? Somewhere inside she knew that was what had happened.

It was all falling into place now. She had been on the verge of getting the kids back, she had straightened herself out. In her heart she should have known her mother would not have countenanced that. Her mother had always wanted those children more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Gabby had actually deemed that at one time her mother’s saving grace – the undeniable love she had for those two little mites. It was the love she had never had for her own kids, but she had lavished it on her grandchildren. Gabby had been so grateful to her, had felt so indebted to her for all her help. She recalled how badly her mother had taken little Vince’s death; Gabby had assumed, like everyone else, that it was because she had loved him and cared for him. But it had been guilt. The wicked bitch had been consumed with guilt.

Even as Gabby’s heart was trying to deny what she was telling herself, her brain was telling her that it couldn’t have been her brother who started the fire. The brother who her mother had said had visited her a few days before, and who she subsequently
admitted had threatened them all with death, pain, torture and destruction, was well and truly dead by then.

Gabby remembered her mother’s devastation at the kids having to leave her to go home to their terrible mummy. How she had kept saying Gabby wasn’t ready to have the kids back yet, that she still needed to sort herself out. It was exactly what she had said about Cherie coming back to her after the fire. Gabby had believed her mother was doing her a favour by keeping Cherie with her then. Cherie, who could have died as well if she had not slept in her bed that night, who would have been in the same room as little Vince, who had been so determined to leave her great-granddad’s house because of Cynthia’s bad mouthing.

She could see that her mother hadn’t intended to kill them. She had believed they were at her granddad’s that night. Cynthia had burned the place down thinking it was empty, but she had done it to make it look like Gabby was incapable of looking after her own children. A big fire would make them think twice about letting the children come back home, especially when there was no fucking home for them to go to. Gabby could almost hear her mother saying to the social workers how irresponsible she was to have left a fag burning, and imagine if the children had been in there with her.

Well, they
were
in there with her. While her mother was creeping around her house with every intention of burning it down, she had been asleep upstairs with her babies. It all made perfect sense now – her mother would have had to keep the children at least until she was re-housed, and back on her feet. And that would have been months, if not years.

Cynthia had done it deliberately, and she had done it for no other reason than to get what she wanted, as she had always got what she wanted. Gabby had lost not only her little boy in that fire, but all her photos, the memorabilia of her life, of her kids’ lives, of her nana Mary and her all-too-little time with Vincent.
Her mother had been willing to leave her with
nothing
in her determination to keep those kids, and instead she had murdered her little boy.

Gabby thought back to how her mother had always made sure she got whatever or whoever she wanted – by hook or by crook. Cynthia had taken Jonny from poor Celeste, she had taken the kids from her own daughter, and she had been the reason her husband had killed himself. She had murdered in cold blood once – to save her sister she claimed, but she had done that to save herself too. It would always be about
her,
and what
she
wanted. It would
never,
could never, be about anyone else.

And what about poor James Junior? Cynthia had blamed James from the get-go. She had put him in the frame with her lies about him going round there and threatening all sorts. Was there nothing she wasn’t capable of?

Gabby was outside her mother’s flat, parked up all neat and tidy, but she had no memory of driving there. She got out of the car, and she felt as if she was walking through water, so heavy and awkward did her limbs feel.

Gabby was throwing up in her mother’s toilet, and all she could hear was her mother’s voice going on and on and on.

‘I don’t feel well, Mum. I feel ill and out of sorts.’

‘Well, whose fault’s that then? Pregnant again, aren’t you? He’ll leave you like he did the last two times. He won’t keep out of the nick, love – it’s all he’s fucking fit for. And I can tell you now, I’m not looking after any more kids either. You’re on your own this time, lady. I told you when you met that idiot Vincent O’Casey, I said then, and I stand by my words, he has the brains of a fucking rocking horse and the face of a Tonka toy. But would you listen to me? You should get shot of that baby. How can you have another one? I mean, I ask you, how long before he’ll be banged up again?’