A Taste for Malice (38 page)

In the meantime he should resume his watch just in case.

He parked in the same spot, turned the radio up loud and settled in to watch his house. Strong sunshine quickly heated the air within the car and he opened the window.

Again, the curtains for the master bedroom were closed, but that wasn’t unusual. Angela needed a lot of sleep. He wondered what Ben was up to. He turned the radio off and tried to tune his hearing into the area around his home. Nothing. Ben liked to spend time in the garden. It was a nice day so why wasn’t he outside playing? Might he be watching TV?

Jim stepped out of his car and looked towards the downstairs window hoping to see some movement. Ben was an active boy and even when his favourite cartoons were on he’d be flying or marching his toys across the room in conjunction with the action on the screen.

All was still.

He’d heard about the sense of foreboding that some people get when they know; just
know
that something is wrong. This was something that he had laughed at. Yeah, right, like everyone has this caveman instinct suppressed by centuries of socialisation. Give me a break.

Now, however, he wasn’t laughing at it, he was listening to it. Even before he was aware of movement he was walking towards his house, head leaning forward like an antenna.

There should be some movement, some noise, something.

Nothing.

He broke into a run. The front door was unlocked. Why wasn’t it locked?

‘Angela? Ben? Anybody home?’ He quickly searched downstairs. Living room, dining room, kitchen. Nothing. Back garden. Empty.

His breathing was laboured, his forehead slick with sweat. Where the fuck was everyone? He ran up the stairs. Ben’s room was empty, his quilt with its Spiderman cover tossed to the floor.

‘Angela?’ He ran through to her room.

His wife struggled to sit up in bed when she was disturbed by his entry. Her expression was slack, her hair scrunched high on one side of her head as if she had slept in the same position for days.

Her speech, when she spoke was slurred. ‘Jim, what you…?’ She looked as if it was all she could do to remain in an upright position. Jim jumped to her side and held her steady. She leaned her head into the cradle of his upper chest.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. Then her face slackened with panic. ‘Is there something wrong with Ben?’

Her notebook, thought Jim.

Maybe she’s written something in her notebook. Jim spotted it on the bedside cabinet. He reached for it and fanned it open to the most recent entry. Angela must have sensed his urgency. Her protest was automatic, but half-hearted.

The last entry dated the previous day read:
Why am I always feeling so tired? Remember to ask Moira if the medicine she’s giving me is the right dose. Thank god she’s here don’t know what I would do without her — what Ben would do without her. He’s so looking forward to tomorrow. He told me in that happy wee voice of his that he and Moira were going for an adventure. Something about smugglers and caves. Bless him. Must be hard for him just now. Dad’s gone. And I’m a just a complete and utter waste of space.

We give Kirsty a glass of water. A moment of kindness in the rollercoaster of an interview. A change of pace is always welcome. It keeps the interviewee in an unsteady mental rhythm. Too much all out attack and they simply retreat behind a wall of self-justification and heat their defence against their dislike of you. But show some humanity and it unsettles, keeps them on the hop.

Time to speed things up a little.

‘Fill in the blanks for me, Kirsty,’ I say. ‘Why hurt these boys? What was in it for you?’

She sits in silence, arms crossed, eyes lost in a fog of denial and half-quelled memory.

‘You had a fling with Jim Hilton, didn’t you?’

She ignores me.

‘And he let you down like every other male in your life. Who hurt you Kirsty? Was it your father?’ I watch her closely.

‘Was it an uncle? A family friend?’

Her nostrils swell as she takes in more breath. The movement is so slight, if I hadn’t been watching I would have missed it.

‘What a bastard. To take advantage of a young girl like you.’

‘You know nothing,’ she states.

Her expression is closed to me. Her arms and legs crossed.

I raise an eyebrow. A simple movement that says I know everything.

‘You know nothing,’ she repeats, aiming for neutrality, but her eyes are twin spots of fire.

‘And I’d bet you he’s still out there, swanning around, thinking he got off with it. Chances are he’s done it again. People like him don’t stop. There’s probably a whole string of little girls that have been damaged by that monster and what do you do? Mmm? Go after innocent wee boys instead of doing what you can to stop a man who’s made a career out of abusing wee girls.’

‘Shut up.’ Her face is twisted with denial.

‘How many other women are out there? How many other Kirstys are there?’

‘Shut it.’ She slams a hand down on the desk.

‘A classic case of abused turned abuser, that’s you Kirsty,’ I say. ‘You feel unable to commit to a relationship. Someone you trusted, betrays you and leaves you with a twisted view of your sexuality. Jim Hilton is your first real boyfriend. You watch him with Angela and you learn from her. But the lessons already learned are too difficult to set aside. Am I right?

‘A real relationship is beyond you, but you can’t be failed for trying. You don’t let Jim touch you. No full sex allowed, but you keep him sweet with plenty of hand jobs and oral sex. It’s never enough though, is it Kirsty. Men always want more.’

‘SHUT UP,’ she roars, jumps up and the room fills with the scream of rubber against linoleum as she pushes her chair back.

‘Because it’s dirty. You’re dirty. What you have between your legs is dirty.’

Kirsty collapses into the chair and slumps over the table. Her head and shoulders rise and fall as she gives way to the emotion that has been a lifetime in the making.

I open my mouth to speak again, too lost in disgust at myself, too lost in disgust at our propensity to harm each other to notice that I have Kirsty where I want her. Alessandra places her hand on my arm. Her face says it all.

Now is the time for silence.

This is the story of Kirsty Maxwell as told to me. Her parents died when she was five. They had gone for a rare night out leaving her with her bachelor uncle. Their car was found the next morning, upside down in a ditch. There seemed to be no explanation for the accident. It was a tight bend. There had been a lot of rain. That particular road was known to be an accident black spot. There were the occasional deer spotted in the hills above. Whatever the combination of events, the young Maxwell was now in the care of her uncle.

Uncle was a quiet, studious man and he took his responsibilities to his new charge very seriously. Unfortunately, the needs of his parishioners took precedence. From a young age Kirsty came to hate that knock at the door of the Manse and the question; is the minister in?

In an effort to win Uncle’s approval she watched how he dealt with his people. She studied his quiet, questioning manner and the absolutes with which he would dole out his advice. Other children found her difficult to play with. She was too serious and more than a bit strange in their view.

Arnold Baxter was a family friend. He was one of the executors of the trust fund set up on Kirsty’s behalf and as such felt the need to be a regular presence in the young girl’s life. Kirsty remembered the chats over coffee and cake while Arnold attempted to lecture her on the correct way through life. She remembered his tiny eyes behind thick glasses, the thatch of hair on the back of each pinkie, but most of all she remembered the smell of his breath as he bent forward to kiss her each time before he left. It reminded her of the bouquet of flowers she had stolen from her parents’ funeral display. She held on to the flowers long after the colour had faded, long after mould had set inside the vase. The smell was distinctive, it was the scent of decay.

On her tenth birthday, Arnold taught her how to masturbate. Then she was made to watch while he did likewise. His reaction was so strong that the first time she thought he had died. His breathing quickened, his face coloured purple, his hand worked furiously at his penis. Then, a loud grunt and he threw his head back, and then everything was limp and silent. What was wrong with him? That must have been quite a shock to his system. She stood watching him, terrified to move.

Afterwards he took her into the bathroom and made up a solution of water and bleach. He had brought a cloth especially. They were both to scrub the sin from their genitals. It was all her fault, he told her. She was dirty. She had led him astray. This could never be allowed to happen again. No one else was to know. Then he bent forward to kiss her cheek, breathing mould on to the silk of her complexion.

Of course, the visits continued until the week of her fifteenth birthday. Here, in the telling of her tale is where Maxwell shows emotion for the first time. Her eyes are wet, a flare of red appears on the skin of her neck and then disappears.

‘That was when I realised that I missed it. The attention.’ She focuses on me, then moves her view back to her feet, her eyes dimmed by the memory. ‘How sick am I?

‘That’s exactly why we did it,’ she slashes the air with her right hand. ‘Watch the news, read a newspaper and you’ll see the violence that men dole out on women. You see it every fucking day.’

‘So …you were what, teaching these boys a lesson?’

‘What was it the Jesuits used to say, give me the boy before the age of seven and we’ll give you the man. Teach them young, DI McBain, and they’ll treat every woman they meet thereafter with respect.’ Her eyes are challenging me to argue against her logic. What a wasted effort that would be. She was a radical, fundamentalist hater of men; regardless of my sympathy, nothing I could say would soften her views.

‘What about the Hiltons?’ I ask. The best questions to ask in an interview are the ones you know the answer to and then by the information left out you can judge the veracity of the speaker.

‘Jim and I had a …thing,’ she brushed at the air as if trying to make light of their moment of romance. ‘He went back to Angela. He slept with her the night her mother died. Can you believe it? We were all pals at first.’ Her expression softens and I get a glimpse of the woman she might have become. ‘I loved the time I spent with those two. Felt like I had a family for the first time, you know?’ She is pulling at the sleeve of her jumper, stretching it down beyond her thumb. ‘Then when they split up I thought I could keep that feeling going with Jim.’ She crosses her arms. ‘But I think he was still in love with Angela.’

‘Are they still your friends?’ Alessandra asks.

‘You joking? After the way Jim treated me. No.’ She sweeps us both with her eyes, chin tilted defiantly. ‘I lost interest in them a long time ago. Ben, now that’s another story. He’s a great wee guy. He won’t follow in his father’s footsteps, not if I have anything to do with it.’ She pauses, a thought pulsing behind her eyes. ‘That is if Moira hasn’t started without me.’

I rub at my face while I consider what my next step should be. I look at who I now know to be Kirsty Maxwell, smug in her certainty. She seems almost relieved that she has unburdened herself of all this information. Whatever a suspect tells me in the interview room, I have learned over the years to listen without judgement. It makes for a much more effective interview. However the air in this room seems stained by her words, her disclosure hanging in the atmosphere above us like a soiled rag.

I feel the need to breathe some clean air.

Alessandra and I are outside the interview room.

‘I need to wash my face,’ I say. ‘And get a breather.’

‘I need to dip my ears in disinfectant. That is one disturbing woman.’

Just then a local CID officer called Dave Bishop approaches us. He’s wearing a white shirt, red patterned tie and a pair of dark trousers. He has black hair, closely cropped to his skull that is flecked with grey. His wide shoulders taper down to a trim waist and his arms look thick and solid, suggesting this is a man who spends a few of his spare hours in a weight room. His skin tone also suggests he’s the outdoors type. He has a line of sunburn around his hairline and the rest of his face is freckled and a mixed shade of light brown and pink.

‘Hey guys,’ he offers a friendly smile, which is really aimed solely at Alessandra.

Alessandra is returning the smile in kind and suddenly feels the need to check that her hair is in place, without the help of a mirror.

‘Hey Dave,’ says Alessandra, ‘thanks for your hospitality. We really appreciate it.’

‘Welcome,’ he says as his smile increases in wattage. ‘Anything else you need, give us a shout.’ This last bit is aimed at me. It’s nice to feel included. Bishop keeps walking past us down the corridor.

‘If he turns and looks back at you before he gets to the double doors,’ I mumble out of the side of my mouth, ‘he’s yours for the taking.’

‘Shut it, McBain,’ she hisses while not taking her eyes off him. ‘I’m a married woman, remember?’

His hand stretches out for the door handle, he pulls it towards himself, takes a step through and turns and waves just before the door closes. I give Alessandra a nudge with my elbow.

‘He really likes you,’ I sing. ‘He wants to kiss you.’

‘You are out of your tree, McBain,’ she pokes me in the ribs with a finger, swallows on a grin and walks away.

Walking out of the glass-panelled front door, I take a left towards the car park. The air is not so fresh around here given that a busy roundabout is right outside the station, but it beats breathing in the same stale air as our friend Maxwell.

As I pace up and down the car park I consider the story that Maxwell told me. Was she telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

It’s just a wee bit too clichéd that she claims to have been abused, but the sad fact is that these sorts of cliché are stuffed, bound and cellophane wrapped in truth. What might be Shearer’s story then? I don’t really care. A child’s life is in danger.