Bad Girl (23 page)

Helen turned up the collar of her coat, surprised by the coldness of the wind whistling down the main thoroughfare of the cemetery. Spring had passed, barely noticed, into summer, and then summer into autumn. Finally, winter had arrived, and so too had the trial of Tommy, Frank and Connor.

All week the pub had been unusually quiet at lunchtime, with most of the regulars finding more diverting entertainment at the court of the Old Bailey. The trial had been in progress for four days now. Helen had wanted to go too, was desperate to go, but Yvonne had asked her not to.

‘I’d rather you didn’t, love,’ she’d said. ‘Obviously I can’t let the girls hear all the gory details of what happened to their grandad. Or their father’s part in it all. It wouldn’t be right, would it? And if they can’t go… well, perhaps it would be better if you didn’t either.’

Helen hadn’t quite got the logic of the argument, but the meaning of it was plain: if she even thought about stepping foot inside court, Yvonne would not be pleased. And so in order to keep the peace, she had stayed at home, relying on others to keep her up to date with what was happening. Some things she learned from the customers, blatantly eavesdropping on their conversations. Other snippets – and they were only snippets – she gleaned from Yvonne. But the bulk of her information came from Pym, the odd little man who had hung around Joe like a bad smell. Bribing him with beer and cigarettes, she sat him down in the small rear room of the Fox every evening and listened to his version of the day’s events in court.

Pym took a certain pleasure, she thought, in relaying bad news. And to date, it had all been bad. Although the charge of murder had been dropped against Tommy and Frank, they were still accused of attempting to dispose of a body. The post-mortem had showed that Joe had died somewhere between the hours of seven and nine, hours when Tommy had been serving in the pub and in clear view of everyone. Frank too had got himself an alibi, spending the early part of the evening having dinner at Connolly’s before walking down to the Fox with a couple of the regulars who’d been eating there too.

The defence were claiming that Tommy had acted in innocence, insisting on driving his brother home simply in order to make sure he got there safely. The prosecution, however, were pushing the idea that Connor would only have relinquished the keys to a car containing the corpse of his father if Tommy had agreed to help him to get rid of it. With Connor so drunk as to be a liability, Tommy and Frank must have decided to drop him off at the flats before proceeding with the ghastly business of disposing of the evidence.

‘And the jury?’ she’d asked. ‘What do you reckon they believe?’

Pym had shaken his head before fixing his small beady eyes on her face. ‘Ah, I don’t like the look of that lot. Already made up their minds, I reckon.’

Helen shivered as she turned on to the smaller path and wound her way round to Irene Quinn’s grave. It had been months now since she’d last seen Tommy. She had gone to Brixton prison once on a visit with Yvonne and the girls, but it had all felt strange and awkward, as if she was intruding on a family occasion. Tommy had put on a brave face for them all, but she could see that he was scared. Karen and Debs, still grieving for their grandfather, had shifted uneasily in their seats, wanting to believe in their dad’s innocence, but not entirely certain of it.

The jail, with its walls and locks and peculiar smells, had been an intimidating place. Helen had been aware, throughout the visit, of being under the scrutiny of the prison officers – the
screws
, as Tommy called them – their eyes following her every move. The atmosphere, taut and unnatural, had wrapped itself around them all, inhibiting normal behaviour. Even Yvonne, never usually short of things to say, had been oddly quiet.

As Helen reached her destination in the cemetery, she took a bottle of water from her bag. Crouching by the grave, she pulled the dead flowers from the memorial vase, dropped them on the ground and replaced the stagnant water. ‘Hello, Mum,’ she whispered as she carefully arranged the six white lilies.

She rose slowly to her feet and sighed as she gazed down at Irene Quinn’s headstone. There had been some talk of interring Joe’s ashes here, but thankfully Yvonne had decided to wait until after the trial was over. It wasn’t up to her to make decisions like that, she’d grumbled, and for once Helen had agreed with her. The idea of having the remains of Joe scattered in the same place as her mother made her stomach turn over. She wasn’t sure that Irene would be all that happy about it either.

It was too cold to hang about. With a heavy heart, Helen began walking back towards the Fox. She wondered what news there would be this evening, trying desperately to hold on to hope but at the same time aware of it gradually seeping away. With Connor still loudly and aggressively proclaiming his innocence, the prosecution were having a field day. The evidence was stacking up: the constant rows, the attempted assault with the baseball bat, the very public death threats.

Connor, of course, was not the type to plead guilty. If he’d been caught with the bloodied bat in his hand and the body at his feet, he’d still have sworn blind that he’d had nothing to do with it. He was going to go down – there seemed little doubt of it – and the tragedy was that he might take Tommy and Frank down with him.

Helen strolled back to the high street and crossed Station Road. As usual, she hurried through the car park, not wanting to linger near the place where Joe had died. For weeks after his murder, a strip of police tape had remained by the cellar door, fluttering in the breeze. Eventually, unable to bear it any more, she had snatched it up and thrown it in the bin.

After unlocking the back door, she locked it behind her again and started walking up the stairs. She was almost at the top when she became aware of Yvonne’s voice coming from the living room.

‘Can you credit it, the little slut just turning up like that? Brazen as you like.’

‘I’d have slapped her face,’ Carol Gatesby said. ‘I’m telling you, I would. The bloody cheek of it!’

‘I wish I had. And that top she was wearing. Jesus, you should have seen it, Maureen. Tits hanging out, everything on show. The little tramp doesn’t know the meaning of the word decency.’

Hearing Helen’s footsteps on the landing, they all stopped talking and looked over their shoulders to where she was standing by the door.

‘Oh, it’s only the girl,’ Maureen said dismissively.

Helen, who had wanted to ask about the day’s proceedings – Yvonne was back earlier than usual – now felt too embarrassed to do so. She could see that they were all on the booze, their glasses brimming with vodka and ice. The bottle on the coffee table was already half empty. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Sure it is,’ Maureen replied. ‘Nothing for
you
to worry about.’

Helen gave a nod, ignoring the slight. ‘Good.’ Maureen, taking her cue from Yvonne, always treated her with something akin to scorn. She had been intending to make a cup of tea before the pub opened in fifteen minutes, but that would mean walking through the living room in order to get to the kitchen. Imagining the resentful silence that would descend while she was brewing up, she decided to leave it. The women wanted to talk and they didn’t want her listening.

After retracing her steps along the landing, Helen began climbing the next flight of stairs.

She was only halfway up when the trio resumed their conversation. Was it Shelley Anne they were slagging off? It had to be. Although usually disapproving of men who cheated on their wives, Helen wasn’t so judgemental when it came to Tommy. Yvonne was the kind of woman who would try the patience of a saint; nothing was ever good enough for her. Not that that excused her uncle’s infidelity, but it went some way towards explaining it.

In her bedroom, she got changed into a pair of black trousers and a black T-shirt. Most of her wardrobe, against the current fashion, was strictly monochrome. She preferred black or white to more garish colours, although whether this was down to a desire to be different or simply to blend into the background she hadn’t quite figured out.

After brushing her hair, she tied it back in a ponytail and then took a look in the mirror. She frowned at her reflection. Her face seemed too pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Sleep didn’t come easily to her these days; she tossed and turned, dozing and waking, her dreams mingling with the nightmare reality of the trial.

The trial. Her lips parted slightly in a sigh. Shelley Anne, wisely or not, had chosen to risk Yvonne’s wrath by attending court. Shouldn’t she have done the same? Maybe Tommy would think that she didn’t care. And Frank, too. No, she shouldn’t have given in to Yvonne’s demands. Whatever the consequences, she should have followed her heart instead of her head.

Helen left the room, ran down the two flights of stairs and went into the bar. While Maureen was still occupied, she poured a pint of Best and snatched a pack of John Players and a box of matches from the shelf. She took the beer and the fags through to the small room at the rear of the pub and left them on the table by the fireplace. Bending down, she put a light to the kindling under the logs and then went back to the main room and did the same.

It was only as she stood up that she realised that Maureen was now behind the bar.

‘Hope you’re intending to pay for that pint,’ she said, giving Helen a surly look.

Jesus, the woman had eyes in the back of her head. ‘Of course.’ Helen scrabbled in her back pocket for some change and put the coins down on the counter. ‘Here.’

Maureen scooped them up and dropped them in the till. ‘I suppose it’s for that little creep Pym. I don’t know why you have to keep buying him drinks.’

Helen could have retorted that she wouldn’t need to if Yvonne would actually keep her up to speed with what was happening in court, but seeing as she’d got away with nicking the fags, she decided not to go there. ‘He’s okay, and it’s only the odd pint.’

Maureen gave a snort before walking round the counter, going over to the doors and pulling back the bolts. It was five o’clock exactly. Outside, a small group of customers had already gathered. Pym was the third one in, hurrying towards the rear of the pub as if afraid that someone might try to snatch his freebies. He was dressed in a shabby overcoat that looked too large for him. A green scarf was tied loosely around his neck.

Helen followed behind, aware that he hadn’t even bothered to greet her – not so much as a nod – so eager was he to reach the table. She pulled out a chair and waited patiently while he ripped the cellophane off the pack of fags and lit one with a shaking hand. His fingernails, she noticed, were ingrained with dirt.

It was only after he’d taken a few fast draws and a large slurp of beer that he finally lifted his head to acknowledge her. ‘Woman trouble today. Did you hear?’

‘You mean Shelley Anne turning up? Was it Shelley Anne?’

‘Yeah, it was her all right. Large as life and twice as…’ Pym licked his lips in a lascivious fashion. ‘Shame she don’t work ’ere no more. Used to brighten the place up, that girl.’ He lifted his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Course, her upstairs weren’t too pleased. I mean, you wouldn’t be, would you, havin’ yer husband’s bit on the side show her face. Thought she were gonna have a fit. Spent the whole morning staring daggers at her, and then come lunchtime it all kicked off.’

‘But what happened in court?’

‘That’s what I’m saying, ain’t it? The two of ’em had a real go, screaming at each other like—’

‘Not with Shelley Anne,’ Helen interrupted. ‘With Tommy. With the trial.’ She only had a limited amount of time before Maureen would be on her back about getting some work done. ‘How’s it looking for him?’

Pym, who’d clearly been relishing his account of the cat fight, seemed disappointed by her lack of interest. ‘Well, we’ll know tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she echoed, startled.

‘Yeah, ain’t they told you? They did the summing-up today. The jury’s out. There should be a verdict in the morning.’

‘And what do you think?’

Pym gave a shrug. ‘Makes no odds what I think.’

Helen stared at him, trying to contain her exasperation. ‘But how did it go? Is there any chance for Tommy?’

Pym took another drink while he thought about it. ‘In my opinion… well, it ain’t looking so good. I reckon the jury think he’s guilty. Why else’d Connor hand over the car keys like that?’

‘Because he was drunk,’ Helen said, her voice rising as anger and frustration bubbled to the surface. ‘Because he knew Tommy wouldn’t leave it alone. Because he decided it was best to give in, let Tommy run him home and then get rid of the body later.’

Pym raised both his hands as if shielding off an attack. ‘No need to shoot the bleedin’ messenger, love. I’m just sayin’ it how it is.’

‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t… Sorry.’

‘Anyways,’ he said slyly, ‘what would have happened if Tommy had taken the keys back to the Fox with him? What would Connor have done then?’

Helen didn’t have an answer to that.

Pym tapped the side of his head. ‘You’ve got to think like the jury, see. They reckon Tommy had to be in on it. Everyone knows there was bad feeling between him and Joe. It weren’t no secret. And there’s the bat, too. Found it down in the cellar, didn’t they?’

‘But Connor had keys. He must have hidden it there.’

‘He could have. Or Tommy could have.’

The pub was starting to fill up, and Helen knew she didn’t have much longer. Those glasses wouldn’t collect themselves. ‘And Frank Meyer?’ she asked quickly. ‘What about him?’

‘If Tommy’s guilty, Frank’s guilty too. That’s how they’ll figure it.’

‘Christ,’ she murmured.

‘Last day tomorrow,’ Pym said, staring dolefully down at what remained of his pint.

Helen wasn’t sure what he was more dismayed about – the trial coming to an end or the fact that his supply of free beer and fags was about to run dry. She couldn’t suss him out. Did he have any feelings, good or bad, as regarded Joe? Was he sorry that he was dead, or did he not give a damn?