Close (33 page)

Leonard walked from the room; he had done his chore for the day and he wanted to distance himself from this man as fast as possible.

Having heard the bad news, the Williams brothers were scattering. They were suddenly off for the evening, leaving Cain alone even though they knew he was not fit to use the toilet without help. But that was the Williams boys all over, they seemed to enjoy taking this boy down with them. And Cain himself was galloping towards obscurity and censure as if it was the only thing he wanted in the world.

Leonard Barker was collecting glasses out the front of the Speiler when he saw Patrick Brodie slip through the door. There were a few regular customers at the bar and Leonard noticed how Patrick was being observed without anyone actually looking directly at him. He waved nonchalantly at no one in particular and everyone in there greeted him heartily. Leonard felt his heart sink down to his boots and wished that his boss wasn't such a lazy cunt so he would not have to be the person overlooking this pile of shite. He would be glad when Cain finally got his comeuppance.

Patrick nodded at him in a friendly way; no one would ever guess at his anger or his dismay that it had come to this. He opened his arms as if in supplication and Leonard Barker nodded almost imperceptibly towards the back room knowing that Brodie would have all the information he needed before he would have even deigned to walk through the doorway. It was a game that had been played out over and over again for years and the only changes were the players in the little soap opera. This time though, a renowned lunatic, Patrick Brodie, had seen fit to sort his problems out in public and Leonard knew it could go either way for him because of that. He would either be the villain of the piece or the knight in shining armour, depending on the outcome.

Leonard just wanted his wage in his back pocket and fuck the dramas that came and went with a depressing regularity. He was further dismayed to see two huge men come into the bar with baseball bats neatly wrapped in red insulating tape. When the dirty deed was done they could unwrap the tape and burn it, thereby leaving the bats in pristine condition for further use and any evidence as ash.

Two of the regulars at the bar drank up and walked out quickly without saying their usual good-humoured goodbyes and this seemed to be the sign for a general exodus, as was expected. No one questioned anything; the atmosphere said enough and no one wanted to get caught up in the situation here, and who could blame them?

Patrick smiled then and Leonard poured him a large Scotch before shutting the bar flap and leaving the place himself. He would sit it out in the cold and wait for them to vacate the premises before going back inside. Brodie owned the bar, even though he didn't run it, and Leonard knew that Cain was about to find out just what owning something or, more to the point, someone really meant.

Leonard sat outside in his little Hillman Imp and rolled himself a cigarette; his hands were trembling and that annoyed him. He started up the car and pushed a cassette into his eight-track system. Elvis Presley's voice filled the void around him and he closed his eyes and wished to Christ that he too felt lonesome tonight.

'What's wrong then, Janie?'

Janie sighed heavily. Her earlier bravado had deserted her and she was perched on the edge of the sofa with a dry mouth and a heart that was beating so loud it was almost drowning out her own thoughts.

Lil was aware of the woman's discomfort and she smiled once more, feeling phoney because a large part of her didn't want to hear what this poor woman had to say.

'Lance is bullying my kids, Lil. I can't sit back and let him, it's gone too far this time.' It was out, it was said and the world had not come to an end.

'In what way?'

Lil was asking all the right questions, she knew, but the truth was that she could have written Janie's script for her. But what Janie answered was nothing like what she had expected and she had, as always where Lance was concerned, expected the worst. She was stunned as she listened to the woman talk.

'Eight stitches in the head and that was when Lance pushed her off the bus…'

Janie trailed off as she saw the shock on Lil's face. She had assumed that Lil had heard about it. It was the talk of the school; not that they were willing to do anything about it. But what could Janie do? This had to be resolved because her kids were in mortal fear of even leaving the house.

'Her? Did you say her?'

Janie nodded. Her long face was even more worried now as she realised that Lil really had no idea about what had happened and she had gone so white she looked on the verge of fainting. Lil's huge belly and swollen legs were suddenly all Janie could focus on and she saw that Lil Brodie was ill. She was also in a state of total shock at the news she had just imparted to her. She guessed that Annie made sure Lil didn't get any information until after she had edited it to her own satisfaction.

'My Lisa is only six and he pushed her off the bus; she landed in the road on her barnet and the hospital said she was lucky she wasn't hurt really badly. Lil, I don't want to put this in your lap; I can see you are ready to drop but I can't let this go on. Lance has tortured them and he mouths me off if I say anything. He effs and blinds at me. I don't want to cause any trouble for you… I don't want Patrick after me, but if that's what it takes… It's either this or I have to move and I ain't got the wherewithal to do that as I am sure you know… Me old man's banged up.'

Janie's voice was breaking now with sheer relief that she had said it out loud. Lil looked awful and Janie was sorry for her because she could see the woman genuinely had no idea about any of it. If she had not seen her reaction with her own eyes she would never have believed it.

Lil was digesting everything she had just heard and was now trying to make some kind of sense of it. She was stiff with anger and humiliation; this woman honestly believed that she had known of her son's antics and that she had allowed those things to happen without any kind of redress. Did everyone else think that? Did they assume that she didn't care? Did people think she condoned his behaviour?

She was mortified because she knew that it was her fault if people did think that about her because she had no interest in the boy or in what he did or didn't do. She had no trouble believing what the woman was telling her, and she knew that she should at least be trying to
justify
his behaviour, make allowances for him, at least try to
defend
him, but she had no intention of doing anything like that. Instead, she jumped up and bellowed her son's name out with all the force she could muster.

The kids had shot into the bedrooms when she had shouted at her mother and as they trooped back downstairs now she could feel the heat of humiliation and shame wash over her face and neck. The child seemed to move inside her with a sickening wrench and she had trouble staying on her feet.

Pat Junior and the girls were in the hallway and Lance was behind them, his eyes wide and, as always, displaying an innocence she knew he had never really possessed. He was a devil in disguise and she flew at him with a speed that belied the heaviness of her aching body. All she wanted to do was hurt him to make him realise exactly what he did to others; she wanted him to feel the same emotions as his victims.

Lance tried to escape her wrath and she grabbed at his ankle as he attempted to run back up the stairs. She dragged him by his legs and his screams were loud and piercing but she ignored them. She pulled him into the front room and flung him on to the floor. He lay there panting in fright and she saw the terror in his eyes as she shrieked at him. Her mother was trying to calm her down and she grabbed the front of Annie's carefully buttoned cardigan and thrust her back out into the hallway, nearly knocking her over in the process. The children were all staring at her as if she had gone mad. She didn't feel like she had gone mad though, she felt as if she had finally woken up from a bad dream. She felt as if she was free at last.

Annie's voice was cajoling her now, she was trying to calm her down. Instead it made her anger swell inside her like a canker that was about to burst.

'Lil, calm down, love. He wouldn't do anything like that. He's a little fucker, granted, but he wouldn't do that. They pick on him…'

Lil shook her head in despair at her mother's words and, placing her hands on her ample hips, she said with derision and contempt, 'Oh, Mum, fuck off, will you? He could murder all the neighbours in broad daylight with an axe and you'd say they must have deserved it. That they must have done something to him.'

'You going to take her word over mine then?'

Lil saw the hurt on her mother's face and the frown lines etched there so she looked old before her time and she actually felt pity for her. Annie was almost delusional where Lance was concerned; it was as if she saw a different boy to the one everyone else did. She held herself in check knowing it was pointless talking to the woman before her, a woman she didn't even like most of the time, but who she had thought she needed.

'Take the kids upstairs, Mother, and don't fucking come down again until I tell you.'

Annie was beside herself with grief for the boy she could see no wrong in.

'Nanny Annie, please, Nanny Annie, don't leave me with her…' Lance was choking on his sobs now and even with the tears running down his handsome face, the face that was so like his father's, and his pitiable crying, Lil still couldn't find it in her heart to feel any kind of pity for him.

He tried to bolt from the room then, to get away from her, and she grabbed him by the hair and dragged him back inside. Then, slamming the front room door closed, she untangled the arms that were now desperately trying to grip her round her waist to make her cuddle him and she laid into him with all the strength she possessed.

Her blows were heavy and carefully delivered. He curled into a ball on the floor so she grabbed him once more by his hair and, holding him upright, she gave him a beating that was as vicious as it was overdue. He was bleeding and she could smell the fear coming off him in waves but it just added to her anger and her need to teach him a lesson that would be remembered his whole life.

She could hear herself shouting at him and in her rage she couldn't even comprehend what she was saying to him: 'You fucker, you bullying, wicked fucker…'

Lil was screaming the same words over and over again and Janie sat and watched the scene before her with an awe that she would say later was due to the fact that Lance was still denying any wrongdoing even after his mother had opened up his eyebrow. She would tell people in a hushed voice that Lil Brodie was like a maniac, that she had doled out a hiding many a man would have been loath to be on the wrong end of. She would tell anyone who asked her that Lil Brodie was a decent woman who had administered a beating to that little bastard to teach him the error of his ways. She had paid him out tenfold for her girl's injuries and without realising it, Janie set out Lil's reputation as a battler once and for all.

Lil was crying now, a low groaning cry of despair and disappointment and long strings of snot were hanging from her nose as she knelt over the boy, and, forcing down the urge to crack his skull open with her clenched fist, she said to him, 'I'm on to you, boy, and you will get this or worse every time you step out of line. You fucking bully, you rotten, stinking bully.'

Lance stared up at the woman he alternately loved and hated and he said through his tears, 'It wasn't me, Mum, it was Patrick… I swear… I swear to God…'

Lance was still lying to her, still trying to worm his way out of it. He had not a scrap of shame or pride inside him. Lil pulled his head up towards her face with a force so great that his teeth crashed together loudly enough to make Janie Callahan jump. Lance could feel her breath on his face once more as she bellowed at him.

'You liar, you are still fucking lying. Tell me the truth, you mad bastard, tell me the truth or I swear to God I'll fucking bury you!'

She was staring into his eyes and he knew then that she meant every word she said. She saw the lids of his eyes come down like blinds on a window and knew he was changing tack. The knowledge depressed her even as it worried her. He was such a strange child and now she had acknowledged that fact to herself and to Janie Callahan, she felt her fear of him evaporate.

'It was me. I'm sorry, Mum… I'm sorry… She was looking at me… She thinks she is better than us she does.'

The whine in Lance's voice, and his constant lying, was too much for her. What the hell had she bred? Where the hell did this child come from? Lil threw him away from her then as if the effort of touching him was anathema. Then, holding on to the arm of the sofa, she pulled herself up from the floor with difficulty and Janie quickly leapt up to help her. She had been silent as she had watched Lil take matters into her own hands. Before, she would have laid out money that Lil had been aware of her son's reign of terror; how wrong she had been. And how relieved she was now that her kids would finally be free of the little boy who looked like an angel but had the vocabulary of a sailor.

Lance was battered and bloody and Janie could feel no remorse for what had happened to him. Like his own mother, she felt only distaste and relief that he had finally got his comeuppance. She had enjoyed seeing him squirm and it bothered her that a young child could stir up such feelings inside her.

'Get out of my sight.' He dragged himself up slowly and Lil could see that she had gone too far, that she had really hammered him, but she didn't care. There was a kink in Lance's nature and she was going to iron it out if it killed her.

When Lance was gone from the room, Lil sighed and, lighting a cigarette, she pulled on it deeply. Blowing out the smoke noisily, she said sadly, 'I am so sorry, Janie. I knew nothing about it. Is the little one all right?'

Janie nodded. Taking the proffered cigarette, she lit it and said, 'He could have killed her, Lil, and it was that which brought me round here. I don't want any trouble and you know that. But my kids are mortally afraid of him. Not a day goes by but he is at them…'