Hard Girls (36 page)

Terrence O’Leary was not impressed to see their nearest and dearest,3tigo Kate standing, larger than life, on what was generally referred to as his
official
doorstep. His wife, on the other hand, was thrilled. ‘How are ya, Katie love? Come away in, you look frozen to the bone.’

Kathleen O’Leary was a beauty, and even after giving birth to six children, five of them boys, she still managed to turn more than a few heads. She had the thick black hair and violet-blue eyes of the real Irish along with the tiny bone structure of a fairy and good deportment and, all these things put together made for a winning combination. She was truly lovely, inside and out, and Kate had always had a soft spot for her. ‘Has that eejit seen the error of his ways yet?’

Kate laughed as she followed Kathleen into the large and expensive kitchen. It was like something from
Doctor Who
, all brushed stainless steel and expensive gadgets. Kate knew that it would have been what Terry wanted, not what Kathleen would have desired. Kate knew Terry well enough to know that he saw everything around him as something to either be admired or coveted. He felt that even his home wasn’t somewhere to relax in, it was somewhere to prove how well he had done for himself.

It was a shame really, but Kate understood Terry’s need to show off his wealth and his need to prove that he had expensive but elegant good taste. Unfortunately, he looked uncomfortable in these surroundings, and that was the shame of it all. Instead of enjoying his home, he spent all his time wondering how the fuck to fit himself into it.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

Kate nodded. ‘I came to talk to Terry about Patrick.’

Kathleen scowled. When she had put Kate’s cup of coffee in front of her, she said angrily to Terry, ‘Now you tell her what she wants to know.’

Kate knew Kathleen assumed that she was round there asking about Eve, and she was sorry that Pat’s fling was such common knowledge to all and sundry.

‘He’s as fecking bad. I’ve caught him out more than once, Kate.’

Terrence O’Leary was terrified of his little wife because, for all his bombast and his machismo persona, without her he would crumble. She was his life, but he never let on to anyone about that. He saw his enormous love for her as a weakness, whereas she saw his love of her as a bonus. Their boys were handsome and strong, and their only daughter was a beauty, a beauty who it seemed had inherited all the brains of the family.

Kathleen smiled at Kate, and left the kitchen quickly. Like any woman, she understood the need to find out everything you could about your rival and, from what she had seen, this Eve was a rival in more ways than one.

Terry looked both shame-faced and less than impressed. ‘I want to ask you about the girls who left your employ because of Miriam Salter.’

Kate saw him visibly relax, and she knew he had not expected her to ask him something so mundane. Like his wife, he’d obviously thought she would be quizzing him on Patrick’s affair with Eve.

‘Is that all? Why are you interested in them?’ Then Terry was suddenly concerned, and he looked worried as he said, ‘They aren’t dead, are they?’

Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but if you give me their names I can track them down.’

shook her head in mock despair. N stood upgo

He frowned. ‘Ring Jennifer or Simone, they’ll know more than I do, Kate. For feck’s sake, I’ve told you before, I rarely step foot on the premises.’ He was almost whispering now, worried that his wife might be earwigging from outside the door.

‘To be honest, Terry, I would rather you spoke to them. All I want is their names, but I don’t want anyone to know that I am looking into their lives. Believe me, Terry, I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important.’

Terry felt the urgency in her voice and, looking into her eyes, he said softly, ‘Are you sure they aren’t dead?’

‘Not that I know of, but I just want to find them and ask them if they left the house because someone had frightened them. I need to ask them if they’ve ever been hurt by a punter or threatened.’

‘Why not ask the loony woman, she’s the one who talked them into leaving. Why not ask her where they went?’

‘I tried her, but she’s not answering. Anyway, first off, I just want to get the girls’ names, and I want to research them. Their lives, where they come from et cetera. This is a hunch, no more, and it’s probably nothing. But if you could get me the names, and not let on it’s me who is asking after them, I’ll owe you a favour until the day I die.’

Kate had appealed to the criminal side of Terry’s character, and he knew that. He liked the idea of her dragging him into her conspiracy theory, or whatever it was. He liked that she didn’t want to involve anyone, not even her fellow plods.

‘Let me make a call. Drink your coffee. I’ll be back in five.’

Hayley Dart was frightened. She knew that Miriam bringing in that young DC to see her in all her battered glory would only make her husband ten times worse. He had beaten her from the day they had got married and, over the last few weeks, his anger and his frustration had caused the violence to escalate, until he was now almost out of control. Miriam was keeping a vigil by her bedside but, as much as Hayley appreciated her concern, she wished she would just go away and leave her alone. She knew that at any minute, she would be back beside her bed, Bible in one hand and a cross in the other.

Lionel would be on his best behaviour soon. He would lapse into his sorrowful mode and would be like a little child asking her to forgive him and assuring her it would never happen again. He would appear to be mortified at what he was capable of, and he would be terrified of someone he knew finding out about it. It was when he stamped on her face that she had realised he was now totally out of control. In the past, he had always taken great pains to beat her where the bruises wouldn’t show. He had only broken her fingers once before, and that had been explained away by him telling everyone she had shut her hand in the car door. This time, however, he had not been able to control himself, and she had been seriously beaten. She knew that the hospital staff had guessed long ago that she wasn’t really that clumsy. But he was the Chief Super of Grantley nick and he had power. This ensured that they didn’t probe too much into the circumstances of her accidents.

Hayley knew that her jaw would take a long time to heal and that she would be kept in for as long as the nurses could swing it. She appreciated their kindness, but she knew that her husband always held all the cards. He stood there and j { display: block; font-size: 0.75rem; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1em; margin-left: 8em; margin-right: 2em; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } .fmepiva alongs lt doked with everyone, brought the nurses chocolates, filled her bedside with expensive flower arrangements and spoke to her as if they were love’s young dream. She had seen the way women on the ward looked at him, the way they watched as he fussed over her and she knew that they wished their husbands were as attentive. She knew they looked at her and wondered what she had that made her husband still treat her like a new bride all these years later.

He was a bully and a coward, incapable of fighting a man, but more than capable of threatening and intimidating a woman or a child. He spewed filth at her, and she knew that he enjoyed doing it, knew that he was so weak and emotionally feeble that all he could do to make himself feel powerful was to vent his hate on those he knew couldn’t fight back. He had bullied the girls too but, unlike her, they had got away as soon as they could. She was ashamed that she had not stuck up for them, ashamed that she had been too terrified and too weak to defend them from his tyranny. He had a way of making her feel it was all her fault, he made her think that the girls were not good enough because she didn’t know how to raise them properly. He had even bullied his own
mother
. Like her, she had been weak, weak and frightened of the son she had spawned and had eventually come to loathe.

Hayley now knew she had to do something. She knew inside herself that if she stayed with him for much longer, he really would kill her. She was so glad her jaw was broken. It meant she didn’t have to talk to him, didn’t have to play the game, didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t hurting all over. She didn’t have to act like she loved her husband so that people, even strangers, would believe that they were the perfect couple.

Hayley heard the door open and saw Miriam walk to the chair beside the bed. She sat down, her heavy body appearing to collapse in on itself. Miriam always sat with her shoulders hunched up, body hanging forward, she looked as if she would fall off the chair on to the floor at any minute. But she meant well, and Hayley was grateful to her because, all the time Miriam was sitting beside her, Lionel couldn’t get away quick enough. He knew that Miriam was more than aware of what was going on and he also knew that she was a busybody. That scared him because he depended on people thinking well of him, he needed people to think he was a nice man, a good person.

As she saw Miriam smiling at her, she tried her hardest to smile back, but with her jaw wired up it was an uphill struggle.

Kate looked at the computer screen as if it would give her the information she wanted through sheer willpower alone.

Margaret Dole was laughing at her. ‘Go and get a coffee, Kate, I’ll be a while getting the girls’ details.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kate saw Miriam first when she walked into Hayley Dart’s hospital room.

‘Hello, Kate, what a lovely surprise. How are you? Can I get you anything, a coffee, a tea?’

Kate shook her head and said gently, ‘Can I have a quick word with you, Miriam? Only I need your advice about something.’

It seemed almost as if Miriam was about to burst with pride at Kate’s words. ‘You’d like my advice?
My
advice?’

Kate nodded. She was aware that Hayley Dart was observing everything with wary eyes. Lionel had really done a number on the woman, she looked like she had been in an RTA. Her poor hand, minus some nails, looked so painful and raw that it made Kate shudder. The bastard had broken one arm and then he had destroyed her other arm by breaking the fingers and snapping off her nails. She felt a moment’s queasiness as the sheer horror of the woman’s pain and degradation washed over her. It grieved Kate that this man could bully his wife and, unless she found the nerve to speak up, or fight back, he would get away with it, time and time again.

Lionel had known exactly what he was doing, and she knew he had probably taken great pleasure in it. Kate leaned over the bed and said quietly, ‘Listen, Hayley, you can’t go on like this any more. Let us take a few photos of your injuries and I promise that I’ll personally make sure you are safe. But you have to find the strength to walk away from him once and for all.’

‘Thanks, Kate. I think Hayley needs people to let her know she is not alone. She can’t talk because of her poor jaw and both her arms are destroyed so she can’t even communicate with a pen and paper. I swore to her that I would stay here night and day until she was on the mend, and to make sure he doesn’t use the time alone to torment her.’

Kate narrowed her eyes as she said, ‘How long have you known about all this?’

Miriam shrugged as if she didn’t really know. shook her head in mock despair. se along. All eventually

‘Have you known this for a while, Miriam?’

Miriam nodded slightly.

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone? We could have helped.’

Miriam sighed then and she said gently, ‘Now, you know better than that, Kate. If she doesn’t want to report him, then that’s her business. We aren’t here to force people into doing what
we
want, or what we think is right. We’re here to stand by them, even if we don’t think they are making the right choices. I met Hayley a few years ago when she had to drive herself to A&E, dripping blood. Lionel had stabbed her with a kitchen knife, had ripped her arm open. She said she had had an accident and I knew she was lying. I’ve counselled enough battered women in my time to know the truth of a situation like that. So me and her became friends, and Lionel knew that I knew what was going on. But if it’s any consolation, I think she’ll leave him this time. Now he’s taken early retirement, she knows deep down that it will mean it’s open season for him.’

Miriam looked at Hayley then and said loudly, ‘You are going to leave him this time, aren’t you?’

Hayley nodded her head, and Kate saw the scope of the damage that Lionel had inflicted on his wife, and the enormity of it hit her. For all of Miriam’s faults, she was here for the woman, standing over her and making sure that Lionel didn’t get the chance to finish off what he had started. Hayley’s jaw had been completely unhinged, and she would never again be able to chew her food properly or pronounce certain words. She would for ever look odd, her face had lost its natural shape and she would be reminded of her husband’s anger every time she looked in a mirror.