Parallel Life (24 page)

But Jimmy was in a world of his own, a place where reason did not dwell, where fear roamed like a large, black bear in the dead of night. It was fear that made him angry, made him hit her with the flat of his hand, then with his fist. He was beating her, his mother, Lisa and that old double-barrelled woman who probably had the gun. He was lashing out at Sal, too, because she was a lazy slob and she had taken his money for furniture and—

He stopped as suddenly as he had started. Where the hell had that come from? The idea had been to ask about the gun, to get some clothes, to plead and beg for help. Annie was his place of safety, his wife, mother to his kids. ‘Oh, God,' he groaned. He had taken a chance by coming here, but he had blown that chance by losing his rag.

She dropped to the floor like a stone. But there was no blood in a stone, was there? The beige rug was stained, and a dark pool pouring from her head was spreading. ‘Annie? Annie, love?'

She moaned, then lay very still.

Jimmy stood over her, felt the pain in his right hand, knew that he had hurt her badly. ‘I didn't mean it,' he said, tears choking the words as they emerged. What must he do now? He needed an ambulance, but he would be arrested. The children might come down in the morning and find their mother dead on the floor. She could be dead already. He knelt, took her wrist, found a pulse.

He had no idea where to start. People died from head injuries; he could have killed her – or worse. She might be brain damaged. If he went to jail and Annie went crazy, what would happen to Billy and Craig and Daisy? He swallowed hard. A cloth. He needed a cloth to wipe her head so that he might see the extent of the damage he had done. But would he see? If there were injuries inside her head . . .

Minutes ticked by, each beat of time marking his lack of courage, his inability to make a decision, every second emphasizing the cowardice that prevented him from picking up the phone. Not the house phone. No, he wouldn't call from here because a 999 call was always traceable. He would definitely go down for this. Unless she died or woke up too puddled to remember, he would be imprisoned for this attack. Why the hell had he lost control so suddenly? It was living with Sal, he decided. Living with Sal and not being able to find the Birmingham gun. But this was his wife . . .

Overcome more by self-pity than by sorrow for Annie, he wept for a while. She still wasn't moving. The bleeding had slowed. He couldn't leave her here, dared not move her, didn't know where to take her. She was so still. Were it not for the blood, she might have been asleep, lips slightly parted, breathing even. That was a good sign, surely? He had to go, had to abandon her.

Jimmy left the house, closing the door quietly behind him. He jumped into the van, found that his legs were shaking so badly that he kangaroo-ed his way up the road. Phone box. He needed to find a phone. When he eventually called for an ambulance, he used a scarf in case he left prints, because the cops would be round this place like flies once the call had been traced. He spoke through the scarf, gave the address, said he had heard screaming and banging, thought someone had been attacked.

The operator asked for his name. ‘Just a neighbour,' he replied. ‘I don't want to get involved.' The second part was true, anyway. He couldn't afford to be associated with what had happened tonight. She would tell them. Once she woke, she would grass on him. Annie must not die, must not be brain damaged. But he would be punished – it was only a matter of time.

He drove very quickly away from the phone box, taking a chance by breaking speed limits. ‘Get away,' he kept muttering under his breath. ‘Get as far as you can and as quick as you can.'

Back at Sal's, he remained outside for a while. He could hear the television through the walls. She was watching Challenge TV, he decided, probably reruns of
Family Fortunes
. He had lost his family tonight, and he'd never had much of a fortune. No matter what happened from now, he was on his own. Except for Sal.

The phone woke Lisa at just before three in the morning.

She groaned, peeled off her eye-mask and grabbed the offending item from its cradle. ‘Hello?'

It was the police. Mrs Anne Nuttall was in hospital after being discovered injured in her home. They had found Lisa's number in her address book. ‘She came round long enough to tell the nurses not to phone her mother yet. Seems her mother's got angina, so we have to let the old lady sleep till morning. Mrs Nuttall kept telling the hospital staff to phone you, madam. The children are in the house with two constables.'

By now, Lisa was bolt upright and wide-eyed.

‘She wants you to take the children, Mrs Compton-Milne. We don't know where their father is, so they should really go into care for the time being. You are Mrs Nuttall's employer?'

‘Yes.' Lisa swallowed. She was hopeless with children. She'd been hopeless even with her own. But that didn't matter, not now, as this was clearly an emergency. ‘How's Annie? What happened to her?'

The policeman sighed heavily. ‘She's been beaten about the face.'

Lisa, brought to her full senses by the shocking news, was suddenly furious. Annie? Poor little Annie who loved jewellery, worked damned hard and would help just about anyone if she could? ‘Is she very ill?'

‘Sorry, but you'd have to ask the hospital. As far as we know, she's still in theatre.'

Lisa leapt from her bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. She dragged off the nightdress over her head, found a sweater and rushed to the door. Keys. Car keys, house keys. She ran back, grabbed what she needed and dashed down the stairs. It had to be him. Should she phone the hospital now? No, no, Annie wanted her to get to the twins and Daisy, so that was exactly what she would do.

Lisa remembered nothing about the journey. When she reached Annie's terraced cottage, she was greeted by two members of the force, one male, one female. She was led through the narrow hall into the rear kitchen, since the living room was cordoned off as the scene of the crime. Two ashen-faced boys sat at the table. The little girl was asleep on a small, two-seater sofa. ‘God,' breathed Lisa. She looked over her shoulder and saw white-suited SOCOs padding about, shoes covered in fabric.

‘Will Mam die?' asked the nearest boy.

Lisa gave him a weak smile. ‘I shouldn't think so. I need her back at the shop as soon as possible, so she'd better buck up. Can they go upstairs for clothes and toys?' she asked the policewoman.

The woman constable nodded. ‘I'll go with them. You stay with the little girl.'

Lisa, near to tears, sat at the kitchen table. This was very much Annie's house: vibrant curtains, children's paintings framed on the walls, coloured fairy lights surrounding the fireplace. In a glass-fronted cupboard, Annie's collection of dishes was displayed, a wonderful mixture of reds, oranges, greens and blues. She was a treasure, and she was in an operating theatre.

Oh, God. Jimmy had done this. It had to be him. The male constable came in and asked quietly, ‘Have you any idea who did this to her, Mrs Compton-Milne?'

Lisa shook her head. She had to talk to Annie first. If Annie accused him that would be all well and good, but Lisa didn't want to make things any more difficult than they already were. Anyway, it could have been a burglary. She looked round the kitchen, saw little worth taking. ‘Why would anybody do this?' she asked, almost of herself. Then she spoke to the PC. ‘She's just a mum trying to bring up a family as best she can. This is a good woman, officer.'

He patted her shoulder. ‘That's usually the case, Mrs Compton-Milne. Now, can you look after these kids until tomorrow? Then we'll decide what's to be done with them.'

She glared at him. ‘What's to be done is that they will live with me, Constable. I have a grown-up daughter, an excellent housekeeper, plus cleaning staff. Milne's Jewellery has adequate cover. If Annie wants me to care for her children, then I shall.'

A police car followed Lisa home. Officers placed the twins and Daisy in their newly-allocated beds, and the female stayed with them while Lisa woke Harrie. Everything had to be explained all over again, and, by the time Harrie was in possession of all the facts, Lisa was flagging.

The police left. Harrie and her mother sat at the kitchen table.

‘Cocoa?' Harrie asked.

‘No, thanks. Anyway, your gran pinched the last of it – I don't know whether Eileen replaced it.'

‘She did.' It was difficult to find words, but Harrie tried. ‘Mum, she'll be all right.'

Lisa ran a hand through hair that had seen better condition. ‘Phone the hospital, please. Tell them who you are and that we have the twins and Daisy. They should be able to tell you something.'

Harrie was gone for what felt like hours. She could have carried the handset into the kitchen, but she didn't. Beginning to fear the worst, Lisa lowered her head and wept.

‘Mother?'

It was the full title; it wasn't Mum – it was Mother. ‘Yes?'

‘In intensive care, but stable. They had to let some blood out of her head. She woke up once and cursed them, or so the ward sister said.'

Lisa smiled weakly. ‘That's our Annie,' she wept. ‘She'll have told them to eff off and leave her alone.'

‘We'll manage,' promised Harrie.

Lisa dried her tears. ‘We will. Get me a vodka, love. Double. Just a splash of orange.'

‘OK.' Harrie stood up. ‘Dutch courage?'

Lisa almost laughed. ‘Daughter of mine, you have not had the pleasure of Craig and Billy, have you? Neither have I. But according to their mother, who does own a tendency towards exaggeration, those twins are little devils. She was thinking of shaving their heads to look for the three sixes.'

‘Eighteen?'

Lisa shook her head. ‘No. Much worse – thirty-six. Even poor old Gregory Peck never had to deal with so high a score.'

Harrie fetched the vodka. It looked as if life might be about to become interesting, so she poured a dose for herself.

Hermione woke to find a large, long-haired Alsatian staring at her. ‘What big eyes you have, Mr Wolf,' she declared.

Milly was not impressed. She had already been chased half a dozen times round the copse by a couple of smaller humans. They carried less weight than adults, but they could certainly move. Sorely offended by this intrusion into her highly organized life, the young bitch was more than slightly put out by the recent turn of events. ‘Woof,' she said.

‘I know how you feel,' replied Hermione. ‘I feel a bit woof myself – mornings are not easy, you know. MS creeps up on a person during the night and—'

‘Glory be to God, the Martians have landed.'

Hermione closed her eyes. She now had both carers in attendance, and the human variety was the louder of the pair. ‘What now?'

‘Creatures with green heads,' Eileen continued. ‘Running all over the place, they are. I didn't know whether to go for the hills or for the Dublin ferry – it's a nightmare out there.'

‘Help me sit up,' ordered the boss. ‘They'll be from the estate.' Hermione had a habit of blaming everything in the vicinity on the short-sightedness of planners, and this clearly included intruders from other planets. ‘Visitors from outer space are the last thing we need round here, Eileen. We've enough with this German shepherdess.'

‘Hello?'

Two green faces attached to boys in pyjamas appeared in the doorway.

‘Well, we now have a quorum,' said the woman in the bed. ‘Who the dickens are you?'

They replied in unison. It appeared that they were a Billy and a Craig and they wanted to know how the stairlifts worked.

Eileen grabbed the boys by the scruffs of their necks. ‘Where are you from?' she asked. ‘And what on God's good earth are you doing here half naked with green faces? Where's your mother?'

‘In hospital,' replied the one to Eileen's left. ‘And if you rip these pyjamas, she'll kill you. She'll be in a bad mood, anyway, because of the Black & Decker. We got brought here by the police.'

Hermione eyed them up and down. ‘Eileen?'

‘Yes?'

‘Did I miss something in the night? Has Weaver's Warp been taken over by the government as an annexe? I know the prisons are full, but this is ridiculous. They should have taken them to Strangeways or Walton – they must have a spare broom cupboard. Or there's that supposedly secret place in America where they store aliens.'

Eileen dragged the miscreants to the bed. Milly, no longer keen on small boys, went to sit under the window.

‘Is that your dog?' one asked. He removed his mask, then pulled off his brother's facial armour. ‘We're from Bury Road, not space,' he said with the intention of clearing up one small matter. ‘Is it yours?' he asked again.

‘No,' replied Hermione with exaggerated patience. ‘She is not my dog. I am her victim.'

The boys glanced at each other. ‘Why have you got a wheelchair?'

‘Because I am a cripple.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I have MS.'

‘What's MS?' The last question was delivered in stereo.

‘Murder schoolboys,' she replied quickly.

The twins were immediately riveted. They wanted to know how many she'd killed, the manner in which she had dispatched them, and where the bodies were buried. She answered their questions. ‘Too many to count, a variety of methods, and they were cremated by my Irish friend here.'

The boys looked at each other in wonderment. What a find the old lady was. She was lying, of course, but she was a sight more amusing than school teachers and playmates. They asked did she watch
Doctor Who
, what she thought of
Star Trek
, and had she had any operations, because some doctor had drilled a hole in their mother's head with a Black & Decker to let the bad out and make her well.

The old lady glanced quizzically at Eileen, then said she liked Dr Who's scarf and she was in charge of training Daleks for the BBC. Star Trek she judged to be rubbish and how did they know it was a Black & Decker.