The Ladykiller (78 page)

He stared at Willy. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘Try me.’

Edith looked down at George’s body and felt the sting of tears.

‘Is this your brother, ma’am?’ The policeman’s voice was low and reassuring.

She nodded.

She looked at the man as he gestured to the mortuary assistant to cover George’s face again. Suddenly she felt very old and frightened.

‘Ma’am, I have some more distressing news for you.’

‘What? What could be worse than this?’

‘We have been notified by the British police that your brother had murdered seven people, including his own wife and a young child. It seems the British cops were waiting for him to return to Britain to arrest him.’

Edith realised she had known this inside all along. She still read the English papers, knew all about this Grantley Ripper. Deep down in her heart she had known it was her brother. She looked into the policeman’s sympathetic face.

‘Joss, please take me home.’

He pulled himself wearily from his seat and took his wife’s arm. In their car Edith spoke.

‘I know what George did was wrong and I’ll regret his coming here for the rest of my life. But, Joss, only I know why he was like he was. And knowing what I know, all I can do is pity him.’

Her husband said nothing.

If the whore who had done it would come forward, Joss would shake her by the hand.

Joseph Markham and his wife watched the news in stunned silence. Both looked over to Nancy and saw that her face was grey and drawn.

Lily was the first of the three to come to herself. ‘How will we ever live this down?’ she shrieked. ‘Your brother, the Grantley Ripper!’

‘Oh, be quiet, Lily. George was always a stupid fool. All my children were useless,’ snapped Nancy. ‘Look at him.’ She flicked her head at Joseph. ‘He sits there like a big lummock. His brother is a murdering rapist and he just sits there. At least George had some life in him.’

‘We’ll have to sell the house, I can’t live here now. The neighbours will be laughing up their sleeves. Every time we leave the house people will be pointing at us, talking about us.’

‘I knew there was something wrong with George, I told the policeman that the other day. My sons are spineless nobodies. All my children are. Not one of them inherited a thing from me. They’re all like their father. He was just the same.’

Joseph Markham listened to his wife’s high-pitched voice and his mother’s deep-throated tirade and finally, after thirty years, he spoke up.

‘SHUT UP, THE PAIR OF YOU!’

Nancy and Lily both stared at him in shock.

‘You,’ he pointed to his mother, ‘are going in to that home, first thing in the morning. I can’t wait another week to get shot of you.’

She opened her mouth to speak and Joseph raised his hand menacingly.

‘I told you to shut up, woman.’

His wife’s mouth dropped open.

‘The house is being sold, Lily, and you will get half the money. I am buying myself a flat and neither of you two will have the address. I’ve spent all my life listening; first to you, Mother, then to Lily, and finally to the blasted pair of you. I must be the only man in Christendom nagged in stereo.

‘Well, the buck stops here. George murdered all those people, including Elaine, and neither of you two even care. You’re worried about the neighbours. Fuck the neighbours! I couldn’t care less about them. My brother is dead, six women and a child have been murdered by him. So why don’t you two just shut your bloody stupid mouths up and think about other people for once?’

He began to walk from the room.

‘Where are you going?’ Lily’s voice was frightened.

‘Where the hell do you think? I’m going to phone poor Edith. She must be in a terrible state. Then I’m going to get my coat and go to a hotel. I’ll be back tomorrow to arrange for her to be put away - as far away as possible, I might add - and to sort this lot.’ He gestured around him with his hands.

Ten minutes later, they heard his car splutter to life and drive away.

‘This is all your fault!’ Lily turned on her mother-in-law.

‘Why don’t you piss off?’ Nancy’s voice was bored-sounding.

Lily pursed her lips. There had been too much swearing tonight for her liking. Just as she and Joseph were getting on a good footing, this had to happen!

As he drove along Joseph tried to piece together the night’s events in his mind.

George had finally gone over the top. Why hadn’t anyone noticed? He had been left too much to his own devices, Joseph supposed. They rarely visited except for Christmas. He was George’s elder brother and should have looked out for him more.

Well, his mother had gone too far this time. He must have been mad to put up with her all these years. His threat to Lily was shallow, he wouldn’t leave her, but he had a sneaky feeling that letting her think he would might augur better for their future.

Edith was in a terrible state, she was barely coherent. And deep down inside Edith knew, as he did, that it was their mother’s fault. He remembered shamefully how they had held George down while he was a child. How she had gradually strangled every natural instinct in them.

Joseph pulled the car over and sat for a few minutes. His hands were shaking on the steering wheel.

Into his mind came a picture of George when he was a small boy, in his National Health glasses and long grey socks. They had been playing hide and seek while their mother was out working and George was laughing his head off. Real, robust, childish laughter. Joseph remembered it clearly because it had happened so rarely.

The Markowitz children had had nothing to laugh about most of the time.

Joseph wept.

He wept for the George he had known. The little boy he should have protected more. The little boy who used to cry every night, who was frightened of his mother and yet loved her so much. No matter what she did to him.

Patrick Kelly slept heavily that night, a long blissful sleep, the first since his daughter had been murdered.

His last thought as he drifted off was of Kate. He wished she was beside him, but after what she had said, he knew the gulf between them was too wide.

Kate Burrows was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Tomorrow he would get out his little black book. Go back to the women who understood him. Who wanted nothing more from him than a good time.

He didn’t need Kate Burrows. She was a forty-year-old woman while he could have any gorgeous girl he wanted. And have them he would. He would become a playboy again.

He smiled to himself at the thought. That would please Willy. He had always enjoyed observing his boss’s affairs.

Kate Burrows could get stuffed.

Happy he had sorted his life out, Patrick slept.

Kate lay awake, her mind in a turmoil, her body aching to be touched. To be comforted by Patrick Kelly’s lovemaking.

Chapter Thirty-Two

4 March 1990

Kate was in the airport lounge watching Lizzy and her mother checking in for their flight. She stood by as their baggage was tagged and taken from them. A feeling of desolation assailed her. She would be alone for six weeks.

All she had was her work, and she was not happy with that, she admitted to herself. She wished she was getting on the plane with them. That she was going somewhere where she could forget the last few months.

Lizzy and Evelyn approached her. Kate watched the tall slim girl, who caught more than a few male eyes, and the stooped little woman beside her.

When had her mother developed a stoop? When had she become old?

She walked with them towards passport control, chatting about nothing. She was dreading saying goodbye, but knew that they had to go. Her mother would see her other child and the grandchildren whom she had only seen in photos and spoken to rarely, when funds allowed. She still had all their letters and had chronicled their ages from lovingly preserved school photos.

Dear Grandma . . . Now she would see them for herself. Kate was glad for her really. It was only selfishness that wanted her to stay at home.

They were at passport control now. Kate pulled her mother into her arms and kissed her hard.

‘Have a good time, Mum. Look after my baby for me.’

Evelyn looked into Kate’s face and said seriously, ‘Haven’t I always? You look after yourself.’

Lizzy was crying and Kate smiled at her, a single tear escaping from the corner of her own eye.

‘Goodbye, baby.’

Lizzy threw herself into her mother’s arms and hugged her.

‘Oh, Mum, I wish you were coming with us. Will you be all right on your own?’

Kate kissed her again.

‘You just go and have a good time. Enjoy it. Before you know it, you’ll be back home.’

Evelyn stroked Kate’s face. ‘You ring that Patrick Kelly, you hear?’

‘Oh, Mum! Get yourselves through and send me a card from Singapore.’

‘It was him who paid for this, you know. I didn’t have any money at all. If I had done, I’d have spent it years ago. You know that. Did you know we’re going first class? He did this to try and help you when Lizzy was bad.’

Kate stared at her mother for a few seconds then Evelyn took Lizzy’s arm and they walked through to the departure lounge.

Kate’s head was whirling. Patrick had paid for the holiday.

It was the final humiliation. She had accused him of everything heinous under the sun and he had spent a fortune on airplane tickets and hotels for her mother and child.

Oh, the generosity of him. The concern for her. And she had taken what he had offered and thrown it back in his face.

She watched them till they were out of sight, then drove home to her empty house. As she put her key in the lock she felt it was mocking her.

At five fifty-five she poured herself the first drink. At seven she was in a drunken sleep.

Oprah Winfrey stared into the camera and smiled. Her studio audience was finishing its applause and the opening credits had been rolled.

‘Thank you.’ She looked around at her audience. ‘Five weeks ago in Windermere, Florida, a man attacked a prostitute. The woman, Ms Linette Du Bouverie, fought the man off, killing him. She left the scene of the crime because she was frightened of the consequences. She was later identified by a young man who worked at the hotel who had delivered a bottle of Jim Beam to the room. It turned out that Ms Du Bouverie had in fact killed a vicious serial killer from England. Tonight we hear from women who have killed the men who attacked them. Let us start by giving a big hand to Linette Du Bouverie.’

The audience went wild.

Linette walked out on to the stage and smiled. She was pretty and petite and looked like everybody’s next-door neighbour.

Elvis watched her smile at the camera and laughed out loud. That Linette was some bad dude.

Kate came home from work and made herself a coffee. In the month that Lizzy and her mother had been away, her routine had not changed at all. The empty house seemed to mock her and she put the radio on as she did every night to fill up the hollowness with sound. What she would not give to have Lizzy’s music blaring out now!

The phone rang and she picked it up. It was Amanda Dawkins.

‘Hello, love.’

‘I wondered if it was all right if me and Phil popped round tonight, Kate? We’ve got a great video and a bottle of wine.’

She smiled into the phone.

Amanda did this every so often, came around with her boyfriend as if she knew that Kate was lonely and needed a bit of company.

‘That would be lovely, Amanda, as long as you’re sure you haven’t got anything better to do?’

‘We’ll see you about half past eight.’

‘What’s the video?’

‘
Beaches
with Bette Midler.’

‘I bet Phil didn’t pick that one!’

‘You guessed exactly right! If he’d have chosen it, we would have watched
Nightmare on Elm Street
or
Hallowe’en
!’

‘See you later then.’

She had a sandwich and went upstairs for a bath.

Patrick Kelly glanced at the girl beside him. Leona had the biggest blue eyes he had ever seen in his life, and the biggest breasts. She faced him and smiled, displaying white teeth. ‘Would you like another glass of wine?’

‘Please.’

She had a little lisp that had sounded enchanting when he first met her. Now it was beginning to get on his nerves.

Leona was one of a series of women he had been dating since his break up with Kate. Patrick was hoping against hope that one of the bevy of lovelies would take his mind off her once and for all. He had hoped Leona would be the one to pull him out of himself.

He poured her a glass of white wine. It was cheap Liebfraumilch. There was no way he was going to give her expensive wine. She drank it down in two gulps. He watched her do it, leaving a thick red line on the rim of the glass.

‘How old are you, Leona?’

‘Twenty-one, why?’

‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

Kelly sipped his own wine and racked his brains for something to talk about.

Leona watched his troubled face. This was their third date and he hadn’t tried it on once. This was a novelty to Leona and she wasn’t sure if she was glad or not. He was a damn’ sight better looking than most of the men she dated.