A Lesser Evil (26 page)

That noise was the signal for everyone to turn on their lights and spill out on to the street again, many of them shouting abuse and waving fists at number 11.

Alan Muckle had not yet got through the front door, and hearing the noise and commotion he tried to run for it. He was swiftly caught by the man at number 14 who twisted his arm up behind his back and brought him back to be handed to the police.

‘Child killers!’ someone shouted, and suddenly everyone was chanting it, over and over again.

‘If they knew what else they’d done they’d tear them apart with bare hands,’ Fifi exclaimed.

The three children were immediately put into the police car and driven off at speed. As the car turned the corner, someone hurled a brick through the windows of number 11, and the chanting grew louder and uglier.

A Black Maria came screaming down the street. Two policemen jumped out, pushing back the crowd and yelling that anyone stepping over the line would be arrested too.

After what seemed like hours, but was perhaps only ten or fifteen minutes, Molly and Dora were brought out handcuffed and shoved into the Black Maria, quickly followed by Alfie and Mike. The van drove off to screams of abuse, people running behind it, their faces ugly with hatred.

Fifi broke down and sobbed then. All the fears she’d had for Angela the time she intervened before had been justified. So why hadn’t she gone to the police then, or even the social services afterwards, and reported the Muckles? She’d hardly given the poor kid a thought once she knew she was pregnant, and today she’d been sunbathing when just across the road Angela was dying.

‘You are not in any way responsible,’ Dan said, as always quick to pick up on what she was thinking. ‘You couldn’t have done any more than you did.’

They went to bed then, but couldn’t sleep. Fifi wondered what asphyxiation actually meant. She’d heard the word often enough, but did it mean strangling or suffocation? She thought about the clean sheet over the child. Was that some kind of apology? Was Molly in on it all? She had to be; no man could go upstairs and do those hideous things to a seven-year-old without a mother sensing something.

But why kill her? Maybe in a way it was better that they had, for the poor little thing would surely never recover from the rape. Had Angela threatened to tell?

Fifi couldn’t imagine the child doing so. She was too fearful and cowed already. And why didn’t Alfie choose Mary or Joan, the older girls? Mary was already well developed for a thirteen-year-old. Or maybe he’d already done it to them too?

But over and above everything else, Fifi just couldn’t imagine how anyone could kill a child, then calmly take the rest of the family out for the day. What was Alfie intending to do with her when he got home? Bury her in the garden?

She knew Dan was awake too, even though he was pretending otherwise. The arm around her was tense, his whole body felt stiff. She sensed he was angry with himself for thinking that the warning of a good kicking would prevent Alfie from harming Angela again. He was probably dwelling too on what her parents would think about a man who exposed his wife to such dangerous characters.

But Fifi hadn’t got anything left inside her to comfort or reassure Dan. Her head was too full of the horror of what she’d seen that day to make room for anything else.

Chapter Ten

‘Where are you going?’ Fifi asked as Dan got out of bed on Monday morning.

‘I’ve got to go to work,’ he said.

She sat up sharply. ‘You can’t,’ she said in disbelief. ‘Tell me you’re joking?’

They had spent Sunday in a kind of daze, hardly speaking because they didn’t know what to say to each other. They didn’t dare even go out for a walk because they didn’t want anyone questioning them. They silently prepared a roast dinner, but couldn’t eat it. Frank came up, and Miss Diamond later on, both asking if there was anything they could do, but it seemed as if they too had withdrawn into themselves, for they didn’t try to linger or talk.

It was the longest day Fifi had ever known. She felt unable to watch the television or read a book. She was just marking time until she could get back to bed, craving oblivion.

But they barely slept at all, tossing and turning, getting up for cups of tea twice, and it had never crossed Fifi’s mind that Dan would even consider going to work today. Surely he realized this was one time when she really needed him by her side?

Dan sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling on the pants he’d left on the floor the night before, then turned to her.

‘I have to, Fifi,’ he said gently, reaching out to caress her cheek. ‘I’ve only just gone back after two weeks off, that held everyone up. I’ve got a wall to finish so they can start doing the roof. If I don’t go in, it will hold the whole job up again.’

‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing,’ she said coldly, pushing his hand away. ‘You’re not the only bricklayer they’ve got.’

Dan sighed and rubbed his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for days, not just two disturbed nights. ‘No, I’m not the only bricklayer, but I’m the only one who’s already been off for two weeks, and was lucky I wasn’t permanently replaced. If I go in now, with luck when I tell them what’s happened they might send me home. If I don’t show, the boss will be pissed off with me.’

‘It doesn’t matter that I’m pissed off then?’

‘I have to go, sweetheart,’ he said pleadingly, reaching for his shirt. ‘Please don’t make it harder for me.’

‘You just don’t care about me and my feelings,’ Fifi said indignantly, and lay back down with a thump.

‘You know perfectly well that isn’t true,’ he said wearily. ‘The building trade isn’t like the Civil Service, there’s no such thing as sick pay or compassionate leave cos your wife is upset about something. I can’t make anything better for you by just being here, all it means is there will be less money coming in, and I might get fired.’

‘But something might happen, and I’ve got to go and make a statement,’ she argued.

‘Yvette’s over the road, Frank’s downstairs if you need help. Even if I was to stay home and go with you to the police station, they wouldn’t let me sit in with you while you make the statement. You could be in there for hours. What sense is there in me sitting there twiddling my thumbs when I could just be finishing the job everyone’s expecting me to do today?’

‘Oh, go to work,’ Fifi said irritably. ‘Stay and do overtime too! You wouldn’t be any good to me anyway, you haven’t a clue how I feel.’

‘Haven’t I?’ he said, arching one eyebrow. ‘Just because I’m not a bloody psychiatrist doesn’t mean I’m stupid. It’s just a few hours, for goodness’ sake! Go back to sleep now, then go and make your statement. I’ll be back as early as possible.’

Fifi turned her face into the pillow. She could hear him getting dressed, and then he made a cup of tea. She ignored him when he put her cup on the bedside table, and stiffened when he tried to kiss her goodbye.

‘I love you, Fifi,’ she heard him say from the doorway. ‘I’m not doing this because I want to, but because I must.’

It was his slow, heavy step on the stairs that pricked her conscience. He usually bounded down them two at a time, and so it was clear he was troubled at leaving her. One of the reasons she fell in love with him was because he was so uncompromisingly masculine. He saw his role as that of sole provider and protector and he wouldn’t take a day off work even if he had a raging temperature. But although she admired his strength and sense of duty, she still thought that in this case he ought to have put her needs first.

She must have fallen asleep again soon, for the next time she looked at the clock it was after nine. It was another hot day, and it seemed almost obscene that the sun should still be shining when something so awful had happened, but she found she wasn’t cross with Dan any more. He couldn’t make anything better by staying home with her; with or without him the pictures in her head were going to be the same, and perhaps it was wise to keep his boss sweet.

She had a quick bath, put on a plain blue dress and fixed her hair up in a ponytail. She was very pale, and her eyes looked awful, piggy, with dark circles beneath them; they still felt kind of tender from so much crying. But she supposed she’d be crying again once she had to tell everything again at the police station, so there was no point in putting on any mascara.

The interview room at the police station was small, hot and airless, painted a hideous mustard colour, and it stank of stale cigarettes. Detective Inspector Roper had a young policewoman with him to take down her statement, and without any preamble he asked Fifi to start right at the beginning when she first got up on Saturday morning.

Fifi related everything carefully. Now and then Roper would ask her to explain something a little more clearly, who she’d seen or talked to, the exact time of day, and the policewoman wrote it down.

By the time she got to the part when she entered the Muckles’ house and made her way upstairs, it was already noon and so hot she had perspiration running down her face. When they had a break for a cup of tea and for her to go to the lavatory, she was actually glad Dan hadn’t come with her. There really would have been no point in him sitting outside the interview room just waiting for her.

As they resumed the statement and she got to where she opened the door to the room where Angela was, she broke down. It was too much having to go through all that terrible part again. Roper got her a glass of water, and the policewoman comforted her. Roper waited patiently until she’d composed herself before continuing.

But finally it was over, she was given the statement to read herself, and she had to sign it to confirm it was an accurate account of the day’s events.

‘May I go now?’ she asked, very relieved it was over.

‘Just one more thing before you go,’ Roper said. ‘You said Mr Ubley was out all day?’

‘Yes, he went to visit his wife’s grave, and then to see his sister,’ Fifi said.

‘What time did he leave the house?’

Fifi shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, was it straight after he came up with your milk and said you could sit in his garden?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I got washed and dressed and that took some time. He was gone by the time I went down to his garden.’

‘So you didn’t see him walk up the street?’

Fifi thought that a very odd question. ‘No, otherwise I would’ve known when he left, wouldn’t I?’

‘But it was after you saw the Muckles leave?’

‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know,’ she said irritably. ‘He came upstairs with the milk before the Muckles went off, but I don’t know when he left the house. Why are you asking me about him anyway?’

Roper shrugged. ‘In a case like this we have to find out where everyone around was, and at what time, that’s all.’

Fifi couldn’t see why Frank’s movements should interest them. After all, they hadn’t asked her about Eva Price or Mr Helass, who had also been out in the road that morning.

‘Where are the other Muckle children?’ she asked.

‘They’ve been taken to a place of safety,’ Roper said. ‘Don’t you worry your head about them.’

That sounded a little patronizing to Fifi, and she bristled. ‘I just hope you don’t let any of the adults back to their house, they’re likely to be lynched,’ she said tartly.

Roper nodded but made no reply.

‘How did Angela die?’ Fifi blurted out suddenly. ‘Was she strangled?’

‘No.’ He paused as if considering whether to divulge the cause of death or not. ‘Unless something else comes up in her post mortem, we think she was suffocated, probably with a pillow.’

‘Really!’ Fifi said in surprise. ‘Do you know yet what time she died?’

‘Between eight-thirty and ten-thirty a.m.,’ Roper said tersely, as if she had no business to ask.

Fifi wanted to ask a great deal more but didn’t quite dare. ‘What will happen now? Will I have to be a witness in court?’

‘Almost certainly,’ he said. ‘But don’t trouble yourself about that now, a trial is a long way off.’

Fifi thought ‘a trial’ was a very vague statement, almost as if he hadn’t yet decided who had murdered Angela. But then she knew from her work in a solicitors’ office that police and lawyers always hedged their bets and were careful to be seen to be impartial.

‘Thank you for coming in so promptly, Mrs Reynolds,’ Roper said, getting to his feet to signify the interview was at an end. ‘I know this has all been very distressing for you, but do try not to let it prey on your mind. Obviously if you should decide to move away from Dale Street, please let us know your new address so we can contact you.’

It was even hotter outside the police station than it had been inside. Fifi bought a newspaper, then went into a café for a cold drink. As she flicked through the daily paper a headline on the second page caught her eye: ‘Child murdered in Kennington’. Her stomach lurched; she hadn’t expected it to be in a national newspaper.

The report said very little, just giving Angela’s name and age, and stating that her body was discovered by a neighbour during yesterday afternoon, and that the child’s parents were being held for questioning.

Fifi guessed that at the time the paper went to press, that was all the information available. But by now journalists would be sniffing around, and there would be dozens of people only too willing to tell them everything they knew about the Muckles, and indeed which neighbour found Angela.

She wasn’t concerned so much that reporters might pester her, she could always refuse to say anything. But they might name her, and her parents might see it. She could just imagine what her mother would say. ‘This is
his
fault. He took my daughter to live in a place where that sort of thing goes on!’

No one would be able to convince Clara Brown that ‘that sort of thing’ could happen anywhere.

Dan did come home early, bringing with him some ham and salad stuff for their tea. After a quick bath he prepared the meal and suggested they went out for a drink later, just for a change of scene.

He didn’t apologize further about going to work, nor did he ask her much about making her statement. Fifi wanted him to, she needed some kind of outlet for her feelings, but without some prompting from him she felt unable to begin. He wasn’t at all sulky, just quiet, and after they’d eaten the salad and cleared away and she said she thought they ought to stay in, he didn’t argue, but began tinkering with an old clock he’d found in a junk shop.