Mulligan's Yard (37 page)

‘I know,’ sighed Margot. ‘I have no chance of achieving a decent marriage, not now.’

Seconds dragged. ‘If you have the child adopted,’ Mona began.

‘Yes,’ replied Margot.

The fire belched and delivered a stream of smoke into the room. ‘Mother hated that fire,’ said Margot absently.

‘I bet she did. We’ve got . . . we had one the same at home.’

‘And now you’re starting a new life, Mona.’

‘I am that. Stopping with Ida till I decide where to go, working at the shop, dressing up nice. Aye, it’s a fresh start.’

‘You’re brave,’ said Margot.

‘So are you,’ came the reply.

A car arrived, pulled up near the front door. ‘Now we’ll get the measure of my backbone,’ Margot said.

‘Aye, and it’s not treacle.’

‘Jelly,’ Margot answered. ‘Jelly, but not quite set.’

Eliza stepped out of the car, brushing the front of her coat before walking towards the door. She paid the driver and stood watching him vaguely as he turned to go back the way
he had come. She was safe now, safe for a while, at least. There would, of course, be more questions, but she was on her own little patch of England now.

Elspeth Moorhead opened the door. ‘Well, you didn’t stop down yon long.’ The housekeeper pulled herself together. ‘Sorry, Miss Eliza, but I were that surprised to see
you—’ The words were cut off as Eliza pushed her way into the house. ‘The luggage is on the drive.’ This sentence she threw over her shoulder.

Elspeth went to fetch her husband. In her opinion, Miss Blinking Eliza Burton-Massey wanted her bum smacking. Hard. With a horsewhip or some such thing.

Eliza strode into the parlour, grinding to a sudden halt when she found herself in the company of Mona Walsh. Margot, white as a sheet, was clinging to the arms of a chair and, it seemed, to the
edge of sanity. ‘Where’s Amy?’ Eliza demanded.

‘Er . . . we thought you were her,’ said Mona weakly.

‘But I am not.’ Eliza removed gloves and scarf.

‘She’s at the shop.’ Mona felt very uncomfortable with the new arrival, yet she could not abandon Margot. ‘First day today,’ Mona added. ‘Mr Mulligan will be
fetching her home.’

‘I see.’ Eliza sat down. ‘Ring for some tea, Margot,’ she commanded.

Margot made no move.

‘I’ll see to it.’ Mona left the room for the safer atmosphere of the kitchen.

The two sisters sat in silence. Margot chewed avidly at a thumbnail, while Eliza leaned back and closed her eyes. She was in something of a mess, but she had no intention of talking to Margot,
who was young, silly and clearly distraught.

Minutes dragged by. Mona brought in the tea, poured, handed out cups and saucers. ‘Course, he’ll be taking Diane and little Joe home, too. Before coming up here, like.’

‘What?’ Eliza raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.

‘Mr Mulligan.’ Mona sat down. ‘Before he brings Amy here, he’ll take the kiddies home to Ida.’

Eliza sipped her tea. ‘So why are you here?’

Mona almost choked. ‘I . . . er . . . I should have started at the shop today, like, only I had to go to the doctor’s, so I never got to the shop and—’

‘Margot and I will pass on your apologies.’

Mona glanced at the younger girl. She could not leave poor Margot to the tender mercies of this cold-blooded creature. ‘I’d sooner see Amy myself, ta.’

‘As you wish.’ Clearly annoyed, Eliza left the room, cup and saucer in one hand, a leather bag in the other.

Margot swallowed audibly. ‘I can’t say anything while Eliza’s here. She’ll just mock me, I’m sure.’

Things were becoming rather complicated for Mona. She wasn’t keen on the dark, so the idea of walking back to the village was not a pleasant one. Also, the unexpected return of Eliza threw
a spanner in the works. ‘We have to get Amy on her own.’

‘But—’

‘Never mind but, Margot. Eliza might well be here tomorrow, then the day after that. It’s got to be done. We’ve spent all day working our way up to it, so . . .’

Another vehicle arrived. They heard Elspeth opening the door, waited for Amy’s voice, heard a different one. Mona reached over and touched Margot’s hand. ‘She’ll not be
long, love. This is her first day and she’ll have been busy.’

‘Where is she?’

Mona shivered involuntarily. ‘That’s Camilla, isn’t it?’

Margot nodded.

What the hell now? wondered Mona. The house was becoming as crowded as Trinity Street station during the Bolton holiday fortnight. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she told Margot,
without conviction.

Margot shrank into the chair. It would definitely not be all right.

‘Me foot’s stuck,’ Jack moaned. ‘Hang on.’ He dragged himself out of a pile of coal. ‘And we’ve come in circles,’ he complained.
‘Back in the bloody coal-hole again.’

‘Enough here for fires all year round in our house,’ grumbled Harry. ‘There’s nowt else for it, Jack, we have to find the kitchen door and bang on it till we get let
out.’

Jack agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Far as I can tell, the one locked down here must be gagged or summat, it’s that quiet. Mind, we can’t have been in all the rooms.’ They had
found a locked door, had clattered their fists against it. Whoever was shut inside must have been bound and gagged.

A thought wandered through Harry’s skull and he caught it as it passed. ‘We don’t know where the kitchen door is, ’cos we never found no stairs. I’d kill for a cup
of water.’

They slid down a wall and sat side by side. ‘Jack?’

‘What?’

‘Kitchen door has to be near the coal-hole. You wouldn’t keep coal in a cellar miles away from the kitchen.’ Harry congratulated himself on his brilliance. ‘Stairs must
be in here, then. At the other side of this pile.’ He waved a hand towards the coal. ‘We have to get past the coal to the other side. So we’ll stick to the edge, like, go round
instead of up.’

‘Right.’ Jack, too, was astounded by his brother’s cleverness.

They shuffled along, hit the end of a wall. ‘It’s a wall inside the walls,’ said Harry. ‘Come this way.’ They walked around a structure built to keep the coal
within its designated space, turning with the wall into a clean walkway. Except for a couple of holes from which coal could be taken, the area was free of clutter. ‘And her up there’ll
bloody kill us, too,’ concluded Harry, as they placed themselves side by side on the bottom stone step.

They sat in gloomy silence for several minutes. Then Jack spoke up. ‘Right, you go and bang on the door.’

‘Why me?’

‘Why not?’ asked Jack. ‘You’re the brains.’

Harry pondered. ‘Let’s hang on a bit, see what happens.’

‘You’re the one what’s thirsty,’ said Jack.

‘Aye, and we’re stopping here for a bit, so shut your cake’ole.’

They sat, shivering on icy stone, a mountain of fuel in front of them. ‘We could happen light a fire,’ suggested Jack.

‘Shurrup,’ snapped Harry.

Jack shut up.

Camilla Smythe, red-faced and breathless, threw open Eliza’s bedroom door. For several seconds, she steadied herself on the jamb, her eyes riveted to the figure inside
the room. So beautiful, so rotten, this woman was. Like the Bible’s whited sepulchre, Eliza Burton-Massey was all shell and no living innards.

The lovely woman, supine on the bed, lifted herself into a sitting position. ‘Camilla?’ Her voice was clear, showed no sign of surprise. She propped herself against pillows, folded
her arms, arranged her face in what was meant to be a sympathetic expression.

The unexpected visitor strode into the room, stopping only when her knees hit the side of the bed. ‘I want the truth. No nonsense, do you hear?’

‘You should not rush about so, dear,’ came the reply. ‘Your colour is very high and—’

‘Shut up!’ screamed Camilla.

Eliza almost smiled. ‘If I shut up, as you so elegantly advocate, then I can tell neither truth nor lies.’

‘You killed him,’ whispered Camilla.

Eliza shrugged. ‘There then is still no reason for me to speak, since your mind is clearly settled on its own version of the event. I was in the house when Rupert had his unfortunate
accident, but I played no part in what happened.’ She paused fractionally. ‘I am very sorry for your loss.’

Camilla’s hands tightened themselves into twin balls of fury. ‘The event? My version of the event? My mother is devastated and my father is permanently drunk. Rupert was not a
particularly good man, but he was still my brother and their son.’

‘He fell,’ Eliza pronounced.

‘He fell from the steps just outside your room.’

‘That is the assumption,’ drawled Eliza. ‘The stairs in those narrow London houses are difficult. They have many turns and twists. Rupert was drunk – the police said so.
He was probably coming up to tell me something.’

‘And you ran away. After the police interviewed you, you rushed back here.’

‘The police know where I am.’ Eliza closed her eyes for a moment. He was tearing at her, spoiling her clothes, forcing his hard mouth on to her lips, grabbing, squeezing flesh,
pressing himself against her body.

‘Eliza?’

‘What?’

Camilla swallowed. ‘Did he . . . assault you?’

‘Did he assault me? Oh, no, of course not.’ The door had burst inward, forced open by the weight of their bodies. The catch on that door had never been good. No other tenants lived
up in the roof. She had been alone. She was alone now. No, he was with her. ‘Please,’ he begged.

‘Never,’ she spat into his face.

He was strong, so strong for a thin man. They fell on to the bed. She could not win, could not defeat his object. Object. She lifted a candlestick from her bedside table and crashed it into his
temple. Heavy, he was so heavy, breathing, alive, asleep. There was very little blood, just a few flecks on her pillow case, and she had changed that later.

‘Eliza?’ demanded Camilla.

Carefully, she pulled herself free of him, washed the candlestick, washed herself, arranged her clothes. She covered his head with the pillowcase to avoid further staining, dragged him inch by
inch from the bed and on to the landing, using her foot to launch him down the stairs. As quick as a flash, she ran back into her room, picked up a book, sat by the window for a few seconds.

Emerging almost immediately from her refuge, Eliza stood, book in hand, a scream forced from her throat. Someone announced that he had broken his neck, the landlady had hysterics, Eliza
descended the stairs and cried prettily.

‘Eliza?’ Camilla was almost screaming.

Elspeth Moorhead dashed in. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

Camilla turned. ‘He’s dead,’ she said clearly. ‘She killed him.’ Her voice rose until it filled the house. ‘Eliza murdered Rupert,’ Camilla shouted.

Elspeth placed an arm around Camilla’s shoulders. ‘Come with me, love.’

Sobbing, Camilla was led from the room.

As she closed the door, Elspeth looked into the beautiful face of Eliza Burton-Massey. The lovely eyes were wide open and, for once, they revealed an expression. Elspeth could not be sure, would
possibly never be sure that what she saw was a gleam of absolute triumph.

She guided poor Camilla down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was time to produce the cup that sometimes failed to cheer.

Upstairs, Eliza lay back on her bed. The few days spent in London had taught her two things: she must never trust a man and she was not made for theatre. Rejection hurt more than any physical
wound. Her singing voice, clear but too thin to travel, had failed to impress at auditions. Her playing, too, had been judged nondescript, and she had been left with one asset – her perfect
body.

Eliza had been offered a position on the day of Rupert’s death. For three pounds a week, she was invited to sit naked and motionless behind a thin layer of voile while men stared at her.
Which brought her back to the first point, the one about never trusting men.

She absolved herself of the sin of murder. No man would ever use her until she agreed to be used. That his intention had been rape was very clear, though he might not have achieved his goal
after drinking so much. But he had annoyed her beyond endurance. She had left him, the theatre and London behind.

What now? Her brain, never still, burrowed its way towards the future. Bolton, grey and particularly dull at this time of year, held little promise for Eliza. A cotton town was not the place for
her. Up here, on the fringe of Pendleton, there was land and more land, but—

But. There was also James Mulligan. He was the sort who could make things happen, a man with plans. If she could capture him, persuade him to hang on to Pendleton Grange, then she would be the
wife of a very rich man. Amy and Margot could keep Caldwell Farm, of course, but the lion’s share should belong with Mulligan and his wife.

Mulligan’s wife. Eliza closed her eyes and, with her problems solved, drifted into restful sleep.

I love you. An arrangement of eight letters in a form that could change lives for ever, a short statement, such a long stride. He could never tell her how he felt, how the pain
was becoming unendurable. ‘Mona was not at the cottage,’ he said, the words limping from a tongue that ached to say so much more. ‘She is at the farm with Margot, I am sure of
that.’

‘Yes.’ Amy’s mind buzzed, while her heart lurched about like an ill-controlled marionette. Trouble, more trouble. It was as if she sat somewhere near the electricity that was
being generated at Pendleton Grange, as though she were being penetrated, invaded by a power that was invisible and, therefore, unavoidable. Margot. Poor, stupid little girl. ‘Camilla’s
there, too,’ she mumbled. ‘That was her van earlier.’

‘Yes.’

She turned and looked at him; his profile was clearly delineated even in this poor light. ‘Your face has softened,’ she whispered, surprised as soon as the words were out.

‘Perhaps I have softened.’

Amy produced a hollow laugh. ‘Still a tough businessman, Mr Mulligan.’

‘I try.’

This was nothing to do with Margot, Amy realized with a jolt. She was in a small metal world, a wheeled container that took people from place to place, and the electricity was in here, in the
car. She turned her face, rubbed a hole in mists of breath and stared out through glass that merely reflected herself. Then she saw him there too, watched as his head moved slowly until he was
watching her. No.