The Disenchanted Widow (28 page)

Lorcan did not doubt it for a moment.

Chapter thirty-two

T
he holding cell was an airless box with one tiny window latticed by iron bars. Bessie stood looking up at it now, wondering what had brought her to this sorry pass and idly speculating on why iron bars were needed on a window so tiny. Maybe if a leprechaun got arrested—a very strong one—he could wrestle his way through it. But she hadn’t seen many of those little green men running about the locality.

She gazed down at the wooden bench that doubled as a bed and, even though her head was throbbing and her feet ached, resisted the urge to sit down. Sitting down would mean giving in to the smarmy bastard who’d arrested her. The cheek of him! Interrupting her bath of Yardley bubbles and tumbler of Erin Go Bragh single malt—an extra-large one at that. Compensation for having been refused entry to the bingo and missing out on a possible grand. What she couldn’t have done with
that
.

She’d worked up an elaborate fantasy as she lay soaking, eyes closed against the steam, face caked in a mudpack mask. A thousand pounds could have taken her all the way to Amerikay. Sod having to earn it from Cassidy and Uncle Bert. No begging from Joan, either, come to that.

New York. The Waldorf Astoria. She’d read a feature on it once, in
Woman’s Own
. A job there not only would make her pots of money but would improve her chances of netting some rich old codger just a breath away from Satan’s junkyard. Then she really could do a Mrs. Lesley Lloyd-Peacock. Swan home in her finery, a mink stole draped casually over one shoulder, diamond choker agleam, stilettos as thin as crochet hooks. Oh, the sheer, sweet joy of it all!

She’d just been summoning forth the envious look on her sister’s face when there came three thunderous knocks on the front door. Seconds later, a breathless Herkie announcing, “Two peelers at the door, Ma!”

At first she thought he was joking. But a gruff cough from downstairs disabused her of that notion. Several minutes later—irked by the intrusion and not a little disconcerted—she found herself confronting Oliver Hardy and his sidekick in her nightgown and slippers, with an air of phony confidence and a painted-on smile.

They wouldn’t tell her anything until she produced identification. That’s when reality kicked in. She remembered that Elizabeth Halstone was not the name on her passport and driver’s license.

They waited while she went upstairs and feigned a search.

“I’m really sorry; I just can’t find it now. Moving house…you know how it is.”

“In that case, you’ll need to get dressed and come down the station, Mrs. Hailstone,” the fat officer said with a conceited smirk. “We have reason to believe ye might-a been party to a robbery this evenin’.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Even so, we’ll need a full statement of your movements earlier on. And the only way that can be done is down the station. So, get yerself dressed. And you, too, sonny.”

Now here she was in the bloody cell. They’d put Herkie in another room with a pile of tarnished building blocks and a can of Fanta. She worried how he was doing and hoped he hadn’t pitched the blocks out the window from boredom. It would only give Fatso and his pal more ammunition to view her as a scarlet woman—and unfit mother.

Then it dawned on her.
Jesus, what if they search my handbag?
Her precious passport and driver’s license—she kept the one inside the other—were in an inner pocket. Why hadn’t she tossed them out in the bedroom before leaving? Why-o-why-o-why? God! What now? She fumbled in the bag. There was only one way out of it. She’d slip them into her girdle. As far as she could see there were no policewomen in the small station. That meant they wouldn’t be able to do a body search.

She found the inner pocket and fumbled in it.

What!

The documents were not in the bag.

She paced the floor.
Think! Think!
The last time she’d seen the documents was the morning they left Belfast. She’d checked her handbag before the Dentist showed up, to make sure. They were definitely
in the bag
.

She’d taken only the one handbag. The roomiest one she owned. She pulled out the inner lining of the pocket. A year’s accumulation of lint fluttered out onto the floor.

Her mind started churning a riot of frightful outcomes. What if she’d dropped them at the parochial house? If Father Cassidy were to find them, he’d see she’d been lying about her identity and shop her to the cops. Then he really would think she was guilty.

She tried not to panic. Decided to sit down after all. It was essential not to show these bastards how scared she was. An innocent person would not be scared. And she
was
innocent. She hadn’t stolen the bloody bingo money.

The thought reassured her a bit. She needed another cigarette. She was about to light one when footsteps in the corridor and the jingle-jangle of keys changed her mind. Stan Laurel stood in the doorway.

“If you’d like to come this way, Mrs. Hal-Halstone. We need to interview you now.”

He led her down a corridor and into a sparsely furnished room. Sergeant Ranfurley was already seated at the table, his pudgy fingers wrestling with the keys on a tape recorder. The room reeked of mildew and stale sweat.

“Would ye mind sittin’ down, Mrs. Hailstone,” the sergeant said, looking Bessie over as a chef would a juicy joint, carving knife at the ready.

Bessie remained standing, defiant.

“Now, the sooner ye sit down and cooperate, the sooner you and that wee boy of yours will get home tae your beds.” She found his sinister, flat South-Derry accent unnerving. “Not unless ye’d prefer to spend the night in that wee cell ye’ve just come outta. Now, what’s it tae be?”

Ranfurley nodded to Johnston. The constable dutifully pulled out a chair for the widow before taking up position by the door.

With a pained reluctance Bessie sat. The tape recorder was switched on.

“Saturday, May the nineteenth. Time…” Ranfurley shot a cuff to reveal a watch face the size of a frying pan. “Ten-o-five p.m. Sergeant Ranfurley and Constable Johnston. Suspect’s name: Elizabeth Hailstone.”

“
Hal
stone,” Bessie corrected.

“Beggin’ yer pardon. Suspect’s name: Elizabeth Hal-stone. Now, Mrs.
H-a-a-l
-stone, what brings you tae these parts, and when exactly did ye arrive here?”

“Work! Three weeks ago.”

“No work for ye in Belfast?”

“No.”

“What sort of work d’ye do?”

“I’m a qualified cook.” She had an unimpressive O-level pass in what was grandly referred to as Home Economics. Writing your name correctly at the top of the exam paper was usually enough to guarantee a pass. Still, her proud mother had framed it, since it was the only qualification ever gained in four generations of dunderhead Halstones.

“Place of work?”

Bessie faltered, about to say, “My Lovely Buns,” but checked herself in time. “Just a bread shop,” she said, “on the Antrim Road.”

“Address?”

“Number forty-six,” she lied.

“Are ye gettin’ this, Constable?” Ranfurley turned his head in Johnston’s direction. On seeing his assistant standing with hands by his sides and staring blankly, he let out a roar that made the filing cabinets rattle. “What the blazes are ye doin’ there? Where’s yer notebook, man?”

“But we’re taping it, sarge.”

A pause. The sergeant looked from Johnston to the purring recorder. He reddened. “So we are.” He shifted his eyes to Bessie’s bosom. “Good at the floury baps, are ye?”

“There’s a lot more to cooking than baking baps, officer.”

“If ye say so.” Vexed. “Now: your last address.”

Bessie hesitated.

“No point in givin’ us a false one, Mrs. Halstone; we’ll be runnin’ a check. Givin’ false information to the police is an offense under section four of the—”

“Ten Brookvale, Antrim Road,” she said, giving a false one anyway.

“Husband’s name?”

Bessie hesitated. There was a picture of the chief constable, Sir John Hermon, on the wall opposite.

“Jack Hyman.” She had it out before realizing she should have used her own surname.

Ranfurley’s Neanderthal brows puckered in surprise.

“My husband was killed in a car accident a month ago. Halstone is my maiden name.”

That bit was true.

“I see.” The sergeant sat back on his chair. It groaned alarmingly. He stuck his thumbs in his lapels, his fat neck ballooning toadlike above the tight-fitting collar. “Sorry to hear about the husband,” he said, with all the sincerity of a politician on polling day, “but gettin’ rid of his name so quick after the event would indicate to me that there was no love lost between the pair of ye.”

“He was an alcoholic. I wanted to make a fresh start.”

The sergeant released the thumbs from his lapels and sat forward. The chair let out a squeak of relief. His big hands thumped heavily on the table. “A fresh start!” His small eyes bulged with menace. He twisted the wedding ring on his left hand.

Bessie tried to imagine his wife; she’d be a nervous wreck and have mousy hair, and not speak unless spoken to.

“Now, what I’m wonderin’ is why would a recently widowed wommin from the big city of Belfast leave her home—a home that’s now free of the dhrink-sodden oul’ boy and, for that very reason, a more peaceful place than ever before—leave her friends, assumin’ that you’ve made a few in yer life so far, and relatives, not forgetting paid employment, to dhrive all the way to the wee village of Tailorstown, which, in a city wommin’s eyes like yours, is in the back end of nowhere—”

Bessie thought of the unpaid bills, the overdue rent, the untaxed car. Of Packie’s IRA connections, the robbery, and the psychopathic Dentist. She took a hankie from her bag and dabbed at her nose.

“—a place she’s never visited before,” Ranfurley continued, “and apply for a job with yer man the priest, and decide tae stay?”

“It’s hardly a crime to want to start over.”

“Aye, but maybe now it was a crime that made ye
want
till start over in the first place! A crime that ye’re runnin’ away from.” A sneer tugged at the corners of his mouth. His scathing gaze held her fast. Bessie’s fear mounted. But she knew her rights.

“I want a solicitor,” she ventured, with an evenness that masked her panic. Her eyes were on his big, meaty fists. She saw them raised above his cowering wife.

Snap!

Ranfurley had hit the recorder button. Things were on the turn. The air crackled. He thrust back the chair and stood up.

“Now, you listen tae me, ye Taig trollop.” His stance was menacing, hands splayed on the tabletop. “You’ll not ‘solicitor’
me
. Who d’ye think you’re talkin’ to? Eh?”

Bessie wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of him and make a run for it. Her eyes flicked to the door. Constable Johnston looked anxious. But she knew Ranfurley’s game. He was trying to provoke her. Insulting a police officer was a punishable offense. One that no doubt would land her back in the slammer for the night. She had no intention of letting that happen. No intention of giving this bully the satisfaction.

“Eh? I’m waitin’, ye lyin’ trollop.”

Bessie looked down at the table as rage and calm fought for mastery in her. Ranfurley was the Dentist in another guise. A dangerous bastard. She visualized Herkie, tired and bored in the waiting room, itching to go home.

“I’m waitin’, bitch. Who d’ye think you’re talkin’ to?” His fist knocked the tape recorder to the floor. “And
look
at me when I’m bloody speakin’ tae you.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m talking to a member of the RUC.”

“Sir!”

“Sir.”

“That’s more like it. You’re all the same, you goddamned Taigs, gettin’ above yerselves. Damned right: I’m an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and you better start showin’ some respect or I’ll have ye banged up. Solicitor, indeed.” He kicked the tape recorder in Johnston’s direction and the constable jumped. “So much for recordin’ this whore’s lies, eh, Johnston?”

“Y-y-yes sir.”

Ranfurley sat down again and leaned chummily toward her.

“Now here’s the thing, Mrs. Hyman, Halston, or whatever ye call yourself. Mr. Lorcan Strong was robbed this evening. He was carrying a bag with the takings from the bingo. A substantial sum of money, I might add. Some IRA bastard and his doxy mugged him. But here’s the best bit. The doxy had a Belfast accent—just like yours. And he would know, a clever man like him. Said he’s spoken with ye on two occasions.”

He leaned back in the chair again, waiting for a response.

Bessie sat twisting a tissue in her lap, trying not to cry. She’d cried enough at the hands of lesser men: her father, the husband, the Dentist. Now Ranfurley was stepping up to join that ignoble company.

The silence in the room mocked her thoughts. In the corridor a door clanged shut. She thought again of Herkie, bored and helpless behind the door of the dayroom. A fat tear—a solitary, fat, faithless tear—began a traitorous journey down her cheek.

“Ye don’t deny ye were speakin’ to him on two occasions then?”

“No.”

“Sounds like an admission of guilt tae me. I hear you went tae the bingo and were a bit miffed when ye couldn’t get a ticket. Puttin’ two and two together, it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes tae figure out what you and yer fancy man did next—”

“I lost my husband a few weeks ago, sir.”

“So ye did. But something tells me that it wouldn’t take long for a doxy like you to get herself hitched again to some unfortunate scoundrel.” He laughed, moving his big head from side to side like a tethered bull in a market stall.

“Now, ’cos I’m a reasonable man”—the chummy tone again—“I’m gonna let you go home now. And ye may thank that wee boy of yours. ’Cos it’s him I’m thinking of. We’ll be keepin’ a very close eye on you. Ye haven’t seen the last of us—oh, no, not by a long shot, missus. And if ye don’t watch your step, I’ll be alertin’ Social Services. From where I’m sittin’, that wee boy should be in school, would be better off in a foster home than livin’ with the likes of you.” She just about found the strength to walk from the room. The thought of losing Herkie was intolerable. No one had ever threatened her with that before. Not throughout all the years of heartache with Packie. Not even when he’d put her in hospital with two black eyes and a broken jaw. Tears welled up again.