The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery) Page 15

  ‘You were a lot younger when you worked for Mickey, and vulnerable in various ways,’ Rina said thoughtfully.

  ‘Hello! Wake up and smell Rina’s coffee! You’re being suckered into all this stuff, don’t you see! Mickey didn’t kill Molly. Ask the other girls! I’ll bet they’ll say the same as me.’ There was an awkward silence. How could she defend the old pervert, except in denial?

  ‘We’ve asked them. Not Molly or Lucy. Significantly, they’re not around to ask. Fiona won’t hear a word against him. She hasn’t worked for him long of course. But one girl has accused Spence of sexually abuse.’

  ‘What! I don’t believe it!’ Erica was really shocked now.

  ‘Spence is dead, Erica,’ said Sally. ‘You don’t need to keep his secrets.’

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ said Rina, ‘you can talk about it.’

  ‘This is insane! Who is it, this girl who’s accused Mickey? Oh right, of course, you won’t say. Next thing it’ll be all over the papers. Christ, can’t you believe me, Mickey never laid a finger on me, or Lucy, I’m sure I’d have known.’

  ‘You don’t have to defend him, Erica,’ said Will.

  ‘He’s dead, and seems to have no close family living. His reputation can’t hurt him now.’

  ‘Will no-one listen to me?’ Erica’s voice rose almost to a squeak, she registered with fury. Talk about the mouse that roared. ‘If Mickey didn’t do it, and I don’t believe he did, someone else killed Molly. They might be still around now! Keeping Lucy away from her son. They might have killed Mickey, or Lucy! Who accused Mickey?’

  ‘We can’t tell you that, Erica,’ Sally said. ‘We’ve already had complaints from the Seatons about your interference.’

  ‘In that case, I think you’d better go.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Will pompously. ‘Let us know if you hear anything from Lucy. And please stay away from Stony Point. If you’re right, you might be putting yourself in danger. If we’re right, there’s no need to get involved any further.’

  They left.

  ‘Thanks for your ‘support’ back there.’ Erica was ironic.

  ‘If you’re sure he never…’

  ‘Absolutely sure.’

  ‘Fancy coming round tonight for a few drinks…?’

  ‘No thanks Rina. Too much to do.’ She was going back to Stony Point, sod Will Bennett and his henchpersons, to find out more about Molly. Lucy needed her, wherever she was. This time, she wasn’t going to let her down.

  17

  Wednesday, 2nd July

  Stonehead

  Had Mickey been a pervert? Had he targeted other girls? Had she and Lucy, seemingly united in those golden summers, been divided by a horrible secret, had she been blind to Lucy being abused?

  After all, it gave Molly a motive for running away; to escape abuse, which her parents might not believe of a long- term family friend and old school chum. It gave Mickey a motive to kill her, if she’d decided to tell. It even fitted with Lucy’s sudden alienation from Erica, and her change of ambition; and her disappearance, after visiting Stony Point with Toby; perhaps she feared for him, and that’s why she’d asked his dad to keep him. No, no, she wasn’t going to be disloyal to Mickey as she had been to Lucy …

  Outside the pub, the footbridge was still sealed off. The picnic tables were packed. Death was good for business. She saw a boat laden with people chugging down the harbour. The distorted trumpeting of an amplified voice reached her ears. All on board looked at the now floating ‘Emily’; the boat listed as they leaned out to see where Mickey’s poor body had been found. Then they looked up towards Stony Point and the rotting spot. No doubt some local making a few quid showing these ghouls where it all happened.

  Repelled and angry, Erica headed up the street to Julie’s. Could she have killed Molly, and Mickey? Or could Paul?

  ‘I brought you some remedies.’ Erica gave Julie a tiny envelope and an instruction leaflet.

  ‘Thanks,’ Julie said listlessly. Tears rolled silently down her face.

  ‘Poor Molly! We’ve not told her gran, Lily, about it. She’d not understand. It’s awful, every time I go in her room, I see Molly’s picture, and it’s all I can do not to howl. All Lily goes on about is Toby’s green rabbit.’ Julie busied herself with the teabags.

  ‘I suppose it might be better for people to know what happened to her, rather than live in hope,’ ventured Erica.

  ‘Better for her family, yes, probably. But for us…’ She put two mugs of tea on the table with a bottle of milk. No mention of biscuits, Erica noticed. Perversely, she felt a sudden longing for a Penguin.

  Julie went on. ‘I wondered if I could have the photos back. It’s all I have of Molly.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Erica fished the photos out of her backpack. Julie looked down at the two happy young girls.

  ‘I can’t believe Molly never left. All these years, I’ve been thinking of her as a woman my age, but more glamorous, slim, successful. Thinking Paul was wishing he’d married her. Thinking one day, she’d come back, sneering at this house, my marriage, my kids. That she’d take Paul from me with a snap of her fingers.’

  She drained her mug of tea. ‘And now I find out she’s been here all along. Dead. She’s just a poor, dead little girl. The same age more or less as my Stacey. God knows what Molly must have gone through, with that pervert Spence at the Point, that was why she ran away, you know. And then he killed her, maybe Paul and I were holding hands at the pictures or something, while she was being murdered. All that stuff at the party, about having a new man, was just bravado. She did have a feverish look. She must have been scared, and lost.’

  The words poured out of Julie like the regurgitation of a bulimic. This poor woman had let envy of a dead girl poison her marriage for a quarter century. She stopped short. ‘Oh, of course, you found her didn’t you! It must have been a terrible shock.’

  ‘Er, Julie,’ Erica finished her tea. ‘You seem convinced Mickey was the killer. And a pervert.’

  ‘The whole village is convinced. If I’d known what was going on, I’d have killed the bastard myself. Thrown him off the bridge to the rats. I hope he was still alive when they gnawed his face off!’

  Erica was startled by this violence. But before she could question Julie further, Julie went on. ‘I blame myself. I should have realised. But he was always there, you know, and I’ve not got the education of the Seatons. I’ve always thought the best of folk. At least it explains a lot of things. Her always underachieving at school, drinking, smoking, underage sex, aggressive attitude. I’ve read about it in magazines, all symptoms of abuse and lowered self-esteem.’

  ‘I thought Molly was very successful at school,’ Erica put in, puzzled.

  ‘I’m not talking about Molly! Anyway I’ve said too much. The police said … thanks for the photos anyrate, I’ve got to get on with the dinner.’

  Erica was positively bustled down the hall out of the door. She emerged into the light both literally and metaphorically. Stacey! Stacey Reed was Mickey’s accuser! She was sure of it. What she knew of Stacey made her think she might be lying for ignoble motives; but it also fitted, as Julie said, with the picture of a traumatised girl seeking attention and oblivion.

  Erica went into the bar. As she blinked at the sudden darkness, she felt rather than heard a ripple of whispering go round the room. She could sense the attention like fluff tickling her face.

  Gil boomed in a voice which sounded heartier than was normal, ‘Erica! Evening pet! What can I get you?’

  ‘Er…’

  ‘S’alright, Dad, I’ll take Erica out the back,’ Fiona appeared through a door marked PRIVATE. She ushered Erica through to a small conservatory. It was within the high walls of the pub yard, so no view was visible except for walls, tubs of flowers, and spare picnic tables. Erica sat down in a basket chair and Fiona gave her a diet Coke.

  ‘Sorry, it’s fucking disgusting in there, horrible old pervs creeping me out twenty-four seven. I
could kill Dad, encouraging them, he says it’s good for trade. I thought you’d rather not be in there once word got round you’re the one who found Molly and so on.’

  Fiona took a swig of her Red Bull. ‘Those remedies you gave me really helped me cope with all this, god knows it’s freaking me out. I really wanted to see you again actually, to talk about Mickey. Everybody’s saying he was a paedo, and I wanted to ask you if you believed it.’

  ‘Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I never saw any sign of it, except for…’

  ‘Those sad cheesy mags, yeah I know. Stupid old git.’

  ‘Put it this way, I find it hard to believe, but I suppose we have to say it was possible.’

  ‘Come on, Erica. Stacey’s no victim.’

  ‘So it was Stacey.’

  ‘She was bumming drinks at the Pink Banana at the weekend, promising treats all round when her compo cheque arrives. She’s just out to get some money, and Mickey can’t speak up for himself. She doesn’t have to prove anything.’

  ‘You may be right, Fiona,’ Erica felt torn. Stacey was not the most sympathetic of characters, but that shouldn’t make a difference to her right to be believed. On the other hand, Mickey was a friend. ‘About the accusation I mean.’

  ‘The worst of it is,’ Fiona went on. ‘They’re trying to get me to say Mickey was a paedo with me, it’s so … eeuuww! They’ve offered me counselling, as if! Fecking police, trawling they call it, don’t they, for victims of abuse. I’m not playing, however much money there might be in it!’

  ‘I don’t think there will be,’ Erica said. ‘Dead men can’t be sued, and he owned Stony Point hostel privately. So there’s no other body to sue, like a local authority or anything. I may be wrong, I’m no lawyer, but Stacey’ll probably get nothing.’

  ‘Good! I’m going to make sure she hears that, it might make her take it back!’

  ‘Maybe, but I doubt it. She’s not going to be branded a liar in public, when there’s no proof she was lying.’ And of course, she might be telling the truth.

  ‘You don’t seem very sure, Erica. I thought you’d be on Mickey’s side.’

  ‘I am. Emotionally anyway. I’ve stood up for him to the police.’

  ‘That Bennett bloke, he’s well fit, isn’t he? Got a great ass.’

  ‘Yeah. Pity he uses it for a brain.’

  Fiona laughed. ‘Look, here’s me, in and out of Mickey’s place all my life. There’s you living and working there. None of the other girls round here have a bad word to say about Mickey, except his mags and his mucky habits. Stacey Reed’s never worked at the hostel, can you see her cooking or sweeping floors? I don’t think so! I can’t remember ever seeing her there at all in fact. And we’re supposed to believe she’s the one he abused! I told the police that. They seemed surprised I knew about Stacey, s’obvious they don’t live in the sticks like I do. You can’t fart without it being all round the village next day.’

  ‘It does seem unlikely.’

  ‘The Seatons have gone to their cottage up the coast, can’t blame them. I just hope they didn’t let Seymour drive. He is such an alcoholic! Now if anybody’s … oh well. I’d best get on with packing for my new job in Wydsand.’

  As she pedalled away, Erica wondered what Fiona had meant to say when she stopped herself. ‘Now if anybody’s…’ what? She paused on the cliff path, looking out to sea. Would it all just go on? Mickey remembered as a murdering paedophile. Molly’s death unresolved. Lucy never coming back. There had to be some way out of this impasse.

  Nearby, Paul Reed was thinking of Stony Point, last Wednesday night. If only he could turn back the clock, so Mickey was still alive, and then beat out of him what he’d done to Stacey, before making him suffer a slower, more painful death.

  En route to the cottage, Liz narrowed her eyes in concentration, her fingers white on the wheel. Mickey Spence. Sadistic pornography … Mickey, who they’d known all these years. Had they let their precious Lucy work for a paedophile? Could he have done anything to Lucy, then or now? Did he take the secret of Lucy’s whereabouts to his death? Had he killed her?

  Liz mentally shook herself. She must not let herself be infected by primitive hatred and fear. She had to believe Lucy would come back.

  18

  Wednesday 2nd July

  The Seatons’ Cottage, Northumberland

  Sheep nibbled among the heather clumps, and larks sang above peaty streams. The heather was plummy and gorgeous in a setting of marsh-bright green, set with occasional birch and rowan trees. The spearmint shade of Liz Seaton’s sleek Audi convertible struck an urban note outside the sandstone cottage with its red pantile roof.

  Inside, things were less tranquil. Except for Seymour, who slept in a chair in the study. His mouth hung open slackly, looser than his unconscious fingers on the almost empty bottle of single malt which lay clasped to his heart like a shield against his own thoughts and memories.

  On a smaller chair, Peg sat at the computer, eyes that were swollen with weeping locked on the screen. Her fingers clutched the mouse as fervently as Seymour his bottle. Her accustomed knitting lay beside her, abandoned. Her clothes hung from her even more shapelessly. Trauma had soaked off the pounds and left her physically diminished. Peg was online, vacuuming comfort from the words and pictures brought to her across the moors by telephone wires on which the odd swallow already sat planning migration.

  Liz looked at her face in the bathroom mirror. ‘The pretty one.’ She’d always been called that. Always determined to stay that way. She’d learned to have a steady hand over years of the life-saving surgery performed on countless women and girls, new born infants. Now Lucy was gone, and she longed to give in, howl like a bitch at the moon, clutch the pain in her belly for her missing baby. But she had to keep going, for Seymour, for Peggy, for her own self-respect. All the children and mothers she’d saved, and now she could do nothing, it seemed, for her daughter. Powerless: the thing she hated most. But still her hand was steady as she applied mascara. Her hand, and her will.

  She switched the wand to her left hand. Liz was mean with mascara, spitting on the drying wand and shunting it up and down to make it last longer. A little vice, for a woman who spent each working day ensuring that hands and apparel were sterile. Lucy always teased her that her mascara was a public health hazard …

  She stopped, grabbing a tissue and blotting her eyes as the newly applied mascara bloomed into soft bruising beneath suddenly tear glazed eyes. With exaggerated care, she soaked up the leaking mascara with a tissue edge. Seymour had married a beauty, and a beauty she must remain. Only she was good enough for him. And when Lucy came along, she’d formed another bond between them. Seymour adored Lucy; Liz’d known he’d never stray again, risk hurting, or losing, his daughter. Oh the pain, the pain that was the absence of Lucy, bringing memories of Lucy’s birth, the months of waiting, all she’d gone through gladly, for her precious baby.

  She patiently reapplied mascara. Lucy had gone. And, a tiny loss alongside the greater one, her mascara had vanished too, and she’d had to buy a new one. She mustn’t fall apart. Seymour was suffering, using his own brand of anaesthetic. He was not to blame. It was up to Liz to take care of him. And poor Peggy of course.

  Had she really understood what Peggy went through when Molly went missing? She’d tried, heaven knows, let Peggy be a second mother to Lucy as if to make up for her lost Molly. Only now did she know how Peg must have felt. Peg needed her to be strong now. She’d always had to take the lead. The strong one, the clever one, the successful one, the pretty one. Liz gave her upper left lashes a final sweep and looked at her wide, defined, blue-grey eyes. The skin below them looked puffy, and she used a tiny heavy pot of expensive age-defeating cream to delicately pat over the area.

  But could Erica be right? Could Lucy have discovered something about Molly, which panicked her? It was impossible, surely? Liz consciously straightened her shoulders, as she entered the study. ‘Peg! Oh, Peg, for heaven’s sake, you�
�re not on that Jesus site again!’

  ‘Surely you don’t begrudge me the word of God,’ Peg said pathetically. ‘What other comfort is there for me now?’

  Liz reined in her irritation. Peg’s status as bereaved mother was hard to argue with, but still … ‘Peg, you know I don’t begrudge you, but, well … we need to keep connected to our email, all the time. What if there was news of Lucy, or she was to send a mail, and no- one was here to read it?’

  ‘I know it’s your laptop, Liz, but you could use Seymour’s…’ Peg’s eyes remained fixed on the screen, with its testimonies and miracles from all over the world.

  ‘Peg, you know we only have one line here, and you’re using it! Can’t you read the bible for god’s sake?’ She tried to take the mouse, but her sister’s plump little hand tightened. The cursor whizzed all over the screen, changing the display randomly, as they tussled over the mouse.

  ‘How can you blaspheme like that! It’s for God’s sake I’m on this site! How else can I live, not knowing what’s happened to my Molly’s soul?’

  Liz stopped the undignified fight. She fought instead to retain control of her temper. She felt ragged, anchorless.

  ‘At least you know where your daughter is! Molly is at peace now, you of all people should be able to believe that! God knows where Lucy is!’

  She bit her lip. Yet again she’d fallen into her sister’s linguistic trap.

  ‘Yes, God does know! He’s even more clever than you, Lizzie! Why don’t you pray to Him?’

  ‘I don’t need to, I’ve got you, Peg, with your hotline to the almighty. Why not look on your site, maybe someone there knows where our Lucy is! I can’t –’ Liz stopped, her voice cracking. She looked over Peg’s shoulder. On the screen, the True Jesus website page headed ‘Finding forgiveness’ was displayed. Her eyes automatically scanned the words.