A Lesser Evil Part 10

Everyone suspected the Muckles. Who else but them would see June leave the house and know there was no one else about? But this was confirmed as far as Frank was concerned when June showed him that his Post Office savings book had been taken out of the drawer in their bedroom and left on the chest of drawers. He knew that was Molly's way of telling him that she knew how much money he'd got and she intended to go ahead with her threat unless he paid up.

Nothing could be proved. The police searched the Muckles' house and found nothing. Frank had to pay Molly, and it wasn't long after that June became ill. They found she had cancer while performing a hysterectomy.

In the two years before June finally died, Molly slowly bled their savings dry, yet he had to keep her silence. He couldn't bear the thought of June pa.s.sing away knowing he'd been unfaithful.

He had to give up his job to nurse June towards the end. Too old now to apply for an a.s.sisted pa.s.sage to Australia, and with no money left to pay his fare, through that evil b.i.t.c.h of a woman he'd never see his daughter and grand-children again. He hated Molly Muckle so much he would happily kill her and her brats, and never mind if he had to swing for it.

'Get up to bed, you little s.h.i.+ts,' Molly yelled at her children because they were arguing. Angela had crept off the minute she'd come in from the street, but the three older ones had ignored her previous order.

'I wanna see Quaterma.s.s Quaterma.s.s,' Alan, the fourteen-year-old, said belligerently. 'I always watch it.'

'I'll give you Quaterma.s.s with the back of my hand if you don't f.u.c.k off,' Molly retorted, rising somewhat unsteadily out of her chair.

The three children shuffled nervously backwards towards the door.

They were all remarkably alike, with the same dirty, straw-coloured hair, pinched pale faces, light brown eyes and sharp features. Alan, the eldest, had a squint. Mary, though only thirteen, had big b.r.e.a.s.t.s which were stretching her grubby blouse to bursting point. Joan, who was ten, had large buck teeth.

'Go on, p.i.s.s off.' Molly took a threatening step towards them. 'Mike and I want a bit of peace.'

'You said we could 'ave some chips,' Alan said, trying to look tough and eyeing Mike, his father's nephew, with deep suspicion. 'And where's our Dora?'

'If you don't sodding well f.u.c.k off I'll brain you,' Molly screamed out. 'And tell that half-wit upstairs to have a p.i.s.s. If she wets the bed again I'll belt 'er so 'ard she won't be able to sit on 'er a.r.s.e for a week.'

Realizing their luck had run out, the two younger ones fled. Alan hung on a second or two longer, but as his mother stepped threateningly towards him, he backed away and scampered upstairs.

'That's more like it.' Molly slammed the door shut and returned to the couch. 'Get us another drink, Mike.'

Mike got up, picked up her gla.s.s and walked towards the kitchen. He had an identical build to Alfie and all his brothers; five feet eight, bull-necked, broad-shouldered and muscular. His sandy hair was already receding, and he had the start of a beer gut. He was what his mother called 'homely', which he took to mean he was no Cary Grant.

Stopping in the kitchen doorway, he looked back. 'Where's Dora?' he asked.

'Gone to the flicks.'

'Who wiv?'

'On 'er tod.'

'She don't like going nowhere on 'er tod!'

'She does if I tell 'er to,' Molly retorted. 'Now get us a beer.'

Mike was twenty-five and had lived with his Aunt Molly and Uncle Alfie since coming out of prison two years ago. He'd only got six months for breaking into a sweet shop, but his mother wouldn't let him back in the house again. Within a few weeks he'd realized that there were some serious drawbacks to living here; it was like a madhouse most of the time, but he'd got nowhere else to go.

He was pretty certain Molly had got rid of Dora and the kids tonight because she was feeling randy, and just the thought of that turned his stomach.

It wasn't very smart of him to start having it off with Dora. She was ugly, thirty-five and backward to boot, but getting his leg over was his first priority when he got out of the nick, and Dora was there, like a b.i.t.c.h on heat. To be fair to her she was kind of sweet, always eager and grateful, idolizing him and prepared to do anything he asked. But it was a bit sickening to know Alfie screwed her too whenever he felt like it.

It might not have been clever to get involved with Dora, but it was total insanity giving Molly one too. She was old, fat and as vicious as a rabid dog, and he never knew when she was going to pounce next. Weeks could go by and she wouldn't come near him, then out of the blue she'd start touching him up, coming on strong. And she even did it in front of Dora and Alfie.

Mike stood for a moment in the kitchen, looking at the mess. It wasn't any worse than usual, but perhaps because he knew what Molly had in mind tonight, he suddenly saw how filthy it really was.

The sink was full of dirty dishes that had been there for days, the table was strewn with more, along with sauce and beer bottles, chip papers and other bits of rubbish. The floor, never washed, was so dirty he couldn't make out the pattern on the worn lino. Empty bottles, rubbish, dirty clothes and even engine parts were strewn around. A dead mouse in a trap had been there so long it was putrefying. The smell was sickening, worse than a sewer.

His mum had always said Molly was a dirty s.l.u.t. She used to say other stuff too, until his dad gave her a back-hander to shut her up. But his mum didn't know the half of it and she'd have fifty fits if she was to find out.

Mike picked up the bottle of beer from the floor and filled Molly's gla.s.s. He wondered if he dared just give it to her and then go on out.

As he hesitated, Bill Haley's 'Rock Around the Clock' suddenly blared out on the gramophone.

Molly's usual taste in music when she was randy was Bobby Vee or Billy Fury. Bill Haley was Alfie's favourite. Mike looked round the door to see what she was doing, and found she'd turned the sound down on the telly and was gyrating around to the music. She looked disgusting; he could see her belly and t.i.ts wobbling around under her tight yellow dress.

'I've got to go and see me mate,' he shouted over the music as he handed her the beer.

He was halfway to the front door when she caught hold of his arm. 'You ain't goin' nowhere,' she said. 'We gotta make a lot of noise. Make out Alfie's in 'ere too.'

Mike was confused now. 'Why?' he asked.

'Cos he's up to summat.' She tapped her nose to imply it was a secret. 'Come on, dance wiv me fer a bit, then we'll start shouting and bawling. If them nosy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds across the street look out their winders they'll think you're 'im.'

'You mean like an alibi?' Mike shouted over the deafening music. He had often looked at the window from outside, and knew that the thin cloth tacked up inside became opaque when the light was on. It wouldn't give anyone a clear view, but they'd get a pretty good idea of what was going on inside. And he and Alfie were very close in size and height.

''E finally got it!' she said sarcastically, and grabbing his hand she made him jive with her.

Alfie and Molly often danced together when they were drunk. When Mike first moved in he'd thought it was kind of nice. But he'd soon found out it was usually the first step towards a fight, and their fights were b.l.o.o.d.y ones, neither giving in till one of them went down.

In two years he'd seen them breaking bottles over each other's heads, punching each other like heavyweight boxers. Alfie once pushed Molly's head right through the gla.s.s in the window. But even more sickening was what came after. Violence turned them on, they could be bleeding like stuck pigs, then all of a sudden they'd be f.u.c.king. They didn't care who else was there. Alfie would push Molly down over the back of the couch or doggy-fas.h.i.+on on the floor, and the noise they'd make was unbelievable.

So Mike was very apprehensive as he danced with Molly, a.s.suming she would expect him to run through the usual ritual completely. As the first record finished and the second, Elvis's 'Jailhouse Rock', fell down on to the turntable, she turned up the volume.

'We'll start fighting as this one ends,' she said in his ear because the music was so loud. 'You start pus.h.i.+ng me about, I'll scream and throw stuff at you, then you pick up the poker and make out you're hitting me wiv it. We gotta make a lot of noise. We want everyone in the street to know we're 'aving a ding-dong and we gotta make it look real.'

Mike sincerely hoped that a pretend fight wouldn't have the same effect on her as a real one usually did, but he went along with it anyway. As the record ended he began pus.h.i.+ng her, and she wrestled with him while shouting out obscenities.

'What if Alan comes down?' he asked, as he pushed her down on to the couch and rained punches down on to the cus.h.i.+on beside her.

''E won't do that,' she said between a couple of ear-piercing screams. 'The kid's a f.u.c.kin' coward.'E'd be scared 'e'd cop it an' all.'

Mike found there was something profoundly satisfying about whacking a poker down on the couch, yelling out the kind of insults he had always wanted to throw at Molly. He overturned the coffee table in just the way he'd seen Alfie do, hurled an empty beer bottle at the hearth and got Molly in a half-Nelson. He was actually enjoying it.

'You f.u.c.kin' fat b.i.t.c.h,' he yelled at her, for a moment tempted to hit her for real. 'You're a slag, a f.u.c.kin' slag, and I'm gonna kill you.'

He had to admit Molly played a blinder. She screamed, shouted, swore, then got away from him and ran up and down the stairs. At one point she was clawing at the front door as if trying to get out. She was so good it would fool anyone into thinking she was being murdered. Yet the fact that no one came banging on the door spoke volumes. Mike reckoned the neighbours would love it if she was to be found dead.

'No, Alfie, no,' she yelled out in the kitchen, and threw a few dirty pans on the floor for good measure.

Mike could well imagine the effect it was having on their neighbours. Dozens of times in the past there had been real fights like this one, and he'd looked out of the window and seen people opening the windows, coming out on to the street, getting into little confabs about what they should do to stop it. As it was a hot night and everyone had their windows open, they'd all be getting steamed up about it by now.

Molly made Mike keep it up for a good three-quarters of an hour, then she signalled to him to turn off the music and go upstairs as if to bed. As he left the room, Molly slumped down on the couch and sobbed noisily.

Mike was well used to following Molly's orders without question, but as he went upstairs he couldn't help but wonder what his mother would have to say about this situation. She was no angel, she'd done her share of lying to the police to keep her husband and Mike out of the nick, yet she would never even think of staging something like this. But then, his parents didn't hit each other, or argue that much; they certainly didn't go in for s.e.x with an audience. He could see now that his own childhood had been idyllic compared with that of his cousins.

He turned the light on in Molly and Alfie's bedroom at the front of the house, then turned it off again as if he'd gone to bed. He stayed sitting in the dark, listening to Molly sobbing downstairs.

He wondered how she could do it so easily, it sounded exactly like the real thing. But then he supposed she'd had a lot of practice in acting over the years, and that was why she got benefits she wasn't ent.i.tled to, and the coppers hardly ever managed to nick Alfie for anything.

The bedroom had a blanket over the window, and through a hole in it Mike could see the blonde girl opposite, staring out of the window. She wasn't watching the Muckles' house, but looking up the road. He supposed she was waiting for her husband to come home.

Mike felt sorry for himself then, wis.h.i.+ng he had a girl like her waiting for him. She was so beautiful; he could see her profile with the light behind her, a neat little straight nose, a long slender neck, and her hair down over her shoulders.

He'd come in here once and caught Alfie w.a.n.king as he watched her cleaning her windows. Mike had been sickened by that, though he had to pretend he thought it was funny. It was all right to w.a.n.k over women in magazines, but not someone real.

But Alfie had stopped drooling over the blonde since she took Angela in when she had a black eye. He seemed to think she or her husband had tried to gra.s.s him up.

All of a sudden, like a light switched on in a dark room, Mike put Alfie's absence, the need for an alibi, and the girl watching out for her husband, together. To his horror he realized that Alfie had gone to fill in the bloke!

A year ago he would've loved it. He'd have been one hundred per cent behind Alfie, but not now. Molly and Alfie always went too far. It was going to come down on top of them one of these days, and Mike had a feeling that if he was still living here then, he'd cop it too.

Molly stopped her pretend crying suddenly, then he heard her speak. Curious, Mike went to the top of the stairs to listen. To his surprise he realized that Alfie was back he must have climbed along the wall out the back and come in through the kitchen door.

'Did you do what I said?' he was asking Molly.

'Course I did. The whole street will say you was 'ere. Did you collar 'im?'

'Yeah. But I think I 'it 'im too 'ard.'E went down like a ton of bricks.'

Mike went on down the stairs. 'What you done?' he asked, thinking Alfie looked scared. 'Was it the geyser across the road?'

Alfie nodded, and grinned humourlessly. 'Reckon I might 'ave finished 'im off and all.'E looked as dead as a doornail when I left 'im. You get off now down the back way and meet our Dora, she'll be waiting outside the Odeon. Anyone asks, you've bin wiv 'er all night.'

Chapter seven.

Dan came round sufficiently to know he was lying on the ground, but when he tried to move, sharp pains shot through both his head and his ribs.

He lay still for a moment, trying to work out where he was and what had happened to him. He remembered leaving the building site with the other men clearly enough. It was almost dark and as they got to the alleyway which was a short cut to the tube station, the others said they were going for a pint. They asked him to go with them, but he turned them down because Fifi was waiting for him.

The last thing he could recall as he turned into the alley was Owen the chippie shouting out for him to mind the dog s.h.i.+t as the smell of it on a man's boots killed any woman's pa.s.sion.

That was it. Nothing more, and he guessed he was still in the alley as it was so dark. And he could smell dog s.h.i.+t. Therefore, it stood to reason someone must have crept up behind him and hit him hard on the head. But why? It was a Thursday, not pay day, and he hadn't fallen out with anyone. Perhaps whoever did it thought he was someone else?

He attempted to get up, but the pain in his head was so bad he couldn't. Then he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him.

'Are you all right, mate?' a male voice enquired.

Dan could see two people but they were indistinct and out of focus. He managed to tell them he'd been attacked.

They lifted him up on to his feet and then, supporting him between them, they helped him walk down the alley towards the main road at the end of it. They asked him where he was hurt, where he lived and who attacked him, but he was in such pain he couldn't answer.

'Christ Almighty!' one of them exclaimed once they reached the lights on the main road and they could see him properly. 'You've been given a right going over. We'd better call an ambulance.'

'My wife!' Dan managed to get out. 'Got to get home.'

'She'll have fifty fits if you go home like that,' the man said. 'You've got blood all over you. You need a doctor.'

Fifi's eyes kept moving from the clock to the window. She was growing ever more anxious about Dan. He couldn't work once it was dark, and she didn't think he would go off to the pub with the other men, not when she was expecting him home.

It was after eleven now and thankfully all quiet again over at the Muckles'. The fight had begun soon after it got dark, and because they had only the thinnest of covering over their window she had seen it all.

She had watched the silhouettes of Alfie and Molly laying into each other like maniacs, with blaring music accompanying them. At the height of it all she'd been so frightened she'd gone down to see Miss Diamond, to ask if she thought they should call the police.

Fifi was always wary of bothering Miss Diamond as she seemed to be the kind of person who wanted to maintain her distance from other people. She always spoke if she ran into Fifi or Dan on the landings, but it was invariably a brief interchange. Fifi was as curious about this big, striking woman with dark brown hair as she was about Yvette. She was about forty, exceptionally well groomed with an elaborate beehive which looked as if it had been glued in place, she never had visitors, and aside from going to work at the telephone exchange, she rarely went out. Dan joked that she was related to Attila the Hun.

Fifi had caught glimpses of her flat when the doors were open. The front room was her sitting room, her furnis.h.i.+ng style plain but rather cla.s.sy with a cream fitted carpet. The bedroom, which was beneath Fifi and Dan's, was lovely, with a pale blue flounced bedspread and white-painted furniture. Even the kitchen, which was right at the back of the house, was attractive, with suns.h.i.+ne-yellow cupboards and the work surface tiled in white. It seemed odd that a woman with so much style, and obviously coming from a good background, should choose to live here. Since Fifi met her for the first time, she'd been determined to find out all about her, but as yet she'd had no success.

Fifi's mind wasn't on prying, however, when she knocked on the woman's door around ten o'clock, only on the disturbance over the road. Miss Diamond came to the door wearing a long, loose emerald-green garment that wasn't quite a dressing-gown or a dress. She looked tense and angry at all the noise, but her hair was still as immaculate as always.

'Mrs Hela.s.s usually rings the police,' she said. 'She's the only one in the street with a phone. Much good it does though. Really, that family are just the end! They need locking up and the key thrown away.'

She ranted about what she'd seen and heard so far, and Fifi said she was afraid Alfie was going to kill Molly.

'I wish he would,' the older woman said with a weary sigh. 'Then once he was locked up perhaps we'd all get some peace. I really can't stand much more of this.'

Miss Diamond offered Fifi a cup of tea, but even as they chatted about the Muckles in her kitchen, they could still hear the row continuing across the street. By the time Fifi went back upstairs, however, it had grown quieter. While looking out the window to see if Dan was coming down the street, she saw the light come on in the Muckles' bedroom, and momentarily saw Alfie silhouetted before it was switched off.

Molly was still downstairs. Fifi could see her on the settee and hear her crying. She wondered about the children, particularly Angela, for it had to be terrifying hearing such battles. But she supposed they happened so often they'd just got used to them and might even think them quite normal.

Later, as she continued to look out for Dan, she saw Dora come down the street with Mike, Alfie's nephew. They were arm-in-arm, chatting quite happily. Fifi a.s.sumed they'd been out for the evening and felt a little sorry for them that it would be spoilt the moment they got indoors.

Everyone in the street talked about the relations.h.i.+p between Mike the nephew and Dora. Strangely, the ten-year age gap was rarely mentioned, only that Dora was simple. Yvette had said that she was damaged at birth through a forceps delivery. Apparently she looked upon Molly as a mother, for her own had died when she was around five or six and Molly had taken care of her ever since.

Fifi watched as they went indoors. For a short while they were standing in the front room, and she a.s.sumed they were talking to Molly, although she could no longer see her. The light went out in the room, and a few seconds later another came on right at the top of the house. Presumably they were all going to bed.

Fifi wanted to go to bed too, but she felt she had to stay up and wait for Dan. The street was quiet now, and one by one all the lights that had been on in the houses on the other side of the road went out. She thought that Dan must have gone home with one of his workmates, for he wouldn't be able to go on to a club after the pub, not in his working clothes. Perhaps he'd gone to look at some job the man wanted help with. A few beers and he'd lost track of time. Maybe he'd even got too drunk to make his way home.

At midnight she was too tired to wait any longer, so turning off the lights she went to bed.

She woke at the sound of a bell. Fumbling for the alarm clock, she saw it was seven o'clock, but it wasn't the alarm clock ringing, it was the front-door bell. Then she remembered Dan hadn't come home.

Frank Ubley's voice wafted up the stairs, and she could hear another male voice. All at once she was wide awake, sensing that the caller had come to see her.

She jumped out of bed and grabbed her dressing-gown, putting it on over her nightdress as she flew down the stairs.

When she saw a policeman in the hall with Frank she clasped a hand over her mouth in horror. 'Is it Dan?' she asked.