Disordered Minds

Andrew guessed the 'bitch' was Miss Brett. 'What did Miss Brett say to you after the fight?'

'The usual,' she said cynically. ' 'You're a nasty piece of work, Louise Burton, and one day you'll get your comeuppance. You provoked that fight deliberately to get Cill into trouble.' Bloody old cow! I'm sure she was a dyke.'

'Was she right? Did you provoke it?'

Louise looked up, a gleam of amusement lighting her eyes. 'What do you think?'

'Yes.'

She gave an indifferent shrug. 'It served Cill right. I took so much shit off her about the rape-why hadn't I jumped them? ... why hadn't I screamed? ... why didn't Billy do something? ... why did I keep telling her to forget it?' Her small, glittering eyes held Andrew's for a moment before sliding away. 'It wasn't even that bad ... three puny fourteen-year-olds who couldn't keep it up for five seconds. OK, she had a bit of a kicking, but that was all.' Louise jammed her cigarette into the ashtray and immediately lit another one. 'She was shit-scared she was pregnant but even that was a no-no. She had a period ten days later and rammed it down my throat because she knew she was in the clear.' She lapsed into silence, revisiting memories.

'What happened to her?'

There was barely a pause for reflection. 'Her dad thrashed her for the fight, so she hid out with Grace.' She smiled sourly at his expression. 'That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it? It's where we went when we couldn't think of anything better to do. Grace let us watch telly all day as long as we could show her some bruises.'

Andrew waited for her to explain. 'Try running that past me again,' he encouraged, after another silence. 'You lost me between the telly and the bruises. At the moment I don't see a connection.'

She rolled up the sleeve of her shirt. 'Like this,' she said, showing him a naked forearm with blue weals striping the flesh. 'Enough of them and you could lounge around on her settee till the cows came home ... if you had a mind to it, of course.' She licked her finger and rubbed a white line through the stripes. 'Eyeshadow,' she said laconically. 'Pretty effective, eh? I put it on in the car before I came in. Grace fell for it every time.'

Andrew took another slow mouthful of Margaux. 'Why?'

'She was a moron ... just like her stupid grandson. Me and Cill could run rings around the pair of them.' She paused, waiting for him to react. 'It was Cill started it,' she went on when he didn't. 'She knew Howard hung out there all the time, doing eff all, so she rang the bell one day and told Grace her dad had been beating up on her. It worked a treat.' She lifted a shoulder in a disdainful shrug. 'We couldn't understand a word she said-she was worse than Howard like that-but she let us watch telly and gave us something to eat.'

Andrew showed his skepticism. 'Why?' he asked again. 'What did she have to gain by it?'

'I don't know. She just did.'

'Bullshit,' he said without emphasis. 'Grace may have had speech problems, but that wouldn't have affected her IQ. Your parents lived across the road. Why would she make enemies of them by letting you truant at her place?'

'She let Howard.'

'He was her grandson. She felt sorry for him.'

'Then maybe she felt sorry for us. Cill's dad had beaten her black and blue that first time. It was only afterward we used the eyeshadow.' Louise took a curl of smoke into her mouth and stared at him with dislike. 'You reckon you know it all, don't you? So when did your dad take a stick to you?'

'Never.'

She pointed toward the ceiling. 'How many times have you beaten them within an inch of their lives?'

'Never.'

'Then don't tell me what Grace would or wouldn't do. She knew about people's lives being fucked. Why do you think Howard was the way he was?'

'He had a disability.'

Louise shook her head. 'His mother used to thrash the living daylights out of him. She was a right bitch. He was so scared of her, he kept running away to Grace.'

Andrew remembered a couple of lines from a letter Jonathan had received. 'Sometimes his mother dragged him in by his ear ... she wasn't a nice woman ... she was always hitting him.' 'Did you know Howard well?'

'Well enough,' she said dismissively. 'He had a thing for Cill.'

'Was he in the house when you were there?'

'Sometimes. Cill used to let him feel her tits whenever his gran was out of the room. It got him really excited.'

Andrew looked toward the window, quelling a prudish distaste. 'It's hardly unusual,' he said. 'Adolescents explore each other all the time.'

'Yeah, but he wasn't an adolescent, was he? He was twenty years old.' The pale eyes fixed on Andrew again. 'Actually, it was pretty funny watching him. He'd get a hard-on just looking at her, and when he touched her he'd start juddering as if he was having an orgasm.' Another scornful shrug. 'He probably was, too-he was a sad little git ... shot his load early every time, I reckon, assuming anyone let him get that close.'

It wasn't just the remarks but the brutal way she said them that set Andrew's teeth on edge. Perhaps she thought shock tactics would make her more believable. 'Who instigated it? Cill or Howard?'

'Cill, of course. She was a right little tart.'

'What about you? Was Howard interested in you?'