Shape of Snakes

told her anyway. It didn't seem kind.'

A small silence fell while I wondered what to say next and immediately unwanted sounds crowded in on us- raucous seagull cries from the skylights above our heads, laughter, a baby's cry from the children's play area-and I found myself blurting out the one question I had been determined to avoid: 'What on earth are you doing here, Michael? How can a man who's kind enough not to tell a dying woman that her husband's cheating on her attack an innocent stranger in a post office? It doesn't make sense.'

'I needed the cash,' he said simply, 'and it seemed like a good idea at the time.'

'And now?'

He gave a mirthless laugh. 'Now I reckon it's the dumbest thing I ever did. I was only planning to frighten her ... hold the pistol to her head ... but she started screaming and shouting ... and I went crazy.' He fell silent, contemplating some private darkness. 'She reminded me of Alan's mum,' he said abruptly, 'so I smashed her ugly face in. I really hated that bitch. It was her who used to get everyone worked up.'

'How?'

'Just stuff,' he said before lapsing into another longer silence.

I changed the subject by asking him what he'd meant in one of his letters when he said Bridget had posted her hair through my letter box as a 'sacrifice.' 'Sacrifice for what?' I asked.

He was more comfortable talking about Bridget. 'All the bad things that were happening to you,' he said. 'You told her once that you wished you had hair like hers, so she thought if she gave it to you the bad stuff would stop.' He smiled at my expression. 'Okay, it was a bit wacky but she always did have weird ideas. She put a load of raw onions into her mother's room one time because she read somewhere that onions absorb disease, but the smell was so bad that Vivienne couldn't sleep.'

'I think they're supposed to work on colds,' I said abstractedly, while pondering the rest of what he'd said. 'What made Bridget think bad things were happening to me?'

'You looked so scared all the time,' he said matter-of-factly. 'It stood to reason there was some lousy shit in your life.'

'Did you know what it was?'

A flicker of emotion crossed his face. 'We guessed they were doing to you what they did to Annie.'

'Who?'

'The Slaters. I saw Alan's dad try to barge you off the pavement one day ... and his mum used to call you a nigger-lover. She said you'd be lynched for the things you were saying if we lived in America.'

'What about your mother? Did she agree with Maureen?'

He looked away again, as if the subject of his mother was something he found hard to deal with. 'I don't know,' he said curtly. 'We never talked about it.'

'Did you talk about Annie's death?'

'No.' Even more curt.

'Why not?'

'What was to talk about? Hell, we were glad to see the back of her. It meant Mum could take in more clients without having abuse bellowed at them through the wall. And that's all she was interested in,' he finished bitterly, 'making money out of saps.'

'It was a vicious circle,' I told him. 'Every time you or the Slaters ratcheted up your aggression, Annie got worse. She might have been able to control her language if you'd left her alone, but she hadn't a hope in hell's chance once you started invading her space and making her afraid.'

He shrugged. 'Mum always said she should be in a loony bin.'

'Only to give herself something to feel superior about,' I murmured. 'She didn't like being called a 'whore' ... because that's what she was. The Slaters didn't like being called 'trash' ... because that's what they were.'

He gave a surprised whistle as if the comfortable image he had of me had suddenly been shattered. 'That's a bit harsh.'

'Do you think so?' I asked mildly. 'I've always thought how generous Annie was. Had I been her, I'd have come up with something far stronger to describe low-grade scum who got their rocks off torturing cats.'

He flinched perceptibly.

'Was it you and Alan who did it?' I asked. 'It's the kind of brutality I can imagine you enjoying... inflicting pain on something smaller and weaker... then pushing the sad little remains on to Annie to see how she'd react. Was it Derek killing the marmalade cat that gave you the idea or was Maureen lying about that to protect Alan?'

'Jesus!' he said with a spurt of anger. 'And you wonder why I hate the bitch? Talk about fucking twisted. Alan used to say her brains were shot because his dad knocked the sense out of her, but I'd say it was the other way 'round. The bitch was born twisted and that's the reason the poor sap went for her.' He leaned forward aggressively. 'It was Maureen killed the cat, and she did it because it made her feel good. She got Alan to hold it down on the kitchen table while she beat its brains out with a baseball bat, and when Alan started blubbing because he really liked animals, she took the bat to him instead and said, if he ever told on her, she'd nail the next one to the fence and make him watch it while it died.'

It was like a floodgate opening. Once Michael started on his hatred of Maureen he couldn't stop. He talked about her lousy parenting, her drinking, her vilification of him and his mother. 'It makes me sick what she's got away with,' he finished angrily. 'It makes me even sicker that she's on the out and me and Derek are stuck inside.'

'What would she have been charged with?'

'Assault and battery of her kids ... drunk and disorderly ... you name it.'

'Killing Annie?'