Shape of Snakes

wife who shopped him.' She gave a harsh laugh. 'Not that I blame you. He was a wrong 'un through and through. Do you think my kids would have thieved if he hadn't shown them how? Do you think Annie would have been stinking of piss if he hadn't found her and done the honors?' She pointed her cigarette at Sharon's heart. 'That makes you sit up and take notice, doesn't it? You didn't even know he was in her house that night, let alone used her as a piss pot.'

I glanced irresolutely at Sharon and was shocked by her terrible pallor. 'Are you suggesting Michael killed her?' I asked Maureen.

'Helped her on her way maybe. He told Alan he got home about 8:30, saw that her door wasn't properly shut and went in to see if he could nick something. He found her lying on the rug in her sitting room, reckoned she was drunk and thought it'd be funny to piss on her.' She broke off on a laugh. 'The place stank of cats so he didn't reckon she'd notice when she came 'round.'

'What happened?'

She gave a careless shrug. 'He said she started moaning so he got the hell out in case she went for him. But the chances are he's lying through his teeth, and he gave her a kicking as well. It's what he liked doing.'

I glanced at Alan's bent head. 'Was Alan with him?'

''Course he wasn't,' snapped Maureen. 'He's already told you he never touched her. But you'd rather believe it of him than Michael, wouldn't you? You're like her,'-she cast a baleful look at Wendy-'always think well of one and ill of the other.'

Wendy leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees and examining Maureen curiously. 'Why is it so important that Alan wasn't there?' she asked.

A ferocious frown gathered on Maureen's face. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'You seem so determined to push the blame on to Sharon's son but, if I've understood correctly, it was your son who performed the same disgusting act on Mrs. Ranelagh a few weeks later. Yet none of you seems too worried about that.'

'So?'

'It suggests that something worse happened to Annie than happened to Mrs. Ranelagh ... something you don't want Alan associated with.'

Was it my imagination or was Maureen scared? Certainly Alan was-if his head dropped any lower, I thought, it would be touching his knees.

'Michael told us about it afterward ... gave us the idea,' said Derek suddenly. 'Seemed only fair to do to the nigger-lover what was done to the nigger. They both thought they could bad-mouth us and get away with it.'

'That's right,' said Maureen. 'But it was Michael did it first, just like always. He was a bad influence, that boy. Everything evil in this street started with him and his mother, but it was always us got pilloried for it.'

'What about rape?' I said cynically. 'Whose idea was that? Because it certainly wasn't Michael's. He thrashed Alan within an inch of his life when he did it to Rosie. Doesn't that count as something evil?'

It was a form of words-spoken in angry defense of someone who wasn't there to defend himself-yet time stood still as soon as I'd uttered them. No one moved on the sofa. It was as if they believed that stillness could somehow freeze us all in time and space and leave my knowledge forever unspoken. My first reaction was surprise that Derek seemed to understand what I was talking about until I remembered Michael saying that Alan hadn't come to blows with him until after Rosie's rape.

My second reaction was entirely physical as the reason for their petrified expressions dawned on me. Alan had raped Annie, too ... Oh, dear God! Forget control. Forget justice. Forget revenge. Twenty years of reasoned evolution were overturned in a second, and I regressed to a primeval desire to kill.

I leaped on Alan like a tigress-my revulsion-my fear- my hatred-everything-racing in a torrent through my blood. 'You FUCKING little SHIT!' I roared, slamming his head against the wall. 'She was DYING, for Christ's sake. How DARE you violate a dying woman?'

He cringed away from me. 'I never ... only in her mouth...'

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Maureen's claws reach out to scratch my face. And with every ounce of hatred that I had I planted my fist between her teeth.

It would have turned into a free-for-all if Geoffrey hadn't been a pacifist at heart. He pulled me off Maureen by seizing me by the arms and spinning me 'round behind him. 'Enough,' he said sharply, standing between me and the sofa. 'Control your mother,' he ordered Alan, 'or I'll ask Mrs. Stanhope to call the police.'

It was an unnecessary instruction because Alan was already holding her back with an arm hooked 'round her neck, but mention of the police at least persuaded her to sink back into her seat. She eyed Geoffrey balefully. 'You're in no position to play God,' she spat. 'Your hands are as dirty as ours.'

He lowered his head like a terrier after a ferret, and stared fixedly at her. 'Mrs. Ranelagh says Annie was beaten up in her house two or three hours before I passed her-and those are the injuries she died of-so don't accuse me of having dirty hands. You're the only one 'round here got free with a baseball bat.'

Maureen's narrowed gaze focused on me. 'You're being fed a pack of lies. A week ago this bitch was saying it was Derek gave Annie a thrashing before dumping her in the street ... Now she's trying to put the blame on me. Well, how could I have got the fat cow through her front door? Tell me that.'

'She got herself out,' I said, breathing deeply through my nose to try to quell the shudders that were jolting my body with electric shocks. 'She had a fractured skull ... a broken arm ... she'd been unconscious for God knows how long with your filthy son all over her ... but she still had enough will to live to stagger out into the street and look for help.' I made another lunge forward, only to be blocked by Geoffrey. 'And no one gave it to her because they thought she was drunk.'

'Your husband being one,' she snarled.

I pressed a finger to the tic of hate that throbbed beneath my lip. 'I think she came to my end of the street because she knew I was the only person who would help her. I even think she may have knocked on my door-and I feel so damn guilty I wasn't there, because I was sitting at school waiting for parasites like you and Derek to come