Corrine pushed his drink towards him. ‘Bit of both, probably. No. That’s a lie. I’m used to your dad’s snores. It’s my memories that are haunting me tonight.
‘Want to talk?’
Corrine reached up and cradled her son’s cheek in her hand. ‘Maybe a little … I’m still working on some things.’
Gus blew on his drink and waited, allowing the aroma to tease his nostrils before he took that first glorious sip.
‘Professor Carlton has managed to get me a course of treatment from your Dr Mahmood.’
That surprised Gus. He hadn’t been aware his mum needed treatment but judging by those sketches and the things Compo had discovered, he was clearly wrong. ‘Dr Mahmood is…’ He hesitated, searching for a word that would sum her up. She’d helped him, despite his resistance – still was in fact. ‘Persistent.’
His mum’s tinkling laugh made him smile as he took his first sip of the drink. ‘She called you obstinate. I’m sure that’s why she is persistent.’
‘Yeah, well, you know me. I like to keep things private.’
His mum nodded, her voice low. ‘Yes, me too. We’re alike in that respect.’
As her words sunk in Gus realised that the very thing he was accusing his mother of – keeping secrets – could equally be applied to his own actions. He didn’t share his feelings – not about killing Greg to try to save his godson Billy, not about his ex-wife Gabriella being in a relationship with his sister, not about Sadia, who Alice, with little regard for his feelings had dubbed ‘the one that got away’, or Patti, his most recent love interest leaving him – no, he didn’t share either, so who was he to hold it against his mum when she did the same thing?
‘I love you, Mum.’
‘I know you do. That’s maybe one of the reasons it’s so hard to share my childhood with you and Katie. But I’m going to. Maybe not everything but enough of it to help you understand.’
She took a sip of her own drink. ‘My mum was a prostitute, drug addict, and alcoholic. I was the result of one of her careless encounters and she hated me for it as did the entire neighbourhood, except for my little brother. He adored me. He was four years younger than me and I looked after him. One night she came home drunk. I hid Jamie under the bed and then she started singing her Golly wog song.’
‘Gollywog song?’
Corrine snorted. ‘Quite the poet was my mum, Angus.’ And she began to chant the horrid rhyme her mum had created just for her.
Coco the nig nog gollywog,
Ugly little dog.
Coco the nig nog Gollywog,
Flush you down the bog.
Gus’s mouth fell open. How could a mother sing a song like that about her daughter? Memories of his mum singing rhymes to Katie and him as children flooded his mind – the one about Goldilocks, where she changed the words to make it relevant for them instead of ‘Blue eyes and curly hair’ she’d changed it to ‘Brown eyes and lovely hair.’ She’d even changed the Dilly Dilly part of that stupid lavender rhyme to ‘Katie, Katie’ or ‘Gussy, Gussy’ – one of the few times she ever abbreviated his name.
He didn’t normally swear in front of his parents, but it just exploded from his mouth. ‘Fuck!’
‘Exactly … Fuck. She wasn’t nice. Anyway, she was going to flush my head down the loo. She’d shoved my head in the toilet before and Jamie, bless him, he tried to protect me.’ Tears streamed down Corrine’s face and her gaze was focussed on the darkness outside the window, almost as if it reflected the darkness of her memories. ‘I’m not sure what happened, but Jamie ended up dead. I collapsed and when I wakened up, I was put in foster care with Rory’s family. I didn’t speak for two years – except to Rory and only when no one else was about.’
Gus walked round the table and hugged his mum, breathing in her distinctive lavender scent. ‘Aw, Mum.’ His voice was hoarse, and no other words would come out.
‘I was getting better. Rory’s parents were nice – his two older brothers were idiots, but I ignored them, and they were much older and at uni. Then one day Rory’s mum committed suicide and Rory found her. Within hours I was taken from them and placed with another foster family. I didn’t see Rory again until I went to University in Edinburgh…’ She looked at Gus. ‘That’s enough for now, eh?’
Gus nodded, but had to just make one thing clear to his mother. ‘He can’t have killed Miranda Brookes though, you realise that, don’t you, Mum?’
Corrine tilted her head ‘Yes, I know that, but I do know Rory did kill his wife…’
‘Yes, he did. The same way as his mother was found and the same way Miranda Brookes was killed. You need to be careful, Mum – really careful.’
‘Rory was ill, but he did kill her and to my shame, I wasn’t there for him.’ She looked up at Gus ‘You’ll get him, won’t you, Angus? Whoever is doing this, you’ll get them – Before he does it again?’
Gus wished he could promise his mum, but he couldn’t and the shadows under her eyes told him that she knew it too.
Chapter 30
Bradford
Sweat pouring off him, Gus completed his second circle of Lister Park. All the while his mind was buzzing. They seemed no further forward in catching Miranda Brookes’ killer, yet for the past two mornings he’d wakened up with the same awful dread; would today be the day that victim number two was discovered?
