A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [195]
The two men who abducted Yvette had been found and charged; Delroy Williams and Martin Broughton, who took Fifi, likewise. But Broughton had been promised that the help he’d given the police would be taken into account when he was sentenced.
Mike Muckle had been almost beaten to death by other prisoners while held in Brixton; ironically he’d been mistaken for his Uncle Alfie. He was still in the prison hospital when Roper learned it was Yvette who killed Angela, so the charges of accessory to murder against Mike were dropped and he was transferred to a civilian hospital.
Roper had told Dan that Mike didn’t appear to have played any part in the card parties, and as he wasn’t very bright, in his opinion the lad was to be pitied rather than punished for having relatives like Alfie and Molly. He believed Mike would go straight now, as his spell in prison had frightened him so badly.
Fifi had asked Roper if he could find out how the three remaining Muckle children, Alan, Mary and Joan, were doing. He came back a few days later with the news that they were all doing surprisingly well in a small children’s home in East Anglia. The matron had reported that they were very difficult to begin with, but right out in the country side, with good food, kindness and no reminders of their former life, they had eventually settled down and seemed happy. Alan was reputed to be very good with animals, and said he wanted to work on a farm when he was old enough.
After hearing this news Fifi took the view that at least one good thing had come out of all the horror. She hoped poor Dora was happier too, wherever she was.
Both Dan and Fifi were very aware that the trial was likely to shake them up again, and that until it was over and sentences passed, they would be living in a kind of limbo. This was why they’d made no attempt to find a home of their own yet.
‘If we did rent a flat it would take us far longer to save a deposit for a house,’ Fifi said thoughtfully. ‘So let’s hang on here until after the trial, it’s only about six weeks away.’
‘As long as we do go then.’ Dan grinned. ‘My idea of a perfect Sunday is to spend it in bed with you, not raking up leaves. And I suppose we’d better get it finished now or your mum will get the tight face again.’
Fifi giggled. Clara was being almost too nice and it was beginning to get on her nerves. When she did do the ‘tight face’ as Dan called it, Fifi secretly hoped it would erupt into a row. Too much calm and serenity wasn’t natural.
Yet finding out how distraught her family were when she went missing had made a huge impact on Fifi. She’d always thought she wasn’t loved as much as Patty and the boys, and she’d often felt like an outsider.
On the first night home she gave her parents the notes she’d made about them in the barn. She’d thought it was important that they knew what she’d been thinking about during that time. Both of them had cried openly, the first time Fifi ever remembered her father crying.
‘Just because you weren’t easy like Patty was as a child didn’t mean we loved you less,’ her mother sobbed out. ‘You were the one that made us laugh, you had a spirit that was all your own. Looking back, I often wonder if some of the problems you had were because I didn’t have enough time for you alone. It was hard having four children in six years. Maybe I didn’t let you be a baby long enough, and I was so anxious too, what with the war and your father away so much. But the oldest child always has the hardest time in a family, because they have to break new ground.’
Fifi had joked to Dan while she was still in hospital that she’d been through a mental spring-clean in the barn. All the old grievances had been pushed aside by good memories, she’d been able to see how much love she had inside her for her parents and how little she’d regarded their feelings in the past. She wasn’t sure before she and Dan came back here to live that this change of heart was a permanent one; she suspected that at the