A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [88]
The three children were immediately put into the police car and driven off at speed. As the car turned the corner, someone hurled a brick through the windows of number 11, and the chanting grew louder and uglier.
A Black Maria came screaming down the street. Two policemen jumped out, pushing back the crowd and yelling that anyone stepping over the line would be arrested too.
After what seemed like hours, but was perhaps only ten or fifteen minutes, Molly and Dora were brought out handcuffed and shoved into the Black Maria, quickly followed by Alfie and Mike. The van drove off to screams of abuse, people running behind it, their faces ugly with hatred.
Fifi broke down and sobbed then. All the fears she’d had for Angela the time she intervened before had been justified. So why hadn’t she gone to the police then, or even the social services afterwards, and reported the Muckles? She’d hardly given the poor kid a thought once she knew she was pregnant, and today she’d been sunbathing when just across the road Angela was dying.
‘You are not in any way responsible,’ Dan said, as always quick to pick up on what she was thinking. ‘You couldn’t have done any more than you did.’
They went to bed then, but couldn’t sleep. Fifi wondered what asphyxiation actually meant. She’d heard the word often enough, but did it mean strangling or suffocation? She thought about the clean sheet over the child. Was that some kind of apology? Was Molly in on it all? She had to be; no man could go upstairs and do those hideous things to a seven-year-old without a mother sensing something.
But why kill her? Maybe in a way it was better that they had, for the poor little thing would surely never recover from the rape. Had Angela threatened to tell?
Fifi couldn’t imagine the child doing so. She was too fearful and cowed already. And why didn’t Alfie choose Mary or Joan, the older girls? Mary was already well developed for a thirteen-year-old. Or maybe he’d already done it to them too?
But over and above everything else, Fifi just couldn’t imagine how anyone could kill a child, then calmly take the rest of the family out for the day. What was Alfie intending to do with her when he got home? Bury her in the garden?
She knew Dan was awake too, even though he was pretending otherwise. The arm around her was tense, his whole body felt stiff. She sensed he was angry with himself for thinking that the warning of a good kicking would prevent Alfie from harming Angela again. He was probably dwelling too on what her parents would think about a man who exposed his wife to such dangerous characters.
But Fifi hadn’t got anything left inside her to comfort or reassure Dan. Her head was too full of the horror of what she’d seen that day to make room for anything else.
Chapter ten
‘Where are you going?’ Fifi asked as Dan got out of bed on Monday morning.
‘I’ve got to go to work,’ he said.
She sat up sharply. ‘You can’t,’ she said in disbelief. ‘Tell me you’re joking?’
They had spent Sunday in a kind of daze, hardly speaking because they didn’t know what to say to each other. They didn’t dare even go out for a walk because they didn’t want anyone questioning them. They silently prepared a roast dinner, but couldn’t eat it. Frank came up, and Miss Diamond later on, both asking if there was anything they could do, but it seemed as if they too had withdrawn into themselves, for they didn’t try to linger or talk.
It was the longest day Fifi had ever known. She felt unable to watch the television or read a book. She was just marking time until she could get back to bed, craving oblivion.
But they barely slept at all, tossing and turning, getting up for cups of tea twice, and it had never crossed Fifi’s mind that Dan would even consider going to work today. Surely he realized this was one time when she really needed him by her side?
Dan sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling on the pants he’d left on the floor the night before, then turned to her.
‘I have to, Fifi,’ he said gently, reaching out to caress her cheek. ‘I’ve