The Faithless - Martina Cole [141]
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four
‘It’s like I’m cursed, Granddad. The first night they stay with me, and my little boy gets burned to death. My mum was right, I should never have been allowed to have them on my own – look what happened. Cherie had been on at me about smoking, she said she hated the smell of it. It’s why I came home from your house. Why didn’t I just stay at yours?’
Jack Callahan wished to God that he could ease his granddaughter’s pain, but he knew no one could do that for her. Still, he hoped that what he had to tell her would relieve her of some of her guilt.
‘Look, Gabby, there’s something you should know. The police think the fire was started deliberately, and they think it was James who did it. Someone got into your house and lit cigarettes all over the place. It wasn’t you. Whoever it was had placed piles of clothes under the fags, and your wastepaper basket and bin. I wasn’t supposed to tell you this – they didn’t want you to know until they thought you could cope with it, but your mother thinks it was James and so do the Old Bill now. She said he had turned up at her house a few days before and demanded money. I rarely agree with her, but I think this time Cynthia is right. It was James – it had to be. Who else would do something so fucking wicked?’
Gabby was thunderstruck. ‘James? But why would James hurt me and my kids? It don’t make sense!’
Jack shrugged. ‘Why does that mad bastard do anything? There’s no sense to be had out of this, and you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to make some. He’s a fucking nut-bag, always was, and always will be. So stop beating yourself up, love. I’ll tell the police I’ve told you. Will you believe it if you hear it from them too?’
Gabby was numb; of all the explanations for what might have happened that night, her brother being the culprit was not one of them. But she supposed it had to be true – maybe he had thought they were out?
She felt the tears streaming down her face once more, and she looked at her heavily bandaged hands that had been burned down to the bone with her efforts to open her son’s door. Her baby boy, her Vince, was dead, and it was her own brother who had killed him. There was no doubt about it – they were cursed, the whole family was cursed.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Five
Cynthia was not herself and everyone remarked on it. In the week following little Vincent’s death the weight dropped off her and she looked older. People talked about how good she had been with those kids; she was hailed as a wonderful grandmother who had given up her life to raise her daughter’s children. But she knew the truth, and it was eating at her like a cancer.
It had been quick thinking on her part, even in her distress, to say her son must have done it, and that had seemed to ring true. After all, they were the ones who’d told her about his threat to burn her out. He would eventually turn up like a bad penny, and they would charge him. It would do some good anyway; this time they would lock him up and throw away the key. They should have done that years ago.
It was the nights that were the worst for Cynthia. She thought she could hear little Vincent calling for her. And he would have called for her not his mum – it was Cynthia he would have wanted. She felt the sweat as it suffused her body, and the shortening of her breath that always accompanied it. Why had she done it? She had just wanted to make it seem as if her daughter was trying to fiddle the insurance and get herself a better house to live in into the bargain. Why had she not checked the bedrooms? She felt the tears once more, the tears that were never far from the surface. That little boy, that dear, handsome little boy . . .
As Cherie came and placed herself on her nanny’s lap, Cynthia held her tightly, loving the feel of her small body, and remembering little Vince as he snuggled into her, his sweet baby smell of Johnson’s powder. Now he was gone,