The Faithless - Martina Cole [145]
It was a sad day and no mistake. So why did he feel that there was something awry – he liked that word, it was something an old-fashioned Filth would use. But his shit detector, and he prided himself on his shit detector, was telling him there was something fishy about all this. It smelt wrong and, even though that nutter James was capable of something this heinous, it all felt a bit too convenient for his liking.
Now, it was common knowledge that he hated Cynthia; she had outed a close friend of his, even if he couldn’t fault her actions at the time. But that hatred he had for her also made him suspicious of her, and what she was capable of. Though, from what he could gather, she loved those kids, so he was most probably barking up the wrong tree.
Still, he liked a nice little snoop occasionally, and he had plenty of Filth who owed him favours. If nothing else he would be able to give Vincent a proper update on his son’s murder case, because this was murder, whichever way you looked at it.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Three
As they lowered little Vincent’s coffin into the grave, Cynthia’s crying could be heard above everyone else’s, and that only proved to the onlookers how much she had loved that child. The gossips speculated how that boy would still be alive if he had been at his nanny’s where, in fairness, he had lived most of his life.
Gabriella was a lovely girl but she had been incapable of taking proper care of those children. She was like that Celeste and everyone knew she hadn’t been the full shilling. No, the general consensus was that Cynthia, whatever people might think of her in the past, had proved herself in the end.
Cynthia felt the tide of good wishes and basked in their warmth and, as she stood by her daughter, hand on her arm, her granddaughter clutching her other hand, she knew that she had won, at least where public opinion was concerned.
Everyone watched her pull Gabby into her arms, and they said afterwards that when it came down to it, no matter what, you always wanted your mum when things were bad.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Four
It was almost nine months since the funeral of little Vince, and Gabby was finally getting back to some kind of normality. It had not been the greatest of times, and she knew it would take a long while before she felt strong enough to feel anything close to happiness again.
Vincent was home, working at a garage in East London and they were gradually getting things together. It had been hard for them; he had never really known his son, but he had grieved for him as they both had. Cherie wasn’t living with them, but they saw her a lot, and that was enough for Gabby these days. As Vincent said, it was a shame to take the child away from her nanny until they had replaced everything and had a proper home for her. But Gabby knew it was because Cherie didn’t really bother with him. He had been away for so much of her life, she just didn’t know him any more. It was sad but it was a fact of life.
Now she was pregnant again, although she was too frightened to get excited about it. Vincent was over the moon; he saw it as a chance for them to start again with the family they both had always longed for. Gabby wouldn’t allow herself to get too caught up in his dreams. She had never been lucky in that way – every time she had believed her life was back on track it had been destroyed.
She had a lot of trouble with her hands still. It didn’t bother her that they were scarred, but it was difficult to pick up small things, like pins or stamps. Even a knife could be quite difficult for her, but she was doing a lot of physio, and soon she would have another skin graft and then things would be even easier. She supposed they might put that off now until after the baby was born.
She hoped it was a girl; she didn’t want to replace little Vince with another boy, but she knew that Vincent was hoping for a son he could take to the park and play football with. He wanted a little lad he could lavish all his time and energy on. She wouldn’t begrudge him