The Faithless - Martina Cole [149]
‘I don’t feel well, Mum. I feel ill and out of sorts.’
‘Well, whose fault’s that then? Pregnant again, aren’t you? He’ll leave you like he did the last two times. He won’t keep out of the nick, love – it’s all he’s fucking fit for. And I can tell you now, I’m not looking after any more kids either. You’re on your own this time, lady. I told you when you met that idiot Vincent O’Casey, I said then, and I stand by my words, he has the brains of a fucking rocking horse and the face of a Tonka toy. But would you listen to me? You should get shot of that baby. How can you have another one? I mean, I ask you, how long before he’ll be banged up again?’
Gabby was frightened of the hate spiralling inside her. She was terrified of the feelings consuming her, and the thoughts that were spinning out of control inside her head. She didn’t want to hurt her mother, she mustn’t hurt her – not yet anyway, not until she had found out the truth, no matter how painful it might be. But she had to know.
She took a deep breath and said calmly, ‘Have the police spoken to you yet?’
Her mother went quiet at that, and then she asked warily, ‘What about? Why would they want to speak to me? More likely they were after your old man. What’s he gone and done this time?’
‘Vincent? My Vincent ain’t done nothing, but it seems they have found James.’ She saw her mother’s face pale, and she wanted to smile.
‘Where? Where did they find him? Have they charged him? The murdering little fucker.’
She was good, Gabby would give her that. What was it the psychiatrist had said about mimicking emotions? Oh, that was her mother all over.
‘Well, where is he? Is he in custody? Have they collared him or what?’
Gabby could almost feel the panic emanating from her mother, and she knew then that she would enjoy bringing her down, she would love every second of exposing her for the liar she was. ‘He’s in a morgue up in Leicester. He’s been dead for over a year, Mum. You do realise what that means, don’t you?’ She saw Cynthia trying to take onboard what she had said to her. ‘It means he couldn’t have been the one who set fire to my house, and it also means that you couldn’t have spoken to him a few days before like you said you did. Because he was dead then. Unless you saw him through a fucking medium, you lying, treacherous, fucking whore of a woman.’
Cynthia was taken aback by the vehemence of her daughter’s accusations. She knew only too well that her daughter was telling the truth. Now she had to find a way out of her lies and subterfuge. Trust that fucking James to be dead! That was so like her kids – they always let her down.
‘I know what I saw, and it was not long before the fire, but it might have been a few weeks before – I was confused, I was upset. For fuck’s sake, Gabriella, it was a terrible time. What are you trying to prove here?’
Gabby laughed harshly. Oh, she was really good. Her acting was of Oscar standard. Move over, Dame Judi Dench, you are an amateur in comparison with Cynthia Callahan. ‘What I am trying to prove? I am trying to prove who was responsible for the death of my little boy, Mum, that’s what I am trying to prove. And, by all accounts, it wasn’t my brother, your son, James, so who does that leave?’
Cynthia just shook her head in utter disbelief, stalling for time. She was thinking on her feet now, trying to work out how she was going to explain it all away. ‘I don’t know, darling – maybe he got someone else to do it, or it was someone after your Vincent. You know what villains are like – he probably fucked someone over in stir, and that door of yours was never safe, was it? One good push and it was open.’
Gabby just stared at her mother, the woman who had carried her in her belly, and who had never in her life given her a thing that was worth having. The very same woman who was now trying her hardest to talk her into believing that her house burning down and her son dying was all some kind of conspiracy by persons unknown, as the police would