They stared at me with fear in their eyes.
"Look, I know you were together that night until nine o'clock and that because of it Geoffrey was the last person tc speak to Annie," I said bluntly. "And I'm guessing that if I could work that out then so could Maureen." I watched their fear increase. "So what did she do? Demand money?" I shook my head impatiently as I saw from their expressions that I was right. "And you have the nerve to accuse me of blackmail?"
"You're no different," said Geoffrey, clenching his fists. "Sending us threatening letters ... on our backs all the time ... trying to ruin our lives."
"If you'd been honest at the time," I said wearily, "I wouldn't have had to write any letters at all. You weren't responsible for Annie's death, Geoffrey, any more than my husband was. He passed her after you-also thought she was drunk-and also did nothing to help her. You were both guilty of unkindness but neither of you killed her." I watched his eyes widen in shock and smiled unkindly. "But I'm glad you've spent so long thinking you did. You deserve to pay some sort of penalty for lashing out when she begged you for help. That's what you did, isn't it? Knocked her down, then panicked when you thought you must have pushed her into the path of the traffic?"
He put a nervous hand on the door, but whether to steady himself or slam it in my face it was hard to say. Whatever his intention, Sharon thrust him away and wedged her foot against the bottom of the door. "Go on," she told me tightly.
"Whoever killed Annie attacked her in her house three or four hours before Geoffrey passed her in the street and those are the injuries she died of. She was beaten so savagely that she passed out ... but she came to some time later and found the strength to stagger out into the street to look for help. The most likely time for the assault was around six o'clock but, as far as I've been able to discover, neither of you was in Graham Road at that time, so I can't see what you have to fear by telling the truth."
Geoffrey wasn't easily convinced. "How do we know you're not lying?" he asked.
"To what purpose?"
"To catch us out ... make us say what you want."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" said Wendy in sudden exasperation. "I had no idea you were such a stupid man, Geoffrey. Is the truth really so frightening that you must keep Sharon a prisoner to it?" Her eyes sparkled angrily. "Mrs. Ranelagh's trying to help you-though, goodness me, I'm not sure you deserve it-but you'll be tying her hands if you can't find the courage to stand up to Alan and Maureen."
"It's not just them though, is it?" he said unhappily. "They've got Derek in there as well."
I felt like a rag doll that had just lost all the sawdust out of its knees, and, from the way Wendy clutched at the gatepost, I clearly wasn't the only one.
I should have considered the size of Maureen's sitting room before I picked her house as the meeting place. Barely ten feet square, it was too small to allow each of us the amount of space we wanted, and we grouped ourselves in uncomfortable proximity according to our fragile alliances. This meant the Slaters sat rigidly on a sofa against the internal wall while Wendy, Sharon, Geoffrey and I faced them on hard-backed chairs in front of the window. It was reminiscent of trench warfare during the First World War-and I began to wonder if the outcome would be as futile.
I had been swept with nausea from the moment I saw Derek, and I struggled to contain it as the sour smell of him-more remembered, I think, than real-filled my nostrils. I kept asking myself why it hadn't occurred to me that Maureen would confront me with him, when instilling fear was what she was best at. I tried to speak and found I couldn't.
"Go on then," she said, gloating over my discomfort. "Say what you have to say, then get out."
It was a strange moment. The anger and bitterness inside me had been through a number of evolutions over the years-from a savage desire to kill, through apathy and a wish to forget-to this, my final position. Most of the time I could delude myself that I was pursuing justice for Annie-indeed I believe that most of the time that's what I was doing. But every so often I recognized that Dr. Elias and Peter Stanhope were right and my motives were based on revenge. If Maureen had kept her mouth shut, I might have been able to persuade myself forever that it was justice I was seeking ... but such a surge of hatred shot through me in that moment that I was back where I started.
If Derek was dying, as Michael had suggested, it wasn't immediately obvious. He was thinner than I remembered and his hands had the permanent tremor of alcoholism, but he still held his head like a boxer, watching for any opening, and he still radiated an illiterate's aggression. As for Alan, he was just an older, broader version of his brother and I couldn't look at him without thinking of Danny. I had pictured him for half my life as a muscular giant with a child's brain, but the reality was a nervous man with grimy fingernails and a beer gut who strove to keep as much distance from his parents as a three-seater sofa would allow.
In the end it was Derek who spoke first. His voice had changed very little-hard vowels and glottal stops-and it grated on my ears as it had twenty years ago. "You can't blame the boy," he muttered, putting a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. "He only did what I told him to do."
"I know." I looked at Alan's bent head. "I've never blamed him."
"Then you'll drop the rest of the stuff if I admit to it? That's what you've come for, isn't it? My head in a noose."
"Not just yours."
His eyes glinted dangerously. "You brought it on your own head," he ground out. "You shouldn't have set Drury on me ... shouldn't have accused me of murdering the nigger."
I swallowed bile. "I didn't," I answered, forcing my voice to remain steady. "Mr. Drury asked me to give him the names of anyone I thought might have a grudge against Annie, so I named Maureen, Sharon and you. But he was only interested in you-probably because you had convictions for assault-and asked me what your grudge was. I said you were a drunken bully who made no secret of your racist views, that you had low self-esteem, a negligible IQ and a 'poor white' mentality. I also told him you were in the habit of punching and kicking anyone who annoyed you, and cited the time you thrashed Michael Percy because he stood up to you after your own son ran away. At no point did I accuse you of murdering Annie." I held his gaze for a moment. "In fact the only accusation I ever made was that you threatened me with what might happen if I didn't keep my mouth shut."
He stabbed a trembling finger at me. "You lied about that."
I shook my head. "If you'd read my statement you'd have known what I said. But you couldn't read, so you accepted Mr. Drury's interpretation." I smiled slightly. "The funny thing is, I don't even blame you very much either. It's your nature to piss on anything you don't understand, so to condemn you for doing it is about as senseless as blaming a rat for spreading disease"-I looked at Maureen-"or a snake for being venomous."
The woman's eyes narrowed immediately. "Don't drag me into this," she snapped. "It was none of my doing."
There was a short silence while she and I stared at each other with our mutual hatred written strong on our faces. "But at least you know what Derek and I are talking about," I said evenly. "Which no one else does"-I gestured to right and left-"except Alan of course. You see, I've always wanted to know who planned it. It was too"-I sought for a word-"subtle for either of these morons to work out alone."
"Whatever they did, they did off their own bat. Ask them if you don't believe me."
"There'd be no point," I said with an indifferent shrug. "You've already persuaded Derek to take the blame. Just as you always did."
"And how would I do that, Miss High-and-Mighty?" she demanded with a sneer. "He's a man, isn't he? He does what he wants."