It grieved her that her favourite son had married this baggage, who, even now, could not keep herself clean and tidy for the hospital. To Maddie, appearances were everything, and how the world perceived you and your wifely skills was of tantamount importance. Yet all she ever heard about Jackie was how she was making a show of herself. When her Freddie had been put away, she had had to step in when Jackie had overspent on catalogues and then not even attempted to pay, and deal with the embarrassment of finding out that Jackie had gone all over the place ordering stuff and then threatening women with her husband's family if they tried to get what they were owed. To top it all, she'd had her own husband telling her that she had better sort it all out because the embarrassment was killing him. Then, after all she had done for her, she had to contend with Jackie looking at her in that disrespectful way she had, the girls sitting there all scruffy, with their pretty faces stained with sweets.
She remembered Jackie telling her that she needed help now Freddie was gone, that she needed clothes for the kids and food on the table, when everyone knew any money she laid her hands on went on drink and drugs. Expensive hobbies that once more put her daughter-in-law in debt.
Another one of Maddie's foibles was debt. She could not understand spending what you didn't have. When she had found herself paying off her daughter-in-law's debts it had been the final straw. Hundreds of pounds on clothes for her and the girls, clothes she wasn't even going to look after, that ended up in a washing pile and stayed there. It was all wrong, everything had gone all wrong.
Now, though, what else did she have, other than her children and her grandchildren? And a husband who was suddenly in love with a twenty-two-year-old girl.
The humiliation was still smarting along with the knowledge that this time it was different. Over the years he had tried to save her feelings, but this time he was not bothered about her at all. Had lost all respect for her, because he was enamoured of a child, a girl who already had two children by two different men, and a mouthful of expensive teeth that had been paid for by the man Maddie had loved all her life.
A girl who he took everywhere with him, like she was some kind of trophy, like a prize that said he wasn't getting old. It was laughable, and she would have laughed if it had happened to anyone else but her. Freddie Senior was staying with this girl most nights and he was parading her around the place without a thought for her. It was as if he had gone mad overnight, and now she was reduced to seeking out her son's mother-in-law, someone who she had prided herself on avoiding for all those years. She knew Lena was aware of the situation, but then it was nothing new to her, she had lived with it all her life. She also knew that Lena, knowing the score, felt for her, because she understood just how hard this situation was. To think she had looked down her nose at Lena for years and now, when life was overwhelming her, it was to Lena she was turning.
Once, Maddie would have caused murders, she would have fought him every inch of the way. But not any more. She was past fighting now, because she knew in her heart that if she pushed it, he would actually leave her this time. He was older, and he needed the reassurance of youth more than ever. She also knew he was working for his son, and experiencing a renaissance of his younger days and the skulduggery he had loved so much.
Freddie had given his father a new lease of life and she would never forgive him for that.
'I want my Freddie. Where's Freddie?' Jackie wanted her husband, she wanted him beside her as she produced his son. It was what she had dreamed of for months.
Maddie rolled her eyes at Lena. In the waiting room they had already consumed a large amount of brandy, courtesy of Maddie Jackson's emergency supply that she kept in her large, mock-crocodile-skin handbag. Maddie liked a drink occasionally, when life was getting her down.
She had only come to the hospital because her husband was on the missing list with his young girl, and her son was nowhere to be found, but for the first time ever she was warming to Lena, a woman she had always seen as below her, mainly because Lena and her brood had never moved on from the estate they had all grown up on. Whatever her husband was, he had moved them away. It grieved her that Freddie was still more comfortable in the council house he had with Jackie than she would have liked. All the money he had earned, and he still had nothing.
But they were both spendthrifts, they both saw money as something to use unwisely. She had hoped that Jackie, at least, with three kids, would have learned the value of a pound. It was not to be, now the girl was sweating and groaning out another child that would be brought up on the rock and roll. Because her son and his wife were claiming benefits, she knew that for a fact. Jackie was still getting her social security every Monday, she saw it as her bunce, as her money. When Freddie had been banged up it had been a necessity, now she should be making ends meet without bringing in government agencies and everything they entailed.
The word Jackie always used when she approached her about it was entitled. But more people had been captured over claiming benefits than was realised. Once they started poking their noses into your business, the law nearly always followed.
Maddie closed her eyes and tried to forget about the circumstances of her family because she was worried, more worried than she had ever been about her life. Freddie Senior was reliving his youth, and this had made her realise that she had never lived hers even when she had had it. She had not known how to be young, and suddenly this was important to her. Her life had been wasted, and it was only now she was becoming aware of that fact.
It was this more than anything that was playing on her mind. All her life, since her first child at seventeen, she had been a mother or a wife, and now she was being discarded. Her husband's leaving was only a matter of time, of that much she was sure. And the knowledge hurt, it was like a physical pain.
All her anger at Jackie was being suppressed now, because without the girls and this new baby her life would be over. Her husband had been everything to her for so long, and had always respected her and cared about her. She had never thought for one moment that he would stop. Now, though, her life was off kilter and she had a lot more in common with Jackie than she had ever thought possible. So she had no option but to concentrate on her family, and, like many another woman before her, she was finding out that at the end of the day that was all you really had.
For a proud woman like her, it was harder than she could ever have believed.
'Tomorrow we have a couple of mates up at the Bailey for a bail hearing, we want to make sure they get it.'
Halpin nodded warily.
'How can I do that?' His voice was quavering and he knew that Freddie and his sidekick could hear it and were enjoying it.
Freddie grinned, and pushed a new drink towards him. 'It's easy, see. We have done this loads of times.'
He lit himself a joint and then, blowing the smoke in Halpin's face, he coughed heavily before continuing. 'We need you to explain to the judge, quietly like, in his chambers, that my two mates have been a great help to you in solving other cases and so they deserve a break. But obviously it all has to be on the hush hush, as they can't be seen to be helping anyone with anything, that goes without saying.'
He could see the beads of sweat on the man's face and thanks to the cannabis he wanted to start laughing, but he knew he couldn't.
'Stop worrying, this kind of thing is done all the time.' Freddie motioned to Jimmy, who took a sheet of paper from his pocket and laid it on the table. 'These are their names, and what they are being charged with. The judge has already been given a large drink, so he will be ready for you and then it's just a formality. They will be granted bail.'