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  ‘Oh, Mum!’

  Lucy looked at her mother and felt such sorrow for her that the tears flowed freely. For her to hear all that now was terrible. Lucy, not for the first time, wished she could keep her big mouth shut.

  Kevin walked out of the room quickly. He couldn’t look at those accusing eyes any longer because it wasn’t fair. None of it was. He took the flak for everything and in trying to help had only made things worse. Well, this was just the catalyst he’d needed to take a stroll, and he would. He was out of it all now. Let them get on with it.

  As he left the hospital he knew in his heart that Louise would survive. On sheer will-power she would survive, and in surviving would make sure she destroyed them all. Especially her first-born child, her eldest daughter. She hated Marie with a vengeance that was unnatural.

  One thing he knew for sure: no matter what happened now, this marriage was over. Pity might have kept him in it this long, but not any more. Lou being Lou, she would make him pay somehow. And if that was the case, he would pay happily as long as he never had to look at her again.

  Mickey Watson had followed him outside. As Kevin unlocked his van he saw his daughter’s fiancé standing nearby, looking embarrassed.

  ‘What can I do for you, Mickey?’

  ‘What’s going to happen with Lou?’

  Mickey’s big moon face was inscrutable.

  Kevin shrugged. ‘Looks like your wife-to-be has already made up her mind about that. She’s just lumbered herself with her. Ask her what’s happening. Like her mother before her she knows everything so she should be able to answer that question.’

  Mickey stood his ground.

  ‘She’s your wife.’

  Kevin laughed gently.

  ‘That’s true, but there is such a thing as divorce, you know.’

  ‘You’d divorce Lou, the state she’s in?’

  Mickey sounded amazed. In their circles you stood by your own through thick and thin or other people had something to say about it.

  ‘Like a fucking shot! Your wife-to-be saw to that. I have had the pair of them up to my back teeth. Now this, and I’m blamed as usual. Well, I have had enough. A bit of advice for you, Mickey, look long and hard at Louise because the old saying is true where her and Lucy are concerned. Lucy is her mother all over again, and God help her, she will never know a day’s real happiness. Consequently neither will you.’

  Mickey watched him drive off. Half of him felt sorry for Louise, being left like that in the condition she was in. But another part of him knew that he would have done the same thing. She was a bastard of a woman.

  Lou had taken Kevin and all but destroyed him over the years. Used him as a provider, a crutch for her ego, and the source of a wedding band to show off to the neighbours. In his heart of hearts Mickey didn’t blame him for taking the easy way out now. But he resented the fact that it left his fiancée, and that meant him as well, with Louise. Fit and well she was a handful, but if she survived this she was going to be a nightmare. He needed to consider his own position in this. As his mother said, the sins of the fathers and all that.

  He wasn’t going to tie himself to someone who had to be at her mother’s beck and call for the rest of their married life. No, he needed to think long and hard about what he was going to do now. He wasn’t about to exchange one miserable mother for another. No way was that happening to him. Out of the two, he’d have his own any day of the week. And he had his own life to lead.

  Karen Black was packing. They were all going to the caravan in Margate. She felt euphoric at her antics of earlier in the day. She would love to see the Carters’ faces when they saw what she had done to their house!

  That would teach Kevin not to fuck with people. He thought he was hard? Well, she would like to see him now. See him foraging for a few quid and a roof over his head.

  She laughed delightedly.

  She was away to Margate until the heat died down. It was the natural thing to do. Once the nine-days wonder was over she would slip back, a heroine and a meter-out of justice. This was important to her. She needed to feel that people respected her, and respect was best earned by threats and the ability to carry them out.

  Kevin Carter would think twice before he messed with her again. The recollection of what he had done to her still rankled. Her workmates had seen her at her lowest ebb, humiliated and unable to fight back for once in her life. But she had paid him back one hundredfold for his little tantrum, and she knew that anyone with half a brain would swallow it and let things lie. After all, the next step from a fire bombing was actual physical harm. Kevin Carter knew that and would keep his head down and his mouth shut.

  She only wished she could stay long enough to hear the talk in her local pub. She would be the topic of conversation for a long while after this little lot. Karen was shrewd enough to understand not all the talk would be praise, but she knew that her name would become synonymous with what she had done, what she had achieved, and others would treat her accordingly.

  She would be able to say what she wanted to people, would enjoy drinks that she had not paid for and would also bask in the knowledge that everyone thought she was a bona fide nut case. Someone to be wary of, to watch closely in case you inadvertently brought her wrath down on your head.

  Karen shivered with excitement.

  Every time she thought of the flames licking their way around the Carters’ house, thought of the heat, the destruction and havoc they had wrought, she felt an almost sexual thrill that encompassed her whole body.

  The photos curling up, burning from the outside in. Flames searing faces wreathed in smiles; long-dead relatives forgotten for ever once their images had disappeared. Carpets melting, curtain material smoking and eventually bursting aflame. The smell of plastic and rubber. Black smoke that could choke anyone, even firemen in breathing apparatus.

  She grinned again, feeling she had really achieved something phenomenal. Then her husband Petey came into the room. He was short, bull-necked and stank of BO. Karen looked at him with her usual mixture of derision and affection. He could be a laugh and that was all that mattered in the end.

  ‘What’s up with you?’

  Her voice was quivering with the excitement of what she had done, but her natural belligerence was still evident.

  Petey had dead blue eyes that seemed heedless of anything but hid a mind that worked faster than a computer.

  ‘What you done, Kal?’

  She heard the fear in his voice and an icy hand gripped her heart. Were Old Bill at the door? Had she been grassed?

  ‘What you on about?’

  Before he could answer she heard her mother bellowing as she pounded up the uncarpeted stairs. ‘Where is she?’

  Her footsteps on the bare wood sounded loud and angry. The bedroom door burst open and Rita Black rushed into the room, her eyes demented.

  ‘Trust you, you stupid bloody cow!’

  Karen felt the fear rising in her, spiralling towards her head.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

  Her voice was unsteady. She knew she wasn’t going to like this. Her brother Luke stood behind his mother and he was looking at Karen as if he was ready to kill her.

  His voice was trembling as he answered her.

  ‘Did you check the house was empty before you torched it?’

  Karen felt the breath leave her body. She sat down on the unmade bed, the case digging into her back painfully. Her eyes were wide, her blood thundering in her ears as she waited for him to tell her the bad news.

  ‘You did the front and back, didn’t you? Left no escape route.’

  It was her mother talking now, low-voiced, sounding almost normal as she looked at her daughter in disgust.

  ‘You stupid bloody woman! Louise Carter was in there . . .’

  Karen shook her head wildly.

  ‘She wasn’t! She goes to the graveyard every day. No one was in there.’

  Her mother’s hand connected with Karen’s face and the pai
n was welcome. She needed it to prove this was really happening.

  ‘She was in there, in the house.’

  ‘No. You’re wrong, I tell you. She goes to the graveyard every day. I’ve been watching her. Who told you this? They’re fucking liars.’

  Luke punched the bedroom door, tearing a hole in it. His temper was up now and he was in danger of losing it big time.

  ‘It was on the fucking news, you stupid fat cunt. She is being moved to Billericay burns unit tomorrow. If she dies it’s a murder charge. If she survives you’re looking at a twelve at least.’

  Karen was licking her lips. Her whole mouth was dry with fear. Her eyes were like saucers as the awful truth of what she had done finally sank in.

  ‘Oh, Mum.’

  ‘I’ll give you “Oh, Mum”. Why couldn’t you leave it alone? Tams is like a lunatic downstairs. She never wanted any of this. It was all about you as usual, Mrs fucking Big. Well, you are on your Jacksy this time, girl. You got yourself into this and you can get yourself out of it. Because I tell you now, Kal, no one will cover up for you after this little lot. People want shot of you. Like all bullies you’re better off out of it. So think on that one as you travel down to Margate.’

  ‘Please, Mum . . .’

  ‘Piss off, Kal. If you want to do something about this, put your hand up and take the flak. At least that way you’ll come out of it with a bit of respect. You’re just like your father – all talk and no fucking trousers. I visited him for years because I had no choice. He was a bigger nutter than you could ever hope to be. I was so pleased when he died, I was over the fucking moon to get shot. So now you know.’

  ‘Leave it out, Mum.’

  Luke was upset. His father had been his idol.

  ‘No. I am finally having my say. I hate my life and I hate the lot of you. Bethany on the game, you lot like animals . . . what have I got to brag about, eh? What have I got to show for all my kids and all my life, eh? Nothing. No fucking thing.’

  Rita started to cry then and this shocked her children more than anything else she could have done. This wasn’t the strong woman who had fought the schools, the police, the courts, and anyone else who dared to criticise her kids. Who had visited them in care, Borstal or prison. This was a woman who was ashamed of and embarrassed by her own family, and this knowledge was both shocking and humiliating to the people in that room with her.

  ‘Louise Carter was all right. A pain in the arse but that was her prerogative. She had every right to live her life how the fuck she wanted. Who are you to take her home and destroy it? She had a nice home, a clean, decent home. Unlike me. I never could have anything like that because you lot wrecked it, took pride in living like animals. Well, you can all get fucked now. I want you out and I want me place to meself. Just for once I want peace and quiet and you lot gone from me. Tams can stay, but the rest of you can fuck off. And remember, whatever Louise was, she never deserved that. Especially not that.’

  ‘It’s all coming out tonight, ain’t it?’

  Luke was hurt and his anger was mounting.

  ‘Looks like it, son. I should have said this years ago.’

  He clenched his fists and his mother looked at him with derision.

  ‘Temper, temper. What you gonna do then, turn me into a pork scratching as well? Burn me out, eh? Your answer to everything, ain’t it? Violence. Well, you do what you must, but you’re all gone from here tonight. When the filth come knocking, and they will, I want to be able to say I don’t know where you are. Any of you.’

  Karen was silently crying on the bed, her face awash with tears. Her mother shook her head in amazement.

  ‘It’s crying.’

  She laughed at her daughter’s distress.

  ‘Look at it crying.’

  ‘Of course she’s crying after what you just said, Muvver.’

  She turned to her son, her face devoid of expression.

  ‘She’s crying because she’ll get caught for what she done. She knows she’ll go down and for a long time. She should have cried it off days ago and left the matches at home then she wouldn’t be in the state she’s in now, would she? She gave Marie a hammering, wasn’t that enough? But like you all, she just doesn’t know when to stop.’

  She pushed her way out of the room and walked sedately down the stairs. Her cumbersome body felt lighter than it had for years. She was going to get rid of them all and that knowledge made her feel twenty years younger. In the lounge she took her grand-daughter Tamara in her arms.

  ‘Me and you now, kid. So at least something good came out of all this shit.’

  A car pulled up and a blue light flashed around the walls of the lounge. Taking a deep breath, Rita went to open the front door.

  The police were wary, knowing the trouble the Black family was capable of. Normally the mother was like a raving lunatic when they arrived on her doorstep. But this time she just looked at them sadly and said, ‘She’s upstairs, officer.’

  Marie sat in her room alone. News of the fire had baffled her. She felt responsible but couldn’t understand why her mother and family had been brought into the equation after all this time.

  It could only be the Blacks. No one else.

  She wondered why she wasn’t crying. Wasn’t feeling anything other than shock and dismay. But then her mother had killed any feelings she’d had for her many years before.

  But the pain . . . the pain of being burned was terrible. She had seen it first hand in prison, and that had only been a scalding. One of her fellow prisoners had been convicted of killing her own child. She had had a bucket of scalding water thrown in her face to show what the others thought of her. It was the smell Marie remembered, and the screaming. Like a trapped animal’s. It had taken the POs ages to get to her because the other women had formed a cordon and would not let them through. In the end they had had to resort to riot batons to get to the screaming victim. Marie closed her eyes but the image was still there. The woman had only been young, about twenty-five, and quite pretty before the attack. She had confided in Marie that on the day of her child’s death she had been higher than Concorde on drink and drugs.

  Marie started to retch again but there was nothing to bring up. She had emptied her stomach already.

  It was guilt and she knew it. This was all her fault. She should have gone far away and left it at that. But she had needed to see her kids. Had been determined to see them. And if Jason was anything like his sister now, it had all been for nothing.

  She wondered how Lucy was coping. How her father was coping. Everything bad that had happened to her family had inadvertently been caused by her. Would Dad turn away from her now? If he did she wouldn’t blame him, how could she?

  The walls were coming in on her again like they used to do inside so she started counting. In prison she had counted everything. It had kept her sane.

  Numbers took your mind off thoughts, off words, off images.

  Karen Black would be feeling euphoric at what she had done. Marie had met many others like her in prison; women who had violent personalities and were proud of that fact. Women who needed the kudos of a reputation for savagery to feel they were someone others respected.

  Kilty, also a double murderess, was out. Marie knew that if she went to see her Kilty would make sure Karen Black got what she deserved. Kilty was a mate but so far Marie had avoided her though she knew she should have got in touch.

  Kilty had made her life easier in prison by befriending her. And the strange thing was, she had been a likeable woman. When they were alone she had been different, softer, less brash than she was when they were in the rec room or the workplace. Her public persona was her armour against the world. Basically she was a good person. Deep inside she had a soft heart and a pleasant personality. Yet she had murdered her husband and her pimp on the same night. Brothers, they had both used and abused her over a period of years until finally she had snapped.

  She and Marie were kindred spirits in some ways, two women who were victi
ms of their own weakness as opposed to inherently bad people. There was a big difference.

  Marie opened her bag and took out a small bottle of Valium. Alan had left them in his office and she had binned them before reconsidering and pocketing them. They were five milligrams each and she shook two on to the palm of her hand and stared at them.

  Small yellow happiness givers. They would at least let her sleep. But she knew that, like drink, if she took them she would enjoy the buzz before she crashed out, and there would lie the danger.

  She swallowed them dry.

  As she lay down and waited for the magic to work she felt one rogue tear slip from her eye. Her poor mother. The pain she must be in, and the terrible way she must look. And her poor father - what must he be thinking? How would he cope with Louise in the state she was in? The news had said that she was badly burned and would be in hospital for months. That she had over seventy per cent burns, mainly to her face, arms and back. That her hair was gone and her clothes had melted on to her body.

  Why did all these bad things happen to their family?

  It was her. She was a Jonah, a pariah.

  No one she was involved with in any way was safe.

  Suddenly Marie felt the lift. The heaviness of the drug taking control. It was like lying on a thick mattress and sinking into it. Her limbs felt heavy and her mind was fogged. She remembered this feeling. Had looked forward to it once. Needed it in fact. Now she was glad of it all over again. She craved oblivion once more. The guilt was too much for her to bear.

  She wondered if she might be better off, if everyone might be better off, if she just ended everything once and for all?

  Everything she touched went bad. Everyone she was involved with had trouble. It was her. Something bad was inside her and consequently she brought nothing but heartache to those near her.

  She was trapped in this room, night after night, like a schoolgirl. Her whole life was open to scrutiny by everyone and anyone. She couldn’t move but she had to explain herself to someone. What kind of half-life was that for anybody? She had been better off inside where at least she could cause no harm.