The Shape of Snakes (23 page)

I looked away to hide my anger, recalling what Wendy Stanhope had said.
The poor woman was always taking refuge with us...
"I understood they took you in whenever Derek became violent."

"Only out of charity, never out of liking."

It was something she resented
, I thought.

"The vicar knocked next door once a week. He never did that for me. I had to go looking for help."

"Perhaps he felt Annie had more to put up with."

"No more than we did. You should have heard her cursing and swearing at us through the wall."

"You said she only did it when you made a noise."

"Not always. Sometimes it was hard to say which came first ... her or us. She had a mouth like a sewer. When it wasn't 'white trash,' it was 'honkies' or 'scum.' It used to rile us up something rotten."

"She couldn't help herself," I said. "She suffered from a neuropsychiatric disorder called Tourette's syndrome. Sometimes it manifests itself as
coprolalia
, which is a compulsion to utter obscenities. Her mother was far more prone to it than Annie, but maybe Annie resorted to it when she was stressed."

"Then she should have been in a loony bin."

Does she believe that?
I wondered. Or was it something she repeated like a mantra to excuse what she did? "A more sensible solution would have been for the council to rehouse you and your family somewhere else," I suggested. "To be honest, I never understood why they didn't. You lived entirely on benefit, had more social workers allocated to you than anyone else in the street, yet for some reason the pressure was always on Annie to move and never on you. That always seemed grossly unfair to me when she was a householder, paying rates, and you were paying nothing."

"That wasn't our fault. Derek was out of work. Would you have liked it better if we'd starved?"

I refused to be sidetracked. "Why did the council take your side against Annie's, Maureen? It must have been clear to them that she wasn't getting on with her neighbors."

"Why would it? She never complained."

"She called you 'white trash.' What's that if it's not a complaint?"

She lit another cigarette and shook her head at my stupidity. "I meant she didn't complain to the council."

I had to make a conscious effort to stop my mouth dropping open. I had imagined any number of conspiracy theories to account for why the Slaters and the Percys had been allowed to wage a terror campaign against Annie, but it had never entered my head that the explanation was so simple. "Are you saying that, despite all the complaints you and Sharon made against her, she never once retaliated?"

Maureen nodded.

"Why not?"

She didn't answer and another silence developed between us. She wore her hair in a tight ponytail and kept running the flat of her hand across her crown as if to check that the elastic was still in place. She seemed to be debating with herself whether after twenty years there was anything to be gained by telling the truth, although I guessed that her real concern-indeed the only reason we were having this conversation-was to find out how much I knew and what I was planning to do about it.

"She was too afraid of Derek," she admitted suddenly.

"To make an official complaint?"

"Yes."

"What did he do to stop her?"

Another silence, longer this time, before she gave an embarrassed shrug. "Killed one of her cats and said he'd kill the others if she ever spoke out against us. The thing is"-she wriggled her shoulders uncomfortably, knowing that nothing could excuse her husband's behavior or her complicity in it-"we'd been moved three times in three years, and we didn't want to move again. We sure as hell didn't want to go back to a high rise."

"No," I said slowly. "I don't suppose you did."

"It was only a cat."

"Mm." I paused to glance along the corridor. "It was quite a bargain when you think about it ... a cat for a house."

"There you are, then."

"Oh, no." I gave a small laugh. "Don't you dare bracket me with a sadist. If Derek had been married to me, he'd never have got near a cat. I'd have beaten his brains out with a sledgehammer the minute he lifted a finger against one of my children. Why were you such a coward? Why didn't you fight back?"

Her malice intensified. "You don't know what it was like. You didn't go in fear of your life every day. What do you think he'd have done to me and the kids if I'd tried to stop him?"

"Why didn't you go to the police?"

She shook her head scornfully as if the question weren't worth answering, and in fairness, it probably wasn't. Domestic violence was a low priority in 1978. As was harassment of black people.

"How did he kill the cat?" I asked, reverting to what interested me.

"Strangled it," she said irritably. "They kept coming into our garden, and he'd already warned her he wasn't going to stand for it. He chucked the body back over the fence with a note tied to its collar so she'd get the message."

"What did the note say?"

"I don't know, for sure. Something like he'd nail the next one to the fence. He didn't tell me about it till afterward." She watched me slyly through her lashes while she cooked up another defense. "I like cats. I'd have stopped him if I could. The children were all over them when we first came here ... they kept asking where the marmalade one was."

"When did it happen?"

"About two months before she died."

"September '78?"

"Probably."

I recalled John Hewlett's letter to Sheila Arnold.
1 made two recommendations on my first visit in March 1978: 1) that she install a cat flap in the kitchen door to allow the animals free access to and from the garden...
"After you'd set the RSPCA inspector on to her then?"

Maureen tapped the glowing end of her cigarette against her saucer and watched a curl of ash deposit itself against the side. "I can't remember."

"His first visit was in March. He ordered her to put a cat flap in her door because you and Sharon kept complaining about the smell coming from her house."

She lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug.

"Weren't you worried she'd show Derek's note to him the next time he came?"

"She wouldn't have dared. She was almost as frightened of the RSPCA as she was of Derek."

"How did she let the cats out before she had the flap installed?"

"She never did. That's why the house stank."

"That's not true," I said bluntly. "You just told me how your children were all over the cats when you first came here. How could they have had any contact if there was no way for the animals to get out until the flap was installed?"

A stubborn note crept into Maureen's voice. "Maybe she didn't bother to close her back door."

"Well, did she or didn't she? You must have known. Your kitchens were next door to each other."

"Most of the time it was open." Her eyes caught mine, then slid away to hide their cunning. "That's what made us think she had chickens in there. The smell that came out of it was disgusting."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" I said wearily. "The only stink 'round here was your family's body odor. God knows if you ever gave Alan a bath or washed his clothes, but no one wanted to sit next to him at school. Poor kid. He was always the first to be checked for head lice ... and
always
had them. Always the first to have his locker searched for missing games kit ... and
always
had it. The PE teacher asked him once what his problem was, and he said he liked things that smelled clean."

"It wasn't my fault," she said again, her voice rising to an irritating whine. "We didn't have a washing machine."

"Neither did we. I used the laundrette on the main road."

"You didn't have kids."

"Two machines take the same time as one."

"The bags were too heavy ... I couldn't abandon Danny ... In any case, I never had any money. Derek spent it all on drink."

I looked at the vodka bottle on the table. "He wasn't the only one." I rode roughshod over her attempt at a retort. "Why didn't you do the washing by hand in the bath? You weren't working. You had all day to devote to your children. The one thing you could have done was keep them clean."

"I did my best."

I'd waited so long to get this off my chest that caution gave way to honesty. "Then you should be ashamed of yourself," I said flatly. "I've seen women in Africa do better than that when all they had was a tub of cold water. You did nothing for your children, and the only reason Danny's a nice kid now is because somewhere along the line someone took an interest in him. I suspect it was Alan's wife"-I could see from her expression that I was right-"because it certainly wasn't you. You were in a drunken stupor most of the time ... like your husband."

She was surprisingly indifferent, as if she'd heard the same accusations many times before. "You do what you can to get by," she said, "and it wasn't always like that. Some days were better than others. In any case, you don't feel the pain so much when you're drunk. You should try having your face smashed into a brick wall once in a while and see how you like it."
 

Letter from Ann Butts to Councillor J. M. Davies,
Richmond-dated 1978

30 Graham Road
Richmond
Surrey

June 12,1978

Dear Mr. Davies,

I got your name and address from a leaflet that was pushed through my door. You said to write if I had a problem. I think something should be done for Morin. She cries because her husband hits her. I have tried to make him stop but he is a nasty man who likes hurting children and animals.

Yours very worried,
Ann Butts (Miss)
 

Carbon copy of Councillor J. M. Davies's reply

Pendlebury
Duke's Avenue
Richmond
Surrey
01-940-0000

June 20, 1978

Dear Miss Butts,

Thank you for your letter of June 12, 1978.1 am deeply disturbed by what you say, however, there is little I can do without more information. You did not give me Morin's surname, nor the name of her husband, nor indeed did you say where she lives. As I'm sure you appreciate, it will be difficult for me to raise the matter with the appropriate authorities without these details.

If you wish me to pursue the matter, please write again or telephone me on the above number. Alternatively, you may prefer to attend one of my "surgeries" at the above address, which would give you a chance to discuss your concerns in person. They take place between 9 a.m. and midday on the first Saturday of every month and do not require an appointment.

Yours sincerely,

(Update: No response received therefore no action taken. Possibility that a strange phone call at 11 p.m. on July 3 with much reference to "white trash" may have been Miss Butts, but caller was very incoherent. Suspect original letter was malicious. J.M.D.)

*15*

I stared into my coffee. "How did she stop her cats coming into your garden after Derek killed the marmalade one? It was long after the cat flap had been installed."

"She propped a board in front of it so they couldn't use it, then let them out one at a time to do their business. It was quite funny watching her. She used to run up and down flapping her arms to stop them coming anywhere near our fence. We reckoned she'd have lost a couple of stone with all the exercise if she hadn't had her face in the trough all the time. You should have heard her ... right noisy she was. Gobble, gobble, gobble. It made us sick just to listen."

My expression must have given away more than I intended because she dropped her eyes immediately. I thought what a vile little woman she was and how injurious her poison must have been to her family.

"You asked ... I told you," she muttered. "Don't blame me if you don't like the answers."

I caught at the edges of my anger and drew it back inside. "How do you know she used a board?"

"The kids used to climb over the fence at night and push the flap open to make the board fall on the floor."

"That must have frightened her."

"It did. She used to wail her head off."

"Why didn't she fix the board to the door?"

"Because she didn't want the RSPCA to know she was blocking the flap. She'd keep the inspector waiting at the door while she scurried around trying to find somewhere to hide the stupid thing."

"Is that why you and Sharon kept pestering the RSPCA? So they'd catch her out?"

She blew a smoke ring in my direction, then stabbed it through the heart with the point of her cigarette. "Maybe."

I gave my coffee cup a violent shove and watched it slop across the table. "You had her in a vise. On the one hand Derek was threatening to kill her cats if they
did
run free; on the other, the RSPCA was telling her she could face prosecution if they
didn't
run free."

She took to smoothing her hair again.

"What was she supposed to do?"