The Ladykiller (43 page)

Bracing herself and planting a smile on her face, Kate entered the ward. Lizzy was sitting at a table with two other girls. Kate went to her and kissed the top of her head.

‘Hello, Mum!’ Lizzy looked great. In the week she had been in here she already had made a marked improvement.

Kate sat down at the table and nodded to the two others. A large-boned dark girl got up. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

‘Thanks, no sugar.’

‘I heard about the murder, Mum, it’s terrible. We were just talking about it.’

Kate didn’t know what to say. Lizzy had asked her not to mention she was a policewoman. Now here she was blurting it out.

A blonde girl with large green eyes and a mass of permed hair shook her head.

‘You must really get stressed out in your job like. I don’t know how you can look at those dead bodies, man!’

Kate grinned. The girl was impressed!

‘It’s not very nice, I must admit, but someone has to do it.’

‘My mum’s worked on lots of murders, haven’t you, Mum?’

Kate felt quite embarrassed. ‘Well, not lots, a few. Murder is not as common as you might think.’

‘Have you any idea who the Grantley Ripper is?’

Kate looked into the girl’s green eyes. ‘No. To be honest we have no idea. But we’re working on it.’

The dark one brought her back a cup of coffee and the two girls left. Kate sensed they knew she and Lizzy wanted to be left alone.

‘They call this quality time, Mum. When you have a visitor the others have to go away.’

‘Why are they in here?’ Kate sipped her coffee.

‘Well, the dark girl is Andrea. She tried to kill herself because she had a lot of problems. She was studying for her A levels, and everything just got on top of her. She’s really nice, you know.’

‘What about the little blonde?’

‘She’s a nurse, Mum! It’s hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?’

Kate laughed. ‘It is! Now then, how are you?’

Lizzy sighed, lifting her fringe as she exhaled.

‘I feel much better. I saw the psychiatrist again today. He’s really nice, Mum. He said that I was having a personality conflict. That I tried to be one thing when I wanted to be another. He said that my behaviour was caused by insecurity. I wanted to belong but I sort of rebelled against everything.’

‘Do you think he’s right?’

Lizzy looked into her mother’s eyes and nodded.

‘I am sorry, Mum, for what I did. When I knew that Gran had read the diary, I just wanted to die. I know you love me, Mum, I love you and Gran too, but I’ve felt at times like I was second best, you know. Your job always took precedence over me. Dad was never really there. I know that he’s a user. He uses me, I’ve known it for a long time, but I still love him. He’s my dad.’ Her eyes were pleading for understanding.

Kate nodded.

‘My job came first because I needed the money, to be honest with you, Lizzy. Your father never once contributed to your keep. He left me with a mortgage, a child and a broken heart.’ Kate smiled to take the edge off her words. ‘I had to make some kind of life for us, I had to work. I went for promotions because it was more money. I bought the house we live in today, and I still have to pay the upkeep, your gran only gets a small pension . . .’

Kate grasped Lizzy’s hand tightly across the table. ‘I never meant to make you feel left out, Lizzy. You were my reason for working. I wanted you to have the best that I could provide. That’s why I never had a personal life.’

‘Dad’s told me about your boyfriend.’

Kate felt coldness wrap itself around her heart, but when she looked at Lizzy, she saw that the girl was smiling.

‘Don’t look so stunned, Mum, I think it’s great. I saw him once, that Patrick Kelly. He came to my school to give a donation. He’s really good looking. Dark and brooding! That’s my type, Mum, we have the same taste.’

Kate dropped her head on to her chest and bit her lip. After what she had read in Lizzy’s diary, anyone seemed to be Lizzy’s taste. Kate swallowed the thought. She had to stop making judgements or they’d never get back on an even keel.

‘He’s all right. I’m a bit old for a boyfriend though, don’t you think? Let’s say he’s more of a . . . man friend.’

‘As far as dad’s concerned he’s a boyfriend stroke lover. He’s so jealous. Honestly Mum, you should have seen him, he was practically green!’ Lizzy hooted with laughter, making the others in the room look at her and smile themselves.

‘What did you say to him, Liz?’

Lizzy leant across the table and in one of her old gestures, that brought a lump to Kate’s throat, she pushed her heavy hair off her face and grinned, for all the world looking like a schoolgirl. This girl-woman made Kate want to weep. She blinked away the burning tears.

‘I told him it wasn’t any of his bloody business.’

Kate’s eyes widened.

‘I bet that went down well, Liz!’

Lizzy laughed out loud. ‘Like a lead balloon, Mum. I told him straight though,’ Lizzy was serious again now, ‘I said that was the trouble with this family, everyone did what was expected of them and never what they wanted to do!’

Kate stared at Lizzy in amazement. Her daughter sounded more grown up and intelligent than she had ever done before. ‘I sent him away with a flea in his ear, I can tell you.’

‘Oh, Lizzy!’

‘Oh Lizzy nothing. If I’m to say what I really think, like the psychiatrist says I should, then I’m afraid that please or offend, I’m gonna say it!’

She stretched her arms out wide. ‘I feel great, Mum. Really great, for the first time in ages. Joanie came in this morning and we had a long chat. She told me in no uncertain terms what a complete shit I’ve been and I had to agree with her. But I promised her, and I’m promising you now, I’ll be better. I am going to be much better.’

‘Lizzy, I love you, whatever you are, whatever you do.’

She smiled.

‘I know that, Mum. Now tell me, what’s this Patrick Kelly like?’

‘He’s just a friend. When his daughter was murdered we sort of - I don’t know - we sort of made a friendship, I suppose.’

‘Gran says he’s lovely. That’s because he’s Irish. Do you remember when Boy George was on Top of the Pops and Gran went, “What on earth’s that on the telly?” And I said, “That’s Boy George, Gran, his real name is George O’Dowd. His family’s Irish.” And Gran listened to him for a while and then went, “Sure he’s not that bad!”’

Kate laughed. ‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘So come on, Mum, what’s he really like?’ Lizzy’s little face was earnest.

‘He’s a very kind man. Now that’s enough of that, madam. You tell me about yourself. What’s been happening here?’

Lizzy began telling her about her day and Kate listened, glad to drop the subject of Patrick.

But she admitted to herself that he strayed into her thoughts often. She relived their lovemaking in her mind at odd moments. He was exciting and potentially dangerous, a lethal combination, but Kate didn’t care. For the first time in her life she was being loved and she was thriving on it.

‘Before I forget, Lizzy, how would you feel about going out to Australia?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Really? You mean, go out to Uncle Pete?’

Kate nodded.

‘Oh, Mum, that would be excellent.’

‘Gran would go with you. I can’t, because I can’t get the time off work, but I thought you’d enjoy it. It would be a break. You’d have the sun, and see your cousins.’

Lizzy launched herself from her chair and wrapped her arms around her mother’s body. Kate could feel the excitement in her.

She hugged her daughter back. Kate would have loved to have gone, but she just couldn’t afford it. As it was she was going to get a bank loan to pay for Lizzy and Evelyn to go, for spending money and everything else. But she would willingly sell her soul if it meant making her daughter happy.

‘Oh, Mum, you’re so good to me!’

Kate kissed her soft, sweet-smelling hair.

‘We’ll find out when you’re leaving here and then I’ll book it. It’ll give you something to look forward to.’

Lizzy skipped over to a small crowd by the record player and told them her good fortune. Kate felt lighter inside at seeing her daughter’s happy face than she had for a long time.

At that moment Dan was sitting opposite Frederick Flowers. It was after seven and Flowers was surreptitiously trying to glance at his watch. Dan saw and it annoyed him.

‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’

Dan’s blond good looks had annoyed Flowers straight off. He had felt distaste for the man from the minute he had opened his mouth.

‘Your ex-wife, Mr Burrows, is a senior officer. She is working on a case involving Mr Kelly’s daughter.’

Dan broke in, ‘But she’s sleeping with the man!’

Flowers smiled annoyingly. ‘I’m afraid I only have your word for that.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘I promise you I will look into your allegations personally.’

Dan stood up too and ignored the outstretched hand. He pointed a finger at the man in front of him.

‘She’s knocking him off, a known villain. Personally, I think that needs pretty close attention.’

Turning on his heel, Dan marched from the room. Flowers sat down and sighed.

He could just see himself ringing up Patrick Kelly and telling him to lay off Kate Burrows. Flowers and Kelly were hand in glove. They had been for a number of years.

He was surprised at Kate Burrows though, he admitted that to himself. She was a good officer, one of the best. He had not thought she would ever have got involved with Kelly. Well, that was female logic, he supposed.

But he could fully understand Kate Burrows wanting to get rid of that big handsome husband of hers. The man was a bully boy.

Getting up, he smoothed out the creases in his trousers. Home, that’s where he wanted to be now. He walked from his office and closed the door, making a mental note to tell his secretary that Daniel Burrows was not to be given appointments to see him, no matter how urgent they sounded.

One set-to with him was quite enough.

Kate drove home, ate a hurried meal, bathed, changed and left the house in record time. She told her mother not to wait up for her, at which she got one of Evelyn’s knowing smiles.

She drove up Patrick’s drive at just before nine o’clock. Willy opened the door for her before she knocked and showed her into the lounge.

‘Mr Kelly will be down shortly. Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’ll wait for Patrick if you don’t mind.’

Willy smiled at her in his friendliest manner. He bowed and walked from the room.

Kate sat on the sofa and smiled to herself. She relaxed back into the comfort of the chair. Like everything in the house it was beautiful and practical. She was so glad that Lizzy was feeling better. It was as if a lead weight had been lifted from her. The psychiatrist had said a lot of youngsters went through what Lizzy was going through; it was part and parcel of growing up in the modern world. It was he who had suggested that a change of environment might do her good. He said that her drug taking was not habitual, she was not psychologically hooked but used drugs as a means of escape. He also remarked that Lizzy’s over-active sex life was not abnormal these days. Many young girls had had eight or nine sexual partners before they were twenty. It was a real sign of the times. He was more interested in whether she had used a condom.

We live and learn, thought Kate.

Patrick walked into the room. He was wearing a deep blue dressing gown.

‘Were you having a bath?’

‘No, I was building a bonfire!’

Kate laughed. He came to her and kissed her. She felt his lips touch hers gently and once more sensed his animal strength. He was like a drug, dangerously addictive.

‘I’ve had Willy open a bottle of Barolo. How about a glass?’

Kate nodded and Patrick went from the room. She sat in the chair with her hands on the arms. Another thing she admired about Patrick - there were no televisions to be seen anywhere although she knew that the big oak cabinet along the wall beside her housed a thirty-two-inch state of the art flat screen TV. Kate was not a television watcher, but a reader. That was her chosen form of relaxation. Patrick was the same. In fact, they had a lot in common. One part of her was frightened by Patrick; she knew a lot about him, and not all of it good. But when she was with him, near him, she could forgive him anything. Anything at all. She knew that she made excuses for him to herself.

He came back into the room with the bottle and two crystal glasses. He poured them both a drink and sat on the floor by Kate’s chair.

‘This is lovely, Kate. It’s good to have a woman about the house again.’

‘What about Mrs Manners?’

Patrick sipped his wine.

‘Mrs Manners is a great cook and a lovely old dear, but she don’t exactly turn me on, know what I mean?’

She looked down into his rugged face and felt a tightening in her stomach.

She really wanted this man.

‘How’s it going with the case?’ His voice was sombre now.

Kate felt her good mood begin to fade.

‘I take it there’s still nothing to go on?’

She shook her head.

‘We’re doing our best, but as I said before, Pat, with someone like this, well, it’s a hard slog.’

Patrick knelt in front of her and sipped his wine. ‘What was this thing you was going on about before? DNA.’

‘Oh, genetic fingerprinting. That’s just about all we have. The trouble is no one will authorise all the money it would cost to give over five thousand men a blood test. But it’s been done before, in Enderby in Leicestershire. In eighty-three, I think it was.’

‘Did it work?’

Kate nodded. ‘Yes, it did actually.’

Both of them were quiet and Patrick sat back on the floor. They sipped their wine in silence. It was an amiable silence. This was another thing that attracted Kate to Patrick. She could sit with him without saying a word. With Dan, if there had been a silence it was loaded. With Patrick it was natural. He stood up and took the glass from her. Pulling her from the chair he kissed her, long and hard.

‘Come to bed with me, Kate, I really want you.’