The hunter’s moon shone eerily down on Clare Lees’ face as she turned to her former protégée. Disappointment and rage made her ugly. But even then, even after she had seen Alice betray her and realised that her dream of the future was over, even then she wasn’t cruel enough to strike the final blow.
‘Get out of here. Just get out, Alice.’
‘NO!’ Alice’s voice rose shrilly. Victor tried to pull her away but she would have none of it. She had nothing to lose any more and wanted the truth.
‘Tell me! Tell me who I am!’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ Clare Lees replied, her voice hard with rage. ‘I owe you nothing –’
‘You owe me the truth!’ Alice snapped. ‘Please, for the love of God, tell me and I’ll go away. Please.’
Sensing real anguish, Clare hesitated. What better way to punish Alice Rimmer once and for all? She would never know the truth from her. She could sweat and beg and cry – but she would never tell her. The truth was ghastly, but how much worse was never knowing.
By her side, Evan Thomas watched Alice writhe and saw his chance to strike. Had he been less willing to injure her he would have noticed Clare Lees’ reticence; but he had hated Alice too long and wanted her gone too much to hold back. His spying had extended further than merely watching Alice. He had – on a recent errand for the principal – taken the opportunity of rifling through the old papers in the bank when he had been asked to deposit something. His surprise at coming across Alice Rimmer’s file in amongst so much dull paperwork had been acute, but what he had read there was dynamite. He had wanted to shout what he knew from the rooftops, but had kept the secret, and – as was his way – decided to bide his time. Until the perfect moment arose.
‘Your father was David Lewes,’ he said, walking closer to Alice and looking into her face. ‘If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, he was the man who killed his wife. Your mother. You want to know who you are, Alice? You’re the daughter of a murderer. How does that feel, to know what you are?’
Staggered, Clare Lees felt her legs weaken and then saw the look on Alice’s face. The girl was staring at Evan Thomas, Victor beside her. She said nothing. Moments passed. The smug look on Evan’s face disappeared. Then, finally, Alice turned and walked to the gate.
‘Open it,’ she said over her shoulder.
Stunned, Evan did as he was told. Victor ran to Alice’s side but she shook off his hand. ‘Don’t! You don’t want me. Stay away. No one should come near me.’
Then she moved through the heavy iron gates and before Victor could do anything she pulled them closed with a metallic clang; leaving herself on the outside and him on the inside.
Gently she reached through the bars and touched Victor’s face.
‘There was always something between us, wasn’t there? Always something which kept us apart. You should be glad of that now.’
It was well known that the stupidest family in Salford were the Booths. Rumour had it that Mr Terence Booth – who worked at the UCP tripe shop – volunteered for the German army when he was called up. As for his wife, Lettie Booth, she made dresses – cheap ones for the mill girls and the women in the surroundings streets who couldn’t afford 11/9d for a summer frock from the Co-op. So Lettie codged up some pretty nifty designs with end of rolls from Tommy Field’s market. But she sold them too cheaply, hardly making a profit and working like a dray horse constantly to make ends meet.
Lettie was a master on the sewing machine, but otherwise semiliterate. Small, with a short-sighted stare, only she could see something fanciable in her husband, a redhead with jug ears. It was inevitable that they married, and before five years were out, they had had three little Booths, all red-headed, all jug-eared and all impressively stupid.
The Booths lived in Trafalgar Street, just a few rows from the town centre. Two doors away from their poky terrace house lived the Hopes, fierce as Huguenot martyrs, and in between lived a solitary single woman, called Alice Rimmer. She had moved into the rented accommodation a week or so before and was apparently ill.
‘I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her,’ Lettie said to her husband, who was holding a sheet of newspaper up to the fire to set it going. The summer heat had gone, Northern chill in its place. ‘D’you suppose she’s all right?’
The fire took suddenly and lit the bottom of Terence’s newspaper. He jumped back, Lettie beating down the flames with her apron. He was left holding half of a sheet of smouldering paper, the fire roaring in the grate.
‘Good blaze.’
Lettie nodded. The fact that it had nearly taken the house with it didn’t seem to occur to her.
‘Well, what d’you think?’
‘I think it’s a good blaze –’
‘About the girl next door?’
Terence frowned. ‘Maybe she’s shy.’
‘Oh yes, maybe that’s it,’ Lettie replied thoughtfully. Trust Terence, he could always get to the nub of the problem. ‘Perhaps I should call round on her.’
‘Best leave it at the moment,’ the oracle replied, puffed up with his own wisdom. ‘What’s for tea?’
Anna Hope was looking at her husband, Mr Hope. She never called him by his first name – no one did. It was Mr Hope to everyone, even to her, and that was fine. He was brushing down his old-fashioned suit and about to return to work, his stern expression never lifting as he then turned and examined the papers in his cheap briefcase. Church work. Or was it work for the Oldham MP? Anna wasn’t bothered, as long as it got her husband out of the house
In silence she waited until he had finished reading, cleared his throat and checked his image in the mirror. A dark moustache, neatly trimmed, gave him a faintly rakish look, quite at odds with his serious demeanour. The moustache had been the thing which had first attracted Anna to him, and the thing that had made her mother suspicious.
‘Never trust a man with a moustache,’ she had said warningly. ‘They chase the girls.’
Well, Anna didn’t like to contradict her mother, but Mr Hope wasn’t the type to chase girls; didn’t like them as a race, thought them flighty, empty-headed. Which was why he liked his wife. Anna was stern, unbending, a lady down to her corsets.
‘I’ll be home after seven,’ he pronounced, extending his cheek to his wife to be dutifully pecked. ‘Thank you for dinner, my dear.’
His accent was Northern, but affected in the vowels by many years of sucking up to richer, more powerful people. At thirty, Mr Hope had thought he would be someone; at forty he had started to get nervous; and at fifty he was now certain that he was doomed to the life of a gofer. Mr No Hope, Anna called him. But never to his face.
‘I saw the girl who moved into next door,’ Anna said suddenly. ‘Looks flighty.’
Mr Hope was pleased to hear it. After all, what would a decent girl be doing living alone?
‘I think you should stay away from her,’ he said warningly. ‘No point mixing with the wrong sort.’
Anna nodded, turned her wheelchair to the front door and let her husband out. She stood watching him until his stiff little figure had busied itself off round the corner and then moved back indoors, resting her ear against the adjoining wall to see if she could hear any signs of life from her neighbour.
At that moment Alice was sitting staring