***
When he came to, he was lying on the living room floor. Gareth Hillock sat in a chair next to the sideboard. At first, he thought he was dreaming. Or, at the very least, tripping on something.
‘Glad you could join us,’ Gareth said.
‘What… the… fuck?’
‘You passed out. Must have had something to do with the door smashing into your head.’
‘My… head?’
Gareth nodded. ‘That ugly thing sitting on top of your shoulders.’
Jim tried to get up, but the room kept swaying in and out of focus. ‘What do you want?’
‘Just to tell you how it’s gonna be from now on. First off, you ever call my brother a retard again, I’ll swat you like a fly. Understand?’
Jim thought about arguing that Mathew Hillock was a retard. Fact. But the look in Gareth’s eyes told him it wasn’t a good idea. ‘But he ain’t right. You know he ain’t right.’
‘He was attacked and nearly killed with a baseball bat when he was a kid. Left for fucking dead by some useless druggie who killed my dad and my sister. So don’t you dare sit there and tell me he ain’t right. It’s not his fault.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, you do now. And, just for the record, he had nothing to do with that kid’s murder.’
‘So how come she was in his shed?’
‘That’s what the police are trying to find out.’
‘But he was sitting next to the body. I mean, it’s one thing saying he ain’t right, and another thing altogether finding him next to a corpse.’
‘Mathew hasn’t been charged with anything. For a start, the glove prints around the girl’s neck were too small to be Mattie’s. There’s not a single shred of DNA evidence linking him to the murder. Nothing. So, in my eyes, and the eyes of the law, he’s innocent.’
‘But I still don’t get how she ended up in the shed.’
‘Because someone obviously put her there.’
Jim was feeling queasy. ‘But who the fuck would do that?’
‘Maybe the same twat who went to the house and told Mattie to confess.’
‘I only did that ’cos I thought he was guilty.’
‘So you say.’
Jim sat up. ‘I swear I had nothing to do with it. Anyway, the filth took my DNA, so if it was me, I’d have been locked up by now.’
‘Dunno about that. The police are pretty slow off the mark when it comes to catching criminals. Especially dirty little drug addicts who go around acting the big man just because a few dopey teenagers think you’re some sort of magic mushroom.’
‘I—’
‘Here’s a question for you, Bentley: Did you throw a rock at my mother’s house? One with hang the pervert written on it.’
‘No.’
Gareth stood and walked towards Bentley. He drew back his foot and kicked him in the side of the face. ‘You sure about that?’
Bentley groaned and rolled over onto all fours.
Gareth kicked him again. In the side this time. All the air whooshed from his lungs as he collapsed face down on the floor.
‘You ever go anywhere near my family again, and you’ll be lying in your grave before you can say retard, you lowlife twat.’
Bentley blacked out again. He didn’t see Gareth leave the flat and gently close the door behind him. By the time he’d regained consciousness, the sky had drawn a dark shade across the window.
Jim Bentley didn’t need a doctor to tell him he had several broken ribs. Or that he was hovering dangerously close to a heart attack if his thumping heart was anything to go by.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mathew knocked on the door to his mother’s bedroom. He felt slightly better now that the doctor had prescribed him Buspirone, although the pills had made him lightheaded, and he’d suffered headaches and insomnia since taking them. But it was a small price to pay to stop unwanted thoughts of going to the bathroom and giving in to the call of a razor blade.
‘Who is it?’
His mother sounded tired and throaty, as if she was suffering from a cold. Mathew knew that voice only too well. He’d heard it a lot after his father and sister were killed. He called it her crying voice.
‘It’s Mathew.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk.’
‘I’m not feeling very well at the moment.’
‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’
A short silence, followed by several sniffs. ‘Okay. Come in.’
Mathew opened the door and stepped inside. His mother was lying on top of the bed in a pink-and-white dressing gown. Her eyes looked red and swollen.
‘Put it on the bedside table,’ she said. ‘I’ll drink it when it’s cooled down a bit.’
‘Are you all right, Mum?’
She shook her head. ‘Everything’s gone, Mattie. Everything we worked so hard for up in smoke – literally.’
‘We can start again.’
‘We can’t, love.’
Mathew put the tea on the bedside table, then sat on the edge of the bed. He wanted to give her a big hug and tell her everything would be all right. They’d work it out. Hillocks always did. Nothing could be worse than the night Amy and his father had died. And they’d survived that, hadn’t they? Kept the Book Café going.
‘Did you want anything else, Mathew?’
He nodded and tugged on his earlobe.
‘What?’
‘You know the Book Café?’
‘Yes.’ Tired. Strained.
‘And how you said the insurance money wouldn’t be enough to get it up and running again?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was thinking… I was thinking we could use my insurance money to pay for it.’
Sonia stared at him open-mouthed.
‘I’m twenty-one next month, so it’s not as if we’ve got to wait very long, is it?’
‘I can’t take your money, Mathew.’
‘But if we open the Book café again, we can live in the flat above it and sell Bluebell Cottage. Then we can start again just like we did when Dad and Amy died.’
At first, he thought she would tell him off for being silly. It was his money for when he needed it. To help support him if he ever wanted to move out of home. Then he thought she was going to cry, because her eyes misted over and looked all glassy.
But she did neither of those things. She held out her hands and invited him into an embrace. He edged up the bed and tried to manoeuvre himself into a suitable position to cuddle her, but his bulky frame and awkward demeanour resulted in him lying half across her chest and crushing her.
After a moment, she said, ‘I can’t take your money, Mathew. It’s not right.’
‘But I want you to have it. I want to work in the Book Café forever. And live in the flat. It’s for me as well, Mum.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
He nodded.
‘But we’ll need to replace all the books.’
‘I can’t think of anything better to spend the money on.’