‘No point playing the blame game now,’ was the furthest she was prepared to go to make him feel better.
‘When he was twelve, thirteen . . . he used to go wandering up the road, and this couple who lived up there, they used to complain that he was hurting their cat. Squeezing it and making it yelp. Nick said he was just hugging it. But then the cat was found dead. Stabbed in the throat. The guy came round here in tears with the cat’s body, accusing Nick . . . accusing him of having killed it. I sent him off with a flea in his ear.’ He got up and came to where Maggie was standing. ‘And there were other incidents. That scar Andy’s got . . . Nick did that. They were eight years old. Somehow they got into the tool shed and started messing about with an adze. I’m not sure what happened, but Andy came running into the house, blood streaming, and Nick was running after him and he was laughing. “His mouth’s split in two! Look!” he said, as if this was some amazing phenomenon I was going to be fascinated by. He must have been in shock. People sometimes laugh inappropriately when they’re in shock, don’t they?’ Duncan stared at Maggie, like he was begging her to agree that aye, that was probably the explanation.
‘So he was completely unrepentant? In fact, he enjoyed the whole thing?’
Duncan said nothing.
Isla started to grizzle, and Maggie went to her.
‘Can I . . .’ Duncan reached out his arms for Isla, but Maggie couldn’t do it, she couldn’t pretend it was all okay now that Duncan had seen the error of his ways.
‘She almost fucking died!’ she hissed at him. She grabbed Isla up and left the room.
Maggie had been shut in one of the guest rooms with Isla all the next morning when there was a tap on the door, and Yvonne came in.
‘Nick?’ Maggie said at once. ‘Has he been charged?’
‘Not as far as I know. We haven’t heard anything from the police yet.’
They could keep Nick in custody for forty-eight hours before either charging or releasing him.
Yvonne looked down at Isla in her cot. ‘Duncan’s in pieces,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh, boo-hoo.’
A sigh. ‘Look, Maggie, I can totally understand why you’re furious. I’m pretty furious with him myself. But think about it – what sort of parent is going to turn against their own child without pretty strong evidence of their wrongdoing? What would you do if someone tried to tell you Isla was an evil monster?’
Maggie snorted. ‘That would never happen!’
‘Wouldn’t it? She’s Nick’s sister. She might have a genetic propensity –’
‘Of course she fucking doesn’t!’ Maggie was up off the bed, fists clenched.
Yvonne nodded. ‘There you go. That’s how Duncan’s been feeling. And now he’s feeling a hundred, a thousand times worse because he’s had to accept that his son, the son he’s loved for sixteen years, is a monster.’
Maggie felt the fight go out of her. ‘Aye. Aye, right enough.’
They moved Isla back to Maggie and Duncan’s room, where the baby monitor was, and then the two women went downstairs to the drawing room, where Michael and Duncan were seated on either side of the cold hearth. Somehow, this formal room seemed right for what they had to talk about.
‘Okay,’ said Yvonne, as Duncan shot a wee look at Maggie. ‘Who wants a drink?’
‘I’m sorry,’ went Maggie and Duncan at the exact same time, and this at least raised smiles, as Duncan got up and pulled her into his arms. ‘I’m so sorry, Maggie.’
‘Aye, well, Yvonne here has read me the riot act. Of course you couldn’t get your head round Nick being . . . well. The way he is. It was only natural.’
‘You knew,’ said Duncan, turning to Yvonne, who was handing round brandies. ‘I thought your coldness towards Nick was just down to your not liking kids. But you saw . . . you saw . . .’
‘No. I was in denial too, Dunc.’ Yvonne flopped into a chair. ‘When he was a little kid, I kept thinking he’d grow out of it. Most kids are cruel little buggers, aren’t they, given half the chance? And you were so soft with him.’
Duncan sat back down, and Maggie perched on the arm of his chair.
‘He’s obsessed with you, you know,’ Yvonne went on. ‘In his eyes, anyone who gets close to you is a threat to the father-son bond. Maggie, Isla. Maybe even Kathleen.’
Duncan’s face was pure white.
Yvonne leant forward and eyeballed her brother. ‘I’ve never told anyone this, and I never thought I would, but . . . a few weeks before her death, Kathleen confessed to me that she was sometimes scared of Nick. Her own son. She made me promise to say nothing to you. After she died, I told the police, in confidence, what she’d said, but I’m not sure they believed me. They certainly didn’t follow it up.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Duncan. ‘Yvonne. No.’
Maggie put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder. ‘Where was Nick when Kathleen died?’
‘He said he was in his room,’ said Duncan in a flat voice. ‘He found her body. Called 999. Forensics indicated she’d been dead a couple of hours by that time.’
Silence filled the room as, Maggie was sure, each one of them played out an alternative scenario – Nick pushing Kathleen over the bannisters, watching her plummet to the tiles, standing there watching the blood pool under her . . . and going back up to his room for two hours before calling the police.
Now Duncan was up on his feet. He strode to the door and left the room but then he was back, pacing to the bay window, to the fireplace, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. ‘I used to think Kathleen was so hard on him. I used to think she was all wrong, that he responded better to – to a more positive approach.’ He clutched at the hair on either side of his head. ‘How could I have got it all so wrong! It’s my job to rehabilitate troubled youngsters, to spot signs of trouble –’
‘It’s completely different when it’s your own kid,’ said Yvonne. ‘It’s not your fault. People like Nick are born that way.’
‘People like Nick?’ Duncan choked. ‘You’re saying – what? That he’s . . . got some kind of – syndrome? Some kind of –’