‘Mr Price,’ said Cathy. Her voice was unusually soft but steady and cutting as the arc of an axe through air. ‘I killed your son, Mr Price.’
Many in the room had been watching her. Many still watched her. But the mode of their gaze was so very different now it could hardly be given the same name.
Mr Price turned his head.
She said again, ‘I killed your son, Mr Price.’
He smiled. Others followed suit. ‘You tell me you had a hand in it? Lured him to the place, did you, so your father could rob him and kill him?’
Cathy shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I did it alone. Daddy wandt there. He knew nothing about it. I was alone. I closed my hands around his neck and I squeezed. I squeezed and I squeezed and he struggled beneath me with all the strength he could muster but still I squeezed and he coundt do owt about it. And he just got weaker and weaker as I held his neck in my hands and he got bluer and bluer until he wandt breathing at all no more and still I held on just in case until my fingers ached. And then I let him go. And I covered him with that coat. And I dindt rob him, but that’s by the by.’
Mr Price was stunned. His mouth gaped in incredulity. ‘Get out of it,’ he said. ‘You dare. You dare lie to me, you little bitch. You dare.’
‘It’s not a lie. Why would I lie? Why would I lie now in this moment when you have us as captives here in this way? Why would I lie when I know truly that you will murder the person who saw to your son? And still I tell you, I killed him. I strangled him with these two little hands. And I’m not sorry. And I would do it again.’
Tom Price, the elder of the two brothers, had been leaning against the wall. He stepped forward. ‘But how could you? You’re a little girl?’
‘She didn’t,’ interrupted Mr Price. ‘Of course she didn’t. She’s playing with us. That’s what they do.’
‘I killed Charlie Price!’ shouted Cathy. ‘I killed Charlie Price!’ she shouted again.
Charlie Price’s father came forward himself this time. He raised his right hand behind his left ear and unfurled it on my sister’s face with a loud crack.
The naked girl shut her eyes against the impact then opened them as quickly as if she had only turned and blinked and nothing more.
‘I killed Charlie Price,’ said Cathy again.
‘Get her out of here,’ said Mr Price to the room, to all of the other men who stood there, who had witnessed my sister’s confession and had come to their own conclusions about the verity of her claims.
One of their number came forward after a moment of pause. He reached out a gloved hand and stroked her neck. ‘I’ll shut her up,’ he stated blankly.
‘Good,’ replied Mr Price. ‘Take her to the next room and do with her whatever you wish. And I mean whatever you wish. Make the most of her.’
The new man with the gloved hands took Cathy from the grasp of the first and lifted her over his shoulder. She did not struggle. He removed her from the room and carried her into our hall then into a bedroom. I heard his footsteps. I heard the door click open and shut. I strained to hear more but there was nothing for several minutes.
In the meantime I was pulled up by my chin. It was Mr Price. The grip at my elbows was eased and I stood straight. Price asked, ‘And what was your part in this, my boy? The man, the girl, and you,’ he said. ‘Your father, your sister, and you. Your sister admitted conspiracy. What of you?’
‘Cathy dindt admit conspiracy,’ I said. ‘She told you that she did for your son and that she did for him alone.’
‘Aye. And I don’t believe her for one minute. A girl like that? Alone? No, I don’t think so. I’m no fool.’
I said nothing.
Mr Price continued. ‘I wonder,’ he said, his voice more gentle than it had been. ‘I wonder if you will come to resemble your mother or your father. In character, I mean. It is clear already that you have taken after your mother in physical appearance. But whose path will you follow? Will you end up like him?’ He nodded towards Daddy, whose eyes had closed, whose breath had softened. ‘Or will you end up like her?’
I lifted my head. I noticed creases in his golden skin and paler places at his lids. Shades of white-flecked pigeon-feather hair. Dry lips. Large ovaline nostrils flared when he inhaled. A flattish brow.
Perhaps he wanted me to ask. Perhaps he wanted for me to plead with him to tell me all about her. I cannot say that I did not want to know. I did. I had wanted to know all these years. I had wanted to ask it of Daddy, one time, on another day, on a very different type of day from this day, a day when we were here in this kitchen before these men came to stand here, any of the many days in the previous year when we had long hours to ourselves. We had had much to discuss but always had spoken little. Silence had been the mode of our exchanges. It had been the rule I had learnt.
So I remained silent, and the silence stayed my curiosity. My mother had come and gone. Until the last time when she had just gone. And not come.
When I was a very small boy I had sat in her arms as she rocked on a swing in the park behind Granny Morley’s house. The chains that held the seat were rusted iron. They crackled as my mother leaned our weight against them, and ferrous crumbs dropped as she rocked. They hit the rubber beneath. I had held her tight. I had held on for dear life. But her fists crunched on those chains. She gripped them until her knuckles bleached out and until her palms were stained with that thin russet pigment, as if the metal had been treated and ground especially to colour that chalked skin precisely the shade of her very own vein-blood.
‘She was always a grumpy girl,’ said Mr Price. ‘Always unhappy about something. You’d look at her and, likely as not, she’d have a downturned mouth and a frown on. What she had to be miserable about, God alone knows. Pretty face, of course, but she never made the most of it. I mean, I tried to do what I could for her. I would have married her if my boys’ mother had died sooner. I made her a good offer. But she chose another path. She frittered her life away. Went about with the wrong sorts of people. Went to the wrong sorts of parties. The farm and the land she’d inherited all went to waste. And if there’s one thing I hate, Daniel, it’s waste. The waste of land especially. Good land, made barren. I can’t stand it.’
Mr Price turned from me and went to the kitchen counter.
‘So by the time I took her in, it was on very different terms. It had to be. She had disgraced herself. But I put a roof over her head, at least! Not that she ever showed any gratitude. And not that she stuck around. Your Daddy – if he is your Daddy – was working for me at the time, collecting rents, winning fights that I set up for him. And the two of them ran off together, didn’t they. Ran off with a pile of cash, my wife’s jewellery and a pair of 1960s Holland & Holland guns.’