The sitting room looked as though it was rarely used, but the dining room had been converted into a comfortable den with brightly colored bean bags littering the floor, a cushioned sofa along one wall and a wide-screen television in the corner. It was already switched on, showing a daytime magazine program, and the rumpled duvet on the sofa and the fug of smoke in the room suggested Maureen had either been watching it all night or had started early. She closed the door as we passed to deaden the volume.
Even though Maureen's was an end-of-terrace house, the layout inside was identical to ours, as indeed was every alternate house in the row: sitting room and dining room on the right with the corridor running past the stairs on the left-hand side toward the kitchen at the back. The in-between houses were built in mirror image so that corridors adjoined corridors on one side, and living space adjoined living space on the other. Upstairs, in precisely the same way, it was either the bedrooms or stairwells that adjoined. In order to allow for a window in the dining rooms, the kitchens were offset against the ends of the houses and shared a party wall with the people on the corridor side. As none of the structures was built to modern soundproof standards, the inevitable result was that we all came to know our neighbors rather better than we would have liked.
Indeed, it had been Sam's permanent complaint that we should have done some "noise" research before we bought number 5. On the corridor side, number 7-the side that acted as a sound buffer-lived an elderly couple, who rarely spoke above whispers even when they were in their kitchen. On the living-space side, number 3-the side that acted like a huge echo chamber divided by a thin vibrating wall-were the Charles children, whose nighttime screaming had kept us awake. One day, in a spirit of optimism, Sam invited both couples in for drinks and suggested they swap houses so that peace could break out all 'round, but Paul Charles took exception to some of the things Sam claimed to have heard through the wall and treated him with hostility from that moment on.
I had often wondered if a similar situation had existed with Annie, although, of the many complaints made against her, the question of noise had never been mentioned. In fact it was more likely she had been a victim of it and had suffered in silence while her life was made a misery. Certainly Michael Percy and Alan Slater had taken great pleasure from teasing her in public, and I couldn't believe they hadn't continued the sport in private by shouting insults at her through the party walls.
"Danny phoned last night," said Maureen, pulling out a chair in the kitchen and pressing me on to it. "You seem to be making quite a hit with him." She had a trace of the Midlands in her voice, which showed itself in the hard "g" she added to "ing," but whether she had been born there or whether she had learned it from her parents I didn't know.
Like everything else about her it set my teeth on edge, and I had to glue a smile to my face to mask my dislike. Whatever Wendy Stanhope may have said about her brutal treatment at the hands of her husband, I'd always thought there was something evil about Maureen Slater, perhaps because I held her responsible for the hate campaign against Annie. I'm sure she knew what my real feelings were, but for the moment she was prepared to go along with the pretense of friendship.
"The feeling's mutual," I assured her. "Danny's a nice fellow."
She busied herself with cups and saucers. I had written to her many times over the years, seeking answers, but the only response I had ever received was the one a week ago, agreeing to this meeting. I assumed it was my contact with Danny that had persuaded her to change her mind, and I wondered how far she suspected that I had sought him out deliberately and how far she was worried about what he had been telling me. There was, after all, so much that she wouldn't want me to know.
"You're the only person who thinks so," she said, filling a kettle at the sink. "Danny's been in and out of trouble since he was ten ... fighting ... stealing cars ... he started shooting heroin when he was twelve." She paused, waiting for an answer. When I didn't give one, she went on a little tartly, "Not the type most mothers want hanging around teenage boys. He says he's been out drinking with your lads."
"He has. They've met up with him on Portland a couple of times."
"You know he smokes cannabis."
"Yes."
"He's probably offering it to your kids," she said with a touch of malice, as if the idea pleased her.
"Then he isn't the first, and he won't be the last."
She eyed me suspiciously. "You're pretty laid back about it. You must have a lot of faith in your boys."
I gave a noncommittal smile. "I'd be more worried if Danny was still on heroin."
"No chance of that." She plugged in the kettle. "It's the one good thing Mr. Drury did for me ... caught the stupid little bastard at it one day and put the fear of God into him so he'd never go near a needle again."
"How did he do that?"
"He gave him a choice: punishment now, or a care order imposed by the juvenile court. Danny chose punishment now." She laughed. "I think he thought Drury was going to slap him about a bit ... didn't reckon on honest-to-God sadism." The idea seemed to amuse her.
"What did he do?"
"He broke off the needle and pressed it into Danny's arm with the edge of his handcuffs, then told him if he went to a doctor to get it removed there'd be that many questions asked he'd find himself in care so quick his legs wouldn't touch the ground. It was two days before Danny could find the courage to cut down deep enough to pull the needle out with a pair of tweezers. He's never been able to look at a syringe again without turning green."
"That sounds like Mr. Drury's style," I murmured. "Brutal but effective. Did you report him for it?"
"Did I hell!" She spooned coffee into the mugs. "In any case I was grateful. The last thing I wanted was one of my children dead of an overdose."
A silence fell while we waited for the kettle to boil. I had no idea what kind of background she came from, but Drury's parting shot to Danny-"How's that downtrodden slut of a mother of yours? Still on the booze?"-was uncomfortably close to the mark. My mother would say it was breeding (or lack of it)-a scientist would say it was genes-I would say it was poor education and low self-esteem. If she cared about anything at all, I thought, it was probably her benefit checks and whether they would buy enough smokes and alcohol to last her through the week.
Her windowsill was lined with empties, testimony to the drinking habit she hadn't been able to kick. An unopened bottle of vodka stood beside the salt and pepper on the table like an unearned reward. But if she was drunk or stoned on Prozac that day it wasn't noticeable. Indeed in some ways the sharp, assessing glances she kept flicking in my direction reminded me of Wendy Stanhope, although there was no kindness in them, only suspicion.
"Thank you," I said when she put a mug of coffee in front of me. Out of habit, she had added milk and sugar, neither of which I could stand, but I sipped enthusiastically as she sat herself in the chair opposite and lit a cigarette.
"Do you want one?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I never got hooked, thank God. If I had, I'd be a sixty-a-day woman by now."
"How do you know?"
"I have an addictive personality. Once started, I can't stop."
"Like this thing with Annie?"
"Yes."
Maureen gave a baffled shake of her head. "You wouldn't have liked her, you know. That's what makes this all so ... stupid. If anyone else had found her, there'd have been no fuss, she'd have been quietly buried and we could all have got on with our lives." She paused to draw pensively on her cigarette. "You, too," she added, watching me through the smoke.