Something malignant stirred in the depths of McLoughlin's dark eyes. He took a lightning step forward and clamped his hand across Barnes's mouth, digging his fingers and thumb into the soft flesh of the cheeks and forcing the boy up on to the balls of his feet. "I find you extremely offensive," he said softly. "You're a moronic little psychopath and in my book it's the likes of you who should be locked up, not the likes of Oscar Wilde. The only contribution you will ever make to society will be a negative one when you pass your prejudices and your miserably inadequate IQ to a succeeding generation." He levered Barnes up another inch. "In addition it makes me very angry to hear these women referred to as perverts. Do you understand me?"
Barnes tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. McLoughlin dug his fingers deeper and Barnes nodded vigorously.
"Good," McLoughlin unlocked his fingers and pushed him away with the heel of his hand. He favoured Staines with a friendly smile. "I hope you can see where all this is leading, Eddie. You do realise I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. I am assuming you genuinely believed these people were guilty of something."
Eddie's good-humoured face puckered in worried concentration. "Listen, mister, I just came along to see justice done. I swear to God that's all I came for. We got the call you were letting her off again. This queer-bashing stuff, that's Peter's kick." He flicked a shy look at Phoebe and Diana. "Jesus, it doesn't make sense anyway. If you're not queer, why do you go along with it?"
Diana rolled her eyes to Heaven. "Do you know, I've often wondered that myself." She turned to Phoebe. "I've forgotten, old thing, why do we go along with it?"
Phoebe's rich laugh tumbled from her mouth. "Don't be such a fool." She looked at Eddie and raised her hands helplessly. "We've never had a choice. Hardly anyone ever speaks to us. Those who do, know all about us. Those who don't, assume whatever they want to assume. You have assumed we're gay." Her eyes laughed softly. "Bar copulating naked by the village pond with a series of men, I don't see how we could ever prove we weren't. In any case, would you have thought any better of us if you'd known we preferred men?"
"Yeah," said Eddie with an appreciative wink. "I bloody well would. Mind you," he continued thoughtfully, "none of this explains what happened to your old man. If the only reason he legged it was because the money'd dried up why didn't he get you off the hook when he read what was happening to you? It only needed a phone call to the police."
There was an awkward silence.
"You talk as if the man had a clear conscience," said McLoughlin at last. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the colour drain from Jonathan's set face. Dammit, he thought. Whichever way you turned, you were always caught between the rock and the hard place. "It's sub judice, Eddie, which is why we've never released details. But I can tell you this, the minute the man resurfaces he will be prosecuted." He shrugged. "For the moment you'll just have to take my word that it suits his book if everyone thinks he's dead. He was a villain. We'll find him one day."
Even Paddy looked impressed.
"Jesus!" said Eddie again. "Je-sus!" He scrunched his foot on some broken glass. "Listen, lady," he offered, "about these windows." He gestured to the youths behind him. "We'll clear up and put some new ones in. It's only fair."
"You can do better than that, Eddie," said McLoughlin pleasantly. "It's names we want. Let's start with who attacked Miss Cattrell?"
Eddie shook his head with genuine regret. "I can guess, same as you can, but if it's proof you need, then I can't help you. Like I said, queer-bashing doesn't turn me on." He indicated one of his mates. "Me and Bob took a couple of birds to the flicks that night. I don't know about the rest of them."
A chorus of denials greeted this statement.
"Not me. I was watching telly with my folks."
"Jesus, Eddie, I was round your sister's place. You bloody know that."
"Fuck that. I only heard about it the next morning, same as you."
Above their heads, McLoughlin caught Paddy's eye and saw his own disappointment mirrored there. The truth had an unmistakable ring about it. "And what about you?" he asked Peter Barnes, knowing the little bastard would get away with it. "Where were you?"
Barnes grinned. "I was with my mother all evening until half-past midnight. Then I went to bed. She'll sign a statement if you ask her nicely." He raised his middle finger and jabbed it in the air at Paddy. "That's to you and your beggar crap, shithead." He giggled and crooked his arm over his other fist, thrusting the finger skyward. "And that's to your pathetic little set-up. What a joke. It was so fucking transparent, a blind man could have seen through it. You think I haven't creepy-crawled this place, seen the tame fuzz they've got watching over them?" He giggled again.
Alarm bells rang in McLoughlin's head. What the hell sort of psychopath was this boy? A Charles Manson freak? Je-sus! "Creepy-crawled," he knew, was an expression the Charles Manson Family had used to describe the way they had entered Sharon Tale's house before they murdered her. "So what brought you up here?" he asked, loosing some handcuffs from his jacket pocket. "Gives you a buzz, does it, being arrested?"
"It sure as hell gives me a buzz to see you cretins screw up. That's got to be worth a slapped wrist and a fine any day. Hell, it was a bit of high spirits. Dad'll ante-up for the damage."
There was a moment of silence before Jonathan's cool voice spoke from the shattered window. "That seems reasonable," he said, "in return, I'll ante-up for the damage I'm going to do to you."
It was the element of surprise that held everyone frozen. Like a slow motion sequence they watched him cross the room, release the safety catch on his mother's shotgun, shove the barrel between Barnes's legs and pull the trigger. The explosion left them deaf. Through a dense cloud of dust they saw, rather than heard, the screams that issued from the boy's writhing mouth. They watched the pool of liquid collect on the floor at his feet.
McLoughlin, stunned, tried to intervene, only to find a pair of thick arms clamped around his chest, holding him back. "Jon!" he yelled, his voice muffled by the ringing echoes in his ears. "For God's sake! He's not worth it!"
"Leave him be, sir." It was Fred's voice. "He's waited a long time for this."
Shocked beyond belief, McLoughlin watched Jonathan Maybury drive Peter Barnes against the wall and ram the shotgun into the boy's screaming mouth.
25
Gap-toothed where the windows yawned, its finery ruffled by birdshot, the old house slumbered on, a silent witness to many worse things in its four-hundred-year history. Within half an hour, three patrol cars had arrived to ferry the culprits to the Station with PC Gavin Williams in firm but reluctant charge. "It's down to you, Sarge," he protested. "You should be taking them in."
"Nn-nn. They're all yours. I've some unfinished business here."
"What do I do about Maybury, Sarge?"
McLoughlin folded his arms and didn't say anything.
"Barnes is bound to mention it."
"Let him."
"Shouldn't we charge Maybury?"
"What with? Accidental discharge of a licenced firearm?"
"You'll never get away with that. Eddie, for one, knows it wasn't an accident."
McLoughlin was amused. "I think you'll find Eddie's somewhat disenchanted with Peter Barnes. Apart from anything else, he doesn't take kindly to being set up as a fall-guy for Barnes's warped sense of humour. He tells me he and his mates were looking the other way when the accident happened."
Williams looked worried. "What do I say?"
"That's up to you, Gavin. I can't help you I'm afraid. When the gun went off, I had my back turned, taking down the names and addresses of the intruders. After that I couldn't see anything for dust."