Martina Cole

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Prologue

The pain was finally easing and the woman sighed with relief.

She glanced at the clock once more. Its ticking was heavy in the quiet of the room. Her long fingers picked at the candlewick bedspread, then the warmth of her bedding made her relax once more with the anticipation of the long sleep.

Her old granny had bragged about the long sleep, the only time a woman ever lay down without consequence, she said. Meaning that the grave alone could finally give you any kind of rest. It was a truth she had not understood for a long time. Had not wanted to believe that a time would come when you were so tired of living that death actually seemed inviting, so you didn't care about leaving the people you had spent your life looking out for, had spent your life taking care of. It had seemed almost unreal then, imagining herself with the criss-cross lines of old age, the paper-thin yellowed skin of regret, for a life lived without any kind of thought for the future when the future was important. The future was eventually all about what you had really done, not what you wished you had done. Then, to crown it all, the final realisation that sex was nothing more than a primeval urge, an impulse, a bodily function like shitting or farting, not love.

She sighed again, heavily, the rattling of her bony frame reminding her how fleeting life really was.

Too much had happened in her life and it had finally tired her out, she was sick of fighting, she was ready to rest. She wanted to see her girl, her baby girl at last. See her Colleen. Take care of her.

It was time for her final sleep all right, she knew that much. But until she had seen all her children, made them understand her decision, she would wait until the time was right.

'I will break your fucking neck if you don't stop cunting me around.'

The words were spoken quietly, not in anger, but they were laced with a malevolence that only a fool would choose to ignore. When Pat Brodie threatened, it was always done in an almost friendly fashion. It was his eyes that told the person he was talking to that he meant business. That he would destroy them without a second's thought, and smile while he did it.

Mikey Donovan kept his temper under control with difficulty; he was doing this man a favour and a half, and they both knew it. But cocaine was a sacking offence for people who worked for the Home Office, especially screws, and he had been supplying it for a while. Now there was a dearth of it and Brodie was not impressed. What did he expect him to do, magic it from thin air?

Pat Brodie was a handful, and although Mikey knew that he had a lot on his mind, his mother on the verge of snuffing it was affecting him badly, but even amiable and pleasant-natured Mikey had had enough. Brodie was one powerful man, built like the proverbial brick shithouse and he was also far above the intelligence levels of the usual blaggers Mikey came across. Add to that a natural cunning and a psychotic personality, and you had one dangerous bastard to contend with. He was in for the alleged murder of his brother, and that alone spoke volumes.

Hard fuck did not even cover it, as far as Mikey was concerned, and he had seen his fair share of those over the years. No, Brodie was that totally unexpected quantity; he was an intelligent lunatic and they were as dangerous as they were rare.

'You had better have worded me good for a compassionate visit, Donovan, because I need out, and if I don't get bail, I am going to hold you personally responsible.'

Mikey sighed, he had not expected any less.

Brodie knew he was stronging it and he knew that no matter how much Donovan might feel the urge to retaliate, he wouldn't. He was a screw, and like most screws in hard nicks, he knew how far he could go.

The faint smell of cold tea and buttered bread reminded her of summer days long gone. She closed her eyes and allowed the memories to wash over her.

She could feel once more the oppressive summer heat of years gone by, a heat so intense that it had caused the petrol fumes to hang on the air. She could smell the different aromas of Sunday lunches cooking along the street. The roast was expected by the men, and no matter that the kitchens would all be as unbearably hot as her own and that standpipes were being used everywhere because of the usual summer drought, the women would still be expected to produce a huge meal for three o'clock on the dot. For after the pubs turned out the men would meander home in a state of inebriation and with a raging hunger brought on by drinking steadily from ten-thirty that morning.

She knew beef was the preferred meat of the day, but the smell of chicken and pork was just as popular when money was tight and someone had done a dolly at an abattoir, making the meat available when by rights they shouldn't have enough poke to put a fucking sandwich together. It was all about paper, as her old man used to say. On paper things looked different, paper was just another excuse to scam, whether it was meat, clothes, whatever. Thanks to those little bits of paper no one went without. Except the people who owned the goods being bartered, of course, and they didn't count. After all, didn't they have enough?

She smiled then, remembering those lazy days. Then she remembered her husband had lived off paper and that it had caused a lot of aggravation when he had died, been murdered. In fact, she had been left boracic lint, and that had caused its own set of problems. She had ended up with two more kids, just to feed the ones she had already acquired. Her mother had made it her life's work telling her how she had fucked up. Then she had decided that she was the perfect daughter, but only because she had been scared of her own company. And that woman had loved Lance so much it had been almost a mania with her from his birth; she had adored him from the off. But she had never liked him, her own son, and she had always felt there was something sinister about him, even when he had been a baby. And she had been right.

She could hear her boys laughing as they kicked a football around the sparse grass of their backyard, see her daughters sitting on the back doorstep in their Sunday finery, pouring out imaginary cups of teas for their dolls and feeding them imaginary cakes made from dandelions and buttercups. Their thick blond hair brushed into tidy ponytails and their chubby childish knees scuffed with scabs that had been picked over leaving small bloodstains on their long white socks. The high-voiced laughter of her girls until the ball the boys were kicking would inevitably find its way over to them, knocking their carefully prepared picnic flying. She could remember the fat tears in her twin girls' eyes, her poor little daughters' bewilderment at the male presence that always managed to disturb the games, and her own relief at their brothers' hearty kindness as they picked up the brightly coloured plastic tea set, and assorted dollies and tried, in their overly masculine way, to set it all right once more for them.

Pat Junior, the eldest, always the leader, his rough but kindly ministrations being copied by the other boys who knew it was expected of them. Pat loved those girls and he took great care of them, his brothers as well, in his own haphazard way. Colleen's death had taken him hard and she knew how he felt; it had nearly destroyed her, but she had learned a great lesson from it, they all had.