The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(92)

‘I always tried to be a good wife to you,’ she gasped. ‘I wanted our marriage to work, you know I did.’

He crouched down to her and nicked the blade against her leg almost playfully, catching her woollen stocking and cutting a slice through it. ‘A good wife,’ he mocked. ‘Well, let me tell you something. I’ve seen what you get up to in the back yard, whore that you are. And I don’t spend all my time around Bootle, I like to roam around a bit. Guess where I go.’

‘Wh-where?’ She could hardly form the word.

‘I get this overwhelming urge to go to the country sometimes,’ he went on, in a horrible parody of a singsong, storytelling voice. ‘I go out to Lancashire, little place called Freshfield.’

She shut her eyes.

‘Look at me, Rita. Like a good little wife.’ He drew the blade along her leg, deeper this time. She flinched at the pain. ‘There’s a farm out there, all wholesome it is. They let the kids run wild there, all hours of the day and night, no supervision at all. Sometimes I stay to watch them.’

Rita gasped. The shadow man. Charlie was the shadow man. He’d been spying on the children and doing it for months.

‘I’d say that little girl is the spitting image of her dad,’ he went on.

‘Megan’s your daughter, Charlie,’ Rita couldn’t resist snapping back, more wounded by his refusal to use her name than by the mounting agony in her leg.

‘But the boy doesn’t look like me one bit,’ he continued. ‘Funny that, isn’t it? I used to wonder sometimes when he was little, but now he’s getting bigger it’s clear as daylight. Looks like his mother, there’s no doubt about that. But who’s his father? That’s what I’d like to know. Now I’ve seen what a whore you are as well. If anything happened to that boy, who’d be sorry?’

‘What do you mean?’ Rita gasped, frantic he would make good on his threat and hurt Michael. ‘Charlie, don’t be daft, you’re imagining things. Michael looks like me and Megan looks like you, that’s how it’s always been.’

‘That’s what I’m saying, Rita, only you don’t seem to be listening. What do I have to do to make you listen?’ He slashed at her leg again, faster this time, and blood began to pool on the old tiles, catching in the grouting where it was uneven because she’d scrubbed it so often.

‘I’m listening, Charlie, I’m listening,’ she breathed, pale with pain and terror.

‘I don’t think you are, Rita. You’ve made a fool of me all these years.’ His eyes were wild. ‘You and that cow Elsie, and now you’ve got that daft idiot she used to have following her round living here. Where’s that creature? Am I going to have to take care of her too?’ He waved the knife at her throat once more.

‘N … no. Leave Ruby out of it,’ Rita insisted, fear for her friend lending her the energy to fight back. ‘She’s upstairs, she can’t get around, she’s got a broken leg. She can’t get down the stairs on her own.’

‘Good.’ He shifted position from his crouch to a low stoop. ‘Well now, what am I going to do with you? Still want to be a good wife, do you?’ Suddenly he reached forward and shoved his hand down her jumper, twisting her breast, causing her to scream in pain. ‘What, don’t you like it? You used to. Not such a willing wife now after all, are you?’ He twisted again and she screamed once more.

‘What’s going on?’ The inside door to the shop opened and Winnie came through; she’d been minding the premises while Rita had hung out the washing.

Charlie swung around and got to his feet as Rita tried to rearrange her clothing, wincing in agony. ‘What’s she doing here? You said she always worked on Wednesdays?’ He glared at his mother. ‘How can I collect the stuff if she’s hanging around?’

Winnie didn’t even bother to glance at Rita huddled on the floor with the blood spreading around her. ‘I put up that sign we agreed so you’d know not to come. My old red vase on the windowsill. You should have waited.’

‘I came in round the back – you should have put the vase in the window round there,’ he snarled. ‘Now look what I’ve got to sort out.’ He stood over Rita and lashed out with a kick, making her double up and groan.

‘Leave her and just take the food,’ said Winnie bluntly. ‘The longer you’re here, the riskier it is.’ She tottered a little, unsteady on her thin legs.

‘Yes, but how do we know she’ll stay quiet?’ Charlie glared at his wife, who was trying not to make any more noise, but who couldn’t help whimpering at the pain.

‘Shut her in the cellar then,’ Winnie said brutally. ‘That’ll give you time to get away.’

‘I … I won’t say anything,’ Rita gasped.

‘You’d better not. If you do I’ll be back here to cut your throat,’ Charlie hissed, watching Rita’s face, enjoying the look of fear in her eyes that she couldn’t hide. ‘Or maybe I’ll do something to hurt you even more. How about if I went out to Freshfield and showed those kids what I can do with my knife? How would you like that? If I got rid of that boy who you said was my son, who I’ve paid for all his life, when he was just a bastard and nothing to do with me at all? How would you like that, eh? Then you’d know him being killed was all your fault and you’d have to live with that for the rest of your life.’ He smiled at the idea. ‘That would hurt, wouldn’t it?’