one with the tattoo sat next to me while the other one drove. And as soon as we were moving he started punching me in the face.’
He started sobbing so I handed him a glass of water and told him to drink it.
‘Did you know these men?’ I asked him.
He gulped the water, spilling some of it down his chin.
‘I’ve not seen them before,’ he said.
‘So why did they do it? Did they tell you?’
He looked at me and blinked away more tears. ‘The one with the tattoo told me it was another warning to you, Lizzie. Said if you don’t stop dredging up the past then next time they won’t be so … merciful.’
‘Oh fuck.’
‘He also said if you go to the police again he’ll come back and kill me.’
The hospital kept Mark in for observation, and I stayed with him. I did my best to extract descriptions of the two men, but all he could remember was that they were both big and mean looking.
‘Like those blokes in black suits who stand outside pubs and clubs in the town centre.’
Heavy dudes in other words. The type who carry out the dirty work for someone else. Someone with the means to pay them well and keep them in check.
Was this the first real sign that I was way out of my depth on this and should heed the warnings that were coming at me thick and fast?
Mark did have a clear recollection of one thing though – the tattoo on his attacker’s chest. And no wonder. It sounded pretty distinctive. A dog baring a set of sharp teeth. It was just the head, he said, peering out from the opening in the guy’s shirt.
‘It was really ugly, sis. The way a dog growls at you as it gets ready to attack.’
It was an unsettling aspect. The man sounded like a scary bastard, just the sort of psycho you don’t want on your case.
The doctor did his rounds at seven. Checked Mark over and gave him the all-clear. No broken bones, no sign of concussion and no internal injuries. Just a few cuts, a couple of bruises and a loose front tooth.
But before he could be discharged a uniformed cop arrived to take a statement. I let him know that Mark had learning difficulties, and he made a note of it. Mark told him exactly what he’d told me and answered all the officer’s questions as best he could.
I then explained my situation and mentioned the note left on the windscreen at the hotel.
‘I want you to inform DCI Ash,’ I said. ‘He’ll want to know about this.’
At nine o’clock a taxi dropped us off outside my mother’s house. I saw her at the kitchen window as we piled out of the cab. The front door was flung open long before we reached it and when she set eyes on her son I thought she was going to have a fit.
‘Marky, Marky. What in the Lord’s name has happened to you? I thought you were in your room.’
She grabbed his shoulders and looked closely at his face. The swollen eye and stitched-up lip. The large plaster on his forehead. Her own face drained of colour and she started to shake violently.
‘Have you had an accident? Are you badly hurt?’
‘He was attacked, Mum,’ I said, ‘but his wounds are not serious.’
She turned to me, and a frown quickly turned to a scowl.
‘What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in prison? How come you’re with your brother?’
‘Let’s go inside and I’ll explain everything,’ I said.
She pondered this for a second, then put her arm around Mark and led him into the small, cluttered kitchen that was dominated by an ugly pine table with more craters than the moon.
My mother told Mark to sit down while she put the kettle on. He caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back and winked at him.
‘Lizzie stayed with me at the hospital, Mum,’ he said. ‘She took care of me.’
My mother turned away from the sink, kettle in one hand. She looked from Mark to me and pressed her lips together. That was usually a sign that she didn’t know what to say.
‘I tried to call,’ I said. ‘But Mark told me you take the phone off at night.’
She stared at me, pink, watery eyes full of doubt and confusion. I wanted to cross the room to embrace her, tell her not to worry, that everything was going to be fine. But I didn’t because I knew she’d only pull away. So I just stood there, knowing that what had happened to Mark was going to be another nail in the coffin of our relationship.
The last time I saw her was at Leo’s funeral. She’d lost weight since then from her short, stocky frame. Her face had hollowed out and the harsh lines and bloodless lips made her look older than her fifty-four years. The hair didn’t help. She’d stopped putting colour on it and it was now grey and lifeless.
Ours had always been a strained relationship. I was convinced that to begin with it was because my father doted on me, and she resented not being the centre of his world, even for that brief period. After he died she retreated into herself and what little affection she demonstrated towards me dried up completely. Then came Mark’s head injury, which she blamed on me. She said I’d attracted the attention of the boys by wearing a disgracefully short skirt and heavy make-up. I was fourteen at the time and wanted nothing more than to be like the other girls. But my mother didn’t see it that way.
Having found God everything to her was black and white. She became boorish and intolerant. She never took into account my raging hormones and teenage insecurities. And as I got older nothing changed. Whatever I did she disapproved of. And that had a good deal to do with why I went off the rails.
I stopped caring about what she thought of me. I ignored her advice and became more and more argumentative. Sometimes when she lectured me from her invisible pulpit I’d laugh in her face. If I was high on drugs I’d scream and swear at her. A couple of times she reacted by crying, but mostly she’d just shake her head and tell me I should be ashamed of myself.
Whenever I did try to be nice she would become suspicious because she’d assume I was only doing it because I wanted something. And most times she was right.
Her motherly instincts did kick in for a while, though, when my sorry excuse for a boyfriend walked out on me three months before Leo was born. She even invited me to move back in, but I couldn’t see that working so I stayed put in the flat, gave birth to Leo and tried to hold down a succession of dead-end jobs from barmaid to cleaner. It was hard and depressing and the money, even with tax credits, was barely enough to live on. That’s when the debts piled up and I tried to blank out my woes with drink and drugs.
I knew my life had spiralled out of control when I arrived at my mum’s one night to pick up Leo. I was rat-arsed. There was a scene, and she slapped my face. I deserved it too and it
