The Trawlerman, стр. 58

Alex nodded.

‘I’ve known Tina all my life. She’s not a bad girl. She just ended up in the wrong place. I went down to the docks, saw The Hopeful leave, and once I knew it was out of the way I would drive up to their house, knock on the door. I said, “Tina. Tell me the truth.” She wouldn’t say anything, even to me . . .’

‘Stella told me I was barking up the wrong tree with that angle. Why would she do that?’

He said, ‘We’ll come to that, OK?’

He stood, opened a drawer under the cooker ring, took out a packet of digestives. He offered her one, then took one out of the packet for himself and lowered it carefully into the cup. Before the wet biscuit could disintegrate, she watched him pop it whole into his mouth and then chew. ‘I knew Curly was the one who went out on The Hopeful with Frank Hogben. I came across him one day out on the beach at Dungeness and asked him straight out if he thought Frank was assaulting Tina. Like everyone, Curly said he knew nothing at all about it. I reckon he suspected all along, just like we had. Hearing it from me was confirmation; Frank was beating his wife. Know what? Curly never went out on The Hopeful again with Frank. Refused point-blank. Frank wasn’t happy at all, roughed Curly up pretty bad, but Curly wouldn’t shift so nothing he could do about it. Curly said he wanted to give all that money he’d been given back to him. Frank just laughed at him. Know what Frank said?’

Alex shook her head.

‘“Chuck it in the bin,” Frank told Curly. “Half of it was forged anyway.” When Frank was starting out, he sold on drugs to another dealer and got paid out forged notes. That’s what Frank was paying people off in to get rid of them. A cold bastard in every way. And that’s when he started taking poor Danny Fagg out instead.’

‘His cousin?’

‘That’s right? You met him?’

‘I went out on his boat.’

‘You notice his hand?’

‘One finger of his right hand was missing.’ She remembered the flush in the big, shy man’s face as she had asked him about his missing finger.

‘Frank did that. Danny wasn’t much keener than Curly to do any of this. They had an argument about it one day, Frank held his hand on the winch so the cable cut the finger right off. Crushed it. That’s the kind of man Frank was. An angry little bastard, all the time. You can say it was all his dad’s fault but – know what? – you don’t have to turn out like your father.’

‘No, Bill. You don’t.’

Bill paused to pick up his tea and drink. ‘And now, every time Frank went out, Curly would go round to check on her. Neighbours probably thought they were having an affair. It used to happen all the time, with the boats. Curly tried to look after her. He did his best.’

There was a knock at the door. Bill stood and went to it. A woman in her fifties was there; face brown from the sun. She looked disapprovingly at Alex. ‘Is everything OK, Bill?’

‘Not really.’

‘That’s her, is it?’ demanded the woman. Alex guessed the woman in khaki dungarees was the smallholder.

‘Yep.’

‘She found you, then?’

‘Yes. She did.’

She looked at Alex, unsmiling. ‘Please be nice to him.’

‘I will try.’

‘Not like the last time.’ The farmer held her gaze for a second, then turned and disappeared.

‘This is her place. She lets me stay here for nothing.’

‘She knows about me, then? And she doesn’t like me much.’

‘Nope.’

Alex said, ‘Good for her. I don’t like me much right now, either.’ She took a gulp of her tea. It wasn’t so bad. ‘Go on, Bill.’

‘And so it went on. Of all people, I ought to understand why women who are being beaten up by their husbands just carry on through it all and don’t tell anyone.’

‘You didn’t turn out like your dad, Bill.’

Bill nodded. ‘Just the same. That’s what it was. I looked at Tina standing there on her doorstep at Broadmead Road and I saw my own mother. All she needed to do was to tell us and we’d have arrested him, and he would have been out of her life, but she never would.’

‘People like Frank control every aspect of a woman’s life.’

‘I know all that.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I know everything about that, believe me. So I waited to hear from her and I never did. Until one day, a little over seven years ago, when Curly called me up and told me Frank was dead.’

‘Oh my God.’ Alex slammed her tea down onto the step, splashing tea. ‘It was Curly that killed him?’

‘I got a phone call in the middle of night. Curly told me to come urgently because something terrible had happened. My first thought was that Tina had been attacked by Frank again and that he’d finally done it. I told him to call the police. But he said no, she was safe. But he wanted me to come to her house because he had something he needed to show me. Well . . . not even the house. He told me to come to Frank’s garage. Broadmead Road is one of those Victorian streets with workshops at the back, built against the railway line. Half of the Hogbens’ house was above the old archway you had to go through to get there.’

‘I know. I went there.’

‘Of course you did. You would do that, wouldn’t you?’ A breeze rustled the wheat in the next field; a pale shiver of silver passed across the brown. ‘So it was two in the morning or something. When I got there, I could see the light was on, so I knocked on the door. One of those big old wooden doors with a smaller little door in it. Curly opened up the wee one and let