Chrissie's Children by Irene Carr Page A

properly?’ Matt halted, puzzled. ‘What d’you mean?’
    Sophie called back to him, ‘That’s all I know – except that you need to keep on the right side of him after this last week. Come
on
, Pamela!’
    So Pamela had to go, while Matt made his way back to the house wondering, Not running properly? I’ll have to ask Dad . . .
    When he did, Jack Ballantyne answered him, ‘Must be some mistake. The car’s ticking over like a clock, nothing wrong with it.’
    Later, when Matt challenged Sophie, she replied cheerfully, ‘I was keeping you out of trouble. You’ve been in enough without getting off with Pamela. She’d put you through the
mangle.’
    Riled, Matt answered, ‘You can stop interfering in my affairs.’
    Sophie walked into her room and paused only to tell him, ‘Somebody has to look after you. I’d have thought you’d be glad I was prepared to do it because lots
wouldn’t.’ Then she closed the door in his face.
    Joshua Fannon came home from the pub early because he had spent all his own money and had only the rents he had collected that day. The coins chinked in the pockets of the old
raincoat buttoned tight over his belly, but he dared not spend them. He smelt the gas when he opened the door and heard the hissing.
    ‘What the hell . . .’ He shoved the door wide and stepped into the kitchen. The gas lamp was not lit because the room was still twilit on this spring evening. He saw his wife,
Meggie, lying fat and loose in her armchair by the fireplace as usual, though the grate held no fire, only dead ashes. A half-empty bottle of gin and a glass stood by her chair, again as usual. In
the hearth was a teapot and a gas-ring with a kettle perched on top of it. The hissing came from there.
    Fannon swore. ‘Ye daft cow!’ He guessed that Meggie had turned on the gas to boil a kettle for tea but, in her drunken stupor, failed to light it. He lumbered across the room, belly
wobbling, and bent to turn off the gas, then froze there with his hand on the tap. Meggie was a very bad colour and breathing harshly. He rose slowly, wheezing, then moved quickly to close the door
with barely a click. Stepping carefully and light on his feet, he went to the gas meter in a cupboard on one side of the fireplace, dug down into his raincoat pocket and brought out a handful of
change. He picked out the pennies, bent down and fed them into the meter one by one. As each rattled down inside, a nerve twitched in his cheek. He was sweating and watching Meggie but she showed
no sign of waking. As he rose he knew the gas would flow for several hours.
    He left the house quietly, and as he had entered it, by the back door and the back lane. No one saw him go. The rooms upstairs were empty and would be until his neighbours came home after the
pubs shut at ten.
    He went on to the Pear Tree and the barman greeted him. ‘Aye, aye, Josh!’
    Fannon answered, ‘Give us a pint,’ and as the man pulled it Fannon went on, ‘I’ve just left the Frigate. There’s a rare crowd in there tonight.’ That was
true.
    The barman said, ‘Is there?’
    ‘Aye.’ Fannon pulled out the money from his raincoat pocket. He could spend the rents now. ‘Have one for yourself.’
    ‘Ta, Josh.’ The barman lifted his glass in salute and drank.
    Fannon stood at the bar through the rest of the evening. He had time to think about what he had done on the spur of the moment and now he realised he had committed murder. If he was found out he
would be hanged. He sweated with fear and drank feverishly, talked to anyone who would listen. He was one of the last to leave the Pear Tree when it closed. Then he stood outside because he could
not go home, talking with a group of late leavers.
    His neighbour found him there, the man hurrying up, panting, to lay a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Josh.’
    Fannon mourned in public and recovered his confidence as the death was accepted as an accident. He celebrated in