Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole Page A

the end. In the environment they lived in it was inevitable that kids would turn to crime. All she could really blame him for was not working hard enough to get them out of it. She sighed heavily. How could he? He had never had the chance.
    All this flashed through her head in an instant. She looked around the cemetery. The brilliant sunshine seemed to be mocking her. It was too nice a day to be burying a young life. It should have been cold and raining as befitted a funeral. She saw the flowers gently swaying in the light breeze, the lichen-covered gravestones that hid their contents from the world, and was overcome with sadness. The birds were still singing as she made her way slowly to the cars. Her body seemed to have shrunk since Anthony’s death, giving her the appearance of an old woman. She was only forty-four. Back at the house everyone was drinking. Maura pushed her way through the adults and stationed herself in the front room next to the table piled high with food. Presently she was joined by Margaret Lacey. This had been arranged the day before. That morning Margaret had complained of a bad bout of sickness. Her mother, anxious to get to work, had given her the day off school. Now she was up and dressed and holding her new best friend’s hand. She could not even imagine what it must be like to
     
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    have a brother who had been murdered. Her mum and dad had talked of nothing else for days. According to them it was a wonder something like this had not happened before. Margaret, though, wisely kept this bit of information to herself.
    Mickey came up, and, taking the two girls by the hand, led them out of the house and into the back garden. He could not bear to be away from Maura today. She was so innocent and trusting. With his guilt over Anthony, he felt that at least she loved him and didn’t blame him for the death. No one would dare say that it was his fault outright, but he knew what was going on in everyone else’s mind.
    He sat in an old deck chair and the two girls sat on the ground, each leaning against one of his legs. He was already half drunk. The sun was so hot it was impossible to open his eyes without being blinded. Eventually he dozed. Maura and Margaret sat by him for hours. The friendship of a lifetime was bonded that day. Maura and Margaret became a pair, the friendship only to end with the death of one of them.
    That night in bed Maura had her first nightmare. It was of the man in the cemetery coming after her with her mother’s bread knife. She was to have the same dream intermittently for the rest of her life.

Chapter Six
    Carla Ryan opened her eyes. The sun was streaming in at the windows of her room. She lay for a few moments watching the patterns it made on the ceiling. A cool breeze drifted over her thin little body. She rubbed her arm, where she had a large bruise above the elbow. Her mother had picked her up bodily the night before and dragged her into her room where she had then thrown her on to her bed. She had bumped her arm on the little bedside cabinet. The pain had made her lose her breath for a few seconds. Lining up her pink nightdress her mother had then smacked her behind as hard as she could, afterwards putting her face next to Carla’s and telling her that she had had enough. Her mother’s breath had been sour as it always was when she had been drinking.
    What exactly her mother had had enough of Carla was not sure. All she had done the night before was make herself a sugar sandwich. She had asked her mother for something to eat over and over again, until finally she had decided to get it herself. She supposed it was’the sugar all over the table and floor that had made her mother cross.
    She sat herself up in bed and swung her little legs over the side. She yawned and her long brown hair fell over her face as she stretched her arms out. She winced as her bad arm was stretched. This was going to be a sore one, she
    reflected. Like the one she’d had on her leg