Peter Turnbull - Deliver Us from Evil

The lightweight wooden door was opened by a middle-aged woman with matted hair and hard, cold-looking eyes. Ventnor recognized the type, hostile, he sensed, very hostile towards the police. She held a cigarette in the corner of her mouth which she had smoked almost to the filter. She wore a tee shirt which hung loosely on her body and black shorts which revealed lower legs covered in hair. She was barefoot. ‘Snow was called on the radio this morning so I expected that,’ she spoke with a harsh rasping voice, ‘but I didn’t expect the police. You’re going to throw me in the bucket. Again.’

‘No need to show you our ID in that case.’ But Marianne Auphan did so anyway. Ventnor did likewise. ‘And no, we’re not going to bucket you. . we do have plenty of room in there though. We’re looking for information.’

‘Just information?’ The woman sounded relieved.

‘That’s all.’

‘You’d better come in.’ She stepped aside with unsteady and uncoordinated movements and the two officers entered her dark and musty smelling home. ‘Sit if you want to but if I were you I’d stand, I truly would.’ She indicated a pile of empty beer cans on the floor next to an ancient looking gas fire. ‘All the chairs are damp if you know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I can guess what you mean, ‘Marianne Auphan replied, ‘and thanks, but we’ll take your advice and stand.’

‘Sensible.’ The woman sank heavily into an armchair which was ripped and torn in many places. She dogged the cigarette butt in an overflowing ashtray and lit another cigarette from a blue packet.

‘Better for you to be indoors anyway,’ Marianne Auphan spoke quietly, ‘your feet look cold.’

‘Can’t really feel them,’ the woman smiled, ‘circulation problems.’

‘You’re not helping any by smoking and drinking already.’

‘That’s what the clinic told me but what else is there for me but smoke and the booze? I only got that for company.’ She jabbed the air indicating an old television set in the corner of the room. ‘And maybe that.’ She indicated an equally ancient hi-fi system which made Ventnor feel like he was back in Tang Hall YO10.

‘So what do you want?’ The woman lit the cigarette with an orange coloured disposable lighter, activating it with a clumsy twin-handed method. She inhaled deeply and breathed the smoke out through her nose. ‘So what can I tell you? Hey, I thought I’d get snow but I got cops instead, but at least cops can talk. . snow don’t say much.’

‘We also listen. So are you Jordana Hoskins, already?’

‘Yes.’ The woman had the remnants of an Irish accent. Mainly she had a Canadian accent, thought Ventnor, but the Irish came unmistakably through. He fully understood the need to keep silent. His place was to listen, to look, to observe, and to receive an impression, but not to say a word.

‘Yes, that’s me, Jordana Hoskins, from Dublin City. . but that was forty years ago. I had no say in leaving; my parents brought me over on a boat. So it’s the Garda in Ireland, and the police in Canada, all wanting information. So how can I help you?’

‘Heather Ossetti.’

‘What about her?’ Jordana Hoskins was clearly standing her ground against the officers. She wasn’t denying knowing Heather Ossetti but was also certainly very protective of her. Ventnor realized that information would not be easily forthcoming from the woman.

‘You and she were buddies, already,’ Marianne Auphan said, ‘what we call “criminal associates”.’

‘Yes, we got thrown in the bucket together, me and Heather. A few times.’

‘We know. When you lived in Ottawa, already.’

‘Ottawa is a good province. I like Ottawa.’

‘So where is she now? Do you know?’

‘Heather?’ Jordana Hoskins once again drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘Not seen her for some time. . like years. . maybe a few years.’

‘You won’t be seeing her again. Not in this world anyway.’

Jordana Hoskins gasped, allowing a large cloud of cigarette smoke to escape from her mouth. ‘She’s dead?’

‘Yes, already,’ Marianne Auphan spoke matter-of-factly. ‘It happens to all of us, sooner or later.’

‘Yeah, I worked that out some time ago, but Heather. .’ The officers thought her reaction to be genuine, she definitely did not know where Heather Ossetti was.

‘I’m afraid so. Don’t like to bring bad news, not when we’re looking for help, but that’s the way of it sometimes. . like a hand in a glove. . bad news wrapped up inside a request for information.’

‘Yeah, reckon it is.’ Jordana Hoskins stared into the middle distance. Her eyes did not seem focused on anything. ‘How? I mean Heather. . Can you tell me?’

‘She was murdered.’

‘I don’t ever hear nothing about that.’

‘In England. She was living in England when she was murdered already.’

‘So that’s why I haven’t seen her, that’s why I didn’t even hear of her being iced. England. . you know I’ve never been there.’

‘So, you and Heather?’

‘Yes, just a couple of lowlifes, real losers. . skanks, thieves. . anything for a fast and easy buck, that was the Ossetti/Hoskins gang.’

‘Being a skank isn’t easy money.’

‘Yeah, but you don’t know that until you’re in and once in, it’s not so easy to get out and it becomes a way of life more than a job to do but eventually the younger women push you off the turf. That’s what happened to me and Heather Ossetti. That’s when we took to thieving. . then we got thrown in the can, had to happen eventually. . then we came to Ontario, looking for a new start. Heather comes from round here, so I came too. That’s why we settled in Barrie. . Heather knew the town. Didn’t do me any good because this is how I live. You see how I live. You see how I live, I’d be better off on a croft in Donegal. She was murdered in England?’

‘Yes. The British Police believe a Canadian guy followed her there, tracked her down and did the business.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ Jordana Hoskins inhaled deeply and reached down beside her and pulled a can of beer from a pail of cold water which stood beside the chair. ‘Fridge is out,’ she explained. ‘I’m on welfare, I can’t afford to get it fixed or even buy another used one.’ She heaved the ring pull off the top of the can with what Ventnor thought was a masculine grappling of her fingers. ‘Not too early for the first beer of the day and a good reason to start.’

‘That’s one way of putting it, already,’ Marianne Auphan replied. ‘So who did she annoy. . do you have any idea? She rubbed someone up the wrong way.’

‘Heather. . well. .’ Jordana Hoskins paused and looked down at the threadbare carpet at her feet.

‘It won’t have come from you.’ Auphan read Hoskins’s mind.

‘I’ll end up the same way as her if it does.’

‘Understood. Mum’s the word. She had stolen someone’s ID when she died, she was running scared.’

‘I just hear things. . some things I just hear. OK?’

‘OK. So what did you just hear?’

‘Well, Heather, she wasn’t a real close buddy of mine. We did get into badness together but we were never close. Heather, she has, she had, an evil streak, you know. I mean well evil; she had the devil in her. I seen it once or twice and it, you know, it really frightened me. She was well angry about her start in life in a children’s home near here. . but she had. . she was born with devil in her.’

‘Which home?’

Jordana Hoskins drank the beer. ‘On the coast of Lake Simcoe, can’t be that many. If it’s still there, those places open and close down again like stores that don’t pay.’

‘Did she ever mention a woman called Edith Lecointe? She’d be about Heather Ossetti’s age, already.’