Two Women by Martina Cole

off. Even Joey had seen the funny side of it, and that said it all about him as far as June was concerned.
    He was as much use as a chocolate teapot.
    Still, she would sort out Joey because now she had the money, she was in charge, and if she looked after him then he would look after her.
    Finally she hid the money and went to bed.
     
    Susan took communion at midnight mass and prayed again to Our Lady to make her father be asleep when she got in. If possible, she beseeched, could he please be paralytic and unconscious too?
    She didn’t ask for him to be dead because that might be too much even for Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
    After mass she walked up to look at the nativity scene. It was lovely. As she admired it a hand came down on her shoulder and, turning, she saw Father Campbell smiling down at her.
    ‘You’re a grand child, you know. You never miss the mass, do you?’
    Smiling radiantly, she nodded.
    ‘Only if I’m very ill. I love coming here.’
    ‘And how’s your mother? It must be a terrible night for her, God love her, what with the murder . . .’
    Susan looked into his face in shock. Was her father dead at last? Her heart constricted in her breast. She could hear her pulse hammering in her ears.
    ‘What murder?’
    As she looked into the priest’s face and he informed her that her Uncle Jimmy had been shot in the street Susan sighed.
    Life was so bloody unfair.
    Poor Uncle Jimmy. She had always liked him, he had been kind to her and Debs. Giving them a few minutes of his time, asking them about school, their lives. Things it would never have occurred to June to ask.
    Now he was dead and it was inevitable her mother would take up residence back at home. Susan didn’t want that.
    She didn’t want that at all.
    Bowing to the inevitable as usual, she smiled sadly.
    ‘He was a nice man, me Uncle Jimmy. I’d better get home and see if me mum needs me.’
    ‘You do that, child. Sure you’re a boon to your mother, a boon.’
    The priest watched her hurrying from the church on dumpy little legs and smiled sadly. She was a lovely little thing, plain as a pikestaff but with a huge heart that was crying out for a bit of affection.
    Now the man was dead, God rest him and keep him, perhaps that whore of a mother might get herself home and take care of her children as nature intended.
     
    Davey Davidson was over the moon. He knew his biggest rival was finally off the scene and that pleased him.
    What wasn’t so pleasant was the knowledge that a lot of people would now be after his blood.
    He would deal with that when it came up.
    What he wanted now were the notebooks and ledgers of the man he had killed. To get them he needed access to the house and that was where Joey came in. After all, his old woman was the bird in the know, as he had explained to them when he had set all this up.
    Joey was shrewd there, very shrewd. He’d wanted that woman of his back and had laid the foundations for this night’s work with the Davidsons. Davey wondered idly if Joey would tell his wife that he was the reason her new boyfriend was lying on a mortuary slab.
    He had wanted to do the actual murder but had been clever enough to see that he was going to be the prime suspect. So he had arranged to be at home with his children when it took place.
    Where any decent man would be on the night before Christmas.
    He had also paid a big mouth called Bella to collar his wife in East Ham market, where he knew his wife would be that Saturday with her two daughters. In effect he had masterminded a murder and had got what he wanted from it. His wife would give up the man of her dreams and he would get back a woman most men would have hung, drawn and quartered.
    Davey shook his head sadly at the way some people lived their lives.
     
    Maureen Carter was up and out early on Christmas morning. She was dressed in a blue Oscar de la Renta suit with matching shoes and bag, her hair expertly set. She looked calm and collected as she knocked at