The Good Girl: A brand new totally absorbing psychological thriller by Michelle Dunne

Author:Michelle Dunne [Dunne, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books - crime, thrillers & mysteries
Published: 2024-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MAGGIE – 1982

Maggie’s head throbbed where clumps of her hair had been pulled out and she spat a tooth out onto the footpath. She was in pain, but the little tramp doing the damage would never see that. So Maggie ran at her again. A large crowd had gathered on the street outside the pub and they were hooting and howling like a pack of animals. Maggie drove her shoulder into the woman’s ribs and the pair of them hit the ground with a hard thump. Still, the other woman got the upper hand and rolled Maggie so that she was beneath her once more. Jacinta was her name, apparently. She’d been taunting Maggie all night, when all she wanted was to have a quiet drink. Now for the second time in as many minutes, she was being straddled by Jacinta on the cold, wet ground.

As another clump of hair was pulled from her head and nails scraped her face simultaneously, Jacinta was pulled off her by the women she’d been drinking with. They were laughing as they dragged their friend away.

‘Leave her, Jacinta!’ one of them said with a happy howl. ‘If she can’t keep her man on a leash, that’s her problem.’

‘He’s…’ Maggie tried to retort, but blood spluttered from her mouth.

‘He’s, he’s, he’s what?’ Jacinta taunted again. ‘He’s engaged to my sister! That’s what he is and if you don’t stay a million bloody miles away from him, I swear to God, I’ll…’

‘Ah well now, he didn’t exactly give her a ring, Jacinta.’ The same friend howled again. It seemed she didn’t care who she was laughing at, once no one was laughing at her.

‘Go home, you haggard old whore,’ Jacinta spat, ignoring her so-called friend.

As soon as they walked away, the crowd began to disperse. She heard them all mumbling, passing Paddy’s name back and forth between them. They too were delighting in their evening’s entertainment. Maggie, meanwhile, didn’t feel like she could pull herself up off the road, but somehow she did. Then she turned and headed for home. One heel had broken off her shoe, but she still marched away with as much dignity as she could muster, stopping at the off-licence on the way. She picked up the cheapest vodka they had and ignored the look on the man’s face behind the counter. He didn’t comment on the state of her because he knew Maggie by now. She was so often in a state, thanks to Paddy, or the men he sent her way, or the women who claimed he was theirs. One of these nights, if Maggie could be bothered, she’d ask him why he still looked at her like that. Like he was torn between calling the Guards or the paramedics. Or maybe the street sweepers to clean her away from his otherwise respectable street. The man had rarely seen her looking any better than she did right now.

After the girl came to stay, it only took Maggie a week to realise that Paddy wasn’t sleeping in his car, like he said he would.

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