The Trouble With Liam

By Joy Mutter

The Trouble With Liam is a psychological thriller set in Ireland and Sheffield. It tells the life story of Liam O’Sullivan in all its twisted glory. The book begins with tales of his challenging childhood in Dublin and follows him through tragic events that change him into a misogynistic, controlling bully living in Sheffield. Liam thought he could do as he pleased until taught otherwise. Prepare to be shocked in different ways. If you enjoy lashings of dark humour, situations to make your eyes pop out, thrills of every kind all wrapped up in a gripping storyline, please read on.

“A well-crafted plot delivered with panache.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joy Mutter
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781724193841

Joy Mutter

I was born in Jersey and lived there for eighteen years. I worked in Kent as a professional graphic designer for over twenty years after gaining a Graphic Design Degree at Coventry University. I moved to Oldham in 2012 and have been writing books full-time up north ever since.I’ve written, designed, and published more than twenty books since 2007. The first three, A Slice of the Seventies, The Lying Scotsman, and Straws are third-person memoirs that form The Mug Trilogy.My fourth book, Potholes and Magic Carpets is contemporary, character-led fiction. I’ve also published one illustrated nonfiction book called Living with Postcards.Random Bullets was published in 2015. It is a contemporary crime thriller with a paranormal twist.Her Demonic Angel contains fourteen of my best short stories in different genres. Between 2016 and 2017, I published The Hostile Series of four contemporary paranormal thrillers. They consist of The Hostile, Holiday for The Hostile, The Hostile Game, and Confronting The Hostile. The Hostile Series Box Set contains all four books in The Hostile series.In 2018, I published a psychological thriller called The Trouble with Liam. The Trouble with Trouble, Trouble in Cornwall, and Troubled, all explicit standalone erotic thrillers in The Trouble series, were published in 2020 and 2021.Novellas The Brothers Grimshaw and A Sunny Day in Oldham were published in 2022.Between 2021 and 2023, I published the Nuru and his Crows Series consisting of Nuru and his Crows, The Storms of Padstow, and Punishing the Innocent.Nine of my books are also available as audiobooks.

Book preview

Liam O’Sullivan was wearing only a soggy nappy when his mother first locked him inside the claustrophobic wooden garden shed at the end of their neglected garden in Dublin. The barbaric incarceration of Scarlett’s only child continued to happen in all weathers, usually as her knee-jerk reaction to his crying. His perfectly normal shrieks and tantrums would turn her into an even nastier ogre than usual.

‘Shut up, for Christ’s sake, you noisy little sod. Your endless caterwauling is hurting my poor brain,’ she’d bellow at the quaking boy. If anyone ever heard her brutal words, they’d turn a deaf ear. Nobody rushed to rescue him from his awful ordeal, fearing a tongue-lashing, or worse, from his appalling excuse for a mother.

Scarlett’s heartless physical and emotional abuse of her son continued for years, even after Liam had started to attend the small local primary school. His imprisonment inside the cramped, gloomy shed always took place when his father, Aidan, was working at the supermarket. Although Aidan suspected the punishments were happening, he lacked the gumption to prevent his wife’s cruelty. Scarlett ruled the modest roost and terrorised the neighbourhood with her violent outbursts.

Over the years, Aidan had proved himself to be an inadequate wimp of the first order. He deemed it safer to turn a blind eye to Scarlett’s abuse of their child, which left his tormented son to fend for himself against Scarlett’s unusual treatment. As a battered husband, it wouldn’t have gone well for Aidan if he’d ever voiced to his wife his concerns over her shocking behaviour. He was in enough trouble with her as it was. She constantly criticised Aidan, pecking away at him for every little thing, including belittling him for only having a menial, low-paid supermarket job. Nothing he did was ever considered good enough for the woman who demanded to be treated as his queen. He eventually even feared making love to her, not wishing to risk another sneer of derision over his inadequate performance.

Scarlett’s imprisonment of their only child in the shed was never a subject for discussion between the married couple, even after Liam ran away from home one day. He’d fled onto the streets of Dublin, aged just seven, carrying a plastic bag containing a pair of underpants, socks, and a few snacks he’d pilfered from a kitchen cupboard. After walking nervously out of the back gate, he headed along the pavement in a desperate bid to escape Scarlett’s rage, which had been particularly frightening that day.

Within the first hour of his escape, the boy had already eaten the bag of crisps and drunk the can of Fanta he’d stolen from his poor excuse for a home. He was wondering what to do next, because the sunny day was rapidly turning into a drizzly, chilly evening. Liam shivered and wondered where he’d find his next meal. He was starting to regret his decision to run away from his deranged bully of a mother. Lost in his increasingly fearful thoughts, his panic soared as the sky darkened.

He was unaware of the obese, elderly stranger limping slowly up the alleyway towards him, leaning heavily on a walking stick. The bearded old pervert’s piggy eyes had lit up after spotting the youngster’s grubby plimsolls jutting out from behind a row of wheelie bins. The shabby, overcoated form, stinking of whisky, towered over his prey, blocking out the bruise-coloured sky. Liam leapt to his feet in an attempt to escape from the giant and reach safety. Barring the boy’s escape route, the opportunist made a grab for the waistband on Liam’s short trousers, pulling so hard that the top button pinged off and rolled into the gutter.

‘Come here, kid. Got something for you,’ said the man through broken, yellowing teeth. He dropped his walking stick onto the tarmac to make it easier for him to loosen his own baggy tracksuit bottoms.

Sensing nothing good would happen if he allowed the man to tug off his shorts, Liam kicked him hard in the shin, then jerked his body free of his grip. He ran from the shadows of the alley as fast as his legs could carry him, tears pouring down his face. He could hear the beast wheezing and cursing loudly as he limped after him, but Liam’s pursuer suddenly gave up the chase after his tracksuit bottoms started to slide down his fat legs. The child continued to run blindly until the sound of the man’s heavy breathing faded away. Desperate to find a group of people he could safely mingle with, he continued to run until his lungs felt like they’d explode. Liam thought, That old pig wouldn’t be able to hurt me if other people were around, would he? Better keep running, just in case he sees me.

After his ghastly experience in the alleyway, every pedestrian Liam ran past seemed like a threat, so he didn’t stop running until he’d reached his house. From the kitchen window, his mother saw him rushing through the back gate. Liam could tell from her thunderous expression that he was in serious trouble; she never allowed him to set foot outside the gate without her permission.

Puffing and panting from his run, he halted in his tracks as Scarlett shot out of the back door and headed his way. Just my luck for her to spot me from the kitchen, he thought. He started to whimper in anticipation of the inevitable punishment coming his way. I’m in for it now. So much for my plan to sneak upstairs without her even knowing I’d been into town.

Far from welcoming her only son home with a scolding and a warm hug, like any normal mother might, Scarlett walloped him hard three times on his bare legs, ignoring his shrieks of pain. Grabbing his arm, she dragged him towards the garden shed, her talons digging into his flesh.

‘No, mummy … I’m so scared of the dark … and the spiders,’ whimpered Liam, trying to hold onto the doorframe to save himself from being pushed into the darkness. She slapped his hands so hard, he was forced to let go of the splintery wood. She shoved him into the gloom so violently that he fell onto the dirty floor, then slammed the wooden door behind him. He could hear the padlock jangle as she locked him in, ignoring his sobs and pleas for mercy.

‘Serves you right for running away from home, you little sod! Don’t go thinking your dad will help you. He’s staying at your Gran’s house for a couple of days to help her out after her hip operation. You’ll stay in the shed all night to teach you not to misbehave. If I hear any screaming, you’ll be staying locked inside there all day tomorrow, too.’

With wide-eyed terror, Liam peered all around the interior of the shed, fearing the scary, bearded man might be lurking in a dark corner, still intent on ripping off Liam’s shorts. He knew there was no point in telling his mother about his ordeal in the alley. She’d only say ‘Serves you right. You brought it on yourself’ Wish I could forget that horrible man, he thought.

As a parting shot, Scarlett snarled at Liam through the closed door, ‘Told you before, I can’t stand you crying. Why won’t you ever learn? You’re doing my nut in with your infernal crying, so shut it!’

Scarlett was eager to walk back indoors so she could enjoy an evening in peace, alone with her beloved television set. Nights separated from Aidan were rare, and she wanted to make the most of the luxury of being alone. Her grizzling child seemed determined to spoil her fun, but Scarlett was having none of it.

On hearing his mother’s angry footsteps crunching on the gravel as she stomped along the path back towards the house, Liam snivelled pitifully, snot bubbling from his nose. Her footsteps would be the last sounds he’d hear from Scarlett, or any other person, that night. Most children would expect their mother to relent and return to rescue their child from such an extreme punishment, but not Liam. He’d experienced his selfish mother’s twisted cruelty often enough to know he’d been abandoned to spend all night alone inside the creepy wooden shed.

She really means it … Mum’s actually going to leave me in this dark shed all night. She’s not coming back … Why’s she so cruel to me and Dad? he thought.

He stared, wide-eyed with terror at the lawnmower, the rake and the other gardening tools that looked like implements of torture. The higgledy-piggledy stacks of boxes lining one wall contained God knows what horrors. In daylight, the same objects held no particular terrors for him, but as the darkness deepened, they took on a sinister, threatening aura.

The air grew cold and damp as the night dragged on. Rain clattered on the shed’s roof so loudly it sounded like tiny demons dancing in celebration of his plight. Liam found an old, discarded duvet cover which had been used as a dust sheet, and pulled it around his shivering body. He suddenly felt a tickling sensation on the back of his neck. He shrieked as he scooped up a monstrous black spider that was intent on scuttling down inside his T-shirt. He threw it into the darkness, then immediately regretted not crushing it, as he now had to stay alert in case the spider returned to launch another attack on him.

He was much too spooked out by the darkness to fall asleep, expecting every creak in the timbers, every rustle from nocturnal wildlife beyond the shed, to be the sounds of the beast from the alleyway returning to attack him. Liam had no more tears left to cry by the time his mother released him from his wooden prison the next morning.

Without a hint of guilt at what she’d inflicted on her son, Scarlett flung the shed door open, stepped inside, sniffed, and pulled an accusing face. ‘What’s that bloody awful stink in here?’

Slowly, Liam nervously pointed to a green, plastic watering can in the corner of the shed. His mother’s nose wrinkled in disgust after realising her child had defecated and urinated into the watering can. Instead of praising him for his ingenuity when he’d been caught short, she smacked the back of his bare legs over and over again. Grabbing the watering can, she marched back into the house to flush its contents down the toilet, all the while swearing abuse at him. Liam tentatively followed her at a safe distance, rubbing his stinging legs. He stifled the urge to cry, fearing she’d incarcerate him in the shed again.

While his mother was busy upstairs in the bathroom, Liam grabbed a glass and poured himself some tap water to quench his raging thirst. Scarlett didn’t believe in such treats as squash for her child. She remained ominously silent after stomping back downstairs to the kitchen and returning the can to the shed. Liam didn’t dare speak, not that he’d have been able to after his traumatic night imprisoned inside the shed.

His mother grudgingly cooked him some beans on toast. Liam feared he’d soon look like a baked bean; most of his meals seemed to consist of the small, orange bullets. When not at school, he usually spent as much of the day as he could playing with his toys in his bedroom, where he felt safest. Scarlett was delighted with that arrangement. It allowed her time to do as she wished, which mostly consisted of sleeping, eating junk food, and watching television.

In the dead of night, Liam lay in bed thinking black thoughts about his mother as he stared into the shadowy corners of his cramped bedroom. As soon as Liam closed his eyes, he imagined he could see the scary, bearded man crouching, ready to pounce on him. He’d not slept the previous night in the shed, so, despite his strenuous efforts to keep his sore eyes open, he eventually nodded off. The repulsive, limping pervert from the alley did indeed show up, but only in Liam’s nightmares.

For years after his confinements in the shed, Liam would always sleep fitfully, jerking into consciousness, fearing he was back inside the wooden, creosoted hellhole, or fighting off another attack from the wheezing, limping deviant.

Even as a child living in Ireland, Liam O’Sullivan had formulated the opinion that the females of the species needed to be punished for what they inflicted on males. The immense harm that Scarlett had done to him and his father was all the justification he needed for his loathing.

Scarlett and Aidan had been casually dating for only a few weeks when, to her surprise and horror, she’d fallen pregnant. It was clear to everyone that Aidan was keener on her than she was on him. Not wanting to live the life of a single mother, she’d decided to hitch her wagon to him, despite her sexual interest in women. She was a handsome female rather than beautiful, blessed with a head of luxuriant black hair that cascaded to the base of her spine. She wore it loose, like a black cape around her broad shoulders.

To add to her strange aura, Scarlett had been born with one brown eye and one green, both emphasised by her impressive widow’s peak. Her startling appearance had attracted and mesmerised Aidan on the first day they’d met at a live music gig in the centre of Dublin. From the start, she could tell that besotted Aidan was a man she could easily manipulate and control. She took him by storm.

Scarlett was a selfish, narcissistic woman without a shred of empathy, the sort of woman who should never have been blessed with children. Baby Liam had been the end result of a rare night of passion with Aidan, fuelled by alcohol. The pregnancy had been a shock to Scarlett, and not a pleasant one. When she’d started to feel nauseous in the mornings, she’d taken a pregnancy test in her bathroom. When it showed a positive result, she became incandescent with rage that her life had been highjacked against her wishes. She’d marched downstairs and rained blows onto Aidan’s upper body as he’d sat on the sofa trying to shield himself from serious injury.

After she’d fallen pregnant, they’d had a quiet register office wedding four months later, before Aidan had enough time to realise the hell he was walking into. One reason she’d agreed to marry Aidan was his sexual prowess, which belied his appearance. Despite his skills in the bedroom, he was easily dominated by his wife. She made it known to Aidan throughout their marriage that she’d never have married a wimp like him if she hadn’t accidentally fallen pregnant with Liam. She’d kept secret that her sexual preference was for women, and her dalliance with Aidan had merely been intended as a short interval of experimentation.

As soon as the wedding ceremony and honeymoon in Cornwall were over, her belittling of her husband and violence towards him began in earnest. They’d rented a modest house in Cork, much to the sorrow of their elderly neighbours who were regularly treated to the sound of Scarlett bellowing abuse at Aidan, and later at Liam, too. It was often accompanied by the crash of unidentified objects being thrown. Aidan’s voice was never heard, only the voice of his controlling wife and the occasional piercing scream of a child.

Abuse of any kind is never acceptable, but there were mitigating circumstances for Scarlett’s appalling behaviour. She’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her late teens. Her condition could have been managed perfectly well, but she could never be trusted to take the medication that helped her to act in a halfway normal manner. Without the medication, her moods would swing from the depths of black depression to periods of uncontrollable manic activity, a constant see-saw of emotions. At first, Aidan had been happy to call Scarlett his woman, despite knowing she suffered from the challenging condition. Back in the honeymoon period of their relationship, she’d bothered to diligently take her medication, but that all soon changed.

‘I feel like a zombie on these pills,’ she told him, tossing the pillboxes into the kitchen swing bin.

It didn’t matter what Aidan or her doctors told her to try to persuade her to continue with her preventative medicine. Scarlett believed she knew best.

Everyone who came into contact with Scarlett, including Aidan, would agree that the woman was a nightmare, particularly in her manic phases, but he doggedly loved her, regardless. The scrawny Irishman knew he was clearly punching well above his weight. Aidan couldn’t believe his luck to have bagged such a striking-looking wife. He bent over backwards to try to please his demanding princess. His gentle, devoted, puppy dog persona increasingly irritated Scarlett as each year ticked by.

When his wife was in one of her manic phases, Aidan would sometimes find her randomly stripping the wallpaper in their guest room, the living room, or Liam’s bedroom, at all hours of the day or night. He once found her dyeing the bed linen black at four a.m. She’d sometimes simply disappear, which sent Aidan’s anxiety levels through the roof. At the drop of a hat, she’d often drag Liam out to the shops, where she’d impulsively spend money the family couldn’t afford on clothes and accessories for herself; she rarely bought anything for Liam or Aidan. Whenever she mysteriously disappeared, he suspected his wife might be seeing someone behind his back, but would never have had the courage to confront Scarlett over his suspicions. He’d have been appalled to have discovered who she’d actually been meeting.

When Scarlett sank into the darkest depths of depression, she would take to her bed until the smothering black dog had left her. The overstuffed house would degenerate into a tip during these dismal episodes, despite Aidan’s best efforts. He was forced to perform all the household chores while struggling to hold down his job at the supermarket. While at work, he could only pray his son was safe in his disturbed wife’s care. They had no spare money for childcare, so pre-school Liam was left to take his chances, abandoned to suffer the fallout of his mother’s mood swings each day.

Although only slightly taller than Aidan in bare feet, Scarlett always made a point of wearing four-inch heels whenever possible, as though determined to emphasise her domination over her spouse. He didn’t object to her wearing such high heels, as he always felt proud of her. He fancied the pants off her even more when she was sashaying around the house in heels. When she was in the depths of depression, if she ever managed to drag herself from their bed, she never wore her high heels, preferring the comfort of large, fluffy slippers. If Liam spotted his mother was wearing her slippers, he breathed easier, hopeful he’d be in for an easier time with her. Her manic phases were what terrified him and his father the most.

Liam had inherited his mother’s impressively powerful physique rather than his skinny father’s weedy form. The child strongly resembled his mother physically, having inherited her thick black hair with its impressive widow’s peak. It drew attention to his brown eye and his green one. The more birthdays Liam celebrated, the more the similarity between his appearance and his mother’s disturbed and annoyed him.

When Liam entered the world, his mother had been hit by severe postnatal depression which exacerbated her bipolar condition. Her baby became an immense inconvenient burden to her and she never formed a bond with Liam. Despite their physical similarities, she struggled to show the infant a scrap of affection, and her indifference to him continued throughout their lives.

During the years the family lived together in Dublin, young Liam and Aidan bore the brunt, both physical and emotional, of Scarlett’s formidable, unprovoked anger. Whenever she unleashed her terrifying rages, everyone, including Dylan, the family dog, would do everything possible to keep well out of her way. Heaven help them if they didn’t. She would have loved to also lock Aidan in the garden shed whenever he irritated her, but never went that far. That dubious honour was reserved solely for her son.

Aidan generously made allowances for his wife’s frequent outbursts whenever she lashed out at him, sometimes with her fists, occasionally with any random object that came to hand. She can’t help it, he’d think. She’s only bashing me because of her bipolar issues. She doesn’t really mean it. She loves me really.

On her worst days, father and son would often fear for their lives. One evening, she stabbed Aidan in the thigh with a kitchen knife for dropping and smashing a dinner plate while he was washing up. The stabbing was witnessed by a traumatised three-year-old Liam. His father was loath to involve the police in the incident, but was forced to come clean about what had occurred in the kitchen while his nasty wound was being dealt with at the hospital. Aidan used his wits to try to prevent the police from prosecuting Scarlett for attacking him. He tried to convince the officers the wound was mercifully not life-threatening, that his wife had only acted as a result of her bipolar condition. Despite his best efforts, Scarlett still ended up with a suspended sentence.

Two years after the stabbing, she broke Aidan’s nose with her fist after he’d dared voice his concern over the vast amount of money she’d been losing while visiting online gambling sites. Gambling was one of the dangerous habits she’d picked up while in her manic phases. Her gambling often put the family into debt, despite Aidan’s wages from his job.

Following the second attack, Scarlett was forced to spend several months in Meadowbank nursing home on Aidan’s insistence. She’d been lucky the police hadn’t been involved after she’d broken her husband’s nose. Aidan had remembered what had happened to his wife when he’d attended the hospital after the stabbing, so he’d decided not to seek treatment for his broken nose, to protect her.

Scarlett was less aggressive for a few months after her release from professional treatment at the nursing home. Father and son breathed sighs of relief and dared to hope their daily misery might end. All too soon for her family’s liking, she relapsed after she rebelliously stopped taking her medication. As the effects of the drugs wore off, Scarlett eventually returned to her bad, mad ways and reacquainted Liam with the traumatising horrors of the garden shed.

Chapter 2. Finding Dad

Liam was fourteen when his mother abandoned him and Aidan with scarcely a backward glance. Although a large part of Liam was delighted to see the back of his abusive mother, he was confused by the fact she’d chosen to run off to Sheffield with a woman, Lorna Markham, rather than with a man. Life was confusing enough for the lad without such a trauma to his system. He feared being ribbed by his classmates over his mother’s open lesbianism. He’d reached an ultra-sensitive age, when he wanted to fit in with his peers, not stand out like a sore thumb. The only blessing was that Scarlett no longer lived in Cork to rub her family’s nose in her new love affair with Lorna, but the salacious gossip still rattled around Liam’s neighbourhood.

Aidan and Liam had been clueless about Scarlett’s previous liaisons with women. She’d always kept this secret close to her ample chest. Lorna, the woman she now chose to live with rather than her husband and son, was a wealthy widow. Scarlett had been in a passionate relationship with her over a year prior to meeting Aidan. Like Scarlett, bi-sexual Lorna had fallen into the trap of falling pregnant while casually dating a man. The redhead had been more fortunate than Scarlett, because Lance Markham, the man in question, happened to be oozing wealth, but cursed with poor health. He’d conveniently died of a heart attack three years after his marriage to Lorna, when their daughter was only two. Lance’s death meant Lorna and young Amy had been left to enjoy a small fortune, including a luxury mansion in one of the most affluent areas of Sheffield.

Scarlett and Lorna had first met in an Irish country pub several years after Lance’s death when Lorna had been enjoying a solo walking holiday in Ireland. Such had been the power of their mutual attraction, Lorna had stayed with Scarlett for over a month in a posh hotel in Cork, a luxury the widow could easily afford. They’d been saddened when Lorna had been forced to return to Sheffield because young Amy had caught glandular fever and had been sent home from boarding school.

Despite the long-distance relationship, with the women taking turns to visit each other, their love affair had lasted for over three wonderful years. Lorna seemed to have the knack of coping with Scarlett’s violent mood swings. She’d paid for private treatment with the best doctors to keep her lover’s bipolar condition on a reasonably even keel. The couple had eventually fallen out when Lorna had been on a visit following a terrible row between them caused by Scarlett’s refusal to take her medication.

‘If you won’t take your sodding tablets, I wash my hands of you,’ Lorna had shouted.

‘So, feck off back to Sheffield, then,’ Scarlett had snarled back.

Lorna had swiftly packed and travelled back to Sheffield with a heavy heart. She’d regretted her hasty retreat for years, so it was no surprise that she’d found herself secretly emailing Scarlett shortly after Liam’s birth, professing her undying devotion to her former lover. Flattered by Lorna’s adoration, and bored and unhappy in her impoverished marriage, Scarlett couldn’t resist the temptation of renewing her acquaintance with her exciting, curvy, auburn-haired, fabulously wealthy lover. She’d been missing the luxurious lifestyle that Lorna had made possible, as well as feeling far more sexual compatibility with her old flame than with Aidan.

Juicy rumours soon spread about Liam’s mother having recently set up home with another woman, and he became the subject of much sniggering behind hands around the school. Liam could never forgive his mother for making him the target of such embarrassing gossip, not that he’d ever have forgiven her in any case. Her cruel shed punishments and vicious beatings had been too traumatic for Liam to ever forgive and forget.

Worse than the act of Scarlett’s infidelity itself was the disastrous effect her departure had on Aidan’s mood. Liam’s father had always been a genial yet weak man, but he crumbled into a useless heap of self-pity after his wife had traded him in for a woman, and a rich one at that. His already low self-esteem plummeted to new depths. His manhood had taken a punishing blow, worse than the blows his wife had rained down on him over the years.

What kind of useless man am I, to turn a woman gay? thought Aidan, as he lay alone in the double bed he’d once shared with Scarlett.

Try as he might, young Liam could do nothing to boost Aidan’s worryingly low spirits. The cuckolded husband had no friends or outside agencies to pull him out of his despair. He eventually lost his job at the supermarket when the desire left him to drag his weary body out of bed every morning. His son was forced to look after both himself and Aidan each day, which led to his schoolwork suffering. Father and son’s roles were reversed, despite Liam being a schoolboy and also deeply emotionally scarred by his mother.

Liam’s life hit an all-time low on a rainy day in November, seven months after Scarlett’s desertion of her family. He’d returned home after a particularly frustrating day at school with his geography teacher’s words still ringing in his ears like tinnitus.

‘Right, that’s the last time you’re getting away with turning up late for school, Liam O’Sullivan,’ Miss Wilson had snarled. ‘Report to my classroom straight after school for an hour’s detention.’

‘But … Miss … I’m having to look after my father every day as he’s unwell. That’s why I missed the school bus. I need to get back