“Jump up,” he said. “It’s bollock freezing out there, but it’s warm in here.”
By mid-afternoon, Laura Ackroyd had been bored out of her mind. She knew that Thackeray was unlikely to be home before late evening, if then, and Ian Baxter would by now be safely home with his wife and baby in west London, with no idea when he would come back north. The only person she had not yet met, she thought, and who had played a major role in Billy Baxter’s case was the sole Atkinson son who was still around, Roy, one of the miners who had stayed loyal to the NUM to the bitter end and whose feud with his father, who had not, festered to this day. Idly she flicked through the telephone directory, wondering if she could talk to Roy without breaking her promise to Thackeray not to go to Urmstone, and had found she was, by a whisker, in luck. Roy Atkinson had answered his phone curtly, listened to what she had to say, and then grunted what sounded like a refusal.
“I’m off to Turkey in an hour,” he said. “Booked on t’ferry tonight. I’ve not got time to waste on old history.”
“Even though Vic Randall’s been killed,” Laura said. “You can be sure the police will want to talk to you as soon as you get back.” There was silence at the other end for a moment, and then Atkinson grunted again, this time with a slightly more acquiescent note.
“Have you got transport?” he asked. “You can meet me in t’car park at truck stop at Lightcliffe Edge. D’you know it.”
“I know the service station,” Laura said. “I dare say I can find the lorry park. What does your truck look like?” He told her, and when she got there she found it easily enough, and when she had hauled herself into the passenger seat, and slammed the door behind her, she glanced around the cab, astonished at how roomy and comfortable it was.
“Quite a home from home,” she said.
“You sleep up there on long trips,” Atkinson said, indicating a bunk in a cabin above and behind them, which hardly looked sturdy enough to take his substantial frame. “I do Greece and Turkey, often as not. Six or more days on t’road sometimes.”
“Must be hard work,” Laura said, looking at her companion whose beer belly sagged over the top of his jeans, and whose arms and shoulders seemed to cradle the steering wheel in a massive embrace. His heavy face was soft around the jowls but there was disappointment etched beneath the flab and the eyes were sharp and chilly.
“Hard work? Aye, you could say, though we all got used to that underground,” Atkinson said. “There’s bugger all money in it though, compared to mining, like. Dangerous, an’all, sometimes, in t’mountains. I carry a saw-off up theer.” he glanced up at his sleeping compartment. “You never know what you might meet.”
“You can get that through customs, can you?” Laura asked.
“You can get owt through customs in’t’cab,” Atkinson said. “The only thing they’re looking for at Dover is flaming illegals. And there’s none of them getting in my truck, I can tell you that for nowt.”
“So you did OK after the pit closed, then? Not like your dad.”
“I made a bloody effort didn’t I?” Atkinson shot back angrily. “Got my HGV license and I’ve been wi’t’same haulier ever since. Have you met my dad?”
“I have. Ian Baxter and I went to see him. Ian’s desperate to get his brother out of goal, but you probably know all that.”
“Aye, well, that’s all very well, just so long as it doesn’t land some other poor bugger inside instead. Billy’s done his time. Should be out. Fair’s fair. But the rest of us don’t want bloody coppers trying to pin summat on us instead, which is what seems to be going off.”
“So you think Billy did it?”
“I don’t know one way or t’other. I told police back then what I thought happened that night, but Col Randall told them summat different and that did for Billy, as far as I’m concerned. It were a right mess, all ends up.” He glanced at Laura speculatively.
“I suppose there’s no chance of stopping the papers raking through all that 1984 stuff, is there, wi’Vic gone?”
“No chance,” Laura said. “And the Gazette will do more raking than most. What I really wanted to ask you was if you’d ever heard from your brother Craig? He seems to be the missing piece in the jigsaw. He’s never contacted Ian, who was supposed to be his best friend. Ian says he and Craig were out of bed that night, mooching around the village. Did Craig ever tell you anything about what they saw.” Atkinson laughed, but it was a dead sound, with no amusement at all.
“Ian and Craig were both scared they’d get a skelping from our dads if they found out what they were up to. In fact, Billy and I knew exactly what they were at, but neither of us said owt. And they said nowt about it either. Tight as clams, they were. Best thing, in t’circumstances.”
“Ian says he went back to bed because he thought his mother has spotted him. Did Craig do the same?”
“I’ve no idea, and I never asked. I told you. Least said soonest mended with all that going off.” Atkinson offered Laura a cigarette and when she refused, lit up himself.
“And you’ve no idea where Craig is now?”
“My family fell apart in that strike,” Atkinson said bitterly. “After Stevie died on that bloody tip, my mother went to bits and my father couldn’t cope. I reckon he were brooding about getting back to work, scabbing, for months before he actually did it. Me? I got wed and moved out as soon as I could. Craig came came down t’pit when it opened again, but I don’t think his heart was in it. When it closed he did nowt about getting another job, just sat at home wi’my dad, not a word spoken. I were married by then, so I weren’t around much. Then one day, he just went. Packed his bag and went, so my mam said. And I don’t think anyone’s heard a word from him since. Within weeks my mother had buggered off an’all.”
“Do you think Craig could have been involved in the killing of Andy Fielding?” Laura asked bluntly. “Do you think that’s why he went a bit strange? Do you think that’s why he ran off in the end?”
“We’d lost our kid brother, our mam was messing about with another man, and our dad turned scab. That were enough to turn any lad a bit strange,” Atkinson said angrily. “No, I don’t think he was involved. He were only a kid.”
“The police are going to be trying to track him down, I would think,” Laura said. “This new murder’ll drag it all up again.”
“Well, good luck to them,” Atkinson said, putting his foot down and revving the engine angrily. “No-one else has had any luck. My mam’d give her right arm to track Craig down, and that’s the truth. And now, wi’Vic gone, bloody police will be crawling over it all again, as well as t’newspapers. That man were a menace.”
“Who? Vic Randall?”
“Aye. The more I’ve thought about what happened, the more I think we were set up,” Atkinson said. “Thatcher wanted that strike. She wanted to finish what Ted Heath had started the previous time. We won that battle, but we weren’t going to win the war. We were set up to lose wi’all them stockpiles of coal laid in, like, and the police like a bloody army of occupation. People like Vic made it worse. He weren’t above telling Col just how to kick things off on t’picket line. He’d been in a few rucks in his time, had Vic, all in aid o’t’bloody revolution. Of course, Col got his come-uppance in the end, for that motorway job. A bad business that. He were lucky no-one was killed or he’s still be in goal an’all.”
“He claims he didn’t do it,” Laura said. Atkinson sighed and glanced at his watch.
“Aye well, maybe he didn’t. There were some funny stuff going on, both sides o’t’fence. We got tipped off before the Met came rampaging through t’village. Someone told Vic and he got most of the men out o’t’way. But someone was telling t’police where we were headed half the time.”
“Who tipped you off?” Laura asked, intrigued. “Did you know?”
“I’m not sure I could tell you that, even now,” Atkinson said. “And now I must be on my way. It’s all a long time ago and I hope to God Vic Randall’s murder’s got nowt
to do with all that. But I wouldn’t bank on it. I wouldn’t bank on it at all.”
Laura was tired when she got home, and when Thackeray came in he found her asleep on the sofa, an empty glass on the table beside her and a book still open on her lap. He stood for a moment looking down at her, almost choked with emotion. He had come so close to losing her and their unborn baby that he could still hardly believe it. He knew he would not have survived the destruction of his family a second time. He was still not sure how he could cope with the demands of another child, but he knew that he had to try for Laura’s sake. She wanted this baby with a passion. He brushed a hand over her spiky curls and kissed her gently on the cheek.
“You’re tired. Let me put you to bed,” he said as she opened her eyes and smiled, turning his heart over again.
“What about you?” she asked. “I meant to cook you a meal but I fell asleep.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ll get us a take-away. That’ll be fine.”
Laura sat upright and suddenly all the anxieties she had accumulated since she met Ian Baxter threatened to overwhelm her.
“Michael, we need to talk,” she said.
“Before we eat?” he asked.
“I think so. Has Ian Baxter been in touch with you?” Thackeray’s face fell, and he sat down opposite her.
“I thought…” He stopped as he saw her stricken expression.
“I haven’t been to Urmstone,” she said. “I told you I wouldn’t. I spoke to him on the phone. And he told me things that you need to know. Things he wouldn’t have told me, I don’t think, if
he’d known about us. It all happened without me even probing, it all came tumbling out. Has he even told you that he had a run-in with Jim Ferguson yesterday.” Thackeray’s lips tightened.
“It seems to me that your friend Ian is very reluctant to tell me anything. I did hear about him and Ferguson as it happens. Sergeant Becket had picked that up in the village and passed it on.” The sergeant had clearly been reluctant to let on that she herself had been the source of that information, Laura thought thankfully.
“I was going to ask him about it when he comes back from London,” Thackeray said. “It’s not especially relevant to my inquiries, although I need to talk to Ferguson for other reasons. But what else has Baxter told you? You can’t hold back anything which might be relevant to Randall’s murder. You know that, Laura.”
“Of course not,” Laura said quietly. “It’s nothing directly relevant, I don’t think, but you must ask him about the day PC Fielding’s body was found. I can’t tell you more than that. He told me in confidence but I’m sure he won’t hold back now. He’s obviously feeling guilty about it, never having told anyone for all these years, apparently.”
“I think there are a lot of people in Urmstone in that position,” Thackeray said, his face grim. “What they don’t seem to realise is that the more they hold back, the more they put themselves in the frame. If there’s a connection between this murder and the one in ‘84, then I’m going to have to look again at all that evidence, all the covering up which obviously went on. Perhaps Billy Baxter is innocent. But if he is, someone else is guilty, and that’s not going to be easy to prove after all this time. But I have to wonder, if Ian Baxter is hiding something, was it to cover up for Billy or himself? You can see why you have to keep out of this, Laura. You’ve got too close to Baxter and he could still be a suspect. I really need you to keep away.” Laura nodded.
“Well, he’s out of the way now, back in London. I won’t even speak to him on the phone if you don’t want me to. But I do want to make one more trip to Urmstone tomorrow. Joyce wants to go down there again to see Madge and Ken Baxter and I promised to drive her down. It’s obvious Ken hasn’t got much longer and she I think she feels she has to say goodbye. Will that be OK?” Thackeray put his arm round Laura.
“Are you really sure you’re OK to drive?” Thackeray asked, his eyes clouding.
“I think so,” Laura said. “I’ll take it gently, keep off the motorway, if you like. I’ve got to get used to being behind the wheel or I won’t be able to go back to work.”
“You are incorrigible,” he said. “But I suppose a tea-party for three old folk won’t do any harm. But then, stay away. Please. Or we’ll both find ourselves in difficulties.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Laura Ackroyd drove her grandmother the fifteen miles to Urmstone the next morning in a sombre mood. Thackeray had left early, heading in the same direction, and in a state which Laura could only charitably describe as taciturn. She knew that her involvement in his case was treading dangerously near the edge for both of them, and that his warning to stay away was meant in deadly earnest. But it would be difficult, she thought, to extricate herself from the Baxter family at this stage, although she guessed she would have to try.
She took the back roads to the village, as she had promised Thackeray, and while she spent the journey brooding over her dilemmas, Joyce became more animated as they approached.
“It wasn’t all bad, you know, that year, the year of the strike,” she said. “I was there, you know, with Madge and Ken, for the Christmas. We’d been promised presents and things by the fund-raisers, for the kids at least. Not that any of them were expecting anything, not even the little ones. Father Christmas was a scab, they were singing in the school playground. I remember young Ian saying all he wanted was some more strike badges, poor lad, but for a while it looked as if he’d be lucky to get that much. Nothing had turned up from the supporters’ groups the day before Christmas Eve. All the families had got was a frozen chicken each from one of the local supermarkets. But just in the nick of time, boxes and boxes of food and presents for the kids arrived at the welfare hall. They’d come from all over the country and abroad, still in brown paper parcels, a lot of them. Then we had to work half the night to divide everything up, and try to get suitable presents to the kids. I stayed for Christmas dinner with the Baxters, took them a pudding and a cake, and some ale for the men, and we had a marvelous day, with everyone stuffing their faces for the first time in months. There were a lot of people half starved that year, you know, but not on Christmas Day. We had that to look back on as we went into that grim New Year, at least.”
“Was that before Billy Baxter was arrested?” Laura asked.
“They’d questioned him, I think, like they’d questioned most of the men, but yes, he was there. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about it, as far as I can recall. But it was the last Christmas at home for him.” Joyce relapsed into silence as they approached the village, passing the former police house where Laura saw Thackeray’s car parked amongst a cluster of police vehicles outside the office.
“Whoever murdered Vic Randall, it couldn’t have been Billy Baxter this time,” Joyce said bitterly. “But it must bring it all back for Madge and Ken. Is Ian here, do you know?”
“No, he’s gone home to his wife,” Laura said. She had not told her grandmother how deeply she had become involved with Ian Baxter and in the light of Thackeray’s disapproval had decided to leave it like that for now. She knew Joyce was still worried about her recovery from her injuries, and had decided not even to tell her about the baby until she had convinced her grandmother that she was fully fit again. There was plenty of time for that, she thought.
Madge Baxter opened the door to them with a serious effort at a smile. The two older women embraced and Laura could see tears in Joyce’s eyes.
“It’s right good to see you,” Madge said. “It’s been too long.”
“I couldn’t not come,” Joyce said. “Not with all this new trouble going on. Who on earth would want to kill Vic? It’s a dreadful thing, is that, in this village, of all places. He was the local hero, him and your Ken.”
“It’s not the same place it was,” Madge said as she led her visitors into the kitchen where the ritual teapot was standing ready to be filled beside a generous plate of cakes on the table. “The young ones don’t want to know what
went on back then, and the older ones would rather forget. They feel shamed by it, I think, rather than proud of the fight they put up. Vic’s nowt but an old dinosaur to most – was, I should say, now he’s gone. Our Ken the same.”
“And how is Ken?” Joyce asked.
“He’s not going to get any better,” Madge said. “He’s just woken up, but I’ll tell him you’re here in a moment. Sit down a minute and then you can take Ken a cuppa. He’ll be right glad to see you. And you have a seat Laura.” Madge busied herself making the tea and then ushered Joyce into the sick room.”
“You stay wi’me, Laura,” she said quietly as Laura made to follow her grandmother. “There’s summat I want to ask you about. I don’t know what to do for the best, I really don’t.” She poured them both tea and passed the plate of cakes, and then sat down at the kitchen table with Laura, her pleasure at seeing Joyce fading and the strain in her face and anxiety in her eyes becoming only too obvious again.
“I’ve been sitting with Ken in the night recently, he’s been that restless. And last night, after our Ian had gone, he couldn’t sleep. What’s happened to Vic has upset him that much I don’t know what to do with him, and it seems to have brought back all sorts, things he hasn’t talked about for years. And I don’t know how much of it really happened, and how much he’s imagining, he’s that pumped that full of drugs. And I don’t know what to do about it any road.”
“If it’s anything which might be relevant to this new murder, you’ll have to tell someone,” Laura said, her own face full of anxiety now. Given Thackeray’s worries, she really didn’t want to hear anything more that might be relevant to his inquiries.
“What you don’t understand…” Madge said slowly. “What you can’t understand unless you were here, was what it was like in the village the week before that copper was killed.” Madge drained her cup of tea and poured herself another. “It happened just a week after the riot, and I don’t think there was a single soul here who was the least bit surprised.”
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