Once you got past the silliness – and she hated to admit it to herself, but Banecroft’s rant did come back to her – and once you read it as a chronicle of the weird and wonderful beliefs in the world, it was fascinating. Why were some people so convinced that their own government was out to get them? Why were others obsessed with proving that ghosts existed? Or UFOs? Or any of the other myriad peculiar beliefs and occurrences that filled the pages of The Stranger Times? Viewed in that light, it was, well, interesting – and it made her rather interesting by association.
As she neared the office, Hannah passed the spot where she had first met Reginald and Ox. When they got back from Scotland she was going to take some time to get to know them properly. She was, after all, the assistant editor. The more she understood their work, the better she’d be at her job.
She turned the corner to the front door of the church. Simon, for the second day in a row, was not at his station. The guilty thought that her hiring might have been the final straw for him popped into Hannah’s head and deflated her good mood slightly. She had only met him briefly, once on her way in and then once while they’d been loading Banecroft into the ambulance after the self-inflicted shooting. He’d seemed like a nice lad, though, and he was keen. Maybe she should have a chat with him too? They did need more staff, after all, and taking care of that kind of thing sounded like the sort of task an assistant editor should be doing.
Hannah ran up the stairs, skipping neatly over the fourth-last step that needed fixing, and strode into the reception area.
‘Grace, how are we this morning?’
Grace looked slightly taken aback. ‘Oh, hello. You seem chipper.’
Hannah smiled. ‘I do, don’t I?’
She opened the box of doughnuts she’d picked up on the way in. ‘Seeing as you’re my favourite, you get first pick.’
Grace’s face lit up. ‘I should not really.’ But she did.
‘Where’s everybody else?’
‘Well,’ said Grace, ‘we have a bit of a problem there. When Reginald and Ox finally found the pub in Falkirk, they had had the toilet removed.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. The landlord had thrown it out. I cannot blame him – nobody wants the devil in their bathroom.’
‘So what about Ox and Reggie?’
‘I had to get them a hotel for the night. They reckon they can find the toilet this morning.’ She nodded in the direction of the far end of the building. ‘He is going to hit the roof.’
‘Ah, relax,’ said Hannah. ‘He’ll scream and shout but we can sort it.’
Grace gave Hannah a sceptical look. ‘Are you on the happy pills or something?’
‘Nope, I’m just high on life.’ Hannah raised her voice. ‘Stella?’
Her shout was met by tutting and a stomping of boots from down the corridor before the door flew open.
‘What?’
Hannah held out the box of doughnuts. ‘Would you like one?’
Stella moved her green hair out of her eyes and eyed the box suspiciously. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch, I promise.’
Stella reached out a hand towards the box, but at the last moment, Hannah pulled it back slightly. ‘Actually …’
‘I knew it.’
Hannah favoured her with a big smile. ‘Just a teeny tiny thing, but to quote Beyoncé back in her Destiny’s Child days: say my name?’
‘Typical. This some kinda power trip, yeah?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘No, no. Nothing like that. I just don’t want to be the new Tina. I want to be me. We’re all individuals after all, aren’t we? Same as you want to be you – and by the way, I for one am loving this look you’ve got going on. It’s sort of steampunk, isn’t it?’
Stella looked wary. ‘Yeah. Suppose.’
‘Cool.’ Hannah cringed internally, aware she was veering dangerously close to ‘hey, I’m hip, I’m down with the youth’ territory, but she held out the box and kept smiling.
Stella reached out slowly and took one of the pink-glazed doughnuts. ‘Thanks, Hannah.’
‘You are welcome, Stella.’
Hannah gave both Grace and Stella a big smile as she backed through the door and headed down the hall.
Hannah knocked loudly on the office door. Nothing.
She knocked more loudly on the office door. Still nothing.
Hannah pounded on the office door for a third time and was greeted by the sound of Vincent Banecroft groaning.
‘I’m coming in.’
‘What?’ came the angry response.
Hannah threw open the door and walked in. ‘I said I’m coming in.’
Banecroft was sitting at his desk, having presumably slept there. According to Grace, there was a bed somewhere in the back, but it must’ve been buried under the avalanche of crap that constituted the primary theme of the office’s decor. Hannah ignored the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk and resisted the urge to check the bin to see if it had company.
Banecroft looked at her from beneath heavily lidded eyes below his bird’s nest of messy hair. ‘What in the— I could’ve been naked!’
‘That would’ve meant changing your clothes – something we’d all be excited to see happen. Here, have a doughnut.’
Hannah opened the box.
‘We can’t afford doughnuts!’
Hannah pulled them away. ‘How much do you think doughnuts cost?’
‘I don’t know. What am I, an accountant?’
‘No, you’re an editor, and I bought these out of my own pocket, so stop grumbling, shut up and have a damn doughnut.’
Banecroft snatched up a lemon one and took a large, messy bite.
‘There you go! Now, there’s a problem with the Falkirk toilet—’
‘I knew it!’ squealed Banecroft around a mouthful of fried dough.
‘But,’ continued Hannah, raising her voice to be heard, ‘I’m going to deal with it. I’ll have a report for you in twenty minutes at the morning briefing. You can get all shouty about it then if you like.’
He swallowed too quickly. ‘I will shout whenever I bloody well like!’
Hannah left a gap but nothing happened.
Banecroft belched and then spoke. ‘In nineteen forty, an Australian divorce court judge ruled that “bloody” was not a swear word. Precedent. Grace has agreed it therefore doesn’t count.’
‘That is correct,’ came Grace’s voice over the intercom.
‘See?’ said Banecroft. ‘Now, where was I? Oh, yes – I will shout whenever I bloody well like!’
‘OK,’ said Hannah, ‘but I’m leaving the office now, so you’ll be shouting at yourself.’ From her pocket she pulled a fresh tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush and a can of deodorant. ‘Here are those toiletries you asked for.’
Banecroft looked at the items in confusion. ‘When did I ask for them? I didn’t ask for them!’
‘OK,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll rephrase: here are those toiletries you desperately need.’
‘Control freak. I can see why your husband—’
‘STOP!’ Hannah said it loudly enough that Banecroft actually complied. ‘Now, you can continue to say something horrible or you can have another doughnut, but you can’t have both. So, what’s it to be?’
Hannah opened the box and held it out once more. There were still three doughnuts left.
Banecroft locked eyes with her. ‘I’m not some dog you can train to do tricks for food, y’know?’
‘No, you’re a big scary dragon – but I’m the woman with doughnuts. So, you can try for basic manners or you can just be you and go hungry. The choice is yours.’
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he slowly reached forward and took one of the chocolate ones.
‘There we go. See you at the meeting.’
‘Yes, and we’d better have some bloody good answers on …’
The rest was lost as Hannah slammed the door behind her, humming loudly to herself.
‘Manny!�
��
Hannah had tried knocking, but the sound of hammering from the other side of the doors indicated he might not be able to hear her. Before she had gone home last night, Grace had explained Manny to Hannah. Apparently, he was in charge of the paper’s printing department, which took up the entire ground floor of the building. He kept largely to himself, although from what Hannah had seen yesterday, he couldn’t exactly be described as shy.
Carefully, Hannah pushed open one of the large wooden doors. The printing press took up what would have been the church proper back in the day. Indeed, some of the furniture looked as if it were made from repurposed church pews. An unmade bed sat in the left-hand corner. It appeared Manny lived here too.
Light flowed in through the dirty stained glass, filling the room with an ethereal glow. The room smelled of a not unpleasant mix of machine oil, smoke and a certain type of cigarette. Massive rolls of printing paper lay on either side of the door, along with a selection of random bits of metal, and plastic bottles full of what looked like ink.
At the centre of the room, dominating the space, stood the press. It was an intimidating piece of machinery, with metal arms and pistons, rolls, and all manner of appendages protruding at seemingly random angles. It was made of iron, and in a world of apps and laptops it had a weird feel to it. As if it were the most real thing she had ever been in the presence of. It had been here long before her and it would be here long after she was gone. It clunked away slowly, with a couple of pistons firing and steam sizzling out of one hole. Hannah was considering how the presence of steam must mean water was being used somewhere when Manny appeared from behind the machine.
Thankfully, he was wearing pants today – although that was all he was wearing. Well, underpants and some work boots. The long white dreadlocks wrapped around his neck made his age difficult to guess, as his physique seemed to belong to a younger man. He didn’t seem to fit together logically. He was like one of those children’s games where you could assemble different head, torso and leg combinations. The underpants might only have been there to give him something to which he could clip his Walkman. It was a proper Walkman too – one that played cassettes. It had been decades since Hannah had seen one of them. It was probably older than Stella, come to think of it.
Manny looked up at the press and ran his hands over it almost affectionately. Feeling oddly embarrassed to be intruding, Hannah paused for a moment before gingerly stepping into his eyeline and giving him a wave.
Manny’s eyebrows shot up as he saw her, clearly shocked by her presence. He pulled off his headphones.
‘We sorry, lady, we no hear you come in.’
‘Sorry. I did knock but you mustn’t have …’ Hannah indicated the headphones. Now she was closer she could hear what sounded like classical music before Manny stopped the tape.
‘Aye. We bad.’ He had a warm, genial smile.
‘No, no problem at all. I just wanted to introduce myself properly. I’m Hannah.’ She extended her hand and Manny shook it enthusiastically. She ignored the oil.
‘Pleasure to be making your acquaintance. We Manny and such.’
‘Right. Yes. This is all …’ Hannah looked up at the machine towering over them.
‘Ya,’ said Manny. ‘We just giving the old girl a little tune. Keep her running right.’
‘I see. Well, I won’t disturb you. I just wanted to say hello and—Oh, sorry, I nearly forgot.’ Hannah held out the box of doughnuts. ‘Would you like one?’
Manny paused to consider this offer, as if he were listening for an answer. ‘Yes and no. Me have one but she OK.’
‘Right,’ said Hannah, trying not to look confused.
Manny took one of the custards. ‘We much obliged.’ He smiled, put his headphones back on, and turned to stare up at the machine once again.
The morning meeting was proceeding reasonably well. Hannah had managed to get Reggie on the phone beforehand, and the news was better. They’d gone to the dump and found a toilet that matched the exact description the landlord had given them – it had a distinctive mark on it and was easy to verify. Ox had lost the coin toss and had had to go in and get it. Reggie had sent Hannah photos he’d taken of Ox being attacked by two seagulls as he did so. While entertaining in their own right, they did fit in with the story. The man in charge of the dump had told them that weird stuff had been happening all week, and he could well believe the toilet was to blame. He would never have taken it if he’d known it was the toilet from the Jolly Sailor – apparently it was quite the local celebrity.
Surprisingly, Banecroft had listened while Hannah explained all this, then he’d called them back and told them to drop by the local Catholic church and see if the priest might be up for a quick exorcism. ‘If they say no, tell ’em you’re going to the Protestants. That’ll put it right up ’em.’
Then they ran through Hannah’s notes from the day before, aka the Loon Day rundown. Throughout the meeting, Grace took notes and Stella wrote things up on the laptop, same as yesterday, while simultaneously reading a book. As Hannah went through her list, Banecroft stared at the ceiling, calling out ‘plankton’, ‘icebox’, ‘throw-back’, ‘prawn’, and so on. It gave her a thrill as she realized she was going to have articles published in the paper. Surprisingly, she’d not really considered this possibility, and here she was with her very own netful. She’d even got one shark! Banecroft said it was The Stranger Times’s duty to expose charlatans, and so later that afternoon Hannah would be trying to get Mrs Bryce of Stockport on the phone to see if she’d go on record to explain how so many people had been Cleopatra in a past life.
Hannah was nearly done when there was a knock on the door that led into reception.
‘Go away,’ shouted Banecroft. ‘Loon Day was yesterday. Come back next month.’
Grace was standing up, about to say something, when the door opened and a short woman with a chestnut-coloured bob walked in.
She held up an ID. ‘Excuse me. Sorry to barge in but there’s nobody at your reception. I’m Detective Sergeant Wilkerson. I need to speak to the person in charge.’
‘Ah,’ said Banecroft, rising on to his crutch, ‘excellent. Is this about you returning my gun? It’s a family heirloom and—’
‘No, sir. This is not about a gun.’ She gave Banecroft a look. ‘It’s about one of your employees.’
Automatically, Grace and Banecroft looked at Stella.
‘I didn’t do nothing!’
DS Wilkerson cleared her throat. ‘No, I’m afraid you’re misunderstanding. This is about Simon Brush.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Banecroft. ‘He’s not our employee. He can’t go around telling people that. This paper is not liable for anything he has done.’
‘Would you shut up, Vincent?’ snapped Grace, before turning back to Wilkerson. ‘Is Simon OK?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. He’s dead.’
CHAPTER 18
‘Dead?’
DS Wilkerson nodded. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
Hannah didn’t know what to say. She looked around the room. Grace blessed herself, her eyes welling up. Stella looked numb, as if she didn’t know how to process the information.
Banecroft sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed on DS Wilkerson. Eventually he cleared his throat. ‘Where, exactly, did this happen?’
DS Wilkerson shifted nervously. ‘He was found this morning – well, last night, really – at about three a.m. He’d … He was … He was found at the foot of the Dennard building – that one they’re just finishing up on Cheetham Hill. The … big one. It appears that he may have … come off the roof.’
Grace gasped, her hand to her mouth. Hannah didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t as if she’d known him – she’d barely met him – but it was such a tragic waste. He could only have been a couple of years older than Stella; not much more than a kid.
Banecroft spoke in a quiet, measured tone. ‘And you’re sure it’s him?’
Wilkerson nodded. ‘He
had his wallet on him. Also, he was wearing a T-shirt that said “I work for The Stranger—”’
Wilkerson broke off as Stella left the room, slamming the door behind her. Grace broke down into tears. Hannah moved over to comfort her, trying very hard not to look at Banecroft as she did so.
DS Wilkerson cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry for your loss – but you say he didn’t work here?’
Hannah glanced at Banecroft, whose mouth opened and closed a couple of times, as if trying to decide how to answer. Nothing appeared to be coming. As Grace sobbed on her shoulder, Hannah decided to step in. ‘No, I’m afraid he didn’t. He wanted to work here. He used to turn up and stand outside.’
‘I see,’ said DS Wilkerson. ‘Still, my boss, DI Sturgess, would like to request that someone from the paper come down to the station and answer a few questions.’
Hannah looked again at Banecroft, who was still staring at the detective.
‘How exactly did this happen?’ he asked.
‘Well, Mr …’
‘Banecroft.’
‘Mr Banecroft, it isn’t my place to speculate, but I think the circumstances do rather speak for themselves.’
‘Do they?’
Wilkerson elected to ignore the question. ‘So, sir, I believe you are the editor. Can you please come with me to answer a few questions? We’ll drop you back afterwards, if you like.’
‘Right,’ said Banecroft. ‘Hannah.’ He nodded towards his office. ‘I just need to take a moment to confer with my assistant editor.’
‘Sure.’
Hannah patted Grace on the back. ‘Are you …?’
Grace nodded, brushing the tears from her face. ‘Sure, I …’ Her voice dropped to a near whisper. ‘Such a young boy.’
Hannah dug a packet of tissues out of her handbag, which Grace took with a brittle smile. As Hannah followed Banecroft, limping in front of her, into his office, she caught the sound of Grace offering DS Wilkerson a cup of tea.
The Stranger Times Page 13