by Juliet Bell
‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for Ellen Dean.’
The shifting of her eyes told him he had found the woman he was looking for.
‘And you are?’
‘DCI Lockwood. I have an appointment.’ He pulled his warrant card from his pocket and held it up for her to see.
‘This way.’
She led him to a small office. She took a seat behind the cheap wooden desk while Lockwood helped himself to another orange plastic chair. Miss Dean sat primly, her mouth firmly shut, waiting for Lockwood to begin.
‘As I mentioned in my email,’ he said, ‘I’m following up on a couple of incidents recently that may shed light on an unsolved case dating back some time.’
‘What case?’ Her eyes narrowed.
Lockwood sensed she was going on the defensive.
‘It goes back to the strike,’ he said, hoping to reassure her she wasn’t his target. Not now, at least.
‘That’s long gone. People don’t talk about those times much around here.’
‘I’m not so much interested in the strike, as in some of the people who were here back then. The Earnshaws and the Lintons.’
He waited for her to say something, but she simply sat there, her eyes narrowing and her mouth fixed in that firm, defensive line.
‘I believe you had dealings with both families in your role back then with social services.’
‘In this place, most people had dealings with social services.’
Lockwood nodded. ‘I’d like to start with the Earnshaws. In particular the youngest boy. Heathcliff.’
A shadow crossed her face. He could almost feel her defences rising. Was it guilt, he wondered. He’d been in plenty of meetings with plenty of social workers over the years. He’d sat through child protection conferences, and even gone out as muscle when they took the kids away. He’d seen the good ones, the ones that cared too much, the ones that didn’t care at all, and the ones that got worn down by the job. Now, here was Ellen Dean. He wasn’t sure which type she was. He reminded himself that he was here to do a job. However personal this investigation was, he was a professional. He would do what the job demanded. He arranged his face into a more sympathetic expression.
‘I’ve read the file,’ he said. ‘There’s not much detail there. The child apparently just turned up.’
‘Old Mr Earnshaw brought him back from a trip. Liverpool.’
‘And you never thought too much about it? You didn’t question where the boy came from or how Earnshaw got hold of him?’
The woman across the table bristled. ‘It was a private fostering arrangement.’
‘Really?’ Lockwood’s eyebrow inched upwards.
She nodded. ‘Perfectly legal. There was a note from the mother.’
‘That’s not in the file.’
She shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. Things were different then. He were never reported missing. And besides…’ Her voice trailed off.
Lockwood felt a glimmer of hope. He was beginning to understand Ellen Dean now. He knew how to get what he wanted from her. ‘Please, Miss Dean…’ He leaned forward, hoping to suggest to her that they were co-conspirators in some secret endeavour. ‘Anything you could tell me about the family will help.’
The woman pursed her lips. ‘I’m a professional. I don’t engage in gossip.’
There it was. Lockwood forced himself to resist the smile that was dragging at his lips. She knew something. And in his experience, anyone who professed not to be a gossip usually was. He nodded seriously. ‘Of course not. But if there were things you think I ought to know.’ He paused for a second as she leaned slightly towards him. ‘In your professional opinion, of course. And to help with the old case. It would be good to get rid of the paperwork on it.’
‘Well…’ The woman glanced around as if checking no one could overhear. ‘There was them that said the boy was his.’
That was interesting. ‘Was he?’
‘Don’t know. He looked like a gypsy. All dark eyes and wild hair. Talked Irish an’ all.’
‘And the mother?’
‘She never came looking for him. Back then, I had my hands full. It was desperate round here. The winter of discontent and all that. There were families what needed my help.’ She straightened her back. ‘I had important things to do. More important than wondering about one brat. He was fed and housed. He was safe. There were plenty who weren’t.’
‘Of course.’ He smiled at her.
A sudden crash outside the room was followed by the sound of a woman yelling at her child. A few seconds later, the child started screaming. That was his cue.
‘I can hear you’re busy, Miss Dean,’ he said getting to his feet. ‘Thank you for talking to me. I may need your help again.’
She nodded brusquely as she got to her feet. The closed, hard look on her face didn’t bode well for the family who dared to create a disturbance in her office.
Lockwood spent the afternoon at the town’s small library, also housed in the Workingman’s Institute. The seats were empty, and a lone librarian showed him the way to their old newspaper files. The library had not yet entered the twenty-first century. Back issues of the local newspaper were on microfiche, not computer, and by the end of the day his eyes felt dry from staring at the viewer. He hadn’t learnt much. He’d found a lot of stories about the miners’ strike and the pit closure and the deaths that had brought him back. But nothing he hadn’t already read. He had even seen his younger self in one of the photos. His face was obscured by his helmet and shield, but he knew himself. Even after all these years, he felt a twinge of pride that he had followed orders and done the job that was required of him.
The current job, however, was looking pretty hopeless. Heathcliff had been and remained a mystery. There was nothing to tie him to any crime.
Lockwood was an old-style copper. He believed in old-fashioned investigation. People were the answer. Someone always knew the truth. The trick was to get these people to talk to him. They didn’t like strangers, and most of all they didn’t like a copper from the south. Old enmities died hard around here. He had a lot of legwork in front of him. And he didn’t have much time. He was retiring soon. This investigation was, on paper at least, official, but Lockwood knew he’d been given the case review as a favour. No one thought he would find anything new. This case was so cold there were icicles on it. Dusk saw him back on the Heights estate, sitting in his car at the end of a street made gloomy by the lowering clouds. A small beam of light was visible from the window of the shabby house at the top of the rise.
When it was fully dark, Lockwood got out of the car and walked slowly up the hill to stop in the deep shadows beside an old and boarded-up terrace across the road from that single light. He watched for a while, but saw nothing through the grimy curtains. He crossed the road and made his way down a path between two houses into the yards at the back of the terrace row. There was a gap in the fence wide enough to let him through. From the back of the deserted neighbouring home, he could see more lights. These windows had no curtains, and for a moment he thought he could see a dark shape moving inside. He stepped onto a pile of mossy timber and grabbed the top of the fence to pull himself up for a better look.
The girl’s hand came from nowhere. It grabbed his wrist, the bare fingers pale in the dim light and icy cold.
Lockwood gave a startled cry and smashed his free hand down into the girl’s flesh, driven by a desperate urge to stop her touching him. His foot slipped and he fell backwards. He crashed to the ground, grimacing in pain as his shoulder hit something hard hidden in the long grass. A moment later, the door of the house next door crashed open.
‘Cathy? Cathy?’
Lockwood bit back a moan of pain and sat up, to peer through a gap in the rotting fence.
The boy was now a middle-aged man, but Lockwood knew him in an instant.
‘Heathcliff,’ he breathed.
Time had not been good to him. His dark hair was still worn l
ong and untidy, but now it was heavily threaded with grey. Where once he’d been muscular and lean, he was now painfully thin. His face was gaunt and lined and his eyes were sunken dark holes. He looked wildly around.
‘Cathy? Are you there?’ Heathcliff called in a voice shaking with emotion.
No answer came from the silent night.
Lockwood didn’t dare move. Heathcliff waited, staring out into the blackness and muttering something Lockwood couldn’t hear.
Something moved in the corner of Lockwood’s vision. He turned his head, but there was nothing or no one there. A heartbeat later, a soft white flake drifted to the ground. Followed by another. And another. Within a minute, heavy snowflakes obscured his vision and he began to shiver and the temperature dropped even further. Still, Heathcliff didn’t move. Just as the cold was about to drive Lockwood to revealing himself, a shout from inside the house caused Heathcliff to stir. Muttering loudly, he turned away and retreated inside the house, slamming the door behind him.
Lockwood waited no more than a few seconds before slowly getting to his feet. He risked another look over the fence, but there was no sign of the girl with the icy hands.
Cathy?
His mind conjured up a picture of a dark-haired girl with wild hair. She hadn’t been beautiful. Not really. But something about her had been strangely compelling. She had been Heathcliff’s constant companion, matching his every wildness. But then, something had happened to drive them apart. He knew that much.
Hers was one of the deaths that had brought him back.
Catherine Linton. Catherine Earnshaw.
Heathcliff’s beloved Cathy.
Chapter Two
March, 1978
‘Is he for me?’ Cathy peered at the scratchy-haired, dark-eyed boy standing behind her daddy in the hallway. ‘You said you’d bring me back a present. Is he my present?’
‘No, dear.’ Her father set his bags down next to the front door. He didn’t hug her the way he normally did after being away. But Cathy didn’t mind too much. She was far too interested in the boy, with his tatty clothes and hunched shoulders. ‘This is your new brother. His name is Heathcliff and he’s going to stay with us for a while.’
Cathy’s mother bustled out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She stopped in mid-stride and looked down at the boy. Her eyes narrowed and her lips almost vanished as she frowned. Cathy knew that look too well.
‘What is that?’ Her voice was hard, the words clipped.
Her daddy shifted from foot to foot. ‘Cathy, why don’t you take Heathcliff upstairs?’
That always happened. Every time there was anything interesting, Cathy got sent upstairs. It wasn’t fair. Mick didn’t get sent upstairs. Mick got to go out round the village with his mates. Mick had even had a ride in a police car. He’d come into her bedroom and shown her the bright-red mark across his cheek where he reckoned a policeman had clipped him round the head. Mick got to have all the adventures.
But not this time. Mick wasn’t here. Getting a new brother was almost as exciting as riding with the police. Maybe more exciting, especially if Mummy and Daddy were going to row about it. And for now it was all hers. Being sent upstairs was not fair at all, but she knew how to deal with that.
‘Come on,’ she said.
The boy followed.
She stopped on the tiny landing. ‘So my room’s down there. That’s Mick’s. Mummy and Daddy sleep in there. Bathroom’s downstairs through the kitchen.’ She looked around. ‘Where are you going to sleep?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Is your name really Heathcliff?’
The boy shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
Cathy wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s not a name. Names are things like Gary or David. Have you got a last name?’
Heathcliff shrugged again.
Cathy sat down on the top step.
Heathcliff hesitated for a few seconds then sat down next to her, squashing himself against the wall, as far away from her as he could get. She sniffed. Did he think she had something catching?
‘What are we doing?’
‘Listening.’ This was Cathy’s secret listening spot. From here you could hear people perfectly if they left the door at the bottom of the stairs open. This time they hadn’t. She had to strain to make out bits. It sounded like her mummy was doing most of the talking. And when she yelled, it was easy to hear her.
‘What were you thinking?’
‘What about his mother?’ Mummy got louder.
‘Did you really think you could just bring him here? That I would cook for him and wash his filthy clothes and treat him like my own children?”
‘Well, I put up with Mick…’ That was Daddy. He was getting angry now too.
‘That’s different. It were for ever ago.’
‘Was it?’
Cathy blew the air out of her mouth so that her lips tingled. Everyone had to put up with Mick. She didn’t want to listen to her parents talking about Mick.
Cathy heard the kitchen door slam. That was it then. Her mother would hide in the kitchen and sulk while her daddy sat in the back room and read the newspaper. There was nothing more to hear.
She turned her attention back to the new boy. ‘Do you play with Sindys?’
He shook his head.
‘Well, what do you do?’
He shrugged.
‘You don’t say much, do you?’
‘Dunno what to say.’
Cathy didn’t know either. ‘You talk funny.’
‘I talk like me mam. You’re the one who talks funny.’
She didn’t. She talked normal. ‘Come on. I’ll show you how to play Sindys.’
Mick Earnshaw strode up the hill towards home. This winter was turning into a pain in the arse. His dad reckoned they were going to bring back the three-day week. That was the last thing he needed – his dad hanging round the house the whole time, winding his mum up even more than she already was. His dad had been away this week, some union thing in Liverpool. He always came back from union meetings ranting and raving about what a waste of space Callaghan was. Mick didn’t care. He probably would when he finished school and got a job. Until then, he had his mates. And as long as the lasses kept looking at him the way they did, he was happy.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of fags. He lit one and took a deep drag, then stretched out his hand. The scabs across his knuckles had gone now, but he liked to picture the blood, and the bruising, and the looks on his mates’ faces when he’d rammed his hand into the police car. The buggers had all run away after that. They hadn’t seen the copper clip him over the head. Shame, but he’d told them all about it. He’d seen the respect in their faces. That was the important thing.
Mick grinned as he got to the top of the Heights estate. Theirs was the last house in the row. The end of the terrace. Mum reckoned that meant you could call it a semi-detached. Mum needed her head looking at.
He flicked his fag end away, stuck his key in the Yale and opened the door. They didn’t used to lock it during the day, but now you heard stories about neighbours stealing from one another and his mum said you couldn’t be too careful. Mick wasn’t worried about that. Anyone who tried to take anything from him would be sorry.
‘Who is it?’
‘S’Mick.’
His mother came into the hallway. She looked angry, but then, she looked angry most of the time these days. ‘Your father has something to tell you. I’m going to my Ladies’ Group.’
Mick shrugged. His mother was for ever going to her groups at the church. There was a cookery group, and a group for wives, and another group where some old women taught the young women how to do darning and rubbish stuff like that. Half the time, when she said she was going to the church, Mick saw her nip off in the opposite direction anyway.
His dad was sitting in the back room. They never sat in the front room. Mum said that was for Best. Best wasn’t something that happened very often. Dad was wearing his weekday
suit. He had one suit for Sunday and one for during the week and a scrappy old one for working round the house. Mick would see the other miners walking along the road in jeans and tracksuit bottoms. They didn’t know how to present themselves. That’s what his dad reckoned anyway. His dad was a cut above.
‘I need you to make some space in your room.’
‘What? Why?’
‘We’ve got someone staying with us.’
‘Not in my room.’
‘Well, he’s a young boy so he can’t really go in with Cathy.’
‘How long for?’
His dad stood up. ‘For as long as needs be. I’ll bring the foldout bed down from the loft. Go clear some space.’
Mick’s chest tightened and his fingers closed into a fist. It was crap – there was no way he was going to share his room with some kid. ‘Why’s he here anyway?’
‘He needed somewhere to stay.’
Mick shook his head. ‘You can’t just bring a kid home. There’s social services and that. Like when Keely Baldwin’s mum went off and it was just her and them babies in the house. Social services took them all away in the end.’
His dad’s face grew dark. ‘This is different. The boy’s staying here. Now go and clear some space.’ He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t make a fist, but Mick’s legs turned and carried him towards the stairs as surely as if he’d been whacked on the arse.
There were two faces watching him from the landing. Cathy, sitting at the top of the stairs, like always, and this new kid sitting next to her. ‘What the hell?’
The boy had a thatch of thick black hair, above dark skin, and dark eyes, but that wasn’t what Mick first noticed. The first thing he saw was the bright-red shine on his lips and the glittery blue rings around his eyes.