by Juliet Bell
‘Well, there was some trouble on the picket line.’ She stared at the floor. ‘At Gimmerton.’
Mick’s stomach tightened. ‘What sort of trouble?’
She still wasn’t meeting his eye. ‘The police phoned the digs.’
The knot in Mick’s stomach jumped to his throat. He stared at the floor. There were two different offcuts of lino on the floor. One grey. One blood-red. He’d never noticed that before.
‘They said your dad got in a fight with some other miners.’
Mick shook his head. That wasn’t right. The lads only scrapped with each other over beer and women and his dad could take or leave both of those. ‘Was it a scab?’
‘What?’
‘Did he get in a fight with a scab?’ That could be it. His dad wouldn’t have scabs at his pit. And Ray Earnshaw knew how to use his fists if he had to. He could’ve done the other bloke some proper damage.
Frances bit her lip. ‘I don’t know.’
‘So what? Is he in hospital or summat? I hope they don’t expect me to sort out those bloody kids.’
Silence filled the tiny room. It seemed to last for hours. Finally Frances stepped towards him, reaching out her fingertips to his cheek. ‘I’m really sorry, love.’
Mick couldn’t bring himself to ask the question, to hear her confirm what he thought he already knew. He let her wrap an arm around his waist and sink her face into his shoulder. Normally she didn’t like to hug him until he’d washed and changed. Now she pressed herself against his dust and grime. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘Something’s going on.’
Heathcliff was right. Something was wrong. Why else would there be so much activity in Moor Lane? There were people standing around in the street, talking. There were two police cars. And they were parked outside the last house in the street.
Their house.
Cathy tightened her grip on Heathcliff’s hand. ‘I don’t like the look of this. Let’s stay away.’
The two of them had been coming home, after a day spent on the blue hills. They had walked through the heather. Lain on their backs and watched the clouds scudding past. It was cold, but not wet, and for February that was a rare joy. Cathy loved days like those, up in the hills with Heathcliff. Sometimes they talked. Other times they didn’t. They didn’t have to. It was too cold now to swim in the lake up behind the pit, but they could watch the birds riding the updrafts of air as they searched for prey. They could pretend there was no strike. There was no school. There was nothing but the two of them.
Cathy was the one who always turned for home first. She had to get dinner on before her father got home. She wished she didn’t have to, but wishing didn’t change things. Just as staying out all night wouldn’t change whatever was waiting for them below.
‘I’m frightened, Heathcliff.’
His arms went around her, pulling her close. ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m here. Nothing can touch us when we’re together.’
She led the way out of the hills and across the wasteland at the end of the road. As they got closer to the house, another car pulled up, and a woman got out.
‘It’s that social worker.’ Cathy’s heart began to pound as the social worker walked up to the front door of the Earnshaw house. She knocked and the door opened.
‘Who was that in our house?’ Heathcliff asked.
Cathy had no answer.
Someone in the street saw them. All faces turned their way and a strange silence fell as they approached. Cathy didn’t slow down. These people lived in her street, but they were not her friends. And besides, if she didn’t talk to anyone, then maybe she would never find out what was wrong.
Heathcliff was holding her hand so tightly it hurt. And that was good. As long as he was with her, she could face anything.
‘Poor lamb.’
Cathy didn’t turn to look at the woman who had whispered the words. She kept her face firmly fixed on her own front door, and a death grip on Heathcliff’s hand.
As she reached for the doorknob, the door opened.
‘Children. Come in.’
Where did that social worker get off, inviting them into their own home?
The door to the front room was open. Cathy didn’t need to be told. Still holding tightly to Heathcliff, she walked into the room. The priest was there. So too were a couple of her father’s union mates.
Heathcliff said the words she was too afraid to speak.
‘What’s going on?’
None of them would meet her eyes. They looked at each other and finally the social worker came towards her.
‘Cathy, I’m afraid there’s been an accident at the pit.’
‘It weren’t no accident,’ a voice behind her muttered.
‘Hush,’ the woman hissed at the offender. ‘There’ll be none of that talk here. Not in front of…’
‘Dad?’ Cathy’s voice trembled. She knew men had been injured at some of the other pits. ‘Has Dad been hurt?’
‘Cathy…’
‘Is he hurt?’ As she looked from one frozen face to another, the truth stuck Cathy like a hammer blow. A sob caught in her throat. Heathcliff’s arms went round her, holding her as her legs began to shake.
‘It’s all right, girl.’ A rough hand so very like her father’s descended on her shoulder, but she shook it off. She moved even closer to Heathcliff. The two of them together – that was all there was. If she stayed close enough to him, then nothing out there, nothing these people were trying to tell her, could get in.
‘What happened? Where is he?’ Heathcliff’s voice was rough but clear.
The adults around her exchanged glances. They didn’t want to tell them. Was it that bad?
There was a noise in the hallway. Cathy felt a rush of chilly air as the front door opened. The priest left the room and was talking to someone in the hallway. Cathy wasn’t listening. She wasn’t going to listen.
Then a woman walked into the room and dropped to a crouch in front of Cathy. Her eyes were blue and swimming with tears.
‘Cathy, you poor child. It’s all right. We’re here now. We’ll look after you.’
‘Who are you?’ Heathcliff’s voice was suspicious in Cathy’s ear.
‘I’m Frances. I’m your sister.’
‘I don’t have a sister,’ Cathy said sullenly.
‘Yes, you do.’ Frances tilted her head to the side. ‘I’m Mick’s girlfriend. Fiancée.’
As Frances spoke, a tall figure filled the doorway. Cathy looked past the blonde hair and cloud of perfume and saw her brother. He had changed so much in such a short time. He looked older. Better dressed then the rest of them. He looked… not like a miner. For a moment, as he looked at his fiancée and sister, she saw something approaching warmth on his face. And sorrow and pity. But then his gaze moved to Heathcliff, whose arms were still wrapped protectively around Cathy. Mick’s features hardened into the brother she had always known.
Cathy closed her eyes and tried to push her mind back. She tried to conjure up a time when everything had been just right. When Mick wasn’t bothering her. And she and Heathcliff could spend all day out on the blue hills knowing that, when they got home, her dad would be there.
The woman’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘You know your dad’s not coming back, don’t you?’
Cathy twisted her head away, burying her face deeper into Heathcliff’s shoulder. She could feel how tense his body was, holding everything inside, ready to explode.
The Frances woman kept talking. ‘I’m so sorry, pet. Your dad died.’
And that was it. It was the most horrible news there could be. Cathy waited for the tears. She was supposed to cry, wasn’t she? That was what happened when you were sad. Cathy should be sad. But what she was feeling wasn’t like any sadness she’d known before. It wasn’t like when she got told off, or did bad at school, or even like when Mummy had gone away. She didn’t feel sad. She felt hollow. She clung to Heathcliff, willing his closeness to fill her up again. And in r
esponse she felt his arms grip her. His fingers dug into her flesh with the fierceness of it, like he was feeling it too, the realisation that it was just the two of them now. The man who’d brought her up, the man who’d brought Heathcliff here, was gone. She concentrated on Heathcliff, the feeling of his nails pressing into her skin, and let everything else drift away.
Chapter Ten
2008
‘The father died a few days before the strike ended.’
Lockwood didn’t need Ellen Dean to tell him that. He’d been there that day too. He’d seen the mounted police and given evidence at the police enquiry afterwards. No action was taken against anyone. Ray Earnshaw had a weak heart, although he didn’t even know it himself, apparently, and the knock he’d taken and the fall in the crowd could have happened to anyone at any time. The death had been ruled an accident, and to Nelson Lockwood that was a reasonable finding. Nobody had set out to kill Ray Earnshaw.
It wasn’t a deliberate act. Not like firing a nail gun into a crowded van. Not like attempted murder.
‘So the brother came back.’
‘Yes. Surprised everyone, he did, by bringing a girlfriend. Pretty thing she was. Sweet. Everyone liked her.’
‘She can’t have been too thrilled to have to take two teenage kids on like that.’
‘Well, there wasn’t any choice.’ Ellen’s voice started to harden as her defences went up. ‘Mick was the nearest relative. There wasn’t anyone else. And don’t forget, he’d been working. He had more money than the rest of the miners put together. Anyway, she was great with the kids. Didn’t seem to mind at all.’
And the kids – Heathcliff and Cathy? Lockwood couldn’t help but wonder how they had felt about Mick’s return.
Would things have been different if Ray Earnshaw had stayed at home that day? If Mick hadn’t come back, would he still be alive? Would the others?
‘And Mick went back to work in the pit?’
‘Yeah. I guess they felt they had to give him a job after what happened. But it wasn’t much good. Even when the strike ended, we knew it was just a matter of time before the pit closed. The next year they brought a new manager. Mr Linton. His job was to shut it down, though. Everyone knew.’
‘How did the Lintons fit in?’
‘They didn’t. Thought they were better than the rest of us. Thought we didn’t know what was going on, but we did. Shut it down and move on. That was the plan. Who’d have thought things would turn out the way they did?’
Lockwood left Ellen’s office, meaning to go back to the library and the archives that were proving such a wealth of information. In the months after the strike, he’d seen the stories in the papers about the pit closures. He hadn’t paid that much attention, because the whole country had known that was where things were headed. He’d moved on by then. He was on the path to CID, thinking about buying a house. He’d thought life was mapped out – career, marriage, couple of kids. He hadn’t given much thought then to Gimmerton. It wasn’t his town. It wasn’t his concern.
Except for the piece of metal in his pocket, of course. He’d always held on to that. He paused. Was that true? He’d always had it, but had he thought about it back then when life had felt like it was going his way? The memories danced away from him into the cold Yorkshire air.
Lockwood stopped walking. The library with its wealth of information was a few yards away. But that wasn’t what he needed.
When it came to solving crime, there was one thing he trusted more than any evidence and fancy forensics. His gut. Looking a man in the eye was the best and surest way to know his guilt or innocence.
It was time he met Heathcliff.
He didn’t have to think about where or how. Instinct took him back to the place he’d seen his quarry before. The church. Not the Catholic church down by the stream, with its stained grey stone and overgrown graveyard. Most of the Earnshaws were buried there, but Heathcliff had never really been an Earnshaw. His connection with the family was her.
Lockwood was right. Heathcliff was at the Anglican church.
Once again he was standing by Cathy’s grave. His thick black coat gave him a sepulchral air as he stood rock-still, staring down at the white marble slab.
Lockwood hesitated for a few seconds by the church gate, but decided there was no reason to suspect Heathcliff would recognise him. Too many years had passed, and Lockwood had just been another face in a uniform back then. And anyway, what did it matter? He climbed the two steps through the gate and made his way towards the dark figure.
‘Good morning,’ he exclaimed cheerfully. ‘Nice to see a bit of sunshine.’
Heathcliff didn’t move or in any way acknowledge Lockwood’s presence.
‘I see that, like me, you have a passion for old graveyards.’ Lockwood kept moving closer. ‘I find them fascinating. In a town like this, the graveyards tell the whole history of the place and the people in it.’
He was so close now that no reasonably polite person could possibly ignore him. But Heathcliff, it seemed, was neither reasonable nor polite.
Lockwood did the only thing left to him.
‘That’s an interesting grave. Fairly recent from the look of it. The angel headstone suggests the family had money.’ He leaned forward as if to read the inscription. ‘Catherine Earnshaw Linton. Look at the dates? She was very young when she died. I wonder what…’
The sound that emanated from Heathcliff was the sort of low growl you might hear from a cornered animal. Lockwood took the chance to look into Heathcliff’s face.
He had never seen such anger or hatred in a man’s eyes. Or such pain. He stepped back. Without a word, Heathcliff pushed past him on the narrow pathway, and a few moments later he was through the gate and gone.
Lockwood stared after the disappearing figure, his hand automatically reaching into the pocket of his jacket for the twisted nail. He tossed it gently in one hand, his mind racing.
For a moment, seeing the hatred in Heathcliff’s face, he had thought he’d been recognised. But it was only a fleeting fear. Heathcliff didn’t know who Lockwood was. He wasn’t sure the man he’d spoken to knew much of anyone in the world of the living. He seemed entirely consumed by his grief.
Madness too perhaps.
Lockwood looked again at the white marble of Cathy’s grave, stained in places by what he guessed was Heathcliff’s blood. How often did the man come here to beat his fists or his forehead against the unyielding stone?
There was a second name on the tombstone, under Cathy’s. Edward Linton. Someone had vandalised that piece of carving, attacking it with an axe or hammer as if trying to obliterate the name from the stone.
The next grave also bore the name Linton. Gordon and Marion Linton, who had died on the same day in 1987.
Lockwood reached out to lay a hand on the cold marble. Dying alongside your wife. That meant they were always together. They’d always had someone alongside them. He shivered in the cold. At the end of this Lockwood had to go home. Back to London, to start his retirement in the empty house that years of overtime had bought him.
He opened his fist and looked at the twisted nail again. Then he put it back in his pocket and left the graveyard.
Chapter Eleven
September, 1985
Edward Linton stopped halfway down the stairs and listened. Mother and Father were in the dining room having breakfast. He could hear the chink of spoons against bowls and the clatter of cup into saucer. This was their routine. Every morning. Mother thought it was important that the whole family start the day together.
‘What are you doing?’ His sister appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Just going for breakfast.’
‘Well, go on then.’
He led the way to the breakfast table, taking his seat on the side nearest the bay window and letting Isabelle take the seat with its back to the door. It was five days since the removal men had set up the dining table and they’d sat in these positions for every meal since. Five short
days and already everyone had found their place. That was how families worked.
He scanned the table. ‘Is there any orange juice?’
His sister jumped up. ‘I’ll get it.’
He watched his mother watching his sister as she walked away. ‘That uniform…’ she muttered.
‘What’s that, darling?’ Edward’s father peered at his wife, who shook her head.
‘I’m sorry. It’s that uniform…’
Mr Linton frowned. ‘Is there something wrong with Isabelle’s uniform?’
‘It’s so different. She looked a picture in her boater.’
The boater had been a feature of the uniform at his sister’s previous school – girls only, so Edward had escaped that particular humiliation. And he happened to know the boater had been the source of much anguish for Isabelle herself, frequently being misplaced, sat upon or dropped into the fish pond. Not that Isabelle preferred her new school uniform. She said it made her look fat, which was ridiculous. He didn’t mind his new uniform. He didn’t think he looked any different, although he’d heard his mother sighing dramatically behind his back at the shop when they’d bought it.
He also knew his mother’s sighs had nothing to do with boaters. He tipped some cornflakes into his bowl and started to chew, crunching his cereal in the increasingly loud silence.
Edward’s father smiled in a reassuring manner at his wife. ‘Isabelle looks lovely. She always does. She’s a credit to you.’
Mrs Linton returned the smile. ‘I know. She’s a good girl.’
Isabelle returned clutching a carton. Her mother shook her head. ‘There’s some freshly squeezed in the fridge.’
‘This is fine.’
Before his mother could sigh again, Edward’s father reached out and patted her hand. ‘You know something,’ he said to his children. ‘I think your mother is more nervous about your first day at a new school than you are.’
His wife looked at him with that look. Edward knew it well. It was a look that seemed to exclude everyone and everything in the world except the two of them. Edward didn’t mind being excluded by that look. It meant his parents would stay together. He didn’t want to be one of those kids shuffled from one parent to another after a divorce. He liked having a proper family.