by Juliet Bell
Isabelle swung her legs out of the car. She’d never thought to come back to Gimmerton. Sending Luke back here was her biggest failure. It didn’t matter what the guards said. It didn’t matter that there was talk of parole. She didn’t deserve to get out. She was the one who’d sent her baby back to this place. And now he was dead.
The guard in the passenger seat jumped out and put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘I’m not going to cuff you, but we’re in the middle of nowhere here. If you try to run off we’ll nick you again before you’re even out the churchyard and then no privileges, no parole and back to Cat B. Do you understand?’
Isabelle nodded. She had no intention of trying to run. Part of her wanted to stay in the car and demand they drive her straight back. She climbed out of the car and rolled her head to ease the stiffness in her neck. It was the Catholic churchyard. Not what she’d have chosen but she’d given up her right to choose these things when she’d let her baby get sent back here.
There were two teenagers standing in the doorway of the church. She moved closer. Maybe not both teenagers actually. The man was older. In his twenties, she supposed, chest bulging against a too-small shirt that probably hadn’t been worn since school. A young girl with wild curls pulled up into a high ponytail stood next to him. Isabelle started as she saw her. The hair, the big blue eyes. Cathy. Isabelle swallowed back a wave of nausea. This was why you should never go back. Her gaze twitched quickly across the scene and up to the hills behind the town. There were ghosts here.
She walked the short walk up the path to the church doors. The young woman stepped forward. ‘You’re Aunt Isabelle!’
‘Cathy?’
‘Kate. Well, Catherine, but Kate. Call me Kate. This is Harry. He’s my cousin. My mother’s brother was his father. He’s dead now too.’
Isabelle nodded. ‘I remember.’
The young man didn’t say anything. He stuffed his hand into his pockets and bashed his toe against the stone of the porch.
‘So I think we can go inside now. There’s a service inside before the bit at the graveside, isn’t there, Harry?’
The youth didn’t reply.
‘Well, there is. Come in. You must sit with us. We’re family.’
Isabelle followed her niece inside. The church was empty but for the three of them and the guard, who was following her at a surprisingly discreet distance. ‘Is Luke’s father coming?’
She caught a glimpse of a look that flickered across Harry’s face before Kate answered. ‘Well, I’m not sure. He’s very… well, he’s upset, isn’t he, Harry?’
‘If you say so.’
One tiny knot loosened in Isabelle’s stomach. In this day of terrors, she might at least be spared that.
The service was brief and perfunctory. The priest didn’t know her boy. Nobody here did. They didn’t know he’d loved to garden any place where they lived with even the tiniest patch of ground. They didn’t know how clever he had been, or how he used to try to wrap her round his little finger. They didn’t know anything.
She mumbled along with the prayers, and sat through the words, letting them wash over her. They had nothing to do with her Luke.
She followed the coffin outside to the graveyard, and tossed a handful of dirt down onto it, and then stood back while Kate did the same. That’s when she saw him. For one second, she almost didn’t recognise him. She might have taken him for a homeless man looking for somewhere to kip down under the shelter of the church. His hair was dirty and hanging round his shoulders. His shirt was stained, his trousers the colour of mud. But when he turned to face her she knew it was him. The wildness that had always hidden behind his eyes was still there, only now it had escaped from deep inside him and looked to have taken over his whole body.
Kate stood by her side while Harry threw his dirt onto the coffin. Isabelle leaned towards her niece. ‘Be careful of him.’
‘Harry?’
‘No. Of him. Of Heathcliff.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Be careful of this whole place. Get out. Get out while you can.’
The priest was still muttering his prayers. Isabelle took one last look at her husband, and one last look at her son’s grave before stepping away and walking over to her guard. ‘I want to go back now.’
‘You’ve still got time on your special release.’
Isabelle shook her head. It was time to get away.
‘It seems wrong,’ Kate said as she and Harry walked back up Moor Lane towards the shabby house at the end.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s supposed to be more. I don’t know. A wake or something. People bring food. That sort of thing.’
Harry shrugged. ‘Why? We don’t need them or their sympathy or their food.’
Kate thought about that for a moment. ‘I guess you’re right. But it’s a shame Aunt Isabelle had to go back. She’s family. She should be here. I wonder when she’s going to get out of jail. Maybe she’ll come back then.’
‘She’d be bloody mad if she did.’
As they approached the front door of number 37, Kate’s steps faltered. Harry was right. She didn’t want to go back there. But where else could she go? The Grange was gone. It had seemed like the right thing when Heathcliff had said it. She didn’t need it. She had a family and a home at the Heights. She swallowed down her fear and regret. He was right. Family was what mattered.
‘Come on. It’s cold. Let’s get inside and put the kettle on.’
For once, Harry didn’t sound angry. He sounded almost nice.
They’d barely stepped through the front door when Heathcliff appeared.
‘What are you doing here?’ His eyes were wild, and there was a little bit of spit dribbling from the corner of his mouth. ‘I don’t want you here. Get out.’
‘But we live here.’ How could she be almost begging to stay somewhere like this? Somewhere she hated with every part of her soul.
‘No. You don’t live here. Get out.’
Harry put an arm around Kate’s shoulders and pushed her towards the doorway that led next door, to number 39.
‘It’s all right,’ he mumbled. ‘Come on.’
They walked through to the other house and Kate looked around in despair. Since the doorway had been cut, no one had bothered to even clean up the rubble. There were bricks on the floor and dust everywhere.
‘We can’t live here. The electricity’s not even on. And what about furniture?’
‘I guess over the years, he’s moved whatever he had here next door. But it’ll be all right.’ Harry tentatively patted her arm. ‘Don’t go getting all upset. When he’s not around, we can drag our beds and stuff through into here. It’ll be easier to hide from him here. I’ll find an extension lead and get the lamp from your bedroom. We’ll still use the kitchen in the other bit. He’ll let us do that. He’ll want feeding as well.’
‘Why don’t we just go?’ She didn’t have the energy to fight any more. ‘We can get out of here. I have some money in the bank. You could get a job. We can run away and never come back.’
‘No. He needs looking after. We have to stay.’ The look on Harry’s face told her she would never convince him to go.
‘Why?’ she almost sobbed. ‘He’s horrid. Why do we have to look after him?’
‘Because he’s family.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
2008
Lockwood sat in his car and flicked through the papers in front of him. This was it. Harry Earnshaw. Catherine Linton. Heathcliff Earnshaw. They were the last ones standing from this whole sorry mess. He’d seen them all. He knew, if he was honest, that they weren’t going to suddenly step up and announce there’d been a murder and that they wanted to reveal the truth to the world.
There was one recent update to the file. An anonymous call with concerns about Heathcliff’s behaviour. Nothing criminal. More that he was a danger to himself than anyone else. A beat bobby had been round with Ellen Dean from social services. But nothing had come from it.
Sufficiently supported at home by family said the note. Lockwood doubted that, but it gave him an excuse for a repeat visit at least.
He climbed out of the car, and pulled his coat around him. Even the three steps across the pavement were enough for the biting wind to catch him by surprise. He knocked sharply on the door of number 37. He was startled when the door of number 39 swung open.
‘What do you want?’
‘Hello, Mister Earnshaw. I phoned. I’ve come to speak with you and your cousin again. And your uncle, if he’s here.’
‘Come in then.’
Lockwood followed him into the living room at number 39. The furniture was sparse. A sofa that looked like it had been rescued from a skip and a couple of white plastic garden chairs. Kate was already sitting on the sofa.
‘Mr Lockwood.’
‘DCI Lockwood,’ he corrected her automatically, but that was no bad thing. It didn’t hurt to remind them of his rank. People were attracted to power. ‘I do need to talk to Heathcliff Earnshaw as well.’
Harry and Kate exchanged a look.
‘He might be busy.’ She didn’t sound as if she really thought that.
‘Well, if you could go and see.’
Kate wriggled out of her seat and disappeared into the hallway. Lockwood had seen some pretty rough living quarters in his day. This was up there with the worst of them. From this side it was clear how crudely the two houses had been knocked together, and he had to wonder if that archway was really safe.
Kate’s voice rang out from the other side of the archway. ‘That policeman’s here. He needs to talk to you.’
She scurried straight back to her seat on the sofa.
‘You’re not going to go up and get him?’
Harry butted in. ‘He’ll come if he wants to.’
‘Well, we can get started. Harry, you were one of the first on the scene when Luke Earnshaw died, I believe?’
Harry nodded.
‘Can you talk me through what happened?’
The young man shrugged. ‘I gave a statement then. Nowt new’s gone on.’
‘Right.’ Lockwood could press him, but there probably wasn’t much point. Harry Earnshaw had been interviewed regularly by coppers since he was six years old. He could probably ‘no comment’ his way out of a murder charge if he needed to. Lockwood wondered for a fraction of a second if he needed to. Was he barking up the wrong tree entirely? He refused to let the thought settle in his head. He hadn’t come here for Harry Earnshaw. He’d come here for Heathcliff.
‘And you didn’t see anyone else around?’ Lockwood paused. There was no answer forthcoming. ‘Nobody who was up there before you?’
Then Harry shook his head. ‘No. Like I said at the time.’
‘What about you, Kate? You didn’t see anything?’
She shook her head. ‘I was here.’
‘Right.’ That was what her original statement had said too. Harry ran out at the sound of the hill collapsing. Heathcliff was at home. Kate was too. The storm hadn’t caused the landslip – that had been brewing for years – but the wet ground had made it impossible for Luke to scramble away and that was that. A tragic accident. Lockwood ran through the forensics in his head. An injury to the right temple that could have been caused by a blow or a fall, but the examiner was confident it had happened before the landslip. Not days or weeks before, minutes or hours. Something – or someone – had whacked Luke Earnshaw around the head before he died. Lockwood sighed. All the other injuries were consistent with its being a tragic accident.
‘Did Luke fall at all or hurt himself before the landslip?’
Another shake of the head from Harry. ‘Don’t think so.’
No. Of course he didn’t.
Lockwood ran through it all in his head. Edward Linton – accidental overdose. Luke Earnshaw – tragic accident out on the blue hills. Catherine Linton – aneurism. Mick Earnshaw – fatally injured in a drunken fall at the old mine. Mr and Mrs Linton senior – road traffic accident. Frances Earnshaw – complications in childbirth. There was nothing, was there? Nothing at all, but the sense that wherever that man went, death wasn’t far behind. Maybe it wasn’t even him. Maybe it was this place.
‘You still here?’
The question was sneered at him from the doorway.
Heathcliff Earnshaw was a shadow of the man he’d once been, but he still sent a shiver of loathing through Lockwood’s body. ‘There are still questions to be answered.’
‘Is that right?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind taking a seat.’
Heathcliff leaned on the mantelpiece, dominating the room. ‘What questions?’
He couldn’t back down down. He tried another thread. ‘Well, about your brother?’
‘I don’t have a brother.’
‘About Mick Earnshaw. His death was treated as an accident by the original enquiry.’
‘So it was. He were a drunk walking home on his own through a room full of mining equipment. It was a miracle he’d stayed alive as long as he did.’
‘And where were you the night he died?’
‘It was twenty years ago.’
‘It was sixteen years ago and I’m sure it’s an occasion that would stick in the mind.’
Heathcliff shrugged. ‘I told ‘em then and I’m telling you now. I was here with the boy.’ He nodded towards Harry.
‘Is that right?’ This really was Lockwood’s last roll of the dice. Everything else was pinned down by statements taken at the time that nobody was going to change now. But Harry had been four years old when his father died. He’d never been interviewed as a witness.
‘Is what right?’
Lockwood suppressed a smile. If Harry hadn’t been listening he could reframe the question. ‘Where were you the night your father died?’
The boy frowned. ‘I dunno.’
‘It’s not a night that sticks in the mind?’
‘I was a kid.’ He’d dropped his gaze to the floor now, resisting eye contact. ‘Where do you think I was?’
‘I was asking you.’
There was a long silence. Lockwood tried to look relaxed, all the time expecting Heathcliff to jump in. He should have interviewed them again separately but there were no grounds to bring them into the station. He glanced at Heathcliff whose gaze was fixed on Harry. He didn’t look worried, just interested. This whole thing was a game. Harry looked up. ‘Guess I was here. Don’t really go anywhere else when you’re four, do you?’
‘But you don’t remember specifically?’
Harry shrugged and slumped back into the sofa. ‘It were a long time ago.’
And that was the rub. Everything was months or years or decades ago.
‘What was that?’ Suddenly Heathcliff’s whole body was tense, his hands balling into fists, and his head moving from side to side as if listening to some unidentified voice.
Lockwood frowned. ‘What was what?’
‘What do you mean? You must have heard it.’
Lockwood shook his head. He glanced at Harry and Kate sitting together on the sofa. Harry’s hand had settled resting against his cousin’s.
Heathcliff staggered towards the door muttering. ‘Wait for me… I’m coming.’
‘What did he hear?’
Harry swallowed. ‘I don’t know. Probably the wind.’
That most recent note in the file pushed its way to the front of Lockwood’s mind. ‘Are you two all right here?’
Kate opened her mouth, but Harry jumped in. ‘We’re fine.’
‘I mean, does he need more looking after?’
Harry stood up, folding his arms across his wide chest. ‘I can look after him.’
‘Only…’
‘I said I can look after him. He’s family.’ He took another step forward. ‘I think it’s time for you to go now, Mr Lockwood.’
Harry waited until he saw the policeman’s car pull away before he slammed the door shut. He was sick of people sticking their noses into his business. Kate came
into the hallway. ‘Can we really look after him?’
‘Course we can.’
She stared at him in silence for a moment. ‘I don’t see why we should.’
‘What do you mean?’
She hesitated again, chewing on her bottom lip. It made her look younger. ‘He’s mean.’
‘It’s just how he is.’
‘He hits you.’
‘You don’t know anything.’ It wasn’t like she was suggesting. Heathcliff had stayed. He was still here. Nobody else had stayed around. Nobody else had kept a roof over Harry’s head for the last twenty years. ‘He looked after me.’
Kate pouted but she didn’t argue. She didn’t talk that much at all these days, not since Luke. She twisted the bottoms of the arms of her jumper round and round her hands. ‘I don’t think he wants us looking after him anyway.’
That wasn’t the point. This was about responsibility. Heathcliff was family. He marched past Kate and through the arch to number 37. He didn’t spend much time through here any more. He took trays of food up to Heathcliff when he wouldn’t come downstairs, but mostly he and Kate stayed next door. He got by on bits and bobs of labouring and deliveries when the van was working. Kate used to talk about going to college, but now she sort of floated round the house, not really talking, not really doing anything.
He paused on the landing. Heathcliff would be in the little room at the end. Cathy’s room, he still called it. Harry listened for sounds of movement. If he thought the old man was asleep he might go in and collect the tray from the morning. If he wasn’t asleep Harry would just sidle away and wait for another time. He edged along the landing. There was no noise, and the door to the room was slightly ajar. Harry stopped and listened again. Heathcliff wasn’t asleep. He could hear the slightest murmur of words drifting around the open door. And then footsteps. Harry tensed, but the steps went away from the door, and he heard the window being thrown open. Harry shuddered. It was blowing a gale outside. Only a madman would open a window on a day like this. He made to step away.
‘Are you there? Cathy! I can feel you.’ The voice was a wail carried on the wind. Harry stopped again. There was nothing he could do. Heathcliff’s cries continued. ‘Cathy! Cathy! My Cathy!’