At university, finally equipped with the trifecta of time, money, and ID, she lived the dream.
Once. Maybe twice.
It turned out that sitting in a cafe for more than an hour was staggeringly boring and her ideal man was a pretentious rogue. Tedium and disillusion soon gave way to wine and pizza at home.
Edith worked her way up Lever Street, two blocks east of Oldham Street and considerably less busy. There were fewer shops but at least one cafe. Kath couldn’t quite remember the name of the place that Thomas had taken her on the not–actually–a–date several years ago. ‘Run by anarchists,’ she said before joking that they only served herbal tea.
The vague location in the Northern Quarter was supplemented by the recollection that the cafe was accessed by a long flight of stairs down. Edith had managed to find it on the internet by reputation alone. She walked along with her gaze low to the ground: a cafe called the Basement Cafe wasn’t likely to be on the first floor.
After a single block Edith spied ahead a low door opening downward and made straight for it. ‘The Basement Cafe’ was written in curiously hard to read letters above the opening. There were no other signs on the outside. Nothing to advertise or entice. No explanation of exactly what kind of cafe it might be. Those who knew the place needn’t have it explained to them. The curious would just have to chance it.
Inside the door a small landing readied guests for the steep flight of stairs down. Kath’s memory was sound. This was the place.
The walls of the vestibule were crammed with notices and messages stuck and pinned wherever the latest bare patch had presented itself. They beckoned Edith to protest against university cuts, changes to housing benefit, the testing of medicines on animals, the opening of a new gas–fired power station, and arms companies at the Conservative Party conference. Others advertised for flatmates: ‘genderfluid vegan with room to rent in Whalley Range, £300pcm’ and ‘polyamorous couple, mid–30s, seeks live–in nanny/lover, male/female welcome, no bills or rent’. Edith thought she would take a pass on both, though without fully knowing what either might involve.
Her father had long ago taught her that people were people and were best left to do their own thing. His unwonted liberal bent bracketed with, ‘besides, it’s all bloody legal nowadays.’
Edith took the stairs hesitantly, their steepness and the low ceiling conspiring to hazard the head of anybody of even average height. At the bottom another narrow doorway opened up into a wide, high–ceilinged cavern of a room. The floor was rich, deep black and the walls, where they could be seen beneath the masses of posters, brilliant white. The roof was arched in brick and held up by a row of stout iron columns in black. Cafe tables stretched down the left side with a counter at the far end. To the right a square of floor space was empty, sofas and stacks of chairs ranged along the walls.
Edith made her way self–consciously past the tables and toward the counter. The cafe was neither quiet for a Saturday. A few tables were occupied but there was space for many more customers. A few people stood around talking. A couple practised some kind of exercise in the space to the right.
The man behind the counter was handsome with hair down to his shoulders, and wore what would best be described as a multicoloured knitted hoody. Behind him an open serving hatch opened into the kitchen where a huge man stood mechanically stirring an equally large soup pot.
“What can I get you?” The cashier spoke with a beautiful accent somewhere between Australian and South African.
Edith’s order of a coffee with sweetened soymilk came swiftly. She took a sip: it was good, really good. And as the cashier rang up the order she was surprised at how cheap it was. These anarchists were doing something right. Though she doubted their ultimate political concerns stopped at the provision of improved coffeeshops.
Edith looked for somewhere to sit. Before she even took one step she stopped.
The cashier was right there, still smiling, waiting for her to go. He was bound, if she asked him something, to at least venture an answer. If she sat down then the moment to get somebody talking would be lost.
Before she could form a question the cashier noticed her lingering and opened for her. “Is there anything more I can help you with?”
“Yeah, I, um...” Edith was lost for how to ask. The walls were filled with posters decrying the arms trade and agricultural chemicals, promoting obscure political struggles and recondite economic theories. These people were switched on, acutely aware of the world around them, and could probably make a mountain of suspicion from a molehill of mere suggestion. They wouldn’t take somebody sniffing around asking questions.
Then she caught sight of herself in a mirror by the counter. Her hair was a tangled mess, she wore not make-up. Her legs long and skinny in black jeans, ending in battered trainers. Her old parka had seen better days, or years. She smiled inwardly. She didn’t look out of place, she could pass for somebody who had been there before. She might as well ask honestly and openly. It would get her at least as far as a lie.
“I’m looking for anybody who knew Thomas Faircote.”
“Hmm,” the cashier twisted his mouth and thought, “I’m not sure. Is that Tom who comes on Thursday film nights?”
“No,” Edith swallowed a mouthful of coffee, “he’s dead. Three months ago in a car crash. But he used to come here a lot. I’m looking to speak with anybody who knew him.”
“Oh!” The cashier smiled at his idiocy, then stopped himself when realizing they were discussing a dead man. “I only started here a month ago. Let me see if I can find somebody who might know Thomas...erm?”
“Faircote.” Edith filled in the lost information.
The cashier disappeared through a door into the kitchen. He emerged into view, framed by the serving hatch. He spoke to the man hunched over the soup pot. Their lips moved in silent conversation. The cook looked up toward her then nodded to the cashier. He left the kitchen, leaving the soup in the hands of the cashier.
The cook was taller and more powerfully built now that he stood before Edith. His long, clean–shaven face was capped with sandy hair beginning to turn grey. He wore jeans and sweater, both fading to a washed–out blue.
When he spoke it was with a joyless Bolton accent. “You asking about Tom?”
“Thomas Faircote, yes.” Edith’s body stiffened in the cook’s presence. “Did you know him?”
The cook studied Edith, searching for clues. Silently asking who she was and why she had come. His mouth agape, on the verge of telling her to get lost, he let the silence mature.
At last his countenance turned with a careless shrug. His giant hand pointed at a table. “Take a seat, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Edith sat and stared mindlessly. A bookshelf running along one wall constituted a trust–based library from which you could take and add as you wished. The spine of one promised a thorough education in the history of French Canadian terrorism. Reading the title was an education itself. She hadn’t been aware that such a thing even existed.
The cook came while Edith was distracted, dropping into a chair. He leant heavily on the table, his elbows and arms taking up half the room, dwarfing a cup of coffee he brought with him.
He spoke without waiting. “What’s this about?”
“Oh? I, erm, you know Thomas Faircote?”
“Tom. Yes. I knew him for nearly twenty years.” The man smiled and took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know you though.”
Edith froze. If he really had known Thomas for that long he surely had every answer she needed. Even Sam had lost contact for years. She would have to tell him the truth of why she was there. It was a matter of trust. That was impossible to build in an instant.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Edith.”
“I didn’t tell you my name. Edith.” The man spat out her name and smiled ironically. “But it’s David. Why are you here?”
“Nice to meet you, David.” Edith breathed in. This was going to be
hard.
“Look,” David stuck out his chin, “somebody killed Tom and the police covered it up. You know that? You probably don’t. But it’s true. You can’t imagine the forces out there in the world, the kind of forces which wouldn’t blink to kill somebody who got in their way. So when they murder my best friend you have to forgive me for being wary of strangers who coming asking about him. Though I’m not going to ask your forgiveness, I just want you to tell me who you are.”
Edith stammered under the onslaught. “Thomas was your best friend?”
“Listen!” David raised his voice. “Just fucking tell me who you fucking well are or piss off.”
She shrank at his anger. The truth spilled out faster than she expected. “His cousin has paid me to investigate Thomas’s death. He says it was suspicious. But I’m guessing that’s not news to you.”
David scratched his head and looked away. He sniffed. “Sorry about the shouting.”
“I understand. Will you talk to me? You said Thomas was your best friend?”
“Yeah,” David turned back to Edith and smiled, “I’ll talk to you. It might be worth having Tom’s cousin on side. They’re pretty rich, you know, these Faircotes? They own a big polluting factory making paints.”
Edith nodded, “Yes. I’ve been there. Thomas’s cousin Samuel runs it. That’s who hired me.”
“Right.”
“So can you tell me, about Thomas?” Edith reached a hand forward, then quickly withdrew it. He wouldn’t appreciate the affectation. “I think he was murdered too.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I’m collecting evidence on his death. But I need to know more about his life.”
“Tom was a rich kid. You see plenty of them, they turn up in September when they start unit, prat about for a few years dressing like a yak and refusing to shower, then bugger off back down to London and get a job at an investment bank.
“Tom was different. I first met him when he was maybe fourteen and I was a few years older. Lots of us just hung out in different groups in the nineties talking about the evils of the world, going on protests and the like. You never knew exactly where he would turn up, though he was always around. He seemed to get involved in everything. Really switched on for somebody his age.
“He was one of the founders of this place,” David waved a hand around the cafe, “and though he can’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen at the time he did as much work as any other.”
“Thomas sounds like a good guy.” Edith nodded and sipped her drink. Everybody who had known Thomas said the same thing and meant it. Jealousy sparked insider her. She would never have the pleasure of meeting him.
“Genuine guy. Really genuine. I didn’t know about his money at first. By the time I found out I knew he wasn’t in it for fun. It was his life just like it was mine. The money may have come from a rotten source but he was using it for good ends. I’ve always had to work and fit in activism around that, but he could devote himself full time. He was worth ten others when it came to getting things done.” David laughed. “I suppose I shouldn’t say that. Not very egalitarian of me, I know.”
Edith pursed her lips. David had stopped. He was relaxed now. His earlier outburst had dissipated. Yet it had shown he was open to speculating about Thomas’s death. “I’m guessing he must have made a lot of enemies. You believe he was murdered. You must have thought about who did it. Is there anybody who might have wanted him dead?”
“Take your pick.” David laughed and leant back. “Tom was everywhere. He was incredibly vocal too. He didn’t need to work so he could risk the publicity. He was well–educated, a good spokesperson, and was always putting himself forward.
“Tom was murdered in August and was probably protesting grouse shooting at the time. That’s likely what took him up onto the moors that day. But in the weeks, months, years before that I can only give you the barest outline of what he did. There was so much.”
Edith sighed at the thought. At least she was not alone. Sam and Trugger had their doubts about the police story, and could believe that there hadn’t been an accident. Here was somebody who had taken that to its logical conclusion: murder.
Chasing a motive she had stumbled on a trove. It was as bad as having none. There was nothing solid enough to decisively move the investigation from accident to murder. Despite what David might think. Nothing she could take back to her father.
“Did anybody ever threaten Tom?” Edith spoke in a hush.
“All the time.”
“Really?”
“I mean, Tom alluded at it. I never got the details. What would be the point? It went on for years.”
“Years?”
“Tom was an activist. He lived in the public eye where the people he challenged knew who he was. Even in his teens he said that people were out to get him. He wasn’t paranoid or a fantasist, though, he was very realistic, objective. You can’t be paranoid if they’re really out to get you.”
David glanced away. A split second of thought.
“I’m surprised that he lasted the best part of twenty years, to be honest. I knew they would get him in the end.”
He leant back and put his hands behind his head. He swallowed loud and dry.
“They got him in the end.”
Day 5: Sunday 5 November
“I searched the internet, but the news stories only go back a few years. The further I went back the more links stopped working.”
The librarian gave Edith a pitying look. Secretly she was overjoyed that more people were coming back to the library. They had discovered the limitations of the internet. So much of what people accessed every day was ephemeral. Designed for consumption on the day it was made, disappearing soon after. The internet was a tool to access information, not the information itself.
It gave her great satisfaction to wander round the central library knowing that a million books were resident in its walls. By no means a large collection, but enough to start any researcher on the right path. Even better was to know where she could find any information a researcher might request.
Edith just wanted newspapers. The librarian hadn’t the heart to tell her she could have saved the trip and logged on at home. The internet was a useful so long as you remembered it was a tool, and shrinking distances was one thing it was excellent for.
Still, she had a prepared speech. The failure to find old pages on the internet was the number one complaint she heard.
“That happens, yes. It’s called link rot. Websites shut down or move old pages around and they can no longer be found. There’s no way of getting around it. Even the few places which archive websites don’t have full coverage. A newspaper database is really the gold standard for members of the public. Though the internet is killing newspapers too. One day all that will be left are the archives. Two hundred and fifty years of print perfectly preserved.”
Edith stared at the screen before her. The librarian had one hand on the table and with the other she tapped in some login details.
“Have you ever used a database before?”
“I’ve used something similar at university to find journal papers.” Edith nodded and gripped the mouse.
“If you’re used to searching for academic articles then it is similar, but you’ll need to think about slightly different criteria. I’ll show you then you will at least know.”
The librarian brought up the newspaper archive homescreen and clicked on Advanced Search.
“Your main options are regarding the collection, the keywords, and date.” The librarian explained while Edith nodded and looked at the screen. “Do you only want UK newspapers?”
“I’m not sure.” Edith shrugged.
“Is it a UK topic?”
“Oh, the person’s from England, yes. So I guess that I do.”
“So here we can just select the UK newspaper collection. And you say it is a person? What is their name?”
“Faircote. Thomas Faircote.”
“Excellent.
That’s not a common name so we can use it as our main search term. Is there a particular thing you want to know about him? A secondary topic?”
“No. I want to know everything I can.”
“Right. And the dates? When did he live?”
“He died recently, in August.”
“We’ll let it search up to today, then. And how far back?”
“I don’t know.” Edith looked at the librarian with David’s information running through her head. Thomas had been active nearly twenty years, since they first met. Maybe he was doing things when he was thirteen, or twelve. Who knows? “He was thirty–five when he died.”
“Too young.” The librarian spoke to herself and shook her head. “You said you wanted to know everything about him, so we’ll put a start date at 1 January 1982. You might even find his birth notice in a local newspaper.”
“Thanks.” Edith wasn’t sure if she needed that. It hardly mattered.
The librarian pressed enter on the keyboard and the searched came back with nearly five hundred hits. She smiled. “Lots of results. I’ll let you enjoy the fruit of your enquiries in peace. Just click on the entries to bring each one up. Let me know if you need any further help.”
“Thanks.” Edith smiled though she hardly wanted to. She watched the librarian walk away then checked the time: half twelve. Getting through all the results might be impossible before the library shut at five. She sighed and started at the top.
Edith ignored the first slew of articles pertaining to the crash which she had already read online. That was about twenty–five done right away. The rest would have to be trawled through individually.
It only took thirty seconds to scan the article, understand the topic, and whom Thomas might have angered at that moment. The date and details were logged in a notebook. If an article looked like a duplicate of a story she had already read it was skipped.
After a few hours the list had grown to a bewildering length: grouse shooting, fox hunting, GMOs, pesticides, airport expansion, birds of prey, industrial pollution, rental landlords, labour exploitation in developing countries, the rights of immigrants, the rights of women, gay rights, trans rights, nuclear power, the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Church of England, carbon trading, TTIP, concrete producers, steel producers, hill–farming subsidies...there was no end. Edith could be pretty sure that sheep farmers weren’t holding a murderous grudge, but otherwise there were motives galore. Kath and Sam had said he was passionate about the environment. In truth he was a one man mission for every progressive cause in existence.
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