“I forgot.”
She heard a single dismissive sniff.
“You forgot that I might want to eat?”
“I just...”
“You just had something more important to do.” Ben yawned ostentatiously. He was already bored with her excuses. “Where did you spend the night?”
“With...”
“With your lover boy?”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice to see where your priorities lie. So are you going to feed me or not?”
Edith slid back out the room. There would be opportunity to confront him later. The fact that he had been withholding information from her wouldn’t go unmentioned. But she couldn’t tie it to not feeding him. That was an oversight not a punishment. She owed him her care and attention, given his condition.
She returned with a double helping of eggs and patiently waited for him to consume them. They could speak when he was ready.
“You’re guilty of something.” Ben clattered his plate and cutlery back onto the tray.
“I am? I mean, I’m sorry for not coming home last night.”
“Something else.” He shifted in his chair, making himself comfortable for the confession. “That’s the problem with you Catholics, you’re always guilty of something. Out with it.”
“Us Catholics?” Her mother had been a Catholic. Dad definitely had not. He had never referred to her in that way before. He had never referred to religion at all. She raised her eyebrows and blinked. It was impossible to know what he was thinking sometimes.
Edith sat on the floor and folded her legs up to her chest. It was impossible to keep the investigation secret any longer. Whatshe had done since he told her to stop. She counted her breaths. She felt the resolution build inside her.
“Dad, I’ve been continuing the investigation.”
“Have you now?”
“Yes.”
Ben let the silence dawdle. Then smiled as he spoke. “So, what did you find out about this other death?”
“I...”
“You’re a devious cow, that’s what you are.” Ben jabbed his finger toward her as his anger burst. “I knew you would and you bloody did, didn’t you? Don’t answer that.”
“I thought...”
“You’ve always thought, that’s the problem with you, Edith. You don’t know when to heed, to listen, to do as you’re fucking told.” He clasped and unclasped his hands. “Sunny knew. She knew all right. That girl could take instructions. She didn’t think, she understood. She understood what she was told and did it. She wasn’t a fucking princess about having her own mind.”
Edith leapt to her feet and fled the room. She slammed the doors of the lightlock. She lay down on the landing outside Ben’s room, staring at the ceiling, listening to her heartbeat. She counted to one hundred. She wasn’t going to cry.
She cried.
Five minutes passed. Maybe ten. She crawled back into the darkness of her father’s bedroom and pushed herself hard against the wall. Now it was her turn to confront him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He swallowed. He had heard and understood the question. She would wait for his answer.
“Honestly, sweetheart?”
“Of course, honestly.”
“I couldn’t remember.”
“No? They have the same name, Dad. Not even a hint? A vague déjà fucking vu?”
“You shouldn’t speak to you father like that.” Ben wanted to berate her. It came out as a pathetic submission. “Not when I’m ill.”
“Is that it? You never told me your memory has gone.”
“It’s not gone. I remember everything. It’s just, sometimes it’s not as quick as it should be.”
“Well, you’ve had time to think now. So tell me what you remember about investigating this other Thomas Faircote.” Edith’s body felt light, she had never been in this position with her father before. She was the one who was angry and he would bloody well obey. “And don’t leave anything out.”
“There’s not much to say.” Ben held his head in his hand. “Except that it was probably murder.”
“How do you know?”
“The guy had no reason to kill himself. That’s why his family contacted me. They couldn’t understand it. Nor could his friends. He had just qualified as an architect. He was engaged to a beautiful woman. Why would somebody like that off themselves?”
“People have their reasons, don’t they?” Edith shook her head. There was no point arguing, she knew what the other evidence was. “The car.”
“Exactly. When I read the police file I was shocked. Here was this glaring piece of evidence that...”
“Dad, you read the police file?”
“It helps to have friends, sweetheart.” Compromised friends, Ben added silently to himself. “The police more or less dismissed it. It was the report of a single witness. She couldn’t remember the licence plate number. They had nothing to go on. The driver of the freight train distinctly remembered seeing the guy throw himself on the track. I don’t much blame the police for not giving it much attention.”
“But you spoke to the witness?”
“Yeah. Here’s the thing. She remembered more than she thought she did. She knew the car was a blue Ford Cortina, which was a good start. Though she was no good with identifying the exact model. At least not consciously. I asked her a few questions and figured out it was an estate—great for carrying somebody tied up in the back. Turned out she also remembered the wing mirrors were black plastic.”
“And that’s important?” Edith snorted at the absurdity.
“Mark 4 wing mirrors were chrome. Mark 5 were black plastic. And you needn’t laugh. That established the car was less than ten years old.”
Edith shook her head. “I still don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“That’s why you’re not an investigator, even if you think you’re acting like one.” Ben tutted. “If you use a car in a crime like this, a murder, you’ve got to dispose of it pretty quickly. Take it to a scrap merchant and have the thing crushed. But people tend to remember if somebody sells a perfectly good car for scrap.”
“Right.” She now saw where this was going. “And there’s a limited number of scrapyards. All you had to do was ask around?”
“Exactly. It took a bit of legwork but eventually somebody remembered it. A blue Ford Cortina Mark 5 estate was sold for scrap in Hyde less than two hours after Thomas Faircote’s supposed suicide.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed.”
“So what happened?”
“The car had been crushed and sent to be melted down by the time I got there. Remember, I wasn’t given the case until weeks after the death. I slipped the foreman of the scrapyard a tenner to let me have a look at the record book. All the licence plates and chassis numbers are recorded before the cars are scrapped. That would get me a step further.
“But, what do you know? The page in question had been torn out.”
“No other leads?”
“None. I couldn’t move forward without that. It was the only opening I had. Now all these records are computerised that could never happen. But back then it was too easy to kill the trail.”
So this is what her father did for a living. It was the first time he had ever explained to her a single thing about a case. She had known all her life he was an investigator. She had never known what it really involved. The last few days she had spent chatting away to strangers were nothing in comparison. Asking people for answers was easy. Figuring them out for yourself was a skill she didn’t have.
“So what does this mean, for the case?” Edith shuffled forward to her father. “We’ve been on the wrong track up to now.”
“Both of us.” Ben laughed. “It’s not about the men, it’s about their family. Somebody wants something, knows something, or cares about something in that family.”
Edith thought about what Andrius had said. The Faircotes were nobility. Could that
be important? It seemed ridiculous to utter. Ben would mock her for it. She had already contacted somebody who might be able to help. It was better to find out more before presenting it as a theory.
There was also Hugh Mountgrace. It was impossible to guess what he might know about the family. Maybe nothing, but it was otherwise all she had to go on.
“Sam gave me the contact details for...”
“You’ve spoken to Samuel again, then?”
“Yes, I met with him the other night.”
“Did you tell him about the older Thomas Faircote?” Ben’s tone was easy to read. She shouldn’t have told him anything about that.
“No.” He might know she was lying.
“Good. Don’t. He doesn’t need to know that right now.”
“Why not?” She uncharitably thought that maybe her father was ashamed at having failed to solve a case. It was a good guess.
“I don’t want him to know we failed the first time. If the two murders are connected, then one of them could have been prevented years ago.”
“Oh.” This was a day for honesty, obviously. “He paid me. I got fifteen grand.”
“Did you now? I suppose that’s good.”
“And he said that there’s more to come. Isn’t that great?”
Ben sniffed. “It will be great when we find the killer.”
What happened to his desire for the money? Edith shook her head. The other day it sounded like that’s all he wanted.
“I’ve got leads I can...”
“Here’s my plan,” his words steamrollered over hers, then he paused momentarily to make it clear he would be listened to, “I want you to find out if there any other members of this family have been murdered. Any time in the last fifty years.”
“You think there might be more?” It shocked Edith to have the possibility uttered. She had only thought the same thing herself. “Of course, there could be more.”
“There’s only one way to find out for certain, isn’t there? Get the names of everybody descended from the guy who founded the family business. Anybody dead is a potential victim and anybody alive is a potential suspect.”
“How do I do that?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out. Public records. Newspapers. It’s all on the internet nowadays.”
‘It’s not,’ Edith thought back to what the librarian had told her. It frustrated her that she would spend days at her computer researching. She wanted to get out there, speak to Hugh Mountgrace, find out about the family’s coat of arms. She had her own ideas.
Her father’s suggestion was sound with a well–defined goal. It bothered her that she would walk out of the room and do exactly what as her father had instructed. She had broken free of him for one day and actually managed, by herself, to investigate. She had turned up the fact he was lying. Why should the relationship go back to how it was?
“I’ll get right on that.”
He had lied to her. Now she had no qualms about keeping him in the dark.
Edith turned the Punto into a desolate square of gravel which acted as the car park for Rickwell Minerals. The dark grey ground complemented the light grey pall of sky. Between the two hung misty rain. The morning’s frost had long since melted though the temperature still struggled to raise itself much above freezing. Drowned leaves floated in murky potholes. The long, trudging autumn was only half way gone.
Edith rubbed her eyes to clear her mind, pushing the late night and lost sleep away. Hugh had pleasantly welcomed her phone call and assured her that a meeting was no problem, even at such short notice. As soon as the call ended she doubted his tone. Insistence and sincerity were not the same thing. The willingness to do anything for Samuel was subtly different from simply doing anything Samuel asked of him.
She sighed and opened the car door. Ahead a low brick building bore a single pathetic sign, ‘Reception’, as though even the name of the company was unworthy of mention. Nor had there been any signs at the entrance. Edith only found the place so easily because the instructions were impossible to confuse. ‘First right after the viaduct when leaving Partington.’ Hugh spoke as sparsely as needed. ‘We’re the only ones there.’
Inside, the reception was nothing more than poky office with very old and very fake wood panelling, as though somebody, maybe in the 1970s, had had the ambition but not the means to make an impression. Now it was a tired relic with scrapes of dried mud on the floor and a jetsam of utilitarian chairs. A lone woman sat at a desk with nothing more than a plant, a kettle, and a radio for company.
“Hello?” The woman looked up, surprised to see another woman present.
“Hi,” Edith rested a hand gently on the desk and looked round, “I’m supposed to be meeting Hugh Mountgrace. Have I come to the right place?”
“You have. You must be...,” the woman looked at a scrawled note attached to her computer, “Eden? Hmm, I can’t read the second bit. It looks foreign.”
“Edith Pimlico.” Edith smiled inwardly at the thought that somebody had taken her father’s surname to be foreign. Next time he started on a rant about Andrius it would be amusing to casually drop it into the conversation.
“I’ll just call Mr Mountgrace for you.”
The receptionist vainly rang several numbers. Each time spending a minute staring into the distance while the number rang out, before looking shocked as though such a thing had never happened before.
“He doesn’t seem to be picking up. He could be busy.” She turned to the kettle at her side and motioned toward it. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Edith thought about leaving. This was a dead end. Last night, speaking to Samuel, it seemed a good idea to get some background. Now it was the wrong tack. She should be looking at the whole family, going back decades, not some family friend. She admitted to herself that she was only there to feel in control of the investigation. She had to be as stubborn as her father.
If leaving wasn’t an option then sitting down and waiting wasn’t either. The chairs discouraged even a cursory consideration of doing so. One chair had accommodated thousands of backsides over the years, each one slowly warping the vinyl cover until it bore a near perfect imprint of the universal arse of the English workman. Another, hard orange plastic flecked with mud, had been turned backwards. Edith imagined a young man straddling it, dangling his bollocks on the seat, and shuddered.
“Could you try again, please?” Edith shifted the weight of her body as she loomed over the receptionist’s desk. “If you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” She clearly did.
The receptionist rang again and reprised her gormless stare while the sound of a mobile phone ringing came to the office door. A workman entered, the phone hanging off his belt.
“You can stop ringing now, Liz.” The workman turned to Edith, held out his hand, and smiled. “Hello, I’m Hugh.”
Hugh wasn’t the refined businessman Edith had expected. In his hardhat and high–vis vest he might at any moment jump into a front loader, run it round the yard, and...she wasn’t sure what his business did but he didn’t run it from a cosy office.
Beyond the workaday clothing, the man himself was impressive. Though barely taller than Edith he was square built and imposing. His face showed his sixty years but his body belied somebody who was fit and healthy, and had always been so. His eyes were bright and searching. Edith noticed that he had scanned her body when he entered the room, an act of wariness rather than the usual. His handshake was gentle and controlled.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Mountgrace.” Edith smiled with his warm touch. “I’m grateful that you could meet me at such short notice.”
“Anything to help Samuel, naturally.” Hugh turned and reopened the door he had only just entered. “Though, as I explained on the phone, I’m working. You’ll have to come with me.”
With those words he reached down a hardhat and vest from a hook and thrust them in Edith’s hands. She struggled to dress as he walked out into the yard.<
br />
As she followed him through the door a wide yard spread out before her. Around the edge were bays built from railway sleepers. Each one held a mound of roughly–crushed stone a different colour from its neighbour. Some adjacent bays subtly shaded from brown–red to burnt orange, others leapt from deep green to electric blue. A front loader crept from one bay to a hopper at the far end of the yard bearing scoopfuls of minerals for a consignment.
A railway bank overgrown with bushes edged one whole side of the yard. An abandoned railway line. The map drew itself in her mind. Partington, Timperley, and the disused railway line fell into their correct locations. Then it struck her. She had been there before.
Sunny would lead her on an adventure. From the back yard of their house, the rear fence propped open with a rounders bats, up the railway bank and they were free. They walked along the bank dreaming that it would lead them swiftly to open countryside with cows and wheat fields. Edith’s wilder fantasies included a field full of ponies. Aunt Shelley would shout at them to come back and, when that failed, tell them to take care and be back by tea.
The truth of the railway line was revealed after a few wanderings. Either way they walked led from one part of Timperley to another, suburbs all the way. Looking down into the back yards was a slim attraction and poor substitute for what they really wanted.
Shortly after her twelfth birthday Sunny had found a map of Timperley and discovered that her suppositions was essentially right. If they only determined to walk a little bit longer than they had before, they would be out in open countryside, ‘ponies and everything, Edith.’
Sunny led them up again and, once they reached as far as they ever had before, led them further.
The bank soon sloped into a cutting. Nothing could be seen of the houses around them, if there were even still houses. Edith wanted to turn back, Sunny wanted to keep walking. Edith could go back if she wanted, but alone. She kept walking, in the vain belief that her big sister would never lead them astray.
Eventually the cutting began to rise into another bank and, with none of the promised fields immediately obvious, Sunny decided to leave the track completely.
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