Crowner and Justice

by Barrie Roberts

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘I didn’t think that old Capstick was very interested.’

  Jim Martin was across the desk from me.

  He had come in to give me his version of events leading to the BDS strike, and he’d got to the point where Mulvaney had decided to consult the National Secretary of the Union.

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Well, he’s been losing his grip for quite a while. They reckon he’s got health problems and the word is that he’ll resign at the next Conference. He kept telling Con Mulvaney that he didn’t think it was a national matter, that we ought to be able to sort it out with our own local management.’

  ‘Presumably he knew all the history of the undermanning arguments?’

  ‘Oh yes. Con told him all that, chapter and verse, but Capstick seemed to blame a lot of it on us.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he said that things were bad between us and management at BDS because of loads of wildcat strikes.’

  ‘And had there been?’

  ‘Oh yes, but they weren’t our fault. Quite the opposite. For years the Union was a bad joke at BDS. It never did a damn thing about anything. It never held elections. When Shop Stewards left it never replaced them so that there was no proper chain of representation. It got so bad in the end that the Personnel Manager appointed himself as the Branch Secretary.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  He shook his head. ‘Oh no, I’m not. The Secretary had retired and nobody held an election to replace him, so the Personnel Manager just announced that he’d run the Branch and started calling himself the Branch Secretary.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone try to stop him?’

  ‘Nobody cared enough by then. As far as most people were concerned the Union was a dead letter. It would have died out completely, but BDS didn’t want a reputation as a non-union firm. They have to do business with governments of any kind, so a non-union plant wouldn’t look good to a Labour government, would it?’

  ‘I suppose not. And this was when the wildcat strikes started?’

  ‘Yes. People just hadn’t any use for a union that never did or said anything, so when things went wrong you got whole departments and shops just walking out. Then Con Mulvaney came along.’

  ‘He changed things, I gather from Mohammed?’

  ‘He certainly did. Con’s a lifelong Union man from Merseyside. When he turned up, he was appalled by the way the Union was. He went to the Personnel Manager and told him he could hand the Secretary’s job back, that there was going to be an election.’

  ‘Which he won?’

  ‘Easy. Only about fifteen people turned up and if Con wanted the job he could have it. But once he’d got it he started straightening things out. He made sure that there was a Shop Steward in every department — that’s how I got into it. He nagged me to take on the Shop Stewardship in Computers. Then he started trying to stop the walkouts — the wildcat strikes.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘In the end. He had a bit of a bad time at first, because a lot of people thought he’d just got himself elected for the title, but after a bit they caught on that if they’d got a genuine grievance he’d take it up with the bosses, so they started putting things through the Union.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Well, BDS didn’t like it, funnily enough. They knew where they were with the wildcats — a few hours production lost and a threat to sack anyone who wasn’t back on his next shift and that was it. It’d all be over with nothing given. When Con took over they had arguments and work-to-rules and the things. Con made them follow the safety regulations — the place was full of safety hazards — and they didn’t like it ‘cos it cost them money. Then they started the undermanning business and he gave them an argument from the start.’

  ‘But he didn’t succeed?’

  ‘No. They let two hundred blokes go last year and things were looking really dodgy, but then the Retaliator came up and we all thought it was going to be OK, but instead of taking on more people, they just got into this nonsense of taking in casuals and swapping people about. All we could get out of them was that it was a “regrettable necessity” and that we’d all got to help out and pull together until the Retaliator contract was secure.’

  ‘But surely, they were getting paid to research and develop Retaliator, weren’t they? They weren’t just doing it on spec?’

  ‘Of course not. But they kept saying that the R and D payments weren’t big enough, that we’d have to produce some results for them to get any more cash out of the government.’

  ‘And was there a problem with that?’

  ‘Well, yes, there was.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how much I’m supposed to tell you about this — nothing probably. Retaliator’s the toppest Top Secret.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I may not be bound by the Official Secrets Act but I am bound by client confidentiality. The Law Society’ll throw me out if they catch me selling secrets.’

  ‘Well, Retaliator’s a cruise-type weapon. It has a map in its memory of where it’s going and what it’s going to hit, and all the time it’s flying, it scans the ground to compare what’s in its head with the terrain and keep itself on target.’

  ‘Right,’ I said and nodded.

  ‘The other thing is that it’s deadly fast. That’s its whole point, really, that it’s so fast it’ll knock the enemy out before they can hit us.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Well, those two things cause a problem. If you want the best scanning and comparison, it needs to have as much time as possible and to be highly manoeuvrable, but if you want the fastest speed, it has to be flying the simplest path possible, because the greater the speed the more difficult it is to steer it accurately. Follow me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Retaliator has to be fast and manoeuvrable and carry out subtle scanning and correct its own path at high speed.’

  ‘Right. Now we soon had a brilliant scanning system and steering software — the fastest there is, but the steering system could handle it. If the scanning system said “Right ninety degrees” when it was at full speed, that put too much strain on the steering motors and it could misbehave. Sometimes it would throw it so far out it could lose its target entirely and self-destruct. The fact was that BDS had sold an idea to the government without actually being sure it could be done.’

  He paused and I nodded again. ‘So, having sold the idea in theory, they had trouble making it work in practice.’

  ‘That’s right. We had everything working fine here in Belston, but the steering motors were done at Coventry and they were having trouble.’

  ‘And did they have industrial problems at Coventry? Was the Union active there?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice. We’d got everything running right and on time here, but Coventry was getting all the money and all the manpower to sort out their problems. That was another thing people didn’t like.’

  ‘And Capstick wasn’t very interested in your troubles?’

  ‘He told me and Con that it was purely a little local difficulty and that it didn’t warrant the involvement of the National Secretary. In the end, after we’d argued with him for hours, he agreed to send the Assistant Secretary up to talk to BDS.’

  He stopped and shook his head slowly.

  ‘That turned out to be the worst day’s work ever.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because the bastard sold us out, that’s why!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I still hadn’t got the whole of Martin’s story when time ran out on us and I had to see somebody else. Kath McBride had got my message and come in again. She settled her large frame in a chair, deposited her handbag on the edge of my desk, lit a cigarette and eyed me, thoughtfully.

  ‘So you didn’t believe me?’ she began truculently.

  I could see this interview going very badly, so I came out at once, surrendering.

  ‘Mrs McBride,’ I said. ‘It’s not
my place to believe or disbelieve you. It’s my job to listen to what you have to tell me and do the best I can with it. Now, that includes trying to see if other people — officials and courts for example — will believe what you have to say. Because, if they won’t, we’re not going to get anywhere. Now, when you told me how the Coroner’s Officer behaved I had difficulty, because I know the bloke and he’s usually as smooth as butter, but I’ve listened to what Tracy Walton had to say about him and she agrees with you — that he was right over the top and determined to keep Sylvia Wellington out of the picture. Why that was I can’t say. Maybe he owes Mr Wellington a favour and wanted to keep the girl clear of an inquest. If that was it — or whatever reason he had — he was wrong. If you thought I was disbelieving you, I apologise, Mrs McBride.’

  She eyed me silently for a while, less truculently I hoped.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I suppose I was a bit upset when I saw you. Perhaps I didn’t sound so very convincing. But it doesn’t rest with me, Mr Tyroll. Tracy was there, you’ve heard what she can say and she’d be a witness for me if needed.’

  I nodded. ‘A good one,’ I said. ‘Now, Mrs McBride, Tracy said something about songs on the phone. What was that about?’

  ‘Not songs,’ she said. ‘Always the same song.’

  ‘What’s been happening then?’

  ‘It started just after the Inquest. About three or four nights after. I’d put Eileen — that’s my little lass — to bed, and I was sitting with the telly. It would have been about eleven o’clock when the phone went. When I answered it there was no one there at first, no voice like. Then some music started up, like someone playing a tape on the phone. Then it stopped in the middle and the phone cut off.’

  ‘Did you 1471 it?’

  She nodded. ‘I did that, but it was a suppressed number. Then it happened again, a few nights later.’

  ‘Is it always at the same time?’

  ‘It’s usually about eleven o’clock or later, but once or twice it’s happened in the day.’

  ‘And it’s always the same song?’

  She reached into her handbag and found an audiocassette.

  ‘There it is,’ she said, laying the cassette on my desk. ‘I’ve taped it three times on there. It’s always the same.’

  I took a cassette recorder from my desk drawer and slotted the tape in. When I switched on there was a distorted fragment of music as the tape came up to speed, a flute or clarinet playing a slow, plaintive melody, then a strong female voice began to sing:

  ‘My young love said to me, “My mother won’t mind,

  And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind”,

  Then she stepped away from me, and this she did say,

  “It will not be long, love, till our wedding day”.’

  Then she stepped from my side and she moved through the fair,

  And so fondly I watched her move here and move there,

  And then she went homeward, with one star awake,

  As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.’

  The instruments took up a decoration between the verses, and the voice began a third verse but suddenly there was a ragged, ripping sound and the music stopped. I listened to the other two recordings. They were identical.

  When I looked back to Mrs McBride she was holding out two sheets of paper.

  ‘I didn’t know if you’d know the song,’ she said, ‘so I wrote it all out for you. There’s the two verses on the tape and another two.’

  I took the paper and read the remaining two verses:

  All the people were saying that there’s no two are wed,

  But the one has a secret that never is shared,

  So she stepped away from me, with her goods and her gear,

  And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

  Till last night she came to me, my dead love came in,

  And so softly she came that her feet made no din.

  She laid her hand on me, and this she did say,

  “It will not be long, love, till our wedding day”.

  Each of the recordings had been stopped at the second line of the third verse — ‘But the one has a secret that never is shared.’

  “‘She Moved Through The Fair”,’ I said. ‘My mother used to sing it. Was it a favourite of Sean’s? Has it some connection with him?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘He knew it, of course, but it wasn’t anything special to him.’

  ‘What do you think it means to the person who’s playing it?’

  ‘Well, it’s about a lad who wants to marry a girl who’s better than him, and he’s worried about what her parents’ll think of him. That’s my Sean and the Wellington girl. Old Wellington would never have been happy with his darling daughter marrying a lad who worked in a garage and lived on a Council estate.’

  I nodded. ‘But in the song they’re going to marry but she dies for some secret reason. When she tells him they’ll soon be married, she knows she’s going to die. It’s the girl who dies, not the boy.’

  ‘Oh, sure, but in the last part he’s grieving for her and her ghost comes to him and tells him that it’s alright, that they’ll soon be wed in any case, which I suppose means that he’s going to die as well.’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed, ‘but that’s common in folk songs, you know that. There’s a lot of songs about lovers grieving for their dead sweethearts and longing to be with them — “The Unquiet Grave”, “Lowlands Away”, all sorts.’

  She smiled for the first time. ‘You certainly know your folk songs, Mr Tyroll,’ she said.

  ‘From my mother,’ I explained. ‘She made her living singing them when I was small, and she used to sing “She Moved Through The Fair”, though she only sang three verses. I’ve never heard that fourth verse.’

  ‘That’s the way I learned it,’ she said, ‘and I think it’s meant to be about Sean and Sylvia Wellington.’

  ‘Well, the beginning fits,’ I said, ‘but after that it goes astray. The girl dies — not the boy — and she dies of some illness, presumably. Then the boy dies later, out of grief, I suppose. It’s not parallel to Sean and Sylvia after the beginning.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the best he could find,’ she suggested.

  ‘He?’ I queried.

  ‘Him as plays the tape to me.’

  ‘You know who it is?’

  ‘I’m pretty certain, yes,’ she said. ‘I think it’s Charlie Nesbit.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Charlie and Sean was at school together — up at Saint Joseph’s. They were in a band that they had up there, playing folk dances and that, and the school had some records of Irish songs that they used to play in the intervals. I’m almost certain that “She Moved Through The Fair” was one of them records.’

  ‘But why would he be doing it?’

  ‘He’s trying to say something that he won’t come out with, Mr Tyroll, that’s what.’

  ‘And what do you think that is?’

  ‘It always stops at the bit about a secret. I think he’s trying to say there’s something secret about Sean’s death and it’s got to do with the girl.’

  I looked at her thoughtfully. I had badly misjudged this woman once and I didn’t want to do so again. I wasn’t anywhere near so sure as she was about the connection with the song, but I couldn’t make any better ones and I had to take account of her beliefs.

  ‘Leave that cassette with me, if you will, Mrs McBride. I need to think about it. In the meantime, whenever it happens again, record it and try to 1471 the call. You never know, we might get lucky. He might forget to suppress his number sooner or later.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The weather had cooled slightly, but it was still a warm August evening when I arrived home. Sheila was on the patio again, with no guitar but a glass of something that looked cool.

  I dropped into a chair. ‘Hi!’ I said, ‘what about a drink for the workers?’

 
‘The workers,’ she said, ‘have been slaving in the kitchen to prepare a feast fit for Doc Macintyre, and don’t get settled there because he’ll be here soon. Go and change.’

  I grabbed the bottle and poured myself a long one.

  ‘Australian wine,’ I said as it went down my throat.

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said, ‘and you only guessed it because there’s a screwtop on the bottle.’

  ‘What are you going to do in Oz, now that your bottles have screwtops?’ I asked.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ she said, suspiciously.

  ‘Well, if you put screwtops around your hats to keep the flies off, aren’t they going to rattle?’

  She scowled. ‘Go and change!’ she commanded.

  ‘Don’t nag,’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t nagging. I was merely delivering good advice — firmly.’

  ‘And repetitively,’ I said. ‘That’s nagging. It used to be a crime.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Not even the Brits could make that a crime.’

  ‘Ah, but they did. Nagging or scolding was a crime till quite recently.’

  ‘What was the penalty?’

  A nagging woman — a “scold” as they were called — could be put in the stocks, or have her head locked into an iron cage with a mechanism to stop her tongue moving and be led around the town as a dreadful example. Or she could be ducked on a ducking stool or whipped.’

  ‘You’re talking about the Middle Ages,’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘That was the law until 1961.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  Ah, well, then the Permissive Society came along and if you wanted to lock women in iron cages and beat them you had to pay for it.’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense and go and change. If Doc comes and sees you in a suit, he’ll think you’re going to charge him.’

  ‘I wear this rig,’ I said, ‘because careful sociological examination has proved that the British public prefers to be advised and guided by people wearing a collar and tie.’