Dead Reckoning (17 page)

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Authors: Patricia Hall

BOOK: Dead Reckoning
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He wanted Laura, too, here, in this bleak and dingy room, with a naked physical desire which hurt. But the very thought of Laura tormented him in other ways. He had desired Aileen too, and they had enjoyed a passionate physical relationship before they began to tear each other apart. Could he, he wondered now, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the seductive gold of the spirit, have the one without the other? Or would he ultimately and inevitably destroy Laura too?
Holy Mary, Mother of God. The old familiar words sprang into his mind unbidden, along with an image of his mother as he had last seen her, barely conscious but with her rosary twined around her fingers in the huge white bed in his parents' room upstairs. But as tears began to run down his cheeks he knew that neither Mother nor Holy Mother would help him. This was a battle he had to win or lose alone. Convulsively he picked up his bottle and hurled it across the room, where it smashed into fragments and the spirit ran in glittering rivers through the dust and filled the air with sharp vapours as he cursed and swore against the unfairness of life.
And when his mind finally ran out of obscenities he buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath as he faced the inevitable, knowing that he had to carry on without any guarantees that he could succeed.
“I love you Laura,” he told the dark shadows which surrounded him. “But I don't know if I can do marriage and children again.”
It was a moot point whether Laura Ackroyd or Vicky Mendelson looked most distraught the next morning when Vicky opened the front door in a dressing gown and with a red-faced baby daughter in her arms.
“Your night looks as if it was as bad as mine,” Laura said as she kissed Naomi's hot damp hair and brushed her lips against her mother's cheek.
“At least Naomi can't help having a cold,” Vicky muttered as she led Laura into the kitchen where the wreckage of a family breakfast lay scattered across the table. “Can you hold her while I make coffee?” she asked, thrusting the grizzling child onto Laura's lap. “This is the down-side of family life. She kept us all awake most of the night. Thank God David had time to take the boys to school.” Naomi for her part took one look at Laura and began to howl in full-throated protest.
“She sounds the way I feel,” Laura said, putting the child onto her shoulder and trying to soothe her. She wondered just when the paracetamol she'd taken for her dull headache would kick in.
“Have you made contact with that bastard Michael yet?” Vicky asked. Laura had rung her at seven that morning, just as an extremely unwelcome alarm turned on the bedside radio. She had been close to tears as she explained that Michael Thackeray had failed to return home that night.
“Nope. He's still not answering his mobile. I've left text messages, voicemail, but nothing.” She shrugged wearily.
“He couldn't have had an accident?”
“Someone would have let me know. He is a bloody policeman,” Laura said angrily. “He said he'd be late home but
there was no hint he'd be out all night. Kevin Mower says he doesn't know where he went after work and I'm sure I don't.”
Vicky brought the cafetiere to the table and rinsed two mugs under the tap.
“What time does he usually get to his office?”
Laura glanced at her watch.
“About now,” she said. “I'll try again in a minute but it's often difficult to get him at work.”
“But at least if he's there you'll know he's OK,” Vicky said.
“I suppose,” Laura said, her voice dull and her eyes full of tears.
“Here, give me Naomi,” Vicky said, taking her daughter from Laura. The child buried her head in her mother's neck which muffled her sobs although it did not calm them. Vicky sat down and filled mugs with coffee and shoved a milk bottle across the table towards Laura. “Do you think this has got anything to do with the divorce?”
“Probably. I think perhaps he went to see his father last night, or maybe his wife. Kevin said he seemed edgy all day yesterday so maybe that was why. I know he's worried about how his family will react. Which is crazy after all this time.”
“Once a Catholic …” Vicky said.
“Tell me about it. Do you think I'm going over the top, Vicky?”
“No, I don't. I'd be furious if David sloped off for a night without telling me.” She bit back what she was about to say next but Laura could supply the script without even thinking about it.
“But David wouldn't, would he?”
“I don't think so. We got all the religious stuff out of the way before the wedding and his parents have been wonderful ever since, even though the kids technically aren't Jewish
at all,” Vicky said, attempting to spoon cereal into her daughter's mouth without much success. She wiped the mess off Naomi's chin and sighed. “Men,” she said.
“No, not men in general, just this man in particular,” Laura said. “He's impossible.”
“You don't mean that,” Vicky said. “I've seen you together.”
“It's been going on too long, Vicky,” Laura said quietly. “I thought that at last he was going to commit himself, but now I don't know. Where did he go last night? What happened? Why couldn't he call?”
“Maybe he was in a dead spot for the mobile,” Vicky said. “It happens.”
“Then why didn't he drive out of the dead spot?” Laura was clearly not to be placated. She glanced at her watch again. “I've got to work,” she said wearily. “Though my brain feels like cotton wool.”
“Join the club,” Vicky said without too much sympathy. “I'd almost forgotten what it's like to have a broken night like that, Naomi was such a good baby. Can't you take a sickie?”
“Not really. I'm already in Ted Grant's bad books because I can't tell him what my father's up to in Bradfield.”
“And what is he up to?” Vicky asked, her curiosity stirred by that unexpected remark.
“I think he's trying to rescue Earnshaws mill. But knowing my father it's just as likely he's trying to buy them out before turning the place into a call-centre or a supermarket.”
“Just what Bradfield's crying out for, more dead-end jobs,” Vicky said. “So you're going to work then?”
Laura nodded and drained her coffee.
“I must. I promised I'd go up to my grandmother's. She says she's got someone she wants me to meet with something interesting to discuss about Earnshaws, so I'm hoping
that'll get me some Brownie points with Ted. My father's refusing point blank to say anything at all to me or anyone else.”
“Let me know what happens with Michael. I still feel responsible, you know, seeing as we introduced you.”
Laura smiled faintly.
“I think if we're in a mess it's of our own making,” she said. “I've let him get away with it for too long. I think it's make or break this time. We have to resolve it.”
 
Half an hour later Laura pulled up outside her grandmother's tiny bungalow in the shadow of the Wuthering tower blocks. She parked behind a dark blue Rover and realised that Joyce's visitor must already have arrived. Battling against a knife-edged wind from the Pennines, she found Joyce's door ajar and a burly, bull-necked middle-aged man sitting close to the gas fire opposite Joyce herself and making the living room seem even smaller and more claustrophobic than usual.
“This is Jim Watson, regional organiser for the textile workers union and an old friend,” Joyce said, trying with difficulty to get up from her own chair until Laura waved her back. Watson offered his hand and crushed hers in a over-firm grip.
“A chip off the old block, are you, Laura?”
Laura shrugged as she picked up the teapot from the coffee table and poured herself a cup. She would soon be awash, she thought, and the headache showed no signs of improvement.
“I'm not sure about that,” she said. “I keep an open mind in my job.”
“That's what reporters call it, is it?” Watson's eyes were not friendly and Laura did not warm to him.
“My grandmother tells me you've got a story you think the
Gazette
might be interested in,” she said.
“I'm damn sure you will,” Watson said. “It'll be the biggest thing to hit Bradfield for a generation if it goes ahead. Right? In outline, what we've got is a financial consortium ready to buy out the Earnshaw family and redevelop the mill. What they've got in mind seems to be luxury apartments, a built-in health club with swimming pool, squash courts, secure parking, a few luxury shops, the bloody lot. They've been down south to some development in an old mill in Oxfordshire and are basing it on that, right down to t'lift-shaft running up the effing mill chimney. Can you believe it?”
“So the end of Earnshaws then, as a textile mill?” Laura asked.
“Oh, aye, there'll be nowt in this for the folk who live around Aysgarth — no jobs, no housing, no amenities. And that'll be the end of what used to be the biggest mill in town. Yuppified to destruction.”
“It's a disgrace, Laura,” Joyce said, her face creased with anxiety. “It'll cause nothing but trouble.”
“Can they get planning permission?” Laura asked.
“If the consortium's bought the place up what's the alternative for the planning committee? Let the place rot? They can't force anyone to run a business there, can they?” Watson said. “We'll be fighting it, of course, on behalf of our members. Which is why we want the whole scheme out in the open as soon as. But I have to say I'm not bloody optimistic. We've not saved a textile mill yet, any more than old Arthur Scargill ever saved a coal mine, not when they've claimed they're broke. In the end the jobs go, and that's that.”
“D'you think there's a connection between this and the attacks on your colleague and the office?” Laura asked anxiously. “Are you in touch with the police on this?”
“Word is the neo-Nazis are behind that, as far as I know,” Watson said. “I've not got a lot of time for bosses but I'd be surprised to find one into that sort of aggro.”
“So do you know who's behind the redevelopment scheme?” Laura asked carefully.
“A man called Firoz Kamal, apparently,” Watson said. “Based in London but he's got connections here and he's been involved in similar developments up and down t'country. Made a packet out of property. Ironic really when you think how many of his own kind he'll be putting out of work in Aysgarth.”
“Can you substantiate all this?” Laura asked, ignoring the racist tone of the last remark. “We can't use it if it's just a rumour. We need something concrete to go on.”
“Colleague o'mine got it from someone in t'City of London,” Watson said. “Someone's drumming up investment cash for the redevelopment before the agreement's even signed, apparently. I've no reason to doubt it, given how slippery Frank Earnshaw's been lately. I doubt the old boy's in on it, though. Reckon he'll do his nut just as much as the workforce will when they find out. I'll put you in touch with our source any road, and you can take it from there. This is what we know so far.” He got to his feet and handed Laura a file of papers.
“Right,” Laura said. “I'll see what I can confirm. I'll be in touch if I get to the stage of writing something. OK?”
“Anything I can do to help,” Watson said benevolently, heading for the door. “Quotes, owt like that, you've only to ask, love.”
Laura sat for a moment looking at her grandmother, who looked grey with fatigue, her fingers picking aimlessly at the material of her skirt.
“So there you have it,” Laura said, knowing exactly why
Joyce was so upset. “I already knew Dad had some link with this man Kamal. He must be in this scheme up to his neck. He'll be the one who's been drumming up support in the City.”
“I don't know where I went wrong with that lad,” Joyce said. “Of course he'll be in it. He's in for anything that'll line his pocket, is our Jack. And Frank Earnshaw's an old friend of his.”
Laura flicked through Watson's file quickly.
“It says here that the consortium's had talks with all the family shareholders, though not who they've reached agreement with,” she said. “But what puzzles me is how they thought they could persuade Simon Earnshaw to go along with something like this. As I understand it, he was some sort of environmentalist, went back to university to find out how to save the planet, that sort of thing. You'd think he'd have wanted something a bit more constructive done with the old mill.”
Joyce ran a hand across her face wearily.
“I'm getting too old for all this, pet,” she said.
“You look as if you need a holiday. Why don't you go back with Dad to Portugal when he goes. The change would do you good.”
“And wrangle with him for a couple of weeks,” Joyce said. “I don't think so, love. I'll have a holiday in this country when the weather gets a bit better.” She cast a sharp eye over her granddaughter, taking in the untidy copper hair and the purple shadows under her eyes. “You don't look too bright yourself this morning, any road. Is everything all right with that man of yours? Not been quarrelling, have you?”
Laura smiled faintly at her grandmother's all-too-accurate perception, but she did not want to burden her with her own troubles.
“We're fine,” she said shortly. “Work's a bit heavy at the moment, but it'll pass.”
“But you said you were taking on extra work, this radio programme?
“Yes, well, that's still up in the air,” Laura said, unable to disguise her annoyance. “I wanted to do something about the problems of young Asian women but apparently that's too controversial to tackle on local radio just now.”
Joyce's eyes sparkled angrily.
“They'll all try to keep the lid on these problems until they blow up in their faces,” she said. “They're all as bad: the council, the police, the media. Pretend it's all sweetness and light until we get trouble like we had the other night. If you've got one lot of young men furious because they're unemployed and discriminated against and another lot unemployed and blaming the first lot you're bound to get clashes. This so-called Labour party's just ignored poverty and frustration amongst young people and now they wonder why lads are throwing petrol bombs. The tragedy is they're throwing them at each other instead of at the folk who are really to blame in Westminster.”

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