The Complete Pratt (89 page)

They broke off for the applause. ‘Cindy, oh Cindy,’ moaned Arnold ‘Tree-Trunk’ Nutley, proving that he couldn’t sing like Eddie Fisher. They resumed their discussion.

‘Who told you? What leading publican?’ yelled Henry.

‘I can’t tell you,’ shouted Tony Preece.

‘I won’t let on,’ yelled Henry. ‘Us journalists never reveal our sources. And he’s not likely to have seen us together.’

‘His brother has,’ shrieked Tony. He gave an involuntary glance in the direction of Bill Holliday.

‘Bill Holliday’s brother. Thanks, Tony,’ roared Henry.

‘Oh heck,’ thundered Tony Preece.

The applause was muted. Arnold ‘Tree-Trunk’ Nutley hammered away at his final number, ‘True Love’, proving that he couldn’t sing like Bing Crosby or look like Grace Kelly.

True love. Henry thought about his own true love. He still had no idea what a problem he was going to have to face in that department. The far corners of his mind were still dark, and filled with the silence of pennies that had failed to drop.

HEXINGTON LIES SEVEN
miles to the north-east of Thurmarsh, on an exposed bluff high above the weed-knotted, pram-choked curves of the Rundle and Gadd Navigation. Seven villages and five coal mines can be seen, on a clear day, from the tower of the smut-blackened parish church. But the podgy young man who descended from the dun-coloured Thurmarsh Corporation bus, outside the Midland Bank, had no intention of climbing the 262 steps to take advantage of the view. He had four good reasons for not doing so. A thick drizzle was falling, it was pitch-dark, the church was locked and he had an urgent job to do.

He wasn’t tall. His long, thick, grey-green raincoat wasn’t elegant. The expression on his face wasn’t fearless. And yet, there was about him a certain air of determination, for the young man … you’ve guessed it, haven’t you?… was Henry Pratt, the Man Nobody Muzzles.

The Prince of Wales was a large, draughty, run-down Victorian beer palace, set on a windy crossroads. It had windows of opaque glass, and was topped by a round turret. It dominated the low terraced houses that surrounded it. There were two cavernous bars and a function room at the back. It smelt as if it had just dried out after being flooded.

The landlord lacked his brother Bill’s charm and urbanity. Stan Holliday was a large man. His small, narrow eyes were dwarfed by his huge conk. He had slobbery lips, in which a permanent wet cigarette drooped. He had a large paunch and smelt of the morning’s brandy. Twelve lank, dank, dark hairs pressed themselves into his otherwise bald pate as if seeking invisibility, yet his nostrils were a celebration of the hirsute. He smiled with his cheeks only. An ugly customer, thought Henry, except that he wasn’t a customer. An ugly landlord, then.

‘My name’s Henry Pratt,’ said Henry.

‘Well, there’s not a lot I can do about that, I’m afraid.’ Stan Holliday smirked at his customers who, not surprisingly, were few.

‘Yes. I… er… I was in a pub the other day …’

‘Fascinating. What a rich life you lead,’ said the Oscar Wilde of Hexington.

‘And I overheard something.’

Stan Holliday grew wary. Improbably, his eyes narrowed.

‘Oh aye?’ he said.

‘I wondered if I could buy myself a drink and then speak to you somewhere private,’ said Henry. ‘I’m from the press, but this is a personal matter.’ He showed his press card.

Stan Holliday reflected, then nodded. Henry bought himself a pint. Stan Holliday led him to his office, and with mock good manners motioned him to sit in the only chair. Henry instantly regretted it. Stan Holliday now towered above him.

‘Right,’ said Stan Holliday. ‘So what did you overhear?’

‘I overheard somebody saying you reckoned the burning down of the Cap Ferrat wasn’t accidental.’

‘You overheard somebody saying I reckoned the burning down of the Cap Ferrat wasn’t accidental?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who was this somebody?’

‘I’ve no idea. Just somebody I overheard.’

‘He’s no idea. Just somebody he overheard.’ Stan Holliday began to talk as if to an invisible wife. If she was anything like her husband, thank god she was invisible. ‘Which pub was it?’

‘I don’t remember the name.’

‘He doesn’t remember the name. Where was it?’

‘Er … right in the middle of Thurmarsh.’

‘Where right in the middle of Thurmarsh?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘He can’t remember.’

Henry tried to take a casual swig of his beer. A man’s swig. It slopped all down the front of his flasher’s mack.

‘Right,’ said Stan Holliday. He yanked Henry to his feet by his hair, and still towered over him. ‘Right.’ Henry had seen numerous films in which investigators had fearlessly threatened the people they were investigating. It had never been like this. ‘Now listen this way. This man you don’t know that you overheard in some pub you don’t know somewhere you can’t remember
somewhere
in the middle of Thurmarsh who said I reckoned the burning down of the Cap Ferrat wasn’t accidental was talking through an orifice whose name I can’t remember situated somewhere in the middle of an extremely unattractive cleft between two large unidentified fleshy protuberances somewhere I’ve forgotten not at the front of his body. I know nowt about the Cap Ferrat. I never went there. I never knew anybody who worked there or went there. And why are you sniffing round about it, anyroad, Henry Pratt, whose name I will remember?’

‘It was my uncle who died there. And, if it wasn’t an accident, my uncle was murdered.’

‘I’m sorry to hear about your uncle,’ said Stan Holliday. ‘Death’s very sad. It can ruin folk’s lives. But it’s nowt to do with me. Things like that don’t happen in Thurmarsh, anyroad. Thurmarsh isn’t Chicago. You’re talking rubbish. Piss off.’

Henry tried narrowing his eyes. He tried glaring, as if to suggest that nobody pushed him around. He tried taking a nonchalant, man-sized swig of his beer. Then he pissed off.

On the shaking, dimly lit bus back to Thurmarsh, Henry didn’t read his story, in the ‘Out and About’ column. He knew only too clearly what it said.

Romance was in the air at Splutt Working-Men’s Club last night. There was loud applause when the concert secretary, Eddie Simpson (59), announced that the top of the bill artiste, well-known Wearside vocalist Arnold ‘Tree-Trunk’ Nutley (38) was to marry Susan Ullidge, a well-known flaxen-haired hair-stylist from Mexborough.

Nutley met vivacious 27 year-old Susan when he was doing a season at a holiday camp near Minehead. They plan an August wedding.

What the concert secretary didn’t know was that the well-known Thurmarsh comedian, insurance salesman Tony Preece (36), who works under the name of Mick McMuck, the Droll of Dundee, had also announced his engagement, to attractive Stella Hardcastle (33), a well-known blonde florist from Wath-on-Dearne. They have not yet fixed the date.

Joked the irrepressible Mr Preece, ‘I wonder if the third act
on
the bill, the Larsen Sisters, have any romantic announcements to make!’

They didn’t, but in the audience were Bill Holliday (42), the well-known Thurmarsh businessman and sportsman, and his glamorous flame-haired companion, Angela Groyne (22), a well-known local model whose successes have included three very popular calendars issued by Booth and Wignall Rolling Mills.

Their many friends have been puzzled by their on-off, on-off engagement. Well, last night Mr Holliday killed off the speculation with one word. ‘Our marriage,’ he declared, ‘is now definitely ow.’

His first misprint since Neil Mallet had left couldn’t have come at a worse time. It wasn’t a good idea to make an enemy of both Holliday brothers in one day.

Israel refused to surrender access to the Gulf of Akaba and the Gaza Strip. Humphrey Bogart died. Egypt seized British and French banks and insurance companies in Cairo. There was to be no more Territorial Army training for men who’d done their national service. Henry’s military career was over.

On Thursday, January 17th, there were very few buses, due to the fuel shortage and very few trams, due to mechanical failures brought about by the gradual run-down of maintenance services in view of their impending demise. Workmen were rather sheepishly removing the trolley-bus wires right opposite the stop where Henry and Ginny were waiting. All this led to conversation in the queue. Warm clouds of indignant breath rose into the frosty air.

Henry chatted to a splay-nosed man of about thirty, with receding hair and large ears, and to his spectacularly attractive girlfriend. His name was Dennis Lacey, and he worked in the X-ray department at the Infirmary. The girl, Marie Chadwick, was a nurse. They were in love. Were Henry and … er … in love? He shook his head, embarrassed, and belatedly introduced Ginny, who was polite but cool. Marie had jet-black hair and dark skin. Her mouth was small and sensual. Her nostrils were flared. Henry cast several surreptitious glances at her, to prove to himself how uninterested he now was in any woman except Hilary.

At last their tram came, and Henry thought no more of this casual encounter.

On his way to number two magistrates’ court, Henry telephoned Howard Lewthwaite. ‘I’ve found things out,’ he said. ‘Things I can’t discuss on the phone.’

‘Have lunch tomorrow,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘There are corners of the restaurant of the Midland Hotel which are further from other living human beings than anywhere else except the morgue.’

‘Funny you should mention the morgue,’ said Henry.

In court – optician failed to see two red lights – Henry felt tired. In the canteen, he didn’t feel hungry. In the Lord Nelson, he didn’t feel thirsty. In the library, reading Colin’s report of the inquest on Uncle Teddy, he felt dizzy. The fire investigation expert had found no evidence of foul play. The fire appeared to have started at the stage end of the main public room. It could have been caused by a cigarette or an electrical fault. Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner had added a rider about the danger of inflammable materials in public places.

By the time he got back to the newsroom, Henry felt dreadful. He realized that he was sickening for the flu.

It was at that moment that Mr Andrew Redrobe’s summons came.

He sank gratefully into a chair, and eyed the editor apprehensively across the neat, green-topped desk.

‘The correspondence column is jaded,’ said Mr Andrew Redrobe. ‘Suez, Hungary, prescription charges and the folly of getting rid of the trams have been with us too long. What else have we got? The absence of facilities for square-dancing in Thurmarsh and environs! We need a major new issue. You will write a letter, a real bombshell of a letter, condemning the inadequacy and irrelevancy of what we serve up as education. You will sign it “Angry Schoolmaster”.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Damn. It’s the flu making me subservient.

‘“Proud Sons of Thurmarsh”. Where are your follow-ups?’

I hate the series, Mr Redrobe. ‘I’ve been thinking about that, sir.’ Damn.

‘And?’

‘Er …’I haven’t been thinking about it at all. ‘The Mayor?’

‘A half-wit. Any other “ideas”?’

‘Not at the … erm … no.’

‘You’ve done the Tories. Have to do Labour. The leader is not a son of Thurmarsh. The deputy leader is. Howard Lewthwaite. Do you know him?’

‘Know him? I’m engaged to his daughter.’

‘And you still didn’t … congratulations, incidentally … think of him for an article?’

‘Er … no … thank you, sir, incidentally.’ Damn. ‘Sorry.’

‘I see. How about Bill Holliday?’

‘Bill Holliday??’

‘All right, he’s in scrap and used cars, and greyhound racing. Does that make him beyond the pale? Are you such a snob?’

‘No!’

‘He’s a good Thurmarshian, Bill Holliday.’

And will probably crush me to death in his car dump. Great.

‘I’d also suggest Sidney Kettlewell, of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell. A great Thurmarsh employer.’

Who refused to employ my one-eyed dad. Wonderful.

‘And the one schoolmaster in this town I’ve any time for, because he does speak his mind. Gibbins of Brunswick Road.’

In whose class I made a monumental fart. Terrific.

Please let me go. I feel awful.

‘I’m worried about you, Henry. You’re not finding enough stuff on your own initiative.’

‘I am onto something, Mr Redrobe. I’m onto a really big story, on my own initiative.’

‘Ah! Fire away.’

‘I… er …’ I’m too weak to talk about it now. I want to tell Howard Lewthwaite first. I want some proof. ‘I’m seeing somebody about it tomorrow. I need proof before I make allegations about people in the public eye. Could you give me a week, sir?’ Damn.

‘A week, then. No longer. I’m all in favour of initiative, but I
don
’t like being kept in the dark. I don’t like mavericks. A newspaper is a team effort.’

‘Oh, I know. I don’t want glory out of this.’ Liar. ‘I don’t mind handing all the stuff over at all.’ Shut up. You’ll say things you regret. ‘I just want to be sure of my facts.’