Top Hard

by Stephen Booth

  "So you do believe me, Eddie? We're on the same side in this, you and me."

  "Well, I thought you might say that, McClure. In fact, I'm delighted that you're so willing to take up my proposition."

  There was a small silence. I got the feeling there was something I was supposed to say. A little voice at the back of my mind suggested I didn't say it, just to see what happened. But the silence, and Eddie Craig's way of staring at the end of his cigarette, were just too convincing.

  "What proposition?"

  "You see, I'm a stranger outside Mansfield, I don't know your area too well. But you're a man with a lot of contacts round here. You know how to ask questions in the right places. With your friends in the police, for example."

  "I don't have any - "

  "Yes, yes. But also you're not so high profile as myself. I think that you're the ideal man to find this Perella. Then we both benefit, don't we? It's quite obvious to me that you have a personal interest, and you've already put yourself out to make inquiries. So we make use of your enthusiasm."

  "And if I find him, what? You'll deal with him?"

  "No, no. This is too risky for me, in my position. I'm sure you understand. You, McClure, will find this person. And then you'll take him out."

  "I won't do it."

  Craig made an odd noise. I thought he was choking on his beer at first, and wondered why Stan or one of the lads didn't rush over to help him. Then I realised the noise was a genial chuckle.

  "A pity," he said. And he looked past me and a few feet above my right ear. Though I couldn't see what he was looking at, a picture of Stan's face drifted into my mind, frightened me enough to give me nightmares, and drifted out again.

  "I'll try to find him, Eddie. I can probably do that. But after that, it's up to you."

  "I don't think you fully understand the situation. There's another aspect you haven't considered yet."

  I took in his continued eye contact with Stan.

  "I suppose you mean what you'll do to me if I don't agree. Is that it?"

  "Oh, not you," he said. "I don't think that would achieve very much. I think you're too stupid for that. It wouldn't be what I'd do to you, but to your girlfriend."

  A little cold shudder went through me. For the first time, I felt real fear.

  "Miss Lisa Prior, isn't it? A nice looking young lady. Very intelligent, and well-educated. Too good for you, McClure."

  "You bastard, Craig."

  He shrugged. "Stan here has always wanted to visit Hardwick Hall. He's a bit of a culture fan on the quiet. You wouldn't think it to look at him, would you? But, being shy, he's likely to spend a lot of his time lurking in the car park or among the trees, outside the gate in the dark perhaps, just to catch one of the staff to speak to privately as they go off duty."

  Craig's quiet words were worse than anything he'd said or done so far.

  "I'm telling you this," he said, "so that if Miss Prior doesn't come home one night, you'll know to make inquiries at the hospital. Casualties go to King's Mill at Mansfield, I believe. Unless there are serious head injuries, in which case there's a special unit at Sheffield. You see how I'm trying to help you, McClure?"

  "Piss off."

  He sighed again, like a man who really hates what he does. Well, I can be a hypocrite too.

  "Your choice," he said. "I can't put it more plainly. Give him his belt back, Stan."

  Stan untied me, not gently.

  "Is that it then?"

  "I hope we understand each other now."

  I said nothing. But I was horribly afraid that I really did understand.

  Eddie Craig had me by the short and curlies, and the bastard knew it. No way could I let Lisa be involved. Well, not until I'd given her the push, and then it wouldn't matter to me anyway. Meanwhile, she was my bird and I couldn't let Craig get his hands on her. On the other hand, I couldn't think of a way of getting her away from the area, not without telling her about the danger she was in. A cleft stick, with the shitty end pointing my way.

  Basically, I was going to have to do what Craig said. When I say basically, I mean Craig was going to have to think that I'd done what he said. This isn't quite the same thing. Not quite.

  * * * *

  Craig's boys dumped me on the edge of Ollerton and made me walk the rest of the way home, with no cash in my pockets and no mobile phone to ring for a taxi. They even went out of their way to make sure I had to walk past the police station, the bastards.

  I don't object to exercise - in fact, I've even been known to jog in my time. But there are times when you want exercise - like when you've got a bellyful of tequila from the night before to work off or something. And there are times when your body protests at the very idea of putting one foot in front of another. Especially when your bruised shins are starting to ache, and it's dark and cold and you're wearing boots with snip toes and cowboy heels, and you've still got five miles left to go until you reach home and you can finally curl up in bed and feel really sorry for yourself.

  There are also times when a car is good protection, so you're not exposed like you are when you're out walking on your own. Exposed to the attention of any pillock who happens to be driving past and sees you slogging along. Today was obviously my day for being offered lifts. I'd got half way down the road between Ollerton and Medensworth and my legs were starting to complain when the car pulled up. I thought about running, but my feet said 'no'. What the hell, it was only Moxon and Stubbs anyway. Out cruising for some fun, and they found me, lucky buggers.

  Wally Stubbs opened the back door of the Mondeo for me, and I got in. I was at such a low ebb that I could barely stop myself saying 'thanks' as I collapsed into the seat. I was so relieved not to be walking the rest of the way home that even these two looked like my best mates just then. Stubbs didn't pull away straightaway. They both turned to look at me, like they were gawping at a chimpanzee in the monkey house at the zoo.

  "Yeah, you've recognised me. You win a tenner if you happen to have a copy of the Daily Mirror and you can answer a simple question."

  "What are you on about, McClure?" said Stubbs.

  "No, I'm supposed to ask the question. You just lost the tenner."

  Moxon had a gleeful little grin that I didn't like. "Rather a funny time to choose for a walk, isn't it? And you're not really dressed for it. You should be wearing an orange cagoule and a woolly hat."

  "That's right, inspector. Perhaps I got mugged and had them pinched."

  "I suggest you walk back to the station at Ollerton and report it."

  "I can bear the loss."

  "I do hope they didn't hurt you too much, these muggers. That looks remarkably like blood on your face."

  "I cut myself smiling too much."

  Moxon took a bag of sweets out of the Mondeo's glove compartment and passed one to Stubbs. They smelled like pear drops from where I was sitting, but that was as near as I got to them.

  "Things aren't going too well for you at the moment, McClure, are they?"

  "I've known better, thanks. I take it you're going my way, are you?"

  The car still hadn't moved. Moxon was in the mood for a bit of a roadside chat.

  "You know, McClure," he said. "You're going to slip up very soon. Slip up badly. I know you are."

  "I can't think what you mean."

  "In fact, you may already have slipped up. That's something for you to think about."

  "I'm really tired. I'd just like to go home."

  "A hard day, was it? Sergeant Stubbs and I have had a hard day as well. So much information to sort out and put on record, you wouldn't believe it. You're not keen on all the paperwork, are you, sergeant?"

  "No sir," said Stubbs. "But it has to be done. When you've got so much information to file."

  "Computers can help," said Moxon. "We have computers at the police station, you know."

  "Congratulations. Have you tried Sonic the Hedgehog? You'll never beat my high score."

  "We don't play games on
them. But we find them very useful for information gathering."

  "Oh well." I yawned. "If you drive on for a mile or two, you can turn left into Medensworth. Just in case you'd forgotten the way, like."

  Wally Stubbs tapped the wheel irritably. His boss hadn't finished yet.

  "Computers get everywhere. That young lady of yours uses computers at the travel agent's, she tells me."

  Shit. He'd been talking to Nuala again. No wonder he had all that information for Wally Stubbs to file. Just pray that most of it was about special deals on Eastern European holiday destinations and fluctuating exchange rates for the South African rand.

  "Very helpful, your young lady. Wasn't she, sergeant?"

  "I'll say," agreed Stubbs. I didn't like the grin on his face either. It wasn't a smirk, like Moxon's, more of a leer.

  "It's Sherwood Crescent. Down the bottom of First Avenue. And don't spare the horses."

  "Funny thing is, though," said Moxon, "some people we talk to seem to be under the impression you have a different young lady. Someone by the name of Lisa Prior. How can that be?"

  "Can't imagine. Just drop me off at the end of the street if you like."

  "It seems to us like something that needs checking out. I don't like inconsistencies. We haven't asked the friendly Irish girl yet, but I dare say she'd be able to put us straight on this one. Just for verification. We like our records to be accurate."

  "I've had enough of this."

  "You're quite free to go on your way, of course. Open the door for the gentleman, sergeant."

  Stubbs leaned back and opened the door. I got out. My feet woke up and began screaming.

  "You'll miss that cagoule, I'm afraid," called Moxon. "I believe it's starting to rain."

  * * * *

  I set off to walk the rest of the way to Medensworth. It was another hour before the Forest Estate came in sight, and my mind was wandering with tiredness by then.

  Whenever I look at these houses, I remember what it was like round here during that 1984-85 miners' strike. You can't imagine it if you didn't live through it. From the day a young Yorkshire picket called David Lee was killed in the streets of Ollerton, the death of the coal industry was sure to follow. A Greek tragedy, that's what folk have called it who wrote books on the subject. I think they mean it was inevitable. They're right.

  There's been a lot of stuff about the mining industry since then. Some of it is true enough, but it only tells half the story. Some pretend the closure of a colliery brings out the best in people, things like unity and comradeship. Community spirit, and all that. Oh yeah? Here in Nottinghamshire, they remember that it was those same Yorkshire pit men who tried to bully them into striking against their union's instructions, who hurled abuse and bricks at them day after day, who smashed up their cars and their homes, terrorised their families and brought chaos to their communities. And these were men who'd belonged to the same bleedin' union. Try telling the Notts miners all about unity and comradeship.

  Even in 1997, when they closed Asfordby pit in Leicestershire, some of the men there turned down transfers to the Yorkshire area. They preferred to go on the dole, rather than work than work in an NUM pit. And that was twelve years after the strike had finished.

  Or tell it to those NUM men, who stood shoulder to shoulder behind Scargill, loyal to the core, believing wholeheartedly that they were fighting to save the coal industry. Those were the blokes who watched their own mates break ranks and turn scab, working right through their strike to keep coal production going. They were the men who resisted when Margaret Thatcher turned the might of the British police against them, massed ranks of southern bobbies waving their bulging pay packets at picket lines while striking miners and their families queued at soup kitchens right through the winter. They were the same men who finally had to give in, drifting back to work, angry and defeated, until the inevitable outcome - their pits closed after all. Those lads know a thing or two about bitterness.

  Almost the whole of Nottinghamshire sits on what they call the coal measures. This is a huge slab of the earth's crust, tilted at an angle so that it comes right up to the surface near the Notts-Derbyshire border. But to get the best coal you have to deep mine. This means sinking shafts a mile down into the ground to reach the good black stuff.

  There are lots of different seams of coal below Nottinghamshire. There's High Hazles, Wingfield Flags and Brinsley Thin. Dunsil, Abdy and Sutton Marine. Combs, Mainbright and Manton Estheria. Their names are like a poem when you hear them said by a miner. But the really good stuff is called Top Hard. Its seam is thicker than the others, and the coal is better quality too. It's the hard, dull stuff that burns for a long time, as distinct from the soft, bright coals like the Combs and Gees and High Hazles, which are flashier looking but burn quicker.

  Most of the collieries round here were originally sunk to work Top Hard. You could sell the coal for more money, the pit became more viable, and the blokes' jobs were safer. Any pit with a workable seam of it was onto a good thing. Yes, Top Hard. It would be a miner's dream if the stuff wasn't such a bugger to dig out. It's killed as many men as it's saved. But that's life around here. You only survive if you work yourself to death. We live as if we were always in Top Hard.

  From the plateau at the back of the Forest Estate you can see over the whole of North Nottinghamshire, as far as the power station cooling towers on the banks of the Trent. On good days the real forest lies below you, a dark blanket of trees across the county. It's as if a large cloud has cast its shadow there, while the hills beyond still sit in sunlight.

  From here, too, you can see more of those strangely shaped hills. Man-made, of course. Landscaped spoil heaps where coal mines used to be. During the strike, the Yorkshire pickets used to swarm over these spoil heaps to get to the pit entrances when the police blocked off the roads. They don't need to bother now.

  You can tell by the state of the spoil heap how long the pit has been shut. Some, like Shirebrook, are grim black cliffs, with deep rivulets down their sides where rain has carved out channels in the slag. But others are green, unnaturally smooth and suspiciously contoured, with sheep turned out on them to graze the stunted grass. This is where pits have been closed and landscaped over.

  My mum always said that's what they did to my dad. Closed him down and landscaped over him. He didn't last long once they'd chucked him on the dole. He just withered away, like a bit of old root dug up from the earth and left to rot on the surface. Now he's in the graveyard at St Asaph's. They put him back into the same ground that he'd spent his life working in.

  Of course, pitmen get redundancy money when they're laid off. This buys them a newer car maybe, a holiday in Majorca, a few new carpets and curtains. It doesn't buy a man what he had before - self respect. That was what my dad lost the day he walked out of the pit gates for the last time. When he washed off the coal dust that afternoon, it was like he'd washed off all the outer coating that made him a man and left some sad white, squirming thing exposed to the air. He said goodbye to his mates, and he hardly ever left the house again until the day he died. In the end, maybe the grave is the only escape from a life in Top Hard.

  The old miners will tell you this sometimes. But only sometimes, and then probably at another pitman's funeral. When you've been through this shit a few times, it tends to leave a scar on you that never heals and never goes away. My scar itches a lot. Sometimes, it burns.

  19

  "What you going to do then, Stones?"

  I'd called another planning meeting, which just showed how desperate I was. After hearing about the night before, it was Slow Kid who asked the usual question. What was I going to do?

  "Yeah, what you going to do?" said Metal.

  "Don't ask me," I said.

  "Who else is there to ask, Stones?"

  Slow Kid looked around the room meaningfully, first at Metal, then at Doncaster Dave, who was well out of it with a bag of Cheesy Wotsits.

  "You expecting Dave to come up with
a master plan, or what?"

  Slow was right, of course. When I'd got back to Medensworth the previous night, I'd met Dave walking out of the village towards me. The joy of seeing him was undermined when I realised that it hadn't occurred to him to get any transport. Now my feet were like raw steaks. And I still had to drive Lisa's car back to her house and go through all the performance of lying to her about where I'd been for so long. She'd kept sniffing my breath, as if she couldn't believe anyone could stagger in so late looking such a mess and not have been drinking. Well, I must admit my story about going for a walk in the woods and getting lost sounded a bit weak. I was too tired to approach the question of whether or I'd be allowed into Lisa's bed, so I slept on the settee. At least it meant I didn't have to face the teddy.

  Now I was pacing up and down in my own sitting room. No need to hide from Craig any more.

  "Let's face it, Slow, if we go looking for this Perella bloke, we ain't going to find him, not for bleedin' months. So..."

  "Yeah?"

  "We've got to get him to come to us, right?"

  "Right," said Slow. "But why would he want to do that?"

  "Because we've got something he wants?"

  "Have we?"

  "We could have."

  "Like what?" asked Metal.

  "Well, what does he want, do you reckon?"

  "Money," said Slow.

  "Yeah, and the goods," said Metal.

  "And customers for it."

  "And what doesn't he want?"

  "Hassle from the cops."

  "Yeah, or trouble from other firms."

  "Bigger firms, Metal?"

  "Well, he'll be worried about what Eddie Craig's up to, dead sure."

  "But is he worried about me?"

  "He might be."

  "Yeah."

  "He might be worried about what you know, Stones."

  "Or I could be a threat, a challenge?"

  "How's that?"

  "All this stuff... it started to happen when we tried to expand the business, right? Nobody bothered with us when we were just handling the small stuff. But as soon as we moved up, somebody went out of their way to shaft us. The cops got tipped off about a load, a van's set up for us with the wrong merchandise. And that fire bomb - somebody meant that for us, Slow."