“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.”
“Still the revolutionary, Nan,” Laura said tiredly.
“Aye, well, leopards as old as me don’t change their spots,” Joyce said.
But Laura’s mind was already elsewhere. Ted Grant would be pleased with the information she had gained from Jim Watson, she thought, but she knew that the police would be interested in it too, and that meant talking to Michael Thackeray urgently, something which she had so far signally failed to do for twenty-four hours. She guessed that she now had more than personal reasons for trying again.
As far as Ted Grant was concerned, Christmas had arrived gratifyingly early and if it seemed a bit unusual to find Santa disguised as a red-headed and somewhat truculent reporter, he was not in a mood to argue. He leafed through the file that Jim Watson had given Laura with the expression of a very satisfied cat in front of a bowl licked very clean.
“Bloody luxury apartments,” he said incredulously. “They’ll never sell, mind. Folk in Bradfield’ve got more sense than those silly beggars in Leeds who think it’s smart to live in drafty old warehouses tarted up with a bit of red paint. Any road, it’s not a bad story. Brief Bill Bradley and tell him to get on to this fellow Kamal’s company. If they won’t confirm what’s going on I’m sure he’ll have some contacts who will. You’ll need to talk to the Earnshaws an’all. You can take charge of that side of things. In the circumstances, with the grandson dead and all that, a woman’s touch might go down well. Get out and see the old boy. He’ll be sick as a parrot if this scheme goes through. You can bet your life he’s not sold his shares to Mr. Kamal. You’ll get some good quotes there.”
Laura did as she was told and by lunchtime she was out of the office and free to pursue her inquiries with the Earnshaw family for the rest of the day. But as she sat in the Gazette reporters’ favourite pub over a mineral water and a salad sandwich, she was only too aware that there were several things she had to do first. She had not told her editor that she was almost certain that her father was involved in Firoz Kamal’s consortium. Nor had she so far managed to make contact with Jack, on her own or her editor’s behalf, as her father had apparently left the Clarendon Hotel early that morning, according to the receptionist, and would not be back until late afternoon.
And behind all the urgency of working on what would undoubtedly become the front page story of the next day’s paper, if the details could be confirmed, loomed the shadow of Michael Thackeray who had still not contacted her, and whose silence cut into her like a knife every time she allowed herself to think of him. But she knew she must contact the police in some shape or form. Finishing her sandwich she pulled out her mobile and called the central police station, only to discover from a harassed-sounding Sergeant Kevin Mower that the DCI was at county headquarters.
“Can I help?” Mower asked, not altogether enthusiastically.
“Come and have a quick drink,” Laura said. “I’m in the Lamb.” Mower had hesitated before agreeing and it was twenty minutes before he turned up, by which time the tension in Laura’s stomach had increased by several notches. But when Mower’s swarthy features appeared through the lunchtime crush around the bar, and he dumped a pint of lager, a vodka and tonic and a damp-looking baguette on the table in front of her, his smile had its usual warmth.
“You look as if you’ve lost a tenner and picked up a bent rouble,” he said as he settled himself in his seat. “I got you your usual. Is that really water you’re drinking?”
Laura grinned in spite of herself.
“I’ve got to drive this afternoon,” she said.
“And who am I to ply you with alcohol?” Mower said. “You’ll be OK on one. But why so glum? My sainted boss playing up?” The question was too close to home for Laura’s quick shake of the head to carry much conviction, but Mower did not dare pursue it. There was a depth to Laura’s obvious distress that he did not feel strong enough to probe. But if this relationship broke up, he feared for both sides of it. Laura sipped her vodka and tonic, squared her shoulders and seemed to snap out of her depression.
“Something’s come up at the office this morning I thought CID ought to know about,” she said quickly. “Well, two things really.” She filled him in with what Jim Watson had told the Gazette about the secret plans for Earnshaws mill, not leaving out her conviction that
her father was involved in the scheme. Mower’s eyebrows shot up.
“Your dad didn’t confide in you then?”
“He refused to tell me anything much. I don’t think Michael’s going to be too enchanted when he hears.”
“You may be right,” Mower said fervently. “It can only make a fraught situation worse. And what was the second thing?”
“Have you heard from Amina Khan, Saira’s sister?” Laura asked cautiously.
“I don’t think so,” Mower said, equally carefully. “Should we have done?”
“I wanted to give her the chance to tell you herself, but she’s had a letter from Saira. I don’t think it’ll be an enormous help, but it was postmarked Paris.”
“Well, well,” Mower said. “That’s interesting. I don’t suppose there was an address and a phone number, was there?”
Laura shook her head, smiling weakly.
“No, I didn’t think so,” Mower said.
“Do you think she killed Simon Earnshaw? It didn’t sound like it in the letter. She said she was in love with someone and they wanted to marry. If that’s the truth, she’ll be devastated when she discovers he’s dead. She obviously didn’t know when she wrote to Amina.”
“There’s forensic evidence she was in Simon’s flat. Fingerprints all over the place …And I never told you that,” Mower said.
“Oh God,” Laura said, looking stricken. “So he was definitely her boyfriend then?”
“I’ll have to get back,” Mower said, finishing his pint and not answering her question. “I’ll have to follow up on all this sharpish. Shall I get the boss to call you when he gets back?”
“Yes, fine,” Laura said, hoping that Mower would not notice any sign of the lurch her stomach gave at that innocuous remark. “Tell him I may be late home tonight.”
In the event Laura fell out of Ted Grant’s good books as swiftly as she had gained entry to them that morning because she completely failed to gain any useful information from any of the surviving Earnshaw men. Matthew, she discovered, was away in London, Frank refused point blank to speak to her on the telephone when it emerged that she had uncovered plans to redevelop the mill, and when in desperation she drove out to Broadley to try to interview old George Earnshaw, he slammed the front door in her face. Admitting all this slightly apologetically in Grant’s office she was not surprised to see his face darken.
Dead Reckoning Page 19
