‘Of course he woundt. He would never leave us.’
I took my time to think this through, before I replied. ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I do.’ I stopped speaking for a moment and bit my lip. ‘But where is he?’
We took the back road to the village. The pavement leading to Ewart and Martha and their house and garden was sticky with three days of heat. A thin film of condensation, which had sat thick in the air, had dropped and compacted on the tarmac. It was slick.
I had persuaded Cathy to follow me here. She had been unsure.
We knocked the door not once but twice. The first time, I rapped my knuckles gently against the pane of stained glass at the centre of the door. The second time Cathy thumped the wood.
It swung open. Ewart and Martha stood at the threshold, both. Both, husband and wife, held a strange countenance and a skewed stance. They looked between us, my sister and I. They looked above us and around us. They looked behind them into their own home.
I ventured. ‘Have you seen our Daddy?’
Martha glanced at Ewart. Ewart held my gaze.
‘That’s a fine thing,’ he said.
I made no reply.
‘That’s a fine thing,’ he said again.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What’s a fine thing?’
He held me still, with his eyes that is, for a moment more.
‘You two coming here, looking for your Daddy, looking for him. That, I tell you, is fine.’
But he did not mean fine like I mean fine or Cathy or Daddy mean fine when it is a fine day or when you ask for something reasonable and they tell you it is fine.
‘Ewart, love,’ said Martha, ‘it’s hardly their fault. They can hardly be blamed. For any of it.’
‘No? They’re old enough, aren’t they? They’re old enough to participate in the business end of things, why not in this? They’re a tight family, this lot, that’s what they always said. That’s why we took to them. You know as well as I, Martha, that we would never have trusted a man like John, man with his reputation, and let him into our home and into our confidences if it handt been for these two. A father with children is a much more reliable prospect than a single, lone man. It’s all about perception. That’s how these tricksters lure you in, see. Come with a family and you’re trustworthy. They’re probably all in on it. What have you two come for, then, my wife’s jewellery? The car?’
‘Enough,’ demanded Martha. ‘They came to see where their father is, and they thought he might be here. They’re at as much of a loss as we are. They had nothing to do with any of it.’
‘Nothing to do with any of what?’ asked Cathy.
‘Perhaps you’d best come in,’ said Martha.
‘Perhaps they had better not!’
Ewart put an arm across the threshold to bar our entrance. Neither Cathy nor I had made any moves to enter.
‘You could just tell us while we wait here,’ I suggested.
Martha took a deep, leaden breath. ‘Your father came here first thing. At dawn, or just after, even. Neither Ewart nor I were up, but we heard him at the door.’
‘That we did. We were happy to see him. It was early but he always did keep irregular hours. We were used to welcoming him into our homes at all times of the day and night. Trusting fools that we are.’
‘Enough, Ewart. It’s your pride. It’s your pride.’
‘It’s more than my pride. It’s fifty thousand pounds, Martha. Money that wasn’t even ours.’
‘I know that. I know that. But these two children need to know.’
Ewart took a step back and folded his arms over his belly. He couldn’t look at us.
‘He came round here before dawn,’ said Martha again. ‘Your daddy. He asked to come in, and, of course, we welcomed him. He said he had need to see the books. The one where we recorded all the business. All that’s been going on these last months. Well we kept all that in a safe upstairs, all the names and the money they’d been giving us. Because you know there were dues. Union dues, I suppose. Well, those involved, as you may know, were paying their rent money for each week or month to us. To me and Ewart. Just for safe keeping. For if the strike went tits up. Or for if we came to the kind of agreement where the landlords submitted to our demands and in return they got the withheld money back, in whole or in part. And, well, that’s what we agreed to, isn’t it. Your Daddy settled his score with the land for the house in that fight. Price had wanted him to fight for him all along. You two have no idea how much money was riding on that fight, and how much Mr Price stood to gain from John cooperating with him again, fighting for him, like he used to. But separate to all that was the deal we struck with all the landlords collectively. Mr Price, yes, but the others too. And not about your house and land but that of all those in the rented houses and flats, the old council properties. They agreed to a rent freeze. They agreed to a more reasonable rent for those who quite clearly could not afford. They agreed to forget about arrears. And they agreed to fix some of the things that had broken. Not all, mind, we asked people to take care of some of their own stuff too, and people from the community who are good at that sort of thing, but the landlords agreed to do a lot. And we would pay back the money that had been withheld. Not at first, but after we saw that they would keep their word. And, of course, there was something of your Daddy’s fight in that. It sealed the promise. Sealed it in blood. Don’t ask me how. But it did. Only the money, near fifty thousand pounds, given to us by all those good folk who trusted us and expected us to see them right, it’s gone. Your Daddy went upstairs to see the books – we trusted him with the key to the safe – and he rustled away the money. All of it. And then he left.’
Ewart took up the tack. ‘And as the morning wore on we heard stories. Stories on which you two might be able to expand. Stories from Peter down the way and others in the village. A story about a dead boy in the woods. That son of Price’s. The pretty one. The prettier one. Dead. Strangled. And his watch and money robbed.’
‘His watch and money robbed?’ asked Cathy.
‘Aye. Your Daddy clearly wandt content with all he had won that day. Or else his blood was up. Clearly there’s no satisfying men like your Daddy when their blood is up. When they’re in the mood for violence. When that violence is the violence of avarice. They’ll go to the lowest possible limits of greed and thuggery. I should have known. I was a fool. I should have known. A man like that. With his reputation. Mr Price is a wrong’un, to be sure, but his boy was just a boy. Just a lad. And his neck was nearly clean snapped by all accounts, such was the force with which your Daddy gripped it.’
‘It’s not true,’ said Cathy, quietly.
‘Not true, is it?’ said Ewart. ‘You dare to defend him? That’s fine. That’s fine.’