Darkness, Darkness (26 page)

For a moment Catherine looked down at the ground.

‘Next time I went round,’ Linda said, ‘wall’d been repaired. Painted up like new. He was good like that, though, Barry. DIY, you know? Proper handyman, if he put his mind to it. One time when we were having problems with the toilet, for instance, blocked up, not draining away, I was all for getting on to the Coal Board, asking them to come round and fix it, but Barry said not to bother, he’d see to it and he did. Good with his hands, that’s what it is. Comes maybe from working down the pit.’

Driving back towards the A1, Catherine flicked on the radio: more bad news about the economy in Spain, or was it Portugal; some dreadful tragedy somewhere, people trapped in a factory. China? India? She knew she should care and in a distant way she did. She used to care more. Sent money, signed petitions. What had happened?

‘You listening to this?’ she asked.

‘Not really.’

She switched to another station, local radio, lowered the volume.

‘Proper handyman,’ she said. ‘Hardwick. Good with his hands.’

Resnick nodded. ‘Good enough to knock a hole in the wall, then set it to rights so no one would notice.’

‘What d’you think? You think there’s enough to bring him in?’

‘Depends how it’s done. Question him as a witness, concerned party, certainly, we can do that. Whether there’s enough to arrest him, I don’t know. We could, of course, if that’s what you decide. And I think, nowadays especially, a lot of people would. Trouble is, you know as well as me, go down that road, first thing he’s likely to do is get himself a lawyer, the lawyer advises him to say no comment, no comment ad infinitum and we’re stymied, nowhere to go.’

‘How about questioning him under caution, but no arrest?’

‘Do that, we have to tell him he can walk back out at any time, not a thing we can do to stop him.’

‘But if he decides to stay?’

‘There’s a good chance he’s prepared to talk.’

‘And if he goes?’

‘He doesn’t like our company?’

‘Or he’s got something to hide.’

Catherine watched for a gap in the traffic, sidled in, signalled and switched lanes. A short way along, she turned the volume on the radio back up again; some old song from the seventies, seventies soul. Sort of thing Jenny might have danced to at her wedding. For richer, for poorer; in sickness or in health. Till death us do part.

BARRY HARDWICK HAD
nicked himself shaving, a fragment of the toilet paper he’d used to staunch the cut still sticking to his chin. After a day or so of brighter weather, the temperature easing itself pleasantly upwards, normal service had been resumed. Hardwick had his donkey jacket buttoned tight when he presented himself at the front desk, cap pulled down, scarf at his neck.

The duty sergeant had made an interview room available: the usual airless anonymity, the now usual technology. Introductions made on tape, the machine set in motion; a copy of the tape would be supplied at the interview’s conclusion.

‘What’s all this about then?’ Hardwick had asked before he was even seated. ‘Some kind of – what d’you call it? – breakthrough?’

‘We just wanted to talk to you about your wife’s murder,’ Catherine said. ‘Bring you up to date with the investigation. But I want to make clear that you are not under arrest and can leave at any time you choose. Is that understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you are happy to talk to us without a solictor being present?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well.’

Catherine spoke in general terms about the progress they were making, avenues being explored, without there being a great deal to add to the telephone conversation they’d had after all the Michael Swann rumours had broken.

‘It’s nowt to do with him, then,’ Hardwick said, ‘that evil so-and-so, you’re certain?’

‘In the circumstances, we think it’s unlikely.’

‘Take some comfort from that, at least. Set the mind racin’ somethin’ rotten, I don’t mind tellin’ you.’

‘We wondered,’ Catherine said, ‘if, since the funeral, you’d thought of anything else that might help us – something that’s come back to you and that you think we should know.’

‘Like what, for instance?’

‘Anything, really. Anything you think might be pertinent.’

You could see Hardwick turning it over in his mind like cloggy soil. ‘No, can’t say that I have.’

‘One thing we’ve been hearing about,’ Resnick said, speaking for the first time. ‘One or two trips Jenny had been making to London . . .’

‘London?’

‘Towards the end of the year it would have been . . .’

‘She did . . . Let me think . . . Flying all over’t shant, she were. But, yes, London, I dare say, along o’ the rest.’ He made a face. ‘Didn’t exactly fill me in on her social calendar, did Jenny.’

‘How about people she might have met down there – you don’t recall her mentioning any names?’

‘No. No, but she wouldn’t, would she? Knew I’d not be interested. Strike committee, that’s who you should be talking to.’

Resnick nodded. ‘We have, and we shall do again. But, as you’ll know, the one person we’d like to talk to most . . .’

‘Peter Waites.’

‘Exactly, Peter Waites. Unfortunately, he’s no longer around to ask.’

Catherine took a quick glance in Resnick’s direction before directing her attention back across the table.

‘We’d like to ask you about an incident that took place some time towards the end of November, an argument between Jenny and yourself in which you said . . .’ Catherine glanced down at the papers on her desk. ‘In which you said, speaking to your wife, “I’ll kill you.”’

‘I said no such thing.’

‘“I’ll fucking kill you.”’

‘I never in my life said that. Not to Jenny, not to anyone. And anyone as said I did’s a liar.’

‘You didn’t shout in your wife’s face, threaten her, and then, in a fit of temper, punch a hole in the wall?’

Suddenly, Hardwick threw back his head and laughed.

‘Is that what this is about? This incident, as you call it? Because, as it happens, I do remember, and save she were there, it was nowt to do with Jenny at all.’

‘What then?’

‘I’ll tell you what. Just come home, hadn’t I, home from pit, hoppin’ bloody mad. These lads, Yorkshire lads – Barnsley, I dare say, Scargill’s lads – tauntin’ me all the way. Scab, scab, scab, you know what it were like. Well . . .’ Looking at Resnick. ‘You’ll remember. Most of time I shut it out, either that or paid no attention, in one bloody ear and out t’other, only this time, I don’t know why, this one lad – big lad with red face an’ sticky-out ears – he really got to me, you know, under the skin, and I just wanted . . .’ Hardwick shook his head. ‘How I held back from lettin’ him have some fist, I dunno.’

He took a breath, continued.

‘So I get back home and I must’ve looked in a right state, ’cause Jenny she notices for once and says, what’s up, and I start tellin’ her and when I get to the bit about wanting to hit him I take a swing and swing a bit too far and ’fore I know what’s happenin’ I’ve punched a hole in bloody wall.’

He sat back as if pleased to have recalled the incident so clearly.

‘And that’s all there was to it?’ Catherine asked.

‘Yes, like I said.’

‘And at no time did you say, “I’ll kill you” or anything like it?’

‘No. An’ I’d remember if I did.’

‘You’re sure of that.’

‘Sure as I’m sat here.’

Again, Catherine glanced down. ‘We have a statement from a witness who remembers what happened differently.’

‘Statement? What bloody statement? You can’t . . . Oh, wait about, I know, it’s Linda, i’n’t it? She must’ve been there. Could’ve been. Part of bloody furniture, she were in and out so much. Good sort, an’ all that, but if ever a woman liked the sound of her own voice . . . she’d’ve come up with some yarn just for the sake of not shutting up.’

‘So when it says here that on the same occasion that you punched a hole in the wall, you threatened your wife with the words –’ Catherine read them from the page – ‘“I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you,” that is untrue?’

‘Yes.’

‘No such words were uttered?’

‘To Jenny? No, not then nor any other time.’

‘So the witness is mistaken?’

‘Mistaken is right. I told you, didn’t I. Linda, if that’s who it is, once she’s got started, she’ll say anything rather than shut up. Lets her imagination run away with her, I dare say. All them books. Allus got her nose in one, if she weren’t gabbin’ off. Leavin’ ’em round the house all the time for Jenny, though I doubt she give ’em as much as a glance. Women’s stuff, you know what I mean? Romance.’

He made it sound like a nasty disease.

Catherine slid one sheet of paper over another. ‘There are two reports of your wife being seen with a black eye.’

‘Oh, aye. Right bobby-dazzler it were, too.’

‘You remember it, then?’

‘Took one on picket line, didn’t she? Like a rugby scrum up there sometimes. Caught somebody’s elbow most like. Either that or summat got thrown.’

‘Going back for just a minute,’ Resnick said. ‘This hole in the wall. I was wondering, what happened about that?’

‘Happened? How d’you mean?’

‘You got a builder in to fix it or what?’

Hardwick gave a quick, dismissive shake of the head. ‘Did it myself, didn’t I? Easy enough.’

Resnick smiled. ‘Only time I ever put up any shelves, first thing I set on them, only light it was, whole lot came tumbling down. Try mending the hole in your wall, I’d like as not end up with something twice the size. Whole bloody wall’d collapse.’

Hardwick shrugged. ‘Matter of knowing what you’re doing, isn’t it? That and a bit of nous.’

‘And you do?’

‘Come again?’

‘Know what you’re doing?’

‘Yes. Pretty much.’

‘Used to get in quite a bit of practice, I dare say. In the village. Once people knew you could turn a hand to things.’

‘Helped out once or twice, yes.’ He was starting to look anxious, uncertain where the conversation was going.

‘The Petersons, their extension, ever help out there at all?’

‘No. Never.’

‘Quite a few people did, apparently. Hour here, half a day there.’

‘And you think . . .’ Hardwick leaned heavily forward, hands on the table like fists. ‘You think I put my wife in her own grave, that what you’re saying? That what you’re accusing me of?’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Resnick said evenly. ‘Just asking a straightforward question. Did you at any time do any work on the Peterson house or did you not?’

Anger was writ large on Hardwick’s face. ‘You said I could leave, right? Whenever I wanted? No one to stop me.’

‘That’s right.’

He got to his feet and turned away; just five paces to the door.

Catherine looked sideways towards Resnick – arrest or not?

The interview-room door opened and, just as quickly, closed. Footsteps in the corridor outside, moving away.

‘Don’t worry,’ Resnick said. ‘He’ll not go far.’

‘Let’s hope that’s not famous last words.’

She could just see the expression on Martin Picard’s face.
You had him and you let him fucking walk away . . .

JENNY COULD TELL
from Peter Waites’ face that things were bad, but not just how bad they were. By now, tales of men going back to work were legion and she could see herself that the numbers passing through the gates – spurred on by the Coal Board’s offers of special Christmas bonuses for those who forsook the strike – were slowly but steadily increasing. There were rumours, even, of men returning in some of the more militant of the Yorkshire pits, a trickle mainly – in one case she’d heard, a solitary man, with pickets clamouring at the gates, had been smuggled in through the pithead baths.

And every return was something more for the NCB and the government to glory in; more ammunition, as Waites said, for those bastards in the London press to use in their determination to bring us down. Maxwell, that bastard Maxwell.

Not that we’ll give in, not to the likes of him. Not ever.

Victory to the Miners. Coal Not Dole
.

For the first time, she was beginning to doubt; to wonder how much longer they could hold on; beginning to hear the first sounds of uncertainty in her own voice when she spoke.

But the plans for the coming Christmas were in place and being fleshed out more all the time; two gigantic parcels of toys had arrived from France and there were more on the way. A fund-raising social had been arranged for the coming weekend: disco and bar, 50p admission and the first pint for every striking miner free, pass the bucket round towards the end, all donations gratefully received.

Jingle bells, Jingle bells

Jingle all the way

I’d rather be a picket

Than a scab on

Christmas Day

Her own kids were excited enough about Christmas already, counting down the days, chanting them over breakfast. Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen . . . Scrabbling round the house, into every nook and cranny, they’d found the Woolworth stockings from the year before, and Mary had hopefully hung hers from the foot of the bed already.

Jenny’s mum had been on the phone, anxious to arrange for the family to get together, if not on Christmas Day itself, then Boxing Day perhaps. But Jenny had put her off, imagining things might be difficult enough. ‘We’ll come over to you,’ she’d said. ‘New Year. That’d be best.’

‘What do you think to this Keith business, then?’ her mum had asked. ‘Our Jill seems quite smitten, though if I’m to be honest – and you must promise never ever to repeat this – for the life of me I can’t see why. And your dad didn’t take to him at all.’

However much she might have been tempted to agree, some sense of loyalty to her sister led Jenny to say that, as far as she could see, Keith was all right. And if Jill was happy, well, wasn’t that the most important thing?

It gave her pause for thought.

She and Barry, they’d been happy once, hadn’t they?

They had, surely.

She’s still thinking about this as she’s walking home, worrying it through her mind, when a white van – the white, in truth, more smeared over with dirt and dust than not – pulls across the road just ahead of where she’s heading.