Darkness, Darkness (7 page)

‘That’d be right.’

‘And Mary, she’s in Ireland?’

‘Aye, settled long since.’ He glanced round towards the photograph above the fireplace. ‘Met this chap when he was over working, went back with him. Galway. Just outside. Kids now, two of them. Boy and a girl.’

‘And Brian?’

Hardwick shifted in his chair. ‘Brian – you have to understand – he was always a bit wild, school an’ that. Sent home from lessons, getting into fights. I think . . .’ He looked down. ‘When Jenny . . . disappeared . . . I think he took it hardest. Him being the youngest, maybe, I don’t know.’

He wiped a large hand down across his face.

‘Truth is, I’ve not seen Brian since the wedding, our Mary’s wedding. We had this bust-up – he’d been drinking, goin’ on and on about Jenny, about his mum, how it was all my fault, her leaving.’

‘That’s what he thought had happened?’ Catherine said. ‘Jenny, that she’d left, left home?’

‘Course, that’s what we all did. When dust had settled, like. When we had time to think.’

‘And he blamed you? Brian?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why would he do that?’

Hardwick looked at her. ‘He just did.’

‘But why? I assume he must have had a reason?’

‘I told you, he’d been drinking. Most of the day and into the evening. Of course he’d blame me – what else was he going to do?’

‘It was irrational, then?’ Catherine said. ‘The drink talking. No truth in what he was saying? That somehow you’d driven her away?’

Hardwick took his time in answering.

‘Back then, back then I thought, I reckon we all thought, most of us any road, it were the man ruled the roost, went out, earned the bread, brought it back home. Every man to his castle, right? Then, with the strike, when that happened, somehow going out to work, going down that bloody pit day after bloody day, shift after shift, it weren’t enough. And there were women, just lasses some of ’em, up on their hind legs telling us we was wrong. What we were doing, what my old man’d done before me, working every God-given hour to put food on’t table, it were wrong.’

He looked quickly up and then away.

‘I couldn’t fathom it out. Not as if we were on strike, not Notts, not the pit where I worked, but all of a sudden I was being called blackleg, scab, all sorts. And Jenny, the way she’d look at me . . .’

He faltered into silence.

‘You argued about it?’ Catherine suggested. ‘Fought?’

‘Nay. Not really. At first, maybe, but then not overmuch. If we’d argued it through more it’d maybe not’ve been so bad. Instead she just looked at me like I were some insect’d crawled up out of ground. Despised me in the end, that’s what she did.’ A slight shake of the head. ‘Not as I could’ve blamed her, not altogether. Not a lot of love between us by then, truth be told. And I dare say I was drinking more than I should.’

‘She didn’t approve?’

‘I liked a pint or two, always had, but no more than the next man. But after she turned agin me it got worse.’ Another shake of the head, firmer this time. ‘I’d’ve not stuck wi’ me either, if I’d had the choice.’

‘So you thought that was why she’d left you? Because of the drinking, and the difference of opinion about the strike?’

‘What else?’

Catherine gave Resnick a quick glance.

‘There were rumours,’ Resnick said, ‘she might’ve been seeing someone else.’

‘Jenny?’

‘What I heard.’

‘People say all sorts. Don’t have to mean they’re true.’

‘It wasn’t something you’d argued about, then?’

‘Strike, that’s all she were interested in. Soup kitchens. Makin’ speeches. Shakin’ her fist on picket line. More’n me. More’n her kids. I doubt she’d have time to give some other feller a second look.’

It was quiet. Somewhere, another room, the ticking of a clock.

‘So at the time,’ Catherine asked, ‘where did you think she’d gone? When you thought that’s what had happened.’

‘Didn’t know, did I? At first, I thought maybe gone off to see her folks, p’r’aps, over in Ingoldmells, both alive then. But, tell the truth, after a while I didn’t much care. Last couple of months afore she left, like I say, almost never saw hide nor hair of her any road. An’ when I did she were al’ays, you know, givin’ me that look. Sounds wrong now, in light of what happened, but when it were clear she’d gone I were almost glad.’

He looked away.

Catherine gave it a moment. ‘Is that why,’ she said, ‘it was the best part of a week before you reported her missing?’

‘Maybe. Maybe so, aye. That and Christmas coming straight after.’

‘Once it had been officially reported,’ Resnick said, ‘Keith Haines, he was the one carried out the investigation.’

‘If you can call it that.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Oh, he went round asking questions, right enough. Took – what d’you call ’em? – witness statements. Like that copper who were round here. Me, o’course. Jenny’s sister, Jill, she were living in the village then. Few other folk, all local. Of course, nothing come of it. Not his fault, mind, Keith, one bloke on his own, whole bloody country up in arms – what was he supposed to do?’ He shook his head. ‘Nobody gave a bugger, not then, not really, that’s the truth of it.’ He laughed, no humour in it. ‘An’ here you are, thirty years too bloody late.’

Catherine opened her notebook, turned a page.

‘We’ll be talking to Haines, of course, hoping it might still be possible to look at his report. Statements that were taken at the time. But I wonder if there’s anything you might like to add to your previous statement about the circumstances in which you realised your wife had gone missing? Just to give us, perhaps, a little more to go on.’

‘Circumstances?’ Hardwick nodded, wiped his hand across his face. ‘Much like I said before. Friday, that’s what it was. Friday, the twenty-first. I got back off shift half-expecting Jenny to be home, half not. She was off doin’ stuff so much, round that time especially, you could never tell. Any road, instead of Jenny it were Mrs Jepson from a few doors along. Not one of the women as usually kept an eye on the kids at all, but Jenny had asked her as a favour, on account something had cropped up and she weren’t sure when she’d be back. Might be late, might not. Nothing to say what she were up to, nothing like that.

‘So, anyway, I get home and there’s all three kids tuckin’ into beans on toast. Mrs Jepson, she goes off and I think, well, she’ll turn up, Jenny, sooner or later. Not overfussed, you know? But then when it gets towards end of evening, like, and there’s still no sign, I leave Colin in charge and try the Welfare, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of her, not since the day before. Peter Waites, he’s off at some meeting somewhere so that’s no help.

‘I went round to her sister’s, just in case, like, she had any idea where she were, but she’d not seen owt of her. Gave up after that, went back home, put the kids to bed. Thought whatever’s happened, she’ll be here tomorrow, either that or get in touch, that at least.’

He shrugged.

‘There was nothing. Not a thing. Four days off bloody Christmas and, far as I could tell, she’d buggered off without a word. Not so much as a phone call, some kind of explanation, not even a bloody note. Kids all in a state. Brian, crying his eyes out. Course, I know now. I know now why there was no sodding note, but then . . .’

The breath juddered out of him and his voice was quieter when he resumed.

‘She’d wrapped presents for the kids already. Left them the same place as always, top drawer of the wardrobe, away from prying eyes. When I saw them, I thought then, she knew, you know, knew that she was going.’

For a moment, he closed his eyes.

Catherine slowly rose to her feet and Resnick followed suit.

‘Thanks for your time, Mr Hardwick. And for talking to us about something that’s clearly still painful. I dare say we’ll be needing to speak with you again, but for now I think that’s everything. And with regard to releasing your wife’s body, it’s for the coroner to issue a burial certificate after due consultation. The most usual thing, in cases like this, I’m afraid, is for the body to be kept so that the defence in any trial can order a post-mortem of their own. But in this instance the coroner might make an exception due to the passage of time. I’ll try to make sure you’re informed as soon as a decision’s been taken.’

Just a few minutes later, they were back out on the street, the air damp and not without a chill.

‘What do you think?’ Catherine asked, once they were in the car.

‘Hardwick? I don’t know. He seemed genuinely upset. Whatever he thought of her, it must have been tough. And now, having to go through it all again . . . At the end there, he was close to tears.’

‘You don’t think that was an act? The tears?’

Resnick registered surprise. ‘Did you?’

‘It crossed my mind.’

Resnick grinned. ‘So cynical, so early in your career.’

Catherine poked out a tongue, switched on the engine and slipped the car into gear.

‘DRINK, DUCK?’

Jenny turns her head to where he’s standing close behind her: donkey jacket, jeans, Doc Martens; smiling. She’s seen him at the pithead these last few mornings, along with his mates. Not much more than lads, the lot of them. Laughing and fooling and lobbing stones. Down from Yorkshire and cocky with it.

‘No, thanks.’ In the fug and hubbub of the Welfare, she has to lean towards him to make herself heard.

‘You sure?’

‘Sure.’

The smile becomes a grin. ‘Some other time, maybe.’

‘Maybe.’

Edna Johnson takes hold of her arm and begins to steer her away. ‘Cradle-snatching, are we?’

‘That’ll be the day.’

The older woman laughs. ‘Peter Waites, he’d like a word.’

Waites is in the back room he uses as an office, empty canisters stacked against the wall behind him, crates of dandelion and burdock, boxes of salt-and-vinegar crisps. The trestle table he’s using as a desk is busy with scraps of paper, empty cups and glasses, brown envelopes, ashtrays, a map of the local area marked roughly with coloured ink.

‘Jenny. Come on in.’

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Edna closes the door behind her, shutting out most of the din.

‘Knock them papers off the chair,’ Waites says. ‘Have yourself a seat.’

The sound of Duran Duran can still be heard, distorted, through the wall. Waites holds out a packet of Silk Cut towards her and, when she shakes her head, lights one for himself from the butt of the last.

‘Edna says you’ve been lending a hand in kitchen, that and one or two other things.’

‘I do what I can. Kids, you know, and . . .’

‘Don’t think it’s not been noticed, that’s all. Appreciated. Work cut out, Edna has, not just here, but being delegate to Central Group like she is. Meetings to attend. All takes time.’

Jenny crosses one leg over the other, tugs at the hem of her skirt. She feels as if she’s being interviewed for a job without knowing quite what it is.

‘You mentioned the kids,’ Waites says. ‘Three, is it?’

‘The kids are fine.’

‘Your Barry, though . . .’

‘Barry does as he sees fit. Always has.’

‘No luck getting him to change his mind, then? Assuming you’ve tried.’

‘He gets on with his life, I get on with mine.’

Waites taps ash into an empty pint glass.

Jenny recrosses her legs, trying to ignore the bra strap cutting into her shoulder.

‘More you get involved,’ Waites is saying, ‘there’ll be those’ll not take to it kindly. Dirty looks thrown your way an’ likely a sight more. And with Barry still working . . .’ He smiles a lopsided smile. ‘Not exactly stand by your man, is it?’

‘What I’m doing, I thought you’d be pleased. Now it sounds as if you think I’m doin’ wrong thing.’

‘No, lass. Want to be sure you know what you’re lettin’ yourself in for, that’s all.’

‘Well, I am.’

‘That’s good. ’Cause the more you get involved, going out on women’s-only picket, maybe, making the odd speech or two . . .’

‘Do what?’

‘There’s lots of women angry, lass, you know that as well as me. Not afraid to shout and make themselves heard. On picket line, at least. But Edna, at the moment, she’s one of few with bottle enough to stand up in front of a crowd and make ’em listen.’

‘But I can’t . . .’

‘She reckons you can. With a bit of practice. No call to rush into it. Just when you feel you’re ready.’

‘Well, I don’t know . . . I mean, will they listen to me, specially, like you say, with Barry still working?’

‘Barry still scabbing, they’ll likely listen all the more. But have a chat with Edna. Talk it through. If you do decide, she’ll give you all help you’ll need.’

‘Right.’ Jenny nods; gets to her feet.

‘It’s in a good cause,’ Waites says, ‘you know that.’

‘I know.’

‘Tell the lad behind the bar your next drink’s on me.’

Jenny smiles. ‘Another time. I’d best be getting back.’

If Edna reckons she can do it, she’s thinking, then maybe she can. It was listening to Edna, after all, that got her started, made her want to get involved herself. And if now, in turn, she could do that for someone else . . .

As she nears the door, she sees the young Yorkshire miner watching her from across the room. Dark eyes, red hair. What had her mother told her about men with red hair?

FIVE-THIRTY, RUSH
hour on the motorway, close to the end of another day. Resnick flicked his headlights at the Range Rover waiting impatiently to overtake and, in response to the driver’s briskly signalled thanks, raised an acknowledging hand. Gentleman of the road.

No agreement yet on expenses, he was keeping a note of mileage, petrol. Nottingham–Worksop, Worksop–Nottingham. No car, either, not his own. The VW had been Lynn’s and, after letting it idle in the garage for months on end, he’d taken it along to auction; too many memories, too many trips out to Bradgate Country Park or Rutland Water.

The car he was driving, a Vauxhall of uncertain vintage, he’d borrowed from a friend of a friend who owned a garage out past Mapperley Top.

‘Won’t let you down, Charlie. Mark my words.’

So far, so good. But making that journey day after day for what? Two weeks? Three? Only thirty-five miles, but in traffic it could take more than an hour, an hour twenty. As a prospect it was unappealing. Take a room up in Worksop, that’s what he should do. B & B. Get that down on the expenses sheet, supposing there was one. Somewhere for the duration.