Flashpoint (12 page)

“Oh?”

“But you can’t find it, can you?”

“No.”

“You looked for it, but you couldn’t find it.”

“I’m afraid that’s right,” said Mr Mason, turning his pink placid face towards Jonas. “I’m very much afraid that’s right. We both searched thoroughly, but we couldn’t find what you wanted.”

Jonas felt certain that the old man was lying. Markstein had warned them that he was coming and had told them what he wanted. The accounts were there. Accountants always kept one set for themselves. It was not all that long ago. If only he could get rid of the woman.

He said, “There’s one other matter I have to discuss with Mr Mason. It really is entirely confidential. Do you think I could speak to him alone for a moment?”

“No,” said Miss Mason. She said it neither rudely nor abruptly, but in the firm and final tone in which a nurse refuses a child a treat. Jonas stared at her.

After a moment she said, “My brother doesn’t care to see people alone. It worries him too much.”

“That’s right,” said Mr Mason. “I get worried.”

He didn’t look worried. He had travelled beyond the land of worry. He had crossed the frontier, into the land of illusion, and was heading for the land of sleep.

Miss Mason said, “Well, what is it?”

Jonas felt disinclined for further invention. He got up and said, “If I’m not permitted to speak to Mr Mason in private, there’s nothing more I can usefully say.”

“That’s that, then,” said Miss Mason. She also got up. Mr Mason waved a white, blue-veined hand towards him and said, “Goodbye, goodbye. I’m sorry you should have come so far to no good purpose. You’ll have to excuse me not getting up. My legs aren’t what they were.”

When Jonas had gone Miss Mason went into the room at the back of the house which was still referred to as the business room although no business had been done in it for many years. She unlocked a wooden cabinet, took out a green covered set of accounts, and looked them over curiously. She wondered what secrets they contained which were important enough to bring a busy man all the way from London to look at them. They meant nothing to her, but Mr Markstein’s instructions had been quite clear. It was through Mr Markstein that their pension cheque from ASIA reached them each month.

She put them back and relocked the cabinet.

Jonas was driving, rather faster than he usually did, to exorcize his frustration. It took him half an hour to clear the northward sprawl of Sheffield, but as soon as he had passed through Sandygate he was in a different country. The road followed the course of the Rivelin stream, climbing steadily through Hollow Meadows and past Moscar Cross, where a board marked the extreme western limit of Yorkshire, and then dropping sharply to the Ladybower Reservoir.

It was a gaunt and sombre landscape. In place of the soft limestone of the south, sharp peaks of millstone grit, tors and edges slashed by sudden ravines, criss-crossed by lines of dry-stone wall, broken by patches of dark green grass where flowers seemed unwilling to grow.

As Jonas drove, the thought crossed his mind that in all the five or six years that he had lived and worked in Sheffield he had never suspected that this rugged savagery lay, less than an hour’s easy drive, behind his back door. He had been too busy to waste his time admiring scenery. Now, for the first time, he felt something of its menace. The sun was still shining, but its light was hard and heavy. Behind the whaleback of Kinder Low and Edale Head a storm was building up.

From Ladybower Inn the road climbed south, skirting Bamford Edge, crossed the main railway line and joined the main road to Todmoor and Castleton. Instead of following it directly into Todmoor he turned aside up a minor road, into the hills above. It was as though he wanted to spy out the land before venturing too far into it.

ASIA was spread out below him, like a diagram in a primer of industrial geography. The quadruple line of pot-rooms anchored to their own power station. The anode plant and cast-house. The private line of rail which branched from the main line at the exit of the long Cowburn tunnel and brought the truckloads of alumina from Stretford Docks to the factory; and, striding away to the northeast, the double line of pylons which climbed over Win Hill and dipped down out of sight towards Ladybower.

The effect on Jonas was curious. He was seeing, for the first time, in the flesh, something which had, up to that point, only been a symbol. He had read the name ASIA so many times, had written about it, thought about it and argued about it and here it was, suddenly spread out before him in hard outline. It was like going out one morning, turning a corner and coming face to face with a well-known character out of a book.

He turned his car carefully and drove down to Todmoor.

A woman directed him to Sam Barming’s house which turned out to be a bungalow, lying a few yards back from the main road and close to the works entrance to the smelter. Like the sailor who could not bear to be out of sight of the sea, Sam Barming had evidently decided to enjoy his retirement within sight and sound of his life’s work.

As Jonas walked up the front path, the clouds finally overcame the sun and a shadow swooped down on the valley from Edale Moor. Jonas rang the bell.

For a long minute nothing happened. Then he heard the thump of footsteps approaching, the door was flung open, and Sam Barming appeared. He was a big, well-made man who had gone to seed, a human edifice in which almost everything was tumbling into ruin, dropped cheeks and chin, fallen shoulders, sagging stomach. He walked with the aid of a heavy, rubber-tipped stick.

He said, “Well? Who is it? What do you want?”

Jonas said, “Can I come in?”

“Is that your car?”

“It’s one I’ve hired.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Killey.”

“It’s what?”

“Killey.”

“What do you want?”

“I’d like a word with you.”

Mr Barming seemed to be turning this over in his mind. Jonas saw his lips moving, and the tip of his tongue appearing and disappearing, like a snake looking cautiously out of its hole. Then he said, “Orright.”

“Hadn’t we better go inside?”

Mr Barming turned and stumped away down the passage and into the living-room, leaving Jonas to follow. It was a room which might have been neat and cheerful when Mrs Barming was alive to look after it, but like its owner it had gone to seed.

Mr Barming perched his sagging bottom on the corner of the table. Jonas chose one of the hard chairs beside it. They seemed to him to be safer than the cavernous armchairs in front of the fire. Mr Barming swung one of his great legs slowly, and said nothing. Jonas said, “I expect you know why I’ve come. I imagine that Markstein will have telephoned you.”

Mr Barming nodded, and continued to say nothing.

“Then I won’t waste a lot of your time.”

Five minutes or five hours, it made no difference to Mr Barming. He had the rest of his life to waste.

“What I’m looking for is a copy of the last set of accounts Dylan prepared for you. The final account before the amalgamation. You were one of the three trustees. I think you’ll agree that it’s your duty, as a trustee, to see that nothing went amiss with the funds of your Union. After all, that’s what you were elected for, isn’t it?”

The darkening of Sam Barming’s face was as ominous as the darkening of the landscape outside. Had Jonas been in any degree a sensitive man he would have got up and got out; out of the house, out of Todmoor. Being Jonas, he settled more comfortably in his chair and prepared to improve the occasion.

He said, “If you consider the matter rationally, you will see that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by co-operating with us. Consider the alternatives. If the discrepancy in the accounts can be cleared up, well and good. You’ll have done Dylan a good turn, won’t you? If on the other hand it should eventually transpire that he had been helping himself to Union money then your mates at the smelter will be thankful to you for seeing–”

Barming had levered himself off the edge of the table and was advancing on Jonas.

“–for seeing that justice is done,” concluded Jonas defiantly.

Sam Barming said, “You b-bastard. You f-f-fucking bastard.” He was beyond anger. He was at the boiling point of rage where words shot out, tripping over each other, bile and spittle mixed. “Coming here – asking me – me, Sam Barming, to help
you.
You – you’ve got a f-f-fucking nerve.”

Jonas had got up too. He was not a coward, but there was something appalling about the bubbling fury of this wreck of what had once been a fine man.

“You’re a lump – a lump of shit. You’ve never done a real day’s work in your life, have you? Have you? Go on. Tell me. The only time you get your hands dirty is when you wipe your arse. Talking to me about my duty – my mates. You make me sick. Get out. Get out.” He jabbed with his stick on the floor as Jonas backed away. “If I had that paper you want – if you offered me a million pounds for it, I’d burn it in front of your bloody eyes, mate.”

Jonas was in the hall by now. Barming did not follow him. He started to laugh, and the laugh was more unnerving than the storm which had gone before.

The front door was still open. As Jonas went out he noticed the men. There were a dozen of them, standing round his car.

He walked slowly down the path, fumbling for the car keys in his pocket with a hand which he tried to keep from shaking. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Barming, standing at the window of the sitting-room, watching him. The men made no move. Like Barming, they seemed to be waiting on events.

There was something wrong with the car. It took Jonas a few seconds to realize what it was. Then he saw that all the tyres were flat.

Jonas stared at them. One of the men laughed. Jonas whirled round, and said, “Did you do this?”

The man said, “Who, me?”

“Don’t you pick on Herbert,” said a tall man with a broken nose. “He’s daft, anyway.”

“That’s right,” said Herbert. “I’m not responsible for my actions. So watch it.”

“You’ll have to pump those flats up, won’t you,” said the tall man. “Always supposing you brought a pump with you, that is.”

Jonas walked round in silence to the back of the car. He unlocked the boot and found the hand pump. No one tried to stop him. No one said anything. He could feel their hatred. It was not hot, like Sam Barming. It was controlled and cold.

As he stooped to fix the pump to the first of the tyres there was a slight shuffle of sound behind him. The kick, delivered with a heavy boot, landed just below the base of his spine, and pitched him forward against the body of the car.

The pain and the shock waves which followed it nearly blacked him out. He had one thought in his head. The men were going to kill him. In a blind instinct of self-preservation he rolled up against the wheel of the car. He had no idea how long he lay there. It might have been seconds, it might have been whole minutes. All he knew was that no one was touching him.

He put up a hand to wipe away the blood which was running in a steady stream from the gash in his forehead.

Someone was saying something, and he thought that it was a voice he recognized.

He got his free hand on to the ground and pushed himself into a sitting position. No one was looking at him.

A second car, a big dark blue saloon, coming in the other direction, had drawn up almost level with the bonnet of his car and the men were clustering round it, listening to the man who had climbed out. As his eyes started to focus again he saw that it was Will Dylan.

He heard scraps of talk. “Won’t do me any good. Won’t do you any good. Get those tyres blown up, and put the car off the road. I’ll take him with me.”

“Tell him not to come back, Will,” said a voice. “He might not be so lucky next time.”

This brought a laugh. The men seemed suddenly remarkably good-tempered.

The blue car pulled forward beside Jonas. A hand came down, caught him by the arm, and pulled him up. The movement caused a pain in his back that made him cry out.

“He’s saying thank you,” said the voice that had spoken before. Jonas could locate the speaker now. It was the man with the broken nose. “Thank you for a Todmoor welcome.”

As Dylan helped him into the front seat of the car, the men stared at him with no more hostility than children for a guy they have hoisted on to a bonfire.

“You’d better use this towel to clean your face up,” said Dylan. He had climbed into the driver’s seat.

“My car,” said Jonas. The words came out like a croak.

“What about it?”

“Not mine. I hired it. Phillips in Sheffield.”

“That’s all right. There’s a garage in Hathersage. We’ll stop there and get them to pick it up. I thought so. Here it comes.”

There was a smack of heavy raindrops on the roof of the car and the windscreen was suddenly veiled with water. Dylan switched on his windscreen wipers and his headlights and drove steadily into the downpour.

The drumming of rain on the roof made all conversation impossible and for this small mercy Jonas was thankful.

On that Monday morning, at about the time that Jonas’ train was drawing into Sheffield Central Station, Mr Stukely arrived in Wimbledon. A man of leisure, one would have said, with a little business to attend to, but no urgency about it.

He paid visits to both the banks, the London and Home Counties, and the Investors and Suburban, which had offices in or near Coalporter Street. He seemed to be expected, for in each of them he had a short talk with the manager. After that he refreshed himself with a cup of coffee and turned his steps to the Town Hall, where he had some enquiries to make. After which, opening time having arrived, he made his way to the Adam and Eve public house at the end of Coalporter Street and ordered a glass of beer. Here he fell into conversation with a young man who worked at Messrs Crompton and Maudling, Auctioneers and Estate Agents. Mr Stukely was an easy talker, and seemed to get along equally with waitresses, barmen, town hall officials and chance-met characters.

At half past two he approached the offices of Jonas Killey. Young Willoughby had come back from his lunch ten minutes before, as Mr Stukely well knew, having watched him from the saloon bar of the Adam and Eve. He climbed the narrow linoleum-covered steps, rang the bell and went in.