No Stone Unturned (15 page)

Work on the railway was badly affected too. Only the last section of track between Wilmcote and Stratford-upon-Avon remained incomplete, and the men had been spurred on by the thought that the end was in sight. But now the frozen ground slowed their progress to a snail's pace. Working hours were slashed and dozens of Steamheads found themselves joining their Pithead friends, drowning their sorrows in the Mason's Arms, praying for a thaw.

* * *

The atmosphere in the Dentons' cottage kitchen on one of those snowy mid-December mornings, as the family sat around their kitchen table, was as icy as the wind whistling through the cracks around the door.

‘You won't get much in your Christmas stocking this year, my boy,' William said to Billy. ‘In fact, think yourself lucky if you get a stocking at all. I get paid by the day so if this snow keeps up much longer, we're done for.'

‘Grandpa will see us right,' said Alice, ruffling her son's fluffy blond hair. Her only wish was to shield her son from their struggles, but the second the words came out of her mouth, Alice realised how foolish they were. She had unwittingly lit a touch paper and her husband's temper flared.

‘No, he bleedin' well won't,' William shouted, slamming his mug down so hard that hot tea sloshed across the table. ‘We're not giving that old goat an excuse to interfere in our affairs again. No wages, no matter. I'll make sure we have a bird on this table on Christmas Day, even if I have to go out and kill it myself. And there'll be presents in the boy's stocking, too.'

‘I don't want anything, Father,' Billy said quietly. ‘It's fine.'

‘No, it's not fine,' spat William, rising from his chair. ‘It's not fine when your wife doesn't have any faith left in you.'

‘William!' exclaimed Alice, who had mopped up the spilled tea and was now putting the kettle back on the stove. ‘You know that's not what I meant.'
Not again, please
, she thought.
Don't let's go through all this again.

William met her gaze over the top of Billy's head and she could see, almost feel, the pain in his eyes. ‘I can't do this any more, Alice,' he murmured. ‘No matter what I do, I just…' Alice took a step towards him but he rose to his feet and turned away. She and Billy watched him leave the room, his head bowed. Then they heard a rustle as he put on his coat and cap, a gentle thud, thud as he pulled on his boots, and the click of the front door as he left.

‘Where's he going?' Billy asked his mother. ‘I thought there was no work today.'

‘I expect he'll go and see the foreman, see if there is anything he can do. If not, I expect he'll be waiting outside the Mason's Arms when it opens.'

Alice flopped down dejectedly into the seat next to Billy and watched him eat the rest of his porridge.

‘Is it true what they are saying at school?' Billy asked, as he scraped the bowl clean with his spoon. ‘That the quarry won't receive another penny unless the last batch of stone is delivered on time?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘But that's not fair!' exclaimed Billy. ‘Father and the others can't possibly work any faster, and they couldn't have stopped the snow from falling, could they?'

Alice smiled at her son. No matter what, he always tried to see the best in his father. ‘Don't you worry,' she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. ‘I'm sure it will all be fine in the end.'

Chapter 19 – September 2012

O
n Wednesday morning, when Kelly walked back into her tutor group room, there was no sign of Charlotte. Leanne was sitting on her own, looking a little lost with the empty space beside her. As Kelly slipped by to take her usual seat at the back of the classroom, Leanne dropped her eyes.

Charlotte still hadn't come by the time Mr Walker arrived and he made no mention of her as he ran through the register, missing out her name from the list.

Registration at The Shakespeare Academy was also a chance for students to ask their tutor questions, or share anything that was worrying them. Kelly was itching to ask about Charlotte, but didn't want to talk about the fight in front of her tutor group. The sooner everyone forgot about that, the better.

But she wasn't kept wondering for long. When it was time for the first lesson, Mr Walker dismissed the form but asked Kelly and Leanne to stay back. He waited until the three of them were alone, then began, ‘I expect you are both wondering where Charlotte is.'

Both girls nodded.

‘Well, I'm afraid she won't be coming back to this school.'

Kelly blinked and swallowed hard. Leanne didn't react.

‘Charlotte's parents have decided to move her to another school. And before you say anything—' He looked at Kelly.‘— This wasn't just about what happened on Monday. We informed Charlotte's parents about all the previous incidents of bullying which she's been involved in, too. I know you were at the receiving end of a lot of those, Kelly, and I'm genuinely sorry about that. But we needed someone to speak up before we could act.' Mr Walker looked over at Leanne. ‘Thankfully, someone was brave enough to do just that.'

It took a few seconds for her teacher's meaning to sink in. When it finally did, Kelly turned to Leanne, who met her gaze with a nervous smile. Mr Walker continued, ‘Charlotte's parents have found her a place at a school which can offer her some additional support. Plus, we all agreed that a fresh start somewhere else might be just what she needs.'

Kelly's stomach leapt, delight bubbling up inside her. Not only had The Shakespeare Academy suddenly become a happier place, but for the first time ever, one of her classmates had actually stood up for her. More than that. Leanne had gone out on a limb for her.

‘So are you both all right?' Mr Walker asked. ‘Do you have any questions? Anything you want to say?'

Kelly and Leanne exchanged glances then both shook their heads. ‘No, sir.'

‘Good!' said Mr Walker, rubbing his hands together. ‘Then we'd all better get off to lessons.'

The girls started to head for the door.

‘Oh, and Kelly. If you want to come and see me at break time, I will give you your bag back.' Kelly couldn't believe she had forgotten about that. ‘And I want to talk to you about the objects you dropped. I found them rather fascinating.'

Kelly could hardly concentrate after that. During her first two lessons, she kept thinking how brilliant school was going to be without Charlotte around. She wondered what had made Leanne finally rat on her friend. Had she ever really liked Charlotte? Maybe she'd just been too afraid of her to tell her what she really thought.

And on top of all that, she couldn't wait to hear what Mr Walker had found so fascinating about the contents of her canvas bag.

When finally the bell rang for break, she rushed down the corridor to the tutor group room and knocked on the door. Mr Walker was already there, her three treasured artefacts spread out on the desk in front of him.

‘So do you want to tell me what you were doing with a rock and two rusty bits of old metal in your bag, Miss Hearn?' he asked, with a wry smile.

Kelly reminded him about her choice of topic for the history project and how she and her friend had found the items in the abandoned quarry in Wilmcote. Then she told him all about the various sites they had identified so far—the stone pits, the lime kilns and the tramlines.

‘But there are still some old buildings we can't identify, and we really need to get a better sense of the whole site and how the quarry linked to the railway. My friend's trying to get hold of a map or a plan, from the time when the quarry was working. I know we need to pin down some more accurate dates.'

Mr Walker scratched his chin and nodded. He seemed impressed by what Kelly had told him so far. ‘Well, if there is evidence of tramlines leading from the quarry to the canal and to the railway, then you're probably talking about the mid-nineteenth century onwards, in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. Certainly most of the railway network in England was more or less in place by the 1850s.'

Kelly remembered something Ben had said on one of their first walks around the old quarry site. ‘I think my friend said that Wilmcote station opened around 1860. So that would be about right, wouldn't it, for a small branch line?'

‘Definitely,' agreed Mr Walker. ‘And your quarry would have been in its heyday around that time.'

Kelly sat down and rummaged in her school bag for her notebook. ‘So what do you think about these things we found, sir?' she asked. ‘Could they date back to the 1850s?'

‘The mug, yes, that looks like it could easily be Victorian to me. And if you found it in the quarry it probably belonged to one of the masons. They would have needed a hot mug of tea or two to wet their whistles working in all that dust, and to warm them up during the winter, too. It would have been hard labour, you know, in those days. In fact, I remember reading something…hold on a minute.' Kelly watched as her teacher went over to his bookshelf, traced along the various spines with his finger, and then pulled out a tatty, well-thumbed volume.

‘How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World
,' he read out. ‘Borrow this, if you like. It will be perfect for your project.'

‘Thank you, sir,' said Kelly, pleased.

Mr Walker was flicking through the pages. ‘Yes. Here it is. I knew I had read this somewhere. It's in a chapter talking about manual work. And it's a limestone quarry, too, like the one in Wilmcote. Listen to this.' He read: ‘The quarrymen brought tea, bread, cheese and fat bacon for their midday meal. The bacon would be fried on shovels at the kilns and the men would then pour the liquid fat into their mugs of tea.'

He looked up from the page. Kelly stared at him, mouth open.

‘It's a great image, isn't it?' he said.

Kelly found herself unable to speak. A great image. Yes. A picture of Ben, sitting next to her on a log, dreaming of bacon cooking.

Mr Walker picked up the other piece of mangled metal. ‘This looks like an old trowel or small shovel.' He held it to his nose and sniffed. ‘I wonder if anyone ever fried any bacon on this. What do you reckon, Kelly?' He broke into such a broad, infectious smile that Kelly burst out laughing. She pushed the image of Ben to the back of her mind and picked up the two broken pieces of stone.

‘This stone is limestone, I know that,' she said. ‘But I'd like to know a bit more about what it was used for and who Wilmcote quarry's biggest customers were.'

‘Well, it was definitely a popular building material at the time. And I took the liberty of showing it to Mrs Arnold, the Head of Geography. She said it's called lias stone.'

‘It's lovely and smooth,' said Kelly. ‘And it was a perfect diamond shape until it got broken.'

‘But look
how
it's broken.' Mr Walker took the two pieces from her and fitted them back together. ‘Look how cleanly it has split. That's what made it especially good for paving and flooring, Mrs Arnold said. It splits so easily into sheets.'

‘My friend told me that they built parts of Ragley Hall from Wilmcote stone. I wonder if that's what they used it for there, for the floors.'

‘Well that would be quite an important contract for the quarry to win,' said Mr Walker, ‘but not as impressive as the thing I found out next. After I spoke to Mrs Arnold, I did a little bit of research myself and looked up your quarry at Wilmcote on the internet.'

‘And…?'

‘If I asked you to name one of the most famous buildings in the country, one which was really important in our history, what do you think you would say?'

Kelly thought for a minute, shaking her head and looking up to the ceiling for inspiration. ‘Gosh, I don't know. Warwick Castle? That's not far away. No, somewhere more important. Westminster Abbey? Buckingham Palace?'

‘You're getting closer. And it was a palace, yes, but not one that a king or queen lived in.'

‘In London?'

‘Yes.'

Kelly was stumped. ‘I can't think,' she said, frustrated but enjoying the game.

Mr Walker leaned towards her and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Well, did you know that the Houses of Parliament are also known as the Palace of Westminster?'

Kelly sat back in her chair, not knowing what to say.

Mr Walker filled her stunned silence. He held up one of the pieces of limestone. ‘Could this be the perfect paving stone for the most important building in the world? Walked upon by dozens of prime ministers, secretaries of state, hundreds of MPs, and even kings and queens. Queen Victoria, Edward VII, King George V, our Queen today…'

‘Wow! It could!' cried Kelly, interrupting his flow. ‘That would have been a pretty important contract!'

‘You're right there,' said Mr Walker, looking at his watch. ‘Look, we've run out of time, but I suggest you find out what building work was going on at the Houses of Parliament in the nineteenth century and how that might tally with Wilmcote history.'