Who Wants to Live Forever? (15 page)

“If they didn’t like it, then why didn’t they just give the restaurant a miss? Or am I just being naïve?” I asked.

“A little naïve, perhaps, Ethan. You see, it appears that Mr Newton may have fallen foul of the National Front, and I’m sure you’re aware of how serious that was during the sixties and seventies.”

“Hold on a second,” said Trish. “I might be wrong here, but I didn’t think the National Front came along until much later than that.”

“You are both right and wrong, Trish. The Front didn’t exist at the time of Chris Newton’s death, but during the 1960s, there was a move towards the far right, especially after Harold Wilson’s Labour Party defeated the Conservatives in the 1966 general election. Not everybody was happy to see a left-wing government with a substantial majority, and, now that it was obvious that there would be no quick return for the Conservative party, some of their more extreme right-wing supporters began to disagree with the moderate approach that their leader, Ted Heath, was adopting. One such supporter, AK Chesterton, was leader of the League of Empire Loyalists, the LEL, and he argued that had Heath portrayed the Conservative party as more right-wing, patriotic and racialist, they would have defeated Wilson.

“Chesterton’s LEL party then joined forces with both the 1960s pre-cursor of the British National Party and a portion of the Racial Preservation Society, and the National Front, or the NF, was officially born on February seventh 1967 — two weeks after Chris Newton’s death. The party went to great lengths to distance themselves from the pre-war Nazis, banning neo-Nazi groups from joining, but as members of such groups were allowed to join the NF on an individual basis, the ban meant nothing.

“So, although the party didn’t strictly exist in January 1967, the merger talks had been ongoing since late 1966, and the ideology certainly existed even if the party didn’t. The Newton case would possibly be seen as a test case for them, an opportunity to blood their younger element. Remember, not all immigrants in the 1960s were of West Indian descent, and the white British people who encouraged the integration of foreign workers were despised even more so than those self-same foreigners.”

“So how exactly did they kill Chris Newton?” I asked. “I have to admit, I’m not sure where we are heading this week.”

“Have patience, Ethan, I’ll explain in a minute. Chris, as I said, lived in Elswick. He chose to live there, according to friends, because it was such a quiet, peaceful village, with barely a thousand residents. He regularly cycled the eight or nine miles to nearby Blackpool, and that is what he had been doing when he was fatally struck by the car. The police were aware that threats had been made against both Newton and his staff, as were the chefs and waitresses. All four of them fled and — presumably — returned to Spain in fear of their own lives.”

“What exactly is the point of this, Louise?” asked Debbie. “It seems pretty conclusive that this was a racial murder, so why are we talking about it?”

“Ah,” said Louise, “a good question, Debbie. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to any of you to learn that there is more to this than meets the eye. You see, the police did try and trace the four staff, even if only to eliminate them from the investigation. The two chefs, Sergio Martinez and Javier Suarez, were located and cleared in their respective home towns of Seville and Madrid. Likewise for waitress Alita Reija, who hailed from Barcelona. But of Hermosa Vebraho there was no sign at all. None of the other three knew her before they began working for Chris Newton about three months prior to his death, and all that they knew was that she came from Magaluf in Majorca. Now, out of season, the population of Magaluf is a tad over four thousand, and, with Vebraho being an unusual name even by Spanish standards, you’d have thought she would have been easy to trace, but nobody could find a single thing that indicated Hermosa Vebraho had ever set foot in Magaluf. Of course, and this is what the police reasoned, the other three could have been mistaken, and she might have said she had visited Magaluf, but surely all three of them can’t have been wrong?”

“I can see where you’re coming from,” said Trish, “but I think you really are trying to find something that just isn’t there in this case. After all, people don’t always tell the truth. Hermosa might not have come from that part of Majorca, or she might have used an assumed name. Not necessarily for any sinister reason either; she could have been married and used her maiden name, or could have just chosen the name of somebody she’d read about in a book. There could have been a thousand and one reasons why she couldn’t be traced, and if the police really thought she was involved, would they have dropped the case so quickly? I assume that the reasons they thought the National Front was involved were fairly solid ones, otherwise they’d have called somebody like Interpol in.”

Louise looked thoughtful. “You’re correct to an extent, Trish, and the police didn’t see her as a possible suspect. But there’s more to it. It fits…I can’t really explain, not just yet. And I really want you three to make the leap; that’s why I’ve chosen this subject matter for this course. Shall we go and have our break now and then we can continue our discussions afterwards?”

***

Despite our best efforts, Louise refused all attempts to get her to explain exactly what made her so convinced that the official verdict of a racial motive was incorrect. As she put it, “If I just came out and told you, it would render the last few weeks meaningless. My aim is to provide you with sufficient information yourselves so that you can reach the same conclusions I have.” Debbie wasn’t convinced at all, and I wasn’t too certain Trish agreed with the reasoning, but I understood what Louise was getting at.

I was looking forward to our post-class drink, even though it would mean conversation about anything but the course. I was a little disappointed when Trish asked Louise to join us as the lesson ended, as I had forgotten that we had all agreed to extend the invitation during our chat a week earlier. Louise accepted, and, despite my frustration, I thought that it might at least mean the conversation would shed some more light on the real purpose of the course as far as Louise was concerned.

As we sat with our drinks — Louise’s tipple was sparkling white wine — Trish turned the spotlight on the latest addition to our after-school club. “It’s reveal-all time when we come down here, Louise. That didn’t come out how I intended it to. What I mean is that we three have told each other all about ourselves, so it’s your turn tonight.”

“You’ll be lucky. I’ll invoke the teacher-pupil relationship clause. It’s my Get Out of Jail Free card.”

I seized my opportunity. “Okay, then, if you aren’t going to tell us about your private life, tell us about your thoughts behind the course. I imagine you did choose the content yourself.”

“Yes, I did, and I chose my pet project, the one I came across when I was still at university and I’ve been working on for years, although not for all of the intervening time, I must add.”

“But how did you find the different events and what made you link them together?”

“It was by chance, really. I’d been doing some investigations on unsolved crimes or suspected miscarriages of justice, and was doodling away when I noticed a strange pattern — one that I’m hoping you will all see by the end of these ten weeks, which is why I’m reluctant to spoon-feed you too much information at this stage. That set me to researching further and gradually I found other cases that exhibited the same traits.”

“If you’ve been researching this for years,” said Trish, “surely it isn’t reasonable to expect us to reach a similar level after only ten weeks. Or have you already tried this with other groups?”

“No, I don’t think it’s unreasonable. After all, I’m presenting you with the results of my years of research. If I were expecting you to make the same findings from a blank starting place, then I agree it
would
be unreasonable, but I’m not, am I?”

“So are we the first, then?” asked Debbie.

“The first group, yes. I did try and get my ex-partner interested, but it was a waste of time. He just thought I was obsessing.”

“Were you?” I asked.

“I didn’t think so at the time. I met John when we were researchers at Bath University. It was more than ten years ago, and at that point I had practically no information at all — I really had only just begun to get fascinated in the subject. I tried to get him involved, and I thought he was as interested as I was in the case, but it turned out he was only really paying lip-service to the whole thing. Behind my back, he was telling my colleagues that he thought I had some form of OCD because of the time I devoted to the project. I had no idea of this, of course.”

“Why would he do that? Especially if you were supposed to be a couple? I take it you were,” Trish added.

“Office politics. Simple as that. There were two graduate research students — myself and John — but only one guaranteed job at the end of our two-year appointment. John decided he wanted that job and decided he would do whatever it took to get it. I was oblivious of all this, of course — a case of young love blinding me to what was right in front of my eyes. As we approached the millennium, and I became convinced that I was close to something really important, I spent so much time trying desperately to find the answer that I didn’t notice anything else that was going on.”

“Trying to find the answer?” asked Debbie. “Does that mean that the millennium was the end of all this?”

“I thought it might be at the time, but I didn’t follow it through so I was never able to bring things to a conclusion. You see, it was the end of the academic year in 2000, and I was convinced that I was very close to my goal, when I was hit by the double-whammy. First I was called in to see the Dean of Faculty — I hadn’t even realised my contract was up — to be told that they wouldn’t be keeping me on. He said something like, ‘You’re an excellent researcher, Louise, but you always knew there was only one faculty position available, and we’ve decided to offer it to John. He will be joining our staff permanently from September.’

“I didn’t mind that. We had both known that we were competing for the post, but I’d always believed that it didn’t matter who was appointed as we were a couple. Then I found out we weren’t a couple. I went back to our flat and found he’d packed all my things and left the cases outside in the corridor. He refused to speak to me, despite my hammering on the door till my knuckles were red raw. Eventually, I took my things, hailed a cab to the station and caught the first train that arrived. It was heading north, and I decided I’d come to Lancashire, as I’d nowhere else to go. At least I knew plenty about the county thanks to my research. I left the flat, the university, the city and my partner, all in the same afternoon. I’ve never seen any of them since.”

“You must only have been in your twenties then. Didn’t you have family you could go to?” I asked.

“I had family, yes, but I didn’t want to admit I was a failure. I told them I’d been offered a job in Lancashire and it was too good an opportunity to turn down. They weren’t keen on John, so when I told them I’d left him — which, technically, I had — they were quite pleased. I was lucky. I found a teaching job in the area, so my history degree came in useful, and I’ve been teaching courses like this ever since.”

“Like this, but not like this, I assume you mean? But if you were that close to discovering what this was all about more than ten years ago, why didn’t you try and take it to somebody else? After all, I’ve only known you for a few weeks, and yet I believe you’re really on to something.”

“Thank you for saying that. Yes, you’re right,
not
like this one. The courses I’ve taught over the last few years have covered major historical events, such as the English Civil War and the Wars of the Roses. I suppose it was because I resented what had happened to me. My obsession had cost me so much, I couldn’t bear to go back to it. Time passed, and it was only twelve months ago, when I realised the possible significance of this year, that I began to look into matters again. I completed my abandoned research from a decade earlier and realised I still had nothing, so I suggested to my departmental manager that I run a short ten-week session on recent local history, and I managed to persuade them to include it in the syllabus for this semester. They don’t, of course, know the real reason why I wanted to run the classes.”

“What about relationships? Won’t they be affected by this if you become obsessed again?” asked Debbie.

“No, because I’m not in a relationship right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of romance over the years. Just not at present, that’s all.”

“There’s nobody you’re interested in, then, currently?” asked Trish.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s R— Look what you’ve done! I told you I wasn’t going to spill my personal secrets, and you’ve almost managed to wheedle them out of me! No, there’s only me, and I’m more than happy to go home to my cosy flat each evening.”

“Do you live locally, then?”

“Yes, I’m in St Annes, quite close to the airport. It’s nice and quiet there, strange as that may sound.”

We seemed to have moved away from discussions about the course, and, despite her feigned annoyance, Louise opened up quite a bit more as the evening progressed. I was glad that she had joined us as there had been no sign of the Trish-Debbie tensions that had worried me a week earlier. All too soon, though, it was time for her to leave, and she refused my offer of another drink. “I might be younger than you three,” she said, “but I really do need my sleep at night. You aren’t the only course that I teach, and my students tomorrow morning won’t let me forget it if I turn up half asleep. You stay and have another drink, and I’ll see you again next Tuesday.”

Now that there were just the three of us once more, I wondered whether there might be a return to the slightly unpleasant atmosphere of the previous week, but Louise’s presence appeared to have had a calming effect on both Debbie and Trish. The three of us stayed until closing time, enjoying pleasant banter and good company. I was hoping that we could once again make plans for dates at the weekend, but the opportunity didn’t seem to arise when the three of us were together.