‘Enough,’ demanded Martha. ‘They came to see where their father is, and they thought he might be here. They’re at as much of a loss as we are. They had nothing to do with any of it.’
‘Nothing to do with any of what?’ asked Cathy.
‘Perhaps you’d best come in,’ said Martha.
‘Perhaps they had better not!’
Ewart put an arm across the threshold to bar our entrance. Neither Cathy nor I had made any moves to enter.
‘You could just tell us while we wait here,’ I suggested.
Martha took a deep, leaden breath. ‘Your father came here first thing. At dawn, or just after, even. Neither Ewart nor I were up, but we heard him at the door.’
‘That we did. We were happy to see him. It was early but he always did keep irregular hours. We were used to welcoming him into our homes at all times of the day and night. Trusting fools that we are.’
‘Enough, Ewart. It’s your pride. It’s your pride.’
‘It’s more than my pride. It’s fifty thousand pounds, Martha. Money that wasn’t even ours.’
‘I know that. I know that. But these two children need to know.’
Ewart took a step back and folded his arms over his belly. He couldn’t look at us.
‘He came round here before dawn,’ said Martha again. ‘Your daddy. He asked to come in, and, of course, we welcomed him. He said he had need to see the books. The one where we recorded all the business. All that’s been going on these last months. Well we kept all that in a safe upstairs, all the names and the money they’d been giving us. Because you know there were dues. Union dues, I suppose. Well, those involved, as you may know, were paying their rent money for each week or month to us. To me and Ewart. Just for safe keeping. For if the strike went tits up. Or for if we came to the kind of agreement where the landlords submitted to our demands and in return they got the withheld money back, in whole or in part. And, well, that’s what we agreed to, isn’t it. Your Daddy settled his score with the land for the house in that fight. Price had wanted him to fight for him all along. You two have no idea how much money was riding on that fight, and how much Mr Price stood to gain from John cooperating with him again, fighting for him, like he used to. But separate to all that was the deal we struck with all the landlords collectively. Mr Price, yes, but the others too. And not about your house and land but that of all those in the rented houses and flats, the old council properties. They agreed to a rent freeze. They agreed to a more reasonable rent for those who quite clearly could not afford. They agreed to forget about arrears. And they agreed to fix some of the things that had broken. Not all, mind, we asked people to take care of some of their own stuff too, and people from the community who are good at that sort of thing, but the landlords agreed to do a lot. And we would pay back the money that had been withheld. Not at first, but after we saw that they would keep their word. And, of course, there was something of your Daddy’s fight in that. It sealed the promise. Sealed it in blood. Don’t ask me how. But it did. Only the money, near fifty thousand pounds, given to us by all those good folk who trusted us and expected us to see them right, it’s gone. Your Daddy went upstairs to see the books — we trusted him with the key to the safe — and he rustled away the money. All of it. And then he left.’
Ewart took up the tack. ‘And as the morning wore on we heard stories. Stories on which you two might be able to expand. Stories from Peter down the way and others in the village. A story about a dead boy in the woods. That son of Price’s. The pretty one. The prettier one. Dead. Strangled. And his watch and money robbed.’
‘His watch and money robbed?’ asked Cathy.
‘Aye. Your Daddy clearly wandt content with all he had won that day. Or else his blood was up. Clearly there’s no satisfying men like your Daddy when their blood is up. When they’re in the mood for violence. When that violence is the violence of avarice. They’ll go to the lowest possible limits of greed and thuggery. I should have known. I was a fool. I should have known. A man like that. With his reputation. Mr Price is a wrong’un, to be sure, but his boy was just a boy. Just a lad. And his neck was nearly clean snapped by all accounts, such was the force with which your Daddy gripped it.’
‘It’s not true,’ said Cathy, quietly.
‘Not true, is it?’ said Ewart. ‘You dare to defend him? That’s fine. That’s fine.’
Again, he did not really mean fine. He meant rich, that’s rich. Or he meant, that is absurd, or he meant, that is offensive to me and to everything I stand for.
‘You’ve just assumed,’ said Cathy. ‘Yesterday you were his friend, you were cheering for him with the others, but today you accuse him.’
‘He stole fifty thousand pounds from me!’
‘So you accuse him of strangling Charlie Price. There is nothing to suggest it were him. Only rumours. And only rumours that tell you he was motivated by greed, that he stole from Charlie Price. You believe that he stole the wallet and the watch because you believe he stole fifty thousand pounds from the safe in your house.’
‘He did steal fifty thousand pounds from the safe in my house!’
‘But he dindt kill Charlie Price. I did.’
Ewart and Martha stood in silence. I stood in silence. Cathy was silent too.
Then, after some time, Ewart spoke. ‘You’re a little girl, Cathy. You might think you’re big and tough like your daddy, but you’re a wee girl. Don’t play games with us.’
‘I’m not playing games with you.’
‘Perhaps you’re trying to protect your father,’ said Martha. ‘That’s good of you, really it is, but it’s not helpful here.’
‘I’m not trying to be helpful. I’m trying to tell the truth. I killed Charlie Price.’
‘Cathy.’
‘I killed Charlie Price. I strangled the life out of him. I am glad I did it and I would do it again.’
Martha and Ewart Royce said nothing. They looked at Cathy, aghast. Martha took hold of the wooden door and slammed it shut. The glass pane rattled.
Cathy and I stood for a few moments more, turned and walked back down the garden path.
I did not ask any more of Cathy. I did not ask questions nor request that she repeat what she had said.
We walked along a couple of streets and still said nothing. We split up and agreed to meet back at home in an hour. Cathy went to Peter’s and to some of the others we knew from the village. I made towards Vivien’s house on the outskirts, past the common land, past the stray, back towards where we lived, me, Cathy and Daddy. Cathy had not wanted to come to Vivien’s house. She had said she would rather speak with the honest people of the village. So I walked down the lane alone.
The curtains were drawn, not just the upstairs windows but the downstairs windows too.
I knocked on the door. There was no answer and no sounds from within.
I knocked again. No answer. No hushed voices. No bustle of cooking or cleaning. No radio.
I waited, and knocked, and thumped, and waited. I paced the front garden. There was no answer yet I knew that she was at home. I knocked, I waited, I struck the door with both fists. Once. Twice. I waited.
With each passing minute I knew more fervently that Vivien was truly inside, hiding from me, listening to me knock and thump, perhaps watching me through a slit in the curtains, watching me pace, watching my skin flush, watching tears well in my eyes.