A violent assault? Alan Miles hadn’t mentioned anything about that. Carol hastily scrolled down the rest of the results, looking for something that wasn’t about the factory. A few stories down, she hit pay dirt.
VIOLENT ATTACK IN SAVILE PARK
A Halifax businessman was recovering in hospital last night after a brutal attack as he walked home through Savile Park with his fiancée.
Edmund Blythe, 27, the managing director of Blythe & Co, Specialist Metal Finishers, was stabbed by a thug who attempted to rob him at knife-point.
When he refused to hand over his wallet, the man struck out with his weapon and hit Mr Blythe in the chest. According to hospital staff, the blow came close to his heart and it was a matter of pure luck that the consequences were not fatal.
Mr Blythe, of Tanner Street, and his fiancée were returning to her parents’ home after spending the evening with friends who live on the far side of the park.
His distraught fiancée, who has asked not to be named, said, ‘It was a terrible shock. One minute we were walking along arm in arm, minding our own business. Then a man stepped out from the shadow of some bushes and brandished a knife. I could see the blade gleaming in the moonlight.
‘I was terrified. He told Edmund to hand over his wallet, but he refused. Then the man rushed at him and there was a struggle. I started screaming and the man ran off.
‘It was too dark for me to see him clearly. He was about six feet in height and wore a flat cap pulled down over his hair. He sounded local, but I doubt I should be able to recognise his voice again. It was all so frightening.’
Detective Inspector Terrence Arnold said, ‘This man is clearly very dangerous. We advise members of the public to be on their guard when walking in secluded areas after dark.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Carol said aloud as she reread the article. Why on earth had Vanessa failed to mention this dramatic incident? It wasn’t like her to miss the chance for a touch of the limelight. Not to mention the sympathy she’d elicit for being involved in such a terrifying attack.
It did go some way to explain why Blythe had decided to abandon Halifax for Worcester. An unprovoked assault like that would make anyone anxious about the place they were living. But she’d have expected him to want to take his fiancée with him. Of course, if Vanessa hadn’t wanted to leave Halifax, no amount of persuasion would have shifted her.
Carol poured herself a fresh glass of wine. She checked the other articles, but there was no more about the attack. Clearly no arrest had been made. Not entirely surprising, with no description of any value. Doubtless the usual suspects had been dragged in and slapped around a bit, but nothing had come of it. And Blythe himself had clearly been unwilling to discuss it. It seemed he’d sold up and left town almost immediately. It was all very sudden.
It was beginning to look as if Carol might have to pay another visit to Tony’s mother. Only this time, she wouldn’t be taking no for an answer. The only thing that stopped her heading straight back to Halifax and Vanessa’s lair was a text from Paula.
‘Oh shit,’ Carol said. Strictly speaking, she didn’t need to turn out on this one. But her sense of obligation was heightened by her earlier dereliction. I’ll be there within the half hour, she texted back to Paula. Hold the fort till then.
Niall Quantick hated his life. He hated his useless mother. He hated the scuzzy streets round their spazoid flat. He hated never having any money. He hated school, hated that he had to show up every day, thanks to his arsehole mother’s deal with the head teacher that, if he didn’t show, he wouldn’t get even his pitiful allowance from her. OK, so he planned to play the system to get away from her and her fucking hateful little life, but he didn’t want her to know that. He would have gone to school anyway, but his small rebellion against the machine last term had totally paid off. Pretty much the one thing he didn’t hate about his life was that he was clever enough to outsmart everybody who tried to get one over on him.
He took a toke off the joint he indulged in every day after school when he walked the stupid dog to get out of the flat so he could chill out in the crappy park with its used needles and scumbags and glue bags and dogshit. What a fucking life.
Most of all, he hated his fuckwit arsehole father for turning his life into this drudged-out hell. His life might not feel so shit if he couldn’t remember a time when it had been different. The other kids he hung out with didn’t seem as pissed off with their lives as he was and he thought that might be because they didn’t have anything better to contrast it with. Oh sure, they thought they knew what it would be like to have a flash car and a big gaff and holidays where the sun shone every day. But that was just fantasy footballer world to them. Not to Niall. Niall remembered what it was like to have all of those things.
Before this scummy flat in a part of Manchester so bad that jobseekers had to lie about their postcode, they’d lived in a detached house on the outskirts of Bradfield. Niall had had his own bedroom plus a playroom. He’d had a PS3 and an Xbox. There had been a room full of gym equipment with a plasma-screen TV at the end of the treadmill. His dad’s Mercedes had sat in the double garage next to his mum’s Audi. They’d had season tickets for Manchester United, they’d gone abroad on holiday three times a year and Niall couldn’t keep track of his Christmas and birthday presents.
Then three years ago, it had all come crashing down. His mum and dad had been fighting like EastEnders for months. He couldn’t figure out what the trouble was, just that they couldn’t seem to get through a day without being at each other’s throat. Finally, his dad had taken them on holiday to Florida, supposedly to patch things up. But he’d walked out of the rented villa on the third night after yet another row. His mum had said to hell with him, they were going to enjoy the rest of the holiday. They came home ten days later to find the house sold, the rooms stripped bare, the cars gone and the locks changed. He’d sold the house out from under them and taken their clothes in bin bags round to Niall’s mum’s parents’ house in Manchester.
It was breathtakingly evil. Niall had thought so at the time and he thought so still.
His mum got lawyered up, but it didn’t do her any good. It turned out that his dad’s company owned the house and everything else. On paper, his dad didn’t have a pot to piss in. And so now, neither did Niall or his useless mother.
He was amazed at his dad’s capacity for pure evil. His mother had dragged them both round to his car dealership one afternoon, trying to shame him into giving them more than the fifty quid a week he was shelling out for Niall. They’d shut Niall out of the room, leaving him with the clueless receptionist while they screamed at each other. But he could still hear every word. ‘He’s not even my kid,’ his dad had yelled at the height of the row.
His mum hadn’t said anything, but Niall heard a loud crack, like something glass being thrown at a wall. Then the door had opened and he’d seen a spider web of cracks where the big plate-glass window on to the showroom should have revealed gleaming rows of cars. ‘Come on,’ she’d said, grabbing his arm and making for the door. ‘We don’t want money off that despicable lying bastard anyway.’
Speak for yourself, Niall had thought. All the more reason for taking his money, him being a despicable lying bastard. Who the fuck did he think he was, making out that Niall’s mum was some sort of slut who’d have another man’s kid and pass it off as his? She might be a useless cow, but he knew she wasn’t a slag. Unlike his dad, who would do anything rather than put his hand in his pocket to support his wife and kid.