“Obviously a man who takes his work home with him.” Ben didn’t respond to the joke. He drove past slowly, taking in the peeling paint on the doors and window frames.
A woman appeared in an upstairs window. He had a glimpse of yellow hair and plucked eyebrows, and then the house was behind them.
Colin craned his head to see. “Was that the wife?”
“I suppose so.”
They were quiet as they went back to the main street.
“It might not be as bad as it looks,” Colin said, after a while.
“Just because they won’t get into House and Home doesn’t mean they might not be nice people.”
“No.”
“You can never tell from appearances.”
“Just leave it, Colin, will you?”
He headed out the way they had originally gone, before they had turned back. According to the detective’s report the scrap metal yard where Kale worked was on the outskirts of the next town along, about three miles away. For a while they were back in open countryside, but the taint of civilisation was in the litter-strewn hedgerows. They passed an untidy farm, then a garage. The scrapyard was the next building after that.
Ben pulled into the edge of the road before he reached it.
The yard was surrounded by a high brick wall, topped with barbed wire and shards of broken glass. Mounds of decaying cars were visible above it, stacked one on top of another. A battered sign saying ‘Robert Shaw’s Reclamation Yard’ arched across the top of the entrance. Below it, the spiked double gate was open.
Colin stirred. “You sure you want to do this?”
Not really.
Ben didn’t answer. He could see some sort of heavy vehicle moving about inside the yard. A crane. “What is it we’re supposed to be looking for?”
“Spares for an MG. But I’ll ask about that. You just keep your eyes open.”
Quilley’s report had given a basic description, but other than that Ben didn’t know what the man looked like.
The car spares story had been Colin’s idea, a pretext for wandering around the yard until they identified him.
“Shall we go in, then?” Colin said.
Ben started the car and drove through the gates. Once through them the yard opened up, bigger than it appeared from outside. The long drive ran between stacks of wrecked cars. It led to a two-storey brick building with a steeply-pitched corrugated roof. In front of this was a clearing where two obviously still-roadworthy cars were parked. Ben pulled in behind them. They got out.
There was an earthy smell of rust and oil. From somewhere behind the building a dog barked twice, then abruptly stopped.
There was the sound of heavy machinery, but they couldn’t see where it was coming from. No one came to meet them. A dirty window on the ground floor looked into an office.
“Let’s try in there.”
The door was down a short passageway. At the far end was a flight of concrete steps that presumably ran up to the next floor. A tinny radio played inside the office.
Colin knocked and pushed the door open when there was no answer.
The room was empty. A tatty Formica desk was covered with stained mugs and folders. The radio served as a paperweight on a pile of grubby papers. Nude calendars were tacked on the walls. Big-breasted girls leaned across gleaming cars and straddled shining motorbikes, offering various body parts to the camera.
“Anybody here?” Colin shouted.
They heard someone coming down the steps. Ben tensed, but the man who appeared in the doorway was too old to be Kale. He was in his fifties, heavy with muscle and fat. Strands of greasy hair poked out from under a trilby, a darker grey than the silvery stubble on his chin. He wiped his hands on an oily rag as he came into the office.
“Mornin’, gents. What can I do for you?”
He had a wheezy, phlegm-filled voice. Ben looked quickly at Colin, all thought of their story vanished. But Colin was unperturbed.
“We’re looking for spares for a 1985 MG.” Ben saw the dealer take in the lightweight woollen suit and silk tie and wished that Colin hadn’t come dressed for work, but he had to be back for a meeting at twelve.
The man rubbed his chin. “MG?” He sounded doubtful. “What parts are you after?”
“Depends what you’ve got. I’m renovating one virtually from the bottom up, so I need just about everything. Provided it’s in reasonable condition.”
“Don’t think we’ve got anything from an MG,” the man muttered, partly to himself. His fingers rasped on his stubble again.
“Can we have a browse around anyway?”
The man wasn’t listening. He cast another glance at Colin’s suit. “I might be able to sort you out with something,” he said, obviously loath to let such a wealthy customer go empty-handed. “Come with me.”
“It’s okay, really—” Colin began, but the man was already on his way out.
There was nothing to do but follow him. He led them around the back of the building. The machine noises grew louder. A small crane on caterpillar tracks was behind the office. A man was in the cab, working control levers to manipulate the flat magnet that swung from hawsers and chains from the jib, suspending a burnt-out Ford by the roof. He wore a rimless leather skullcap and also looked too old to be Kale, Ben saw after an anxious second. The scrap dealer shouted up to him.
“You seen Johnny?” The man in the cab cupped an ear, and the dealer repeated the question more loudly.
The crane driver nodded towards the far end of the yard. “He’s with somebody by the crusher.”
The dealer set off again. “I’ll ask one of my blokes,” he said as they trailed after him. “He knows what we’ve got inside and out. If we’ve anything, he’ll be able to put his hands on it.”
Ben glanced worriedly at Colin, who shrugged helplessly. Neither of them had missed the significance of who ‘Johnny’ might be. Seeing Kale from a distance was one thing, but Ben was feeling less and less prepared to meet him face to face.
The scrap dealer took them past a towering stack of flattened cars, compressed to no more than thin stripes of colour, layers of red and blue, yellow and white. The angular bull k of a crushing machine was tucked behind them.
“Johnny!” the dealer bellowed. “Got a customer!”
There was a movement from the end of the machine. A man appeared, and Ben found himself looking at Jacob’s father. There was no doubt who he was. John Kale had written his features on his son’s face almost verbatim, discernible even under the blurring of childhood. There was the same colouring, the same cheekbones and straight nose, firm chin and mouth.
He had Jacob’s deep-set eyes, and as they settled on Ben the sense of recognition was so great that for an irrational second he felt sure it must be two-way. Then Kale looked away again, uninterested.
The dealer motioned with his thumb towards Colin. “They’re here looking for MG parts, John. We got anything?”
“No.” There was no doubt or hesitation.
The older man scratched at the open neck of his soiled shirt. “You sure? I thought there might be something—”
“That was a Midget. It went.” The voice was medium pitched and inflectionless. Kale no longer so much as glanced towards either Ben or Colin. For all the attention he paid them they might not have been there. He wasn’t particularly tall, two or three inches shorter than Ben’s six foot, but there was a sense of restrained physicality about him. The muscles in his bare arms were clearly defined, and he looked compact and fit in the oil-stained T-shirt and jeans.
The dealer’s regret was palpable, but he didn’t question the information. “Sorry, gents. If Johnny says we don’t, then we don’t. Wish I could help you.”