‘Yikes,’ said Alec. ‘The east end and the Tron? Fifty-six arrests there last night, Dandy.’ I gulped and he took pity on me. ‘It’ll be quiet enough this morning again, though. And the police won’t bother the likes of you and me.’
The police did not, it was true, but the combination of a man in front in no kind of chauffeur’s uniform and a woman in the back in no kind of hat for a grand lady rang false in the eyes of the strike stewards who were waiting halfway over the North Bridge. This did not occur to me until afterwards; at the time what happened was as inexplicable as it was terrifying. Two men, grim-jawed and cold-eyed, flagged Alec down and a string of them stepped out and joined arms across the road in front of us. Feeling my pulse begin to thump, I looked around for a policeman or even a special constable but saw none.
Alec wound down his window.
‘Taxi service is it, sir?’ said one of the men who had pulled us over. He wore an armband with initials on it and had some kind of badge on his coat lapel but I did not recognise either of them.
‘Private journey,’ said Alec, effortlessly slipping into the same laconic style.
‘Oh aye?’ said the man. ‘Of what nature?’ He was looking me up and down with a disdain I had not encountered since the death of Nanny Palmer and even she saved it for when I had been very bad in ways which left damage not soon mended. I could feel my initial panic begin to recede and be replaced by anger.
‘Visiting friends,’ said Alec. ‘This lady’ – he jerked his head back at me – ‘doesn’t care for dogs.’
‘Aye, I thought the dogs were a nice touch,’ the man said.
‘Now look here,’ I began, but Alec talked over me.
‘I’m not a working man,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t break your strike. You’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m afraid.’
‘You’ll not mind us jotting down your number and taking your name then?’ said the man.
‘We most certainly wou-’ I said, unable to believe my ears, but again Alec spoke over me.
‘Alexander Osborne of Perthshire,’ he said. ‘But Dorset originally. I was once in a clay pit when I was a boy – just for an hour, you understand, just to see it.’ The man had jerked his chin up at this and he gave Alec an even more searching look. ‘But an hour was enough. I wouldn’t break your strike.’
After another long pause, the chap jerked his head at the rest of the men and they broke apart and returned to the pavement.
‘Not a minute on the day!’ they chanted, as we started up again. ‘Not a penny off the pay!’ Alec, pulling away, touched his hat and gave a toot on the horn.
‘Well!’ I said. ‘I would not have believed that possible.’ Alec said nothing. ‘Where are all these celebrated specials when one needs them? I thought you were going to have to hand over hard cash for a moment there.’
‘If I had offered him money, Dandy, we’d never have got through,’ Alec said. ‘And I’d be on every TUC blacklist in the land.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Do you think so? You seem to have got a very romantic view of miners from that hour in the clay pit years ago. Or was that just a story? Splendidly quick-thinking if it was, I must say.’
Again he said nothing, his silence going strong until we were well onto the South Bridge, where we saw another collection of men at the side of the road outside the university. ‘We might just slip straight through here if we’re lucky, Dandy,’ Alec said, ‘since they’re concentrating on the student volunteers, but you’d better get in the front seat beside me anyway, just in case. I’m sure that’s what made the last lot think I was a taxi.’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘There he is now – look.’
Up ahead of us I had glimpsed the white-blond hair and the determined set of the thin shoulders and indeed it was Mattie, weighed down by two huge baskets from Mrs Hepburn, half a mile into his nine-mile trudge home to his mother for the day. Alec touched the horn as we drew up beside him and Mattie smiled at the two dogs who were standing on the front seat, with their heads nosily out of the side window. Then he frowned in puzzlement as he glimpsed me. I opened the back door.
‘Hop in,’ I said. ‘I’m coming with you, Mattie. Mistress’s idea – mistress’s orders, in fact. We’ll take you there and back and have a nice chance to talk without those girls listening.’ I gave him a bright smile and although his face fell he knew that argument would be fruitless. Pushing his baskets in in front of him, he joined me.
After that, although we were stopped by another three checkpoints before we made it out of town, Mattie was the golden key which unlocked all doors. He only had to mention his surname – MacGibney – and say where we were bound and the linked arms unlinked themselves and rose in the air to wave us on our way.
‘Very good of you too, sir, madam,’ said another of the badged leaders, not half so grim-jawed or cold-eyed as the first, now that we had Mattie to our credit. ‘And you tell your grandad that Wullie Armstrong was asking for him, son, eh?’
Between all these stops, there was less time than I had imagined to pin Mattie back against the upholstery and begin to extract from him the secrets I was sure he was keeping, but leaving him to stew with nothing more than my confident assertions and vague threats for his mind to work on would, I told myself, lead to a greater unburdening in the end.
‘It’s the doors, you see, Mattie,’ I said. ‘Mistress and I and Superintendent Hardy have been talking over and over this terrible business and we know that there’s something fishy going on about the doors.’
Mattie gave a fearful look at the back of Alec’s head.
‘Don’t worry about Mr Osborne,’ I said. ‘He’s helping Hardy get to the bottom of all this for mistress. Anything you want to tell me you can safely say in front of him. And if you don’t tell me today, it’ll be Superintendent Hardy tomorrow, maybe in the house but maybe in the police station. So be a good sensible boy. I know you know more than you’re telling.’
‘You’re wrong, miss,’ said Mattie. ‘I d’ae ken nothing about what happened to master that night. Not a thing. Swear on my life.’
‘You know something you think is nothing to do with what happened to master,’ I said. ‘But you must tell me – or Mr Hardy tomorrow; that’s your choice – and we will decide whether what you know is important.’
‘I d’ae ken nothing,’ he said again.
‘We’re here,’ said Alec from the front seat. ‘Best leave it for now.’
We had to pass right by the colliery to get to Mattie’s village and, although Alec cruised along quite unconcerned and Mattie even waved out of the window at his acquaintances, I could not help drawing back into shadow at the sight near the gates to the mine. There were perhaps a hundred strikers there: wiry, hard-bitten, dirty-looking men in caps which hid their eyes. Some were singing in rough and raucous voices and some were silently smoking thin, home-made cigarettes but all had their fists clenched and were beating time against their legs and stamping their feet too. Once again, there were no police to be seen, only three men in the grey suits and round collars of clerks, whistles around their necks and sticks in their hands, watching the strikers with impassive faces from inside the chained gates.
We passed this dreadful tableau and followed a bend in the road to find ourselves at one end of three long rows of brick terraces with washing strung between them, filling their little yards. It was unlike any village I had ever seen: no shops, no real streets, and no church spires nor inns nor schoolhouses – nothing except those three long straight rows set down at the edge of some rough fields. Women began to appear at the doors and come out into the yards at the sound of the motorcar, and when Alec pulled up and Mattie stepped down one of them rushed forward and gripped his arm.