The Cuckoo's Child (10 page)

The silence when he had finished could have been cut with a knife. ‘But he told no one,' Una whispered at last. ‘He didn't
seem
ill. How could he have kept such a thing to himself?' The brandy which she'd drunk too quickly had brought two spots of hectic colour to her pale cheeks and her eyes were over-bright.

‘That was what he wanted. No fuss. And perhaps in the end he found his own way of going.'

With a sharp tap that was almost a bang, Gideon put the glass, which he had scarcely touched, on to the polished table by his chair. He stared at the doctor. ‘You are not saying what I think – that he did this thing
deliberately
?'

Widdop said bleakly, ‘Gideon, he didn't have much to look forward to. You know your grandfather and I, friends that we were, didn't always see eye to eye, but I have to say that in this he may have had a point.'

‘What point? What point could there be in something so – so
crass
as that?' He fell into a furious silence but brought out at last, in a sudden rush of anger, ‘Well, if it's true what you say about a brain tumour, it could explain why he's been acting in such a deuced peculiar way lately. But to drown himself . . . No! I don't believe it. I'll never believe it. You know as well as anyone he was one to face up to things. He didn't know the meaning of fear, and he would
never
have taken the coward's way out. I don't think the idea would even have occurred to him.'

‘None of us know how we would react to that kind of thing until it happens,' Widdop said with weary experience.

‘He was an old man,' Gideon went on as if the doctor hadn't spoken, ‘and if he was as ill as you say, might he not have taken a sudden turn for the worse when he was walking along the dam-side, perhaps leaned against the wall for support, lost himself and toppled forward into the water?' He was clutching at straws, but then he stopped. How likely was it that an old man like Ainsley, sick into the bargain, could have managed this acrobatic feat?

Unexpectedly, Una put in her support. ‘Throwing himself into that filthy dam? Not Grandpa, not in a month of Sundays.' She exchanged a look with Gideon. ‘My brother is right.'

‘Of course I am. For one thing, if he'd wanted to do such a thing deliberately, he would have stuffed his pockets with stones or something, to make certain, like that woman did last year, when she threw herself into the canal. I don't care how unlikely it seems, an accident's the only explanation.'

The doctor said quietly, ‘It's possible, you know, that he chose to take his life in a moment of aberration, or despair, not allowing himself time to think. However, accident or suicide, we shall have to wait for the autopsy.'

‘Autopsy?' Una looked slightly sick.

‘A post-mortem. I'm afraid the coroner . . . in such cases . . .' He paused. There seemed to be something else he was reluctant to say. But he remained silent and after a moment he rose stiffly. ‘I must see your mother before I go. Stay where you are, I know her room.'

Eight

The Cross Ings offices were squeezed into a corner of the main building and entered through a small lobby, off which opened a further two doors. From behind the larger came the busy clatter of the mill machinery. In the opposite door was a flap marked ‘Enquiries'. Rawlinson gave it a smart rat-tat, and after a moment it shot up and the head of a scrubby-haired adolescent lad with a pimply face appeared like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Morning. Oh, it's you again!'

‘Tell Mr Hirst we want to see him, lad,' said Rawlinson severely. The flap was shut; a minute later it opened again and they were told to come into what was evidently the general office.

In a very small space was a little table with a typewriting machine standing on it and a chair in front, two large cupboards and a shelf on which was ranged a row of books, all of this leaving very little room even for the occupants to move around. At present, the clerks were seated on tall padded stools fitted with backrests at a high, sloping desk that stretched from wall to wall beneath a big window offering a view of a road winding up on the opposite hill towards the moors. It was a pleasantly wooded prospect in which several largish villas could be discerned; it was obviously the best side of the town, where many of the mill masters and other notables presumably lived, with the view of it unimpeded from this vantage point by any mill chimneys. It appealed to Womersley's sardonic sense of humour to think its own view would necessarily overlook the town itself and the grimy Neller valley, though perhaps the satisfaction of knowing it was all theirs made up for this.

In the office, an elderly man seated at one end of the desk was rolling an old-fashioned, round ebony ruler, rather like a piece of broomstick handle, down the columns in a ledger, then ruling them off in red ink, and didn't bother to raise his head. The boy stood in the middle of the room, staring at them. The third occupant, a rotund man with curly black hair, probably in his forties, wearing a navy-blue serge suit, shiny at the seat and elbows, was busying himself at one of the cupboards. ‘Mr Hirst?' said Womersley, extending a hand before he saw the man was grasping a hefty ledger marked ‘Daybook' and was unable to respond.

‘This is Mr Porteous, the chief clerk,' said Rawlinson hastily.

Edwin Porteous had a heavy, doughy face, and curranty eyes. ‘Sorry, you'll have to wait for Mr Hirst. He has somebody with him at the moment.' A heated interchange issuing from behind the closed door he indicated with a fat white hand confirmed this. ‘Sounds like they'll be done in a minute, though,' he added as there came the rattle of someone's hand on the knob.

Placing the book he had extracted from the safe on the desk, he nimbly eased himself into the seat that was comfortably hollowed out by his ample posterior. ‘And you can get back on your buffet and stop gawping, Arnold,' he said sharply to the boy. Arnold went back to his own stool in the corner, picked up his pen, nibbled the end and stared out of the window. Porteous opened the ledger, and paid them no more attention. The elderly man went on adding up his columns. The voices from the next office continued, and Womersley and Rawlinson waited.

A row such as Porteous claimed he had previously overheard coming from the room next door would clearly have been audible; even now, with voices raised but nobody actually shouting, it was still possible to distinguish an angry word here and there. Presently the door flew open and from it emerged a short, middle-aged man, swarthily-complexioned and with thick, heavy dark eyebrows drawn together. His aggression was bigger than he was – the very pencils in the top pocket of his brown smock seemed to bristle. ‘Aye, then, we'll have to see who comes out on it best, won't we?'

‘Cool off a bit, afore tha' does owt tha'll regret, that's my advice,' replied the man who had followed him out. ‘Tha's picked a fair time for all this and right, what with all we have on just now.'

‘I'm sorry about Maister Beaumont, but that's got nowt to do with it.'

‘It has for us. So think on!'

The man left abruptly, banging the outer door behind him, and Whiteley Hirst said apologetically, dropping the Yorkshire, ‘I'm sorry about all that. Come in, will you?'

The bookkeeper and office manager was a very big man; his height matched Rawlinson's, and he could have given Womersley, who was no lightweight, several pounds, but for all that he was soft-looking, with a doleful face and bags under his eyes, giving him the appearance of a sorrowing bloodhound. An old, furrowed scar running deeply across his forehead added to the impression. The handshake he offered was surprisingly firm.

‘Who was that?' Womersley asked.

‘Apart from being a natural troublemaker, you mean? Name of Quarmby, George Quarmby – warehouse overlooker, a trades union man. Strong Labour supporter. Not to say a right pain in the arse, to be frank. Does all he can to encourage women to join the union, what's more.'

‘That's bad,' Rawlinson said.

Womersley shot him a warning glance, but Hirst had not noticed. ‘He's a good worker, though, I'll say that for him. Only reason I've seen he's kept on.'

‘Office manager' seemed to be a loose term. The way he spoke suggested Hirst enjoyed authority beyond that, one extending over the workers in the mill. ‘Just now, he's agitating with these other hotheads from Huddersfield about a concerted strike for more pay all along the valley. Strike? Ainsley would turn in his grave.' He paused. ‘Aye, well.' Slightly embarrassed at his inept choice of words, he waved them to a seat.

The bookkeeper's office was just as sparse and utilitarian as the other. There were two desks which, being lower than the long one in the outer office, offered no pleasant distractions by way of a view from outside. Two or three wooden chairs stood by a large table marked with what looked like dye stains. On the table were piled long tufts of wool samples, twists of yarn, a pair of delicate scales and swatches of cloth, an open order book, and – startlingly incongruous in that office – a modern telephone. It was a dark little room, lit by gas. So dark that even at this time of an admittedly overcast day, two mantles were lit on one of the brackets, their yellowish light not contributing to the cheerfulness of the place.

When they were seated, Hirst himself sat down heavily in the swivel chair at his desk. ‘Well, who could have thought it, all this? A bad do and no mistake, a right bad do. How can I help you?'

‘Tell me about the day Mr Beaumont died,' Womersley said. ‘Was he expected in?'

‘He was, and it was a surprise to me when I came in at half past seven – I'm always here before the rest of the office staff – and found he wasn't already here.'

Apparently, it had been Ainsley Beaumont's custom all his working life, to walk down Syke Beck Lane from Farr Clough House, taking the short cut halfway down to bring him out by the dam, which he would walk alongside to arrive at the mill well before the engine started. He took care always to be in the vicinity of the mill yard where his workers could see him as they clocked on at half past six. Everybody at Cross Ings must have been aware of this routine, which only varied if he had made other business arrangements for that day. ‘Nobody could say he didn't set a good example!' Hirst said. ‘When he hadn't turned up by nine o'clock I sent up to Farr Clough to enquire, but they said he'd had his breakfast and left, only a fair bit later than usual. It did make me uneasy, but there'd been a lot of that lately, him acting funny like. And then, they came to tell us they'd found him, in the dam.' For a moment, he looked quite overcome.

Rawlinson said, ‘We shall need to look into his papers, his books and stuff, Mr Hirst. Where's his private office?'

‘Private office? The only private office at Cross Ings, lad, is over yonder.' He indicated the second desk, at right angles to his own. ‘I know when to make myself scarce if there's anything I'm not expected to hear – though there's never been much of that, it's my job to know all that goes on,' he added, his pride obvious. ‘To tell the truth, though, it's not a very satisfactory arrangement, place needs modernizing and we're all on top of one another, you don't need me to tell you that. It's served well enough up to now but if we go on expanding as much as young Gideon reckons we should . . . there's talk of pulling down my sister's house next door to build more offices . . . Any road, you'll find the books in that safe, if that's what you want –
and
all in order.'

‘Did anybody owe him money?' Womersley asked.

‘There's always money owing for pieces that have been bought, till the end of the month, that is.'

‘I don't mean that sort of money. Bad debts.'

Whiteley Hirst raised a sardonic smile. ‘Nobody that doesn't pay on time gets credit at Cross Ings. I can guarantee his business affairs here were in good nick, it's what I'm here for, and you're welcome to see the books at any time. If it's anything of a private nature, well, that'll be up at Farr Clough, where he lived.'

‘Or did he owe anybody else?'

‘Not as I know of.' His eyes went from one to the other. ‘There's summat you're not saying. He didn't do away with himself, if that's what you're thinking, I can tell you that. Anybody that knew Ainsley would tell you the same.'

Womersley said nothing and Hirst threw him another penetrating look and said bluntly, ‘And he didn't tummle into the dam, neither, did he?'

‘No, Mr Hirst, it's looking very much as if he might have died as the result of a fight, after which he was thrown into the dam.'

The silence that followed was suddenly overlaid by a deeper silence, the cessation of sound as the machinery in the mill was switched off. Almost simultaneously, the loud hoot of the mill buzzer sounded, accompanied by a dozen more across the town, signalling half past twelve, followed by the scrape and clatter of boots and clogs on the cobbles in the mill yard as the millhands rushed for home like greyhounds out of a trap, panting to leave the muck and toil of the mill behind, if only for a day and a half. Sounds from the outer office suggested the clerks there were packing up, likewise.

There was a knock and Porteous poked his big face round the door. ‘I'm off then, now, if there's nothing else?'

Whiteley Hirst blinked and came to life. ‘No, that's all right. You get off, Edwin. See you Monday.' Porteous's little black eyes darted from one to the other, then he nodded and left.

‘What are you talking about?' Hirst said at last when the outer office door had banged behind him. ‘Nobody would have done such a thing as that to Ainsley.' He might as well have said nobody would have dared.