You’ll give yourself a heart attack. Her grandma’s words to her grandad when the miners’ strike was on and he’d be yelling at the television: ‘I was there; it wasn’t like that, pack of lies!’ The news covered running battles between the police and the pickets who travelled to support the strikers. ‘They were beating us up!’ He’d throw his arms up, his face deep red. ‘A load of southerners working for the Tories, no idea about mining, about what this means, about those communities.’
‘Sit down before you fall down,’ Grandma had said. ‘Why are you so surprised? We all know whose side the press are on, most of them.’
He had fallen down eventually. Louise had found him on the kitchen floor, coffee spilt. Only five weeks after he was made redundant. There’d been a terrible split in the union ranks in the run-up to the firm’s closure. Militants, ‘bloody Trots’ as he called them, dividing the membership, running dirty-tricks campaigns and smears, accusing some of the moderates of being moles or spies, in bed with management,
‘Divide and rule,’ he sighed one night when Louise was helping him fit new vinyl flooring in the bathroom. ‘Oldest trick in the book, and now we’re doing it to ourselves.’
His anger had turned sour and dirty in those last few months, and after he was out of a job he became bitter. Like the fight had gone and all he could do was brood.
Now Louise realized he was probably depressed. Even with all his learning and reading, all his political analysis, the job had defined him. He was a docker, his comrades were dockers, and when that was taken from him, he was a hollow man. His wife and Louise and Luke weren’t enough to complete him.
Her cigarette finished, Louise took a moment gazing upwards, where the shreds of white and pink cloud trapped the sunset against the deep blue of the sky. There was a gap in the rumble of traffic and no other sound broke the silence. No drill or dog or music or voice. As if the city held its breath. Then the drone recommenced, and bone-weary, she went back to join Declan.
She was calmer by the time they were through. Her anger had settled to a slow, smouldering burn deep in her belly rather than the roar and crackle of flames in her head. She asked to speak to DC Illingworth on her own.
‘I need to know what’s going on,’ she said, keeping her voice level. ‘No one’s telling me anything. I didn’t know those pictures would be in the paper. No one said Luke had been on the bus. I should be told these things, not have to read about it in the papers.’
She sensed a reserve creep into the police officer’s manner, a shutter coming down. ‘You have a family liaison officer?’
‘You tell me,’ said Louise. ‘I was given a name and number but I’ve never been able to reach them. They’ve not phoned me back.’
‘Has anybody been to the house?’
‘No. Look, I don’t need babysitting, but I shouldn’t be the last to know.’
‘I agree.’ The detective gave a thin smile. ‘Let me check this out. You don’t mind waiting?’
‘No.’ Waiting was her new way of life. Maybe she should have brought her patchwork with her.
She texted Ruby to tell her she was running late and to call at Angie’s if she needed anything.
After ten minutes, Illingworth bustled back in, all efficiency. ‘Right. I think there’s been some crossed wires at our end, probably the result of the holidays: officers on leave and so on. So, I’ve had a word with DI Brigg, the senior investigating officer, and he’s happy for me to be your designated point of contact. It makes sense, as we’ve met already. Any developments that we are able to make public, I’ll let you know. You understand there will be times when we are made aware of new evidence or information but need to keep it confidential.’
‘Okay.’ She could hardly argue otherwise.
‘Here’s my card, that’s my direct number.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And thanks for coming in today with Declan.’
‘Only way to get him here,’ Louise told her.
‘It really has been invaluable. Thank you, Louise.’ She smiled. Bright and friendly. Laying it on a bit thick, Louise thought. Anxious to smooth over the cock-up, get Louise onside. Stop her complaining. The police had a grubby history of failures in dealing with ethnicminority victims, a past they were eager to see dead and buried. Someone like Louise raising a fuss about her experience, given that Luke was a mixed-race victim, would be terrible PR for them. The possibility that she might need to do that, if things didn’t improve, if Illingworth didn’t keep her word, was there. A strategy. She’d go to the papers if she had to. They were all desperate to talk to her as it was. Them and the TV news crews clustered round the house.
