‘Your change, sir. Don’t you want it?’
‘Keep it,’ he replied.
Outside, he walked the length of the street, cast an eye over a square church tower that looked old enough to be Norman or Saxon. From a safe distance, he watched the harvesters arriving on flat carts, waited while feedbags were fastened to the horses. Ollie Blunt was among the throng. Even from this distance the man’s voice was recognizable as he shouted about green fingers and the potatoes he had grown in Lancashire. The old stranger was borne on a tide of humanity into the inn, then the village settled back to doze once more in the burnished tints of autumn.
Worthington sat in his car and wondered how he might use the information he had gleaned today. Should he tell the holidaying residents of Paradise that their new master had committed a crime akin to fratricide? No. It was a pity, but the tale of Tom Marchant’s tragic youth would not be useful. In fact, it could serve only to reinforce the concept of ‘Lord Tom’ as the champion of women, a white-clad knight of unblemished chivalry and fortitude.
He would go now and find Goodfellow Hall. He wanted to see the true size of Mr Marchant’s wealth and power. Then, he would come face to face with his own daughter. The plans were still vague, but he intended to make Ivy Crumpsall suffer. More than anything, he craved the pleasure that would surely result from her pain.
Being a country girl suited Sally. Within a couple of months of her arrival in Oakmead, she had gained weight and a golden tan that showed off the thickened mass of sun-bleached hair. Ivy often looked at the dimples in her granddaughter’s cheeks, sighed to herself when she thought of her dead son. ‘Derek,’ she would say inside her head while possing her whites. ‘If you could only see her now, lad. If you could only see them strong legs and them lovely blue eyes.’
Red Trubshaw, that stalwart young man who always shadowed Sally’s every move, had become one huge, walking freckle. The spattering of melanin that had decorated his face seemed to have joined forces, so that the lad appeared brown and healthy. Sturdy limbs had become muscular during bouts of harvesting, and Red had become an altogether quieter boy.
Ivy watched the two of them playing in the garden, grinned when Red helped Sally up after a tumble. No harm would come to the lass, not while Arthur Trubshaw had a breath in his body. ‘A good soul,’ Ivy told Rosie. ‘Just shows you – never judge a book by its cover.’
‘It’s me own bloody book I’m thinking on,’ replied the small, white-haired woman. ‘Harvesting? Yon Ollie Blunt’s not fit to pour a cup of tea. Imagine what damage he could do with a bloody pitchfork.’
Ivy dried the last cup, swung round to face her friend. ‘Look, love. Ollie’s lost a few slates off his roof – we all know that. Now, you can either have him sat here in the kitchen like half-set jelly, or you can let him play out.’
Rosie stretched her spine, achieving her full height of four feet and eleven inches. ‘It’s kiddies as plays out. Not grown men.’
‘He’s not a grown man no more, Rosie.’
‘Have you seen the size of his feet and—?’
‘Nowt to do with the size of his feet and hands, and well you know it.’ Ivy tapped her skull. ‘It’s in here. The man’s gone into his second childhood, so he needs occupying.’
Rosie flopped into a chair. ‘I know all that, Ivy. I didn’t land with the last lot of rain. It’s a child’s mind in a man’s body. You don’t let childer out in the street with a razor blade, do you? He’s worse than an ordinary child, ’cos he’s got a man’s power. If somebody riles him—’
‘Nobody will. They’re lovely folk round here, full of fun and patience. They’ll see to him. Stop worrying about summat as hasn’t happened yet.’
Rosie stared through the kitchen window, looked past the playing children and into the fields and woods beyond the garden. ‘It’s bonny here, Ivy,’ she said thickly.
‘Aye.’
‘We’re lucky to have this little holiday.’
Ivy sat opposite her neighbour and grasped the tiny hands. ‘This’ll allers be here for us. It’s Sally’s now. We got a letter from Tom this morning. He’s found yon sister of his, and she says he can turn the Hall into an orphanage. Then all these tenant farmers’ll get a house and a bit of land. But Rose Cottage is our Sal’s. We can come again.’
Rosie bit her lip for a moment. ‘We’ll come, Ivy. But not my Ollie. It’s going to be soon.’
‘I know, lass.’
Rosie gulped back a sob. ‘What will I do without that big, soft bugger?’
‘You’ll give your legs a rest and stick with me, Rosie. Aye, you stick with me and we’ll get through some road or other.’
The tears flowed. ‘Thanks, Ivy.’
Ivy nodded quickly, left Rosie at the table and went to fill the kettle yet again. ‘They’ve gone,’ she remarked.
‘Who?’ Rosie blew her nose.
‘Our Sal and Red. They’ll be jumping about in that trout stream again. I wouldn’t care, Sal’s more feared of the bloody fish than they are of her.’
‘Will the kiddies be all right?’
Ivy nodded as she reached for the tea caddy. ‘As long as Red’s around, no harm’ll come to our lass.’
He stopped the car and cast an eye over Goodfellow’s mansion. It was a massive pile, the sort of place that screamed ‘old money’ from every pillar, window and door. The garden, though slightly neglected, was roughly the size of Burnden Park, and Andrew Worthington guessed that the land at the back of the house might well be sufficient to accommodate the Bolton Wanderers plus Blackburn Rovers, Manchester United and all reserves. There was power here, because there was land.
Uneasy in the face of such riches, he leaned against the bonnet of his car and thought about the next move. Goodfellow – Marchant, he reminded himself yet again – was not here. Also, the more he stared at Goodfellow Hall, the more he was encouraged by imperfections caused by neglect. There were slates missing, some lying crookedly against others, some shunted into small piles which had slid along to rest on rainwater troughing. A length of guttering had broken free to hang its metal length down the face of the old house like a black scar over the twin front doors.
He reached into the car’s body, brought forth a pair of binoculars and focused them on the Hall. A dome of stained glass sat in the centre of the roof, proclaiming the fact that the entrance chamber rose through three storeys and more. A single spiked finial topped the orb, its dagger-shaped point aiming straight into an azure sky. But Andrew Worthington missed the beauty and homed in on bits of patchwork, pieces of tarpaulin and plain glass that had been used to darn the ageing structure.
He smiled, imagined the inside of the house. A minstrels’ gallery, perhaps? Two staircases converging along a landing, the banisters broken, the treads covered in threadbare carpeting? He swung the glasses, settled on a Rolls Royce parked just below the balustrade. A man was polishing the car, his whole body seeming to throw itself into the movement. There was money here even now, he thought uncomfortably. Members of the gentry were often eccentric. And, after the trouble over Lady Wotsername and the death of his older son, the recently defunct Sir Peter might have gone to the dogs for a while.
Worthington sat in his car and pondered for a while. The Crumpsalls would have friends here. They and the Blunts were no doubt in the care of Marchant’s minions. If the servants and tenants of the Goodfellow estate were all as meticulous as the chap cleaning the Rolls, then there might be trouble.
He lit a cigarette, leaned back in the uncomfortable seat, wished he could afford a Rolls Royce with good upholstery and a paid driver. Oh, he had some money, all right, the few thousand he’d managed to bleed away from Paradise, then the payment he had received from those who had manipulated Peregrine Fotheringay’s strings. Workers’ co-operative? Heilberg and the erstwhile Lord Goodfellow had taken away the mill. Daylight robbery, that had been. He must keep going, stay sane and mobile, because the list of grudges was expanding by the day.
Still, at least he had the little nest egg, a well-hidden fund that could not be touched by Prudence’s lawyer. As for the group of so-called dependants who had assembled in Ivy Crumpsall’s house – let them find him first. So, what else could he lose at this point? Nothing. What he needed most of all was to watch Ivy Crumpsall’s face when she learned the true identity of her ‘granddaughter’s’ father. He needed only to produce Lottie’s written declaration, then the child would be his.
His. He closed his eyes and wondered what the hell he would do with a seven-year-old daughter. Bloody Victor had been difficult enough, always whining over a cut knee, a bit of a bruise, a new toy he’d seen in town. And if it came to a legal fight, no court or welfare committee on earth would award a failed mill owner custody of the girl. He was older than his years, ill, relatively poor. But what if he . . . what if he kidnapped her and simply took her away from the Crumpsall woman for a while? If arrested, he could say his conscience had pricked him and that he had wanted to give the urchin a treat. As for the reaction of the Bolton folk – he had no ties in the town, no need to return.
A snuffling sound made him sit up sharply, and he found himself face to face with a black-and-white cow whose sole aim in life seemed to be to lick its way through the windscreen. A thick, velvet tongue stroked the transparent sheet, leaving smears and bubbling spittle. ‘Shoo,’ mumbled the car’s inhabitant.
The animal blinked slowly, pressed its soft nose against the glass.
Andrew Worthington fought the pain brought on by panic, fingered the silver-gilt pillbox in a breast pocket. It was too soon for another pill, far too soon. And this big, stupid beast refused to move even when he shook a fist at it. Its lower jaw moved rhythmically from side to side as it ground food against huge, yellowing teeth. Each time he caught sight of these tombstones, Worthington shivered. This was his first encounter with a bovine creature, and the pain in his chest was increasing. What should he do?
A familiar voice called out, ‘Get out of the road, Primrose.’ The Friesian mooed, backed away, trotted off along the lane.
Ivy Crumpsall stared through the messy windscreen and shuddered. He was here. The biggest nightmare of her whole life was sitting white-faced outside the gate of Goodfellow Hall. She inhaled deeply, waved her walking stick at Primrose, tried to ignore the thoughts that danced around inside her brain. He was here for a reason. He was here because she had been instrumental in removing him from Paradise Mill.
‘Mrs Crumpsall?’ He closed the car door, attempted to stand upright, though his legs seemed shaky.
Once the cow had sauntered off, Ivy turned slowly and looked into the bulging eyes of the man she had detested for much of her life. ‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped. ‘Long way from home, isn’t it?’
‘I have no home.’ He rested against the car door, fished a tiny tablet from the box and pushed it into his mouth. When relief arrived, he forced himself upright. ‘You and the lord of this manor made sure I finished up with nothing.’
‘There were others involved,’ she replied carefully. ‘Like your wife and a couple of hundred workers and—’
‘And Gert Simpson.’
She shrugged, tried to make the gesture light. She was alone with a monster on a deserted country road. ‘They all had their reasons.’
His mouth twisted in a travesty of a smile that further distorted a face already made ugly by bitterness. ‘You’ll pay, missus,’ he whispered.
‘What with? I’ve no money.’
‘You’ve something of mine,’ he spat.
She allowed her eyes to travel the length of his body. ‘I’ve not got time for this,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘I’ve two children to find.’
His head shook slowly from side to side. ‘And one of them’s mine.’
Ivy, suddenly chilled in spite of the sun’s kindness, wrapped the shawl tightly about her upper body. She had not expected this, had imagined that he would never admit the truth. For years, she had tried to deny it herself. The little girl’s eyes were so like Derek’s had been. But no, no, the baby had been delivered not quite full term, tiny, underweight, fingernails barely grown. Had Lottie gone the distance, Sally might even have been born eleven months after Derek’s departure for foreign soil.
The old woman inhaled deeply, maintained her position. ‘Our Sal?’ Her eyebrows raised themselves, deepening the furrows of age on her forehead. ‘You’re telling me nowt new, Andrew Worthington. Me and our Derek guessed from the kick-off as how Sally weren’t a Crumpsall.’ They had discussed the matter just once, when the child had been five years old. After that day, Sally had been theirs. Not Lottie’s, not Worthington’s, but hers and Derek’s. And the neighbours’, of course. So many people had figured in the rearing of Sally while her feckless mother played her games.
His lower jaw sagged until it all but met his chest.
Ivy folded her arms beneath the knitted wool shawl. ‘But it didn’t matter, you see. ’Cos my Derek were a good man and he saw it this road.’ She took a small step in his direction. ‘It weren’t no fault of the kiddy’s. Her mother’s a whore, and you’re a rotten bugger, but that doesn’t make our Sal a bad lot.’ She smiled grimly. ‘It were a ten-month pregnancy, Worthington. And Lottie Kerrigan-as-was were very flush with money. We all knew where she’d earned it. We all knew she’d been flitting in and out of your bloody office, even though she did live at the other end of town. Things like that gets noticed, like. That were your doing, all right, ’cos Loose Lottie didn’t get her chance to start messing about with the Yanks till they turned up a couple of years later. And you were her man of the moment in 1939. But you’re no father.’
He could not believe what he was hearing. ‘And you never said a word.’
‘There were none of us wanted owt to do with you, so we kept our gobs shut. And Sally needed protecting. Why should we make her go through life knowing she were another one of your mistakes? We took to her, me and Derek. I kept writing to him and telling him what a little love she were. Then, when he got demobbed, he saw for himself as how our Sal were a good ‘un. Derek loved his daughter for who she were, not for where she’d come from.’ Derek had enjoyed just one short year of health with the child he had thought of as a daughter. ‘He were more of a dad than you could ever be,’ she said now. ‘Even when he were dying, he watched over our Sal. You?’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘That Victor of yours could turn out to be another rotten swine. I’m right sorry for that pofaced woman he’s walking out with.’