The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge. Juliet Bell
and his fellow officers to the mine head and the picket lines. He’d never paid it much attention. Looking at it now, he could see the rough texture of the stone, stained with generations of grime from the now-silent pit on the other side of the valley. St Mary’s was neither large nor impressive. Not even well-kept, it was a poor cousin to the clean, bright, Protestant church near the top of the town. This church, with its narrow windows and a roof sadly in need of repair, had served the miners since the young Queen Victoria sat on the throne. The rituals and sermons, the fire and brimstone, had been as much a part of their lives as the fire of the ironworks and the smell of gas in the dark and dangerous tunnels.
Lockwood had a more recent memory of the church. He’d seen a photo in the library archive yesterday. Not much happened in Gimmerton, so this particular funeral had been enough to capture the attention of the local newspaper. This funeral had been special. The deceased was a teenager. A seventeen-year-old boy. He’d been to the funerals of kids before. Standing discreetly outside or at the back of the church, looking to see who came, who was acting out of character. It was part of the job. Lockwood shook his head. He’d been a copper too long. Every case now seemed to remind him of the one before.
He dragged his thoughts back to the here and now. You couldn’t get the result you wanted every time. Nobody did, but he had a second chance with this one. He stared at the church, thinking back on the pictures of that funeral. Normally such a tragedy would be expected to bring a crowd of mourners to a church. Parents and grandparents. Schoolfriends and teachers. Maybe members of some sporting team.
There had been so few people in that photo. A priest and four anonymous pallbearers carrying a cheap coffin. As for the boy’s family, there had been just four of them, each standing slightly apart from the others. Not a family so much as a group of people whose lives had somehow all been linked through that dead boy. And the one furthest from the grave – that had been his father – Heathcliff.
Lockwood leaned on the rusty iron gate that looked across the churchyard and the ranks of graves, becoming ever more overgrown and neglected as they marched down the hillside. Were the answers to some of his questions to be found out there?
The gate creaked as he opened it.
The lawn nearest the church was mown, not neatly, but better than nothing. There were two recent graves, one with a little flash of colour still showing in the withered flowers that rested on them. He glanced at the headstones, but these were not the graves that had brought him here.
A very light rain was starting to fall. More mist than rain, it obscured Lockwood’s view of the older sections of the graveyard. He turned up his coat collar against the damp and decided he would come again tomorrow.
‘How can I help you, my son?’
The voice was rough, the accent thick. Lockwood turned slowly. The priest was old, his face lined with hard use. His eyes, though, were bright and a dark steely grey that spoke of long, passionate sermons about sin and guilt. This was an old-style priest of the fire-and-brimstone variety. He was wearing a cassock and dog collar. Despite the cold, he wasn’t wearing a coat.
‘Hello, Father…?’ The face was familiar, but the name eluded Lockwood.
‘Father Joseph.’
He remembered now. Father Joseph. The priest had been on the picket lines as often as the miners themselves. Lockwood could remember the anger on the priest’s face as he exhorted others to violence from the back of the crowd. They hadn’t arrested him. He was too much of a coward to throw a punch himself, and the Inspector had thought arresting the priest would have only made matters worse. He might have been right.
Lockwood could see the priest didn’t recognise him. And why should he? Most of the time they had faced each other, a riot helmet and shield had obscured Lockwood’s identity.
‘Were you looking for someone?’ The suspicion was evident in the priest’s face. The two words Lockwood had spoken would have been enough to show him for what he was. A stranger. An interloper. And from the south. Even now, distrust of southerners ran deep among the people who had lived through the strike.
‘The boy who died just before Christmas. Luke Earnshaw.’
‘What about him?’
‘I wanted to visit his grave.’
Father Joseph wanted to say no. Lockwood could see it in his eyes. But his curiosity was stronger than his distrust. Instead, he grunted and started walking down the hillside towards a remote and overgrown section of the graveyard.
As they walked along a narrow and barely visible path, the graves became increasingly neglected. Brambles grew wild, their long tendrils sharp with thorns, covering the carved stones. In places, the deep-red berries stood out in sharp relief, blood-red against pale stone. Lockwood’s trousers and feet grew cold and wet as he pushed his way through the long grass, following the stiff-backed priest. They were approaching an ancient section of the graveyard, near the stone wall that separated hallowed ground from the wilderness of the moors. In the distance, Lockwood could see the rusting gantries of the mine head. Most of those buried here lay beneath plain slabs, carved with little more than a name and a date.
‘Here he is.’
The grave still looked freshly dug. The earth was bare. It was too cold now for the grass to cover it. There was no headstone. There was nothing to remind the world of the boy who lay there.
‘Why’s he right back here?’
The priest stared at the ground. ‘Most families prefer plots nearer the path. This one’s folks didn’t really care.’
Lockwood stared at the plain carved stone. ‘Luke Earnshaw.’ He whispered the words into the breeze.
‘Yes. May God grant him mercy.’
The underlying emotion in the priest’s voice surprised Lockwood. ‘You knew him?’
‘No. No one did. He was barely seen in the town after his father brought him home.’
‘His father…’
Heathcliff Earnshaw.’
That was the opening Lockwood had been waiting for. And the contempt dripping from the priest’s voice left him in no doubt that it would lead him somewhere he wanted to go.
‘The Earnshaws were a mining family, weren’t they?’
‘They were,’ the priest said. ‘There’s many around here were that, before the pit closed. But Heathcliff wasn’t from around here.’
‘No?’ Lockwood feigned surprise.
‘No. The old man brought him here as a brat. All wild and wilful. A gypsy brat, some said. The bastard of some Irish tart. There were them that said he was Earnshaw’s kid.’
‘And was he?’
‘That’s something only the good Lord knows. I’m sure he regretted bringing him here, whatever the reason.’
‘Why is that?’
‘The boy had an evil heart. Even then. Tore that family apart. Running wild with the girl. Fighting with the son. Sinful. And Ray Earnshaw never lifted a hand against him.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘She was no better than she should be either.’ Father Joseph passed judgement. ‘She wanted no truck with Heathcliff. Or the others for that matter. Social services were always up there at the Heights. Finally, she up and left with some fancy man. A travelling salesman or some such. That’s when the rumours started about Mick. The son.’
‘Rumours?’
‘That he wasn’t really Earnshaw’s son. That she had been sinning too.’
Lockwood hid his surprise.
‘And was he… Earnshaw’s son?’
‘Only the good Lord knows.’ Father Joseph wasn’t going to let a question distract him