The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge. Juliet Bell
with great skill and force suddenly crashed against the helmet of the policeman in front of Ray. The man staggered and started to go down. This close, Ray could see his face through the visor, frozen with panic. If he fell beneath the heaving mass of angry men, or beneath the bus wheels…
He was wearing the uniform, but he was just a boy. Not much older than Mick. The pickets weren’t the only lines Ray Earnshaw wouldn’t cross.
Ray reached out a hand and grabbed the copper’s arm. With a grunt of effort, he pulled the lad back onto his feet. He saw the relief and gratitude on the boy’s face for a second before the surging crowd separated them.
Ray was pushed back against a solid wall of men behind him. He looked around, but knew none of the faces. These weren’t his men. They were from other pits. Their faces were hard. There’d been a lot of violence on some of the lines, and for the first time, Ray was uncertain. He believed in the cause. He didn’t want the scabs working. But this was starting to look like war. And he was too old for a war. He had a houseful to feed and he coughed and wheezed every morning when he woke up. A war was what it was going to take, but without some cash in their pockets, Ray didn’t think any of them were going to last that long.
The crowd around him shifted, and Ray found himself near the edge of the crowd. He turned.
‘What the…’
His daughter stood in front of him at the edge of the crowd. ‘What are you two doing ‘ere?’ He stepped forward and grabbed Cathy’s arm. ‘This is no place for kids. Get out of here.’
Cathy shook off his hand, her face fixed in defiance. Heathcliff was at her side, as he always was. A shout went up behind them as another police van drew forward to be immediately surrounded by shouting, angry men.
‘It’s not safe. Get her out of this,’ he told Heathcliff.
Another flurry of violence erupted near the police van. Ray shoved his way forward. He had to try to calm things down. At this rate, someone was going to get seriously hurt. He was close to the van when he heard a noise. Short and sharp, almost like a gunshot, followed by a roar from the crowd. A second sound overtook the first as the door of the police van shot open and the occupants poured out. Ray could see one man was bleeding from a wound on the side of his neck. His eyes as he scanned the crowd were full of unmasked hatred.
‘A nail gun!’ The words were passed through the crowd. Ray cursed silently. What sort of a fool would fire a nail gun into a police van full of men?
Then he saw Mick. His son was standing near the van, looking like some wild creature. His eyes were wide, his mouth spread in a grin. He looked almost joyful.
‘God help us.’ Ray scanned the crowd, desperately looking for the nearest familiar face. ‘It was Mick,’ he said. His mate closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘Shit.’
‘Just get him out of here.’
‘Right. Come on.’
A handful of men surged forward again, surrounding Mick even as the wounded policeman began scanning the faces of the crowd. Ray raised his arms and locked them around the shoulders of the men either side of him, protecting the boy.
‘It’s the Earnshaw kid. We gotta get him outta here.’
If Ray could hear them, so too could the police. That wasn’t good. Ray started chanting, and the men around him joined in as the bus inched forward towards the gate. They were going to lose this one, but Ray’s mind was elsewhere. He believed in this strike. He believed in the union. The violence he’d seen on the lines wasn’t his way. And now the boy he had raised as his own had crossed a line equally as important as the picket. Mick might not be his flesh and blood, but he’d promised to look after him, like he’d promised the lads on his shift he’d look after them. And a promise was still a promise.
And it wasn’t done yet. He’s seen the look in that policeman’s eyes. He’d been lucky to escape with just a scratch on his neck.
He wasn’t about to forget.
Mick sucked the last of the beer out of the can, then crushed the thin metal between his hands. As he did, the front door crashed open.
‘Mick?’
He said nothing. He carefully placed the crushed can on the kitchen table and got to his feet. He could hear the anger in his father’s voice and his hands curled into fists.
‘What the bloody hell were you thinking?’ Ray stormed as he walked into the kitchen. ‘A nail gun? For fuck’s sake, boy. You could have killed one of them.’
‘Would have served them right,’ Mick muttered. ‘Anyway, I didn’t do it.’
With surprising speed, Ray took a step closer and cuffed Mick around the side of the head. It wasn’t a hard blow, not enough to set his head spinning. It was the kind of blow a father gave a child, not even a proper man-to-man punch.
‘I said, I didn’t do it.’ Mick drew himself up. ‘Dunno who did, but I’m glad they did. I wish they’d killed one of them cops.’
Mick wasn’t sure what he wanted to see in his father’s face. What reaction he wanted to provoke. Just something to show that his father gave a shit about what happened to him.
‘You’re an idiot.’ Ray’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘Kill a pig and the whole bloody lot of them will be down on us like the wrath of God.’
‘That don’t scare me.’
‘Well, it should,’ Ray said. ‘Right now I don’t care if they lock you up and throw away the key, but I’m not having anyone saying it were the Earnshaws that sent this whole place up in flames.’
‘I tell you, I didn’t do anything.’
‘I saw you carrying the nail gun.’
Mick hesitated, tempted to lie. A sound in the doorway caught his attention. Cathy had come into the room. She was staring at him, her eyes wide open. And behind her, Heathcliff stood, his lips twitching as if trying to keep a grin off his face.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Mick said again. ‘Well, I had the gun, but I didn’t use it. Someone pulled it out of my hand. Haven’t seen it since. I swear.’
His father leaned on the table and coughed a long, hacking cough. Mick looked across the room again at Heathcliff.
‘It were him,’ Mick said. ‘That Heathcliff. It were him that did it.’
His father’s open palm caught the back of his head again, this time hard enough to snap his jaws together. He tasted warm blood from his bitten tongue.
‘That’s right. Try and blame a child. Coward. You haven’t even got the courage to stand up for what you did.’ Ray Earnshaw shook his head. ‘You’re no son of mine.’
Silence fell over the kitchen. Mick frowned. That was just his father’s anger talking, wasn’t it? Okay, they’d not always been close, but…
Two short, sharp honks from a car horn fell into the silence in the kitchen.
‘That’s it,’ said Ray. ‘Pete from the mine is outside waiting for you. He’s got a cousin in the building trade in Manchester. Get a few things and get in that car.’
‘What?’
‘I want you gone before anyone has the chance to ask questions. And they will. Get in that car and get out of here. I don’t want to see your face again.’
Mick stared at his father, but Ray turned away. He walked through into the kitchen, and slammed the door behind him. Mick knew he had no choice. Brushing past Cathy and Heathcliff, he took the steps two at a time to his room. He grabbed a sports bag and thrust some clothes into it. A couple of minutes later he was back down the stairs. He looked into the back room, but his father wasn’t there. Only Cathy and Heathcliff stood watching him silently.
Heathcliff’s eyes were shining.