The houses by the church were separated from the embankment by a big wall with glass cemented into the top. I thought they’d have burglar alarms and security lights too. I stood by the wall, knowing that Harry Pool’s back garden was on the other side, but all I could see were the upstairs windows. I thought I could hear children’s voices, but I couldn’t tell if they came from a neighbouring garden. It was dead frustrating, not being able to see in, and in the end it was too much for me. I threw my jumper onto the top of the wall and rooted around in the undergrowth for something to stand on; all sorts of rubbish had been thrown in there. In the end I found a plastic bin. It was split down the side, but firm enough to hold my weight when I turned it upside down. I was able to haul myself up far enough to look over.
At my end of the garden there was a fruit cage and some apple trees, which broke the line of the wall and gave me some cover. Then a vegetable plot, then down a couple of steps to a lawn and flower beds, with a patio next to the house. Everything very tidy. The lawn had stripes down it. Not Philip Samson’s style at all. I’d been looking in books and magazines since I’d found out what he did for a living and he liked wilderness, everything blurred together, overgrown. The embankment was more his sort of place.
Harry Pool was sitting on the patio, watching the children whose voices I’d heard earlier. They must have been his grandkids but they were just as much at home as if they’d been in their place. I remembered the children’s seats in the VW and thought that Harry’s wife must look after them while their parents were at work. Harry had mentioned that after Tom’s funeral. There were two of them, a girl aged four or five and a younger boy, still unsteady on his feet. They were playing on a yellow plastic slide and occasionally Harry got up to help. A French window from the house was open. A light had been switched on in the room inside and a woman was laying the table. Because of the light I could see her clearly. She was middle-aged but still very smart, younger than Harry by about ten years. Something disturbed her in her task because she left the room by a door I couldn’t see. A little later she returned and walked to the French window.
‘Come on, you two. Your mummy’s arrived.’ Harry chased them inside but didn’t follow them. He sat down again and lit a cigar. I could smell it above the garden smells of cut grass and honeysuckle. A little later the woman joined him and sat beside him on the white, wrought-iron bench. The neighbourhood was very quiet and I could just make out what she said.
‘Supper’s ready when you feel like it.’
He seemed lost in thought and didn’t reply.
‘You look sad tonight.’ I saw her take his hand. She was wearing white linen trousers. Her hand on top of his rested on her knee. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’
He stood up and they walked hand in hand into the house. I slid down the wall, pulling my jumper behind me. The glass had snagged a hole in the sleeve. It was only Matalan but it was a favourite and I was well pissed off that I’d ruined it for nothing.
I phoned him the next day at the yard. I still didn’t have a proper game plan but I did have a vague script in my head. He didn’t answer himself. I spoke to Kenny, who didn’t seem to recognize my voice.
‘Mr Pool please. It’s personal.’
I could sense Kenny’s curiosity but he didn’t say anything. There was a moment’s silence then, ‘Harry Pool.’ Booming, so I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.
‘Mr Pool, this is Lizzie Bartholomew. We met at Thomas Mariner’s funeral.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘So we did.’
‘We had met before actually. I was one of the reporters when you gave the news conference at the yard about Mike Spicer.’
‘Were you, though?’ Noncommittal. Amused, rather than hostile, I thought.
‘I wondered if I might do a more in-depth piece.’
‘Bit young to be a hardened reporter, aren’t you? What are you? Some sort of trainee?’
I adapted the script in my head. ‘Yes. I have to submit a piece for college. I mean, obviously I hope I can sell it too. But it’d be really great if you could spare the time to talk to me.’
I knew I sounded overeager, but it didn’t matter. A student hoping for an exclusive would be. And how old did he think I was? Eighteen? Nineteen?
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You’ll not make a worse hash of it than the professionals.’
‘When can we meet?’
‘Might as well get it over with. Can you make it today? Not at the yard. I’ve got to be home this afternoon anyway. I’ll give you the address.’
I almost said it was OK, I knew where he lived, but I shut up just in time.
So at two o’clock I was back in Cullercoats, driving along the sea front towards the big house next to the church. And this time I could park outside and walk up the gravel drive and ring the doorbell. The VW wasn’t there and, though Harry didn’t say, I guessed his wife was out. When he opened the door he was in shirtsleeves with a mug of tea in his hand. I wasn’t important enough for the grand lounge at the front with the piano and the flowers, or even the dining room with the French window. Instead he took me into a big kitchen, which was just what you’d expect – quarry tiles on the floor, everything fitted, a long pine table. He waved the teapot at me and, when I nodded, poured out a mug. He pushed a tin of biscuits across the table towards me.
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘What I know of students, they’re always starving.’
I’d dressed carefully. A trainee, trying to make an impression. Knee-length skirt and cheap white shirt. Hair pinned up.
‘You said you were a friend of Thomas’s family,’ he said casually. He sat at the table opposite to me. ‘How do you know Kay, then?’
Panic. It couldn’t be through work. She was a teacher and I was studying journalism. ‘Church,’ I said. ‘We met at church.’
‘My,’ he said. ‘And I thought Methodists didn’t drink. You put away enough the day we buried Thomas.’
‘It’s more my parents’ thing,’ I admitted. ‘The church, I mean. I don’t often go now.’
‘Kay was a bit prim even when she was your age,’ he said. ‘She was a Sunday school teacher when all the other lasses were out enjoying themselves. We knew her very well at one time, Bridget and me. She baby-sat when the children were small.’ He looked up, smiling. ‘And now they’re grown up with kids of their own.’
I took another chance. ‘It must have been a shock when she found out she was pregnant.’
‘Aye, so it must, but we’re not here to talk about that. There was gossip enough at the time.’ He smiled to take the edge off the rebuke. ‘We’re here to talk about poor Mike Spicer. Now tell me, Miss Bartholomew. What do you want to know?’
‘Before we look into the details of Mr Spicer’s case, would you mind giving me some details about your company? How you came to set it up, that sort of thing. You’re the Road Haulage Association representative and the background would give readers a great understanding of the pressures on the industry.’
Most people like talking about themselves. Harry Pool certainly did. ‘I took redundancy from the shipyard,’ he said, ‘and I could see there was no chance of more work in that field. It seemed a good time to set up on my own. I’d always liked the idea. I started off with one wagon, doing local runs down to Teesside and up to the Borders. Then I sold my car to buy a second, a bit bigger, a curtain-sider. Now I’ve a mixed fleet of twenty-five and we’ve a certificate for international work.’