Copper Kingdom

As Sterling left Mali and hurried along the corridors of the hotel, his thoughts were on the warmth and wonder of the way she had responded to his love. She was beautiful and innocent, everything a man could want in a woman. He smiled to himself, knowing that a union between himself and the daughter of one of his coppermen would shake the society of Sweyn’s Eye to its foundation. But damn them all, he would be proud to have Mali as his wife.

His house was almost ready for occupation now and he could just see himself carrying Mali over the large marble steps into the hallway. He imagined her green eyes, wide with wonder as she saw the silk wallpaper and the fine carpets, most of which had come from the storerooms of Plas Rhianfa.

His thought turned almost inevitably to Bea; he was grateful for her help with the decoration of the house and even more grateful that she had turned down his proposal of marriage. How wise she had been to see their relationship for what it really was.

As he left the back door of the hotel, a figure stepped out of the shadows and Sterling turned quickly, his hands clenched into fists. The man moved forward and Will Owens was illuminated in the light from the gas lamp that arched over the gateway.

‘I think you owe me some money, Mr Richardson.’ He sounded agitated and it was clear that his pay was not the only thing he had come for.

‘There’s something else isn’t there?’ he asked flatly. Owens nodded, licking his lips, his eyes fixed on the money.

‘There’s trouble up at the works, one of the new furnaces blew up when the men were installing it.’

Sterling felt cold. ‘Anyone hurt?’ he asked harshly, hardly noticing as Owens took the shillings from his hand. The young man nodded, twisting his hat between his fingers as though reluctant to speak.

‘Get on with it man.’ There was a cold feeling growing in the pit of Sterling’s stomach. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘It’s terrible, old Sam Herbert was on the night watch, blast caught him fair and square, dead he is, stood no chance you see, blown to pieces.’

Sterling took a deep breath, it felt as though fingers of pain were squeezing the breath from him. He’d known Sam for years, remembered him working in the copper when Sterling himself was no more than a child.

‘Any other casualties?’ God, how had such a thing happened? he asked himself, And yet from the stern tone of his voice, no one would have guessed how shaken he was.

‘Yes, sir, one man with his hand blown away and another with injuries to the head, both of them been taken to the infirmary though old Sam’s remains, such as they were, have been taken to his widow in Copperman’s Row.’

Sterling was silent for a long moment. ‘I deliberately got the engineers to install the furnaces after the last shift had finished so that it could be done in safety and without disturbing the men. Now what I want to know is how did the damned furnace blow if it wasn’t even in use?’

Will shook his head. ‘I don’t know about that, perhaps the engineers were trying it out or something, anyway, it’s a bad do all right.’

‘I must get up there at once, see for myself.’ Sterling moved towards the gateway and Will Owens spoke up quickly.

‘Perhaps it would be better if you waited until daylight, sir,’ he said evenly. ‘It could be dangerous to go up there now.’

‘What do you mean, dangerous?’ Sterling asked suspiciously but Will’s face was hidden in the shadow and Sterling could not see the expression in his eyes.

‘I just mean that there’s a crowd gathered at the gates, Mr Richardson, like a mob of wild animals they are and they’re calling for blood.’

The words were a challenge to Sterling’s courage and both men recognised them as such. Sterling stared at the man for a long moment with derision in his eyes, knowing that Owen did not give a tuppenny damn for his safety.

‘Well they can bay at the moon if they like, I’m not afraid of them, but the first thing I’m going to do is to see Mrs Herbert.’ Sterling’s voice was harsh.

The Ascot was standing outside in the back alley and Sterling started it up, feeling coldly angry. Someone had been incompetent or worse and if it took all night he was going to find out the truth. He drove out into the street and headed up the hill towards the works. He gave no thought to Will Owens who stood at the curbside glowering at the departing automobile.

As he drew near to Copperman’s Row, he saw a crowd of women gathered outside the cottage where Sam had lived. As he drew to a halt, the women turned shawl-covered heads and a deep, hostile silence fell.

The kitchen of Sam’s house was neat and clean, the brass shining, the floors swept and the furniture smelling of beeswax.

‘Mrs Herbert,’ Sterling said softly. The old woman was sunk into her chair with her three daughters around her, a bewildered look in her eyes. ‘Mrs Herbert, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear of Sam’s death. I won’t rest until I find who is responsible for the accident, if that’s what it was.’

‘Mr Richardson, he’s out there, my Sam, but they won’t let me look at him.’ She pointed to the back yard. ‘Good thing it’s summer, I’d be worried about him lying in the cold under that sheet.’

Sterling squeezed the old woman’s hand, unable to think of any words that could bring her comfort. Her eyes looked towards him pleadingly.

‘It can’t be right, can it Mr Richardson, Sam can’t be dead? Why he went off from here after his tea to do watch on the works and bright as a button he was then.’

Sterling rose and moved through the crowded room towards the door. One of Sam Herbert’s daughters followed him.

‘Your mother will be given compensation of course,’ Sterling said softly. ‘I realise it won’t make up for her loss but at least she won’t have to worry about money.’

‘We don’t need no charity Mr Richardson.’ The young woman raised her head proudly. ‘We take care of our own and Mam will not go short.’

Sterling left the Ascot at the curbside and walked the short distance to the works. His mind was racing as he tried to sort out what could have happened, was it a genuine accident or had the furnace been tampered with?

He heard the hubbub of voices before he reached the copper company buildings and as he strode to the gates, looking quickly round him, he saw that – outwardly at least – there was little sign that anything untoward had happened. It was true that some of the slates were off the roof of one of the sheds but apparently the explosion had been dealt with swiftly and no fire had spread.

The crowd fell silent except for one man who, as Sterling came forward, murmured ‘bradwr’ in a harsh undertone. Sterling shouldered his way to the steps of the gatehouse and stood there, looking down at the men. His eyes roved over the crowd and he caught a glimpse of Glanmor Travers in the background; at his side was Cullen, a known villain who would do anything for a few shillings.

Anger raged within him as Sterling realised with a deep certainty that the explosion had been no accident.

‘I want to know what’s happened here tonight.’ His voice rang out loud and authoritative and the men shifted uneasily, looking at each other, their faces shadowed by the jutting peaks of their caps. ‘Isn’t anyone going to speak up?’ Sterling demanded and one man stepped forward.

‘Aye, I’ll tell you, boss,’ he said. ‘Them new furnaces are no good, not like the old calciner furnaces, can’t trust them foreign things, and me, I’m not going to work on them. Been a copperman all my life and not scared of nothing but I’m not risking getting killed just to put a few more bob in your pockets.’

‘Anyone else like to speak?’ Sterling asked loudly. ‘What about you Cullen, and you Travers, neither of you are coppermen so what are you doing here at all?’

There was a loud buzz of voices and the men seemed to move apart, leaving Travers isolated in a circle of suspicious faces. He looked round him desperately but Cullen had melted away into the darkness. It suddenly became clear to him that he was alone and his ferrety face turned pale.

‘Sam Herbert and my father Joss Travers were cousins, everyone round here knows that. I’ve a right to find out what happened, haven’t I?’ He moved nearer to Sterling, his jaw thrust forward belligerently.

‘Look here, an old man has died and you’re asking damn soft questions.’ Glanmor Travers seemed to pull himself together. ‘What you are going to do about these furnaces is more to the point. Copperman or not, I don’t want to see more injuries in a works than a man would get going down the pit.’

Voices rose in loud assent and a sea of faces turned to Sterling, waiting for his reply. He lifted his hand for silence before he began to speak.

‘This man who purports to care about your safety is the one I gave the sack to some months back,’ Sterling said. ‘He’s here to make trouble, to see you all in the same boat he’s in, up the road, fired, jobless with wives and children going hungry. What’s more he has a personal vendetta against me and so his word is not to be trusted.’

One of the men edged closer. ‘That may be true, sir, and I don’t like the look of the fellow myself nor of that riffraff he brought here with him but the trouble is none of us trust the new furnaces, see.’

‘Don’t be fools, men, the new furnaces are to replace the old cracked ones, does that sound as if I want to put you in danger? It would have saved me money to keep the old furnaces going instead of putting out hard cash for replacements, can’t you see the sense of that?’

Travers spoke up again, sensing that the men were being swayed against him. ‘All very fine and noble of you I’m sure, but bosses never did anything for the sake of the workers so why should we believe you now?’ He paused, waiting for his words to sink in before continuing. ‘Why not put in new English furnaces instead of the foreign ones, did you get them on the cheap, a job lot that someone wanted to be rid of? We all know that the company is struggling to keep its head above water so don’t try to deny it.’

‘I am denying nothing,’ Sterling said evenly. ‘Indeed the fact that the company is losing money only serves to emphasise the fact that I need to be more careful in taking decisions. Have I laid any men off yet? No, and I won’t do so unless production falls even lower. You’ve got to pull with me, all of you if you want to keep your jobs, is that understood?’

‘Balderdash.’ Travers’ voice rang out harsh and aggressive, he was losing his temper, realising that events were going against him. ‘I think you are a liar, Sterling Richardson, and worse, a murderer of old men.’

The pent-up distress and anger that Sterling had felt ever since he’d known of the explosion built into an insupportable load and before he knew it, he had leaped from the steps and had caught Travers around the throat, forcing him to his knees.

‘You can put your fists where your mouth is,’ he said loudly, ‘or admit that you were in on this so-called accident. You’re a chemist and would know full well how to set off an explosion.’

‘That’s right Mr Richardson,’ a voice called out behind him, ‘give the man a pasting. He’s been snooping round here for a couple of nights, he can’t be up to much good.’

Suddenly Travers lunged forward, catching Sterling off guard. He was on his feet and would have made a run for it but the men closed in around him, hemming him within a tight circle.

‘Fight, you lily-livered coward,’ one of the men called and Travers, like a cornered rat, swung out a fist in the direction of Sterling’s head.

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’ Sterling moved back easily, out of harm’s way. ‘You’re so good with the mouth, let’s see how you feel when I close it for you.’

Glanmor Travers staggered back clutching his face. He spat and blood trickled down his chin, he whimpered and moved further away and Sterling suddenly had no heart for the fight.

‘Get off home,’ he said shortly, ‘and never let me set eyes on you again if you want to go on breathing.’

‘Get off my property.’ Sterling gave Glanmor a push and the man staggered away towards the gates, pausing for a moment to look back, and his face was a white oval in the light from the lamp above the gatehouse.

‘You’ll pay for this one day, Richardson, I’ll get you back, I swear it, even if it takes me the rest of my life.’

Sterling stared at him coldly. ‘At the rate you are going, it may just take you that length of time.’ There was a roar of laughter from the men as Travers vanished into the darkness and Sterling turned to them.

‘Now go back to your homes and leave it to me to find out what happened here tonight. And another thing, don’t let rabble rousers the like of Travers and Cullen influence you, they are nothing but scum, they have no sense of decency. If there’s anything you are not sure of that you’d like to ask questions about, just come to me, all right?’

‘Your brother was with them too, Mr Richardson,’ a voice from the back of the crowd called. ‘Saw Rickie Richardson large as life, I did, coming out of the sheds just before the explosion.’

Sterling felt himself grow tense. ‘Who is that?’ He peered through the darkness as one of the boys from the rolling mill came reluctantly forward. Sterling grasped his shoulder in a fierce grip.

‘Jed, it’s you. Now I know you for an honest lad but think hard, you’re sure it was Mr Rickie that you saw?’

The boy nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sure Mr Richardson, he came out of the sheds alone and then I saw those other two men come out after him, slipped past the gatehouse in the shadows they did but my Mam had chucked me outside while she had a row with Dad and I had nothing to do but look around me, that’s how I saw the three of them.’

‘Good enough.’ Sterling felt sick even though he smiled at the boy. ‘As I said, leave it all to me and get off home to your beds. I’ll speak with you again in the morning and perhaps we can sort it all out.’

‘Why don’t you get the bobbies up here, boss?’ Jed pushed back his cap and scratched his head. ‘I’ve heard they can find clues even in ashes.’

Wearily Sterling walked back to where the Ascot was standing outside Sam Herbert’s house. He saw to his dismay that the headlamps had been broken and that there was glass all over the road. He sighed heavily; who could blame the people for being angry when one of their own was dead and two more injured?

He managed to drive the automobile back through the town – he knew it must be past midnight but he could not wait until morning, he had to have it out with his brother right now, tonight. He would wring the truth from Rickie one way or another.

It was bright moonlight as Sterling drove along the roadway leading to Plas Rhianfa. As he drew nearer to the house, he saw that there was a light in one of the upstairs windows though the lower rooms were in darkness. He moved around to the back of the great building, knowing that some of the servants would be still up and about.

‘Master Sterling, you did give me a fright, knocking the door like that and walking in so unexpected.’ Carrie was wiping her hands on her apron and she nervously tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

Sterling forced himself to smile naturally. ‘Sorry to upset you, Carrie. No I’m not ill, I’m just looking for Rickie. Is he here?’

‘Why bless you your brother’s been in bed these few hours since, had some sort of sick headache, he did, said he wanted nothing to eat and wasn’t to be disturbed until morning.’

Sterling made his way quietly up the stairs. He did not want to awake his mother and have to answer the barrage of questions she would undoubtedly throw at him.

He opened the door of his brother’s room and looked inside, sighing heavily as he saw that the bed was empty and had not been slept in. He sat down before the dying embers of the fire, feet stretched out before him, drinking in silence.

His childhood had been a good one, he’d had few problems then and did not realise that, so soon, he would be responsible for the running of the company. He stared into the small flames that rose from the ornate grate and wondered where the closeness that brothers were supposed to share had gone, or had it never existed between himself and Rickie? It was difficult to say.

After about an hour, he lit a lamp and as he blew out the lucifer, he heard a step on the landing, and Rickie came into the bedroom.

‘Good night to you, Rickie. Where have you been until this hour, courting some lovely young girl or planning to blow up more of the furnaces?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said quickly. ‘What’s all this about blowing up the furnaces?’

Sterling’s irony was not lost on Rickie, he flushed and looked away. ‘Well I did hear some talk about it in the town but I don’t see why you should start accusing me.’

Sterling moved closer to his brother and stared at him as though he had never seen him before. His brother’s face was weak, his mouth drawn down at the corners like that of a petulant child, but then perhaps it was not entirely his fault, he had not been allowed to face the world like a man but had been shut away in some namby pamby school all his life.

‘You were seen,’ Sterling said coldly. ‘Seen leaving the works shortly before Travers and that ruffian Cullen left, and just before the explosion occurred. What do you expect me to think?’

Suddenly Rickie turned on him. ‘Just leave me alone will you, I don’t want to look at you or see you or talk to you. I hate you, don’t you understand that? I’ve always hated you and even if I have done the things you accuse me of, you’ve got no proof or you’d be here right now with a constable.’ He turned his back on Sterling and his voice was low. ‘Just get out of my room, do you understand, leave me alone.’

Sterling had driven halfway to town and was almost at the door of the Mackworth Arms when he suddenly remembered he had left Mali waiting for him in his room, He sighed softly, she would understand when he explained things to her. Such a lot had happened to him in the last few hours, he had learned that Mali loved him and that his own brother hated him. All in all, it had been quite a night.