On Monday of the next week Fran and Beth got on the bus at midday for the aft-shift, leaving Sarah on the pavement with Stan. Mrs Oborne and Maisie clambered on, with Maisie calling back, ‘Put Stan down and let him get to work.’
‘Aye,’ Stan called, ‘can’t wait to get below, out of this cold, but she won’t let me go.’
The women laughed as Bert, who was doing the morning and afternoon shifts while Cecil got over his pneumonia, hooted the horn. Fran’s mam in her ARP uniform crossed over the road. ‘Are you hooting to attract the Luftwaffe, our Bert? If so, stop. And you, our Stan, Sid and Norm are waiting.’
Bert leaned out of the window. ‘That ARP hat makes yer bossy, our Annie.’
‘Aye, maybe, and it’s a grand feeling.’
Fran looked out of the window and waved. Her mam waved back, then they all heard her say to Bert, ‘Keep your eyes open, and you too, our Stan. Everyone’s in a bit of a do about sabotage. They’re suspicious of a fall in a pit t’other side of the valley, and summat about a railway line not far from here, so we’re all to keep alert. Though I doubt they’ll have a sign round their necks saying “Spy” or “Saboteur”. But mind what I say, Bert, and our Stan, and you and Norm too, our Sid. Eyes open, gobs shut.’
Sid and Norm were yelling from the bus shelter, ‘Except for you, Mrs H.’
She laughed. ‘No details, were there, daft lads.’
Sid laughed. ‘You tell our Stan, Mrs H, to get a move on an’ all. This wind’s fair biting, so it is, and he’ll see the lass when the bus comes in later.’
Bert called to Sarah, ‘Going, ready or not.’ Annie Hall stepped back onto the pavement, and Sarah leapt aboard. ‘About bliddy time,’ Bert said, as Mrs Oborne started to sing and the others joined in: ‘Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather …’
Fran and Beth looked at one another, smiling. Stan 2, the band leader, had left them a long note about how it was important to keep the troops’ morale up, and that they should extend their repertoire as the band would be touring with something called ENSA and could do with a three-girl group if they ever got sick of factory work, or even if just one of them did.
Sarah came along the aisle and slumped in the seat next to Maisie, across from Beth and Fran. She was humming along as she still couldn’t remember all the words, but then few could, yet.
‘Still think it’s grand he said a three-girl group,’ Beth said, breaking off for a sip of water from her bottle.
Fran shrugged. ‘Well, he knew Amelia was an extra, and we were the three old ’uns.’
Mrs Oborne turned round. ‘Aye, more likely because she were often slipping off the beat, even though I were fixing my beady eye on her and stabbing at her with me pen.’
Beth and Sarah laughed. Beth tutted. ‘Whose pen? And I hope you gave it back.’
‘Couldn’t do owt else, he were after me like a policeman.’
They were laughing as Sarah leaned across the aisle. ‘I reckon it was because she’d cosied up to Mr Pot Belly, who were rude to Stan Two every time he spoke. Not rude rude, but as though Stan Two were summat less than him.’
Fran frowned. ‘Well, Pot Belly spoke to every one of us like that, and where’d he get all that food to build up that great pudding of a belly is what I want to know?’
‘Probably ate his underlings,’ Maisie grumped. The laughter grew louder. The women took turns guessing what else he might be eating, or who, and they were soon licking their lips at the thought of pork belly, or roast lamb and spuds roasted in dripping.
They were still at it as snow began to fall again, just as it had much of the night, growing heavier with each turn of the bus’s wheels. Mrs Oborne groaned. ‘We’ll be late and have our pay docked and me old mam needs the doc for her chest.’
One of the new girls, Beryl, who was sitting next to her, said, ‘No, if it’s weather, they’re taking a better line on it. They want us there with all limbs working, instead of skidding off the road and ending up squashed as jam.’
Maisie groaned. ‘Steady, Beryl. Don’t want that picture to stick in our minds when we’re fiddling with—Well, the you-know-whats.’
The bus passengers broke off from listing food and shouted, ‘Aye, the thingummybobs.’ Raucous laughter rolled around the bus as it gradually slowed to a crawl, then the women grew quiet, staring out of the windows, hearing the laboured swish of the wipers in the hush. Mrs Oborne called, ‘You go steady an’ all, Bert. Last thing we wants is to end up on t’verge and have to get out and shove the damn great thing back on the bliddy road.’
Beth began to laugh. ‘Well, if we end up pushing it out of a slip t’other side of Sledgeford, I reckon Amelia’s high heels’ll take a bashing.’
Though the others laughed, Fran said nothing, for no one else had heard what Amelia had said about factory girls and she was still furious, though she had no intention of repeating it. Why upset them? She slumped back in the seat, fed up because they were back in stemming again, and what really gripped her knickers was that Swinton had smiled when he told them yesterday, adding, ‘What would I do without my “filling in the gaps” team?’
Mrs Oborne had muttered that she knew what she’d fill him in with, in a dark alley.
Fran sat back in her seat, sipping water like a woman possessed, wanting a reservoir inside her so she could nip to the loo and flush herself through after an hour or two. ‘Once this war is over,’ she said, ‘I am never ever going to mess about with powder again – unless it’s face powder.’
Sylv called across the aisle, ‘Aye, I’ll second that. Wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t itch all the time.’
Maisie turned to face Fran. ‘You and everyone else on this bus, not to mention washing the sheets with it all soaked into them.’
Madge had tried boiling them up twice, each time in soda, she’d told Fran when Fran had taken another load to her and collected the clean ones. ‘But it’s still there. Try and use the same ones for the yellow, lass, then at least you’ve some white for afters. Once the war is over, it’ll fade from the cotton, I dare say.’
She’d pocketed Fran’s money as Fran had asked, ‘Are you sure it’s not too much for you, Madge?’
Madge had said, shaking her head, ‘I only get a few hours at Mrs Adams’ corner shop, and this helps feed the bairn. Me mam comes and sits with the little soul while I do my ARP shift, and there’s the rugs, of course. What I’d do without the co-op, I don’t know. A laugh and some dibs when we sell ’em – what could be better?’
Mrs Oborne had been there and asked, ‘Still not heard from your Rob, then? Weren’t he supposed to send you something for the lad, Madge?’
Madge had smiled. ‘Nay, and hope we never will. He’s long gone now and we’re the better for it. He’ll be selling something off the back of a lorry, or worse, and I don’t want a bar of it. Mr Massingham’s said the house is ours for as long as we need it. He’s good with – well, you know. Just as well he didn’t know the beggar poached pheasant from his land while he were here, or we’d have been out like a dose of salts.’
Bert was calling, ‘Okey-doke, lasses, that long uphill corner into Sledgeford is coming up, so lift yourselves and whack your arses down on the seat when I tell yer, to get a bit of traction. Need to get up it in one. If we stop, we’re done for, and I’ve still got that ruddy bald tyre an’ all.’
He jammed the gear into second, for first would cause a skid; the engine growled and the bus slid. The women each gripped the back of the seat in front and stood, then whacked down again, and again. Mrs Oborne panted, ‘It’s lucky for you lot I’m a big-boned lass, I’ll tell yer that for nothing, our Bert, for I’ve some padding to absorb the shock.’
They were driving alongside Massingham’s grazing land, steadily climbing. They couldn’t see the fields or the drystone wall through the snow, but on the bend there was the blare of a horn and the slit beam of car lights approaching on the wrong side of the road. The lights danced off the falling snow and tree branches in the afternoon gloom.
Bert swung the steering wheel. ‘You bliddy bugger,’ he yelled. The back of the bus swung round, the car blasted past, keeping its course, but the bus didn’t. It slewed round, then back, and then tipped as the front caught the verge. The women screamed and fell against one another. Sarah slid from her seat, across the aisle and onto Fran, and then knocked into Beth. The bus teetered, and Fran whacked against the seat, falling into the aisle, with Beth now on top of her. The bus tipped once more, then settled back on all four wheels. Sarah fell on them both, knocking the air from all their lungs. There was silence and into it came the sound of groans and shouts.
‘Get off me.’
‘Help.’
‘We’ll lose our pay.’
‘Better’n our lives. Anyone hurt?’ It was Mrs Oborne. The slit beams of the bus still cut through the falling snow as the women struggled to their feet. Fran shoved Sarah off, while Beth pulled herself up and onto her seat so that Fran could do the same. Fran tasted blood; it was running into her mouth. She snatched out her handkerchief and held it tight to her nose.
Beth was wincing. ‘Bliddy hell,’ she whispered. ‘You stood on me hand, you great daft thing. Look at it.’
Fran did, but her head was throbbing where Beth had kicked her. She took the handkerchief away, but blood still pumped. Beth gripped Fran’s hand and pressed it against her nose again. ‘Stop fannying about. Keep your hanky there till it clots, while I pinch the bridge of your nose.’
Fran yelled, ‘No, don’t do that, it bliddy hurts.’
‘Then press the hanky against the nostrils.’
Mrs Oborne was hauling her way to the front of the bus. ‘Are you hurt, or just making a bliddy fuss, Bert?’
Bert groaned and pushed himself off the steering wheel, growling. ‘Go and sit your great arse down, you auld bisom, and get whacking up and down, for the love of God.’
Fran started to laugh, Beth too, and soon the whole of the bus was. There were bruises, cuts and bangs everywhere, but nothing bad. And still the snow fell, and seemed to dance.
Bert started the engine again, calling, ‘All set for another go?’
Fran, her nose still pumping, asked, ‘Did the car stop?’
‘Did it hell,’ said Bert. ‘Now shut up and get whacking, while I drive off slow and see what happens.’
What happened was that the wheels spun and the bus skidded. There were a few screams, and Mrs Oborne snapped, ‘That’s enough of that. Where’s your gumption?’
Once the bus came to rest, Bert kept it idling and turned around to say, ‘I have a load of sacks under me seat, but I need a few to go and ram ’em up against the front of all the wheels. I need half of you in here, whacking up and down, and the rest out there to give it a bloody good shove up the arse.’
‘You’re obsessed with that word, Bert,’ called Mrs Oborne.
The women sniggered as they tied on their headscarves and made sure their mufflers were tight. They were not surprised at any of this because they were used to snow; it came every year for heaven’s sake, but it didn’t make it any less of a nuisance. Fran tested her nose bleed and it was only dribbling as she followed along after Mrs Oborne, Beryl, Sylv, Sarah and Beth, who was explaining to Fran that her nose had stopped because of Miss Smith’s very wonderful, healing hands.
Bert handed out the sacks from under his driving seat as the women filed into the cold. The snow fell as Fran and Beth rammed a sack up to the nearside front tyre. Sarah hunkered down to give them a hand. ‘This cold’ll stop your nose completely, anyways.’
Beth muttered, ‘Howay, it was all down to me, if yer don’t mind.’
They were all three laughing as they trudged to the back of the bus, tapping Mrs Oborne on the shoulder. ‘Come on, give us the benefit of your—’
Mrs Oborne said, ‘Not another word. Sick I am of the word arse.’
They were roaring with laughter as the four of them made their way to where Sylv and Beryl were already braced with their backs against the rear of the bus, their heels dug in. Two more came from the bus to help as Bert leaned out of his window and shouted, ‘On three.’
As Fran shoved back, her heels slipping and the exhaust billowing, she saw clouds of white moving on the verge, almost hidden by the falling snow and heard the baaing of sheep. Massingham’s wall must be down.
Mrs Oborne had seen them too, and called to Bert. ‘Howay, lad, the sheep are through. We’d best get the beggars back first.’
‘That’s just bliddy lovely,’ shouted Bert. The engine cut out, and they heard the driver’s door slam. Then they heard Bert say, ‘What the hell?’
Mrs Oborne called, ‘What’s the matter, lad?’
‘Nowt’s the matter, let’s get the beasts back.’ There was the slam of what sounded like the luggage door set in the side. Mrs Oborne called, ‘What was that?’
‘Just me, losing me feet and what, whacking into the side of the bus.’
He came around to the back while he sent Fran and Beth to find the gap in the wall.
Fran dragged her torch from her pocket, wading through snow that chilled her legs and slipped down the tops of her boots, but her toes were so numb it didn’t matter. She shone her torch, but the snow was so heavy the light just bounced back. She shouted, ‘We’ll have to find it almost by touch.’ They waded alongside the wall, Beth moving in the opposite direction. It was Beth who found the gap, and the others then herded the sheep through it while Bert shouted behind them, ‘In yer get, yer bliddy idiot beasts.’
The girls then scrabbled about in the snow, their fingers numb as they and Bert rebuilt the wall, with Mrs Oborne muttering that Mr Massingham owed them a bob or two for saving his sheep.
Finally they were finished and Bert clambered back into the driving seat, the women pushing and shoving the bus while the inside ‘crew’ bounced on the seats. The wheels slipped, the wind howled, and Beth muttered, ‘I could bliddy howl wi’ it.’
Together, as a team – well, what else? Fran thought – they dug in their heels, pushing, pushing, their boots beginning to slip. Suddenly the bus was moving back onto the road; the women were on their backsides and scrambling up, Mrs Oborne muttering, ‘I’ll bliddy murder him, so I will, cos my big arse is a freezing wet one, and I’m bliddy sick of this bliddy war.’
They were all screaming with laughter as they collected up the sacks, now matted with clumps of freezing snow. They could taste the fast-falling snowflakes as they scrambled after the slow-moving vehicle, with Bert hanging out of the window and yelling against the wind, ‘I canna stop, catch up.’
They panted as finally they piled on board. Bert picked up speed steadily and the bus seemed to claw its way up and into Sledgeford as the women dragged off their headscarves, caked solid with snow, and shook them onto the aisle. Mrs Oborne yelled, ‘If yer don’t get yer heater going full pelt, Bert, I’ll bliddy strangle yer.’
‘Tis on, lass. It’ll warm soon,’ he called back.
Fran muttered, as her nose began to bleed again, ‘It’d better do an’ all.’
The women at the Sledgeford Village bus shelter were full of complaints as they boarded, but Bert stood up and roared, ‘Shut the hell up. The lasses’ve had to push the bus back onto the road and get it up the hill, and you, Amelia what’s-your-name, would be no damn good in them silly shoes. Wear boots in the winter, for pity’s sake, whether you bliddy want to show us all you’re a cut above us or not. Now all go and sit down, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you lot, and neither do any of these lasses who bliddy got us ’ere.’
It was then that all the women saw the gash on his forehead, and the blood that was still dribbling on his cheek.
They were silent as the bus crawled to the Factory, an hour late. But would they get back?
‘Farmer Watson will bring out his tractor, never you fear,’ shouted Bert. ‘I’m not slogging through this lot on me own with a load of bliddy hooligans roaring about on the roads, or mithering cos they’ve had to bliddy wait.’
In the changing rooms, Mrs Raydon checked them quickly. Mr Swinton entered, flapping his clipboard towards them as he pointed to the clock. Fran, so cold she couldn’t feel her fingers, toes, legs or hands, her nose so sore it throbbed, opened her mouth, but Mrs Oborne was there before her. ‘You put that clipboard down, Mr Swinton, or it’ll end up in a dark place and you’ll know the pain of childbirth. We’re here because we pushed the bus back onto the road, but only after herding Mr Massingham’s blithering sheep into their pasture, and we’re sick, sore and tired, so we’d best not find our pay’s been cut an’ all.’
She rammed her turban on her head and swept past him out into the corridor, followed by them all, barging along the corridor towards their other enemy, the yellow.
Late that night Bert knocked on the Canary Club’s shed door, after he’d tried to find Joe, Tom and Simon at the Miners’ Club. He slipped inside when Joe opened it, not wanting one of the ARPs to yell at him about the light.
He told them he’d discovered he’d whacked one of Massingham’s sheep with the front of the bus when he slid off the road. ‘The stone wall were down, yer see, and they got out. We put them back, so I reckon we’ve paid for the little beggar, else Massingham’d lost the lot. It were already a goner, so I stacked it in the luggage bay. Reckon we could all do with a bit of a feed, and it were dead so it’s not poaching.’ He pointed at Simon. ‘You did a bit of butchering in the thirties when us miners were laid off, didn’t you, lad?’
‘Whether a beast be dead or not is a moot point where poaching’s concerned,’ Simon muttered. ‘Not sure Massingham would agree.’
Joe shook his head, and turned to him. ‘Don’t be so bliddy silly, Si. Our lasses need the food, and it wouldn’t hurt any of the rest of ’em women, neither, or the bairns. It were running free, and ’twere an accident.’
Tom was nodding, watching Simon who studied his Woodbine, took a drag and stood up. ‘What we waiting for then?’ he muttered. They followed him out into the freezing cold and the snow, which was a good foot high and still falling.
Simon fetched the wheelbarrow and they trundled to the bus garage and into the darkness of the old shed where Bert had hidden the sheep. They lugged it through Massingham, grateful for once for the blackout, then headed to the back of Simon’s brother’s butcher shop. They stepped inside the jointing room, and only then did they speak. Bert said he’d have a couple of chops for him and the missus, and they could sort the rest as they pleased. ‘Sooner the better, though, in case word gets around. By then we’ll have eaten the evidence, eh?’
Simon nodded. ‘Yer’ll have it by tomorrow. And not a word to me brother. I don’t want him involved. I’ll divvy it up for those with Massingham women at the Factory, and get someone to deliver it around, no questions asked. That suit you?’
Tom muttered, ‘Will they all keep their mouths shut?’
‘They won’t know whose it is,’ said Joe. ‘It could just have come off the back of a lorry, and anyway they’d rather have their tongues cut out than split. We all would, eh. No point in getting Bert into trouble, not at his age.’
‘Not at any age, nor any of us,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t want to end up in clink, or chucked out of me house by Massingham, and I wouldn’t do it, but that the lasses are looking proper done in. And if I thought the truth will out, I’d be burying the woolly bastard now.’
The next day, when the bus arrived back at ten after their shift, the three girls peered from the window, grateful that Ralph was not there. They’d thought he’d keep turning up like a bad penny once Davey went but he hadn’t, not after the first day. They hurried home, Fran waving to the other two when they reached their back lanes. She then slid and slipped home, for her mam had promised something special for a late tea, a treat. She’d said nothing to the others because her mam had said not to.
Fran had feared for a moment that her da had poached a Massingham pheasant or two, as he sometimes threatened to do, but he wouldn’t dare, for her mam would have his guts for garters. She must have got something on ration from the shop, but what?
She rushed across the yard, which had been cleared by Ben. He’d also thrown down ash to stop anyone skidding which was always a bugger to sweep clean. But better than breaking a leg, or a nose, she thought, touching her own. By, it had hurt when Stan straightened it. She kicked off the snow and ash from her boots, eased open the kitchen door, and when she was met by the smell of lamb she thought she’d gone to heaven.
Her mam stood at the scullery doorway, grinning and wearing her Christmas apron.
‘Lamb?’ Fran breathed, her mouth actually watering.
‘Aye, lass. Your da said it were from a man with a lorry, and to say nothing, and just enjoy it. Sit yourself down.’
Ben was already there, his knife and fork at the ready, along with Stan, who called out, ‘Come on, Fran, for goodness’ sake.’
Her da was at the head of the table. ‘Sit, eat, don’t worry to wash yer hands. Wipe yer boots, and get this down yer, eh?’
She hung up her mac on the back door and slid into her seat, dropping her bag to the floor, forgetting that it contained the empty water bottles. Luckily they fell on the rug and didn’t break. She lifted the lid on the vegetable pot and saw sprouts, leeks and carrots from the allotment, there was gravy in the jug, and was suddenly ravenous, when she’d thought she’d never want to eat again after Swinton sent them back into the stemming shop. He still had workers down with flu, or sickness of some sort, so they’d be moved round again, unless they got it too.
The lamb was set before them, and now her mam sat and said, ‘Begin, and eat hearty.’ They did, no one having the time to speak, and it was better than the lamb at the restaurant in London because her family were enjoying it with her too. She hoped that Davey was eating heartily as well. As she ate she even forgot about her black eyes, her nose and her mouth ulcers, she just savoured every mouthful. She had just finished, and had laid down her knife and fork like the others, when they heard a knocking at the front door. The front door. They looked at one another. Her da stood. ‘Best get the dishes out in t’scullery, quick. It were off back of a lorry, remember, so there could be questions.’
Her mam rose too, turning on him. ‘You said Simon bought it off a friend with a lorry, and every Massingham lass from the factory’s had some, so it’ll likely only be one of ’em coming to – well, I don’t know what?’
The knock came again. Joe gripped Annie’s arm. ‘Coming to bliddy what? They’d use the back door, woman.’
Fran and Stan stared at their da, then at one another. Their da had shaken his wife, and he looked terrified. Annie said, ‘Who was this bloke with a lorry?’
Stan answered, ‘If Si knew him, that’s enough for us. So we keep quiet, just as everyone will. But I suppose that’s still the black market. God almighty. Could it be the police?’
Her mam was rushing with the plates to the scullery. ‘Ben, get the vegetables.’
‘Who’s getting the door?’ Fran asked.
Stan said, ‘Ben can go. They won’t be tough with him. Anyway, we’re probably just showing a light and it’ll be the ARP. Who’s on tonight, Mam?’
They were all standing around and her father had broken into a sweat; it was dripping down his face. Her mam said, ‘I don’t know. If it were Madge she’d come in the back. Ben, let ’em in if they show you a warrant. Not a word about Simon. We bought it off a man, all right. In fact, me, nowt a body else. I’ll have it laid at my door, I bought it, you all hear me.’
Fran shook her head, her mind racing. The knock came again. Stan murmured, ‘Mam, bring back the vegetables and the gravy. If it’s someone who’s heard a whisper, we can just say we had a bit of scrag end on ration, and made gravy, eh?’
Fran pushed Ben back in his chair. ‘Just sit down everyone. We’ve got a story, we stick to it. A bit of scrag end, and that’s that.’ Fran looked past Ben to her da, and now it was her mam gripping his arm and muttering, ‘You wouldn’t be so daft, Joe. Not to poach a sheep?’
He pulled away from her, staring into the range.
Fran stepped into the corridor. She shut the kitchen door on the family, feeling sick, the lamb tasting sour in her mouth. Had Da thought of poaching after she told him about rounding up Massingham’s sheep? No, he couldn’t be so stupid. Any farmer’d have their guts for garters. But no, if he had it wouldn’t be Massingham’s for that was the one thing that’d ruin them, make them homeless, jobless … She hurried as the knock came again.
She opened the door a crack, and peered out. Ralph stood there, smiling. ‘I wanted to check on you, because I thought I’d meet the bus again, just to walk you back, keep you safe. But I was called home because the sheep were brought in by old Hughes and we’re one short. So I had to double-check them with him, in this bloody weather. He was right. Bloody poachers.’
He pushed on the door, banging it open. Fran stepped out, pulling the door to behind her. Ralph said, pushing the door open again, ‘No, don’t get cold. I’ll step in with you because I heard Stan say you had a broken nose and a couple of shiners and perhaps there’s something I can do.’ He stopped as the smell of lamb wafted from the hall out into the night.
‘My word,’ he muttered. ‘Oh my word, Miss Frances Hall. What would my father say and do, eh? Rather a stickler where poachers are concerned, and there is the slight problem of breaking the ration too. What can we do about this, do you think? Too much of a coincidence, for us to be one sheep down and for little old me to be greeted by the rich smell of roast lamb issuing forth from your front door?’
They stood in silence, Fran on the step and Ralph still outside, both in darkness. All Fran could smell was his cologne and all she could see was his shape looming there, with the bright, starlit sky as silent as they were. She put out her hand, feeling the door behind her. Her family’s door, no, Mr Massingham’s door, and over to the right, in the distance, the smouldering slag heap, the only thing not snow-covered, also owned by Mr Massingham. She breathed in to the count of four, and smelled the sulphur; it felt as though the air was owned by him. The cold wind whipped at her. She said nothing.
Ralph said nothing either, but she could still smell his cologne. A pitman smelled of honest graft: sweat and coal. This bastard was no pitman. Oh no, he was fit only for the dungheap.
‘Well, we find ourselves in a situation, dear Frances, that seems to me to require a little bit of friendliness and understanding on both our parts. Heavens, we don’t want Davey’s family without a roof either, do we? Because a whole sheep for one family? I don’t think so. So, probably much of Massingham …’
She stared from him to the slag heap, watching it brighten as the wind got up. He leaned closer. She stood her ground. He said, his breath wine-tinged, ‘Have you nothing to say to someone who is eager and willing to help the Hall family? Of course, as well as tucking in, this could not have been poached by your father alone, so there could be many looking for a roof over their family’s heads, and a pit that will take them without a reference, eh?’
Again there was silence. Fran knew Tom Bedley would be in it up to his neck, and Lord knew how many others, because if a sheep had been poached, Ralph was right, it would be shared.
Ralph’s teeth seemed to gleam in the light from the crescent moon, like a bliddy wolf’s. The wind whined in the winding gear of the pithead. Somewhere a train whistle blew, and nearer an owl hooted. Perhaps it had just flown over the house.
‘So, shall we toddle on up to the Hall, and perhaps take your father, maybe Stan as well?’
‘There will be no need for that, Mr Massingham.’