The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge

He rounded the last corner and slid to a halt, taking in the scene in front of him.

The pickets had formed a long line, three or four men deep across the road, blocking the gates of the pit. Opposite them, twice that number of police were standing, protected by their shields, and with truncheons at the ready. And behind them, Father Joseph could see the mounted police moving into formation.

There was an almighty uproar to his left. Some of the lads had thrown their weight and a couple of crow bars at a brick wall which was now falling around them. Willing hands were reaching for the bricks. Ammunition for the battle to come.

Father Joseph felt his legs begin to shake. He could not have moved even had he wanted to.

With another roar, the strikers launched a hail of bricks at the police, and surged forward. The police lines held for a few heartbeats, then they began to fall back. A couple of men were dragged to safety by their neighbours as the solid wall of blue began to disintegrate. A long whistle blast sounded, and the police began to fall back at a run. Opening a wide path, down which the horses were now advancing at a canter.

Father Joseph could see the fear on the faces of the miners. There was Ray Earnshaw, right in the middle of the line. Ray’s face stood out for a second, white among the dark clothes that surrounded him. And then everything was confusion. Miners running in every direction. People yelling. Anything that could be picked up was being thrown. So much anger. Between the miners and the police, between the men driven back to work by starvation and those determined to hold out. A man could fall in a melee like that and nobody would ever be able to say what caused it.

‘Mick! Mick! Earnshaw!’ Mick turned off his drill and looked towards the voice. The gaffer jerked his thumb towards the doorway of the half-finished new-build. ‘Your girl’s in the office.’

‘Who?’ Mick had a girl, but he’d been keeping that pretty quiet. He didn’t fancy the comments and jokes he heard every time another one of the lads fell by the wayside. The whip-crack mimes and ‘under the thumb’ jokes. And the other stuff. The jokes about the size of her boobs and arse, over cards when they’d finished up onsite. He wasn’t having that. She was a special, his Frances, a cut about the Sharons and Julies he usually got off with.

Doug shrugged. ‘Some blonde bint.’

Mick put his tools down and took the two-minute walk across the site to the foreman’s portakabin. Frances really was a bit of all right. He’d met her at his digs. It was mainly builders and apprentices, but the three rooms on the top floor were all girls. Dancers. Two of them were right stuck-up, but Frances was different. She’d always smiled at him when they passed on the stairs, even when he was staggering back after a skinful. He didn’t do that so much any more. He spent more time with Frances and less down the pub. He was saving his money because he had plans, he did, and those plans involved Frances. Now, she was standing on her own in the middle of the cramped room, not sitting on the orange plastic chair. She had arms wrapped tightly across her body. Mick moved towards her and she stepped back. ‘Have you heard the news?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Can’t hear the radio. Have to wear these things.’ He tapped the set of ear protectors hanging round his neck.

‘Well, there was some trouble on the picket line.’ She stared at the floor. ‘At Gimmerton.’

Mick’s stomach tightened. ‘What sort of trouble?’

She still wasn’t meeting his eye. ‘The police phoned the digs.’

The knot in Mick’s stomach jumped to his throat. He stared at the floor. There were two different offcuts of lino on the floor. One grey. One blood-red. He’d never noticed that before.

‘They said your dad got in a fight with some other miners.’

Mick shook his head. That wasn’t right. The lads only scrapped with each other over beer and women and his dad could take or leave both of those. ‘Was it a scab?’

‘What?’

‘Did he get in a fight with a scab?’ That could be it. His dad wouldn’t have scabs at his pit. And Ray Earnshaw knew how to use his fists if he had to. He could’ve done the other bloke some proper damage.

Frances bit her lip. ‘I don’t know.’

‘So what? Is he in hospital or summat? I hope they don’t expect me to sort out those bloody kids.’

Silence filled the tiny room. It seemed to last for hours. Finally Frances stepped towards him, reaching out her fingertips to his cheek. ‘I’m really sorry, love.’

Mick couldn’t bring himself to ask the question, to hear her confirm what he thought he already knew. He let her wrap an arm around his waist and sink her face into his shoulder. Normally she didn’t like to hug him until he’d washed and changed. Now she pressed herself against his dust and grime. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Something’s going on.’

Heathcliff was right. Something was wrong. Why else would there be so much activity in Moor Lane? There were people standing around in the street, talking. There were two police cars. And they were parked outside the last house in the street.

Their house.

Cathy tightened her grip on Heathcliff’s hand. ‘I don’t like the look of this. Let’s stay away.’

The two of them had been coming home, after a day spent on the blue hills. They had walked through the heather. Lain on their backs and watched the clouds scudding past. It was cold, but not wet, and for February that was a rare joy. Cathy loved days like those, up in the hills with Heathcliff. Sometimes they talked. Other times they didn’t. They didn’t have to. It was too cold now to swim in the lake up behind the pit, but they could watch the birds riding the updrafts of air as they searched for prey. They could pretend there was no strike. There was no school. There was nothing but the two of them.

Cathy was the one who always turned for home first. She had to get dinner on before her father got home. She wished she didn’t have to, but wishing didn’t change things. Just as staying out all night wouldn’t change whatever was waiting for them below.

‘I’m frightened, Heathcliff.’

His arms went around her, pulling her close. ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m here. Nothing can touch us when we’re together.’

She led the way out of the hills and across the wasteland at the end of the road. As they got closer to the house, another car pulled up, and a woman got out.