these hills and goes through the aqueduct down the valley. It seems funny, doesn’t it, when it was our folk who were killed by the cholera that came from the filthy water they were given to drink? We might as well run over the hill and throw ourselves in the reservoir, like a lot of lemmings. That would solve everybody’s problems.’
‘I was assured by Mr Venables at Peak Water that these houses aren’t a problem for the catchment area.’
Lucas Oxley’s expression said merely that it was Cooper’s own fault if he allowed himself to be fooled by people like J. P. Venables.
‘When they come to try to move us out, I suppose it’ll be your lot behind ‘em putting the boot in, making sure us little folk don’t get in the way of progress. I don’t suppose our homes look much to you, do they? Got a nice, modern detached house back in Edendale, have you?’
‘Well, not exactly.’
‘If we didn’t have our homes in Withens, where would we go? People like us can’t afford to buy anywhere. And what chance is there of finding somewhere we can all live close together? They’d
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split us up and put us on council estates. It would be the end of this family.’
Through a doorway, Cooper watched Marion Oxley fussing around in the kitchen, slamming cupboards, peeping under the lids of saucepans as if some secret lurked inside that she could never share with anyone, and glaring suspiciously at the windows. Her disapproval filled the moments of silence like a bad smell.
The glimpses of her reminded him of his own mother, as she had been in her best days at Bridge End Farm. Though she seemed to be busy, she was watching. Always watching.
The picture of family life he was gathering from the Oxleys was completely unlike what he had been used to, yet they were as close as the Cooper family, in their own way. The comparisons he saw all around him made Cooper uneasy. He was trying to concentrate on the job in hand, but his memory kept unpacking old recollections of his childhood at Bridge End Farm. Time and again, he had pushed the remembered images back into their boxes. But as soon as his mind was distracted by a phrase or a gesture, the memories came tumbling out again, unfolding their carefully packed shapes, falling open like the petals of pale flowers, too long untouched by the sun.
‘Did they tell you at the water company that somebody wants to buy this land?’ said Lucas.
‘Yes, I know there’s a developer interested.’
‘But I don’t suppose they told you who’s working for that developer locally.’
‘No. Who?’
‘Dearden.’
‘Michael Dearden?’
‘Aye, at Shepley Head Lodge. The people with the money are in London, but they pay him to do the negotiating locally. He’s a surveyor of some kind.’
‘How do you feel about that?’ said Cooper.
‘It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had the odd set-to with Dearden.’
‘You had an argument with Mr Dearden?’
‘Aye. You might say so. A disagreement.’
‘What about?’
‘The road. That road up there. It runs all the way down to their place, Shepley Head. We never could agree on who ought to keep it in order. He’s always chunterin’ about it, silly bugger. He goes
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on about how the potholes are damaging that car of his. I wasn’t standing for that. So I gave him what for.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘I thought he was going to burst into tears. What a mard-arse. I’ve never come across anyone so mardy in my life. But I knew what he was on about really. He blamed the road for the time he hit our Jake and smashed his leg. He blamed everything and everybody but himself.’
Cooper recalled the glimpse of Michael Dearden sitting in his car, terrified at the sight of Jake and the other boys in the road outside Waterloo Terrace.
‘Are you sure, Mr Oxley?’ he said quietly.
Oxley gazed at him for a moment, waiting for an explanation.
‘You might not realize this,’ said Cooper, ‘but Michael Dearden has been obsessed with the idea that members of your family are persecuting him, ever since the incident with Jake. He imagines Oxleys in the darkness around his house every night. He even avoids driving through Withens because he has to pass the spot where he ran over Jake. I think Mr Dearden is consumed with guilt, but he won’t ever admit it to you.’
‘Happen you’re right, then,’ said Oxley.
Then Cooper smiled. It had occurred to him that, after the incident in the Oxleys’ yard on Wednesday, he might be imagining Oxleys in the darkness at night for a little while himself.
Take a look at these -‘ said Lucas, gesturing at a couple of black box files on a table. They go back years. Years and years of getting nowhere. Years of people not listening to us. We don’t fit into their computer systems, so they don’t know what to do about us, apart from getting rid of us. Read some them - they keep repeating a lot of jargon that doesn’t mean anything. Whatever we say, it comes up against a blank wall. The bureaucracy machine just rolls on. One day, it’s going to roll over us.’
Cooper picked up some of the letters.
‘Did you know,’ he said, ‘that one of these is an eviction notice?’
Lucas shrugged. ‘It’s not the first.’
