Shaw's smile faltered. But he won't reply, Ernie thought, because if he does he'll start stuttering and he knows it.
There'd been a half-smile on Shaw's face as he stood alone on the cobbles. A nervous, forced-looking smile but a smile none the less. Ernie had to admire the lad, summoning the nerve to show himself tonight, not a month since Andy Hodgson died.
Especially with more than a few resentful brewery employees about.
'Looks like vodka.' Frank observed 'That what it is, Mr Horridge? Vodka?' A few people starting to look warily at Frank and Shaw, a couple of men guiding their wives away.
''Course, I forgot. Bloody Gannons make vodka on t'side. Gannons will make owt as'll sell. That Gannons vodka? That what it is… Mr Horridge?'
Shaw sipped his drink, not looking at Frank. This could be nerves. Or it could be an insult, Shaw pointedly pretending that Young Frank was not there. Whichever, Ernie decided he ought to break this up before it started to spoil the atmosphere. But somebody better equipped than him got there first.
'Where's your dad, Frank?' Milly Gill demanded, putting herself firmly between him and Shaw, like a thick, flowery bush sprouting between two trees.
'Be around somewhere.' Frank staring over the postmistress's head at Shaw, who was staring back now. Frank's knuckles whitening around the handle of his beer mug.
'I think you'd better find him, Frank,' Milly said briskly. 'See he doesn't drink too much with that diabetes.'
Frank ignored her, too tanked-up to know his place. 'Fancy new car. I see… Mr Horridge. Porsche, int it? Andy Hodgson just got 'isself a new car, day before he fell. Well, I'm saying 'new' – Austin Maestro, don't even make um no more. He were chuffed wi' it. Easily pleased, Andy, weren't he, Milly?'
'It was an accident,' Milly said tightly. 'As you well know.'
'Aye, sure it were, I'm not accusing Mr Horridge of murder.
Only, why don't you ask him why Andy were suddenly ordered to reconnect a bloody old clapped-out pulley system for winching malt-sacks up to a storeroom right at top of t'building as isn't even used no more except by owls. You ask this bastard that, Milly.'
'We've had the inquest,' Milly said. 'Go and see to your dad.'
'Inquest? Fucking whitewash. I'll tell you why Andy were sent up. On account of place were being tarted up to look all quaint and old-fashioned for a visit from t'Gannons directors. Right, Mr Horridge?'
'Wasn't c… Not quite like that,' said Shaw quietly.
'Oh aye. How were it different? Lad dies for a bit of fucking cosmetic. You're all shit, you. Shit.'
The air between them fizzed. Shaw was silent. He'd been an expert at being silent during the three years Ernie had taught him before the lad was sent to prep school. And still an expert when he came back from University, poor bugger.
'And this Porsche.' Young Frank popped out the word with a few beery bubbles. 'How many jobs Gannons gonna axe to buy you that, eh?'
'Frank,' Milly Gill told him very firmly, big floral bosom swelling, 'I'll not tell you again!'
Careful, lass, Ernie thought. Don't do owt.
'You're a jammy little twat,' Frank spat. 'Don't give a shit. You never was a proper Horridge.'
A widening circle around them, conversations trailing off.
'Right.' Milly's eyes went still. 'That's enough. I'll not have this occasion spoiled. Am I getting through?'
'Now, Millicent,' Ernie said, knowing from experience what might happen if she got riled. But Shaw Horridge startled them all. 'It's quite all right, Miss Gill.'
He smiled icily at Young Frank. 'Yes, it is a per-Porsche.' Held up his glass. 'Yes, it is vodka. Yes, it's mer- made in Sheffield by a s-subsidiary of Gannons Ales.'
He straightened up, taller than Frank now, his voice gaining in strength. 'Gannons Ales. Without whom, yes, I wouldn't have a Porsche.'
And, stepping around Millie, he poked Young Frank in the chest with a thin but rigid forefinger. 'And without whom you wouldn't have a job… Mr Manifold.'
Ernie saw several men tense, ready to hold Young Frank back, but Frank didn't move. His eyes widened and his grip on the tankard slackened. Lad's as astonished as me, Ernie thought, at Shaw Horridge coming out with half a dozen almost fully coherent sentences one after the other.
The red sun shone into Shaw's eyes; he didn't blink.
The selling of the brewery was probably the worst thing that had happened to Bridelow this century. But not, apparently, the worst thing that had happened to Shaw Horridge.
He lowered his forefinger. 'Just remember that, please,' he said.
Looking rather commanding, where he used to look shyly hunched. And this remarkable confidence, as though somebody had turned his lights on. Letting them all see him – smiling and relaxed – after perpetrating the sale of the brewery, Bridelow's crime of the century. And indirectly causing a death.
Took some nerve, this did, from stuttering Shaw.
Arthur's lad at last. Maybe.
'Excuse me,' Shaw said dismissively. 'I have to meet someone.'
He turned his back on Young Frank Manifold and walked away, no quicker than he needed to, the sun turning the bald spot on the crown of his head into a bright golden coin.
'By 'eck,' Ernie Dawber said, but he noticed that Milly Gill was looking worried.
And she wasn't alone. 'Now then, Ernest. Wha's tha make of that, then?'
He hadn't noticed her edging up behind him, although he'd known she must be here somewhere. She was a Presence.
Just a little old woman in a pale blue woollen beret, an old grey cardigan and a lumpy brown woollen skirt.
'Well,' Ernie Dawber said, 'Arthur might have been mortified at what he's done with the brewery, but I think he'd be quite gratified at the way he stood up for himself there. Don't you?'
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff grimly. 'I'm sure his father'd be right pleased.'
Ernie looked curiously into the rubbery old features. Anybody who thought this was just a little old woman hadn't been long in Bridelow. He took a modest swallow from his half of Black. 'What's wrong then, Ma?'
'Everything.' Ma sighed. 'All coming apart.'
'Oh?' said Ernie. 'Nice night, though. Look at that sun.'
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff pessimistically. 'Going down, int it?'
'Well, yes.' Ernie straightened his glasses. 'It usually does this time of night.'
Ma Wagstaff nodded at his glass. 'What's that ale like now it's Gannons?'
'Nowt wrong with it as I can taste.' This wasn't true; it didn't seem to have quite the same brackish bite – or was that his imagination?
Ma looked up and speared him with her fierce little eyes. 'Got summat to tell me, Ernest Dawber?'
Ernie coughed. 'Not as I can think of.' She was making him uneasy.
'Anythin' in the post today?'
'This and that, Ma, this and that.'
'Like one of them big squashy envelopes, for instance?'
'A jiffy-bag, you mean?'
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff. 'Wi' British Museum stamped on it.'
Ernie fumed. You couldn't keep anything bloody private in this place. 'Time that Millicent kept her damn nose out!'
'Never mind that, lad, what's it say?'
'Now, look…' Ernie backed away, pulling at his waistcoat. 'In my capacity as local historian, I was able to provide Dr Hall and the British Museum with a considerable amount of information relating to the Moss, and as a result, following their examination of the body, they've kindly given me a preview of their findings, which…'
'Thought that'd be it.' Ma Wagstaff nodded, satisfied.
'… which will be published in due course. Until which time, I'm not allowed…'
'If you know, why shouldn't we know?'
