Jenny nodded and sniffed. Youd better come in.
The living room was cramped but clean. The furniture, like the carpet, was unfashionable but not at all shabby. A room for special occasions, Karen thought, and a life where there were few of those.
Jenny waved them towards the sofa and perched on the edge of an armchair opposite. She was clearly not going to offer them any sort of refreshment. So. Youre here because of our Misha. I thought you lot would have something better to do, all the awful things I keep reading about in the newspapers.
A missing husband and father is a pretty awful thing, wouldnt you say? Karen said.
Jennys lips tightened, as if shed felt the burn of indigestion. Depends on the man, Inspector. The kind of guy you run into doing your job, I dont imagine too many of their wives and kids are that bothered when they get taken away.
Youd be surprised. A lot of their families are pretty devastated. And at least they know where their man is. They dont have to live with uncertainty.
I didnt think I was living with uncertainty. I thought I knew damn fine where Mick was until our Misha started raking about trying to find him.
Karen nodded. You thought he was in Nottingham.
Aye. I thought hed went scabbing. To be honest, I wasnt that sorry to see the back of him. But I was bloody livid that he put that label round our necks. Id rather he was dead than a blackleg, if you really want to know. She pointed at Karen. You sound like youre from round here. You must know what its like to get tarred with that brush.
Karen tipped her head in acknowledgement. All the more galling now that it looks like he didnt go scabbing after all.
Jenny looked away. I dont know that. All I know is that he didnt go to Nottingham that night with that particular bunch of scabs.
Well, were here to try to establish what really happened. My colleague here is going to take some notes, just to make sure I dont misremember anything you tell me. The Mint hastily took out his notebook and flipped it open in a nervous flurry of pages. Maybe Phil had been right about his deficiencies, Karen thought. Now, I need his full name and date of birth.
Michael James Prentice. Born 20th January 1955.
And you were all living here at the time? You and Mick and Misha?
Aye. Ive lived here all my married life. Never really had a choice in the matter.
Have you got a photo of Mick you could let us have? I know its a long time ago, but it could be helpful.
You can put it on the computer and make it older, cant you? Jenny went to the sideboard and opened a drawer.
Sometimes its possible. But too expensive unless theres a more pressing reason than your grandsons leukaemia.
Jenny took out an immaculate black leather album and brought it back to the chair. When she opened it, the covers creaked. Even upside down and from the other side of the room, Karen could see it was a wedding album. Jenny quickly turned past the formal wedding shots to a pocket at the back, thickly stuffed with snaps. She pulled out a bundle and flicked through them. She paused at a couple, then finally settled on one. She handed Karen a rectangular picture. It showed a head and shoulders of two young men grinning at the camera, corners of the beer glasses in shot as they toasted the photographer. Thats Mick on the left, Jenny said. The good-looking one.
She wasnt lying. Mick Prentice had tousled dark blond hair, cut in the approximation of a mullet that George Michael had boasted in his Wham period. Mick had blue eyes, ridiculously long eyelashes and a dangerous smile. The sickle crescent of a coal tattoo sliced through his right eyebrow, saving him from being too pretty. Karen could see exactly why Jenny Prentice had fallen for her husband. Thanks, she said. Whos the other guy? A raggedy mop of brown hair, long, bony face, a few faint acne scars pitting the sunken cheeks, lively eyes, a triangular grin like the Joker in the Batman comics. Not a looker like his pal, but something engaging about him all the same.
His best pal. Andy Kerr.
The best pal who killed himself, according to Misha. Misha told me your husband went missing on Friday the fourteenth of December 1984. Is that your recollection?
Thats right. He went out in the morning with his bloody paints and said hed be back for his tea. That was the last I saw him.
Paints? He was doing a bit of work on the side?
Jenny made a sound of disdain. As if. Not that we couldnt have used the money. No, Mick painted watercolours. Can you credit it? Can you imagine anything more bloody useless in the 1984 strike than a miner painting watercolours?
Could he not have sold them? the Mint chipped in, leaning forward and looking keen.
Who to? Everybody round here was skint and there was no money for him to go someplace else on the off chance. Jenny gestured at the wall behind them. Hed have been lucky to get a couple of pounds apiece.
Karen swivelled round and looked at the three cheaply framed paintings on the wall. West Wemyss, Macduff Castle and the Ladys Rock. To her untutored eye, they looked vivid and lively. Shed have happily given them house room, though she didnt know how much shed have been willing to pay for the privilege back in 1984. So, how did he get into that? Karen asked, turning back to face Jenny.
He did a class at the Miners Welfare the year Misha was born. The teacher said he had a gift for it. Me, I think she said the same to every one of them that was halfway good looking.
But he kept it up?
It got him out of the house. Away from the dirty nappies and the noise. Bitterness seemed to come off Jenny Prentice in waves. Curious but heartening that it didnt seem to have infected her daughter. Maybe that had something to do with the stepfather shed spoken about. Karen reminded herself to ask about the other man in Jennys life, another who seemed notable by his absence.
Did he paint much during the strike?
Every day it was fair he was out with his kitbag and his easel. And if it was raining, he was down the caves with his pals from the Preservation Society.
The Wemyss caves, do you mean? Karen knew the caves that ran back from the shore deep into the sandstone cliffs between East Wemyss and Buckhaven. Shed played in them a few times as a child, oblivious to their historical significance as a major Pictish site. The local kids had treated them as indoor play areas, which was one of the reasons why the Preservation Society had been set up. Now there were railings closing off the deeper and more dangerous sections of the cave network and amateur historians and archaeologists had preserved them as a playground for adults. Mick was involved with the caves?
Mick was involved in everything. He played football, he painted his pictures, he messed about in the caves, he was up to his eyes in the union. Anything and everything was more important than spending time with his family. Jenny crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms across her chest. He said it kept him sane during the strike. I think it just kept him out the road of his responsibilities.
Karen knew this was fertile soil for her inquiries but she could afford to leave it for later. Jennys suppressed anger had stayed put for twenty-two years. It wasnt about to go anywhere now. There was something much more immediate that interested her. So, during the strike, where did Mick get the money for paints? I dont know much about art, but I know it costs a few bob for proper paper and paint. She couldnt imagine any striking miner spending money on art supplies when there was no money for food or heating.
Karen knew this was fertile soil for her inquiries but she could afford to leave it for later. Jennys suppressed anger had stayed put for twenty-two years. It wasnt about to go anywhere now. There was something much more immediate that interested her. So, during the strike, where did Mick get the money for paints? I dont know much about art, but I know it costs a few bob for proper paper and paint. She couldnt imagine any striking miner spending money on art supplies when there was no money for food or heating.
I dont want to get anybody into trouble, she said.
Yeah, right. It was twenty-three years ago, Karen said flatly. Im really not interested in small-scale contra from the time of the miners strike.
One of the art teachers from the high school lived up at Coaltown. He was a wee cripple guy. One leg shorter than the other and a humphy back. Mick used to do his garden for him. The guy paid him in paints. She gave a little snort. I said could he not pay him in money or food. But apparently the guy was paying out all his wages to the ex-wife. The paints he could nick from the school. She refolded her arms. Hes dead now anyway.
Karen tried to tamp down her dislike of this woman, so different from the daughter who had beguiled her into this case. So what was it like between you, before Mick disappeared?
I blame the strike. OK, we had our ups and downs. But it was the strike that drove a wedge between us. And Im not the only woman in this part of the world who could say the same thing.
Karen knew the truth of that. The terrible privations of the strike had scarred just about every couple she had known back then. Domestic violence had erupted in improbable places; suicide rates had risen; marriages had shattered in the face of implacable poverty. She hadnt understood it at the time, but she did now. Maybe so. But everybodys storys different. Id like to hear yours.
Friday 14th December 1984; Newton of Wemyss
Ill be back for my tea, Mick Prentice said, slinging the big canvas bag across his body and grabbing the slender package of his folded easel.
Tea? What tea? Theres nothing in the house to eat. You need to be out there finding food for your family, not messing about painting the bloody sea for the umpteenth time, Jenny shouted, trying to force him to halt on his way out the door.
He turned back, his gaunt face twisted in shame and pain. You think I dont know that? You think were the only ones? You think if I had any idea how to make this better I wouldnt be doing it? Nobody has any fucking food. Nobody has any fucking money. His voice caught in his throat like a sob. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Down the Welfare last night, Sam Thomson said there was talk of a food delivery from the Women Against Pit Closures. If you get yourself down there, theyre supposed to be here about two oclock. It was so cold in the kitchen that his words formed a cloud in front of his lips.
More handouts. I cant remember the last time I actually chose what I was going to cook for the tea. Jenny suddenly sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. She looked up at him. Are we ever going to get to the other side of this?
Weve just got to hold out a bit longer. Weve come this far. We can win this. He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her.
Theyre going back, Mick. All the time, theyre going back. It was on the news the other night. More than a quarter of the pits are back working. Whatever Arthur Scargill and the rest of the union executive might say, theres no way we can win. Its just a question of how bloody that bitch Thatcher will make the losing.
He shook his head vehemently. Dont say that, Jenny. Just because there are a few pockets down south where theyve caved in. Up here, were rock solid. Sos Yorkshire. And South Wales. And were the ones that matter. His words sounded hollow and there was no conviction in his face. They were, she thought, all beaten. They just didnt know when to lie down.
If you say so, she muttered, turning away. She waited till she heard the door close behind him, then slowly got up and put her coat on. She picked up a heavy-duty plastic sack and left the freezing chill of the kitchen for the damp cold of the morning. This was her routine these days. Get up and walk Misha to school. At the school gate, the bairn would be given an apple or an orange, a bag of crisps and a chocolate biscuit by the Friends of the Lady Charlotte, a rag, tag and bobtail bunch of students and public sector workers from Kirkcaldy who made sure none of the kids started the day on an empty stomach. At least, not on school mornings.
Then back to the house. Theyd given up taking milk in their tea, when they could get tea. Some mornings, a cup of hot water was all Jenny and Mick had to start the day. That hadnt happened often, but once was enough to remind you how easy it would be just to fall off the edge.
After a hot drink, Jenny would take her sack into the woods and try to collect enough firewood to give them a few hours of heat in the evening. Between the union executives always calling them comrade and the wood gathering, she felt like a Siberian peasant. At least they were lucky to live right by a source of fuel. It was, she knew, a lot harder for other folk. It was their good fortune that theyd kept their open fireplace. The miners perk of cheap coal had seen to that.
She went about her task mechanically, paying little attention to her surroundings, turning over the latest spat between her and Mick. It sometimes seemed it was only the hardship that kept them together, only the need for warmth that kept them in the same bed. The strike had brought some couples closer together, but plenty had split like a log under an axe after those first few months, once their reserves had been bled dry.
It hadnt been so bad at the start. Since the last wave of strikes in the seventies, the miners had earned good money. They were the kings of the trade union movement - well paid, well organized and well confident. After all, theyd brought down Ted Heaths government back then. They were untouchable. And they had the cash to prove it.
Some spent up to the hilt - foreign holidays where they could expose their milk-white skin and coal tattoos to the sun, flash cars with expensive stereos, new houses that looked great when they moved in but started to scuff round the edges almost at once. But most of them, made cautious by history, had a bit put by. Enough to cover the rent or the mortgage, enough to feed the family and pay the fuel bills for a couple of months. What had been horrifying was how quickly those scant savings had disappeared. Early on, the union had paid decent money to the men who piled into cars and vans and minibuses to join flying pickets to working pits, power stations and coking plants. But the police had grown increasingly heavy-handed in making sure the flyers never made it to their destinations and there was little enthusiasm for paying men for failing to reach their objectives. Besides, these days the union bosses were too busy trying to hide their millions from the governments sequestrators to be bothered wasting money in a fight they had to know in their hearts was doomed. So even that trickle of cash had run dry and the only thing left for the mining communities to swallow had been their pride.
Jenny had swallowed plenty of that over the past nine months. It had started right at the beginning when shed heard the Scottish miners would support the Yorkshire coalfield in the call for a national strike not from Mick but from Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers. Not personally, of course. Just his yapping harangue on the TV news. Instead of coming straight back from the Miners Welfare meeting to tell her, Mick had been hanging out with Andy and his other union pals, drinking at the bar like money was never going to be a problem. Celebrating King Arthurs battle-cry in the time-honoured way. The miners united will never be defeated.