The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge

‘…Violence flared on the picket line at Bilston Glen colliery in Scotland, when miners from the recently closed Polmaise pit tried to stop others going into work…’

Scabs. There’d been talk of trucking in lads from the other pits to join the picket. There’d be nobody working at Gimmerton. He’d see to that.

The kitchen became very still, the only sound the voice from the radio. Words seemed to hang in the air, painting a bleak image of a long and bitter time to come.

‘It won’t last long, Dad, will it?’ Cathy asked. ‘I mean… without jobs people won’t have any money…’

‘They’ll cave in,’ Mick said brashly. ‘She can’t close the pits. The whole bloody country’d come to a standstill.’

Ray wasn’t so sure. There had been rumours of coal stockpiles.

‘It might last a few weeks,’ he said. ‘So we all have to pitch in and make ends meet. No more beer and fags, Mick – all your dole money goes to the house.’

‘I want to join the picket,’ Mick said.

‘You’re not a miner.’

‘No, but I want to join the picket. That guy on the radio said even women were expected to join this. I won’t be left out of the fight. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.’

Ray didn’t like it, but Mick was right. He looked at the boy he had raised as his son, and for the first time thought that maybe there was something of him in Mick after all. If he was willing to stick up for his mates.

‘All right. But be careful. They’re going to bus police in here as well as lads for the picket. I don’t want you getting involved in anything violent, you understand.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

And as for the two of you…’ Ray turned towards Cathy and Heathcliff, who, as always, were standing so close together they might have been Siamese twins. ‘You two keep going to school. Cathy, you look after the house the way you have been since your mum left. And I don’t want social services on my case because you’ve been bunking off. Understand?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Cathy said meekly. Heathcliff as usual said nothing. But Ray knew he would follow where Cathy led.

Ray relented and reached out to pull his daughter close for a hug. ‘Ah, you’re a good girl, Cathy. Hopefully this strike will be over in a couple of weeks and we can all get back to normal.’

‘Look, Heathcliff. A kestrel.’

‘Where?’

‘It went… No. There. Above those rocks.’ Cathy pointed. ‘See it?’

‘Yeah.’

Cathy leaned forward from her place on the high, rocky outcrop, as if she was about to launch herself into the air. ‘I wish I could fly, Heathcliff. Just like that falcon.’

‘And if you could fly?’

‘I’d fly away from this place and never come back.’

Cathy felt his body shift, as he moved away from her. She dragged her eyes away from the bird to look at the youth sitting next to her. His face was a black mask.

‘You’d leave me behind. Stuck here.’ His voice had turned all pouty.

She knew that black look. And she knew how to fix it. ‘No, of course not. You’re my brother. If I was a falcon you’d be a falcon too and we could fly away together.’

‘I’m not your brother.’

‘No. You’re better than a brother.’

That seemed to help. He turned back to look for the bird, giving Cathy a good look at the bruise on the side of his face. It was much darker than it had been when she first saw it last night. She reached out her hand and touched Heathcliff’s cheek ever so softly. He didn’t flinch away.

‘Why didn’t you tell Dad that Mick did this?’ she asked.

‘What good would that do? He’d only give me another hiding for ratting on him.’

That was true. And their father wouldn’t help. He didn’t care about anything except the strike. And now Mick was on the picket with the rest of the old men, their dad was more inclined to take his word over Cathy’s.

‘Look at that!’ Heathcliff drew her attention back to the bird. ‘He’s spotted something. A rabbit maybe.’

The kestrel was hovering not far away from them. Cathy could see that the bird had its eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly it dropped like a stone, its wings folded tight against its body until the last moment, before it crashed to earth. A moment later the bird rose from the long grass, and she could see it held something in its talons.

‘That’s what I’d do if I could,’ Heathcliff said, so quietly she could hardly hear him. ‘I’d teach Mick. I’d teach all of them.’

Cathy could hear the anger and pain in him as he spoke. She felt it too, whenever Mick hit Heathcliff. Or when one of the kids at school picked a fight with him. She reached out to take his hand.

‘Come on. I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’ he asked, but he got to his feet to follow her.

‘Let’s go down to the Grange and pick some apples.’

They set off across the hills. Cathy kept hold of Heathcliff’s hand. She liked holding his hand. Some of the girls at school held hands with boys, but this was different. The other girls thought it was fun and they giggled about it a lot. Holding hands with Heathcliff wasn’t fun. Or something to giggle about. It was just… just what they did. Had always done. Would always do.

They reached the edge of the blue hills and, still holding hands, ran down the last slope towards the road. As they did, a car came into view.

‘Shit,’ Heathcliff said as he pulled her to a stop. But it was too late. The driver of the car had already seen them. It pulled over to the hard shoulder and a woman got out.

‘Catherine Earnshaw. Heathcliff. Come here.’

Cathy reluctantly let go of Heathcliff’s hand. It was that woman. The social worker with the stringy hair.

‘Why aren’t you two at school?’ the woman demanded in her high, raspy voice.

‘We weren’t doing nothing,’ Heathcliff said sullenly, kicking the toe of his shoe into the road.

‘Really?’ The social worker sighed and turned to Cathy. ‘What about you, madam? Have you got an excuse?’

Cathy tried to straighten her skirt and blouse. They were covered with mud and grass stains. Her shoes were wet. It suddenly occurred to her that she was cold. She was never cold when she was up on the hills with Heathcliff. But when she came down – that’s when the coldness set in. She shrugged.

‘I ought to take you both to the headmaster’s office right now.’

Cathy’s heart sank. A visit to the headmaster would mean getting her dad involved, and then there’d be shouting and Mick looking all pleased with himself because her and Heathcliff were getting a bollocking. She forced a meek smile onto her face. ‘Been to doctor’s. Dad’s on the picket so he said we should go together. Doesn’t like us wandering round on our own.’

The woman glanced up in the direction of the blue hills. ‘You’ve come from the doctor?’

‘Yeah.’

The woman checked the watch on her wrist and sighed. ‘I want both of you back in school. Right away. And I’ll check, so no skiving off again.’

Cathy nodded quickly. She arranged her face into the same look she gave her dad when she was trying to get money off him for sweets. Not that there was money for sweets since the strike started.

‘All right then. Now go. Both of you.’ The woman jumped back into her car and drove away.

‘I’m not going to school,’ Heathcliff announced.

‘Course we’re not. Come on.’ She took his hand and a few seconds later they had crossed the road and were running through the heather.

They stopped running when they reached a tall hedge.

‘This way. There’s a gap.’ Cathy pulled Heathcliff after her. She stopped and peered through the hedge before finally letting go of Heathcliff’s hand to push her way through the hole. He followed.

They were standing in an orchard. The apple trees were old and twisted and wild. Others, it seemed, knew about the hole in the hedge, because much of the fruit had already been pulled from the trees. The lowers branches were all bare, but there were still some apples quite high up.

‘There,’ said Cathy. ‘Up there. They look good.’

Heathcliff reached up to grab a branch and swung himself up. He wrapped his legs around the lowest branch and heaved himself into a sitting position. He held out his hand. Cathy reached up to take it and he pulled her up beside him. He reached above his head to grab some of the ripe, round fruit.

‘Check for grubs,’ Cathy instructed him.

‘It’s fine.’

She took an apple and polished it on the cleanest part of her blouse before sinking her teeth into the firm red skin. The apple was delicious. Juice ran down her chin, and she wiped it away with her hand. Beside her, Heathcliff bit into his apple and smiled at her.

These were the best moments. Just her and Heathcliff and no one else. She wished it was always like this.

‘Let’s go look at the house,’ Heathcliff said, tossing his apple core down to the ground.

‘Okay.’

They made their way to the far side of the orchard. There was another hedge, but like the first, this was neglected and had a hole that clearly served as a passage for people other than themselves. They ducked through into the garden.

Cathy looked up at the house. To her it seemed huge. The paint was fading and it had a deserted air, but it was so much bigger and better than any house she had ever seen before.

‘Dad says there’ll be new people coming to live here one day,’ she told Heathcliff. ‘Imagine living in a big house like this. Wouldn’t that be great? It would be like being the Queen or something.’

‘When I’m rich, I’ll buy this house for you,’ Heathcliff said. ‘And we can live in it together. Away from everyone else. No one will hurt us then.’

She turned to look at him. It was starting to get dark and the bruise on his cheek was hidden from her. Was he handsome? She wasn’t sure. She wondered, for the first time, if he thought she was pretty.

Chapter Eight

July, 1984

The thumping beat of the music coming from the radio was jarred by another thumping – this time on the front door downstairs. Cathy slowly rolled off the bed. Leaving Heathcliff still sprawled there listening to the music, she darted into her father’s empty bedroom and looked out the window. Below, a woman was banging firmly on the front door. Cathy darted back behind the curtains.

‘It’s that social worker,’ she told Heathcliff as she returned to the room she now thought of as theirs.

‘Probably on about us skiving off school.’

‘Why does she have to pick on us? Everyone skives off school. You say it’s cos of the strike and no one cares.’ Cathy walked to the window and stared out into the distance.

‘Yeah. But half of them are down on the picket or helping at the church or summat.’

‘It’s nearly holidays anyway.’ She and Heathcliff never went down the picket lines. Their Dad didn’t want them there. He wanted Cathy to stay home and cook and wash and clean the house. Other than that, he didn’t seem to care much where they went or what they did. All he cared about was the stupid strike.

‘Let’s go,’ Cathy said, swinging her legs over the windowsill.

A few minutes later they were up in the blue hills, heading for their favourite spot. A stunted tree had managed to grow near the top of one of the older slag heaps. It clung precariously to the unstable earth. From its base, Cathy and Heathcliff had a good view of the pithead, the locked gates, and the two sides facing off for battle.

‘That’s a lot of police,’ Heathcliff said. ‘They’re up to something.’

He pulled two Mars bars from his rucksack and they started to eat. There wasn’t any money for sweets, Dad said, but they could run faster than Mr Hamid, who had the shop at the bottom of the estate.

Below them, the police were forming two solid walls of blue, pushing the miners back to clear the roadway. Of course, Ray Earnshaw was down there. He always was. The strike was everything to her dad. On the pickets all day and sometimes at night, and then meeting at their house or down the Institute every evening. On the picket. Planning the picket. Talking about it all for hours and hours. Last night they’d all been crammed into the living room. Cathy hadn’t listened for long, but she’d heard them talk about buses. Buses of scabs. Buses of pickets from round the county. Buses of pigs from London.

In the months since the strike started, there’d been fighting at the other pits. They’d seen it on the telly, and listened to the talk. Now it might actually kick off here and Cathy was determined to get a good view.

‘There’s Mick.’

Cathy saw her brother approaching the picket, with his mates around him. They were greeted and absorbed into the growing ranks of miners like they belonged. Which they didn’t. Mick was workshy. That’s what her dad said. At least, that’s what he’d said before the strike.

As it had so many other days, the crowd at the pit gates formed into lines. The miners on either side of the road, pinned in place by a wall of blue uniforms. And in the centre, the thin, grey stretch of roadway, a no-man’s land to the locked pithead gates.

The chanting started. From their hiding place, Cathy and Heathcliff could hear the raised voices.

‘Miners united will never be defeated…’

Maybe. But the strike had been going for ages now and Cathy was sick of it. Sick of having no new things. Sick of her dad spending all his time with his union mates. He didn’t even go on at her about school any more. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly looked at her. Or spoken to her other than to ask when she was going to have dinner on the table.

‘Look..’ Heathcliff sounded eager. Excited even.

A line of vans and buses was making its way along the road from town. In the front were two white police vans. Behind them was a bus, its windows blacked out to hide the occupants. And behind the bus, two more police vans.

‘Let’s go down there.’ Heathcliff scrambled to his feet.

Without a word, Cathy followed him.

They stopped at the side of the road, where a caravan sat on the grass. It was covered with posters and graffiti and served the miners as headquarters for the pickets. It also served Cathy and Heathcliff as a hiding place.

‘Scabs! Scabs!’

The chant was louder now. Harder. Aggressive and angry. The miners were pushing forward against the police lines.

The first police van was almost at the gates when the miners surged forward as one. They made it to the bus and were pounding its sides with their fists.

The doors of the first two police vans swung open and officers poured out. They were in full riot gear, helmeted and armed with truncheons. The miners began to fall back at the sight.

‘They’re going to lose,’ Heathcliff said. ‘Come on.’

He grabbed a large rock lying near his feet and darted forward. Cathy tried to grab his arms and hold him back, but he was gone. She followed him into the melee.

‘Fucking scabs!’

The voices around Ray were getting angrier by the moment. The jostling gave way to serious shoving as the men tried to force themselves between the bus and the gates to the pit.

He looked up at the sides of the bus. Through the blacked-out windows, he could see faint shapes within. Who were these men, he wondered, who would betray their brothers, who were not prepared to fight for the cause? Were they frightened, those men inside the bus, as they listened to the fury all around them? They should be, because Ray was beginning to be a little afraid himself.

A swinging truncheon clipped his shoulder. There wasn’t much force behind it, but it hurt, nonetheless. The doors of the second police van opened and another wall of blue poured out. The bus was moving forward again, forcing its way inexorably through the heaving mass of men. A huge stone flung with great skill and force suddenly crashed against the helmet of the policeman in front of Ray. The man staggered and started to go down. This close, Ray could see his face through the visor, frozen with panic. If he fell beneath the heaving mass of angry men, or beneath the bus wheels…

He was wearing the uniform, but he was just a boy. Not much older than Mick. The pickets weren’t the only lines Ray Earnshaw wouldn’t cross.

Ray reached out a hand and grabbed the copper’s arm. With a grunt of effort, he pulled the lad back onto his feet. He saw the relief and gratitude on the boy’s face for a second before the surging crowd separated them.

Ray was pushed back against a solid wall of men behind him. He looked around, but knew none of the faces. These weren’t his men. They were from other pits. Their faces were hard. There’d been a lot of violence on some of the lines, and for the first time, Ray was uncertain. He believed in the cause. He didn’t want the scabs working. But this was starting to look like war. And he was too old for a war. He had a houseful to feed and he coughed and wheezed every morning when he woke up. A war was what it was going to take, but without some cash in their pockets, Ray didn’t think any of them were going to last that long.

The crowd around him shifted, and Ray found himself near the edge of the crowd. He turned.

‘What the…’

His daughter stood in front of him at the edge of the crowd. ‘What are you two doing ‘ere?’ He stepped forward and grabbed Cathy’s arm. ‘This is no place for kids. Get out of here.’

Cathy shook off his hand, her face fixed in defiance. Heathcliff was at her side, as he always was. A shout went up behind them as another police van drew forward to be immediately surrounded by shouting, angry men.

‘It’s not safe. Get her out of this,’ he told Heathcliff.

Another flurry of violence erupted near the police van. Ray shoved his way forward. He had to try to calm things down. At this rate, someone was going to get seriously hurt. He was close to the van when he heard a noise. Short and sharp, almost like a gunshot, followed by a roar from the crowd. A second sound overtook the first as the door of the police van shot open and the occupants poured out. Ray could see one man was bleeding from a wound on the side of his neck. His eyes as he scanned the crowd were full of unmasked hatred.

‘A nail gun!’ The words were passed through the crowd. Ray cursed silently. What sort of a fool would fire a nail gun into a police van full of men?

Then he saw Mick. His son was standing near the van, looking like some wild creature. His eyes were wide, his mouth spread in a grin. He looked almost joyful.

‘God help us.’ Ray scanned the crowd, desperately looking for the nearest familiar face. ‘It was Mick,’ he said. His mate closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. ‘Shit.’

‘Just get him out of here.’

‘Right. Come on.’

A handful of men surged forward again, surrounding Mick even as the wounded policeman began scanning the faces of the crowd. Ray raised his arms and locked them around the shoulders of the men either side of him, protecting the boy.

‘It’s the Earnshaw kid. We gotta get him outta here.’

If Ray could hear them, so too could the police. That wasn’t good. Ray started chanting, and the men around him joined in as the bus inched forward towards the gate. They were going to lose this one, but Ray’s mind was elsewhere. He believed in this strike. He believed in the union. The violence he’d seen on the lines wasn’t his way. And now the boy he had raised as his own had crossed a line equally as important as the picket. Mick might not be his flesh and blood, but he’d promised to look after him, like he’d promised the lads on his shift he’d look after them. And a promise was still a promise.

And it wasn’t done yet. He’s seen the look in that policeman’s eyes. He’d been lucky to escape with just a scratch on his neck.

He wasn’t about to forget.

Mick sucked the last of the beer out of the can, then crushed the thin metal between his hands. As he did, the front door crashed open.

‘Mick?’

He said nothing. He carefully placed the crushed can on the kitchen table and got to his feet. He could hear the anger in his father’s voice and his hands curled into fists.

‘What the bloody hell were you thinking?’ Ray stormed as he walked into the kitchen. ‘A nail gun? For fuck’s sake, boy. You could have killed one of them.’

‘Would have served them right,’ Mick muttered. ‘Anyway, I didn’t do it.’

With surprising speed, Ray took a step closer and cuffed Mick around the side of the head. It wasn’t a hard blow, not enough to set his head spinning. It was the kind of blow a father gave a child, not even a proper man-to-man punch.

‘I said, I didn’t do it.’ Mick drew himself up. ‘Dunno who did, but I’m glad they did. I wish they’d killed one of them cops.’

Mick wasn’t sure what he wanted to see in his father’s face. What reaction he wanted to provoke. Just something to show that his father gave a shit about what happened to him.

‘You’re an idiot.’ Ray’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘Kill a pig and the whole bloody lot of them will be down on us like the wrath of God.’

‘That don’t scare me.’

‘Well, it should,’ Ray said. ‘Right now I don’t care if they lock you up and throw away the key, but I’m not having anyone saying it were the Earnshaws that sent this whole place up in flames.’

‘I tell you, I didn’t do anything.’

‘I saw you carrying the nail gun.’

Mick hesitated, tempted to lie. A sound in the doorway caught his attention. Cathy had come into the room. She was staring at him, her eyes wide open. And behind her, Heathcliff stood, his lips twitching as if trying to keep a grin off his face.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Mick said again. ‘Well, I had the gun, but I didn’t use it. Someone pulled it out of my hand. Haven’t seen it since. I swear.’

His father leaned on the table and coughed a long, hacking cough. Mick looked across the room again at Heathcliff.

‘It were him,’ Mick said. ‘That Heathcliff. It were him that did it.’

His father’s open palm caught the back of his head again, this time hard enough to snap his jaws together. He tasted warm blood from his bitten tongue.

‘That’s right. Try and blame a child. Coward. You haven’t even got the courage to stand up for what you did.’ Ray Earnshaw shook his head. ‘You’re no son of mine.’

Silence fell over the kitchen. Mick frowned. That was just his father’s anger talking, wasn’t it? Okay, they’d not always been close, but…

Two short, sharp honks from a car horn fell into the silence in the kitchen.

‘That’s it,’ said Ray. ‘Pete from the mine is outside waiting for you. He’s got a cousin in the building trade in Manchester. Get a few things and get in that car.’

‘What?’

‘I want you gone before anyone has the chance to ask questions. And they will. Get in that car and get out of here. I don’t want to see your face again.’

Mick stared at his father, but Ray turned away. He walked through into the kitchen, and slammed the door behind him. Mick knew he had no choice. Brushing past Cathy and Heathcliff, he took the steps two at a time to his room. He grabbed a sports bag and thrust some clothes into it. A couple of minutes later he was back down the stairs. He looked into the back room, but his father wasn’t there. Only Cathy and Heathcliff stood watching him silently.

Heathcliff’s eyes were shining. Heathcliff was to blame for this. For everything. Life had been shit since that brat arrived.

‘This doesn’t end here.’ Mick directed the words at Heathcliff in a voice that was all the more dangerous for being soft. ‘Just you wait.’

One of these days, Mick was going to get his own back.

He turned and walked out the front door.

Chapter Nine

February, 1985

‘Godless heathens,’ Father Joseph muttered as a white police van swept past. He pulled his heavy black coat tighter against the bitter February winds. The hem of his cassock was damp with the rain as it flapped around his ankles, but at least the snow was gone.

The mid-morning light was dim and dreary, and his stomach was rumbling as he closed the church gate behind him and set out along the road into the town. His Ash Wednesday fast was two days away. To be followed by forty days of Lent. Father Joseph observed the fast with passion. But there was nothing in the canon law to say he couldn’t have one good meal before Lent started. God knew he’d been hungry more than once in this past year.