Nigel Gordon

The Words Unsaid

Copyright © 2020 by Nigel Gordon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Nigel Gordon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

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Contents

1. Foreword

2. Acknowledgement

3. Chapter 1

4. Chapter 2

5. Chapter 3

6. Chapter 4

7. Chapter 5

8. Chapter 6

9. Chapter 7

10. Chapter 8

11. Chapter 9

12. Chapter 10

13. Chapter 11

14. Chapter 12

15. Chapter 13

16. Chapter 14

17. Chapter 15

18. Chapter 16

19. Chapter 17

Foreword

Sometime in late 2013 I was listening to the radio (though I am of a generation which tends to call it the wireless) and heard Tommy Steele singing ‘Oh What a Picture’ from ‘Half a Sixpence’. The song contains the line ‘Flash, bang, wallop…’. For some reason this brought to mind the image of a cyclist going headlong into a car. An image that got me started writing what I intended to be a short story called ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop’.

That short story ended up being some sixty-two thousand words, in seventeen chapters. The original idea had expanded and become the work which is now before you. Originally it was published on AwesomeDude.com. Later it appeared on IMOFATS.org and Storylover.us. Now it is turned into an ebook which I hope you will enjoy.

Nigel Gordon
Leicester, 2020.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Tyrone and Freethinker who read the original story and gave me feedback. Anthony Camacho who undertook the initial edit and helped identify chapter breaks. Finally, Bi Janus and Cole Parker who did the final edits for me.

Chapter 1

The summer holidays were not even halfway over but for the two boys standing by the removal van it might have well have come to an end.

“Look, it’s not the end of the world you know,” the large man loading another box into the van told them. “You can see each other during the holidays.” The boys did not look convinced. The man placed the box on the back of the van and returned into the house.

Returning with another box, the older man reminded the boys, “I tried for promotion here, but there weren’t any going. If I want promotion, I have to move to another force.

“Remember, Tommy, any problems, call us. Doesn’t matter what time of day or night, call us.”

Craigh House was a large, late Victorian house, on the outskirts of Sheffield; its design was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. It had been originally built in 1895 by Samuel Bettridge, a Sheffield steel magnate. From him it had passed to his grandson, also a Samuel Bettridge, who was not a steel magnate but the owner of a thriving specialist engineering company. That Samuel Bettridge had given it as a wedding present to his daughter Mary and her husband Mark Wainwright in the hopes that they might give him grandchildren to fill the place.

Mary and Mark raised four children—Johnny, Joan, Emma, and Phillip, all of whom had grown up and left the house, establishing homes and families of their own. Then Mary had died, leaving Mark alone in a house which had really been too big for a family of six, let alone an elderly widower living on his own.

Mark had occasionally thought about selling the place, though the place had too many memories of his life with Mary for those thoughts to be serious. He remembered the children sliding down the bannisters and running round the extensive gardens, the gardens that Mary and he had gradually redesigned over their years in the house. During the last few years before her death Mary had opened the gardens on National Garden Day to help raise money for charity. For a couple of years after her death Mark had done likewise, but more recently the effort was too much for him. He still maintained the gardens, though not to the standard Mary had kept.

Because eight years ago Mark had given up his life’s vocation to give her all his attention in her final years, he now found himself at a loose end. In theory he could have gone back to take charge of Bettridge’s Engineering and Electrical. He had run the company for nearly thirty years, and he was, after all, still the owner or at least the majority shareholder with sixty-five percent of the company. He was also, at least on paper, non-executive chairman of the company, though he only turned up for the Annual General Meeting. He did not think it would be good form to walk back in after all this time and just take up where he had left off. That sort of thing was just not done. Mark was fairly certain that if he did, most of the current board of directors would leave, as he knew he would in the same situation.

Anyway, the company just did not feel the same. When he did pop in to chat with some of the old boys he had known and worked with, he found they were no longer there. There had been a lot of changes, and it no longer felt like the place he had run for so many years.

It was, he thought, a pity that Paul had left the company. Mark had fully expected his nephew to be appointed to the board when he had resigned as Managing Director; in fact, he had suggested it. He was surprised when the board had not taken his suggestion, instead bringing in an outsider to fill the vacant place. Oh, Mark understood the arguments—new blood and a different point of view and all, but deep down Mark thought it was a mistake. He was even more convinced of the fact when a few years later Paul had resigned and taken a job with their only real competitor in the UK.

If Paul had still been there and on the board, Mark would probably have sounded him out about finding some role that he could play in the firm. That, though, was not an option, and now Mark was unsure of what to do. He knew full well he had to do something or he would vegetate in his house.

With nothing better to do, he picked up a magazine off the coffee table. Mrs Wright, his housekeeper, laid them out there every week and usually replaced them unread the following week, with the exception of New Scientist. Opening the magazine without much interest in which magazine it was, he started to skim over the pages in the hope that something would catch his eye. It was then he saw the advert.

“Where the fuck…?”

“Precisely, Sergeant, where the devil did he come from?” James Belkin, Mark’s solicitor commented. The two of them were watching the replay of the video from Mark’s dashcam. Mark, though in the room, was not watching it. The scene in that video was ingrained in his memory, and he knew that he would never forget it.

All right, maybe he was an idiot for driving a classic sports car at that time of night in that sort of weather along those roads. In fact, thinking about it, anybody out driving in those conditions would have to have been an idiot. But, he wanted to get back to Sheffield and show off his new toy. Mark had wanted an E-Type since he had first seen one on an edition of “Top Gear” before Jeremy Clarkson had joined that programme. Now, at the age when his children or at least one of them thought he should be sitting in a retirement home, he actually had the free funds to get one and the time to drive one, although he knew he would be stupid to do so because they drove like a brick.

That was the problem with E-Types—they were fantastic so long as you did not want to stop or go round a corner. Their brakes were totally inadequate for their power and their steering was not much better. So, to get an original E-Type for today’s driving conditions was stupid, and Mark was not stupid. He bought an Eagle, an E-Type upgraded with modern features. He had been bloody lucky to find the advert selling one in Bolton, of all places, and had gone over to see it. Of course, he only wanted to look at it; he had no intention of buying it then. Half an hour after setting eyes on it, he was onto his bank to arrange a transfer that would have paid for a small house and, in some parts of the country, a large house. The transfer had taken a couple of days, but that had given him time to get home and then go back to Bolton by train to pick up the car.

Ever since an incident in Eastern Europe in which he was almost ripped off in a crash-for-cash scam, Mark had seen the value of dashcams. Not only had he seen their value, he had made money from them. His company had become one of the first importers of the devices into the UK. Then, they had gone on to designing and developing them. The technical lads kept him supplied with the newest prototypes, and it was one of these that he had taken up with him to Bolton—good job, too.

The storm had been one of those freaks of British weather that appear out of nowhere and quickly make travel impossible. Mark had only just left Bolton when the newsflash came on the radio that his preferred route, through Holmfirth, not the shortest but in Mark’s opinion the easiest, was closed. Now he was faced with A6018, which was not a road he liked, though he was pleased to see how the car handled in these conditions. On a couple of occasions when he had driven classic E-Types, he had found that if road conditions were not perfect they could be a nightmare to drive. The Eagle E-Type, though, was a dream to drive. The improved steering and braking really made a difference when driving on wet roads through the Pennines. He had felt safe and confident in the car but was happy to get to the outskirts of Sheffield.

Then in a flash of lightning he saw the figure of a youth on a bike coming straight towards him. What followed was pure instinct: he slammed on the brakes and held the steering wheel firm. As the car slowed to a stop the youth appeared in the beams of his headlights, coming directly towards the car. In the final moments before the inevitable, Mark saw the youth’s face—the boy could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen. The look on the boy’s face terrified Mark; he had seen it before.

The Sergeant and James had finished watching the playback from the dashcam.

“Well, sir,” the Sergeant stated, directing his comment at Mark, “it is quite clear you were driving well inside the limit. In fact, you were driving very responsibly. How the hell you managed to stop the car before the impact I don’t know, given the E-Type’s reputation for braking!”

“It’s not your standard E-Type, it’s an Eagle E-Type, an original E-Type upgraded with modern braking, suspension and steering,” Mark informed him.

“Bloody good job as well—probably saved the lad’s life. He must have come down that hill and onto the main road at full pelt.”

“I think so. Any news how he is?”

“Last I heard he was still in the operating theatre but they think he will be OK, though he was pretty busted up. He made a mess of your car as well.”

“The car can be repaired; the lad’s important. How are his parents taking it?”

The Sergeant leaned back in his chair for a moment.

“Now that’s a rum’un. Sent a PC round last night, who spoke to the father—seems there’s no mother around. Father’s only comment when told there had been an accident was, “’ope he’s dead”.

“Now, sir, I’ll just have to sort out some paperwork and then we can let you go. Can’t see much point in holding you till brass arrive, it is clear there will be no charges. We will have to impound the car for the Road Crash Investigation boys to go over it, and might be a bit before you get that back.” Mark nodded.

A good hour later, Mark and James finally made it out of the police station, and by then the first light of a late September dawn was breaking through in the eastern sky. James took Mark to a nearby café, sat him down, and ordered full English for both of them. Mark commented that he did not think he could eat.

“You need to eat, and a good greasy fry up will do a world of good,” James responded as the waitress plonked two mugs of strong tea in front of them. “Now dump some sugar in that tea and drink up. You need it.” Mark did as he was told and drank the tea. He also, again on instructions from James, ate the breakfast and had to admit that once he had managed to eat his way through the bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, sausage, fried bread, beans and an egg that constituted a full English at this establishment, he did feel somewhat better.

“James?” Mark’s solicitor looked across the table at him. There was something in the way Mark had said his name which meant that what was coming was serious. “I want you to make some enquiries, see what you can find out about the lad and his family.”

“Yes, I suppose we should check out if they have the resources to make it worthwhile to go after them for the damage to the car and your costs.”

“Fuck no. I want to know about the boy, to see …” Mark went quiet. James looked up at him, noticing the look of concern on his client’s face.

“Mark, don’t concern yourself about the boy. Best to keep well out of things. Let us deal with things, and the less you are involved the better.”

“James, it’s not that simple; I need to know.”

“Need to know what?”

“Why he wanted to kill himself.” James looked across the table at Mark.

“Kill himself, what makes you think that?”

“It was the look on his face.”

Terry and Mary O’Mally looked at each other across the kitchen table, trying to fully understand the import of what their son has just said.

“Now tell us again what happened on Thursday.”

Connor looked between his parents, then started for what seemed like the umpteenth time to repeat what he had told them already. He had been on the phone to Tommy and the call cut off. He had tried to call back with no success and Tommy was not answering emails or coming online to chat. By the end of it Connor was crying again. Mary put her arm around him.

“We’ll look into it, won’t we love?” she asked, looking over at her husband.

Some five days later after the accident Mark walked up to the bed that had been pointed out to him in the orthopaedic ward. He stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at the boy, who he now knew was fourteen, though he looked younger. Both the boy’s legs were in plaster, the left one raised up in traction, his right arm stuck out from his body on what Mark recalled was known as an aeroplane splint. His face was badly bruised and, where not wrapped in bandages, his upper body showed extensive bruising, some of which looked substantially older than the rest.

“Hi, Thomas. All right if I take a seat?” Mark asked, moving alongside the bed and pulling round one of the seats set there for visitors.

“’pose so, you ’nother social worker?”

“No, I’m the bloke whose car you rode into.” Thomas looked worried and glanced around the ward.

“What you ’ere for then, want me to pay for the damage?”

“Doubt you could, the total cost will be about thirty grand.”

“What!” Thomas exclaimed, “that’s more than most cars cost, what I hit, a bloody Ferrari?”

“No, an Eagle E-Type Roadster, bloody good job too. Most cars would not have been able to stop in time. Mine could.”

“Been better if you ’adn’t.”

“So what happened?”

“I told them, I lost control coming down the hill. Brakes were wet and wouldn’t ’old”

“And they believed that?”

“Don’t know; don’t care. Puts you in the clear,” Thomas responded.

“Don’t worry about that, I’m in the clear anyway, there was proof that I was stationary when you hit me. I suppose that they might charge you with dangerous cycling but so far as I am concerned I’m in the clear.”

“Can they do that—dangerous cycling?” Thomas looked stressed.

“Don’t worry, Thomas, if they do I’ll get you a good lawyer.

“Why should you bother?”

“Because, Thomas, I think you need help, and from what I’ve learned I suspect you are not going to get it from your family.”

“What fucking family. Ma walked out w’en I wus seven. Dad doesn’t want me—told Social Services that I was a troublemaker and he can’t cope.” Mark nodded remembering the report that James had shown him a couple of hours earlier. So far as he remembered what the father had actually said was, ‘Be better off if he were dead, that kid’s trouble and I don’t want him.’ It was quite clear to both Mark and Social Services that the family situation had totally broken down.

“Look, Thomas, all they’ve got is the video of you coming out of nowhere straight at my car.”

“What video?”

“The video from my dashcam, I have a fairly upmarket one that not only records the image of what is in front of the car but also the exact position of the car, its speed, acceleration, and deceleration. From that they can tell, I was doing just under thirty miles an hour, well below the speed limit, but given the weather conditions understandable. They can also see that I decelerated rapidly and was stationary by time you hit the car.”

“Didn’t think you would see me in time to stop, saw your headlights from the top of the hill, thought you would hit me at the junction.”

“So it was deliberate,” Mark commented. There was a hint of sadness in his voice.

“You bloody knew that, didn’t you?” Thomas accused.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Your face, when the lightning flashed and I saw you coming towards me, reminded me …” Mark paused, Thomas saw a look of sadness going across his face. “Never mind, it was a long time ago and in another place. I just knew what you had in mind.”

“Just my bloody luck to mess it up and choose a bloody souped up sports car that can stop on a sixpence. Can’t do anything right.”

Chapter 2

“Thomas Donnal—mean anything to you?” Mark asked Brian Fisher, a small, slim man now in his late thirties, some six hours after leaving the hospital. Brian had been his younger son’s best friend when they were growing up and had nearly become his son-in-law. Fortunately, the fixation his daughter Joan had on her younger brother’s best mate fizzled out before it quite got to that stage, though it had been something of a close call though Mark thought Brian would have been a better catch than what she ended up with. “So the pint’s not exactly free, then?” Brian responded.

“You know me, Brian, always trying to find an advantage, and giving one of the best reporters in town a pint means I get to sit with him, which is certainly an advantage when you need some information.”

“OK, Uncle Mark, Thomas Donnal—fourteen years old, badly injured in a road accident last Thursday. Seems the police were going to press dangerous cycling charges against him put have decided not to proceed.” Brian looked up at Mark. “That’s it, Uncle.” Brian had called Mark “Uncle” from the time the boy was four and had made friends with Brian’s son Phillip, a friendship which continued to this day, though Mark was aware that there had been a couple of rough spots in it, especially when they had both fallen for the same girl. Mark always wondered if Phillip’s move to the States was due to the fact that she choose Brian over him.

“What else, Brian? You’ve got the best line into Social Services of anybody in the city and probably know more of what is going on than the bloody director herself.”

“What’s in it for me?” Time to negotiate.

“Photo of the accident at the point of impact.”

“How can you get that?”

Mark pulled out his smart phone, opened an app and selected a file, then showed it to Brian. “Latest dashcam technology—it streams the video image to the smartphone, which then uploads it to the cloud. Very useful if the force of impact destroys the dashcam’s SD card.”

“So you were the driver?” Mark nodded. “All I could get was that the boy was in collision with a vintage sports car.”

“Eagle E-type.”

“You bloody got one.”

“Yes, last Thursday.”

“They’re worried about the boy; they suspect that it might not have been quite the accident it has been made out to be. Apparently the boy’s father found out that he was gay and hit the roof. The boy ran out of the house and jumped on his bike. Next thing, he is in hospital.”

“Know anything about the father?” Mark asked.

“Frank Donnal is a nasty piece of work, the youngest of five brothers, sons of Gus Donnal, who used to be one of the big men in the steelworks when we had steelworks.” Mark nodded, as he knew about the big men, the enforcers for the unions. “Frank takes after him but in a nasty way. There have been a few incidents but nothing resulted in charges, though a couple got very close, like the to-do with his wife.”

“What was that about?”

“Surely you heard about that—it was what seven… Oh no, you were taking Aunt Mary on that round the world cruise.” Mark nodded. Seven years ago he had taken his wife on a cruise of a lifetime. She had an inoperable brain tumour, and a race was on as to whether they would finish the cruise before it finished her. They did, and she fought to the end, dying two weeks after they got back to Southampton.

“Well, it was just after Easter. The boy had been staying at his grandparents on his mother’s side over the holiday as both Frank and the mother were working. Frank turns up late one evening demanding to know where Kate, his wife, was. His story was that he came home from work and found she had gone and taken her stuff with her. Her parents knew nothing about it. Anyway, Frank maintained that she had gone off with some bloke. Five months later Kate turns up in Blackpool, dead from an overdose. Signs were that she had been subjected to numerous rapes and to systematic violence over an extended period.

“Frank’s claim was that she must have gone off with her boyfriend who then pimped her out. That sounded good, as the neighbours confirmed she had spoken about going off to live with some bloke and taking the boy with her.”

“So, her bloke was not as nice as she thought—it happens.”

“Except her bloke was Jim Sudgen, you might recall him, he played rugger with Phil.” Mark recalled the boy, now a man, though he had not seen him since Phillip had finished high school. “Jim was quite cut up over it. He and Kate had been going out together before Frank appeared on the scene. However, Frank had got Kate pregnant and married her. From what Jim said I think it was a case of Frank getting her drunk and then fucking the hell out of her.

“Apparently Kate and Jim had met up again and started seeing each other. Jim had got a chance of a move to London so he and Kate had decided to get together and go to London; then she vanishes. No it definitely was not her bloke that pimped her out.”

“So, what happened?” Mark enquired.

“God only knows, but Frank has some nasty friends, ethnic Russian Latvians, though in reality Russians and part of the Russian mafia. They run a number of semi-legal brothels. You know the type of thing, massage parlours with extras. Word is they are also into some darker things in the world of sex trafficking. Personally I think Frank found out about Jim and handed his wife over to his buddies. I know some of the local force think the same but there is no way they can prove it.”

“So, Frank Donnal is not a very nice piece of work.”

“That, Mark, is putting it mildly, so you be careful if you are getting into anything involving him.”

“As far as I am aware,” Mark commented, “he has washed his hands of young Thomas.”

A couple of days later Mark visited Thomas again. The boy was looking a bit better, at least some of the bruising had faded. Mark put a McDonald’s bag down on the table that spanned the bed in front of the boy. “Thought you might appreciate some fast food.”

“Ta, mate, the grub here is awful.”

“I think the idea is to encourage you to get better so you can get out and have a decent meal,” Mark commented.

“Not likely,” Thomas mumbled through a mouthful of hamburger. “When I get out I’m going to Standford House. Bet the food there is as bad as this place.”

“Isn’t there any family you could go to?”

“Nah, Dad has fucked that up. Phoned all my uncles and told them that I was a bloody poofter, and they better not let me near their kids.”

“Are you?” Mark asked.

“Am I what?”

“Gay?”

“Yea; suppose that means no more hamburgers.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m queer, and nobody wants anything to do with queers,” Thomas replied.

“Don’t see why. My cousin’s son is queer, as you put it, and he has no problem. Really popular at the Student Union, though I think that is more to do with the fact he is Captain of Rugby.”

“You’ve got a queer relation.”

“Yes, he’s twenty, doing a degree in Engineering. He and his boyfriend are having a Civil Partnership in August, once they’ve finished uni.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“I suppose he is, but he has worked hard to get that luck,” Mark observed. “So your father threw you out because you’re gay?”

“Nha, I ran out before he could kill me because I’m gay. He was about to take a hammer to me, once he had finished with my phone.”

“So what happened?” It took most of the rest of visiting to get the story out of Thomas. He had known he was gay for a couple of years and had a boyfriend, Connor O’Mally. Connor and Thomas had been best friends so long as Thomas could remember, and the O’Mally’s lived just down the hill from him and the two boys had grown up together. A couple of years ago they had discovered sex and found out they preferred it with each other.

Some six weeks ago, Connor’s father had gotten a new job and they had moved to the West Midlands. Since then, Connor and Thomas had not seen each other, though they had kept in touch with texts and emails. They had also been sending each other explicit photos via their smartphones. Unfortunately, Thomas’s dad had returned early one day and found Thomas on the phone to Connor in a somewhat compromising state.

“Do you think you could go to Connor’s?” Mark asked once he had gotten the story out of Thomas, which had not been easy.

“Dunnow where they are—had the address and stuff in my phone, and Dad smashed that.”

“Do you know what Connor’s parents’ names are?”

“Oh yea, Aunt Mary and Uncle Terry.”

“So they are your relatives?”

“Nha, that’s just what I called them from when I was a kiddy.”

Brian looked up as the pint was placed on the bar next to his glass. “Uncle Mark, twice in a week; what is it this time? Oh thanks for the pictures. They’re front page in today’s edition, and it seems the Chief Constable is furious about it—thinks there must have been a leak inside the force.”

“Why are you so happy, because you’ve got a scoop or because the Chief Constable is unhappy?” Mark asked seating himself next to Brain.

“Both, really. The Chief can be a bit of a prig at times about giving the press information. I doubt, though, that you came here to get my views on the Chief Constable, so what is it?”

“I need to find a couple. They moved from Sheffield sometime in the last few months, went to the West Midlands. I know you have contacts that can find people; I can pay for it.”

“Who are they?”

“They lived down the hill from Thomas Donnal, name of O’Mally, Mary and Terry O’Mally.”

Brian laughed. “You can save your money, Uncle Mark. Terry O’Mally is now Detective Chief Inspector Terrance O’Mally of the West Midlands Police. He was a detective inspector here but moved for promotion. He was at school with Phil and me. His wife Mary was a teacher, until the kids came along. She taught at the Comp with my wife. Angela is bound to have her number.” Brian pulled out his phone and typed in a text message. A few minutes later his phone pinged with a message, Brian opened it, and then wrote a number down and handed it to Mark. “That’s Mary’s mobile; Angela hasn’t got her landline number yet.”

Mark thanked Brian, bought another round of drinks and then, after chatting for half an hour, departed and made his way home. On the way he thought about the call he had to make.

After the phone rang three times, a woman answered. “Hello.”

“Hello, my name is Mark Wainwright. Am I speaking to Mary O’Mally.”

“Yes, this is Mary O’Mally; are you a relative of Phil?”

“I’m his father.”

“Oh good, how is he? We’ve not seen him for ages.”

“He’s fine, as far as I know, still in the States. It’s some time since I’ve seen him, though I spoke to him at the weekend. I’m phoning about Thomas Donnal.”

“Tommy? Is he all right? What’s happened? Connor has been so worried, he hasn’t…”

“Mary, Tommy’s in hospital. He’s been in a car accident, but is recovering. Things are a bit complicated, though. It is not something I really want to discuss on the phone, and I wonder if I could come over and see you?” Mark asked. He really wanted to see what these people were like before he made a suggestion about Thomas.

“Oh yes, … that would be fine. When could you come … can you make it this evening? My husband will be home, but Connor is out till after nine; he’s in the swimming club.” Mary carried on for about three minutes before Mark could interrupt her and confirm that he could make it over that evening. He got the address and directions on how to get there once he was off the motorway. In half an hour he was on the M1 driving south. It had only just gone four and the time agreed for his arrival at the O’Mally’s was seven, so he had a good three hours to do the trip in, and it should only take two. That at least was what Google Maps said, but Mark was more pessimistic. No matter which way he went—M1, M42, M6 or M1, A38—he knew he would hit jams. He was right, and it was just before seven when he pulled into the drive of a large detached house on Broadway West, Walsall.

As Mark got out of the car, the front door opened and a tall, well-built man walked across to him. “Mr Wainwright, nice to see you again after so many years. Mary tells me you have news of Tommy?”

Mark looked across at him and managed to recognise him, though he had changed a great deal. “Terry, I almost didn’t recognise you. You’ve bulked out a bit since I last saw you.” Mark looked around at the front of the house. “Nice place you’ve got.”

“Not bad, is it, for a lad from the wrong end of Sheffield?”

“You’ve done well, Detective Chief Inspector, and not yet forty.”

“More luck than anything, but I’ll tell you about it later. We better get inside; Mary is dying to hear about Tommy.” Terry guided Mark into the house and took him through to a large kitchen at the back. “Thought we might be more comfortable in here than in the front room, a bit less formal,” he stated, indicating to Mark that he should take one of the chairs at the table. Just as he was about to sit down a tall, rather plump woman walked into the room.

“Sorry I was not here when you arrived, I was sorting out Shelly’s room. I’m Mary,” she extended her hand. Once introductions had been completed Mary and Mark sat at the table whilst Terry made tea for them.

“He makes a much better brew than I do.” Mary commented. “He goes to the bother of warming the pot and all that; I just throw in some tea bags and pour on the water.”

“Yes, typical woman, always taking the short cut,” Terry observed.

Mary laughed, and it was plain to see that there was a great deal of affection between the two. “So, Mr Wainwright, what have you got to tell us about Tommy.”

“Mark, please; Mr Wainwright makes me feel too old.”

“OK, Mark, so what has happened to Tommy? You said he was in hospital and there had been a car crash, though I imagine there was more to it than that for you to drive over here on a Friday.”

“Yes, there is, but it is a bit difficult, you see …”

“I think I can make it a bit easier for you,” Terry interrupted whilst pouring the water into the pot. “Our son Connor is gay, and we know that Tommy is, too.”

“That does make it easier. How long have you known?”

“Definitely,” Mary stated, “since last weekend. We suspected it for the last couple of years. Shelly, that’s our daughter, she has just turned ten so she would have been eight then, saw Tommy and Connor kissing at Connor’s twelfth birthday party, and told us. We had already started to think along those lines anyway because the boys were inseparable.

“Then, a week yesterday, Thursday, Connor comes down from his room all upset. He told us he had been on the phone to Tommy when something had happened and the phone had gone off. He had tried calling Tommy again and was getting put straight through to voice mail, and Tommy was not answering him on Facebook or Skype.

“He’s really been down ever since. I kept him off school last Friday, he was so bad. Last Saturday we sat him down and had it out with him. He told us he was gay and that he loved Tommy and he was scared because he had not been able to get Tommy since Thursday.”

“That fits,” Mark commented. “It was Thursday of last week that Tommy was on the phone to Connor when his father walked in and either saw something or heard something. I don’t know which, but from what Tommy told me, his father hit the roof, grabbed a hammer, smashed the phone, and he then went for Tommy. Tommy ran out of the house, jumped on his bike, and started off down the hill. There was a bad storm that night and his brakes did not hold on a hill. He shot out into the main road and into my car.”

“What aren’t you telling us?” Terry asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Tommy loved that bike and kept it in tiptop condition. I don’t care how bad the weather was, there was no way the brakes would fail. Also, he knows that hill, and he knows damned well he could turn off into the drive to Gilbert’s yard just before the main road. Christ, the boys used to freewheel down the hill and into the drive for fun since they were nippers.

“If Tommy came out onto the main road he did it deliberately.” Mark looked at Terry and nodded.

“Yes, it was deliberate. He was trying to kill himself,” Mark stated.

“Poor boy!” Mary exclaimed, “What had that man done?”

“We can probably guess,” Terry commented, “and Tommy probably gave him a good kick in the balls.”

“What!”

“Mary, I told Tommy ages ago that if his father got violent with him he should kick him in the balls and then run. I guess he took my advice.”

“But why should he try to kill himself?” Mary asked.

“Probably desperation.” Terry commented, “He probably thought Frank would phone us and tell us about him and Connor.

“So, Mark,” Terry continued, “how is Tommy?”

“Pretty busted up, but fortunately there was a flash of lightning just as he came out onto the main road, and I saw him before he was in the headlight beams. I managed to stop before the impact but he went over the top of the car.”

“What’s the damage?”

“Broken arm and collar bone, three broken ribs and a couple of cracked ones, and two broken legs, one in traction. He’s going to be in hospital for some time.”

“As it’s Terry’s weekend off, we were driving up tomorrow to take Connor to see if we could find out why Tommy has not been in touch. I suppose now we better take him to the hospital to see his boyfriend.

“You could have told us this on the phone, though. What is it you wanted to speak to us in person about?” Mary asked.

“Well …” Mark paused, not quite certain how to put the idea forward, and then decided just to go ahead and explain the facts. “Social Services have become involved because there was some indication of earlier bruising.”

“The fucking bastard!” Terry exclaimed.

“Calm down, Terry,” Mary instructed. “We always suspected that Frank was beating Tommy but never had proof. Carry on and explain things, Mark.”

“When the police went to tell Frank Donnal that his son had been in an accident, Frank’s response was something to the effect that he hoped he was dead, and then went on and told Social Services, ‘That kid’s trouble and I don’t want him’. So now Social Services have an abandoned kid who has probably been abused on their hands. Once he gets out of hospital they are putting him in Stanford House.”

“No way!” Terry shouted. “Tommy’s not going to Stanford House.” Mary and Mark looked at him, surprised at the ferocity of his statement. He noted the looks and calmed down. “Look, I know Social Services are trying to do their best but I know Stanford House. It’s a dumping ground for those Social Services have given up on. Most boys who end up there are into drugs within six to eight weeks of arriving and running them for the dealers. Most of the girls are being pimped out within six months.

“If Tommy needs a home he can come here,” Terry paused and looked at Mary, “can’t he, luv?”

“Of course he can, you twerp. You don’t think I would leave my son’s boyfriend on the streets, much less Stanford House, do you?”

Mark let out a sigh of relief because he had not had to bring up the subject of Tommy living with them; they had done it themselves. However, he did have to point out: “You know, it might not be that easy. Social Services may not be too keen on locating him outside the county.”

“Don’t see why not,” Mary stated, “after all, after his father, I am his closest living relative.”

“You’re what?” Mark expressed surprise.

“Didn’t you know? Tommy is my cousin, to be exact my first cousin once removed. His grandmother is my mother’s sister.”

“I presume,” Mark queried, “that his grandmother is dead?”

“Yes, Aunt Bess died about a couple of years after Tommy’s mother. She never got over what happened to Tommy’s mother. Uncle Brian, her husband, went within months—just sort of gave up the ghost. Wasn’t helped by the fact that Frank refused to allow them to see the boy.

“Anyway, that is the past, and we have the living to care for. We will be coming up to Sheffield tomorrow. Would like to get there early but there is no way we can leave before eleven. I’m dumping Shelly at the riding school with her friends, and she is going to spend the evening with a friend; I just have to pick her up before it gets too late. What time is visiting?”

Mark pulled out his smartphone and opened up an app. “It’s different at the weekends—yes, two till four-thirty afternoon visits and six till eight-thirty evening visits. There is also a morning visiting slot for one hour from eleven to twelve.”

“Don’t think we can make it over for then, but we will be there for two,” Terry stated.

“If you don’t mind then, I’ll go in the morning and tell him that you are coming.”

“Not at all, Mark. Might be best as he won’t die of shock when Connor walks in,” Mary observed.

Mark was just leaving when Connor rode into the drive on his bike. There was a quick introduction, and Mary told Connor that they would be taking him to see Tommy tomorrow and that Mark had come to tell them what had happened. The boy was excited and wanted all the details there and then, but Mary put her foot down, telling him that Mr Wainwright needed to get home and that she would tell him everything once they were back in the house.

It had taken Terry and Mary almost two hours to first tell Connor what had happened to Thomas and then to get him calmed down. Eventually though, assured that they would be going to see Thomas in the morning, Connor had gone off up to bed, leaving Terry and Mary at the table.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Terry stated, “I rather dropped it on you about having Tommy coming to live with us.”

“That’s fine,” Marry commented, “what else could we have done? Left the kid in Stanford House. There is no way any relative of mine, no matter how distant, is going to end up there, never mind my son’s boyfriend.”

“It’s going to mean an extra mouth to feed and a teenager to support and clothe; it’s not going to be cheap. If I had known this was coming I would never have gone for this place; we could have got something smaller.”

“And then, Terry, where would we have put Tommy?” Mary asked.

“Oh, we would have managed, he could have shared with Connor,” Terry said.

“And have the boys fucking like rabbits all night?” Mary queried.

“I think not. It will push us a bit having Tommy here but we will manage. You’re on a lot more now than you were back in Sheffield. If it becomes too much of a strain, I can always look for a fulltime position.”

After Connor’s birth Mary had given up fulltime teaching. In recent years, since the children had got older, she had started to do part-time supply teaching. She had even spoken a couple of times about going back to it fulltime.

“Would it be just to help out with the finances?” Terry asked.

“No, I really love teaching but as a supply teacher you don’t get the involvement with the kids. It would be great to get back into the classroom with my own class and not just cover someone else’s.”

“If that,” stated Terry, “is what you want, then do it.” Mary looked across at her man who was smiling at her.

“I will, Terry,” she responded. “Not immediately but as soon as Shelly is in the upper school, which will be September. I’ll start putting feelers out for a position on Monday.”

About the time that Terry and Mary were having their talk over the kitchen table in Walsall, three men were also having a talk in London.

“That is very kind of you, Tagashi-san,” Jonathan Wainwright commented. He was seated at a low table in a rather upmarket Japanese restaurant not far from Oxford Circus. Next to him was seated Dale Waters, the chief executive officer of Bettridge’s. Across the table from the pair sat Hirato Tagashi, the European Marketing Director of a major Japanese conglomerate.

“Not at all,” Hirato Tagashi responded. “It is clear that enabling a line of credit with our bank to you and your associates,” he nodded in the direction of Dale, “will give you an incentive to move this forward to a swifter conclusion.”

“It is still going to take time,” Dale observed. “Mark Wainwright has a sentimental attachment to the works and we must be able to show there is no alternative to closing it when the time comes.”

“Don’t worry, Dale,” Jonathan stated, “the old man’s not interested that much. Hasn’t been since Mum was taken ill. To be honest he does not seem to be interested in anything these days.”

Hirato clapped his hands twice and a young lady came into the room. She refilled their glasses, not with sake but a fine Scottish single malt. Once she departed Hirato raised his glass. “To a successful takeover.” The other two men joined him in the toast.

Chapter 3

Driving back to Sheffield the thought hit Mark that, whilst Thomas would be back in contact with Connor tomorrow, there was no way for them to stay in contact until the next time that Connor could visit. Somehow he thought that it would be unlikely that the teenagers would be familiar with the idea of writing letters.

Fortunately, he knew a source for the supply of cheap Android phones, and before going into visit Thomas in the morning he called called in there and got a phone. It only took him a couple of minutes to get the phone set up and registered on GiffGaff. Luckily he had a couple of spare SIMs, though he did have to set up yet another email address to add the phone account to. Once that was done he put on a fifteen pound GoodyBag, which gave the lad a thousand minutes and unlimited texts and four GB of data. He just had to hope that was enough for the boys to stay in contact. He also set the GoodyBag up to recur and charged to his account, less a year than it cost him for one visit to the garage for petrol.

He knew that it was irrational of him to spend his money on a boy he hardly knew, a boy who had wrecked his car and was from one of the more unsavoury families in the area. However, where Thomas was concerned Mark also knew that rationality had nothing to do with it. The boy needed help and Mark intended to supply it.

Thomas looked at Mark in surprise as Mark placed the box containing the phone and the McDonald’s bag down on the over-bed table. For a moment he seemed undecided which to open first, the box or the bag.

“What’s that?” he queried looking at the phone box as he tore open the McDonald’s bag, his desire for the hamburger getting the best of him.

“It’s a phone, which, once you have eaten your hamburger, you can set up and charge,” Mark informed him, amused as Thomas seemed to be trying to eat the hamburger faster than ever. “Just slow down a bit; there is plenty of time for you to finish your burger and sort the phone out before I leave.”

Not that it took Thomas that long to finish the burger and take a couple of swigs from the can of cola that had come with it. As soon as he had he wiped his hands on the paper napkins that had come with the burger he opened the box.

“It’s a smart phone!” he exclaimed as the lid came off the box revealing the contents.

“Yes, Thomas, it’s a basic Android phone.”

“Fine, but who am I going to phone?” Thomas asked.

“For a start you can phone me, even if it is just to ask me bring you a McDonald’s”. Mark pulled a business card out of his pocket and pushed it across the table to Thomas. “Then you can always phone Connor.”

“Connor,” a look of anguish passed over Thomas’s face, and for a moment Mark thought he was about to start crying. “I don’t have his bloody number.”

“You will have this afternoon when he visits.”

“What! Connor is coming this afternoon?” Mark nodded in affirmation. “But how? How did he know I was here?”

“I found his family and I went over to Birmingham, actually they live in Walsall, and spoke to them last night. They’ve been worried about you, Connor especially. They are coming to visit you this afternoon.”

“That’s fucking brill…” Thomas paused a look of concern appearing on his face a hint of a tear in his eye.

“Don’t worry, they know Connor’s gay and that you’re his boyfriend.”

“They know? How? You didn’t tell them, did you?” Thomas asked accusingly.

“No, Thomas, that was yours and Connor’s to tell. It seems that Connor decided to tell, but they had guessed some time ago.”

“And they are still letting him come to see me?”

“Yes, and they also want you to go and live with them, but they can tell you the rest themselves. They should be here about two.”

“Why’re you doing this?” Thomas asked.

“Why am I doing what?”

“You know, sorting things out for me. Nobody else has bothered with me.”

“I am not sure that is quite true, Thomas. Mary and Terry were worried about you. If I had not contacted them yesterday, they were coming to Sheffield today anyway to try and find you. So they were certainly bothered about you.” Mark paused for a moment, thinking to himself why was he doing this. His solicitor had told him to keep out of things, yet here he was, not just visiting Thomas but helping him, as Thomas had worded it, to sort his life out. “But you asked a question, Thomas, and I am not sure I can give an answer. In some ways I suppose it is about guilt.”

“What’ve you got to be guilty over, it was me that rode my bike into your car,” Thomas observed.

“Oh, it’s not about that, it’s about something that happened fifty-five years ago. Seeing you, or to be more precise your face just before you hit the car, brought it all back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is something from long ago. You can’t let the past rule your life; you can only allow it to make you live better today.”

If Mark had thought that finding a place for Thomas to live would be the end of his involvement with the boy, he was badly mistaken. More and more things seemed to need sorting out, and it just seemed right to Mark that he should be the one doing the sorting out. The first arose that afternoon, or to be more precise, early evening after the O’Mallys had visited Thomas. Mark had invited them to drop in on him after their visit to have some refreshment before they went back to Walsall and to let him know how things had gone. It was quite clear when they arrived that something had gone wrong. Connor was very moody.

“Sorry, Mark,” Mary stated, “he’s upset because he can’t go back and see Thomas tonight.” That had led to a general discussion about the problem of visiting and staying in touch, especially as Terry had to work every other weekend and Mary did not like driving in the dark. The outcome was Mark found himself offering to let Connor stay the night and he would take him back to Walsall after Sunday afternoon visiting. That led to Connor staying every weekend with Mark so that he could visit Thomas. Either Terry would drop him over on the Friday night, collecting him Sunday evening, or Mark would drive over and pick him up on the Friday and drop him back after the last visit on Sunday.

There were other matters, though, which kept Mark involved with Thomas, not the least being where he would live. Although Mary and Terry were quite willing to have Thomas live with them, it turned out that things were not quite so easy. First of all, there was the problem that they were out of the county, so things had to be sorted out between two different Social Services departments; that was never an easy matter. Although housing Thomas was something of a priority for Sheffield Social Services, such was not the case for Walsall Social Services, which had far more urgent matters on its hands than approving a foster family for a boy from outside its area.

Then there was the question of ongoing medical treatment: he had needed a second operation on his leg to reset one of the fractures, which had put him back in traction. Although Thomas was due to come off traction soon, he would still require fairly frequent medical checks for the next few weeks until the last cast was finally removed, and then perhaps months of physiotherapy. Ms Henley, the social working dealing with Thomas’s case, argued that he should stay with the same medical team until fully discharged. She would not approve the placement with a foster family in Walsall until at least four to six weeks after his discharge from hospital, so Thomas would end up, for a while at least, in Stanford House.

Stanford House though was an option that Mary, Terry, and Mark very much opposed. So it was that some fifteen weeks after the accident that Mark found himself picking Thomas up from the hospital and taking him to his house, where Thomas would be his foster child until the move to Walsall could be completed.

This turn of events had come about one afternoon when Mark had visited Thomas to find Ms Henley at his bedside. During a short conversation about how things were going she had commented on the fact that Walsall Social Services were very slow in getting the approval of the O’Mallys done. Mark had mentioned that he appreciated the problem, as it had taken ages when he and his wife were approved as foster parents.

“You were approved as foster parents?” Ms Henley asked. “When was that?”

“Must have been twenty or so years ago. A friend of my wife was dying and wanted us to care for her daughter when she had to go into the hospice. After that we took the odd emergency placement until my wife got ill.”

Ms Henley’s face lit up. “I wonder?” she said. “I wonder if the approval in principle is still valid? Or if not, how quickly could we reactivate it? This could be the solution we’ve been trying to find! Would you consider taking Thomas on a temporary placement until things are sorted out and he can move to Walsall?”

Mark turned to Thomas, who had been following the conversation between the two them. “Would you mind staying with an old man for a bit?”

“Wouldn’t it be too much trouble? I don’t mind going to Stanford House for a few weeks; it’s not like it will be forever.”

“Thomas, you have not answered my question. Would you mind staying with me?”

“No, not if you’ll have me, but won’t it be too much trouble? I’ll still have my leg in a cast when I get out. Won’t be able to do much.”

Mark assured Thomas that he would not be too much trouble, for he was fairly certain that when Thomas came to his home Connor would be there to help look after him. The Easter holidays were a couple of weeks away, and Mary and Terry had agreed that Connor could come over for the holidays so he could visit Thomas every day. That was before the doctors had said that Thomas could go home as soon as he came out of traction, which they expected to be in about another ten days. The question had become which home he would be going to, Stanford House or Mark’s place, because the O’Mallys seemed out of the question.

Ms Henley phoned Mark and told him that, given his age and even though he was an approved foster parent, they would not normally place a boy of Thomas’s age with him as an initial placement. However, she went on to state that she had discussed this with her supervisor. Given that Thomas would need specific assistance that Stanford House would have difficulty in supplying and that this was a temporary placement till the situation with the O’Mallys was sorted out, they would allow it for this case. The tone of the call annoyed Mark a bit, as it seemed to be implying that they were doing him a favour rather than him helping them out. Despite that, it was arranged that Thomas would come and stay with him until he could move over to Walsall.

Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems. Over the last few weeks he had given his children a brief outline of events. He had told them about buying the Eagle E-type and about Thomas riding into it. What he had not told them was exactly how involved with Thomas’s life he had now become. The fact that Thomas would be coming to live with him and would be occupying the downstairs guest bedroom was something they had to be informed about. He wanted to ensure they did not suddenly plan to come and visit, with their whole brood of children, banking on the surfeit of bedrooms that his house had. Not that any of them, except Joan, had been that frequent visitors.

His children of course were somewhat unsympathetic to Thomas or to their father giving him a home, albeit for only a few weeks.

“Dammit, Dad,” Jonathan, his eldest, informed him, “the kid wrecked your car and you’re giving him handouts. He’ll probably grab half the stuff you have and run off downtown and flog it.”

“Not very likely, Jonny; his legs will still be in plaster and he will be on crutches. I can’t see him running far.”

“Dad, you’re seventy, with arthritis. A fourteen-year-old on crutches could leave you standing.”

The other children gave him very similar responses, though Joan surprised him. Once she had gone through the arguments as to why he should not have Thomas coming to stay with him she stated, “Well, in that case I better come up to keep house.”

“What about Jack and the children?” Mark asked.

“Dad, in case you have forgotten, Susan is eighteen and not so little. She just finished eight months in Japan studying Shotokan and is now relaxing on the Australian Gold Coast. I believe she is trying to work her way down the length of it, man by man—at least I think it’s men she is working her way through. She’ll be back in September to take up her place at Oxford.

“As for that son of mine, the last I heard from Robert, he was about to board a plane for Brazil—something to do with his PhD studies. That was four months ago, and we have not heard a peep out of him since. No, that is a lie. He sent us a postcard from Rio, but put insufficient stamps on it. I suppose we will hear when he runs out of money.”

“That still leaves your husband.”

“Well, he can move in with his mistress for a few weeks. She might as well have the pain of him; she gets enough of the pleasure.”

“Jack’s got a mistress!” Mark exclaimed, wondering how someone as insignificant as his daughter’s husband could have a mistress.

“Yes, surely you knew. I thought everyone did. Margery Southern, his secretary at one time; now she runs a recruitment agency. I meet her for lunch a couple of times a week; it’s the only way we can sort out his schedule.”

Joan arrived in Sheffield on the following Tuesday with rather more bags than Mark thought were required for a short stay. That evening sitting by the fire in the lounge, having partaken of a decent single malt and both well into their second glass, Mark asked, “So just how long are you staying? You seem to have brought quite a few bags.”

“You noticed, did you?”

“Yes, Joan.”

“Well, Dad, to be honest, I am not sure. I’m going to ask Jack for a divorce.”

“That bad, is it?”

“No actually, it’s not bad at all. In fact, Jack and I have quite a decent arrangement. We’ve not had a marriage since before Susan was born. In fact, the incident that resulted in her conception was probably our last attempt to revive the spark there had once been.

“However, although the marriage was dead, we had a good working relationship that sufficed for both of us. Jack’s position in the family firm has assured us of a comfortable living, and I have been able to supply the required wife to host business functions when necessary, whilst doing my studies and writing.

“Now I am financially independent. My last three books have all sold over the hundred thousand hardback and are constant sellers—or some reason the readers seem to like reading about the sex lives of our predecessors. An American competitor of Jack’s firm has proposed a merger; in fact, it will essentially be a takeover. Let’s face it, Jack is not the most brilliant business manager. He only has the job because of his family connections; he knows there will be no place for him in the new set up, but he will walk away with a nice cash bundle—a lot of it tax free.

“I have absolutely no interest in traipsing around the fashionable resorts of the Med and the Caribbean, though it appears Jack thinks that would be the height of achievement. If he wants to do that, he can do it with his mistress.

“Anyway, I have met somebody,” she concluded. Mark knew better than to ask who, knowing that Joan would tell him when she was good and ready and not before.

The following afternoon Mark took Joan with him to the hospital to meet Thomas, only to be informed that Thomas would be discharged the next day. While Mark immediately set about making arrangements to transport the boy home, it was Joan who came up with a practical question.

“Dad, just what is Thomas going to wear?” Mark and Thomas both looked at her. “Well, I doubt Thomas wants to be paraded through Sheffield with his arse hanging out of a hospital gown.” It had not occurred to Mark that Thomas had no clothes of his own. The ones he had been wearing on the day of the collision had been cut off him. So far as Mark knew, nobody had done anything about getting the boy anything to wear.

“Don’t worry, Thomas, when we leave here we’re going shopping. We need to get you something that you can wear with those on,” she indicated the leg casts.

That afternoon, after visiting had finished, Joan dragged Mark to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre, knowing full well how much her father hated any form of shopping. She enjoyed the experience of directing him to a rack of tear away training pants, pointing out that they were a lot more practical for Thomas to wear with his cast than the alternatives. They could leave the fasteners undone on that part of the leg. She pointed out he would still be able to use them once the cast was off. She also insisted that Mark buy Thomas some sports shirts, jersey shorts, which would stretch over the cast, and trainers. Mary had thought to get Thomas’s shoe size from him before they had left. Finally, she took Mark to Primark for underwear, socks, sweat shirts and a hoody, pointing out that if they took Thomas out anywhere he would need some form of coat.

Once they had finished shopping for clothes, Mark realised just how much he had not thought things through, exactly what the boy would need when he got out of hospital. So it became his turn to drag someone round the shops making a beeline for an electrical distributor. There he purchased a mid-range laptop and a printer, together with printer supplies, explaining to Joan that Thomas would need them for his school work. Not that he would be going back to school soon—a tutor from the Hospital and Home Education Service had been seeing Thomas in hospital and Mark understood that they would continue to visit him until he moved to Walsall.

Once back at the car Mark realised that they would not have time to get back to his place, unload, and then get to the hospital for the start of evening visits, so he suggested some fast food and a run back to the hospital. That way they could also get Thomas a take away. Joan agreed but pointed out that she needed to sort out a set of clothing to leave with Thomas for the morning before then they set off.

Thursday morning Thomas was released from hospital, and Ms Henley was there to make sure all the necessary papers were signed and all the protocols correctly applied. Just before they were about to leave, Ms Henley indicated to Mark that she would like a word in private.

“Mr Wainwright,” she commenced, “may I suggest that now Thomas is with you, you do not take him out too often. In fact, with the exception of his visits to the hospital it might be best if Thomas did not go out at all, at least till he moves to the O’Mallys.”

“You sound as if you think there could be some form of threat to the boy?”

“This might be an old woman’s imagination but there is something not quite right about the story we have, and I don’t trust that father.” Mark nodded and commented that Thomas was going to have the cast on for at least another three weeks so there was not much chance of him going out in that period.

“I know, Mr Wainwright, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Chapter 4

Friday evening Terry brought Connor over, as Mark had agreed that he could stay with Thomas over the Easter holiday. Mark had intended to put Connor into one of the first floor guest rooms where he normally stayed the weekends he had been over. However, Joan quickly re-arranged things stating that Connor should probably sleep in the ground floor guest room, observing that she did not think they would have a problem sharing a bed.

That evening, after the boys had gone to bed, quite early as it turned out, both saying they were very tired, Mark and Joan sat in the lounge enjoying a couple of single malts.

“They are very much in love aren’t they?” Joan asked.

“Umm…?” Mark responded, he thoughts being miles away, mainly with his Eagle E-type which was being returned in the morning, fully restored after its meeting with Thomas.

“Thomas and Connor of course; they are very much in love,” Joan explained.

“You noticed, did you?”

“I would have had to be blind to miss that. Is that why you are doing this, to assuage guilt over Tim?”

“What about Tim? Why should this have anything to do with Tim and why should I have any guilt over Tim? Haven’t heard from him in yonks, and Johnny says the boy has gone native somewhere in the Far East.”

“You don’t know about Tim?” Joan asked. “What is there to know about Tim? All I know is that he went off on a gap year, what was it six, seven years ago, and did not come back. Johnny said he had decided he preferred life as a beach bum somewhere out there. Never got any details from Johnny.”

“Fuck, I’m going to kill my brother someday!” Joan exclaimed.

“I would prefer it if you didn’t, dear. Johnny may not be the best of sons but he is my son, and I rather value my children and grandchildren for that matter. So, what is it I don’t know about Tim and what has Tim got to do with Thomas and Connor?”

“You really don’t know Dad?” Mark shook his head, and Joan shook her head “Shit, this is a bit of a mess, I thought you knew Tim was gay.”

“I guessed he might be but was never told.”

“Well, Dad, Tim did go on a gap year, and when he came back with a Thai boyfriend, a final year medical student, Johnny hit the roof. He was having problems with Tim being gay. Tim with a non-white lover was just too much for him. He told him to take his bloody wog back to the slum he had pulled him out of.

“Tim had wanted Krit, his boyfriend, to come to England to do his postgrad study so they could be together. However, to get Krit a visa they had to get sponsorship for Krit, and Tim wanted his father’s help. So as it was not possible for them to be together in England, Tim went back to Thailand with Krit. Krit has been studying at Chiang Mai University; he’s just finished his postgrad training as a doctor

“Tim had got his TEFL qualification before starting his gap year, he had intended to get English teaching jobs whilst travelling to support himself. For the past five years he has been teaching English and helping to fund Krit through university and postgraduate studies while doing some distance learning modules himself. Now that Krit has some real income, Tim intends to go to university full time and finish his degree.”

“Just when did all this happen?”

“Not sure, must have been just over six, maybe seven, years ago, when you were on that cruise with Mum. I thought you knew; Johnny said he had told you about it.”

“Joan, he may have said something, but I had other things on my mind just then. Your mum was dying and I wanted to give her the best possible time before she went. What I am bloody sure of is that he never told me about Krit or why Tim went back to Thailand.

“Sorry, Joan, I did not know about Tim. If I had I would have done something – Christ, it’s not as if I’m short of cash. I’ve bailed Johnny out enough times. I could have covered Krit’s fees and sorted out his visa. Actually, six years ago they could have had a civil partnership and Krit could have come in on that.

“You seem to know a lot about them, Joan, so I imagine you must be in touch with them.”

“Yes, Dad, when Johnny threw them out they came and stayed with me until it was time to fly back to Thailand. I’ve visited them a couple of times when I have been out there, and we email and Skype each other most weeks.”

“So you have Tim’s phone number?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Well give it me, and I’ll phone him.” Mark stood and walked over to the telephone table to get the phone.

“Dad, you can’t phone him now, it is early hours of the morning over there. Wait till the morning.”

“Right, I forgot the time difference. By the way, if you want to murder Johnny, you have my permission.”

“Nah, I’ll just leave him to realise how much he is going to miss because he has fucked up his relationship with his kids,” Joan replied. “But if it is not about Tim, why are you helping Thomas so much? He’s a nice boy, but the way you are going about things has the touch of a guilt trip.”

“I suppose in a way you’re right, but it has nothing to do with Tim. It is about Ian.”

“Ian? Who the hell is Ian?”

“A friend, a long time ago in a very different place. Things were different then and I did not do what I should have done.” Over a couple more single malts Mark told his daughter about Ian, about events fifty-five years before and how the look on Thomas’s face had reminded him of Ian.

Telling Joan about Ian left Mark feeling somewhat down. He was also feeling the effects of the single malts. Just after ten he excused himself and went off to bed, leaving Joan watching television. The beeb was showing a rerun of the serialisation of her first novel. This time it was well past the watershed and some scenes that had been left out of the first showing were in this one.

It was about twenty past ten when the phone went. Joan answered it. “Craigh House.”

“Is that you, Joan?” a somewhat slurred voice asked.

“Johnny,” Joan responded, “have you been drinking?”

“Had a couple, what’s going on up there. Why’s dad got that boy staying?”

“By the sound of it you’ve had more than a couple,” Joan stated.

“I’ve been celebrating. Just pulled off a land deal,” Johnny replied.

“Right. So why are you calling?”

“Wanted to know what’s going on. Heard that boy had moved in.”

“Yes, Johnny, we collected Thomas — that’s the boy’s name — from the hospital yesterday. He’ll be staying here till he moves to Walsall once the fostering is sorted out,” Joan informed him.

“But why Sis? He’s nothing to do with us. What bee has Dad got in his bonnet now? He’s wasting his money on some no good queer kid who’s been kicked out by his dad.”

“Johnny,” Joan asked, “how do you know that Thomas is gay and that his dad kicked him out?”

“I’ve got my sources up there, you know.”

“Well, if you have your sources you should know the kid needs help and Dad’s providing it. Whether or not the kid is gay is immaterial. Anyway, it’s doing Dad good. I’ve not seen him as alive and as interested in something as he is now since Mam died. If there was no other reason for him doing it, that is enough; it has given him something to do, looking after Thomas.” With that Joan put down the receiver, not too gently.

The next couple of weeks were fairly hectic. First, Joan had decided to go for the divorce, and that meant finding a lawyer to deal with it all. Fortunately, Jack seemed pretty amicable to the divorce, and money was not an issue between them, so it looked as if it was not going to be that much of a problem. What did cause a problem was that Joan needed somewhere to do her writing. She asked if she could use one of the box rooms as a study.

“Gawd, no, Joan. You’d never get in them,” Mark informed her. “I keep meaning to get them sorted out. Half the stuff in them is not needed, but I never get ‘round to it. You better turn the small bedroom into a study for yourself.”

“Thanks, Dad. I’m off down London tomorrow to pack up the stuff I want from the house. What’s not going into storage I’ll bring back here.” Mark nodded in agreement.

Luckily, Thomas did not need that much attention, and Connor took it as his personal responsibility to look after the boy. Anyway, Thomas was a lot more mobile on his crutches, even with one leg still in plaster, than Mark had expected. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that Jonathan was probably right, the boy could outrun him even on crutches.

In practice, most days, Mark and Joan only saw the boys at meal times or when they were out in the garden, where Thomas would be on the lounger directing Connor in some activity that neither of the adults could see the sense in.

There was still the matter of getting Thomas to the hospital for his follow up appointments, though, and to meetings with Social Services to discuss the arrangements for his move to Walsall. Mark found that having a couple of fourteen-year-olds who were nearly fifteen around did tend to be a bit wearing, even though it made life a lot more interesting.

He was grateful that Joan had decided to come up. Life was so much easier with her around to sort out all the little things that seemed to crop up, like the extra laundry that needed to be done. As Mrs Wright, his housekeeper, had commented, she did not have time to do three loads of washing on the one and a half days a week she came in, and at her age she was not keen on taking on any extra work.

Mary and Terry came over to see the boys regularly and made a long weekend of it over the Easter weekend since their daughter was away with her best friend at a riding camp. On the Easter Monday, Joan and Mary decided to go on a shopping expedition, because Thomas needed some clothes for when his cast came off and for school. They did hint at taking the boys with them but both boys had made it quite clear that they did not consider shopping as a purposeful activity – especially as Terry had brought Connor’s PS2 over with him.

Mark had intended to spend the afternoon in the garden planting lily bulbs but a light drizzle put an end to that, so he and Terry ended up in the lounge half-heartedly watching some rowing event on TV.

“Mark,” Terry asked, “has Thomas said anything more to you about what happened that night?”

“No, why?” Mark replied.

“It just does not seem right. I know Frank Donnal, and he is a violent, mean bastard. I can say I am not surprised he would throw a gay kid out on the street and probably knock him about a bit before doing so. But going for the boy with a hammer? That is something else—it shows an intent to do serious damage or to kill, not something I would expect from Frank just because his son is gay.”

“All I have got from Thomas was that he was on the phone to Connor talking about going camping and having sex when his father walked in. They had been planning to go camping at Thomas’s father’s place on the moors over Easter…”

“What?” Terry exclaimed.

“His father walked in on him while he was speaking with Connor on the phone.”

“No, about their camping Mark, where did Thomas say they were going?”

“Oh, to his father’s place on the moors.”

“Excuse me, Mark, I need to have a word with Thomas.” Terry stood up and went off in the direction of the ground floor guest bedroom. Mark decided he might as well make a start on dinner.

About half an hour later Terry walked into the kitchen, clearly finishing off a call on his mobile. “Well, it appears that Frank Donnal has an old farm cottage and barn up on the moors. He’s managed to keep that quiet, and there is no record for it that we have found and I can assure you that in the last few years when I was with the local police we were looking into Mr Donnal’s affairs quite a bit.”

“I gather it’s important,” Mark commented.

“Yes, we’ve known Donnal has been involved in some fairly unpleasant stuff but have never been able to get the evidence to link him to it. Now we may have the lead we need. It also explains the nature of the attack on Thomas. I don’t think Thomas was supposed to know about that place and I think Donnal would have killed to keep the knowledge secret.”

Mark remembered Ms Henley’s warning. “Do you think he might still come after Thomas?”

“Probably not,” Terry replied, “but it might be best to make sure that the boys are never on their own, especially for the next few days.”

Connor stayed with Mark and Thomas for the following week, but on Sunday Mary and Terry came over to pick him up as he had school on the Monday.

“We’ve got some news,” Mary announced as soon as they arrived at the house.

“Good news I gather,” Mark observed, seeing the smile on her face.

“Yes, Ms Henley called on Friday, and it’s all approved. We just have to go in and sign the paperwork. They are sending it to our local Social Services department, so we are going in on Wednesday to sign it all. Then Thomas can come over as soon as he has his cast off.”

“That,” commented Mark, “is due on Thursday.”

“So should we come and collect him on Friday?” Terry asked.

“Would you mind if I brought him over? I would like to do that; I’m going to miss him when he’s moved out.”

“Not at all; in fact, that will make things easier for us.”

The process was not quite as simple as they thought. Apparently, one way or another, there was quite a bit of paperwork to sort out. The formal procedure was for the social worker to pick Thomas up from one placement and take him to his new placement. Fortunately, Terry was off duty on Wednesday so the situation was solved by Terry driving over in the afternoon after signing the papers and Ms Henley officially handing Thomas over Terry at Mark’s house. Then Terry asked Mark to look after Thomas for a couple of days and to take him to the hospital to get his cast off.

That also turned out to be a problem because, although everything had been arranged for the removal of the cast on the Thursday, after the final check with the doctor it did not take place. Thomas’s three-thirty appointment was so delayed it was gone five by time he saw the doctor, who gave him the required paperwork to get the cast removed and to be discharged from treatment with follow-ups in Walsall. Unfortunately, the technician who would have done the cast removal had already left and it was not possible to get it done till Friday morning.

Given that the first thing Thomas wanted once he had the cast off was to have a good soak in a bath, which he needed given the stench from inside the casts, it was mid-afternoon before they set off for Walsall.

Mark intended to go down the M1 to the A42-M42 and take the turn off for Tamworth so that he could go down the A5 and approach Walsall from the Lichfield side, avoiding the jams that normally built up on the M6 on Friday afternoons. But, as they approached the A42, signs announced that the junction was closed. As a result, he had to drive down to the M69 junction and take the M69 to the M6 with its inevitable Friday afternoon traffic jams, which they hit the moment they joined the M6.

As they crawled forward slowly Thomas asked, “Mark, who was Ian?”

“Ian! Why are you asking about Ian?”

“I told Joan I did not know why you were doing all this for me and I felt bad about it. She told me not to worry―it was because of Ian, but she wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

“Well, she was right to tell you not to worry. I suppose I’d better explain, though I am not too sure it will make much sense.

“Ian was my best friend at school. I had known him from primary school and we went to grammar school together. As we got older we drifted apart a bit; I was more into science and sports, Ian was more into the humanities and art. We were still best friends, though, and spent a lot of time together.

“When we were fifteen, Ian told me he was gay, though we called it queer in those days. I told him I wasn’t, though we had played around with each other, as boys do. After that we stopped our mutual wanking sessions. No, to be honest, I stopped them. Ian would have liked to go on with them.

“I don’t know how it happened, but somehow his father found out that he was queer. I was on my way ‘round to his house so we could go to Scouts together; we were both patrol leaders. As I got to his house I heard his father shouting at him, telling him to get out, that he did not want a fucking queer in his house.

“Ian ran out the house, right past me, his eyes streaming with tears. I don’t know if he saw me or not. I called him but he did not stop, just kept on running. So I set off after him, but he was a lot faster than me. The only sport he really enjoyed was running, and he was good at it. By time I caught up with him he was at the bridge and had already climbed over the balustrade.

“I called to him and he turned to look me. We held each other’s eyes for I don’t know how long, and I wanted to tell him…. It doesn’t matter, because I did not tell him; I just looked at him and he let go of the balustrade and fell.”

“So he died jumping off a bridge?”

“No he died a couple of years later. The fall from the bridge smashed him up pretty badly. They had to amputate his legs and he had a broken back―paralysed from the waist down. He was in a bad way. I never saw him alive again. They put him in a mental hospital because he had tried to kill himself and because he was homosexual. I heard they gave him aversion therapy to cure of him of his abnormal desires. He developed double pneumonia―it’s a common complication for bedbound paraplegics―and died just before his eighteenth birthday. So I was never able to tell him what I should have told him at the bridge.”

“What was that?”

“It doesn’t matter now; it was all a long long time ago.”

Just then they got to the Spaghetti Junction, and Mark took the turn off deciding that it would be quicker to drive through town rather than stay on the motorway. At least that gave him an excuse for not answering any more of Thomas’s questions.

“Do you think he fancies you?” Connor asked later that evening as he lay beside Thomas on the bed in what was now to be Thomas’s room. Although his parents knew about his relationship with Thomas and had no objections to it, they had insisted that they have separate rooms. “You need to get some bloody sleep sometimes,” his father had responded when asked why.

“Who?”

“Mr Wainwright,” Connor replied.

Thomas was silent for a moment, thinking about how much he should tell Connor. Then he made up his mind.

“Why’d you think that?” Thomas asked.

“Well, he’s been doing all these things for you. He came over and found Mam and Dad. He got you that phone and the laptop and he let you stay with him. All that after you smashed up his car. I just wonder why he is going to the trouble if he doesn’t fancy you.”

“Don’t think he’s like that,” Thomas responded, then had a thought. “He didn’t try anything on with you did he?”

“Nha.”

“Good. He hasn’t with me either.”

“Good,” stated Connor, “but why, if he doesn’t fancy you, is he doing it all?”

“It about Ian,” Thomas responded.

“Who is Ian?” Connor asked. Thomas then explained what he had learnt in car coming over, not all of it but enough to give Connor an outline of events. “So,” Connor commented, “you remind him of this Ian.”

“I don’t think I remind him of Ian. OK, maybe I do, but there is more to it than that. He seems to think it is his duty to make sure that the same thing does not happen to me as happened to Ian.”

“It better bloody not; if it does I’ll kill you.” There was a moment of silence before both boys broke into laughter at the stupidity of Connor’s comment.

Chapter 5

At about the same time as Thomas and Connor had been discussing Mark’s actions of the last few weeks, a conversation was also taking place in Craigh House. Mark was sitting in the lounge half-heartedly reading a copy of New Scientist. Joan came in and put a mug of tea on the table besides him.

“Well,” she asked, “what are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Dad, exactly what I’ve said. What are you going to do now? You have been more alive in the last few weeks than I have seen you since Mam died. Thomas gave you a purpose, though for the life of me I can’t quite understand why?” “I told you, it was because of Ian,” Mark responded.

“I know that, Dad, and I understand what you were saying about Ian, but it seemed to me that there was more to it than that.

“Anyway Thomas is gone now and you need to decide what you are going to do. Thomas gave you a purpose and you need to get another and keep the life in you, Dad.”

“Joan, I still have a purpose with Thomas and Connor. Thomas may have moved to Walsall but that does not mean that I’m going to drop contact with him. For a start I’m going over at the end of the month for his birthday so I have to sort out a good birthday present. Then there is Connor’s birthday a few weeks later. I can’t treat the one boy and not the other.”

“Dad!”

“Don’t ‘Dad’ me, my girl. You said Thomas gave me a purpose ― well, it was more than Thomas ― it was the pair of them. There is something about them that makes them special, and I think they are worth anything I can do for them, so I mean to do it. It’s not as if it will be anything off you lot. I’ve given all of you enough to set you up, and you’re all doing well for yourselves.”

“Well,” responded Joan, “you’re right about that at least, except possibly for Johnny. I’m not sure if he is doing as well as he makes out.”

“But they’ve got the house in Highgate …”

“Dad, I think the Highgate house was paid for, at least in part, by Rachel’s parents. I happen to know it is in her name. Anyway, that’s not important. Why don’t you get involved with the company again?”

“Joan, I’ve retired and handed over control. Why should I go back now?”

“You’ve said yourself that things just did not seem right over there.”

“I know, but I don’t think that gives me the right to walk back in after I’ve handed it over, even if I am the majority shareholder.”

“It shouldn’t stop you taking more interest in what’s going on, though.”

“All right, though I think I am going to have my hands full with Thomas and Connor, and at my age they are more than enough to be going on with.”

“They probably are, Dad. And I think you’re right; they are a bit special.” Mark looked at his daughter, surprised by her comment. “Don’t look at me like that, you’re not the only sentimental member of this family. After a day’s effort trying to write about the lives and loves of the English aristocracy it’s nice to see the real thing at times.” At that Mark could not help but burst out laughing.

A couple of weeks later Mark received a phone call from Terry early on the Friday morning asking him if he could come over to Walsall. Mark had already planned to go over on the Saturday for Thomas’s fifteenth birthday. Terry suggested he should get over on the Friday afternoon before the boys got back from school and he should stay overnight for the party on Saturday.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“There’s been a development over Frank Donnal, and I think Thomas might need a bit of support when he is told. It might not be best for it to come from me. He might see me as the enemy, given my job.”

“OK, I’ll be there.”

It was just after two when Mark arrived at the O’Mallys. Terry greeted him at the door. “Glad you could make it over.”

“You made it sound serious,” Mark replied as Terry guided him into the sitting room.

“It is. Would you like a coffee, or a brandy? I’d recommend the brandy as I’m going to have one,” Terry advised.

“In that case I better have one, too, and you better sit down and tell me what’s going on. By the way, where’s Mary?”

“She has gone over to Social Services to tell them what is happening, just in case things go belly up with Thomas. Then she’ll pick Shelly up from school before picking the boys up. She is going to take them shopping, officially to get Thomas things for his birthday, so I have a couple of hours to brief you. We were not sure when you would get here, so she’s aiming to keep them away till at least five.”

“So you better brief me then.”

Terry took a deep breath, exhaled, then began. “You remember you told me that Thomas and Connor were planning to go camping at Frank Donnal’s place on the moors?”

“Yes,” Mark responded. “You went off to talk with Thomas and were quite excited about something when you got back.”

“Yes, I was. Thomas had given me enough information that we could identify the property. We’ve had it under observation for the last couple of weeks. There have been quite a lot of suspicious comings and goings but nothing we could link to any specific criminal activity, so probably not enough cause to get a search warrant.

“Yesterday afternoon a woman was observed opening one of the doors to the barn and running out. She was followed by a man who grabbed her, hit her quite hard, then dragged her back into the building. That gave the local police grounds to enter and arrest the man seen committing the assault, which also gave them the right to search the premises.

“We turned up a real nasty find. It turned out that they were using the premises as a breaking shop.”

“I suspect you do not mean they were breaking up cars,” Mark commented.

“You bloody right there. They were breaking women. They bring in women from Eastern Europe or beyond with promises of jobs and a better life, then tell them they have to work as prostitutes to pay off their debts to the traffickers. Some of the women agree to go along with it, but most don’t and they have to be broken in.

“Essentially they are taken somewhere and subjected to repeated rapes. It seems that there are some men who actually pay to be part of the group who break the women. At the same time the women are given drugs, usually heroin, until they become addicted. Give the gang six to eight weeks and the women don’t care who’s fucking them just so long as they get their fix.

“To make matters worse the whole place was rigged with video cameras so that Donnal and his mates could film the women being raped, no doubt selling copies over the dark net. We have found a whole pile of recordings, all nicely dated, going back over fifteen years.

“There was enough evidence on what we got in the raid to arrest Frank Donnal, and he is identifiable in a couple of the videos that were on the recording system. However, yesterday evening, forensic started to search the cottage and in an upstairs found a number of suitcases containing clothes identified as belonging to Kate Donnal. That caused my old boss, who was the investigating officer when Kate went missing, to order a look at the recordings dated from the time she went missing.

“I haven’t seen them, and don’t want to. However, they do contain enough evidence to charge Frank Donnal. We can’t actually charge him with murder, but we can with conspiracy to kidnap and murder. From what the lads have been able to get from the videos it seems that Kate found out about the property on the moors and thought Frank was keeping another woman up there, which in a way he was. So she followed and confronted him to get evidence for a quick divorce. You can probably guess what happened.”

Mark drained his glass and held it out to Terry, “Any chance of another?”

“Yes, mate, and I’ll join you.” Terry replied pouring out another two glasses of brandy. “I’ve got to tell Thomas this when he gets home and I’m not sure how he will take it.”

In the end it turned out a lot easier than either Terry or Mark had hoped. When Mary brought the boys home, Terry asked Thomas to join him in the living room. He handed Connor some tens and told him to get down to KFC and get a couple of family buckets and some extras.

Once he had seated a somewhat worried Thomas, Terry assured him he was not in trouble and then explained events around his father and what had happened.

“I knew it.” Thomas burst out, “I knew it all along. I knew she had not left me, that that fucking bastard had done something. I’m just glad you’ve got him.” Then he started to cry, Terry put his arm around the boy and Thomas cuddled into him.

Fifteen minutes later Terry came through to the kitchen. “He’s gone up to his room. He’s taken it a lot better than I thought.”

“Yes,” Mark responded, “you did not need me, so no point in my staying. I better get of back.”

“No you don’t, Mark,” Terry interrupted. “Look, he is coping at the moment, but there is no way to know how he will be once the news settles in. I think it would be best if you hung around for the evening. Also you’ve had a couple of large brandies, so there is no way you’re fit to drive that beast outside. Don’t want to have to tell Thomas that his saviour has copped it.”

“His saviour!”

“Yes, Mark, you were the one who had a reason to be angry with him, but you went out of the way to help him. It was you who found us for him. The fact that we were coming to look for him is immaterial; you got in first. He sees you as the person who saved him, not only from killing himself but also from Stanford House.” At the mention of killing himself Mark looked at Terry with surprise. “Yes, Mark, he told us, confirming what you said. He told us that he intended to collide with a car, and it was bloody lucky you had an Eagle and not an ordinary E-type.”

Mark was about to protest in support of his innate modesty, but Terry beat him to the punch. “You see, Mark, I don’t think you have quite grasped how important you are to Thomas. I don’t know how you did it and I don’t think you intended to do it, but you have given him something to believe in, and he believes in you. He told me you said there was no reason he could not go to university. He believes you, and now he is dead set on studying so he can get there. Before all this, he never thought he could go so never really bothered about school.

“Once you get involved in somebody’s life,” Terry continued, “you change it. You’ve changed Thomas’s life, so you have some responsibility to make sure it goes somewhere good.”

Mark was taken aback by Terry’s little speech. Yes, it was true that Thomas had affected him and he had really enjoyed having Thomas around when the boy stayed with him. In fact, it was during these last couple of weeks that Mark had come to realise just how much he missed his chats with Thomas, which had always been interesting, sometimes challenging, and occasionally damned embarrassing.

He remembered the chat about university on the Wednesday after Terry, Mary, and Connor had visited Thomas for the first time. Mark had gone in for an evening visit as Thomas had been down for scans in the afternoon, and found Thomas a bit down. Turned out he had received an email from Connor in which Connor was telling him all the things they would be able to do when they were at school together.

“What’s going to happen when we’ve finished school?” Thomas had asked.

“That’s a few years yet,” Mark commented.

“Not that long, it’s only three more years, then he’ll be off to university.”

“So what? You might be able to go to the same university.”

“Me, university? You’ve got to be kidding. I ain’t clever enough; Connor is the one with brains.” Thomas remarked.

“You don’t have to have brains to go to university Thomas. What you do need is determination. All right, for the brainy ones it’s easier. They just have to do what comes naturally to them and they get in. That’s often the worse for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it, Thomas. They have always found school work easy, they have just sailed through, taken exams, and got the marks. They have never really had to work at it. All they have done is sit in class, let the teachers tell them what they need to know, and regurgitate it at the exams. They have never really had to get down to study things and find out the information for themselves.

“University is different. There you are not taught; you read a subject. That means you are reading it. Oh, the tutors and lecturers give you pointers but you have to go out and teach yourself about the subject you are studying. It is not all laid out for you on a plate.

“The result is that those who have had to put the effort in at school and have taught themselves how to study and how to learn have a head start; they already know how to do it. The clever kids who have never had to do it for themselves often find it hard to start. It is surprising how many kids who are regarded as clever at school never really get going at university. A lot drop out and many who manage to stay the whole course only end up with mediocre degrees.

“Look, I was lucky. I went to grammar school, I passed my eleven plus, and went to the school for clever kids. Many of my friends from primary school ended up going to the secondary modern school. Of the class of thirty of us at my grammar school, fifteen went on to university. The rest, like me, took up professional apprenticeships, but only a couple of those who went to university got good degrees.

“The lad who lived next door to me, he went to secondary modern school. All right, it took them some time, but of the class of forty he was in, ten ended up not only getting degrees from university, often by studying part-time whilst working, but also getting damned good degrees. Three of them got Masters and one is actually now a PhD. He’s a professor at the university here.

“It wasn’t that those lads were clever; what they were was determined and prepared to put the effort in. If you want to learn you can learn, and if you want to go to university all you need is to learn and have that determination.”

“Yes, but how do I go about learning?” Thomas asked.

“There is a book by a chap named Tony Buzan called Use Your Head. It is one of the best guides to studying I’ve come across. It was part of the reading for the Open University when I did my degree.” Thomas looked at Mark with a surprise. “That’s right, I was one of the clever lads from grammar school who did not make it to university. I left school as soon as I could and got a job, but then realised I had made a mistake. When the Open University started some years later, I took the plunge and got myself a degree―the best move I ever did. It allowed me to make my way in the business and make the money I did.”

The following day Mark had taken in a rather battered copy of Use Your Head for Thomas, together with a notepad and some coloured pens and a couple of text books on subjects he knew Thomas had an interest in. Over the following weeks Thomas had really got interested in the subjects and had been asking Mark questions, many of which Mark had been unable to answer at first but had gone away to find the answers.

Thomas did not come down when the food arrived, telling Connor, who had gone up to fetch him, that he was not hungry. It was a couple of hours later that he eventually came down, driven by the need for a drink. Mark was in the kitchen talking to Terry when Thomas walked in. Terry looked up at the boy then turned to Mark. “Sorry, Mark, I would love to chat some more but I need to slip round next door and check it is still OK to borrow their barbecue for tomorrow.” With that he stood up and left.

Thomas poured himself a glass of coke and made to go back up to his room.

“Thomas,” Mark called.

“Yes?” Thomas responded.

“Why don’t you come and sit with me. Everybody seems to have gone out or is doing something. It’s a bit lonely here.”

“Umh, just what are you doing here anyway? I thought you were coming tomorrow.”

“Terry thought it might be useful if I came over today and stayed overnight,” Mark stated.

“I suppose he’d told you that my dad is a fucking murderer.”

“Yes, I think that is why he asked me to come today rather than tomorrow so you would have somebody outside the family to talk to if you wanted to.”

“Is it going to help, talking?”

“I don’t know Thomas. Probably not, but it won’t do any harm and it might help. You never know till you try.”

Thomas smiled and seated himself at the table. “You know, he’s right, it is easier to talk to you about things sometimes, but I’m just not sure I am ready to talk at the moment.”

“That’s fine, just remember if you do need to talk about anything, you can talk to me. You can always phone me and if we can’t deal with it on the phone, I’ll come over to see you and we can speak then.”

“Really, you’d do that for me. Why? Is it because of Ian?”

“No, Thomas, this has nothing to do with Ian. Yes, it was because of what happened with Ian that I took an interest in you. I did not want there to be another Ian lying somewhere dead. That, though, only got me into the hospital to see you. There was something else which got me involved with you―you are basically a nice person and someone who needed help, somebody worth helping.

“I’m fond of you Thomas, and I’ve grown fond of both you and Connor. Look, I’m an old man, and my children have long left home. I rarely see my grandchildren who are spread far and wide. When I met you, you filled a void in my life. There was somebody who needed help and whom I could help. You not only needed help, you deserved help. Don’t think that because of your father you don’t deserve help; you do. You deserve all the help the O’Mallys or I can give you, and I intend to make sure you get it. So just make sure you ask for it when you need it. It is no use just keeping mum about things. If you don’t ask, how am I supposed to know that you need something?

“Don’t take that to mean you can ask for anything and get it. It doesn’t work like that, but if you have a problem then let us know and we will try to help you fix it. It may be that our help may not be what you expect or think you need but we will do what we can and give you the help that we think you need.”

Thomas leaned back in his chair and thought about that for a moment, then nodded. He started to tell Mark about the problems of living with the O’Mallys. Nothing major but he admitted that at times he felt like an intruder who should not be there. This led to them talking about living in Walsall – a very different place to Sheffield. Eventually they ended up talking that evening about bikes. Thomas’s bike had got smashed up beyond repair in the collision, and anyway by the time anybody had thought to ask about it nobody knew where it was. Connor and Thomas had once been used to going for long bike rides together, but now they could not because Thomas did not have a bike and that upset him. Still, he did not think he could ask the O’Mallys for one.

“What did you ask for?” Mark asked.

“Well, I asked for some Amazon vouchers so I could get some music for my MP3 player and a copy of Life: The Science of Biology. The second hand bookshop in town has a copy in the window. It’s fifteen pounds; that’s a lot of money.”

“I’m sure it’s not too much; if I remember the book correctly it costs a lot more new.”

“It fifty bloody quid new. I couldn’t ask for that.”

“So you like biology?” Mark asked.

“Yes, we’re doing it in science at school but the teacher is crap. That book you brought to me in hospital is a lot better, but it says that ‘Life’ is one of the best books on the subject.” Just then Thomas’s stomach grumbled.

“Hungry?” Mark asked.

“A bit,” Thomas replied.

“Come on, let’s walk down to Caldmore. There’s a good chippy there, and I’ll get you some fish ‘n chips.”

“Would prefer pie and chips.” Thomas quipped.

“OK, I’ll just leave a note for Terry and Mary in case they are back before us. I presume you’ve got a key?” Thomas nodded.

They got back before Terry, Mary, or Connor. Thomas had been eating his pie and chips as they had walked along coming back from Caldmore and so was nearly finished by time they got back. Mark had envied him. Fish and chips, or in this case pie and chips, always tasted better from the paper. Once Thomas had finished he told Mark he thought he’d better get an early night as he felt tired. Mark told him it was probably a good idea but he might want to get cleaned up before going to bed.

Terry came in about half an hour later. “Saw you walking down the road with the boy, guessed you were taking him to get some food. Popped back and saw the note, so decided to make myself scarce for a bit. Came over when I saw his light on. Guess he’s gone up.”

“Yes he has; he’s pretty whacked out.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Look, Terry, I can’t say what we talked about.” Terry looked at Mark questioningly. “You yourself said he sees me as his saviour, he trusts me, and I must respect that trust. I will never discuss with you anything Thomas says to me without his consent, unless it is something that gives me concern over his safety.” Terry looked puzzled for a moment, then a look of understanding came across his face.

“I can accept that. I might not like it, but he probably needs a confidant outside the family.”

“Good, now what have you and Mary got him for his birthday?”

“Well, we were thinking about getting him a bike as he really needs one so he can go out with Connor. Even things like getting home from school if they want to do some after school activities will be easier if they both have bikes.

“However, Connor said that Thomas did not want to ask us for a bike as he said it would make him feel bad because we were doing so much for him. So we thought it might be best if we did not get him one now. Maybe get him one at the start of the summer break, so he can go and get a part-time job somewhere. We got him a book he wanted…”

“’Life’. He told me that he’d seen it in a second-hand bookshop.”

“Yes, but we’ve got him the latest edition. Also we’re giving him some gift vouchers for Amazon.”

Just then Mary arrived, having picked up her daughter from the riding school, followed closely by Connor who had been to Scouts.

Later that night Mark phoned Joan, who was over in Hay-on-Wye sorting out her involvement in the forthcoming festival. She wanted to know why her father was not at home, and he wanted to know how things had gone for her and if she was still coming to Thomas’s birthday party. Once both had given the other the required explanations and assurances Joan asked her father if he had any ideas about what to get Thomas for a birthday present. Did he know what the boy wanted?

“I know what he wants, but I think you would be OK to get him some book tokens or Amazon gift vouchers.”

“And how do you know what he wants?” Mark recounted his earlier conversation with Thomas.

Some six-thousand miles away a rather tired junior doctor, at the end of an eighteen-hour shift, found his boyfriend seated in front of the computer.

“You do realise it’s just gone five in the morning?” Krit asked. He leaned over Tim and kissed him on the top of his head.

“No, I knew it was late, I suppose early now, but not that it was five. Anyway you’re late. Your shift finished at midnight,” Tim commented.

“Multicar pile up – why do they always happen in the last hour of one’s shift? I’ve been helping out in A and E.”

“You keep telling me you don’t like the hands-on stuff, yet you keep doing it,” Tim replied.

“I’m a doctor, Tim. The fact that my interest is in medical imaging does not matter; my job is to save lives.”

“That, Krit, is debatable. According to the Hippocratic tradition the job of a doctor is to relieve suffering. That might not require the saving of life.”

“Let’s not go there; we will end up in the same discussion and I know you will not budge on your viewpoint.

“Anyway, Tim, what is it that has kept you up this late?”

“I was working on an assignment comparing the English and German romantic poets. Took longer than I expected. Not to worry—at least I’m off tomorrow, or is that today now?”

“It’s today, Tim. We were going to go to the beach. Not sure I will be up to it though,” Krit replied.

“Don’t think I will be, either.” Tim closed down the computer, stood up and turned to embrace his lover. “We could always stay in bed all day.”

“Might be an idea,” Krit responded. “I don’t think there is anything urgent we have to do.”

After a number of extensive phone calls and quite a few emails, Mark had reconciled things with Tim, his gay grandson. Mark had explained that he had known nothing about what had happened to Tim until Joan had told him about it. He apologised for not having investigated Johnny’s explanation of things further but explained to Tim that at the time he had been nursing his wife.

Mark had initially intended to fly out to Bangkok to visit Tim and his partner, but Mark’s doctor had advised him against such a long flight, and so Mark invited them to England. He also had insisted that he would cover all the costs.

Tim reached behind Krit’s neck and pulled him forward till their lips met. When they finally separated Krit shook his head.

“You know Tim, we can discuss it after some sleep but right now I need my bed and I need you in it.”

Chapter 6

It was gone two in the afternoon when Tim finally untangled himself from Krit’s limbs and made his way to their small kitchen to make some coffee. The smell of the brew must have woken Krit up, as he joined Tim shortly after.

“So,” Tim asked, “what have you decided?”

“I can’t decide about your grandfather; that’s up to you,” Krit responded.

“I was not talking about grandfather. I was on about what you said after you finished fucking me, about giving up on clinical practice. Why do you want to give up? I thought you liked being a doctor.”

“I do, but there is more to medicine than just treating the sick. There is a whole research side to it, and that is where my interest is. If I stick in clinical practice, I will need to do at least another four years in training and then would have to retrain to move into research. Going directly into research cuts that out.

“All right, this way I will not be able practice in a clinical environment without supervision but that is not where I see myself working, at least in the long term. If I can find a research position in medical imaging I would be very tempted to go for it and cut the clinical route.”

“So you are going to go for research, right?” Tim asked.

“Probably, if the option arises, though there is nothing on the cards at the moment,” Krit replied. “So now I’ve answered your question. What about the invitation from your grandfather, are we going to go?”

“I don’t know,” Tim responded. “I was always close to Granddad but after Dad threw us out it seemed as if he had cut us off. That upset me. I’m not sure that I have got over that yet.” He poured two cups of coffee and brought them over to the table where Krit was sitting, placing one in front of Krit.

“Tim, your grandfather’s explained that. It looks as if your father told the family a pile of lies. Don’t you think this might be a good time to try and build some bridges? The reception you get might surprise you from what Joan said. You know she told us how upset he was when he found out the truth.”

“I know, but if I am going to build bridges with my grandfather, you are going to have to be with me. Do you really want to go to Sheffield? It’s no tourist centre, just a northern industrial city.”

“Actually,” Krit commented, “I would not mind going to Sheffield later this year. There is a conference on medical imaging there. It would be a good excuse for me to go over.”

“All right,” Tim conceded without too much of an effort, “I’ll call him and tell him we will go over there.” With that he moved into the living room, switched on the computer and brought up Skype. He checked the time and worked out that it was about eight in the morning in England, so, confident he would get his grandfather, he dialled the number. It rang out until it was eventually answered by an answering machine. Tim left a message and wondered where his grandfather could be at eight on a Saturday morning.

Mark was just having breakfast over in Walsall at the O’Mally’s and looking out at the weather, wondering if it would hold. In contrast with the last few days Saturday was bright and sunny with no sign of the showers that had been so prevalent since Easter, which was a good job since Terry had planned a barbecue for the afternoon. Once Thomas had opened the pile of cards that had arrived in the morning’s post, he and Connor had gone out to sweep the patio and tidy up the garden before any guests arrived.

Not that there were that many guests, as Thomas hardly knew anybody. There were a couple of boys from his school, but Mark got the distinct impression that they were more Connor’s friends than Thomas’s, and a couple of the neighbours’ kids plus their parents. Mark, of course, was there, profoundly apologising to both Thomas and the O’Mallys about Joan, who despite her assurances that she would be coming had still not arrived at two-thirty, although the party had started an hour earlier. Mark had received a text saying that she had been delayed, but it had given no explanation as to why the delay had occurred.

Thomas had received some nice presents. The O’Mallys had given him the book he had asked for and some Amazon gift vouchers as well as a Rotring Isographic pen set. Connor had given him a Rotring drawing board to go with the pen set, though Thomas kidded him that the only reason he had got that was so Connor could borrow it for doing his architectural drawings. Connor was already talking about becoming an architect.

Mark’s present to Thomas was a decent waterproof sports watch and a couple of BBC Boxed DVDs sets that he knew Thomas liked from watching his versions. Most of the other guests brought him gift vouchers of one sort or another.

The gifts had been given out and cake cut and consumed when the doorbell rang. Mary went to open it to find Joan standing on the step. “Sorry I’m late Mary. As usual, things took longer to sort out than one expects. Where’s the birthday boy?”

“Out back with Connor and his mates burning the last of the hamburgers on the grill. Why men think they can cook on a barbecue escapes me?”

“It’s because we tell them they can, so we don’t have to deal with all the mess of cleaning up the barbecue,” Joan commented in a slightly conspiratorial tone. Mary laughed, then led her through to the patio.

“Hi, Thomas, and happy birthday,” she called as she stepped out onto the patio, the boy looked up from the barbeque, where a row of hamburgers were in the process of being turned to charcoal.

“Thanks, Joan, glad you could make it.”

“So am I, but I need you and Connor to help me.”

“What for?”

“To get your birthday present out of the back of my car.” Thomas looked at her, bemused for a moment, then turned to Connor.

“Come on, Connor, let’s see what she’s got me that needs two of us.” The trio, followed by Mark, Mary, and Terry plus a couple of Connor’s mates, went through the house to the front drive where Mary had parked her Range Rover next to Mark’s Eagle E-type. Mary went across and opened the tailgate. “Look, Thomas, it’s not new, but I thought you could do with this for getting to school.” Thomas stood in amazement looking into the rear of the Range Rover.

Connor gave him a shove, “Come on, Tommy, let’s get it out.” The two boys reached into the Range Rover and pulled out a Boardman Hybrid bike.

“Is it OK for you?” Joan asked.

“OK? It’s bloody fantastic; this is one of the best bikes around.” He left Connor holding the bike for a moment and gave Joan a hug.

“Good, but you better check it over well. It’s not new, it’s ex-demo, so I got it cheap.”

The boys wheeled the bike, with their mates following, round the side of the house to the garage, where Connor kept his bike and his tools. It was nearly an hour, during which the other guests, including Connor’s mates, had departed, before Thomas and Connor emerged and asked if it was OK for them to go for a ride. Terry said it was OK, but they had to be back before six.

“If you are going to ride, you will need this,” Joan said, reaching into the bag she had brought in with her and pulling out a cycling helmet.

“Oh, good,” Terry commented. “I was going to tell him to take mine but it might have been a bit big for him.”

“Bloody too big by a mile,” commented Mary. Terry ignored the implication of the comment.

After the boys had left for their ride, Mary stated that Joan really should not have bought Thomas the bike, they had been planning on getting him one in a few weeks.

“I know. Dad told me, but he really did need one for school, and I got a good deal on it. It’s surprising what firms will do if they think that they may get a mention in a leading author’s next book,” Joan stated with a smile. Mark was puzzled, Joan’s books were set in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; how someone involved with bikes could expect a mention in a book set in those periods escaped him.

It had gone six before Mark and Joan left the O’Mallys. Joan had insisted that she help Mary with the clear up. They both made it clear to Terry that cleaning the barbeque was a man’s job. The boys had both gone off for a bike ride, promising they would be back by eight, so Mark ended up assisting Terry with the cleaning and dismantling of the barbeque.

Once Mark and Joan had left, Mary collapsed into a chair in the living room and let out a sigh of relief.

“What’s up, luv?” Terry asked.

“Oh, nothing, just glad to sit down. It’s been a pretty busy couple of days, not to say stressful.”

“You’re not regretting taking Thomas in, are you?” Terry enquired, a note of concern in his voice.

“No,” Mary responded, “he’s a lovely boy and having him here has been so good for Connor; he’s stopped moping around all the time. Though I would feel a bit better if Thomas was more normal with us.”

“What do you mean, more normal?”

“If he’d ask for what he wants, like other boys his age do. We all knew he needed a bike but he would not ask for it. It’s as if he feels he is not part of the family and has no rights here.”

“I suppose, from his point of view, Mary, that is the case. He does feel something like an interloper. He’s only been here a few weeks, let the boy get his feet. He needs to realise that he is part of the family and that we care for him. That’s going to take time.”

“I know, luv, I just worry that with Mark Wainwright and his millions, not to mention Joan, they’re there to give him stuff he might never feel like asking for from us. And how is Connor going to feel with Thomas getting all the good stuff? They’re so happy together. I do not want anything getting between them, and Thomas being spoilt by Mark is the sort of thing that could build up envy in Connor. I just don’t know what to do about it, Terry.”

“On that point I do not think you need to worry. Mark spoke to me about the boys yesterday, whilst we were waiting for Thomas, after I had told him about Frank. He said that he intended to make sure he treated both boys the same, otherwise it would be unfair. I know he is giving Connor the same type of watch as he gave Thomas when it’s Connor’s birthday.”

“I hope he does, and if he does that is one problem out of the way,” Mary commented.

“So, there is something else then?” Mark observed.

“Yes. Paula Tonks, the Head of Mathematics at Millbank, phoned this morning.” Terry nodded. Millbank was the comprehensive school over by Lichfield where Mary had been doing some part-time supply teaching for the last few weeks. “She just heard the teacher I’m covering for is not coming back. There is a fulltime post going and Paula suggested I should apply for it.”

“Well,” Terry commented, “you’ve been saying that you wanted to get back into teaching and Shelly starts comp. in September so now is as good time as any. I’d say you should go for it.”

“The problem is that Millbank is in Staffordshire, not West Midlands. The school holidays will not be in line with what Shelly and the boys have.”

“Christ, Mary, is that all you’re worried about. What’s the difference going to be, a couple of days, worse case a week? The kids are old enough to look after themselves now, or should be by September. If it comes to a push, I can always take a few days’ leave. The way this job is going I should have plenty of time in lieu built up by then.”

“You know, with the promotion and transfer, I thought I would see more of you, but I think I’m seeing less,” Mary stated.

“It’s the old story: new boy gets dumped with the shit cases. Hopefully it should get easier over the next few months as I settle in.”

“I do hope so,” Mary replied.

Mark was surprised to find that Joan had got back to Sheffield before him. Yes, she had left the O’Mallys before him, but not by more than ten minutes. Yet by the signs of things, like the already empty coffee cup, she must have been home for at least half an hour.

“There’s still some coffee in the pot,” she stated as he walked into the kitchen, “and it should still be drinkable.”

“Thanks.”

“And there is a message on the answerphone,” she added.

“Who from?”

“Dad, I don’t know. I didn’t play it; it’s your phone.” Mark went through to the lounge. The light on the phone was flashing red. He picked up the hand set and pressed the play button.”

“Hi, Grandad,” the voice on the recorded message announced. “Just calling to let you know, Krit and me will come over to see you but can’t give you a date yet. It will be sometime late in the year.” The message ended with an announcement that he could replay it, delete it or save it.

He walked back into the kitchen, smiling.

“I gather it was good news then,” Joan commented.

“Yes,” Mark replied, “Tim and Krit are coming over.”

“When?”

“Don’t know, they’ve got to sort a date out, but they are coming.”

“Good,” Joan stated.

“There is one thing, Joan, I would like to know about today,” Mark stated.

“What’s that?”

“Just how did you manage to come across an almost brand new bike for Thomas?”

“Dad, I may be a successful author now but you forget that I used to work in advertising. Halfords were one of my clients, and I have kept in contact with a couple of people there. When I explained what I was looking for they were very helpful.”

“Wait a moment, Joan, just how used was used? That bike looked pretty new to me?”

“Oh, it had been used.”

“Yes but how much?”

“Well it had been ridden across the set a couple of times.”

“So, effectively it was a new bike,” Mark commented. “Don’t you think Thomas will realise that and then start to feel guilty about it?”

“No, he won’t. I got Jimmy to loosen a few things so it looks as if it has been ridden and not cared for.”

“That was a bit risky wasn’t it? Thomas could have gone off on it and had an accident.”

“Dad! That’s why I told him to check it over. Remember you told me that Thomas took good care of his bike according to Terry. Jimmy said that Thomas would be able to fix it in half an hour, I am impressed the boys took an hour. They must have gone over it at least twice.”

“Joan, don’t you think it was a bit much, spending that much money on Thomas?”

“Dad, what makes you think I spent that much money? Just how much did you spend on Thomas? Anyway, I might as well spoil Thomas and Connor – don’t think my pair of offspring are likely to give me grandchildren while I am still in a fit state to enjoy them, so, like you, I’ve decided to adopt a couple. Anyway, somehow Thomas feels like family.”

The following day Thomas phoned Mark to thank him again for the watch and asked to speak to Joan to thank her again for the bike. That was followed up by a letter of thanks to both of them. It was nearly a fortnight before Mark heard from him again, though, which in itself was worrying as Thomas normally phoned Mark quite regularly. This time the boy sounded a bit down and they spent nearly an hour on the phone talking about a lot of things in general but nothing in particular.

In the end Thomas admitted he was feeling a bit low and they agreed to meet up at the Arboretum in Walsall the following Saturday. Thomas said he would prefer not to worry Mary or Terry and that Connor now had a Saturday job so would not be around during the day.

Saturday morning Mark arrived at the Arboretum a good half hour before the time he had arranged to meet up with Thomas. He was, therefore, a bit surprised to find the boy waiting at the agreed meeting place. They sat and talked for a better part of an hour, as Thomas explained how he felt. He said he had always suspected that his father was not telling the truth when he said his mother had run off with another bloke. Now that he knew the truth, he was feeling guilty that he had not done anything about it. Maybe if he had, they could have found his mother in time.

“Look, Thomas, how old were you when your mother went missing?” Mark asked.

“I’d just turned eight.”

“When did you learn about your father’s place on the moors?”

“That was when I was twelve.”

“So, Thomas, you could not have told anybody about it when it would have made any difference because you hadn’t known about the place then, so there was nothing you could have done for your mother.”

“I know that, but I still feel that I should have done something,” Thomas stated.

“I know the feeling, but there was nothing you could have done. What you need to think about is that your mother did not desert you. She loved you and would, if it had been possible, have been there for you. I know she was planning on taking you away with her.”

“So it’s true she was planning to leave Dad?”

“Yes, she was, but that’s not why your father killed her. It seemed she had found out about his business activities up on the moors, and he was afraid she might go to the police, which she probably would have done.

“That’s why he attacked you—not because you’re gay, though that probably didn’t help, but because you knew about the place on the moors. He saw you as a threat to his activities. Just because you’re gay does not mean that any attack on you is because you are gay.

“By the way, how did you know about the place?”

“Oh, Dad had taken me to Blackpool for my birthday. I think he thought I was asleep, because we stopped there. Actually I had been asleep but I woke up when he slowed the car down. He got out and went into the barn, and whilst he was in there I looked around and saw the sign post for the village. That’s how I knew where it was. When I saw Dad coming back, I pretended to be asleep. He had a whole wad of money and sat in the car counting it for a bit before he drove off. I must have fallen back to sleep because the next thing we were home.

“A couple of times after that, when he had visitors, I heard people mention his place on the moors, so put two and two together. When Dad referred to it he always called it the camp site. That’s why I thought Connor and I could go camping there.”

“That,” Mark commented, “explains a lot. It also shows there was no reason for you to connect that place with your mother. Though I know you still feel bad about it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do, and I can’t stop feeling what I said, that I should have done something.”

“It’s called survivor syndrome. That’s when those left behind feel guilty because they survived. I know what it feels like,” Mark stated.

“Because you felt it over Ian?” Thomas asked.

“Not just felt I still feel it from time to time. It is something I have had to learn to live with. You don’t need to learn how to cope with it by yourself. You can get help, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Would you mind if I tell Terry and Mary how you’re feeling and suggest to them that they get you into counselling?”

“If you think it would help, yes, tell them. I don’t like feeling like this and I know Connor is worried about me, and I hate worrying him.”

“OK, I’ll drive over there now. If they say anything I’ll say that I was in Birmingham on business so had agreed to meet up with you. Don’t want them thinking I came all the way over just to meet you. They might not like that — they might think I’m interfering in things.

“What are you going to do now?”

“Oh, I’m going to go to the library to do some work for a science project.”

Mark drove up the Broadway to the O’Mallys’, finding both Terry and Mary in. He explained briefly that Thomas had called him and they had met up and spoken.

“Oh, good,” Mary stated, “I was getting worried about him. He’s not opened up to any of us.”

“I don’t think he wants to worry you. He thinks he’s putting enough burden on you without his problems,” Mark said.

“I can understand why he would think that but hope he gets over it soon,” Terry commented.

Mark went on to explain what Thomas had told him and suggested that they should get him into counselling. Both the O’Mallys agreed, and Mary said she would get onto it right away. One of her friends from university was a child psychologist, and she was sure that she would be able to recommend somebody.

A few days later Thomas phoned Mark to tell him he had started counselling and he thought it would help him. “It’s just nice to talk to somebody who is outside it all,” he said. Mark could only agree with him. He just wished he could talk to somebody. Things he was hearing about the company were upsetting him.

After that, things settled into something of a routine. Thomas would phone Mark a couple of times a week and at least once a month Mark would go over to Walsall. He always had some excuse to be in the area and say he was just popping in on his way past, but he made sure he saw Thomas at least every three to four weeks. Mary and Terry also got into the habit of dropping Thomas off with Mark when they went to visits Terry’s parents. Thomas told Mark he found it a bit embarrassing to go to Connor’s grandparents as they did not seem to know how to treat him—a fact Mary confirmed.

“It was not helped,” she stated, “by the way Connor introduced him.”

“Why?” asked Mark, “What did he say?”

“Hi, Granddad, Grandma, this is Thomas, my boyfriend. He’s living with us now.”

“A perfectly accurate if somewhat blunt statement of things.”

“Yes, but they are an elderly pair and live in another age.”

“Mary,” Mark stated rather sharply, “Terry’s father is at least five years younger than me. He was one of the first apprentices who worked with me after I qualified.”

“Was he?”

“Yes.”

“You do surprise me. I would have thought he was a lot older than you, but then you never seem that old.”

One time when they had dropped Thomas off with Mark, the boy said he envied Connor having grandparents, that he missed his. Mark pointed out that Thomas had him.

“But you’re not as old as them; you’re more like an uncle.”

“A favourite one, I hope?”

“Definitely, since you’re the only one, at least the only one I have contact with. My real family don’t want anything to do with me.” Thomas stated.

“More fools them,” Mark responded.

Thomas also came to stay with Mark at the end of the August holidays. The O’Mallys had arranged to go to northern Spain for ten days. A friend of Terry’s had a villa in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Unfortunately, because the placement of Thomas with them was still technically a trial placement, it had not been possible to sort out a passport for Thomas, so he could not go with them. In the end they had talked about cancelling the holiday but Thomas phoned Mark and asked if he could stay with him for the ten days.

Even then things were not straightforward, for once it had been agreed that Thomas would stay with Mark for the ten days the O’Mallys were in Spain, Connor said if Thomas was not going, he did not want to go. This time Mary put her foot down and said he had to go, if only to keep an eye on his sister whilst they went clubbing at night. A statement which caused Connor to roll his eyes.

After officially moving back home once the divorce papers were served, Joan was now using Mark’s house as her base. Not that she was around much, going off for up to six weeks at a time to do book-signing tours in the States or lecture tours in Australasia, when she was not joining her friend Richard in some far-off location. Mark had finally got a first name out of her, but as yet no details as to who her new friend was. Although she was not home all that often, she made a point to ask about Thomas and a couple of times when she was near Walsall she had called in to see him.

That Joan was favourably disposed to Thomas in particular and to both the boys in general came in useful at the autumn half-term. With her youngest child Shelly having started secondary school in the September, Mary had taken the fulltime job at Millbank School. Unfortunately, that meant she was not going to be around in the day during the holiday because the district she taught in had different half term dates. For Shelly this was not a problem: she was booked in at the riding school all day and every day of the break. However, for Connor and Thomas, there was no one, and Mary was a bit loath to leave them alone for the whole break given that they still did not really know the area to which they had recently moved.

It was Joan who came up with an answer. She had the use of a “writer’s cottage” down in Cornwall when she wanted it and decided that she might as well make use of it, and her father and the boys could come down with her. The four of them spent an enjoyable ten days touring Cornwall in a late Indian summer of glorious weather. The boys even managed to go surfing a couple of days, though they could not persuade Mark or Joan to go into the water.

Chapter 7

“How long do you think things are going to take, Dale?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t know. We can’t appear too keen to get the land. That’s why we are just buying plots of it up as they come on the market. If we went out approaching the owners, they would soon catch on.

“Anyway, what are you doing up here? I thought you didn’t want your father to know you were involved with the business. You know he could just pop in to talk to some of his mates on the shop floor anytime?”

“Oh, he won’t. He’s down in Cornwall with my sister and those brats he appears to have taken under his wing. Does he still do that, come into the works?”

“Yes, though not as much as he used to,” Dale informed him. “When he first retired to care for your mother he was in every few days, but now it can be month before anyone sees him. Even then he only goes into the foundry or the workshops and chats to the men. Never comes up to the offices unless he has a meeting booked, which is very rare. I make sure of that.”

“You don’t think there is any chance he might catch onto what we’re doing, do you?” Jonathan asked.

“No way,” Dale answered. “What is there to catch onto? All we have done is bought some land through companies totally unconnected with Bettridge’s. If he did find out, we could always say we were looking to future expansion of the works.”

Jonathan nodded. He, though, was not quite so certain that his father would not find out.

In the middle of November Mark held a family party at his house. Three of his four children and five of his seven grandchildren were present, along with their spouses. The O’Mallys were also present along with the boys but sans their daughter, who had been left with the grandparents for the evening.

The one noticeable absence from the party was Mark’s son, Johnny, and his wife, though Johnny’s daughter Ruth and her husband had turned up. Given the reason for the party this was not surprising.

Tim and Krit had arrived the day before. Mark introduced Thomas to them.

“Tim, Krit, this Thomas who I have virtually adopted as a nephew. Thomas, this is my grandson, Tim, and his partner Krit.”

“Hi,” Thomas said, grabbing hold of Connor and pulling him to his side, “Tim, this is my boyfriend, Connor.”

After that, the four of them monopolized each other for the rest of the party. The following two Saturdays Tim and Krit made a point of going over to Walsall and taking the boys out, first to see Aston Villa play at home and then to see the Birmingham Royal Ballet perform Romeo and Juliet. Connor preferred the football but Thomas said he preferred the ballet; the men showed more in their tights!

There was a rather surprising outcome to Tim and Krit’s visit. One of the reasons for their agreeing to come over was so that Krit could attend a three-day conference in Sheffield on medical imaging. This was actually the prime reason given on his visa application for the visit. During one of the discussion sessions Krit had queried a statement made by one of the speakers, citing some results from some research that he had been working on which gave a contraindication to that stated in the conference. After the session, the speaker approached Krit and asked for his contact details. In the subsequent weeks they exchanged a number of emails, which resulted just before Christmas in Krit being offered a position on a medical imaging research team in Sheffield.

The moment the offer was made Tim had phoned his grandfather to ask if they could move in with him until they found a place. To which Mark had replied they might as well just move in, stay, and forget about finding a place. He also told Tim to get his application in to Sheffield University to study English and that he did not have to bother about a student loan, that his fees and living expenses would be covered.

Christmas also presented a solution to a problem Mark had experienced every year since his wife died. Each year all his children invited him to spend Christmas with them, and no matter which one he chose he ended up upsetting the others. He had expected to spend it with Joan who was now living back at home with him, which would solve his problem. However, she had informed him that she would be spending Christmas and New Year in New York with the friend, who it turned out was a very well known actor.

“Isn’t he married to …?”

“Yes,” Joan replied, “they are announcing their divorce in January. They have been living apart for three years now, and they thought it would not be good for her image if they divorced while she was playing Lady Margaret. But since the current series is the last, now there is no problem.”

“Oh, are you the cause of the divorce?”

“Lord, no. It was Sybil who introduced us after they had separated. You may remember she played the part of the Countess of Salisbury in the BBC adaption of my first novel.” Mark nodded, vaguely remembering something about it, though he had not watched the televised version of his daughter’s work. Actually, to be honest, he had not read any of it either, not having a taste for historical fiction, especially the romatic sort.

He was a bit put out by Joan’s announcement as that placed him back in the position of deciding which child to spend the Christmas period with. Once they knew he would be on his own for Christmas they would all be clamouring for him to come and stay with them, and not because they wanted him to but because they would feel it was their duty. It was something of a relief, therefore, when Mary O’Mally rang a couple of days later to ask if he would like to join them for Christmas and New Year.

“Are you sure?” Mark queried.

“Of course I’m sure. To be honest, Mark, you’d be doing us a bloody great favour.”

“How come?”

“Normally we have my parents here one year and Terry’s the next. Terry’s were due this year, and mine are going to my sister’s. They phoned up last week and told us they were going to Terry’s sister. You know they are not comfortable with Thomas being here. That’s their loss. He is a wonderful boy, and I’m glad Connor’s got him.

“So we need to rope you in as a replacement grandfather figure.”

“I thought,” Mark replied, teasing “that Thomas regarded me as a favourite uncle.”

“Uncle, grandfather, who cares, so long as there is an older adult around to keep the kids under control when we’re busy. Look, I’m begging you. Will you come?”

“Of course. When do you want me?”

“Could you come the day before Christmas Eve and stay until the third when they go back to school?”

“Fine, though I might want to pop out a couple of days to visit my family, but I can take the boys with me. I suppose Shelly will be up at the riding school most of the time.”

“I’m not so certain about that. I think she has found that boys are more interesting than horses. Just hope the little madam does not try getting any of those between her legs.”

Of course the whole family complained that he was spending Christmas and New Year with strangers and then breathed a sigh of relief that they were not having to put him up.

That Christmas set the stage for the next couple of years. Mark was to spend Christmas with the O’Mallys, a visit he found himself looking forward to more and more each year.

After a few problems with arranging a work visa for Krit, it was eventually arranged for Tim and Krit to move to England the following Easter. Johnny made his displeasure about the fact that they would be living together in England and worse still in his father’s house abundantly clear. Mark made his opinion of Johnny’s displeasure quite clear also, describing him as an arrogant, stupid, bloody bigot, a comment that the rest of his family fortunately seemed to agree with.

Krit and Tim arrived in the UK the week before Easter, with their belongings arriving by sea some six weeks later. The first few weeks in the country were a bit hectic for the pair. For a start, Krit had to get registered with the General Medical Council, which turned out to be a bit more complicated than was first expected. This, however, was not too big a problem as it did not prevent Krit from starting work so long as he restricted his activities to the medical research side of the team’s work. As soon as they were able to get the registration sorted out, Krit started to play a supervised clinical role in the team as well.

Shortly after Easter, Tim learned that he had been accepted to study English at Sheffield. In fact, as he had already done one hundred and twenty credits with the Open University, he was classed as a transfer student and he went directly into the second year.

That summer both Connor and Thomas were sixteen and there were no problems with passports, so Tim and Krit took them over to Paris for a long weekend. Mary commented that her boys were growing up and needed the experience of travel. Later in the month Tim took the boys to Amsterdam for a long weekend. Krit was supposed to go with them but went down with a very heavy summer cold and was not fit to fly. He insisted, however, that Tim go so as not to deprive the boys of the experience. Mark made a point of not enquiring too closely as to what that experience was.

A really pleasant surprise was Thomas’s GCSE results, which came out the Thursday following their return from Amsterdam. For somebody who had done very little at school before moving to Walsall he did very well, not as well as Connor but he managed a respectable eight GCSEs with two grade As, only one C, and all the rest Bs. He also pleased Mark by saying he was going on to do A levels.

The Saturday following the boys’ results Mark took Tim and Krit over to Walsall so they could take the O’Mallys and Thomas out for a celebration meal. Mary objected to the extravagance but really enjoyed the excuse to dress up as did Shelly, who had now turned twelve.

At the end of August, the O’Mallys invited Mark, Tim, and Krit to join them at the villa they used in Spain. Tim and Krit turned the offer down as it was difficult for Krit to take the time off. His GMC registration had finally come through and he was just starting clinical practice, and Tim did not want to leave him for any length of time. Mark, though, accepted the offer, though he insisted that they use his Range Rover to drive down as it was somewhat more spacious than either of the O’Mally’s cars.

Shortly after Mark got back from Spain, Tim informed him that Krit and he intended to have a Civil Partnership ceremony in October. He also told Mark that he would like Thomas and Connor to play some sort of role in the ceremony. He realised they were not quite old enough to act as best men and were a bit too old to act as ring bearers, but both Krit and he felt it would be nice to give them some sort of role. The moment she heard about the proposed ceremony Joan was onto her agent telling him to cancel all her bookings till the end of October, citing a family emergency.

“Well,” she stated privately, “it is an emergency: if that pair organise it we will have a quick ten minutes in the register office.” With that she proceeded to take on the organization of the whole event, including getting visas and arranging tickets for Krit’s parents and siblings to fly over for the ceremony. Mark never did work out how she did it, but she managed to get all five tickets at first class for less than he would have paid for tourist.

Eventually, after a lot of research Joan, managed to come up with a ceremony that incorporated English and Thai elements, had a role for Connor and Thomas, and conformed to the requirements of the Registrar. Mark was amazed by her ability to organize it all, but she laughed it off, telling him she’s learned everything she knew about scheming and working all the angles from him. In fact, somehow she did pull it all together and for a lot less than he had expected, though he was still several thousand pounds out of pocket because he had insisted on paying for the the event.

One thing that pleased Mark was that, with the exception of Johnny and his wife, the whole of his family had accepted invitations to the event including Tim’s sister, Ruth, and her husband. The one thing that particularly pleased Mark was that Phillip, his youngest, had flown over from the States for the ceremony. Mark was disappointed in the fact that Phillip’s wife and children were not with him.

Even Joan’s son, Robert, accompanied by a very elegant Brazilian young lady, had managed to attend, having flown over from Brazil for the event. Mark commented to Joan that it looked as if there might be a need for another ceremony soon.

“Well they better have it in Rio, and her family can organise it—after this I need a break! A couple of weeks relaxing in Rio would do me fine.”

After the ceremony and reception Mark left the party and its dancing, something his arthritis no longer permitted, and seated himself at a table on the terrace, sipping a good brandy. Thomas came out and sat down next to him.

“Are you OK, Uncle Mark?” Mark couldn’t recall when Thomas had started to call him Uncle Mark but both the boys did now, and it seemed rather nice to him. He seemed to remember it was Shelly who first called him that, but now both Connor and Thomas did as well.

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just a bit too hectic for an old man like me in there now. I’m not up to all that bouncing around, and it is a bit too hot as well. Anyway, it is nice to sit out here and think.”

“Think about what?” Thomas asked.

“How things have changed, what would have happened if …” he paused not knowing quite what to say.

“If Ian had lived?”

“No, if he had lived he would have been as old as I am; no, I was wondering what would have happened if we had been born in this age rather than the 1940s. It is so much better for people now, not just for gays like you and Connor but everybody. There is so much more social freedom.”

“I know. I hope that maybe by the time we have finished university me and Connor will be able to get married.”

“It’s ‘Connor and I’,” Mark corrected.

“I know; that’s why I’m not doing English at A level.”

“Wise move. So you are going to university then?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to study?” Mark asked.

“I would like to do medicine if I can get the grades.”

“No reason why you can’t.”

“That’s what Connor tells me.”

“Then you should listen to him, Thomas. That boy of yours has got some brains.”

“I know, Uncle Mark. I just hope I can keep up with him.”

“You will. Any idea where you would like to study.”

“We will both be trying for University College Londonif we can. Connor wants to study architecture and its architecture school is ranked as number two in the world and its medical school is ranked number nine in the world.”

“Isn’t Cambridge ranked higher for medicine?”

“Yes, but it is not so good for architecture, and your university is more important for getting a position in architecture than it is in medicine. If you qualify from any British medical school it is fairly easy to get a decent job, but that is not the case in architecture where there is a lot of competition for the good jobs.” Just then Joan came out and joined them and after a brief chat with her, Thomas went back into the party. Through the full length windows of the reception room Mark could see Thomas and Connor dancing together.

“Remind me when we get home,” Mark said to Joan, “to ring the solicitors in the morning and tell them to give the tenants of the London flat one year’s notice from the first of January.”

“Why?” Joan asked, “the family never have need of it.”

“Because I think the boys are going to need somewhere to live in London.” Joan nodded, then went back inside.

Mark sat there looking out over the gardens.

“Granddad? Are you all right?” He turned to the questioner.

“Yes, Ruth, you’re the second person to ask me that. I’m fine, just thinking about the past and how things might have been.”

“Like if Dad could have been more reasonable about Tim and Krit,” Ruth stated.

“Somehow I doubt if your father knows what reasonable means. Sorry, that’s a bit hard of me,” Mark commented.

“Not at all. Dad’s a bloody idiot. Mam wanted to come, and I was going to bring her but Dad insisted that they go to Paris for the weekend. He tried to get James and me to go with them. Said Tim was insulting the family and that … oh well, never mind. Just hope mother’s OK with him and there are no problems.”

“Why should there be any problems?” Mark asked.

“Mother’s worried about the extent of his borrowing. Apparently he has some major property deal lined up. Says it will take years to put all the bits into place but when he has everything lined up he will make a fortune.” Ruth informed Mark. “At Christmas he said what he would make would make you look poor.”

“Well, I hope it works out for him, though I wish he wasn’t so bigoted. I don’t know why. Neither your grandmother or me ever were. At least I don’t think we were.” Ruth laughed at her grandfather’s comment and came over and kissed him.

“Granddad, I don’t think you know how to be bigoted.” She paused and looked back into the ballroom. “Those two boys dancing together, are they the ones who crashed into your car?”

“Actually, Ruth, only one of them crashed into my car, the shorter one with the dark hair. That’s Thomas, the other one is Connor.”

“Dad says you are being a fool helping them out. Says they are only after what they can get from you.”

“I suppose your father would see it that way. I can assure you that those boys are worth anything I can do for them. One day Thomas is going to be a doctor and by helping him I am helping to save the lives he will go on to save. Connor is going to be an architect, and hopefully his work will make places better to live in. So if I can help Thomas be what he wants, then I can help all who will benefit from his work.”

Ruth gave her grandfather a hug, then said, “I hope you’re right. They seem nice kids. It’s starting to get chilly out here, let’s get you back inside.”

Chapter 8

The one downside to the year occurred a few weeks later. Just when everybody was starting to get ready for Christmas, the trial of Frank Donnal started. Over the last few months there had been a number of legal moves and challenges, mostly based on the legality of the initial search. In the end the delays had not helped Frank as more evidence had come to light, including a couple of his co-defendants deciding to plead guilty and turn Queen’s evidence. This resulted in the charge of murder against Frank being added to that of conspiracy to murder.

Both Mary and Terry were called as witnesses for the prosecution, to tell what they knew about Kate’s life with Frank. Mary spent a particularly harrowing two days in the witness box as she was cross examined by the defence QC, who tried to paint Kate in a very bad light.

In the end it did not help Frank. The jury took just over an hour to find him guilty on all counts. The judge then sentenced him to life in prison with a minimum tariff of forty years and a recommendation to the parole board that they should give serious consideration to never letting him out. As it was, he would be nearly ninety before he would be up for parole.

At Christmas Tim and Krit joined Mark at the O’Mallys, though this year they insisted that the O’Mallys join them for New Year in Sheffield, partly because Krit was on duty New Year’s Eve.

A few days after New Year Terry phoned Mark to inform him that Frank Donnal had been found dead in his cell.

“How’s Thomas taking the news?” Mark asked.

“To be honest, surprisingly well. I think all the counselling he had last year has helped. He was put some distance between himself and his father.”

“Any idea how it happened?”

“No, and I doubt we will ever know. It might have been natural causes, as he was a heavy drinker and smoker all his life and not in the best of health when he was arrested. Personally, I think somebody on the outside probably arranged for it to happen.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, Frank was a nasty piece of work all right, but he hadn’t the brains to set up and run the type of operation he was involved in. Also, there is a lot of money that we know they made which we just can’t trace. There were some big fish behind him, and there was big money behind that defence team he had. They tried every trick in the legal book to get the charges reduced so he would only do six to ten years but none of it worked. Application for leave to appeal was rejected last week, and that was Frank’s death warrant. Those behind him could not take the chance that he might decide to try to cut a deal and start talking. None of the small fry knew who they were but we can be certain Frank did.”

It was a couple of days later when Thomas phoned Mark.

“Uncle Mark, would you mind if I started using my mother’s maiden name rather than Donnal?” he asked.

“Why should I mind? You don’t need my permission. It’s your choice.”

“Well, you see, my mother’s maiden name was Wainwright, same as yours.”

“So you think we might be related?”

“Nah, there are piles of Wainwrights round that way. It’s just coincidence.”

“Listen, lad, if you prefer to be known as a Wainwright and it was your mother’s maiden name, then you have the right to use it. So use it if you want to.”

The whole matter slipped his mind till Joan commented a couple of days later that Thomas had changed his profile on Facebook and was now giving his surname as Wainwright. She asked if Mark knew about it.

“That’s right, it is his mother’s maiden name. He did not want to be known as Donnal.”

“Can’t say I blame him. Is there any chance we could be related?”

“Doubt it. I did ask Thomas if he thought we might be but he said no and pointed out how many Wainwrights there are around these parts.”

“Are there that many, Dad? I’m not so certain. I think I’ll get a friend to check it out.”

Mark did not hear any more about it for some weeks and in fact had totally forgotten about the whole thing until Joan arrived back from one of her trips down to London waving a large envelope.

“Guess what, Dad?”

“Your agent has suddenly realised the truth about your abilities and dropped you from his list?”

“Wish he would. I have three more years on that contact and I could get far better terms elsewhere.”

“So if not that, what?”

She pulled a number of sheets of A4 from the envelope. “Thomas is your cousin, to be precise your second cousin twice removed.”

“What?”

“Yes, Dad, your great-grandfather was one Thomas Wainwright and your grandfather, Mark, was his eldest son by his first marriage. He also had two daughters by the same marriage. His wife Emma died in childbirth of a second son, Paul, who died when he was five weeks old.

“Thomas married again after the death of Emma but that marriage had no children. His wife was quite a bit older than he was, and he probably married her to get a housekeeper. Anyway, she died of the flu in 1919, fifteen years after Emma, and Thomas married again in 1924 to a Cecile Bancroft, a woman much younger than he was. She was to have four children in five years, poor woman, the youngest of whom, also called Thomas, was our Thomas’s grandfather.”

“So Thomas is family?” Mark asked.

“Yes, Dad, and you can use that the next time Johnny is moaning to you about all the help you are giving the boy.”

“How do you know Johnny is moaning to me about it?”

“Because he is moaning to me, Emma, and Phillip as well.”

“You know,” Mark commented, “I’ve a good mind to cut Johnny out of my will.”

“Dad, you mean you haven’t done so already after the way the treated Tim and Krit? Get round to your solicitors first thing in the morning and do it!”

“You know; I might just do that.”

Mark wondered what he should tell Thomas about their relationship, and he decided to leave it for the time being and not say anything to the boy. Neither did he say anything to Tim or any other member of the family, but he did go to see his solicitor.

That Easter Tim and Krit flew back to Thailand to visit Krit’s family, and they took the boys with them for a ten-day visit. As usual the doctors had barred Mark from flying that distance. He seriously began looking into cruise options that would give him a long stopover in Thailand, but in the end had to admit that his health was probably not up to such a trip.

August saw Tim, Krit, and Mark joining the O’Mallys at the villa in Spain. Even Joan joined them for a few days before going off to meet Richard in Barcelona, where his latest film was being shot. By now the fact that Joan and Richard were, to use the current idiom, an item was a well-known fact in the celebrity gossip columns. What was not so clear was who was the celebrity, the film and TV star or the bestselling novelist. Joan was also complaining about the fact that she now attracted the attention of the paparazzi – though she did seem to be quite happy when a picture appeared of her and Sybil, Richard’s ex having tea together at a hotel in Paris. It was only some time later that Mark found out that she had arranged for the photo to be taken by a friend who was in need of money.

Whilst they were in Spain, Thomas sought Mark’s advice about his A levels.

“Uncle Mark, I’ve done six subjects at AS level and got As in all of them. I was not certain whether to do Maths or Physics at A2 level along with Chemistry and Biology but I have done well at both. Mr Barrett says I only need two A Levels at grade A and one at A star for medical school but I am tempted to try for the four and do both Maths and Physics.”

“And who is Mr Barrett?”

“He’s the sixth form tutor—he does not teach, just makes sure that we are all doing what we need to be doing to get where we want to be.”

“So what do you think about doing both Maths and Physics?”

“I think I could do both, but the thing is I need to get an A star in either Chemistry or Biology. My best bet is probably Biology, but A star is hard, so it is going to be a lot of work. I might have to pack in my job at the supermarket if I am going to do all four at A level.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes, Uncle Mark, it would mean I would have to rely on Mary and Terry giving me spending money and I don’t like doing that.”

“How about the money I’ve been sending you each month, isn’t that enough for your spending money?” Mark had started sending Thomas twenty-five pounds a month when the lad first moved in with the O’Mallys, an amount that had been increased each year as Thomas got older. Now Mark was sending the boy seventy-five pounds a month.

“Oh, I’ve been putting that in a savings account so I will have some money for college.”

“Thomas,” Mark shouted, drawing the attention of Connor who was seated by the pool, “you’re a bloody idiot.”

“Why is he an idiot?” Connor asked, having walked over to see what was wrong.

“Because your boyfriend has been putting the money I have been sending him each month into a savings account so he has some money for when he goes to college.”

“What’s wrong with that? I would think it would be a good idea; wish I had enough to save for college,” Connor commented.

“When I talked about university with Thomas whilst he was in hospital I told him that if he wanted to go to university the money would be there so he could. In fact, the money is there for both of you. I told your parents, Connor, that I would cover you on the same basis as Thomas.”

“But you can’t do that for both of us,” Thomas stated, “it’s too much. You can’t afford it.”

“Why not, I’m a rich old man and I’m making money a lot faster than I can spend it or the tax man can tax it. The one good thing Tim’s father ever did was to tell me to get into property. When I retired I put half the money I got for the stake I sold in Bettridge’s into buy-to-lets, actually for student lets. I’ve got a hundred and three student houses around Sheffield, most of them housing four students. The income alone on those is over twenty grand a week. So don’t tell me I can’t afford it.”

Mark stopped, realising that he had raised his voice. He did not get angry very often but one thing that was almost certain to anger him was being told he could not do something when he knew damned well that he could. After a moment’s pause he continued. “Now both of you sit down and listen to what I have to say. You both want to get into UCL.” The boys nodded, and Mark continued. “And for that you need good grades. That means you both need to study hard and you can’t do that if you are also having to work part-time. Connor, how many hours do you do and how much do you earn?”

“I do three hours each evening, Monday to Friday, and eight hours on alternative Saturdays. I get four pounds ten pence an hour, so when I do a Saturday I get get ninety-four pounds thirty. Otherwise it’s sixty-one pounds fifty.”

“How about you, Thomas?” Mark asked.

“I only work Friday evening and Saturday, but I get a bit more than Connor. I do six hours on a Friday and eight on a Saturday. That gives me fourteen hours but I get five pounds twenty an hour, so its seventy-two pounds eighty a week.”

“Shit! Sorry, Uncle Mark. How come you are paid so much above minimum, Thomas?” Connor asked.

“Because I can work the computer. The boss can’t make heads or tails of the program they run, so he pays me the same as Pete, the lad from Wolverhampton Uni who covers the other evening shifts. Actually, I think he told Pete to set me up on the payroll, and he just put me in at the same rate he’s on.”

“Right, I want you both to pack up your jobs as soon as we get back.”

“What!” both boys exclaimed together.

“You heard me. I’ll talk to Mary and Terry this afternoon, but unless they have any major objection, I am going to put you on an allowance of one hundred pounds a week for the next year.”

It turned out that talking round Mary and Terry was a lot more difficult than persuading the boys. Both of them objected to Mark giving the boys an allowance and pointed out that the boys both had part-time jobs and earned enough doing that for their expenses and it was good for them to know the value of money.

“Given that they have been working hard for the last twelve months, they have probably learnt or at least should have done. Now look, the boys want to get into a top university, and actually they are both trying for UCL. That means they are in competition with the other students from the top schools in the country. Do you think that the boys attending Eton, Harrow, or Rugby are going out in the evenings and weekends working in the local Sainsbury’s? Of course not.

“That is what gives those privileged boys an advantage. It is not that they are getting a better education; some of the best teachers in the country are teaching in the state sector. What gives them the advantage is that they do not have the distractions from study and they have no need to go out and earn their spending money.”

“I can see that,” said Terry, “and if I look at it from that perspective I can agree with you giving Thomas an allowance, but why Connor?”

“Because, Terry, they are a couple; I am not going to prefer one over the other.”

It took another half hour of discussion among them, but in the end Terry and Mary agreed, but only on condition that they also contributed to the boys’ allowances. As Mary pointed out, they were getting a hundred and eighty pounds a week fostering allowance for Thomas which they did not need and which might as well go to the boys. In the end it was agreed that Mark would give each boy an allowance of one hundred pounds per week and that Mary and Terry would put the hundred and eighty fostering allowance into a joint savings account for the two boys to help them with the cost of a car or whatever they wanted when they turned eighteen. Mark did not bother to enlighten them that he had already planned to buy the boys a car when they finished school. He wanted to make sure they had something reliable and safe when they began driving. He did, however, tell Mary and Terry that he was planning on giving both boys vouchers for an intensive driving course for their birthdays, but it would be post-dated for when they finished school.

Once they finished the discussion Mark left Mary and Terry to return to the poolside and the boys. Mary, who had been standing at the sink during the whole discussion, sat down at the table and sighed.

“What is it love?” Terry asked.

“I don’t know, love. I know Mark is doing what he thinks is the best and bloody hell he can afford it, but is it right? There’s no way we could give the boys what he is giving them. So what about Shelly, how is she going to feel when she realises that she can’t have half what her brother’s had?”

“Don’t worry about it, love. There is nothing we can do about it at the moment. We will just have to do our best to make sure that Shelly does not lose out. Maybe some of that money we don’t have to pay out for Thomas and Connor we can save for when she needs it.” He put his hand on Mary’s shoulder. She looked up at him and smiled.

At the start of the new school year both Thomas and Connor, as agreed with Mark, quit their part-time jobs. Thomas informed Mr Barrett that he was going to go for four A levels: Biology, Chemistry, Maths, and Physics. Mr Barrett tried to dissuade him, pointing out that he was taking on a lot a pressure and did not need the four, but Thomas was adamant on the point. “Look, Mr Barrett, I want to get into UCL, and there is going to be pretty tough competition there and my GSCE grades are not all As, so I need to make sure I am one of the best.”

Mark, along with Tim and Krit, had expected the boys to join them on their autumn half-term holiday but in the end neither boy did. They had both managed to obtain work-experience placements during the week, Connor with a firm of Architects in Birmingham, where he spent the week helping to build architectural models to show clients. Thomas managed to swing it so he spent the week with a local GP who took him out on his rounds.

When at the weekend Thomas phoned Mark for one of their regular chats, he was very enthusiastic about the experience.

“It was bloody better than a couple of the guys from school had at the hospital during the summer vac,” he stated.

“How so?” Mark questioned.

“They just sat in with the doctors they were assigned to when they were doing consultations and followed them round when they did their ward rounds. I actually helped Dr Jennings with his patients.”

“How?”

“Well, when we went to visit an old lady up in Bloxwich, Dr Jennings had me supporting her leg whilst he removed the dressings to examine the wound. Got a really close look at it and he explained everything he was doing.

“Also a couple of times in surgery he got me to help with minor procedures. Just holding things for him or helping to support a patient. I know it is not really doing anything but I was up closer and more involved than the guys who did work-experience at the hospital.”

“So there are more of you trying for medicine in your sixth form?”

“Yes.” Thomas replied, “There’s actually four of us going for medicine, though Ali is going to a medical school overseas. His family wants him to study at an Islamic university. The other two are girls, though I think only one of them has a chance to make medical school.”

“Why’s that?” Mark asked.

“Greta was ill for part of last year and only managed Bs at her AS level, so she is going to be hard pressed to get an A star. Actually, I think it is impossible to get A star if you have a B at AS. The competition for medical school is so bloody stiff that they are all asking for at least one A star.”

“So what is she going to do?”

“Well, she is going to try to get in somewhere if she can get all As and she is doing four A levels like me. If she explains that she only got Bs at AS because of her illness, she might get accepted somewhere. The school’s already written a supporting letter explaining her circumstances.

“If she can’t get into medical school she says she will do a nursing degree and then apply again to medical school as a post-grad. It’s doable that way. In fact, I looked at that option in case I don’t get my grades, but it is a hard way to do it and ends up being seven rather than five years. And money is an issue as there are no student loans available for the post-grad course.”

“Well,” Mark told him, “just remember, if you have to go that course you do not need to worry about the money. That’s covered.”

It was a couple of days after that phone call that a couple of signed-for packets with fees due arrived for Krit. Both Tim and Krit had left when the postman rang the doorbell, so Mark went to deal with it. He invited Jack, the postman, to step into the hall as it was pouring down with rain outside.

As he was sorting out the paperwork and what had to be paid for, Mark asked Jack how things were – Jack had been the local postman for a good twenty-odd years.

“Not bad, Mr Wainwright, though it looks as if our lad is going to be moving south. ‘e can’t find work around ‘ere.”

“I thought he was doing well at college,” Mark stated, remembering the last chat with Jack from about nine months ago.

“He’s done fine, got his HND and now he needs an apprenticeship. There’re just none around these days. Tried your old place but they’ve stopped doing them.” This came as something of a surprise to Mark – the whole business of Bettridge’s was based on a highly skilled workforce and how did you get that without apprentices? As soon as he had sorted out the various pieces of mail that had to be signed for and what fees had to be paid, Mark went and phoned the works offices and asked for a meeting with Dale Waters.

It was shortly after two when Mark walked into Dale’s office.

“Mr Wainwright, so nice to see you,” Dale stated, standing behind the desk to greet the old man and wondering how quickly he could get rid of the irritation. Mark Wainwright might still be the Chairman and he might still be the majority shareholder but he, Dale Waters, ran the company and he did not want any interference with that.

“Thank you, Dale,” Mark said, taking a seat that had not been offered and noting that tea had not been called for. Dale sat down behind his desk.

“So, Mr Wainwright, what can I do for you?” Dale asked.

“I’ve heard a rumour that we are not taking on apprentices now and wanted to check on it. Is it right?” Mark asked.

“Oh, you could have phoned me and asked about that. Yes, it’s true we are not taking on apprentices, at least for this year and probably next.” The silence that followed that statement made it very clear to Dale that something more was expected of him.

“You see, Mr Wainwright, everything is changing at the moment. There’s this new apprenticeship scheme the government is bringing in. That’s changing how we will be running any training schemes in the future. At the moment we can’t quite work out how to fit what the new schemes require with our training structures.

“Then there is the question of long-term commitment to the apprentices. If we take them on we are committing to training them for three years, four in some cases. At the moment we are not certain the departments they would be joining will be around that long.”

“What!” Mark exclaimed.

“The long-term outlook for the business is not as good as it has been in the past. We are facing more competition from overseas, particularly from Japan and South Korea. Also there are new technologies coming into play which are somewhat disruptive for us. Things like three dimensional printing. Some of the F1 teams are now three-D printing parts that they used to come to us to manufacture.

“I’ve commissioned a long term study to look at where the future of the company is going to be. It will be a bit before it is ready, at least eighteen months, maybe longer.” That, thought Dale, should hold off any questions for a bit. “However, I think we are going to be looking at a major reorganisation once we have the results of the report and we may well have to make some drastic changes with respect to the works if we are going to keep the firm going.” Not that he wanted to keep the firm going, Dale thought.

“Oh, I see,” said Mark. “Maybe I should take a more active part in things. I could probably help with this review you have commissioned.”

“Not really feasible, Mr Wainwright. I’ve got an outside consultancy to do it for us. I thought it better if it was an arms-length operation. That way it’s not influenced by any particular viewpoint from inside the firm,” Dale stated, hoping that would put Mark off.

The talked for another ten minutes or so about the business in general, and then Mark left. As soon as Dale had seen Mark’s car pull out of the car park he sat down and rang Jonathan’s number.

Chapter 9

Mark again joined the O’Mallys for Christmas, though this year without Tim and Krit, who were flying out to Thailand to spend time with Krit’s family. Krit’s younger brother was due to get married over New Year.

For once Terry was not on duty any time over Christmas and New Year. He had just been promoted to Detective Superintendent and was due to take charge of a new team that was being set up in the New Year. As a result, he had handed over the cases he had been responsible for and had no work on till the new team was set up. Once Boxing Day was over, Mark handed Terry an envelope with tickets for a show in London, train tickets, and a hotel booking for Terry and Mary, telling him to take Mary down to London for a couple of days and that he would keep an eye on the kids.

It was whilst Terry and Mary were away in London that Mark raised the question of a gap year with Thomas and Connor. He wanted to get this sorted out so that if the boys wanted one he could present it as a fait accompli to Mary and Terry when they got back. As it turned out, both boys informed him that they really did not want a gap year as they both had quite long degree and post-grad courses to get through.

The one surprise of the holiday came when Joan and Richard turned up on New Year’s Day to inform Mark that they were getting married at Easter and that the wedding would be in Nice.

Mark returned to Sheffield on the Monday after New Year, calling in at the works on his way home. He had experienced some problems with the prototype dashcam he had been testing over the Christmas period. Steve, one of the electrical designers, checked out the device with him and found a loose connection that had caused the problem.

“It would have been nice to have seen this go into production, might have saved the department,” Steve commented, as he crimped the connector firmly into place.

“What do you mean, saved the department?” Mark asked.

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Dale Waters came in this morning and told us that Electrical Systems is being closed down, and we have all been given three months’ notice.”

“But why? You’re doing good work here.”

“Clearly not good enough.”

Following Steve’s revelation Mark decided to pop up to the management offices and have a chat with Dale to find out what was going on, not that he found out much. Dale reminded him of the chat they had just before Christmas. This was one thing they had been able to identify easily. He also told Mark that due to confidentiality undertakings he could not really discuss things, even when Mark pointed out that he was still the majority share holder and Chairman. What Dale did tell him was that they had agreed to sell the Electrical Systems business to third party. They were not interested in the ongoing business, just the intellectual property rights and brand names. As a result, the Electrical Systems operation at the works was being closed down.

To Mark this did not make much sense, but Dale assured him that it would free up funds for the future development of the core business and that the forward projections for Electrical Systems were showing that ongoing development projects would place a heavy cash flow burden on the business that it could not support. Mark was not happy with the situation but he had to agree that when he had resigned as CEO he had handed management of the business over the Dale and the board. It was their decision to make. Dale also pointed out that they were giving the staff three months’ redundancy notice, which was more than required, and that they would get a full redundancy pay-out.

Mark left the works feeling a bit depressed. He had started the Electrical Systems division and built it up to be what it had become. Finding it no longer had a part in the company made it seem as if all the effort he had put into it had been wasted. The closure had also made it very clear to Mark that it was no longer his company, even if he still was the majority shareholder.

He did make a point of phoning his nephew, Paul, to ask if there were any vacancies going at Mattashion’s Precision Engineering for what he still considered to be his people. Mark knew that Mattashion’s had started a small electronics department since Paul had joined them and suspected that Paul would not be averse to expanding it. In the end five of the Bettridge’s staff being made redundant were found places at Mattashion’s. Paul told Mark he would have liked to take the lot of them but he just could not expand his electronics department that much so fast. As it was he would be doubling it in size virtually overnight.

After the Christmas and New Year period, the boys were busy studying for their A levels, so much so that Thomas informed Mark that there was no chance of them being able to spare any time either at half-term or over the Easter period. The fact that both Thomas and Connor were busy over the Easter holidays made life easier for Mark as he had to go to Nice for Joan and Richard’s wedding. He got back from his trip to the south of France to find a letter waiting for him from Thomas.

Letters from Thomas were not that unusual. The boy had always written a letter of thanks to him for birthday and Christmas presents and from time to time had sent him letters detailing how things had gone at school with a copy of his latest report. However, Thomas had already written to Mark with a copy of his latest school report so Mark was intrigued by the fact that here was another letter from Thomas.

Opening it, he read the letter with interest:

Dear Uncle Mark,

As you know, I had interviews with both UCL and Birmingham a couple of weeks ago, and last week I had an interview with Leicester. I told you how the UCL and Birmingham interviews went when we spoke last before you left for Nice. However, I had not had the Leicester interview, which went very well. Turned out the tutor who was interviewing me knew Dr Jennings with whom I had the work experience.

Anyway, the good news is that yesterday I received a conditional offer from Birmingham, and then in today’s post there were conditionals from both UCL and Leicester. They are all asking for an A star and two As, so provided I get my grades I should have a choice where to go.

Connor already has a conditional offer from De Montfort for architecture, so if he goes there I will take up the offer from Leicester. Next week he has an interview at UCL, I hope he gets an offer there as it is a better school for both architecture and medicine so would be the best option for both of us.

Thanks for all your help and support.

Love,

Thomas

p.s. Connor says to send his thanks as well.

Both Connor and Thomas would have their eighteenth birthdays in the coming weeks. Mark gave both boys vouchers for an intensive course of driving lessons. He also gave them both Tag Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 5 Automatic watches, telling them that a gift of a good watch was the traditional gift on coming of age.

A couple of days after Thomas’s birthday Mark suddenly felt giddy whilst preparing his breakfast. Fortunately, Krit was still in the house and found Mark slumped over the sink in the kitchen. A quick check showed that Mark had a very irregular heartbeat and Krit summoned an ambulance, and Mark was whisked off to hospital with Krit riding in the ambulance. Mark apologised for the trouble he was causing.

“Don’t bother, Granddad, this is the quickest I’ve got into work for ages,” Krit quipped as the ambulance blue-lighted its way through the rush hour traffic.

Krit texted Tim and Joan to let them know what had happened. Joan texted back to say she would be on the next plane back from LA where she was on a book signing tour. Tim arrived at the hospital shortly after Mark and Krit got there in the ambulance, having pulled out of a tutorial with his professor who had been very understanding when the circumstances had been explained. The professor had actually driven Tim to the Northern General Hospital.

Krit had also texted his boss on the way in to explain that he would be late and why. He was a bit surprised to see his boss and one of the consultant cardiologists waiting at A&E when they arrived. When he mentioned it to his boss, he was told they were having breakfast together in the coffee shop when the text arrived so they had come straight to A&E.

Mark’s condition was quickly stabilised and he was moved to a bed in the cardiac ward. Once there he was visited by Tim and Krit, the latter now in his clinical garb with his hospital ID around his neck, so nobody challenged them for being there outside visiting times.

“So how bad is it?” Mark asked.

“It’s bad, but not that bad,” Krit responded. “They’ll get you stabilised and we can look at how you go with medication. If that does not help then it will probably be a pacemaker. You are going to be in here for a few days, maybe a week or two.

“Joan is on her way back from LA and we will let my aunt and uncles know as soon as we get home, and we’ll let the O’Mallys know,” Tim stated.

“No you won’t. I don’t want the boys worried. They are in the middle of their exams, and it would only distract them. Use my email account and send them an email saying I will be away for a few days and out of contact. You can say I am going down to Joan and Richard’s place in Nice. If you need to, you can phone Terry and tell him the truth but on no account must the boys know.”

“OK, Granddad,” Tim replied, “but what about the family?”

“They don’t need to know yet, either. They would only be up here fussing when there is nothing they can do, and the last thing I want is your father here gloating and thinking about my will. That would be enough to finish me off.”

In the end, Mark was in a bit longer than had initially been expected. He did not respond to medication as well has had been hoped, and had an adverse reaction to one drug. Fortunately, a combination of medications was found that worked for him. There was, however, one side effect that caused the doctors to advise him that he should no longer drive whilst on the medication, and he was going to be on it for life.

When Joan came in to visit him he explained the situation.

“So,” she asked, “what are we going to do with the cars?”

“Tim and Krit can have the Range Rover. They are already on the policy as drivers, so it should not be too much trouble to arrange insurance for them. They really need a second car as that mini they’ve got is not suitable for long trips.

“If you want it you can have the old Merc. Convertibles like that are not really practical here; they are much better suited to the south of France.”

“No thanks, Dad,” Joan responded. “I don’t fancy parading along the Prom des Anglais for the paparazzi. That’s more for the starlets.”

“Then you’d better sell it. Contact Silverstone Auctions, they should be able to arrange a sale,” Mark told her.

“The E-type as well?” Joan asked.

Mark thought about that for a minute or two then responded “No, contact Eagle and get them to arrange to have it mothballed, and then put it in storage.”

“Dad,” Joan commented, “that’s going to cost a fortune.”

“Joan, the amount that that car will appreciate each year is going to be far more than the storage cost. It’s already worth nearly half as much again as I paid for it.”

“What about the Hyundai?”

“Keep that, but make sure you, Tim, and Krit are all on the insurance. You will need to talk to the brokers about that, as I can’t be down as a driver now though I am still the owner. I’ll need something you can take me out in and the Santa Fe is a comfortable car and more economic than the Range Rover. It’s also better for towing.”

“Like we’re going to be towing anything.”

“Probably me in a Bath chair,” Mark quipped.

On the Thursday of that week Tim drove the Range Rover over to the O’Mallys. It was just after five when Connor and Thomas came in, having been celebrating the end of their exams with their schoolmates, and Thomas called for Uncle Mark as he came through the door.

“He’s not here, Thomas,” Tim informed him.

“But his car?”

“I drove it over. I came to tell you that Granddad is in hospital.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“He had a cardiac arrhythmia a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty close but luckily Krit was at home when it happened. They’ve only just managed to get him fully stabilised with medication.”

“How come you didn’t tell us?” Thomas accused him.

“Granddad’s instructions—he did not want you boys to know till your exams had finished. Now, do you want to visit him?”

“Of course.”

“Then you better grab some things. If we push it, we should be able to get to the hospital before the end of visits. You can stay overnight anyway and visit again tomorrow.”

Two hours later they were seated at Mark’s bedside.

“So how did your exams go?” Mark asked.

“Good,” Connor responded.

“OK, I think,” added Thomas.

“I hope a lot better than OK,” Mark commented, “you need those grades, boy.”

“I know I’ve done well in Biology, one of the questions was based on the case study Krit went over with me when we were here after Christmas. So I know I’ve got that, and the other questions were fairly straightforward, provided you had read the texts. Chemistry wasn’t too bad either, at least nothing unexpected turned up.

“It’s Maths that I am really worried about. I think I may have messed up on one of the questions. I was fairly certain the approach was to put it into a quadratic equation and solve it from there, but everybody else in the sixth form who did it approached it using simultaneous equations, so I may have messed up on it.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now, so no point in worrying,” Mark commented.

The boys’ visit cheered Mark up no end, and he was discharged the following Monday with strict instructions to take life easy for a bit. That turned out to be easier said than done. Not being able to drive frustrated him no end as he could not get out and about when he wanted to. The days of jumping into the Eagle E-type and driving over to Walsall to see the boys or going off and driving the moorland roads were now in the past. He hated having to rely on Tim or Krit if he wanted to go anywhere and he also disliked disturbing their life by having them drive him around.

The other thing that annoyed him was not being able to do the work that was needed in the garden. For the first couple of weeks after he got out of hospital, Thomas and Connor stayed in Sheffield to help him. But they were already booked in for their intensive driving courses at the end of June and were then supposed to be going on a tour of European Roller Coaster rides with Tim and Krit. Mark had no intention of letting his illness upset those plans.

Eventually it was Krit who came up with a solution when he made a comment about the problem for part-time students finding work they could fit with their studies. Mark asked what he meant.

“Oh, Janet,” Krit replied, “the lab secretary at work. Her daughter’s on a part-time access course at the college. It’s one of those morning-only courses. The idea is they can study in the morning and have a part-time job in the afternoon or evening with which to fund themselves. Unfortunately, the firm her daughter was working for has closed down and she can’t find another job that will fit the hours.”

“How old is she?”

“I think she is twenty-two or three. She dropped out of school at sixteen when she got pregnant, and now that the kid has started school she wants to get back into education.”

“Well, if Janet’s daughter can drive and she does not mind getting her hands dirty, tell get her to contact me.”

So it was that a few days later Tara started to work for Mark as part-time gardener, driver, and general help. Mark and she agreed she would work from one to five Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, those being the days that her mother only worked mornings and so could pick Tara’s son up from school.

Of course nothing worked out quite as planned, and it was not long before Mike, Tara’s five-year-old, appeared at Mark’s house and was quickly appropriated by Tim and Krit as somebody to spoil. Watching the two of them with the boy made Mark think that they would make ideal parents.

It was a couple of weeks after Tara had started working for Mark when Thomas phoned with the news that both Connor and he had passed their driving test first time. Mark immediately checked with Tara that she would be OK to work a bit later the next day and then told Thomas that he would be taking him and Connor out tomorrow afternoon.

By four o’clock the next day the two boys were the owners of an almost brand new Hyundai Tucson. Mark felt confident that he had not broken his word to Terry and Mary when he had finally told them he intended to buy the boys a car when they passed their test. He had assured them he would not splash out on anything new. The Hyundai was not new; it was ex-demo with just over three thousand on the clock.

Mark had also managed, through his broker, to get the car added onto his family multi-car insurance. Exactly how the broker had managed it was probably a bit questionable, but he had assured the insurance company that Thomas was a relative and as Thomas was using the same surname it made things easier. As a result, the insurance cost for the boys was a lot less than it would have been if the insurance had been in their own names.

Joan and Richard came to stay with Mark the first two weeks of August, whilst Tim, Krit, and the boys were exploring the delights of European roller coasters. Nothing had actually been said, but Mark had the feeling that the family was arranging things so he was never on his own. He found it a bit annoying but did appreciate the sentiment behind it.

Tim, Krit, and the boys returned on the Saturday afternoon and the whole of the Sunday was spent with the boys telling Mark all about it and showing him videos they had taken of the rides. Mark found just watching the videos stomach churning enough, and there was no way he wanted to experience the real thing, no matter how exciting it was. There was only so much excitement one could endure in a life. On Monday morning the boys returned to Walsall by way of Birmingham Airport where they dropped Jean and Richard off for their flight to Nice.

Chapter 10

Late one Thursday afternoon in August, Mark was sitting at the dining table with Tara going over a seed catalogue and discussing the planting for next year when the Tucson turned into the drive. The two boys jumped out and came running into the house.

“Uncle Mark, Uncle Mark!” they were calling.

“In here,” Mark called back and then turned to Tara and asked her to make some coffee for them. The boys ran into the dining room, clearly very happy.

“We did it,” announced Thomas.

“Did what?” asked Mark, although he guessed what it was.

“Got the grades,” Connor responded.

“So what did you get?” Mark queried.

“I got two As and an A star,” Connor stated.

“And I got A star in Biology, A in Chemistry, A in Physics and A star in Maths,” Thomas added.

“Ah, so you didn’t mess up on the Maths paper,” Mark commented.

“No,” Thomas responded. “I was the only one in our sixth to get an A star in Maths.”

“So that is two A stars and two As,” Mark summarized, “enough for University College London?”

“Yes, UCL confirmed both offers today and we have accepted. Going down to London on Monday to sort out accommodation.”

“No you’re not,” Mark stated.

“What?” both boys responded.

“You can stay here tonight and we’ll go down to London in the morning. I’ve got a place where you can live,” Mark told them, and then he called to Tara to bring his laptop through so he could book tickets. He also asked her if she could drive them to the station in the morning and pick them up in the evening. Connor objected, saying he could use the Tucson and park it by the station.

“Connor,” he responded, “it is cheaper for me to pay Tara to drive us in and pick us up than it is to park in Q-Park, especially as I have to pay her for the day anyway.” Mark then got online and booked tickets for them for the next day. Fortunately, ever since Thomas had originally stayed with Mark, both boys had kept some clothes and toiletries in what they considered to be their room.

When they arrived at St Pancras the following morning, Mark got a taxi to take them to a block of 1930s flats in Weymouth Street. He took them up to a flat on the second floor.

“Will this do you, boys?”

“Christ! Yes,” replied Connor, “but can we afford it?”

“You don’t have to. I own it, or at least I own the lease, have done for forty years. Renewed it recently for another ninety years.”

“Did you live here?” Thomas asked.

“Not really, but at one time I was down in London for three or four days every couple of weeks so it made sense to have a place down here. We did think of selling at one time but Joan got into Royal Holloway and it made sense for her to use it. The family used it for trips to London and weekend get-togethers till my wife died. Then we let it. So as long as you are studying in London you might as well use it. The only thing you need to pay is the Council Tax and the utilities, and I think your allowances will cover those. By the way, I will be increasing those from the start of term to two hundred a week. London can be expensive and you’ll have text books to buy.”

Later that day, back in his room in Walsall, Connor turned to Thomas and asked, “Why does Uncle Mark do this for us? I know you told me about Ian but there is something more.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas replied. “At first I thought it was all about Ian, but now I’m not so sure. Sometimes I think he is trying to make up for something he has not had – I suppose with his family all moving away he has missed grandchildren and sort of adopted us.”

Connor thought about this for a moment, then smiled. “Maybe you’re right.” He reached up and pulled Thomas down besides him. “You do realise that once we are in London we will be able to share a bed.”

“Bloody right we will. It been a pain having to wait till your parents and sister are all out of the house at the same time or for when we went over to Sheffield,” Thomas stated.

“Well they are all out of the house now.”

Even though he had made a good recovery, Mark was clearly not up to the annual trip down to Spain, and Krit and Tim had to go Thailand in any case so would not be able to take him. Both Thomas and Connor insisted that if Uncle Mark was not going, they were not going. They would stay with Uncle Mark instead, and so the last Sunday in August they arrived at the house in Sheffield.

“I don’t know why you two did not go down to Spain. There’s not much for you here.”

“You’re here Uncle Mark,” Connor commented. “You made Spain fun, and let’s admit it that villa is a bit in the back of beyond, even by Spanish standards. There is only so much swimming in the pool and lounging on the terrace one can do. If it wasn’t for the chats we had with you we would have been bored out of our minds most of the time.”

“I’m not so sure. I am sure you two would have found something to do with each other. The question is what are you going to do here for the next ten days. There is no pool, and given the English weather, I doubt if lounging on the terrace is all that good an option.”

“Well, we could start to sort out the attic and box rooms for you,” Thomas stated. “You’ve been saying for the last three years that you should get it sorted out, so now’s the chance.”

The following day the boys started bringing down boxes from the attic and into the utility room, opening them to go through the contents with Mark sitting at the table, directing them as to what was to go where. By the end of the day they had three boxes of stuff to go to the charity shop, some bags of rubbish to take to the tip, and a number of half-full boxes intended for various family members. There was also a small pile of stuff to keep.

The process continued the second day and on into the third day, though by now they had moved from bringing stuff down from the attic to going through the small box room on the first floor. It was in one of the many suitcases stacked in that room they found the photo album.

“Bloody hell!” Mark exclaimed, “I didn’t know I had that.”

“What is it?” Thomas asked.

“It’s Mother’s photo album. I thought it must have been lost. My wife must have packed it away when my mother died.” Mark opened the album, turning the pages slowly, looking at the photos and telling the boys stories about them. Then he turned a page, stopped, and went quiet.

Thomas looked at the page, where there was a set of photos of two boys, about thirteen or fourteen, on a beach. Thomas guessed from baggy swimming trunks they were wearing and the dresses the women in some of the pictures were wearing that it was probably about the mid-1950s. In the middle of the page were two portraits of the two boys, each about six by eight centimetres. It was when he looked at the one on the right that Thomas realised it was Mark, and then made the connection.

“That’s Ian, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing to the other photo. Mark nodded, a tear running down his cheek.

“Connor,” Thomas asked “can you take Uncle Mark to the living room and get him a drink?”

Connor helped Mark to his feet and guided him to the living room. Just as they were going through the door Mark turned to Thomas. “I did not know there were any photos of him.”

Thomas went to one of the boxes of stuff for the charity shop and found an eight by ten-inch photo frame and then carefully removed the photo of Ian from the mounts that held it in the album. As he went through to Mark’s office he popped his head through the door of the living room to check that Mark was all right. Once Connor had assured him that everything was fine, he went on to the office. Ten minutes later he returned the photo to the album and then went to the living room and handed Mark the photo frame which now contained an enlarged picture of Ian.

“I scanned it and printed it out, thought it would be better for you like this than in the album,” Thomas said.

“Thanks, it is.” Mark took the frame and stood it on the table by the side of the fire, the one opposite the chair he normally sat in. “Connor, would you mind going and fetching the photo album for me?” Connor stood and left, returning shortly after with the album. Mark took it from him and opened it up to the pages with the photos of him and Ian.

“These were taken in July 1956. I was fourteen in the August, and Ian would be fifteen in the September. It was the last holiday we had together. Dad had just been promoted and so had Ian’s father. They decided to splash out, and the two families went to Butlin’s Skegness for a fortnight.” He then proceeded to tell the boys all about the holiday, which he seemed able to recall in every detail and which led to him telling them about how he had got to know Ian and what they had done whilst at school. Thomas noticed, though, that Mark did not tell Connor about Ian’s end.

In the early hours of the following morning Thomas found himself disturbed and awake. Looking around in the darkness of the room, he could make out the shape of Connor fast asleep next to him. Then he noticed the faint glimmer of light coming from under the bedroom door. Thomas slipped out of bed and found the pair of flip flops he wore around the house instead of slippers and got his dressing gown off its hook on the bedroom door, slipping it around his naked form.

Ever since he had first come to this house, with his legs in plaster, the ground floor guest bedroom had been first his room and then his and Connor’s room. The door opened out into the corridor that ran the length of the house. Looking into the corridor Thomas saw the source of the light. The living room door was open and the light in the room was on. Thomas made his way down the corridor and into the living room where Mark sat on the floor, the photo frame held to his chest, crying.

Thomas crossed the room and stood by Mark. Mark looked up. “I never told him,” he stated.

“Told him what?” Thomas asked.

“Never mind, it’s too late now and it was a long time ago.”

Thomas nodded. “Come on, Uncle Mark, let’s go to the kitchen. It’s a bit warmer in there and I can make you a nice mug of cocoa.” Mark got up with a bit of help from Thomas and followed him into the kitchen, still holding the photo frame.

A few weeks before Christmas, Krit and Tim informed Mark that they needed to make an urgent trip to Thailand and were not certain how long they would be away. They did say they hoped to be back by Christmas. The following day Thomas phoned Mark to say that he and Connor would be coming up to stay with Mark over the Christmas vac., and that they would take Mark over to Walsall for the actual Christmas holidays.

Early on the 23rd, when Mark had only just got up and there was no sign of the boys, the phone rang. Mark answered it. The call was from Tim asking to speak to Thomas. Mark called him, and a few moments later a very sleepy Thomas came through to the kitchen and took the phone.

“Hi,” he said, then paused listening to what Tim was saying.

“No problem Tim, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” He put the phone down. “Uncle Mark, could you make me a coffee whilst I dress. I’ve got to pick Tim and Krit up from the station.” Mark threw some Aroma Rot into the cafetuere and then added water that had just gone off the boil. By time Mark re-appeared, this time dressed, it was just long enough for the coffee to brew. Thomas took the cafetiere and pushed down the plunger, then poured out a mug of coffee into which he threw three sugars.

“A bit excessive on the sugar, aren’t you?” Mark commented.

“I suspect I’m going to need the energy,” Thomas responded. Connor is still asleep; can you tell him where I’ve gone when he wakes?” Mark confirmed he would, and then Thomas slurped down the coffee, grabbed the keys for the Tucson, and shot out of the door.

Mark continued to sort out some breakfast. About twenty minutes later, Connor came into the kitchen asking where Thomas was. Mark told him what had happened.

“Oh,” said Connor as he looked up at the kitchen clock. “Halford’s won’t be open yet so it will be a bit before they get back.”

“What has Halford’s got to do with picking up Tim and Krit from the station?” Mark asked.

“Nothing.”

“Connor, is there anything I should know?”

“You will when you need to. I’d better go and get dressed.” With that, Connor grabbed a mug of coffee and went back to their room. Mark got the distinct impression that everybody knew something that he did not and really should.

Connor returned to the kitchen about fifteen minutes later, washed and dressed. Mark noticed he was on edge and that whilst he was eating his breakfast he kept looking out of the window at the drive. It was some time later that the Tucson finally pulled into the drive. By then Connor had finished his breakfast, washed up, and cleaned the kitchen.

Mark was reading his morning paper by then and heard the crunch of the car on the gravel. He looked out the window to see the car pull to a stop. Krit got out of the rear passenger side door, then walked around the car to open the other rear door. He seemed to be trying to get something out of the rear of the car. That something soon materialised into a small child. A small procession formed up with Thomas in the lead, followed by Tim and Krit, the latter carrying the child.

As they entered the house, Thomas fell back so it was Tim who led the way into the kitchen. “Hi, Granddad, can I introduce our son Pattanapong.” Thomas looked at the boy who he guessed must have been about two or two and a half years old.

“Your son?”

“Well, technically he’s Krit’s son until we can get a UK adoption sorted out. Krit has adopted him in Thailand but since they do not recognise same sex partnerships yet, we could not adopt him as a couple. As soon as we can sort things out on this end, we will.”

Mark held his arms out to Krit who handed Pattanapong over to him. The boy snuggled his head against Mark’s shoulder and Mark looked down at his face. “Are you comfortable, Pattanapong?” he asked. The boy looked at him blankly, Tim said something in Thai and the boy nodded.

“You know, Tim, you and Krit need to come up with an English name for him or he will get teased to hell at school with a name like Pattanapong,” Mark observed.

“Why don’t you name him?” Krit suggested. “You’re going to be his great-grandfather after all.”

Mark looked at the boy, then up at Krit. “Thank you. Call him Ian.” Thomas and Connor looked at each other, each wondering if Tim and Krit knew about Ian?

“So, Tim, you and Krit had better tell me how I’ve become a great-grandfather.”

“Ian,” Krit stated, using the boy’s new English name, “is the son of my cousin Dok Rak. She was in a relationship with an American man, somewhat older. Dok Rak was supposed to be on contraception—she had problems with the pill and so had an IUD— but unfortunately it failed and she became pregnant. When she did, her American left her.

“Now Dok Rak has a new Thai boyfriend from a very good, very conservative family. They do not want a luk khrueng in the family…”

“Luk what?” Mark interrupted.

“Sorry,” Krit continued, “luk khrueng, literally half-child, a term for a mixed race child, specifically a Eurasian child. Amongst the older and more conservative members of Thai society, like Dok Rak’s boyfriend’s family, it is seen as something to be ashamed of. However, amongst many younger Thai luk khruengs are seen as something to be looked up to and appreciated. They are seen as the new race, the people of the future.

“When we were out there in August, we learnt that Dok Rak’s boyfriend wanted to marry her but did not want Ian as part of the deal, so we offered to adopt him. It has not been easy, for Thailand does not recognise civil partnerships or same sex marriages. So I had to adopt Dok Rak as an individual, which is difficult to do in Thailand. However, both my family and the family of Dok Rak’s boyfriend are highly influential, so it was possible to arrange.

“We learnt that the final obstacles had been cleared up in November, so we had to go out and finish the formalities for me to adopt Ian. As it was an adoption within the family and did not involve the governmental organisations it was a bit easier, but there were still a lot of formalities to go through if I was to be able to bring Ian back to England with me.”

“So,” Tim interjected, “Pattanapong is now Pattanapong Meesang and as soon as we can get the formalities arranged he will become Ian Pattanapong Meesang-Wainwright, though it is probably best we call him Ian from now on, so he gets used to it.”

“I suppose you two knew all about it?” Mark stated, looking at Thomas and Connor.

“Well, not all,” Thomas explained. “We knew they were hoping to adopt but had been asked not to say anything in case it fell through.”

“Well, it has worked out,” Mark commented, “and for the best, so we now have another Wainwright, or to be correct Meesang-Wainwright in the family. You do realise that this means we need to sort out Christmas presents for the boy, and there is no way we can go over to Walsall. He’s had enough moving around in the last few days, so we’ll do Christmas here.”

Connor immediately got on the phone to his mother to explain about the change of plans and why it would not be possible for them to come to Walsall that Christmas.

“Connor,” his mother shouted, loud enough so even Mark could hear it from the phone, “I’ve got all the food ready.”

“Tell them to put the food in the car and come over here,” Mark called to Connor. “They can stay here for the holiday for a change — after all, with seven bedrooms, we’ve got the room.” Connor did, and after some discussion and the multiple passing of the phone from Connor to Mark and at the other end from Mary to Terry, it was agreed.

The rest of the day was quite hectic. The boys were sent out to get a Christmas tree, decorations, and a pile of presents for little Ian. Mark just gave them one of his credit cards and told them they could keep spending till they hit the limit. Fortunately, he did not tell them the limit on that card was twenty thousand and that he’d just cleared the previous month’s balance.

A series for further phone calls to Mary established what she would be bringing over tomorrow, and they made a list of what else was required. Tim was dispatched to the supermarket with yet another of Mark’s credit cards. Once he and the boys were back, the boys and Krit were despatched to buy a bed suitable for little Ian and everything else that would be required for a boy’s room. Tim had to stay behind so there was somebody in the house who could speak Thai. Little Ian, though, seemed quite content to hang onto his new great-grandfather, who was starting to teach the boy the English names for things. It would take somebody else to teach the boy the meaning of NO.

Mary and Terry with the now not so little Shelly arrived just after lunch on Christmas eve, with Mary making a bee-line for little Ian, who quite rightly decided the best place to be was standing behind his great-grandfather’s legs. He was quickly drawn out of that position by the traditional enticement for small boys, a lollipop, which Mary had brought with her.

On Christmas day little Ian was presented with a pile of presents, and really enjoyed playing with the boxes they came in. Better still, the boy enjoyed sitting on his great-grandfather’s lap and chatting away with him. The pair of them having established a language between them which no one else was capable of understanding but suited their purpose perfectly. Though Tim did come to suspect that the word ‘oys’ meant Thomas and Connor, who seemed to spend their whole day running errands to keep the small boy happy.

The formal adoption of Ian by Tim did not go smoothly. Eventually, at the end of April, after yet another delay with nothing appearing to happen, Mark phoned Ms Henley, working on the basis that she owed him a favour after him helping out with Thomas. Actually, since then Mark and Ms Henley had become, if not friends, at least acquaintances who spoke if they met at one or another at the functions which Mark had to attend from time to time. Whenever they did meet, she always enquired about Thomas and seemed pleased with the news of his progress. So one afternoon Mark phoned her and explained the situation with regard to little Ian.

The following afternoon Ms Henley called round at the house. Once the pleasantries of such occasions had been dealt with and they were seated at the kitchen table, Ms Henley started to inform Mark about the current situation with little Ian.

“Unfortunately, Mr Wainwright,” she began, “there are still some in my profession who are somewhat opposed to gay men adopting. As this is a private adoption within the family your grandson’s lawyers have been using a private agency to prepare the required reports and assessments. This should be a formality, but it appears that some of the reports submitted to the court have been worded in a way that is not particularly helpful.”

“How so?”

“For a start, they state that your grandson went out to Thailand and whilst there entered into a relationship with a local of the same sex. What is not stated is that your grandson was at the time a minor of seventeen years and younger than the local he entered into a relationship with or the fact that the said local is now his husband and the adoptive parent of the child in question. You can see how such a statement is at one and the same time perfectly accurate but gives a totally wrong impression.” Mark nodded, not daring to say anything given the wrath that was welling up inside him. Fortunately, just then Ian ran into the room calling out “bpòo, bpòo, bath.” Tara followed him in and picked him up.

“Bpòo is busy Ian, he can’t bath you.” She turned to Mark, “Sorry, the moment I said bath he ran to you.”

“That’s OK, Tara, he knows I usually help you with his bath.” He turned to the boy. “Now Ian Pattanapong, go and let Tara bathe you, we don’t want a pongy Pattanapong, I’ll read you a story afterwards.” The boy nodded, putting his arms around Tara’s neck as she carried him out.

“Does Tara look after Ian?” Ms Henley asked.

“Yes, at least during the day when Krit and Tim are out. She’s been a godsend.”

“Interesting, as the report states that there is a question about the availability of child care given that Tim is a student and at University most of the day. It says, to quote, ‘it would appear that the provision of childcare is left to the applicant’s elderly grandparent who is not in the best of health’. That statement is accurate to an extent but fails to provide vital information—there is no mention of Tara or your housekeeper, though I recall you had one when I approved the arrangements for Thomas.”

“Yes, Mrs Wright. I still have her,” Mark confirmed, “and she’s been with me for years. We are having a battle to see who will outlast the other.”

“Yes, I thought so, but again, it’s been omitted. It might just be a bit of sloppy report preparation but I don’t think so. We also have this part, ‘the applicant is a student who does not have any current employment and states that he has no plans to enter employment in the near future’. Is that correct?”

“Well, yes, Tim does not need to be employed. I’ve set up a trust for him which will support him in full-time education for the next ten years if he needs it or until he gets his PhD, which he says he wants to go for.”

“How much does it give him for maintenance expenses?” Ms Henley asked.

“Twenty six thousand a year, not that he needs it. Krit could support him and would.”

“I know—another omission in the report. It just states that the child’s adoptive father is a Thai immigrant to this country. It does not say he is a qualified doctor or a member of a highly rated medical research team at the university.”

“So Tim’s being fucked up?”

“I think that is quite an appropriate description of the situation. It is not the first time I have come across such problems with some of these private adoption services. Unfortunately, although your grandson’s lawyers have appointed them, legally their duty is to the court and they submit their reports to the court.”

“So Tim had better get a new adoption service in?”

“Unfortunately, Mr Wainwright, it is not that easy. As this is a private adoption you have to get the assessments done privately for the courts, but the courts have to approve the adoption service supplying them. To change adoption services would mean getting the court to approve a new adoption service. To do that you would have to show that the current adoption service is failing, which would look bad for your grandson as it was at his request they were appointed in the first place. We are technically not involved, so don’t get involved in the assessments. However, should a matter of concern be raised over the safety of the child in question we can get involved.” Mark looked at her questioningly. “I will log your call as an anonymous call regarding the safety of the child. My visit here today is to do an initial assessment of the situation.”

She smiled at Mark and continued. “I will report that there is no reason for immediate concern but that I am worried about the long term consequences of the delay in getting the child’s status sorted out. The fact that we have done an assessment of the situation means that we have to advise the Family Court, given that there are proceedings concerning the child before the court. Once the court becomes aware that there is a Social Services interest in a case like this we are always invited to provide a full assessment report. I can assure you that, as I will be handling it, it will be full and accurate in every detail and I have no doubt that it will recommend that the application for adoption should be granted.”

“Thank you, Ms Henley.”

“No, thank you, Mr Wainwright. I always enjoy the opportunity to upset the bigots. Now maybe you should go and help your great-grandson to bathe.”

Even with Ms Henley’s assistance things still seemed to move very slowly through the Family Court, though they now appeared to be moving. The second Thursday in July was a very busy day for Tim. In the morning he and Krit had to attend the Family Court where the petition for adoption was finally approved and little Ian officially became Ian Pattanapong Meesang-Wainwright. In the afternoon Tim received his Bachelor of Arts Degree with First Class Honours in English.

The other event of that week was that Krit received British Citizenship. As this had actually been awarded three days before the adoption was finally formalized, Ian became entitled to register as a British Citizen upon the grant of adoption by the court, as legally both his parents were British Citizens at the time of his adoption in the UK. The first thing Tim and Krit did was complete the application for Ian’s registration as a British Citizen.

Little Ian turned three at the beginning of August, an event Mark used to spoil the boy even more. Although Ian was now speaking English with the fluidity of any native born three-year-old, he and his bpòo still communicated in the private language they had developed between them during his first few weeks in England. It seemed at times to Tim that there was a bond between the boy and the old man which was stronger than any of those between Mark and his children or even grandchildren. The only time he saw anything close to what he saw in Mark’s eyes when he was playing with little Ian was sometimes when he looked at Thomas. It was as if he was remembering something from the long past, something that brought him happiness.

Chapter 11

Mark did manage to make it down to Spain, taking it in easy stages. Krit, Tim, and Ian travelled with him. Feeling the drive down would be too much for the three-year-old , they went by train, though Mark suspected this was more for him than for Ian. They took the Eurostar to get to Paris, then TGV to Toulouse where Thomas met them with the Tucson to drive down into Spain.

Mark spent a relaxing ten days, lounging in the sun by the side of the pool, watching Thomas and Connor teaching the three-year-old how to swim.

Richard had once again been filming in Barcelona, though he was pleased to tell everybody that this was going to be the last time as they had reached the end of the final series. As he put it, eight weeks a year filming in Barcelona in high summer for five years was enough hell for anyone. As soon as filming had finished Joan and Richard made their way to Pamplona to join the group for the last four days at the villa. They then accompanied Mark and his party back to Sheffield by train, Richard pointing out that he was often mobbed by fans at airports but very rarely at train stations.

On the way back Joan asked her father if he had heard from Johnny. He replied that he had not.

“Well, apparently he is on the war path over Tim adopting Ian and your apparent approval of it. He’s been on the phone to both Phillip and Emma saying you must be suffering from dementia,” Joan informed him.

“I gather he has not spoken to you, then?”

“No, Johnny has not spoken to me since I told him what I thought of the way he treated Tim. After I had finished I had to go and look up some of the words I’d used.”

“What do Phillip and Emma think about all of it?” Mark asked.

“Well, Emma has considered her big brother a total idiot since she was four and he put her white teddy bear in the washing machine with his red football strip. As for Phillip, he just questions what century Johnny is living in.”

“Good. I don’t think there is much we can do about Johnny, to be honest.”

“Unfortunately, I think I agree with you Dad, but he has got me worried.”

“Why?”

“It’s all this talk about dementia—he knows you have been ill, and I think he knows you have changed your will again since Ian joined the family. He may be thinking of using your supposed dementia to challenge your will if anything happened to you.” Mark just nodded.

One immediate problem that Mark had to face once he got back to Sheffield was what to do about Tara. She had finished her access course and now had an offer of a place at Sheffield Hallam. Although she had said she would still like to work for Mark it was clear that she would not be able to do the hours that she had been doing for the last few months. Eventually, Mark came to the decision that he would have to get somebody else, but he did come to an arrangement with Tara for her to do ten hours a week, which was to consist mostly of taking Mark shopping and helping in the garden.

It was Mrs Wright who in the end forced the issue when she advised Mark that she was seventy on the twenty-eighth of September and would be retiring then. Mark could not believe that she was seventy. He always imagined that she had at least a half a decade on him. It was quite clear that with the loss of Mrs Wright coupled with the reduction in hours of Tara, Mark would need somebody else. When Mark said to Mrs Wright, “Oh, I really need to get somebody in now,” she had a solution.

“My daughter-in-law, Agnes, is looking for some extra work. Her Sid is a useless hunk, even if he is my son, and she lost her part-time cashier’s job when the supermarket moved to its new site. She doesn’t drive and the new location was too far to get to.”

So it was that Mrs Wright’s one and a half days a week were replaced with a new Mrs Wright doing two full days and three half-days a week. If Mark had always considered the old Mrs Wright to be a formidable woman, the new Mrs Wright made her look like a pussycat. Within days of her taking up her post she had the men in the house organised as she wanted them. But, Ian had her wrapped around his little finger.

Thomas and Connor came over for the last week in September before returning to London for their second year at UCL. It turned out that they had found an old MG Midget on their trip up through France coming back from the villa and were in discussions about buying it. The money the O’Mallys had put into the savings account for them would more than cover the cost of buying the car and getting it shipped back to the UK. What the boys wanted to know was, could they put it in Mark’s garage, now that he no longer had the Merc and the Jag, so they could work on restoring it during their vacations.

The car arrived a couple of weeks later, on a trailer. The two delivery men carefully unloaded it and pushed it into the garage for Mark. Once they had gone he phoned up the automotive shop at the works and asked if they could send one of their mechanics round. Mark might not be a member of the management team any more but he still held sixty-five percent of the shares, which gave him some privileges.

Jeff, the senior mechanic, arrived a couple of hours later. “Afternoon, Mr Wainwright,” he said when Mark opened the door to him. “What’s this car you want me to look at?” Mark led him through to the garage, little Ian joining them on the way.

“Who’s this, then?” Jeff asked, looking at the small boy who was peering at him from behind Mark’s legs.

“My great-grandson, Ian.”

“Christ, Mr Wainwright, that makes you sound old.”

“Jeff, I am old; I’ll be 75 next month.”

“Yes, I suppose you must be. I’ve been with the firm thirty years and you were a director when I started as an apprentice.”

“That, Jeff, had nothing to do with my age. It was the fact that I had married the boss’s daughter.”

Jeff laughed. “Good point. Wish you were still in charge; things have not been the same since you retired. None of the current management has ever worked on the shop floor. They never come down and walk the works like you did. Actually, since Mr Strange left, none of the managers, let alone the directors, spend any time on the shop floor. They have no idea of what is going on.” Mark nodded, making a mental note to ask his nephew, Paul Strange, if he would consider coming back.

None of Mark’s children had shown the slightest interest in the business. However, his sister’s stepson had been interested. He had joined the business as an engineering apprentice when he left school. The lad could have gone to university but said he wanted to get a real job. He had done OK and risen up through the company to become production manager.

When Mark had been the managing director he had thought a couple of times of bringing Paul onto the board but never had. He had always been a bit wary of nepotism and did not want any promotion to look like he was favouring family, even if the family connection was indirect. He had dropped strong hints to the board members when he was retiring that Paul would make a good addition. For some reason the hints had not been acted upon and soon after Mark had retired, Paul had moved on to Mattashion’s Precision Engineering in Derby.

Jeff looked at the car and told Mark that he would need a good hour to check it over, so Mark left him in the garage and returned to the kitchen to teach Ian how to play draughts. Mrs Wright was just making a pot of tea for Mark when Jeff came back through from the garage.

“Pretty good car you’ve got there, though it will need some work.”

“It’s not my car, Jeff, it’s the boys, and they will be working on it. Just wanted to check they were not wasting their time.” Mark commented, then added, “How about joining me for a cup of tea.”

“Fine, you’re the boss.”

“No, I’m not, Jeff, I stopped being the boss years ago.”

“Yes, Mr Wainwright, but you’re still the owner.”

Mrs Wright placed a couple of mugs of tea before them, then added a plate of cakes before she vanished off into main body of the house to start hoovering.

“Where’s the little one?” Jeff asked.

“Having his afternoon nap,” Mark informed him. “He’s going to pre-school in the morning, ten to one, and he gets pretty tired out.”

“They do at that age, all the running around they do.”

“So, Jeff, tell me about the car,” Mark requested.

“Well, the body work is in surprisingly good condition, as is the underside. Of course it is a bit hard to tell until you strip the bodywork back to bare metal but my guess is that there is nothing that will require major repairs. That is very unusual, since usually on these old Midgets you’ve got really bad rust problems, but there is hardly any on that one. Where’s it been kept?”

“Down in the south of France,” Mark responded.

“Ah, that would explain a lot. No salt on winter roads down there. It’s the salt that does the damage.

“The engine and running gear is another thing. Could not turn the engine with the crank, so it must be completely seized up. All the hosing is perished and some of the piping joints look corroded. I suspect that the engine wasn’t drained before it was put into storage, so there are likely to be a few problems as a result. They will have to strip the engine right down and then rebuild it.

“The diff has a crack in its casing; looks like it has been hit by something. That will all have to be repaired or replaced.

“The big job is going to be the wiring harness; it looks as if something has been chewing on it. All the wiring will need replacing and I suspect most of the cabling.”

“So it is repairable?” Mark asked.

“Oh, yes, Mr Wainwright, provided they understand what they are doing, and it won’t be a quick job.”

“Don’t think that will be a problem, they’ve got a few years to work on it. Have you got any free time on Saturday?”

“Should be after ten—dropping the missis over at the daughter’s. Why?”

“The boys should be coming up to look at the car. Why don’t you pop round and have a chat with them. You can also tell me more about what’s going on at the works. If you want to bring a couple of the other lads along, do so.” Jeff nodded. He understood what had just been said.

Tim picked Thomas and Connor up from the station on the Friday and drove them to Mark’s. They immediately went to the garage to take a good look at the car.

“Do you know anything about cars?” Mark asked.

“A bit, we used to work on Mum’s car from time to time,” Connor responded. “Dad wouldn’t let us touch his.”

“A wise man,” Tim quipped.

“Dad used to make me help him when he was working on cars,” Thomas commented. A dark look passed over his face. Mark decided it was probably best not to pursue that point.

“Look, I’ve asked a friend of mine, a man named Jeff, to come and give you some advice about it. He’s already had a look at it. He’ll be coming sometime tomorrow after ten.”

Jeff did not arrive sometime after ten, but dead on ten. Mark introduced him to Thomas and Connor then let them go off to the garage to talk about the car. Just before they went through Jeff turned to Mark and said, “I suggested to Barry and Bert that they might pop round, told them I’d be here at eleven-thirty. We should be through in the garage by then.”

“By Barry, I presume you mean Barry Small, toolmaker, but who’s Bert?”

“Bert Klever, Big Albert’s son. He’s in the machine shop, probably started just about the time you started to step back.” Mark nodded, remembering Big Albert, difficult to forget what with being six foot six and massive, too, a shop steward who brooked no nonsense.

“By the way,” Jeff added, “Barry’s running the foundry now.”

“Since when?” Mark queried.

“End of June. Mr Waters said that one foreman could cover both the foundry and the tool shop.” Mark shook his head at this piece of information; it just did not make sense.

Actually, Jeff finished with the boys a bit earlier, just after eleven, and came through to the kitchen where Mark was playing with Ian.

“How’s it gone?” Mark enquired.

“Fine. They know which end of a spanner is which and the basics of car mechanics. As long as they don’t rush it they should be fine. Told them what they need to do first and the order in which they should do the rest. Also gave them my contact details so if they get stuck they can give me a call.”

“Good. So, give me the lowdown on what’s going on at the works.”

“If you don’t mind, Mark, I would prefer to wait till Barry and Bert arrive, as there’s no point in going over the same thing twice and they can give you insights into things that I can’t.”

“OK,” acquiesced Mark, “how about some tea? This terror is just about to be taken out by his dads.”

“His dads?”

“Yes, my grandson Tim and his husband Krit adopted Ian last year, or at least Krit adopted him in Thailand. Krit’s Thai. Tim adopted Ian earlier this year as Krit’s partner.”

“So your grandson is gay. How about that pair in the garage, they’re a couple as well?”

“Yes, Thomas and Connor have been together since they were fourteen. They’re both studying at the same university.”

“I wish my Peter could find somebody,” Jeff murmured, almost to himself. Mark recalled Peter, Jeff’s youngest son. He was sure he had been invited to Peter’s wedding.

“I thought your Peter was married?”

“He was; bloody expensive fiasco that was. Don’t think it lasted six months before she went home to her mother. Can’t blame the lass, because Peter fucking used her. He came out and admitted he was gay, thought if he got married he could make himself straight. Didn’t work and messed the girl’s life up as well.

“Peter spends his time now going to clubs and picking blokes up for one night stands. I worry myself sick over him at times, he’s already had a couple of STDs and I’m scared he will cop something serious one of these days.”

Just then, Krit came into the kitchen and called Ian to him in Thai. Krit and Tim had established that during the week and when they were outside the house they would speak English to the boy but at weekends they would use Thai, as they did not want him to forget his native language.

“We’re just off, Granddad,” Krit said. “Should be back about four.”

“Tell Tim I expect him to take some photos this time,” Mark responded.

“I will.” With that Krit picked up Ian and left the room. Jeff looked at Mark.

“They’re looking at buying a property up on the moors, somewhere they can go at weekends and have space for Ian to run around. They were going to get a place in the city but I told them not to bother, they may as well live here,” Mark explained.

Barry and Bert arrived just gone eleven-thirty. Mark guided them through to the lounge and organised coffee for them, then got to the point. “From a couple of things that Jeff has said I gather things are not going well at the works. This surprised me as the figures have been looking good and profits are up.”

“Yes, but at what cost?” Barry asked. “Profits and turnover may be up, but that is only good if it is sustainable. The way the management are is running the place now that’s not the case. There has been no new machinery for at least the last three years and no new technology adopted.” He stopped, a bit embarrassed at what he had said, and Mark indicated he should carry on. “The thing is, the current management have no real understanding of the company or how it works. They’re never down on the shop floor, all they are interested in is the bottom line and the profit they can make. Anything they can sell off they are selling off. They’ve already sold off Electrical Systems and the word is that Advanced Materials is about to go.” That surprised Mark. He noticed that Jeff wanted to say something.

“Yes, Jeff?”

“The thing is, Mr Wainwright, when you were running the company, it was your company. You owned it and you had an interest in the long term well-being of the company. I don’t think any of the present management have a long term interest in the company. That’s not good for us workers.”

“Carry on,” Mark instructed.

“Look, we have an interest in the company; it’s our livelihood. A lot of us learnt our trade in the company and we’re bloody good at what we do. Nowadays, though, there are very few companies that need our level of skill, at least in the UK. If the company goes under, our jobs go, and that means our livelihood has gone. It is unlikely that any company round here would need the level of skill most of us have, so we will have to take jobs way below our current level or move away, probably overseas.”

“There has just been no new investment since you left,” injected Bert. “Once the investments you had set in place had been implemented, that was that. They are just running the company so they can get the most out of it, without putting anything in. At the moment we are just getting away with it, but in a year or two our current machinery is going to be so far out of date that we will not be able to compete on price or match the quality requirements.”

“Is that right, Jeff?”

“Yes, the old man started the company on the basis of providing high quality precision engineering. You took it over and ran it on the same lines. We machine prototype components and special one-off or low-volume parts. In automotive engineering we make stuff for F1 and high performance sports cars. Bert is making prototype components for the next generation of jet engines or parts for rockets. Barry in the foundry is casting things that are going into satellites and space exploration vehicles. Nothing we do is standard: everything we do is cutting edge. That means we need to keep at the cutting edge of tools and equipment and training to produce what we make.

“All right, we have CNC milling machines that can mill to within one ten thou., but the newest can do it to one hundredth thou., and that is what people are asking for now. I know we have lost a couple of orders, what should have been really lucrative orders, in my department in the last nine months because we could not meet the specs required. I also know we are getting a higher percentage of stuff returned for not meeting requirements than we used to.

“The current management have no commitment to the long term future of the company. They get their pay but most of their money comes in bonus payments, and that is based around profit and turnover. The bonus system gives them more when they bring in more, so the higher the turnover the more they get. So long as they can continue to increase both, they make more money. Sooner or later, and it’s already begun, we’re going to be losing business. Why should an F1 team pay thousands for us to do a lost wax cast of a one-off component and then spend weeks finishing it by hand when they can get it 3D printed for half the price and in a tenth of the time?

“Mr Wainwright, unless something is done pretty fast, the company will be dead within three years.” Jeff finished, pick up his coffee cup and drained the remains of the now-cold coffee.

“I can see where you are all coming from,” Mark commented. “I need to do a bit of digging. Is Marsha still in accounts?”

“Yes,” Barry replied, “but not for much longer. She’s sixty-five at the end of October, and they are saying she has to retire.”

“Right, give me a few days and I’ll get back to you. I presume I can contact you through Jeff?” Both Barry and Bert confirmed this was so.

Thomas and Connor came through from the garage, somewhat dirtier than they had been earlier, just as the three men were getting ready to leave. Connor thanked Jeff again for his help and said that they would be coming up in a couple of weeks and would start on the restoration then. For the time being they needed to sort out the tools and equipment that they would need. As the three men left, Mark sat down, slumped in the chair. Thomas turned and noticed him.

“Uncle Mark, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve made a mistake?”

“Want to tell us about it?” Connor queried, going to sit in one of the chair opposite Mark.

“Stop!” Connor froze, as Mark continued. “If you sit down in those clothes, you’ll get grime all over the furniture, and then Mrs Wright will kill you. That is not something I want to face right now. Go off and get cleaned up and changed, and then we can talk.” The boys went off and came back some fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed in clean clothes.

“Will we do?” Thomas asked.

“You’ll pass muster,” Mark replied, smiling at the boy’s cheekiness. Then he quickly sobered. “Now sit down and listen, and don’t interrupt till I’ve finished what I have to say.” He then gave them a condensed version of what the men had told him, coupled with his own understanding of the situation.

“So what’s the problem?” Connor asked. “You don’t run the company now.”

“No, but I still own it or at least most of it and I put the management in place.”

“It’s about responsibility, isn’t it?” Thomas commented. “If you take an action, you are responsible for the consequences of that action whether or not you intended them or even if you couldn’t tell whether they were foreseeable or not.”

“I think you might have been spending a bit too much time talking to Krit,” Mark responded. “That sounds a lot like his philosophy, but essentially you are right.

“When my wife was taken ill I stepped back from running the company, and eventually I sold part of it to fund my retirement. I got twenty million pounds for fifteen percent of the company, but I still own sixty-five percent and each of my children own five percent. Some of the current directors bought some of the shares I sold but none holds more than two percent and most have a holding of less than one percent, if any. Barry was right when he told me they had no long term interest in the company. They don’t.”

“But what can you do, Uncle Mark? You can’t go back to running the company,” Thomas commented.

“Of course I can’t but I can make sure somebody with more interest in its long term future is running it.”

Chapter 12

“I think your father suspects something,” Dale Waters stated.

“What,” asked Jonathan, “is there for him to suspect? You are making some adjustments to the running of the business; that is just prudence given the current commercial environment. Anyway, the old boy’s senile. He’s spending a fortune on good for nothings and layabouts like my son. He’s got no interest in the works.”

“Then why,” queried Dale, “has he been in to the works three times in the last week?”

“He’s what?”

“He’s been into the works at least three times in the last week. He was there on Monday when I arrived. Only knew he was there because that car of his was in the car park. Had to get one of the office boys to go down and look for him. Turned out he was in the pattern shop chatting to a couple of the pattern makers.”

“That sounds like Dad, living in the past. Probably thinks he still runs the place.”

“That’s the thing, he never comes and talks to us, at least not often. The last time he really talked to us other than asking the odd question was over a year ago,” Dale commented, looking out of the café windows to the M1 beyond. They had agreed to meet at the Leicester Forest East service area. Both had thought it was best not to be seen together in Sheffield but Dale had to be back for his son’s football match in the afternoon, so an hour’s drive was the maximum for him.

“Look, Dale, it’s not going to matter in just a couple more weeks. We’ve exchanged contracts on the last parcel of land and we complete in twenty-three days. Once we’ve completed we can go ahead with the takeover. Everything will be in place.”

“What if your father refuses to sell his holding?”

“He won’t be able to. Bettridge’s is bust, you’ve made sure of that. Dad’s personally guaranteed the overdraft. Even he can’t come up with five-million overnight,” Jonathan stated. “He will have to sell, actually he will come out of it in pocket given what Taiosheti are paying. He will make a tidy packet and Taiosheti will sell us the site for a song.” Dale looked at him doubtfully. “Well, it’s no use to them, is it?” Jonathan asked rhetorically.

It took Mark a few days to get all the information he needed so he could decide what action to take. A phone call to Marsha had resulted in the delivery of a USB memory stick with all the current Sage backups and the last five years’ accounts. A firm of accountants, who Mark had used for years, but who were no longer auditors to the company, sent one of their bright young women over to Mark’s to spend an afternoon with him looking at the information.

“Well?” Mark asked, after she had spent the better part of two hours putting figures into a spreadsheet.

“The company is as good as bust!” was her response.

“Can you explain that, Miss Godwyn?”

“Call me Ruth, please, Mr Wainwright, otherwise we are going to get very stuck on formality.”

“OK, but you must call me Mark.”

“I will, though my boss with probably kill me but at least he won’t sack me.”

“Why’s that, Ruth?”

“Because he knows I am the best forensic accountant he’s got, and I’m his daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“You wondering about my surname. My parents never married. They had a relationship that broke up even before mummy knew I was on the way. Daddy has been good about it, though. He’s accepted his responsibilities and always been there for me as a father when I have wanted one. In some ways I think I have probably been better off than a lot of my friends whose fathers were married to their mothers. I’d often get the feeling that their parents wished they had not had the children. I never had that problem.

“But enough of me, let’s get to your problem. Essentially, the company is being skimmed, it has been for at least the last three years, possibly for as much as five years. You are right in saying that turnover and profits are up but both have been obtained by some questionable accounting practices.”

“Like what?” Mark asked.

“For a start, quite a bit of land has been sold off. Those sales should have been shown as capital disposals and the funds from them put into the reserves. Instead, they have been put through as trading activities and the funds put into the normal trading accounts. In fact, all the increase in turnover plus a bit more for the last three years has come from disposal of capital assets of one type or another. How they managed to get this past the accountants I don’t know.

“Then, the stock values do not make sense. I see orders completed which will have depleted stock and no sign of replacement orders but the stock levels have been maintained. I suspect they have just carried forward stock figures rather than doing a stock check. My opinion is that the stock figures shown in the company are overvalued, probably by quite an amount.

“Finally, though this is a management rather than an accounting issue, there has been a massive cut back in re-investment and R&D, and, as a result, the level of development costs and depreciation being charged through has dropped, so profits have gone up. Whilst increasing current profits it weakens the long term viability of the business.”

“So the company is in a mess?”

“No, Mark, I would say it has gone a bit further than that—it is completely fucked up thanks to the directors.”

“I’ll sack the fucking lot of them!” Mark exclaimed and then apologised to Ruth for his language.

“No need, Mark. I can think of some stronger language I would be quite happy to use about them. Sacking them, though, may not be a good idea,” Ruth replied.

“Why not? Surely what they have done is illegal?”

“As to the legal status of their actions, that is questionable. I am not sure you could actually show fraud Mark, which would give you grounds for dismissal. Negligence, yes, and breach of accounting rules, yes, but fraud. Probably not. You see all the funds were reported, just not put in the right place.

“If that had resulted in an underpaying of tax, maybe Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Revenue and Customs might have been interested. However, what they did probably resulted in an overpayment of taxes, as some allowances were not claimed.

“Also, even though you are the Chairman, you do not have the right to sack them, only to remove them from executive positions.” Mark looked at here questioningly.

“The company was established over a hundred years ago and its Articles of Association were last updated in the 1970s. I think that is when you became a director. It has old-style articles. As such, directors can only be removed from office by a General Meeting of the company.

“In addition,” she continued, opening a folder of papers, “all the current directors have very strong contracts that give them substantial rights to compensation if they are fired. You would be looking at the equivalent of five years’ salary and bonuses.”

“Who the hell set that up?” Mark asked.

“You did. At least you signed off on it, at the Annual General Meeting a couple of years ago.”

Mark looked at Ruth with a look of incredulity upon his face.

“It is no use looking like that,” she continued. “I admit it is in the small print of the director’s salary review motion, but it is there and I have no doubt they have included it in their contracts. I suppose they got you, as chairman, to sign new contracts for them a couple of years ago?”

“They did, said they had to comply with employment law changes. How did you know?”

“That Marsha of yours is very efficient. She sent over not only the backups of the accounts but also all the board and company meeting minutes and documents.”

“So I’m stuck with them as directors and all I can do is sit here and watch them run my business into the ground?”

“Yes, you are stuck with them as directors, but as to letting them run your business into the ground; that is another matter.” Mark looked at Ruth blankly wondering what she was on about. “Look, Mark, the compensation issue only triggers if they are sacked as directors, now…”

For the next twenty minutes Ruth explained the difference between being a director and an executive director and the powers that were vested into the position of Chairman of Betteridge’s.

“Right, could I retain your services for the next few weeks? I might need you for a month at least, maybe a bit longer.” Mark stated.

“I’m not sure that you will actually need me for all that time but I am sure my firm can supply the staff you need. When will you need them from?”

“Next Monday, say here at about seven a.m.”

“They’ll be here, Mark. I think you might need me initially and a couple of good auditors. Will that suffice, do you think?”

“Probably, as we will have Marsha.”

The following day, James, Mark’s solicitor, sat with Mark at the kitchen table as Mark told him what he wanted done.

“You know, Mark, this is highly irregular. If you want to get rid of the board you should request a call of an Extraordinary General Meeting and vote them out there and then.”

“Yes, James, but that would take at least three weeks, and if we had to force an EGM it would take longer, almost two months. Can you imagine what would happen to the business in two months, with that lot running it as they are now?

“I know this this is nasty and somewhat underhand but it is quick and effective. My father-in-law had that clause put into the articles for a reason, and I now know what that reason was. I’m just glad he did not have to use it whilst I was running the company.”

James looked down and re-read the article in questions. “Any shareholder holding in excess of 50% of the shares may, at his discretion, appoint to the board directors to represent his interests. Such appointments shall be made as and when required without any notice of intent to make such appointments, the appointment to be held for such term as the shareholder may think appropriate.”

“You agree that the term is plural, I can appoint more than one director?”

“Yes, Mark.”

“And you agree that I do not have to give notice?”

“Yes, Mark.”

“Right, just get a notification of appointment of directors under that clause typed up, and leave the names blank. I’ll fill them in Monday morning.” James knew better than argue with this client. He nodded and collected up the appropriate papers.

Mark’s next meeting, though, was not a straightforward one. For a start he had to get Tim to drive him over to Derby on Friday morning to the premises of his company’s main competitor, Mattashion’s Precision Engineering. Paul was waiting for him by reception when they arrived.

“Hi, Uncle Mark,” he greeted the old man, and then looked at Tim. “You must be Tim; I think you were twelve last time I saw you.”

“Correct. I think your sister was trying to put an ice-cream down the back of my neck.”

“Probably, knowing my sister. Look, I have reserved a meeting room on the ground floor. Thought it might be easier for you, Uncle Mark, than going up to my office — no lifts in here yet.”

“Fine, though I could have made the office. I might be 75 but my legs are still working.”

“OK, Uncle Mark,” Paul responded, leading the way into the meeting room, “what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Mark seated himself at the meeting table, indicating to Tim that he should also take a seat. “Paul, I want to ask you to come back to Bettridge’s. I need somebody who is family in there.”

“Uncle Mark, two things: first, I’m not really family, am I, and Dale Waters and his cronies on the board made it quite clear they did not want me there. Basically, I was told to get out or be thrown out.”

“You should have told me.” Mark reproached him.

“You were out of it by that time. Anyway, Johnny was up representing the family, and he made it clear that the family position was that I was not part of the family and had no place in the company.”

“Johnny was up?”

“Yes, he was coming up every three months or so after you left. He never attended board meetings but would meet with Dale and discuss the future of the company and how they were going break it up for the sell off.” Mark issued a series of expletives and sunk back in his chair.

“You OK, Granddad?” Tim asked.

There was a pause before Mark replied. “Yes, Tim, I’m OK. I’m just a bit upset, but a few things are starting to make sense now.”

“Like what?” Tim enquired.

“After your grandmother died your father got onto me about making an enduring power of attorney in case I was taken ill. There had been problems with some of your grandmother’s things because I had not been able to act for her. I did put an enduring power of attorney in place, but appointed Joan to act, which really upset your father. I can understand why now.”

Mark turned back to Paul. “Look Paul, as for not being part of the family, you are as much a part of the family as any of my other nieces or nephews, and anyway, my sister adopted you so legally you are part of my family. You are the only member of the family who took any interest in the family business. Not even your sister, who is a blood relative, wanted to be involved. The business is in a mess, and I have only just found out what is going on, and unless something is done fairly quickly to turn things around, there will be no company. I need somebody in there who understands the company and what it means. I can’t do it. I’m too old, and also I have a great-grandson who takes up most of my time, so will you come back?”

“Uncle Mark, I would like to help, but things are not that simple. Look, I need to get George in, because there are some things I have to say which I can’t without his permission.” Paul got up and walked over to the side table, picked up the phone, and asked whoever answered to ask Mr Mattashion to come down to the ground floor meeting room.

A few minutes later George Mattashion came into the meeting room. His appearance shocked Mark. He knew George was a good eight years younger than himself, but he looked a lot older. Mark stood and offered his hand.

“George, it’s been a long time,” Mark commented.

“Yes, Mark, last time we met was at your wife’s funeral. I presume you’re here to coax your nephew back.”

“That obvious, is it?”

“I know there are problems at Bettridge’s. Businesses like ours do not train up apprentices to let them go. In the last six months we have picked up four lads who had completed training with your company but for whom you had no jobs.” Mark was furious; an apprentice represented three or four years of training and a lot of money; they were the future of a company like Mark’s. It was the specialist knowledge, the hints and tips, passed down from workman to workman, that were not found in any books that gave firms like Mark’s an advantage.

“Look, Mark,” George continued, “you know I have no family.” Mark nodded. George’s wife and son his only child had died in a car crash many years ago. “I saw what was happening at Bettridge’s after you stepped down and damned well did not want the same to happen here. As you know, I made Paul a director here when he joined us.” Again Mark nodded, he had thought that was one of the reasons Paul had left Bettridge’s, not knowing about what was going on. “What is not well known is I also gave him ten percent of the company. I have also agreed to a share transfer scheme with him by which he can buy my shares over time. In the last three years he has been with us he has acquired just over five percent of the company, which now gives him a fifteen percent holding.”

Mark began to speak but George held up his hand.

“I’ve got cancer, Mark,” George continued. “It’s in remission at the moment but it will come back. If I am lucky I may have three to five years left, probably a lot less. At the end of this year I am retiring, and Paul will be named Managing Director. He will also get another block of shares, giving him twenty-five percent. I’ve arranged things so that when I die he’ll be able to acquire sufficient shares from my estate, if he has not purchased them already, to give him control of the company. So I do not want to lose Paul and I don’t think he would want to go.”

Mark could only agree. It was clear that George had seen what had happened with Mark’s company and was not about to let it happen to his own. Unfortunately, that meant he had a good use for the one person that Mark really needed, and Mark sensed he was not about to let Paul go and also that Paul would not want to go. “Well, I suppose that it is then, I think we can take it as read, Paul, that you won’t be coming over to Bettridge’s.”

“Sorry, Uncle, if you had asked a couple of years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would probably have jumped at the chance, but now – well I have just started this place going where I want it to go.”

“So, I will have to look for another solution.”

“How about a merger?” Tim suggested.

George looked at him questioningly. “A merger?”

“Look, I don’t know much about the business, either of them,” Tim explained, “but from what I have picked up over the years you are both specialists in very high-precision, low-volume engineering. Other than each other you have no real competition in the UK. Most of your competition is from overseas, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Paul responded. “Actually, as far as the UK work is concerned, we are not that much in competition. Our mechanical engineering people are mostly working on aerospace engines, while Bettridge’s people are mostly working in automotive engines. Yes, there is some overlap but not much. Even in the precision casting departments we tend to specialise in different ranges of alloys. In the past we actually have partnered on a few projects but that all ceased when Uncle Mark retired.”

“So a merger could make sense?” Tim asked.

“Actually, I think it could make a lot of sense,” George commented. “In fact, it could work out quite well all round. What do you think, Mark?”

The four of them spent the next couple of hours discussing the option. George then suggested they go out for lunch. It was gone two before they returned to yet another session of discussions. Mark was surprised by the number of suggestions Tim made and how useful they were.

“You know, Tim,” Mark said, as they were starting to wind things up, “for an academic you have a remarkably good business brain.”

“Not really,” Tim replied, “I just look at things and apply the analytical techniques we use to understand problems in English, then see what comes out.”

“Well, Tim,” George commented, “I agree with your grandfather. I don’t care how you are doing it but the insights you have come up with have been very useful. As your grandfather has not asked you, though I would not be surprised if he was thinking of it, I’ll ask. Will you join the board?”

“I can’t. I’ve got my studies.”

“Look,” said Mark, “I would not expect you to give up your studies, but your insight could be very useful. Become a non-executive director. That should not get in the way of your PhD work and you will provide a useful view on things for Paul.”

Tim agreed, more to keep his grandfather happy, but also because in some ways the idea of being involved with Bettridge’s appealed to him. His father had always slated the old firm saying that Granddad would make a lot more if he sold off the assets and invested in property. Maybe, Tim thought, he could help prove Daddy wrong.

Over the next thirty minutes the four men round the table finalised a letter of intent for the merger of the two companies. Until such merger could be completed, George Mattashion agreed to release Paul from his duties at Mattashion’s for up to four weeks so he could sort out Bettridge’s. After that it was agreed that Paul would split his time between the two companies until the merger was completed and a new management structure put in place.

Tim called his supervisor during the break whilst the letter of intent was being typed up for signing and apologised for missing his tutorial that afternoon. He also advised his supervisor that he would not be in on Monday and might be out for a lot of the next week. When asked if there was a problem, Tim replied that a family issue had come up that was going to take some sorting out.

So it was that Tim was in the group of people who gathered in the car park of Bettridge’s Engineering and Electrical at seven-fifteen on the Monday morning. Mark led the way to the oak double doors of the office block and unlocked them using a key he still had. Once the party was inside they moved past the reception desk to the glass doors at the end of the hallway. Mark typed his access code into the keypad by the door, the red light on the panel flashed showing the code had not been accepted.

“Mr Waters had all the codes changed years ago and since then has changed them every three months. Said too many people knew them,” Barry informed Mark. Mark smiled and entered another code, the light flashed green and there was a click as the door unlocked. Mark pushed it open and led the party through to another hallway before turning left into the stair well, and then steered the group up to the first floor. At the front of the office block, overlooking the gardened area between the two car parks, was the board room. Mark shepherded his party towards it. Once again a keypad entry was required to gain admission, and Mark tapped in the code. The green light flashed and there was a click as the door unlocked. Pushing the door open he entered, indicating to the others that they should take a seat at the table. Mark took the one at the top of the table under the full sized portrait of his father-in-law, Graham Bettridge. From the wall at the far end of the table his own portrait looked back at him.

Barry looked at Mark. “Mr Wainwright, how did you know the codes for the keypads? Mr Walters started changing them shortly after you left, and I know he has them changed every three months.”

“Yes, Barry, I suppose he has, but unfortunately for him he can only change the user codes in the database, and there is also a set of hard-coded overrides which are burned into the ROM. I burned them in myself.” Barry nodded.

Through the open doors of the board room Mark could hear the whine of the lift in operation, and then the sound of the doors opening. There was the sound of footsteps down the corridor and of door handles being tested, and then a large black man in the uniform of a security guard appeared in the door of the board room.

“Who the hell are you lot? And who are you?” he asked, looking at Mark who was seated in the chair he knew was reserved for Mr Walters.

“I’m him,” Mark replied, pointing to the portrait of himself on the far wall.

“And who is he?” the guard asked.

“The owner,” the others seated around the table responded in unison.

The guard pressed the call button on the radio strapped across his chest. It beeped once. “Stan, it’s not a false alarm. I think you better get up here to the board room. There’s a bunch of guys here and one of them says he’s the owner.” The guard looked around the room again. “I don’t know who you lot are or what you’re doing here but my boss is on his way so just stay where you are.”

They heard the sound of the lift operating again, doors opening and closing, then the lift again. Shortly after, a tall, ramrod-straight figure appeared in the doorway next to the black man.

“Sergeant, so you’re still with us.” Mark stated.

“Mr Wainwright, sir. Yes, but not for long,” the man stated. “It’s all right, Ty, Mr Wainwright is the owner. You can go back to your patrol.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“If you don’t mind, I think it would be best if Ty stayed. It will save instructions having to be repeated.”

“As you please, sir. Stay where you are, Ty.”

“Right, Sergeant,” Mark stated, “When Mr Waters, Mr Clements, and Mr Dunlain arrive in the next three quarters of an hour or so, I would like you and Ty to meet them, probably with a couple more of your boys, and bring them directly to the board room. On no account are they to go anywhere else. Is that understood?”

“Of course, sir, though I doubt if any of them will be in before ten-thirty or eleven; they never are,” Sargent replied.

“Oh, they will be today,” Mark informed him. “They will definitely be here by nine.” Mark looked at his watch which read seven-thirty, knowing that at this moment three door bells were ringing and three notices were being handed over. He wondered which of the three board members would arrive first.

It was quarter to nine when the three men arrived. Dale Waters had spoken to them, and they had all agreed to arrive en bloc. “You can’t do this,” Dale stated as he stepped into the board room waving the piece of paper that had been served on him just over an hour before.

“Oh, I assure you that I can. As of seven this morning I appointed six new members to the board. You know Paul of course and Marsha, and you should know Jeff, Barry, and Bert, or at least you would if you had ever bothered to spend time down on the shop floor. You will not know my grandson, Tim, but I can assure you he will be taking a keen family interest in the company.”

“I suppose you expect us to resign?” Dale stated, “I can assure you we won’t. You’ll have to fire us and that will cost you a fortune.”

“No,” responded Mark, “I have no objections to you staying in office, but you will not have executive roles from now on. Oh, almost forgot, this is a copy of a notice I sent to the company’s bank on Friday advising them that I am giving twenty-eight days’ notice of the termination of my guarantee for the overdraft. I would remind you that as you are secondary guarantors of the overdraft as directors, the guarantee will now fall on you. Remember you can’t revoke your guarantees whilst you are directors.”

There was a somewhat feeble ongoing argument but by ten of the clock Mark had accepted the signed resignations of all three board members. He then allowed them, under the supervision of Marsha and the sergeant, to remove their personal effects from their offices.

Mark was quite satisfied with the way things had worked out. Once the three directors had resigned, he made a transfer in the form of a loan to the business that was sufficient to clear the overdraft and provide enough working capital to keep the business solvent till the merger was completed.

It was on the way back to Craigh House that Tim asked the question which had been on his mind since the events in the boardroom that morning. “Dad, how could you be so sure that they would resign?”

“Oh, they had no choice. A guarantor can revoke their guarantee at any time, subject to the notice terms of the contract. However, a director’s guarantee can only be revoked once the guarantor has ceased to be a director. If they had not resigned I would have put the company into administration after 28 days when my guarantee had expired. I could then have bought it back off the administrator and left them paying off the overdraft and loans.”

Chapter 13

The one thing that did catch Mark by surprise was the appearance of Johnny at the house that evening.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing, Dad?” he asked.

“I’m playing with my great-grandson,” Mark responded, “and please temper your language around the boy.” Just then Krit, having heard the shouting, came in and picked up Ian, taking him up to get ready for bed.

“Your great-grandson. Is that the wog brat that my son is supposed to have adopted?”

“Johnny, there is no supposed about it. Your son did adopt Ian, so he is my great-grandson.”

“Well if either of that pair think they have a claim on me they can forget it.”

“Do you mean you’re disowning your son and grandson?” Mark asked.

“He’s a bloody pervert and that thing,” he nodded in the direction that Krit had carried off Ian, “is a half-caste wog.

“Anyway enough about that, what’s this about you firing Dale and his fellow directors and putting new people in at Bettridge’s?”

“You’ve got it all wrong I did not fire them, they resigned,” Mark stated.

“Only because they had no bloody choice. Why, everything was going perfectly. Taiosheti had already expressed interest in buying, and we could have closed the factory within a year and redeveloped the land.”

Mark noted the name of one of their major overseas rivals.

“Look, Dad,” Johnny continued, “I’m sure you can still do a deal with Taiosheti. Just get Dale back; he’s got it all worked out.”

“There is no need. We are merging with Mattashion’s. Their automotive engineering division will be moved here and we will move out the aero engineering work to them. Of course, we will have to expand the works a bit, but it is doable.”

“You mean to keep the works going?”

“Of course. We owe it to the workers.”

“Fuck the workers. You’ll ruin me; I’ve invested loads in buying land around the site.”

“Why?”

“So I could make some money when the works closed.”

Johnny stormed out, leaving Mark puzzled. Through the window he saw his son get into his car and drive off. Mark slumped in his seat, muttering to himself, “I don’t understand it, I simply don’t understand it.” The idea that you would sacrifice people’s livelihoods just to make money was to Mark totally incomprehensible.

“I can understand.” Mark looked up and saw Tim standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Sorry, Granddad, but I could not help listening.”

“The way Johnny was shouting I think the neighbours could not help listening, but what can you understand?”

“Ruth said Mummy was worried because dad had been borrowing heavily to speculate on some land deal. He keeps saying he is going to make a killing once the works are out of the way.”

“But how, Tim?” Mark questioned. “All right I suppose they could redevelop the site for housing. But that would need a massive investment: there’s a couple of hundred years of industrial pollution which would have to be cleared up. I can’t see how the gain from it would be more than the value of the business if you keep it running.”

Tim walked over and sat down next to his grandfather’s chair. “That may be the case, Granddad, but what about that wasteland between the works and the motorway? There’s quite a lot of it.”

“Yes, that’s old agricultural land that was cut off by the motorway. There was supposed to be an underpass to connect it to the old road, but the funding was not there so they scrapped it. A couple of people have looked at redeveloping it but there is no viable access. The motorway runs along one side and our works is on the other and the cut is along the bottom. There is only that narrow track-way along the back of the mill yard that gives access and there is no way to improve that.”

“Yes, but if the works weren’t there?”

“Christ, the site would be worth a fortune. I wonder who owns it?” Mark asked.

“I think I could guess?” responded Tim.

The following morning Mark phoned his solicitors and spoke with James, instructing him to find out who were the beneficial owners of the land behind the works. It took James a few days but he came back with the information that there were four companies who had been buying up plots of the land as they came up for sale. One was owned outright by Johnny and the other three were different combinations of Johnny and the three ex-directors of Bettridge’s. James also came up with the information that Johnny was in debt to the sum of some one and half million, most of which, it appeared, had been used to buy the land in question.

News of the coup at Bettridge’s quickly got to the press and questions started. Mark spoke to Paul and then to George, and they decided to make an announcement of the proposed merger. Mark was interested to note that the day after the announcement the share price of Taiosheti dropped.

He was, though, somewhat annoyed when he received a telephone call from the UK representative of Taiosheti asking him what was going on.

“Look,” the chap said, “we had an understanding that you would sell us the business.”

“I don’t know who you had the understanding with but it was certainly not me,” Mark stated, “and I own the company.”

“Your son assured us that there would be no problems. If we had not had that assurance, given in your name, we would not have provided the financing he sought for land purchases.”

“My son certainly had no grounds to give you those assurances and certainly not in my name. He has at no time had any involvement with Bettridge’s and will not have at any time in the future.”

“Are you repudiating your son?”

“Well, he has repudiated his son and grandson, so I see no reason why not,” Mark responded.

“But we provided funds based on those assurances.”

“If you have based financial transactions on assurances given to you by my son, I suggest you take that matter up with the police.” With that Mark put down the phone. He was fairly certain they would not go to the police because the loss of face for them would be too much.

A few days later Ruth phoned her brother; she and Tim were on the landline for over an hour and when Tim came through to the lounge he was looking worried.

“Bad news?” Mark asked.

“Ruth’s been over visiting Mummy, and it looks as if things are in a fairly bad way. Dad’s told Mummy that they may have to sell the Highgate house and maybe the farm as well. Of course, that has upset Ruth,” Tim reported. Mark could understand Ruth being upset. She and her husband had taken a small hobby farm Johnny had purchased years ago on a whim and turned it into a highly successful stud farm.

“Oh,” Tim continued, “I’ve had an email from Paul. He asks if we could go into the office tomorrow as he wants to go over a couple of things. He’s got a meeting with George on Monday and wants our, or to be precise, your OK before he raises things with George.”

“But tomorrow is Saturday,” Mark stated.

“Yes, and I think Paul will be working on Sunday as well.”

“OK, tell him we’ll be there at eleven. I promised Ian we could go and get him a football in the morning, so I will have to do that first.”

As he had half expected, Mark found himself being woken by an excited three-and-a-half-year-old shouting, “Bpòo, football”. He rolled over and looked at his clock and noted it was only ten past six. Patting the bed beside him indicating that Ian could climb up onto the bed, Mark pointed to the clock. “Too early, wake up seven-thirty, still over one hour. Pattanapong sleep.”

The boy knew he was in trouble, bpòo only used his Thai name when he was in trouble. He looked at his bpòo and said, “OK”, then curled up to go to sleep. Mark would have preferred him to go back to his own bed to sleep but accepted this was probably the best he could get, so pulled a cover over the boy and turned on his side to try and get some more sleep.

Later, Krit drove Mark and Ian into town so Mark could buy the football and then dropped Mark off by the works before taking Ian to the park to try out his new football.

Tim was already chatting to Paul when Mark entered the board room. He looked up. “Did you get the football?”

“Yes. Krit’s taken him to the park to try it out,” Mark responded.

“I knew there was some good reason for coming into work today,” Tim quipped.

“So, Paul, what is it you want to discuss with us?”

“There are a few things I need to run them past you before I raise them with George. There is also one item which just involves you.”

“Let’s get that out of the way, then.”

“Dale and his mates had issued redundancy notices to The Sergeant and all his security boys. They are supposed to finish on the 31st of December, to be replaced by roving patrols from G4S.”

“I hope you have cancelled the redundancy notices?”

“Yes, Mark, I have, but the question now is what do we do about G4S. We have a contract with them with heavy penalty clauses.”

“Let me have details, but we will probably have to pay them. There is no way we can use G4S roving patrols for security here,” Mark instructed Paul.

“I know you’ve made the decision but can you tell me why we can’t use G4S?” Tim asked.

“From time to time we do highly classified work for people like QunetiQ. Some of the contracts, mostly Ministry of Defence ones, state that we must maintain adequate twenty-four-hour onsite security with an armed response capability if required,” Mark informed him.

“Do you mean our security chaps could be armed on occasions?”

“Oh yes, Tim,” Paul replied. “All of them are weapon trained and are mostly ex-marines with a couple from the RAF Regiment. The Sergeant has quite a nice arsenal down in the basement.”

“I must ask for a tour one day,” Tim stated.

“No way! The only people allowed in there are Home Office authorised parties. Even the directors are not allowed in. I don’t even know what they’ve got down there, though the Sergeant did assure me that in a push they could hold off anything less than a tank for long enough for the nasty boys to get here.” Tim decided he probably did not want to know the answer to any further questions, especially as to who the nasty boys were.

They discussed a number of issues and approved the ideas that Paul was going to put to George, mostly about what department should move where on the merger and what facilities would be needed for the departments that would move from Derby to Sheffield. Also, with the help of a site plan, they worked out the reorganization of the departments that would still be in Sheffield or would move there and how to locate them on the site.

“The big problem,” Paul stated, “is Special Finishes. It makes sense for that to come over with Automotive Engineering but we do not even have a paint shop let alone the facilities that SF needs. It looks as if we are going to have to build a new facility for it, but where?”

“Logically it should be next to AE, as I suspect most of its work will come through that department,” Mark commented.

“Mostly, though, there will be a bit from AeroSpace in Derby. Unfortunately, if we put it next to AE, we will have to build here, and we are already short of parking space,” Paul responded.

“Couldn’t we use this area for parking,” Tim pointed to an area of open space on the site plan between the foundry and the boundary wall on the motorway side of the site. “It looks bigger than the two car parks.”

“It is, but the problem is there is no access,” Paul responded. The three men looked at the plan for a couple of minutes.

“You know,” Mark stated, “if we demolished the Shot House and built an access road there, we could move the car parks, and then we would have space at the front to expand the offices, Design and Development and for Special Finishes.”

“What’s the Shot House?” Tim asked. George pointed to a long narrow building along the bottom of the site.

“That’s the Shot House; it used to be used for proving guns when this place was a gunsmiths’. Now it it is used for Bertha,” George informed him.

“Who is Bertha?”

“Bertha,” Paul supplied, “is a twenty-metre long high velocity gas gun. It is used to fire projectiles at targets to do impact assessments. The thing is, we do not do very much of that now and haven’t for years. There is a much better set up with more modern equipment at Mattashion, so it really makes sense to move all impact assessment work over to Derby.”

“So,” Mark stated, “we demolish the Shot House and move the car park. Then we can build at the front over the existing car parks. We will need to keep a small space out front for visitor parking. I think you might want to go over the plans again, Paul. With this option there might be some better solutions you can come up with.” Paul nodded and started to fold up the site plan.

Later that evening, Tim, Krit, and Mark were sitting in the lounge half-heartedly watching some programme on the television when a thought struck Tim.

“Granddad, about demolishing the Shot House.”

“Yes, Tim?” Mark replied.

“Well, you could put a pretty wide road in there and if we extended it a few metres past where the new car park would end, it would give access to that wasteland.”

“Yes, Tim, it would. The construction of a road along the bottom of the site could make a big difference to that parcel of land.” Mark observed.

“So Dad may not be in as much trouble as he thinks he is.”

“That, Tim, depends on when he finds out, and I hope you will not tell him about the plan for the access road and how long it will take for us to be in a position to build it,” Mark responded.

“Christ, Granddad, there is no way I’m going to speak with Dad. I haven’t spoken to him since he called me a wog-loving queer and told me to get out and not come back.”

Mark let the idea of extending the access road rattle around in his brain for a few days, then phoned James and the young lady from his accountants and asked for a meeting.

The Friday after the meeting with Paul, Mark was in the kitchen preparing Ian’s tea when Tim came in through the back door. Mark was surprised by Tim’s appearance. He was wearing a pair of workmen’s overalls, heavy safety boots, all covered in what appeared to be fine black powder as was his face except for a couple of white circles over his eyes where he had clearly been wearing safety glasses.

“Tim!” Mark exclaimed. “What have you been up to?”

“Sorry, Granddad, I’m just going to the mud room to shower off. Could you get me my dressing gown from my room for me? Better that than walking through the house in a towel.” With that Tim slipped into the utility room and Mark heard the shower start up in the mud room. He went upstairs to get Tim’s dressing gown for him.

Some twenty minutes later they sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea each. Ian was outside in the garden kicking his football around, and Mark was keeping an eye on the boy through the kitchen window.

“So, what have you been up to, to get into that sort of mess?” Mark asked, though he thought he had a pretty good idea.

“Oh, I’ve spent the day in the foundry, Granddad. Barry has been showing me how the process works.” Mark’s guess at his grandson’s state was correct, and he remembered being in the same state when he had done his stint in the foundry during his apprenticeship.

“I guessed as much, but why? Shouldn’t you have been at the uni?”

“It’s OK, Granddad, I’ve shifted my sessions around at uni so I only have to go in Monday to Wednesday and the odd Thursday morning. I’m trying to spend Thursday and Friday at the works.”

“Why?”

“Well, if I am going to be a director, I think I need to know what is going on and what Bettridge’s does. Paul’s arranged it so I can spend time on the shop floor being shown what they are doing. Now the reports I am seeing are making a lot more sense.”

“Fine, just so long as you don’t let it get in the way of your studies,” Mark commented.

“Actually, Granddad, that is something I wanted to talk to you about. I’m thinking of ditching my PhD, at least as a full time study,” Tim informed Mark.

“Why?”

“To be honest, I only went in to do it because I could not think of anything else to do. I can get my Masters this academic year. In fact I have most of my Master’s dissertation drafted already.

“I am enjoying studying but I do not need to be in the university to study in my area. To be honest I tend to do more of my work here than in uni. Also, I am not finding academic life that pleasant. There is too much politicking going on in the department and between faculties.

“There is no time limit on me doing my PhD so long as I stay registered with the department. It’s not as if my supervisor can give me much help on my research. I’m not even sure if he knows what the internet is, never mind the World Wide Web.”

“What is your research area?” Mark asked.

“The impact of Web-based fiction on the development of the English language. There was a view put forward in the late nineties that the development of the Web would lead to the development of a single universal version of English and that English English, American English, and Australian English, together with the other versions of English, would merge into a single universal English.

“Well, that does not appear to have happened. If anything, Granddad, the web is supporting and maintaining local versions of English. It is even enabling writers in very local dialects to get published and for their work to be followed. In many ways the web is an enabling tool for local dialects and versions of English.”

“Sounds like a fascinating area,” Mark commented.

“It is, Granddad; the thing is I am also finding Bettridge’s to be fascinating. I never realised just what went on there. Dad always said it was dirty, nasty place and the men working there were idiots who could not make anything of their lives. Paul’s shown me another side of the business, and it is fascinating. I never realised how interdependent the parts of the business are, nor how skilled the men are.

“Christ, when I was in the foundry today, Barry was talking about the history of lost wax casting. Do you know there is evidence of the process from over five thousand years ago? It was fascinating to listen to Bert talk about the work of the ancient Greek artists and their bronze casting and also about Indian and African Art. Apparently even the Aztecs used the method.

“Granddad, Dad always made the workmen in the works sound like idiots; they are not. They are just as clever as any of us at uni, if not more so. They can make things and put ideas into practice, and that’s a lot more than many of us at the university can do. We just sit about and argue about things a lot of the time.”

“Tim, although I agree with a lot of what you say, don’t dismiss academia so lightly. I think you are putting up an argument to support a decision you have already made. Am I correct?” Mark asked.

“Yes, Granddad. The last few weeks I have been finding out about what goes on in Bettridge’s and talking with Paul. Paul asked me if I would consider working as his assistant. Basically somebody who can be on the spot for him in Sheffield when he has to be over in Derby. He already has somebody in Derby doing it for him.”

“And you want to do it?”

“Yes, Granddad.”

“Do it then. It sounds like a good idea, but make sure you keep your PhD going.”

“I will, Granddad, and I will try to do it quicker than Brian May did.” Mark was amused with the reference to the guitarist from Queen who had taken over thirty years to complete his PhD thesis. The important thing though, thought Mark, was that May had completed it.

Thomas and Connor had been coming up from London fairly regularly to work on the Midget. From what Mark had been able to see they were making slow but steady progress on the restoration. Mark also noted that Jeff quite often turned up on a Saturday to give them a hand. “Better than being out shopping with the missis,” Jeff had responded once when Mark had commented on his presence.

At the end of term, the boys came up to spend a week at Mark’s before taking him over to Walsall for Christmas. There were a couple of big jobs they wanted to get done on the Midget before the start of the really cold weather when they would not be able to have the garage door open whilst working. Krit, Tim, and Ian would not be with them for Christmas as they were going to Thailand for the holiday. Both Krit and Tim felt it was important for Ian to keep in touch with his Thai roots. Mark agreed with them.

Chapter 14

The Sunday before Krit and Tim flew off for Christmas, Mark asked them to join him for a meal out, along with Thomas and Connor who had come over to pick him up for Christmas. He got Tara to come in and babysit Ian, who was thrilled as it meant Tara brought Mikey for him to play with.

“Right,” Mark announced as they were enjoying coffee and brandy after what had been a very good meal, “as of today you are each a twenty percent shareholder in E. Mallory Properties. So is Ian, but his shares are in trust for him till he is twenty-five.”

“Who,” Thomas asked, “is E. Mallory and why do we get shares in the company?”

“Emma Mallory,” replied Mark, “was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. My daughter, Emma, is named after her. I don’t think the name will ring any bells with certain people. The shares are my Christmas presents to the four of you. I think you all need some independent wealth.”

“Granddad, what are you up to?” Tim asked.

“Last week an agricultural agent acting for E. Mallory Properties made an offer to certain landowners for the areas of rough grazing land between the Bettridge’s works and the motorway known as the wasteland. The offer they made was quite good for rough grazing land and has been accepted.”

“But,” Tim observed, “when the road goes through it will be much less than the land is worth.”

“Precisely,” Mark commented.

“Just a moment, how is this company supposed to pay for the land? Even if it is just rough grazing it is not going to be that cheap. I think the current price is about seven grand an acre.” Connor asked.

“Actually it’s worth a lot more if it is near a built up area. People want it to graze their horses so you can get a good rent for it. To answer your question though, I’ve loaned the company one million at bank rate plus one percent, and that should cover running costs and the deposit on the land. The rest is being covered by an agricultural mortgage. My accountant reckons that the rental income from the grazing rights on the two hundred and five acres will cover the interest repayments but are not likely to cover any capital repayments.”

“But, when the road is in place, if we get planning permission, the value of the land will go through the roof, and we can sell it off,” Tim stated. “That will enable us to pay off the loan capital and have funds left.”

About the same time as Mark, Tim, Krit, and the boys were having dinner, Johnny and the three ex-directors of Bettridge’s were having a drink in a London pub. None of them was particularly happy, but all were relieved. They had managed to get rid of the land that they had bought with a loss of only five hundred thousand, which, considering everything, they regarded as lucky. It worked out at one hundred and twenty-five thousand each, which while it would hurt was manageable.

The Monday after New Year, Thomas drove Mark home from the O’Mallys in the Tucson, whilst Connor took the Santa Fe down to London. Connor had an architectural model he needed to get completed before term started and he would be picking up Krit, Tim, and Ian from the airport on the Friday evening to bring them up to Sheffield.

“You know, Thomas, there is no need for you to stay in Sheffield. You could get the train down and join Connor in London,” Mark stated. Thomas would have to leave the Tucson as there was only one parking space available with the flat but he could pick the car up when Connor brought Tim, et. al. up on Friday.

“Oh, he’ll be too busy with his project, and anyway, I want to do some work on the Midget,” Thomas responded.

“You know you’re not fooling me, don’t you?”

“What do you mean, not fooling you?” Thomas asked.

“You, Connor, Joan, Tim, and Krit. You’ve got it organised, haven’t you, so that I am never alone? The only times there is not somebody with me are the ten minutes it takes for me to walk back from taking Ian to pre-school and the half-hour after that before Mrs Wright arrives.

“Look, I know I’m getting on and there was that scare over my heart again earlier this year, but I can look after myself.”

“No one said you couldn’t, Uncle Mark. We just like to be with you,” Thomas replied.

The merger of the two companies officially took place just before the end of March. Prior to the merger, Mark sold fifteen percent of Bettridge’s stock to Paul, having first given Paul an interest free loan so he could buy the stock. As a result, Paul owned fifteen percent of Bettridge’s and fifteen percent of Mattashion at the time when the companies merged, which had the effect of giving him fifteen percent in the new company.

Tim had been working with Paul in an unofficial capacity since the start of the new year. He had also been spending at least one day a week on the shop floor, learning about the processes in the company. With effect from the day of the merger, he joined the executive board as one of two deputy managing directors with Colin Gutteridge, one of the Electrical Systems staff who Paul had taken on, taking up the same post for the Derby premises. So the new firm of Mattashion and Bettridge Engineering or MBE as it was to become known, was officially established.

The following week, Paul filed an application for planning permission to build out onto the two car parks at the front of the Sheffield works. The permission was quickly gained and demolition of the Shot House began. Soon, work had progressed to the laying of a new access road across the end of the works site. The access road would eventually extend past the entrance to the new car park to join with the track, soon to be made into an access road, that ran along the edge of the wasteland.

The same day, E. Mallory Properties placed an application for outline planning permission for 2300 two and three bedroom houses on the wasteland. Planning application notices appeared on the walls and lamp posts around the works. It took nearly four months for the planning permission to go through. Once it was in place, E. Mallory Properties were able to sell part of the site they owned for three times more than they had paid for the whole site, giving them funds to develop the rest.

Mark got a very angry phone call from Johnny.

Chapter 15

That summer Mark decided the trip down to Spain would be too much for him, even by train. Joan and Richard took him down to the “writer’s cottage” in Cornwall again for the last two weeks of July, with the boys joining them for the first week of their stay and Tim, Krit, and Ian for the second. He was glad to get home, though. There was something comforting about his own chair by his own fire, even if the fire was not laid.

Krit had to attend a medical conference in France at the start of August, so he and Tim decided to make a holiday of the first two weeks and take Ian to EuroDisney. Mark, remembering the trip the men had taken with Thomas and Connor visiting roller coasters, was not certain who would get most out of the visit, Ian or the two men? As expected Thomas and Connor came up to work on the car.

“Isn’t that car finished yet?” Mark asked.

“Well it is nearly there, and we would like to get it finished soon,” Connor stated.

“Why?” Connor looked at Thomas, who nodded to him.

“You see, Uncle Mark, we want to use it for our honeymoon,” Connor answered.

“That implies you have decided to get married,” Mark stated.

“Yes, we have,” Thomas confirmed.

“And when were you planning to tell me about this?”

“When we had set a date, Uncle Mark,” Thomas replied.

“You haven’t set a date yet?”

“No, Uncle Mark.” Connor stated. “You see we wanted to do a driving tour of France in the Midget. There is something romantic about driving a convertible. We were hoping to get it finished while we were here, so we could have the wedding in September and have our honeymoon before starting back at uni. That does not look likely though.”

“Why not use the E-type?” Mark asked.

“I thought you had got rid of that,” Thomas replied.

“No, it’s been mothballed and is in storage but it would not take more than a couple days to get it back on the road.”

“The insurance would be through the roof for us,” Connor stated.

“I’m not so sure,” Mark said. “You are both listed as drivers on the family multi-car policy, so it would just be a case of adding the Jag to the policy.

“Look, sort out your wedding. How about the second Saturday in September? The use of the Jag will be my wedding present to you.”

The wedding was set for the third Saturday in September. Much to Joan’s annoyance the boys insisted they wanted a quite simple ceremony at a London Register Office. She did insist, though, that they use her and Richard’s place in Nice for part of their honeymoon. After the ceremony the boys drove off in the Eagle E-type for a tour of France. Mark failed to mention to them that the cost of insuring them for it had come to over ten grand as they were both under twenty-five and driving a quarter of a million-pound car.

When the boys returned from their honeymoon Mark decided to keep the Eagle garaged and road ready. Though he was no longer able to drive it, there was no reason why Krit or Tim could not, or the boys, seeing what he had paid to have them put on the policy.

The boys, with Jeff’s help, did eventually finish the Midget and got it tested and on the road a few days before Christmas. As Krit was on duty at the hospital over the Christmas period, the decision was made to have Christmas at Mark’s house. Terry and Mary came over to join the boys, but Shelly, who was now a striking young woman, had gone off to South Africa for Christmas to meet her boyfriend’s family.

One surprise addition for Christmas was Phillip who came over from the States with his eleven-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter. Although Phillip had flown back a couple of time over the previous years to join in family events, like Tim’s marriage, his wife had never come across with him due to her dislike of flying. Now, though, Phillip was divorced and had access to the children two days a week and at holidays, and so had taken the opportunity to bring them over to England.

Mark thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being able to spoil his two younger grandchildren, whom he had not met before. They both seemed to enjoy the experience of being spoiled. One day the eleven-year-old Peter asked Krit why Ian called Mark bpòo? Krit explained that it meant grandfather in Thai. Once Peter found this out both he and his sister Emma started to use the term for their grandfather.

“I’m thinking of moving back to the UK,” Phillip informed his father one evening when they were sitting alone in the lounge. Tim and Krit had taken the children out to the cinema and Terry and Mary had gone back over to Walsall with the boys.

“What about the children?” Mark asked.

“Well, they are the reason I am thinking of moving back. Paula is talking about re-vitalising her film career – you know she left me for a director she had worked for before we met. I think she had been carrying on with him for a bit before I found out.

“Anyway, it seems having an eleven-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter is not exactly what fits the image she is trying to project. She has indicated that she would prefer me to be responsible for them. I’m not that averse as, to be honest, from a couple of things Peter has said, I’m not too keen on the crowd Paula is in with these days.

“My main reason, though, is education. I think they will get a better education here than in the States.”

“I thought,” Mark commented, “that the US education system was good.”

“It is,” Phillip responded, “at college and university level. At the secondary level it can be a bit hit and miss. A lot depends on the quality of the local school board and if they are a pile of religious zealots, as a lot are, you can have real problems.

“There is just the simple fact that the UK has consistently performed above the US in the international comparison tables.”

“Yes, Phillip,” Mark stated, “but in the last few years it has been dropping down those tables. If you want the kids to have a good education you should look at moving to Singapore.”

“The UK may have been dropping but so has the US, and it seems to be dropping down the table quicker,” Phillip replied. “Anyway, I have had a job offer over here. It’s a bloody good offer and a chance of a board level position I would never get in the States.”

“So what are you going to do?” Mark asked.

“Haven’t made up my mind yet. Had to see how the kids like England first.”

Phillip had still not made his mind up when they flew back to New York the following weekend. He phoned a couple of weeks later and told his father that they would be moving to England at Easter.

When Easter came, Thomas took Mark down to Heathrow to pick up his son and the grandchildren and then drove them down to Winchester, where the firm Phillip was going to be working for was based. Although Mark enjoyed seeing his son and the grandchildren again, he found it very tiring, and a total of nine hours in the car that day was just too much for him. By time Thomas got him home to Sheffield that evening he was totally bushed; it took him two days to recover from the trip.

In July Tim and Krit took Mark down to London for Connor’s graduation. Thomas would have two more years before he graduated, though he would graduate with a Doctor of Medicine degree whilst Connor would have a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture. However, Connor was going on to do his Masters – though on a part-time basis as he had obtained a position in a leading architectural firm in London.

Philip and the grandchildren joined the party at the “writer’s cottage” in Cornwall that year. However, neither Thomas nor Connor could come. Connor was busy in his new job, and that was leaving very little free time and Thomas did not want to leave Connor for a holiday in Cornwall. Mark enjoyed the holiday but found it tiring at times, especially when Peter, Emma and little Ian all wanted their grandfather to join in the games.

Just before the end of August, Tim, Krit, and the boys gathered for one of their regular board meetings for E. Mallory Properties. The development of the site was going along nicely and they had sold about a quarter of the houses they were building off plan before a single brick had been laid. The accountants reckoned that they would be looking at making between fifteen and twenty million on the total development. Although in some ways that pleased them, it also made all four feel somewhat guilty as it had effectively come to them as a gift from Mark.

Tim raised the issue with Mark who pointed out to Tim that he could have made the money himself and left it to them in his will. If he had done that there would have been substantial death duties to pay. This way he had only given them a company with debts, so it was not worth anything and they had made the money, so no death duties.

Tim explained this to Krit and the boys. They could see the sense of it. Doing things the way Mark had avoided quite a lot of taxes. However, it did not remove the feeling of guilt they felt from the fact that effectively Mark had given them each about five million pounds.

There was one thing that Mark had not told Tim about the deal. The thing that made it really worthwhile for Mark was the fact that Tim, his partner, and their gay friends had made a financial killing on the property that Tim’s dad had taken a massive loss on. In Mark’s opinion that served Johnny right.

In September Ian started at school. The primary school he attended was only a few hundred yards down the road from Mark’s house, and Mark got into the habit of walking the boy down to school. It was usually Mrs Wright or Tara who collected him while Mark was having an afternoon nap.

Walking down the hill to the school was not too much effort for Mark, but he did find the walk back up the hill a bit more tiring and tended to take his time, often taking a break at the seat by the bus stop. He was seated there one morning when Jack the postman walked up to him.

“Mr Wainwright, I’ve just tried to deliver this,” he pulled a large packet out of his bag, “but it was too big for the letterbox. I’ve left a card but if you would like to take it you can avoids a trip to the sorting office.” Mark took the packet and checked the label, finding it was addressed to Tim. He confirmed that he would take it and thanked Jack for being so helpful, then resumed his walk up the hill to the house.

Once back in the house he placed the package on the kitchen table with the rest of the post that he had picked up when he came in, and then hung his coat up before making himself a coffee. Over the coffee he sorted through the post and dealt with the letters, mostly bills, that were addressed to him. He kept finding his eyes going to the package lying on the corner of the table.

The thing that puzzled him was that it clearly bore the logo of the Open University. What was Tim doing with the Open University, he wondered?

He did not have to wait all that long to find out. Mark was in the living room reading when Tim came home just after twelve.

“Back early,” Mark commented.

“Today’s one of my uni days and I can get more done here than in the department,” Tim responded. “Do you want any lunch?”

“No thanks, Tim, I’ll have a coffee if you are making any. Oh, there’s a package for you on the table.”

A few minutes later Tim brought a mug of coffee through to Mark and placed it on the side table next to Mark’s chair. “Back in a mo,” he stated, and then returned to the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. Tucked under his arm was the package. He put the plate and mug down on the side table by the empty chair and then, laying the package in his lap,seated himself across from Mark.

“Anything interesting?” Mark asked as Tim started to open the package.

“Maths course from the OU.”

“Since when have you been into maths?”

“Not sure I am but I need to find out about it,” Tim replied, putting the now opened package down and starting on his sandwich.

“So what’s got you into maths.”

“It’s everywhere at the works, the lads on the shop floor are doing maths all the time, maths that leave me standing. I know I didn’t do maths past GCSE but I got a grade A at that. The maths that chaps like Barry are doing as part of their work has me scratching my head and gaping at them.

“Did you know that when they are making the wax pattern they have to make it larger than the finished product because the metal contracts in the mould as it solidifies?” Tim asked.

“I did, actually,” Mark responded.

“Sorry, Granddad, I suppose you did, but it was news to me. I was in the pattern shop a few weeks ago and Barry was explaining the calculations to me and I realised that what he was doing in his head couldn’t even follow. Thought if I was going to manage these people I better get to know something about what they were doing, and in fact be able to do it myself, even if I have to use a calculator

“Spoke to Paul about it and he suggested doing a B Eng with the Open University. Apparently he did one and said it was useful.”

“Paul did a B Eng?” Mark queried.

“Yes, he graduated a couple of years back. Said it was a bloody good course, so I thought I might have a go at it. Give me some feeling for what the chaps are doing on the shop floor. This is the first step.” Tim indicated the contents of the package.

“Well, as long as you think you can manage, I’ll say go for it, but you are taking a lot on—working with Paul, your Masters, and now an OU course.”

“Actually, Granddad, my Masters will be finished in the next couple of weeks. Finished the research for my dissertation over the summer vac and I’ve completed all the other elements. Just need to finish writing it up and checking all the references and it’ll be ready to go in.

“I spoke to my supervisor last week and we agreed if I can get it in before the end of October I could graduate at Christmas. After that I’ll just register as an external PhD student.”

“So you’re not dropping your PhD?” Mark asked.

“No, Granddad, I still intend to do it, just not as fast as I thought.”

Although Mark was worried that Tim might be taking too much on, he was pleased to see that he was getting into what was going on at the works. He was delighted that Tim supported his own view that too many managers just looked at figures and had no idea what the man on the shop floor was doing.

Tim did get his Masters just before Christmas. He even managed to get it with a distinction, which, given that he had been part-time for the last few months, was surprising. Krit and Tim had planned to go to Thailand again over the Christmas period but in the end they were not able to find a set of flights that fitted in with Krit’s duties at the hospital. They spent days trying to work out different flight combinations and routes, but any way they looked at it, unless they were prepared to fork out a fortune, they ended up with times and routes that just did not suit them. It did not help that they had left it till virtually the last minute before trying to book. That, though, had been due to the hospital having to redraw the schedules and not getting the Christmas duty assignments sorted till late in November. In the end Mark suggested that they fly Krit’s parents to England for the holiday.

In addition to Krit’s parents, Mark also hosted Phillip and his family, Joan and Richard, the whole O’Mally family (including Shelly’s boyfriend), Tim, Krit, and Ian, and the boys for Christmas. It was a good job that over the last year or so the boys had slowly been clearing years’ worth of stored memories from various junk rooms around the house. At least two of those rooms had to quickly be made up as bedrooms, so Philip’s children could each have rooms of their own.

Early on Christmas Eve, Thomas and Connor took Peter, his sister Emma, and little Ian out in the Hyundai to find a Christmas Tree. They returned about four hours later with a fourteen-foot tree strapped to the top of the car. Mark was in the living room chatting with Phillip when they pulled into the drive.

“Good God!” he exclaimed, “They’ll never get that in here.” He was right. Although Craigh House was a large house with high ceilings, they were not high enough to house the tree.

“What possessed you,” Mark asked of Thomas, “to buy a tree that tall?”

“Ian wanted it,” Thomas replied.

“And you get everything that Ian wants?” queried Mark.

“Don’t you,” responded Thomas.

“He’s got you there, Granddad,” Tim commented.

Once they had confirmed that there was no way the tree could be put up in any of the reception rooms, they eventually decided to put it in the conservatory where the ridged roof gave a good three feet more space. Even then they had to cut the bottom foot off the tree to get it to fit in.

Ian, Peter, and Emma started to decorate the tree under Mark’s instructions. Every now and then Mark would have to lift Ian up to enable him to place a bauble somewhere specific. Once the lower branches had been decorated Thomas and Connor were called in to decorate the top of the tree. There was no way Mark was going to let the children clamber about on step ladders. Anyway, the boys seemed to be as excited to be involved in the process as the children.

Once the tree was decorated everybody gathered round and admired it. The sight brought back memories to Mark, but not only to Mark. As they stood there Phillip stated, “Dammit, Dad, it looks just like the tree that you got one year that was too big and spoiled mam’s plans to have Christmas dinner in the new conservatory because we had to put the tree here.” Mark just nodded but shortly after sought out Thomas to ask a favour.

“Thomas, could you spare about an hour to drive me out for a run?”

“No problem, Uncle Mark. I’ll just go and get the Tucson,” Thomas replied.

“Actually, I think I would like it in the Eagle if you don’t mind.”

“OK, but you better wrap up warm. It is cold out, and I suspect you’ll want the hood down.” Mark laughed, acknowledging that he probably would. Twenty minutes later they had left Sheffield and were driving up into the Peaks. Shortly after, Mark instructed Thomas to turn right off the main road onto what seemed little more than a paved track. Thomas found that even with the improved steering the Eagle was difficult to manoeuvre round the bends and he was glad when the track-way opened out into a tarmac area in front of a small hillside chapel.

Mark got out and made his way in the failing light into the graveyard surrounding the chapel. Thomas followed him, though sensing this was a private moment he kept a couple of paces back from Mark. Eventually Mark stopped by the foot of a grave.

“Well, Mary,” he said, speaking softly, “it’s been a long time. We’ve got another Christmas tree up in the conservatory. Hasn’t been one there since you went. But there is one back there now, and I think it will become tradition again.” He then bowed his head and was silent, Thomas stood back watching. After a few minutes Mark straightened up and turned to him.

“Well, Thomas, this is where the Wainwrights are buried. Our family comes from hereabouts and we helped build this chapel.”

“Our family?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, Thomas, our family. You’re just as much a Wainwright as I am; we share a great-grandfather. If you want to know the details, ask Joan. She’s got the family tree all printed out. If I had the key we could go inside,” Mark stated, indicating the chapel building, “and you would see the list of men who subscribed to build the place with quite a few Wainwrights on it.”

“I’m surprised,” Thomas said, “that there is enough community out here to keep the place going.”

“There’s not. The last congregation here was in the seventies, so I bought the place in the eighties just to maintain the graveyard for the family. I have set up a trust to keep it going.” Mark pointed to the grave next to the one they were stood by, “That’s my mum and dad.” He then pointed to one in the far corner of the graveyard. “That’s our great-grandfather’s. Soon I’ll be here joining them.”

“Surely…”

“Yes I will, Thomas. My heart is slowly failing; the doctors have told me that. I’ve had a good life and done well, but it will soon be time for me to move on. That’s what I want to speak to you about and this seemed to be a good place to ask you.”

“Ask me what, Uncle Mark?”

“There is one thing I have left undone, something I could never bring myself to sort out. You, Connor, and Joan are the only ones who know the story about Ian. Actually you are the only one who knows the full story. This is about Ian. Once I am dead I want something done, something I have left undone. The instructions will be with my solicitor; will you do this for me?”

Thomas realised that Mark had not said what it was that he wanted done, but that did not matter. This man had done so much for him, had showed him that someone cared when he thought no one did. Had shown him that what he was did not matter; all that mattered was who he was. There was no doubt in Thomas’s mind. “Of course, Uncle Mark, I’ll do it.”

“Good, now I’m getting cold. Let’s get back.”

They returned to the car and Mark directed Thomas to a different track from the one they had come up. Soon they were on a main road heading back to Sheffield. Not long after they had joined the road Thomas guided the car round a corner in the road at the top of a hill, at the bottom of which he could see a set of traffic lights. As he drove down the hill he realised where they were.

“The lights are new,” he commented. As he did, the lights turned to amber, and he slowed down and stopped at the lights as they turned to red.

“Yes, they put them in a couple of years ago.”

“I’ve not been back here since that day,” Thomas commented. “I’m sorry I was so stupid. I could have killed both of us.”

“But you didn’t, and I got to meet a really fine young man. You’re a hard-working boy with a great heart, Thomas, and you’ll make a good doctor. I only hope I am around to see you qualify.”

“You’ve got to hang on another couple of years for that,” Thomas commented. The lights changed to green and Thomas revved up the Eagle and drove back to the house.

Chapter 16

Christmas morning Mark insisted that no presents could be opened until everybody was up and breakfasted. That insistence probably resulted in little Ian learning a few more English words than Mark would have liked, as the youngster ran around the house making sure everybody was awake (a task he was assisted in by Peter and Emma, who also wanted to get to their presents).

As far as Ian was concerned the best present he got that day was the train set from Thomas and Connor. The boys helped him set it up circling the track around the base of the Christmas tree in the conservatory after all the presents had been opened. Mark was somewhat puzzled as to who enjoyed playing with the train the most, Ian, Thomas and Connor, or Tim and Krit, who had also joined in the construction project helping set it up.

New Year was quiet, Phillip and his family having returned to Winchester and Krit and Tim having taken Krit’s parents to London, along with Ian. The O’Mallys had also returned home for New Year, though Connor and Thomas had stayed.

“You know, there is no reason why you could not have gone to Walsall for New Year,” Mark commented to the boys. “I can still look after myself.” The boys made some comment about needing to polish the cars and continued with whatever they were doing. In many ways Mark felt glad that they were around. He was finding life tiring. Recently he had found himself starting to take a mid-morning nap as well as his usual afternoon nap.

It was a couple of weeks after New Year when Tim’s sister, Ruth, phoned wanting to speak to Tim. Mark, who had answered the phone told her that Tim would be away till the following day, as he was over at the Derby works doing some training.

“Do you think he would mind if I came up to see him, Granddad? We’ve got a bit of a problem, and I think I need Tim’s help,” she asked.

“Ruth, darling, I’m sure he won’t mind. Just come up, and if Tim can’t help you I’ll see what I can do.”

Ruth arrived the following afternoon, about an hour before Tim got back from Derby. Mark had phoned him to let him know his sister was on her way, and he said he would get back as soon as he could.

Mark and Ruth were sitting in the kitchen when Tim got back just before three. He gave his sister a kiss on the check and then sat down and asked her, “OK, Sis, what’s wrong?” Ruth glanced at Mark. Tim continued, “You might as well tell us now; it will save me having to tell Granddad all the details later.”

“Dad’s given us notice to quit the farm,” Ruth stated.

“I thought you and Steve were going to buy the place,” Tim stated.

“We were. Dad agreed a couple of years to sell it to us as soon as we got an agricultural mortgage sorted out, but that is taking longer than we expected. He issued us a notice to quit last quarter day.”

“Don’t you have agricultural tenant’s protection?” Mark asked.

“Unfortunately not, Granddad. We’re a stud farm, so we’re not covered.”

“How much mortgage do you need, I’ll see what I can do,” Tim stated.

“Three and a half million,” Ruth responded.

“Christ, he only paid a half million for it, and not ten years ago,” Tim observed.

“Yes, but Swindon has expanded in the last few years. The farm is now on the edge of the current planning envelope, and if the envelope is expanded it will be prime development land.”

“How long is the notice?” Mark enquired.

“He’s had to give us a year according to the tenancy agreement.”

Mark asked Tim to pass him the phone, then he phoned his accountants.

“This is Mark Wainwright. Could I speak to Rachel Dunlieven, please?” Mark held the phone whilst waiting to be connected. “Hello Rachel, Mark Wainwright, could you tell me what the position is with the mortgage on the Swindon property?” He looked across at Tim and Ruth who both had puzzled expression on their faces, then put his hand across the phone pickup and stated, “Where did you think your father got the mortgage to buy the farm in the first place?” Tim thought a second then nodded. “Thank you, Rachel, my solicitor James Belkin will be calling you in a bit, could you give him full details of the account, please.” He listened to the reply then turned the phone off and put it on the table.

“Right, listen you two, your father never has been very good at paying the mortgage, and there are substantial arrears. This year he has even defaulted on the interest payments. I’ve never pushed the issue as I’ve known you were using the place, Ruth. Now, though, I think I will.” He picked up the phone handset and turned it on, then dialled a number. Once through he asked for James Belkin and held whilst he was put through.

“Hello, James,” he started once connected, “any chance you could pop over and see me on your way home from work?” He listened to the reply then put the phone down.

“James,” Mark told the two siblings, “will be here in about an hour, then we can start to sort this out.”

“How, Granddad?” Ruth asked. “We don’t want to lose the farm.”

“Trust me, Ruth, you won’t,” Mark responded.

James arrived in just under an hour and Mark asked Tim and Ruth to join them in the living room. He briefly explained to James what was going on, giving him an outline of the history of the farm and how Johnny had been financed to buy the place in the first place some ten years ago.

“He should have paid a hundred and fifty thousand off the mortgage by now but in fact only fifty thousand of the capital has been paid off. He is also in arrears on the interest. The accountants have confirmed they have sent him regular statements showing his position, so he knows what it is. There have been no repayments at all for the last year, so now he is in for over thirty grand in interest and over a hundred grand in capital payments.”

“But,” Ruth interrupted, “we’ve been paying our rent, Granddad.”

“I’m sure you have, Ruth, but your father has not been paying me,” Mark responded. “James, your father drew up the mortgage for me and insisted I put in a procedure so I could foreclose rapidly if I wanted to. Didn’t see the point at the time, but then I didn’t know Johnny as well as I do now, and I must say he has disappointed me. I want you to activate the procedure and don’t give him any leeway. Foreclose on the mortgage ASAP. As soon as you have done, create a new mortgage on the balance outstanding on the old one in favour of Ruth and her husband.” James gave Mark a questioning look. “James, the only reason I gave Johnny the mortgage in the first place was so that Ruth could have the farm, and I intend her to keep it. If she could pay her father the rent she can pay me the mortgage.”

James must have acted very promptly. Mark suspected he had probably gone back to the office after their meeting and set things in motion, for two days later Johnny was on the phone.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Johnny demanded.

“Just having a cup of tea and some toast,” Mark replied, knowing full well what Johnny meant.

“I meant about this mortgage. I just got a letter from your solicitor chap giving me notice of foreclosure. It says you want the whole outstanding balance in twenty-eight days.”

“Is that so?” Mark replied. “If the letter says that, it must be the case. I leave stuff like that to my professional advisors these days.”

“But dad, its four hundred and eighty-two thousand you’re asking for. There’s no way I can get that in twenty-eight days. You’ve got to give me more time.”

“I’m sorry, Johnny, but I can’t. You have had plenty of time to bring the account up to date and have done nothing with it. I need to get it sorted out and there is another party prepared to take it on.

“You need to understand, Johnny, I don’t have that much time left and I need to make sure all my affairs, especially the financial ones, are sorted out before I go.”

“Then you better hurry up and go,” Johnny stated before he slammed down the phone.

A couple of hours later James called Mark to inform him that Johnny had been in contact and agreed to surrender the property prior to foreclosure with the proviso that all outstanding amounts were cleared by the surrender. James advised that Mark should accept the offer, a piece of advice that Mark was happy to agree to.

That weekend Joan and Richard turned up to stay a few days. Actually, Joan was going to be staying a month or so, but Richard was going to be moving up to a location on the moors where he was to begin filming an eighteenth century drama series.

“Bloody stupid time of year to be filming up there,” Richard commented. “Don’t they know that it will be raining all the time, and the rain is not only freezing, it’s also horizontal?”

“At least they are putting you up in a nice country pub,” commented Joan.

“I’ve yet to find a comfortable bed in a country pub,” Richard responded. “They are shooting all the other scenes in Romania. You would have thought they would have green screened these shots and kept us in the warm.”

“Darling, you’re getting soft in your old age,” Joan commented.

“In future I think I’ll only take on roles of aged professors giving lectures from beside their fires. No more Jacobite hero roles for me.”

Later over a cup of tea Joan advised Mark that Richard was really loving the role. “He’s playing a part a good fifteen years younger than his age and it’s really appealing to his vanity.”

Monday evening Ruth called to speak with Tim. Tim took the call in the kitchen as the others were watching a DVD in the lounge. After about an hour he came back into the lounge and announced, “Mother has left Dad, and she’s moved into the farm with Ruth.”

“Good for her,” Joan commented. “She should have left that idiot brother of mine ages ago. Now, is that husband of yours around?” Tim called Krit, who came through from the kitchen, grumbling that if he got any more interruptions there would be no dinner. It was his turn to cook the evening meal.

“Sorry, Krit,” Joan said, “but Dad’s just gone up for a short nap. I wanted to ask how things are with him. He does not seem up to his old self.” Krit was silent for a moment.

“Look, Joan, I’m not his doctor, as family that would be unethical.”

“I know that,” she responded, “I also know you keep an eye on things, so what gives?”

“He’s dying. It could be months, it could be years, though I think months is more likely. He never fully recovered from that initial attack and his heart has been getting weaker ever since. It’s only a matter of time, and he is getting more and more tired every day. Someday he will sit down for a nap and not wake up.”

“Thanks, Krit. I don’t suppose there is anything we can do?” she asked.

“No, if there was I would tell you. As it is there is nothing, except to make sure he does not push himself too hard.”

Tim’s mother moving out of the family home was the trigger for what ended up being a very messy divorce. During the proceedings it turned out that Johnny was financially overextended everywhere. It also turned out that it was his wife’s parents who had financed the deposit for the family home and his wife who had paid the mortgage. The judge, therefore, awarded the Highgate house to her in the settlement, leaving Johnny with little or no capital. A few weeks later he filed for bankruptcy.

Easter came and went with the completion of the extensions to the Derby works. That enabled the movement of the various departments between Derby and Sheffield to be implemented. Most of the workers in the affected departments chose to move with their departments, especially as the firm offered generous resettlement packages. A few, mostly for family reasons, like it not being a good time for the children to move school, decided to commute using the half-hour rail journey. Arrangements had been made to give those who wanted to commute some help with their travelling costs.

There were, of course, a few who did not want to make the move and decided to leave the firm. Fortunately, these were few and none of them were what Paul or the other directors regarded as essential personnel.

When it was all finished, which was at the end of June, Tim took Mark into the Sheffield works to show him around. Mark was impressed. Originally it had been arranged that Mark and George would formally open the new buildings, but George was now in a hospice and Mark indicated he did not want to do it on his own. As a result, there was no formal opening, and they just drifted into use.

George Mattashion died the first week of August. Under the deal that he had put in place with Paul Strange a few years earlier, the control of the shares in MBE that George held passed to Paul, which now effectively gave him full control of the company. This was a relief to Mark as he knew the business would be in a safe pair of hands.

Chapter 17

In spite of his increasing frailty and the need to nap both in the morning and afternoon, Mark insisted on walking the now six-year-old Ian down the hill to school in the morning. The walk now took longer and he had to stop at least twice on the way back up the hill to get his breath. But, as he pointed out to Krit and Tim, it was about the only exercise he was getting these days and it was nice to get out of the house. It was, therefore, something of a surprise to Mrs Wright to be greeted by Ian when she came through the door to the kitchen at nine-thirty on a Wednesday morning in October.
“Hello, Ian,” she said, “shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Yes, but bpòo won’t wake up to take me. Can you wake him?” He grabbed Mrs Wright’s hand and pulled her towards the lounge. “Can you wake bpòo?”
Mrs Wright looked at the figure slumped in his chair by the fire. He had a photo frame clasped to his breast. “No, Ian, I don’t think I can wake your grandfather. He has gone to a place where you do not want to wake. Why don’t you go to the conservatory and play with your train set? I’ll bring you some orange juice in a bit.”
As the boy walked off towards the conservatory, Mrs Wright went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Mr Wainwright had told her exactly what she should do in these circumstances, and she carried out his instructions. Her first action was to phone the works and speak to Mr Tim, and then she had to phone Mr Wainwright’s solicitor.
There was quite a turn out for the funeral of Mr Mark Wainwright. The works had been closed for the day as a sign of respect, though it would have been impossible to open anyway given the number of staff that intended to take the day off to attend. Mr Wainwright had cared about them and their families, and they felt it a duty and honour to show their appreciation of the man.
In accordance with Mark’s instructions there was no funeral service, just a simple secular ceremony at the graveside before he was lowered into the earth beside his wife.
James had asked that the family and certain guests meet him at his offices after the funeral reception. Once everybody had settled down in the conference room, which was a bit crowded, James began to read the will.
It started with a number of small bequests—ten thousand to the older Mrs Wright, five thousand to Tara and to the younger Mrs Wright. There were also bequests to the chap who came in one day a week to help with the garden and to the man who did odd jobs and repairs for Mark. Then came the first of the big announcements.
“Over the years,” James read from the will, “I have given my children such assistance as I have been able to supply. I, therefore, feel that there is no obligation upon me to make further provision for them. That being the case, I make the following bequests to them free of all taxes and duties.
“To my children, Phillip, Emma, and Joan I leave the sum of two million pounds each. As my son, Johnathan Wainwright, has disowned his son Timothy, I leave nothing to the said Johnathan Wainwright. I will not list the many reasons for this as I am sure everyone listening to the reading of this will is aware of of Jonthan’s opprobrium. Instead I leave the sum of one million pounds to each of his children, Ruth Wainwright and Timothy Meesang-Wainwright.”
“He can’t do that!” Johnny shouted, “he must have been out of his mind.” James looked up from the will and addressed Johnny.
“Oh, I can assure you he wasn’t. In fact, before he signed the will he got checked out by two of the top psychologists in town, who both certified that he was in full possession of his faculties.” James stopped and removed a paper from his folder. “In fact one of them writes that the fact that Mr Wainwright anticipated a possible objection on the grounds of his mental competence and had requested the examination was a clear sign of his competence.” He met Jonathan’s eye, paused for effect, then continued to read the will.
“I further leave to Timothy Meesang-Wainwright half of my shares in MBE and I leave to the said Timothy Meesang-Wainwright together with his husband Krit Meesang-Wainwright the property known as Craigh House, which I at this time occupy.”
“In the event of my death occurring before Thomas Wainwright-O’Mally and Connor Terrance Wainwright-O’Mally complete their course of studies at University College London, I instruct that the sum of two million be put in trust to continue to pay to them the allowance that I have been paying to them from my own funds to the time of my death. I appoint my grandson Timothy Meesang-Wainwright and his husband Krit Meesang-Wainwright, along with my daughter Joan Wainwright, to be trustees. The trust to operate under the deed of trust that I have drawn up separate to this testament.
“To Connor Terrance Wainwright-O’Mally and Thomas Wainwright-O’Mally jointly I leave half my shares in Wainwright Properties Ltd.” This resulted in a gasp from Connor who realised that they had effectively just been given student housing which must be worth over ten million pounds.

“The balance of my shares in Wainwright Properties Ltd., to be placed in trust for the benefit of my grandchildren in accordance with the deed of trust I have deed of trust I drawn up separate to this testament.
“I leave to Thomas Wainwright-O’Mally and Connor Terrance Wainwright-O’Mally jointly the lease on the apartment in Weymouth Street, London, that they currently occupy.
“To my cousin Thomas Wainwright-O’Mally (yes Jonathan, he is my cousin and Joan has the proof) I leave the Eagle E-type Jaguar.”
As this was read Johnny stood up and stormed out of the room. James looked up and shook his head, then continued to read the will. “To my nephew Paul Strange I leave the balance of my shares in MBE Ltd and the sum of five hundred thousand pounds.” After that the will dealt with the disposal of various assets and real property, most of which went to Tim. There were a few odd gifts to children and grandchildren, even a couple of items left for Thomas. James continued to read though the list of gifts and bequests until, finally, he said, “the residue of my estate after taxes and duties I instruct be liquidated and the proceeds thereof be placed in a trust for the benefit of gay youth, specifically homeless gay youth. As trustees I appoint…”
Thomas stopped listening at that point. He was just thinking about Mark, about a man who cared. Connor shook his shoulder.
“Thomas, James wants to speak with you,” Connor stated. Thomas looked around and noticed people were filing out. He then turned and looked at the solicitor at the end of the table.
“Thomas, Mark asked that I specifically give you this box. It’s been stored in our offices from before the date I joined the firm. A couple times Mark opened it and added some contents but then sealed it. Last time, back in January, he left instruction that in the event of his death it was to be handed to you to deal with.” James took a deed box that had been on the table next to him and handed it to Thomas. He then continued, “He also suggested that you might want to open it in private.”
Connor drove Thomas back to Craigh House, where Tim and Krit assured them that they still had their room and could use the place anytime. Thomas thanked them, explained about the box and said he thought he should open it privately. Tim suggested he use Mark’s study.
In the box was a smaller box, clearly old, made of cardboard. On a rather faded label were the words “Ashes of Ian Donnal”. Thomas looked at the box, then lifted out the envelope that was next to it, an envelope addressed to him. Opening the envelope, he withdrew the letter and started to read:
Dear Thomas,
The fact that you are reading this means that I am dead and maybe you can finish for me what I never could do. In this box are the ashes of Ian Donnal; yes, he was your relative, your grandfather’s brother, so your great uncle. He was also my best friend. When he died his family wanted nothing to do with him so my father arranged for his cremation after which I got the ashes.
Throughout the years I have never known what should be done with them. Nothing seemed right, but now I know. Would you please cast his ashes on my grave and as you do so tell him what I never could — that I loved him?
I did from the day I met him and have held his memory throughout my life, but when he needed to hear it I could not tell him. That shame was my life’s burden.
Mark
The following day, just as the sun was setting, Thomas, Connor, Tim, and Krit stood around the grave of Mark Wainwright whilst Thomas scattered the ashes upon it, saying as he did, “Ian, he loved you.”

The End