“How did that make you feel?”
Harry shrugged again. “It ain’t great, is it? But like I said, there are worst things I suppose. He would send me on stupid jobs, make me look stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Long stands, you heard of that one?”
Joseph hadn’t but Ray replied before him. “Yeah, sends you off to another part of the yard, asking for a long stand, and people ignore you till you work it out.”
“That’s it.”
“How long were you standing there?”
Harry shrugged again, but this time a smile crossed his face when he answered, as if he got the joke himself. “Hour and a half. Sat by the river and watched the boats. Least it wasn’t raining.”
“I bet you were pretty angry after that?” Ray really wanted to get inside this lad’s head.
“I felt daft. Which I am. I know that. I’m young and I don’t know the stuff they know. Just a shame that he don’t tell me things. Other people manage it; I wish he did.”
“So, it’s fair to say he humiliated you?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, before he realised what that might imply. He looked up with fear flushed on his face. “But that don’t mean I did nothing. He might have been harsh at times, but he weren’t the only one, and I definitely didn’t want to do anything to him. I just want to get on and make good.”
“You mention you wanted to do well. Do right by your family. Did that include making any extra money?”
“Extra money?” Harry looked visibly confused. A naïve little boy who hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Far too green. The sort of people organised criminals avoided like the plague.
“Yeah. Mislaying things that might be of interest to other people?” Ray wasn’t satisfied.
“What, like fencing stuff?” Harry looked genuinely shocked. “No. God, no.”
“Okay, just checking. You’d let us know if you heard about that, wouldn’t you?” Ray asked firmly. An order, not a suggestion.
*
Joseph closed the door behind Harry when he left. Ray stood, heading towards his hat and jacket.
“What did you make of him?” Ray asked, rolling down his sleeves, not looking at Joseph.
“He seemed very nervous.” Joseph looked through his notes for anything that jumped off the page at him. Nothing did. Not yet anyway.
“I don’t know if we scared him, or something else did,” Ray said, turning to face Joseph as he slipped on his jacket. “Boy looked like he was terrified.”
“At first,” Joseph pointed out. “He warmed up a bit.”
“Perhaps felt he had pulled the wool over our eyes a little.” Ray liked to do his thinking out loud. “Whatever it was, I’m not done with him. Not done with a lot of them. At least one of them knows more than they let on. I’m going to find out who.”
4.
Joseph had expected that they would return to their car before heading back to the station with the interviews over, but Ray had other ideas. Namely, finding out what pub Gerald Trainer had chosen to drink in, then visiting it themselves.
The Grazier’s Arms made up the south-east corner of a crossroads a short walk from the docks, and on what would seem to be a sensible route home for Gerald. A low, single-storey building, flanked on each side by two-storey terraced houses. The door sat snugly in the corner of the building, underneath a cream sign with ‘No. 76’ painted in dark green. Two more signs sat on either side, the name painted in the same colour, alongside the name of the brewery. The brickwork had been painted a similar green, the beige of the pointing edging the large breeze blocks that made up the middle to upper part of the walls. Beneath the sills of the windows, everything had been painted jet black, all the better for hiding any spray from passing trucks or cars as they made their way from the messier areas of the dockyard. Large windows covered by net curtains offered little insight as to what they might expect inside. The curtains had probably once been a brilliant white but had now been stained by sunlight, cigarette smoke and who knew what else.
The lights inside the pub had been turned on, the late afternoon light no longer enough to illuminate it. A small crowd of workers, clocked off from their shifts, sat around the small tables, pints in hands, cigarettes or pipes being smoked. Some glanced up as Joseph and Ray entered. Most ignored them. A fire roared in one corner of the room, warming it whilst the smell of the burning coals mingled with the smell of tobacco to create a cosy and strangely enticing smell.
The bar stood in the middle of the building and linked the room they were in now with the lounge area out the back. They ambled over and Ray removed his coat and hat, hanging them from a hook on a pillar that rose from the bar. He rolled up his sleeves before resting his arms against the wooden top, his hands interlinked as if in prayer to the beer pumps before him. Joseph took off his coat, folding it neatly over the brass rail that formed a barrier between the customers and the bar itself.
The barmaid spotted them and walked over, smiling at them and asking cheerily, “What are you having?”
Ray ordered two pints of a bitter that Joseph had never heard of. The woman took two glasses, setting one down before pulling on the pump.
“Police?” The barmaid’s question could have been mistaken for a statement.
“That’s right,” Ray replied.
“Someone in trouble?”
“I’m afraid so,” Ray said soberly. “Do you know a Gerald Trainer?”
The woman looked at him and let out a little laugh. “Yeah. Of course.”
“He’s dead.”
Joseph watched the woman’s face as she paused momentarily. She shook her head and sighed. “Oh, bloody hell.”
“Are you okay?” Joseph asked softly, fighting the urge to offer her a hug. He didn’t need Ray to tell him how inappropriate that would be.
“Yes, I mean, it’s not the best news, is it?” The barmaid sighed again before turning back to the pump, finishing the first pint. She placed it on the bar, before picking up the second one. “What happened to him?”
