Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody Read Free Book Online

It’s the right thing to do, whatever anyone else says.’
    ‘What does everyone else say?’
    ‘That everything was done at the time. The police searched. Mother offered a reward for information. She assured me that everything would be done to find him. I wasn’t able to do much, going wherever the VAD sent me. Oddly enough, it was on the day we met that he went missing. Do you remember? On that ward full of poor men with shell shock.’
    We were silent for a few moments. The foal lost interest in us and tottered after its mare. In the far corner of the field, a crow swooped.
    ‘I read a newspaper account. It said that your father was found by boy scouts, and saved from drowning. Do you believe there was any reason why he may have wanted to take his own life?’
    She shuddered. ‘That’s not it. That’s not it at all. He didn’t try to take his life.’
    ‘How can you be sure?’
    ‘I just know it.’
    ‘We have to look at every possibility. I believe your brother was killed just weeks before your father was found by the beck.’
    ‘Yes.’ She clasped her hands, twirling her thumbs.
    It felt cruel, making her talk about her brother.
    ‘Poor Edmund. There were just the two of us. Edmund volunteered, but then everyone did, didn’t they?’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘He was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. But Dad was stoical, as we all were. He wouldn’t have attempted to take his life. He wasn’t a despairing kind of man.’
    ‘Can you tell me about the last time you saw him?’
    For a moment, she looked as if she would cry. ‘I’m afraid my mind’s gone a bit of a blank.’
    ‘Try.’
    A blackbird trilled in the hedge, as if nothing in the world could ever be out of kilter.
    ‘It would have been a Sunday dinner, sometime that month. August. There were just the two of us. Mother claimed a headache. Truth to tell she could hardly bear to be in the same room with Dad, not since Edmund was killed.’
    ‘Why was that do you think?’
    She shrugged and shook her head. ‘I don’t know all the ins and outs. She thought Edmund shouldn’t have joined up, at least not so soon, and that he only did it to get away from Dad, and from having to stay in the mill. We were busy producing khaki, so Edmund could have avoided the army.’
    For the moment she seemed to have run out of words.
    I restarted the car.
    Following Tabitha’s directions I drove up a steep cobbled street of densely packed two-storey cottages, past a school with high windows.
    ‘If you look over to your left, you can see the mill chimney. We’ll continue up the main street. You’ll soon find your bearings.’
    The row of houses gave way to a solid stone building with sturdy pillars and portico. ‘That’s the Mechanics’ Institute. The lecturer comes from Keighley. Just up ahead you’ll see the chapel. Dad was on the committee. Uncle Neville takes an active interest.’
    ‘Is your family very religious?’
    ‘Not in an out of the ordinary way. Mother and I are Church of England thank goodness. Gives you a much better class wedding. A chapel do would be so ordinary and plain. But all mill masters have to make a show in some chapel direction, and encourage their hands. It’s what keeps the mills in motion, Dad always says.’
    ‘Is Uncle Neville your mother’s or your father’s brother?’
    ‘Dad’s cousin, so I suppose not a fully-fledged uncle, but the nearest we’ve got. Head towards the mill and keep going.’
    I caught sight of a humpback bridge and heard the sound of running water. ‘Is that the beck?’
    ‘Yes. Dad was found by the stepping stones, where we used to play.’
    We stopped to take a look.
    Standing on the solid old sandstone bridge, we watched water play over rocks, murmuring and rushing as if to keep an important appointment.
    ‘He was a smashing dad, Kate. I love him. I want him back. See just there, by the stones, that’s where Edmund and I used to play, trying to make a dam, fishing,