Wooden Margin
The headline named Gordon Mellor and the safety guards Cawley had ordered removed. At the foot of the page, written in Gordon’s cramped blue pencil, were six words:
V. S. SAW C. TAKE VAN. NEGATIVE WITH HIM.
Wilf read it twice.
“Vernon,” Pascoe said.
“The receipt.” Wilf looked up. “Cawley put it in the case to make Vernon look like the man with paraffin and matches.”
“Before we could ask what Vernon saw.”
“A man accused of setting a fire does not make a useful witness.”
Nineteen years earlier, Wilf had seen a lie go to press and gone home without opening his mouth. Fear had seemed like a sensible landlord then: unpleasant, but familiar enough to live with. He had paid it rent for nearly half his life.
At the far end of the cellar, an iron grille blocked a low brick tunnel. Wilf took the brass key stamped 10 from his pocket. The lock fought him, then sprang open.
Beyond it, the coal chute sloped upward like a buried throat. Pascoe passed him the proof and went first. Wilf crawled after, his knees scraping brick, soot working into his palms. Behind them, flames began finding the stairwell.
They emerged into the kitchen yard through a broken shutter. February rain struck Wilf’s face clean of soot. Pascoe’s Austin waited in the lane beyond the bent gate.
Neither of them spoke during the drive back. Wilf kept the rescued proof flat between both hands, protecting it from the damp. Every black letter seemed to accuse him, yet it also offered a way forward.
The town clock was striking eleven when they slipped into the Gazette by the side door.
Wilf rang 999 from the editor’s desk.
“There’s a fire at Hawthorn House,” he told the operator. “And evidence concerning Gordon Mellor’s disappearance. Send officers to the Gazette as well.”
Pascoe found Cawley’s number in the old address book and dialled it.
“Stanislav,” he said when the call connected. “We found the ledger you missed. It says where Mellor was taken, and what you paid to keep the safety report quiet.”
Wilf watched Pascoe’s face.
“Yes,” Pascoe went on. “The pressroom. Bring the index case, and come alone.”
He put down the receiver.
“He believed you?” Wilf asked.
“He believes he has burned us alive. Hearing my voice will bother him more than any ledger.”
They went to the pressroom. Pascoe found the service panel beside the great machine, and Wilf used the key stamped 11. For a moment nothing happened. Then the old press shuddered, coughed, and began its uneven metal racket.
In the composing room, Wilf woke the battered copier and fed through the altered proof, Pascoe’s copy, and the rescued page, one after another. Pascoe caught each duplicate and sorted them into piles.
“One for the police,” he said.
“One where Cawley cannot find it,” Wilf answered.
The final sheet slid from the tray just as tyres crushed gravel in the alley outside.
The back door opened before Wilf could move away from the copier.
Vernon Sibley came in soaked to the knees, carrying a biscuit tin beneath one arm and a brown envelope beneath the other. He stopped when he saw Pascoe, then Wilf, then the rows of copied proof sheets.
“You got them,” he said.
“You set the list,” Wilf replied.
Vernon gave a small nod. “Used the old damaged G. Kept it in my shed all these years. I needed you to know where to look, Mr Camm. Cawley came round last week, asking questions about keys and old paper. I thought he meant to finish it.”
He put the tin on the proofing table. Inside lay a strip of negatives wrapped in wax paper and a statement, signed on every page in Vernon’s careful hand.
Wilf read beneath the press’s racket.
Vernon had gone to Hawthorn House in 1979 because Gordon Mellor asked him to make a duplicate of the safety report. He had waited in the kitchen yard. Through the scullery window, he had seen Stanislav strike Gordon with an iron fire tool after Gordon refused to destroy the original proof. Later, Vernon saw Stanislav drive Gordon’s van from the house. At dawn, he saw him return with bricks and mortar, sealing the old boiler chamber.
The paraffin receipt was false. The signature had been copied from Vernon's wages book.
Wilf held the negative to the copier lamp. In one small square, Stanislav sat plainly behind the wheel of Gordon’s van, his hat low, his hands on the steering wheel.
“He said Gordon had gone north,” Vernon said. “I knew better. But I had a sick mother then, and Cawley knew where I lived.”
“You kept it,” Wilf said.
“I kept being afraid.”
A car door slammed in the alley.
Pascoe’s face changed. “That will be him.”
Stanislav entered the pressroom with the index case under his arm and one hand inside his overcoat. His eyes travelled over Vernon, the papers, the negative held before the lamp.
“You,” he said to Vernon.
“Yes,” Vernon answered.
“Where is the ledger?” Stanislav asked.
“There never was one,” Wilf said. “Only paper you could not burn.”
Stanislav’s hand moved inside his coat.
Blue light spilled through the dirty windows. The side door crashed open. Sergeant Hales came in with two constables, their boots loud on the old boards.
“Mr Cawley,” Hales said, “keep your hands where I can see them.”
For once, Stanislav had nothing polished to offer. A constable removed the revolver from his pocket and took the index case from beneath his arm. Hales read him the caution while Wilf watched nineteen years of careful lies come apart.
The sergeant’s radio crackled.
“Fire crew at Hawthorn House,” a voice reported. “Human remains located behind the boiler chamber wall. Wrapped in old press canvas.”
Pascoe shut his eyes for a moment. Vernon sat down hard on the nearest chair.
Wilf put his hand on the older man’s shoulder.
“You came tonight,” he said.
Vernon covered Wilf’s hand with his own. “Took me long enough.”
After Stanislav had been led away, Sergeant Hales allowed the press one final run. Pascoe wrote at the composing bench while Wilf set the surviving type and fed the page into the machine.
GORDON MELLOR: THE STORY THE GAZETTE BURIED.
It was not handsome work. The columns ran crooked in places, and one line sat too close to the rule. But it named Gordon, named the altered safety report, named the man responsible. The old press took the form and began to print.
Sheet after sheet came out, black ink bright upon the paper.
Wilf placed the four brass keys beside the first copy. They had been only keys after all: small pieces of metal, made useful by the hand that turned them.
Pascoe found him later in the former staff room, where a cracked leather sofa sat beneath a calendar from 1986.
“That is enough for one night,” Pascoe said.
“No,” Wilf replied. “It is enough at last.”
Pascoe stood close without touching him. “Do you want me?”
Wilf took his tie in both hands and drew him nearer.
“Yes.”
Their kiss began carefully, then grew hungry. Pascoe unbuttoned Wilf’s shirt and laid his mouth against Wilf’s chest, stopping whenever Wilf shifted or spoke. Wilf guided him down onto his knees.
“May I?” Pascoe asked.
“Please.”
Pascoe opened Wilf’s trousers and took his cock into his mouth. Wilf held Pascoe’s shoulders, not directing him, only needing somewhere to put his hands. Pascoe worked him with patient attention, lips and tongue and the firm grip of one hand, until Wilf’s knees weakened.
“Don’t stop,” Wilf said.
Pascoe did not. Wilf came with Pascoe’s name in his mouth, his body spent and loose in a way he had forgotten was possible.
Pascoe rose, hard against Wilf’s hand. Wilf kissed him once, then pushed him gently down onto the sofa.
“My turn,” Wilf said.
Pascoe gave a short laugh. “You needn’t.”
“I want to.”
Wilf opened Pascoe’s trousers and knelt between his knees. He took Pascoe into his mouth, slow at first, then deeper when Pascoe asked for more. Pascoe’s hands held the sofa cushion, his face turned toward the ceiling. Wilf kept going until Pascoe came with a harsh sound and Wilf swallowed every part of it.
They sat together afterward, shirts open, knees touching.
Outside, the press went on printing the truth.
Vernon appeared in the doorway with three paper cups of tea.
“Thought you gentlemen might be dry by now,” he said.
“Morning.”