Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time by M.P. Wright Page A

Vic feared very little other than the back of my uncle Gabe’s hand. His attitude to such things remained undiminished as he grew older. I, on the other hand, was not so sure. Perhaps the incubus I feared as a child still held me in its grip all these years later.
    Something told me that Stella had left her Bible open for a good reason. But I didn’t know what that was. What kind of duppy had she feared so much that it made her clean down that house as if it were a hospital ward and then finally run out on the place and not be seen again?
    I took the last few sips of my pint before getting up to the bar and ordering another. The landlord, Eric Coles, was a bad-tempered bastard at the best of times. He allowed “coloured people”, as he called us, to drink in his establishment not out of any sense of moral responsibility but because St Pauls was becoming something of a black ghetto and he knew we liked a drink. Coles took advantage of that, knowing that our money was as good as any white fellow’s. You’d just never hear Eric say that. He tipped my glass slightly to the side in his huge blue-veined hand and poured the bottle of stout into it, a caramel-coloured head forming as it filled, then stood it with some force onto a beer-soaked mat close to where I stood.
    “That’ll be one and ten,” he said in a deep Somerset accent, holding out his palm towards me.
    I leant over for the drink and pulled it towards me, reached into my wallet, picked out the change and handed it to him.
    “You got a phone I could pay to make a call on, Eric?”
    Coles stared at me for a moment, his head tilted to one side, the look on his face a mixture of dismay and curiosity as to why I would need to use his phone. I watched him as he thought for a moment before he turned around and picked up a green table telephone on a large lead from behind the counter and dropped it down in front of me.
    “Leave the bleedin’ money on the bar when you’re done,” he mumbled gruffly as he walked away.
    I took a small piece of paper out of my jacket pocket. On it was written the number I needed to call. Lifting the receiver, I dialled and waited. After it rang a couple of times, a woman with a voice that sounded as if the entire British Empire’s integrity rested upon it, answered.
    “Bristol City Council, how can I help you?” she asked.
    “Can I have Alderman Linney’s office, please?”
    The line went quiet as I waited to be connected.

7
    By the time Linney had picked up his phone I’d been hangin’ on the end of the damn line for the better part of five minutes. When he finally answered, he greeted me with all the disdain of an elderly schoolmaster who was about to give one of his pupils several sharp belts of his cane.
    “Mr Ellington. You have something to tell me, I trust?”
    Even though I couldn’t see him, I got the feeling he was looking down his nose at me, like some rich uncle having to put up with an unwanted nephew who had snot on his sleeve.
    “We need to talk. I got some more questions fo’ you.”
    I heard him take a deep breath before he spoke again.
    “Questions . . . What kind of questions, Mr Ellington?” His speech was calculated and precise.
    “Like why Stella Hopkins’ house smelt like an abattoir after a spring clean.”
    There was silence for a moment before he spoke again.
    “Meet me at the old observatory on Clifton Down at 4 p.m.; don’t keep me waiting, Mr Ellington.”
    I didn’t get the chance to reply. The burring tone in my ear was Linney’s parting gift to me.
    It was getting dark by the time Earl Linney arrived. I stood watching him get out of his car on the road below. He made his way up the pathway to the observatory that looked out across the well-heeled community of Clifton and the Avon Gorge. He was dressed for the cold weather in a heavy winter wool coat, navy silk scarf and a felt trilby hat that was pulled down low over his face. An icy wind blew across the down as I waited for him,