Play to the End by Robert Goddard Page A

we were told. I'll show you the site." He led the way up the gently sloping land and I fell in beside him. "That's the wholesale meat market," he said, indicating the long, low building to our right, above which we were steadily rising. "And this is the City Council's technical services depot." He pointed to the drab, straggling structure to our left. "Up here used to be the entrance to Colbonite Limited."

    What in God's name, I wondered, was the point of all this? We'd reached a padlocked wire-mesh gate, blocking access to a compound of slant-roofed shacks, decrepit workshops and debris-strewn yards. I gazed past Oswin into the dark and dismal middle distance, perceiving nothing of the slightest significance.

    "It covered the whole area between here and the railway line," he went on. "There used to be a siding serving one of the warehouses. It was disused by the time I started, in nineteen seventy-six, straight from school. My A levels weren't much use at Colbonite, but Dad reckoned I should be ... contributing."

    "What did Colbonite do?"

    "Made things, Mr. Flood. Anything and everything in plastic.
    Kitchenware. Garden furniture. Radio and television casings.

    And boxes. Lots and lots of boxes. Mr. Colborn's great grandfather founded the business in eighteen eighty-three. And his father wound it up one hundred and six years later. I haven't had a steady job since.
    Thirteen years there. And thirteen years away."

    "Well, I... '

    "Not much to look at, is it?"

    "No, but '

    "Why should it be? That's what you're thinking. Companies come and companies go. Livelihoods with them. So what? Who cares?"

    "Apparently you do, Derek."

    He looked round at me in the darkness. I couldn't tell what sort of an expression he had on his face, couldn't tell if there was any expression at all. The traffic rumbled under the bridge behind us. A dog barked somewhere. The wind rattled a corrugated roof on the other side of what had once been the premises of Colbonite Ltd.

    "How about coming to the point?" I said, trying to squeeze the impatience out of my voice.

    "Yes. Sorry. Of course. Mind if we walk on?"

    "Where are we going now?"

    "Back towards Viaduct Road. My route home every working day for thirteen years."

    The lane curved sharply to the left ahead of us and climbed between a high wall to one side and the Colbonite site to the other. There wasn't a soul to be seen. What exactly did I think I was doing prowling around such an area with a borderline head case for company, when I was supposed to be on stage at the Theatre Royal? So far, I'd gained nothing but unsought and unwanted information about Derek Oswin's one and only spell of regular employment. He'd worked for the Colborns. He no longer did. As he himself had said: so what?

    "Since my parents died," he went on, "I've had a lot of time to myself.
    Too much, I expect. Living on your own, you get ... set in your ways."

    That was undeniable. But there are ways .. . and then there are Derek Oswin's ways. "You said you were going to come to the point."

    "I am, Mr. Flood, I am. Colbonite is the point. I've studied its history, you see. I've become an expert on it."

    "Have you really?"

    "I probably know more about it than Mr. Colborn does himself. Do you want me to tell you about Mr. Colborn? Young Mr. Colborn, I mean. I imagine you do. Is he worthy of Mrs. Flood? The question must have crossed your mind."

    "What would you say?"

    "I'd say not. He has ... a treacherous character."

    "But it was his father who closed down the business."

    "Under pressure from his son. Roger Colborn wanted to close us down from the moment he first became involved. Colbonite held a valuable patent on a dyeing technique. He reckoned it was more profitable to sell that than keep us going. He was probably right."

    "You call that treacherous?"

    "I do, yes. The workforce didn't get a slice of what the Colborns sold the patent for. All they got... was redundancy."

    "Even so '

    "And there was