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young sergeant came on the line.
"Who," asked Hanley with deiberation, as the man who owned and occupied the
house in Mayo Road prior to 1954 and died in that year?
" don't know, sir," said the young man
How long had he been in it?
"I didn't take notes about that sir. But I recall the pre vious occupant had
been there for thirty years. He was a widower."
"He certainly was," growled Hanley. What was his name?"
There was a pause. "I never thought to ask, sir." The old man was released
two hour later, through the back door in case anyone from the press was
hanging around the front lobby. This time, there was no police car, no escort.
He had the address of a council hostel in his pocket Without saying a word he
shuffled down the pavement and into the mean streets of the Diamond.
At Mayo Road the missing section of chain-link fence where the house had once
been was in place, closing off the entire car park Wthn the area, on the spot
where the house and garden had stood was a sheet of level concrete in the last
stages of drying. In the gathering dusk the foreman was stomping over the
concrete with two of his workers.
Every now and then he hacked at the surface with the steelcapped heel of one
of his boots.
"Sure its dry enough," he said. The boss wants it finished and tarmacked over
by tonight."
On the other side of the road, in the rubble field, a bonfire burned up the
last of a pile of banisters, stairs,
roof joists? ceiling beams? cupboards? window frames and doors, the remnants
of the plank fence, the old privy and the chicken house. Even by its light,
none of the workers noticed the old figure that stared at them through the
chain-link wire.
The foreman finished prowling over the rectangle of new concrete and came to
the far end of the plot, up against where the old back fence had been. He
looked down at his feet.
"What's this?" he asked. "This isn't new. This is old."
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The area he was pointing at was a slab of concrete about 6 feet by 2.
"It was the floor of the old chicken house," said the worker who had spread
the ready-mix concrete that morning by hand.
"Did you not put a fresh layer over it?" asked the fore man.
"I did not. It would have raised the level too high at (hat spot. There'd
have been a fierce hump in the tarmac if I had."
"If there's any subsidence here, the bossl have us do it again, and pay for
it," said the foreman darkly. He went a few feet away and came back with a
heavy pointed steel bar. Raising it high above his head, he brought it down,
point first, on the old concrete slab. The bar bounced back. The foreman
grunted.
"All right? it's solid enough," he conceded. Turning towards the waiting
bulldozer, he beckoned. "Fill it in, Michael."
The bulldozer blade came down right behind the pile of steaming fresh tarmac
and began to push the hot mountain, crumbling like soft, damp sugar, towards
the rectangle of concrete. Within minutes, the area had turned from gray to
black, the tar raked flat and even, before the mechanical roler, waiting
behind the spreaders, finished
the Job. As the last light faded from the sky, the man eft for home and the
car park was at last complete.
Beyond the wire, the old man turned and shuffled away. He said nothing,
nothing at all. But for the first time, he smiled? a long? happy smile of pure
relief.
Privilege.
The telephone rang just after half past eght, and as it was a Sunday morning
Bill Chadwick was still in bed. He tried to ignore it, but it just went on
ringing. After ten rings he hauled himself out of bed and down the stairs to
the hall.
"Yes?"
"Helo, Bill? Henry.
It was Henry Carpenter from down the road, a man whom he knew socially, but
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not wel.
"Morning, Henry,*' said Chadwick. "Don't you have a lie-in on a Sunday
morning?"
"Er, no," said the voice. "I go for a jog in the park, actually."
Chadwick grunted. He would, he thought. Eager beaver type. He yawned.
"What can I do for you at this hour on a winter's day?" he asked. Down the
line Carpenter seemed dimdent.
"Have you started into the morning papers yet?" asked Carpenter. Chadwick
glanced towards the hall mat where his usua two ay unopened.
"Nope," he said. "Why?"
"Do you take the Sunday Courier asked Carpenter.
"Nope," said Chadwick. There was a long pause.
I think you should have a look at it today," said Carpenter. "There's
something about you in it."
"Oh," said Chadwick, with rising interest. "What's it say?"
Carpenter was even more' diffident. His embarrassment was evident in the tone
of voice. Clearly he had thought Chadwick would have seen the article and
would be able to discuss it with him.
"Wel, you'd better look at it for yourself, old boy," said Carpenter? and put
the phone down. Chadwick stared at the buzzing telephone and repaced it. Like
all people who hear they have been mentioned in a newspaper artice they have
not yet seen, he was curious.
He returned to the bedroom with the Express and Telegraph, handed them to his
wife and began to pul trousers and a polo-necked sweater over his pyjamas.
"Where are you going?" his wife asked.
Just going down the road to get another paper," he told her. "Henry Carpenter
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