Death in Dark Waters by Patricia Hall Page B

at the door of the Project. She had tied her hair up in a scarf, like a war-time factory worker, and was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt under paint-stained dungarees.
    â€œWatch yourself, pet,” she said by way of greeting as she stood aside to let Laura into the reception area which reeked of white spirit. Her smile was warm, though she looked tired.
    â€œWe’ve got most of the red paint off, but if you light a match the place’ll go up like a bomb,” she said.
    â€œDon’t give the tearaways ideas,” Laura said. “Is my grandmother here?”
    â€œIn t’ back with Kevin,” Donna said. “He’s brought some mate of his from London with him. A DJ? To talk to t’ kids?” Donna rolled her eyes to heaven in mock despair at the preoccupations of teenagers and waved Laura on into the building.
    Laura made her way into the small kitchen where she found Joyce in animated conversation with Mower and Dizzy B, one white head and two dark ones, and, unexpectedly, three pairs of laughing eyes.
    â€œDid you know your amazing grandmother saw Louis Armstrong in the 1950s?” Mower said, glancing up as Laura came in. “Satchmo himself and I didn’t even know she was into jazz. The boss would be impressed.”
    â€œThere’s lots of things I don’t know about what Joyce got up to in her misspent youth,” Laura admitted with a grin.
“She’s not old enough to have been a suffragette but you can bet your life she’d have been chaining herself to railings if she’d had the chance.”
    â€œTried that at Greenham Common,” Joyce said tartly.
    â€œShe told me she was on the first Aldermaston march too, and every one after that, and the riot in Grosvenor Square,” Laura said. “Though I’m sure that’s not for police consumption. I bet MI5 have still got her on their files.”
    Mower put a finger to his lips and glanced at the door to where Donna could be heard belting out ‘Look for the Hero Inside Yourself’ as she worked.
    â€œWe don’t know any coppers here, remember?” he said. “And certainly not any spooks.”
    â€œThey came to interview me once, M15,” Joyce said unexpectedly, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “When George Blake escaped. You remember? The Russian spy? Thought I might know summat about it.”
    â€œAnd did you?” Mower asked.
    â€œWell if I did, I don’t think I’d tell you, even after all these years,” Joyce said primly. “What you youngsters forget, though, is that we won most of those battles in the end. Only the miners lost and I’ll never forgive some folk who should have known better for that.”
    Mower grinned, and glanced at Dizzy B.
    â€œThis is Laura,” he said. “A chip off the old block.” Mower looked happier behind his piratical black beard than she had seen him for months, Laura thought, and her own heart lifted slightly in response.
    â€œI’ve met the reporter lady,” the DJ said, a wary look in his eyes. “Was it you who put me on the front page of your rag this morning?”
    Laura shook her head.
    â€œThat was our enterprising crime reporter, Bob Baker,” she said. “Nothing to do with me.” Dizzy B glanced at Mower uncertainly.
    â€œYou can believe it,” Mower said. “Baker’s got someone at
the nick in his back pocket and the brass would dearly love to know who. It’s been going on for a while.”
    â€œI thought that sort of thing only happened in American crime novels,” Dizzy B said.
    â€œWell, if you imagine the Gazette’s paying anyone to leak stuff I should think again,” Laura said. “Getting your bus fare to the town hall paid by my boss is like getting blood out of a stone. I don’t think even Bob Baker could persuade him to bribe coppers, not because of any moral scruples, you understand, but because he’s too damn