Everything in Its Place

The strike hut stood at the head of the slipway, a tarred shed with a stove, a kettle and a hand-lettered sign that read COMMITTEE in the careful capitals of someone who’d been told, once, that he couldn’t spell. Rain drummed on the roof like a bored drummer. Inside the stove ticked and the air smelled of wet wool, tobacco and the sweet, thin odour of an argument that had gone on for days.

Tom Rudd was forty and broad, with a boxer’s nose and the tired eyes of a man whose arguments were often right and rarely rewarded. He poured tea into three tin mugs without being asked, a courtesy as deliberate as a handshake.

“He owned the works,” said Rudd. “He also owned half the Sentinel’s ear, a pew on the bench and a chair at the Chamber table. The police are paid out of rates his friends set. When we’re quiet we get nothing, and when we’re loud we get a concession and a headline calling us a mob.” He lifted the kettle. “That’s no accident, Dr Voss. That’s what a system does. You can swap the owner and keep the arrangement. It’s the arrangement that does the harm.”

Jonah, who had read the right books and sometimes the wrong way round, leaned forward.

“If the owners hold all the cards,” he said, “why won’t your lads strike on a Sunday?”

Rudd’s mouth moved in a way that wasn’t quite a smile and wasn’t quite a wince.