Devil's Game Read Online Free

eyes.
    ‘I’ll try,’ he said, but as he closed the door behind him she wondered if he really meant it.
    Later that morning, in her grandmother’s tiny living room, nursing a cup of instant coffee as she flicked through the pile of paperwork Joyce had presented her with, Laura marvelled at how efficiently she managed to keep in touch with the various protest movements and campaigns she thought worthy of her political experience and commitment. And surprisingly, Laura thought, in spite of the advance of the smart new politicians of all persuasions who now seemed to dominate the town, there were still people who seemed to value Joyce’s old-fashioned wisdom, though her knees would no longer let her wave a banner at their protest marches as she once had.
    ‘The person you want to talk to is Steve O’Mara,’ Joyce said. ‘I’ll give you his phone number. He’s one of the parent governors and he’s really angry about the whole affair. I think he was on the panel when the new head was appointed and he reckons she’s doing a brilliant job. He’s afraid that the new regime will simply ignore the local kids who go to Sutton Park now, and go all out to recruit middle-class youngsters from further away to make the place look good. That’s what’s happened in other places by all accounts. And the parents will lose what little say they have now in how the place is run. This beggar Murgatroyd will control the governors, the school rules, appointments, the lot. Where’s the accountability in that? And from what we’ve been able to find out from the other schools he’s taken over, he’s one of these born-again Christians.’
    ‘I know, I know,’ Laura said. ‘I’ve heard most of this already. What I want now is to get hold of Murgatroyd and put some of these objections to him. But he’s an elusive man, is Sir David. He claims to have local connections but I’ve not tracked down anyone who knows him, or even remembers him from way back. Have you heard of him?’
    ‘There used to be a David Murgatroyd out Eckersley way years ago. Too long ago to be this one, but maybe a relation. All I can recall is that he was a county councillor for a while, Tory of course, and was one of those who tried to stop the West Riding going for comprehensive schools in the Sixties because it meant closing Eckersley Grammar. Made no difference, of course. There were only a handful of Tories on t’county council back then when Harold Wilson got in. Not like the other ridings where they still ruled the roost, of course: all those landowners and farmers. Mind you, they all went comprehensive in the end, when they realised how much money they were wasting on all those small grammar schools and bog-standard secondary moderns. Maggie Thatcher closed more grammar schools than anyone else, you know.’ Joyce chuckled in satisfaction.
    ‘But Murgatroyd…’ Laura edged her grandmother back to the matter in hand. Her knowledge of the politics of her beloved county was encyclopaedic but inclined these days to be rambling.
    ‘Aye, David Murgatroyd,’ Joyce acquiesced amiably enough. ‘I don’t reckon he was involved in politics for very long. As I recall he resigned quite quickly. I think there was some family tragedy, but I really can’t remember what it was. You might find something in the archives at the Gazette , I should think. Bradfield Council and the county never had aright lot to do with each other. We were textiles, they were mining and the rural bits in between. We didn’t have a right lot in common, even in the Labour Party. We weren’t in the pockets of the miners’ union, like some.’ Laura could see the pain of old battles lost in her grandmother’s eyes, but she had more urgent things on her mind and she pressed on.
    ‘So if that David Murgatroyd is my man Murgatroyd’s father, he could well have been born in the county. According to Who’s Who, which has a very brief entry, he was born in 1960, so he would have been a