by David Carter
‘Nah, that’s it.’
He paid with a four-pound coin, as she fetched his change and carefully set it in his hand, somehow managing to touch his warm paw in the process.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘do call again.’
‘I will,’ said Adam, as he went outside and walked slowly away, eating the horn on the hoof as he went. The shop supervisor was out the back dealing with a delivery, so the girl took the opportunity to skip round the counter and peer from the door. She watched him growing smaller as he headed away in the direction of Bournemouth. He had a hole in the backside of his dirty jeans, more of a rip; she noticed that, just as she had noticed him. She hadn’t seen him in the shop before, she was certain of that, because she knew she would have remembered him.
Adam had been on his way to the surgery to pick up Mrs Reamse’ repeat prescription. She was feeling unwell and had remained in bed all day, and Adam was only too pleased at the chance to get out into the fresh air. He hadn’t yet returned, when two unmarked cars, boasting temporary blue lights, furiously flashing, roared past the cake-shop, pausing briefly at the traffic lights, checking that nothing was coming across the junction. They were making such a racket, squealing tyres, and revving engines that Susie, the girl, came out for a better look.
SPATs, she said to herself, and she knew what she was talking about because her father was a regular policeman. He had been in the service for twenty-two years, and he, like so many others in the regular force, detested the stuck up newcomers. Spittle, he referred to them as, and much worse besides when he’d had a few drinks. Every time Susie and her dad were in town, or up in London, her father would always point them out to her. When you knew what you were looking for they stuck out like an Arsenal fan at a Chelsea convention. Susie quickly became an expert at recognising SPATs, and everything they stood for. She, like her dad, learned to be wary of them too.
The young fella with the ripped jeans who bought the cream horn hadn’t yet reappeared, leastways she hadn’t seen him, and she had a gut feeling the Spittle were looking for him. Then she saw him, right there, on the other side of the road, walking briskly in the general direction of the commotion.
‘Can you excuse me a minute,’ she said to her boss, and went outside where she waved across the street. ‘Hey!’ she shouted, ‘Hey you! Have you got a mo?’
Adam looked up and smiled at the girl. She was a bit of all right, that cream cake kid, and better than that, she seemed to like him. He checked the traffic and crossed the road.
‘There’s been an incident,’ she said, nodding down toward where Adam was heading.
‘Oh aye?’
‘SPATs!’ she said, ‘I can always tell.’
‘Yeah? And how do you manage that?’
‘My dad’s a copper, he hates ’em.’
‘Do meself. Perhaps you could show me how sometime?’
‘OK, I might at that. They are not looking for you, are they?’
‘Course not!’ he said, all bravado, and they both knew it was a lie. In reality it was as if he was saying: Bloody right they are!
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go to Christchurch, you couldn’t drop these off for me, could you?’ glancing down at the box of pills. ‘The address is on the packet.’
‘OK,’ she said, ‘but it will cost you.’
Adam smiled. ‘Like what?’
‘You could take me to the flicks sometime.’
‘Maybe I will. Look I’ll have to go, and thanks for everything.’
He thrust the medication into her hand and turned away.
‘What’s your name?’ she shouted after him.
‘Adam,’ he growled back over his shoulder, ‘Adam Rexington.’
‘I’m Susie,’ she said, but he was already too far away to hear.
HE WAS STANDING IN the High Street in Christchurch with another young woman in front of him, looking up, and speaking to him in that same imploring way. She was a little younger than cake-shop girl, and not as sophisticated or forward either. She didn’t wear any makeup, and looked quite girlish with her pink cheeks and unruly hair, though she was certainly a pretty kid in an innocent kind of way. She wanted to help him too, and Adam wondered what it was that young women saw in him that detected that, firstly, he was in trouble, and secondly, that he might need their help. Not only young women either, for Liz was all of twenty-six when she had offered to help him out, and no one could consider that young, could they? Another thing puzzled him. Why were they so keen to offer their help in the first place? He was grateful for it, of course he was, usually, but puzzled too.
‘I can help you,’ she insisted, ‘really I can.’
‘Can you put a roof over my head?’
‘Well.... no.’
‘Then you can’t help me. Goodbye!’
‘Actually.... maybe I can.’
‘Eh, how?’
‘There’s a boathouse down on the river. You know the Quomps?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s opposite there. It’s kind of faded maroon, but you have to go all the way up to the bridge and over the river, then all the way down the other side. I could show you, if you like.’
Adam thought for moment. Truth was he didn’t have anything better. ‘OK. You’re on. Come on.’
They walked down past the bandstand and on towards the quay where hundreds of swans were bullying tourists and begging ice cream cones, and yesterday’s bread, from anyone who would pay attention.
‘It’s there,’ she said, nodding across the river. ‘See. From here it looks so close, but it isn’t.’
He repeated her earlier words. ‘You have to go all the way up to the bridge and over the river and down the other side?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s very quiet down there, and surprisingly remote. No one ever goes there.’
‘Who owns the boathouse?’
‘It used to be the GNTC.’
‘The what!’
‘The GNTC, the Girls Nautical Training Corp, but the government closed it down, and started their own Girls Sea Cadets kind of business, and we all left because they sent over this awful officer with horrible habits. The boathouse has remained pretty much empty and unused ever since. The new troop use a much grander modern effort up the river, paid for with lottery money.’
‘Is it locked?’
‘Oh yeah. Course it is. Good locks too, from what I remember.’
‘So how do I get in?’
‘There’s a key,’ she said. ‘And I know where it is.’
Adam smiled. ‘Well?’
‘It’s at the back, on a nail, it’s hidden by a low holly bush, quite hard to get at, but it should still be there.’
‘What’s it like inside?’
‘Wet and watery downstairs and damp as hell, but upstairs it’s brill. There’s a kitchen and some chairs and stuff. You’d be surprised. No one would ever find you there. It’s really quite comfy.’
Adam sniffed the air and glanced back across the choppy overflowing river. He couldn’t go back to Canford Cliffs, he didn’t think it safe, and he certainly did not want to see Martin Reamse again. There was nowhere better to lay his head.
‘I might give it a go.’
‘What’s your name?’ she said.
‘Adam Rexington. Yours?’
‘Eve,’ she said, ‘Eve Cornelius.’
‘Ta,’ he said, grinning in that boyish way of his. ‘Could ya bring me some grub tomorra?’
‘Yeah, OK, lunchtime, I’ll come down at lunchtime.’
‘Great. Yeah, you do that, doll. Cheers.’
Twenty-Two
LIDA was no match for Martin Reamse. He had produced a programme for the BBC on lie detector devices a year earlier. He had studied the genre. He knew LIDA’s weaknesses, and made that expertise count. He was only too aware that though LIDA could give an opinion on any answers coughed up, it could not pose questions itself, it could not think, and consequently was reliant on the expertise of the interrogators.
Inspector Smeggan thought LIDA infallible, but he also thought himself a genius, as did some others in the force, a line of thinking that Jarvis Smeggan did everything to encourage. Martin thought him a lickspittle, a toady, a vile man not blessed with high intelligence, and worse still, he had a problem with personal hygiene. Despite that, Martin was clever enough to realise he was a dangerous adversary.
LIDA’s readings on Martin Reamse proved unclear. Inspector Smeggan quickly convinced himself that Martin was a pawn in the game, and nothing more, perhaps a glorified messenger boy, though he agreed with the final assessment that Reamse probably knew more than they had wheedled out of him. The prisoner possessed friends in high places, and one had to be very careful on whose toes one stamped, most especially with anyone with connections in the media. Like the slimy creatures that live beneath the stones, the SPATs did not appreciate limelight being suddenly thrust upon them.
Eventually, Smeggan agreed with the CPS proposal that Martin Reamse be tried under the Terrorism Act, with a recommendation that he be sent to Blackpool, where if he did indeed know more than he had revealed, that information would certainly be extracted from him. Smeggan revelled in the outcome, it would be another conviction on his beat, another notch on his personal weapon in the war on terror, another positive stat, like a kid in primary school; he was determined to amass the tallest skyscraper of golden stars.
Martin was sent to the Crown Court and would be tried on two counts by three appointed magistrates. It would be a formality, and in due course, it was. He was found guilty in a little over a day and a half, the senior magistrate fully accepting the SPATs recommendations.
‘Martin Reamse,’ he announced in his best read the lesson in church Sunday voice, ‘You are sentenced to 180 days detention in Blackpool. I am bound to point out that if you remain uncooperative during your stay there, the authorities could apply for a further 180 days upon your release. Should your present attitude remain; I would have little hesitation in granting that request. Take him away.’
Sent to Blackpool for 180 days.
Sent to Blackpool for 180 days.
THOSE WORDS REMAINED with Martin for several days afterwards. It was as if they had been scraped onto his brain with a jagged piece of chalk.
After the verdict was announced he glanced across the courtroom at his dying and crying mother. Liz alone comforted her in the empty courtroom, but there was nothing anyone could do. No appeal was allowed on 180 day detention sentences, it was a fait accompli. The whole charade was a government mechanism to grant the authorities more time for additional and intensive interrogation, away from the public eye and human rights watchers, and money grabbing know-all lawyers, and Amnesty International creeps, an organisation that had long been forced underground and overseas, and the recently outlawed Green-bloody-peace, and moaning Minnie liberals, and ex Guardian readers, (the Guardian had long since been swallowed whole by The Messenger with nary a belch), and nosey foreigners, and God knows who else. Prying eyes were put out, blinded, averted and burnt. The policy was working pretty well.
Once in captivity, any method, including the unrestricted use of drugs and deprivation, could be used. Water boarding would be taken to a whole new level. Generally speaking, the public supported the policy. Criminals and terrorists had to be brought to book, whatever it took, and out of sight was definitely out of mind. Ironically, Martin had voted for it. If he had his chance again, he might think differently, but it was too late for that. Martin would go to Blackpool, and in a funny kind of way, as a journalist, or strictly speaking, an ex journalist, he was looking forward to it, for it might just produce the mother of all inside exposés. So long as one day he had the opportunity to broadcast it, but would anyone listen? And would anyone care?
Colin went about his business as if nothing had changed, though he worried about his friend. Acting on Frank Preston’s information, Colin had been placed under constant surveillance, though he had no idea about that. For the time being, the authorities had decided to let Colin run free, for they were in intrigued to see who he would lead them to next.
TWO DAYS LATER, JOSS’S e-summons bounced into the Cornelius’s computer. They were ordered to attend a place called Harlingdon Hall, which, according to the accompanying directions, was eight miles north-east of Diss, close to the Norfolk-Suffolk border.
‘It sounds very grand,’ said Jemima, encouragingly, as if Joss was going to stay with wealthy relatives for a holiday.
The instruction went on to say that parents and guardians accompanying and delivering said persons to the drop off point, would be excused from their daily work on guaranteed pay, and be granted additional personal car allowance, mileage and petrol, but that any said parents and guardians who did not carry out such instructions, would themselves be prosecuted with a maximum sentence of five years in prison. No excuses, no exceptions, no exemption, no appeal, without a written certificate from the local Party office.
As in many things, modern instructions were written down in black and white, or to be more precise, blue and white pixels on their brand new British made flatscreen, and they were not up for debate. Penalties for transgressing were harsh, and oddly, that appealed to middle England. The silent majority were no longer so silent. It was as if this was payback time.
The thunderous applause that had greeted Mrs Bletchington’s speech at Bournemouth had been recorded, and now it was regularly attached to the end of official announcements and emails and text messages. Britain was marching to an altogether different tune. Bravo! Bravo!
‘But that can’t be right,’ moaned Joss. ‘It just can’t be right ’cos Frank said....’ and she stopped abruptly in mid sentence.
‘Frank said what?’ asked her father.
‘Oh nothing.... err, he said something about it would be suspended, that’s all.... something like that.’
‘Then you’d better ring fat Frank and find out what he was on about, or otherwise, in case you hadn’t noticed, you will be on your way to Norfolk first thing in the morning, young lady.’
‘I will ring him, I bloody well will,’ said Joss, as she stropped from the room, and ran upstairs to retrieve her mobile.
Frank sympathised, and said he’d ring Mister Granger, and he did. Mister Granger said there simply hadn’t been sufficient time between receiving the girl’s information, and the e-summons going out. Unfortunately, the instructions stood, and that was the end of the matter. After that, Mister Granger made his excuses, pleading pressure of work, and cut Frank off again, much to the kid’s annoyance. Joss Cornelius would be going on the EWP, whether she liked it or not. Frank Preston would be staying at home; he was exempt, because the Party had big plans for fat Frankie.
On hearing the news, Joss was furious. She thought of telling her parents what she had done, though she didn’t, because ultimately, she didn’t possess the courage. The car was made ready, and in due course, a picnic lunch was prepared, for it would be a long and fractious journey, one that no one was looking forward to. It could have been worse, thought Colin, at least she wasn’t going down the mines. Thank God for small mercies.
Twenty-Three
The decrepit Mercedes Sprinter van left Hampshire at ten o’clock in the morning, bearing two passengers, one being Martin Reamse. By the time it pulled into Langdale Camp in the southern suburbs of Blackpool, it was carrying its full compliment of six men, each chained to their seats within their own individual cell. It was 7pm. It had been a long and rough ride, for the van’s suspension was in urgent need of a serious service.
Each van cell boasted a small slit window high up on the side of the vehicle. The windows were reinforced and unopenable and heavily darkened so that no one could see in, or out. It stank, in the van, of diesel fumes and cheap disinfectant and body odour and stale alcohol and crap tobacco and dirty clothes and desperation, and fear.
The Sprinter had racked up more than half a million miles hauling undesirables the length and breadth of the kingdom.
It had been pissed in, defecated in, and worse, vomited over, kicked, shot at, smashed with an iron bar, had its tyres slashed numerous times, had the diesel siphoned off more times than anyone could remember, set fire to three times, and stolen twice, yet it was still on the road. It bore a single red stripe on either side, though that had long since faded to a washed out orange. On the roof were two rotating blue beacons. These were switched on during heavy traffic and for reasons Martin did not understand, provoked the other prisoners into yelling. The third time it happened the senior screw ordered them quiet, and fearing the unknown, they were. On the front of the van, above the windscreen, the prison department logo announced their presence, though that too was fading fast, and peeling.
Langdale Camp was not an official prison; it was a holiday camp, literally. The government had commandeered it as part of its prisoner re-education programme eighteen months before, and though there was a wire fence around the perimeter, it would not prevent a determined escapee getting loose. All the inmates were category C prisoners, and that came as a relief to many of the wiser guys who found themselves there. Throughout his induction Martin remained silent, watching and listening. He had never been anywhere near a correctional institution before, and he wouldn’t make waves until he was certain of the way things ran.
As it turned out, he found himself in a prefabricated dormitory containing a dozen men, all of whom were new arrivals, and all of whom it quickly transpired, were serving the same 180 days for unspecified terrorist activities, some of them vaguely believable, others plain ludicrous.
The place looked like a Second World War army camp in a 1950’s black and white movie. It was grey and drab with poor heating and ventilation, housing a dozen low lying narrow beds, metal framed and skimpily covered and set out, six on either side. At the far end of the hut was one small bathroom containing one lavatory. What kind of holiday camp could this have been, thought Martin, though he remained silent about that too.