by Guy Walters
Armstrong’s pursuit of his quarry was interrupted by the sound of rapidly approaching bells and klaxons. He turned to see a black police Wolseley and a black police van racing down the street towards him, sending pedestrians jumping out of their way. Armstrong froze, feeling his legs starting to shake. Not now, please not now. He took a series of deep breaths, attempting to steady himself as the procession came closer. The noise was unbearable, echoing inside his skull, pummelling his brain.
But the vehicles shot past, ignoring him along with every other pedestrian. As their noise receded, so did Armstrong’s sense of panic. He felt his heart rate decrease, his legs become steadier. Thank God for that, he told himself, letting out a long sigh.
‘I say – are you quite all right?’
Armstrong didn’t hear the voice at first.
‘Are you all right, young man?’
Armstrong looked down to his right to see that the voice belonged to a diminutive old woman. She must have been about seventy, and she was studying Armstrong with a kindly expression.
‘You’ve gone terribly pale,’ she said. ‘You should sit down.’
Armstrong smiled weakly.
‘Thank you, madam,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I’m fine, just a little tired, that’s all.’
‘I haven’t seen anybody look like that since the war.’
Armstrong looked at her quizzically.
‘The . . . the war?’
‘I was a nurse,’ she replied with pride. ‘I used to treat a lot of young men like you, for shellshock, y’know.’
Armstrong did know, but he wasn’t going to let on. And then he saw the lightning flash armband on her right arm, which made him want to finish the conversation immediately. He looked up, his eyes desperately scanning for a glimpse of the Blackshirt. He couldn’t have lost him, and if he had, it would be his own bloody fault for surrendering to an attack brought on by the mildest of triggers.
But his fear was not realised, because he spotted the Blackshirt just as he was being swallowed up by the revolving door of a hotel on the corner.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said to the old woman. ‘Perhaps I should sit down. I was wondering – do you know the nearest place to eat?’
‘The County Hotel does a nice lunch I’m told,’ she said, pointing to where the Blackshirt had disappeared. ‘Although it’s a bit expensive. Or of course there’s the—’
‘Thank you,’ Armstrong replied. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’
He nodded his head slightly, doing his best to summon up a convincing smile. The woman, who had evidently been hoping for a longer exchange, appeared slightly peeved by Armstrong’s abrupt dismissal of her. Thanking her once more, he turned and walked away. Get a grip, he told himself, sort yourself out. The Blackshirt looked tough, so if he was to carry out what he had in mind, then he would need to be tougher.
Armstrong declined the offer of a table next to a window as he soon realised that the restaurant overlooked the station, the area in front of which was swarming with policemen. He didn’t fancy his chances that none of them would recognise the fugitive tucking into his lunch.
Instead, he opted for a corner table, and declining the wine list, made a show of studying the menu. He looked around the dining room, searching for his Blackshirt. His fellow diners were a mixture of commercial travellers, local grandees and businessmen, and well-heeled women of a certain age. Many of the men wore little metal lightning flash buttons in their lapels that indicated their political persuasion, a persuasion that Armstrong fancied to be the product of expediency rather than conviction. It was no doubt hard to secure a contract these days without the blessing of the Party, and it would be even more likely that the Party had its fingers in many a commercial pie. No doubt his Blackshirt, whom Armstrong had spotted laughing over a glass of whisky with a couple of rotund businessmen, was getting his entire hands covered in such pie. Keep drinking, thought Armstrong, keep drinking.
Even though he had little appetite, Armstrong knew he should eat while he had the chance. Furthermore, it would be foolishly conspicuous not to eat something while he waited. He ordered leek and potato soup followed by roast beef, although he doubted whether he would have the chance to enjoy the second course.
The soup was lukewarm, but Armstrong barely noticed its temperature as he kept an eye on the Blackshirt. He and the businessmen were rapidly dispatching a bottle of claret, and it would surely not be much longer before the Blackshirt would have to excuse himself. Come on, man, Armstrong urged silently, you’ve got to go at some point.
His patience was rewarded a few minutes later. He waited for the Blackshirt to leave the room, and then summoned the waiter to ask for the whereabouts of the lavatory. Taking the briefcase with him, he walked down a softly carpeted corridor to the gents.
* * *
‘Ruthless,’ says Stalin, as he walks up and down his office.
‘I quite agree,’ Nikolai Ivanovich replies.
The head of the NKVD watches warily as Stalin grooms his large moustache, the contours of a smile forming beneath it. Ruthless. It is a word that Comrade Stalin is fond of using. Stalin continues walking, passing the death mask of Lenin.
‘The Ukraine thinks, behaves and acts as though it is independent,’ he says, pausing briefly to perch on the arm of a chair. ‘So I want a Politburo Commission consisting of you, Molotov and Khrushchev to go there at once, along with a large force of NKVD.’
Nikolai Ivanovich nods. There is only one question that needs asking.
‘How many?’
Another groom of the moustache, and then the hand turns up in the air, as if it is catching a number falling from the ceiling.
‘Thirty thousand,’ says Stalin. ‘The local NKVD can select precisely who. If it ends up being more, then so much the better.’
Nikolai Ivanovich jots the number down.
‘Some will need to be personally approved by me,’ says Stalin. ‘And you can tell everyone that as of next month there will be no more appeals or petitions for clemency.’
‘That should make the job much . . . simpler.’
Stalin nods and then lifts himself off the chair’s arm. There is a near silence for a minute or so. Nikolai Ivanovich can hear Stalin’s heavy breathing through his nose.
‘Now tell me about Slutsky,’ says Stalin. ‘Tell me about his progress in Britain. You must understand, Comrade Yezhov, that nothing is more important than ridding Britain of fascism. It will only be a matter of time before Mosley and Hitler join forces – not a day that I will allow to happen!’
Another near silence.
‘Well?’
‘Slutsky has been making excellent progress,’ says Nikolai Ivanovich. ‘Really very excellent indeed.’
‘If it was not so then I would consider him a traitor.’
‘Quite right, Comrade, and I would agree with you. However, we now have in position several agents who are capable of altering the fortunes of the Mosley regime. And not only that! They are also in a position to turn Britain into a Soviet state.’
Stalin raises an eyebrow.
‘Who?’ he asks. ‘Tell me who.’
* * *
Armstrong entered the lavatory while the Blackshirt was washing his hands.
‘Hello again,’ said Armstrong, feigning surprise.
The Blackshirt ignored him, flicking the water off his hands.
‘I said, hello again.’
He had the look of a thug, Armstrong thought, a typical Blackshirt thug.
‘I heard you the first time,’ the Blackshirt replied. ‘I don’t talk to fairies in toil—’
The Blackshirt was unable to finish the sentence because Armstrong’s fist had connected with his stomach, winding him, bending him double. He gasped for air, clutching his front. Armstrong paused. In for a penny, he thought, and swiftly smashed his right knee into the Blackshirt’s face, sending the man flying back across the floor.
For a moment the Blackshirt lay in near silen
ce, moaning gently. Armstrong looked over at the door – this would be a bad time for someone to walk in. He rushed over and wedged the back of a wooden chair under the door handle, buying himself some peace. Now what? Kill him? He couldn’t bring himself to do that, not in cold blood. Besides, this Blackshirt was not a secret policeman, just a thug who had found a cause. There were plenty of them around – there always had been. But if he let him live, the consequences could be disastrous.
The Blackshirt, blood streaming from his nose, was attempting to get up, but his movements were uncoordinated and clumsy. Armstrong grabbed him by the front of his tunic and bashed his head against the cold tiled floor. The impact knocked him out immediately. He would let the man live, but he would put him out of action for a few hours, by which time Armstrong would be hundreds of miles south – if what he now had in mind came off.
Five minutes later, Armstrong walked out of the washroom dressed as a Blackshirt, complete with armband. His victim, still unconscious, was sitting naked on a lavatory, his wrists handcuffed together behind his back and around the pipe leading from the cistern down to the pan. A portion of Armstrong’s shirt was stuffed in his mouth and his ankles were tied together with the rest of the garment. The remainder of Armstrong’s clothes had been thrown on to the top of a tall cupboard, where they would remain out of sight, and hopefully undiscovered. Armstrong had locked himself and the Blackshirt into a cubicle, before climbing over the partition, picking up the briefcase and walking into the corridor, his pockets stuffed with cash and the Blackshirt’s identity card.
Armstrong’s pace was confident – neither too fast nor too slow. He made his way to the lobby, not looking through the large glass doors that led into the dining room. All it would require was eye contact with his waiter and his new-found cover would be blown. He passed the doors and entered the lobby, where a pair of rather overweight women were manning the reception desk and a well-groomed young man was looking nervously at his watch. A radio was quietly playing some light orchestral pieces. Armstrong was acutely aware that all three gave him a look that went beyond mere acknowledgement and entered into curiosity. He hadn’t seen the young man before, but the two women he had. Would they remember his face, find it puzzling that he was now dressed as a Blackshirt? Or were they just grimacing at the uniform? He hoped for the latter and stepped out into the daylight just as the radio’s music gave way to the news, the lead item of which gave a full description of the MP turned fugitive, the man who had just walked out without paying for his leek and potato soup.
The station was a mere fifty yards away, its grey Gothic appearance almost as forbidding as the sandstone citadel to Armstrong’s right. He continued walking down the shallow hill towards the entrance, doing his best to ignore the fact that he could count at least a dozen policemen. Would the Blackshirt uniform be enough to stop the police from checking him over? He needed to find someone – anyone – whom he could engage in conversation in order to make himself less conspicuous.
A potential saviour came in the unlikely form of a Blackshirt who was walking ahead of him. Armstrong debated for a few seconds, and then bounded up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder. The Blackshirt turned round, an affronted look on his moustached face. He must have been a good ten years older than Armstrong, and he looked hard, as hard as the former pugilist Armstrong instantly supposed him to be.
Armstrong decided to play the fool.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry – I thought you were someone else.’
For a second he expected the man to hit him, but his tough face broke into a craggy smile.
‘You mean there’s some other poor bugger who looks like me?’ he asked, his accent broad Scots.
‘Not really,’ said Armstrong. ‘But from behind you looked identical – please excuse me.’
‘No problem at all,’ the Blackshirt replied, taking in Armstrong’s uniform. ‘Anyway, which branch are you from?’
Branch. Armstrong said the first town that came into his head.
‘High Wycombe. And you?’
‘Dumfries – I’m goin’ down to London for a meeting about immigration. You goin’ as well?’
‘I wish I was. No, I’m heading home – I’ve been up here to see my old mother.’
‘Unwell, is she?’
By now Armstrong and the Blackshirt had resumed walking, Armstrong allowing the briefcase to swing casually in his hand.
‘Well, she was, but I think she’s going to be all right. The poor dear hasn’t been the same since my pa died.’
‘Aye, they never are.’
They were walking past the first of the policemen, who scarcely gave them a look. Armstrong did his best not to appear uneasy as they continued their conversation.
‘What d’ye think all these coppers are up to?’ the Blackshirt asked.
Armstrong shrugged his shoulders.
‘Looking for someone I’d have thought,’ he replied.
‘I don’t suppose it’s for those bastards who escaped from the Isle o’ Man the other day?’
‘Well, you could be right there,’ said Armstrong, willing the man to shut up.
‘Let’s ask,’ said the Blackshirt.
Armstrong momentarily shut his eyes. Christ. This was not what he had had in mind.
‘Hey youse!’ shouted the Blackshirt as he and Armstrong walked towards a pair of policemen. ‘What you boys up to? Them fellas from the Isle o’ Man, is it?’
One of the policemen kept his eyes on the passers-by, while the other smiled and spoke.
‘That’s right, sir. Did you hear what happened this morning?’
‘What?’ asked the Blackshirt.
‘One of them – Captain Armstrong it was – shot dead a couple of policemen outside Newton Stewart.’
The Blackshirt breathed out heavily. Armstrong did his best to act stunned.
‘Jesus Christ,’ the Blackshirt said, shaking his head. ‘Dead you say?’
‘That’s right,’ said the policeman. ‘We’re on the hunt for him. He won’t get far, not with his face all over the papers tomorrow.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said the Blackshirt again. ‘The bastard should be hanged.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he will.’
The Blackshirt walked off, Armstrong following, nodding slightly to the policeman in appreciation of his help. The policeman nodded back and turned to join his colleague.
‘Did ye hear that?’ asked the Blackshirt.
‘I did indeed,’ said Armstrong emphatically. ‘I can’t quite believe it.’
‘If I got my hands on him, I’d . . . I’d . . .’
‘I think I can guess,’ said Armstrong. ‘Do you need to buy a ticket as well?’
‘Aye,’ said the Blackshirt absent-mindedly. ‘Let’s do that.’
Armstrong didn’t want to buy a first-class ticket, as it would have made him look suspiciously grand. Reluctantly, he knew he would have to join the Scotsman for the duration of the journey. Still, being with a Blackshirt afforded him some good cover, as the police appeared to leave them alone. They might have been looking out for him, thought Armstrong, but they seemed incapable of seeing any further than the Blackshirt uniform. The two men walked past at least half a dozen more constables, some of whom raised their arm in the fascist salute, which both Armstrong and his new friend returned with gusto. It was clear to Armstrong that since he had been interned, the Blackshirts had successfully established themselves not just as the dominant party, but also as a breed apart.
As they crossed the green and yellow iron bridge over to platform three, Armstrong discovered that his companion was called Duncan Fraser. Armstrong introduced himself as Andrew Carr, taking his name from the jeweller’s shop back in town. With the train due at half past one, he had time to buy both The Blackshirt and Action, as well as a KitKat and a copy of The Autocar magazine.
The two men waited in what a casual observer and Fraser would have regarded as a companionable and gentlemanly silence, though for Armstrong it was
anything but. At any moment a policeman could recognise him, or Fraser might trip him up on some matter of Blackshirt lore. He would have to pretend that he was a newcomer to the ranks of the Party, and he would certainly feign sleep for much of the journey. Armstrong scanned the platform, taking in the posters advertising Sunlight soap, holidays with Cook’s to Baden and the Black Forest, as well as the omnipresent images of Mosley, striking heroic poses above captions that read ‘Britain First!’ and ‘Mosley’s Miles Better’.
The train drew in ten minutes late – so much for Mosley’s promise to ape Mussolini and make the trains run on time. Armstrong had never seen a locomotive like it. Streamlined, with a nose like a fat bullet, it was painted in blue and silver, with two thick and two thin white lines running down its length. The front bore a fascist lightning flash, and Armstrong noticed – to well-concealed dismay – that he was about to be hauled down to London by a locomotive named Queen Wallis. The carriages bore the familiar maroon livery of the London Midland and Scottish railway, although on each door there was a small silver lightning flash, a device that Armstrong was beginning to realise was tirelessly ubiquitous. This was truly a fascist train, he thought, modern, absent of warmth, uncompromising.
‘Quite a beast, eh?’ said Fraser.
‘Yes,’ said Armstrong. ‘As you say, quite a beast.’
‘And bang on time too! Now that never happened before we came to power.’
Armstrong glanced at his watch. Was this how it worked? Was the Blackshirt self-delusion of greatness so complete that it even extended to lying about whether the trains ran on time? If I tell you that something is true, then I dare you to disagree. And if you do not disagree, then I can only assume that we are agreed, and therefore the thing is true. The only way to restore the truth, Armstrong thought, was to dare to disagree.
As the Queen Wallis drew into Carlisle station, the Leader was taking a phone call from Sir Roger Ousby.
‘Hello, Sir Roger. What’s the news?’
Once again, the Leader’s voice was calm, not displaying the hectoring tone reserved for political rallies. It was a very upper-class drawl, thought Ousby, the type of voice more at home in the drawing room and the boudoir.