by J. S. Monroe
*
The George was heaving, reassuring. It had been over a year since I had been here and nothing much had changed. Sky Sports was on high up in the corner, volume turned down in deference to a juke box belting out music by Crass. It was like a living time capsule, a souvenir of anti-Thatcher insurrection. On the walls there were newspaper cuttings about famous riots: Brixton, Toxteth, Stop The City, Poll Tax, Welling, Broadwater Farm, Luton airport. When I was squatting in Bath, this place had become a second home, the first place I would visit whenever I was in town. It was aggressive, hot, catalytic, in tune with the mood. A good location, too. Westminster was within easy striking distance, but the pub was not too close to be shut down on riot days.
I saw the place differently when I made the mistake of bringing Annalese along, shortly after we had moved to London. I saw myself differently. She pointed out the obvious: the barmaid was the only woman in the room, everyone was white, out of their heads, and the place stank of body odour. I tried to give reasons, talked about means justifying ends, said that everyone was really anti-racist, pro women, despite appearances, but her visit changed my view of the place irreparably.
Today, however, was pure nostalgia. I pushed my way to the bar, squeezing past tight T-shirts and tattooed forearms, and ordered two pints of Tennants. It was half past eleven and I had some catching up to do. I looked around, recognising faces. Anarchists to a man, the lot of them. It felt good to be back. A hunt saboteur from the Brixton Group nodded from the doorway, grinning. A mixture of squatters and sabs, the group had enjoyed its finest hour at Trafalgar Square. Red Action were around, too, comparing notes.
I spotted Leggit in the corner, talking to an old man I knew as Jean Paul, and three other people I hadn’t seen before. Jean Paul was a Frenchman and far too old to fight, but he always came along, waiting for others to floor policemen before kicking them with short, stubby thrusts, more like a scuff of the heels. He was a refugee from the Sixties, an old-school anarchist who would have preferred to hang out in smoke filled salons in Paris. Instead he had to make do with South London and places like the George. Life was tough.
Leggit was different. A fast-talking street trader (he was known as Leggit because of the speed with which he could pack up his stall), he had done two spells in Parkhurst for ringing motors, and spoke proudly of numerous robberies. He had never stolen from his own, mind, and liked to style himself as a decent, natural criminal. I had met him through Class War, when it was in its heyday. Together we had stamped on BMWs in Docklands, superglued people into their Range Rovers, wandered the streets in search of dinner parties to crash (usually with a dustbin through the window, although Leggit once achieved a famous double when he joyrode someone’s Mercedes into their front room just as the port was being served). But, like him, I had grown disillusioned. Class War became organised, factionalised, and Leggit went off to run his own firm.
“Bugger me, I hope you didn’t pay for that,” he said, as I approached.
“Chemotherapy,” I replied, rubbing my head.
“Don’t boast. Where’ve you been? Still living in your fucking teepee?”
“No.”
“We all make mistakes my son, and yours was Cornish. I always had my doubts about her. Let me introduce you to the family. Changed a bit since you was last here. This is Danny; Danny, Dutchie, Dutchie, Danny; Rick, Martin and you know Jean Paul. This man might be short, gents, and a slaphead now – Jesus you look ugly – but he’s warrior, believe me. Spikey as they come.”
I drank deeply on my lager and stared at the pub’s misted up windows, taking in the elaborate gilt borders. When I knew Leggit was looking elsewhere, I glanced at him. He was tall, thin-lipped, and his retreating, silver hair was slicked forward into a jagged fringe. He liked me because I’d shown a bit of form at Poll Tax. Four policemen were trying to drag him into a Maria but I managed to free him with a fist blizzard I have never been able to repeat since.
“How long have the doctors given you?” Martin asked. His face was unfamiliar. I looked at him for a second, fearing that he might not be joking. No one cared what you looked like at The George. You could turn up dressed as Father Christmas, providing your sack was full of the right kind of presents. I glanced at Leggit, whose smile had gone.
“Today’s my last fling,” I said.
“Mere anarchy loosed upon the world,” Jean Paul added thickly. He had been on the sherbert and his English was barely intelligible.
“Are you up to this, Martin?” Leggit asked. “It’s the big one today, and you’re fucking scaring me with your crass fucking questions.”
I was taken aback by Leggit’s sudden change of tone. I looked around at the others, who seemed less surprised.
“’Course I’m up to it, guv,” Martin said. “One more for the road everyone?”
Waving a glass in the air, Martin was doing his best to look cheerful, but his mouth was tense, too scared for smiling. His face was short and square, like the rest of his body, rough cast with a large forehead. He looked at people as if from under an overhang, never lifting his head high enough to stare them in the eye. It made him seem shy, shifty.
“A double,” Leggit said, looking sideways at Martin, mockingly, almost as if he was a buxom blonde. “Malt.”
As Martin walked past, he peered out at me, raising his eyebrows. “Tennants?”
I nodded. There was something strange going on, an unease. Martin’s eyes had rested on me a moment longer than was natural. They looked scared, beseeching. Once he was out of earshot Leggit moved over to me and stood too close.
“We’ve got ourselves a tiny problem, Dutchie. Someone here isn’t who he says he is.”
“Is that right?” I tried to move back a pace, but felt the wall behind me. The white fur on Leggit’s camel coat lapels was stained in several places. It never used to be stained.
“Someone pretending to be one of us, but who isn’t. Someone saying they’re from the working classes, but he ain’t.”
I twisted my fingers into the palm of my hand.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“By their skin. Their pretty boy skin. You see that man standing at the bar?”
“Martin?”
“Is it? Is that his name? Bollocks it is.”
“Who is he then?”
“Ask him. Ask him when he comes back. He’ll tell you he’s called Martin Denton, lives in Bow, works for the council housing department.”
“But he’s not.”
“He’s a copper.”
“A copper?”
“Keep it down. This place is crawling with them. We don’t want anyone coming to the rescue.”
I glanced around the pub, looked at the back of Martin’s granite head, bobbing at a barmaid’s joke.
“Bastard,” I said without much conviction. A part of me felt sorry for him.
“Things aren’t what they used to be, Dutchie,” Leggit said. “Old Bill are all over us. I’m not kidding. There are probably more undercover cops in this pub than brew crew. You missed fuck at Hyde Park. We were reduced to bystanders, watching Special Branch throw stones at each other. It was a joke.”
Martin came back, wobbling with a tray of drinks. He was wearing a cheap black leather jacket, blue jeans and trainers. It suddenly all seemed very obvious. Leggit took his whisky, knocked it back and replaced it far too heavily on the tray. Martin tried to keep the pint glasses level, but beer had gone everywhere.
“You wouldn’t ever serve us short, would you Martin?” Leggit asked.
I had never met anyone more at ease with violence than Leggit. His skull seemed too close to the surface, trying to push through. Martin attempted to ignore him and offered the pints around.
“We should drink up. Kick off’s at twelve,” he said.
“Drink up then,” Leggit said.
Martin looked around him. Everyone was quiet, watching him. He knew his number was up. He downed his pint in one, keeping his eyes on Leggit as he tilt
ed back his head.
“No one else coming?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We’re coming,” Leggit said.
“I’ll see you in the car park, then. Just have a slash.” He hesitated a moment, looking at the ground, almost waiting to see if anyone had believed him. He then walked away towards the Gents.
“With him,” Leggit said to me, and threw a nod across the room.
I cleared my pint and eased through the crowd. Was Leggit testing me? Did he suspect something? I should just walk away from the pub. The riot wasn’t part of the plan. It was an indulgence, nothing more.
As I pushed open the Gents door, I heard the sound of smashing glass. I walked to the middle of the room, treading carefully. One of the urinals was blocked and the floor was covered in pools of watery piss. Another piece of glass cracked behind a locked cubicle. I pushed open the door next to it and saw a wire-meshed window high up on the back wall. It was small, too tight for Martin to squeeze through. The man was desperate, trapped.
I paused. I hated policemen. If I was in there and a copper was standing out here, I’d be nicked. Kicked then nicked. This had nothing to do with Annalese. I wasn’t undercover yet. I went to the main door, kept it open with my foot and caught Leggit’s attention. There was another sound from behind the door. I signalled to Leggit to go outside, around to the car park. It took a few moments for him to understand, then he put his thumb up and left the bar.
I let the door swing closed, and then had a slash myself.
“Martin, what you doing in there?” I asked, still standing at the urinal.
I heard a scuffle, a muffled scream. Was he stuck?
“So what’s it like then, going undercover?”
Silence. Then a muted groan.
“When you become mates with people, real mates. Is it easy stitching them up?”
There was no answer. I went out to the car park.
*
Leggit and the others were out of sight from the pub entrance, standing in a small semi-circle behind the outside wall of the Gents. Martin had managed to squeeze himself through the broken window, and was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, surrounded by glass. The jagged edges of the window had cut him badly, particularly his arms and the top of his legs. He was alive, but losing a lot of blood.
“We haven’t finished with this piece of scum yet,” Leggit said, and kicked Martin hard in the stomach. He moaned, and pulled his knees further up towards him. “You driving, Jean Paul?”
The old Frenchman nodded and shuffled off pigeon-toed towards a white Ford Transit. When he was halfway across the car park he turned around and walked back again. People sensed what he was returning to do, and they made way for him. He stood beside Martin, holding a cigarette away from him in a camp gesture, and gave the body a short kick in the chest. “You piece of filthy shit piss,” he said quietly, almost like a mantra. The rest of us laughed, nervously, and then began laying into Martin too. Everyone except me. I followed Jean Paul back to the van and sat in my old seat, behind the driver.
“You not with them?” Jean Paul asked, adjusting the mirror to look at me. His hand was shaking.
“Saving my best till later,” I lied, managing a grin. In truth, I didn’t know why I wasn’t kicking Martin into the next world. The man was going to bleed to death anyway, but my mixed feelings were annoying. Perhaps it was the element of doubt. I didn’t know Martin, hadn’t personally been betrayed by him like the others. And the man wasn’t wearing a police uniform. It sounded stupid, but that mattered.
Jean Paul started to hum the Marseillaise.
Staring across the dusty ground at the others, their legs still swinging in sudden arcs, I wondered whether I was up to confronting Annalese’s killers. They would be dressed like normal people, just like Martin was, just like the woman in the photo. They weren’t going to make it easy for me by wearing uniforms.
Revenge was such a fragile thing, easily lost in other emotions. I had to remain clear-headed. Whenever I remembered the anorak in Oxford Street, I felt it, pure and distilled. Someone had taken away the woman I loved, and they would have to pay the ultimate price, just like she had. I felt better when I thought like that, knowing that once they were dead, I could start mourning for her. But I didn’t always think like that. It had been an impulsive reaction to turn to Walter, to offer him my services. I didn’t know what else to do. Now I realised there was no turning back. Walter had taken up my offer and returned it with interest. If I backed out, he would turn me over. I just had to keep moving forwards. Face to face with her killers, I would know what to do. I only wished it would happen now rather than later.
11
As Jean Paul drove the van along Waterloo Road, his fragile hair blowing in unintended directions, I began to enjoy myself. It was cold, and the skies were clear, sharpening the edges of tall buildings. In the distance I could see the Nat West Tower, and beyond it, Canary Wharf. The City would have to wait. I looked around at the assembled crew, forgot about Martin and smiled. The van, stolen by Leggit in the morning, had no suspension, and jarred with every blemish in the tarmac. The plastic seats had all been slashed, their aero filling yellowed and spilling, and there was a hole in the rusted floor. Above the din of the blurred black-top rushing beneath us we could all hear the tripping beat of Danny’s Walkman. He was lost in his own world at the back of the bus, jogging hood up, head nodding. Occasionally he would shout out a word, letting it linger and fade into a long drawn-out moan. He was seventeen, maybe eighteen and had hollowed-out cheeks, as if the flesh had been sucked from under the skin.
Leggit was sitting two seats in front of him, his back to the window, looking lordly. These people were nothing without him, and he knew it. Feet set wide apart to steady himself, he pulled out a brown paper bag of speed from deep within his coat and handed it to Rick, who licked his fat finger and dipped it clumsily into the bag.
“Rick,” Leggit said, snatching the bag back. “Leave it out. You’re like a big baby.”
Rick weighed twenty stone, lived with his mother and had no neck. He watched Leggit fold the bag into his coat pocket, his brow furrowed with dismay. He licked his finger again, and then cheered up as Leggit produced a bottle of whisky. After drinking deeply, Leggit waved it in the air. Rick’s eyes followed the bottle, but Leggit held on to it.
“Coming up on your right,” he said, pointing with the top of the bottle, “the Security Services building. Two hundred million quid, and they can’t even use the front door.”
“Why not?” Rick asked.
“In case the Russians are watching, Rick. Only there aren’t any Ruskies anymore. Just us.” He grinned. No one had ever told him that he had terrible teeth. No one dared. “They’ve built themselves a tunnel to get in. Clever, that. And they wonder why the place is full of fucking moles.”
“Where’s the tunnel start?” I asked, beginning to laugh. I had forgotten how much I liked Leggit’s company.
“Start? Vauxhall tube.”
Leggit slid the whisky down over Jean Paul’s shoulder. He took a swig, steering with one hand, and passed the bottle back.
“A knackered lift-shaft, apparently,” Leggit continued. “Take a few wrong turnings and you’re in.”
“Need a travelcard?” I asked, as he gave me the bottle.
“Ah, we’ve missed you Dutchie,” he said, grinning.
I knew he hadn’t. Leggit never missed anyone. But if you wanted to have a good crack, he was your man. He made sure you got home. Then, two weeks later, two months even, he would turn up and ask an awkward favour. He had appeared at the barge once, knocked on the window at three in the morning, and told me to run some skag up to a club in Bermondsey. It wasn’t worth arguing.
“What’s that all about, then?” he asked, nodding at my head. “Joined the Foreign Legion?”
“Someone flamed me,” I said.
“No scars,” he replied flatly. It was less an observation than a challenge
. He knew I was lying.
“Suits you, it does,” he continued. “Makes you look hard.”
He mocked me with the last word, let it hang in the noisy air long enough for it to sound anything but. I had gone soft since meeting Annalese and he wasn’t going to let me forget it. Fortunately he was distracted as we approached the Security Services building. Lining either side of the road were coaches full of riot police, helmets on laps, minds focused. It wasn’t the usual collection of iron-grilled Marias. Rusting pantechnicons had been hauled out of forgotten garages, painted in faded greens and cream. Coaches hired from Oxford, Brighton and Birmingham sparkled in the sunlight. As Leggit predicted, this was the big one.
“Must be over five thousand of them,” he said quietly, standing to take a closer look. Danny looked up to see what all the fuss was about.
“Cunts! Fascist cunts,” he suddenly shouted, and started to slap the back window like a trapped marlin. We had stopped at traffic lights, alongside one of the coaches. Jean Paul leant out of his window and spat at the doors. His lime phlegm slid down the glass, stopping at the black rubber seal. Rick lurched heavily to the right, of the van, pulling a slow face at the expressionless police. Then one of the officers gave Danny a little wave, no more than a knuckle ripple. Incensed, Danny slid back the window next to me and leant out of the van, one knee digging into my thigh. I moved over, watching nostalgically. From his overcoat sleeve he pulled out an eighteen-inch metal bar and smacked the coach window. A crack cobwebbed across the glass. The policeman sat back, startled. Others turned around, stood up, talked into radios.
“You stupid fucker, Danny,” Leggit shouted. “Can’t you wait? Floor it, Jean Paul.”