Brand New Friend

by Kate Vane

  32

  Paolo spent most of Sunday holed up in his hotel room, reading the media coverage of his exploits. He had agreed with Salma that he would stay another night in Leeds.

  If Mark was hoping to get publicity for the mass trespass, his friend Crusty had effectively sabotaged him. Paolo had become the story. He spent all day responding to calls and texts and messages from ‘friends’ expressing various shades of amusement or sympathy or scorn. He had even been made into a gif. They had captured the moment the cuffs went on and his shifting facial expression, from vacant to outraged. He watched it, fascinated, over and over, like it was someone else.

  Of course plenty of people had been filming on their phones but the demo hadn’t been considered newsworthy ahead of the event, and the only journalist recording apart from Tilda was someone from Minster FM, so Tilda’s name was appearing a lot.

  She had written a comment piece for the Guardian website, using the demo as a hook to write about the broader issues around fracking, and her video was being shown with her permission by Sky and Mail Online. He hoped she’d got a decent fee and hadn’t been seduced by the ‘really great exposure’ argument. The Mail was predictably using it as an excuse to bash the BBC in general and him in particular.

  He wondered how Tilda’s ethics squared with selling it to the propagator of hate but that was her decision and he didn’t blame her. There were links to her blog everywhere and her social media following had increased dramatically.

  As the day rolled on, the BBC put out an anodyne statement saying that he had attended the fracking demonstration as an observer, in a personal capacity. Everyone took that as meaning he was working on a freelance project. He thought back to those distant days when he too had thought that might be a possibility, that his former friendship with Mark might actually get him a head start on a story.

  The statement went on to say that he had ‘become attached’ to the protesters and was unable to leave until the police intervened. ‘Become attached’, masterful use of the passive voice. No one accused, no one who could threaten legal action. It didn’t even rule out the possibility that he’d done it himself. It concluded that ‘no further action would be taken’. He would return chastened but unpunished.

  He texted Tilda congratulations and asked if they could meet up. She replied that everything was crazy but suggested coffee at four. So here they were. Another café, another menu, another collection of artfully mismatched chairs and low-slung sofas.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Exhausted,’ she said. ‘A bit bewildered. Wondering what just happened and what happens next.’

  ‘This is an opportunity for you. There’s nothing a journo likes more than the humiliation of a colleague. Every commissioning editor will want to talk to you now.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve seen it happen to friends. A story blows up, you get loads of attention for a few days, then it’s forgotten.’

  ‘At least they will know who you are when you pitch them.’

  She shrugged dismissively.

  He thought again of his younger self, shivering in a phone box before the might of Tristan Lefevre. He’d been planning to talk Tilda down from her cloud, but she already had that morning-after look, so instead he was trying to lift her mood.

  ‘You want to talk about Mark?’ she said. She kept glancing at her phone, wondering if she might be missing something else, but then she visibly forced herself to look up.

  ‘After yesterday, I’m thinking again about who might want to hurt him. Apart from everyone. Like that woman who was throwing bricks.’

  ‘You mean Joy Denton? Don’t worry about her. She’s sound.’

  ‘You know her? You didn’t think to mention it yesterday?’

  ‘I was busy.’

  ‘Filming me, as I remember. So tell me about her.’

  ‘She doesn’t normally throw bricks. She’s been active forever. Road protests, peace camps, anti-capitalist marches –’

  ‘She’s clearly not a pacifist,’ said Paolo drily.

  ‘There are rumours that she did some serious violence in the 1980s.’

  ‘Animal rights?’

  ‘No. She was in Germany – I think her dad was in the army or something and she just stayed there.’

  ‘Mark always said his dad was in the army in Germany.’

  ‘There are rumours she was mixed up with the Baader-Meinhof Gang but it might be bollocks. She won’t answer questions about her past, so maybe it’s true or maybe she just likes the mystique and she was really working in Tesco.’

  ‘So she’s looked up to by everyone but even she was fooled.’

  ‘It shakes people’s sense of who they are. She’s experienced, she thinks she can weigh up who to trust, and then she learns this.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Paolo.

  ‘But I spoke to her off-camera. She told me they’ve made their peace. Actually, I think she had a thing for him.’

  ‘But there wasn’t anything between them?’

  ‘They’re friends and Mark has worked with her on direct action but I doubt it’s any more than that. He doesn’t seem interested in women that way. I’ve never seen him with anyone, male or female.’

  ‘Nor have I,’ said Paolo.

  ‘Perhaps he’s asexual,’ said Tilda.

  Asexual? He had heard people say it was a thing, but it was something he found hard to imagine. He thought of how sometimes women had tried to chat to Mark at parties but he generally walked away. The only woman he spent much time with was Claire.

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  Tilda looked thoughtful. ‘He’s good. He doesn’t just talk about stuff, he’s organised. He knows how to get on with things.’

  ‘So you think he’s sound?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Maybe he’s a little too good. Always ready and willing to help.’

  ‘So who else might harm him? A lot of people must be hurt, feel angry. How must they feel to have put so much trust in him and be betrayed?’

  Tilda was looking at him askance. ‘You are one of those people,’ she said.

  He was shaken by her words. She was right. Then why didn’t he feel it? Was he a reporter on his own life?

  ‘I have an alibi,’ he said, trying to shift her focus. ‘Who might have wanted to hurt him and had the opportunity?’

  ‘You expect me to answer that? Let you loose on people just on the off-chance they might represent a threat to someone? What would the police do with that?’

  ‘I’m not the police. I’m just considering it.’

  ‘Then you speak to them and someone gets stitched up.’

  ‘You’re very principled suddenly. You were happy to sell me out to the Mail.’

  ‘You think I did wrong?’ she said, and she looked fragile again and he felt bad for his abrupt manner, but then he thought, she’ll need to be tougher than that if she’s in journalism.

  ‘It’s your conscience,’ he said.

  ‘Yes it is,’ she said. ‘Fracking is opposed by virtually everyone in this country, across the political spectrum. And if we can reach beyond the usual progressives, that will help us.’

  ‘And it gave your career a boost as well.’

  ‘I don’t want a career. Not in your terms. I want to be free to write about what matters. Getting on mainstream media might pay the bills and build my platform, but it’s not something I want. I don’t want to end up like –’

  Like me, thought Paolo.

  33

  It had to be Claire leaving the house at that hour. Paolo thought the slam of the door had a reproachful tone. Claire was always up early, by about nine or ten most days, even if she had a hangover. Especially if she had a hangover. She would take up residence in the living room, scowling at the others as they got up for breakfast or coffee or to rush out the door.

  He and Claire and a load of others had been at a party at a squat in Woodhouse. He couldn’t remember what time they got back. He actually
felt okay, which was a sure sign that he was still pissed and would feel like shit later.

  Normally he would have had all those thoughts, turned over, farted, sipped from the open can of lager beside his bed, and gone back to sleep. But today something was nagging at his brain.

  He knew it was Saturday so it wasn’t a lecture. Then it came back to him. They were all supposed to meet at Mark’s in the next stage of the great department store conspiracy.

  Paolo groaned. It was one of those things that sounded great when it was vague and in the future, and a pain in the arse when it actually was upon you. Like when they’d all agreed they’d get up early and pile into Mark’s van to go walking at Malham Tarn.

  He’d never forget the nightmare of sitting on the floor in the back of the van, hungover and feeling like death, then climbing a hill in the rain, watching Mark and Claire trip merrily to the summit like mountain goats, thinking this day would never end. With blisters.

  Sleep. The whole idea was daft anyway. More than daft, a little scary, especially when Ratman eschewed Mark and Claire’s preferred terminology of ‘devices’ and gleefully called them firebombs at volume, in the middle of the pub.

  Having said that, Isabel had gone away for the weekend, leaving him her camera. Maybe he would go along, just to get some pictures. It wasn’t the same as being involved, he thought, as he dozed off.

  Paolo was the last to get there. Even after Ratman. They were sitting around a tiny Formica table that was barely big enough for two. Mark had borrowed a chair from a downstairs flat and Claire had brought one of their chairs with her to make the four.

  Paolo sat down. His feet brushed against Mark’s who was sitting opposite and he pulled them back. Mark was doing something intricate and possibly dangerous with a soldering iron. Claire was watching intently. Ratman was working on his own, taking apart an alarm clock. They were all wearing rubber gloves.

  Paolo’s hangover had arrived. His head felt like it was in a vice and that he might throw up at any minute and that if he acknowledged these facts Claire would be filled with scorn. Perhaps he should whip out the camera now and – if he could hold it steady long enough to take some pictures – then he could leave.

  Black and white. Claire and Mark. Claire’s expression had a kind of poetry. That fierce focus. He felt a kick under the table. More footsie. But when he looked two pairs of eyes were trying to catch his. Ratman and the rat, who increasingly came to resemble each other.

  Ratman’s eyes moved to the side of the table and Paolo saw he was offering him an open can of Special Brew. Paolo took it and swigged from it hastily, trying not to think about the risk of any rat-borne diseases (Ratman had been known to take the rat from his coat and kiss it at moments of heightened emotion). No matter. This was an emergency.

  ‘It’s like The Generation Game,’ Paolo said. He watched as Claire attempted to help but she was too impatient for the fiddly work. Paolo sat and watched. The rubber gloves were making his hands sweaty and he didn’t think he’d be much use, what with his shakes and his blurred vision.

  ‘Does the rat have a name?’ he blurted out. It had only just occurred to him to ask.

  ‘I don’t want to anthropomorphise it,’ said Ratman.

  None of this felt real. He was an outsider looking in. He was an observer, a reporter, a witness to history.

  He was a student with a hangover.

  ‘We should publicise all this. After it’s over,’ said Paolo. ‘I can write something. And take pictures.’

  ‘Like a pamphlet?’ said Claire.

  ‘We could try the papers,’ said Paolo. ‘I have a contact at the Guardian –’

  They were unimpressed, he realised, from their stolid expressions. Not because they didn’t believe he could do it. They were just unimpressed.

  ‘It could be a laugh,’ said Ratman. We’d have to have those black rectangles across our faces, like in Readers’ Wives.’

  Paolo spoke before Claire could respond. ‘Don’t we want people to understand what we’re doing and why?’

  Claire said, ‘This isn’t about persuasion. This is economic sabotage. You can’t convince capitalism to play nicely. You have to hit it where it hurts.’

  ‘Claire’s right,’ said Mark.

  They were all silent for a moment, then carried on working, as if the argument was settled.

  ‘So it’s a tie,’ said Paolo.

  ‘The rat gets the casting vote,’ said Ratman with a laugh.

  ‘The rat had better say no,’ said Claire, ‘otherwise I’m not doing it.’

  ‘I feel the same,’ said Mark.

  ‘That’s that then,’ said Ratman philosophically.

  34

  ‘You were great,’ said Mark. ‘We’ve had international coverage.’

  That was one way of looking at it, Paolo supposed. He had survived the barrage of piss-takey texts and emails and messages from his friends.

  A couple of backbench Tories had tried to make something of it – ‘BBC Breakfast journalist is left-wing agitator!’ one of them had thundered on Twitter – but the latest internecine battle over Brexit had distracted them before it could take off.

  One of the Breakfast sports guys had made a jokey reference on air which had met with stony-faced silence from the rest of the sofa. So, the great news juggernaut moved on.

  Mark had been released on police bail late on Sunday and had somehow made it home. A lift from a supporter, perhaps. Paolo didn’t ask. They were in Mark’s bedsit and Paolo was again sitting in the only chair. The place looked just as it had on his last visit, like a stage that was set for the next performance, except that there was thin light through the windows and a fine view of the brickwork of the house behind.

  ‘You knew I’d come. To the demo.’

  ‘I hoped you’d come.’ That simple, open expression. How many layers of deceit did it conceal?

  ‘So they haven’t charged you yet.’

  ‘Not yet. They’re talking about a public order offence.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking about the murder.’

  Mark looked shocked, as if he were remembering Sid’s death again. Paolo felt bad, then reminded himself that he didn’t know if this was an act, if everything Mark did was an act.

  ‘I made a witness statement in Leeds about the murder. That’s all they’ve asked for.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They haven’t got anything. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Oh yes, the incredible disappearing alibi.’

  The police had issued an appeal for the two homeless men, John Farrell and Bob Holden, to come forward. Paolo guessed that Danni Huxton at Acorn had called in details of her talk with them at the community garden but that they had never made it to the police station. Apparently the police had been unable to find them in their usual haunts.

  Mark’s expression, calm but immoveable, told Paolo he wasn’t going to get anything else.

  ‘Tell me about Sid.’ An open question. One that didn’t give away what he knew, or suspected. He wanted to see how Mark would interpret it.

  Mark sighed, took a sip of his drink then sat back against the pillow on the bed.

  ‘Sid loved the whole undercover thing. The tradecraft. The game. Even when I reported to him you could tell he thought his best days were behind him. He was jealous of us. Then one day he turned up at the garden, wanting to talk.’

  He said it casually, as if it didn’t directly contradict what he had said before. It was a reminder to Paolo that he was dealing with an expert liar.

  Paolo could do casual too. ‘When was that?’

  Mark sighed. ‘Thirteen months and three days ago. You’re going to tell me that in normal conversation people say “about a year”, I suppose.’

  Paolo didn’t respond so Mark continued.

  ‘So there he was, supposedly dressed as a homeless man. It made a kind of sense but it still seemed strange. He said he did
it to protect me.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I thought he could have phoned.’

  ‘I thought phones weren’t safe.’ Paolo was still irritated by that. The game with the burner, when all the time Mark was happily Whatsapping away.

  ‘He was right in a sense,’ said Mark. ‘If we’d been seen together it might have got people asking questions. He said that was why he took one of our fleeces from the shed. He said he’d blend in when he came back. Clearly that wasn’t the only reason.’

  ‘He was enjoying having power over you.’

  ‘I think it was a game for him. He was always like that. Tactically clever, but over-excited, like he was a kid in an adventure story. You see some of that in the army too.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted me to get involved in an asbestos campaign group in Teesside but he hadn’t thought it through. That wasn’t like him. It made me wonder if he was either panicking or in the early stages of dementia. He had this half-baked idea that I could claim to be a photojournalist interested in making a documentary. He said he couldn’t do it because he was too old, and anyway, he was already known to a similar group down south. It didn’t make sense. You can’t just throw on a cover in a day. We spent months working on our undercover identities back then, and we had proper documentation. And what do I know about photojournalism? He seemed to have this idea that anyone who could use a phone could pull it off.’

  He’s not alone there, thought Paolo drily. ‘So you told him no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After all, you were busy with your fracking commitments.’

  Silence.

  Paolo was remembering where else he’d heard the expression ‘about a year’ recently. It was when Tilda was talking about Mark’s involvement in the fracking group. ‘Or was this before you became active again?’

  Mark ignored the question. ‘Then Sid got awkward. Said he would expose me if I didn’t help.’

  ‘You think he did?’