Divide and Rule

by Solomon Carter

  “Where is he, Mrs Burton?”

  The woman bit her lip and shook her head as tears welled up in her eyes.

  “There are less than twenty four hours before this election. The clock is ticking, Mrs Burton. In this state, your husband may be thinking of taking desperate actions. Please, Mrs Burton.”

  “You mean he’ll know that he can’t win it now. One way or another he’s blown his chances forever, hasn’t he?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Good then.”

  “Mrs Burton. He may be thinking that he doesn’t want to live to see this election happen. You need to tell me everything. And you need to tell me now.”

  “I’ve told you everything. Now if you are the person you say you are, I want you to do me one favour.”

  Eva waited, her eyes fixed on the pink eyes of Dawn Burton.

  “Save my son. He needs to be back in hospital. Just save my son.”

  Mrs Burton seized Eva’s hands and squeezed them. Eva nodded, then pulled away and opened the door. The woman made her feel trapped and claustrophobic with her demands. Who knew if she could save the boy now? Eva made an apologetic, pitying smile and got away as quickly as she could.

  “Please!”

  Eva turned. “I’ll do my best,” and then she walked away.

  Eva rounded the conifers and saw the photographers. They took aim and snapped their cameras at her.

  “Aaaahh. Not so cocky now, are you darling?”

  “What’s the matter princess?” said the other.

  Eva passed them by.

  “If you smiled, the world would be a lot better place.”

  Eva swept around and seized the end of the man’s camera lens. She dragged it away from him, and the bearded photographer followed his camera to save it. He came forward and lost his balance. Right then, Eva drilled her fist through the man’s chin and sent him tumbling onto the pavement. Her fist hurt, but it felt good, a leaf taken straight out of Dan’s book.

  “You can’t do that!” said the man as the other groaned and seized his camera from the floor.

  “Sue me.”

  Eva got into the car and started the engine. Eva could see Jess wanted to smile, but didn’t want to risk Eva’s temper. Eva didn’t say a word. She span the car around and enjoyed a slow breath in the silence. But time was running out.

  Twenty-three

  Dan drove with the Burtons in the back of his Jag, Jerry Burton’s body spread across the back seat and across his father’s lap. He switched off his phone because he knew Eva was definitely going to meddle - he knew that ahead of time. She was a thinker and a worrier and Dan needed his head supremely clear if he was to protect Will Burton and his son. He needed to be able to watch the boy most carefully of all. Any sign of his condition changing for the worse and Dan was going to turn his car toward any hospital - except Southend- and get the boy some treatment before anything happened. So far Dan wasn’t too worried. In his rear-view mirror he saw Will Burton looking left and right through the passenger windows, his face looking grainier and older than Dan could ever remembered it. His son was propped up on his thighs, his father’s arm draped around him, holding him safe and close. The boy’s mouth was moving more frequently now, as if the sedatives were wearing off. Would the boy remain unconscious? If he did, Dan guessed he’d still need some powerful pain killers. He’d been unconscious for a good while. Surely the boy was going to feel like a train wreck when his eyes opened. Dan looked up and found Will Burton watching him with a squint. In case he was invading their space, Dan looked away back to the road ahead. The whole town population was all charged up. There was an atmosphere on the street akin to a coiled spring, with abundant noise and tension in the air. They passed the growing volatile crowd outside the Civic Centre tower. A moment later the Jag passed a column of socialist protesters with red flags performing organised chants heading toward the Civic Centre.

  “What do you make of this, Will? Is this what you expected?”

  “Are you enjoying this?” said Burton with acid in his voice. “I never pictured the reds and the anarchists moving in like this. This is the last day of campaigning, isn’t it? It’s as if the whole country have their eyes on us. Every party in the land is here to campaign against me. If it weren’t for this terrible situation I find myself in, I’d love it. I’d take them all on, and I’d win.”

  “That’s the skinhead’s credo, isn’t it?”

  “We’re right of centre, not far right. We are the only party talking the truth in this country.”

  “And you’re the only man who thinks your party is telling the truth, Will. The rest of them from Serge down know you’re all lying, and they don’t care. Cordy Farm is the Basecamp of a right wing militant action squad. They’re planning a racial holy war, Will, and you were the front man for it. I’ve seen it first hand, and I’ve read up on the plans for this race war. Any right-winger can access the propaganda online. Well done, Will, you were the patsy. Useful for a limited time only.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I know. I’ve seen it. I heard them talking, and I’ve seen them in action. I saw them doing things you aren’t even aware of. That’s how in control you were of UKFirst. You’re a front man. The warm up act, that’s all.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. You love rubbing it in, don’t you? Well, it doesn’t matter a jot now, does it?”

  The darkness burst up in Dan. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, the speedometer climbed without him noticing. In the moment he wanted to thrash Will Burton for his selfishness and stupidity. The town was in turmoil. The whole place was a powder keg, with all the elements of a politically motivated race riot ready to explode, and the man didn’t give half a shit. He was still waxing lyrical about the fiction of his political dream, a fantasy which was never ever going to be as he had planned it.

  “I’ve lost it all because of you and Miss Roberts.”

  “Dream on. You’re sick in the head. I’m saving your sorry little arse from your own party because they beat the hell out of your son and they planned to ditch you, maybe even kill you within weeks. Imagine what they were capable of, Will! They hurt your son to get at you, to control you, and all that to keep you weak and controllable. You never had a chance. Get that fact straight in your head and you’ll feel better about your predicament.”

  “You can spin it however you want, Bradley. I shouldn’t have listened to you. I should have stayed back at the hospital, but it’s all too late now. Peter will want me out. He’ll blame me for UKFirst losing this election.”

  “He wanted you out anyway. And as for the election, you’ve done the whole world a favour. There would have been blood on these and plenty of other streets up and down this country if you had won. You’ve actually done something right for the first time in years, Will. You should smile.”

  “Piss off.”

  The speedometer climbed higher. The Jag engine growled and they were pushing forty-five in a thirty mile an hour zone. The Jag pushed up behind a stream of traffic and Dan gritted his teeth as he had to slow.

  “So what’s the plan, my saviour?” said Will Burton.

  “I’m not your saviour. I’m your natural enemy, Will. I’m a predator to you. People like you, I hate them. I wait for them to try and hurt me, then I take every insult they’ve ever given me and I turn it against them. People like you, I trample into the ground just for kicks.”

  “Fantastic. So now the man who wants to help me is threatening me.”

  “You better believe it. Watch your manners, Burton. To me you’re nothing but a skinhead.”

  Will Burton’s face looked grim, his brow low over his dark eyes.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Keep you safe until after the election. When it’s over, the heat will be less than now. They’ll be worried you’re going to do something they’ll regret. Worse they’ll be worried your boy will wake up and tell on them.”

  Burton looked down at his son. “Yes. Yes, they will
won’t they?”

  Dan lessened his speed and his grip on the steering wheel softened a little. The tone of Burton’s voice had grown soft and compliant. Maybe the tough guy bit had worked on him after all.

  “Before we stop for the night can we buy some supplies?”

  Dan peered back at him in the rear-view and waited for Burton to elaborate.

  “Food. Drink. A bottle of scotch. I need something to take the edge off.”

  “Maybe some painkillers for the boy, too.”

  “Oh, I am glad you said that. Yes, I think we’ll be needing a lot of those,” said Burton. “The strongest we can find. He’ll be in agony.”

  Dan nodded, and fought with the darkness at the edges of his consciousness. He was tired, emotional, and angry. He wanted to see the whole picture and knew he was missing something. They passed the skinhead’s pub near the railway station. There was a crowd of young Asian men standing either side of it, like they were queueing to get in the doors The Jag passed all too quickly, but if Dan had to pick a number he would have guessed there were around fifty people outside.

  Dan smiled. He thought he was seeing the whole picture again. Will Burton stared down at his son and held him close. His knuckles and fingernails were pale white as he pressed harder into his son’s slack flesh. Dan didn’t understand just how much he was truly missing.

  Twenty-four

  Day turned to night without Eva noticing. It was October and the days were shortening. The radio news said there had been skirmishes in Southend High Street and outside the Civic Centre between rival political mobs. None of the mobs were believed to be members of UKFirst or any local group. These were seasoned protesters who got on coaches bound for anywhere so long as there was political hooliganism when they arrived. The radio news also reported a big brawl in and around The Railway Tavern too after a confrontation between a group of whites and a large group of Asian young men. The road had been sealed off and ambulances and police were in attendance. This time the radio stayed silent about whether the fighters were local or not, but Eva knew the identity of the drinkers in the Tavern. This was UKFirst’s unofficial HQ, and there was something about this which made Eva think of Dan. It had his mischievous fingerprints all over it.

  The second half of the day had been spent driving around the places Will Burton would have attended had everything been fine. The campaign appointments, the small shop space in Southend he used as his official office, and later they drove back past his house in Rendon. Burton was no show in any of these places. There was zero chance he was holed up with any of the Cordy Farm mob, or Curlon’s Foods. Burton was on the run, keeping well out of sight, and with Dan’s help they had done excellent work so far. Infuriatingly, Dan wasn’t answering his phone. Her calls went straight to his voicemail. She’d left four messages now, each one more intense and urgent than the last one, and still Dan hadn’t called her back. Dan didn’t know what she knew. Will Burton wasn’t innocent, he wasn’t the wronged party. He was a villain with his back against the wall for all time. At 10pm Eva and Jess were still driving around the known Burton hangouts for the third time when a radio news announcement made Eva pull over to the side of the road and turn up the volume.

  “The Southend East by-election has up to now been dominated by the campaign of UKFirst and their controversial leader Will Burton. UKFirst is described as a far-right movement by most political observers, but UKFirst have always stated their politics as being moderately right of centre which they claimed, was in line with the views of the British people. Up until tonight most pollsters have given UKFirst a lead of between 10 and 20 points over the Conservatives in second place with Labour in distant third place. The election result had seemed a forgone conclusion, with UKFirst set to be the first so-called far right party to secure a seat at Westminster, but in a dramatic twist late in this campaign, the UKFirst candidate Will Burton has disappeared from public view. Mr Burton failed to attend a lunchtime hustings in Southend, and then missed several other important public engagements. There have also been rumours that Mr Burton has gone against hospital medical advice and discharged his son from medical care at Southend University Hospital. Last week Mr Burton’s son was the victim of an allegedly politically motivated assault in the build up to the by-election. So far, UKFirst have not offered any comment on Will Burton’s whereabouts but Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates have suggested the credibility of the UKFirst campaign is now in tatters with its local leader missing in action. The eyes of the nation are now transfixed in a local by-election drama the likes of which have never been seen before in British politics…”

  Eva flicked the dial to listen to other stations. Radio 4, Radio 2, Heart… Every single 10pm news bulletin was carrying the story of the Southend by-election. Will Burton absconding with his son was big news and it was getting bigger by the second. If Burton was listening, it was likely his mental wellbeing would be fracturing at a rate of knots. Everything he’d worked for, dreamed of, and hustled for was at an end. The political dream was over. And when his son regained consciousness there was a good chance his personal liberty would end too. Damn. The more Eva thought about it, the more she worried. Right now Dan was on the edge, and there was every chance Will Burton was in an even more desperate state than Dan. And he was friendless, totally alone, with his own party probably now scenting his blood. One way or another it all added up to serious and imminent danger to the lives of Jerry and Will Burton… and Dan didn’t have a clue. But Dan did have his gut feelings, the one thing she’d always mocked. Eva hoped they would come good for him now. If she couldn’t find them, his gut feeling was the last line of defence which might just save lives.

  “How the hell did I fail so badly, Jess?”

  “It wasn’t just you, Eva. We failed you.”

  Eva didn’t reply. She pulled the car back into the stream of traffic.

  “If we hadn’t been bitching at one another, we could have taken hold of this case at the start. Maybe we would have seen the potential for Will Burton to be the attacker. We should have at least considered the possibility.”

  “Yes, we should.”

  “I’m sorry, Eva.”

  “Sorry isn’t worth wasting a breath on, Jess. You and Dan acted like total idiots. You’re young, but at least you’re clever. You didn’t need to be so damn paranoid. Dan was never going to force you out of the business but the way you acted would have if you carried on. And Dan is old enough to know better, but he’s always been such a bloody child. But this time…”

  “He’s not well, is he?”

  “You know what he went through, Jess. When this mess is through, we need to make sure he gets help.”

  They were silent for the best part of a minute, the greys, blues and dark hues of evening washing over their faces as Eva drove at a steady pace.

  “Eva. What’s going to happen? After the case?”

  “Spit it out. Say what you mean, Jess.”

  “I mean with you and Dan. And the business.”

  “Those are two entirely separate things, and one of them is none of your business.”

  “Right.”

  “But right now, what does it matter? We’re not together and Dan needs more help than I can provide him. I’m going to make sure he gets that help.”

  “And when he’s well again?”

  “When? Or do you mean if, Jess? When Dan gets better the door will be open, but it’ll take time whatever happens.”

  “And for the business.”

  “For a door to be open, there needs to be an office, right?”

  Jess nodded.

  “Then the business carries on.”

  Jess nodded again.

  “Will I still be a part of it?”

  “Providing you remember this is a team game, and that we never ever undermine members of our own team, then yes. I believe in you Jess. You should never have stopped believing in yourself.”

  “Thank you.” As Jess silently swore to repay Ev
a for the trouble she caused, Eva grappled with the crisis at hand. They’d been duped by every member of UKFirst they’d dealt with. Serge, Merton, even Coulson, and now Will Burton himself. And with Dan trying to prove a point to everyone, trying to be the hero once again, the situation was more dangerous than ever. Eva couldn’t avoid the sense of working against the clock. The party would be after him for failing them so badly, losing them their one shot at power. Yet worse was the fear that Burton’s ego, smashed to smithereens, was likely to seek an exit from the national shame before Election Day came. Eva imagined the man wouldn’t be able to stand seeing another person win the seat which he believed was destined to be his. Eva boiled with rage at her own failings. Desperation pushed her around the town, seeking any place Burton might suggest to hole up. They drove along the seafront passing yet another cluster of political demonstrations. The seafront joggers worked around the crowds by jumping into the road to get past them. Further on past the flashing lights and tacky music of the golden mile were more runners. Eva’s thoughtful eyes passed over one of them, and stayed there. This one was clearly a boxer, and he threw a few shadow-boxing punches in the air as he ran. Something happened in Eva’s senses. She shifted in her seat. Eva’s mind was jogged, and the stylus needle of her thinking slipped into a new groove.

  “Jess… I was thinking. Will Burton doesn’t care about his future now. His future is done. It’s over as far as he’s concerned. Which means?”

  “I don’t know… what does it mean?”

  “It means he won’t dictate where to go and hide. He won’t dictate much at all from now on because he’s given up. All he wants is to survive long enough to manage the end his way.”