A roar broke out from the crowd; loud, defiant, strong. Seb felt himself pushed nearer and nearer to the building; an irresistible force of bodies pressing against him until he was so close, he was staring the police in the face. The police held the line. The drumming was louder, faster, more energetic, the whistles, the chanting, more and more insistent. ‘Where’s all the money gone?’, ‘Jail not bail’, ‘Give us our money’.
But then again, silence. Ominous, threatening, menacing; the police and protesters stared at each other, waiting for the inevitable clash. A helicopter hovered above, the clack, clack, clack of its rotor blades breaking the stillness, adding to the atmosphere of menace.
A missile was thrown from the back of the crowd. It caught a police officer in the face. Bleeding, he was pulled out of the line. That was the signal for the fight. More and more missiles rained through the air, stones, bricks, anything and everything that could be picked up and thrown, winged over the heads of the crowd. The chanting got louder, the pushing greater.
An order rang out. The police drew their batons. A further order. From the side streets ran the riot police, in a line, straight towards the protesters, a phalanx of force, advancing shoulder to shoulder, shouting, pushing, shoving, banging riot shields with batons, faces concealed by visors.
The crowd scattered, attempting to avoid the police; but they were unstoppable. They kept coming. Trained to intimidate, they came into the crowd, violently shoving a way through with batons, randomly hitting out, separating them, pushing the protesters back. The screams, the whistles, the shouting, the rhythmic chanting from the crowd, the drumming, the noise, had reached a crescendo.
Seb looked for an escape route. He glanced down a side street, saw the mounted police. The horses were powerful, large, unsettled, agitated, tossing their heads, pawing the ground, their ears pinned back. The police were holding hard on their reins, barely able to control them.
In that moment, he realised he was caught in a pincer movement; horses on one side, lines of police on the other. There was nowhere safe to go. He was trapped. A second later, the horses were cantering towards the demonstrators. He ran for his life. The crowd split in two, the protesters running in all directions, to avoid falling under the horses’ hooves.
Crush barriers were grabbed, passed over the heads of the demonstrators, and thrown at the police. Then, ‘shame on you’ over and over. The police struck out men and women with their batons, at both, anywhere over the body, anyone in the way, anyone shouting, anyone running, anyone standing. It was random, indiscriminate, and brutal.
Seb pushed his way through the crowds. He had to get out. He’d seen enough, he’d had enough. He reached a side street, looked back, and noticed a young woman running from the crowd. A second later, she fell. In the panic and the crush of crowd, no one stopped. She lay directly in the line of the horses, terrified, coiled up, covering her head with her arms. A moment longer, she’d be trampled. Without thinking, he ran over, yanked her to her feet, and holding her by the arm, half pushing, half dragging her, pulled her into a quiet passage way.
He glanced at her. She looked out of it, pale, breathing shallowly, in a state of shock. ‘Breathe deeply. You’re okay. I’ll get you out of this.’ She didn’t respond, looked at him, her eyes huge with fear. He put his arm round her. ‘Let’s go, we’ll find somewhere for you to sit down.’ They walked until they reached a cafe. ‘Have a seat here. Are you okay?’ he said. She nodded. ‘Thanks. My friend will find me. I’ll wait for her here.’
He walked rapidly away, aiming for Cannon Street Station. All the major side roads were blocked with police cordons. He double backed, eventually found a long and circuitous route down the back streets; and only then did he slow down. He took out his gum, thrust it into his mouth and kept walking until he was far enough away to feel safe and stop in a coffee shop.
He’d made it. It was a Starbucks, part of a global chain and crowded, but right now, he couldn’t have cared less. Placards from the demonstration were piled outside and inside the place was full of angry and upset protesters. He took his place in the queue for coffee, and looked around. It was noisy and full. He picked up his coffee, carried it outside and sat down at an empty table, his mind going over what he’d just been through. The rapid disintegration into chaos, the police loss of control, the brutality, the general mayhem had disturbed him. Without thinking, he poured sugar into his coffee. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t be bothered to queue for a fresh cup.
He’d been there fifteen minutes when he noticed the two women. Neither was looking in his direction, but he recognised one as the woman he’d pulled away from the horses. She put her backpack on one of the tables, opened it, drew out her purse and emptied the contents on the table. She looked exasperated. Her friend glanced across at him, caught his eye and smiled. She said something to her friend, and stood up.
He knew who she was; she was the girl with the gap between her teeth, the one who’d been at the Canary Wharf demo. It had been his last day and he’d had to pass through the protesters to get to the car park before driving to Lavenham to attend his parents’ anniversary party. He remembered her distinctly because she’d pushed a leaflet into his hand −and her smile.
She was walking towards him and looking as if she knew him. Would she recognise him from Canary Wharf? Then he’d been a financier, now he was passing off as a demonstrator. His cover could be blown. It was a coincidence, but coincidences happen and he’d been trained for this. He’d been told to deny everything and play it cool. She may think she’d met him before, but he had to convince her she was wrong. She came to a halt at his table and stood looking at him. He waited for her to speak, took a sip of his almost cold coffee and glanced up at her.
‘Hi. You been to the demo?’
‘Yeah.’ He tipped his chair back, leant forward with his elbows on the table, and looked at her with a serious expression. ‘Bad, really bad,’ he said, ‘but they’re rattled. It’s the markets… they’re in a state of collapse and they have to maintain order… not that I’m making excuses.’
She didn’t appear to hear what he was saying, but seemed to be studying him. ‘Well, thanks anyway.’
‘Thanks? For what?’
‘For helping my friend. Pulling her away from the horses. She could have been killed.’
‘I couldn’t leave her there.’
‘Some would.’
‘She’s okay then?’
‘Yeah. She noticed you, so I said I’d thank you ─ on her behalf. She’s still shaky.’ She was looking intently at him. ‘I’ve seen you before, but where that was, I have no idea.’
He smiled. ‘I have one of those faces, you know, the type where people say, I’ve seen you before. Or, I have a double.’
‘Yes, you must have. Well, everyone has a double, that’s what they say, don’t they?’’
He shrugged, raised his hands as if he were French. He’d got away with it. She hadn’t recognised him.
‘Anyway’, he said, ‘you didn’t come over just to tell me this, is there a problem?’
‘No problem, just wanted to thank you.’
‘Like I said, think nothing of it.’
She continued scrutinising him, then turned to make her way back to her friend.
’Just a minute. Before you go, what’s your name?’
‘Nixie.’
‘Nixie. Nice name.’
She stared down at him, ‘Where are you from?’
‘Not far from Seven Sisters. I’ve only just moved there. This is my first demo, but after all that shit I’ve just seen, I want to get involved. Any ideas, you know, what opposition groups are there?’
‘There’s Grassroots.’
‘Grassroots. I think I’ve heard of them. Environmentalists and anti-globalisation, aren’t they? Where do they hold meetings?’
‘A pub, it’s called The Bri
cklayers. It’s not far from Tottenham, by Wood Green tube, and along the High Road. We meet every Wednesday in the top room.’ She paused, as if thinking. ‘If you like, I could meet you there.’
‘Okay, great, I’ll see you, Nixie, and since you haven’t asked, I’m Seb.’ She laughed, and he noticed again the tiny gap between her teeth.
‘You look like a Seb, I think,’ she said.
He looked at her closely. That was personal, a chat-up line. Was it deliberate? He’d find out. ‘In what way do I look a Seb?’
‘You’re a bit posh. I’m not sure why, but you look like a Seb. Is it short for Sebastian?’
‘Yep. So your name, Nixie. It’s unusual. Where’s that from?’
‘My mum, she’s got a kind of romantic approach to life. She chose it. It means water sprite.’
‘And are you? Are you a water sprite?’
‘You could say that, because I do love the sea. I was conceived on a Scottish Island, that’s what she said, but brought up in Pembrokeshire, by the sea, and now I live here. No sea.’
‘Sounds good, and what do you do? ’
‘This and that. I went to uni here, but I’ve been kind of drifting, not sure what I want. I work for an agency, a social work agency, as a carer. What about you?’
Seb stood up. ‘Out of work. But sorry, I gotta go, promised to see a mate. Nixie, I’ll be seeing you, and look after your friend. It was good meeting you.’
For a brief moment, their eyes met. She looked disconcerted, maybe she expected him to hang around but the words of Gimp still rang in his ears. Be careful not to get set up. Could he trust her? Was he being set up? He glanced at her quickly. She seemed straight but how could he tell? She was attractive, but not his usual type. The ‘au natural’ look wasn’t what he usually went for. She wore no makeup and she wasn’t glamorous. But then, his taste in women could change and, he’d been celibate for weeks and he didn’t like being celibate. She was a ‘politico’ and she’d be a contact. What would she be like in bed?
‘What are you thinking?’
He felt as if she’d caught him out. ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you. Next week.’ He gave her a smile and left. Hours later, he went over what she’d said. Conceived on a Scottish island? Something didn’t sound right about that, but whatever that was, he couldn’t make sense of why he was so preoccupied with her, and told himself to forget it.
— 6 —
It was one of those depressed, dark terraced houses in the back streets and the type of house which untouched by gentrification, and where poverty left neither the time nor the inclination to know your neighbours. Seb glanced around. The room was tiny. The curtains were drawn and a cheap light shade hung at an angle in the middle of the ceiling. The light bulb had burnt through the plastic.
True to style, Gimp got straight to the point. ‘This demo has hit the press big time and calls for an official Inquiry.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you were there, what did you make of it?’
‘I survived. It was an eye opener. Things blow up fast.’
‘Take me through it.’
‘The rioters kicked off first. I was standing in front of the bank. I got pushed by the crowds towards the police until I was so close, I could smell the hostility, the fear, the tension. It was all around, like waiting for a bomb to go off. Then it did go. The crowd exploded. Missiles came from the back of the crowd aimed at the police and at the bank buildings. All fucking hell broke loose. Stones, bricks, whatever they could get their hands on. Guaranteed to cause trouble and injury, and it did… but, whatever the rights and wrongs; law and order had to be maintained… by any means necessary.’
‘Cut the moralising, Seb.’ He eyeballed him. ‘You got too close. Keep away from the front line. Keep a low profile. Don’t put yourself in a position where you could be called as a witness. If that happens, your cover could be blown.’ Seb was silent as he took that in. ‘That USB, I gave you, anything of interest on it?’
‘Yeah, four or five of them were wearing scarves or balaclavas to hide their faces, and they worked as a group. But one of them stood out. He’d got tattoos along his right arm and I’m pretty sure the stone throwing started with him. But when the fighting kicked off, he disappeared. Either that, or he’d changed his appearance and melted into the fray.’
‘Interesting. Write it up in as much detail as you can and I’ll pass it on to the Met. We’ll try and get a match with known agitators. Anything else I need to know?’
‘Yeah, I’ve made a contact. A woman called Nixie. I met her after the demo in Starbucks. We got talking, so… I’m going to my first meeting of Grassroots and if luck’s on my side, I’ll get an opening.’
‘Good, well keep me in the picture.’ He stood up. ‘Got to go, I’ll have more time when we meet next time. You’re doing well so I can let you off the leash now. See you, if not before, in a fortnight, same day, same time, unless of course, you contact me before then.’ He walked over to the door, turned the handle and then looked back. ‘Make sure you do as much background research as you can before you pitch up at that meeting. You’ll be under scrutiny, extreme scrutiny. It’ll be a test.’
Wednesday, and it was the day of the Grassroots meeting. To prepare for it, Seb read voraciously. The politics of the anti-consumerists bored him, but reading took his mind off things – like the occasional loneliness he experienced. Once he’d had an identity, now he had none. He lived on the margins of society, with no attachments, pretending to be what he wasn’t, colluding with a deception, but for what? Was it some sort of truth? But whatever that might be, he had no idea.
He’d become introspective. Maybe he had too much time on his hands or his reading made him question himself and his life. His thoughts inevitably returned to his last visit home and how meeting his father had inevitably disintegrated into a quarrel. He’d tried to make sense of it, by getting out of the house, and driving to Aldeburgh, it hadn’t really worked. The young girl he’d met on the beach, she’d been strange. How lonely, trusting and innocent she seemed. Would she still be there, visiting the Shell?
He brought himself back to the present. Enough. He had a job to do. He caught the bus to Tottenham High Road and walked the rest of the way. The pub was on the corner, huge, red brick, ugly, and by the look of it, probably Victorian. Inside it was noisy, crowded and after asking a barman where the meeting was, he threaded his way through the bar to a side door, climbed the stairs and walked along a dimly lit corridor until he reached a half-open door.
He looked inside and stood for a moment in the doorway. A small group of people sat in a circle, chatting to each other. One of them glanced up, saw him, sprang up from the group, and walked rapidly over to him. He wasn’t exactly friendly. He stood barring his way, stretching his tattooed arm across the doorway. Seb took a step back. Hard looking with a mean face, the man’s hair was so short it clung to his skull, his eyes cold behind old-fashioned, round, steel-rimmed glasses. He wore jeans and a tight black tee shirt. It carried the logo in red, ‘Eat the rich’.
Eyeballing Seb, he said, ‘Just a minute, mate, where do you think you’re going?’
‘A meeting. I’ve been told Grassroots meets here.’
‘It’s private. Members only.’
He was about to say he was a newcomer when he noticed Nixie. She’d been chatting but once she’d seen him, she stood up, walked across the room, and put her hand on the man’s arm. ‘Mike, he’s okay. I invited him. We met at the demo, he’s just moved here.’ His eyes narrowed. He looked at Nixie, then back again at Seb. ‘I’ve checked him out,’ she added.
Mike paused, then he said, ‘Okay, but he can’t just barge in.’ He gave Seb a hard look and said, ‘Wait here, while I check out with the others whether you can join us.’ He shut the door in Seb’s face.
Seb took his chewing gum out and pushed it in his mouth. He�
�d give them ten minutes. Any longer and he’d go. He wasn’t used to being treated like that. The hostility from the guy at the door peed him off. He felt like walking out, but he had to go through with it. While he waited, he’d have a quick drink downstairs in the bar. It was even busier than when he’d arrived. He pushed his way to the bar, but had to wait five minutes before he was served.
He stared into his drink. The pub smelt of stale beer and his feet stuck to the filthy carpet. He almost walked out there and then. He spoke to no one and no one spoke to him. He was anonymous. An image of the champagne bars he used to frequent around Canary Wharf floated into his mind. The only thing this place shared with them, apart from the numbers of people getting trollied, was the noise. It was an equal match as far as the decibel level went, but the accents were different. In the City the estuary English of London traders, the classy careful articulations of the Home Counties, the transatlantic nasal drawl of the international traders. All he could hear in this pub was the effing and blinding of north Londoners. He stood drinking, then threw back his beer and sprinted up the stairs. If they weren’t ready for him, it was time to go. He wasn’t used to being treated like a spare part.
Mike was standing by the door. ‘You can stay, but we need to know more about you.’
All eyes were on him as he took his seat. Nixie flashed him a quick smile; she seemed the only friendly face, the rest of the group stared at him, as if he’d come off another planet, which was exactly how he felt right then. The questioning started as soon he’d sat down.
‘We need to know why you are here.’
He didn’t answer, taken aback by the speed and directness of the woman’s question.
Mike glanced at Seb. ‘That’s a straight enough question, isn’t it? Why are you here?
Nixie spoke then, ‘Mike’s right. Sorry, I should have told you. We can’t be too careful about who joins us.’ She gave Seb an encouraging smile.
That was when he realised the meeting was going to be difficult. Naively, he’d assumed he could just walk in, but the vibes weren’t exactly inviting. He tried to look nonchalant. He looked round the group. ‘Fair enough, but what do you want to know?’
Truth and Lies Page 6