by John Macrae
* * *
I telephoned Barbara from the office when I got back. She was in the throes of selling the house and harrassed rather than tearful. I told her that I had just sold some stamps and had made some money. Would she like some?
"I never knew you collected stamps." She was wary, suspicious.
"I don't. I bought them a long time ago as an investment. So I sold them. Put it like this, it beats copper, little sister."
"All right, all right," she muttered. "Don't remind me. You can't blame me for thinking it's all a bit odd though, after what happened to that man; you know. The one I told you about. Varley."
"Varley? Your fake copper king? What did happen to him?" I asked innocently. "I'm a bit out of touch."
"Yes. Well, when I told you I wanted you to do something about him that night, and then he was murdered - well, I mean can you blame me?"
"Murdered?" I sounded shocked. “Varley was murdered?”
"Yes, it was in the papers yesterday. He was stabbed, apparently. The papers said that it was some Scots gang or other."
My ears sang. I took a big breath. "Well, it was nothing to do with me, so relax. But talk about poetic justice, eh? Well, well, well.. Mind you, I just thought you meant me to let the air out of tyres or something. Anyway, I've been too busy trying to raise the money to bother about your Mr bloody Varley. Sounds like he got what he deserved. Maybe he upset the wrong people. Not just you. Blokes like that must be up to their neck in all kinds of dodgy stuff. Now look, when can you collect this money?"
"How much did you manage to raise, then?"
"Eight five thousand pounds."
"What?" she shrieked. "Eighty five ... I don't believe it." Then she calmed down. "I can't, it's too much. We couldn't possibly accept it."
"Look, Barbara, the stamps are sold. I went to a dealer called Owen today, sold the collection and raised the money. So you've got to take it. I’ve even had the cheque made out to you by name."
She was beside herself. "Oh, you're wonderful! I can't believe it! I didn't know you were interested in stamps. You really got all that money for selling stamps?"
"Yes. Yes. Really. It's a collection I bought as an investment once." Which was true. Well, sort of. "From a very reputable stamp dealer, too. If you want to check, it's all honest and above board. Call him if you like. The cheque is made out to you, on his account at Coutts."
But she wasn't listening. She was yammering to Eric who was obviously showing a prospective buyer round the house. I heard her shrieking that I had sold some stamps and they wouldn't have to sell the house now as I'd given her eighty thousand pounds and that I was a wonderful brother . . . " She raved on to her unseen listener. 'Eighty thousand?' I mused. Then I laughed. Barbara was obviously going to buy some new furniture for the nursery or something. I'd always remembered her as a very calculating little madam since she'd dropped me in it with mum at the age of eight.
I took the cheque round that evening. It was all so fulsome and embarrassing that I left as soon as I could. But not before we'd cleaned out what was left of Eric's dusty whisky bottle.
The only sour note was when we discussed Varley and his demise. Eric showed me the article in the newspaper which added little to what I had already read, but discussed the revenge theory in greater detail. Now that he was dead, the papers could speculate openly about Varley's swindles and near criminal activities. They hadn't stinted themselves, either. So many ex-MPs were on the take nowadays that they had reached the stage of being past a joke. Greedy politicians and their wives were a popular target for the media. Especially since the big scandal about their expenses. If Varley had been alive, his lawyers would have made a fortune from libel suits. I wondered what Mrs Varley was making of it all and if I could some of the get the insurance policies back to her. From the sound of it she needed someone in her corner.
"Well," said Eric, "I didn't wish him dead, but we weren't the only ones who got hurt, not by a long shot. And they don't all have brothers-in-law to give them £85,000 to help them out." Eric had read the cheque. “But he was obviously a right so-and-so. I mean, look at the stories in the paper. He was up to his neck in all kinds of fiddles. So one day it caught up with him and he got murdered. He was a crook," he added, a touch sanctimoniously.
"Well, I don't care," said Barbara. We both looked at her in surprise.
"Whatever happened to the caring sex?" I queried sarcastically. Barbara looked squarely back at me.
"I mean it. I don't care. I'm sorry for his wife and kids, but he got what was coming to him and he's been punished. How many others has he done it to? It's his own fault. So there." She looked up defiantly.
"Yes. But killing's a bit drastic," started Eric.
"Is it? Is it really?” She rounded on him “Look at your paper, love. It's full for them. Bloody rapists, thugs, murderers, muggers. Asian gangs running white girls. You name them. Drunks, burglars, whatever. And what happens? Nothing. The police don’t give a damn. They get a slap on the wrist or an ASBO thing… All that happens is that some slimy minister comes on the telly and tells us that everything’s fine and crime’s going down, when the meanest brain can see that it’s not – worse than ever. Sometimes I’m scared to go out at night. Look at that case yesterday; in the paper. Those three yobboes who threatened to pour bleach into a baby's face and gang raped that girl. Well, what should happen to ... to things like that, eh? And one of them is too young for the police to do anything. Go on, Eric, what do you think?"
She drew breath and didn't wait for an answer.
"I'll tell you what - they should be seen to, sorted out. 'Cos the police are useless. They can't find them and even if they do, what happens? Nothing." She spat out venomously. "Nothing' A pat on the head, 'Be a good boy', and two hours attendance at a detention centre on a Saturday afternoon and a caution. Do you know, I read in the paper that one kid in Newcastle or somewhere got seventy two cautions, and was still terrorising people. He couldn't be punished. Well, I'd bloody well punish them, I can tell you. And if the law won't, or can't do it, then I'll back someone who will, like that Scots gang that fixed Varley. I reckon they did a public service."
She stopped for breath and looked defiantly at our surprised faces. I don't think I'd ever heard Barbara in full flood since she was a teenager. "Well, who else is going to do it, nowadays? Anyway, that's what I think," she snapped finally and held out a glass to Eric. "And I will have that other drink now, thank you." Pink spots burned in her cheeks
"What about the baby? Theo? Won't it affect your milk?"
"To hell with that. Anyway, it'll help us both to sleep." She giggled, as Wet Eric filled her glass. He glanced up at me and raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. I shrugged in the universal gesture of men that means 'Women!'
But Barbara's words had struck a primitive chord. Listening to her rant, I didn't feel so bad about Varley's demise. She was right, of course. The newspapers were full of cries for help that the law couldn't or wouldn't - do anything about. Well, I had.
"What we need, of course, is some kind of real vengeance man.”
"What did you say?" said Eric; I hadn't realised that I'd spoken aloud.
I went on, thinking aloud. "Oh ... I was just thinking about what Barbara said just now. What she's talking about is some kind of private vigilante group. Or some kind of a vengeance man. Someone prepared to sort out people with problems that the law can’t deal with. Do society's dirty work for it."
Eric looked thoughtful. He was a slow, careful thinker and his glasses gleamed as the thought emerged. "You mean for us. We're all society, aren't we?" he corrected me absently.
I agreed, hastily. Barbara grinned at me and sat back.
"Yes." Eric was definite, now the thought had hatched. "Something like the Saint. Or the old Edgar Wallace stories. A kind of secret revenge figure." He looked up at us. "He was always writing about that kind of stuff, you know." He snorted. "Very romantic, but impracticable, I'm afraid."
Barb
ara and I exchanged glances. I had trouble holding back a laugh. The idea of the respectable, suburban Wet Eric as an authority on the books of Edgar Wallace was a surprise to us both, I suspect. Maybe he should go on TV’s Mastermind with it as his special subject. Barbara spoke up.
"I don't think it's that impractical, love. There's obviously a call for something like that." She stared across at me. "Let's face it, we couldn't go to the law over Varley and his copper scam. Those Scots gangsters gave us more justice than we’d ever have got from the police or any of the courts."
I stopped her. "Justice? The guy got killed, for heaven's sake, Sis. He's dead. He didn't deserve that, surely?"
Barbara swilled her glass. "It was his own his own fault. He got what he deserved. If he hadn't conned and cheated and swindled he'd still be alive today. Wouldn't he?" She nodded, emphatically. "Anyway, I'm going to finish this drink, feed the baby, then I'm off to bed. I feel better than I've done for weeks and it's all thanks to you, and that money. Thanks, love. You’ve saved our lives."
And she raised her glass to me, Eric following her lead.
"So here's to you, big brother, and here's to whoever sorted Varley out. He won’t be doing that again in a hurry, will he?” She slurped her drink. “They’ve done us all a big favour. And here’s to good honest revenge and a little bit of justice. Thank you, whoever you are."
Somewhere, deep down, a series of freefloating thoughts crystallised into a clear idea.
Maybe I could make a difference.
People obviously felt that revenge – if it’s justified – was fair. A kind of court of last resort.
As I listened to the gentle crashing of the surf in my bedroom, I realised that I liked the idea.
CHAPTER 19
Brixton
If I could dish out revenge for the British government, why could I dish it out for ordinary people in need of a little help?
Ideas about revenge meant that I spent the next few weeks thinking hard about that conversation with Barbara and Wet Eric. I remembered, too, the words of the man in the pub talking about Spicer all those months ago, and the growl of agreement he got from the crowded bar; "Someone should do something about him," and the barmaid's indignation at the child-molesting paedophile. But what really bugged them all was the fact that he had been getting away with it.
Clearly people felt as deeply about it as I did -- the unfairness and injustice of a really nasty crime going unpunished. Obviously there was some deep unconscious need out there for justice to be seen to be done, if only as a gesture of collective rage against the impotence of the law. From nowhere the phrase 'natural justice' banged in my head as I pounded the park on my early morning runs, Telemann's trumpets blasting my eardrums. Good wake up stuff.
I worked out a lot on those runs, my footsteps beating the thoughts into my days. I don't just run to keep fit; I run to think as well. The Varley story soon faded from the papers, but there were plenty of others just as bad, and worse, to take its place.
Gradually my thoughts took form as I began to take an increasing interest in the crime reports in the papers, and even ringed some of the more horrific or bizarre cases. I became aware of the sub-strata of sick and diseased criminal acts that seem to be a constant theme of modern - particularly city - life. Barbara was right. Things were getting worse. You could read about it every day.
Almost without conscious thought, the realisation of what I had to do began to dawn on me; more important, I felt a sense of suppressed excitement at what I wanted to do. The Jewish 'eye-for-an-eye' would be a cliché - but it summed up some of my growing feelings. I began positively to look for examples of injustice, for cases where the policemen themselves expressed loathing of the criminals involved and fury at their own impotence. I didn't have to hunt very far. The papers were full of stories, from paedophiles buggering little kids to rapes of pensioners; from mindless psychopathic assault to thought-out thuggery, as the wild dogs of society seemed to run amok, usually well encouraged by their probation officers and social workers. There was even one case of some disgusting nonces who had raped a three month old baby. I mean…
I opened a clip file and began to repractise skills I'd learned years ago in basic Corps Training. I collected and collated information and opened a card index of events. As the weeks went by it became my main amusement. I spent evening after evening at the computer, cutting and filing by the yellow puddle of light from my battered anglepoise, a bottle of wine at my elbow and all my favourite music on the stereo. It was a totally absorbing task. I suppose I turned into a bit of a nerd. But at least I'd found a decent hobby that was keeping me off the streets, I thought wryly. ‘Every man should have a hobby’, my old mum had said, a long time ago. My Dad had added, ‘Or a shed.’
As my interest grew in the sleazier horrors of the big city, I started a map on the back of a kitchen poster and plotted the worst excesses. That’s when I realised that this stuff was too dangerous to leave on a computer for anyone to find. I bought a new laptop and burned most of my files. I could plot what I wanted on my map. The pattern and trends of evil began to emerge: and I wasn't surprised so much by the depravity as by its extent.
First, and easily the worst class by any standards of humanity, were the child abusers. But even here there was a distinction, and one that I observed and annotated scrupulously, between the sick and the guilty, the helpless and the wicked. Many of the sex offenders were clearly as nutty as fruit cakes and although the impact of their actions was dreadful -- and sometimes fatal to their victims - equally clearly they should just be put away.
But there was another, darker group. There's a world of difference between an idiot sub-normal who exposes himself to schoolgirls and then bungles an attempt to rape one by swinging a stick in a dripping park, and two polytechnic lab technicians who cold-bloodedly lure a young boy home, then torture him until he breaks down, giving himself to them, preferring the humiliation and degradation to the pain and the fear.
You'd lock the sub-normal idiot up, wouldn't you? He really doesn't know any better. Far better he's tucked away in some nice cosy institute, full of people with IQs of 60 on a good day, where they can hammer out their own brand of crude institutional society, away from their embarrassed families and 'nice' people, with only underpaid and antagonistic psychiatric nurses to hold the ring and watch their charges' excesses with bored dislike. Better there than roaming the community, going nutty and knifing total strangers on tube stations, or themselves becoming soft victims for the street wolves.
But the other two goons? What do you do with supposedly educated men, whose idea of a good time is to spend an evening sitting giggling over a video, breathing in the screams of their last victim, like perfume? Two sadistic queers excited by the memory of the anguish of their last big night out and then indirectly boasting about it on the Internet? What would you do? Well, I know what I would do, and I'll bet ninety nine percent of the human race, gay and straight, would agree with me.
There was another trend that my press cuttings revealed: maybe not as evil as the child-abusers, but faster growing: the bad muggers. Like some strain of jackal, a breed of lawless carnivore seemed to be proliferating in the inner recesses of our big cities, especially London. Like their wild counterparts, these human wolfpacks preyed on the herbivores of society, never on the healthy or robust; always on the weak, old and defenceless members of the herd. The more I read, the nastier they seemed.
I think that's what finally made me decide to act. Oh, yes, I thought about Spicer, and Varley and what I'd done. But it seemed right, now, after what Barbara had said. Dammit, even the police were saying it. Someone had to do something, for the weak, for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. It was the wild packs of feral kids that were the worst.
A few days later, as I was pounding along towards Hyde Park, I asked myself whether it really was up to me to fix it. Daft question. Who else? Not the police. Not the government. And certainly not some bunch of do-gooding, left
wing social workers. No, it had to be me – or someone like me. I didn’t see any rush of Guardian readers or concerned liberal school teachers begging to sort out the bad guys. In fact they were the ones doing the most complaining. Even though they had probably done more to cause the problems than the little shits who were causing the damage in the first place. It struck me that the nastiest groups of urban low life seemed to attract the most horrified fascination from the bleeding hearts of the ‘socially aware’ and the media. Well, I was just as socially aware as the next bastard and I was going to do something concrete for society, not just wail about its iniquities, or call for more expensively salaried ‘outreach workers’. Hell: they should be proud of my civic conscience….
Of all the groups that needed sorting out, it was the gangs of muggers and rapists picking on the elderly who were really asking for it. They were particularly vicious and cowardly, and they were often untouchable by the police, who seemed to be powerless in the face of increasing press indignation. I pounded on morning after morning, mulling over the thought.
If ever there was an area where I could make a dramatic impact, it was here. Beating up and raping a seventy two year old granny was just too easy, and too nasty to be allowed to stand. Someone really should do something about people like that. It was obvious. The problem was that was nobody was doing anything about it.
With bleak satisfaction, I made some plans. The cowardly hunters were to become the hunted. The leopard was going to drop out of the tree to stalk the jackals for a change, and I'll bet the much preyed-upon herds of cattle would heartily approve.
This was going to be fun.
CHAPTER 20