Singleton's Law

by Reginald Hill

  King’s little flush of anger had gone and he had talked himself back to his former detached affability by the time he finished. Earlier he had phoned an enigmatic message from the flat and assured Whitey that the news would reach Sheldrake in half-an-hour that Singleton was no danger and arrangements would be put in train to paint the earlier events of the evening as a simple misunderstanding.

  Hydrangea and the bearded man who seemed to be called Hort (short for what? wondered Whitey. Hortense?) contributed little to this discussion but sat and listened intently. Whitey wondered how much they too were hearing for the first time.

  Finally Exsmith glanced at his watch.

  “Late,” he said. “I’ve got to go. We’ll be in touch, Whitey; Stay with it, son. You can do both your countries a great service.”

  “I’ll break too,” said King. “Whitey, I shouldn’t stray out till morning. Make sure Sheldrake’s had time to get things sorted for you.”

  “But they’ll know I haven’t used my apartment tonight,” protested Whitey.

  “So? Tell them you bought yourself a bit of dressing-room comfort,” laughed King.

  The two men left together. Affability and frankness, thought Whitey, watching them go. Good qualities in a man. But this combination left him vaguely uneasy.

  He turned to the other two and intercepted a glance between them.

  “Secrets?” he asked.

  Hort rose.

  “I must be on my way too. Sorry I had to hit you, Singleton. Goodnight.”

  He went out, leaving Whitey touching his head. During the discussions he had forgotten the blow, but now the pain came back.

  “And you?” he said to Hydrangea.

  “I’m sorry, Whitey. About your wife. And your friend, Caldercote.”

  “Yes. Being associated with me seems to be a pretty dangerous business.”

  “Perhaps. I’d like to stay with you all the same, Whitey. If you want me to.”

  “Dressing-room comforts?” said Whitey with an attempt at humour.

  “Whatever you will.”

  “It would be kind,” he said stiltedly.

  This time, he thought, there would be no lurking doubts. Everyone knew everything he had to tell. As a source of information, he was bone-dry.

  Nixon Lectures: Fifth Series

  Documentary Material

  I (m) TEXT OF THE OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SONG (to the tune ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’)

  Onward goes Athletic!

  The greatest and the best!

  Once you join Athletic

  You soon forget the rest!

  We are all Supporters

  Young and old alike

  Lead us into battle

  We know when to strike!

  Onward goes Athletic!

  The greatest and the best!

  Once you join Athletic

  You soon forget the rest!

  The following verse is a popular interpolation

  Blue and green and yellow

  Are all shades of shit!

  There’s just one true colour

  And we’re wearing it!

  Red’s the shade to show them!

  Red from toe to head!

  We’ll kick them and we’ll grind them

  Till they’re all bleeding red!

  Onward goes Athletic!

  etc.

  Chapter 15

  During the next month, Whitey found himself working surprisingly hard. Sheldrake had done the clearing-up job well and his return after the Parliament Hill business had been accepted almost without comment, to his face at least. The two dead Strikers had been written off as the results of a mutual misunderstanding in the excitement of the chase, an explanation which seemed to satisfy the Directors, though Whitey did not like the way some of the First Team looked at him as he walked around Athletic House.

  His own public rehabilitation was almost complete. He had appeared before a Disciplinary Committee to have his case reviewed. All of them had been so well rehearsed in their lines that it had been rather like taking part in an amateur play production. In view of Whitey’s full and frank recantation and his eagerness to return to the fold, the Committee agreed to suspend his sentence for a period of one year to test the sincerity of his reform.

  Now he appeared frequently on the media networks, usually talking about the high regard in which England was held by most other countries and their regret that she did not play a greater role in the councils of the world. “What they would like,” he said with vibrant sincerity looking the camera straight in the lens, “is to see a New Albion arise and take up its traditional role of leader and law-giver.”

  The ‘New Albion’ idea was soon being pushed everywhere and though Whitey knew his own contribution was relatively small, it still made him feel guilty. But there were moments when talking to Wildthorpe and Chaucer, even to Hobhouse, he could not believe that the black picture painted by Exsmith was true. From time to time as though sensing his doubts, Sheldrake (now very coldly correct in his relations with Whitey) edged him into a position from which he could see the underside of the whole business.

  Part of the plan for uniting the Four Clubs depended on concentrating the attention of their Supporters Clubs on a common enemy. The glibs had been elected. For more than a decade the glibs had gone unmolested, as far as anyone had been able to go unmolested during this period of yussing and general licence. They had banded together into powerful groups of their own, some with a great deal of likeness to the more extreme Supporters Clubs, as Whitey had discovered to his cost. And these glib groups paid little allegiance to the Club in whose territory they existed but, paradoxically, provided one of the few existing forms of the national unity which the Association now desired. It was this which made them the perfect target. Club fervour could be used as the starting point for the persecution, but quickly the fever spread across Club boundaries, and soon in the border territories groups of red and blue and yellow and green favours were mingling in common lynch mobs.

  Sheldrake unobtrusively arranged for Whitey to be present in an operations centre one evening. At first he did not understand what was happening, but quickly he began to catch on.

  A bunch of about thirty glibs rounded up in London had been brought to north Cambridgeshire, allegedly for internment. But arrangements had been made for them to escape. A couple of trucks had been temptingly positioned, inviting theft, and the road north was the only one left open. The local Supporters Clubs were informed and assistance requested. The trucks, each fitted with a hidden signal device which let the men in the control room know their exact position, were carefully shepherded north. A message was sent across the border into Wanderers territory in Lincolnshire inviting them to join in the chase. The ambush was sprung near Spalding, one truck was wrecked and taken but the other got away and headed west, weaving back and forth between Wanderers and Athletic territory and closely pursued by local Strikers from both Clubs. Finally the truck crashed near Uppingham, the glibs took to the fields and their pursuers converged upon them in a united mopping up operation.

  The following morning Sheldrake told the protesting Whitey that afterwards the two sets of Supporters had a small celebration, with lots of booze, mutual backslapping, exchange of colours. A great success.

  Glib-hunting soon became a major political weapon in more ways than one. The Directors used the hatred so engendered to get rid of anyone in the Club hierarchy they felt might be opposed to their plans. There were many of these, men whose loyalty to the Club could never be sublimated into support for the re-unified nation. They would go home at night to find their houses strewn with all the paraphernalia of glib-dom. And a mob would arrive within a couple of minutes.

  Old scores too were easily settled thus and Whitey himself came dangerously close to being yussed out of existence. As he opened his flat door one night, he was seized from behind by two men and flung to the ground. Other men trampled over him into the flat and after a few seconds he was dragged to hi
s feet and half carried into the lounge.

  There were half a dozen men in there, triumphantly displaying articles of female clothing and cosmetics.

  “We were told about you, you reffing glib,” said their obese leader gleefully. “Think you can come back here and be treated like the prodigal reffing son, do you? Prodigal reffing daughter, more like!”

  The others laughed. They were, Whitey decided looking at them as closely as his dazed condition permitted, they were genuine glib-hunters, rather than Strikers seeking a pretence forkillinghim. Except the fat man who was in charge. He looked as if he was in on the plant; something in his expression suggested calculation rather than blood-lust.

  “Those clothes aren’t mine,” said Whitey.

  “Bloody right they’re not!” guffawed the fat man. “Why do you wear them then?”

  “I don’t wear them.” said Whitey, concentrating his attention on the other men. His only hope lay in producing some rational evidence that the clothes were a plant. “Look, call the Management. Let me ring Athletic House. They’ll vouch for me there.”

  “No reffing doubt,” said the fat man quickly. “They’ve been weeding the glibs out of there like fluff from an Eskimo’s belly button. Oh yes, they’ll vouch for you, duckie. Let’s get it over, boys.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” yelled Whitey as the men began to advance on him rather hesitantly. “Just take a look at those clothes. Hold them up! They’re made for a small woman; how the hell do you think I’d get into them?”

  This was rational all right. It was also the wrong thing to say.

  “Don’t its clothes fit then?” mocked the fat man to the accompaniment of laughter from the others. “Is it putting on weight? Well, we’re the boys to take it off you, aren’t we, lads?”

  That was it. The stimulus to action had been given and accepted. There was no hesitancy now.

  “Wait, wait!” screamed Whitey. “For God’s sake wait!”

  “Yes,” said a new voice. “I think it would be a good idea to wait.”

  Everyone froze, then looked round. Standing in the bathroom door was Hydrangea. She was wearing Whitey’s bath robe. It trailed on the ground round her feet and the sleeves were a foot too long. She looked very small and helpless.

  “What’s going on?”, she said. “Whitey, love, who are these men?”

  “They say I’m a glib,” he answered.

  “A glib?” She laughed incredulously. “If he’s a glib, he’s got some funny ideas, I can tell you!”

  One or two of the men smiled uncertainly and she pressed home her advantage.

  “What are you doing with my clothes? You’ll ruin them treating them like that!”

  First one, then another of the intruders draped the garments they were holding carefully over chair-backs.

  The fat man came back to life.

  “Come on, lads! Don’t be taken in. Find one and you’ll find a nest. You’ve all seen these things on the street. What makes you think this isn’t another wearing the full strip?”

  This notion pulled the men up short for a moment, but Hydrangea was ready for them.

  She moved her left arm from in front of her body and the robe fell open.

  “Satisfied?” she enquired ironically.

  Sheepishly the men began to make for the door, a couple of them even muttering semi-audible apologies to Whitey as they passed.

  “Don’t leave it at this, lads!” yelled the fat man. “You’re being fooled. Don’t you see it?”

  “Too reffing well,” rejoined one of his followers, glancing at Hydrangea.

  The fat man relaxed as though accepting defeat and joined the trek to the doorway. But as he passed Whitey, he swept a short thick-bladed knife from his tunic pocket and made a surprisingly swift lunge at his stomach. Taken by surprise the most Whitey could do was take a short step backwards which fetched him up against the wall. The fat man drew back the knife for a second try. There was an ear-cracking explosion whose echoes were drowned by a full, high scream of pain from the fat man. He fell forward against Whitey, but the knife had dropped to the floor where it stuck deep in the carpet with the handle vibrating gently.

  In the bathroom door Hydrangea was standing with her right arm outstretched. In the dangling end of the overlong sleeve was a smoking hole from which protruded the dull metal snout of a pistol. She no longer looked small and helpless.

  “You can go now,” she said. “Help him through the door, Whitey.”

  The gunshot had sent the other men fleeing in panic down the outside corridor. Whitey could hear their hasty footsteps receding down the stairwell.

  “He’s hurt,” said Whitey unnecessarily. The fat man was bleeding copiously from the shoulder. Hydrangea reached into the bathroom, plucked a towel from the rail and flung it over.

  “That’ll stop you bleeding on the landing,” she said. “Now get out!”

  With the towel pressed hard against his wound, the fat man staggered through the door towards the stairs. Whitey watched him go with some concern, till Hydrangea came up behind him and kicked the door shut.

  “You start getting too worried about animals,” she said, “and you end up leaving your money to a cat’s home. Are you hurt?”

  “No. Just shaken. Thanks.”

  He went back into the lounge, picked up some of the garments and examined them.

  “These aren’t yours?” he said.

  “Certainly not. I’ve got some taste. No, you’ve been planted Whitey. Lucky I was here.”

  “Yes. How long had you been?”

  “About half an hour. This lot must have been tucked nicely away in your wardrobe and drawers. I noticed nothing at first. I helped myself to a shower and was just getting dried when you and your friends came.”

  “Lucky you take your gun into the shower with you,” said Whitey ironically.

  “Wasn’t it? I hoped to sort things out without using it, but Fatso was here to get rid of you, come what may.”

  “Who do you think set this up?” asked Whitey, pouring them both a stiff Scotch. As his new status became established, his access to the little luxuries of life had been made easier too. He enjoyed them, perhaps too much, he thought uneasily.

  “God knows. Not everyone loves you, but you’ve become important enough now to make an official yussing difficult. A glib-lynch, that’s different.”

  He tried to pull her down on to his knee but she evaded him saying, ‘later’. They had seen a lot of each other in the past few weeks. Hydrangea’s rise to favour had been almost as meteoric as Whitey’s and she was now firmly established as a kind of p.a. to Chaucer who was spending a great deal of time in London at the moment. She and Whitey made no secret of their relationship. Its background was well known to the Directors and it made a perfect cover for meetings at which they could exchange information. But to Whitey at least it had become a great deal more than a cover.

  “Anything new?” he asked her. She nodded towards the bathroom as she answered, “Not much.”

  “I think I’ll grab a shower,” he said, standing up. “Freshen my drink and bring it in, love.”

  He was not sure of the extent to which his flat was bugged, but he took no chances. While it was eerily unpleasant to think of someone listening in on their love-making, at least the results weren’t going to be fatal. Business discussions always took place in the shower.

  As he stepped under the tepid water (gratefully; often there was no water at all) he wondered what the distant eavesdroppers would have made of the attempt to yuss him.

  Hydrangea joined him. They kissed and clung close.

  “Two showers in half an hour. You’ll be washed away to nothing.”

  “I doubt it,” said Hydrangea looking down disgruntedly at her well made body. She was finding it difficult to withstand the onslaught of the starch-rich diet which was the common fare of the people.

  “What’s new?” asked Whitey.

  “Things are going too well,” she said. “What no-on
e reckoned on are the norms. Everyone talks about silent majorities, but no-one really believes in them. Well, it’s becoming clear that the Four Clubs problem is nothing like as difficult as it seemed. The norms want to live in a unified country. For a decade now the ordinary man’s been in a position where if he didn’t join a Supporters Club, nominally at least, he was in real trouble. And to express anything less than loyalty-to-the death to your Club meant that even your own family would yuss you. But the change in atmosphere that the Directors have been contriving has turned things upside down. You know what happened yesterday in Oxford? A band of the local citizenry yussed an assole procession! Christ, only a couple of weeks ago, anyone who saw that lot trotting down the street dived for cover.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Whitey thoughtfully, remembering his own experiences in the city. “And this is happening all over?”

  “It seems so.”

  “Well, that’s not bad, is it? I mean, if the ordinary people can reassert themselves, perhaps this is a way of killing the Clubs and the New Albion at the same time.”

  She drew away from him and looked at him pityingly.

  “You’re too idealistic for your own good, Whitey. The norms aren’t idealistic at all. What they want is peace and prosperity. How it comes, they don’t care. They’ll accept anything that promises these things. If the New Albion means there’s going to be food in the shops, water in the pipes, dustcarts in the streets and some kind of law in the courts, it’ll have their unqualified support.”

  “It’s not a bad deal,” said Whitey, shivering as the temperature of the shower dropped from tepid to cold.

  “You think not? I expect you’ll be glad to hear that the Dutch have lost their motion to expel us from the E.E.C. Renewed prosperity begins to loom, eh? I expect you’ll be glad to hear too that there have been secret talks between the Directors and the Germans and everyone comes out looking very happy. That the proportion of diplomats to military advisers in the German Embassy at the moment is something like one to three. I daresay you’ll be delighted to hear that we’re running out of glibs to persecute and that they’re turning their attention to coloureds in the Midlands.”