Mystery City

by Alistair Lavers

  ‘You’re perpetuating the capitalist system. That’s oppressing the working class. None of us rent, we all squat. Checking your creds. Can’t be one of us if you’re part of the system. You got new docks…’

  ‘I think you’ll find Mike rents, don’t you Mike?’ replied Aisha coolly, glancing sideways at her boyfriend, who wasn’t sure where to look, so he stared at his shoes and muttered an expletive under his breath.

  ‘The flat belongs to my uncle, our rents are his only form of income– apart from his army pension. D’you think it’s right we should sponge off him and leave him struggling for money, when he’s been crippled, fighting to defend a free society and a free country like ours?’

  ‘Ooooh… bull’s-eye,’ chortled Digger.

  ‘That girl’s got spunk. She’s tough Benny,’ said Cassandra, the bass player from the Card Cheats, enjoying the standoff from the safety of the next table. ‘She’s sticking it to Shipsulk. Go on girl.’

  ‘Can’t join us– if you got rels or famm in the services.’

  ‘Rels? Famm? Rels means what? Relatives? Do you always talk in code and sneer at people you don’t know? You are joking…’

  ‘D’wee look like we’re like that?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Pardon? Pardon? You ain’t been to a compy… you go to a girls’ school?’

  ‘Leave it out Mary. Aisha’s cool. She’s one of us,’ said Mike, fuming.

  Mary sensed she was losing the room, and realised she had a finite amount of time in which to end the exchange, before her antics blew up in her face.

  ‘She’s got new docks!’ She ain’t one of us. She’s a wage slave, and a Tory.’

  ‘Mary! Cut it out,’ growled Mike.

  ‘She wants to infiltrate us…’

  ‘I do not. What’s wrong with having a job? I love my job. How can you be a rebel if you take handouts from a government that you claim to despise?’

  ‘You ain’t judging us.’

  ‘Don’t judge me then – and stop speaking to me in your stupid code. How dare you speak to me like some toxic headmistress. Are you always so rude and aggressive to people who are supposed to be your guests?’

  ‘She’s working for the system Digg. Listen to her, she’s trying to diss me.’

  ‘Mary. You went to a private school,’ said Digger, exasperated by Mary’s goading.

  ‘Did not.’

  ‘Did so.’

  ‘Whitborough Girls’ College isn’t private. It’s open to everyone…’

  ‘Like everyone who can pay the fees? Listen… Aisha’s sound. She works in the vet’s on Gunstone.’

  ‘Her Dad subs her hundreds every month…’ complained Cassandra within earshot, adding to Mary’s troubles.‘Silly bitch.’

  ‘C’mon Aisha…’ said Mike angrily, as he got to his feet.‘I’ll get us another drink away from Punkerella.’ But Aisha refused to budge. Mary, who had taken umbrage against one of her flock for mentioning her private education suddenly spotted Keith the drummer in the Card Cheats was eating a dead animal pie and chips. Her interrogation was not going as smoothly as she’d hoped.

  ‘Mike, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not running away from her,’ she snapped, glaring at Mary.

  Mary ignored her answer and went back on the attack, revisiting her critique of Aisha’s choice of shoes, going for the moral high ground, as she perceived it, looking for a scalp and a quick victory. ‘We don’t wear leather, us or the band. Dead animal skins ain’t where we’re at. We’re vegans. Hunt sabs. You can’t wear them if you’re around us.’

  ‘So you tell people what they can wear, and who they can and can’t mix with, do you Mary? Like some kind of creepy fascist social secretary?’

  ‘WHOA!’ gulped Digger. ‘Shit’s gonna hit the fan.’

  ‘Mike didn’t hear. He was transfixed with shock and admiration, waiting for the inevitable explosion. The rest of the witnesses were hurrying away to the margins of the Scout hut, avoiding eye contact with the two girls at the centre of the ideological stand-off, though still staying determinedly within earshot.

  ‘Did you just call ME a FASCIST?’ yelped Mary, blinking furiously, pressing her palm over a cleavage garlanded with the cheap, slag metal symbols of rebellion, hanging from loops of coloured string. ‘How dare you call ME a FASCIST!’ she shouted, almost popping her nose stud.‘Your uncle was the servant of an imperialist fascist government and a warmongering bitch!’ she announced to the room, pushing her head and shoulders into the space between the sofas.

  The uppercut was very swift, and totally unexpected. The knuckles of Aisha’s right hand, slammed into the defiant chin of her tormentor with a loud crack, felling the Queen of Whitborough’s underground scene in a heap. For a long time nobody spoke or moved, then very quietly some of their audience began to whistle and clap.

  ‘Don’t bother getting up, unless you want the rest too,’said Aisha, standing over her groaning tormentor. My uncle fought to save more deserving people than you from being taken over by a real fascist state. Not that you’d know a real fascist, unless you got shot by one – you bitch. Or looked in a mirror. Oh, and by the way, we live in a democracy. That’s why dickheads like you can walk the streets without getting locked up.’

  ‘SHIT Aisha! WHAT DID YOU DO!’ yelped Gary, trying not to laugh. Mary’s hand slumped off her chest and flopped onto the floor.

  ‘Something worthwhile. Wouldn’t you say? I don’t see anyone rushing to pick her up, do you? Just keep that bitch away from me from now on,’ snapped Aisha, storming off to the toilet with a tissue pressed into the corner of her eye.

  ‘Aisha! Where are you going – she might go to the cops!’ shouted Mike, appealing to his fleeing girlfriend, then suddenly revised his last comment when he’d had a few seconds to think.‘Well, maybe not…’

  ‘Can someone splash a bit of cold water on Shipsulk to wake her up,’ suggested Digger, ‘she’s just passed out.’

  ‘I’ll go!’‘We’ll go!’shouted three or four of the group in unison, falling over each other in their haste to grab the four red fire buckets from the brackets outside the main door and fill them up with freezing water.

  Two of Mike’s friends, Cheesy and Stig arrived over Mary’s unconscious form, grinning sheepishly. ‘D’you need some help to drag her outside? We can’t soak ‘er in ‘ere, can we? We’d have to mop up.’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ answered Mike, trying not to grin too broadly, ‘d’you want to grab ‘er arms? Me an’Aisha‘ull grab ‘er legs… when she comes back.’

  ‘Aisha’s gonna be in the bogs a while longer I reckon Mike,’ said Gaz.‘Somehow, I don’t think she’ll want to touch her anyway. I’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘Better be nice then when she comes back, or she might deck one of us an’ all. She’s got a cracking punch. DIGG! Hold the door open for us mate.’

  ‘She’s gonna be pissed when she wakes up,’said Cheesy.‘She was gonna show us what she’s been hiding under that old quilt cover, after us teas. I guess we won’t get to see what she’s been up to, unless we can wake her up.’

  ‘Hasn’t she told you then?’

  ‘Told me what? You mean you know – already?’

  ‘We’re gonna liberate some donkeys tomorrow night.’

  ‘DO WHAT?’

  Chapter Six

  North Yorkshire Police Headquarters, Northallerton

  Superintendent d’Ascoyne’s expected meeting with the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police was not the friendly one-to-one reunion that he had been anticipating. The actual format of their encounter, which was very different from the one he had envisaged, had done absolutely nothing to improve his mood. Instead of the informal chat he had hoped for, inside the comfortable surroundings of the Chief Constable’s inner sanctum, with port and cigars, he found
himself in a cold prefab on a hard plastic chair, facing the Assistant Chief Constable, his ice maiden secretary and two furtive-looking civilians or officials who looked as though they had been in the military all their lives and had now moved into some kind of Neverland between the Ministry of Defence and some shadowy department of state attached to the Home Office. They wore no identification or badges of rank, but were clearly overseeing and directing the meeting to which he had been summoned but not forewarned. It had all the hallmarks of a disciplinary inquiry without the safeguards or protocols which the service was usually so careful to observe.

  The Assistant Chief Constable had already enraged d’Ascoyne by not doing him the courtesy of introducing their guests by name. His resentment was becoming harder to hide with each second that passed.

  ‘This is a Home Office investigation, in partnership with the joint services, directed by the cabinet office,’ explained the Assistant Chief Constable, finishing his statement with a grunt of distaste.

  ‘Surely this is purely a police matter sir, until…’

  ‘The Home Secretary has insisted upon the postponement of all meetings at Whitborough station and here at headquarters, pertaining to the sinking of HMS Brazen, until the arrival of liaison officers from the Home Office and the Royal Navy. The MOD are also sending two representatives from the Intelligence Services. You will afford these gentlemen full access to all areas of the station without exception, including your own office and the interview suites,’ explained the Assistant Chief Constable tersely.

  ‘But…’

  ‘You will chair the meeting and ensure all the parties stay within the terms of reference set out in the document,’ he added, placing the tips of his fingers on a manila folder at the front of the desk.‘There will be no recording devices allowed during these sessions – only written notes and minutes. Any non-operational staff they may require will give their full co-operation – after signing the Official Secrets Act, after which they will be required to maintain full confidentiality or face the full force of the law. You must clear three rooms at the station for a week from tomorrow. All senior officers based in Whitborough, must be at the station by 6am to receive an advance team of counter-intelligence specialists, who will perform an examination of each room, before sealing them. The first meeting will commence at 10am. I’ve not been given any more details other than these at the moment, d’Ascoyne.’

  ‘Are we leading this investigation sir?’

  ‘Of course, it is still a police matter.’

  ‘Until it isn’t.’

  ‘We… will be given the courtesy of laying out our evidence and theories first,’ emphasised his superior, managing not to catch the boring eyes of the sour-looking men to his sides,‘though as chair you have the freedom to appoint an officer of lower rank to present the facts while you read the room. What about Marshall? He’s got a few years under his belt, we can’t have anyone too gauche or green.’

  ‘Marshall?’

  ‘I know the two of you don’t see eye to eye, but you’ll have to put aside any personal rivalry and do your best by the service d’Ascoyne. The greater good.’

  ‘Yes sir, but Marshall is just an inspector. He’ll be presenting the most important case we’re ever likely to deal with at the station, to a room full of people who do nothing except look for Russians, fifth columnists and terrorists.’

  The two men on the extreme left and right of the Assistant Chief Constable looked into each other’s eyes very briefly with a fluency that might easily have been missed– then broke off eye contact, returning their gaze to a point on the opposite wall just above d’Ascoyne’s hat. It wasn’t overtly demeaning to the man opposite them, but nor was it accidental. D’Ascoyne crossed his legs.

  ‘And you’ll be making sure we come across in the best possible light…’

  Chapter Seven

  Operation Donkey

  Many miles away from Police Headquarters in Northallerton, where one meeting had just ended, the Burniston Anarchists Devolved Committee of Whitborough (BADCOW) had just convened and were gathered around the form of a mysterious protuberance hidden beneath a quilt cover on the old Scoutmaster’s trestle table. Mary– now revived – stood behind the table, in front of her troops and then grasped the edge of her precious signs of the zodiac bed linen, lifting it off with great ceremony in the manner of a magician’s assistant, once she had put aside her soothing bag of ice cubes.

  On the table before them lay a strangely-shaped hummock of papier mâché that could have been mistaken for a giant green turd, were it not for an untidy ridge of mixed sized bristles that covered its summit like a badly-mown mohican. A small wire tower, made from coat hangers in the same style as the famous RKO broadcasting beacon, stood on the highest point at one end, next to a mustard-coloured obelisk on a cardboard plinth. A long ribbon of wet ‘n’ dry abrasive paper (representing a road) curled its way through the bristles in a giant loop, then ran down one side of the mound, looping around a group of small structures resembling a toilet block within a small paddock.

  ‘Mary – did you make this?’asked Jim, one of the small minority in the collective who stood up for Mary, when she was in danger of making a fool of herself.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve been working on it at college,’ replied Mary, sullenly, wincing slightly, as she pressed her bag of ice against the bruise on her chin.‘It’s plaster and papier mâché, painted with gouache, mostly. I made the other bits at home.’

  ‘Where’s the railway, Mary?’

  ‘Railway..? What railway?’

  ‘There’s no model railway…’

  ‘Yeah, where are the tunnels Mary?’

  ‘What!’

  ‘There’s no track or station or platform either.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Can’t you see what it is?’

  ‘Is it one of them, them – Neo… Neo – lith… one o’ them burial mound things?’

  ‘They call ‘em Barrows dunt they? I seen one o’ them things once. On the telly, in Scotland. Or Orkney.’

  ‘Bauhaus did that song about them – ‘Hollow Hills’. Cool band Bauhaus.’

  ‘It’s Oliver’s Mount!’ groaned Mary. ‘It’s a scale model of Oliver’s Mount. There’s the television tower thingummy – there’s the war memorial and there’s the woods – an’ the racetrack,’ she snapped, pointing at each of her creations.‘I spent two months making this after lectures…!’

  ‘What for?’ asked Stig, with a look of bewilderment.

  ‘What for?WHAT FOR? For OPERATION DONKEY – DUMBBELL!’

  ‘But if we know where the donkeys are, why do we need a model railway… model?’said Ian impolitely.

  ‘IT’S NOT A BLOODY MODEL RAILWAY!’croaked their Fuhrer, trying to ignore the pain in her swollen jaw.

  ‘Calm down Shippie, you’ll bust a tampon,’ said Cassandra, attempting to cool down the tempo of the discussion.

  ‘It’s a scale model of the landscape – the terrain through which we will effect the rescue of these abused animals,’ asserted Mary, trying not to register the taste of blood from her gums. ‘By studying this model, we can pinpoint the route of our escape, avoid populated areas, and identify any hazards. We need a three-dimensional representation of the TZ and the MLP to plan our mission in detail, if we’re going to do this properly. The railway track won’t feature in the rescue operation; so there is no need to include it on the model.’

  ‘She’s thought this one through lads.’

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘Yes Digg?’

  ‘What’s a TZ?’

  ‘It’s on your handouts. You’re sat on yours…’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘TZ means target zone Digg,’ said Gary.

  ‘MLP stands for mission landscape platform boys,’ said Cassandra. ‘Not my large penis.’

&nbs
p; ‘It’s a good job Mike and Aisha’s gone. This shit wouldn’t ‘ave got out the pram,’ whispered Ian to Penny beside him. ‘She works at the vet’s on Gunstone. They look after a lot of horses and donkeys; she’d soon shut this daft cow down.’

  ‘That silly cow’s not getting me mixed up in this. It’s got disaster written all over it…’griped Penny.‘Why doesn’t someone call her out?’

  ‘Coz we’re all waiting for her to fall off her high horse – and run home, to Mummy and Daddy,’ hissed Cassandra.

  ‘No whispering in the Ops room!’snapped Mary. ‘I will now present to you all the plan for Operation Donkey; after the briefing I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Until then – please remain silent.’

  ‘She’s crackers.’

  ‘It’s like the start of Where Eagles Dare in that scene in the war office in London innit?’ grinned Ian, remembering his favourite war film.

  ‘Aye. Ours is the low budget Yorkshire version –Where Donkeys Fart.’

  ‘What’s that funny lump, in the green fuzzy bit, by the war memorial Ship?’ asked Badger, who was also at the same college as Mary, doing Business Studies.

  ‘It’s a teaspoon, Badge. It got stuck in the plaster okay – forget about that. The bristles represent the trees – the wood. This is the donkey paddock,’said Mary, pointing to a cardboard wristwatch box, to which she had added a roof made of overlapping paper scales.

  ‘Prison.’

  ‘…Prison then.’

  ‘It’s a matchbox innit?’

  ‘Stig. Keep up mate. It’s a model,’ said Ian sarcastically.

  ‘Don’t lean on the Mere Stig, the tin foil might come off.’

  ‘Soz Mary.’

  ‘Right – everyone get where they can see,’ordered Mary, beckoning her anarchist commandos to the edge of the trestle table, until they were all squeezed in beside each other.