1990

by Wilfred Greatorex

  Before long, he would hardly need to carry Kyle's bug around. He would be a blip in his own right.

  Spring had made improvements to the prosaic council estate, introducing buds to bare branches and massed flowers to the geometric beds cut into the grass and children to the concrete play-spaces. But none of these were details of interest to the men in the car.

  There were three of them, as before. They even looked like their predecessors, the same neat, unimaginative clothes and features, unobtrusive faces for merging with crowds and wallpaper. Certainly none of them was likely to feel a twinge of heady seasonal vigour.

  Their car was parked near a single storey building, marked by the large sign, 'Maxton Community Health Centre.' A small boy hurtled yodelling past it and the first PCD inspector sighed impatiently, turning up the radio volume to drown the noise.

  A voice broadcast clearly, 'Right now, Wendy, deep breath please...' It paused, then continued, 'Good...Again now...Good...And again...That's splendid.'

  In his cramped surgery, Alan Vickers was applying his stethoscope in chess-like moves to the back of a child about the same age as his own daughter. The room faced north and was heated only by a single-bar electric fire. The child shivered and sniffed, as her anxious mother watched.

  'Don't look so worried, Wendy,' the young doctor said, reassuringly. 'One more deep breath. We'll soon have you right. You can get dressed now.'

  He began to fill in a prescription form and a small chit, directing the mother, without looking up, 'Two every night and morning and see that she...'

  'She's so run down, Doctor,' the woman said, fretfully. 'Could she have extra rations of meat extract and fruit juice? Only we can't afford the black market.'

  Handing over the chit, he smiled. 'Done already. That entitles her to more sugar and cheese as well.'

  He stood up and patted the child's head. 'No swimming for a week or two. Then you can try the Channel.'

  As she left with her mother, Wendy turned and waved, but the doctor had already flopped back into his chair and was passing a trembling hand across his forehead. He looked utterly exhausted.

  Another patient entered almost immediately and Vickers sat up, with an effort, to check his list. 'Ah Mr Grant, I've not treated you before, have I?'

  'I'm never normally ill,' the man replied.

  'But you think you are now?'

  'I think I've got a rupture...' About 28 years old, fit and very muscular, he looked more like a suitable entrant for a weight-lifting competition than a man with a rupture.

  Unexpectedly, he handed Vickers a piece of paper and continued, loudly, 'In fact, I know I've got a rupture,' as the startled Vickers read it.

  The doctor looked a little dazed, but said, automatically, 'Let's have a look, Mr Grant.'

  However, far from removing his trousers, Ian Cursley was already wandering round the surgery checking ledges, surfaces and corners.

  Alan Vickers sat at his desk watching, wide-eyed, as the other pushed his fingers into a narrow air vent and withdrew a small radio bug, then carefuly replaced it. He gestured to the doctor to continue speaking.

  'Yes, you do have a slight rupture. Very slight.'

  Outside, in the car, the three listeners heard Cursley's distinctly peeved voice answer, 'I wouldn't call it slight, doctor. It's giving me hell. And I'm also getting these pains round the heart.'

  'Take your shirt off,' the doctor instructed, then stepped back instinctively, as the stranger reached over and began patting down his jacket and reaching into his pockets. With silent urgency, Cursley prompted him to keep talking.

  'Your heart rate seems normal, Mr Grant.'

  'Not when I'm working, it isn't.' Finding nothing on Vickers, he had started to hunt through the GP's bag.

  As the reason for the search slowly dawned, and Alan Vickers began to appreciate that his every word was actually being overheard, his performance improved. 'I'm not here just to dole out sickness benefits, Mr Grant,' he asserted, severely.

  'I'm no scrounger,' whined Cursley, still rummaging. 'I'm not scared of hard work.' He brought out a small, metal object from the bag and held it up, mouthing, 'Radio location bug.'

  The doctor looked puzzled, so Cursley wrote on the prescription pad, 'It tells them where you are.'

  Vickers nodded and, carrying on writing, Cursley said, 'I'd just like to feel fit enough to get back on the job...I'd go back to work today.'

  The message read, 'Stand by for a few days. Burn this.' Alan Vickers folded the note and put it to the electric fire. They watched it char and crumple as he said, 'You can stay off for the rest of this week, Mr Grant. Then it's back to work.'

  'So there's nothing seriously wrong with my heart?' the other protested with belligerent disbelief.

  'There's a murmur. Nothing to worry yourself about.' Cursley winked encouragingly at him and Vickers, added, enthusiastically, 'I won't be a party to parasitism, Mr Grant.'

  The leading inspector nodded his approval, as the doctor's voice continued through the radio. 'I will not give my support to the work-shy.'

  'I can put my shirt back on now?' His patient sounded sullen.

  'Yes, you can dress now, Mr Grant.'

  The stranger left Vickers looking round the shabby room in stunned excitement, no longer really seeing its row of worn text books and slightly dated equipment. He walked briskly through the health centre gate to a bicycle leaning against the fence.

  The three inspectors watched him with puritanical, zealous disapproval from their car, where the doctor's voice was sounding again, 'Do sit down, Mrs Grace. How are the children?'

  Cursley seemed to have some trouble with his bicycle chain and dismounted to deal with it, at the same time carefully registering the PCD car and its three occupants.

  'They're all fine, doctor, but it's harder to make ends meet,' a woman's voice was saying.

  Vickers studied her with concern, about thirty, but prematurely ageing, with the stoop of a much older woman and slack stomach muscles from child-bearing. She also looked alarmingly underfed.

  'I wish we could have stopped at two. It's our own fault,' she was saying. 'The tax they take just because we've had two more than we should.'

  The doctor glanced worriedly at the air vent. 'They had to do something about the birth rate, Mrs Grace,' he murmured.

  'And they did it to us...' She suddenly began to disintegrate in front of him, the lines on her face growing more intense, eyes filling with tears. '...only now...'

  Knowing what was coming, he pictured the spies listening in and wished he could stop her, but dared not remove the radio bug. There was no other way to warn her. His own enforced treachery made him feel sick.

  '...I think I'm in the club again...' her thin face flushed in panic. 'Nobody's going to sterilise me! Nobody!'

  In the car, the leading man made a quick note in a pocket book. 'Bonus,' he said to his companions, with a grin.

  'You don't know for sure that you are pregnant,' the doctor's voice was remarking.

  'I'm pretty sure. I'm certain.' The sound of the woman crying filled the car.

  'One for the Family Affairs blokes,' the inspector commented, completely unmoved.

  On the other side of the road, Cursley had re-chained his bike and was cycling off.

  'You might not be, Mrs Grace,' Alan Vickers was saying, comfortingly. 'Now, if you'd like to get ready.' He indicated a curtained cubicle.

  'I couldn't stand being sterilised. I couldn't,' she sobbed, then rounded on him, almost as though he were responsible for the State law. 'And I'll not have an abortion either!'

  She crossed to the cubicle. 'Why five? Why did they have to make it five?'

  Bitterly, Alan Vickers stared at the air vent again, but still could not resist exclaiming, 'Perhaps because nobody in the Government had more than four, Mrs Grace.'

  'Cheeky! He's getting above himself!' sneered the first PCD man, making another note. 'All because we won't give the bum an exit visa.'

&n
bsp; CHAPTER FIVE

  Kyle's information on the growing number of applicants for exit visas was accurate and the Surveillance Room staff had already increased along with the work load. Activity was intense, with all listening posts manned and extra checkers moving busily between the monitors. Obviously no-one had time to gossip or read now.

  Tasker joined Randall and surveyed the scene with approval. 'Ombudsman's Court emigration rejects,' he demanded, and the supervisor reached for one of his ledgers. 'Name - Doctor Alan Vickers.'

  'We have just over six hundred of those on the list today,' Randall remarked, then pointed to the bank of monitors. 'No 9.'

  'Are they still taking him out?'

  'No. Electronic surveillance only. There's been a rush and they were called to other things last night. We thought that, after four days...' He had led the Deputy to the monitor and buttoned channel fourteen. 'These exit visa cases are our second busiest classification nowadays, though they're still a long way behind the dissidents, who just want to stay and make a nuisance of themselves.'

  The screen came alive with different coloured moving blips. Alan Vickers' was amber and shone slightly off centre. Randall pressed another button and the amber blip now appeared alone on a tighter presentation altogether. The supervisor studied it, then plotted the position against a reference sheet.

  'Coventry south west,' he said to Tasker. 'He's on the Castle Housing estate.'

  The Deputy Controller nodded. 'Where he should be. That's where his patients are.' The amber blip began moving across the screen. 'He'll be doing his visiting.'

  Randall gave him a sidelong look and hinted, cattily, 'I thought he was on Miss Lomas' list?'

  'And on mine,' the other snapped. 'I have the authority.'

  'Yes indeed, Mr Tasker,' the supervisor gave a Mona Lisa smile and turned back to the monitor. 'Do you want a more precise fix on him?' But the Deputy Controller was already on his way out.

  Another influx of cases flooded the department that afternoon, so that quite a number of earlier subjects had to be removed from the schedule, in order to avoid building up a backlog. Luck included Alan Vickery' name among them and allocated his amber blip to another reject.

  Within an hour Cursley chose to turn up again. The doctor was beginning his second round when he heard his name being called and saw the contact waiting nearby in an elderly car. The man instructed him to leave his medical bag locked in his own car and to search his pockets thoroughly. Bugs were so smooth and small that it was easy to miss one tucked down in a corner. They were specially designed to adhere to material and were almost indestructible. Under jacket collars and lapels, or in vent overlaps were favourite planting grounds. But Vickers found nothing and climbed in beside Cursley, who took his wrist and checked his watch, before finally pulling away.

  The car appeared old, but housed a souped-up engine, judging by the way it streaked down the motorway. Ian Cursley grilled his passenger for the first half hour, tersely probing his finance, job, friends, family and especially his opinions and feelings. After that the two men hardly spoke.

  Since the hearing, Vickers had been too busy and too depressed to make any decisions. The journey gave him the opportunity he needed, although he wondered if the decision might have been made already. Perhaps he really had seen his wife and child for the last time. He had felt the same fear before, but knew that there could be no more wavering. The U.K. still lived under the rule of law, even if some of the laws were lousy, and he believed the best chance of ensuring his family's freedom lay in appealing to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva once he was overseas, himself. But it was the biggest gamble of his life.

  A huge crusher was compressing a mountain of old cookers and fridges when they arrived at the freight and scrap yard, where the manager and Kyle, both in safety helmets, were apparently checking scrap. The manager moved discreetly away as the old car drew up.

  Cursley took the newspaper man to one side and said, in a low voice, 'He's fine. I've questioned him thoroughly.'

  The journalist turned to Alan Vickers. 'I wanted to see you again to make sure you want away.'

  'Yes, I do,' the doctor affirmed with conviction.

  'You weren't too sure last time,' Kyle pointed out.

  'I am now,' the other insisted. 'I've seen more. I know more. I've got to get away as soon as you can fix it.'

  'We'll give it a few days then, till they get used to the idea that you've accepted your lot. Don't change your routine,' Kyle directed, then smiled. 'Try to look resigned and sad.'

  'I feel resigned and sad,' Vickers observed, truthfully, yet with some relief. He had been given time to prepare and time to say last words.

  Skardon had another disturbed bathtime when Kyle's latest story on the rush for exit visas appeared screaming all over the front page of the independent.

  Chain-chewing one cigarette after another on the way to the office, he felt he would happily have presented the journalist with a gold-plated exit visa just to get rid of him. But, for some reason, the bastard had shown no wish to leave.

  The Controller reached a decision and his office at about the same time. A person to person talk was needed. One or two attractive rewards offered in exchange for future co-operation. As he phoned through his friendly invitation, he was unaware that his deputy, Delly Lomas, had already covered much the same ground, with infinitely more chance of success, owing to her unfair sexual advantage.

  Surveillance reported Kyle in the building, even before Reception rang through with the information. The columnist had walked the deeply carpeted corridors many times before, but never without the same fastidious shudder at the original paintings which lined the walls. He wondered if it were obligatory for all collectors of art for the State to be natural Philistines, as well as colour blind. So much money spent on such excruciating taste.

  Henry Skardon came round his vast desk, arms outstretched in welcome. For a few minutes he fussed over his visitor, settling him comfortably, ordering coffee, offering him a cigarette from his desk casket. Kyle shook his head.

  'Still off them?' asked Skardon. 'They are cancer proof.'

  'Who put that one out? The State-run Tobacco Corporation, or the Treasury?' The journalist aimed the first blow. 'I know your Treasury lads got in a sweat over the fall in tobacco tax.'

  The Controller ruefully shook his head. 'You're a cynic, Kyle. You won't believe the facts we give you, so you make up your own and go shouting them from the rooftops.'

  'I didn't make up that figure of 26,000 exit visa appeals.' Kyle decided to cut through the phoney pleasantries and get to the point.

  Henry Skardon's act collapsed immediately as, rattling a copy of the newspaper in his hand, he growled something about scurrilous rot like this not helping his department to carry out laws crucial to the country's survival.

  'What's scurrilous about it?' the journalist asked, coolly.

  'You can't go telling millions of people that all our best professional talent is queueing to appeal for exit visas!' the other protested.

  'I didn't say all. You've managed to tame quite a few - by whip and carrot.'

  'Twenty six thousand a year! Trumped up figures!'

  'What do you want me to do? Show you a copy of one of your own Public Control Department memos?'

  'Please,' the Controller urged, sardonically.

  'Then jail me under the Official Secrets Act?' The newsman jibed.

  'Do you think I'd do that to you, Kyle?' In another attempt to exude benevolence, the Controller only succeeded in resembling a smiling crocodile.

  'If you dared, you bloody would!' retorted Kyle.

  The smile on the crocodile's face vanished. 'Don't try us too far!' The advice sounded harsh. There was an instant of naked hostility between them, then Skardon veered away. 'I still don't get you. Half the time you'll help us put over the things people should know. I mean, you did more than any media person to explain what we're trying to do about curbing the birth rate and policing the
Wealth Tax, neither of them easy - er -'

  'I don't like the sterilisation thing,' the columnist stressed at once. 'Any more than I like the way your zealous lads are ripping up people's floor boards, looking for gold sovereigns.'

  The Controller blew a cloud of smoke through pursed lips. 'Mustn't be too squeamish, Kyle,' he said, airily. 'After all, we don't like your unofficial contacts with this Department. We don't like whatsname... Faceless, you call him... But we do believe there's hope for you yet.'

  'Steady on.' His visitor indulged in a little cosy spite. 'You'll soon be having me in the King's Birthday Honours for a ration of happiness pills.'

  'That's not been approved yet,' Skardon sounded cross.

  'This year, next year..?'

  Kyle's knowledge of what went on in Whitehall was the only serious threat to his own ultimate inclusion in the Birthday Honours hand-outs. The PCD boss mentally lined up his staff - Lomas, Tasker, Nichols and the rest - and wondered which was the traitor. He looked at the journalist resentfully as the man blabbed on.

  '...It's the bloody misery pills that would bother me. I mean, jail's bad enough without dishing out trash like that to the prisoners.'

  'You make it sound vicious, when it's no more than a way of cutting prison sentences,' he felt obliged to reply. 'Which would you prefer? Six months? Or one with misery pills?'

  'It'll not be long before I have to make the decision, no doubt...' There was no doubting the venom in Kyle's eyes either. '...when you get me inside for contempt of Parliament, or some Court, or some breach of the Official Secrets Act.'

  'I hope you will see the light before any such extremes are called for,' Skardon's warning was undisguised. 'Think of the exclusives we give you.'

  'You cannot hope to bribe or twist, Thank God, the British journalist!' the bumptious Kyle recited. '...Except with a scoop or two.'

  'You do all right,' his opponent commented, grudgingly.

  'I'm greedy.'

  The Controller realised he was getting absolutely nowhere. He looked as though he was about to explain something, then changed his mind and said instead, 'I was going to take you to lunch today. However, the Home Secretary needs someone to vent his sadism on. But worry not...'