1990

by Wilfred Greatorex

  Mellor turned to Skardon, 'The cover-up'll take some working out. Very, very careful.'

  'We've done it before,' the Controller pointed out, with assurance. 'I'll put Miss Lomas on it. Strange, how women have always been much better at deception than men.'

  Kyle pulled in to park on the edge of a vast cultivated field. A large sculpture of a family running towards the open space stood on the opposite side of the road, in the centre of an arch leading to lights and heavy traffic. The field was part of Hyde Park.

  Waiting nervously, the journalist tapped the steering wheel and softly sang a variant of a 1930s quasi-cowboy song called 'Old Faithful.'

  'Old Faceless, we roam the range together.

  Old Faceless, in every kind of weather...'

  He stopped singing, abruptly. 'Where the social contract are you?' he muttered and peered out into the dim evening light. 'Social contract' had now passed into the language as a mild obscenity.

  As though in answer, the souped-up Mini drew in next to his car and one of its dark windows rolled down about two inches.

  'About time,' Kyle commented, with unusual sharpness. 'And why Hyde Park? It's patrolled.'

  'Old times' sake, Mr Kyle. Spring, daffodils, young lovers, the groomed horses cantering in Rotten Row,' the voice of Faceless was discursive and without urgency.

  'O.K., O.K. And now it's soya beans round a school for riot police. What have you got for me?'

  'You're nervous, Kyle,' now the voice was smiling slightly. 'Not like you.'

  'I've started taking an interest in mental health,' the journalist explained.

  'Yes, I know. Liberal indoctrination at the Mayfield ARC. But you were only there for a day. It used to be a stately home, you know, until Wealth Tax ruined the owner. Even his title didn't help him. He's a cleaner in a bus garage now.'

  The outdoors seemed to have affected his informant's mind, Kyle thought, irritably, not at all prepared to continue the risk for the sake of idle conversation. 'Serves him right for being patriotic and staying where he was born. What have you got?'

  'Mayfield is due to take in its first really important patient quite soon,' declared Faceless.

  'Charles Wainwright?'

  'You've been studying telepathy, too,' he confirmed. 'Wainwright it is.'

  The window of the Mini rolled up and the car moved noiselessly away at speed. Kyle switched on his own engine and headed back to Leisure Centre 28.

  Charles Wainwright had already arrived there and was sitting in the booth with Dave Brett, who pushed a glass of brandy towards him.

  'You know I don't touch it.' The trade union leader pushed it back and lifted the top slice from a plate of beef sandwiches, which Agnes Culmore had just laid on the table. The meat was generous, bulging the bread. 'Thank you, miss. You don't see beef sandwiches like this often. Not in public.' He scrutinized Brett. 'Black market?'

  'More sort of greyish,' the agent gave a grin.

  'What about coupons?' Wainwright asked Agnes.

  'Mr Brett's seen to that.'

  'No, he hasn't,' the other replied, firmly. 'They're not transferable and I'm not breaking any food laws.'

  He took a ration book from his pocket and tore out a catering strip, which had a price printed on each coupon. Agnes took them from him and returned to the bar.

  'How's your father keeping, young Dave?' The older man's expression relaxed a little, to show he was not really offended.

  'Cantankerous as ever. Digging his illegal allotment and giving most of the stuff away, rather than turn it over to the State Produce Centre.'

  Charlie Wainwright was beaming broadly now. 'He doesn't change. Where's this friend of yours?'

  'Here,' Dave Brett jerked his head and the other turned, recognised Kyle coming towards them and immediately looked angry.

  The agent raised a placatory hand. 'Now keep your wool on, Charlie.'

  'I'm not talking to him,' growled the trade union leader. 'Bloody gutter-headline merchant.'

  'Don't, if you don't want to. Just listen,' the agent appealed, as Kyle sat down in the booth with them.

  'What's he want?' Wainwright ignored his presence and addressed Dave Brett.

  'An interview,' said Kyle. 'Confirming the gist of the speech you made in America.'

  'Nothing doing. That was America. This is here. And God knows how you found out.'

  'You still believe what you said there.' It was not really a question.

  'Yes,' Wainwright replied, firmly. 'I told the Home Secretary so.'

  'Why didn't you take political asylum, Mr Wainwright? Why did you come back?'

  'Simple. Nobody ever improved a society from the outside. I belong here.'

  'Then let me help. Give me the interview.'

  'Not a chance.'

  Kyle gripped his arm and pleaded insistently, 'Before it's too late. The PCD are going to put the clamps on you - and you'll stay clamped. You're down for the Adult Rehabilitation Centre at Mayfield.'

  The General Secretary of the Metalturners Union shook himself free and glared. 'If you believe that, you've been on too many of these new funnybone pills.'

  As the journalist opened his mouth for more argument, George brushed passed the table, tapping rapidly three times, then pointing a forefinger at Wainwright.

  'PCD,' Brett warned. 'Come on, Charlie. Move. They want you.' He and Kyle were already on their feet.

  The trade unionist sat, unshaken. 'You run if you want to. I've no need to scuttle out of back doors.' He felt into his pocket and produced a pipe. 'Dan Mellor said I'd be all right. He won't break his word.'

  Kyle closed his eyes at the man's sincere stupidity, before spinning round to follow Brett - always a lightning disappearing artist.

  Jack Nichols entered the booth, accompanied by a heavy; all hooligan under a public school veneer.

  'PCD, Mr Wainwright,' the Chief Emigration Officer showed a warrant card. 'We'd like you to come with us. Just routine.'

  'Routine,' Wainwright responded, calmly. 'In that case, I'll finish these sandwiches.'

  The scheme had gathered a momentum of its own. Meetings had taken place, the plan been approved, typists called in, official-looking documents produced and appointments made. The lights in the Home Secretary's office were visible from Whitehall long after the surrounding windows had gone dark and he was still working when Delly Lomas delivered the completed papers, which he read with approval.

  'Ingenious, Miss Lomas. I like it. A very efficient and circumstantial tissue of lies. Thorough. I like that.'

  'Thank you, Home Secretary,' she replied, pleased.

  He had pressed a buzzer and a man, wearing emphatically framed glasses on a narrow, intelligent face, came into the room from the waiting annexe.

  'Sit down, Mr Griffith,' Dan Mellor met him sociably. 'Good of you to get here at such short notice. I'd like your advice.'

  Ivor Griffith, Assistant General Secretary of the Metalturners Union, recognised the flattery, but was still impressed.

  'I'll do what I can, Home Secretary.'

  He was very much a career union man, with a good first in PPE, taken almost casually. He had moved fast and, at thirty-eight, was not sorry his hairline was receding slightly, as this made him look older.

  'I know you will, lad. I've heard good reports of you,' Mellor declared and then sighed. 'Though I'm afraid this isn't going to be pleasant for any of us.'

  He turned to introduce Delly Lomas. Griffith managed a smile, but, despite his position, experienced the fear felt by anyone when the PCD was involved. Dan Mellor gestured to the woman and sighed again. It was an expert handover of the dirty work to be done.

  'It concerns your General Secretary's recent trip to America,' the Deputy Controller spoke formally, in the tones of a professional at work. 'Our surveillance people turned up some very disturbing facts. Wainwright's drinking, for example.'

  'He never touches it,' Griffith exclaimed.

  'Not in public. Privately, he's a bottle-a-day ma
n,' she returned. 'Then there's the question of his expense and currency allowance. Not just this trip, but the last half-dozen. On a deep audit, there's clear evidence of evasion and fraud.'

  'I don't believe it,' Ivor Griffith protested, vigorously. 'Somebody's making it up.'

  The Deputy Controller studied him frigidly. 'I don't think you mean that, Mr Griffith,' her voice was icy. 'I do hope not.'

  'No. I'm very sorry,' he stood up to apologise and remained standing.

  'The lad's upset,' Mellor put in, benignly. 'I know I was.'

  The woman picked up a folder from the Home Secretary's desk. 'There are details here of a bank account in the SwissLux Federation. As you know, it is an offence punishable by imprisonment for any British citizen to bank abroad - especially undisclosed sums of this magnitude.'

  She opened the folder towards the trade unionist, but without actually bringing it close enough for him to read. He did not dare reach out for it.

  'What are you going to do?' he asked, helplessly.

  'That's what I want to talk to you about,' Mellor intervened. 'Thank you, Miss Lomas.'

  Delly inclined her head and left, as the Home Secretary crossed to a drinks cabinet built into his bookcase and poured whisky into two glasses.

  'Sit down, lad. Bit of a facer, isn't it?' He handed Griffith a drink. 'I've known Charlie Wainwright thirty-odd years. I blame myself, you know. I should have seen Charlie was working too hard. He had to crack.'

  'He's in real trouble, though, isn't he?' Wainwright's assistant looked genuinely anxious.

  'Unless we can get him out of it.'

  'We?'

  'Yes. I'll try and cover for him. Charlie's served his country too well to end like this. I'm going to plead ill-health for him,' the ex-miner resolved, generously. 'He might have to admit a few things, and, of course, resign as GenSec of the Metalturners.'

  'He'll never do that. He's got five years to run,' the other pointed out. 'And the Executive will support him, right or wrong.'

  'That's where you come in,' Mellor raised his glass in a half salute. 'Call an emergency meeting, but get around the individuals first. You know the drill. Use the corridors. Word here, a hint there. It's for Charlie's good.'

  Griffith began to look almost enthusiastic. He was shrewder, brighter and less scrupulous than his boss, Charles Wainwright, but had been at pains to hide this superiority in the same mental cover as his intense ambition.

  'I'll try,' he promised.

  Mellor read him like a PCD handout. 'You'll do it, lad. Then you'll be Acting General Secretary for the rest of Charlie's term. And that's a nice, ripe plum for somebody your age.'

  He refilled the other's glass, knowing that the bait of fulfilled ambition had been offered and accepted.

  Kyle made a couple of stops, to discover the latest news on Wainwright, on his way to the office the following morning, then went straight to the archives room.

  When Greaves found him, he was studying a diagram in a large medical book. It was a cross-section of the human skull, similar to that hanging in Gelbert's office at Mayfield.

  'Ugh. Why was I born squeamish?' shuddered Tiny, who had had a large, late breakfast.

  'This? It's only the inside of somebody's skull,' the columnist was airy. 'All the highways and byways for electroconvulsive therapy to trot down.'

  'I'll stick to street maps,' promised the other. 'Whose skull?'

  'Could be Wainwright's. And now that the PCD have picked him up, he'll change his mind about giving me an interview.'

  'If you can find him,' Greaves cautioned.

  'I can find him. Give this to Pearce, will you?' He took out a surveillance bug from his pocket.

  The news editor dialled a number on the internal and Pearce appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. He handed Kyle a large envelope, then noticed the bug and groaned.

  'Oh no. I'm beginning to look like a chappatti. Here are all the photos of Wainwright you asked for.'

  Kyle inspected him, pointedly. 'Who told you to get your hair cut?'

  'Nobody,' the young reporter muttered. 'I thought...'

  Kyle indicated his own longer hair and scowled, 'Well, don't in future. Ask.'

  By lunchtime, it was a fait accompli and the leading participants gathered in Doctor Gelbert's office at Mayfield to complete formalities.

  Charles Wainwright, now dressed in a short-sleeved surgical tunic was sitting in front of Gelbert's desk, reading the dossier put together by Delly Lomas. The doctor himself sat behind the desk and Dan Mellor and Ivor Griffith waited by the window. Halloran was also ominously present.

  Wainwright threw the dossier down on the desk. 'You don't need me to tell you this lot's a pack of bloody lies. Put together by experts,' he said, contemptuously.

  'Isn't that your signature on the SwissLux bank account?' Mellor challenged smoothly.

  'You know it isn't. It's the PCD forgery mob. All right, Dan,' the General Secretary of the Metalturners Union leant back in his chair, a big, angry man wielding authority. 'If you want a show trial, you've got one.'

  He signalled to Griffith. 'Ivor, I want a full executive and delegate meeting of my union. I want fraternal subpoenas on all the union leaders who were with me on these trips where I'm supposed to have been a drunken expense fiddler.'

  His assistant stood motionless, looking embarrassed and guilty.

  'Go on. Get on with it,' Wainwright ordered.

  'A meeting's already been held, Mr Wainwright.'

  'At my instigation,' confirmed Mellor.

  'You had my word on it, Dan,' Charles Wainwright stared at him, accusingly. 'I'd have kept my mouth shut. Are you going back on yours?'

  'Words, Charlie. Don't be a simpleton,' the other sneered. 'I needed time to think. I want your resignation and a full recantation of past mistakes.'

  'You can want for bloody ever,' Wainwright shouted. 'I'm going to get out of this fancy dress and thump on every union door in this country.'

  He placed his hands on the desk to heave himself upright and Mark Gelbert nodded his head. One of Halloran's thick hands clamped down on the back of the trade union leader's neck, thumbing accurately and hard on the motor nerve centre. Charles Wainwright slumped forward.

  'Sedation, Halloran,' the doctor instructed.

  'What about after?' Mellor queried, suddenly wary.

  'I know your problem, Home Secretary, and I assure you that it can be resolved quite easily.' As Halloran deftly wielded a hypodermic, Doctor Mark Gelbert's confidence was absolute.

  For all the men in the room, Charles Wainwright no longer existed. He was now a patient at Mayfield.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As the Home Secretary and new Acting General Secretary of the Metalturners Union returned to town in chauffeur-driven cars, Herbert Skardon was smugly waving a handwritten note on Ministerial paper over his coffee tray at Delly Lomas.

  'A rare document, Delly. We must have it framed.'

  'Like Wainwright,' she responded, acidly.

  'My dear Delly, a memo of commendation in the Home Secretary's own handwriting is nothing to be cynical about,' he observed, holding the scrap of paper at arm's length and admiring it, without the faintest sense of the ridiculous.

  'We're only half way through and some instinct makes me itchy,' she cautioned, pursing her lips. 'Nichols said it might have been Kyle talking to Wainwright at the Leisure Centre.'

  'Nonsense. He's under full surveillance, visual, as well as electronic,' the PCD boss confirmed. 'He was in his office. Even Kyle can't be in two places at once.'

  Delly Lomas shook her head, remembering the journalist's cloak-and-dagger performance with Tom Pearce at her flat. He could be in two places at once all right.

  She prepared to work late again that night, re-checking all details, and decided to see that her chief did so, too. He seemed to think their responsibilities were over, although it was still possible for the whole plan to be sabotaged.

  While she worried over Skardon's com
placency, Charles Wainwright was lying unconscious on the operating bench at Mayfield. His short sideboards had already been shaved to allow the electrodes contact with the flesh at his temples. Halloran was standing by, carrying stopwatch and clipboard.

  'As usual, Halloran. Selective application of calibrated ECT, at five second intervals,' Gelbert instructed. 'Ready?'

  'Yes, sir,' the PCD officer clicked the watch. 'Now.'

  The doctor pressed a switch and Wainwright's hands and feet twitched and jumped for precisely five seconds.

  'Now,' Halloran said again and the ECT symptoms repeated.

  'Now.'

  Mark Gelbert moved from the cabinet to feel Wainwright's neck pulse. 'Excellent, excellent,' he said. 'Thank you, gentlemen.'

  The patient was wheeled out and the doctor made his way to his private suite to eat a light but epicurean supper, accompanied by a bottle of chilled Gewurtztraminer.

  By the time he had finished, the moon had risen, bathing the graceful old house in light and shining through the abutting woodland.

  Kyle and Dave Brett did not need their torches as they covered the powerful motorbike with a camouflage sheet and cleared the wooden fence between the road and the perimeter of Mayfield's grounds.

  Once in the shelter of the trees, Kyle stopped to check the contents of a knapsack and took out a tape-recorder, clipping a sonic calibrator to the side of it.

  'You look like a fugitive from a jumble sale,' his partner grinned, but the journalist was unappreciative.

  'Can you work one of these?' he asked, shortly.

  'Recorder? Everybody can. They just can't write these days.' Dave Brett, thoroughly enjoying himself, flashed a light along the ground. The escapade took him back to his questionable boyhood, when he had spent a lot of night hours diving over walls and through windows and down alleys, during raids on small shops and, later, factories. Even the leatherings dished out by his old man had not stopped him because the risks and tension had been bigger attractions than the thieving itself.

  Little had changed, he thought, with rueful amusement. Now he was deep in the illegal emigrant and black market rackets, as much to feel his skin creep as for any personal vendetta against the regime. It kept him alive. He inspected the sonic calibrator.