The Horse at the Gates

by D C Alden

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Lager. Small one,’ he said, pinching his finger and thumb together. The landlord swept a calloused hand across the chipped bar, its surface decorated with a dizzying pattern of moisture rings.

  ‘Name your poison.’

  The man selected the only brand he vaguely recognised. It wasn’t the type of establishment to flash notes around so he paid with small change, counting out a few coins and dropping them into the landlord’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Like a bloody homeless shelter in ’ere,’ he scowled, fingering the coins. A ripple of course laughter erupted from the cluster of punters, briefly smothering the drone of the racing commentator. It faded quickly as the horses headed toward the start line for the next race.

  The man made no comment. He carried his lager over to a quiet corner and sat down, leaving the grumbling landlord in his wake. He unfurled a Racing Post from his pocket and stared uncomprehendingly at the form pages, sensing his presence had slid back into welcome obscurity. He sipped his drink, careful not to grimace at the foul taste.

  Thirty minutes passed. The man relaxed a little more, confident he was now a part of this miserable landscape. A casual glance in his direction would confirm that he was just another of life’s hard-luck stories, crushed by the system, his only solace a few cheap beers and an afternoon watching the races. Still, it paid to be vigilant. Observation was his tradecraft, a skill that had kept him alive through countless operations in Europe and beyond.

  Ten more minutes passed. Another groan went up from the horse-fanciers. One punter made a scene of ripping up his betting slip and tossing the scraps into the air like confetti. He pushed his chair back and sauntered across to the bar. It was him the man decided, recognising the target from the surveillance photographs: Daniel Morris Whelan, thirty-eight years old, medium height, slim build, shoulder-length brown hair, a faded St. George’s cross in blue ink tattooed on his neck.

  He watched carefully as Whelan chatted with the barman and took a lager back to the table. He sipped the foam head, watching the latest odds ticker-tape across the bottom of the screen, then headed across the floor to the toilets. It was time.

  The man left his newspaper on the table and casually followed Whelan into the gents, careful to push the door open with his shoulder. It was a foul-smelling convenience, the walls an urban collage of graffiti and rightwing political stickers, the single toilet stall to his right blocked and caked with excrement. Flies hopped and flitted across a thin barred window high on the wall and water dripped noisily, the sound echoing off the once-white tiles. The smell was overpowering. He held his breath and moved past the toilet stall. Whelan was in the far corner, urinating freely, his body swaying slightly as the overflow from the urinal splashed around his worn sports shoes. The other two receptacles were filled with cigarette ends, tissue paper and gobbets of phlegm. He saw Whelan turn, saw him register his unwillingness to use the blocked facilities.

  ‘Cleaner’s on holiday again,’ Whelan quipped. He zipped his fly and wandered over to the sinks, where a stainless-steel wall tile served as a mirror. He didn’t wash his hands. Instead, he pulled a comb from the pocket of his jeans, scraping his long hair back off his forehead and smoothing it down with his other hand.

  The man stepped gingerly across the puddled floor and unzipped his fly. ‘Bloody disgusting,’ he muttered with unrehearsed venom. He saw Whelan study him in the mirror, taking in the jeans and the old combat jacket, the black hair cut aggressively short.

  ‘You new round here?’ Whelan ventured.

  ‘Not really,’ the man replied, his urine splashing loudly. ‘Met a mate just down the road, got me a bit of work. Just as well, coz I need the money bad. I’m still on parole.’

  He noticed Whelan’s eyebrows arch with interest. ‘Really? Where were you banged up?’

  ‘Winchester. Fourteen months. Violent Disorder, GBH.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Whelan rinsed his comb under a tap and slipped it into his back pocket. ‘Well, you’re in good company. Lot of ex-cons round here.’

  The man zipped his fly then stood at the sink next to Whelan. No soap of course, or hot water. He rubbed his hands vigorously under the cold tap.

  ‘That’s what you get when you defend your country, stand up for what’s right. It’s all wrong, mate.’ He wrung his hands dry and leaned on the sink, hoping his outburst would have the desired effect.

  ‘Where are you from? Originally?’ Whelan asked. ‘You look a bit... well, you know.’

  ‘My dad’s Italian. From Naples.’ He swiped a hand across his stubble-covered face.

  ‘Italy, eh? Proud fascist history you’ve got over there. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sully.’

  Whelan held out an unwashed hand. ‘I’m Danny. Fancy a drink?’

  They huddled together in a gloomy corner, away from the TV screen and the luckless punters. The table surface was cluttered with empty glasses. Whelan cleared a space and rolled a cigarette, carefully sprinkling a few shards of cannabis resin along its length. He fired it up, tilting his head and blowing out a long thin plume of smoke.

  ‘Fourteen months, yeah? That’s harsh.’

  ‘Proper stitched-up,’ grumbled Sully. ‘Long story short, this Pakistani firm was running gear on the estate, heroin mostly. That shocked me at first because they’re Muslims. You know, supposed to be religious and that.’

  ‘All part of the jihad,’ Whelan observed, sucking on his cigarette. ‘It’s not just about bombs and bullets.’

  Sully nodded, his meticulously rehearsed story flowing easily off his lips. ‘Anyway, they got my mate’s sister hooked on gear, pimping her out to minicab drivers and that. So me and Calum – that’s my mate – we went round to the flat where she was staying with one of them. We knocked on the door, and I could see the geezer behind the glass, right?’ Sully leapt to his feet, a muscular arm pitching forward. ‘BANG! I heaved a lump of concrete through the door, caught him right in the face. Next minute we’re inside, giving the fat bastard a good pasting-’

  ‘Sweet.’

  ‘-then two others come running out into the hallway, so Calum does both of ’em with the pepper spray.’

  ‘Beautiful. Burn their fucking eyes out,’ purred Whelan.

  Sully’s devilish grin faded and he went quiet. He slumped back down into his seat, deflated. ‘That was it,’ he said quietly. ‘Police turned up, we got nicked. Didn’t want to hear our side of the story, didn’t give a monkey’s about Calum’s sister. Hate crime, pure and simple. Feet never touched the ground. Fourteen months, no early release.’

  Whelan pinched the end of his cigarette, balancing it carefully on the lip of the ashtray. He leaned forward on the table, his eyes focussed and alert, despite the booze and drugs. ‘A familiar tale, mate. Country’s had it.’ He waved a nicotine-stained finger between them. ‘See, the government don’t give a shit about people like me and you, don’t care about real English people. We don’t fit in to their bullshit utopian experiment. That’s why we’ve got to stick together, know what I mean?’

  Whelan turned, and Sully followed his gaze. No one was paying any attention to them. Whelan smiled and rolled up the sleeve of his faded grey sweatshirt. ‘Check that out,’ he declared proudly.

  The three lions passant were tattooed on the inside of Whelan’s left bicep. Unlike the blue smudge on his neck, this tattoo had been expertly drawn, the colours bold and vivid, the mediaeval lions a clear and exact representation of early English heraldry, the initials EFM in angular black type beneath.

  ‘Jesus, that’s beautiful,’ breathed Sully. He looked up. ‘English Freedom Movement, yeah? Hard core, that mob.’

  ‘Used to be, before the ban,’ Whelan sighed, rolling his sleeve back down. He lifted his glass and saluted a small shield sporting the same three lions fixed above the bar.

  Sully hadn’t noticed it earlier, barely visible amongst the faded Union Jack bunting that ran across the dark wood panelling near the ceiling. He
took another sip of lager and snorted self-consciously. ‘There’s me going on about my troubles and here I am, sitting with a proper patriot.’

  Whelan smiled, clearly enjoying the respect Sully was showing. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all do our bit. You’ve spilt blood, done your bird. Me, I’ve had run-ins too.’

  Sully nodded sympathetically. He already knew about Whelan’s brushes with authority; a drink-driving offence whilst employed by the civil service, public disorder fines for the distribution of offensive literature. His CV wasn’t the most extensive he’d seen, but it contained three essential ingredients: military service, a police record and connections to racist organisations.

  ‘Don’t matter what we do or say, government just does what it wants,’ Sully moaned. ‘Take Bryce, for instance-’

  ‘Fucking traitor.’

  ‘-letting all them refugees come over here, giving them benefits and houses. Hardly any of them work. Take a walk around Brent Cross mall these days and you’d think you’re in Karachi or wherever. Even the Maccy D’s has gone Halal.’

  ‘You wait. When they sign that Cairo treaty the floodgates will really open,’ Whelan complained. He drained his glass. ‘Fancy another?’

  Sully nodded. ‘Why not.’ He watched Whelan amble across to the bar, returning a minute later with two more glasses of foul lager in his fists.

  ‘Sorted.’ He sat down and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to England. What’s left of it.’

  Sully gingerly sipped his brew. ‘Cheers.’

  They lapsed into silence. Whelan shoved his glass aside and began rolling another cigarette. ‘You said your mate got you some work. Doing what?’’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Sully shrugged. He rummaged in the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a scrap of paper. ‘He works for an employment agency. They don’t hire excons, but he sometimes gives me jobs off the books. I’ve only been out of nick for six weeks but he’s already sorted me out a couple of times. All cash in hand.’ Sully smoothed the paper out on the table. ‘This is it, the number of a bloke who runs a refrigeration company. Wants me to make a delivery, big fridge or something.’

  ‘Drive and drop? I used to do all that,’ boasted Whelan, lifting the glass to his lips. ‘What’s it paying?’

  ‘A grand.’

  Whelan choked on his lager, coughing foamy droplets across the table. He cuffed his wet chin. ‘For delivering a fridge?’ he rasped. ‘Jesus, that’s a nice touch. Why so much?’

  Sully shrugged. ‘No idea. My mate reckons it’s a tax dodge, but so what? A grand’s a nice chunk.’

  ‘A right result,’ agreed Whelan, clearing his throat. ‘Your mate at the agency, is he looking for anyone else? I used to drive for the civil service, important documents, that sort of stuff. I drive rigs, too. Learned in the army, ammo truck driver. Lot of responsibility.’

  Sully smiled apologetically. ‘Not really. Bit risky, being off the books an’ all that. He only does it for me because we’re old school mates. Sorry.’

  ‘No probs,’ Whelan shrugged, ‘Don’t ask, don’t get, right? I’ve got a few things on the go anyway.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Sully rose from the table. ‘Another drink?’

  ‘Sweet,’ Whelan grumbled.

  ‘Alright. I’m off for a shit first. Back in five, yeah?’

  Danny Whelan’s bitterness bubbled to the surface as he watched Sully lope towards the toilet. Another door slammed in his face. Every time an opportunity came along to make some cash it disappeared quicker than a fart in the wind. The horses didn’t help, or the dogs. They bled him dry, along with the lottery and a bit of puff. By the end of the week his welfare credits were gone, sucked back into the system that supported both him and his dad in their twelfth-floor flat near the King’s Head. It wasn’t his fault he had no money. He’d worked a bit, in the army of course, then the government job. He’d still be there if it wasn’t for that piss-up after work, followed by the breathalyzer on Chelsea Bridge Road Then there was his mouth, always getting him into trouble. No-one understood him, see? They didn’t realise what was going on around them, the Third-Worlders pouring into the country, mosques everywhere, good people arrested for protesting and speaking their minds. No-one wanted to hire a troublemaker. Fine. If he couldn’t beat the system then he’d take from it, bleed it as much as he could. But those welfare credits only went so far.

  He thought his luck would change when he joined the English Freedom Movement. It was a proud organisation, cared about the direction the country was headed. True, there were a few boneheads amongst them, but mostly the Movement was made up of decent folk, those that wanted an end to immigration and Britain’s membership of the EU, a return to traditional British values and way of life. Danny felt at home amongst its ranks, always attending the monthly meetings and helping out where he could; membership drives, leaflet campaigns, ferrying some of the older members down to the seaside in the summer. He’d even brought his dad along once, the change of scenery and bracing sea air doing the old man a world of good. And then, a few short months after he joined, they passed the Hate Crime legislation and the ban was imposed, declaring the English Freedom Movement an illegal organisation. Meetings were cancelled, its members scattered to the four winds under threat of prosecution and imprisonment. Danny was absolutely gutted.

  Still, he enjoyed flashing his tattoo to anyone who showed the slightest interest, revelling in its notoriety. But what exactly had he got out of it? At its height the Movement was an impressive network of patriots who didn’t want foreigners cutting their grass or painting their houses. For new members like Danny, jobs were supposed to come flooding in, all cash, never a penny going to Whitehall or Brussels. The Movement was better than the Masons he’d been told, guaranteed to find work for their own. But now it was gone, over, and Danny was once again on his own, left to fend for himself. Typical.

  Not like that lucky bastard Sully. Danny glanced towards the toilets. He was still in there, doing his business. He glanced at the paper with the phone number, the ticket to an easy thousand quid pinned beneath the ashtray where Sully had stupidly left it. Who was this Sully anyway? He wasn’t a local, just a jailbird with a friend in the right place. Danny used to be in the Movement; where were his friends? Where were his connections?

  Danny’s fingers hovered over the scrap of paper, his eyes flicking toward the toilet door. He gulped hard. What if Sully caught him nicking it? He was a big bloke, with rough hands and lumpy knuckles, a fighter’s hands. His face was chiselled, the sinews in his neck like rope, the cold eyes black and piercing. He looked like a mafia henchman, would probably batter Danny without breaking sweat. If he caught him. Worst way, Sully would just call his mate at the agency, cancel the job. Or not. A thousand quid – even Danny would risk a kicking for that.

  He shot another look at the toilets, scooped up the scrap of paper and headed quickly for the pub door.

  Sully could barely breathe. Locked inside the toilet stall, it was all he could do to stop from gagging. He’d tried to flush the toilet clean but the pathetic trickle of water from the cistern barely touched the sides. He couldn’t even look at it. He’d seen worse things: bodies blown apart, corpses riddled with bullet holes and stab wounds, frozen cadavers high in the mountains of Kurdistan, but this was different. This was supposed to be a civilised nation. How could people socialise in such filth? It beggared belief.

  He glanced at his watch. Finally. Ten minutes had passed, surely enough for Whelan to have taken the bait. He exited the stall with some relief, washing his hands vigorously under the tap. He took a moment to compose himself, counted silently to ten, then walked out of the door. He crossed to the bar, glancing over his shoulder. Whelan was nowhere to be seen. He ordered a bag of peanuts and went back to the table, taking his time to leaf through the Racing Post. When he was certain Whelan was long gone he stood up and made his way outside, blinking in the daylight as he left the King’s Head in his wake.

  He walked briskly throug
h the rubbish-strewn alleyways and headed toward the small park that bordered the estate. He gave a wide berth to a gang of hooded youths baiting two vicious-looking dogs and cut through a stand of trees towards the main road. He headed north towards Wembley, dumping the combat jacket into a rubbish bin along the pavement. This wasn’t a typical operation; the people he’d met today were locked into a depressing cycle of poverty and violence, critical of the state yet dependant on it for their meaningless existence. Whelan was different, a man who sought to bite the very hand that fed him. Despite the hateful rhetoric and the bitterness, there was a quality there to be admired, a rebellious spirit that, in another time and place, could have been put to good use.

  The car was where he’d left it, a Golf hybrid, parked in a supermarket car park over a mile from the Longhill. He started the engine, slipped it into gear and pulled out onto the main road. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, the stink of the King’s Head still wrapped around him, the stale odour of alcohol and smoke clinging to his clothes. He powered down the window to get some fresh air, his fingers drumming the steering wheel as he crawled through the traffic. Now that the pieces were in play he felt excited at the thought of what was to come. There was much at stake; lives would be lost, many of them believers, but every jihad involved sacrifice, whether intentional or not. It was the way of things, from the earliest days.

  And the cause this time was more righteous than any before it. The Minister had described it best; he’d likened Europe to a piece of fruit, ripened by the sun, dangling seductively from a thin branch.

  Soon it would be picked.