Find My Brother

by David Chilcott

  Chapter Three

  The next day McBride rose early and eased out of his tent. He had slept in his t-shirt and denims. He had used the rucksack and anorak as a bed; he had slept in worse places. His stubble itched, though. He looked forward to a shave.

  Donny was up next and he showed McBride an old cattle trough that had a freshwater tap attached, and he could get washed there. No chance of a bath or shower, though. After breakfast, Michael came out of his caravan and sat by the fire with the others. He pulled a pack of cards from his pocket, and suggested a poker school.

  “What rules?” asked McBride.

  “Draw poker,” said Michael. He had a slight accent, although word perfect in his English. He has lived here a long time, thought McBride, but he comes from a Slav country.

  “Okay,” said McBride, “Count me in.” They sat round a low table, six of them. The ante was a pound each. When the betting got under way, McBride was astonished how much was hitting the table. Donny, the pimply youth seemed to need to spend his money to prove himself to the others. He bet wildly, with no attention to the cards that had gone before. McBride won the first hand, and pulled in just short of a hundred pounds. Obviously the boys were well paid. Mind you, apart from visits to the pub, there was nothing to spend the cash on that was being paid out by the Big Man.

  McBride won the next two games, and decided his popularity was waning. He deliberately lost the next two games, and dropped out to let somebody else in.

  When they all set off the pub that night, he claimed tiredness and crawled in to his tent. He lit the oil lamp and pulled out his sketchpad. He had been studying the faces he now wanted to put down on paper: The Big Man and Michael too. When he had finished soft pencil sketches of those two, he added the four that The Big Man had brought that morning. Then he turned out the lamp.

  He was awoken when the pub crowd came back to their tents, turned over on his hard makeshift bed and quickly fell asleep again.

  The next morning The Big Man came with yet more protesters, and spent some time in the caravan with Michael. Whilst this was happening, McBride asked Donny what happened if you needed to go out of the camp.

  “Why?” said Donny, puzzled.

  “An uncle of mine has died, and I want to go to the funeral. It’s in Manchester. I could be there and back in a day. I need to go tomorrow.”

  “You’d have to ask Michael. It’s him what pays you. Do you want to go? I’ve never been to a funeral. What’s it like?”

  “It’s just a church service, with the body of the dead person in a casket in front of the mourners. It’s a mark of respect. Later, the body is cremated, or else buried.”

  “Sounds a bit weird.”

  “Not really. Everyone dies, eventually. “

  McBride asked Michael when he joined them later. Michael also found it strange that McBride wanted to leave camp, and was reluctant, but said he could go. McBride said he needed to leave at about six thirty in the morning, and would be back by nightfall. He went off further along the field, where he wouldn’t be overheard, and used his mobile phone. It was a number he thought he might just need, so he had committed it to memory. The numbered gave three rings and was picked up.

  “Morton.”

  “Hello Michael, it’s John McBride. Did they retain your services after the cruise last year?”

  “Yes. I got a bit of flack, but they decided it wasn’t my fault, and we did catch all the culprits. Except that girl, remember?”

  A year ago, both men had been on a cruise ship in the Med that was hijacked.* Morton worked for MI5. McBride said, “I might have another problem here. I’m looking for a guy who is missing. He joined a fracking protest. He was a freelance journalist. Why am I using the past tense? He isn’t dead, as far as I know. Anyway, I joined the protest myself, and I made a few sketches of some of the protesters. They might be of interest to you. As a cover, I got permission to attend a family funeral tomorrow. I could meet you, or one of your guys and hand over the sketches. Interested?”

  “I bet you knew I’d be back working in Manchester. Seems to be just my luck. Why do you need permission to come?”

  “The protesters are paying me. It’s a long story. I’m coming by rail. Into Piccadilly Station. Where can we meet?”

  “You know the Portland Thistle hotel off Piccadilly? I could be in the foyer.”

  “I could be there by eleven in the morning. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, and I’ll buy you lunch.”

  McBride wandered over to Donny again. “Hey, did a guy called Ben ever join you here?”

  “Ben. Oh yes, I remember. Yeah, he was here for a week or two, then he just sort of cleared off. Not exciting enough for him, maybe.” Donny continued with his task, sewing a button on a shirt, his tongue protruding between his lips. He never even looked up at McBride.

  Next morning McBride walked the four miles back to town, and caught the train

  to Manchester, with one change at Huddersfield. He was into Piccadilly Station at ten thirty. It was about half a mile at the most to the hotel, so McBride was ambling along, taking his time. That was how he noticed he was being followed. Admiring the buildings, after all he was an artist; he admired architecture and dating it. Most of central Manchester was Victorian. From time to time he turned suddenly to see a view worth painting, and three times he noticed the same man. Seemed to be following him, keeping perhaps a hundred yards behind him. Mind, he could be wrong, the flow of pedestrian traffic was mostly going his way. To find out for sure, McBride turned down the next street on the left, a narrow canyon between high buildings, and at the next right, turned, and stepped into a doorway.

  Two minutes later, the man paused at the corner, looking his way and then left, and not seeing McBride, stepped gingerly forward across the intersection. Definitely following him. McBride set off again, pulling his mobile out, and dialing Morton.

  “Morning Michael. I’ve got a tail. I’ll still come to the Portland, go up in the lift, and down the stairs and out the back way. It might work to shake him off. Then I’ll go back to the station. There’s an Italian restaurant up on the mezzanine. You know it? I’ll be in there. When I come through the hotel, see if you recognize my follower, okay?”

  “Understood, see you later.”

  Now McBride acted as though he thought he had shaken the tail. Using reflections in shop windows, he checked from time to time, and yes, the man was still keeping pace. Eventually, McBride turned into the foyer of the hotel. It was busy, and he saw that Morton was on a sofa by himself. He didn’t look directly at Morton though. He walked to reception. The booking clerk smiled and waited for McBride to speak. “You have a rate card?”

  “Sure, here you are. There are some special deals not marked down there.” He proceeded to tell McBride about them. McBride pulled out a pen, and wrote on the card. He thanked the clerk and walked away towards the lifts at the rear of the lobby. To any onlooker, it might look as though McBride had just checked in. He hoped so. At the lift, the first car to come down to the ground floor disgorged one or two people, and McBride entered with four others. He let everyone select their floors, and then pressed a button in between. Floor three.

  He guessed that after he left, the lift would indicate two more floors above, and it had already stopped once. In the corridor he moved rapidly until he found the staircase. It was a set of emergency stairs, with concrete steps. When he arrived at the ground floor, the staircase did not finish in the lobby. Signs to the lobby were on the facing wall at the bottom, and the opposite direction indicated emergency exit and car park. He followed the latter, and as he had expected, came out at the rear of the hotel.

  As fast as he could reasonably walk he made his way back to the station. He was cautious, but he saw nobody following. Once in the upstairs restaurant he chose a table facing the door, but in the far corner. He told the waiter he was waiting for a friend, who would be joining him shortly.

  Almost as he spoke he saw Morton enter and walk
across to join him. McBride stood up and shook hands.

  Morton said, “You lead an exciting life, better than mine.”

  “You’re MI5, not me. Did you recognize my tail?”

  Morton sat down. “No, probably just a guy who was hired in, sent a photo of you I would guess, and details of where and when you were coming. Must have been low-grade labour, because you spotted him.”

  “Thank you, Sir. I’ve had a go at tailing people, in the service and I can tell you it is not easy, unless you change personnel frequently.”

  Morton grinned. “Maybe you didn’t warrant the expense. Still it proves you have upset somebody. So, what are you going to tell me?”

  McBride reached down in the rucksack that he had put on the floor, and brought out his small sketchbook, turning the pages, until he had located the relevant ones. “Here you are, six faces. I’m singing for my supper. Remember you promised to buy lunch, and here would be nice. Italian fare.”

  Morton examined the first two faces with care, spending several minutes examining them. The remaining four he gave hardly a couple of minutes over.

  “Well?” said McBride. “The suspense is killing me.”

  Morton leaned back in his chair. “The guy with the beard we know. He is a sleeper, a Russian planted here maybe twenty years ago. He lives in the north. Recently he has been activated. He’s a very busy man, important to the SVR. This guy here, the next one, he is also a sleeper who has been activated. I would think he is just a dogsbody at present. The others, I don’t know. But I would like to keep your book for a while, I could ask around at the office.”

  “The Russians are running the fracking protests?” McBride was surprised.

  “Almost certainly, here and in Europe generally. They have managed to spread much concern about the effect on climate change and poisoning the water supply. So much so, that fracking is now banned in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The Russians came within an ace of convincing the European Commission to ban it throughout the Union. The UK government is aware of what Putin is attempting, and so they are persevering in the use of shale gas. The irony is that Russia is supplying a third of the gas consumed in Europe, and the majority is shale gas! You can see why they are going to great lengths to preserve the market for themselves. They sell it at four times the price they dig it up. If we are successful in the UK, and no harm befalls us, the rest of Europe might follow our lead.”

  “Wow. I did suspect something was happening, but you mean it’s a big fight between UK and Russia, effectively.”

  “You bet. MI5 has a whole section devoted to the subject. You say someone went missing? We have a file on lots of people vanishing from protests. If people don’t toe the line, or get to know too much, we reckon they are shipped out to Russia if they aren’t killed and disposed of in this country. Killing people and getting away with it is very difficult in England. Too many people, don’t you see? There’s always somebody watching.” He reflected, his mind obviously working. “Could be burying them in the Embassies, I suppose. In the basements or back gardens. Either way they may never be seen again.”

  “If I get carted off, believe me I will come back.”

  “I hope so. It won’t make any difference to the outcome. If the government can respond to the protests, breaking them up, using whatever force necessary, we will win. The trouble at the moment is that our propaganda isn’t as good as the Russians.” Morton looked at his watch. “How about ordering that lunch I promised you.”

  Whilst they ordered lunch, McBride thought about what Morton had told him. It was possible that he might end up on a long journey, unless he cut and ran now. Even then he may not be safe. Russia was almost definitely where Ben the journalist was now, unless they had killed him. If McBride went up the line, would he be able to escape, and would he be able to rescue Ben?

  The waiter arrived with the food, and McBride changed the subject. “So what are you doing back in Manchester?”

  “Since all the White Christian League leaders were either killed or imprisoned during the hijack, the organization has just about died. So, due to our doing such a good job, I was transferred back here. Watching the terrorists locally. But I do get involved with the local fracking protests. That is quite interesting. Seeing how the SVR are operating.”

  “You know how I got on to the protest? The first time I tried to join, I just walked up and asked them. The guy I approached was a Green Party member. But he couldn’t make a decision; he had to refer me to who I now know was a sleeper, who said he didn’t want anyone he didn’t know. I did what Ben did, and hung around the dole office waiting to be recruited.”

  Morton nodded: “That is to make sure spies aren’t infiltrating. Except in your case of course, and Ben’s. However it looks as though they’ve sussed you.

  “They obviously have, or they wouldn’t have you followed. If you want some advice, don’t go back to the camp.”

  “But you know I won’t take your advice.”

  “Exactly.”