by S. G Mark
The miles gathered up behind them. They merged with the motorway briefly, before meandering their way along further country roads. The coast was a thin pencil line between the land and the skin. A road sign read Blackpool: twenty nine miles.
He pulled over into a small parking area, complete with broken picnic bench and sporting a dull view over a sea of muddy fields.
Philippa stirred, finally her sight straying from the mirror.
“I hate to ask,” he said, “But I can’t drive into the city. The second they see my face at border control, we’re both dead.”
She nodded, knowingly. Reaching for the door, she pulled her limp body out of the car and staggered round to his side. In the centre, she stopped. Just by the smudge where her bare skin had been. Delicately, she caressed the paintwork and moved on.
Jack got out of the car, a blustery wind swiping his head. It had a tang of salt about it.
“When we get through border control, head for a quiet street. Park. It may be safer to travel on foot when we get there.”
Nodding, she brushed him out of the way and climbed into the driver’s seat. Knowing that he should say something, but finding nothing constructive, he turned and got into the back, closing up the seat where he’d broken free just in time. It clicked back into place with a difficult finality.
They drove on.
Jack harboured a doubt that she might not make it through the next control. He felt horrendous that he was putting her through this so soon afterwards. Another uniform. Another man leaning in through the car window. But a few minutes of hell for her was a fine trade for both their lives, surely? Jack’s company bought everyone a death certificate.
Twenty minutes later and the car began to slow again. Jack kept as still as possible in the boot, his breath fogging on the chrome suitcase. He heard muffled voices outside; kind, gently exchanges of words he couldn’t distinguish, but whose tone was not in the least bit threatening. Just another officer reciting his routine; Philippa just another middle aged woman going about her business. There was nothing to suspect, if her eyes did not betray that horror she’d just endured.
With relief, the car accelerated. Jack, who had held his breath, exhaled slowly. A few minutes later, and the car stopped.
“We’re here,” she said.
Jack pushed the back seat open and rolled out. In the rear-view mirror he caught her silently crying. The little victory he’d felt for arriving alive somehow felt like defeat.
“Whereabouts are we?” he asked.
“Bournemouth Terrace,” she said, “It looked quiet enough.”
They weren’t far away from the safehouse. Spending all those days wandering around the seaside town had finally paid off.
“Are you okay to walk?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s ten minutes away,” he said, “I promise.”
They got out of the car, Jack’s head habitually tilting towards the ground. Locking the car, they hurried along the terrace as it started to rain. The salted air was coarse against their skin. Philippa was as pale as her eyes were dark.
Turning a corner, Jack instantly recognised the houses. That seventies style of housing schemes with their dated exteriors. In the brewing storm, they looked almost sad as row upon row their windows reflected their clones, in a grey tone of suburban depression. No one passed them. Streets were highways for destinations now; not for long walks and fresh air. They’d seen to that with their headlines, the media. Unsafe. Insecure. Dangerous. And yet they were the same paved routes that everyone had walked for decades; the way to school, the shortcut home, the scenic route and the corner where all the kids hungout.
And finally, there it was. Number fifty seven, the safest place they could be right now. Jack urged her to hurry up. He didn’t want to take any chances in lingering. He had no faith in his luck right now.
Knocking on the door, it took a few moments before Jack heard any movement from within. He was anxious. Though he knew there was no one behind and that the street was clear of CRU presence, he could not help but feel that he was being watched. Maybe it was just paranoia, maybe it was just what he was used to now.
The door opened a crack, but flew open as Jack caught sight of the Hamid.
“Jack! Jack!” he beamed with open arms, “Come in!”
Jack rushed inside, the familiar surroundings instantly comforting.
“This is Philippa,” he said, “Are we the only ones in the house?”
Hamid shook his head, “No, we have two others. Rob and Francesca.”
“Can you get Francesca, please,” Jack asked.
Hamid nodded and immediately sprinted upstairs. Meanwhile Jack took Philippa into the living room and sat her down.
“Are you alright?” he asked, “No, sorry. Of course you aren’t.”
He reached out a hand to comfort her. She was trembling, her eyes threatening tears.
“Listen, you don’t need to go through the details. You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to. But this girl, Francesca. I’m going to get her to sit with you. That’s all. Sit. And when you’re ready - be it in five minutes, or ten days, she will drive you to your mum’s.”
Philippa stared intensely at the carpet. He wasn’t sure any of what he’d said had registered. There was a knock at the door before a tall girl burst in, her ponytail swaying with her buoyant steps.
“Can I have a word with you?” he addressed her.
“Yes, sir,” she said, obviously more aware of who he was than he of her.
Out in the dark hallway, Jack steered Francesca into the kitchen, where Hamid was busy cleaning and preparing the evening meal.
“It’s Francesca, isn’t it?” he said.
She nodded.
“The woman in the living room is called Philippa. Earlier today one of the CRU officers attempted to rape her.”
Francesca gasped, “Fucking hell!”
Hamid had stopped in his tracks and was listening in as well.
“I don’t want you to pry, or push her for details - just sit with her and make sure she is okay. I owe her and her family my life. We can’t fail her now. In a few days or whenever she wants, I need you to drive her to her mum’s house in Wales. She has a car and can tell you the route. But it has to be on her terms. So she stays here as long as she wants, have you got that?”
Francesca nodded. Though the girl was only young, he still felt that she was more in a position to be there for Philippa than he ever could. He’d witnessed it. He’d nearly allowed it to happen.
They returned to the living room to find Philippa still staring at the floor.
“Hello,” Francesca said, stepping forward and kneeling by her side, “I’m going to sit with you. You don’t have to say anything, but I’ll be here if you want to.”
Sighing, Jack turned to go. But no sooner had he pulled open the door than she spoke.
“I thought your name was Steven?” she said, “Why did that man call you Jack?”
It was not the question he expected, but it was one he found himself strangely comfortable to answer. After all these years and after everything that he’d seen, it suddenly didn’t mean as much to him as it once did.
“It’s just another name I go by,” he said, “Not everyone knows it though.”
He smiled and closed the door.
Hamid was waiting for him in the kitchen, holding his chopping knife tightly.
“Who did that to her?” he demanded. “Which bastard could do that, I’ll gut him. I’ll fucking gut him.”
Exhausted, Jack fell into a chair, “He’s dead. I stopped it and I killed him. Threw him down a ditch.”
“It’s disgusting. Absolutely disgusting,” he said, “And what now? She’ll never get closure!”
“I know,” he said, “It was so… random. One minute he was checking for ID, the next…”
Hamid returned to his vegetable chopping. Jack sighed and leant against the table. It was only then in the quiet of the
kitchen, as the fan oven hummed and the fridge droned, that he realised exactly how angry he was. It was ravenous, insatiable hatred. He’d murdered the bastard, but still his actions leaked into the living and there was a woman who’d suffered enough through the loss of her son, weeping her eyes out into a stranger’s arms, probably in a purgatory where she wanted both to forget and to recite every last detail, as if somehow the latter would purge it from her body.
“She can’t even report it, not that there’s much point, he’s dead isn’t he?” Hamid was muttering to himself.
“Point?” Jack raised his head up. An idea had formed in his head, though he wasn’t quite sure if it was mad or desperate - indeed it might very well be both.
Drawing his chair back, he rose to his feet and delved into his pocket. The officer’s ID was still in there.
“Hamid,” Jack said, “I need you to stop cooking.”
Minutes later they were upstairs in Hamid’s bedroom. Jack was against the plain white wall, sitting cross legged on the carpet as Hamid played with the settings on his camera. They’d adjusted the lights, so that every lamp poured its brightness on to his taught and tired skin.
“Okay, it’s recording,” Hamid said, pointing the camera at Jack.
“I’d like to report a crime,” he began, words unrehearsed, unrefined, “Well, two actually. See you can do anything you want, because you don’t have a face. I can’t point at you and tell everyone you’re wrong. I can’t hate you when there’s not a single thing to hate. You are just a general uneasy disgust in society that’s been allowed to breed. But when one of your officers takes it upon himself to drag one of my friends out of their car, tear off their top and bra, pull down their trousers and pin her to the car bonnet, that’s when I get really pissed. And you are not going to like me when I am pissed. Because I won’t be sympathetic. I don’t care for the wider consequences, and right now I don’t give a shit about anyone who stands in my way. I am going to fuck you over. I am going to come for you in your fucking sleep and I am going to make you live such a hell that you might pray for the day that someone tries to rape you because that would be such a relief to the pain that I am going put you through. Which leads me to the second crime I want to report. Gavin Sears. Rapist. CRU Officer. You’ll find his dead body in a ditch in Morland.”
He signalled for Hamid to cut.
“Get someone to edit that,” he said, getting to his feet, “Then upload in two days.”
“Two?”
“Wherever I’m going to be in two days, I want to be far away from where that is uploaded,” he said.
“Do you really think it’s going to make a difference?”
He looked sorrowfully at Hamid, “About as much anything else we seem to do.”
The two men stared at each other, united in a fog of failure.
Jack patted Hamid on the arm and headed downstairs, stopping briefly by the living room door to listen to anything being said. But it was all too quiet. Suddenly his earlier anger seemed a little too weak.
In the kitchen he grabbed himself some water and began chopping the vegetables that Hamid had abandoned. Hamid’s cooking was always the highlight of any stay in Blackpool. With little else going on in this town, the safehouse was more of a stopover for members travelling North of South. Hamid’s delight at every visitor told Jack of a man who missed his family.
“Have you heard about them recently?” he asked, sensing that Hamid had joined him in the kitchen.
“A contact told me they are well,” he said, “Staying with her sister. Iqra has apparently done well in school this year. But never mind that, how have you been keeping?”
Jack sighed, dicing the potatoes, “It’s been a tough week.”
“Yes,” he said, sitting down and resting his feet, “It’s not been this bad in a long while. The Rations aren’t stretching as far as they used to. Our guests are a little more beaten down than usual.”
“I’m going to need to work on getting more sponsors on board,” Jack said, “Though I have no idea how we are going to persuade them. We’re making such pathetic progress.”
“Don’t lose hope,” Hamid said, “A long day always starts with an early morning.”
Jack broke into a smile, “Another one of your famous proverbs?”
Hamid returned a glittering gaze, the two sharing a rare moment of humour. But Jack’s smile quickly faded as he remembered there was little to be happy about. He dropped the knife on the chopping board and rested against the kitchen unit.
“I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a normal conversation,” he said, “For just one evening I’d like to be able to talk about… stuff. Mundane stuff.”
Hamid nodded, but before he could reply a ringtone interrupted. He held up his hand as he took the call and left the kitchen immediately, leaving Jack to turn back to the vegetables and pick up another shrunken onion.
He had no idea what he was contributing to making. Hamid was renowned for his culinary capabilities of turning leftovers into feasts. It was a magic Jack wished he could understand and would have made that long month in Cornwall with Emma all the more nutritionally satisfying. Somehow on a full stomach, Jack’s confidence in the future soared.
Behind him he heard the shuffling of feet as Hamid returned.
“Everything alright?”
When he heard no reply, he turned on his heel, onion skin soaring into the air around him. Hamid was standing on the other side of the table. The glaring overhead light beamed harshly overhead.
“What’s wrong?”
Hamid’s expression was remote, but he slowly raised his head to meet Jack’s fierce gaze.
“I just received a call,” he said, “They’ve taken four safehouses. Just… stormed them.”
“What? How did they know?” Jack advanced on him, “Where were they?”
“One in Manchester, another in some village in Scotland, I don’t remember the name. It wasn’t HQ though. The other two were in Southampton and Bristol.”
“Was anyone caught?” he said, “Did they all escape?”
He wasn’t optimistic at all.
Hamid shook his head, “Dead. All dead.”
Dinner was a sombre occasion. Philippa had gone to bed. Rob kept watch on the roads outside as Jack, Hamid and Francesca silently ate their food, occasionally passing the salt or pouring more water.
The threat hung over them. Four safehouses, taken out in a single evening. There was no telling if the raids were at an end. Any second now they could be targeted. Though the chances were slim, it was a prevalent thought in everyone’s mind. Alone, Jack among them knew who was responsible. The Mole. They were every inch as high up as Kyle and Alex had guessed. Few would have been able to identify and coordinate attacks on safehouses on this scale. They’d been there since the beginning. Masterminding the failure of missions, undermining the secrecy of The Resistance. Mick, Phil, Kyle’s grandmother, Emma’s brother, Tobias’s father. How many others could they claim before tonight’s massacre? How many lives died in each of those safehouses tonight - places which above all else, were to be havens from the hell outside. More gravely, what rested heavily on Jack’s mind was how many more were at this very moment in the shadow of danger?
Eventually, Jack slammed his fist on the table.
“Why are they always ready to take us down?” he sighed, “Every time we make some fucking progress, they are right there in the middle of tearing us apart.”
The others stared at him: a scene of frozen forks and solemn eyes.
“What the fuck are we doing?” he yelled, “Having dinner whilst our friends are being murdered? And you expect people to sign up their lives to us? We are pathetic. If we can’t even save ourselves, how are we supposed to protect anyone else?”
He shot to his feet, pacing madly.
“Jack, calm down,” Hamid said, “We can’t do anything about it tonight.”
“So it’s not at the back of your mind?” he said, calmly, “They could
be at the end of the street? That we could be next. That someone you have let into your home has betrayed you?”
Hamid’s eye contact broke and his face fell to the mess of half eaten curry on his plate.
“And what about you Francesca? Are you sitting here quietly contemplating an early night? Surely your mind isn’t at the window, watching for the slightest movement?”
“What do you want us to do?” she said, “Leave? Where we would we go? The next safehouse, which might equally in danger? We have always known that sooner or later they would figure out where we were hiding.”
Jack laughed and shook his head, “I admire your naivety. I wished I still had it.”
Francesca returned a defiant expression, “Please don’t throw judgement at me.”
Leaning over the table, he felt dangerously angry, “Was it you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you crack under their pressure? Or did you just wander down to the local station when you were bored of the lifestyle?”
“Are you implying -”
“Yes I’m fucking implying,” he shouted, “Because if it wasn’t me, then it might be you. It might be Hamid. It might be anyone. This is no act of fucking chance. We were betrayed and don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. I admire your optimism, I really do. But we’re at war. There’s no space for optimism. So tell it to fuck off and start coming up with a plan. We need to show these bastards that we will not be stopped, and that we will always be one step ahead of them.”
“But if we don’t know who betrayed us, then how can we -”
“Hamid,” he said, “Release the video tonight. Francesca - how long would it take to drive to London?”