by Lewis Orde
“Never mind that. I’ve learned what I’m sure you’ll agree is a very interesting tidbit.”
“I’ll agree to anything, but not on an empty stomach.”
Katherine sniffed the air. “Do I smell cooking?” She followed the tantalizing aroma to the half-open kitchen door.
“I ordered dinner in, for eight o’clock. You’re late. If it’s ruined, it’s your fault.”
Katherine entered the kitchen. On a heated serving table stood a saucepan of boeuf bourguignon. “The perfect dish for a cold night,” Saxon said. “The restaurant even gave me directions on how to serve it.”
“Never mind,” Katherine told him. “You pour the wine. I’ll attend to this.”
While Saxon uncorked a bottle of Chambertin, Katherine took plates, cutlery, and napkins from cupboards. She thought about using the formal dining room, but it seemed too big for just two people. Instead, she selected the drawing room at the back of the house, setting the food on a low table, and pulling up two ottomans. She lit the gas fire that had, in the name of modernization, supplanted the genuine coal fire in the hearth, and turned down the lights.
Saxon poured the burgundy into glasses. Sitting in front of the fire, they toasted each other before turning to the meal.
“Find out the name of the chef,” Katherine said between delicious mouthfuls. “Put him in charge of catering at the Chiltern Towers and you’ll run Hilton out of business.”
Once the meal was finished, Katherine collected the dirty dishes. “Leave them,” Saxon ordered. He poured more wine, then sat down on the floor, face to the fire, back against a chair.
Katherine sat next to him. “Stomach full?”
Saxon nodded sleepily. “Tell me your tidbit. See whether I agree that it’s interesting.”
Briefly, she described the northbound journey on the soccer special, the police-escorted march to and from the stadium, and the game itself. “On the return journey, the strangest thing happened. This odd-looking man, all skin and bone and Adam’s apple, walked through the train giving these out.” She reached behind for her sheepskin jacket, and pulled out the badge.
“The Union Jack? What’s so strange about that? Probably some nut case who’s still living in Kipling’s time.”
“Look closer.”
Saxon squinted in the dim light. “Very nice, but then I always said that the strangest people attended football games.”
She took back the badge. “Brian Waters said that the man who handed these things out belonged to something called the British Patriotic League.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither had I. I looked up the name at the Eagle. We have information on every bunch of right-wing lunatics except the British Patriotic League.”
“That’s because it’s probably not worth being included. The British Patriotic League. God, what a joke of a name!”
“Patriotic,” Katherine repeated. “Just how many rogues throughout history have hidden behind that word?”
“Precisely.” He touched her thigh, running his hand down the smooth brown leather of her pants until he reached the top of her boot. “This outfit is as sexy as all hell, but aren’t you baking to death in it?”
“I dressed this morning for the cold.”
“Be comfortable. Take them off.”
She stretched out one leg at a time. Saxon tugged off her high boots. Contented sighs escaped as he massaged her toes, then her ankles and calves. She unfastened her belt, opened the top button of her leather pants. “John, there’s something I have to know.”
His hands halted on her calves. “What?”
“Do you want me for my body? My mind? Or just for my interesting tidbit?”
*
There was something about John Saxon, Katherine decided, that inspired trust. Almost two years earlier, when Saxon’s name had first surfaced, Roland Eagles had said he had the ability to sell freezers to Eskimos in midwinter. But that had been the superficial Saxon, the man Katherine had first known, and had both liked and disliked.
The real John Saxon, the man she knew now, the man to whom she regularly made exquisitely satisfying love, was a different person altogether. He was an intelligent man, sharp yet compassionate. He understood what went on around him, in his own business, and in the world in general. Which was why Katherine was especially glad to hear him downplay the importance of the British Patriotic League. That and the lack of any mention in the Eagle file made her confident that the League presented little or no threat.
That was on Saturday night. The blissful confidence lasted only until Tuesday. Suffering from a headache, she returned home from the Eagle in midafternoon. Only Edna Griffiths was in the house. Jimmy Phillips had driven Franz to the hospital for a routine examination. Joanne was playing at a friend’s home, and Henry was still at school. After taking two aspirin with a strong cup of tea, Katherine went to her bedroom to lie down. After an hour, she was rudely awakened by shouting.
“Take that off at once!” Edna’s angry voice carried all the way from the ground floor. “God help you if your mother sees you wearing that!”
Katherine threw on a robe and went downstairs. “God help who if I see what?”
Edna and Henry stood facing each other in the kitchen. “This,” the housekeeper said, handing Katherine a dreadfully familiar badge. “Had this pinned to his lovely uniform, he did.”
“Where did you get this badge?”
“From Alan Taylor, a big boy at school. I gave him ten pence for it.”
John Saxon and the Eagle were both wrong. The British Patriotic League was alive and well, and doing its recruiting everywhere.
*
It was six o’clock in the evening when Franz returned with Jimmy Phillips from the hospital. He sensed tension the instant he entered the house.
“Where is everyone?” he asked Edna Griffiths, whom he found in the kitchen preparing dinner.
“Joanne’s at a friend’s house. Henry was sent to his room by Mrs. Kassler.”
“Where is she?”
“She had to go to Henry’s school. She should be home at any moment.” Before Franz could ask more questions, Edna said, “I’ll let Mrs. Kassler tell you everything when she returns.”
Franz had barely settled in the television room when he heard the crunch of gravel beneath the Stag’s tires. The driver’s door slammed, followed by the house door. Katherine’s footsteps echoed along the hall. Franz called her name.
“Why did you have to visit Henry’s school?”
“I wanted to see his headmaster. I wanted to learn how something as disgusting as this” — she handed him the badge — “came to be in Henry’s possession.”
Franz studied the badge. “What did the headmaster say?”
“He wasn’t there. I made an appointment to see him first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I will come with you to the school.”
Katherine saw a change sweep over Franz. The wall came tumbling down. His son had been touched by filth, and Franz would not tolerate that.
“You should not have sent Henry to his room, Katherine. He is too young to understand the meaning of this badge. Bring him down now; let me talk to him.”
Thrilled by the transformation, Katherine raced up the stairs to Henry’s bedroom. “Your father wants to speak to you.”
In the television room, Henry sat uncertainly in front of Franz. “What do you think this badge means?” Franz asked.
“I thought it was the British flag.”
“The words — what do you think the words mean?”
“I don’t know,” the young boy answered.
“They are evil words, Henry, because they single out a group of people who have skins of a different color. You do not judge people by their color. You judge them by their acts. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded solemnly.
“Promise your mother and me that you will never wear anything like this again.”
“I promise, Daddy.”
Franz smiled, and Katherine imprinted the expression on her memory. She had waited ages for this moment of closeness. It was just too bad that something as sick as the British Patriotic League badge had to be responsible.
Early the following morning, Katherine rode with Franz and Jimmy Phillips to the school. While Phillips helped Franz from the car to the wheelchair, Katherine climbed to the second floor, where the headmaster’s study was located.
Katherine had met Adrian Heath before, a tall, thin man with sandy hair and a ginger moustache. He rose from behind his desk to greet his visitor. “Good morning, Mrs. Kassler. The message I received was that you wanted to see me urgently. I trust that nothing is wrong.”
“Only this, Mr. Heath. Another of your students, a boy called Alan Taylor, sold this disgusting object to my son.” She showed Heath the badge. “My husband is also here, as upset about this incident as I am. He would like to see you, but unfortunately he’s in a wheelchair.”
“There is an office downstairs we can use.”
A secretary was stationed outside the headmaster’s study. Heath instructed her to locate the boy named Alan Taylor. Then he accompanied Katherine downstairs to where Franz waited. Heath led the way to a small office where, five minutes later, a fresh-faced, fair-haired boy of twelve was shown in.
“Alan, have you ever seen this before?” Heath asked.
The boy answered in tones that would have turned an elocution teacher green with envy. “Some chap gave it to me at a football game, sir. I was showing it around, and Henry Kassler offered to buy it from me.”
“What game was this?” Katherine asked. She could not imagine this boy traveling on the skinhead special.
“The local amateur team. Some of us go from the school on Saturday afternoon.”
“Alan’s a boarder here,” Heath explained.
“Could you describe the man who gave this to you?”
The boy shrugged. “He was wearing a beige raincoat, that’s all I remember. What is all the fuss about?”
The answer came from Franz. “Firstly, you sold this to my son, and I do not want him to have it. Secondly, I am German. I know what happened in my country when garbage like this was circulated, when feelings were stirred up, when scapegoats were sought for national ills. It sickens me to see the same evil minds at work in this country.”
The boy tried to hold the gaze of the man in the wheelchair. After five seconds, he turned away, his determination no match for those blazing blue eyes.
“You may go, Alan,” Heath said softly. He watched the boy leave, then turned to his visitors. “I do apologize. I am appalled that one of my students should have been in possession of such a reprehensible object, and I will take steps to ensure that it does not happen again.”
In the Jaguar on the journey home, Katherine leaned over the front passenger seat, put her arms gently around Franz’s neck, and kissed him. “You were wonderful back there. I’ve never heard such a powerful message given in so few words.”
Franz opened the glove compartment and popped up the mirror so he could see Katherine in the back of the car. “The message was also for you.”
“Me?”
“This is what you should be doing on your newspaper. You should be learning what is behind this hatred.”
“That’s what I am doing. I’ve seen those badges before. I know what organization is behind them. I know how they recruit. And so help me, before all this is over, I’m going to pull back the rock they hide under and expose them for all to see.”
“Brava!” Franz shouted, and burst into happy laughter.
*
Always accompanied by Sid Hall, Katherine visited stadiums across England. In the space of a few weeks, the Daily Eagle pair traveled on soccer specials to such diverse places as the port city of Southampton in the south, and Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle in the north. The regular riders came to know them. So did the police who patrolled the specially scheduled trains.
At some of the games, Katherine spotted men she assumed were members of the British Patriotic League giving out badges that displayed the Union Jack. Once, she confronted one of them, a young, dark-haired man whose arm she grabbed as he hurried past.
“How long have you been in the BPL?” she asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“What do you hope to achieve?”
“What do you think? Make it a decent country in which British people will be proud to live.”
“Decent? Do you know how to spell the word?” She held onto the man’s arm just long enough for Hall to take his picture.
The result of Katherine’s work was a series of articles in the Eagle on the young fans who traveled around the country. Carrying Katherine’s byline, the series fell between circulation-boosting human interest and serious sociological study. She wrote about the frequently poor backgrounds of the young men, the intense loyalty to their team, and their need for an identity — to be a part of something. She finished by describing the crowds at the games as an extended family, one which the youths preferred over the broken and unhappy families from which they all too often came.
Features on the supporters, however, were not enough. When Katherine had first learned of the British Patriotic League’s recruiting campaign, and had seen her own son with one of the loathsome badges, she had promised Gerald Waller that she would deliver a story connecting the League with soccer’s violent fans. By mid-April, with only a few weeks remaining to the season, she was nowhere near fulfilling that promise.
On the credit side, she had learned something about the British Patriotic League, not that there was very much to learn. The League had been formed only a year earlier by three men, none of whom had any connection with the older, more established extremist parties. These three men were all newcomers. The chairman of the League was Alan Venables, a former college lecturer on government and politics. His two colleagues were men called Trevor Burns and Neville Sharpe. Burns was a free-lance writer, and Sharpe was, by profession, a chartered accountant. The League’s head office — and, as far as Katherine could see, its only office at the present time — was a shopfront in the rough dockland district of West Ham.
That was all credit. On the debit side, she had nothing but her own word and her own gut feeling that this new extremist group was conducting a recruiting campaign among soccer crowds.
“Your own word,” Gerald Waller told her during a meeting in his office, “and your own gut feeling are not enough to hang a story on. You, above all people, should know that you need more proof than that.”
The reminder of the way she’d been duped over Skrone Motors stung Katherine. “I’ll get it,” she answered tartly.
“Where? And, most importantly, when? You’ve been on this football-violence theme for weeks, and all you’ve succeeded in doing is a series of features which show these young hooligans as . . . as . . .” In exasperation, Waller stubbed out a freshly lit cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. “Damn it, Katherine, you’ve made the bastards almost sympathetic.”
“Isn’t that the aim of a writer?”
“It’s the aim of a fiction writer. If you’re writing a novel, a sympathetic character is a top priority. But not if you’re writing news. Good Lord, Katherine, we’d never have hanged Christie or Lord Haw Haw if you’d written about them.”
Katherine dismissed mass murderer and wartime traitor by saying, “Before my time, Gerry. All before my time.”
“But not before mine. Or before our chairman’s. Who, incidentally, remarked to me only this morning that the initial rise in circulation seems to have leveled out. In other words, the readers are losing interest in your angle. Like me, he probably wants to know when we’re going to hear exactly why this hate group is recruiting at the games.”
“How much longer are you giving me?”
“Two weeks. After that, we’re dropping the series.”
And back to the news desk, Katherine thought bitterly. After enjoying this taste of
freedom, she wasn’t sure she would be able to tolerate Lawrie Stimkin. It might be time to decide whether to stay with Eagle Newspapers or see who else on Fleet Street wanted her.
Fortunately, she never had to make the decision. She spent the evening at home. At ten o’clock, she heard the noisy rattle of a moped coming up the driveway. Before the visitor could ring the bell, Katherine opened the door.
“What is it, Brian?” She could only think that something had happened to his grandfather.
“I’ve just come from a game. The word was being put around there. The League wants as many people as possible.”
“What for?”
“What for?” Brian repeated in amazement. “For the rally, of course.”
“What rally?”
“The big anti-immigration rally the British Patriotic League’s holding on May Day.”
Chapter Eleven
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT was the first year that May Day was celebrated as a statutory holiday in the United Kingdom. It fell on a Monday. Rallies and demonstrations were scheduled throughout the country, some to commemorate this day of the working man, others to promote political aims and ideals. The weather chose not to cooperate. A drenching rain fell all day, causing the outright cancellation of many gatherings. At other meeting points, only the committed turned out, their sodden banners dripping rain onto bedraggled heads.
One demonstration, though, went ahead precisely as planned. In the racially tense South London suburb of Brixton, the British Patriotic league rally proceeded without a hitch. Two thousand marchers gathered at midday, all young men, all tough. All unaffected by the downpour that had ruined the assemblies of lesser men. Under a scattering of damp Union Jacks, these young members of the British Patriotic League lined up in rigid military formation. The professionally printed placards they held so defiantly against the rain called for the repatriation of immigrants. At their head, standing on a wooden platform, was a tall, thin man in a military-style raincoat. He had a gaunt, pale face with a beaky nose and stringy brown hair that the rain had plastered to his white scalp. He was flanked by two similarly dressed men. One held a large Union Jack. The other held an equally large triangular flag that depicted a flaming sword against the background of the red cross of St. George.