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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Charisma
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The van was leaving as Liz got home. The front door was open and there were packing cases in the hall and also at the top of the stairs. So far as she could tell from a quick glance through the windows the furniture had been decanted into more or less the right rooms.
She found Brian in the living-room, sprawled on the couch with his head tipped back and his eyes shut. She thought for a moment he was asleep. He looked exhausted, his shirt darkly patched with sweat.
But he wasn't asleep. He stirred at her entry and cranked his eyes open. ‘Good day at the office, dear?'
She bent to kiss his forehead, which was about as high as foreheads go before people start talking openly about baldness. ‘Not great. But probably better than yours.'
‘The cooker's working. Do you want to eat now or later?'
‘Stay where you are,' she said, ‘I'll put something together. I'll just turn Polly into the paddock first.'
‘Polly—!' From the tone of Brian Graham's voice he thought there were more important things to do.
‘Be fair: today's shambles wasn't her fault, there's no reason to punish her for it.'
‘Oh, see to the bloody horse,' he growled, closing his eyes again.
‘Sin,' rumbled the Reverend Michael Davey. ‘Sin and corruption.' His eyes, sharp as a diamond drill guaranteed accurate to a thousandth of an inch, scoured his congregation as if expecting to catch some of them out in pride, avarice or lust at that very moment.
‘Sins of the heart. Sins of the soul. Sins of the flesh. Wherever I go, wherever I travel, always the same. People without values. Without faith. Without love: the love of God, of their fellow man, of their families, of themselves even. Because people who liked and respected themselves couldn't do half the things that happen in our society. Old men tortured for their pension money. Old women raped at knife-point. Children snatched from the streets, young girls violated by those who should be looking after them.'
Reverend Michael Davey wore a white suit, as anyone who had seen the posters would have expected, and sat in the centre of a dais raised some three feet above ground level – sat because he had no option, he was a man in a wheelchair. On his feet he would have been a hugely commanding figure, tall and broad, with a strong fleshy face crowned with a shock of springy hair somewhere between blond and white. That was the age he was, somewhere between young and old, and that was all you could know without reading his well-publicized autobiography. In fact he was fifty-two.
But the impression he gave, in spite of the wheelchair, was of a man in the prime of life and vigour. The eyes were only part of a vast natural arsenal of command. The voice was another weapon: deep, rough, with power burgeoning up through it as if it came from a fathomless reservoir of passion and it was as much as he could do to keep it from running amok and tearing the tent down.
The white suit, the commanding figure, even the electric hair and diamond eyes, were taken straight from the chapter on American evangelists in the Book of Stereotypes. But the voice, resonant with its full vowels and rolling consonants, came from the mining
valleys of Wales. It was a fierce, angry, Trade Union type of Welshness in which the words rushed from him like a violent little torrent coming off Snowdon.
‘So what's gone wrong, that suddenly we have such monsters among us?' he asked. ‘There are people, you know, who blame God. It wouldn't happen if He really cared for us. What, rape and torture God's will? If I believed that I'd throw stones at the Archbishop of Canterbury and spit in the communion wine. I would not serve a God who treated His people that way. These things are artifacts not of God but of the Devil, and we have to confront the Devil's work, and the Devil's people, wherever we find them.
‘Know thine enemy, saith the Lord. And there's a damn good reason for that: if we don't know him, if we don't recognize him when we see him, he's free to work his ravages among us. We must understand the forces of evil, recognize them and join battle with them. In the dark streets and the gutters. In the high-rises and the sewers. In the places where people live, where they work, where they drink and have their entertainment, even – God help us – in the schools. There are no refuges from the tide of filth and sin that washes around us. Either we fight against it or we go under.'
That was not quite the end. There was some more of the same, followed by a rousing hymn in which the preacher's voice could be heard soaring majestically. A yellow plastic bucket went round in lieu of a collection plate. Then the congregation climbed creakily to its feet and filed out. It didn't take long. There might have been twenty of them, mostly old ladies. Row upon row of folding seats had collected only dust.
There was a plywood ramp from the dais down to the ground sheet. With the confidence of long practice Davey rolled off the top, gathering enough speed to take him half-way up the aisle before he had to wheel. He arrived at the flap of the tent in time to bid goodnight to the rearguard.
‘Thanks for coming. Come again tomorrow – same time, same place. We haven't finished here; we've hardly begun.'
When they were gone he turned to the woman standing beside him. All the fierce power went out of his eyes and his muscular shoulders slumped. His voice was soft, a low rumbled plaint. ‘Oh, Jenny, what am I doing here? These people aren't interested in anything I have to say. They only came out of politeness: they'd have sat on the same seats if I'd been selling hair tonic or vegetarianism
or a new political party for black lesbian pacifists.'
The woman put out a slim hand, laid it not on his shoulder but on the back of his chair. She gave him a quiet smile. ‘You're here because they need you, Michael.'
‘Don't tell me that, tell them!'
‘When you tell them so much better?'
‘I can only tell them if they'll come and listen!'
‘They'll come. They always do. It's first-night blues, that's all.'
‘Castlemere.' It came out as a long sigh. ‘There's something – impervious – about it. Maybe they really
don't
want to know. Maybe they'd rather have the corruption than the trouble of cleaning it up. There was a girl killed here the other day, did you know?' The woman shook her head. ‘She was found in the canal right by here. A young girl, a prostitute apparently. What's the world coming to? The people of this town, they see young girls working as prostitutes and do nothing to stop it; they see them murdered and dumped in their canal and still they don't care enough to come and talk about the mess they've got themselves into. You'd think they'd be glad of any advice anyone could give them.'
‘They were, those who came. And there'll be more tomorrow, when word's had a chance to get round. Tonight people came on spec: they'd nothing better to do, there was nothing on the TV, or they go to religious meetings out of habit regardless of who's speaking. But now they know you're something different: not just another Bible-thumper repeating the same old stale formulae but someone who has something important to say, something concrete to offer them.
‘They were part of something real tonight, and they won't keep it to themselves. The posters are all right as far as they go, but there's nothing like word of mouth to get people interested. You know that, Michael. It's always like this when we work a new area. We've never been here before. Give them time to hear what kind of a man you are, what kind of an inspiration. Then they'll come.'
‘Inspiration!' he exclaimed self-mockingly.
‘Michael, you are! Don't undersell yourself. Things that other people are afraid to say, you spell out. You don't dress it up for them, tell them it's not their fault, that they're the victims of society. You make them face the fact that they
are
society, that whatever power there is for change is vested in them. You're a fine speaker, Michael, of course. But what's infinitely more important is
that what you are and what you do actually makes a difference to people. They'll come, because you give them something no one else dares to: the promise of a better here and now if they want it enough to go out and claim it. Jam today. Believe me: for that they'll come. They always do.'
He ran a thick hand through his hair. ‘I must be getting old, Jenny. Was it always this hard?'
She laughed, affection dancing in her eyes. ‘Of course it was. Often it was harder. The first time in France they shouted insults and tried to pull the tent down. But then they came inside.'
Davey regarded the knuckles of his right hand reflectively. ‘Was it there I was arrested for affray?'
‘I do believe it was,' said the woman, trying not to smile.
 
It was mid-evening before Donovan went home, across Cornmarket and up the tow-path to avoid Broad Wharf. Not because he was afraid of meeting Bailie but because he'd been told to stay away from him. Donovan came from a long line of poets and wordsmiths: he could find alternative meanings in all but the most explicit of statements. Unfortunately Inspector Graham had already discovered this and spoke to him the way solicitors draw up contracts, in short sentences with minimal punctuation. He could have disobeyed her order to stay away from Bailie but he could not have claimed misunderstanding as his defence.
Dark had already fallen and the lights in the big tent threw giant shadows on to its white walls. At one point he heard the distant apologetic hum of not enough voices raised in song. Soon after that the faithful shuffled out of the tent and up the walkway to Brick Lane. Donovan grinned. He'd been right: Mavis Spurge the religious groupie was one of them. She'd throw herself at anything in a dog-collar.
Tara
was a narrowboat built to carry grain and coal and general cargo on the inland waterways. Once her master and his family lived in a tiny cabin at the after end, but conversion had opened up her holds as living accommodation. So Donovan had a perfectly good bedroom and a perfectly good bed. There was no need for him to sleep on the couch in the saloon. But that as often as not was what he did, with a book propped on his knees and music playing softly on the tape-deck. If he was awake enough to get up and go to bed he usually stayed put and read a bit longer instead. So it was this night.
The tape reached its end and switched itself off unheeded.
Broad Wharf was in darkness, the congregation away to their beds in the small streets of Castlemere, the preacher away to his in the Castle Hotel. Even the road crew had played enough poker and drunk enough beer and no lights showed at the windows of their caravan. It seemed that nothing stirred along the canal.
But something did stir: a shadow moving among the great still shadows that blackened the tow-path. A crescent moon was just high enough to cast a shimmer on the water, the lonely light burned behind the timber yard; but there was more than enough darkness to shield the progress of the man-shaped shade moving swiftly along the wharf. A hunting cat saw it and froze back into the alley until it passed. No one else heard or saw anything at all.
Donovan was jerked from sleep by the sudden massive conviction that he was dying. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Numbing weight pinned him down. His eyes flew wide, bulging with panic, but he couldn't see: either his reading light had gone out or he was blind.
Someone said, so close to his ear that he could feel the breath on his face, ‘Lie still, you bastard, or I'll brain you.'
He froze at the sound. It was like a hand reaching out of his past to grab him. It was probably the accent, Donovan had never had the sort of personal dealings with Liam Brady that would have marked the voice indelibly on his mind, but the chill of recognition struck him to the heart. There was no longer any point coming home the long way: Brady must have seen him at the same time he saw Brady.
Even in the shock of the moment a part of his mind managed a grim satisfaction at this unarguable proof that he'd been right and Special Branch wrong.
The smug feeling vanished as he wondered what Brady intended to do now. He didn't suppose the man had broken into his boat in the middle of the night, switched off the light and pinned him to the couch in order to ask for news of home.
Brady may have taken his stunned immobility for compliance or he may have thought that if Donovan didn't breathe soon he'd have another body to explain. For whatever reason he shifted the hand clamped over Donovan's mouth and nose. ‘That better?'
Donovan was too busy sucking in air to reply, and with Brady's knee in the middle of his chest it wasn't as easy as it might have been.
‘Now listen to me, Cal Donovan.' Brady had never been a man to shout, he'd held people's attention in other ways, and he wasn't
shouting now. His voice was soft, calm, even faintly humorous. He wasn't so much as breathing heavily. ‘I don't want any nonsense out of you. You give me a hard time and I'll break your arm, see if that'll keep you quiet.'
‘What do you want?' gasped Donovan.
‘You know who I am, don't you?'
It might have been politic to deny it. ‘Of course I do. Look, if you want to talk will you get off my bloody chest?'
Brady chuckled. He levered himself off Donovan; then he pulled Donovan upright and pushed him against the back of the couch. ‘Now, stay you there. I mean it: give me any trouble and I'll hurt you.'
Donovan wasn't afraid of being hurt but he didn't think it would achieve anything. They should have been a fair match, Donovan the taller, Brady a little heavier. But the older man was a practised street-fighter: Donovan would take him on if he had to but he didn't want to be beaten up for no good reason. He stayed where he was. ‘What are you doing here? I don't know what you want.'
Brady's face was invisible but his voice was relaxed. ‘A little information, that's all. When did you spot me?'
Donovan saw no reason not to answer. ‘Yesterday afternoon, when you were unloading the chairs.'
The beanbag whispered as Brady nodded. ‘That's when I saw you.' His grin was audible. ‘I couldn't believe it: little Cal Donovan, scourge of the RUC graffiti squad, all grown up and helping the English police.' The voice hardened a tone. ‘Then I saw you ordering them other coppers round so I knew it was true, you were one of them.'

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