Cold Courage (14 page)

Standing in the ice rink car park, Lia looked at the building welling sound and light into the evening twilight.

The Streatham Ice Arena was not a particularly grand place, but it was a big step forward from the little halls where Fair Rule had been holding meetings barely a year before.

This evening’s event was not an official party conference for making decisions about platforms or programmes. It was a
spectacle
for the faithful. A rally for the supporters who would be going out before the election to talk voters into getting behind the party.

Entrance was free, and even two hours before the event was due to begin, the place was already buzzing. No one paid any attention to a woman entering the arena alone.

In the entrance hall, Fair Rule workers bustled around a line of tables, putting out brochures and stash bearing party slogans that would be sold to raise campaign funds.

Lia climbed the stairs from the entrance hall towards the ice rink. Cardboard and plastic mats covered the rink, and more helpers were setting up chairs so that seating would be available for the audience elsewhere than in the stands surrounding the ice.

Lia sat in the stands to watch as volunteers hung posters on the walls.

Get Britain Back. Fight for Your Rights.

This would be an interesting evening.

On the far side of the rink was a large platform upon which a pair of young men were doing a sound check of the microphones. Behind them over the stage hung two large flags, and a third was being raised into place.

Lia had read about them as she prepared for the event. Pride of place behind the rostrum at Fair Rule gatherings was always reserved for these cloth banners bearing no text, only an image: the face of Arthur Fried. The flags had cost a lot given Fair Rule’s resources and had sparked no small controversy.

A reporter for the
Independent
had named them the ‘Great Leader Flags’ and observed that they injected a strange 1970s Soviet or Chinese air into British politics. All parties used images
of their leaders as they campaigned, but only Fair Rule had gone so far.

Arthur Fried had defended the flags in several newspaper
interviews
. He had been the architect of the party’s recent rise in fortunes, and the mainstream media constantly overlooked small parties, never inviting them to participate in televised debates. What else could a beleaguered group of concerned citizens do to elevate the profiles of its leaders?

Lia sauntered around the rink watching the party workers and volunteers hard at work. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, she lent a hand. She carried boxes, hung placards and helped an older woman named Dorrie set out her trays of biscuits and paper coffee cups. This gave Lia a chance to ask various questions about Fair Rule business and the schedule for the evening’s event.

The ice arena provided ample space for more than a thousand visitors, but the workers didn’t think it would fill to capacity. Fair Rule had never turned out that many supporters on a weekday night. The party had booked the large hall for other reasons.

A year earlier, Arthur Fried had initiated a change in policy. Support for the party had been static, and its political initiatives had not been able make a media breakthrough. Fried had crafted a new strategy: the only way to get big fast was to start acting like you already were.

So, Fair Rule began grinding out opinions on every issue the main parties dealt with, and Fried poured oil on the rhetorical fire. Incendiary words like
deception, threat, crime
and
destruction
served as a challenge to the powers that be and netted new voters. The party began to organise its events at ever larger venues and with ever more pageantry. At every opportunity they focused media attention on Fried in hopes of making his face universally
recognised
.

This new, theatrical approach had succeeded in drawing larger crowds.

There was also a practical reason for booking the Streatham Arena: they had got it cheap because the party’s financial secretary knew the arena’s marketing director and had managed to convince him that the party meeting would attract a new clientele.

Lia wondered whether the marketing director would really have wanted this particular customer base. Low-skilled, working class, mostly ageing white males. Lia believed she understood why they came. The only thing in their lives over which they had absolute control was what pub they spent their money in. Here they felt powerful.

Fifteen minutes still remained until the event was set to begin. Lia slipped into the long corridor that ran behind the rink and offered access to the locker rooms and storage spaces.

There was a commotion at one locker room door. Lia recognised the reason from his pictures in the news: Arthur Fried.

Dozens of men were pushing, trying to reach the party leader, most of them lacking the patience to queue. Fried was stuck in the corridor shaking hands.

Arthur Fried had a knack, Lia had to admit. He listened to the beginning of each supporter’s story, then interrupted and answered briefly. He sounded decisive but did not promise anyone anything.

Each man had what he thought were brilliant campaign ideas that he had to tell the party leader about. They expressed deep concern about vague fears, such as the spread of Islam in Europe.

Some just felt impelled to tell Fried, ‘Go and show them, Arthur.’

Although Lia found it impossible to share their opinions, she recognised their feelings.

They want Fried to kick the shit out of the world for them.

When the background music in the hall faded and the first speaker of the evening was announced on stage, Arthur Fried said goodbye to his supporters milling in the corridor and disappeared into a back room. The corridor emptied in next to no time as the men moved into the stands.

Lia chose a seat near the platform, a little to one side.

The first speaker was a man in his sixties who said he worked for a warehousing company and that he had lost faith in politics until he read the Fair Rule party literature and heard Arthur Fried speak. He reiterated the party’s key objectives – no social support without work requirements and the reining-in of special rights for
immigrants
– to raucous applause.

Lia listened to the rhythm of the speech rather than the content. She knew the pattern the evening would be built around, beginning with untrained speakers and moving towards more skilled orators until Fried himself took the stage.

Articles about Arthur Fried often touched on how good he was at inspiring a crowd. He described it himself as surrender. He said that when he was younger he tried to be anything but a politician. He had tried to make his living leading companies, making money. But, over time, he had realised that what he knew best was speaking in front of people and raising their hopes. This had been an important insight for him, he said. He had known immediately that he would succeed at it. Once he had surrendered himself to this fact, his career had taken off.

Forty-five minutes and three stiff speakers later, Lia was
wondering
whether the evening would ever get going at all. She could not think of any reason for choosing such conventional presenters other than that each of them came from a different part of England.

A young man in a black blazer came onstage and the announcer introduced him as Andy Cargill, the assistant director of the Future Rule youth programme. He took the microphone, and the volume of his voice was startling.

‘We’ve seen what isn’t working in Britain, and we know how to respond. We are Future Rule, and we have a question. What are we waiting for?’

Cargill’s roar made the young men in the crowd spring to their feet.

Lia watched the crowd. The uniformity of their dress was plain frightening. Black jeans and black jackets, short-cropped hair and burning eyes.

Cargill and his ferocious followers played a specific role in the show – to raise the pulse of the crowd. They focused on one theme only, the restoration of the privileges of the white race.

Actually they didn’t use the word race. Lia knew that the party leadership had banned its use since the term would have brought universal condemnation. But they didn’t need the word.

Cargill’s performance also energised the older generation. For the last minute of his speech, he simply repeated one slogan. The
scene resembled a rock concert with the audience howling in adoration.

‘GET BRITAIN BACK!’

The audience responded: ‘Get Britain Back!’

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’

‘Get Britain Back!’

‘LET’S DO IT NOW! GET BRITAIN BACK!’

After Cargill finished, most of his audience appeared willing to march out onto the streets to do battle that very moment. But two more speakers remained in the queue.

‘Next we will be pleased to hear from the chairman of Fair Rule North, Mr Simon Lord!’

Lord continued on the same themes at nearly the same volume as Cargill. The main message was that Britain should withdraw from all international agreements that allowed immigration from poor countries.

Preventing herself from getting worked up was impossible for Lia as she listened to this. The idea recurred often in the party’s public statements and represented their vision of a new period of independence for Britain. Of course there was no practical way to carry it out – but Lia had no interest in discussing that with this audience.

She glanced at her watch. Almost half past eight. Lord started revving up the audience for the final speaker of the evening.

‘We have the man who will get Britain back! Who is he?’

‘Arthur Fried!’ the audience shouted.

The passion that filled the ice arena made Lia’s heart pound. She felt like covering her ears.

When Fried appeared on stage, the entire audience stood as one man, bellowing Fried’s name and pumping their right fists
rhythmically
in the air.

Lia surveyed the frenzy.

This is his power. This is why Mari thinks Fried is so dangerous.

Arthur Fried made a show of calling for calm, but allowed the chanting to continue for a full minute. Then he took the
microphone
and raised his hands in the air. The audience fell silent before their leader.

‘Friends,’ Arthur Fried began. ‘Friends, thank you for your faith.’

Fried spoke well, in short sentences, pausing frequently to allow the audience room to call out in response, which served further to charge the atmosphere.

Fried used the introduction of his address to describe the rise of the party. Polling figures, TV appearances, statements quoted in the media. This was not a new story, but he made it sound as though it was a credit to them all.

Fried moved to a small news item. Lia knew to expect this as standard procedure at party events, bait for any journalists in attendance.

‘Friends, I am happy and proud to be able to tell you that I have just completed drafting my programme for Britain’s new defence policy. It will be published next week. This will be our trump card next year when we enter Parliament in an unprecedented landslide at the ballot box.’

They would publish the details later, but Fried wanted to tell his ‘friends’ the main points. The programme was called ‘A Better Britain’ and promised to restore the honour and influence of the native peoples of the United Kingdom.

‘We demand that Britain enter into defence agreements only with those countries that share our values.’

The audience clapped uncertainly, not knowing precisely what this meant.

‘For all of this, we need you. Every single Briton you can recruit to our cause of creating a new, better Britain. Everyone’s contribution is important. We need every man and woman,’ Fried said,
motioning
to one side of the stage.

Out walked his wife, and the howling of the audience returned to fever pitch.

Anna Belle Fried walked to her husband and extended her hand. Away from the microphone, Fried said something sweet to his wife. They knew the choreography by heart: Lia had already seen it online in videos of previous Fair Rule events.

Anna Belle Fried was a heavily made-up, buxom woman. Her blonde curls, a thigh-revealing slit skirt and high heels made her look like a doll.

Anna Belle, you would have been beautiful without all the dressing up too.

Turning to the crowd, Arthur Fried took a step towards the front of the stage, leading his wife along. Fried laughed and winked at the audience: my woman. In the glow of the bright spotlights, they looked unreal, as if everything they did appeared in slow motion.

Some of the black-clad young men in the front row whistled and barked astonishingly lewd suggestions at Anna Belle. Lia saw her freeze, staring somewhere into the middle distance, trying to ignore the shouts.

Arthur Fried set his wife in motion with a jerk of his left arm and raised his own right hand, clenched in a fist. He smiled at the black jackets in the front rows. They shouted even louder.

Lia stared at Arthur Fried’s hand holding his wife, squeezing tightly.

Anna Belle took a step to the side, intending to retire from the stage. Arthur Fried did not look at his wife, but Lia saw how his grip made her flinch. Her struggling ended instantly.

Fried likes this. He likes them treating his wife like a whore.

The loudspeakers carried Fried’s voice over the roar of the audience.

‘We are going to Parliament! And you, you and you, all of you here, are coming with us!’

Lia opened the door to the Studio with some effort: she was carrying two large boxes of papers and newspaper clippings, and her left shoulder was still sore. The papers dealt with Arthur Fried and the Latvian case.

Entering one of the free offices, she set her load down on the desk. She wondered whether she should go and tell Mari she had arrived but then remembered: the orange circle on the office floor had already told the surveillance computer.

A moment later, Mari arrived to greet her.

‘It’s nice you’re moving in.’

‘I think so too. Nice and weird. Less weird and more nice as I get used to the idea though,’ Lia said.

She reported on the frenzied party rally of the previous evening.

‘Fried is even more talented in front of a crowd than I had expected. The news stories, videos and TV appearances can’t show you what he’s like in person. He has this ability to unite the aspirations of such different people and make it sound like he supports them all,’ Lia said.

She described the young paramilitary-looking men in the front rows. As they called Arthur Fried out onto the stage, they looked like neo-Nazis ushering on their saviour.

Mari asked about Fair Rule’s Better Britain programme, but Lia didn’t have any more detailed information. The event had only received a brief mention in the papers because no reporters had been in attendance at the ice arena.

‘It’s strange how they can make it sound as if their bunch had some sort of ability to shape political programmes,’ Lia said.

‘Well, when they publish it, the commentators will make sure that all the most absurd parts receive plenty of coverage,’ Mari said. ‘But that’s still publicity. They don’t have to make sensible proposals to increase their popularity.’

Channelling people’s mistrust, anger and disenchantment was enough.

‘And I’m not so blind that I can’t see why you wanted me to go there. You wanted me to see Arthur Fried so I would want to fight him too,’ Lia said.

‘Well, do you?’

Lia admitted she did. Sitting in that audience, the sickening dread that Fried and his shock troops might actually enter Parliament had been all too real.

How could it be possible for a party like Fair Rule to win even a single seat? Lia wondered out loud. Of course, believing that they would be able to accomplish much in Parliament was difficult, since the other parties would hardly stand for Fair Rule’s outrageous declarations.

‘Their ideas definitely do offend a lot of people. But that won’t stop them from growing,’ Mari said.

The rise of tiny right-wing extremist parties had been one of the greatest political changes Europe had seen in recent years. Mari reeled off the countries where groups like Fair Rule had gained
representation
in town councils and Parliaments: France, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway… Of course the parties were different in each country, but two things united them. First, they were built around a strong leader and, second, they opposed immigration, ethnic
minorities
and gay rights. Mari reminded Lia that Finland had its own version of the phenomenon. The ‘True Finns’ were not a blustering far-right party, but they were populist, reactionary and racist.

‘The problem is that there are a lot of people who think that things should just be allowed to play themselves out,’ Mari said. ‘No matter what bad things happen, they don’t intervene. They appeal to
freedom
of speech and claim that we should always be civil to others and respect their opinions. So to all intents and purposes Fair Rule can do and say almost anything.’

Educated women like Mari and Lia were especially likely to oppose the issues pushed by parties like Fair Rule. But most of them did nothing about it.

‘I’m not going to stand around waiting for Fair Rule to grow. Some things need protecting. Social order, for example.’

Lia nodded. She recognised herself in Mari’s words, her own
unwillingness
to intervene.

They had to get closer to Fair Rule’s operation, Mari said. By this point they had sifted through more or less everything ever written
about Fried. They needed more material. They needed someone who could observe the party’s work at close quarters.

‘Like a volunteer,’ Mari suggested. ‘All the parties use them. There were a lot of them at the ice arena, weren’t there?’

Lia took a few seconds to realise what Mari was suggesting.

‘You want me to join Fair Rule?’

‘If you want to. But we can find someone else if we need to.’

‘I don’t want to be anywhere near that crowd,’ Lia said. ‘What could I do there anyway? Isn’t this more Paddy’s territory?’

Paddy would be a good fit for the job, Mari admitted. A big white man with a buzz cut would fit in perfectly. But Paddy was frequently tied up with other assignments for long periods of time. He also avoided gigs where he had to work with people as himself. That didn’t sit well with a private detective.

Mari listed the reasons Lia was a good candidate. She seemed so normal that she wouldn’t arouse any suspicions. She had already met party workers at the arena. And any party would welcome with open arms a volunteer who knew graphic design. Parties needed placards, brochures, bulletins and websites.

‘And besides, if I have you there observing things, I’ll feel almost like I’m looking at the place with my own eyes. You see the world almost the same way I do.’

Lia understood but still hesitated.

‘I don’t know if I’m up to it. I’ve never done anything like it before. Spying on people.’

‘I know,’ Mari said. ‘And no one is going to force you to do it. I’m just giving you the opportunity. We agreed that you always get to decide what you do.’

Lia thought for a moment.

I must be crazy. Mari definitely is. But I’m going to do it anyway.

‘OK,’ Lia said. ‘If it starts feeling too hard, we’ll handle it some other way.’

This time she did not want to make up any complicated cover story. Perhaps her own background would do.

‘Hmm, that could work, but we have to think through the basics,’ Mari said. ‘At least don’t tell them your real name or any other personal details. Tell them you’re a graphic designer. If they ask
anything else, change the subject. Maybe say that your boyfriend got you interested in Fair Rule.’

‘Sounds good,’ Lia said. ‘My boyfriend is a neo-Nazi. I just love a man in uniform.’

Mari smiled, but Lia noticed how quickly her smile evaporated.

The Fair Rule party offices were crammed into three rooms above a shop on Epping High Street at the end of the Central Tube line. Apparently the party lacked the funds to pay London rents. Lia had rung ahead to ensure they were taking volunteers for office work.

‘Miss, if you’d like to help, come on down,’ the man who answered the phone had said.

Since she was still on holiday, Lia didn’t bother getting up early, so she didn’t arrive at the office until eleven o’clock.

The place didn’t look like the efficient command centre of a
political
movement. What it looked like was a tatty office with people trying to cope with the issues flooding through the door and out of the telephones and computers. There was no shyly making her way in all alone. If anything, she had to dodge the flow of traffic to avoid being knocked down.

Arthur Fried was nowhere to be seen, but Lia had expected as much. The party had to have other uses for its leader’s time than sitting in an office.

She presented herself to the man whose desk was closest to the front door.

‘Hi, I’m Lia. I’ve come to volunteer.’

‘Great, Lia. What can you do?’

‘I’m a professional graphic designer. I can do newspaper layouts and…’

‘What you are is an angel from on high,’ the man said and pointed to the next room. ‘That’s the media centre. You can find coffee and tea in that corner there. Welcome aboard to helping us get Britain back.’

He had clearly repeated this greeting hundreds of times.

The media centre consisted of two desks, three computers and three busy people. The two older men in collared shirts and jeans were Stephen and Simon. The younger one, Tim, had the same kind
of buzzcut as the men at the ice arena, but his clothing was not so dominated by black. They were delighted to hear that Lia knew graphic design.

‘Excellent,’ Tim said. ‘I’ve been trying to handle the design work, but what I do always comes out pretty crap. Now I can concentrate on writing.’

Three hours later, Lia had designed the poster and flyer for Fair Rule’s next London event, chatted with a couple of party activists she had met at the arena and realised to her relief that no one in the office had time for delivering harangues about putting immigrants in their place or closing the borders. The political content came out of meetings between party operatives, and the day-to-day work of the office was just getting the message out the door.

‘Is Arthur Fried here much?’ Lia asked.

Stephen smiled. This was obviously a typical question for
newcomers
.

Fried was at the office for a brief time almost every day when he was in London, Stephen explained. Usually he popped by in the evening after his various appearances and meetings. He usually sat in the back room, where the party secretary, Tom Gallagher, worked.

‘They always say that anyone can come back and talk about anything, politics or new ideas. But no one ever bothers. Still, it’s good that they’re around and available.’

Lia worked until six in the evening, but Fried did not appear.

‘Will you come again? Please say you will,’ Stephen pleaded when he saw her preparing to leave.

‘Yes, I think I will. I may have time at weekends.’

‘You’re welcome anytime. Come tomorrow or Sunday, if you can. We have to prepare materials for three more events.’

‘Do you work on Sundays too?’

Stephen snorted.

‘With a potential election looming, there’s no such thing as a day off.’

Lia returned to the Fair Rule office on Saturday evening. She had verified online that Arthur Fried was supposed to be in London.
He had a public meet-and-greet session and three party discussion forums.

At the party office, Stephen was delighted to see her, immediately dumping the templates for the upcoming events in her lap and telling her where to find the pictures and text that needed setting.

It’s strange how easily people can adapt to almost anything,
Lia thought as she placed and resized slogans for Fair Rule events in Glasgow, Manchester and Edinburgh.

As they worked, Stephen asked Lia what had got her interested in Fair Rule. Lia told him briefly about her boyfriend, who had been to a party event and convinced her to join too. This explanation seemed to pass muster.

At half past nine, Arthur Fried stepped into the office. No one could fail to notice his arrival, and many of the workers rushed to ask him about various situations they were dealing with.

‘Arthur, do you want people to come up to Manchester? We need to reserve the buses if we’re taking a big group.’

‘Arthur, there hasn’t been any activity on your blog for more than a month. We’re already getting complaints. What should we write?’

Don’t these people have any operational leadership? Do they ask Fried about everything?

The operational leadership walked in after Fried. Lia soon saw that Party Secretary Tom Gallagher was the one who had all the answers, but everyone still wanted to have contact with Fried.

Fried smiled and answered briefly. Tired-looking Dorrie, who was saddled with the cleaning, making coffee and other office chores, he patted on the back. Lia thought Dorrie’s job was pure torture, because everyone else was always leaving a mess. Fried praised Stephen and Simon for the news release they had sent to the foreign press about the Better Britain programme.

Fried also noticed Lia.

‘A new face? Arthur Fried. Glad to have you aboard,’ he said, shaking her hand and looking her in the eye.

‘Good to be on board,’ Lia said, looking at Fried carefully.

In a second he had lost interest in her and moved on.

He works like an assembly line. That was a fine show of human warmth. What would Mari have seen in him just now?

Fried continued into the back room with the party secretary. They left the door open, but as Stephen had observed earlier, no one went in to continue any of their conversations.

As she worked, Lia walked past the door a few times, looking in as she went. Gallagher sat at the desk making notes on the computer while Fried sat in an old armchair dictating short instructions. A secretary and a boss, Lia concluded. The party secretary was an influential figure, but he stayed in the background to allow Arthur Fried room to shine.

A lot of what Fried says probably comes out of Gallagher’s head. Interesting. The devil in the detail.

As the evening wound down, Lia found that she had not made much progress in her intended assignment. She had worked
obediently
, but except for some superficial acquaintance with the people in the office, she did not know much more about the party.

On Sunday morning, she rang Mari.

‘I don’t know if this is going anywhere.’

The brainwork and real leadership seemed to happen somewhere other than at the party office.

‘If you want to stop, stop. How about we go out tonight,’ Mari suggested.

‘No. I want to try a little more. I have a sort of…
vihi.’

Mari laughed at the Finnish word.

‘Are you my bloodhound now?’

She knew how Lia felt: she had a sense there was something to find, so she just had to soldier on.

Lia set out for the Fair Rule office in the morning this time. The supply of layout work showed no signs of running out.

On Sundays fewer people were around the office and the pace was slower, which left Lia time to wander around holding a coffee mug listening to people’s conversations.