White Riot (16 page)

Restraint and subtlety continued inside. Two heavy old desks, computers on both, two cheerful-looking, modestly dressed temps behind them. A portrait of the Queen. The Union flag, unfurled, at the side. The place contriving to reek of age and tradition.

Then the recruiting room. Two large, dark chesterfield sofas dominated, the atmosphere relaxed but not casual. Where anyone, in response to carefully worded and targeted leaflets, could pop in for a friendly chat, voice their concerns and fears over the way the world was going with professionally trained greeters and recruiters. Just as Mr Sharples had planned.

Mr Sharples. Worth every penny to get him from South Africa. Gave the NUP confidence, a credibility they would otherwise have lacked. Made them a winning proposition.

A proposition in danger of crumbling.

No understanding words in the recruiting room today. Rick Oaten paced the floor, head shaking from side to side, lips mouthing internal monologue. Mr Sharples sat on the studded leather chesterfield, sipping his single malt.

Mr Sharples watched Oaten, eyes unblinking behind his glasses.

‘That fucking kid … that one little fucking kid … he could ruin everything. Everything.’

Mr Sharples ignored him, rolled the whisky around his mouth, felt that sweet sting, swallowed. Oaten continued.

‘Everything we’ve built …’ His hands grasped the air, angry fists hitting out at nothing. ‘Supposed to be the best we’ve got, and they couldn’t fucking find him! But they did manage to find the only nigger in Northumberland and get roundly humiliated by him. Humiliated. By a fucking … a fucking …
nigger
.’ The word spat out like it was something diseased in his mouth

‘Rick.’ Sharples spoke without moving.

‘He could be anywhere now, little cunt … anywhere …’

‘Rick.’ Mr Sharples’s eyes flashed hard and cold. The words held razors.

Oaten stopped walking. Looked over, panting but not daring to speak.

‘We all have a part to play. Concentrate on yours. We’ll take care of everything else.’

Oaten wanted to speak, but the words were too scared to emerge from his mouth before Mr Sharples. So he stood, tense and rigid, swaying, the ship he captained ready to capsize. He looked about to burst into tears. Something extra was called for. Mr Sharples stood, crossed, put his arm round his shoulder.

‘Don’t give up now, Rick. Look what you’ve achieved. Look at it.’ His voice, smooth and sinuous, wrapped itself round Oaten like the grip of a boa constrictor. ‘The BNP, the NF, the RVF, Combat 18, all the rest … none of them have come close to what you’ve done with the NUP. Up here, in your little corner of the country. Just you. Bigger and stronger than all of them put together. A force this
country will sit up and take notice of.’ The grip tightened. A smile. ‘Whether they want to or not. Quite an achievement. Be proud of that achievement.’

Oaten sighed. ‘I am, but … all this is nothing. We need that kid …’

‘And he will be found.’

Oaten nodded. Mr Sharples’s tone left him in no doubt as to how.

‘Now. The meeting tonight. We need you on top form. The preacher to his congregation. Convince them that not only can they win but that they
will
win. We need Rick Oaten the great political orator again. Can you do that?’

Oaten stood immobile.

Mr Sharples suppressed his first response, kept his voice honeyed. ‘Can you do that?’

Oaten nodded.

‘Good.’ Mr Sharples looked at his watch. ‘Then go and prepare to dazzle the
Daily Mail
readers. Leave the boy to me.’

Oaten nodded again. Mr Sharples ushered him out. His smile disappeared. The hard, steely gaze back in place.

‘Fucking idiot,’ he said.

This boy was a problem. And Oaten’s thugs clearly weren’t capable of dealing with him. Something would have to be done.

He took out his mobile, speed-dialled a number, waited. It was answered.

‘The boy,’ he said without introducing himself. ‘He’s still a problem.’

‘I thought you had the matter in hand?’

Mr Sharples sighed, an angry exhalation of breath. ‘The mouth-breathers couldn’t find him. Couldn’t find their arses with both hands. We don’t need arguments and
recriminations; we need to be together on this one. So I want you and your boys to get out and look for him too.’

The voice on the other end gave its assent.

‘By the way,’ said Mr Sharples before hanging up, ‘what did you think of my diversion?’

The voice laughed. ‘How very apposite.’

‘I thought you would think that.’

‘Anything else planned I should know about?’

Mr Sharples laughed. Like razor-sharp ice breaking. ‘What do you think?’

He broke the connection, sipped his whisky.

Kev had locked himself in the toilet cubicle. He didn’t want to come out, couldn’t come out. Not yet. Not when he knew what they wanted him to do next.

He closed his eyes and saw the boy again, the Asian boy. Saw fists smashing into his face, pain and blood seeping from his body. Screams. Smelled his flesh burning.

He opened his eyes again, rubbed them hard. No good. The rage, the guilt. Back again. Coiling and twisting in his guts. He couldn’t do it.

He was in the toilet block by the converted stables on the farm in Northumberland where he, and the rest of the boys, had stayed the night. He heard voices outside. Ligsy and Cheggs and the rest, on the way to the van, piling inside. Fighting and shouting, getting each other, themselves, psyched up for what they were going to do. Getting their blood up, their testosterone levels high, their cocks hard. Heard Major Tom’s posh voice hurrying them along, getting them in line.

The toilet door was knocked on, hard.

‘Come on, haven’t got all fuckin’ day.’

‘Yuh-yeah, just comin’ …’

Kev looked round. Wanted to hit something, smash it into pieces.

Wanted to burst into tears.

He breathed in deep, felt the movement hurt his stomach. Tried to think of something to get his anger going. That fucking black kid. And his nigger-loving boyfriend. Showing him and his boys up like that. He should go back there, tear their place apart, rip their fucking hearts out, teach them both a lesson …

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t summon up the hatred.

He slumped against the cubicle wall, tried to think. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t join the rest of them. Had to have a way out. Another deep breath, another pain in his stomach.

An idea.

He looked down, saw the bandages underneath his T-shirt. He rolled his T-shirt up, slowly pulled the dressing away from his skin. The bandages were taped on, gauze and padding over the wound. He took it all away, laid it on the top of the cistern.

Took a deep breath. Another.

And stuck his fingers in the wound.

The pain lanced through him like he was being stabbed all over again. Blood began to seep out over his fingers, down the back of his hand. He pushed harder, moved his fingers around, grabbed at the tender, healing flesh on the inside of the wound.

His face grimaced in pain, screwed his eyes tight shut, saw black stars bursting behind his eyelids, feared he would pass out from the pain.

He held on. Felt blood pour from the wound now, down his hand to his wrist. A voice inside told him it was enough, it would do. Another voice told him it was never enough, he could never atone for what he had done.

He removed his fingers, felt the pain slide out with them. Hastily stuck the dressing and bandages back in place,
opened the cubicle door. Started to limp out holding his side. He didn’t have to act, the pain was real.

He went outside. Major Tom was standing at the back of the van. Tall, imposing, he looked and sounded like the kind of British army officer always interviewed on the BBC. Even dressed in jeans, boots and bomber jacket he looked military. Mr Sharples had brought him in. He was one of the most disciplined, ordered and sadistic bastards Kev had ever met.

‘About fucking time.’ Major Tom turned to Kev, eyes widening as he saw him clutching his side, the blood spreading through his white T-shirt. ‘What the fucking hell happened to you?’

‘Knife wound … it’s … it’s opened again …’

Major Tom sighed. ‘Well, you’re no fucking use to me in that state.’ He slammed the back of the doors on the Transit van. ‘Stay here. Get that cleaned up.’

Major Tom walked round to the front of the van, got in the passenger side. The van drove out of the farm and away.

Kev slumped down to the ground, watched it go. He looked up at the sky, saw cloudless blue. Felt the sun on his face. Breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Felt pain flash all round his torso.

He smiled. Pain had never felt so good.

He had never been happier to be alive.

While Rick Oaten was wowing the faithful at a fund-raising dinner and talk at the Assembly Rooms, the candlelit procession to honour the life of Sooliman Patel was just starting out.

They moved slowly, their steps contemplative, their candles held in front of them, through the city. They had gathered at the mosque on the corner of Elswick Road and Grainger Park Road where the imam had read to them from
the Koran. Then, waiting until darkness had finally fallen, had lit their candles and made their way into the city.

Through Scotswood, down Westgate Road, into the centre of the city. Passing the Assembly Rooms, unaware that Rick Oaten was inside, along Mosley Street, coming to a halt before the cathedral. Singing softly as they went.

Sooliman’s parents led the way, neither of them holding a candle, instead holding each other. Mrs Patel breaking down as they passed the end of the street where he died. The news cameras making sure the moment didn’t go unrecorded.

Local religious and political leaders were, for once, content to let the spotlight be on someone else. Abdul-Haq kept his distance from the Patels, only walking alongside them after they asked him to.

They reached the cathedral. The Bishop was waiting outside, ready to begin the remembrance service. It had been decided to hold it outside, to make it as open as possible, to encourage people to join in not just to honour a dead boy but to demonstrate that the majority of people in the city wanted nothing to do with extremism, were in no way racist.

The make-up of the marchers reflected that: white, brown and black faces all walking together. Young and old. Atheists and agnostics alongside the devout. Together for a bigger purpose. The overriding feelings loss and remembrance, but out of those there was a chance for peace. For love. All the marchers felt it.

The Bishop gave a heartfelt, solicitous greeting to the Patels. ‘This is a real chance for peace,’ he said to them. ‘If any good can come of your terrible loss, then let us hope this is it.’

They waited in front of the cathedral, candles burning low, waiting. Across the closed-off street, the police had
erected barriers, were standing in front of them, ready for any trouble.

It wasn’t long in coming. A white Transit van reversed fast up the Side, back doors opening, bodies spilling out. The police saw what was happening, ran over to contain the situation.

And were met with tear gas.

Coughing and choking, they fell back and the occupants of the van were on them. Bats, fists, chains. Taking out anyone who was in front of them. They wore jeans and bomber jackets like a uniform, bandanas and balaclavas covering their heads and faces.

More tear gas thrown, this time into the procession.

People screamed, scattered. Ran into each other, over each other, tried to get away. The masked raiders wading through the crowd, hitting indiscriminately, causing pandemonium.

The police radioing for backup, reinforcements.

At a signal from their leader, the raiders ran back to the van, piled inside. The van revved up and roared down the Side on to the Quayside and away.

Carnage and chaos. Injury and anger. All that was left of the peaceful procession. The love long gone.

Ambulances were called, wounded and shocked attended to. Abdul-Haq had pulled the Patels inside the cathedral when the violence erupted. Mrs Patel was beyond crying now, looking like she was on the verge of nervous collapse.

The news cameras had captured it all.

No doubt as to who was responsible: the shouts of
Sieg Heil
as the raiders boarded their Transit giving the game away.

The peace shattered.

Perhaps irrevocably.

Newcastle, past three thirty a.m. The sirens, the flashing lights were gone. Areas were cordoned off as police searched through the night for any signs of the march’s attackers. Shock waves had rippled out from the event: the city was sleeping, but uncomfortably, all sodium light and shadowed darkness.

Pubs and clubs long since closed. Fast-food shops and vans shut, their grease mopped up, their meagre takings counted, their waste and wrappings left where they were dropped. Skeleton crews of taxis dotted about on city-wide ranks, drivers reading, standing together, radios throwing their voices into the transistorized void. Occasional night workers moved purposefully along the pavements, drunks and stragglers wandered home or away from home. Stone, steel and glass ticking, cooling, gathering a collective breath before the next day’s heat hit.

Paul Turnbull cruised the city streets, driving slowly, moving forward purposefully. One thing to do before he went to Hertfordshire. And no amount of civil disruption would get in the way of who he was going to visit.

Out of the city centre, up to the West End of Newcastle, patrolling, looking. No sign. One last place to check. Back to Newcastle, parking up round Gallowgate, walking down Stowell Street. The Chinese restaurants that lined both sides of the city’s mini Chinatown were closed, their neon and gold signs now flat and unenticing, the dragon banners hanging still, lifeless. The smell of fried food and oriental spices fading away on the air.

It didn’t take long for Turnbull to find her. She was down a back alley on her knees, working away at a punter. Turnbull didn’t look at the man, didn’t want to. He turned away, tried not to listen. He waited until she was finished and her client had left before approaching her.