White Riot (9 page)

No one spoke, no one moved. They could hear laughter trailing down the hall, running feet. Oaten was still red in the face, his body shaking.

The door opened. In stepped a man; thin, suited, in his fifties, his hair close cropped, rimless glasses.

‘Bastards, fucking bastards …’ Oaten’s fists clenched and
unclenched. He noticed the new arrival in the room, stopped. ‘Mr Sharples …’

‘I told you to wait for me,’ said Mr Sharples, his South African accent making all his words guttural and harsh. ‘Why didn’t you fucking listen?’

Oaten stared at him, too angry to speak.

‘I’m sure they made you look a fool. And I’m sure you did your best to help them.’

‘Don’t … lecture me …’

A hard, cruel light ignited behind Mr Sharples’s eyes. His voice was calm, all the more menacing for it. ‘Let’s get this straight. I’m not here to give you good ideas or make valid points. I’m here for you to fucking listen to me. Got that?’ His accent turning the words into verbal machine-gun bullets.

Oaten stood there, shaking. ‘This is my party—’

‘And you’ll run it the way I tell you. Got that?’

‘Don’t fuckin’—’

‘Got that?’

Looking into Mr Sharples’s eyes was like staring into Rick Oaten’s worst nightmare. His head dropped. He nodded.

‘Good.’ Mr Sharples crossed to the door. ‘Right. We do this professionally. A full press call on the steps of the hospital. TV, print media, the works. No chance for argument or answering back. And if you want to be the fucking party leader you start behaving like it. Or I’ll find someone who can.’ He looked at his watch. ‘If I leave now I might catch them. Stop them printing.’ The overhead lights glinted on the frameless glass before his eyes. Made his eyes hard, inscrutable. ‘Try not to fuck too much up when I’m gone.’

He closed the door silently behind him.

Oaten’s fury hadn’t diminished. It still needed an outlet. He turned to Kev.

‘You, you fucker. I want you out of that bed. Now.’

‘But Rick, I’ve been stabbed. Jason Mason—’

‘Don’t fuckin’ “but Rick” me!’ Oaten was screaming in Kev’s face now. Diane shrank away in fear. ‘You get up out of that fuckin’ pit. I want you on the street. I want you to find that kid, that little cunt, before he can do any damage.’

‘I’ve got the boys lookin’ for him …’

‘The boys?’ Oaten leaned across, put his fingers inside Kev’s mouth, grabbed his tongue, pulled on it, hard. Twisted. ‘Don’t fuckin’ talk … don’t … say … fuckin’
anythin
’ …’ Incoherent with rage, struggling to regain control.

‘The boys,’ he said eventually, gasping. ‘The boys. You’re gonna join them. You’re gonna find him an’ bring him to me. That clear? You got that?’

Kev, spittle oozing from the sides of his mouth, mutely nodded.

‘Good.’

Oaten dropped Kev’s tongue, stood back, breathed out heavily. Kev massaged his aching mouth. Diane stared in horror.

Oaten tried to regain what passed for equilibrium. When he could trust his own limbs he walked to the door.

‘Fuckers,’ he said. ‘Fuckers.’

The door vibrated in the frame when he slammed it behind him.

Abdul-Haq stood on the hastily erected platform and looked out before him. He saw faces: concerned, frightened, angry. Mostly brown faces, a smattering of white ones, a few very dark ones. He saw people worried about their futures, their ways of life. He saw TV cameras, print journalists.

He saw a crowd, ready to be worked.

When they saw him take the stand they stopped talking. He waited patiently, giving their conversations a chance to
subside, replacing the noise with an expectant silence. Ready to swap fear for reassurance.

He glanced behind at the seated couple, well but conservatively dressed, the woman leaning into the man for support, the man with his arm around her, comforting her. She crying; him trying not to. He gave them a reassuring smile.

Behind the platform, almost out of sight from the main crowd, were Waqas and Omar. His personal bodyguards. Well muscled, wearing black T-shirts and black jeans, their earpieces barely visible. Waqas’s T-shirt was long-sleeved, the shiny patches of pink skin, the burn marks covered up on Abdul-Haq’s order. People were scared by them, intimidated, offended. Waqas agreed. That was why he put them on display, along with his scarred face. Omar, with only a scar running down his left cheek, had got off lightly by comparison.

Abdul-Haq stepped up to the microphone. ‘Peace be upon you.’ His amplified voice, rich and rounded, echoed round the crowd. They responded, ready to listen.

He looked around again, saw a drab, run-down, redbrick street in the Arthur’s Seat area of Newcastle. A poor area, predominantly immigrant, whether Asian, African, Eastern European or university student. Those already there too poor to leave. The kind of disadvantaged area where poverty outstrips opportunity, where fear turns to hatred faster than work turns to wealth. A place ripe for investment and redevelopment.

He opened his arms for emphasis. ‘I’m standing right on the spot where Sooliman Patel was murdered. By racists.’ The word emphasized with a strong hand gesture. ‘And with me—’ he gestured to the seated couple behind him ‘—are his parents. It has cost them a lot to come here today. More than I hope any of us, with the grace of Allah, will ever have
to experience. But they wanted to do so to share this moment with you. To make sure it never happens again.’

Mrs Patel’s shoulders heaved as another bout of tears overtook her. Mr Patel’s arm tightened around her shoulder.

‘Sooliman Patel was playing with his friends just over there.’ He gestured in the vague direction of the Town Moor. ‘Playing cricket. When he was snatched from us by Fascist bullyboys. By racist thugs. And murdered.’ He leaned forward on the final word, pitched it up, heard it ring out over the crowd. He shook his head. ‘Was he a criminal? Had he done something to anger these boys? No. Then why? What was his crime?’ He scanned the crowd again, waiting, knowing no one would give the answer, knowing they were waiting for him to supply it. ‘Being Asian. Being a Muslim.’ Again his head forward, his voice raised, the words unmistakably emphatic.

He went on. Gave a brief precis of Sooliman Patel’s life. A loving son and brother. A fine student. A good boy. Mrs Patel wept all the more; Mr Patel held her all the harder.

Abdul-Haq looked round, caught the eyes of the crowd. Felt that familiar tingle inside, knew he had them. They were listening to his words, ready to obey his commands, ready to believe whatever he told them, even if it contradicted the evidence of their own eyes. He never tired of having that power.

He pointed to the ground, ramping up his oration. ‘This is where he died. This very point. His body was found here.’ He flung his arms out. ‘Look around you. What do you see? Who lives here? We do. The West End of Newcastle was not a prosperous area before Muslims moved in. Before even Sikhs, before Hindus came. Before we set up shops for our own people, providing food, clothing, jewellery. If this area is prosperous now it is because of what we did. How we changed it.’ Another hard, unblinking look out at the crowd.
‘And there are those who want to stop that. Who
hate
—’ again his head forward, again the word unmistakably emphasized. ‘—
hate
what we have done here. And want to stop us. And we are not going to let them.’

He stood back, waited for the applause. It wasn’t long in coming.

Sooliman Patel hadn’t lived in those run-down streets. Abdul-Haq didn’t live there. There were a few quite prosperous businesses, but not in a great way. But no one pulled him up on it. Everyone wanted to believe in what he said.

Everyone wanted, he thought, to find a target to hate.

He started speaking again. Knowing what he was going to say, knowing what they wanted to hear. Luxuriating in the power that he could control a crowd with just his voice. His mind skipped to old newsreel footage of Hitler, of the Führer driving what seemed like thousands of people into frenzies of ecstasy with just his voice. Understood how seductive that was. People wanted to believe in something. Wanted to still the rational voice in their heads, be part of something that they have convinced themselves is right.

Our streets aren’t safe.

Our way of life is under attack.

If we have to defend ourselves it is our right.

More applause.

Abdul-Haq became aware of some kind of disturbance at the back of the crowd. Most hadn’t noticed, their attention so focused on him. He had only noticed because of a sixth sense honed through years of street oratory. He glanced briefly in the direction the noise was coming from, sized up the situation immediately. A couple of skinheads, drunk, chanting racist slogans. The applause was drowning them out but people were starting to look, draw the attention away from him. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

A surreptitious hand gesture and Waqas and Omar
detached themselves from the back of the platform and swiftly skirted round the outside of the crowd. The skinheads were dragged away from the crowd, before even the TV cameras could follow. Abdul-Haq knew what would happen to them next. He didn’t expend too much thought on their fate. They had brought it on themselves. Instead he turned to the crowd again. Smiled.

Announced a candlelight vigil at the mosque on Grainger Park Road. All would be welcome. Spoke words of healing, of conciliation. Laced them with threats of unequivocal action. Held hands with Mr and Mrs Patel, asked the crowd to pray with him.

Hoped the sound of the intruders being dealt with wouldn’t ruin the ambience.

It didn’t.

Eyes closed, Abdul-Haq listened to the silence, smiled.

The people were his.

Peta had always had a soft spot for Newcastle’s Civic Centre. Standing on the corners of Barras Bridge and St Mary’s Place in the Haymarket end of the city, it had been built in the Sixties during the T. Dan Smith era and, unlike most of the brutalist concrete monoliths of the period, was something quite beautiful.

It looked like a huge, secular cathedral. White and circular, it was designed round a courtyard with an imposing twelve-storey main block rising out of it. Capping the block was a copper lantern and beacon with three castles from the coat of arms. And the bit Peta loved best: sea horses. All round the top. So completely unexpected they made anyone looking up smile.

She walked into the reception area, up to the desk. Her sunglasses hooked over the front of her T-shirt. Now back in her regulation work uniform of trainers, T-shirt and, in a concession to the heat, black linen combats instead of jeans, she felt more herself. In control.

Peta had gone straight from her mother’s to the gym. Swimming, thirty minutes with weights and the treadmill, her regular tae kwon do session; her usual method of sorting her head out, even more dependent on it recently. Then a phone call to Amar to find he was still away. She was getting fed up with leaving messages for him. Then work, researching and reading.

Her university psychology course was on hold, lack of money since Albion’s demise. She was glad of the distraction,
stopped her thinking of floodlit cellars and body parts, of dead women and knife-waving killers.

So, coffee and notepad beside her, she had sat at the kitchen table and opened Trevor Whitman’s book. With some trepidation, looking for mention of her mother and father. Relieved to find none, she got down to work.

Prioritizing, she decided to leave off playing
Where Are They Now?
with the Hollow Men until later and concentrate on finding anyone who had a grudge against Whitman.

That was the plan. However, she had become sidetracked. Whitman’s story, his life, had drawn her in. With strong, clear and compelling writing, he told of a working-class kid from Byker in Newcastle who was the first in his family to go to university.

He wrote of the sacrifice and the hardship. His father had worked in a factory manufacturing asbestos, a job that eventually killed him. His mother had pursued the company for compensation, like so many others in the country had successfully done, on the grounds of wilful negligence, and got nowhere. Shark-like lawyers had circled, eating up the funds, disappearing and leaving only bills in their wake when the claim failed. Whitman believed this had contributed to his mother’s early death.

Angry and disillusioned, yet impassioned for social justice, he had been given a scholarship to attend Newcastle University. He chose politics and law. She imagined the young Whitman, hurt, alone and angry, surrounded by people from more affluent backgrounds, the offspring of those responsible for his parents’ death even, there by dint of hard work, not favour, nursing and nurturing a huge chip on his shoulder. It took no imagination at all to see how he became caught up in radical politics.

She had put the book down, tried to concentrate on the work at hand. Picked it up again. Found what she was
looking for, followed it up with an early-morning visit to the city library to scour old newspapers.

George Baty.

The policeman in the pub firebombing. He had been twenty-three when he died in 1972. Married with a baby son, six months old. A wedding photo accompanied the article, a young couple smiling out from the ancient blur of old newsprint. A radical group called the Hollow Men were blamed for the atrocity. Attention was focused on Trevor Whitman. There was a photo of him too. Long-haired, bearded, fist raised; obviously taken at a demonstration where he was angrily denouncing something. The difference in photos was effective but hardly subtle.

She read on. Despite the efforts of police, they were unable to secure a conviction. There was veiled talk of them being too heavy-handed in their attempt to bring him to justice, too keen to get a confession. Considering how brutal Seventies policing was, she thought, that must have been something.

The case dragged on, then eventually disappeared. Other things took its place. The Birmingham pub bombings. The three-day week. The first miners’ strike. There was a piece about six months afterwards, an interview with Trevor Whitman in which he put his side of the story. Talked up his innocence, mentioned the threatening phone calls. Alluded to George Baty’s brother, Colin. It was clear from his words how unsettling they had been. The police had been reluctant to investigate thoroughly.