State Sponsored Terror Page 5

  ‘Watch it, you!’ yelled Martin, finally letting go of the kid. ‘I am on your case, pal, and if I find you have told us any more lies....’

  ‘Yeah? You’ll what?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ said Martin, as he hurried into the sitting room and sat down and turned on the television to catch the evening news.

  ‘Let’s have some dinner,’ said Liz, ‘then afterwards why don’t we stay at the table and talk through what is going on here. What we know, and what we imagine? A sensible and rational discussion.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Adam, brushing a trickle of blood from his nostril.

  ‘Yeah, good idea,’ agreed Martin. ‘So long as it is the truth.’

  ‘Come here,’ she said, tugging the kid into the bathroom, ‘I am not having my evening meal looking at that,’ and she beckoned toward the glass and the image of Adam’s terrified and bloodied face. The ghostlike sight of it surprised even him. She gently washed the blood from his nose and chin, while smiling sympathetically. Adam shivered as she reached up and squeezed his shoulder. No one had ever done that before, except his mum.

  AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT, across the city at the railway station, Smeggan and Hewitt finally abandoned their vigil.

  ‘I wonder why she didn’t come,’ muttered Hewitt, as they returned to the car.

  ‘Perhaps she was tipped off; perhaps she is cleverer than we thought.’

  ‘Try again tomorrow?’ said the sergeant, in an effort to remain upbeat.

  ‘Don’t be so thick!’ snarled Smeggan. ‘It’s Saturday, she won’t come then. She won’t work Saturdays, clueless-head. We’ll try again on Monday.’

  ‘OK, Guv, whatever you say.’

  Eight

  The Cornelius family sat down to their evening meal at half past six. ‘Come on,’ chided Colin, ‘chop-chop! You know I have to go out,’ as he hustled the kids to the table.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked young Donald, ever eager to know everything his dad did.

  ‘I am meeting a chap; he has some information for me.’

  ‘Sounds exciting!’ said Donald, slapping the bottom of the ketchup bottle, splashing tomato sauce every which way.

  ‘Donald!’ scolded his mother. ‘Be careful with that.’

  ‘Where are you meeting this man?’ persisted the boy, licking his fingers and lips.

  ‘Hengistbury Head,’ said his father absentmindedly, as he proceeded to make a chip sandwich.

  ‘Can I come, dad? Oh go on.’

  ‘No you can’t, son. It’s boring business, you wouldn’t be interested, and anyway, it’s bucketing down.’

  ‘Funny place for a meeting ain’t it?’ said Joss, picking at her food as she always did.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it is, but I can’t change that now.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have a mobile?’ said Jemima.

  Colin gawped at his wife scornfully.

  ‘Course he does, but we can’t use that,’ he said, as if she were stupid.

  ‘Why not?’ said Donald, who though not stupid, did not yet fully understand the way the world worked. He could not know that all mobile phone calls were strictly monitored, who was making the call, who received it, and from where precisely the call was made, and especially calls involving people such as his father, and Martin Reamse, both of whom worked in the media.

  ‘Because we can’t, that’s why, now eat your flaming tea!’

  Colin finished his meal a little too quickly, and stood and burped and slapped his stomach and apologised. ‘Indigestion,’ he mumbled, before throwing on his coat, and newly fashionable wide-brimmed hat.

  ‘I shouldn’t be long, love,’ he said, pecking his wife’s cheek, ‘but don’t wait up if I am.’

  ‘Don’t run the curfew,’ she said, taking a stronger look at him.

  ‘I won’t,’ turning back to the kids. ‘You be good and helpful for your mother.’

  ‘Yes dad,’ said Donald, just as he had a thousand times before.

  ‘I won’t he here,’ said Joss, ‘I am going out.’

  ‘Oh yes? With whom?’ said her father.

  Eve, who had remained silent throughout the rushed meal beamed, ‘She has a boyfriend. Big ugly git he is. Thought you knew.’

  Joss turned on her younger sister.

  ‘Shut your mouth you, it’s none of your bloody business!’

  ‘Now, now, girls, less of that, and you....’ father said, fixing Joss with a glare, ‘You just behave yourself, and make sure you are back well before ten.’

  ‘I will dad, I will.’

  Eve smiled at her older sister and father in turn, knowingly, thought her mother, but Eve had always been something of a mystery. A nice girl, a lovely girl it was true, but just occasionally that expression that sat on her red-cheeked face, an expression that seemed to indicate to the world that she knew vital secrets that none of the others were privy to, irritated her mother. It might get her into trouble one day. It didn’t irritate Colin at all because he never once noticed it, but that piece of knowledge would not have surprised his wife.

  He let himself out and headed up to the junction where he turned left, and set off along the long straight stretch of Broadway. The rain had eased a little, though it still blew directly into his face. It was almost dark and the predicted storm was breaking over the coast. He hunched his shoulders, thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets, leant forward and forced himself into the freshening breeze. Colin Cornelius possessed a family hatchback car, a good car it was too, reliable and economic, but he couldn’t use it, not there, not then, and how he wished he could.

  He had already exhausted his monthly mileage allowance, and it simply wasn’t worth the hassle of being caught driving beyond one’s mileage allocation. If he did that, the car would be confiscated, and Jemima would hate him forevermore if they lost the car. The idea of dragging home the groceries from the supermarket via public transport was one too horrendous to contemplate. No risks would ever be taken with the car. He walked on through quiet streets straight down the flat road toward the coast, and as he walked he began singing to himself. It was an old song, from years back, he couldn’t even remember who it was by, but he liked it anyway.

  Something about a Wonderwall.

  He kept repeating the chorus because he didn’t know too many of the words. What the hell is or was a Wonderwall anyway? He doubted if he’d ever known.

  The detached houses and dormer bungalows gradually gave way to out-and-out bungalows, and then the golf course began, and beyond that were the huge car parks where day-trippers came in the summer months. There were no trippers that night, in the dark cold and wet wind of a late October. Before him, he could now see the Head, looming up in the gathering darkness.

  Hengistbury Head, named after some Scandinavian God, or was it a Saxon king, and then he remembered the truth of it, that Hengist was a Jute, poor fellow, fancy being a Jute. Whatever happened to the blessed Jutes anyway? You don’t hear much of Jutes these days, and he laughed aloud at his silly reasoning, and began walking ever faster.

  An old hatchback car zipped past him, coming away from the Head. He could see two young guys inside, laughing and swigging from a green bottle, and a moment later a police car came chasing after them, siren hollering, and blue lights pulsing. He didn’t once look at the police car. He didn’t want eye contact.

  A huge gust of wind laden with cold water splashed into his face, and he reprimanded himself for suggesting such a ludicrous time and place for a meeting. He cursed Martin Reamse, and threatened him with a tortuous death, if he chose not to show up.

  The path to the top was narrow and steep, first one way to the right, then back on itself as it wended its way up the side of the hill. Then almost by surprise he was on the top, standing on the relatively flat surface, a long and narrow plateau on top of a giant beast, alone in the gathering darkness, but for the wind and rain that lashed across its spine.

  Away from the shelter of the side of the hill, the wind wa
s storm force, as it ripped in from the open sea, and whipped past his ears. He’d long since taken his hat in hand, fearing it swept away. His dark hair was plastered to his scalp, and his eyes were watering. In the near distance he could hear the huge breakers crashing on the foreshore below. He staggered nervously toward the cliff edge and peered down. The moon was shining on the rough sea, and where the ocean met the beach, a ferment of swirling foam danced, as crazy white horses reared up and crashed down, time and again on the unprotected sand and shingle.

  The storm was still gathering, damage to buildings was widely forecast, and it was easy to see why. A filthy black cloud rushed across and blocked out the moon and darkness came crushing down. He took the small torch from his pocket and flicked the switch. The beam struggled to penetrate the rain as he pointed it toward the hut, perhaps fifty yards away. The structure had been there since before World War II. It had probably been used as some kind of observation post back in those dangerous days from so long ago, searching for German raiders.

  Dog walkers and hikers and bird watchers used it when caught by sudden storms that were prone to dash up the Channel, or courting couples desperate for privacy, or single men seeking company.

  He found the hut empty, though someone had recently been there, his nose told him that. The old building stank of tramp, of lonely unloved men, and sadness, and all the things that Colin prayed to God were never visited upon him. There were no windows and no door in the building; it was open to the world like a bus shelter, though inside, away from the wind, it did offer some protection. Along the far wall was one long wooden bench seat, and he sat down, his feet now in a puddle of what appeared, in the torchlight, to be dank stagnant water, though he suspected it had been left by the departing tramp. He cursed out loud, not that anyone could hear him, and turned off the torch to save power, and sat in the darkness, as his eyes slowly became accustomed to the night.

  A few minutes later he thought he heard a dog bark and though he stood and peered out, he saw nothing. As far as he knew, Martin did not possess a dog. He returned to the bench. Another harsher curse at himself for being so foolish, and most particularly at that bastard Martin Reamse, who hadn’t shown up. Colin glanced down at his size ten feet and when he next looked up, a dark figure was standing, framed in the doorway.

  ‘Martin?’ he said questioningly.

  ‘Expecting someone else?’ said Martin Reamse, surprisingly cheerfully, thought Colin.

  Martin entered the hut and sat beside him.

  ‘Stinks in here,’ he said. ‘Not you, is it?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Nice night for it.’

  ‘Awful night!’ said Colin. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘You know me better than that; Col. I am Mister reliable, I thought everyone knew that. I said I would come, and here I am.’

  It was true, Martin was reliable. Always had been. Yes, he did drink a little too much, and he was a little too full of himself, and he thought himself killingly attractive to women, which occasionally could be annoying, though in truth, Colin had seen him out and about with three or four stunning ladies over the years, including that whatshername, Lizzy Mariner, his current partner, who was undeniably a stunning looking piece of skirt.

  Colin thought he also became over enthusiastic on the rare occasions when he thought he had a good news story that no one else possessed. But for all that, Martin Reamse was a good friend, and a reliable man, and but for those qualities, he Colin Cornelius, would not have been sitting in that shithole, with his feet paddling in tramp’s piss on a depressing Saturday cold and wet night.

  ‘So?’ Martin said. ‘Who’s going to start?’

  ‘Before we begin, I think we should set some ground rules.’

  ‘OK by me,’ agreed Martin. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘No one should ever know of this meeting, as far as I am concerned it never took place. Agreed?’

  ‘Course,’ said Martin, ‘I rather thought that was understood.’

  ‘No one knows you are here?’

  ‘No one,’ said Martin. ‘You?’

  ‘No one,’ confirmed Colin.

  ‘We could be sent to Blackpool if anyone ever found out about this.’

  ‘Or worse,’ muttered Colin.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Martin.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘So, I repeat,’ said Martin. ‘Who is going to start?’

  ‘I will,’ said Colin.

  ‘OK. Let’s hear what you’ve got.’

  Nine

  ‘Joss is going on the EWP,’ said Colin. ‘Her mother and me, we are really worried about it.’

  ‘So you said. She should have taken another course, shouldn’t she? I thought you said she was keen on nursing.’

  ‘That’s what we keep telling her, but you know what teenage girls are like. Always know best. It’s too late now.’

  Martin didn’t know any teenage girls; he hadn’t done for ages, at least five years.

  ‘Any idea where she might be sent, and on what?’ moped Colin.

  ‘The Essential Work Programme,’ began Martin, as if he was parroting from the official documentation, ‘has been introduced to instil a sense of discipline and achievement into all our young people, with an emphasis on the all.’

  ‘We know that!’ snapped Colin, but Martin was not to be easily interrupted.

  ‘Only the protected professions, medicine, police, and armed forces, will be exempt. Those going to university will do so after their EW service has been completed.’

  ‘Martin!’ said Colin exasperatedly. ‘We know that!’

  ‘In reality,’ said Martin, getting to the nitty-gritty, ‘the whole bloody idea is to get the rowdy yobs off the streets, and the only way the government thought they could deal with the troublemakers was to take the whole bloody lot of them away in one vast sweep. Hurray, some say!’

  ‘But three damn years, that’s a hell of a long time. I know you don’t have any kids, Martin, but imagine if your teenage daughter was taken away for three whole years, and you had no idea where she was being taken, or even, what she was doing.’

  Martin reverted to official speak.

  ‘Those partaking in the EWP will assist in hospitals, schools, government industries, and departments throughout the United Kingdom, aiding the armed services and the police, as well as undertaking further educational classes, and keep fit programmes.’

  ‘So how do you translate all that baloney?’ asked Colin.

  Martin sniffed. ‘Easy. Wherever the government need cheap labour, indeed unpaid labour, the Ministry of Duff Decisions will assign the necessary manpower, sorry person power, simple as. Don’t forget, there are far more people employed by the government today than ever before. I wouldn’t like to pick up that wage tab. All these new employees have to be replaced somewhere else further down the line, and if it can be done for free, well, so much the better.’

  ‘So what is your best guess Joss will get?’

  In the darkness, Martin grinned. ‘I don’t have to guess. I know.’

  A brief silence.

  ‘You know?’ said Colin, disbelievingly.

  ‘Yep. Every.... little.... detail.’

  ‘How can you know? I don’t follow. Well, man? What and where and when?’

  ‘Don’t forget, Colin my old mucker, that we are conducting an information trade. I tell you all about this, and in return, you will tell me everything, and I mean every damn thing, you know about Tinbergen.’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ said Colin, jumping up and going to the doorway.

  It was raining harder still, sweeping in at 45 degrees, and he took comfort from that. Few people would venture out in such conditions, and for so long as it rained, they would not be disturbed.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Colin, re-taking his seat. ‘You’ll get your fair share of chinwag.’

  Martin stifled a cough. ‘OK, Col, I trust you.’


  ‘Well?’

  ‘She is going to Norfolk.’

  ‘Norfolk?’

  ‘Yep, a place called Wells-next-the-Sea.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘She will be employed on re-building coastal defences after those terrible floods last year. There are thousands of kids scheduled to take part in the works. It’s a big deal; the situation there was and is much more serious than the public know. It’s getting pretty desperate. Global warming, rising sea levels, crumbling coastline, all that malarkey.’

  ‘Oh jeez!’

  ‘There is no other way of putting it, Col, but this work is dirty, arduous.... and dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous? How so?’

  ‘Three students were killed on that programme last month. Two were drowned when the tide came in quicker than they thought, and another one went down in quicksand. Never been seen since.’

  Joss’s words oozed back into Colin’s head.

  Helen Wilmot went away a year ago and she hasn’t been seen or heard of since.

  God forbid.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ groaned Colin. ‘Hang on a minute; I didn’t get to hear about any of this.’

  Martin guffawed.

  ‘Course you didn’t, you prat! You are not surprised, are you?’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of it much.’

  ‘You’re right to be wary. But there’s more.’

  ‘What do you mean; more?’

  ‘They work ten hours a day, six days a week. The idea is to leech away every gram of youthful energy. When they get back to their huts at night they are given a Spartan meal that is barely enough to keep them going. It is all they can do, to eat and shower before they crash out. Without exception, all the students lose weight, in some cases there are substantial losses. There are no obese students on the EW programme, believe me, leastways not six months into the course, there are not. They don’t need the obesity tax to keep these bunnies trim. All the returning students are lean and mean, take it from me. Some of them are more than mean, so I hear, quite a few suffer mental health problems.’