Marcher: The Author's Preferred Text Part 14

'Mr Burkitt, please don't think me one of those dreadful know-alls, but it so happens I've just completed a thesis on this for my PhD and I do know what I'm talking about.'

She fixed him with a gaze of disturbing sincerity.

'Do you know that for more than a century, except during times of war, there has always been a few percent of the population outside the world of work, and that economic science tells us that this is actually necessary in order to control inflation and maintain economic growth? What you are doing here is to look after those few percent of the population in as humane and decent way as possible, keeping them separate from the rest of society to maintain the work ethic outside, yet at the same time helping these temporarily excluded individuals back into the wider society as soon as they are ready to make the move. I can see that it must be hard at times because you are all such wonderful caring people. But this really really is the best for everyone...'

She wagged a finger at him playfully.

'...and I have read all the books.'

'Well...' began Cyril with a resigned shrug.

But Mrs Vere-Rogers hadn't finished yet.

'Of course all this shifter nonsense is a worry for you all, I know.' She looked deep into his eyes with an alarmingly compa.s.sionate expression on her face. 'We're going to have to have a good look at that, we really are, a jolly good look. But that's an entirely different matter isn't it? You really mustn't let it take away from what you're achieving.'

Cyril climbed into his car and drove through the gate of the compound and back onto Meadow Way. He was heading for a meeting in another Zone called Knowle South and he turned into Holly Rise, his usual short-cut to the Thurston Road. As he did so he noticed, without paying it much attention, that an old Ford which had just followed him out of Central Square had turned the corner after him.

Were the shifters a completely separate matter, he wondered, as he headed down Holly Rise?

The Ford pulled out, accelerated in a cloud of dirty exhaust smoke, and swerved across in front of him. Forced to swerve himself, Cyril crashed into a street lamp, crushing his engine and flinging him violently forward into the white airbag that bloomed from his steering wheel.

Three young men had jumped out of the Ford with sledgehammers in their hands.

Ah, thought Cyril, strangely calm. So this is it. This is what it's going to be like.

One hammer smashed through his windscreen, another through his side window. Then his door was pulled open and he was dragged out head first onto the road.

'Deskie b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' one of them hissed at him, 'You're dead meat!'

Time stretched out. It seemed possible to contemplate every angle and weigh up every possible move. Cyril rolled to one side just in time to avoid a hammer blow, which struck sparks and chips of concrete out of the kerb. He rolled the other way to avoid a second. Then, realising that he would soon be pulverised if he stayed on the ground, he pulled himself to his feet and flung himself on his nearest a.s.sailant, throwing his arms around the man as if in pa.s.sionate embrace and whirling him round in a crazy waltz, so the others wouldn't be able to strike at him without risking hitting their friend.

There was a cheer. All around the unfolding drama, the dreggies were coming out of their houses to watch, old and young, men and women, some of them rooting for Cyril, some for the men who wanted to kill him.

Thrub thrub - thrub came faintly from over the roof-tops.

'I'll rip your f.u.c.king head off, deskie,' muttered the man in Cyril's embrace, dropping his hammer and seizing Cyril round the throat with both hands.

The air was acrid with burning oil from the crushed engine of Cyril's car.

'Go on, Jod! Strangle the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Small plastic cylinders began to clatter to the ground, seeping a smooth white vapour, and a loudhailer crackled into life somewhere in the sky, giving out stern but totally incomprehensible instructions.

'Arznad arnefy pootha!' it sounded like, 'arznad arnefy poonathol!'

The helicopter was directly overhead and descending rapidly.

'Come on, Jod,' shouted one of the men. 'We'd better run for it.'

The man in Cyril's arms pulled away and Cyril sank to the ground as gas from the canisters came scalding into his eyes. The onlookers fled back into their houses, shrieking excitedly.

Time pa.s.sed. Something dripped peacefully from the engine of Cyril's car. The wind from the helicopter's rotor blew gas and smoke around his face, like a toxic breeze on the surface of an alien planet.

'You need to move away from the car, sir,' said the gentle voice of a police officer. 'As quickly as possible please, sir. Because of the petrol.'

Kindly hands helped Cyril up. A woman from one of the houses offered him a box of tissues to wipe his eyes. An old man brought a gla.s.s of water. A policeman produced a fire extinguisher and doused Cyril's smouldering engine.

'I'm fine!' Cyril called out excitedly, feeling himself at the centre of a universe of love. 'I'm absolutely fine!'

It seemed to him that he'd never felt so fine in his entire life.

'How is my car? I've a meeting at Knowle South which I need to get to.'

'We'll phone and cancel for you,' said a sergeant. 'One of my officers will run you down to the hospital.'

'Hospital? No need! No need at all. I'm fine! Never felt better.'

'You've had a very close shave there, sir. Very close. It's lucky our chopper spotted that car following you, otherwise this could have turned out much worse for you.'

'Honestly, nothing more than a couple of bruises. If you can just phone the office in Knowle South to say I'll be a bit late...'

'You're suffering from shock sir. It'll hit you in a bit. PC Leonard will run you down to the hospital for a check-up and then take you home. Is there anyone you'd like us to phone. Your wife perhaps?'

'My wife is dead,' said Cyril. 'She's dead. She died. She sadly died...'

He had a momentary glimpse of a chasm, an immense gaping emptiness. But then the waves of love came back again, lifting him up and carrying him away.

It was like being in heaven.

'Ugly business, sir,' said young PC Leonard as he drove Cyril away from the scene.

He was a prim, intense young man of twenty-two who had joined the force in order to combat evil.

'Someone phoned me this morning and threatened me,' Cyril said. 'I've been trying all day to think who it was.'

'We'll need to get the details off you, sir, as soon as you're ready.'

'Yes of course, but the trouble is that there are so many people round here who hate me.'

'I don't see why, sir, when all you're doing is trying to help.'

'I'm not sure that's how they see it.'

'Yes well, that's outsiders stirring them up, isn't it? It's foreigners, and university people... And of course there's these shifters we've been hearing so much about. If only we could be left alone to get on with the job here, we could do wonders, don't you think, sir?'

They had come to the Line. The gate opened for them and, secure in his little bullet-proof booth, the Line officer waved them through.

'I was at the zoo yesterday,' Cyril said affably as they moved off. 'I took my grandsons and my daughter to the zoo.'

'The zoo!' exclaimed PC Leonard. 'My wife and I love the zoo. We're Friends of the zoo, in fact. We've got a season ticket and we've got a...'

Cyril had not taken in a word of this.

'They're funny places, zoos, aren't they?' he said, not even noticing that he was interrupting. 'Once upon a time they were just for entertainment. Chimps' tea-parties, camel rides, all that. Then someone decided it was wrong to keep animals just to laugh at them, and zoos were suddenly all about conservation and science and saving the planet. And now of course they're supposed to be about something else again: resurrecting dead species, increasing bio-diversity, all of that. Doesn't make much difference from the animal's point of view, though, does it? It all boils down to the same thing in the end. Them locked up in cages: us lot looking in...'

Cyril laughed loudly at this but PC Leonard was rather stung. He and his wife had adopted a small Pliocene opossum called Gringo that lived nowhere else on Earth but Bristol Zoo, and they were very proud of their name on the sign outside the possum's cage and of the framed certificate on the wall of their lounge.

'Oh I don't know, sir. I think it's very valuable work. And of course it's wonderful for the country. Britain is on the cutting edge of...'

'Those poor mammoths,' said Cyril. 'They're like chained t.i.tans, aren't they? Once they ruled the world and now...'

His voice broke. PC Leonard glanced uneasily across at him.

The old deskie was shaking with sobs.

Chapter 10.

That afternoon and all the next day the switchboard at the DSI police station in Thurston Meadows was jammed by dozens of agitated callers waiting to be put through. It seemed that everyone who had a grudge or an obsession or a paranoid delusion suddenly needed urgently to be heard. Some wanted their own personal hunches to be prioritised over all others and acted upon at once, threatening the police with 'the media' if they failed to act. Others wanted to issue lurid new death threats of their own against the deskies in general, against Burkitt personally or against sundry other named DSI employees. Another group again wanted to name names, accusing neighbours, ex-boyfriends, the boyfriends of ex-girlfriends of being responsible for the crime. And then there were those who had more elaborate charges to lay, and could prove beyond all doubt that Burkitt's attackers, or the DSI, or Burkitt himself were in league with the Americans, Satan, foreigners or aliens from outer s.p.a.ce.

And they didn't just use the phone. In the waiting area by the duty desk still more accusers gathered, hissing and crackling and smouldering away like lit fireworks. They muttered and clutched dog-eared notebooks. They leapt up and sat down again. They craned their necks to see what was going on behind the toughened gla.s.s and peered with jealous and suspicious eyes at each new arrival coming in. News had happened. News had arrived in Thurston Meadows and they were all desperate to be a part of it.

Then Slug came in. His eyes red, his skin glistening with sweat, he burst into the office and straight away began thumping and banging on the gla.s.s.

'Take a ticket please sir,' said the duty officer, putting her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. 'You'll be called when your number comes up. We're very busy as you can see, so I'm afraid there'll be a bit of a wait.'

'I'm no' waiting for n.o.body, alright? I need tae talk to the Immigration people and I need tae talk to them now.'

'There's other people before you, sir. If you just take a ticket, we'll be along...'

But the desk sergeant looked over and saw straight away that this wasn't going to work.

'Can I just take your ID, sir?' he asked, coming across to the window.

'Never mind that. I need tae see the immigration people now.'

The sergeant tried the extension number for the office where Charles and his colleagues were temporarily based.

'I'm very sorry, sir,' he said, 'but none of the Immigration people is available at the moment. Can you give me your name?'

'Never mind my f.u.c.king name, pal. They're going tae want to hear what I've got tae say to them. They're going tae want to hear it very badly. Do you understand me? I want you tae call one ay them and tell him tae come back now.'

Eventually he was persuaded that he needed to talk to a policeman first so that they would know what to tell the Immigration people. An officer came out it was PC Leonard, the proud adoptive parent of that Pliocene opossum in Bristol Zoo and took him to an interview room.

'Have a seat, sir,' said PC Leonard.

But Slug was too agitated to sit down. Pacing about in the tiny room, he took out a cigarette and lit it with yellow, shaking fingers.

'Okay pal,' he said, when he'd finally managed to get the thing to light. 'Now you listen tae me. You write this down. I know who's behind the attack on that deskie yesterday. It's shifters. They're trying tae get young men tae join up wi' them and they're setting them tae kill people as a test. That Burkitt was lucky. Those boys meant tae kill him. But there's lots more deskies on the list I can tell you.'

He sucked in smoke so hungrily that the filter came apart in his mouth and he had to break it off.

'Sorry sir, I'm not quite clear. Are you saying that...?'

'Are you going to f.u.c.king shut up and listen, sunshine, or am I going tae lose my rag? Write this down, okay? I can tell them who's putting these boys up tae this. I can give them names. I can tell them where they're hiding. But I need slip first. Nae slip, nae information. Simple as that. Write it down. I'll come in this time tomorrow all right? the same time tomorrow. Write it down. And if you don't have one ay they Immigration people there with a bag ay slip all ready twenty seeds minimum, mind, I know they've got plenty then forget it, I willnae even open my mouth. Do you get my drift, sunshine? Have you written all that down? Loads ay people are going tae die unless someone listens to me, and I won't talk without seeds. Write it down. That's my message. That's all I've got tae...'

Slug's phone bleeped. He took it out of his pocket with trembling fingers.

's.h.i.t,' he muttered as he saw the name on the screen. 'I'm out ay here.'

'Wait a minute, sir!' said PC Leonard. 'Could I just...'

But Slug was gone, out of the interview room, out of the building. Footage from the CCTV cameras outside the DSI compound was subsequently to show him beginning to run in one direction, then changing his mind and running in the other.

Later on, when the Royal Commission looked into the whole Clifton tragedy, much would be made of PC Leonard's failure to realise the importance of what Slug had said to him, and his failure to recognise that Slug was not only a shifter himself but the specific shifter wanted for questioning in connection with the Tammy Pendant disappearance. But PC Leonard would always stick stubbornly to the same defence.

'I just thought he was a nutter,' he would maintain, exactly as he did when Charles questioned him about it that same day. 'The place was full of nutters that morning. I just thought he was off his head.'

Late that afternoon Carl got a call on his mobile as he was heading down to the Old England.

'All right, Carl? How's it going? Got a little job on for you, my old mate. Tell me where you are and I'll swing by for you.'

There was no pressure, no hint of menace, and yet somehow also no choice.

Gunnar picked Carl up in the white van that Laf had used before. He was dressed in overalls like a plumber.

'So what's this job then?' Carl asked.

'A nasty little job, I'm afraid mate,' Gunnar said. 'A nasty job. One of those little things you'd rather you didn't have to do but you know you've got to, if you know what I mean.'

He drove out of the Zone, out of the city and six or seven miles down the A37 into Somerset before he eventually turned down a small side road, and then up a track into some dank and overgrown woods, where he pulled up behind another car which had arrived earlier. The sky was dark by now and it was lightly but steadily raining.