The old man’s eyes misted over. “Aye, well … nobody deserves to die like that. He must have suffered like hell.” He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Banks. “This is why I asked you to come.”
Banks nodded. He took the sheet, opened it and spread it on the table in front of him. It looked professionally printed, but most things did these days, with all the laser printers and desktop publishing packages around. Banks could remember the time—not so long ago—when all the copying in a police station was done from “spirit masters” on one of those old machines that made your fingers all purple. Even now, as he remembered it, he fancied he could smell the acrid spirit again.
The masthead, in very large, bold capitals, read THE ALBION LEAGUE and underneath that, it said in italics,
“Fighting the good fight for you and your country.”
Banks drew on his Silk Cut and started to read.
Friends, have you ever looked around you at the state of our once-great nation today and wondered just how such terrible degradation could have come about? Can you believe this nation was once called
Great
Britain? And what are we now? Our weak politicians have allowed this once-great land to be overrun by parasites. You see them everywhere—
in the schools, in the factories and even in the government, sapping our strength, undermining the fabric of our society. How could this be allowed to happen? Many years ago, Enoch Powell foresaw the signs, saw the rivers of blood in our future. But did anyone listen? No …
And so it went on, column-inch after column-inch of racist drivel. It ended,
And so we ask you, the true English people, heirs to King Arthur and St George, to join us in our struggle, to help us rid this great land of the parasite immigrant who crawls and breeds his filth in the bellies of our cities, of the vile and traitorous Jew who uses our economy for his own purposes, of the homosexual deviants who seek to corrupt our children, and of the deformed and the insane who have no place in the new order of the Strong and the Righteous. To purify our race and reestablish the new Albion in the land that is rightfully ours and make it truly our “homeland” once again.
Banks put it down. Even a long draught of Theakston’s couldn’t get the vile taste out of his mouth. Reluctantly, he turned back to the pamphlet, but he could find no sign of an address, no mention of a meeting-place. Obviously, whoever wanted to join the Albion League would first have to find it. At the bottom of the pamphlet, however, in tiny print in the far right-hand corner, he could make out the letters
http://www.alblgue.com/index.html
. A Web-site address. Everyone had them these days. Next, he examined the envelope and saw that it had been posted in Bradford last Thursday.
Their food arrived and they continued to speak between mouthfuls.
“What makes you think Jason sent you this?” Banks asked.
Frank Hepplethwaite turned away to face the dark wood partition between their table and the door. One of the Americans complained loudly that too many of the trivia questions dealt with English sports. “I mean, how the hell am I supposed to know which player transferred from Tottenham Hotspurs to Sheffield
Wednesday in 1976? What game do they play, anyway? And what kinda name is that for a sports team? Sheffield
Wednesday
.” He shook his head. “These Brits.”
Frank turned back to Banks and said, “Because it arrived only a couple of days after I let something slip. For which may God forgive me.”
“What did you let slip?”
“First you have to understand,” Frank went on, “that when Jason was just a wee lad, we were very close. They used to come up here for summer holidays sometimes, him, Maureen and my daughter, Josie. Jason and I would go for long walks, looking for wild flowers on the riverbanks, listening for curlews over Fremlington Edge. Sometimes we’d go fishing up the reservoir, or visit one of the nearby farmers and help out around the yard for an afternoon, collecting eggs or feeding the pigs. We always used to go and watch the sheep-shearing. He used to love his times up here, did little Jason.”
“You mentioned his mother and his sister. What about his father?”
Frank took a mouthful of casserole, chewed, swallowed and scowled. “That long streak of piss? To be honest, lad, I never had much time for him, and he never had much time for Jason. Do you know he never listens to those records he collects. Never listens to them! Still wrapped in plastic. I bloody ask you, what are you supposed to think of a bloke who buys records and doesn’t even listen to them?”
Not much, Banks thought, chewing on a particularly stringy piece of chicken. Frank was obviously going to tell his story in his own time, his own way. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “What happened?”
Frank paused for breath before continuing. “Time, mostly. That’s all. I got old. Too old to walk very far. And Jason got interested in other things, stopped visiting.”
“Did he still come and see you occasionally?”
“Oh aye. Now and then. But it were only in passing, like, more of a duty.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“He drove out here the weekend before last. It’d be just a week before he died.”
“Did he ever talk about his life in Leeds? His job? Friends?”
“Not really, no. Once said he was learning about computers or summat. Of course, I know nowt about that, so we soon changed the subject.”
“Did he say
where
he was learning about computers?”
“No.”
“His parents told me he worked in an office.”
Frank shrugged. “Could be. All I remember is him once saying he was learning about computers.”
“And in all his visits,” Banks went on, “didn’t he ever talk about this sort of thing?” He tapped the pamphlet with his knuckle.
Frank closed his eyes and shook his head. “Never. That was why it came as such a shock.”
“Why do you think he never spoke to you about it?”
“I can’t answer that one. Perhaps he thought I’d be against it, until I said what I did and gave him his opening? Perhaps he thought I was an old man and not worth converting? I
am
his granddad, after all, and we had a relationship of a kind. We didn’t say much to each other when we did meet up these past few years. I’d no idea what he was up to. Mostly he’d just have time to drop by and buy me a drink and ask if I was doing all right before he was off to his football or whatever.”
Banks finished his pie. “What makes you think you gave Jason an opening to send you this pamphlet?” he asked. “What was it you said?”
“Aye, well … We were sitting in here one day, just like you and me are now.” Frank lowered his voice. “The landlord here’s called Jacob Bernstein. Not that fellow there. Jacob’s not in right now. Anyway, I made a remark about Jacob being a bit of a tight-fisted old Jew.”
“What did Jason say?”
“Nowt. Not right away. He just had this funny sort of smile on his face. Partly a smile, partly a sort of sneer. As soon as I said it, I felt I’d done wrong, but these things slip out, don’t they, like saying Jews and Scotsmen have short arms and deep pockets. You don’t
think about it being offensive, do you? You don’t really mean any harm by it. Anyways, after a minute or so, Jason says he thinks he might have something to interest me, and a few days later, this piece of filth turns up in the post. Who else could have sent it?”
“Who else, indeed?” said Banks, remembering what David Wayne had told him that morning in Leeds. “Did you ever meet any of Jason’s circle?”
“No.”
“So there’s no way you can help us try and find out who killed him?”
“I thought you already had the lads who did it?”
Banks shook his head. “We don’t know if it was them. Not for sure. At the moment, I’d say we’re keeping our options open.”
“Sorry, lad,” said Frank. “It doesn’t look like I can help, then, does it?” He paused and looked down into his glass. “It were a real shock,” he said, “when I read that thing and knew our Jason were responsible. I fought in the war, you know. I never made a fuss about it, and I don’t want to now. It were my duty, and I did it. I’d do it again.”
“What service?”
“RAF. Tail-gunner.”
Banks whistled between his teeth. His father had been a radio operator in the RAF, so he had heard what a dangerous task tail-gunner was, and how many had died doing it.
“Aye,” said Frank. “Anyroad, like I said, I don’t want to make a fuss about it. I said something terribly wrong about someone I consider a friend, and it shames me, but it shames me even more when my grandson thinks I’d have the time of day for this sort of rubbish. I fought the bloody Nazis, for crying out loud. And for what? So my own grandson could become one of them?”
There were tears in his eyes and Banks feared for his heart. “Calm down, Mr Hepplethwaite,” he said, putting his hand on Frank’s skinny wrist.
Frank looked at him through the film of tears, then gave a small nod and took a sip of Bell’s. He coughed, patted his chest and forced a smile. “Don’t worry, lad,” he said. “It’s not quite ‘time, gentlemen, please’ for this old codger yet.”
VI
An emergency meeting of the Albion League had been called for that Monday evening. Not everyone was invited, of course, just the cell-leaders and one or two of Neville Motcombe’s current favourites, like Craig. About fifteen in all, they came from Leeds and Bradford, from Halifax, Keighley, Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike, Batley, Dewsbury, Brighouse and Elland. Skinheads, for the most part, aged between sixteen and twenty-four, racists all.
And these fifteen were the pick of the crop, Craig knew. Each cell had between five and twelve members. They were the drones—football hooligans and otherwise violent skins—and Motcombe hardly ever came into contact with them except at rallies and at other large gatherings, when he addressed them from a distance. Mostly, he relied on his cell-leaders to make sure his orders were communicated and carried out, and, maybe more important still, to make sure the cash kept trickling in. After all, the League was an expensive operation to run.
They met in the upstairs room of a pub in Bingley, and as he sat sipping his lager, Craig wondered if the landlord knew exactly what was going on up there. If he had, he might not have been so quick to let them use it. On the other hand, the prospect of selling a few extra pints on a slow Monday night might tempt even the best of us to leave our ethics and politics at the door. Nothing much surprised Craig any more. Not after what Motcombe had drawn him into.
Even though the window was half open, the place was still full of smoke. Craig could hear rain falling in the street outside. A pale street-light halo glowed through the gauze of moisture. Occasionally, a car sloshed through the gathering puddles.
Meanwhile, Nev himself, erstwhile leader of the League, clad in his usual shiny leather jacket, was on his feet whipping his members into a frenzy. He didn’t need to shout and wave his arms around like Hitler; there was enough power and conviction in his regular speaking voice. Mostly it was the eyes, though; they were the kind that trapped you and wouldn’t let you go unless they were certain of your loyalty. They’d even made Craig tremble once or twice in the early days, but he was too good at his job to let it get to him.
“Murdered,”
Motcombe repeated, disgust and disbelief in his tone. He slapped the table. “One of us. Three of them. Three to one. They say one of his eyes was hanging out of its socket by the time the Paki bastards had finished with him.”
Stirrings and mumblings came from the crowd. One skin started rattling his glass on the table. Motcombe shushed him with an economic hand gesture, then pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and started to read.
“George Mahmood,” he began, with the accent on
mood
. “Asim Nazur.” This time, the name sounded like a sneer. People began to snigger. “And Kobir Mukhtar. Sounds about right, that one, doesn’t it? Mucky-tar?”
Sycophantic laughter came from the cell-leaders.
“And do you know what happened?”
Several of them, Craig included, shook their heads.
“The police let them go. That’s what.”
Howls of outrage.
“Oh, yes they did. This very afternoon. Our glorious warrior Jason is probably lying on some mortuary table, cut open from th’nave to th’chops as we speak, and the three bastards who put him there, the three
brown
bastards who put him there, are out walking the streets.” He slammed the table again. “What do you think about that?”
“Ain’t fair,” one of the cell-leaders chimed in.
“Typical,” claimed another. “Get away with bloody murder they do these days.”
“What we gonna do?” asked another.
Craig lit a cigarette and leaned forward. This promised to be interesting. As far as he was concerned, Jason Fox was an evil little pillock who deserved all he got.
“First off,” said Motcombe, “I want a special edition of the newsletter out pronto. Black border, the lot. And I want to see some oomph in it. Ray?”
One of the Leeds cell-leaders looked up from his pint and nodded.
“You see to that,” Motcombe went on. “Now Jason’s no longer with us, I’m afraid we’re left to rely on your rather more pedestrian
prose style. But you can do it, Ray, I’m sure you can. You know the kind of thing I want. Outrage, yes, but make sure you emphasize the
reason
this all happened, the underlying causes, what we’re all about. And make sure you mention the Pakis’ names. We’ll send each of them a copy. If they know that the entire National Socialist Alliance knows who they are, that should give them a fucking sleepless night or two. Okay?”
Ray smiled and nodded.
“And print extra copies. Next, I’d like Geoff and Keith to start working on a memorial concert for Jason. A big bash. You’ve got the contacts, so pick some appropriate bands, four or five of them, rent a large space and make arrangements. Soon as you can, okay?”
Geoff and Keith nodded and scribbled some notes.
“Now, as soon as I find out the details about the funeral,” Motcombe went on, “I’ll be contacting several members to accompany me in a tribute of honour for our fallen hero. For make no mistake about it, Jason Fox is a
martyr,
and his murder should provide us with a rallying point. We’ve got a chance to turn adversity into fortune here, if we choose to seize it. By all means let us grieve and mourn our lost comrade—indeed, grieve we
must
—but let us also, as
he
would have wished, use his death to spur us on to greater things, to faster growth. You all knew Jason. You know what he stood for. Let’s do credit to his memory.”