‘ You’re late’ said Graham.
‘ So arrest me’ said Jamie defiantly.
‘ You’re not even funny, Jamie’.
Jamie Robertson had been one of Graham’s snouts for months. They'd met when, during the course of a previous investigation, Graham had caught Jamie in a compromising position with underage girls and offered him a deal when Graham found out that Jamie was best mates with Shaun Campbell.
‘ How’s your mate Shaun?’ Graham asked.
‘ Battling with his father’ said Jamie ‘ Since Derek came out of prison they haven’t stopped rowing’.
‘ What about?’
‘ Derek doesn’t like the nature of the business Shaun is involved in. Shaun says his father should wake up to what he calls the reality on the ground’.
Jamie was sweating as he talked. The last time he’d made contact with Graham, Shaun Campbell had grown suspicious when Jamie couldn’t think of an excuse to explain his absence that particular morning. He’d caught him off guard. His mind had gone blank and he was sure his hesitation aroused sufficient suspicion in Shaun to make him want to keep an eye on him. He couldn’t be certain but he was sure he’d been followed.
‘ I can’t do this much longer’ said Jamie ‘ It’s too much of a risk’.
‘ What the fuck does that mean?’
‘ Shaun knows. I’m sure he does. And if Shaun knows then Derek knows too and he’s one hell of an angry man just now’.
‘ What is he angry about specifically?’
‘ There’s someone he calls the Judas. He’s the one who grassed him up twenty years ago and whose evidence closed down the Ulster Defenders. He thought he was dead but he’s found out he’s alive and living in Manchester. The only thing on Derek’s mind now is killing him although he’s not going to do it just like that. He wants his revenge to taste as good as he can make it. He’s made contact with some group on the mainland that’s putting the wind up all the Pakis and they’ve agreed to help him. Freddie Burnside did all the groundwork before Derek got out of gaol. Derek says he’s been waiting twenty years for this and he’s going to make the most of it’.
‘ Do we have a name for this Judas character?’
‘ Duncan Laurence’.
Graham felt like he’d been bashed in the chest with a slab of concrete. ‘ What name did you just say?’
‘ Duncan Laurence’ Jamie repeated. ‘ Why? Do you know him?’
Mark inwardly groaned. Somebody had stuck leaflets for the ‘ White English Movement’ on the staff noticeboard and he knew exactly who it would be. Tina was one of his team, a Geordie who’d met her painter and decorator fiancé from Bolton at a mutual friend’s wedding and moved over from Newcastle when they got engaged. Mark hadn’t taken to Tina’s fiancé, Tyrone, when he met him at last year’s office Christmas party. Shortly into the conversation Tyrone had begun spouting garbage about England not belonging to the white man anymore and the whole country being run by Scots. He’d have ignored all of that and just not bothered with him anymore but then Tyrone had declared his sympathy for those responsible for a spate of arson attacks on Asian-owned businesses in Rochdale and Oldham. They’d put out a statement declaring their objective was to ‘ take back England for the white protestant people and forcibly remove all immigrants’. Mark had suspected from Tyrone’s knowing looks that he was more than just sympathetic to the arsonists and it had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Little kids nearly died in those arson attacks and there was this thug almost boasting to him about his involvement in it. He’d reported his suspicions to the police and he knew they’d questioned Tyrone but it hadn’t gone any further. Maybe they couldn’t get enough proof.
He found Tina in the staff lounge making herself a coffee. If he was asked to strip the workplace veneer from his feelings for Tina he’d say that he couldn’t stand the sight of her. She was forever re-applying her lipstick, always bright red, leading Mark to think that her lips might expand and takeover her entire face. And she was so argumentative that if he said the sun was shining she’d
argue under a clear blue sky that it wasn’t. Why did she have to be like that? She wound people up all the time. She’d accuse them of something that was completely untrue and yet she’d then make them look like they were denying something they were ashamed of. He sometimes thought she had a screw loose. He had the leaflets in his hand and was about to challenge her about them when he noticed she was crying.
‘ Tina? What’s the matter?’
‘ It’s just so not fair, Mark’ she whimpered.
‘ What isn’t?’
It transpired that during the week she and Tyrone had spent in Benidorm earlier in the summer, they’d discovered a small church in a mountain village a few miles from the resort. Tina had fallen in love with it and set her heart on getting married there. But the priest didn’t speak English and Tina thought this was appalling.
‘ He should speak English!’ she insisted. ‘ It’s my dream’.
Mark watched Tina wipe the tears from her eyes but couldn’t muster much in the way of sympathy for her. Why would a priest in a Spanish village speak English? How arrogant to expect it.
‘ Why don’t you make enquires about learning Spanish?’ he suggested. ‘ There’s that Spanish cultural centre at the bottom of
Deansgate in town and … ‘
‘ … why should I earn Spanish? I’m English’.
‘ Because you’re wanting to get married in Spain. I mean Tina, think about it. Say a Spanish couple found a little church in the Lakes or the Peak District and wanted to get married there. Do you think the priest would be able to conduct the ceremony in fluent Spanish?’
‘ We don’t have priests in England’ she said, flatly. ‘ We have vicars’.
Mark smiled in frustration. ‘ Vicar then’.
‘ Well no because it just wouldn’t come into it. This is England and we speak English. It would be up to the couple to learn our language’.
‘ But don’t you think the same applies to you the other way round? I mean, in Spain you’re the foreigner’.
‘ I am not a foreigner! I’m English! I’ve been going to Spain for like the last ten years. I’m not a foreigner. Honest to God, Mark, you have some bloody weird ideas sometimes’.
Give me strength, thought Mark. Give me fucking strength.
‘ Tina, there’s something I need to talk to you about’ said Mark ‘ Did you pin these leaflets to the staff
noticeboard?’
Tina tilted her head back haughtily and glanced at the leaflets Mark was holding up in his hand. ‘ Yes. What of it?’
‘ I’ve taken them down’ said Mark. ‘ They’re racially offensive’.
‘ Not to me as a white English person they’re not’.
‘ But to others who work here at the bank they are’ Mark emphasised. What was it with racists? He detested them. He just didn’t understand the siege mentality of some of his fellow white citizens. He didn’t feel threatened by anyone except the bigoted.
Tina shrugged her shoulders. ‘ So that’s their problem’.
‘ No it isn’t’ said Mark. ‘ It’s mine. I’m responsible for the well being of everyone on this shift team and these leaflets are offensive and demeaning’.
‘ So you’re on the side of vermin who come into this country and sponge off us?’
‘ I’m on the side of anyone who’s willing to work and contribute and that includes anyone who’s come to this country from elsewhere’ said Mark ‘ I’m not on the side of anyone who uses race to take attention away from their own failings and a lot of immigrants show up the indigenous population by their hard work’.
‘ What does indigenous mean?’
‘ Oh never mind’ said Mark ‘ Look, these leaflets go and that’s that. Deal with it’.
Wendy Armstrong was used to the measures that needed to be taken when you’re married to an officer in the R.U.C. When you came home at night and the house was empty, you didn’t put the lights on until you’d closed all the curtains. If you did put the lights on when the curtains were still open, it meant that if a sniper was waiting in the garden he had a clear view of his target from the darkness outside. You always checked underneath the car whenever you went to it, especially first thing in the morning. And you tried not to fall into habits. The school run was varied, the shops you bought from changed from time to time. All the doors, not just the front and back, had extra locks on them so that you could bolt your family into one bedroom whilst you waited for help. It was something she’d grown used to in nearly twenty years of marriage to Graham and was now second nature. Headquarters had assured them that they were low-level risk but nevertheless, they had three children to protect and she wasn’t ever going to take any chances.
It was just after six and she was preparing the evening meal. Lamb chops with carrots and roast potatoes. Little Matthew, her youngest and just turned three, wouldn’t like it much but she’d get him to eat as much as she could. The older two, Ben aged 15, and Helen, 12, would both enjoy it as would Graham. She’d open some wine for her and Graham and she had lemon meringue for dessert.
Ben and Helen were both upstairs doing their homework. She would acknowledge that she was lucky. Neither of them showed any signs of going off the rails. They were both clever and good students, which was a clear weight off her mind. Some of her friends weren’t so fortunate with the behaviour of their children. Drugs were an ever-present menace and she dreaded to think what it would be like when Matthew got to the age his older siblings were at now.
A few minutes earlier she’d taken a call from Graham who’d said he was on his way home. That meant about half past six by the time he got over from Belfast. They were a happy family and they’d lived in this modern detached on the outskirts of
Coleraine for a few years now. It was surrounded by the hills that she loved to walk in. She and Graham sometimes had to really work at their marriage but who didn’t when you’ve been together for as long as they have? They weren’t love’s young dream anymore but they had three beautiful kids to show that something obviously worked between them.
The kitchen was at the front of the house on the left hand side, between the front door and the living room. The driveway was then to the side and that’s where Matthew liked to wait for Daddy to come home. He peddled up and down on his fire engine that Wendy’s parents had bought him last Christmas. There was a lock on the gate so Wendy knew he couldn’t get out.
Matthew heard the car coming down the road and looked up. Was it Daddy’s car? He started jumping up and down. He threw his arms in the air and yelled out with excitement. Then he saw the car. But it wasn’t Daddy’s.
The car screeched to a halt outside the house. Wendy looked up and immediately gasped. She dropped the bottle of wine she had in her hand and it shattered all over the kitchen floor. Her little boy looked so vulnerable, a tiny tot standing still on the driveway, unable to grasp what was going on in front of him.
Wendy screamed and shouted ‘ Matthew!’.
Matthew thought it was all a big game. Two men had jumped out of the car and were taking something out of the boot. The men were dressed all in black and he couldn’t see their faces. Then
they tossed something big and heavy over the garden wall. It was another man but he looked like he was asleep.
Wendy ran out and scooped Matthew up in her arms. The car screeched off and was gone. She looked down at the body and screamed. That set Matthew off and the other two appeared at the doorway but she raged at them to go back inside. She ran in and closed the door, bolting it behind her. Then she and Ben ran round the rest of the house making sure that every window and every door was bolted whilst Helen looked after Matthew. Finally she gathered her family together and ushered them into the dining room. She closed the curtains and locked the door.
Graham arrived home only minutes later to find the body of Jamie Robertson on his front lawn. He’d been shot through the back of his head and from the state of him it looked like they’d made him suffer right up until his last breath.
That night Graham and his family were moved to a safe house under the protection of the local squad. It was thought that they’d only have to stay there for a week or so until the dust settled but taking this precautionary measure couldn’t do any harm.
Graham watched his children go to sleep and then went through to the kitchen where Wendy had made some tea.
‘ I’m sorry, love’ he said.
‘ It’s okay’ said Wendy. ‘ I knew it might come to this when I married you’.
‘ I’m just worried about the kids’
‘ They’ll be okay’ said Wendy ‘ Kids are more resilient than you might think’.
Graham pulled his wife into an embrace. ‘ What would I do without you?’
‘ You’d be lost’.
‘ I know’ said Graham, smiling at his wife’s banter.
‘ Do you know how all this is going to end?’
‘ No’ said Graham. ‘ Do you remember someone called Duncan Laurence?’
‘ Yeah?’ said Wendy. ‘ He was that friend of yours who got killed. What’s he got to do with any of this?’