Blood At The Root

an anagram of “Pepsi Cola.” To the left, down the far end where the billiard tables were, two American couples were stuffing coins in the fruit machine, shifting occasionally to the video trivia game opposite.

“You must know Mr. Gristhorpe, young lad?” said Hepplethwaite after thanking Banks for the drink.

Banks nodded. “He’s my boss.”

“Lives here in Lyndgarth, he does. Well, I suppose you know that. Can’t say I know him well, mind you. I’m a fair bit older myself, and he’s been away a lot. Good family, though, the Gristhorpes. Got a good reputation around these parts, anyroad.” He nodded to himself and sipped his Bell ’s.

Frank Hepplethwaite had a thin, lined face, all the lines running vertically, and a fine head of gray hair. His skin was pale and his eyes a dull bottle-green. He looked as if he had once had quite a bit more flesh on his bones but had recently lost weight due to illness.

“Anyway,” he said, “thank you for coming all the way out here. I don’t get around so well these days.” He tapped his chest. “Angina.”

Banks nodded. “I’m sorry. No problem, Mr. Hepplethwaite.”

“Call me Frank. Of course,” he went on, tapping his glass, “I shouldn’t be indulging in this.” He pulled a face. “But there’s limits to what a sick man will put up with.” He glanced at the table, where Banks had unconsciously rested his cigarettes and lighter. “Smoke if you like, lad. I like the smell of tobacco. And secondhand smoke be buggered.”

Banks smiled and lit up.

“Nice state of affairs, isn’t it,” said Hepplethwaite, “when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.”

Banks raised his eyebrows. The words sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place them.

“Raymond Chandler,” said Hepplethwaite with a sly grin. “General Sternwood at the beginning of The Big Sleep. One of my favorite films. Bogey as Philip Marlowe. Must have seen it about twenty times. Know it by heart.”

So that was it. Banks had seen the film on television just a few months ago, but he had never read the book. Ah well, another one for the lengthening list. As a rule, he didn’t read detective fiction, apart from Sherlock Holmes, but he’d heard that Chandler was good. “I’m sorry about what happened to your grandson,” he said.

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 Saint 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 draft 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, tapping the sheet.

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 wildflowers 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 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 something. 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.”