Blood At The Root

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 honor 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.”

A few of them nodded and muttered their agreement, then the Brighouse cell leader asked, “Are we gonna crack some heads open, then?”

A number of “ayes” went up, but Motcombe shushed them again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “That’ll be taken care of. In time. But for the moment, we’ll just publish their names and leave it at that. Let’s think of the long-term mission, and let’s use our golden opportunity to gain a bit of public sympathy. Think of the hundreds of blokes at home just sitting on the fence right now. They know we’re right, but they don’t want to make that final move and admit it. Something like this could increase our membership tenfold. Nice, pure Aryan lad, with his whole future ahead of him, murdered by Paki immigrant scum. That’ll turn a few fence-sitters in our direction.”

Several members murmured in agreement. “But we can’t leave Jason’s murder unavenged, can we?” one of them said. “They’ll think we’re weak.”

“Sometimes you have to postpone your vengeance for the greater good, Mick. That’s all I am saying. And there’s strength in that, not weakness. Believe me. There’ll be plenty of time for revenge down the road. Remember, the bastards who killed Jason got away with it because our corrupt legal system is on their side. But what would happen if one of us got picked up for clobbering a Paki right now? Eh? Answer me that one.” No one did. They all looked as if they knew the answer already. Motcombe looked at his watch. “Now, I’ll have to be on my way soon, I’ve got a lot to attend to, but there’s no reason why you lot can’t stay and enjoy a wake for Jason if you like. You’ve all got your orders. Meeting adjourned.”

Then Motcombe tossed back the rest of his orange juice. Unlike the others, Craig had noticed, he never drank alcohol or smoked. People got up and moved around the room, some of them heading down to the bar to buy more pints. The last Craig saw of Motcombe, he was walking out of the room with two Bradford cell leaders, an arm draped over each one’s shoulders, deep in quiet conversation.

Liked his private meetings, did Nev, keeping the left hand and the right hand separate. Whatever he was talking to them about or asking them to do, you could bet it would have nothing to do with what he and Craig had been talking about over the past few weeks.

Craig tossed his cigarette out of the window into the rainy night, took a deep breath and went over to mourn Jason’s death with Ray from Leeds and Dogface Russell from Hors-forth.

VII

It was late when Banks got home that evening, after stopping off at the station on his way from Lyndgarth, and he was tired.

Sandra was sitting at a table at the back of the living room sorting through some transparencies, holding them up to the desk light, scrutinizing each one in turn, her long blond hair tucked behind her ears.

“Drink?” Banks asked.

She didn’t look up. “No, thanks.”

Fine. Banks went to the cocktail cabinet and poured himself a finger of Laphroaig, thought about it for a moment, then added another finger. He picked up the evening paper from the coffee table and sat on the settee.

“Hard day?” he asked.

“Not bad,” Sandra said, without looking away from the transparency she was holding. “Busy.”

Banks looked at the paper for a few minutes without taking anything in, then went over to the stereo. He chose a CD of arias by Angela Gheorghiu. A few seconds into the first one, Sandra looked over and raised a dark eyebrow. “Must you?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do we really have to listen to this?”

“What harm is it doing?”

Sandra sighed and turned back to her transparency.

“Really,” Banks pressed on. “I want to know. What harm is it doing? Is it too loud?”

“No, it’s not too loud.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Sandra dropped the transparency on the table a little harder than necessary. “It’s bloody opera, is the problem. You know it gets on my nerves sometimes.”

It was true that Sandra had once taken a magnet to one of his Gotterdammerung tapes. But that was Wagner, an acquired taste at the best of times. Who could possibly object to Angela Gheorghiu singing Verdi? Sandra had even been with him to see La Traviata last month, and she said she enjoyed it.

“I didn’t think you found it that offensive,” Banks said, walking back to the stereo.

“No, leave it,” Sandra said. “You’ve put it on. You’ve made your point. Just leave it.”

“What point?”

“What point? You know what point.”

“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

Sandra snorted. “Opera. Bloody opera. The most important thing on your agenda. In your life, for all I know.”

Banks sat down and reached for his Scotch. “Oh, we’re back to that again, are we?”

“Yes, we’re back to that again.”

“Well, go on, then.”

“Go on, what?”

“Get it off your chest.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’d like me to get it off my chest. Let the little lady yell at you for a couple of minutes so you can tell your mates what a bloody fishwife she is. Pretend to listen, be all contrite, then just carry on as if nothing had happened.”

“It’s not like that,” Banks protested. “If you’ve got a problem, tell me. Let’s talk about it.”

Sandra picked up another transparency and pushed a few loose strands of hair back behind her ears. “I don’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Angela Gheorghiu had moved onto the “Aubade” from Cherubin now, but its beauty was lost on Banks.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was that important to you.”

Sandra glanced sideways at him. “That’s just it, isn’t it?” she said.

“What is?”

“You never do. You never do consider how important something might be to me. It’s always your needs that come first. Like bloody opera. You never bother asking me what I might want to listen to,