“All right, Mark,” said Gristhorpe. “Is this the statement you want to make?”
“Yes.”
“My client will be pleading to the charge of manslaughter, Superintendent,” Varney said. “And I think there might be some room for mitigating circumstances.”
“Plenty of time for charges later,” said Gristhorpe. “Let’s just go through the story again first.” Gristhorpe turned to Susan and sighed. “Susan, go and make sure George Mahmood and his friends are released immediately. The poor sods won’t know whether they’re coming or going.”
Susan nodded and got up. As she left the interview room, she heard Gristhorpe say wearily, “Right then, Mark, once more from the top.”
IV
Using a street map he’d bought that afternoon, Banks walked to the address Burgess had given him. Though he felt silly doing it, he had looked over his shoulder once in a while and taken a very circuitous route.
It was another brown cafe, this one on a street corner by Sarphatipark. The park itself was a dark rectangle wedged between blocks of tenements. It looked familiar. He was sure he had seen it before, with Sandra. It reminded him of the kind of square you’d find in Bloomsbury or Edinburgh. The cafe itself wasn’t the kind of place listed in the tourist guides. The wood was dark and stained with years of tobacco smoke, and most of the tables were scratched and blackened here and there where cigarettes had been left to burn.
One or two locals sitting at the bar, workingmen by the look of their clothes, turned and glanced at Banks as he walked in and found a table in the far corner. One of them said something to the man behind the bar, who shrugged and laughed, then they paid him no further attention. Only a few tables were taken, and only one of those by a young man and a woman. It was pretty much of a men’s pub by the look of it. Accordion music was playing quietly behind the bar. Welcome to hell.
The table wobbled. Banks took a beer mat and placed it under one leg. That helped. Not wanting a repeat of last night, he decided he was going to stick with beer, and not even drink many of those. That jenever could be deadly. He ordered an Amstel, lit a cigarette and settled down to wait, back to the wall, eyes on the door. After a day spent walking around the city, stopping only at a cafe now and then for a coffee and a cigarette, Banks was also glad of the chance to rest his legs.
As he waited, he reflected on the curious and unsettling experience he had had that afternoon. One of the places he’d walked by was a canal-side coffeehouse he remembered visiting with Sandra all those years ago. The kind of place that also sold hash and grass. It didn’t seem to have changed at all. At first he thought it couldn’t possibly be the same one, but it was. Curious, he turned back and wandered inside.
At the back, where it was darker, piles of cushions lay scattered on the floor. You could lie back, smoke your joint, look at the posters on the wall and listen to the music. He noticed a young couple there, in the far corner, and for one spine-tingling moment, in the dim light, he felt he was looking down on himself and Sandra when they were young. And he hadn’t even smoked any hash.
Shaken, he walked out into the sunshine and went on his way. It was a good five or ten minutes before he could get rid of the spooky feeling. He and Sandra had smoked some hash there with some Americans, he remembered. Dylan’s
Just as he was lighting his second cigarette, someone walked through the door. And for the second time that day Banks felt gob-smacked.
If he wasn’t mistaken, it was the man he had last seen in Neville Motcombe’s house: Rupert Francis, the tall, gangly woodworker.
He obviously noticed Banks’s surprise. “You can close your mouth now, sir,” he said. “It really is me.”
Banks shook his head slowly. “So I see. Rupert Francis, right? And what’s with the ‘sir’?”
“Actually, I’m DS Craig McKeracher, sir,” he said, shaking hands. “That makes you my senior officer. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He smiled sheepishly and sat down. “I’m sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, sir, but if they found out who I really am, they’d kill me.”
Banks shook hands and collected his thoughts. The waiter came over and Craig ordered a beer.
“I think we can drop the ‘sir,’” said Banks.
Craig nodded. “If you like. I must admit you gave me the shock of my bloody life when I saw you at Nev’s place the other day. I thought the game was up right there and then.”
“You didn’t have to show yourself.”
“I know. But I heard voices, so I thought up an excuse and came up to see what was going on. Part of my brief, after all, to keep my eyes and ears open. Just as well you’d never seen me before.”
“How long have you been undercover there?”
“About five months. Nev trusts me. ‘Rupert Francis’ has an impeccable background with the neo-Nazi movement. BNP, fringe groups, the whole kit and caboodle. He’s even been done on firearms and explosives charges. In addition to that, he’s got a long and varied criminal record. Assault, burglary, drugs. You name it. That’s something Nev also trusts.”
“How would he know about your record?”
Craig sipped some beer from the bottle before answering. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his skinny throat. “He’s got a man on the inside somewhere. West Yorkshire. Some PC or DC sympathetic to the cause. Believe me, there are plenty of blokes on the Job who’d have no ax to grind with Neville Motcombe’s ideas. However he does it, he has no problem checking out criminal records.”
“So it’s you who wants me here, not Burgess?”
“Yes. After I’d seen you, I got in touch with Dirty – with Superintendent Burgess soon as I could. He’s my controller, but with things getting so hot lately we’ve not had the chance for much more than minimal telephone contact. And you’ve got to be really careful over the phone. Anyway, I told him I wanted to talk to you as soon as possible, but I didn’t want to risk doing it locally. Then I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. Know why I’m here?”
“Haven’t a clue,” said Banks.
“I’m helping to organize an international conference on race and IQ, if you can swallow that. Anyway, Superintendent Burgess said not to worry, he’d make the arrangements.” Craig grinned. “In fact, he said he’d enjoy it. You should have heard him when I told him you’d walked right into Nev’s front room. I gather the two of you know each other? You and the super, that is?”
Banks stubbed out his cigarette and sipped some beer. “You could say that.”
“He likes you. Honest, he does. Respects you. That’s what he told me. I reckon he thinks you’re a bit naive, but he was glad to hear it was you on the Fox case and not someone else.”
“Maybe we should start a mutual admiration society.”
Craig laughed.
“Anyway,” Banks asked, “why all this interest in the Albion League?”
“Because of Neville Motcombe and his contacts with known international terrorists. When he left the BNP and decided to start his own fringe group, we thought it’d be a good idea to keep an eye on him.”
Banks sipped some Amstel. “And did he live up to your expectations?”
“In some ways, yes. In others, he exceeded them. The Albion League’s nowhere near as politically active as we thought it would be. As Combat 18 are, for example. I’m not saying there haven’t been violent incidents, there have, and I’ve even heard talk of a pipe bomb to sabotage the mosque opening. Now we know about that possibility, we can tighten security and make sure it doesn’t happen. But mostly, as far as revolutionary action is concerned, they’ve been pretty tame so far. More like a fucking boys’ club than anything else.”
“I wondered about that. What is it with Motcombe and these young boys? Is he gay or something?”
The waiter came over and they ordered two more beers. When he had gone again, Craig said, “No. No, Nev’s not gay. I’ll confess I had my own suspicions when I first met him and he invited me down the cellar to help with his woodwork. Like, come and see my etchings. But he’s not. If anything, I’d say he was asexual. His wife left him. If
