Blood At The Root

because he knows it’s something he’ll be able to use to his advantage down the line – and Jason decides he’ll take Mark on as partner, seeing as he came top of the class. Naturally, because Nev’s putting money into the business, he’s curious about Mark, so Jason arranges a meeting. I wasn’t there, but I gather Nev had got details of his record by then and quizzed him about the drug arrest.”

“What were the details?”

“Mark used to be a roadie for a Leeds band, a mixed-race band, like UB40, and one of the Jamaicans, a Chapel-town bloke, was into dealing in a big way. Used the group van, and got Mark involved. They got caught. End of story. So Nev finds out that Mark has some contacts in Chapel-town who might know someone who’ll be interested if the price is right.”

“This wouldn’t involve a bloke called Devon, would it?”

Craig raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. How’d you know about him?”

“Same source I heard about the steaming. Just a lucky guess. Carry on.”

“Right. Well, like I said, living in this shit-hole with his wife and kid, Mark was definitely interested in making money, even though he didn’t give a flying fuck for Nev’s politics. But he made a perfect go-between. Devon and his mates probably wouldn’t be any too happy if they knew their supplier was a fascist bastard who thought they should all be sent home to rot in the sun, at best. But Mark got on with the black community okay, and they seemed to accept him. And he wasn’t a member of the league.”

Banks nodded. “Okay. That makes sense.”

They spotted a vendor at the street corner, and as neither had eaten that evening, they bought bags of chips with mayonnaise, something Banks would never think of eating back in Eastvale. Here, they tasted wonderful.

“But how did Jason square all this with his politics?” Banks asked as they walked on. “You said he was dedicated. Straight.”

“He didn’t. That’s the point. I’ll get to it in a minute. See, in general, neo-Nazis aren’t only racist, they’re also anti-drug, same way they’re anti-gay.”

“Even though many of Hitler’s lot were homosexuals or junkies?”

Craig laughed. “You can’t expect logic or consistency from these buggers. I’ll give Nev his due, though. Normally, he could make raping and murdering old ladies sound like a good thing to do for the cause. A true politician. A week or so later, when Mark’s out of the way, he has another meeting with just me and Jason, and he tells us about this idea he came up with after traveling in America and talking to fellow strugglers there. What he thinks is that by providing a steady and cheap supply of heroin, you weaken and destroy the fabric of the black community, making them much poorer and more vulnerable when the big day comes, blah-blah-blah. It’s his version of the smallpox blankets the whites gave the American Indians. Or, more recently, that newspaper story about the CIA financing the crack business in south-central Los Angeles. As a bonus, the blacks become complicit in their own destruction. That’s the kind of irony Nev can’t resist. And all the while he makes a tidy profit out of it, too. Couldn’t be better.”

“Jason fell for this crap?”

Craig kicked at an empty cigarette packet in the street. “Ah, not exactly. There’s the rub. Motcombe needed one of us, someone inside the league, just to keep an eye on Mark and make sure everything was going tickety-boo. He didn’t fully trust Mark. Jason, being Mark’s partner, seemed a natural choice. But Jason didn’t go for it. Jason wasn’t interested in profit; he’d have starved for the cause. Nev seriously underestimated his right-hand man’s dedication. Jason didn’t fall for all that rubbish about weakening the community from within. In fact, he saw the scheme for exactly what it was – a money-making venture on Nev’s part. Apparently, he already suspected Nev of skimming for his own gain, and there was quite a little power struggle brewing between them. They argued. Jason said he knew the organization needed money, but this just wouldn’t work, that there was no way they could limit the sale to blacks, that it would spread to the white community too and sap their spirit as well. He said drugs were a moral evil and a pure Aryan would have nothing to do with them. He also said heroin wouldn’t encourage the immigrants to go back home, which is what the organization was supposed to be all about, and that they’d be better concentrating on making the buggers feel uncomfortable and unwelcome than plying them with opiates.”

“Impressive,” said Banks. “But surely Motcombe must have suspected he’d react that way? Why did he even tell Jason in the first place?”

“I think Nev really did miscalculate the intensity of Jason’s reaction. It would also have been pretty hard to keep anything like that from him. Nev fell in love with what he thought was his impeccable rhetoric, and he figured the best thing was to bring Jason in right from the start. No way, he thought, could anyone not see the absolute perfection of his logic and irony. At that point also, remember, he’d no idea how violently anti-drugs Jason was. It had simply never come up before.” Craig shook his head. “I was there. Nev was absolutely stunned at Jason’s negative reaction.”

“What happened next?”

“They argued. Nev couldn’t convince him. In the end he said he’d abandon the idea.”

“But he didn’t?”

“No way. Too much money in it. He just cut Jason out.”

“But Jason knew?”

“I think by then he was pretty certain Nev wouldn’t give up potential profits that easily.”

“So Jason knew about the proposed drug deal and Motcombe was worried he’d go to the police.”

“That was always a possibility, yes. But even more of a threat was that he’d talk to other ranking neo-Nazis. Nev’s peers and colleagues. Some of whom felt exactly the way Jason did about drugs. Think about it. If Jason could convince them Nev was nothing but a petty thief and a drug dealer, then Nev would never be able to hold his head up in the movement again. He’d be ostracized. Hypocrisy reigns in the far right every bit as much as it does in most other places. There’s another thing, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Jason had charisma. He was popular. Nev was coming to see him as a rival for power – and power meant money for Nev. So Nev was getting paranoid about Jason. It was Jason who made first contact with most of our members. It was Jason they went to when they had problems with the ideology of beating the crap out of some poor black or Asian kid. Jason who set them straight.”

“So Jason was making inroads on Motcombe’s position?”

“Exactly.”

Banks nodded. He found a rubbish bin and dropped his empty chip packet in it. They were near Keizersgracht now, not too far from the hotel.

“What was your role in all this?”

“Like I said, Nev wanted someone close, someone in the league to keep tabs on Mark. Obviously Jason wasn’t going to do it, so I was the next logical choice. I hadn’t been around as long as Jason, but I did have an impressive criminal record, including drugs charges.”

“So what it comes down to is that Motcombe had a pretty good motive for wanting Jason out of the way.”

Craig nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I needed to talk to you. To fill you in on it all. I don’t know who killed Jason. I wasn’t privy to that. Nev likes to keep his left hand and his right hand quite independent from one another. But I do know the background.”

They paused at a bridge. A young couple stood holding hands and looking into the reflections of lights in the water. “Where do you want me to go with this?” Banks asked.

“Wherever it takes you. I didn’t have you brought here to tell you to lay off, if that’s what you think. And it’s not a competition, or a race. Whatever we can get Motcombe for is fine with me. And with Superintendent Burgess. That’s why he agreed to arrange this meeting. All I’m asking is that you hold off moving against Nev until you’ve got something you’re certain will put him away for a long time.” He grinned. “Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t blow my cover. I value my life, and I might need to stick around awhile longer to see what he gets up to next.”

“When is this drug deal supposed to take place?”

“The heroin’s already on its way.”

They reached the door of Banks’s hotel. He thought for a moment, then said, “All right.”

“Appreciate it, sir.”

“Coming in?”

“No. Got to go. I’m staying somewhere else.”