With her sunglasses firmly in place as the sun set to the west, she was able to take a good look at the other people there. She recognised Peter Claybourne, the local councillor and amusement arcade owner, who had been so quick to say that no crime had been committed when a body washed up on the beach. How wrong he was. Callie wondered if he had known that at the time. Claybourne was talking to several people, shaking hands, but covering his mouth when he spoke, as if he was worried about others listening in, or lip-reading what he was saying. Perhaps the police were videoing the event, although, for her own reasons, Callie hoped not. Claybourne seemed to be telling the men around him something important, and Callie wanted to know what it was, but she dare not get any closer.
More people were steadily arriving and the area was becoming quite crowded. Callie edged carefully through the mass of people to get closer to Claybourne keeping a close eye out for anybody else she recognised as she did so. As the sunlight was slowly going, the evening was becoming cooler and her sunglasses more of a hindrance than a help, she took them off and stowed them in her handbag. She’d just have to hope no one recognised her.
The crowd was in high spirits and jostled her good-naturedly as she tried to move forward.
“What’s the matter, love?” someone asked. “Go round the sides if you want to see better.”
She waved acknowledgement and kept her head down. She had spotted Lisa Furnow quite near to her. She was wearing a hoodie covering her hair, and had a scarf around the lower part of her face, but that didn’t stop Callie from recognising her – that was how she was used to seeing her in her crime scene coveralls and mask. Callie was saddened to have her suspicions about Lisa confirmed. The photographer was on the far side of Claybourne, not looking at him, but something about the way she was standing, still, intent, made Callie think that she was trying to listen in on Claybourne’s conversation, just as Callie would have liked to.
Lisa looked up and saw Callie. Their eyes met for a moment, before both Callie and Lisa slid back into the crowd, each trying to pretend that they weren’t there, that they hadn’t seen each other.
As Callie regained her sheltered corner, out of the way and almost out of sight, there was the sound of someone tapping on the microphone at the front, and the crowd went quiet. All eyes turned to the front and Callie was surprised to see Darren Dixon climb up on the pallets and take the microphone from a burly man beside him. From the murmurs around her, others were also surprised to see Dixon. A chant of “Dazza, Dazza!” started somewhere and many of the crowd took it up.
“Evening all,” he started and there was a roar of approval in response. “I’ll bet you’re surprised to see me, aren’t ya? Just goes to show you can’t keep a good man down. Well, you can’t keep him behind bars when he ain’t done nothing wrong, anyway.”
There was another cheer and reluctantly Callie had to admire the way he was handling the crowd. The man was a pro, a natural, and he was enjoying every minute. She was surprised to find that he had charm and was even attractive in a rough diamond sort of way. No wonder so many women flocked to support him.
Dixon went on to talk about the tide of immigration and how everyone had to stand up for their rights and reclaim their jobs, and their country, from this foreign invasion. The sort of hate rhetoric that Callie despised and the crowd clearly loved.
Callie was more interested in the people listening to Dixon than the man himself, and she slowly scanned the crowd. She couldn’t see Lisa Furnow anymore, perhaps she had decided to leave given that she had been spotted there. Callie knew that it was bound to cause a certain amount of awkwardness between them when they next met at a crime scene. Perhaps she ought to seek the investigator out before then, but what could she say? That she was only there because she wanted to see if she could find out if the FNM was behind the sabotage of the immigrants’ boat? That she was spying on them? If Lisa was a committed member of the FNM she wasn’t going to be pleased about what Callie was doing, and she was unlikely to be any help, either.
As she thought through the problem that this unlikely meeting might cause in the future, a new group of people – men and women, some young and some really quite elderly and carrying banners saying ‘Anti-Racist League’, and ‘open borders now!’ – had arrived. Callie could see that some of them even seemed to have young children with them, waving flags with peace symbols from their pushchairs. As Dixon began speaking again, the protestors started shouting, trying to drown out his rhetoric, much to the fury of some of his supporters.
“Murderer! Murderer!” came the chant, and it seemed to unsettle Dixon. He spoke to one of the men standing behind him and he nodded and disappeared into the crowd.
Some of Dixon’s supporters were shouting and jeering at the anti-fascist groups, even shaking their fists at them, but they stood firm and continued their chanting.
“Murderer! Murderer!”
It was beginning to get ugly and as much as Callie understood why these people had come to disrupt the meeting, she wished they hadn’t brought children with them. Or their grandparents.
Callie looked around, she could see a
