through the bus, accompanied by cheers, whistles and truncheons being beaten against windows. Charlie made a small bow and, having milked it enough, let the smile fall from his lips. He began prowling the aisle, eyeing up his charges, looking for any signs of doubt or apprehension. ‘These fuckers aren’t going to give us any trouble today. Am I right?’
Nervous laughter filled the coach. A couple of cheery voices responded to Charlie’s rallying cry: ‘Yes, Sergeant!’
‘So don’t be shy.’ Ross chuckled as he watched a group of mounted police gathering fifty yards down the road. ‘Show ’em who’s boss.’
A few more joined in this time: ‘Yes, Sergeant!’
‘Don’t be a bunch of fucking poofs. Show those fucking communists who’s fucking boss.’
‘YES, SERGEANT!’
As the din died down, a voice came from the back of the bus: ‘Where are we, Sergeant?’
Charlie Ross gazed dreamily out of the window. ‘Dunno, son. Some DNS or other.’
‘DNS?’ someone asked.
‘Dirty Northern Shithole.’
More laughter.
Another voice piped up: ‘And what are we doing here, Sergeant?’
‘Precisely?’ asked another.
‘Exactly?’ Carlyle laughed.
‘Specifically?’ queried another wag.
‘What is this?’ Charlie snarled in mock fury, though loving every minute of it. ‘Twenty fucking questions?’ He smacked his truncheon against the side of a nearby seat and fixed his stare on one of the questioners. ‘We are here, lads, as you very well know, to maintain law and fucking order; to allow the ordinary working man do his job without interference; to protect the innocent; and,’ he paused again, to unveil his final and most winning smile of the morning, ‘most importantly of all, to break some fucking heads.’
Carlyle’s headache was getting worse. He swallowed another aspirin and pocketed the foil wrapper. Sitting motionless on the wall, he shut his eyes in an attempt to try to keep out the light, which seemed to be bouncing off every available surface in order to assault his brain with the maximum violence possible. He took a couple of slow, deep breaths. Finally, his heart slowed to a more recognisable beat. Now he could at least count the various different components of his all-round discomfort. Under the uniform, his T-shirt had melted into his chest. Sweat trickled down his spine and between the cheeks of his bum. Right on cue, his piles started playing up and he felt as if he had a knife stuck up his arse. He could feel his stomach churning and felt a chill wrap itself around his shoulders. Being so dehydrated, at least Carlyle didn’t also have to worry about needing a piss. With all the gear on, it would have taken him the best part of an hour to expose his dick.
Somewhere along the road, he could hear the hooves of a pair of police horses clattering over tarmac. Beyond them, a roar went up on the field of combat, as one side charged the other. Carlyle closed his eyes tighter and refocused on his breathing.
After a few minutes, he tried to stand and felt his legs buckle. His mouth was still dry and sticky and his stomach heaved. He leant over the nearest wall and vomited into the garden. That brought some temporary relief, and he tried to puke again but nothing more would come out. Carlyle pushed his fingers down his throat. No joy. Spent, he just sat there, feeling useless.
After a few moments, the dizziness eased. Sticking another couple of aspirin in his mouth, he took a final swig of water and swallowed quickly. Standing up, he began moving slowly up the street, away from the din of conflict. A police Alsatian had become separated from his handler, and was casually walking along the road too, heading away from all the noise and confusion. Like Carlyle, the dog looked as if he’d had more than enough for the day.
Carlyle kept his eyes on the ground, quickly jumping backwards as a piece of brick exploded near his feet.
‘Fuck off, pig!’
Carlyle looked up. Almost twenty feet away, he saw a kid of maybe ten or eleven flipping him the finger. Laughing at the disorientated policeman, the kid turned on his heels and started sprinting off down the road. Almost immediately, he tripped over his feet and crashed on to the tarmac, skidding along the street in a ball of blood, snot and tears. Serves the little shit right, Carlyle thought. Resisting the temptation to go over and give him a kick, he kept on walking.
What he wanted was some shade, but there was none to be found. He was in a regular terraced street of straightforward two-up, two-down red-brick houses, each with a cobbled yard at the back and a small garden at the front. It was a typical Northern working-class neighbourhood, the kind of road where trees were in short supply.
In the end, he settled for the shade provided by an overgrown hedge, about five feet tall and seven feet wide, bordering a garden maybe eight doors along from the ambulance. He slipped through the open gate and slumped down on the threadbare grass, before crawling under the bush in search of a little respite from the relentless sun and the blinding light.
Carlyle was woken by a man’s scream, followed by the sounds of a struggle nearby.
‘Get off me you, bastard…’
‘Bite me, would you?’ the male voice growled.
‘Stop it.’
‘C’mon…’
‘Fuck… right… OFF!’
‘Bitch!’
He slowly realised that they were somewhere behind him, in another garden, three doors further along. Getting to his feet, he squinted through the intervening hedge. Unable to see anything, he stepped back into the street and moved towards the arguing voices.
He saw the woman first. She was wearing worn blue jeans and a grubby white V-neck T-shirt. Behind her stood a policeman, sweating profusely in the same protective gear as Carlyle. His helmet had been knocked to the ground, and he had one arm wrapped around her neck. His other hand was firmly clamped on her left breast, which he was pawing slowly in a clockwise direction.
As he stepped closer, Carlyle could see that the woman was not wearing a bra. Her nipples were erect, clearly visible through her T-shirt. He had not had sex – of any description – for more than a fortnight, and now felt a sharp twinge in his groin. The stirring of it brought him a welcome distraction from the headache, but he was embarrassed all the same and felt his cheeks flush.
Looking up, both of them eyed Carlyle warily.
She was about 5’4”, with short blond hair. This was clearly one of the enemy within, one of the women that supported the strikers on the picket line; probably someone’s wife or girlfriend. Her grey eyes were hard and blazed with hatred. Aged anything from twenty-five to fifty-plus, she looked pinched, tired and thin, with the same washed-out, grubby, bleached complexion they all had.
The absence of any badge numbers didn’t stop Carlyle from recognising Trevor Miller. They had come up from London together at the beginning of the tour and, although the two of them didn’t always end up working on the same picket line, Carlyle had noticed him on each of the last three days. Maybe five years older than Carlyle, Miller was far too full of himself, a mouthy so-and-so only too eager to hold forth on what he was going to do to these ‘stupid Northern wankers’. Carlyle had last seen him earlier the same day, chasing some bloke over a patch of waste ground in the no man’s land intervening between the police and the pickets. The striker had been wearing a toy police hat covered in union stickers, as he flipped Miller the finger and headed off like a scalded cat. Trevor, truncheon at the ready, struggled to catch up with him through a barrage of catcalls and the occasional missile hurled by other strikers.
That had been several hours ago. So what was Miller doing here, now?
Recognising Carlyle, he sized up the situation for a second or two, preparing an explanation. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, his expression blank, ‘I’ve got this sorted.’ He glanced down at his hand, which remained clamped on the
