collateral damage, they’re easy phrases to say . . .’
I nodded coldly, refusing to spare Maxted any of his contrition. He had spoken truthfully, but the truth was not enough. I wanted to see him serving years of imprisonment, but I knew that Julia would be with him, her life and career destroyed. She was standing with her back to me, hands wiping her eyes, and I understood now the hostility and guilt that had stood between us since my arrival.
I said: ‘So you smuggled Christie out of Brooklands? Where, exactly?’
‘Sangster drove him to a disused chicken farm near Guildford that Fairfax had helped foreclose. His wife and daughter turned up in a camper van. I kept him sedated and told him we’d try again. He was definitely up for it.’
‘The police found him so quickly. Someone must have tipped them off.’
‘We did.’ Maxted whistled through his teeth without thinking. ‘We needed to get him cleared by the magistrate. The deaths were tragic, but we hoped everyone would see sense. In fact, the opposite happened. The Metro-Centre shooting stirred everything up. People felt frightened. They could cope with Asian youths defending their shops, but a deranged assassin with a machine gun . . . ? There were rallies at the sports grounds night after night, Brooklands was seriously threatening to turn into a fascist republic. But it never made that final flip.’
‘You sound disappointed. Why not? Too British?’
‘In a way.’ Maxted listened to a volley of shots echo through the atrium. ‘Sporting rifles—that about spells it out. The problem was David Cruise. He was too amiable, too second-rate. Then a minor miracle happened, someone we hadn’t counted on turned up.’
‘Me?’
‘Right. You turned up. Your father had died, and you wanted to know why. It didn’t take you long to realize that something very fishy was going on.’
‘Julia came to the funeral. That started me thinking.’
‘Richard . . .’ Julia stood shivering behind me, her hands on my shoulders. ‘I’d helped to kill a fine old man. I knew how stupid I’d been, listening to all this talk about elective madness.’
‘Talk, maybe. But I was right.’ Maxted quietly ignored her, addressing me directly. ‘The assassination failed, but everything moved up a gear. It needed a final push. A bomb in the Metro-Centre, a huge riot that would overwhelm the police, David Cruise proclaiming an independent state.’
‘He was too canny for that.’
‘So we found. The riot went ahead, Sangster planted another bomb near the town hall, and we did our best to stir up the crowd. But without Cruise it was hopeless. Fairfax’s death frightened off a lot of our key supporters.’
‘How did he die?’
‘I guess his fingers were rusty. Never liked the man. He was always a bit too impetuous. The last person to be a bomb-maker.’
‘But why pick my car?’
‘That was Fairfax’s idea. He knew you were on to something. And he loathed you, anyway. It was a warning, a reminder of how easy it would be to frame you. Leighton and Sergeant Falconer went along with that—it’s why you were never charged and the car’s ownership was never identified. We had you where we needed you. But everything collapsed when Cruise refused to take the bait. He came from the TV world, and he needed an autocue. Then a new friend appeared with the right kind of skills and a taste for stylized violence.’
‘A suburban Dr Goebbels?’
Maxted stared at me with real distaste, then managed a weak smile. ‘You saw fascism as just another sales opportunity. Psychopathology was a handy marketing tool. David Cruise was your tailor’s dummy, a shrink-proof shaman of the multi-storey car parks, Kafka in a tired trenchcoat, a psychopath with genuine moral integrity.’
‘Still, everyone admired him.’
‘Why not? We’re totally degenerate. We lack spine, and any faith in ourselves. We have a tabloid world-view, but no dreams or ideals. We have to be teased with the promise of deviant sex. Our gurus tell us that coveting our neighbours’ wives is good for us, and even conceivably our neighbours’ asses. Don’t honour your father and mother, and break free from the whole Oedipal trap. We’re worth nothing, but we worship our barcodes. We’re the most advanced society our planet has ever seen, but real decadence is far out of our reach. We’re so desperate we have to rely on people like you to spin a new set of fairy tales, cosy little fantasies of alienation and guilt. We’re worthless, Richard—to your credit, you know that.’
‘And David Cruise knew it. Who shot him? Did you organize that?’
‘Definitely not. That must have been Christie, finishing the job. He’s somewhere here, a fugitive protected by the one place he hated.’
‘And Sergeant Falconer? Is she after him?’
‘I assume so. I dare say Superintendent Leighton can feel the wind changing. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has other targets.’
‘You and Sangster? And Julia?’
‘And you, Richard. Don’t forget that.’
JULIA HAD LEFT the room, too nervous to look me in the face. She spoke to the last of the patients, an elderly couple who had been swept into the Metro-Centre on the night of the riot. Sensibly they had taken refuge, while the elevators still worked, in a health-food restaurant on the sixth floor. They held out there for more than a month, living on dates, figs and pomegranates, like travellers in a new desert, too timid and too sensible to walk down the escalators into the hell unfolding below them.
I followed Maxted into the entrance to the first-aid post. The atrium was deserted, its floor covered with debris that had fallen from the roof.
‘So what happens now?’ I asked. Despite everything he had told me, I still liked him. He was restless and insecure, but trying to conduct his life according to a set of desperate principles. He would never be brought to trial for the deaths and injuries he had caused. He lived out a fantasy, as quietly deranged as any psychiatrist I had met, the only real inmate in the asylum he ruled.
‘Try not to think.’ Maxted clasped and unclasped his bruised hands. ‘I hope the police decide to rush the place. Carradine and Sangster still have hostages locked into the Novotel, plus a couple of hundred hard-core supporters. They have nothing to lose. Meanwhile, here’s a first taste of real madness . . .’
He pointed to the bears on their podium. Nearby was the bed holding the body of David Cruise, secure inside his oxygen tent. His tour of the Metro-Centre was over, and he had been left like a slain hero to the kindness of the bears. Half a dozen supporters in St George’s shirts knelt on the floor, faces raised to the stuffed beasts.
‘What are they doing?’ I asked Maxted. ‘Waiting for the music?’
‘They’re praying. It’s your consumer dream come true, Richard. They’re praying to the teddy bears . . .’
LEAVING MAXTED, I stepped slowly across the atrium, avoiding the spurs of glass and torn aluminium that had fallen from the roof. Somewhere above me, on the abandoned galleries, Duncan Christie would be waiting for another target to appear. He had killed David Cruise—was I, the ventriloquist, the next bull’s- eye in his sights?
I passed the group of praying supporters, avoiding the stench that rose from David Cruise’s bed. Several of them had jars of honey in front of them, offerings to the deities who guided their lives. One middle-aged woman in a St George’s shirt, blonde hair knotted behind her neck, was rocking to and fro, humming to herself. Her husband, a hefty fellow wearing ice-hockey armour, joined her, and I heard their consoling verse.
. . . if you go down to the woods today,
you’d better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was . . .
39
THE LAST STAND
ITS OWN SHADOWS stalked the Metro-Centre. Twice during the night I was woken by Carradine’s marshals,
