by Carl Andrew
Abby nodded.
“Abby, I love you. Whatever happened in your past won’t change that,” he said. “I just… I just wish you could have trusted me with this.”
“I know. I should’ve told you. It’s just too difficult for me. I love you too Leon. You are so important in my life. I’m so sorry I treated you like this,” she responded, tears continuing to fall down her cheek.
At that moment, Jennifer came out of the building and spotted them. “Abby, we need to talk,” she said.
“Not now, I can’t do this,” Abby replied before Leon stepped in.
“Dr Hopwood, it’s probably best I take Abby home. I think she needs time to work it all out,” he said.
Jennifer nodded and watched as Leon and Abby, her daughter who she wondered if she’d ever see again, disappeared towards the tube station.
Back in the meeting room, Russell was still shocked but was gradually regaining his composure.
“I must say Vanessa,” he said. “You’ve been very calm while all this has been going on. How do you do it? I’m very impressed.”
“I’m just trying to process what’s happening. It’s really quite a shock,” she said in reply.
“Something tells me there’s a little more to it than that but I’m not going to pry. I suspect it has something to do with a personal project you started working on following the break in at Jennifer’s house,” he countered.
“No comment,” Vanessa said.
-----------------------
The next day, Finsbury Park, London
Abby had barely said a word since the meeting the day before. Leon was walking on eggshells but knew he had to confront her.
“Abby, you don’t need to tell me everything, you know that right?”
Abby nodded.
“But, and please don’t hate me for saying this, you really need to talk to your mother. You need to work it out,” he continued, squinting in anticipation of Abby’s response.
Instead, she was calm. She let Leon’s words sink in, considered them and said: “You’re right. I need to deal with this. I’m going to meet her.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Leon said, offering whatever support he could.
“I’d like that,” she replied, it made her sound vulnerable and Leon took her into his arms.
Abby picked up the phone and took it into the bedroom. For some reason, she felt like she needed privacy to make the call.
A few minutes later, she reappeared and told Leon she had arranged the meeting for the next day.
-----------------------
The next day, a café in Central London
Abby had purposefully picked a busy venue for the meeting with her mum. In a strange way, she did it to make sure that she was able to keep her emotions under control.
She was nervous, she expected to be nervous, but with Leon with her it gave her a sense of calm.
Abby drew a deep breath before they entered the café together.
Jennifer was sat at a table by the window and didn’t know whether to wave or stand up to acknowledge them. There was no rule book for this type of meeting, just awkwardness and uncertainty.
Pleasantries were exchanged as they ordered drinks from the waiting staff. It was all very surreal.
Finally, Jennifer took control.
“Abby, I really appreciate you agreeing to meet. We really need to talk but I don’t know where to start so I guess it’s best to be honest. The question I really want to ask is why did you leave?”
Abby stared at the table. Leon gave her hand a squeeze of encouragement. There was silence for a few moments, until finally...
“You wouldn’t understand. I never wanted to see you again. After dad died it was clear you didn’t want me. You loved your work too much. When I needed you most, you ignored me.”
“Abby, oh Abby,” Jennifer said, her eyes welling up with tears. “I’ve never stopped loving you. I never meant to hurt you. I was struggling to cope as well. I loved your father, I still do. You and he were my life. I… I turned to my work as my way of dealing with his death.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me you were suffering too? All you did was carry on as if everything was normal. You should have said something,” Abby replied, trying to hold back tears of her own.
“I didn’t know what to do Abby. I was living on autopilot. The shock was too much for me and I… I guess I went in to myself. I should have been there for you,” Jennifer said.
Then there was silence. Leon wanted to say something but knew he had no place to speak. He was there as a support first and peacekeeper second. That was all.
“You left, you disappeared, to Canada. But, I knew you were back,” Jennifer continued eventually.
“How did you know I’d returned?” Abby asked, still shaken, still teary.
“The attack on the house, the hatred shown to the spare room… to your bedroom. I knew instantly,” Jennifer replied.
“If you knew it was me, why didn’t you report it to the police?”
“Because, as much as you may not believe this; I love you. I always have and I always will. You’re my daughter.”
There was still a lot of pain on Abby’s side but over the years it had begun to subside. It was mainly stubbornness that had stopped her from re-establishing contact with her mum.
The truth was that she had come back to UK from Canada because something had drawn her to do so. In the cold light of day, it could have been an inclination to patch things up that she tried to keep covered up.
At that point, the conversation started to change in tone. It became more relaxed, more at ease.
They talked for hours and Leon knew they would be alright. In a weird way he thought to himself, this has to go down as the most awkward and unusual way to meet your girlfriend’s parent.
He wanted to vocalise that but it never felt like the right time. This wasn’t a jovial occasion. This was about bridge building.
Chapter 17:
Mid-January - Taunton, Somerset
His phone rang and he looked at the screen, private number. He answered the phone and found somewhere discrete to talk.
“Hello.”
“It’s me. We’ve got orders from on high to make a big splash. Can you do something tonight?”
“Sure, I’ll get the guys on to it, anything in particular?”
“Something that’ll get noticed,” he said.
“Got it.”
The call ended and he put his phone back into his pocket before making his way to the pub where he knew his mates would be.
------------------------------------------------------------
A little while later - Taunton, Somerset
The evening was drawing in and it had been a particularly bitter January day. She had her last errand to run. During the day she delivered groceries to the elderly and had a final shop to do.
She was only a few months gone in her pregnancy but wasn’t quite showing just yet. Regardless, her husband wanted her to slow down.
Carrying all of the groceries concerned him but she was a determined person who loved to help others. She felt good about doing so and always felt quite selfish as a result.
Nevertheless, she wanted to carry on even it meant just for a few short weeks more.
She searched for a parking space outside the supermarket but there were none available so she tried one of the side streets a short stroll away and found a spot, albeit a tight squeeze.
Walking to the shops, she pulled the list out of her pocket to check what she needed to get and to plan her route around the aisles.
She was a shopping expert and pretty much knew where everything was located. Satisfied she’d worked it out; she made her way into the shop and was out within twenty minutes.
That constituted a new record as far as she was concerned.
She checked she had all of her bags and then left in the direction of the car. The light had faded dramatically even thou
gh just a short amount of time had passed.
She felt the bags struggling with the weight of her purchases and was working in hope that she’d make it back to the car in time before they split.
Turning right along the main street she strolled along the road before making another right towards where she was parked.
The lighting was awful along the street and she had to really focus on the path ahead to avoid tripping on any loose stones and falling over.
She could see the car about twenty metres along the road when, all of a sudden, the bag split sending an orange rolling underneath a car with a can of tomatoes in hot pursuit.
“Shit,” she uttered to herself.
She repacked everything from the damaged bag into the other, fully functioning bags and then knelt down to retrieve the escapees.
It was a struggle but she managed to get to them. As she got back to all fours, she noticed a pair of legs in front of her.
She gradually moved her eyes up but before she got past the persons knees she felt a swift kick to the side of her head.
“Oh this is just too fuckin’ inviting,” came a menacing voice to her left, she realised she was surrounded by a group of young men.
“Now listen love, you ain’t too pretty so we’re gonna give your face a little bit of work. No need to thank us.” The voice carried on.
The other members of the group laughed at that.
As she tried to get up she received a volley of kicks to her face, chest and stomach area.
“No, please,” was all she could muster.
A member of the gang bent down and started punching her all over her body. She was helpless.
The attack lasted for a little over five minutes but left her bloodied and battered.
The gang ran off with her shopping and she lay on the ground face up, unable to move. She felt severe pain in her stomach and she started to cry.
After a few minutes not sure what to do and too panicked to really think, a friendly voice suddenly appeared: “Oh my god, are you ok?”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” the voice continued. “Where are you hurt?”
When she spoke in response, she said just two words that made her helper freeze: “My baby.”
------------------------------------------------------------
Swindon, Wiltshire
After putting the phone down, the man walked into a portacabin. He acknowledged the people inside and spoke with a thick regional accent.
“We’ve got a job on tonight. They want us to send a message to all the wannabe heroes out there. Can you get the crew together?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t be an issue, let me get on the blower and I’ll have it sorted. What kind of message?”
“One that’s well understood,” he said.
“Sounds fun.”
Later that evening, the Wiltshire Police force received numerous calls about gangs of men parading through the streets up to no good.
Before they could get sufficient numbers together to provide a response, those calls had turned into pleas for help.
Reports came in of an evening of mass violence with an unwarranted number of attacks seemingly targeting Neighbourhood Watch volunteers.
Swindon was not alone in this sudden surge of violence. Towns up and down the country experienced the same.
It was the worst night of violence the country had seen yet. Hundreds of people were attacked and badly beaten but only in areas where Neighbourhood Watch Schemes were operating.
The thugs were sending out a message and it was definitely being received.
------------------------------------------------------------
10 Downing Street, London
“What are you telling me Russell?” David was getting increasingly animated. He had been woken up at 2am to face a call from his Minister for Social Behaviour telling him that there had been a mass attack against Neighbourhood Watch volunteers throughout Britain.
“David, God knows what’s happening but someone had to have organised this. Gangs of youths have systematically targeted these volunteers on the same night. It can’t just be a coincidence.”
“Have you checked ‘State of Hate’?” David asked, referring to the social network set up so thugs can share videos and pictures of acts of violence. It had recently enabled a chat function so that they could now communicate.
“Yes, it appears that the website has certainly escalated the issue but surely it had to be organised by someone. It’s got to be part of a plan,” Russell responded.
“Not necessarily, these things have a habit of catching on, like wildfire. What we need to do is come up with a response. The public will be scared when they read this in the morning.”
“We’ll need to hold a press conference. Call Vanessa and get her up to speed. Meet in my office at 7am. Looks like you’re going to have an opportunity to take responsibility for the research project earlier than expected,” David said.
He put the phone down and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew he wouldn’t sleep again that evening. He put the TV on for any sign of news coverage to identify any potential media questions he might face in a few hours.
------------------------------------------------------------
Finsbury Park, London
Email after email came in. He’d received 30 in the last couple of minutes. He and Abby struggled to keep up with them.
She was fully ingratiated into her role with The Day Today and it helped that her relationship with her mother was repairing slowly each day. It allowed her to focus on writing.
She read with horror as each email reported violent act after violent act but the one that really got to her was the innocent woman in Taunton who lost her baby after being attacked by a gang.
She couldn’t understand why the woman was targeted. They had quickly put two and two together to see that the attacks up and down the country were against specific targets. The only anomaly was the attack on the woman in Taunton. She had nothing to do with any watch schemes.
Leon felt partially responsible after extolling the virtues of setting up and joining neighbourhood watch schemes in a few of his recent blog posts.
“We’ve got to write about this Abby,” he said.
She nodded in agreement.
“Can you collate all of the details from the emails and I’ll prepare a post?”
“Sure,” Abby said.
Leon clicked to open a new blog post and started writing:
Organised chaos as gangs attack volunteers, while a pregnant women loses a child following a savage beating
The UK finds itself gripped by fear tonight as the worst street violence to hit the country in five years sees hundreds of Neighbourhood Watch Scheme volunteers attacked in a single evening.
Meanwhile an unfortunate pregnant women was mercilessly beaten in Taunton, Somerset and lost her unborn child as a result of the attack.
It begs the question, why would anyone do something like this? Have we really gone beyond the point of no return?
The latest attacks will surely lead to the disbanding of numerous Neighbourhood Watch Schemes up and down the country as well as widespread panic from innocent members of society fearing the worst every time they go out.
The concerning element to this new wave of violence is that, by all intents and purposes, it appears to be organised. As if one group or individual planned this out methodically.
The seed was certainly planted on the ‘State of Hate’ website and quickly spread leading to the violent scenes many have witnessed across the country tonight.
All eyes will be on Prime Minister Lawson to provide a response to the chaos.
Surely the Government will have to borrow against national debt to increase the resources of police forces up and down the country. With no long term solution forthcoming, perhaps it’s time for the army to be brought in to patrol our streets.
Were you affected by the violence tonight? What do you think the Government should
do? Send your thoughts to [email protected]
------------------------------------------------------------
A few hours later – 10 Downing Street, London
Vanessa and Russell had discussed the narrative for the press conference that morning and agreed on the approach to take.
It was a real challenge as new information suddenly revealed itself on a regular basis throughout the early morning hours. As a result, news stories were aplenty.
This meant refocusing, reformatting and rethinking the tone of the press conference as additional details became available.
The meeting took much longer than planned and they found themselves cascading at an unnerving pace towards the start of the media event.
It was held at 10 Downing Street and David was as prepared as he could possibly be with such a volley of significant shifts through what was still just a young day.
The journalists began assembling. As expected, it was a packed house. Leon had joined his peers vying for the ideal spot to watch the pain of a Prime Minister unfold before him.
Abby was back at the apartment keeping the blog updated as the morning progressed.
Russell took to the lectern first.
“Thank you for joining us this morning,” Russell said, introducing proceedings. “I apologise for the limited notice you were given but I’m sure you appreciate the need to move swiftly in setting the press conference up.”
“Prime Minister Lawson will address you first and I’ll come back and discuss the Government response after. Please turn your phones to silent and leave questions to the end,” Russell said with a level of authority that was increasing as each press conference was survived.
“Prime Minister Lawson,” Russell extended his arm invitingly and David made his way to the podium looking suitably distressed. Every element of this speech had to be genuine and, to a certain extent, submissive.
