Going Viral

by Andrew Puckett

  He gave it to her and asked if she had any date in mind.

  ‘Why not tomorrow evening?’ she said.

  They agreed on seven.

  ‘Have you always lived in London?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t you tell?’ she said, and the others laughed.

  ‘D’you like it down here?’ Craig asked.

  ‘From what I’ve seen, it’s… let’s say it’s a big improvement.’

  ‘Any luck on the job front?’ Marc asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve signed on and they say they’ll let me know.’

  Craig said, ‘Has it got to be NHS? I work for the Council – the County one – I could ask around if you like.’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ she said gratefully, confident she’d never be around that long.

  ‘D’you have a contact number?’

  She gave him her mobile number. Craig was older than he looked, she realised – close too, there were tell-tale lines around his mouth and eyes… thirty five, forty? Looking for a way to turn the conversation back to slavery, she said, ‘Would you still hold the slavery forum if your MP was difficult?’

  ‘Oh, I think we’d still go ahead – wouldn’t we, Marc? It just wouldn’t be such a draw.’

  ‘We’d be lucky to get a dozen,’ said Sophie.

  ‘I’m trying,’ Craig said, ‘I’m really trying.’

  ‘I know, pet,’ she said, putting her arm round him. ‘Just make sure you succeed, that’s all.’

  ‘Now I know what they mean by a hangdog look,’ said Alan, grinning at him.

  Rebecca plunged. ‘I hope you get somewhere too,’ she said. ‘I think the slavery issue’s really important. It’s the main reason I chose BTA.’

  Sophie looked at her in surprise. ‘In that case, why not the Anti-Slavery League?’

  ‘Oh, I think providing food for the starving is more important, but I also think that we should be aware of why these people are starving in the first place – and that’s slavery. Not to mention colonisation and oppression.’

  ‘You ought to get together with Ron,’ Craig said… ‘Although then again, I’m not sure I’d wish that on anyone.’

  Another chuckle.

  ‘Why?’ Rebecca asked. ‘I mean, who’s Ron?’

  Craig looked round at the others. ‘Where do I begin? If you met him, you’d understand. Quite quickly.’

  Sophie said, ‘We all care about slavery, but he’d bore for England on it.’

  ‘Especially with an attractive young female,’ Craig said.

  ‘Oh, sub-tle,’ Sophie said…

  Marc came in – ‘The trouble is, he’s one of those who can go on so much he puts people off,even though he’s right.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him much lately,’ Craig said. ‘Have you, Alan?’

  ‘No, not much,’ Alan said shortly. Rebecca went still – Alan didn’t like the subject… Why not?

  ‘When was he last at a meeting?’ Craig asked.

  Nobody knew. Rebecca blinked as she tried not to show too much interest… so Ron was obsessive about slavery and hadn’t been seen lately… and Alan, who was his friend, didn’t want to talk about him…

  The chit chat went on for a while, then Alan offered her another drink, which she politely refused. ‘Actually,’ she looked at Marc who’d finished his drink and was looking restive, ‘I wouldn’t mind going, if that’s all right…’

  ‘Sure.’ He eased his way out of his seat.

  They said Goodnight to the others and went out. It was cold and a drizzle haloed the streetlights.

  ‘February in England,’ he said.

  ‘But at least it means Spring’s round the corner,’ she said.

  They reached her Nova. She unlocked and let him in. They drove off. After a moment, he said,

  ‘Not regretting your decision to join us already, I hope?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She felt his eyes on her and smiled without looking at him.

  He said, ‘I don’t blame you for not wanting Alan to come to you – Oh, he’s perfectly harmless, but he can be a bit leery. Him and Ron both.’

  Now, she did glance at him for a second… ‘What is it with this person Ron? He’s obsessive, he’s leery, he’d bore for England…’

  He shrugged. ‘A group like ours is bound to pick up the odd oddball.’

  She laughed. ‘So he’s an odd oddball as well – I can’t wait.’

  He laughed with her. ‘After a talk-up like that, he’s bound to disappoint – go right here –’ He pointed to the turning ahead.

  A few minutes later, she pulled up at his house.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, his hand on the door handle…

  ‘Are you going to be for it?’ she asked.

  Too far…? Then he smiled quickly, unwillingly. ‘No, not really.’ He paused, took his hand away from the door. ‘Hannah’s completely in tune with BTA – except for the Open Door issue. As you probably gathered, they’re more interested in immigration than aid. They’re great believers in multiculturalism, as is Hannah…’ He stopped as though aware he’d said too much… ‘Anyway, sorry, shouldn’t go on.’ He released the door. ‘Thanks for the lift. See you on Tuesday.’

  He waited on the pavement until she’d driven off.

  Chapter 6

  She phoned Brigg in the morning, told him about the meeting and gave him the names and, where she could, addresses of who’d been there. ‘I’m hoping to get a list of all the members tonight, but you might want to look at those to go on with.’

  ‘Anything from the rest of your team?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve been lucky – if BTA hadn’t needed a treasurer...’

  ‘Luck still has to be utilized. D’you still think it’s Exeter?’

  She took a breath. ‘I just think it’s more likely, because of the animal feed place and the eggs. The percentage game, like you said.’

  He told her to keep in touch and rang off.

  She spent the day looking round Exeter. She’d had the impression when she’d arrived that, other than for the cathedral and the few old buildings around it, the centre consisted of some rather nasty office blocks and shopping complexes and not much else. But when she struck out, there were interesting bits from all sorts of periods: Victorian warehouses, Georgian terraces (Grade Six at least) some Art Deco and even a few good-looking modern buildings. Shame about the sixties office blocks. Bombs or developers, she wondered? Both, probably.

  She had some lunch, shopped for an hour or so, then walked back to her flat past the cathedral. She caught a snatch of singing as someone opened the door to go in, and on impulse, followed them.

  A man just inside stopped her. ‘Sorry Miss, we’ve just started Evensong.’

  ‘Can I stay and listen?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ he said, and indicated the rows of chairs.

  She sat near the back. There were perhaps a couple of dozen people scattered through the nave. The voices of the choir, unaccompanied, weaved through the pillars and spaces of the vast building; she didn’t understand what they were singing, just felt completely at peace with it.

  The last time she’d been inside a church was at an aunt’s funeral. The hymns had been listlessly sung and meaningless. Here, she felt that the threads of music were somehow connecting her to the previous generation, the one before, the one before that…

  It stopped, and someone read from a bible. She couldn’t make out the words. She thought, Why do I do my job?

  She’d told herself when she’d joined the unit that she was helping to clear the dirt away, make the country cleaner. But – and she realised she’d been thinking this for a while – at what cost to herself? How much of the dirt was sticking to her?

  In her last major job, she’d infiltrated an environmental group suspected of harbouring an extremist faction. In order to keep her cover intact, she’d allowed herself to be seduced by one of the leaders. And then realised just in time that she really was being seduced, both by Sean and his twisted version of
their philosophy.

  When she’d told Brigg, he’d said, ‘Most of us go through something like that.’

  ‘But you don’t know how close I was…’

  ‘What matters is that you’ve told me now.’ He looked at her and said deliberately, ‘D’you think it’ll ever happen again?’

  ‘I – no.’

  ‘Good.’

  No, she thought now, no, I won’t let it…

  Remembering that the daylight would soon be gone, she quietly left, walked to her flat, then drove to Alan’s address, so that she wouldn’t have any problem finding it in the dark. Also, to get a feel for it…

  It was a pleasant semi on the outskirts, a conventional family home. Quite a large garden too, with a large garden shed as well. Did he have a family? She moved on before anyone could notice her.

  *

  Alan did indeed have a family – when he let her in that evening at seven, she could hear pop music coming from upstairs and the after-smell of the evening meal.

  ‘Dawn,’ Alan called, ‘come and meet our new treasurer.’

  A small, tidy, smiling woman appeared and shook her hand.

  ‘Alan was so pleased when someone volunteered to take over,’ she said.

  ‘I beginning to wonder just how awful this job is,’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Not awful, just boring,’ Alan said.

  Dawn said, ‘Why don’t you go into the dining room and I’ll bring you some tea.’ She frowned at the noise from upstairs. ‘Sorry about the row.’

  Rebecca didn’t really want tea, but it might extend her time – the prospect of that wasn’t so bad now that she’d met Dawn. She somehow made Alan more bearable.

  ‘How many children have you got?’ she asked as they went into the dining room.

  ‘Three. Two have flown the nest – well, at Uni., so we still have them back quite a lot. That one –’ he gestured at the ceiling ‘– is still at school. An afterthought,’ he added, sotto voce.

  Yes, definitely more bearable on his own patch.

  ‘It’s over here,’ he said, moving to the computer on a desk in the corner.

  She glanced round as she followed him; there was polished dining table, a thirties style tiled fireplace and a sideboard with some rather nice china in the other corner.

  He showed her the disc with the membership list; their addresses, work and home, contact numbers and whether they were up to date with their subscriptions...

  Dawn came in with the tea. Full cream milk, which Rebecca detested. She made a conscious effort not to grimace.

  ‘About a third of the subs are still due,’ Alan said when Dawn had gone. ‘Being a woman, you’ll probably have better luck than me.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  He grinned. ‘Because most of the defaulters are male.’

  ‘Ah.’ He was probably right, although she’d be glad of the excuse to make contact with any of them… ‘I don’t think a third’s bad for this time of year,’ she said. ‘I take it they were due in January?’

  He nodded. ‘Oh, you’re right, it’s just that I’m sick of chasing them… there I go, putting you off again…’

  They both laughed.

  He showed her the accounts. As he’d said at the meeting, there was over £2000 in the deposit account, and nearly £1000 in the current.

  ‘Where d’you get the money from?’ she asked. ‘It’s more than I thought there’d be.’

  He flicked to another part of the disc. ‘I suppose around £600 a year from subs – eventually. The rest comes from sponsorship or donations from local firms, and our charity shop. Half of everything we get goes straight to Headquarters in Bristol.’

  ‘You’ve got a charity shop? Whereabouts?’

  ‘Ashill,’ he said. ‘Of course, you don’t know Exeter, but it’s the grotty end.’ He went on, ‘There’s a pecking order in most towns – Oxfam always gets the best site, followed by Cancer Research, Save The Children, then local hospices, and so on. We’re at the bottom of the heap.’

  ‘You still make money, though,’ she said, studying the screen.

  ‘Nothing like as much as Oxfam,’ he said drily.

  ‘I must go and have a look. I’m a charity shop addict,’ she added, which was true, to an extent.

  He showed her how the money was moved between accounts, then gave her the disks, chequebooks, paying-in books and all the correspondence from the bank.

  ‘So what did you make of us all yesterday?’ he asked.

  She pretended to think… ‘Pretty good,’ she said. ‘I like the commitment, and the way you get things done, especially the forum on starvation and slavery. The only thing that bothered me…’ she hesitated… ‘was the vehemence over… Open Door, is it?’

  He smiled thinly. ‘It’s our Achilles’ heel,’ he said.

  She asked what he meant and he explained how it had threatened to split the whole movement, their branch in particular. ‘Most people don’t mind stumping up a bit for starving children, but try and link it to immigration and it’s a turn off. A controversy we can do without.’

  He told her how every time they’d healed the rift and come to an agreement to be neutral on it, Open Door would make some new proposal, usually through Hannah, that the two groups work together on something. ‘I wish they wouldn’t, and I do wish she wouldn’t keep falling for it, sometimes I think they’re doing it deliberately –’

  He broke off and changed the subject by asking her how she’d first got interested in Africa.

  ‘Bob Geldoff,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, the sainted Sir Bob – no,’ he said hastily, ‘I’m not knocking him… As he said Why is this man hungry? Why has he no food? To a country where we’ve got too much of it.’ He patted his own waistline self-consciously.

  She said, ‘I was only a girl at the time, but we were learning about slavery at school and even then I could put the two together – we really owe them big time and anything I can do to help people see that…’

  She tailed off as though embarrassed by her own vehemence, then said, ‘What about you?’

  ‘VSO,’ he said. ‘Voluntary Service Overseas. The things I saw there…’ his eyes slid away and the smile in them faded…

  She waited to see if he’d elaborate, but he clearly didn’t want to, so she changed the subject again, asking him about his house was it from the thirties? She’d thought so from the fireplace. Did it have a big garden?

  ‘Almost too big. Takes a lot of time just to stop it reverting to jungle. Are you a gardener?’

  ‘I was – but you don’t get much garden with a flat, unfortunately.’

  They chatted a bit longer, then he asked if she wanted some more tea, which she took as a hint to leave.

  ‘No thanks, but I wouldn’t mind the loo before I go.’

  He led her to the hall. ‘Up there – hang on, the racket’s stopped, which probably mean’s Ruthie’s in the bathroom… Yes, come through here…’

  He led her through the kitchen to the utility room. ‘In there,’ he said, pointing to a door.

  She went in and locked it. Waited a few minutes, then pulled the flush and let herself out… Good, he’d gone.

  She quickly explored. One room off, dusty, filled with bikes… another, filled with junk… she couldn’t see any others, and no cellar…

  Back through the kitchen… no sign of any other rooms going off there… past the living room where Dawn was ensconced with the telly… she stood for a moment looking up the stairs… she could see a hatchway in the ceiling about two and a half feet square… loft, how big would it be… ?

  She heard stirring from the dining room and went in. Alan had stood up from the computer.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  He told her she was welcome and saw her to the door. Like Marc, he stood in the doorway while she drove off.

  So, she thought as she drove back, no secret lab downstairs (unless it was incredibly well hidden) and she couldn’t imagine one upstairs with Ruthie still
at home and the others regularly coming back… unless it was in the loft… unlikely, she thought, which left the garden shed. She’d have to come back one night and look.

  Back in her flat, she emailed the discs to Brigg, then phoned and told him what she’d learned, both from Alan and the snooping.

  ‘Bottom line is you don’t think there’s a lab hidden there?’ he said.

  ‘No, although I’ll check the shed later.’

  ‘What about this schism with Open Door, is that relevant?’

  ‘I can’t see how, and I can’t imagine our perps would want to draw attention to themselves by going on about it.’

  ‘You’re thinking about Hannah Bell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, as it happens, she’s got form.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, it seems that she was an active member of the Anti-Nazi Alliance at university – and I do mean active – she was arrested for organising an attack on a BNP rally.’

  ‘Well, no one likes the BNP.’

  ‘She really attacked them, and incidentally managed to knee one of our finest in the gonads while he was trying to pull her off. Bang on target, apparently.’

  ‘What did she get?’

  ‘Oh, she grovelled to the magistrates and was bound over.’

  ‘Must’ve been a good grovel. Anything more recent?’

  There wasn’t. She told him she’d look at the charity shop tomorrow and he said he’d get the names she’d given him into the system.

  *

  The BTA charity shop was, as Alan had said, at the economy end of town. It was on a main road, but out of the centre, the sort of place only devotees or the impoverished would know about. Quality of wares and prices were commensurate.

  The clothes were clean and sound enough, but had mostly been cheap in the first place. Bric-a-brac and ornaments were execrable in the main, and the paperbacks dog-eared. It was run by two middle-aged ladies called Rose and Mary. They seemed to be joined at the hip and Rebecca wondered if they were known collectively as Rosemary.

  She introduced herself as the new treasurer and asked if she could have a look around. Rose said she thought it would be all right and Mary tentatively asked for some ID.

  Suppressing a smile as she wondered what affect her warrant card would have, Rebecca produced a credit card.