Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  Charlie had a seating plan in his hand. He gave it to Barnaby. A block of seats up in the wings had been ringed in red.

  Barnaby stared at the plan, uncomprehending. ‘What’s this?’

  Charlie jerked a thumb up the corridor. In the shadows at the end, beside the door that led to the stage, Barnaby recognized the sturdy figure of Mike Tully.

  ‘You’re on guard duty,’ Charlie was saying, ‘you and my new friend there.’

  ‘Guard duty for whom?’

  ‘Tell you later. Mike’s got the script.’

  ‘What script?’

  Barnaby stepped towards Charlie, beginning to lose his temper.

  Kate edged her body between them. ‘Charlie’s out front for the rally,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s all agreed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me, mate.’ Charlie threw his head back, swallowing a small yellow tablet. ‘I’m out there, I’m doing it. Don’t think it’s a coup because it isn’t. There’s fuck all left to squabble about. Thanks to our Whitehall friends.’

  He offered Barnaby his hand. Barnaby ignored it, watching Kate. She gave him a strange half-smile, then slipped her arm through Charlie’s. They set off down the corridor, perfectly in step, without a backward glance. Nothing left to squabble about, Barnaby thought. Absolutely right.

  Tully was advancing down the corridor towards him. They were to take the lift to the second floor. A door would give them access to the seats ringed in red. Their targets had been up there since ten past seven. He’d checked again only minutes ago.

  ‘Targets?’ Barnaby followed Tully through a warren of corridors. In the lift, he was aware of Tully watching him. The expression on his face spoke of righteousness and an ounce or two of pity. There were debts to be settled here, and they weren’t altogether political.

  A pair of swing doors gave access to the top tier of seats in the wings. Between here and the balcony, the seats were empty except for a couple huddled at the front. The man had his arm around the woman. They were laughing together, their heads touching.

  Tully motioned Barnaby closer. ‘You’re on her side,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll take Ellis.’

  ‘Who’s Ellis?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Just sit beside the woman. And make sure she doesn’t leave.’

  Barnaby looked at him, then shrugged. In certain moods, Tully could be truly intimidating. The Marine background, he thought. And eyes that brooked no argument.

  They made their way down towards the balcony, then shuffled sideways along the front row, Tully from one end, Barnaby from the other. Ellis saw them first and alerted the woman. When Barnaby sat down beside her, she looked at him. The eyes behind the huge glasses were the palest blue. ‘May I help you?’

  Barnaby shook his head, saying nothing. When she repeated the question, he ignored her, leaning forward, his elbows on the balcony, gazing down on the sea of bodies below. Charlie had been right. For a local election, it was an astonishing turnout, the seats in the stalls almost entirely occupied. Here and there, beneath little thickets of Union Jacks, sat gangs of crop-haired youths in light grey football shirts, their forearms heavily tattooed. There were video crews at the front, a tangle of cables and tripods, and every time they swung their cameras round, hunting for shots to establish the atmosphere, the flags begin to wave. It was like a wind blowing through the auditorium, and with it came a low chant that swelled and swelled and then died again as the cameras panned away.

  ‘Eng-ger-land… Eng-ger-land…’

  Abruptly, the lights dimmed and the heavy blue curtains parted. A single spotlight followed Charlie Epple as he made his entrance. The youths began to chant again, louder this time – and watching Charlie’s extravagant bows, bis outstretched arms, the way he saluted the crowd, Barnaby realized that he’d finally achieved his dream. This was the moment when politics toppled into show business, the moment when Charlie Epple became the rock star of his dreams.

  There was a microphone on a stand in the middle of the stage. Charlie adjusted it, taking his time, then began to talk. Despite everything, he said, it’s come true. Despite all the pressures, all the doubts, all the guys who said it couldn’t be done, it’s here for real. Tomorrow night’s poll may be a different story but already someone’s bothered to ask a question or two and, in their own small way, the people have spoken. He stepped back with a flourish and a line of lights at the back of the stage softly illuminated Charlie’s precious statistic, a giant 73 per cent, dwarfing the figure on the stage.

  Charlie’s hands were high in the air again, applauding the audience the way footballers applaud the crowd after a game, and his gesture stirred another round of chants. Feet were stamping this time, and Barnaby could feel the auditorium tremble under the heavy boots. Charlie tried to still the uproar and, for a moment, Barnaby thought they were back outside the Imperial, all control lost, but then the shouts and insults began to fade. A new figure stood on the stage, smaller and slighter than Charlie. Kate.

  Barnaby stared down as Charlie introduced her. Despite the day’s events, she still had enough credit to carry the audience and, for ten minutes or so, she recalled exactly why she’d been attracted to Pompey First. In the circumstances, the speech was beautifully judged. She made no apologies, offered no excuses. She’d done what she’d done for the good of the city. She believed absolutely that money was power and that both had been fenced off by a government that wasn’t prepared to trust the people. The Labour Party, her old spiritual home, wouldn’t redress that balance. On the contrary, they might be driven to adjust it even further in Whitehall’s favour. No, she concluded, the truly new politics lay with the people. It was they who deserved a voice, they who deserved a party of their own. And, in Pompey First, she’d done her best to create just that.

  She stepped back from the microphone. There was a moment’s silence, then ripples of applause that grew and grew. Peering down, Barnaby could even see the odd flag waving back and forth, and he found himself clapping as well. Kate had administered the last rites. Singlehanded, with quiet simplicity, she’d put Pompey First to rest.

  Charlie was back at the microphone. He ran briskly through the Sentinel’s charges. OK, Zhu had given Pompey First financial support. But this money wasn’t tainted, unlike the huge donations the Tories had wrung from their own overseas supporters. Men like Octav Botner, who’d fled the country after allegations of a £97 million tax fraud. Or Asil Nadir, who was hiding away in Cyprus. Or Azil Virani, who’d been slung into jail after the BCCI rip-off. They were the real menace to democracy. They were the men who’d handed over money in the hope of political favours.

  Zhu’s share purchases came next. Of course he’d bought into British utilities. Anyone would, once they knew the terms on which the government had chosen to get rid of them. Gas, and water, and electricity were giveaways, choice hunks of British industry tossed to the private sector. That’s why the Americans were snapping them up. So what was so different about Zhu to turn a shrewd investment into something sinister? Was it his colour? His race? Or was it the fact that he cared enough about Portsmouth to offer it the promise of a half-decent future?

  The audience stirred again. Charlie wrenched the microphone from the stand, advancing to the front of the stage, warming to his theme. Britain was bloody lucky that men like Zhu, entrepreneurs with a bit of heart and a bit of social conscience, even bothered to get off the plane. These were the guys that were bringing in the real money, the real investment. So why all the paranoia? Why the headlines about Selling Out? And Zhu Coups? And why, tackiest of all, did elements of the press sink to winks and nudges about drugs and Triads?

  Charlie’s finger stabbed the air, buttonholing the audience, piling the questions up, one after the other. Pompey First had been destroyed. Last night, foolishly, they’d celebrated certain victory. Twenty-four hours later, thanks to the local press, they barely existed at all. Why? Who’d supplied the information? The spin? The tissue of lies that had engulfed the people’s par
ty? Why was democracy, real democracy, local democracy, such a threat?

  Barnaby watched as Charlie began to turn towards their perch up in the wings. Then, abruptly, he was blinded by a powerful spotlight, mounted across the auditorium. Instinctively, his hands went to his face, shielding his eyes. Beside him, he could feel the woman doing the same. Then she got to her feet and tried to push past him, and he remembered Tully’s instructions and reached up, pulling her down again. On stage, he could hear Charlie talking about visitors from London, envoys from Whitehall, spooks from God knows what branch of the intelligence services. The two in the middle, he said, had doubtless been told to spoil the party. And with tremendous efficiency, they’d done just that. So here they were. In at the death.

  The woman beside Barnaby flinched. Then she was on her feet again. This time she didn’t try to get away but simply stood there, her hands held high acknowledging her role in Charlie’s script. Charlie stared up at her a moment, then stepped back with a whoop, and through his parted fingers Barnaby saw thousands of balloons cascading down from a net in the roof. The balloons were sea-green and the youths in the football shirts began to puncture them, a fusillade of bangs that sounded like rifle fire. In the aisle, a huge man with a plaster cast was bending over an enormous ghetto-blaster, and suddenly there came the thunder of Elgar at full volume, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. The groups with the Union Jacks were on their feet now, stamping and singing, their faces raised to the woman in the wings, and minutes later, as the spotlight dimmed and the curtains closed on Charlie Epple, they were still there, roaring.

  Barnaby got home past midnight. He’d walked miles and miles, brooding. Towards the end, crossing Southsea Common, he paused in the bitter wind, trying one last time to visualize the way it must have been for Bill Clinton and Hillary and all the other heads of state. Shivering in his thin coat, he told himself that the bottle of whisky he’d just shared with Liz and Jessie should have made it easier, should have parted the curtains on the memories of that extraordinary weekend but, try as he might, the images wouldn’t come. The Common stayed the Common, empty and pale in the moonlight, shadowed by the racing clouds.