Singleton's Law

by Reginald Hill

  “And what do people like yourself do, assistant managers and historians manqués?”

  “We ride the storm but don’t claim to control it. We sweat it out. We encourage the symptoms to burn out the disease. But that’s not all. I’m falling into your trick of letting language control meaning. It’s not all disease. There’s something of robust good health here too. There’s a meaning to life, a core of belief, something to treasure and worship and fight for, such as this country hasn’t had for too reffing long!”

  Whitey laughed now, as convincingly as he could, but his amusement was drowned by a droning noise from Burdern. For a second he thought the man was in pain. Then he realized he was singing, and suddenly Sheldrake joined in and the words became clear. Onward goes Athletic! The greatest and the best!

  It was the official Athletic anthem.

  The noise brought the two guards to the door with guns upraised. The men ignored them but went on to the end of the verse. When they finished Sheldrake looked from Whitey to the guards.

  “You’re nothing, Singleton. You know that? You weren’t picked up as a danger but as an occasional irritant. You re peripheral. I’ve more time for this lot than you. They’re part of it, necessary. You’re nothing!”

  Calmly he sat down on the bed once more and took a sip of his cold coffee. Whitey who during the song had felt a whole volcano of angry abuse and argument welling up inside himself suddenly went off the boil. It no longer seemed worth it. Abstract debate in such potentially dangerous circumstances was a mere time-waster. A logical prognosis of his situation would be a much more worthwhile achievement.

  In a way, he thought gloomily, Sheldrake was much better off. A straightforward exchange for money or prisoners, and he’d go home. If the Manager thought he was worth it, that was. And if the Jays kept their bargains.

  Burdern spoke again, his puffed lips distorting the words.

  “What?” said Sheldrake. “Oh, the time. Christ knows. Lunch time, I suppose. What’s the matter, Fred?”

  Burdern glared at Whitey, then tried to whisper something in Sheldrake’s ear, but the Assistant Manager couldn’t make it out. He put his arm round Burdern’s shoulders and led him to the furthermost corner where a bout of vigorous whispering took place. At the end of it, Sheldrake nodded his head thoughtfully.

  “Very clever, Fred. Yes, that would be wise, very wise.” “What?” asked Whitey.

  “Fred thinks we’re talking to you too much, that’s all, said Sheldrake. “You’re going to Coventry.”

  He smiled amiably, but Whitey felt uneasy. There was something here he didn’t like. He went to the door and addressed the immediately alert guard.

  “I want to see King.”

  “Your wish is my command,” said King appearing at the outer door. “Burdern, you’re the cunning one, aren’t you? You know what he’s just said, Singleton? That he’s got a homing device stitched into his gut. We checked, of course, but this wanker’s clever. He didn’t activate it till we’d finished the first round of questioning. Fortunately we’ve got listening devices just as sensitive, pick up whispers even. He was telling Sheldrake here to be ready to rush the guard at the first sound of attack. Good advice. He knows that the first thing we do when attacked is kill our prisoners.”

  Georgie came into the room at the trot.

  “There’s a big concentration of Strikers building up in Cowley,” he gasped.

  “How big?”

  “Two fifty. Three hundred.”

  “Flattering,” said King. “They must have a fix. And when they move, they move quickly. We’ve got to give it to them, they’re well trained.”

  Burdern reacted to the gibe by flinging himself forward, his hands stretched out towards King, but he contrived to get tangled up with Sheldrake and the two men fell to the floor.

  King, unmoved by the attempted assault, turned away, saying to the guards, “Say good-bye to these two for me.”

  “What about him?” asked one of the guards, nodding at Whitey. King stared at him for a long silent four or five seconds. Whitey suddenly felt a strong urge to drop to his knees and start pleading for his life. Instead he remained upright and stared back at King with as much indifference as he could muster. It was the right reaction. King said, “Let him come with me.”

  Whitey caught up with him in the corridor outside.

  “What will happen to those two?” he demanded boldly, trying to compensate for his own recognized fear of the previous minute.

  Behind them from the room they had just left came a short clatter of gunfire. Whitey stopped and looked back, but King continued with uninterrupted pace.

  “Why?” called Whitey after him. “Why?”

  He had to trot to catch up with the unrelenting youth who answered over his shoulder, “You wouldn’t have liked Burdern to go back and find out about his wife and kids, would you? And anyway, Singleton, let’s face it, you don’t care a duck’s fart what happens to either of those two. If killing them could have got you out of the Scrubs, you’d have done the job yourself without a qualm. You may have to do worse to get out of here.”

  Whitey expected a very furtive and circumspect exit from the college. Instead they found the space around the main gate occupied by a noisy chattering throng of ‘Supporters’. Georgie supplied him with a rosette and scarf, saying, “Try to look twenty years younger, eh?”

  “How the hell do you do that?”

  “Tell yourself there’s a big naked blonde just drooling to try you out round every corner.”

  John Caldercote suddenly appeared at his side. It was a small comfort that he would find it even more difficult to look twenty years younger.

  “There you are,” he said. “We obviously picked the wrong place to hide, or the wrong time to hide in it.”

  “Why the hell don’t we get out?” demanded Whitey.

  “There’s safety in numbers,” said John. “Or more important, there’s normality in numbers. You don’t wander round in ones and twos in Oxford; you’d have some other assoles down on you in a flash.”

  “That’s another thing. If the Management knows the Underground are using Jesus, why don’t they just tell the assoles and let them sort us out?”

  Caldercote smiled superiorly. Whitey sensed that he hadn’t had much chance of feeling superior since his arrival here.

  “This is a First Team job, one for the professionals, not just a gang of infant Supporters. In fact, if you ask me, a lot of genuine assoles are going to have a pretty rough time of it. I mean, how do you tell the difference?”

  He motioned towards the mob that surrounded them.

  “And in addition the Management’s attitude towards assoles is pretty ambivalent. Publicly they have to be recognized as the good Supporters they are. But they go a bit too far, are a bit too well organized. A lot of people, including your ordinary Supporter, wouldn’t mind seeing them roughed up a bit.”

  “But if there’s only a couple of hundred Strikers coming, they wouldn’t dare antagonize all the colleges, would they? They’d be outnumbered by twenty to one.”

  John looked at him curiously.

  “You’ve been away a long time, Whitey,” he said finally.

  “The First Team play it even harder now than in your day. It’s not just a question of numbers.”

  Something seemed to be happening by the gate. There was as much noise as ever, but over it all now was an air of expectancy and the mob seemed to have sorted itself out into a series of ranks.

  “We’re off,” said John. “Stick close to King.”

  Now the great gate creaked open and they spilled out of Jesus into the Turl. Someone started chanting Onward, Red Supporters’ and soon everyone took up the tune as they turned left and with linked arms in strict formation started towards the Broad at a bouncy trot. Beside him Whitey heard John singing as loud as the others, and after a few yards he himself began to join in.

  It was an unexpectedly exhilarating experience. The physical contact, the
rhythmic movement, the insistent chants, all combined to give a sense of belonging to an irresistibly powerful group. Other pedestrians in the narrow street, whether assoles or ordinary citizens, ducked into doorways or fled before their trampling advance. Whitey found himself starting to think that such a force as this could build up a momentum which would carry all before it and bring the Management tumbling down. Only the thought that this communal excitement was in fact the main strength of the Four Clubs sobered him slightly, though it was not strong enough to interrupt completely the surges of exhilaration running through his body.

  Then they were at the end of the Turl where it joined the Broad, and suddenly the momentum slackened, the chanting died and the irresistible force became an uncertain and fearful throng of seventy or eighty youngsters.

  “Oh, shit!” said John.

  Two trucks were parked in the middle of the Broad, their bonnets facing Balliol. Out of one of them spilled a line of about twenty men, carrying guns and wearing a uniform which resembled a tightly fitting red track-suit with a broad black line down the sleeves and legs. On their heads they wore snug fitting riot-helmets. Most sinister of all were their red-tinted goggles from which depended small nose and mouth masks clipped tight beneath the chin.

  With a smooth precision, which bore the same relation to the recent movement of the Jays as that of a corps de ballet to an Indian war-dance, they ran out into two sides of a triangle, the base of which was the end of the Turl and the apex the second truck. Now the tail-board of this fell slowly away and Whitey found himself staring in disbelief at the menacing snout of a huge cannon.

  Nixon Lectures : Fifth Series

  Documentary Material

  5 (b) Transcript of Rex v Woodcock and others March 1985 Extract from Mr. Justice Lauriston’s summing up.

  The physical and mental suffering you caused this woman is immeasurable. Your only defence, if so it can be styled, seems to be that she was opposed to the demonstration in which you were taking part and that no-one was willing or able to stop you. For ius civile Britannicorum, the law of this country, you have substituted ius virium, the law of the stronger. Let us then meet you on your own terms. The law of the country permits me to sentence you to a maximum of a mere twenty years on each of the three charges against you. Normally sentences would run concurrently, but on this occasion I too will bring into action ius virium, the law of strength.

  It is the sentence of this court that each of you shall on each and every count on which you have been found guilty serve a total of not less than twenty years in one of Her Majesty’s Penal Institutions.

  The sentences will run consecutively.

  Chapter 8

  Whitey’s first thought was that the Strikers were going to lob a few h.e. shells into the Turl. So much for subtlety!

  “Fire!” he heard a distant voice command.

  And the cannon spoke.

  Amazingly it didn’t say ‘bang!’ or any of the normal things a cannon is expected to say. Instead it let out a kind of ‘shushing’ noise and a great arc of glittering liquid fountained out of it and rained down on the men crowded together at the end of the Turl. Whitey felt himself soaked within seconds, but huge relief was blossoming in his mind. A water-cannon! Who minded getting wet? Perhaps the Team didn’t realize how well-armed the Jays were.

  As suddenly as it had started the cannon stopped and the Strikers opened fire. Again, not the expected chatter of submachineguns but a duller less regular series of explosions.

  “What?” he began.

  “Gas!” John interrupted, then his eyes grew wide. “For Godsake, Whitey!”

  The two men started in wonderment at each other, then looked round at the others.

  They were all turning purple.

  For a moment Whitey wondered if this were some hideous side-effect of poison gas.

  “The water-cannon!” exclaimed John and began to cry.

  Around them the Jays were breaking up in disorder. Many of them had drawn their concealed weapons, but the end of the street was now almost completely obscured in the swirling grey mist of some form of tear-gas whose stinging fumes finished the job of blinding would-be shooters. Entirely disorganized, they began to flee back down the Turl pursued by the swirling gas, like a mob of purple devils in flight from the gates of hell.

  Whitey had already begun to recognize the truth of Dr. Johnson’s assertion that the imminence of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. His own mind had become much attuned to survival in the recent past and even now as he sprinted in as great a panic as any of his companions, his thoughts were busy with the whys and wherefores of his present situation.

  Why the purple? Why the gas?

  Answers came easily, though not comfortingly. The purple was a means of identification. There was going to be no simple evasive mingling with other groups of assoles. It probably also meant the Management wanted as many as possible alive. Hence the gas. The Strikers in the Broad were mere beaters, driving them in panic and physical distress down the Turl towards … well, what did beaters drive the game towards? The waiting guns, the open trap.

  Ahead, those Jays who had attempted to turn off the Turl into Ship Street were being driven out by fresh waves of gas. All the exits must be blocked. Whitey stopped running and moved sideways into a shop doorway, pulling Caldercote with him. He dimly recollected this had once been some kind of restaurant but now, in common with so many businesses, it was boarded and barricaded and looked completely impenetrable.

  Beside him John shrieked, stumbled and fell as a gas cannister caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Whitey stopped and bent to help him up, receiving a huge lung-searing mouthful of fumes as he did so. Choking, he staggered back with John almost a dead weight against him. Behind him, the door gave. He fell backwards, felt himself dragged inside, and lay on the floor, his eyes blinded by tears, and coughing almost to the point of vomiting.

  “Quiet!” commanded a familiar voice with such cold urgency in it that he found himself biting deep into his lower lip in an effort to obey.

  When his eyesight recovered sufficiently for objects once more to become visible, he saw King crouched by the door, gun in hand, listening attentively.

  Whitey put out his hand to push himself upright and came in contact with a recumbent body. His first thought was that it must be Caldercote but when he stood up and looked down at it, he saw an entirely unfamiliar old man. His eyes were open and across the crown of his high-domed bald head ran a jag of blood whose source was a ragged wound on his temple.

  King spoke.

  “You’ve got a nicely developed survival bump, Mr. Singleton.

  I think we can be mutually useful.”

  He stood up now and came down the narrow passageway, stepping carefully over the old man.

  “Those wankers have gone by, but I think we’d better look for a back way out all the same.”

  “Who’s he?” asked Whitey nodding downwards.

  “Lives here, I suppose. Or squats here. I had to yuss him. He didn’t seem welcoming.”

  “Where’s John? Caldercote, I mean?”

  King shrugged.

  “They’ve picked him up I expect. There wasn’t time to drag him in. Anyway, he would just have been a drag. Joke. A soft journalist. Too much stodge in his diet and his writing.”

  “You said as much about mine,” said Whitey.

  “I don’t take it back. But, like I said, you do seem able to survive. I presume you worked out that they’d be waiting in the High?”

  “Yes,” said Whitey wearily.

  “Nice. Let’s go.”

  King headed into the rear of the restaurant. Whitey hesitated, glancing back at the door. Perhaps John was still lying outside there? No. King was right. They’d have picked him up. It wasn’t worth the risk of looking.

  Everyone I have contact with seems to come to a sudden end, he thought. Nancy Mays, Burdern, Sheldrake. Now John.

  Perhaps I can do as much for King.

>   With a slight lightening of heart, he went in pursuit of the young terrorist.

  Getting out of the building proved easy. A bit of wallclimbing soon had them behind the shops in the Cornmarket which ran parallel to the Turl. But this, Whitey realized, was where their troubles really began.

  He had found a tap in the restaurant and paused momentarily to scrub his stained hands.

  “A waste of time,” grunted King. “It’ll take more than water.”

  He had been right. In any case, it wasn’t his hands he should have been worried about. He caught a glimpse of himself in a glass-plated door of a kitchen cabinet and his head looked as if someone had squeezed a muslin bag full of brambles over it.

  King also was spattered but nothing like the same extent. Whitey guessd that he must have worked out the cannon’s function ten seconds ahead of everybody else and grabbed whatever cover was available—probably his nearest companion. But he was still badly enough marked to be easily spotted by any searching Striker.

  They crouched low in a jungle of cardboard boxes all packed with old shop rubbish. Some effort had been made at orderly arrangement and most of the rubbish was the kind of packing material one would expect from a clothing store rather than vegetable or other decayable matter. But there was still a strong stench of the rubbish tip about the yard and every whisper of wind among the boxes set Whitey’s mind thinking of rats.

  Despite this he had no strong urge to leave the yard in his present colourful condition.

  “Won’t we be safe here till dark?” he asked King. “They can’t have any idea how many of you there were. Surely they won’t do a house to house search just on the chance of a few stragglers?”

  “Why not? It’s all in the game, isn’t it? Anyway, don’t you kid yourself. If we were just a couple of the lads, you might be right. But we’re not. We’ve got names and roles that they’ll yuss out of someone in half-an-hour. So they’ll be looking for us special. Someone will probably find that old reffer back there pretty soon too. You hide up here if you like. Me, I’m going on.”