Singleton's Law

by Reginald Hill

  He opened the make-up door and peered in, As he’d anticipated the girl was down on the studio floor doing running repairs to the interviewees. He opened another door.

  “This is the costume cupboard,” he said. He took the machine-pistol out of the arm of an ancient great-coat, kept here for God knew what purpose. “The girl shouldn’t have cause to go in there.”

  The swarthy man shrugged.

  “Let’s hope she stays lucky,” he said flatly.

  Whitey returned to the reception room which was emptying rapidly. The light above the studio door was green and as he watched, the door opened and the Directors filed out.

  Wildthorpe spotted him and came across.

  “How are you doing, son? You’ve been working well, I hear. It won’t be forgotten, never you fear. Are you coming out to see the fun?”

  “No, I’d better stay here. I’m supposed to be talking to the Europeans when they arrive,” answered Whitey. Wildthorpe too sounded genuinely friendly. Could he act like this if something were suspected? More important, what would be the point?

  The Director laughed.

  “That lot! You needn’t bother. They’re coming in by chopper. We’ll let them see what a real Albion welcome is. They’ll be shitting garlic! We’ll take ’em straight to their seats, so you’ll have to do your chat a bit later. OK? Come on then.”

  He put his arm round Whitey’s shoulders and led him out of the now empty room. The door was slammed shut behind them by two Strikers. They entered the lift which did not take them right down to pitch level but stopped halfway. They stepped out on to a concrete stair-landing. Another door straight ahead opened into the heat of the main stand and as they stepped out into the open air, they felt the noise of the crowd break over them like water.

  Wildthorpe drew Whitey with him into the Royal Box, ignoring his protests.

  “Always room for my friends,” he said. “Them frogs arrived yet?”

  “No, Mr. Wildthorpe. Another ten minutes at least, so they say.”

  “Right,” said Wildthorpe to the young aide who had spoken.

  “Can’t wait any longer. Let’s get this show on the road. The heli-pilot can hold them above the Stadium till the entrance parade’s done. Serve the sods right. Off you go and press the starter, son.”

  The aide left and Wildthorpe grinned at Whitey.

  “Creepy little wanker, that one. You can have his seat.”

  Whitey sat down. There was nothing else to do. He was trapped in the Stadium as firmly as if he had been in Wormwood Scrubs. More firmly, perhaps. He’d been able to get out of the Scrubs.

  “Right,” said Wildthorpe. “Everyone sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.”

  His timing was excellent. As he finished, from each corner of the Stadium in turn a broad shaft of coloured lights tumefied into the air, red, green, yellow, blue. The columns swung and swayed, collided and crossed, till finally they focussed at a common apex, high above the centre of the pitch; and immediately from other parts of the Stadium sharp-edged shafts of brilliant white light were hurled to join them, till a four sided pyramid was formed. This was the signal for thousands of multi-coloured balloons to be released from the concrete moat which ran round the ground. For a few moments the air was full of the bobbing, soaring, luminescent shapes, then they passed through the walls of light and were gone.

  The crowd ‘oohed’ its appreciation; music sounded; first a fanfare amplified sufficiently to penetrate the noise even of such a gathering as this, then a rapid stirring military march. And into the arena from their respective corners trotted teams of Supporters from the Four Clubs. Their banners waved, their colours shone brilliantly, as they converged on the centre of the pitch. It looked as if a collision were inevitable and the cries from the crowd were becoming increasingly partisan. But just as the front lines, locked together with linked arms, reached each other, they released their grips and split into files, running lines of blue, green, red and yellow together in a pattern at first simple but becoming more and more intricate as the trotters swirled and threaded their way round the pitch. In the end Whitey found he had lost the concept of them as individuals and was now viewing them purely as living lines of colour, like a cartoonist’s animation or the contents of a gently shaken kaleidoscope.

  Now from the central tunnel poured a new stream of trotters, girls this time, wearing tight fitting track-suits in pure white. More and more of them poured out in an unbroken line till they filled the track round the pitch. Next they converged on the central whirl of colour, pressing in on it, shaping, moulding. For a moment it looked as if something had gone wrong, the patterns seemed broken, unbalanced. Then the shapes began to make sense and applause broke out in the crowd, swelling to a climax of hand-clapping, foot-stamping, whistling and cheering as more and more of the spectators spotted the word spelled out by the multi-coloured blocks in the plain of white.

  ALBION.

  “The buggers should have a good view of that,” said Wildthorpe with satisfaction, looking up into the tent of light. Whitey followed his gaze. Looking as if it were perched on the pinnacle of light was a helicopter containing, he presumed, the foreign dignitaries.

  The martial music had stopped. Wildthorpe rose to his feet and all over the Stadium others followed suit. The Anthem, thought Whitey. But which? They could hardly single out one of the Club songs. Perhaps the old standard ‘God save our gracious team’ would be sung. But this too had local, limited associations for each individual Supporter.

  Wildthorpe held a printed song sheet in front of him.

  “We’ll have a proper anthem later, of course,” he said. “But for the time being and for this occasion especially, it was a toss-up between Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ and this. I think it’s the right choice. Don’t you?”

  Whitey looked in amazement as the band struck up.

  This was the hymn ‘Abide with me.’

  The crowd began to sing.

  Suddenly Whitey recalled the first Cup Final he had ever seen; aged seven, his arms wrapped firmly round his dad’s neck, his dad’s firm slightly flat baritone voice sounding these words in his ear.

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  The tradition of singing this hymn at Cup Finals had died in the early seventies, but there were obviously plenty of older Supporters for whom singing it now would be a nostalgic and unifying experience.

  Change and decay in all around I see

  And the dirge-like tune, the morbid sentimentality of the words, these were just the things to bring a collective self-gratulatory lump to the mob’s throat and soothe its savage breast.

  I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless

  Whitey looked at Wildthorpe who was singing loudly and smiling benevolently at the crowd at the same time. Did he imagine he was the thee of the hymn?

  Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

  In the stand opposite there seemed to be some kind of disturbance, difficult to spot through the dazzling curtain of light or to fully hear through the singing of a hundred thousand voices. But a sense of movement was given and an edge of discord cut into the hymn. Wildthorpe’s smile was troubled for a moment, but not very troubled.

  He must have been expecting some bother, thought Whitey. He was a realist. No doubt the crowds were full of Strikers ready to pounce on trouble-makers. It was going to take more than a few protesters, no matter how well drilled, to disturb these proceedings. Another damp squib from Exsmith and King.

  Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes ;

  Somewhere close by there was an explosion, followed by the chatter of small arms fire. In the Royal Box the singing died away as the Directors looked at each other in consternation. Elsewhere in the stands others, further removed from the source and probably taking it for the beginnings of the firework display programmed for later in the evening, continued the song.

  Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies ;

  Heaven’s morning brea
ks…

  And it did. From somewhere behind the main stand, a rocket stabbed into the sky and exploded into a myriad bright and blazing lights. But the trajectory of the rocket was not the easy parabola of a firework, and the explosion was the simple, incredible destruction of the helicopter carrying the foreign dignitaries. It, or what remained of it, became a ball of fire which plunged to earth outside the stadium though its hectic aura could still be plainly seen above the grandstand roof.

  For a moment there was a shocked, incredulous silence. Then chaos. Whitey had time to see the multicoloured letters of ALBION painted on the sea of white waver, break up, dissolve; time to notice also how the colours ran in all directions for a second, then quickly reformed in blocks of yellow and green and blue and red; and time for nothing more but survival.

  The whole of Wembley was embattled. Everywhere sounded shrieks of rage, of terror, of pain; flashes of gun-fire burnt violet holes in the darkness, momentarily illumining hordes of people so densely packed that even their struggles seemed static.

  Up here in the Royal Box it was almost possible to think of it as a mere spectacle. It can’t be happening, thought Whitey. It can’t be. What’s gone wrong?

  Then Hobhouse, three seats away, suddenly twisted violently and fell, half of his head missing.

  After that there was no thought of being spectators.

  Whitey gave up conscious choice of direction in the next five minutes and concentrated on keeping his feet as he was swept down the steps which led to the pitch. So great was the pressure of bodies that it became almost impossible to inflate the lungs and he had to fight for a few inches of breathing space. From time to time through the din of the crowd and the crash of gunfire he heard other, different, cracking noises. They came from the crash-barriers surrounding the pitch, which were snapping like lengths of balsa-wood under the thrust and drive of the terrified crowd. Beyond them, the electrified fence was swept aside like misty gossamer and the first wave of spectators plunged into the concrete moat. It was seven-foot deep. Panic might well have given them the strength to drag themselves out on to the comparative safety of the pitch, but there was no time. Wave after wave followed till the moat was filled with bodies, live, dead, and dying, making a bridge over which those behind passed without awareness of, or care for, what they were treading on.

  This was the moment of the night which remained for ever with Whitey. To the nightmare of the small boy in the burning coach was now added this new terror of running, running, running across a soft, yielding, heaving, screaming mass of human flesh.

  But the nightmare came later. Now it was just a necessary part of survival. Once on the pitch, though the crowds were still dense, some element of free choice of movement returned. Grimly he began to force his way towards the lift shaft which led to the television studio. To reach it he had to go down the tunnel to the changing rooms area and this was so packed with spectators seeking an escape route that it required an act of will to abandon the starry vastness of the open sky and enter. Fortunately the greater part of those passing through were concerned merely with getting clear away from the Stadium, not with exploring its unknown areas. Whitey, remembering the thousands of people already waiting outside, did not envy anyone who got through the exit.

  He ignored the lift and began to ascend the stairs. He had wondered briefly as he was swept by it why no-one in the Royal Box had tried to go through the door high in the stand which led to the studio lift. When he reached the landing, he saw why. The door had been barred from the inside. Several large pieces of studio equipment had been pushed against it. And whether as extra weight or merely for ease of disposal, a pile of bodies had been thrown on to the landing also. They were mostly Strikers, but not all. Near the top of the heap, open-eyed but clearly lifeless, was Stan Linley.

  Sick to the heart, he rounded the corner. A gun exploded and a bullet flattened itself against the wall behind him. His eyes registered two armed men by the studio door before he fell back under cover.

  “Hold it.” he heard himself screaming. “I’m Singleton. Singleton. Check with…”

  He tailed off, realizing he did not know the swarthy man’s name. But after only a brief pause a familiar voice called, “Whitey? You there? Come on up. Slowly now.”

  He stepped round the corner. Standing at the head of the stairs, smiling welcomingly, was King.

  Inside the studio, all was calm, the only movement being in the control room where the TV personnel, looking white and strained, were working steadily and efficiently under the swarthy man’s direction.

  Whitey collapsed on a chair in the reception area and gratefully took the drink which King offered.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he demanded, “what’s happening? What’s gone wrong?”

  King looked at him thoughtfully.

  “I’m never sure about you, Whitey. Do you really not know? I doubt it. I think there’s part of you that doesn’t want to know, but you’re too bright not to have guessed long ago. Nothing’s gone wrong. This is what we’ve been planning for weeks.”

  “Planning? This? But why?”

  “Come into the control room.”

  The swarthy man waved at him as at an old friend, but Whitey ignored him staring at the monitors. The remote control cameras set all around the stadium were swooping and boring into the crowd, ignoring the panic-stricken majority but picking out hand-to-hand fights and gun-battles between different coloured factions.

  “There now,” said King proudly. “All over the country, those not actually fighting are seeing this. We’ve taken over all the regional tele-stations too, so that we’re putting out a different commentary for each Club. Down here, naturally, it’s rather biased towards Athletic. I’d wear your reds tonight.”

  He led Whitey from the control room and sat him before a viewing screen.

  “Want to watch?”

  “No. Jesus, no! Why are you doing this?”

  “Obvious, I should have thought. The Four Clubs achieved a stasis. On this the Directors hoped to build the New Albion. We’ve pushed things back to the Four Club state, and beyond. They’re going to destroy themselves by warfare and this time we’re going to move in and pick up the pieces.”

  He looked like a man who had just produced a perfectly reasonable plan for a new system of traffic control.

  “You’re mad,” said Whitey. “What can you hope for? You’ll have all of Europe around your ears. And Exsmith, what do you think Exsmith is going to do when he sees what’s happening?”

  “Yes, killing off that chopper-load of Euros wasn’t really planned. We thought they’d be in the ground already,” said King thoughtfully. Then he cheered up. “But never fret yourself about Exsmith, your dear ambassador. Oh no. All this, well most of it, was his idea!”

  Nixon Lectures : Fifth Series

  Documentary Material

  1 (s) Extract from letter received (May 1990) by U.S. citizen of British extraction from his 74-year-old father living in one of England’s major industrial cities.

  (N.B. Italicised passages were expunged by the English Postal Censorship Office, but reinstated through our infra-red techniques.)

  Things here could be worse. Some weeks I can’t get my pension, but things have been better since your nephew joined what they call the First Team. He’s a good lad and sees me OK though some of his mates are a rough lot. Old Joe Burton told one of them to sod off the other day and was lucky to come off with a broken arm. Mind you I reckon most of the trouble’s caused by these Wanderers and Athletic Supporters. We’ve always known how to behave up here. I wish you could see what they’ve done to the old ground. It’s like that camp the Krauts put me in in 42. Comes of joining that bloody market, I dare say. It’s all beyond me. Still it’s not a bad old life really and at least the beer tastes like beer since they stopped fetching it up from London in tin cans!

  Chapter 17

  Whitey spent the next twenty four hours in the studio. King’s party had come well prepared wit
h provisions and blankets and he even got some sleep.

  The swarthy man, he discovered, had made no attempt to take over the control room single-handed, but had shot the internal Strikers, summoned the two outside men, killed them also, then admitted King and his party. Stan Linley had refused to cooperate, but his was the only resistance from the technical staff. The other bodies on the landing belonged to those Strikers who had come to investigate and to some norms seeking an escape route from the terror below.

  It had taken five or six hours for the fighting in and around Wembley to die down and since that time the studio had been used as the control centre for the Jays’ London operations.

  “It’s a case of keeping things stirred up,” King explained happily. “The real fighting’s going on along the border areas. But this is where the power is, here in London. We’ve got to pick our moment to produce Sheldrake out of the hat. It’s no use just creating a new leader by force, he’s got to have the support of the people too.”

  “The people you are helping to kill off so that they will love Sheldrake,” said Whitey.

  “Stop being so reffing naive.”

  “And the Americans? What’s in this for them?”

  “Less than they think,” said King with a confident smile. “They’re not doing much anyway. Providing weapons, that’s about the strength of it. It’s pure self interest. They want to keep a finger-hold on Europe. Every continental country has given them the brown eye in the past ten years. So they want to create a bit of goodwill with us and also, of course, to prevent the kind of rapprochement with the E.E.C. the Directors were planning.”