Blow the House Down

by John Blackburn

  ‘God’s wind may not blow, but these towers will fall just the same, like Babel fell, and Jericho, and the Cities of the Plain, and the great evil city that was Babylon. Nothing can stop that destruction, so keep your promise, my dear. Walk away, say nothing and spare the innocent.’ He raised his left arm to wipe the tears from his face and Janet moved. Her hand shot out, her fingers caught the cylinder, clutched it, tightened round it, tore it away from him, and she threw herself back through a gap between the benches.

  But she had misjudged the strength of Baylis. He might be mentally ill, but his body was active enough. Lithe and agile and murderous, in despair and rage he leapt the empty pool and was on to her, driving her back across the bridge, back against the parapet, back to the edge of the abyss: one hand on her throat, the other fighting to regain the cylinder. Janet heard shouts and the thud of running feet, but she knew help would arrive too late. Baylis’s grip tightened, the cylinder fell from her hand and through the mist the pale, watery sun vanished, and there came the crash of an explosion. She closed her eyes and the horror of being buried alive returned.

  When she opened them, Baylis lay spreadeagled on the concrete. He looked quite peaceful, even happy, and very, very ordinary: a nondescript grey-­faced man in a quiet grey suit staring up at the grey sky. The bullet-­hole in his forehead was not particularly repulsive and he had not bled a great deal.

  9

  ‘A real Mr Anonymous, wasn’t he?’ Stephen Dealer flicked through a passport which showed that its holder had not been out of the United Kingdom during the past three years, and placed it beside a neat pile of other documents: a few letters which had told him nothing, two degree parchments, a bank statement and a jotting pad, schemes of work and two photographs of his sister in Canada: the records of a man’s life. James Baylis, Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, maniac.

  ‘Not a thing here to help me, and so far it appears that he only revealed his psychosis to you.’ Dealer grinned at Paul and Janet. ‘I’ve spoken to his doctor, his landlady and a few colleagues and acquaintances, and they had no idea that he was round the bend. Very shy – very eccentric, as boffins are supposed to be, but nobody suspected he was actually mad. Bit of luck that television programme of yours. Without it we’d never have rumbled him and Mallory Heights would have been scattered around the countryside and out to sea by now.

  ‘By the way, I hope you’ll forgive my third degree. I was pretty sure he had been persuaded to defect and you and a man called Trevor were my only suspects.’

  ‘Forget it, Major.’ Paul was frowning at him. ‘But you’re wrong about Baylis’s reason for making a bomb, you know. When he called at Janet’s flat, he was quite convinced that some divine wind would blow down the building. It was after we promised him that was impossible that he decided to take direct action.’

  ‘You could be right, but I’m still not certain. He used the term “Sailorman” a second time, didn’t he, Miss Fane?’

  ‘Yes, and I think you should explain, Major Dealer. Who is the person – what does the name signify?’

  ‘You’ll all know very soon, but please bear with me a bit longer. I asked Whitehall to fly up some data and Sergeant Jones is preparing a little show for us. What a lot of trouble would have been saved if we could have got Baylis alive. Under interrogation a nut like that would have talked his head off. Pity you couldn’t have merely winged him, Chief Constable.’

  ‘Are you criticizing me, Major?’ Rawlinson rounded on him angrily. ‘If he’d got that bomb away from Miss Fane, we’d all be dead. I had to put paid to the blighter immediately. The pity is that the blasted cylinder ricocheted off the balustrade and fell into the river. Till they fish it out we’ll not know if it contained all the explosive he stole, and the flats will have to remain unoccupied, in case there’s another bomb hidden in the building.’ He looked at a clock facing him. ‘Just five minutes before we give the facts to the Housing Committee, and I’m certainly not looking forward to it.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not, but even if we find that he used all the Terradyte, I would not recommend allowing anybody inside the building, Commander Rawlinson. If Baylis had confederates, there is a good chance that they may make another attempt to destroy the Heights.’

  ‘That’s all my eye and Betty Martin, Major.’ Rawlinson’s hand rapped on the desk. ‘Baylis was a solitary maniac. Every scrap of evidence points to that. For instance, though he hated alcohol there was a brandy flask in his pocket. The poor crazy fool clearly intended to blow himself up with the building and needed some Dutch courage.

  ‘Oh, he had pals all right, but they lived in his head. Daemons, spirits, heavenly voices; those are the confederates that set James Baylis off on his bent crusade, and I shall tell the committee that as soon as we establish that no second bomb exists, the tenants can move in again. You can say what you like to them, Major.’

  ‘That is kind of you, sir.’ Dealer had very white teeth which glinted as he smiled. ‘Shall we get it over with?’

  ‘By all means.’ Rawlinson eased back his chair. ‘And I don’t intend to be kind to them or to you. I will merely give the committee the facts as they stand, and be done with it.’ He stood up and led the way to the conference room, clanking loudly as he went.

  ‘You’ve had a full twenty-­four hours, so how much longer? That’s what we want to know, Chief Constable.’ The committee consisted of the Mayor, Mallory, two other members of the council and Lady Strand, who was there at her husband’s request. She sat far back from the others, busily taking notes of all that was said.

  ‘Can you give me a time limit as to when you’ll recover that bomb?’ The Mayor had jumped to his feet the moment Rawlinson had finished reviewing the situation. He was a short, bullet-­headed man with jet-­black hair plastered to his skull like streaks of boot polish. ‘Is the building being searched at this moment?’

  ‘It is not, Your Worship.’ Rawlinson pronounced the title with a sneer. ‘I have no intention of risking men’s lives unnecessarily and the correct course is to wait till the cylinder is recovered. If it contains the full four pounds of Terradyte, we can assume the building to be safe. Magnetic equipment is being used to grapple for the bomb and we should find it soon. But, as you know, the Randel is a fast-­flowing river and I can make no promises.’

  ‘That’s bloody well not good enough, Chief Constable. I want that building searched immediately, whatever the risk.’ The Mayor had once been a factory shop steward and he sounded as though he were addressing a group of wildcat strikers.

  ‘Unless those flats are occupied and right quick too, we’re going to be in for trouble. Some people are saying that the whole project has been mismanaged from the word go and I don’t blame ’em. First we had all that nonsense about the wind tunnel.’ He gave Janet a ferocious stare. ‘Now a lunatic is allowed to walk out of Fentor Park with a bomb: a comment on the security arrangements, if ever there was, Major.’ It was Dealer’s turn to receive his anger.

  ‘Mallory Heights must start to earn its keep or all hell is going to be let loose. The demolition programme has already commenced in some of the “rows” and families are split up in hostels: blacks and whites together. You’ll have a full-­scale race war on your hands, Commander Rawlinson, if the situation continues. Added to that those damned Fentor Park demonstrators are pouring into the city every day, and a fair percentage of ’em are a vicious rabble longing for an excuse to raise hell, while Martin Judson’s mob are waiting to provoke them. Do you want to provide them with an extra provocation?’

  ‘Naturally not, and you do not have to remind me of the situation. I have asked for and received reinforcements to deal with the demonstrators, Mr Mayor, as you yourself know.’

  ‘Aye, Rawlinson, but could you deal with a racial riot by our own people at the same time? You’re going to get just that unless those families move into the Heights in a day or two.’

  ‘I’m afraid I agree with you.’ The Chief Constable paused, took a
sip of water and then nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well, if the cylinder is not found within another twenty-­four hours I shall ask for volunteers to search the building. Now, Major Dealer has something to tell us all. Unlike myself he considers that Baylis may not have acted on his own, but conspired with other people to destroy Mallory Heights.’ He waited for the murmurs of disbelief to die down. ‘You are in the chair now, Major.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Dealer stood up and gave the audience his gleaming, but rather unpleasant smile. ‘My reasons for suspecting that Baylis did not act independently may well appear inconclusive to you, and there are only three of them. The anchor which was tattooed on his left wrist, a name or title that he mentioned to Miss Fane and Mr Gordon, and something which I have only learnt today: that an anonymous notice condemning the building was once pasted on a door of the town hall and signed with the initials “G.T.S.”

  ‘It will be for you to decide whether or not to act upon what I tell you, but I must officially warn you that what you are about to see and hear is restricted under the National Secrets Act.’ He nodded towards Sergeant Jones, who was stationed behind a slide projector at the back of the room. The lights dimmed, and an example of very early photography appeared on the wall. The picture showed the deck of a Victorian warship with a pyramid of ratings and petty officers formed around a gun turret. At the top of the pyramid sat a stout, bearded officer resplendent in gold braid and a cocked hat.

  ‘That photograph was taken almost a hundred years ago and it shows Vice-­Admiral Sir Giles “Tubby” Cuthburt with a group of his adherents, who called themselves “God’s True Sailormen”.’ Janet heard him chuckle through the gloom.

  ‘Comical and wholesome names, aren’t they, ladies and gentlemen, “Tubby” and “Sailormen”? Makes one think of Hearts of Oak, Barnacle Bill, and Jolly Jack Tar rolling home with a parrot on his stalwart shoulder. There is nothing comic about our particular Sailormen, however.

  ‘Before we continue, I would like to remind you that, though James Baylis may have been insane, some types of insanity do not impair intelligence or ability. Few people would accuse Alexander the Great, or Adolf Hitler, of being ineffectual morons.’

  ‘Scrub the history lesson, man, and give us the facts.’ The Mayor groaned out his irritation. ‘What has a ruddy Victorian admiral got to do with the Heights?’

  ‘I am going to show you, sir. Our next exhibit was photographed in the United States ten years ago.’ Dealer snapped his fingers and a second slide replaced the first. Janet craned forward, seeing a clearing in a forest, a big tree standing alone in the centre of the clearing, a tree with something hanging from it, something that was attached to the trunk of the tree. She felt her nails dig into the palms of her hands, heard Paul gasp in horror, while behind them Mary Strand whimpered like a small, terrified animal.

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ Dealer spoke without emotion. ‘The woman’s name was Rita Payne, which is appropriate. She was eight months pregnant when the present-­day “Sailormen” did that to her.’

  ‘That’s the truth, Moll, I just dunno what to think no more.’ The Virgils were on their way back from a shopping expedition and they had halted for the traffic lights to change. ‘First, they tell folk that the building was designed wrong. Then, that a madman tried to blow it up. Now, that there may be a second bomb hidden away someplace.

  ‘Johnny Magenda says they’re not even bothering to look for that second bomb. He thinks it’s all a put-­up job to give them time to review the housing list, and the next thing we’ll hear is that the Heights is for whites only. It’ll be goddam hostels for us from now on; black ghettoes.’

  Luke had every reason to feel bitter. With the Heights uninhabited and the demolition work already in progress, a great many families had been forced into emergency accommodation at short notice. The men were housed in a disused school and the women and children in a Salvation Army hostel; both buildings were cramped and uncomfortable, with the beds as close together as regulations allowed and the cooking and sanitary arrangements totally inadequate.

  ‘I thought you didn’t trust Johnny, Luke.’ The pedestrian signal changed to green and Molly took his arm while they crossed the road. ‘You always said those Black Lions are nothing but hell-­raisers making trouble for trouble’s sake.’

  ‘So, maybe I was wrong, woman. Maybe trouble is what these white folk need to bring ’em to their senses and give us decent treatment for a change.

  ‘And just you do what I say, Moll. Just you cook what you like for yourself and the kids and don’t take insults from nobody.’ Luke was referring to an incident which she had reported when they met outside the hostel. There was one communal kitchen for all its occupants, and Molly and two Jamaican friends had been preparing a rich fru-­fru when four white women led by Hilda Baxter had marched in and made their protest.

  ‘Chuck that filth out. The place is bad enough already without your stinks. What is it anyway? Bloody cat-­food, I suppose.’ Both groups had been ready for battle and one of the Jamaicans had grasped a carving knife. Only the advent of the warden, with a promise that any violence would send them and their children to sleep in the streets, had stopped bloodshed.

  ‘I dunno, Luke.’ Molly glanced nervously at a car pasted with stickers proclaiming ‘Martin Judson is right, and You know it.

  ‘Curry does smell pretty strong, but we’re used to it and they’re not, that’s the difference. I don’t want no trouble, honey, and till we get back up there, I’d best cook white food.’ She looked at the deserted towers on the horizon. Though Molly naturally did not know it, the Chief Constable had just made his promise to organize a search, if the cylinder in the river remained unlocated for another twenty-­four hours.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Luke. When I was standing on that balcony before they turned us out, I saw Hilda Baxter watching me and she looked quite friendly. For a moment I almost thought I could get to like her in time.’

  ‘Then you must be crazy, Moll, and if Johnny Magenda’s not lying, we’ll never get back there. The Heights will be for bloody Baxters only.

  ‘Jeez, look at that load of rubbish. A dustman would want double pay to shift it.’ A phalanx of youths, all wearing outlandish clothes and obviously in Randel­wyck for the Fentor Park demonstration, were marching down the pavement four abreast. They looked as if they would welcome a fight, and oncoming pedestrians were stepping hurriedly aside or being jostled into the gutter.

  ‘You keep behind me, honey. Nobody’s pushin’ us off the sidewalk.’ Luke was a notable boxer and stood six foot two on his big board-­like feet. Confident that the ranks would open when he reached them he strode on.

  ‘Hey, who do you think you’re pushing, man?’ A bearded face scowled and a leather-­clad shoulder barred his way.

  ‘Do you own the pavement or something?’ A hepped-­up voice cackled, the phalanx pushed forward, Molly screamed, and Luke hit out.

  ‘Trash – trash – filthy white trash.’ All his pent-­up rage and frustration boiled over. His right fist crashed in to the bearded chin, his left pounded a duffle-­coated belly, and then both his arms swung out sideways with the hands outstretched.

  ‘White filth, cowardly white garbage.’ They had broken, before the violence of his assault and a great wave of triumph replaced Luke’s other emotions.

  ‘Even one coloured man’s too many for a pack of white scum like you.’ He screamed in glee at their fleeing backs and then looked at the pavement and frowned. Two youths had gone down before his blows. One had a bloody nose and looked partially stunned, while the other was clutching his stomach and crawling away from him. The boy with the bleeding nose was as black as himself.

  10

  ‘The movement is thought to have been started in 1873 when Admiral Cuthburt was commanding a cruiser squadron based on Southern India.’ The photograph of the hideous thing in the forest had been replaced and the face of the bearded officer glowed on the screen.

  ‘ “Tubby” Cuth
burt may have been misguided, but he was certainly not an evil man. In fact, his original motives had much to recommend them. Like all admirals, he dreaded the thought of an epidemic spreading through his crowded ships’ companies, and he had noted the prevalence of diseases among the coloured races. As a precautionary measure he urged the men under his command not to fraternize with the native populations, and originated the league of “God’s True Sailor­men”. Membership was confined to those who followed his policy of segregation, and brought certain benefits: light duties, the chance of quick promotion, and extra rum rations. Non-­members who flaunted his orders, on the other hand, could expect to receive the most severe discipline that the law allowed.

  ‘The faithful were provided with entertainment, as well.’ Dealer’s profile was in the edge of the beam and Janet saw him smile cynically. ‘The treatment of gonorrhoea was a painful business in those days and Cuthburt’s protégés were encouraged to witness the surgeon at work. Naturally the operation was performed without an anaesthetic and any sadistically-­minded sheep must have been highly regaled by the suffering of the goats.

  ‘But Cuthburt was not only concerned with disease, nor was he a racialist, in the true sense of the word. His studies of the Old Testament and personal experience had persuaded him that all men were equal in the love of God providing they kept their true identity. But any union of white and coloured blood was contrary to the Divine will and a potential scourge of mankind. After retiring from the service he published a genetic thesis, stating that alien cell-­types could never fully blend and that the half-­caste was a soulless and sub-­human creature and an abomination to the Creator. The book appeared under the title Blighted Seeds and had a fair success, despite scientific criticism. From the date of its publication, 1879, “God’s True Sailormen” ceased to be confined to a small group of seafarers, and gained members from all classes of society throughout the British Empire.’