1990

by Wilfred Greatorex

  The doctor had found the instructions in his medical bag that morning. They were precise. Be at the town's largest department store by 11 a.m. Go in through the front entrance. Leave immediately by the second side exit on the left from where goods lorry number 38689XB would take him to the station in time to catch the 11.50 to London. The message concluded with the address of the yard.

  He was now wondering whether he had been mad to come. What would happen? Who would appear? It could all be a Public Control Department trick...

  Kyle materialised, looking business-like, and Vickers laughed aloud with relief.

  'I thought you'd written me off. I thought you were on their side.'

  Instantly sensing his insecurity, Kyle asked, 'You're sure you want to get out?'

  'While there's a guarantee my family will follow,' he replied.

  'Under this Government, Doctor Vickers, nothing's for sure,' Kyle warned.

  'But the European Convention...'

  'Your wife and child have the right to follow. Unless this Government back-tracks. How are they for money?'

  'Enough to last them a year or so.'

  'A month should see them through,' Kyle said, 'and we'll make sure they're all right.'

  He was leading the way towards his car, tidily concealed in a blind alley among the metal blocks.

  'Can I pay?' Vickers asked.

  'No.'

  'I mean, it must cost you lot something.'

  Kyle gave a dismissive gesture. 'Never mind our funding, doctor.'

  The engine growled roughly to life and the little vehicle slid out of hiding and buzzed into the road.

  'What did your wife say?' Kyle asked.

  Vickers hesitated for just too long. 'I didn't tell her.'

  'Liar! You all do.'

  'She's reliable,' Vickers said, hastily. 'Tears, if that's what you mean. No hysterics, though.'

  'And your daughter?'

  'She doesn't know. We never told her. She doesn't even suspect.'

  Kyle shook his head. 'I wouldn't bank on that.'

  Vickers stared out at the passing streets. They merged grey and damp into each other. This could be his last sight of England. He felt he should absorb every detail, but his mind captured nothing. Turning towards Kyle, he simulated interest. 'Don't you ever want to get away yourself?'

  'Often. But where to?'

  'The States.'

  Kyle replied quietly, 'They don't have a Public Control Department like ours. They don't have a regime like ours. It wouldn't leave me much scope in my job, would it? I'd only lie around and grow fatter.'

  Alan Vickers was genuinely intrigued now. 'Do you see much of your family?'

  'Not much, no.' Kyle coldly shut him off.

  Vickers shifted uncomfortably, thrown back on his own thoughts by the forced silence. The rain was quite heavy now. His wife would be alone, except for Mary, unable to confide in anyone, not even her own parents.

  'My wife and child will follow inside a month?' he pressed, nervously, as though it was within Kyle's personal power to ensure it.

  'Unless the Home Secretary decides to change the rules - which I'd not put past him - and fly in the face of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.'

  Vickers went white. He had not anticipated this at all. Everything had happened too quickly. There had been no time to think, to work it out. The idea that he might never see Katherine and Mary again had not sunk in. Now it sucked his thoughts into terrified confusion.

  The car's radio telephone buzzed and Kyle reached for it. Marly's voice, calm and unperturbed, carried clearly. 'Turn back now... Understood?'

  'Understood.' Kyle replaced the phone and looked for a point where he could turn the car. 'It's off.'

  Megatons of pressure lifted, leaving Vickers feeling giddy and sick.

  'Just like that?'

  'Just like that.'

  'But why?' Vickers stuttered, wondering if this was the luckiest or unluckiest day of his life.

  'At times like this, doctor, you don't ask why, you just do a fast U-turn.'

  Within minutes, Kyle had dropped his half-hearted passenger at Liverpool Street Station and accelerated away, looking grim. He called at the office and by the time he reached the car park, lines of strain were scoring his face. The car with the smoked glass windows was already there.

  'Sorry I'm late,' Kyle apologised, softly. 'My secretary didn't realise just how far I had to come.'

  'She told you about the freighter?' asked Faceless.

  Kyle nodded, 'I'm grateful for the tip-off.'

  'No business of mine, Kyle, but it did occur that you may have - er - acquaintances involved.' The voice was bland.

  Kyle's expression did not change. 'No,' he said flatly.

  'Good, good. Only those poor devils don't have a chance. The illegals will get the usual two years - or one on misery pills. The Department aims to be very hard in this case. Let's hope those seamen did it for gain. They'll get twelve months. If they did it for ideology, they'll be inside two years.'

  Kyle flinched slightly. In order to reduce numbers in the overcrowded prisons, the government were playing with the option of a shorter sentence combined with a daily issue of a drug designed to induce extreme mental depression.

  Kyle had personally taken these 'misery' pills for a week, in order to be able to write a first hand story when the scheme was originally introduced. He recalled it as the only period of real despair he had ever experienced, a time when he could easily have committed suicide and, after all that, his story had been 'spiked' by the Editor for reasons the Editor would not go into.

  'Any idea who they are? The helpers?' Kyle asked quickly.

  'One's a seaman named Harper and we believe two more are in it. It won't take Skardon's chaps very long to find out. They've brought a new dimension or two to interrogation.'

  'When are they planning to spring the trap?'

  'They're leaving it right up to sailing time. In case a few late hopefuls show up...'

  Kyle's mind flashed to Dave Brett, who was due to deliver two more would-be emigrants within the next hour. Knowing it was useless to attempt any direct action, he could only hope Marly had managed to intercept them.

  Faceless was still talking. '...and there's this...' The gloved hand emerged from the partly-open driver's window. '...You'll never believe it, but the Home Secretary's pressing a novel notion in Cabinet to change the King's Birthday Honours List.'

  'Oh, really?' Kyle's voice sounded eagerly surprised.

  'That's his paper to the Cabinet. In place of titles and seats in the Upper House, he wants to award happiness pills and rights to extra rations of meat and petrol and the purchase of luxury goods.' Old Faceless passed over a folder. 'Make sure you burn that after digesting, won't you?'

  The illegals dozed in the cabin. Three days were too long to maintain a constant pitch of tension. Only Nolan, the last to arrive, remained restless, pacing about, his hands twisting together behind his back. Half an hour, and the ship would weigh anchor: an hour, and they would be safely outside British waters.

  An imperious knock shook the door. The five stowaways froze. A voice ordered, 'Open up! Public Control Department.'

  Months of secret mutiny, weeks of a thousand hopes shattered. They had all known it was possible, but those final days, cocooned in the warm cabin, had lulled them. The first emigrant moved meekly towards the door.

  'No!' shouted Nolan.

  'Don't be daft, there's no way out!'

  As the West Indian snatched at him, the door came crashing in. Nolan made a wild, futile leap into the throng of Emigration Officers. Fists and boots crashed into him. His body rang with sharp, bright pains and he slumped down, only to be hauled upright against the panelling for another beating. The E.Os. were wet and cold. Most of them should have been off-duty hours before. Their thoughts were full of missed dinners and angry wives. Nolan had provided just the chance they wanted.

  Skardon had made sure that the media were informed
in good time. As the dejected group of illegals came down the gangplank surrounded by its escort of Emigration Officers, The TV cameras started to turn.

  A deep-voiced newscaster began reporting, 'All five illegal emigrants had had appeals for exit visas turned down by the Ombudsman's Courts and all had signed Form P Seventeen promising to work in Britain for ten years after graduation or qualifying...'

  Kyle watched on the newsroom set, his face mellowed and indifferent. As the captured men moved towards a prison van on the quay, the news editor peered hard at the screen. 'Two of them have been duffed up.'

  'The sea was rough in the Port of London,' Kyle said icily.

  Greaves gave him a sharp glance, as the TV report continued, 'Two of the men suffered minor injuries -'

  'Minor! Jesus!' interjected Greaves.

  '- but these were caused in a fight among themselves.'

  'Half of 'em thought it was wrong to emigrate...' said Greaves, sarcastically. His chair creaked loudly as he suddenly bent towards Kyle. 'You beat me sometimes, why weren't you down there? I mean, they've been duffed up by the PCD.'

  Kyle contemplated him, reproachfully. 'You don't know that, Tiny. You don't know they didn't fall during a heavy swell.'

  'In the Port of London?' Greaves thumped his desk and Wilkie, who was scribbling nearby, looked over inquisitively as he yelled, 'You pull out your story about those bloody monsters who'll run the ARCs. Then you can't be bothered to go down there...' he waved a furious arm at the TV picture. 'When little blokes are being trampled on..

  'Little blokes?' Kyle said. 'Running out on us to pick up big money in the States!'

  The news editor's eyes widened and he breathed out, heavily. 'I don't know you sometimes.'

  'I don't know why you're grumbling. I've given you a good lead story.'

  'This garbage about Fancy Dan with his miner's lamp leading his favoured workers into the Promised Land of special rations and happiness pills?' He flapped Kyle's copy, contemptuously. 'Leave off!'

  'It's a good lead.'

  Tiny Greaves jabbed a finger at the TV screen showing the five illegals disappearing into the black Maria.

  'That's the lead. Or should be.'

  'But it won't be,' Kyle insisted. 'You know that. Who cares about that lot of grabbers...?' Avoiding Greaves' baffled gaze, he turned away and caught Wilkie's eye. 'Isn't that so, Wilkie?'

  The young reporter looked awkward and cornered, as Kyle advanced on him, sneering, 'You should have been down at the docks, Wilkie. Then you could have written how that bloke, who looks as if he's just had two rounds with the heavyweight champ, wasn't even pushed - but tripped over an anchor.'

  Unable to control his bitterness any longer, he stormed out, leaving Wilkie smarting and Greaves completely bewildered. The cameras zoomed in on Harper and another seaman being led off the quay.

  Delly Lomas and Tasker watched the TV newscast in the Controller's office at the PCD HQ. As Jack Nichols finally appeared on the screen looking like a commanding general, Skardon stretched out, complacently, and switched off.

  'The media lot did well by us.' He lit a large cigar and relaxed in his chair, obviously thinking of the rosy compliments to come from above.

  'They went in too close on Nolan,' observed Tasker. 'You could see the cuts and bruises.'

  'I thought they were convincingly explained,' Skardon snapped.

  'Otherwise full marks to Jack Nichols and his chaps.' Tasker discerned that this was no moment for criticism.

  'Jack Nichols looked like a camp warder,' Delly's acid tones cut across the party. 'The image was bad.'

  'He's done a great job...' Skardon tapped the red telephone on his desk. '...And I expect the Home Secretary through shortly to compliment us... him... the Department. Today was a coup. It was a lesson to unpatriotic elements.'

  Delly stifled a yawn.

  '- You're tired, Delly?'

  'It was all so clumsy and it looked brutal,' she sounded bored.

  'It had to be,' Skardon said.

  'But did it have to be seen to be?'

  The grey telephone rang. Skardon seized it, then thrust it at her, irritably, 'For you.'

  Kyle's voice sounded in her ear. 'I'm not breaking up a champagne celebration?'

  'No. Carry on,' she said, absently noticing how Skardon always began to clean his nails viciously with his paper knife when stung.

  'It's just that a lot of people are asking how that bloke - what's he called? Nolan - how he came to look like the victim of a mugging?' Kyle asked.

  She wrinkled her nose, but responded silkily, 'May I call you back?'

  'Yes, darling. Don't leave it too late, though. We have earlier deadlines than the nationalised rag. Union punishment for independence.'

  As she hung up, she surveyed her two male colleagues with some smugness. 'We're going to have to issue some kind of statement to explain how that man came out looking so bloody and bruised.'

  'That shouldn't be difficult,' Skardon raised his eyebrows to Tasker. 'Should it?'

  The red phone sounded and Skardon grabbed it before its first buzz had stopped. 'Skardon here... Yes, I'll hold...' He glanced with unconcealed excitement at his two Deputies 'It's him. The Home Secretary.'

  'Then I should tell him that Kyle's on to his plan to substitute extra meat, petrol and luxuries for the King's Birthday Honours,' said Delly.

  Skardon's jowls sagged and his mouth went tight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dave Brett scorched across the tarmac of the heliport, screeching to a stop inches from two Emigration Officers. The younger jumped aside, annoyed, but the elder merely looked round with a grin.

  Brett bounced from behind the wheel to slap the captain's back. He looked fit and prosperous in deep winter tan and Vicuna coat. No-one would have guessed that, less than twenty-four hours before, he had almost found himself on an official two-year misery trip.

  The reflection of a TV Outside Broadcasting van had first appeared in his mirror as he was driving through Shepherd's Bush. It had remained quite close through Knightsbridge and St. James' Park, then disappeared somewhere between the run along the Embankment and the stop-go through the City. It was only when he noticed it again as they neared Stepney that he began to wonder what was happening to bring it to the East End.

  Within yards of the docks, his skin went taut - the instincts of a street kid. As he drew near the entrance gates, he slowed down and cruised straight past them, checking in the mirror. The TV van approached, an Emigration Officer stepped out, waved it down and directed it to park out of sight in a side road. Brett had driven away, fast.

  Later, he watched the rest on the TV news hour in the Leisure Centre. There, but for Scotland Road and Borstal....

  Now he wisecracked with the helicopter captain and co-pilot, as a middle-aged loader ticked off a pile of light alloy containers against a list and the E.Os. chalked against the stencilled destinations in North France - Lille... Caen... Bayeux... Calais...

  The first official was an old familiar. The other was obviously newly trained and hot for theatrical results. He paused over a large crate with perforations.

  'Chemicals. They need ventilation,' Brett remarked, without even blinking.

  'I know this stuff,' the senior man declared, marking the crate with a large red cross. 'It's O.K.'

  The second officer gave it a last, lingering look before moving on. Brett winked at the older one and followed them away from the helicopter as the cargo hold slammed shut and the propeller began to spin.

  'Trade seems to be looking up, Brett,' the first Emigration Officer chuckled, scanning him and the car, appreciatively.

  'About bloody time...Did you hear Oxfam are raising funds in India for us?' Brett joked.

  It was hard to curb his elation as the machine took off in the background. He'd done it again! Despite the bastards! This one would really get them jumping!

  Sweeping luxuriously away, at last, he could imagine Scholes apprehensively climbing out of t
he crate and stretching his limbs. Before long, the helicopter would land in Northern France and Scholes would jump out and run across that woodland clearing to meet the waiting French man. There would be no waves, no goodbyes. That was the ritual.

  Skardon received the news in his morning bath, to which he always retired with the national and international newspapers which arrived daily at 7 a.m. by special delivery.

  He let out an exasperated wail and dropped the offending New York Times in the water. The 'phone rang before he had time to reach his towel. Dripping and shivering, he cringed as the Home Secretary bellowed down his ear. Seconds later, he was making sure that his two deputies did not sit down to a tranquil breakfast.

  All the way to headquarters in the back of the official car, he pretended to concentrate on official documents from the official, wafer-thin briefcase, which carried the Royal cipher embossed in gold.

  The mixture of temper and funk jarring his brain was becoming all too familiar. Forgetting the air of dignity and poise he usually favoured, he snarled twice at the driver during traffic bottlenecks. The man gave him a look which, in Skardon's present paranoiac state, might almost have been interpreted as contempt. He was grateful for the subservient nods from the two duty policemen at the entrance to the PCD block.

  The lift was full of other civil servants. Not a word passed between them, although each knew perfectly who the others were.

  'Seven,' Skardon said, his voice impact producing a light against the figure seven on the dial. Floor buttons were no longer necessary.

  Within minutes, he was ensconced at the head of the conference table in his office, the security of deferential deputies and the Chief Emigration Officer around him.

  'They're getting out! They're getting out regularly, steadily, in greater numbers! It's like a scheduled service!' he spat at them. 'The gutter press will be calling it the Great Exodus before long! And it has to stop. The Home Secretary's had a bellyfull.' He slapped the still damp copy of the New York Times on the table. 'Look at it! The American press is full of it.' Hitting the photograph with the back of his hand. 'You'd think he was the greatest scientist since Einstein the way they're playing him up. And he was only a third-rate nuclear engineer.'