1990

by Wilfred Greatorex

  'What's that gadget?'

  'It's to authenticate the voice-print,' Kyle explained. 'To prove it's Wainwright.'

  'In we go then,' the agent was all for bounding forward.

  'Hang on,' the journalist warned. 'There'll be a PCD hard case in there, called Halloran. He breaks legs.'

  A case-opener, a small crowbar in hardened steel, slid down Brett's sleeve and into his hand. 'I was in Manchester when he was doing it. No bother.'

  They came to a second fence, wired this time, and crouched beside it.

  'Did you bring the photos of Wainwright?' asked Kyle.

  'Only because you said so,' replied the other, looking baffled. 'I didn't know it was nostalgia week.'

  'It isn't. Take these as well.' He gave Brett the envelope from Tom Pearce. 'Now listen. Gelbert uses ECT and one result is that your memory gets jogged loose from its moorings. That's why it's been banned in some countries for twenty years. Wainwright might not even recognise you. So you wander him down memory lane and pick up the bits he still remembers. If any.'

  'Christ!' Brett had stopped smiling, and now looked genuinely shocked.

  The newsman had attached two bulldog clips joined by copper wire to one of the fence wires, to circuit the alarm. Then, cutting the length between the clips, he held up the wire for his partner to start crawling through.

  A silent breeze stirred the branches, covering the few scuffles they made while creeping through the shrubbery towards the new recuperative annexe.

  This was a row of ten timber cottages, only one of which was lit. As they watched from the bushes, Halloran, wearing a white jacket and obviously on guard, paced the length of the chalets, bouncing a bunch of keys in the air. Reaching the end of the row, he stopped and leant patiently against the wall.

  Brett slid away, gesturing to Kyle. The journalist stood, scraping his feet on the gravel, obtrusively, and the PCD officer came forward, alert, with a heavy cosh in one hand.

  Brett moved in silently behind and smashed the case-opener onto his skull. The thug dropped. The agent immediately plunged a large and none-too-hygenic hypodermic syringe into his inert body.

  'Where d'you get that from?' Kyle asked, his eyes flaring. 'A vet?'

  'Yes,' the other replied, truthfully, taking the keys from Halloran's pocket. 'Sling him in the bushes. If we're lucky, he'll catch pneumonia.' He ran towards the single occupied chalet.

  A brief glance through the window showed Wainwright sitting on a bed, gazing blankly at a television set, which was not switched on. Already he looked drawn and even a little thinner.

  The room was well-furnished, like a single suite in a very expensive hotel, with ankle-deep carpet, furniture by name designers, wallpaper in printed silk, private bathroom and air-conditioning. Only the hospital bed looked incongruous, with its adjustable levels and restraining attachment.

  Wainwright did not look up as the clock clicked, but, as Brett entered, his head turned and some terror showed.

  'Who are you? I've taken my tablets. I don't want to go to sleep yet. Who are you?'

  The agent gently laid the tape recorder and the envelopes of photographs on the bed and knelt beside his father's old friend.

  Outside, Kyle had put on Halloran's jacket and was standing at the end of the chalet line, with his face averted from the light. He wiped sweat from his top lip and looked at his watch. The indistinct mumble of voices from Wainwright's cottage told him that the interview had begun.

  'Charlie, it's Dave Brett. Ted Brett's son. You remember Ted,' the agent reached for the photographs, without taking his eyes off the trade union leader. 'You grew up with him in Liverpool, when the trams used to run along Scotland Road and there was a boozer on every corner.'

  He showed an old photograph of the city. 'Look.'

  'Tore it all down. Built flats. Big ones,' Charlie Wainwright looked dazed and he shook his head. 'Ted married...married...'

  'Maggie Collingwood. My mother,' prompted the other, struggling to keep compassion out of his voice and bringing out another photograph. 'Look. That's you at the wedding.'

  The man shook his head again and half turned away, but Brett persisted with another photograph. 'And this is you on a works outing, Charlie. There, see. On the platform.'

  'Something to do with the union,' Wainwright fumbled, doubtfully. 'Union?'

  'Union, that's it,' the agent was eager. 'You were a convenor.'

  But the General Secretary of the Metalturners Union looked vacant.

  There were three cans of videotape on the Controller's desk. He indicated them and looked over his glasses at Delly Lomas.

  'Top confidential. The only three known copies of Wainwright's American outburst. To be destroyed - by the Home Secretary's express order,' he announced, impassively.

  'Certainly, Mr Skardon,' she replied, playing the game.

  'Will you sign to that effect?'

  'Certainly, Mr Skardon.'

  She scribbled on an official form, as he lit a thoughtful cigarette and gazed past her, remarking distantly, 'And, if one should happen to find its way into our private dossier on the Home Secretary, I'm sure it will be convincingly re-labelled.'

  'I'd thought of marking it "Insurance",' she offered.

  He nodded. 'Accurate, if not imaginative.'

  They took the deceit casually. Knowledge of where the bodies were buried was paramount. Foul rumours had always kept Civil Servants in jobs and the PCD had built up an explosive bank of information for its own purposes and future power.

  'I wish I could be sure there weren't any private tapes,' the deputy frowned, perturbed.

  'It won't matter soon,' said her boss.

  'Then we should have a special security squad crawling under every bush at Mayfield,' she stressed.

  He eyed her with some impatience. 'Your obsession with Kyle's omnipresence is becoming tiresome. However...'

  He picked up the phone to the surveillance room, where the mention of Kyle's name brought immediate response, and he turned back to Delly Lomas.

  'Having dinner. Biryani again. He'll ruin his lower intestine with all that spicy food.'

  'Sooner the better,' she said.

  'Oh, and the last visual on him reported that he's had a haircut.' Said to needle her and belittle her suspicions, it had the opposite effect.

  'When?' she demanded, starting to her feet. 'That doesn't show on any surveillance report. Where did he have it done? How?'

  Herbert Skardon shot a despairing glance heavenward. 'My dear Delly, I'm not his barber.'

  She snatched the telephone, exclaiming, 'I'd better check on Wainwright.' And rattled the receiver rest impatiently. 'Come on, for God's sake!'

  Mark Gelbert, wearing a silk dressing gown and looking very annoyed, took his time to reach his office and pick up the red telephone from the top drawer in the desk.

  'Yes. I'm at a scrambler phone now and not best pleased at being disturbed,' he snapped. 'Who is that?'

  He stiffened to attention at the reply. 'Oh, PCD. I'm sorry. I didn't realise. What? Yes, of course, Miss Lomas, I'll check on Wainwright, but Halloran's with him, one of your own officers.'

  His knuckles showed white and his head began to bob rapidly, as he tried to see through the window and across the dew-silvered lawn to the chalets, while he talked. 'No, Miss Lomas, I wouldn't presume to argue. I'll do it at once. Hold on, please.'

  Stabbing buttons on the intercom, he barked into it, 'General alarm. Supervision squad over to the new wing immediately.'

  Dave Brett had just closed the chalet door behind him and was grim-faced with rage and pity as he joined Kyle.

  'Let's find the bastard who runs this place and jog his head loose. All of it. Permanently,' he snarled.

  Suddenly, floodlights swept across the front of the recuperative wing and alarm bells screamed from the main house. Running feet and the barking of guard dogs sounded on the drive.

  'Later,' said Kyle and sprinted with his partner towards the woodland.

/>   Behind them, Gelbert could be heard shouting Halloran's name and four uniformed security men plunged into the shrubbery with two dobermans, baying and savage at the leash. But, as the doctor rushed into Wainwright's chalet, the powerful motorcycle was heard roaring into a racing start on the road.

  In the news room next morning, Kyle and Greaves bent over the tape recorder, listening.

  'Who are you?' Wainwright's voice was heard asking. Kyle pressed the machine's forward speed. 'Something to do with the union.'

  'Union, that's it,' replied Brett's voice.

  'That doesn't sound very promising,' the news editor commented.

  'ECT's scrambled his head,' the columnist explained, speeding the recorder again. 'His mind's in bits, but Dave picked up enough pieces for me to work on.'

  The agent's voice was heard again. 'The American speech, Charlie. This is what you said - I live in a country where a British Parliament, put in by that twenty per cent of the electorate who bother to vote, is a rubber stamp for a faceless Civil Service,' Wainwright's voice began to join in, a beat behind. 'With the sort of power Genghiz Khan would have envied.'

  Brett's voice faded out and only the trade union leader's continued, hesitantly, 'A sceptred isle surrounded by barbed wire. The best brains driven out.'

  'That's it. That's better,' Dave Brett encouraged.

  Kyle stopped the machine. 'I can put it together. And the legal boys - that well-known firm of Caution, Wait-a-Minute and No - have cleared the voice-print. We can publish.'

  Tiny Greaves punched his arm heartily and whooped, 'When Wainwright's union find out what's happened to him, they'll go berserk.'

  'I wouldn't count on it,' his columnist responded, wearily. 'Too many of the top brass have been bought off for years under the old patronage list.'

  He turned a piece of foolscap into his typewriter. 'Some of the membership might squawk, but Mellor will buy 'em up by cancelling football matches for a month.'

  'Jesus wants you for a sunbeam,' the big news editor shook his head over such cynicism. 'But not this week.'

  The Home Secretary had gone that nasty colour again and his eyebrows had collided in bristling fury as he scowled at Skardon and Lomas standing before him. He was on the verge of thumping his desk.

  'I hold you responsible, Skardon. What sort of flea circus are you running? One of your own best officers with his skull fractured and somebody ambling in like Sunday afternoon to chat to Wainwright.' He did thump his desk. 'Call this public control? And Gelbert reckons Wainwright's recovered some degree of retentive rationality - whatever that means.'

  While her boss shifted uneasily beside her, Delly Lomas calmly picked up the Home Secretary's phone. 'May I?'

  'Make yourself at home,' Dan Mellor waved ironic permission. 'I've got a clean shirt in the drawer if you want it.'

  'Not my size,' she responded, without the flicker of a smile, then spoke into the receiver. 'Doctor Gelbert? Lomas, PCD. I want an accurate forecast of the time required by you to rectify - how shall I put it?' She examined her well-kept nails for a moment. '- the unfortunate setback suffered last night in Charles Wainwright's condition.'

  As she listened to his reply, her face became steely. 'I'm not interested in the professional ethics of intensive treatment,' she asserted, harshly. 'I require merely results and a time. Thank you.'

  She replaced the receiver and Mellor observed, with sarcasm, 'Well, that's the medical bulletin and three cheers. Of course, we still don't know what Charlie Wainwright said, or who'll use it.'

  'Nobody.' The Deputy Controller contemplated him steadily and sat down in one of his armchairs. 'Home Secretary, I'd like you to announce a mandatory public-service telecast for nine o'clock this evening.'

  'Nine. That's a bit late,' Mellor demurred, though looking interested. 'Mandatory telecasts are always at 8.15. The curfew arrangements are geared to it to keep people indoors.'

  'Re-gear them,' she said. 'Curiosity value alone should give us a bigger audience.'

  She handed a sheet of paper over the desk. 'Just a few rough notes, Minister. Guidelines, no more, on what you might like to say.'

  The Controller was still on his feet and, during this exchange, his frown had deepened as his bewilderment had increased. Now, he looked unmistakably angry. Delly Lomas was operating as a soloist and, whilst he could accept improvisation, the production of notes on which he had not been consulted, came as a definite internal-politics ploy.

  Dan Mellor was reading them and smiling. 'Might work. Ought to work.' He glanced at Skardon, a little spitefully. 'You've not had much to say, Herbert.'

  But the Controller had fixed on an inscrutable smile. 'Hardly seemed necessary, Home Secretary. As Miss Lomas will tell you, my staff make a point of keeping me informed of all contingency plans emanating from my department.'

  He had moved across the room and opened the door for Delly Lomas, and now had some difficulty in resisting the urge to boot her through it.

  Grilles had been pulled down over the bars in Leisure Centre 28, though there were still some customers standing at them, impatiently tapping on the counter with glasses. Agnes Culmore walked towards the end booth, raising her voice to that unique shrillness achieved by lady publicans, 'Not a bit of good rattling glasses and gasping. If you want a drink, you'll have to watch the telly first. You know I'm not allowed to serve during public-service broadcasts.'

  A slightly drunken customer swayed in front of her in dispute, 'Bloody parrots. Load of rubbish.'

  She looked at him, with a hint of recognition, then shouted sharply, 'George! Throw him out. If he can't keep quiet, he can get pinched for curfew breaking.'

  The big bouncer obliged with zealous vigour, putting an armlock on the unfortunate man which would allow him to scratch the top of his head from behind for a week, and hurling him through the door to the street.

  Dave Brett, already in his usual seat, looked up, surprised. 'Well done, Aggie. We'll make a real bureaucrat of you yet,' he goaded.

  'Not with that one, you won't,' she returned equably. 'He's been planted by the PCD to see the set's on in here, and he won't get pinched either.'

  The agent grinned as Kyle joined them and they turned their attention to one of the big wall screens in the bar. A close-up of the Union Jack filled it.

  As massed bands played 'Land of Hope and Glory', Dan Mellor was submitting to the attentions of a make-up girl at the side of a television interview room. When she had finished, he took his own small comb from his top pocket to bush out his heavy eyebrows, while she held out a mirror.

  A lectern was in position in front of a scenery flat, both blazoned with the words 'Rule Britannia'. The set was fully lit and two TV cameras were lined up opposite the single prop. A few technicians moved around them, languidly. Lomas and Gelbert stood nearby, with Ivor Griffith in the background..

  On the other side of the room, Charles Wainwright was also being made up, the girl paying particular attention to shading the area round his temples.

  'You're sure he'll be all right?' Delly jerked her head towards him, as he stared without focusing at the mirror before him.

  'Absolutely,' Mark Gelbert reassured her, smugly. 'I've briefed the producer on the teleprompter speed.'

  As the music crescendoed, a red light flashed on and off and a home counties' voice was heard announcing, 'Citizens of Britain, I would now like your full attention for a mandatory public-service telecast by the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Dan Mellor, M.P.'

  In Leisure Centre 28, Kyle, Brett and the customers watched in silence as Mellor appeared on their screens, wearing his concerned but bluff, genial man-of-the-people face.

  'Fellow citizens, I won't take up much of your valuable leisure time. You know me. I believe in plain words and plain actions.' He leant forward to gaze into the camera with eye-to-eye frankness. 'My role tonight's just to introduce an important announcement from one of the most respected figures in our society towards progress, Charles Wainwright, General Secretary
of that vital and public-spirited union, the Metalturners.'

  Kyle and the agent waited tensely as the Home Secretary stood to one side, clapping his hands. Wainwright approached and peered over the lectern, hesitantly.

  'Fellow-citizens and brothers in the trade-union movement,' he began, very slowly and obviously reading. 'I've come to you with a problem which has been worrying me for a while now. For...a...while...' He blinked and rubbed his forehead.

  At one side of the interview room, Gelbert hissed at a floor manager, 'Tell that idiot producer to slow the teleprompter down. It's losing him.'

  Then Wainwright continued, synchronising again with the teleprompter and looking totally uncomprehending. 'I've had full and frank consultations with my good friend, Dan Mellor, with my loyal and hard-working Assistant Secretary, Ivor Griffith, and with the dedicated Executive of my union. I'm not getting any younger and my health isn't what it was. What...it...was....'

  He looked round him, confused, and Dave Brett in the Leisure Centre clenched his fists and bunched his shoulders in bull-like rage.

  'That isn't Charlie Wainwright.'

  'Surprise, surprise,' responded Kyle, bitterly.

  'I've started to make mistakes,' the trade union leader continued, pathetically. 'As you all know, it is the patriotic duty of every Briton to assess his own job-fitness, answerable to his local job-grading tribunal. I've done that. I don't measure up any more. My sad duty tonight is to resign formally as GenSec of the Metalturners, a position I've been proud to hold for...hold for...' The figure eluded him and he squinted forward again.

  In the newsroom, Greaves had switched off the sound in disgust and was staring at the strained elderly face on the screen.

  'That blows it,' he said to himself, glumly, before asking the switchboard to put through Somers, the printer. 'Rip out Kyle's story. Put in that pre-set about import controls reducing living standards. Yes, I know it's got whiskers on it, but there's nothing else. Wait a moment.'