Catalyst

by Michael Knaggs

  “Best get back from the windows,” said Jed, but not loudly enough to be heard by everyone above their own frantic voices.

  The crowd had now descended the field, dropping out of sight briefly behind the high fence at the rear of the pub car park before re-appearing again as they climbed over it. They were now only a few yards away, growing in numbers to around sixty or seventy, with more still waiting to climb the fence to join them. They ranged in age from pre to mid-teens, many tiny by comparison to others, sporting hooded tops, tee-shirts, designer jeans, leather jackets. They walked towards the pub through the cars parked along the fence, stopping to twist off a few door-mirrors. They spotted some crates of empty bottles which they lifted out, throwing them violently against the cars, cracking windscreens and smashing lights, then at the pub walls and windows. The people recoiled as several flew in to the room they were watching from. Three of them went down, blood streaming from cuts to their heads, necks and arms.

  The crowd outside pressed up to the windows, leering in through the shredded panes and screeching threats and obscenities. Many of the women were now crying or screaming uncontrollably. Then one of the gang held up a hand to silence the mass behind him. He was a tall, well-built black youth, one of the oldest there and clearly the leader of the pack. He wore a leather jacket over a hooded top, the hood itself pulled well forward over his face. He shouted into the pub through one of the broken windows.

  “We want one person, that’s all! Otherwise we’ll kill the fucking lot of you!”

  The noise inside abated at the sound of his voice.

  “George Holland, are you in there, you fucking little twat?”

  Everyone turned instinctively to look at the person just named. George, who was at the back of the room and not visible to the youth, went deathly white; Irene clung to him and starting sobbing, her whole body shaking with fear.

  Jed was the first to react.

  “He’s not here! Go home; the police will be here any minute!”

  “Not unless they come in fucking helicopters.”

  There was a sinister chorus of jeers and laughter.

  “Get into the front,” said Jed, “as many behind the bar as we can squeeze in. The rest can stand on the stairs. At least they won’t be able to hit us with anything.”

  They all did as they were bid; two of the people who had been injured were helped through the small hallway, away from the crowd gathered at the back, and made as comfortable as possible seated on the stares. The third they laid gently on the floor. She was bleeding profusely, with a jagged piece of glass protruding from her throat and had all but passed out. Jed phoned the police from his mobile, asking for ambulances as well, and tended her the best he could using the first aid kit from behind the bar. The wound was such that there was little he could do to stem the flow without restricting her breathing.

  “I really hope Ben and Alistair got home safely,” someone muttered, bitterly.

  As they entered the main bar area, they could see that many of the gang had already gone round to the front of the pub; the place was completely surrounded. The wail of police sirens could be heard – from a large number of vehicles – but it was obvious that they must be stationary – the sound was constant, not getting any louder. Missiles now rained in through the front windows, this time including bricks and lumps of concrete. One youth had picked up a garden spade from the pub yard and was crashing it against the double front doors like a sledge hammer, shattering glass and splintering wood.

  Suddenly, above the deafening noise of this and the gang’s shouting and whooping, came the even louder sound of an explosion. It was obvious from the sudden end to the hostilities that this was not of their doing. Everyone outside stopped and looked down the road towards the centre of the village. The booming voice of Alistair Neville filled the temporary calm.

  “Next one takes someone’s fucking head off!”

  The gang fell back from the front of the pub and spread out across the road facing the sound of Alistair’s approach. The gang leader shouted back.

  “You George Holland?”

  “What if I am?” Alistair’s voice again.

  “Then you’re fucking dead! Anyway, you’re not him. And this has fuck-all to do with you.”

  Inside the pub, people realised what was the source of the explosion.

  “Oh bloody hell,” said Jed, peering cautiously out, “it’s Al and Ben with a couple twelves. What the hell do they think they’re doing?”

  “Jesus!” said someone else. “Ben’s as pissed as a newt.”

  “I’ve got to go out there,” said George. “Somebody’s going to get killed.”

  They all shouted down the idea, and Irene clung more tightly to him, but he made a move towards the door.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Fred. “Look, no-one should say which one is George. But he’s right, it’s not the Nevilles’ fight and they’re out there and we’re in here.”

  “We’ll all go,” said Clive Taylor. “All together. Come on. Now!”

  They pulled open the damaged doors and almost everyone spilled into the road, including many of the non-residents of the village. The scene before them was reminiscent of another time, another place. The Cullen Field mob, probably a hundred strong was fanned out across the road, several deep, to their left. To their right, the two brothers were walking steadily towards them, Ben holding a twelve-bore to his shoulder, pointed straight at them, Alistair reloading his own.

  George stepped out into the road, facing the Nevilles, arms raised.

  “Hold it, boys,” he said.

  The two farmers towered over George. They were both huge men with barrel chests and broad shoulders, each with a mass of wild hair. Alistair had a red bushy beard streaked with grey; Ben was sporting about three days’ stubble.

  “Stand aside, George!” boomed Alistair.

  “Oh, so this is George!” shouted the tall black youth. “Well, nice of you to come out to see us.”

  The rest of the people from the pub had followed George to stand with him in front of the two brothers. They all turned to face the gang. ‘The Thin Grey Line’, as one paper would later describe them.

  “Jokey!” shouted the youth at the front. A small boy pushed his way through the front line to stand beside him. His black angelic little face was wide-eyed and shining with excitement. He wore a small backpack.

  “Okay, Denny!”

  The gang’s leader and a smaller white youth in a black military-style jacket and white jeans and with a scarf tied behind and pulled up to cover the lower half of his face, reached into the bag and each pulled out a handgun. Without hesitation the black youth raised his arm, aiming directly at George, no more than ten yards away. But as this was happening, the Nevilles burst through the rank of villagers, with Ben firing as he moved quickly forward.

  His shot took away half the leader’s face, splattering those behind him with pellets, blood and human tissue. Amazingly, he did not go down immediately. The villagers screamed and gasped in horror as the youth seemed to look at them in surprise with his remaining eye as it glazed over in death and he slumped, almost in slow motion, onto the road.

  His gun had flown from his hand with the impact of the shot, and even before he hit the ground, it had been grabbed by another of the gang. The white youth with the other gun looked across in disbelief at his dead companion. He turned back towards George, eyes flashing in raw, uncontrolled anger. Holding the gun with two hands, arms stretched out on front of him, he aimed at George again and took a few steps towards him, ignoring the threat from the shotguns.

  Alistair was shouting as loudly as he could above the mayhem. “Stop this! Stop! No more! Go!”

  The villagers broke ranks and started running; only a few stood their ground to try to stop the incident escalating further. George was frozen with fear, looking directly into the barrel of the handgun, now just a few yards away.

  The youth squeezed on the trigger.

  Someone
screamed, “No!” and threw themselves at George to push him aside.

  He fired, from no more than three yards.

  A body hit the ground.

  Ben loosed off his second shot, and the youth with the gun went down, badly wounded but holding on to his weapon.

  He raised it and fired at Ben this time. The bullet hit him in the throat, bringing a fountain of blood.

  Ben dropped the shotgun, slumping to his knees, coughing and grasping the wound with both hands.

  Alistair stepped forward and swung the butt of the shotgun in a wide arc, clubbing the youth hard on the top of his head with a sickening thud.

  He looked across anxiously at Ben, and then shouted again.

  “Let’s stop this now!”

  Salvoes of missiles were being thrown from the back of the crowd when at last the sound of the sirens increased in volume as the police cars breeched the barricades.

  In the no-man’s-land between the two groups all eyes were now on Jokey. He had been the one who picked up the gun which the leader had released in his death throes. He now stood motionless, his face still with the same look of exhilaration, but with his beautiful big eyes now leaking tears. He was holding the gun with both hands and pointing it straight at Alistair. The farmer smiled, speaking gently to him, “Now then, Jokey. That is your name, isn’t it? Please give me that. You don’t want to hurt anyone, do you?”

  “Give the man the gun, Jokey,” someone else said. “It’s okay; you won’t get in to trouble.”

  Alistair walked slowly up to him with deliberate steps, and reached out his arm.

  “Jokey… ”

  The boy closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Alistair was dead before he hit the ground, shot between the eyes. Ben cried out in grief and anguish, almost choking on his own blood and dragging himself across the ground to his brother. Jokey placed the gun carefully on the ground, turned and ran towards the rest of the gang, who were rapidly dispersing as the first police vehicle came into sight, followed by three anti-riot vans and an ambulance. Someone grabbed him by the hand and ran after the rest, round to the back of the pub, to climb back over the fence and return across the field.

  Ben was howling loudly, his voice distorted into an unearthly, high-pitched rattle. A few yards way, George Holland, with less sound and more dignity, cradled his wife’s head in his arms as her precious life slipped away.

  David Gerrard wasn’t sure whether he said “Shit” just before or just after he pressed the ‘answer’ key on his mobile, so his opening words were extra polite just in case.

  “Hello, David Gerrard here. Who is it, please?”

  “Detective Chief Inspector, it’s John Lawrence,” said a familiar voice, a uniformed inspector from Parkside. “Sorry to bother you at this time, but thought you’d want to know. We’ve had a multiple killing in Meadow Village. A bloody gunfight, it seems, like the OK Corral. Four dead, five more injured, three of them seriously.”

  “Meadow Village! Bloody hell,” said David. “What happened?”

  “Big gang from Cullen Field, witnesses say probably over a hundred, two shooters carried by a young kid. Couple of farmers from the village with twelve-bores… Happened outside the Dog and Duck.”

  “So who are the dead?” asked David.

  “Two of the Cullen Field gang, one of the farmers and – here’s the real sickener, sir – Irene Holland, George Holland’s wife. Hit by accident. It seems the gang had gone there to get George – called him out from the pub.”

  “Are you in charge there, John.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll come right down.”

  “Okay. I thought you should know first. This must be linked to the other killings. Shall I send a car for you?”

  “Thanks, John, but I’ll make my own way down. What’s happening there now?”

  “Ambulances have taken all injured away, and Mrs Holland; just three of the four dead remaining. SOCOs looking for bits and pieces, but we’ve around forty witnesses and no mystery. Only issue is who fired the first shot, seems like it could have been one of the villagers, but I guess that’s academic anyway. The kids came armed and intent on killing – so no question who started it. We’re still taking statements.”

  “Okay, be right with you; you can fill in the details when I get there. By the way,” – David couldn’t help himself – “isn’t it always the baddies that shoot first?”

  “Not necessarily, sir. They always draw first, but the good guys are usually quicker and beat them to it.”

  In spite of the sick feeling in his stomach, David managed a brief chuckle at the spontaneous reply. Inspector Lawrence probably watched the same films he did.

  “See you soon, John. Anything else I should be getting my head round while I’m on my way?”

  John thought for a few moments.

  “Well, I’m not sure if this is something that anyone can get their head round, but the kid who fired the last fatal shot was, we think, about eight-years-old.”

  “Jesus!”

  Having turned down the offer of a lift, David had to decide how to get there. Omar Shakhir was his best bet, he thought, the only one of the group he knew for certain would not have been drinking that evening. Omar was both the joker and the genius of David’s team. In addition, he was tall and very handsome, further enhancing his popularity with the girls in the team and with the wider female population at Parkside. He was also happily married and teetotal which somewhat hampered their opportunities for developing his social life.

  He scrolled through the ‘contacts’ on his mobile, found Omar and pressed ‘call’.

  The Detective Constable answered quickly.

  “Sir?” he said, seeing David’s name on his display.

  “Sorry to phone at this time, Omar. Do you fancy a spot of overtime? And before you answer that, I mean right now. If you can’t make it, that’s okay.”

  “Hold on, please, sir.”

  He was obviously checking with his wife. David sensed the discussion was relaxed, even though that did not stop him feeling guilty.

  “That would be fine, sir. Where do you want to meet? At the station?”

  “No, we’re back at the Killing Fields, I’m afraid, or close by anyway. Could you pick me up? You know where I live, don’t you?” A rhetorical question.

  “Of course, sir. About fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine. Thanks, Omar. Please give my apologies to your wife.”

  Katey and Jack were both out when Tom and Mags arrived back at the house just before 6.00 pm. Jack phoned at around half-past.

  “Hi, Mum. Just to let you know, I’m eating round at Gilly’s and staying over. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, that’s fine, just as long as I know where you are.”

  “Oh, come on, Mum,” he said, teasing her, “I’m letting you know out of courtesy and consideration, not because I have to, you know.”

  “So why did you ask if it was okay?” said Mags.

  “Just part of the aforementioned courtesy and consideration,” replied Jack.

  “And it’s very much appreciated, my love,” said Mags. “Have a nice time.”

  “You, too, Mum. More Sumo wrestling planned for this evening?”

  “Mmmm, you never know.”

  Jack laughed.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  A little later, Katey returned with two of her friends for an evening in and a sleep-over. They would make themselves a meal, Katey said, leading the raiding party into the kitchen. As usual, her friends seemed more interested in spending the evening with Tom than with Katey. It took a gargantuan effort to extract them from her father’s personal space and into her personal lounge, which adjoined her bedroom. This was in spite of the room being fitted out like a film-cum-recording studio with a massive wall-mounted television screen and a wireless sound system featuring eight speakers invisibly set into the walls.

  After the girls had finally left them alone, Mags reclaimed the kitche
n to prepare a stir-fry for the two of them. Tom remembered Jackie’s call and listened to her message.

  “Tom, sorry to call you at home. Just checked your website and noticed you’ve no surgery today. Wondered if you could phone me when you get the chance. Andrew’s been in touch this morning, told me I’m fronting this New Regime thing, and said he’s already told you. Look, I know I’ve been going on a bit lately about who’s responsible for what. Put it down to insecurity, if you like. You’ve not been on the wrong side of Andrew yet; you don’t know what it’s like. But this just doesn’t seem fair; these are your ideas, your proposals. I’d like to talk to you about it, if you’ve time, before Monday. Even get together and make a bit of a start, if possible. Anyway, sorry about the long and rambling message. Speak later. Bye.”

  Tom was thankful he had not picked the message up earlier during their day out. It would certainly have put a damper on the enjoyment, because his immediate reaction was an overwhelming feeling of guilt about his and Andrew’s plan to deceive her. He knew how much it would mean to her to be trusted with the Party’s proposals. It would be a massive personal sacrifice if she were to decline the opportunity on the basis of wanting to see fair play.

  He opened his laptop and logged on to Corporate Time to check their schedules for the coming week. Then he phoned her back, relieved that the call went straight through to voicemail.

  “Hi, Jackie. Thank you for the call and my apologies for the delay in replying. Just to reassure you, I am perfectly okay with you leading this thing. It should be you, and I’m looking forward to working with you on it. Unfortunately I can’t make a start this weekend, but we both seem to have some time available Monday and Tuesday mornings, and Wednesday afternoon. I’ve booked that on CT. Hope that’s okay. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bye, Jackie.”

  After their meal, Mags and Tom settled together on the sofa in the small front sitting room where Jack had burst in on them the previous afternoon. It was their favourite room in the house, because it had no TV, no hi-fi, no PC. Just a sofa and two armchairs round an occasional table, a couple of wing chairs in the bay window looking out onto the front drive and garden and, very importantly, a drinks cabinet. A room designed just for each other’s company, as Tom described it.