The Purple Contract

by Robin Flett

  ‘Fuckin’ hell,’ said MacKenzie, awed at the sight.

  ‘We’d better get out of here.’ Moloney advised, ‘this will be visible for miles!’

  There was muttered agreement and everybody moved rapidly back down the road towards the bikes, travelling faster now that they were unencumbered by weighty petrol cans.

  Alison didn’t look back.

  2

  Sabotage

  The black bow tie lay discarded and dishevelled on the floor of the spacious apartment, forgotten by it's owner as he sat hunched forward in the armchair, almost speechless with stunned disbelief. The PVR remote control creaked in protest under probing fingers as he savagely spun the hard disk back a short distance. Once again, on the screen, his Royal Highness The Prince Charles spoke calmly and reasonably to the interviewer:

  'Of course one is pleased, delighted, that nearly fifty years of dedication and training, indeed one's whole upbringing will finally come to fruition. Will in fact really mean something, do you understand?' The unseen interviewer wasn’t sure that a reply was actually expected but he made sympathetic noises and the camera drifted in a little closer; the studio director following his instincts to heighten the drama of the scene.

  ‘Her Majesty's illness, and her subsequent decision to name me her successor, has of course been a difficult time for all of us. A time when we must unite as a nation––and move forward as nation. I regret deeply the present uncertainty over the future of the United Kingdom and its constitution. A wholly unnecessary situation brought about by the intransigence of the devolved Scottish Government.

  ‘Surely this is not the time for the people of Scotland to sever links with the United Kingdom and the Crown? At practically the very moment when the Succession is established.' The Prince shifted imperceptibly in his seat, almost as if with embarrassment. 'I have great empathy with the Scots, and a great love for Scotland itself. I have said before on numerous occasions that I understand their wish for independence. And in general I support it. But this is not the time.' The Prince sat back in his chair with an air of finality.

  The playback LED winked out. The handset bounced off the sofa and skidded across the floor, fetching up on its side against the wickerwork cat basket. Peter Barron, ex- miner, ex hard-nosed businessman, politician and Member of the Scottish Parliament stared across the room; through the broad windows filled with the multi-coloured lights of Glasgow, and saw nothing, nothing at all.

  ‘Bastard.' he muttered almost inaudibly. Then again, louder: 'Treacherous fucking bastard!’

  If it grew any hotter this grotty off-white plastic table would surely start to melt. And it would serve the miserable sods right. Tight-fisted Frenchmen for you: plastic f’r God's sake!

  'Bloody heating!' The overweight man grunted to himself. He glared enviously at the rest of the hotel's lunchtime patrons, all of whom had more sense than to select a table near to a radiator. A lot of them were grouped instead round the edge of the balcony bordering the mezzanine floor above him. The only empty table in the place was right in front of this damned radiator.

  In the corner the backlit LCD temperature display proudly updated its reading to 24 degrees centigrade. The fat man scowled and checked his watch, shifting uncomfortably in his chair and muttered, 'Come on, where are you?'

  As if on cue a waiter appeared in the doorway, an arm raised, pointing. His companion nodded in thanks and began threading his way between the crowded tables, wincing in the sudden heat after the chill outside. Glasgow in April is not exactly tropical.

  He was a youngish man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties with an unruly crop of long blonde hair which totally dominated his face. A pleasant, open face and a ready smile for the two girls drinking cocktails and laughing together.

  'You're bloody late!' Ralph Manson complained, waving the waiter across. 'Two beers, and for God's sake fill them up with ice!'

  'How's it hangin', Ralph?’

  'Don't be cheeky, young Kevin,' Manson said without rancour. It was uncanny how like his old man the boy had become. Same charm with the ladies, same mop of blonde hair, same careful guarded eyes. So like his father. Manson had shared a cell with Andy Clerke in Wormwood Scrubs for six years. Andy had been serving ten for bank robbery and Ralph Manson eight years for drug dealing and “living off immoral earnings” as the charge had quaintly put it. Out of uncounted reminiscences and discussions through many boring and tedious days had arisen an acceptance that the biggest weapon the authorities could wield against organised crime was just that: organisation.

  They had talked about it endlessly, and by the time both had emerged unbowed and unrepentant within a couple of months of each other, plans were well developed to set up a “counter-intelligence” operation. It had become known as Clearman, from the two surnames Clerke and Manson. Organised crime responded with enthusiasm and––far more importantly––with funds.

  Clearman set about spinning a web of contacts and informants, using whatever means were convenient at the time, up to and including bribery and threat and menaces. Suitably qualified people were recruited or bought or blackmailed to provide technical advice when it was needed.

  In a short time the crime rate in London and the South east went up sharply and the detection rate went down. The response of course was inevitable. Over the next few years the authorities slowly but surely zeroed in on Clearman and finally the two originators had to cut and run. Nothing was ever proved against them although a great many lesser fish failed to escape the net.

  Clerke simply called it a day and retired, moving permanently to his extensive villa in Spain. Manson, always a careful man, already owned or partnered several business ventures in sunnier climes. He had been quite content to turn his back on his homeland, albeit under duress, for the liberal and far more outgoing atmosphere of Australia. After a good few years had passed, and memories faded, he had quietly moved back to the UK. Wisely staying clear of the south-east of England, he had settled in Glasgow and never regretted it. His penthouse apartment overlooking the river Clyde was his pride and joy.

  Manson watched the waiter return with the drinks and then climb the stairs to the mezzanine. 'So, what's happening with the shipment?'

  Kevin Clerke shook his head. 'I spoke to them on the radio a couple of nights ago’, he said in a lowered voice. ‘There's been pretty heavy weather around Norway in the last few days––remains of that Low that dumped on us last week. They were heading for a fiord to lie up for a while and let things settle. They'll get here, don't worry.'

  'I do worry, young Kevin. A quarter of a million dollars worth of stuff on a forty foot boat all the way from Trondheim? I bloody do worry, son.'

  'He knows what he's doing. It’s not the first time, you know.'

  'So you keep telling me. I hope you're right.’

  Clerke wasn't going to labour the point. Bringing the cocaine in by small boat across the North sea had been his idea. The result of a contact he had developed in Murmansk. How the Russians moved the stuff to Trondheim he knew not. Couldn’t be by sea at this time of year, obviously. So it must come by road or rail through Finland, he certainly knew better than to ask. Maybe they had a bloody submarine that could go under the ice, wouldn’t put it past them.

  'I want you to go over to Dundee tomorrow,' Manson looked at his nearly empty glass and pondered whether to have another. 'I think that bastard Yank is up to something. There have been rumours. Go and talk to him and see what you think.'

  'Did you give him the twenty K?'

  'Did I fuck. Do I look as if my head zips up the back?'

  Kevin had heard the rumours too: somebody was laundering money through one of Manson’s clubs in Edinburgh. And a certain American currently residing in Dundee had been fingered. It was well known that the Yank needed funds, doubtless for illegal purposes. It was less clear why he had identified Ralph Manson as a likely banker. Kevin thought the twenty thousand dollars would probably have been money well spent; the Americ
an had proved useful in the past and it was a piddling sum anyway. But then this other thing had started up, and the Law had been sniffing around far too much of late. You couldn't allow folk to take liberties.

  'Okay, I'll drive over first thing in the morning.’

  Peter Barron stood in front of his office window with his hands in his trouser pockets, watching the Edinburgh traffic flow past the Parliament building. He was a tall man with a hard, angular face, still in the peak of life at forty one. A successful and cynical man who had always found it difficult to express, even to himself, how much he loved this beautiful and extrovert country. A nation which he truly believed would never be able to achieve it's full potential while it was tied to the Europe-loving UK and it's discredited and tottering monarchy. He cringed with embarrassment every time he saw that woman, as he habitually referred to the Queen, parading around the remnants of the once-proud Commonwealth.

  'Mr Harrison to see you, sir.'

  Barron stepped over to the desk and touched the intercom button. 'Send him through, Susan.' He strode over to the door to greet his visitor. 'How are you, Len?'

  Although in his late fifties, Harrison was a picture of health and vitality. Physically small, but with an upright bearing that spoke of a military past. His handshake was dry and firm to the point of making Barron wince. 'Never been better, have you seen the polls today?'

  'Oh, yes. I can't say I'm surprised under the circumstances.' They settled in the leather chairs tight alongside the crowded bookcase. Office space in the Scottish Parliament was at a premium and anything bigger than a rabbit hutch a subject for jealousy and backstabbing. On the wall above them hung a large framed colour photograph of Scotland from space. Taken on board one of the Space Shuttle flights by an astronaut with highland connections.

  'He will not be a very happy man right now and that's a fact.' Grunted Len Harrison, referring to the First Minister, who had already been on breakfast TV fielding awkward questions about the Prince’s broadcast. As one of Scotland’s leading businessmen, not to mention being one of the richest men in the country, Harrison had ears everywhere. A quiet word on the phone early this morning with one of his contacts had elicited the news that the PM’s office was “seriously concerned”.

  'The word is that privately he’s extremely worried,’ Harrison went on, ‘that the more he tries to put Westminster down the stronger it seems to become. I hear his wife has been nagging him about biting his nails!'

  Barron grinned widely, showing expensively capped teeth. For several years now popular opinion, as expressed regularly in the media, had been steadily swinging behind the concept of an independent Scotland. The people wanted Scotland separate and divorced from the UK. 'Downing Street has been twitchy this last year or more. When I saw how much negative campaigning they went in for at the last election I knew we were finally making an impression. And when that result came in I think the laundry down there was working overtime’

  The long-established tactic of negative campaigning originated in the United States, where it had been honed to a fine edge by the abrasive American political system: rubbish the opposition at every opportunity and dodge every question on what your policies were. The practice had been widely copied and politics around the world had changed as a result. Not for the better.

  In Britain the problem was that the electorate had sussed them out long ago, and no longer believed a word the government said about their political opponents. The boy who cried Wolf! It was as inevitable as night following day––except to a politician! The Prime Minister, behind his shiny door in Downing Street, was rightly a worried man.

  'I know what you mean,' Harrison nodded. 'But things have changed very radically now.' The smile was still there, but the light blue eyes had taken on a chill. 'After last night.'

  'Bloody right. So much for their cynical promises! God knows they’ve even been trying to backtrack on the devolved powers we already have, far less give us more.’

  'Are you surprised?’ Harrison waved a dismissive hand in the air. ‘What do any of them care for all the years you and many others have spent working towards giving Scotland its rightful place in the world.’

  'The people of this country have made it perfectly clear they support the idea of an independent Scotland. England still likes to refer to itself as the Mother of Parliaments, the mother of democracy. Who the fuck do these people think they are?' Barron realized his voice had been louder than he intended. 'Sorry. This has been a bit of a shock.'

  Len Harrison leaned forward in his chair and said earnestly. 'There's no need for apologies, Peter. Any true-born Scot who doesn't agree with you should be put on the first plane out, and that's a fact. But let’s face it, they’ve brought out the big guns now; the soon-to-be-king himself. The thing is, what are we going to do about it?'

  Peter Barron knew his party was finally on the verge of greatness. It had taken a long time, longer than he would have believed possible when he first felt the pull of politics. The free nation he had been obsessed with since he was a boy in the Ayrshire countryside was now just a moment away.

  Or was it?

  It was what had brought him into politics nearly twenty years before, and what had driven him through the rank and file to a by-election win at his third attempt. He had been surprised, even in those early days, by how the very idea of an independent Scotland could fire the imagination of ordinary working-class folk. You didn’t have to be a company chairman or a banker to understand what it meant to be Scottish rather than British.

  A Nation again.

  'I'm not sure there is anything we can actually do about it.'

  'Perhaps not by ourselves, I agree. Supermen, we are not. But the weight of public opinion has shaken many a government before now.' Len Harrison stopped speaking and sat in silence, his eyes resting on the gray overcast sky outside.

  Peter Barron leaned back in his seat, a half smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His lifelong friend had temporarily forgotten his existence. That razor-sharp mind was far away, feeding ideas like a torrent into the cerebral processing centres for analysis, millions of neurons flickering back and forth across the brain's surface at literally the speed of light.

  'I have one or two ideas,’ Harrison said after several minutes. ‘Leave it with me for a while. I'll talk to some people, pull in a few favours.' He smiled grimly. 'Somewhere along the way I’m sure a course of action will present itself.’

  The dark red Mitsubishi Shogun changed lanes in front of him without signalling and Mike Keane cursed out loud, hitting the brakes and feeling the seat belt tighten across his chest under the deceleration forces. Bloody lunatic! He pushed his bare arm out the open window and stabbed a derisory finger skywards.

  At the next junction, he pulled off the motorway and joined the stream of traffic trundling downtown through Glasgow's morning rush hour. On the radio the weather forecast was just finishing when he arrived at the Radio 105 studios. He slid the vehicle into his reserved place in the car park and headed for the door.

  Mike was looking forward to today's programme; it was guaranteed to be a ratings winner and you couldn’t have too many of those. There hadn't been uproar like this in decades. Even without the tip-off from higher echelons he would have done the show anyway.

  Mike K Every Day was primarily a music and talk show. Airing in the 10.30 to 12 noon slot. Ratings lately had been a little depressed, enough so to provoke some mild comment from his producer. 'We need a kickstart, Mike. The word from on high is to have another phone-in. What do you think?'

  The fact was that Mike had been working towards the same conclusion. Having the public phone in live with their views and questions was often thought of as a cop-out in radio terms. If all else fails, do a phone-in.

  It was a common misconception that you just sat back and let the listeners run their own show. The truth was rather different. A phone-in needed constant attention and a firm hand if it wasn't to get totally out of control. Although raised vo
ices and a bit of passionate table-thumping were all to the good, indeed an essential part of a successful show. There had been little need for discussion as to the subject of course. It had been three days since the Prince of Wales' interview had been broadcast and the Scottish newspaper headlines were still screaming vitriol.

  Trudi and Marjory, his two researchers, were shuffling sheets of yellow paper from one plastic tray to another, muttering to themselves and comparing lists of names. Coffee cups and plates of biscuits testified to another wired-up day at the office.

  'Morning girls, are we all ready?'

  'Jesus, Mike, this is a bitch,' complained Trudi. 'Whose idea was it to have a shitty phone-in?'

  The telephone warbled.

  Marjory reached across, lifted the receiver, pressed her finger on the contact to break the connection and laid the handset on the desk. Mike raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to protest.

  'Whoever it was, Mike, we don't have time for it right now.' Trudi handed him a sheaf of names, telephone numbers and times. 'There are enough people there to keep the programme going until Christmas. We're trying to finish the backup list in case of call-offs, although we’re never going to need it. We can't possibly use any more.'

  Marjory nodded agreement. 'The damned phone has been going non-stop since we got here three hours ago.' She looked disapprovingly at her newly-arrived boss and pushed the hair back behind her ears. 'I've never seen anything like this before.'

  Mike was delighted to hear it. But a quick scan through the papers in his hand prompted a question: 'These are all “anti”. Where's the ”pro” list?'

  Trudy sighed. ‘There isn't one,' she told him shortly.

  'What?'

  'There isn't a pro list. Every caller so far has been foaming at the mouth.' She looked up at him over the top of her spectacles. 'Every single one !'