Kicking Off

by Jan Needle

  The chair creaked again as Alice Grogan leaned forward. She blew smoke out in a level stream. She looked at him unblinkingly.

  ‘Pass,’ she said.

  Forbes picked up a mug, which was a quarter full of cold black instant coffee. He glanced at the cooker, then away. No point in offering her a cup, he’d tried before. Something about his housekeeping. Soon she would get up and go, and he’d probably never see her again. That would not do.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll try the English way. Whatever you think of Charles Lister, what about me? All jokes apart.’

  She flicked ash onto the table. There were maybe five draws left. She looked at the lighted end.

  ‘All jokes apart,’ she said, ‘you’ve got good contacts. I needed that. I need it.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘So it’s as good as done. And what about the… Look, what I’m trying to say is…’

  ‘Will I screw you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Slowly, Alice Grogan reached across and stubbed her cigarette out on a dirty plate. She reached her bag up from the floor, checked the contents, snapped it shut. She stood.

  ‘All jokes apart,’ she said, ‘you really are quite cute. So that would be a pity, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  She smiled a tight small smile and turned towards the stairs.

  ‘What’s your history, Andy? Why do you live like this? Ain’t you got no woman?’

  ‘Widower. I’ve got a few. Nothing special.’

  She stopped, her hand on the banister.

  ‘Widower,’ she said. ‘That’s bad. And I’m a gangman’s woman. Ex. If I screwed you, Andy, you’d be screwed for good. Dead. Charlie Lister’s like that. I’m mortuary meat.’

  There was a coldness in her that chilled him. She was comfortless, but she needed comforting. She was unapproachable, but he wanted to approach. He made a clumsy move forward, but stopped himself in time.

  ‘Give me a number,’ he said. ‘No, I know you won’t do that, too dangerous. Let’s meet somewhere, let’s leave it for a while, see what happens over Lister. This stuff you’ve given me. I mean…’

  He meant, but did not say, that if all went well – if any of it was true, indeed – Charles Lister would soon be neutralised. He’d be off the story for a long long time.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, as Alice Grogan began to climb the stairs to street-door level. ‘You’ve got a classic arse!’

  She turned towards him smiling at last, very nearly laughing. It did not last for long, but his stomach shifted. Pleasure and excitement.

  ‘I sometimes go to the Shaw Theatre,’ she said. ‘Looking at the exhibitions in the entrance hall, you know? Say Friday?’

  ‘Do you?’ said Andrew Forbes. ‘That’s pretty weird.’

  ‘Of course I don’t, you tramp!’ she said. The brightness was back in her eyes. ‘Jesus, Andrew, don’t play hard to get!’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Well.’ She moved another two steps upward. ‘Well, maybe Friday, who can tell? Or maybe the Friday after.’

  He let her go then. He let her make her own way to the street and slam the door. He lit the gas underneath the saucepan he used as a kettle, and he had a little fantasy about the long legs and the pink inside her mouth.

  ‘Christ,’ he said out loud. ‘I’ll have to change the duvet cover. I’ll buy a new one.’

  But first of all he’d contact Peter Jackson. Of HM Revenue and Customs. Today.

  *

  Fat Man and Paddy Collins.

  Outside in the road, Paddy Collins and the fat man watched Alice Grogan slam the door and clatter down the steps. From their car – today a blue Ford Escort, twelve years old – they noted the small smile on her lips as she reached the pavement.

  ‘There she goes,’ said Paddy. ‘I’m surprised that she can even walk, the dirty bitch. I dreamed about her, you know that? I nearly had to fuck the bleeding wife.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said the fat man. ‘We should be on a bonus.’

  ‘Did you see the ident they got through?’ said Paddy.

  ‘She’s American. No wonder she looks so good, eh? Not like the black-rag tarts round here. Class.’

  The fat man sucked his teeth.

  ‘Anything on her?’

  ‘How should I know? We’re only infantry, aren’t we? I mean, no one tells us nothing.’

  As the woman reached the corner, an old Fiat pulled away from the kerb thirty metres in front of the Escort.

  ‘She must be someone though, it stands to reason,’ went on Paddy. ‘Or else she wouldn’t have gone near that scruffy little prat. Or else we wouldn’t have her on the files, more to the point.’

  ‘Hang about!’ his companion said. ‘That car!’

  The Fiat was at the junction. It was turning right, in the direction the woman had taken. The fat man was wheezing.

  ‘Bastards! It’s one of ours! They’ve put a tail on her, and no bugger tells us. You’re right – we’re just the bleeding infantry.’

  They slumped back into their seats, disconsolate. They had another six hours to do, at least, six hours to develop their piles and indigestion, while Andrew Forbes slept off his sex excesses with the black, and someone else followed her slinky, swaying backside down the streets. It wasn’t that other people got all the good luck. It was more that they got none of it…

  *

  Buckie. Rosanna Nixon.

  Three hours after Fortyne’s meeting with the press, Rosanna Nixon was the only journalist left in Buckie. Even the fact that the pubs were open was not enough, for once, to detain the circus, because they knew that there were bigger fish to fry. Clues had been dropped at the conference – unintentionally, they all imagined – which might lead a canny hack to unveil the mystery man who’d finished off the siege. He’d flown to London, he was huntable. Clear it with the newsdesk, and they could get pissed on the plane!

  Christian Fortyne had controlled the show, with a pair of assistants to display the quickly assembled visuals and move the essential coloured symbols on the charts. One of the assistants – the best looking woman in his team – also unconsciously displayed a lot of leg whenever she was required to reach the top part of the board. Although it never occurred to her, Fortyne had thought of everything.

  He ran quickly and easily through the briefing, emphasising the total lack of force, and the total lack of injury. The only damage, he said, was that which the prisoners had done on the original rampage. The governor had agreed to allow them into E-wing for a photo-shoot, and one agency helicopter would be allowed to land briefly on the damaged roof. The photographs and footage would be pooled for everyone.

  He knew it would not be long before someone asked who had been in charge, and why he was not conducting this morning’s conference. In less than five minutes, the question came. Fortyne adjusted his spectacles and smiled.

  ‘We’re not at liberty to disclose that for the moment,’ he said. ‘I can say, however, that the government’s determination to stamp out this kind of outrage, especially in Scotland’s prisons, is absolute. The ending of this particular siege, I can say, was the result of an entirely new strategy which involved neither firearms, force, nor indeed any military intervention whatsoever. The man who was in ultimate control—’

  He stopped abruptly, allowing a flicker of self-doubt to cross his face. He looked down at a sheaf of notes, and coughed.

  ‘What I should have said,’ he continued, ‘is that the junior minister… No. That’s wrong. If you’ll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, we’d better leave it there.’

  There was a barrage of excited questions. One of the better briefed provided Fortyne with his next lead. ‘But surely,’ the reporter asked, ‘isn’t the junior minister Cyril Richardson? Isn’t he in hospital?’

  Fortyne, reluctantly, had to acknowledge that Mr Richardson was, indeed, in hospital. He also admitted, under pressure, that in such a crisis it was entirely understandable that delegation of responsib
ility would be probably inevitable. And no, the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, although it was ultimately, he supposed…

  He stopped once more, managing to look convincingly confused for the television cameras. Then he flapped ineffectually with his notes, tried another tack, then refused to be drawn any further on the subject. The obfuscation was masterly, the pack without a word to say. Rosanna Nixon took her chance.

  ‘You said,’ she began, hesitantly. She cleared her throat as her male colleagues groaned. ‘You said that nobody was hurt. In any way. But Mr Fortyne – is that exactly true?’

  There was a murmur of embarrassment from around the sumptuous, panelled room. What was the Wee Mouse after now? Everybody knew there’d have been some broken heads, obviously. Everybody knew the waiting officers would hardly have kissed the prisoners and tucked them into bed. But there were rules in these things, and Rosanna did not know them. It was a pointless question, rudely put.

  The civil servant acknowledged the implicit insult. He looked down his long, disdainful nose at the woman, noting her isolation from her colleagues. His tones were of the aristocracy, self-confident, relaxed, and dripping with contempt.

  ‘My dear young lady,’ he said. ‘Define “exactly true” will you? There were sixty-seven men on that roof, many of whom are habitually violent, many of whom hate and resent authority. So far, we have no detailed picture of their behaviour and mien as they were deployed back into cellular confinement, but it would be surprising, I suppose, if there had been no incidents at all. But rest assured, if any prison officers were attacked, they would have employed only the bare minimum of necessary force in the restrainment of their attackers. I have no reports, however, even of that, nor indeed of any officers so injured. Yes?’

  He raised a languid hand to indicate another questioner. But the Mouse would not shut up.

  ‘Did a prisoner fall from the roof?’ she said.

  Rosanna, nervous as she was, had expected her question to cause a storm. Even saying it, to her, felt rather as a bombshell might. Her stomach had constricted, her throat was painful, and her hands were aching fists. Christian Fortyne’s expression, however, did not change, not so much as by a flicker. And all around her, she heard her colleagues groan once more. Her face began to burn.

  ‘What an extraordinary question,’ Fortyne said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  She forced her dry mouth open.

  ‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘From my hotel window. I saw a man fall off.’

  The room was silent. Outside, the wind moaned. Fortyne, outwardly calm, gave himself time to think. Not long enough, though, for his silence to lend credence to her statement.

  ‘Well well,’ he said, smiling broadly once more to the TV cameras. ‘What time was this? Can you remember?’ It was a superb stroke of deliberate patronisation. The faintest hint of a smile was on his lips. It paid off. He had Rosanna stammering.

  ‘About four o’clock. Just afterwards. I didn’t… I didn’t have time to notice. I was too shocked.’

  The silence broke. Her colleagues’ contempt was almost palpable. Another woman journalist tittered. Fortyne allowed the atmosphere to mature.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not much help, then,’ he said. ‘But as I know you men and women of the media are all professionals, I’ll put it to the test. I appeal to you, individually and collectively. Has anybody else heard this tale? Can anybody tell me where it comes from?’

  Someone shouted coarsely ‘From the bottom of a bottle!’ and there was a burst of laughter. But underneath it there was anger. She was showing them all up. It was reflecting on them badly, as professionals. The Mouse was grossly out of order.

  ‘Fine then,’ said Fortyne, briskly. ‘So let’s get on. But I do feel bound to tell you something that I had intended to keep under wraps for operational reasons. The actual clearing of the roof, the removal of the men itself, took place in total darkness, the lights had been switched off.’

  There was another roar of laughter, longer this time, directed at Rosanna. When it died away, she knew better than to try to carry on. She gritted her teeth and studied a fixed point on the floor. She felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  Back in her hotel room, sitting on the bed she’d hardly used, it took her a considerable act of will to pick up the telephone to call her office. In the early hours, she had phoned a memo onto her news editor’s voicemail. Now she did not mention it, and to her surprise nor did Maurice Campbell. She outlined the press conference briefly and told him of the ‘mystery politician.’ It was done without excitement, listlessly. ‘It’s good,’ said Maurice Campbell ‘Terrific. Have you put it over yet?’

  ‘Hey, give us a break! The conference finished fifteen minutes back. And anyway, what about... You know.’ Maurice chuckled.

  ‘Ach, hell,’ he said. ‘The diving boy? We all have hallucinations, hen. Dinna fret about it.’

  ‘Listen, Maurice. If you’re thinking I was drunk—’

  ‘I don’t think anything, I’m saying nothing, lassie. Four o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake. I once rang the Pope. He was pissed as well. I’ll bet you didnae raise it at the conference, eh? Nor did any bugger else.’

  ‘I did raise it. I...’

  Rosanna let it go. Between seeing the man fall and going to the conference, she had spent hours wondering what to do. Inexperienced as she was, she’d known that asking police or soldiers in the street would bring nothing but trouble, although after dawn she had tried to watch the gates a while. She’d seen some men in jeans and sweaters getting into a truck behind the jail some forty minutes later, but she had not got near, and if they had significance it had eluded her.

  The hotel bed was soft, and suddenly she longed to lie on it, to sleep. Maurice’s voice from the handset jolted her. God, but she was tired.

  ‘Lassie? You still there?’

  She stifled a huge yawn.

  ‘I’ll send the story over, Maurice. Give me half an hour. Then there’s to be the pictures at the jail but I take it Tam and the snappers are sorting that all out? I’ll come back to Glasgow afterwards.’

  ‘Good. But why not come back with Tam? You havnae got your motor with you, have you? Grab a lift with the techie boys.’

  ‘I want to do some digging,’ said Rosanna. ‘Follow up some thoughts.’

  Campbell’s laugh came richly through the phone.

  ‘Not on my payroll you don’t. There’ll be more life in a corpse’s trousers than in Buckie today, it’s over, hen. I want you back here in the office, right? No messing.’

  Rosanna, too tired to argue, cut the call. She had a mental image of the man falling from the parapet, ungainly and shocking. The picture blurred. She was beginning to doubt that she had seen it after all. She yawned. A staggering, racking yawn. She lay back on the bed.

  If she even mentioned it in her story, the subs would take it out. Nobody believed her, nobody even cared. It stood in the way of the real stuff, the defeated animals, the shy superman who had thwarted them but was too modest to even give his name. The fall would not be mentioned, so it did not happen.

  Rosanna, half asleep, forced herself upright, forced herself awake. Oh no, she thought, it happened, it bloody, bloody did. Not mentioned? No, that could not be right...

  *

  Westminster. Donald Sinclair.

  From late morning onwards, the coverage on radio, TV and then the evening papers became more and more laudatory. In news-rooms all over the kingdom – England and Wales as well as Scotland – a slow news day was gloriously transformed by speculative swoops, background pieces, and in-depth interviews.

  At 3.15 Sinclair’s political adviser Judith Parker fielded the first query as to his part in the saga, and by 5 pm there were reporters and cameramen waiting hopefully all round the Palace of Westminster to catch a glimpse of him, while others staked out his home in Surrey and the London flat he hardly ever used.

  Sinclair, who had spent an hour on the phone to Christian Fortyne,
was confident that it was safe to put his head above the parapet, but thought a better tactic was to wait. While Judith, a brisk, intelligent woman with ambitions of her own guarded the phone, Sinclair sat in a deep armchair and dozed. He was awoken early in the evening by a gentle shaking of his arm.

  ‘Sir Gerald Turner,’ Judith mouthed. ‘I thought you’d want to speak.’

  Sir Gerald was brief, but generous. A brilliant piece of work, he said, which confirmed everything he’d believed about his protégé. Wonderful.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sinclair. ‘Thanks indeed. But—’ The Home Secretary interrupted.

  ‘The PM’s delighted,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be more pleased. Between you and me, laddie, it’s in the bag. Unofficially, the job is yours. What do you say to that?’

  Sinclair made the appropriate noises, then seized his chance. If Turner was going to claim him for a protégé, there ought to be a quid pro quo. He would start with all guns blazing.

  ‘Sir Gerald,’ he said. ‘Before it’s confirmed I’d like to do some things. Set some wheels in motion, a few balls rolling. Any chance?’

  ‘If I knew what you wanted, I’d have a better idea,’ replied Sir Gerald. ‘But now’s the time, now certainly is the time. Is it anything difficult?’

  ‘Oh no,’ replied Sinclair. ‘For you, quite simple, I’d imagine. It’s a political thing, though, it needs a heavyweight. Could I…?’

  ‘Come and see me? How about eight o’clock tonight? Better warn you though – Queen Anne’s Gate is crawling with the press. How about my club? Get there unseen.’

  Sinclair was amused. Cloak and dagger stuff. But Turner’s club would do superbly. Some of the men he needed most would be there, for a certainty, and in a mellow mood. It was perfection.

  ‘Eight o’clock. Thanks, Gerald, thanks indeed.’

  ‘Nonsense, Donald. Once again, congratulations.’

  It was two o’clock next morning before Sinclair reached his flat. Not the one he rented a mile from the Palace of Westminster, which was still staked out by disconsolate reporters, but the three rooms he had owned for many years behind a block of shops in Stockwell, and which he called his safe house. It was not modern, it was not fashionable, but it was extremely secret. Even Sinclair’s wife did not know of its existence.