A Necessary End (2 page)

Occasionally, he glanced left or right and noticed the restless eyes of the official bodyguards, who seemed to be expecting terrorist action at any moment. For want of their real names, he had christened them Chas and Dave. Chas was the bulky one with the rheumy eyes and bloated red nose, and Dave was blessed with the lean and hungry look of a Tory cabinet minister. If a member of the audience shifted in his or her seat, raised a fist to muffle a cough or reached for a handkerchief, either Chas or Dave would slip his hand under his jacket towards his shoulder-holster.

It was all very silly, Banks thought. The only reason anyone might want to kill Honoria Winstanley would be for inflicting a dull speech on the audience. As motives for murder went, that came a long way down the list—though any sane judge would certainly pronounce it justifiable homicide.

Ms Winstanley paused and took a sip of water while the audience applauded. “And I say to you all,” she continued in all-out rhetorical flight, “that in the fullness of time, when the results of our policies have come to fruition and every vestige of socialism has been stamped out, all divisions will be healed, and the north, that revered cradle of the Industrial Revolution, will indeed prosper every bit as much as the rest of our glorious nation. Once again this will be a
united
kingdom, united under the banner of enterprise, incentive and hard work. You can already see it happening around you here in Eastvale.”

Banks covered his mouth with his hand and yawned. He looked to his left and noticed that Chas had become so enrapt by Honoria that he had momentarily forgotten to keep an eye open for the IRA, the PLO, the Bader Meinhoff group and the Red Brigade.

The speech was going down well, Banks thought, considering that members of the same government had recently told the north to stop whining about unemployment and had added that most of its problems were caused by poor taste in food. Still, with an audience made up almost entirely of members of the local Conservative Association—small businessmen, farmers and landowners, for the most part—such
whole-hearted enthusiasm was only to be expected. The people in the hall had plenty of money, and no doubt they ate well, too.

It was getting even hotter and stuffier, but the Hon Honoria showed no signs of flagging. Indeed, she was off on a laudatory digression about share-owning, making it sound as if every Englishman could become a millionaire overnight if the government continued to sell off nationalized industries and services to the private sector.

Banks needed a cigarette. He'd been trying to give up again lately, but without success. With so little happening at the station and Sandra and the children away, he had actually increased his intake. The only progress he had made was in switching from Benson and Hedges Special Mild to Silk Cut. He'd heard somewhere that breaking brand loyalty was the first step towards stopping entirely. Unfortunately, he was beginning to like the new brand more than the old.

He shifted in his seat when Honoria moved on to the necessity of maintaining, even expanding, the American military presence in Britain, and Chas gave him a challenging glance. He began to wonder if perhaps this latest digression was a roundabout way of approaching the issue the many people present wanted to hear about.

There had been rumours about a nuclear-power station across the North York Moors on the coast, only about forty miles from Eastvale. With Sellafield to the west, that was one too many, even for some of the more right-wing locals. After all, radioactivity could be quite nasty when you depended on the land for your prosperity. They all remembered Chernobyl, with its tales of contaminated milk and meat.

And as if the peaceful use of nuclear power weren't bad enough, there was also talk of a new American air-force base in the area. People were already fed up with low-flying jets breaking the sound barrier day in, day out. Even if the sheep did seem to have got used to them, they were bad for the tourist business. But it looked as if Honoria was going to skirt the issue in true politician's fashion and dazzle everyone with visions of a new Golden Age. Maybe the matter would come up in question time.

Honoria's speech ended after a soaring paean to education reform, law and order, the importance of military strength, and private ownership of council housing. She had made no reference at all to the nuclear-power station or to the proposed air base. There was a five-
second pause before the audience realized it was all over and began to clap. In that pause, Banks thought he heard signs of a ruckus outside. Chas and Dave seemed to have the same notion too; their eyes darted to the doors and their hands slid towards their left armpits.

III

Outside, police and demonstrators punched and kicked each other wildly. Parts of the dense crowd had broken up into small skirmishes, but a heaving, struggling central mass remained. Everyone seemed oblivious to all but his or her personal battle. There were no individuals, just fists, wooden sticks, boots and uniforms. Occasionally, when a truncheon connected, someone would scream in agony, fall to his knees and put his hands to the flow of blood in stunned disbelief. The police got as good as they gave, too; boots connected with groins, fists with heads. Helmets flew off and demonstrators picked them up to swing them by the straps and use as weapons. The fallen on both sides were trampled by the rest; there was no room to avoid them, no time for compassion.

One young constable, beset by two men and a woman, covered his face and flailed blindly with his truncheon; a girl, blood flowing down the side of her neck, kicked a policeman, who lay in the rain curled up in the foetal position. Four people, locked together, toppled over and crashed through the window of Winston's Tobacco Shop, scattering the fine display of Havana cigars, bowls of aromatic pipe tobacco and exotic Turkish and American cigarette packets onto the wet pavement.

Eastvale Regional Police Headquarters was only a hundred yards or so down the street, fronting the market square. When he heard the noise, Sergeant Rowe dashed outside and sized up the situation quickly. He then sent out two squad cars to block off the narrow street at both ends, and a Black Maria to put the prisoners in. He also phoned the hospital for ambulances.

When the demonstrators heard the sirens, most of them were aware enough to know they were trapped. Scuffles ceased and the scared protestors broke for freedom. Some managed to slip by before the car doors opened, and two people shoved aside the driver of one car and
ran to freedom across the market square. A few others hurled themselves at the policemen who were still trying to block off the snickets, knocked them out of the way, and took off into the safety and obscurity of the back alleys. One muscular protestor forced his way up the steps towards the Community Centre doors with two policemen hanging onto the scruff of his neck trying to drag him back.

IV

Loud and prolonged applause drowned out all other sounds, and the Special Branch men relaxed their grips on their guns. The Hon Honoria beamed at the audience and raised her clasped hands above her head in triumph.

Banks still felt uneasy. He was sure he'd heard sounds of an argument or a fight outside. He knew that a small demonstration had been planned, and wondered if it had turned violent. Still, there was nothing he could do. At all costs, the show must go on, and he didn't want to create a stir by getting up and leaving early.

At least the speech was over. If question time didn't go on too long he'd be able to get outside and smoke a cigarette in half an hour or so. An hour might see him at home with that Scotch, and Sandra on the other end of the telephone line. He was hungry, too. In Sandra's absence, he had decided to have a go at
haute cuisine
, and though it hadn't worked out too well so far—the curry had lacked spiciness, and he'd overcooked the fish casserole—he was making progress. Surely a Spanish omelette could present no real problems?

The applause died down and the chairman announced question time. As the first person stood up and began to ask about the proposed site of the nuclear-power station, the doors burst open and a hefty, bedraggled young man lurched in with two policemen in tow. A truncheon cracked down, and the three fell onto the back row. The young man yelped out in pain. Women screamed and reached for their fur coats as the flimsy chairs toppled and splintered under the weight of the three men.

Chas and Dave didn't waste a second. They rushed to Honoria, shielding her from the audience, and with Banks in front, they left
through the back door. Beyond the cluttered store-rooms, an exit opened onto a complex of back streets, and Banks led them down a narrow alley where the shops on York Road dumped their rubbish. In no time at all the four of them had crossed the road and entered the old Riverview Hotel, where the Hon Honoria was booked to stay the night. For the first time that evening, she was quiet. Banks noticed in the muted light of the hotel lobby how pale she had turned.

Only when they got to the room, a suite with a superb view over the terraced river-gardens, did Chas and Dave relax. Honoria sighed and sank into the sofa, and Dave locked the door and put the chain on while Chas headed over to the cocktail cabinet.

“Pour me a gin-and-tonic, will you, dear?” said Honoria in a shaky voice.

“What the hell was all that about?” Chas asked, also pouring out two stiff shots of Scotch.

“I don't know,” Banks said. “There was a small demonstration outside. I suppose it could have—”

“Some bloody security you've got here,” said Dave, taking his drink and passing the gin-and-tonic to Honoria.

She gulped it down and put her hand to her brow. “My God,” she said, “I thought there was nobody but farmers and horse-trainers living up here. Look at me, I'm shaking like a bloody leaf.”

“Look,” Banks said, hovering at the door, “I'd better go and see what's happening.” It was obvious he wasn't going to get a drink, and he was damned if he was going to stand in as a whipping boy for the security organizers. “Will you be all right?”

“A damn sight safer than we were back there,” Dave said. Then his tone softened a little and he came to the door with Banks. “Yes, go on. It's your problem now, mate.” He smiled and lowered his voice, twitching his head in Honoria's direction. “Ours is her.”

In the rush, Banks had left his raincoat in the Community Centre, and his cigarettes were in the right-hand pocket. He noticed Chas lighting up as he left, but hadn't the audacity to ask for one. Things were bad enough already. Flipping up his jacket collar against the rain, he ran down to the market square, turned right in front of the church and stopped dead.

The wounded lay groaning or unconscious in the drizzle, and
police still scuffled with the ones they'd caught, trying to force them into the backs of the cars or into the Black Maria. Some demonstrators, held by their hair, wriggled and kicked as they went, receiving sharp blows from the truncheons for their efforts. Others went peacefully. They were frightened and tired now; most of the fight had gone out of them.

Banks stood rooted to the spot and watched the scene. Radios crackled; blue lights spun; the injured cried in pain and shock while ambulance attendants rushed around with stretchers. It defied belief. A full-blown riot in Eastvale, admittedly on a small scale, was near unthinkable. Banks had got used to the rising crime rate, which affected even places as small as Eastvale, with just over fourteen thousand people, but riots were surely reserved for Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol or London. It couldn't happen here, he had always thought as he shook his head over news of Brixton, Toxteth and Tottenham. But now it had, and the moaning casualties, police and demonstrators alike, were witness to that hard truth.

The street was blocked off at the market square to the south and near the Town Hall, at the junction with Elmet Street, to the north. The gaslamps and illuminated window displays in the twee tourist shops full of Yorkshire woollen wear, walking gear and local produce shone on the chaotic scene. A boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen, cried out as two policemen dragged him by his hair along the glistening cobbles; a torn placard that had once defiantly read NO NUKES flapped in the March wind as the thin rain tapped a faint tattoo against it; one policeman, helmet gone and hair in disarray, bent to help up another, whose moustache was matted with blood and whose nose lay at an odd angle to his face.

In the revolving blue lights, the aftermath of the battle took on a slow-motion, surrealistic quality to Banks. Elongated shadows played across walls. In the street, odd objects caught the light for a second, then seemed to vanish: an upturned helmet, an empty beer bottle, a key-ring, a half-eaten apple browning at the edges, a long white scarf twisted like a snake.

Several policemen had come out of the station to help, and Banks recognized Sergeant Rowe standing behind a squad car by the corner.

“What happened?” he asked.

Rowe shook his head. “Demo turned nasty, sir. We don't know how or why yet.”

“How many were there?”

“About a hundred.” He waved his hand at the scene. “But we didn't expect anything like this.”

“Got a cigarette, Sergeant?”

Rowe gave him a Senior Service. It tasted strong after Silk Cut, but he drew the smoke deep into his lungs nonetheless.

“How many hurt?”

“Don't know yet, sir.”

“Any of ours?”

“Aye, a few, I reckon. We had about thirty or so on crowd-control duty, but most of them were drafted in from York and Scarborough on overtime. Craig was there, and young Tolliver. I haven't seen either of them yet. It'll be busy in the station tonight. Looks like we've nicked about half of them.”

Two ambulance attendants trotted by with a stretcher between them. On it lay a middle-aged woman, her left eye clouded with blood. She turned her head painfully and spat at Sergeant Rowe as they passed.

“Bloody hell!” Rowe said. “That was Mrs Campbell. She takes Sunday School at Cardigan Drive Congregationalist.”