They were thugs and bullies. Hooligans. Terrorists and now murderers –
They were all lepers now —
Their offices were their hospitals. Their villages, their colonies.
There was silence in every office on every floor of every one of their buildings. There was silence in the street, their buckets empty now –
Just buckets of rain. Buckets of pain —
Bomb scares and death threats came by the hour. Letter bombs in the hate mail.
The President was frightened. Frightened of the outside. Frightened of the inside. The President didn’t trust anyone but Len and Joan –
The crows circling the monastery. The wolves at the gates —
The Moderates were meeting. Meeting with the TUC and with the Labour Party. Meeting in corridors. Meeting in motorway hotels. The backrooms of pubs –
Meeting and talking —
Talking of breakaways. Talking of returns without settlement or returns with a settlement. Hands over their mouths. Behind their backs –
Talking and planning —
Planning to sell out. Planning to cave in and compromise. Planning their coup –
Scheming and plotting —
Plotting his downfall. His descent and demise. Conspiring and dreaming. Dreaming of the President’s defeat –
His destruction and death —
The President caught between the rocks of the Right and the hard places of the Left. Cornered and trapped, he lived behind locked doors. He spoke in secret and talked on to tape. Taped all transmissions, recorded all reports. Joan cooked his food. Len tested it. The President ate only small amounts, staggered in stages. He drank only boiled water. The President left the locked doors of his office only for rallies. He travelled only in the Rover. Driven only by Len –
Len paid miners to watch the Rover twenty-four hours a day. Len paid men to watch the miners watching the Rover twenty-four hours a day –
From Friday 30 November 1984.
Today was Monday and tonight the President was to appear at a rally in Stoke. There had been bomb scares and death threats all day. Men with muffled voices had phoned local radio stations and whispered their warnings.
The President took Terry Winters and Paul with him. The President never let Terry out of his sight. The President had Terry and Paul stand before him on the stage. The President shared the platform with the Labour Leader. Terry Winters stared out into the spotlights –
He watched for the nooses. He waited for the snipers.
The Leader spoke first. The Leader said the violence had to stop –
The violence must stop and the violence must stop now.
Hecklers called him a traitor. Judas. Scab! Scab! Scab!
The hecklers were ejected. The Leader given a standing ovation.
The President stood up behind Terry and Paul –
The Town Hall fell silent –
The President’s voice was uncertain here. The President’s words were unsure now. The President admitted his deep shock at the tragic death of the taxi-driver –
He was given a standing ovation. The Town Hall sang the Red Flag —
Then the Town Hall fell silent again.
Len went for the car. Terry and Paul shielded the President as he left the building. The President sat in the back of the Rover between them, drenched in sweat and shaking. Len stayed in the fast lane all the way back to Yorkshire. Len dropped Terry off first. There was a police car parked outside his house –
There was a police car parked outside all their houses now.
*
These have been most fortuitous days for the Jew –
The murder of this taxi-driver in South Wales. The appointment of the receiver. The resignations of a few more Suits –
‘I could not have planned it better had I tried, Neil,’ muses the Jew.
The Jew is sitting pretty behind his desk and a huge new advertisement –
It’ll pay every miner who’s not at work to read this.
The Jew reorganizes his desk into two simple halves –
To the right are the reports on the progress of the receiver and the sequestrators. To the left are the reports on the progress of the National Working Miners’ Committee.
The Jew tracks the information from both left and right on his graphs and maps. The Jew walks round to the front of his desk. The Jew touches his graphs and maps –
The rising blue lines and the many blue pins –
The Jew runs a finger up and down North Derbyshire –
‘Is it not a beautiful thing, Neil?’ asks the Jew. ‘To win?’
Neil Fontaine picks red pins from out of the carpet. Neil Fontaine nods.
‘There were but three hundred and forty-three local lions in May,’ says the Jew. ‘To think there are now four thousand and forty-three in North Derbyshire alone, Neil.’
Neil Fontaine nods again. Neil Fontaine puts the red pins in the bin –
‘Four thousand and forty-three of them!’
But there is a price (there is always a price) –
The Jew has asked Neil to provide security for the homes of every working miner; every single working miner; every single home –
Neil jumps at the chance. The chance of a ghost. The ghost of a chance –
He leaves the Jew to sit pretty at Hobart House. He makes the usual calls –
Jerry Witherspoon. Roger Vaughan. The General –
No one answers the phone. No one takes a message. No one returns his calls.
He makes the usual rounds. He knocks on the usual doors –
The Special Services Club. The Institute of Professional Investigators. The TA —
But no one answers the door. No one knows his face. Remembers his name –
This is how it feels to be out in the cold.
He rents two post-office boxes and he places two adverts in the right magazines. He reserves a room in a hotel out by Heathrow. He pays cash money for all these things –
He uses the name Mr Farrant.
Fuck them. Fuck them all, thinks Neil Fontaine –
Promises Neil Fontaine.
*
The President was staying in Sheffield until the very last minute. Paul and Terry Winters travelled down to London separately. Paul in second class. Terry in first. Paul and Terry checked in to the County separately. Paul got a single room with a sink. Terry got a double with a private bath. Paul and Terry had both registered under assumed names –
Paul chose the name Smith. Terry chose Verloc –
Terry had been rehabilitated. But not by Paul. He had had a choice –
The President had had no choice.
Terry and Paul took separate taxis to the High Court.
The lawyers representing the working miners had claimed the Union trustees, including the President, were not fit and proper persons to be in charge of other people’s money. Not fit and proper persons –
Including the President.
The High Court had agreed. The High Court had removed the five trustees. Including the President. The High Court had appointed a receiver to take control of the Union’s funds and assets.
The receiver was a Mr Booker. Mr Booker planned to leave for Luxembourg. Mr Booker intended to seek the release of the Union’s five million pounds held in a small private bank account there –
Immediately.
Terry and Paul had come to the High Court to appeal. To swear not to move the money. To assure the court they would abide by its jurisdiction.