‘So why are you here then?’ she shot back. ‘What have I done that demands this visit to try and shut me up?’
Palmer shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘No one is trying to shut you up.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Slater said gently. The boy clearly wasn’t up to much in the debating stakes. ‘As long as I stay within the law, I am allowed to express my opinions. Is that not right?’
Tearing his eyes from Mr Kipling’s bounty, the young man looked up at his host, nodding furiously. ‘Of course,’ he stammered.
A sly smile drifted across her face. ‘You believe in free speech, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, why, precisely, have your masters in the security services sent you up here to try and threaten me?’
TWO
A loud extended fart came from the prostrate body in the nearby bed. Police constable John Carlyle — badge number V253 — turned away, hoping that the smell would not reach him.
‘Who’d have thought it?’
‘Huh?’ Irritated by yet another interruption, Carlyle looked up from his copy of the New Musical Express and scowled. He had just come off a fourteen-hour shift, standing around on a patch of waste ground just up the road in South Yorkshire, doing fuck all other than eyeballing a bunch of striking miners. All he wanted to do now was read his newspaper, get some food and have a kip.
Ignoring his colleague’s tetchiness, PC Dominic Silver offered him a small, brown plastic cup containing a nasty-looking dark liquid that was as close to coffee as you could get at RAF Syerston, their current home.
‘George Orwell,’ he mused, ‘spot on.’
‘Mm.’ Taking a sip of the coffee, Carlyle winced before trying to return to the article about Aztec Camera.
‘Here we are,’ Dom persisted, ‘it’s 1984 and us poor sods are doing the dirty work of The Party and its totalitarian ideology.’
‘Mm.’ Carlyle eyed his mate suspiciously. Even after a double shift, Dom was giving off the kind of nervous energy that suggested that he’d been doing too much amphetamine sulphate again. That or the coffee was proving more stimulating than he first thought. He took another sip and concluded that it was more likely that Dom was still speeding his tits off.
‘Unbelievable.’
You’d better bloody believe it, Carlyle thought. Letting his gaze drift past the cheery speed freak, he surveyed the massive aeroplane hangar that was providing their temporary accommodation. More than three hundred police officers billeted in a space the size of Earls Court Arena. Bussed up from London to do picket-line duty, the officers had been living cheek by jowl for only a few days but already it felt like an eternity.
The place smelt of damp and body odour. From somewhere nearby came the sound of Bob Geldof spewing out ‘Rat Trap’ from an outsized tape deck. Surveying the scene, Carlyle tried to remember why he had signed up to join the police force in the first place, but his mind was a blank. It was barely a year since he’d joined the Metropolitan Police but, already, it felt like a lifetime ago.
‘And to think,’ Dom said airily, ‘that it was written way back in 1949.’
Trust me, Carlyle thought ruefully, to get stuck with the only fucking plod in this whole damn place who knows the difference between George Orwell and George Best. Apart from me, of course. Smiling, he closed the NME, folded it in half and tossed it on the camp bed. The thoughts of Roddy Frame would just have to wait. ‘It’s not exactly what we signed up for, is it?’
‘Nah.’ Dom pulled up a folding chair and sat down next to the bed. ‘That’s the thing though, once you sign on the dotted line they can do what the fuck they like with you.’
Carlyle took a further tentative sip of his coffee. ‘I signed up to join the police, though, not the bloody army. They didn’t mention anything about this at Hendon, did they?’
‘Pff.’ Dom made a face. ‘What do you expect? Training’s always a pile of wank. Anyway, it was never the case that we were going to walk out of there and — bam! — ’ he waved his arms in the air, spilling coffee over the concrete floor, ‘we’re in an episode of The Sweeney.’
‘No, I suppose not. But still. .’
Their conversation was petering out when Carlyle caught sight of Charlie Ross motoring towards them like he had a rocket up his arse. Ross, a veteran sergeant, had direct charge of the thirty or so officers — including Carlyle and Silver — that had been brought up from West London earlier in the week. An aggressive Scot old enough to be Carlyle’s father, Charlie was delighted to have found himself parachuted into the middle of a full-scale scrap at this late stage of his career. As well as guaranteed aggro, the strike meant enough overtime to pay for his next two-week holiday in Lanzarote many times over.
Carlyle tried to avoid making eye contact with the hyperactive Jock midget, but it was too late. ‘Oh shit. .’ he mumbled.
‘Huh?’ Dom looked round. But it was too late; the predatory sergeant was already upon them.
‘You two,’ Ross snarled, toying with his Village People-style biker moustache, ‘come with me.’
‘But sarge,’ Dom protested, ‘we’ve only just got back.’
‘And we haven’t had anything to eat yet,’ Carlyle whined.
Ross’s eyes narrowed. ‘Shut up and do as you’re told. Grab what you can from the canteen and meet me outside in ten minutes.’
‘Where are we going?’ Carlyle asked, getting to his feet with the utmost reluctance.
‘Just fucking move,’ Ross growled, already looking round the room for other volunteers for his little project. ‘Anyone seen Miller?’
Urgh. Carlyle and Dom exchanged a knowing glance. What ever fun Charlie Ross had in store for the two of them, the involvement of Trevor Miller would only make it worse. Maybe five years older than Carlyle and Dom, Miller was a mouthy, annoying git from Peckham, a fat slob with the IQ of a dead amoeba. As far as anyone could tell, Trevor’s abilities were strictly limited to eating, farting and wanking, not necessarily in that order. It was clear to anyone who ever met him that Miller was the kind of guy who would never rise above constable, however long he spent on The Job.
‘I saw him heading for the bogs a while ago,’ Don grinned, ‘with a copy of Razzle under his arm.’
Now it was the sergeant’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘Jesus H Christ on a bike,’ he grumbled.
‘Trevor likes his porn.’
‘The boy’s an animal.’
‘Yes, sarge,’ Dom grinned.
Ross glared at him, shaking his head.
‘After all, it’s the only sex he’s ever going to get. . unless he manages to catch a sheep.’
Ross held up a hand. ‘Enough!’ For a moment, he contemplated his options. There was some more moustache scratching and then the sergeant came to a decision. ‘All right, you two will do.’ Not wishing to engage in any further conversation on the matter, he began moving towards the exit. ‘I see you in ten minutes. And make sure you wrap up warm. You’ll be out for the rest of the night.’
Fuck. Carlyle shot Dom another helpless look. Just why had he chosen this fucking job?
THREE
Sitting in the front passenger seat, Charlie Ross tapped the dashboard of the Triumph Toledo with the fingers of his right hand. ‘This will do us fine.’
The driver slowed down but didn’t stop. ‘Are you sure, sir?’ he asked in a thick provincial accent Carlyle didn’t recognize. Looking through the windscreen, he gestured towards the wasteland to their left. ‘There’s fuck all around here.’
Well spotted, Carlyle thought glumly. Sitting in the back, next to Dom, he tried to ignore the rumbling of his stomach. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine he was back home in Fulham. It didn’t work, not even for a second.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Ross said firmly, ‘just let us out here.’
‘Okay.’ The driver brought the vehicle to a gentle halt. ‘There you go.’