Peter Robinson - Blood At The Root

“Well, yeah,” said pointy-head, speaking up for the first time. “It sounds all right. Send ’em all back, like. I mean, it sounds good to me.” He grinned, showing bad teeth and looked around at his friends. “I mean, kick the fuckers out, right? Eh? Send the black bastards back to the jungle. Kick the fuckers out.”

“Right,” said Craig. “You’ve got it. Thing is, there’s not much a person can do by himself, all alone, if you see what I mean.”

“Except wank.” Slack-jaw grinned.

Ah, a true wit. Craig laughed. “Yeah, except wank. And you don’t want to be wankers, do you? Anyway, see, if you get organized, like with others who feel the same way, then there’s a lot more you can achieve? Right?”

“Right,” said Billy. “Stands to reason, don’t it?”

“Okay,” Craig went on, noticing the band picking up their instruments again. “Think about it, then.”

“About what?” Billy asked.

“What I’ve just been saying. About joining the league. Where you get a chance to act on your beliefs. We have a lot of fun, too.”

A screech of feedback came from the amp. Billy put his hands over his ears. “Yeah, I can see,” he said.

He was clearly the leader of the three, Craig thought, the Alex of the group, the others were just his droogs. If Billy decided it was a good idea, they’d go along with him. Craig noticed Motcombe glance around the room, then walk out of the fire exit at the back with one of the Leeds cell leaders. He stood up and leaned over the three skins. “Keep in touch, then,” he said, as the music started again. He pointed. “See that bloke at the table there, over by the door?”

Billy nodded.

“If you decide you want to sign up tonight, he’s the man to talk to.”

“Right.”

He patted Billy on the back. “Got to go for a piss. See you later.”

Casually, he walked toward the toilets near the front door. The band had started their tribute to Ian Stuart, late leader of Skrewdriver who, Blood and Honour claimed, had been murdered by the secret service. And now the Albion League had a martyr on their hands. He wondered how quickly someone would write a song about Jason Fox.

Anyway, the toilets were empty, and most people were either talking loudly or listening to the band, so no one saw Craig nip out the front door. Not that it mattered, anyway; the room was so hot and smoky that no one could be suspect for going out for a breath of fresh air.

Instead of just standing there and enjoying the smell of the cool, damp night, he walked around the back of the building toward the big car park. Glancing around the corner, he saw Motcombe and the Leeds skin standing by Mot-combe’s black van talking. The car park was badly lit, so Craig found it easy enough to crouch down and scoot closer, hiding behind a rusty old Metro, watching them through the windows.

It didn’t take long to figure out that they were talking about money. As Craig watched, the Leeds skin handed Motcombe a fistful of notes. Motcombe took a box out of his van and opened it. Then he placed the bills inside. The skin said something Craig couldn’t catch, then they shook hands and he went back inside.

Motcombe stood for a moment glancing around, sniffing the air. Craig felt a twinge of fear, as if Motcombe had twitched his antenna, sensed a presence.

But it passed. Motcombe opened the box, took out a handful of notes and stuffed them in his inside pocket. Then he squared his shoulders and strutted back in to work the crowd again.

“The Albion League,” said Gristhorpe in the Boardroom on Wednesday morning, his game leg resting on the polished oval table, thatch of gray hair uncombed. Banks, Hatchley and Susan Gay sat listening, cups of coffee steaming in front of them. “I’ve been on the phone to this bugger Crawley for about half an hour, but somehow I feel I know less than when I started. Know what I mean?”

Banks nodded. He’d spoken to people like that. Still, some had said the same thing about him, too.

“Anyway,” Gristhorpe went on, “they’re exactly what they sound like in their pamphlet – a neo-Nazi fringe group. Albion’s an old poetic name for the British Isles. You find it in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser and lots of other poets. Anyway, according to Crawley, this lot took it from William Blake, who elevated Albion into some sort of mythical spirit of the race.”

“Is this Blake a Nazi, then, sir?” Sergeant Hatchley asked.

“No, Sergeant,” Gristhorpe answered patiently. “William Blake was an English poet. He lived from 1757 to 1827. You’d probably know him best as the bloke who wrote ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Tyger, Tyger!’”

“‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright’?” said Hatchley. “Aye, sir, I think we did that one at school.”

“Most likely you did.”

“And we sometimes used to sing the other one on the coach home after a rugby match. But isn’t Jerusalem in Israel, sir? Was this Blake Jewish, then?”

“Again, Sergeant, no. I’ll admit it sounds an ironic sort of symbol for a neo-Nazi organization. But, as I said, Blake liked to mythologize things. To him, Jerusalem was a sort of image of the ideal city, a spiritual city, a perfect society, if you like – of which London was a pale, fallen shadow – and he wanted to establish a new Jerusalem ‘in England’s green and pleasant land.’”

“Was he green, then, sir, one of them environmentalists?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

Banks could see Gristhorpe gritting his teeth in frustration. He felt like kicking Hatchley under the table, but he couldn’t reach. The sergeant was trying it on, of course, but Hatchley and Gristhorpe always seemed to misunderstand one another. You wouldn’t have thought they were both Yorkshiremen under the skin.

“Blake’s Albion was a powerful figure, ruler of this ideal kingdom,” Gristhorpe went on. “A figure of which even the heroes of the Arthurian legends were mere shadows.”

“How long have they been around?” Banks asked.

Gristhorpe turned to him, clearly with some relief. “About a year,” he said. “They started as a splinter group of the British National Party, which turned out to be too soft for them. And they think they’re a cut above Combat 18, who they regard as nowt but a bunch of thugs.”

“Well, they’re right on that count,” Banks said. “Who’s the grand Pooh-Bah?”

“Bloke called Neville Motcombe. Aged thirty-five. You’d think he’d be old enough to know better, wouldn’t you?”

“Any form?”

“One arrest for assaulting a police officer during a BNP rally years back, and another for receiving stolen goods.”

“Any connection with George Mahmood and his friends?” Banks asked.

Gristhorpe shook his head. “Other than the obvious, none.”

“Surely the Albion League isn’t based in Eastvale, sir?” Susan Gay asked.

Gristhorpe laughed. “No. That’s just where Jason Fox’s parents happen to live. Luck of the draw, as far as we’re concerned. Their headquarters are in Leeds – an old greengrocer’s shop in Holbeck – but they’ve got cells all over West Yorkshire, especially in places where there’s a high percentage of immigrants. As I said before, they’re not above using the yobs, but there’s also that element of a more intellectual appeal to disaffected white middle-class kids with chips on their shoulders – lads like Jason Fox, with a few bobs’ worth of brains and nobbut an a’porth of common sense.”

“How strong are they?” Banks asked.

“Hard to say. According to Crawley, there’s about fifteen cells, give or take a couple. One each in smaller places like Batley and Liversedge, but two or three in a larger city like Leeds. We don’t really know how many members in each cell, but as a rough estimate let’s say maybe eighty to a hundred members in all.”