Nick Oldham - Backlash

Henry looked expectantly at the four faces, waiting for one of them to begin.

‘I think you should kick this off, Andrea,’ FB said to Makin.

She cleared her throat. ‘OK.’ She sat down opposite Henry and leaned towards him. ‘One of my specific responsibilities is to keep a check on the activities of extreme right-wing organisations and their members. It’s pretty much my main job, actually, because they are increasingly active, mainly on the back of the Nazi movement in Germany which is very powerful at the moment. Their British counterparts do tend, on the whole, to be less inclined to violent action, even though they promote and support it through their literature and rallies. That said, they are a very organised and nasty bunch of individuals driven by a warped philosophy aimed primarily against black and Asian people, lesbians, gays, Jews — the last group probably inherited from the Germans.’

‘Who are we talking about here?’ Henry asked

‘The Right Wingers, the National Socialist Party, the One True Race and Combat 18 among others — but those are the main players.’

Henry had heard of them all. Thoughts and images of them made the corners of his mouth twist down in distaste. It made him sad and angry that such groups could exist and thrive in Britain, but they did. They prospered.

‘All thoroughly bad, but why are you telling me this?’

FB uttered a short ‘Tch!’ intimating that Henry should have automatically made the connection already. Actually he did have an idea where it was leading, but wanted someone else to say it. He kept his eyes firmly on Makin and pretended not to have heard FB.

‘Conference week,’ she said patiently.

Henry nodded.

‘I’ve had an undercover cop working in some of these groups for the last three years — a pretty hairy job, as you can imagine,’ Makin said. Henry could imagine. He had been undercover several times. It was not glorious or pleasant. It was an awful job which wrecked nerves and marriages. ‘Two years ago there were big ructions in the top level of the Right Wingers. Their leaders fell out big style. The issue was that some of them believed the Wingers had become soft. Not enough direct action going on. All the right words being spouted, all the right-wing posturing being done, but the only thing that was happening in a co-ordinated manner was football violence, and even that was pretty poor. Some people in the Wingers wanted more — much more.’

‘Such as?’ Henry asked.

Makin cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. ‘Forgive the use of the language, this is their terminology: they wanted Paki bashing; they wanted queer bashing; they wanted racial hatred and tension stirred up endlessly; they wanted Jews harassed — and the Wingers were not delivering. In essence, a lot of the people wanted to provoke a race war.’

‘So there was a split?’ Henry suggested.

‘Spot on.’ Makin clicked her forefinger at Henry. ‘And then for a short, intense period there was violence on the streets — but it was between themselves. Power struggles. Beatings, counter-beatings. The Right Wingers were in disarray.’

‘It was in the newspapers,’ FB chipped in.

Henry remembered reading it. Such a long time ago — two years.

He glanced at FB and then at Basil Kramer. The latter had not spoken or tried to say anything while Makin was speaking. Henry admired him very slightly for that — but only slightly, because he did not like politicians. However, he knew that most would have tried to hog the limelight, whatever the forum. His eyes returned to Makin who was massaging her face and yawning.

‘Yeah, it hit the papers,’ she said. ‘Bit of a nine-day wonder as far as the media was concerned, but it threw up lots of useful intelligence for us because people were arrested left, right and centre for assault. Then it all went quiet. The Right Wingers regrouped and a splinter group began to get their own act together. They consisted of the more militant-minded ex-Wingers. They got their strategy together and from that came their plan and from the plan came action. They are well organised. Tight little cells all on a need-to-know basis. I put an undercover cop in, but it’s been difficult to get much information.’ She stopped.

Henry blinked dumbly, waiting for her to continue.

‘So the information that’s come to us is very late and caught us on the hop because things have already started to happen on the streets.’

‘The disturbances you’ve been quelling tonight,’ Kramer said.

‘Yes.’ FB grunted. ‘They’ve already kicked off on our patch.’

Makin said, ‘The information we have received is that this new splinter group has decided to use conference week to bring their cause to the streets and in their words — “Blackpool is gonna burn this week”.’

Makin wrapped her fingers around her left knee and smiled at Henry.

Occasionally he had a flash of clarity, usually accompanied by extreme anger. Like for instance, just then, just for a moment. Everything up to that point had been a meaningless jumble. A whirl of multi-layered, slow-moving images, colours and pain. Nothing seemed to make any sense. Even his own voice had sounded strange to him: deep and inhuman as it responded to the distorted sounds coming from other people’s mouths. It had been awful.

Suddenly it cleared. Like a gate opening. Like the beam of a searchlight in the night sky. Almost like the light of God.

And here he was, knowing exactly what had happened over the last few hours, where he was, why he was here and how long he had been waiting for treatment, flanked by two burly uniformed cops in the A amp;E department of Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

‘Hours!’ he blurted unexpectedly, making both cops jump. He twisted round and tried to get to his feet. ‘I’ve been waiting friggin’ hours — yet that bastard cop got treated right away. All patched up and nice, the twat! Not me. Nooo! A second-class citizen, me. Kit Nevison — cunt and troublemaker. You don’t care about me, do you? A junkie. Out of work. Out of fuckin’ money!’

The two cops hauled him back down to his seat.

‘Siddown y’tosser!’

Kit Nevison thudded back into the chair, feeling weak and ineffective. He knew he needed more dope, more booze. . a fag, even. Something to tide him over. He spoke pleadingly to one of the cops. ‘True, though, innit? He got treated an’ I didn’t. Me? Nowt — fuck-all except for this.’ He indicated a temporary bandage on his head by means of his two hands which were bound by a rigid pair of handcuffs. ‘I need stitches puttin’ in.’

‘You need a humane killer, Kit,’ one officer said.

‘Well fuck you,’ Nevison hissed, feeling it all welling up again. He hacked up and spat into the officer’s face. He stood up again, screaming, ‘I want treatment, I want my fuckin’ head doin’ now! You set of twats. .’

Everything became blurred again. Blood seemed to pump into his head, clouding his vision, thumping, thumping — he was aware of movement, aware of a tumbling sensation, heavy weights on him, some sort of slow-motion struggle, all clarity gone.

Basil Kramer adjusted his tie and got into his stride as soon as Makin finished.

‘As you know, Inspector Christie,’ he said, ‘this government is one hundred per cent committed to the maintenance of law and order and ensuring equality for all, regardless of race, creed, religion, whatever. We have pumped literally millions into the police service and thousands of new recruits are due to come off the production line soon, so to speak. Lancashire has had a generous allocation of both money and bodies, so it would be extremely ironic if, during our conference, when all policing in Blackpool is of a high profile, the streets were taken over by petrol-bombing yobbos — wouldn’t you agree? The press would have a field day.’