Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

‘We got a call from one of the drivers behind here, the second one along, I think. You see, sir, this gentleman here is the driver of that Fiat, which he simply abandoned in the street.’

The driver, a hungover-looking man in his thirties, shook his head. ‘I have not abandoned it. The keys are in the ignition and it’s unlocked and I’m having a coffee. Look, it’s gridlock, or as near as. I forgot it was Saturday or I wouldn’t have come into town at all, it’s always like this.’

‘I’ve been trying to tell the gentleman that it is a violation of the highway code to leave a vehicle unattended in a place where it is likely…’

The man raised a hand in protest. ‘It’s not unattended, I’m right here, I’m attending it, but I’m attending it while drinking coffee .’ He demonstrated this by taking a sip of frothy coffee and fixing his eyes on his car.

Pym scratched his neck with the pen from his notebook and turned to McLusky. ‘You see, sir, the problem is, if he refuses to go back to his vehicle I’ll have to arrest him but if I arrest him who’s going to move his car?’

‘Arrest him? I’m not sure you can force people to sit in their vehicles, unless they’re actually in motion. At least I think so, though don’t quote me on that. Well, I mean look at it …’ He swept an arm in the direction of the cars stacked up the hill. ‘Nothing’s moving, and somehow you’d think they’d turn their engines off …’

Somewhere in the queue someone gave an impatient blast of the horn. Several others joined in for a short concert. A shout of ‘Get a fucking move on’ came from somewhere. McLusky turned to the owner of the Fiat. ‘Is that cappuccino you’re drinking, sir?’

‘So?’

‘Is it any good?’

‘It’s not brilliant but okay, I guess. You do get a biscuit with it.’

‘Amaretti?’

‘I think that’s what they’re called. Has a sort of almond taste. You could always ask the waitress.’

Constable Pym couldn’t believe his ears. Out there a riot was brewing and the inspector was discussing the quality of coffee.

McLusky noted the name of the cafe, Carlotta’s. ‘Well, finish your cappuccino by all means, sir, but after that pull your car forward. With any luck there might be another cafe further along.’

The man grinned. ‘Yeah, there is actually. Okay then.’

McLusky widened his eyes at Constable Pym: and where was the problem?

‘But, sir, we might get a public order situation in a minute.’ He nodded the back of his head at the snarled-up traffic.

‘No we won’t, ’cos you’re here. Talk to them. Have a chat. But don’t let them pee in your helmet, however desperate. You’ll be fine.’ He moved on.

Pym watched him saunter down the road. McLusky . Where on earth did they find him ?

Wherever McLusky went it was all the same: traffic crawling or stationary, and short-tempered drivers using their horns with un-British frequency and ferocity. Cyclists still squeezed through some streets, many no doubt feeling that their day had come, and pedestrians walked freely between the cars and into the path of the unexpected cyclists. He followed the fingerposts towards the cathedral, through narrow alleys and down uneven flights of steps, and soon got to the heart of the chaos. He stopped next to a grey-haired sergeant from Traffic who was standing in his viz jacket by his car parked on the broad pavement. Showing his ID, McLusky explained that he was new in town and they both watched the spectacle for a while.

It had the air of a carnival. Many of the protesters had dressed up in bright costume; a great number of them wore dust masks or gas masks. Whistle-blowing and drumming syncopated the slow march. There was a surprising number of elderly people too. A few children, some wearing Hallowe’en death masks, were being pulled along in soap-box-and-pram-wheel carts shaped and painted to look like coffins.

The earlier protest marches along the main arteries had been judged illegal because of their disruptive quality and the damage done to city centre businesses. These new tactics by the protesters were simple but just as effective. Strings of protesters simply crossed and recrossed strategically chosen streets at the centre of the traffic system in a continuous loop. The zebra crossings they had chosen were all within sight of each other. Many protesters worked the pavements too, giving out leaflets to pedestrians. The braver ones stuck them on windscreens.

‘Looks like we have all types of people here.’

‘Yes, it’s quite a disparate group, concerned citizens as well as the usual lot. There’s a few students, cycling clubs, Green Party activists, Friends of the Earth, old hippies, skip divers, concerned citizens. Not so many parents of school-age kids of course.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘They’re mainly the ones in the cars, sir. Everyone thinks it’s the other people who should drive less.’

According to the sergeant there was nothing they could do about the zebra crossings. In fact police were now employed in stopping irate car drivers from trying to simply barge their way through the crossing protesters. ‘Clever and simple. But we’re not so worried about the fact that the traffic comes to a standstill, that’s a matter for the council to address. Because frankly, a few more cars and you won’t need a protest march to have gridlock on a regular basis. We had real gridlock once already, one Saturday, last year. We analysed it. All it took was the crowds from the kite festival trying to get home, a drunken fight in the middle of Park Street, a broken-down tourist bus just over there,’ he pointed to the junction, ‘and an abnormally wide load arriving from the motorway, delivering a boat. Oh yes, and some big football game on telly so the pubs were filling up. For several hours nothing much moved. You couldn’t get emergency vehicles anywhere. Even the motorcycle ambulance came a cropper. One arsonist could have levelled the town centre, we’d have needed bucket chains to put it out.’

McLusky stepped into the road and picked up a couple of discarded flyers. One had the picture of a dog wearing a gas mask on it — an image he seemed to remember from a book about the blitz — and carried stark warnings about the health impact of car fumes, especially on children. The second flyer concentrated on the contribution of car traffic to global warming.

‘These aren’t the ones we’re worried about, sir. I have two children myself and my youngest has asthma. They have a point about the pollution.’ He reached into the car and took out a blue folder, flicking it open. ‘But these have started appearing now.’ The leaflet in the clear plastic sleeve was simply produced on a computer’s printer and exhorted in large letters: HELP SAVE THE CITY, DISABLE A CAR TODAY. ‘That’s clearly going beyond legitimate protest. We’re trying to catch who’s been distributing them but we’re too late for today, I think. We do video the protests of course but we’re not exactly MI5, our cameras can’t tell one flyer from another.’

‘Is there any indication that people might follow this advice?’

‘There is indeed. Nothing too drastic as yet, just a spate of motorists finding all their tyres let down. Sometimes it’s a whole street and of course nobody’s got four spares so it is quite effective that, if you want to stop people from driving. Then there’s that nutter sticking fruit up people’s exhausts and splattering mud all over 4?4s.’

‘Yeah, I heard about that. Our super’s had his 4?4 treated thus twice.’

The officer’s face briefly brightened. ‘Denkhaus? I’m not saying a word. But the mud they use is very dark and sticky. We were wondering if perhaps we could get the mud analysed. Maybe if we knew where it came from we might be able to catch the little toerag.’