Alex Howard - Time to Die

On the wall was a large computer photo-frame and a variety of faces, predominately white, jowly, middle-aged, came and went on the screen, one after another, a succession of images. He recognized none of them in the endless video picture parade. He wondered if it might be some art installation, a counter to the framed photos of David Ben-Gurion and Jacob Bronowski on the opposite wall. Cohen noted Whiteside’s interest.

‘My rogues’ gallery, my “lest we forget”,’ Cohen said. ‘“Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.” I’m sure you know the quote?’ Whiteside nodded wisely. ‘We’re now looking at Gergely Pongrátz,’ noted Cohen, pointing at the screen.

He suited his name, thought the sergeant. An elderly man with archaic moustaches, silver hair and old-fashioned braiding on his jacket, filled the screen. Whiteside looked at him; the folkloric clothing gave him a deeply sinister air, a character out of Grimm. Whiteside would have picked him out of a line-up as almost certainly the nutter who’d done the axe murder, he had that air of rustic insanity.

Cohen said, ‘The founder of Jobbik, The Movement for a Better Hungary. Mr Pongrátz isn’t keen on Jews. The party line is we shouldn’t be complaining about this but instead be, and I quote, “playing with our tiny, circumcised dicks”.’ Cohen laughed. ‘Mr Pongrátz has a way with words. Quite popular they are, too, in his country. In fact, according to the Hungarian police trade union, no less, Hungary should be preparing for armed battle with the Jews.’ Cohen’s tone was very much that of a teacher giving a lecture to a slightly dim pupil. Whiteside could begin to see why maybe Cohen didn’t have a particularly rosy view of the police.

‘You can’t always trust the law,’ Whiteside said, helpfully, enthusiastically. Cohen shrugged eloquently as Pongrátz faded away to be replaced by another face. ‘Nikolaos Michaloliakos, from the Golden Dawn of Greece, with their trademark, ‘I can’t believe it’s not a swastika’ symbol. You’ll know them from the recent news, they did rather well in the Greek elections.’ Michaloliakos shrank to a corner of the screen. ‘In Athens police are recommending victims of crime go to them for assistance.’

‘Oh,’ said Whiteside. Now a fat-faced, tough-looking man filled the screen.

‘Holger Apfel. National Democratic Party of Germany. Bit of a synonym for National Socialism, no?’ Cohen sighed. ‘We monitor anti-Semitism, Mr Dunlop. It’s as old as the Jews themselves and I would say it’s making a comeback; these are all current figures, not bogeymen from the past. The truth is, anti-Semitism never went away. In Britain alone we logged six hundred anti-Semitic incidents last year. So, as you can see, the reason for our funding is as important as ever. Plus of course we have Iran that wants to destroy us completely — well, and all the Arab countries. Unfortunately, our future here at the institute looks extremely secure. If only we weren’t needed I’d be a happy man.’ Cohen picked up a small remote. ‘There’s a lot more stored on the files for that photo-frame,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to give you a flavour of what we do, put a face to our persecutors.’ He pressed a button and changed the right-wing portraiture for a blue-green picture of an attenuated violinist, floating dreamlike in a night sky over a village.

‘Marc Chagall,’ said Cohen. ‘Let’s cheer ourselves up a bit. Some positive Jewish artistic achievement, eh.’

He looked at Whiteside with disconcertingly intelligent eyes. ‘So, how can we be of assistance?’

‘Harry Conquest,’ said Whiteside. He spelt the surname for Cohen.

‘OK then, Mr Dunlop.’ Cohen smiled as he said the name.

It sounded ridiculous to Whiteside himself. Who thought of that name? Perhaps they were working their way through tyre brands. He could have been Bridgestone, Pirelli, Marangoni, Goodyear or Michelin. Presumably not Continental. Mr Continental.

Cohen opened a laptop and typed away. ‘Ah ha,’ he said. ‘Well, we do have Mr Conquest on our files.’

Despite himself, Whiteside nearly jumped with surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that.

Cohen swivelled the screen round for Whiteside to see. ‘Do you read Hebrew?’

‘Unfortunately not.’

‘Never mind. I’m sure you can use shorthand,’ said Cohen, nodding at Whiteside’s notebook.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and Celia Westermann came in with coffee. Whiteside glanced at her. She looked so self-effacing he had the strange sensation again that, like the clothes, it was some kind of act. She behaved as if she was playing a secretary from the past. Cohen ignored her. Perhaps this was normal for the institute. As she busied herself pouring the coffee, Whiteside wondered if journalists these days did know shorthand. It sounded archaic. He wondered if it was some kind of joke by Cohen, like an apprentice being sent to buy tartan paint or a sky-hook.

‘I’ll just record what you say on my phone, Dr Cohen. Dyslexia,’ he said ruefully by way of explanation. ‘Dyslexia, a journalist’s nightmare, Doctor.’

Cohen nodded. It was now obvious to Whiteside he didn’t believe a word of anything he said.

‘Well, well, here he is.’ Cohen pointed to the sturdy Hebrew characters filling the screen with the end of a biro. Whiteside looked suitably blank. ‘Better switch your phone on then, Mr Dunlop,’ said Cohen. There was now surely no mistaking the ironic inflection in the elderly Jew’s voice. He looked at Celia. ‘Do you want to stay, Celia?’

‘No, Dr Cohen,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do.’ She smiled benignly at Whiteside and left the room.

The gist of Cohen’s file entry was short and to the point. Conquest had been born in Lewisham in South London in the early sixties. He had left school at fifteen. In the late seventies, aged seventeen, he’d joined the Hell’s Angels, what later became the infamous Windsor Chapter, and also become a member of Combat 18.

‘What’s that?’ Whiteside had asked sharply. He’d never heard of them, but the number caught his ear. It was part of what Hanlon had wanted him to ask about. Cohen’s reply was, ‘18 is 1 + 8. What’s the first letter of the alphabet? Mr Dunlop?’

‘A,’ said Whiteside.

‘That’s right, and now the eighth?’

‘H.’

‘Mm hm,’ said Cohen. ‘Put them together and you have A. H. Now, who do you think that might possibly refer to?’

‘Adolf Hitler,’ said Whiteside. Cohen nodded happily. Well, he thought. Hanlon was right. He also thought, so what? Conquest liked Nazis.

Cohen explained that Combat 18 was a small and disorganized racist group. The members were more of a threat to themselves than anyone else. Very much so. In fact, their founder was inside for murder, having killed a fellow member in some internal dispute. At the time, the major right-wing party, the then BNP equivalent, was the National Front, but Combat 18 believed in direct action. Luckily, the only people they had killed were each other.

In 198 °Conquest served a year at Feltham for petrol-bombing a synagogue in Stamford Hill. It was this that had brought him to the attention of the Shapiro Institute. All UK anti-Semitic attacks were logged by them and this one had their highest rating in terms of threat level. In 1982 he was acquitted of dealing Class A substances (amphetamines) and in 1985 he was acquitted of armed robbery of a Hatton Garden jewellers. ‘A Jewish business,’ said Cohen. In both the last two cases, witness intimidation and tampering with evidence had been cited as the reasons for the trials’ collapse.

This was more like it, thought Whiteside. Ludgate could hang out with former Nazis till the cows came home; for all anyone knew Conquest had long changed his political or racist views, or become a Buddhist, an advocate of rational peace and harmony, but consorting with a drug-dealing armed robber would take some explaining.