Gillian Slovo - Ten Days

‘What a wanton child you are.’

‘Child?’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘Temptress, then.’ She was that as well, and irresistible. He went over to the bed and kissed her. ‘I wish I could stay.’

‘I know.’ The arms that had gone round his neck gave a quick squeeze before letting go.

He collected his clothes from the various points on the carpet where he had shed them. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll go first.’

She nodded.

Strange the transition between the intimacy of bed and the clothes that called up the outside world. Her eyes stayed fixed on him as he dressed. It made him feel a little awkward, so he averted his gaze until he had finished and was putting on his tie.

He looked around him. Something missing.

‘Your watch.’

He fetched it from the place where it had fallen onto the thick pile carpet. He held it to his ear. Foolish. It was a Hublot. He wasn’t ever going to hear it ticking. He strapped it on.

She was still watching him and it was still unnerving. Something he had done? ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘What for?’ Her tone was light.

‘The way I spoke to you when you called.’

She shrugged.

‘I was with my wife.’

He caught an involuntary narrowing of her hazel eyes. Understandable. If he put himself in her shoes, he could see it was difficult for her as well.

I’ll make it up to her, he thought. Buy her something. Fully dressed now, and conscious that his driver would be waiting in the lobby, he went over to the bed.

She smiled up at him.

Let the driver wait. He leant over to kiss her. Showing her, without words, how much he thought of her. He felt her melting in his arms.

How he wanted to stay.

‘They’ll be waiting for you downstairs,’ she said. ‘You’d better go.’

Such a sweet girl. And so considerate. He sighed and straightened up. ‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Did you really uncover something between the PM and Commissioner Yares or was that just your excuse for ringing?’

‘Both,’ she said. ‘Did you know that Yares is Teddy’s godfather?’

He nodded. ‘He has some long-standing connection to the PM’s wife — I think their parents may have known each other — which he declared in his application in tedious detail. The man’s such a stickler, he’s a bore.’ He pulled the knot of his tie tight. ‘Peculiar decision to choose a godfather who’s a Jew, but I suppose there’s less of the God about most of us these days, and that includes the PM. The public doesn’t seem to care. Anything else?’

‘I’m working on it.’ She had on her serious assistant’s expression. ‘I’ve got some leads. That’s what I was doing in that pub.’

‘You’re a marvel. Do your best, will you?’

‘Yes, Peter.’ She so rarely used his Christian name. ‘I’ll do my best.’

4.40 p.m.

The demonstrators had set up camp on the pavement opposite the police station and a few hundred yards down from it. The police had closed Rockham train station and the road leading to it, and diverted southward-bound traffic through a one-way system and away from the police station, which was therefore isolated and easier to guard with a small number of officers. Normally they would have set up this diversion at the large junction at Rockhill Park, but this time, for some reason that no one could understand, they let traffic pass the park, only afterwards diverting it via the smaller Blackrod Road. As a result, the High Street to the north of the police station was soon crammed with cars trying to U-turn their way back to the diversion. To deal with the logjam, a patrol car parked nearby to disgorge two uniformed officers who proceeded to direct the traffic back.

For their part, the demonstrators did as they always did: they spilt out into the road to stop traffic from the south passing by. The police’s answer to this — again as per usual — was to create a makeshift roadblock in the south so that the demonstrators now had full possession of the area a few hundred yards from the police station in what was a kind of informal, if unpoliced, kettle.

So far so routine. An hour and a half after they had first arrived, everything was still calm. The day continued ferociously hot. A whipround raised money for a stack of collective water, which they stored in a couple of polystyrene boxes packed with ice. An enterprising ice-cream seller parked near the southernmost perimeter of the demonstration, from which position he did a roaring trade. Ice creams passed amongst the crowd, some of it gifted good-naturedly to the officers who were working valiantly in that heat to turn away traffic from the northern boundary of the enclosure. With the sun beating down, it felt more like a summer party than a protest, especially when someone used a beach umbrella to create a shaded sanctuary for babies and those who could least tolerate the heat.

They stood chatting and holding up their placards, waiting to see whether anybody would come out and talk to them. At 3.30 p.m., when no officer appeared, Ruben’s parents, accompanied by the Reverend Pius, had made their way into the police station. Their intention was to ask the police for their version of what had happened, something that had not so far been shared with the parents.

When the three did not return, the assumption was that they were talking to the powers that be. And so the demonstrators waited for them to reappear, and as they waited, the demonstration grew.

And then at last: ‘There they are.’ Marcus, who stood shoulders above most people, was pointing over the heads of the crowd and towards the police station. The crowd turned, almost as one, to see Pius and Ruben’s parents coming out.

Marcus pushed his way to the front. ‘Doesn’t look good,’ he muttered to Cathy, who had also noticed the downward cast of Ruben’s mother’s head and the negative shaking of Pius’s. The three were in fact walking slowly, as if reluctant to rejoin the demonstration, or, Cathy suddenly realised, as if they wanted a conversation in private, something that must also have struck Marcus, who whispered, ‘Let’s meet them by the roadblock,’ in her ear.

Submission to the internal inquiry of the Metropolitan Police into Operation Bedrock

Submission 573/A/1: photographic evidence gathered by ASU 27AWZ between 16:43 and 16:51 on

location: the area immediately adjacent to Rockham police station

subject: demonstration

At 16:43 hours, Air Support Unit 27AWZ, call sign India 95, passed over Rockham High Street, where a crowd had gathered. On instructions from the rear police officer, the pilot circled the area while the police observer operated video camera facilities and recorded still images. The attached images, date and time stamped, were captured during the period of surveillance and selected at the request of the Chairman of the internal inquiry. The complete series of surveillance pictures are attached as an appendix.

Camera still 0578/19413

time stamp: 16:49:10

A crowd estimated at approximately one hundred stands two hundred yards to the south of Rockham police station. They have filled the pavement and spilt into the road. A young man, IC3, with long dreadlocks, who with others has climbed the wall behind the pavement, points in a northerly direction towards a police roadblock manned by two uniformed officers. A patrol car is visible, parked in a side street to the south of this roadblock.

Camera stills 0578/19414–9

time stamp: 16:49:15–16:50:55 inclusive

Just north of Rockham police station, officers direct southward-bound traffic, which had gone beyond the diversion, back towards Blackrod Road. A line of traffic has built up. Several vehicles are in the process of turning round, with the result that both sides of the north-leading road are blocked.