V. McDermid - Common Murder

By late morning there was an air of suppressed excitement around the camp. The television crew had arrived and were shooting some interviews and stock background shots around the benders. It wasn’t hard for Lindsay to suppress her journalistic instincts and avoid them. She was, after all, off duty, and since the Clarion had no Sunday edition, she felt no guilt about ignoring the story. She noticed Jane and a couple of other longstanding peace campers having a discreet word with the crew, which had included a couple of unmistakable gestures towards the long bunkers that dominated the skyline.

At about midday, Deborah came looking for her. Leaving Cara and three other children in the van with Josy, one of the other mothers living at the camp, they joined the steady surge of women making for the main gate. About forty women were gathered round. A group of half a dozen marched boldly up to the sentry boxes on either side of the gate and started to unwind the balls of wool they carried with them. They wove the wool around the impassive soldiers and their sentry boxes, swiftly creating a complex web. Other women moved to the gates themselves and began to weave wool strands in and out of the heavy steel mesh to seal them shut. Deborah climbed on top of a large concrete litter bin just outside the gates and hauled Lindsay up beside her. Together they started to sing one of the songs that had grown up with the camp and soon all the women had joined in.

Inside the camp the RAF police and behind them the USAF guards came running towards the gate. On the women’s side, civil police started to appear at the trot to augment the pair permanently on duty at the main gate. The film crew were busy recording it all.

It looked utterly chaotic. Then one of the women let out an excited whoop and pointed to the silos. There, silhouetted against the grey March sky, women could be seen dancing and waving. Alerted by her cries, the film crew ran off round the perimeter fence, filming all the while. Inside the wire, the military turned and raced across the scrubby grass to the bunkers constructed to house the coming missiles.

Outside the base the women calmly dispersed, to the frustration of the police who were just getting into the swing of making arrests. Lindsay, feeling as high as if she’d just smoked a couple of joints, jumped down from the litter bin and swung Deborah down into her arms. Like the other women around them they hugged each other and jumped around on the spot, then they bounced away from the fence and back towards the main road. A tall man stood at the end of the camp road. On the end of a lead was a fox-terrier. A sneer of scorn spoiled his newly healed features.

‘Enjoy yourself while you can. Miss Patterson. It won’t be long before I have you put some place where there won’t be much to rejoice over.’ His threat uttered, Crabtree marched on down the main road away from the camp. Lindsay looked in dismay at Deborah’s stunned face.

‘Sadistic bastard. He can’t resist having a go every time he sees me,’ said Deborah. ‘He seems to go out of his way to engineer these little encounters. But I’m not going to let him get the better of me. Not on a day like today.’

The women had gathered in the big bender that they used for meeting and talking as a group. Lindsay still couldn’t get used to the way they struggled to avoid hierarchies by refusing to run their meetings according to traditional structures. Instead, they sat in a big circle and each spoke in turn, supposedly without interruption. The euphoria of the day’s action was tangible. The film crew were still around, and not even the news that the dozen women who had made it to the silos had been charged with criminal damage and trespass could diminish the high that had infected everyone.

But there was a change in attitude since Lindsay had first encountered the peace women. It was noticeable that far more women were advocating stronger and more direct action against what they perceived as the forces of evil. She could see that Jane and several other women who’d been with the camp for a long time were having a struggle to impress upon others like the headstrong Nicky the need to keep all action nonviolent and to minimise the criminal element in what they did. Eventually, the meeting was adjourned without a decision till the following afternoon.

The rest of the day passed quickly for Lindsay who spent her time walking the perimeter fence and picking up on her new friendships with women like Jackie. Lindsay appreciated the different perspectives the women gave her on life in Thatcher’s Britain. It was a valuable contrast with the cynical world of newspapers and the comfortably well-off life she shared with Cordelia. Jackie and her lover Willow, both from Birmingham, explained to Lindsay for the first time how good they felt at the camp because there was none of the constant pressure of racial prejudice that had made it so difficult for them to make anything of their lives at home. By the time Lindsay had eaten dinner with Cara and Deborah, she knew she had made a firm decision to stay. By unspoken consent, Deborah took Cara off to spend the rest of the night with her best friend Christy in the bender she shared with her mother Josy. When she returned, she found Lindsay curled up in a corner with a tumbler of whisky.

‘Help yourself,’ said Lindsay.

Deborah sensed the tension in Lindsay. Carefully she poured herself a small drink from the bottle on the table and sat down beside her. She placed a cautious hand on her thigh. I’m really glad to be with you again,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s been a long time since we had the chance to talk.’

Lindsay took a gulp of whisky and lit a cigarette. ‘I can’t sleep with you,’ she burst out. ‘I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry.’

Deborah hadn’t forgotten the knowledge of Lindsay that six hectic months had given her. She smiled. ‘You haven’t changed, have you? What makes you think I wanted to jump into bed with you again?’ Her voice was teasing. ‘That old arrogance hasn’t deserted you.’

Outrage chased incredulity across Lindsay’s face. Then her sense of humour caught up with her and she smiled. ‘Touché. You never did let me get away with anything, did you?’

‘Too bloody true I didn’t. Give you an inch and you were always half-way to the next town. Listen, I didn’t expect a night of mad, passionate lovemaking. I know your relationship with Cordelia is the big thing in your life. Just as Cara is the most important thing in my life now. I don’t take risks with that, and I don’t expect you to take risks with your life either.’

Lindsay looked sheepish. ‘I really wanted to make love with you. I thought it would help me sort out my feelings. But when you took Cara off, I suddenly felt that I was contemplating something dishonest. You know? Something that devalued what there is between you and me.’

Deborah put her arm round Lindsay’s tense shoulders. ‘You mean, you’d have been using me to prove something to yourself about you and Cordelia?’

‘Something like that. I guess I just feel confused about what’s happening between me and her. It started off so well – she made me feel so special. I was happy as a pig. Okay, it was frustrating that I was living in Glasgow and she was in London. But there wasn’t a week when we didn’t spend at least two nights together, often more, once I’d got a job sorted out.

‘We seemed to have so much in common – we liked going to the same films, loved the theatre, liked the same books, all that stuff. She even started coming hill-walking with me, though I drew the line at going jogging with her. But it was all those things that kind of underpinned the fact that I was crazy about her and the sex was just amazing.