David Peace - GB84

Monday 12 — Sunday 18 November 1984

The Jew and Neil Fontaine are spending a dirty weekend away. The Jew flies first class. Neil Fontaine back in economy. Heathrow to Dublin for the Union’s not-so-secret stash. The money has been traced. Sheffield to the Isle of Man. The money has been tracked. From the Isle of Man to Dublin. The money has been found. The money has been frozen. Three million pounds of the Union’s money. But the Union has appealed to have it freed. The Jew worries about the Irish High Court. The Jew worries the Union might even win. The money escape. The money evaporate. So the Jew flies in to wine the Irish solicitors. To dine the English sequestrates. The Jew has large amounts of donated cash to flash. Neil Fontaine leaves the Jew up to his tricks. Neil Fontaine goes out to make movies. Dirty home movies. He visits the judge at his nice family home in a nice part of town. The judge grants the injunctions against the NUM. The judge swears not to lift them. Neil Fontaine drives back to the Jew’s Dublin hotel. The Jew has retired early upstairs. Downstairs Neil Fontaine doesn’t sleep. He locks the door. Puts a chair against the door, TV and radio on loud. Neil Fontaine dislikes Dublin. Dislikes Ireland. Dislikes the Irish. Both the South and the North. Catholic and Protestant. Two states only. Drunk or hungry. The Taigs in the North the worst. Drunk and hungry. The worst three years of a bad life. These are some of the things he tells himself to stay awake in Ireland. To stop sleep fall. The dirty dreams descend. Neil Fontaine doesn’t sleep in Ireland. Doesn’t close his eyes. He sits up in his chair and watches the coalfields burn on TV.

*

Everyone sat in silence while Terry Winters swept the Conference Room for bugs again. Terry had bought the bug detector out of his own money from a mail-order surveillance catalogue. It had arrived today. Terry planned to sweep the entire building. Every office. He also wanted to do Huddersfield Road. The President was impressed. Not Paul –

‘Had a duster and brush with you,’ he said. ‘Kill two birds with one stone.’

Terry turned round. He tapped his headphones. He put a finger to his lips.

‘Ridiculous,’ said Paul. ‘If there are any bugs, he’s the one who’s planted them.’

Terry switched off the machine. He took off his headphones. He put his thumb up.

‘Thank you, Comrade Chief Executive,’ said the President. ‘The place is clean?’

‘As a whistle,’ said Terry.

‘Then it’s safe for you to make your report now, is it, Comrade?’ asked Paul.

Terry nodded. He put his thumb up again. He handed out photocopies.

‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘the first phase of the operation has been a success.’

Everybody stared down at the photocopied columns of figures.

‘As you can see,’ started Terry again, ‘only eight thousand one hundred and seventy-four pounds has been seized to date.’

‘I can’t read any of this,’ said Paul. ‘Where was it seized from?’

‘From the Midland Bank here,’ said Terry. ‘And the Power Group.’

‘What about Dublin?’ asked Samantha Green. ‘That money?’

Terry nodded. Terry said, ‘It remains subject to the injunction. Frozen.’

Paul squinted at Terry’s sums again. Paul asked, ‘How much exactly?’

‘Two million seven hundred and eighty-five thousand four hundred and ninety-nine pounds,’ said Terry.

‘And the rest?’ asked Paul. ‘The ones that got away?’

‘I cannot reveal the exact location,’ said Terry. ‘Or locations.’

‘Has he told you?’ Paul asked the President. ‘Please tell me he’s told you.’

‘The Chief Executive is the only person who needs to know,’ said the President.

Paul shook his head. Paul said to Terry, ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing?’

Terry Winters smiled at Paul. Terry Winters stuck his thumb up again.

Samantha Green stared at Terry Winters and his thumb. She shook her head now. She said, ‘I do hope the majority of assets are back in Britain, as we discussed.’

Terry lowered his thumb. Terry tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

‘President,’ said Samantha Green, ‘if the sequestrators prove that the Union transferred assets abroad, then they can make a strong case for a breach-of-trust action. The sequestrators could then ask that a receiver be appointed to run the Union.’

The President looked at Terry Winters. He said, ‘Comrade Chief Executive?’

‘They have to find the money first.’ said Terry. ‘And they won’t.’

Paul groaned. Paul shouted, ‘You said same fucking thing about South Wales!’

‘South Wales didn’t follow my instructions,’ said Terry. ‘I warned them.’

‘Well, Comrade, I’m warning you here and now,’ said Paul. ‘Don’t fuck this up.’

Terry Winters smiled. Terry said, ‘Thank you for your advice, Comrade.’

Paul smiled back. Paul stuck his thumb up. Paul ran it across his throat.

Terry turned to the President, then to the room. He said, ‘Thank you, Comrades.’

Everybody nodded. Everybody waited for Terry to leave –

Terry picked up his bug detector and headphones. Terry left the room backwards –

Everybody sat and watched him go in silence –

Terry shut the door. Terry went back downstairs. Terry unlocked his office door. Terry collapsed in his chair under the portrait of the President. Terry took four aspirins –

The men at Abervan had dangled a noose over the Fat Man —

The red light on his phone was flashing.

There was a noose and gallows at Cortonwood —

Terry picked it up. Click-click. Terry said, ‘Chief Executive speaking.’

It was the hour of the lynch mob. The year of the noose —

‘Guess who?’ she said.

Terry swallowed the aspirins. Terry said, ‘Where have you been?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Guess what?’

Terry stood up. Terry said, ‘What?’

‘I’ve got a present waiting for you,’ she said. ‘When do you want it?’

Terry blinked. Terry stuck out his chest. Terry said, ‘All night.’

‘Not that kind, silly,’ she said. ‘This is a different kind of present.’

Terry sat back down under the portrait of the President. Terry said, ‘What kind?’

‘The kind you get from corner shops in Bentley,’ she whispered.

*

Home sweet home for Stephen sweet Stephen in his fourth-floor suite at Claridge’s.

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew dress for the banquet. The Lord Mayor’s Banquet.

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew to the Guildhall. The Jew is excited –

‘These are days we were not meant to see,’ he says. ‘Rare days indeed, Neil.’

Neil Fontaine watches the Jew enter the Guildhall. Neil Fontaine starts the car –

He drives to the river. In the dark. He parks by Traitor’s Gate –

He searches the stations. The signals. He seeks the signs. The symbols. But there is nothing here. Here no one. No one who cares –

Neil Fontaine tries to pull himself together. Put the pieces back his way. He switches on the radio. He listens to the Lady –

‘— we are drawing to the end of a year in which our people have seen violence and intimidation in our midst: the cruelty of the terrorists, the violence of the picket line, the deliberate flouting of the laws of this land. These challengesshall not succeed —

‘We shall weather the tempests of our times.’

He sits by the river. In the dark. Down by Traitor’s Gate –

He whispers her name. He calls her name. He screams her name –

The cruelty. The violence. The laws of this land —