David Peace - GB84

Kiss me.

Terry got up into the loft. He walked across the chipboard. He took down the two suitcases. Terry went down the stairs with them. He left them on the kitchen floor. Terry went out to the garage. He opened the boot of the car. He took out two more suitcases. He carried them back inside. He put them down on the kitchen floor, next to the two suitcases from the loft –

Kiss me in the shadows.

Terry Winters went over to the cupboard under the sink. Terry took out a black dustbin-liner from under the sink. He took the bin-liner into the pantry. Terry emptied cream crackers and digestive biscuits out of their tins. He threw away cakes. Terry filled the bin-liner. He took it outside. He put it in the dustbin. Terry went back inside –

Kiss me, Diane.

Terry laid the four suitcases out on the kitchen floor. Terry opened the suitcases. He stared at the money. The money in the suitcases. Terry put his hands in the suitcases. The suitcases full of money. Terry sat at his kitchen table and counted out the money. The money into piles. Terry put some of the money into the empty biscuit tins. He put some of the money into the cake tins. He put the tins back on the shelves in the pantry Terry split the rest of the money between the four suitcases. He left two of the suitcases up in the loft again. He put the other two suitcases back in the boot of his car –

Kiss me in the shadows.

Terry sat at the wheel of his car. He had followed Diane’s instructions to the letter. The instructions she had written out. The instructions he was to destroy –

Kiss me in the shadows of my heart.

Terry Winters turned the key. Terry Winters was on his way to work –

Revenge. November 1984.

*

The nightmare is persistent. Neil Fontaine dreams of her skull. Her beautiful, white skull. Her skull and his candle. Her skull on the table and his candle in the window. He wakes in his room at the County. The light is still on. He sits on the edge of the bed. The notebook in shreds. He picks apart their lives and puts the pieces back together his way. He stands up. He pulls back the dawn curtains. The bed is unused. The sheets cold –

His prayer unanswered.

Neil Fontaine stands at the window. The real light and the electric –

Jennifer scowls and sticks out her tongue.

There are always, always, memories like these –

‘You want a fucking picture, do you?’

These scars across your country. These scars across your heart.

The Mechanic stands in the phone box. He dials the number —

Phil Taylor’s wife picks up the phone. Click-click. She says, ‘Hello?’

‘Is Phil there?’ the Mechanic asks her.

‘He’s at work,’ she says. ‘Who’s this?’

‘He feeling better then, is he?’

‘Who is this?’ she says again.

‘Just tell him Dave called,’ the Mechanic says and hangs up, then picks up again –

Click-click, what a beautiful noise that is; the sound of surveillance; of —

Predictability –

There’s nothing special about Special Branch. They follow people. They watch people. They go through people’s dustbins. They blackmail people. They bully people. They like to dress up and pretend they’re not themselves.Pretend they are other people. Not what they seem. But they’re just perverts —

Dirty old men.

They go through the files. They find someone they like the look of. They study that person. They follow them. They watch them. They wait until that person does something bad. Something illegal. Like an armed robbery or the theft of a car.Thenthey blackmail that bad person. Theybully them —

Intimidate and cajole them.

They make that bad person their slave. They make them do anything they ask. They make them do more bad things. Much worse things. Dirty things. Like burglaries. The theft of documents. Then they blackmail that bad person all over again. Bully them. Groom them for other men. Then they pass them on up the chain —

Like a parcel of meat.

Terry Winters sat under the portrait of the President. Terry took another two aspirins. There were now thirty individual legal actions. Thirty separate requests to examine the books and accounts of the national and individual areas. There was no end in sight now. The President said the strike was solid. The Board said the strike was crumbling. The President said there were one hundred and forty thousand men on strike. The Board said there were sixty thousand men breaking the strike. Terry knew the figures didn’t add up. It didn’t matter either way. The Board said there was nothing to talk about. That there could be no more negotiations. The door now closed. No more secret talks about talks. The door locked. No more words about words. The key upstairs. The ball in their court. Terry picked up the telephone on his desk –

Click-click . He dialled Huddersfield Road. Click-click . He asked for Clive Cook –

But no one had seen Clive. Not this week. They could put him through to Jack.

‘It’s OK,’ said Terry. ‘I’ll call back.’

Terry Winters hung up. Terry took another aspirin. He put his head in his hands.

The telephone buzzed. The light flashed –

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

‘It’s Joan,’ said Joan. ‘The President would like you to step upstairs, Comrade.’

‘This very minute?’ asked Terry. ‘I was just —’

‘This very minute,’ said Joan. ‘It’s urgent, Comrade.’

Terry started to speak, but Joan had already hung up. Terry put down the phone. He swallowed another two aspirins. He stood up. He left his office. He locked his door. He walked down the corridor. He didn’t take the lift. He took the stairs, one at a time –

There were no index cards in the right-hand pocket of his jacket.

Terry knocked on the President’s door. Len opened it. Terry stepped inside –

Joan was standing at the President’s shoulder. The President sat behind his desk.

Len closed the door. Len locked it. Len leant against it. Len folded his arms.

‘You wanted to see me, President?’ asked Terry. ‘I was told it was urgent.’

The President put his finger to his lips. The President nodded. Joan nodded too. The President scribbled something on a piece of paper. He handed it to Terry –

Terry read, The Soviets have delivered. We are expected at the Embassy.

Terry looked up. The President put his finger to his lips again. Terry nodded –

Terry pointed to himself. The President nodded again. His finger to his lips.

Len took the piece of paper out of Terry’s hands. Len held it to his lighter. Len burnt the piece of paper in the glass ashtray on the President’s desk.

The President and Joan put on their coats –

Len went with Terry for his.

Phil the Grass lives with his wife and two children in a nice private house on a nice private estate in Selby. Phil has a haulage company that used to be on the brink of bankruptcy. But, thanks to the miners’ strike, Phil will soon be able to afford to live in an even nicer private house on an even nicer private estate —

If Phil lives that long (which he probably will).

The Mechanic knows they intimidated and cajoled Phil Taylor to grass. He knows they bullied him. He knows they blackmailed him. He knows they waited until Phil had done something bad. Something illegal. Like an armed robbery. Heknows they were watching him —

Just as the Mechanic knows they are watching Phil Taylor now. In his nice private house on its nice private estate in Selby. Knows they are sat watchingPhil in their six-month-old Montego. In their sweater and their jeans. Their polished sizetens—