Neil White - Beyond Evil

‘So what do we do?’

‘We do what others won’t. There are a lot of people who think like us, but they don’t have the heart that we do, because they take the fight to the courts, by not paying taxes and bank debts. Except that doesn’t hurt the slugs who rule us. No, we are launching the real rebellion. So we are going to London, to the heart of the beast.’

‘London? What’s the target?’

‘Trafalgar Square,’ Henry said, his eyes wide with excitement. ‘We are taking down the column.’

John let out a slow whistle. ‘Why Nelson’s Column?’

‘Because it is symbolic of our wonderful fucking empire, when we ruled and robbed and pillaged our way round the world. Think about it. Where does everyone go when we celebrate our greatness? Trafalgar Square, like it is some kind of magnet, a totem for our great nation. But what if we could take it down? It would show what we can do, how it is just a start.’

‘Won’t people get hurt?’

‘This is our war,’ Henry said. ‘There is always collateral damage.’

John nodded slowly. ‘I can see how it would send a message, but how will it work?’

‘There’ll be three of you, just playing at being tourists. No rucksacks, too obvious. We’ll line your coats instead and go when the weather is bad, so that your coats don’t look conspicuous. You’ll be the excited visitor, clambering on the lions, posing for pictures. Just take off your coat for a better picture, as will the other two, and you’ll leave them at the base of the Column. You need to be in the Square when it goes off though, because you will use the confusion to get away.’

‘And where will you be?’

‘I’ll be one of the decoys. We will go to the financial district, and so if they think we are planning something, they will follow us and not you.’ Henry smiled. ‘I’ve been watching you, and you can do this.’

John frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I mean, what if people get hurt? How near is this thing from happening?’

Henry stepped forward and grabbed John by his T-shirt. He pulled him close, Henry’s breath rancid from stale home brew and lack of sleep. ‘You can’t back away now. I said direct action and you stayed interested. That was your consent. If you back away, you are saying that you don’t want to be with us anymore. You don’t want to be the one who betrays me.’

‘I don’t want to betray you.’

‘So agree, once and for all.’

John grimaced as he tried to pull away. Henry pulled him closer. ‘You made your decision a moment ago. There is no going back, I told you that.’ He pushed John away, making him stumble over the standing stones, so that he ended up on the grass.

John closed his eyes, his breaths short from fear. Eventually he said, ‘All right, yes, I’ll do it.’

Henry nodded, smiling. ‘I have to go somewhere today, to make preparations. You will have to look after everyone. You will be the man here. Don’t let anyone leave in panic. We must stay together.’

John nodded. ‘I understand.’

Henry stood over him. ‘I knew it,’ he said, and stepped closer to John, his head tilting, first one way, then the other, staring down into John’s eyes. ‘You are my newest disciple, but also my closest. I think we can be special together, John, work some magic. Do you feel like that?’

John flushed. ‘I do, Henry, and it’s an honour.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sheldon banged on the door to Ted Kenyon’s house.

‘What are you going to do, sir?’ Tracey Peters whispered.

‘Get some answers.’

There was no answer, and so he banged again. When Ted opened the door, surprised, Sheldon barked, ‘Why did you lie?’

Ted took a step back and said, ‘About what?’

‘You said you’d stayed in. You hadn’t. You went into Oulton on the night Billy died, and then you lied to me.’

Emily appeared from the kitchen. ‘What’s all the shouting about?’

Tracey went to her, her hands out, placating. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Kenyon. My inspector is just talking to your husband.’

‘He’s shouting.’

‘It’s nothing to worry about.’

Emily pushed past Tracey. ‘Ted, are you all right? What’s going on?’

Sheldon tried to ignore her as he stared at Ted. He wanted to see the flicker of recognition, that moment when he knew that he had gone too far in going after Billy Privett, and that he had been found out. But there was only anger.

‘Are you going to arrest me?’ Ted said, and then held his hands out. ‘Go on then, here they are. You couldn’t get it right last time. Why not repeat it?’

Sheldon paused, remembering what he had said in the Incident Room, that there wasn’t enough to arrest him yet. As he thought of that, some of his anger subsided. He looked at Tracey, and then at Emily, who appeared distressed, her hand over her mouth.

‘So why did you lie?’ Sheldon said, his voice softer now.

‘Because the last time I followed up a lead like this, I was set up and photographed with a young woman. You remember, the thing that made the front page and ruined my reputation, but I’m not rich enough to fight a libel case. And what did they say anyway? That I was with a young woman who wasn’t wearing a top, that’s all. All they had to do was print the picture.’

‘You explain it how you want, Mr Kenyon,’ Sheldon said.

Ted stepped closer. ‘That’s how it was,’ he said, his voice more threatening now. ‘The calls and the letters about Alice dried up afterwards, but I bet you can guess that. So why set me up? Do you know what I think? Someone didn’t want me to get any closer. The girl promised me some answers, and so I turned up. Somewhere quiet, she said, because she was scared. We were talking, but she wasn’t saying much, just putting on the tears, and so when I leaned across to her, there was a flash. Before I knew what was happening, her top was off and she was trying to straddle me, and the flashes were still going on. It was a fix, designed to make me go away, and it worked.’

‘I’ve been in the police more than twenty years, Mr Kenyon, and so I’ve heard plenty of people try to explain away tricky situations. That was one of the worst efforts I’ve ever heard.’

‘I don’t care whether you believe it or not, but you asked me why I lied, and so I’ve told you.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Sheldon said.

‘I got a similar message,’ Ted said. ‘It wasn’t the same person. It was a man this time, someone who said he was a friend of Billy Privett, and Billy had told him what had happened when Alice died. The full story, he promised. He told me to meet him in Oulton, outside the Crown and Feathers, just down the road from the hotel where he was found. I went, but he didn’t turn up, and so I came home. When I heard that Billy had died, I wondered whether it was a set-up again, and so I lied. So go on, lock me up, if you think it will help. But that’s all I did, tell a lie.’

Sheldon closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. Glimpses of Billy Privett came into his head. Grinning, taunting, brash and arrogant. Then he thought of the corpse on the hotel bed, his face ripped off. It was nasty, vengeful, so it hinted at Ted, but he knew it was too obvious.

Sheldon spoke the words before he thought to stop them. ‘I think of Alice all the time,’ he said. He opened his eyes. ‘I found her, but you know that. It’s more than that though. I see her body when I’m asleep, and when I’m on my own. I feel like I can’t rest until I know, because all we found was Alice, with no one else there. Even Billy had gone, and no one knew who else was there.’

Sheldon felt a hand on his arm. It was Tracey Peters, raising her eyebrows, a hint that they should leave. He pulled his arm away.