[b]Islington, London[/b] Alfred Lambert skipped up the last few steps to the offices of the [i]New Jerusalem[/i] magazine. He’d been working at the magazine for the best part of three decades. He could remember his first day as if it were yesterday. He’d worn an ill-fitting linen suit that his mother had picked out for him from the charity shop and been so nervous he’d sweated through it on the way there. Jonathan Aitkens, [i]Jerusalem[/i]’s then Political Editor, had teased him mercilessly about it for weeks. Needless to say he’d used his first pay cheque on a new suit. He’d hated Aitkens back then but looking back on the whole ordeal he couldn’t help but laugh. Despite all the teasing Aitkens had made him a better journalist. Three decades ago he’d been a sweaty, chubby freelancer looking to make a dent in the world of journalism and today he was the Political Editor of [i]New Jerusalem[/i]. It had been some journey. As had the journey Lambert had been on this afternoon. Fred had been summoned, along with a half dozen other Political Editors, to a meeting at Downing Street by the Prime Minister’s attack dog Samuel Hobbs. His official role was “Director of Communications” but Lambert had never seen Hobbs do anything other than shout at people. Hobbs was from Newcastle and was one of the few in the Prime Minister’s inner circle that hadn't gone to Cambridge. He started out writing obits in a small-time paper in Newcastle and now he was one of the most powerful men in the government. When he slung insults at you across a Downing Street table they stuck. As many had done this afternoon. Lambert knew better than to interject during the meeting and instead listened in silence as Hobbs briefed the Editors on the government’s legislative agenda for the upcoming twelve months. It was unspectacular enough to begin with. Amongst the headliners were legislation aimed to crack down on the alleged rise in illegal trade union activity and cutbacks to social programs deemed non-vital. It was the final policy that had almost knocked Alfred off his feet. He almost pinched himself to check he was awake when Hobbs said it. The shocked faces of the other Political Editors around the room mirrored his own. The second Hobbs was done speaking Lambert had tucked the folder Hobbs had supplied each of them with under his arm and broke into a jog out of the meeting room. It was that very same folder that Lambert slapped onto the desk of his Political Correspondent as he entered the [i]New Jerusalem[/i] newsroom. Sebastian “Seb” Hadland was Alfred’s protégé. Hadland was the son of a family friend. Usually Lambert disapproved of nepotism but at the time the boy had been out of work for near to two years and at the point of depression. He’d never worked a news desk before and had no journalistic experience but under Lambert’s wing he’d turned into the finest writer on the [i]New Jerusalem's[/i] payroll. The skinny Political Correspondent reached for the folder and skimmed through it as Lambert watched on. Hadland seemed disinterested at first until his eyes fell on the policy on the final page. He set the folder down on his desk with a bemused look. “You’re kidding, right? ‘The Voluntary Repatriation Bill’?” “I wish I was.” “Forced deportations? That’s what it’s come to?” Lambert sighed. “Hobbs says the Prime Minister will be pushing the legislation through Parliament next week.” “They’re British citizens,” Seb muttered as he crossed his arms. “This is wrong. We need to go public on this one.” [i]Going public[/i]. Alfred and Seb discussed it from time to time. It was the nuclear option. Ever since the Troubles had ended all news outlets had to clear the contents of its publications with the government. It hadn’t [i]always[/i] been like this. After the Troubles the government of the day had introduced the legislation as an emergency measures to combat the mountain of misinformation distracting it from rebuilding Britain. Decades later and the emergency measures were still in place. It made breaking stories near impossible and criticizing the government a risky proposition at the best of times. Going public would mean going to print without state authorization. It was also likely result in the complete closure of [i]New Jerusalem[/i]. Lambert shook his head. “You know we can’t do that.” “Then what the bloody hell are we for?” Seb said with an exasperated sigh. “We can’t keep [i]pretending[/i] to be journalists forever, Fred.” It stung. Once upon a time [i]New Jerusalem[/i] had prided itself on its independence. Those days were long gone. The anarchists that had torn their country apart in the wake of the Great War had ensured that. For as great as men like Jonathan Aitkens were, even they had to bend the knee and hand over their work to the government ahead of time. It was a bitter pill to swallow for Alfred, no doubt a bitter pill to swallow for Aitkens too, but there was more than pride at stake here. Lambert had a duty of care for all of the members of staff and unilaterally deciding to run a scathing piece about the Voluntary Repatriation Bill would have repercussions for all of them. “We don’t have a choice. We print what they want us to print or GCHQ turn up and take everything,” Lambert said through gritted teeth. “[i]Including us[/i] if they’re feeling particularly vengeful. You know that.” Seb nodded despondently and Alfred walked across the small, cramped office to hang up his coat. The office building that contained the [i]New Jerusalem's[/i] office was almost a hundred and fifty years old. The whole building felt like it shook every time someone walked across the office. Finally Lambert took to his seat at the desk next to Seb’s and found his protégé giving him a pensive look. “How old were you during The Troubles?” “Young,” Lambert said with a shrug. “Too young to remember them, if that’s what you’re asking.” “All I ever hear is how bad things were then. On days like these it’s hard to imagine how things could be much worse than they are now.” [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Whitehall, London[/b] A thin, pale figure slinked through the hallways of Downing Street. His footsteps made no sound and he drew no more attention to himself than was unavoidable, except for the occasional polite nod to the cleaning staff still hard at work. It was four in the morning and the Prime Minister wasn’t due to arrive in Downing Street for two hours. Samuel Hobbs had been awake for two hours. He was slender, barely filling out the inexpensive grey suit wrapped around his pale flesh, and his face was beset with deep wrinkles. His hair was more grey than black and his teeth had been yellowed by cigarettes in his youth. Yet Hobbs retained an unconventional attractiveness to him that even his most ardent admirers would struggle to explain. He brushed some lint from his shoulder as he reached the door to his office and reached for the doorknob. A smile crept across his thin lips as he opened it very slowly and peered inside. There sat on the chair at his desk was Dominic Hewitt. Hewitt was his second-in-command and had agreed to take the night shift whilst they tried to smooth the land for this repatriation thing. He was a tall, gangly man with a smug face and his hair was immaculately parted at all times. Even at this early hour having worked through the night Hewitt was still inexplicably well turned out. Hobbs opened the door a crack and slide through it with care as he approached Hewitt from behind. He made certain to mask his footsteps as he approached and ran one of his pale hands through Dominic’s hair with a mocking laugh. Hewitt pulled his hair away with a nervous chuckle. “Jesus fucking Christ, Hobbs, how do you do that?” Hobbs ignored him completely and pointed down to the newspapers spread across his desk. “What are the papers saying?” A self-satisfied smile appeared across Hewitt’s face as he fired back. “They say what we tell them to say.” Hobbs glared at Hewitt and the Press Officer laughed nervously and reached for the newspapers in front of him and brandished them in Sam's direction. “[i]The Times[/i] called it a “necessary step to curb growing Afro-Caribbean extremism in the capital” and the [i]Mail[/i] went with the guest-worker angle like we suggested. Only the [i]Guardian[/i] really dragged its feet.” Hewitt handed Hobbs a copy of the morning’s [i]Guardian[/i] and the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications scanned the front page with his beady, probing eyes. A pained expression appeared on his face and he threw the copy back down on the desk and gestured to Hewitt to get out of his seat. Hobbs set his briefcase down beside his seat and then sat down and pulled a pen from the inside pocket of his suit. He scribbled down the name of the [i]Guardian[/i]’s Political Editor with a menacing smile. “Trust me, Charlie Whitebread is going to have a damascene-fucking-conversion to the merits of voluntary repatriation overnight unless he wants the [i]Mail[/i] to find out about his little gambling problem.” “Stop it,” Hewitt said with an over-zealous laugh. “You know it turns me on when you talk dirty.” As the words left his mouth Hewitt spotted a young Downing Street staffer in the doorway to the office. In her hands was a tray with Sam's morning coffee and a selection of biscuits. Hewitt could tell from the look on her face that she’d heard the tail end of his sentence and he turned blushed red. “We were just going over the papers.” The young staffer smiled and set the tray down in front of Hobbs. “Of course.” Hobbs nodded by way of thanks and Dominic stood up from his chair to shut the door behind her as she left the two men alone. His cheeks were still rosy with embarrassment as he sat back down. Hobbs reached for a custard cream on the tray in front of him and took a bite out of it as he scanned over the newspapers one last time. “From the looks of it this should be enough to get the PM to stop breathing down my neck for a couple of days. He’s [i]really[/i] worried about this one. He seems to think that with South Africa dragging out longer than anticipated there might be trouble over this repatriation thing. Some blowback from the Afro-Caribbeans in the inner-cities seeing as it’s all happening at once.” Hewitt leant back in his charge and smiled sardonically. “I don’t blame him. Have you ever been to Brixton on a Saturday night?” “Oh, relax, you poof,” Hobbs said as he crunched on a custard cream. “They’d eat those Brixton boys for breakfast up in Newcastle. There’s nothing to be worried about. It’ll be fine.” Hewitt leant back in his chair and noticed his ruffled hair in one of the reflective surfaces in the office. Hobbs rolled his eyes and he noticed the younger man go to painful lengths to fix his hairstyle. He was about to jab Dominic about it when the young man started speaking. “The Ethiopians are not going to like it. They might kick up a bit of a stink but I think privately there’ll be some that will be pleased by the move. It plays into their hands, after all, so I don’t expect too much trouble on that front.” Hobbs nodded appreciatively and reached for the coffee on the tray in front of him. “So what you’re saying is that the PM has [i]nothing[/i] to worry about on this? Is that what you’re saying to me, Dominic?” “I’m not sure if I’d say nothing but the nearest thing to it.” “Well, the Prime Minister will be very glad to hear that when he arrives this morning,” Hobbs said as he took a mouthful of coffee. “Now fuck off and go fiddle with your hair somewhere I don’t have to see you.” Dominic laughed nervously at the dig. Hobbs stared at him impassively over the brim of his coffee. Hewitt’s nervous laughter fell silent and he looked at the Director of Communications as if attempting to deduce whether he was being serious or not. After several seconds of silence Hobbs looked towards the door instructively and Dominic made his way towards the exit. Once it had closed him Hobbs shook his head and muttered to himself under his breath. “Oxbridge wanker.” [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Brixton, London[/b] At a small, square table crammed into the corner of a cramped, messy kitchen are Errol Clarke and his adoptive son Keenan Gayle. In Keenan’s hands was a copy of this morning’s [i]Guardian[/i]. Errol could see the young man struggling to read the headline on the front page and urged him to try to sound it out. The boy had always been slow, even when he was at school, and now that he was out it seemed like he’d gotten even worse. Errol tried to encourage the boy to read where he could. It was important to keep your wits about you. It was even more important for Keenan now that his daughter was around. Up until six months ago Keenan had seen his daughters at weekends. Then her mother fell into a [i]very[/i] strange crowd and decided she wanted to move to Ethiopia. It had all came entirely out of the blue and Keenan, who at that point had been unemployed despite being twenty-five, had been forced to get his life in order since. Learning to read properly was part of that. Errol could see Keenan losing his patience as he tried to sound the word out. “Rep… repatr… repatri-“ “Repatriate,” Errol said as he tapped the word on the front page with his index finger. “The word you’re looking for is repatriate.” Keenan scratched his chest through his green string vest and then smiled blankly in Errol’s direction. “What does it mean?” Clarke had seen the signs. He’d been about Keenan’s age when he’d come to Britain after they had invited workers from the colonies to help rebuild the nation. He remembered at the time that the “guest worker” program was a [i]temporary[/i] initiative and that workers would be expected to return to their native countries once the program was finished. Problem being that the problem never finished. The guest workers had children, [i]British[/i] children, and built lives for themselves here in Britain. His daughter Honor had been born in Tooting, attended school in Roehampton, and had never so much as ventured north of the Thames until she was eighteen, let alone Jamaica. Yet in one foul swoop the government had declared that Errol, Honor, Keenan, and even little Simone as having outstayed their welcome. Errol spoke as plainly as he could. “It means they’re going to send us back.” “Send us back where?” Errol shrugged his shoulders and then stared out at the morning’s sky with a sigh. “Jamaica I suspect, though if they won’t have us I’m sure they’ll try to palm us off on the Africans.” “I don’t understand," Keenan said with a frown. "I was born here.” Errol’s thick lips twisted into a smile. “You think that makes you one of them?” A confused look appeared on Keenan’s face. The boy was strong and had a good heart but it was clear from his expression that even speaking plainly Errol had managed to confuse him. It was a wonder the boy managed to tie his shoes correctly in the morning, let alone look after a child, but as always Errol endeavoured to explain it to Keenan in a way he’d understand. The old man leant on his cane and tried to formulate his approach when memories of his father flashed across his mind. He had been like Keenan in a lot of ways; both were strong, openhearted, and quick to trust. It hadn’t done Errol’s father any good but there was still time for Keenan to learn. “My father travelled across the Atlantic to fight in their war for them. I guess he thought there’d be some glory to be had or that the white man might accept him if he fought. You know what they had him doing for three years? Digging trenches. He nearly lost a foot out there and was half-deaf by the time he arrived in Britain. And guess what? They still didn’t want a thing to do with him. He lasted nine months here in Britain before he decided to move back to Jamaica.” Errol cleared his throat a little to mask the fact he was choking up. Opposite him Keenan’s eyes were locked on him. It was the first time Errol had spoken to [i]anyone[/i] about his father since leaving Jamaica. He’d never even told his own daughter about any of this. Honor was long gone. They hadn’t spoken in years and rumour had it she’d left London years ago. Chances are that even if she was here she wouldn’t want to hear it. Perhaps one day Keenan might pass on Errol’s account of his last conversation with his father to Honor. Perhaps she could learn from the folly of it as Errol intended for Keenan to. "After the British started the guest worker program I told him I was going to move to London to find work. Even after the way they treated him he [i]still[/i] couldn’t bring himself to speak a bad word about the place. Can you believe that? Listen, Keenan, you need to understand that they’ll never accept you as you are. All you can do is keep your head down, work hard, and try to save what you can for you and yours. I have a feeling the coming months are going to be bad.” Errol’s old eyes caught movement in his periphery and he turned to see Keenan’s nine-year old daughter Simone stood in the doorway of the kitchen. She was wearing pink and purple pyjamas bearing small pictures of puppies and kittens over them. She rubbed her tiny eyes as she looked up at the man she knew as Uncle Errol. “What’s going to be bad?” Keenan placed the newspaper down on the table and walked over to his daughter with a smile. He bent down, picked her up, and carried her over towards the window by the sink. Errol smiled as he watched Keenan playfully pretend to dunk Simone into the sink and then sat her atop one of the cleaner portions of the counter beside it. “Why don’t we get you ready for school?” Simone frowned. “I don’t want toast this morning.” “You don’t have to have toast. You can have something else,” Keenan said as he made his way over towards the fridge and scanned its contents. “As long as “something else” doesn’t include milk because [i]someone[/i] used the last of it in their tea this morning.” Errol stared down at the cup of tea in front of him with a guilty smile. It was his third cup of tea this morning and it wasn’t even seven. The elderly Jamaican man didn’t have many vices but milky, sugary tea was one of them. He made a mental note to pick up some more milk next time he was out of the house and then watched on as Keenan flicked through the cupboards for something. Simone pointed up at one of the boxes in the cupboard. “Can I have porridge?” “Sure,” Keenan said as he pulled the box down. “You can have as much porridge as you want.” Errol smiled at the scene as Keenan began to make a bowl of porridge for Simone. He made it ten seconds in before Simone decided she wanted to be involved in the process. The transformation Keenan made when his daughter was around was extraordinary to watch. Errol was almost certain Simone read at a higher level than Keenan. Yet there, his daughter in his arms, it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. For a second Errol wondered whether he’d been wrong to worry and then his eyes met with the headline on the front page of the [i]Guardian[/i]. [i]“PM PLOTS TO REPATRIATE MIGRANTS.”[/i] [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham[/b] Chelmsley Wood High School was one of the worst performing schools in all of Birmingham. It was the kind of school that had to offer a salary several thousand pounds above market rate just to get teachers to walk through its doors. The Troubles had hit Birmingham hard and even with the money the government had poured into the city it was still having a hard time finding its way back onto its feet. It hadn’t taken long for the knife crime that was rife on the city’s council estates to bled into its schools. That was why it was such a shock when Conrad Murray had applied there. Murray had graduated from University College London with a first class degree in Politics and followed that with a Masters at LSE. He was exactly the kind of teacher that Chelmsley Wood High School needed, though nothing like the teachers they usually employed. He stood outside the school gates with a cigarette in his hand and a newspaper beneath his armpit. Conrad had a well-kept reddish-brown beard that was longer than the neatly parted brown hair atop his head. He wore a brown tweed suit with dark leather elbow patches and a pair of well-worn light brown brogues. Beneath his beard was a boyishly good looking face. He’d grown the beard on the advice of one of his colleagues to disguise his youth. To the students youth meant weakness. At Chelmsley Wood High School you couldn’t afford to show weakness. It was Neil Durham that had taught him that. Neil taught business studies. He’d been at the school for decades and had long since stopped caring. He had dirty blonde hair with flecks of grey in it and his round stomach folded over the waistband of his beige trousers. Conrad reached into the inside pocket of his suit and pulled out a cigarette and passed it to his colleague. Durham nodded silently and patted his trousers down in search of a lighter before remembering he’d placed it in the pocket of his short-sleeved yellow shirt. He lit up and watched as Murray read the front of the newspaper with a pained expression. Once Conrad had finished he met Neil’s gaze and patted the front page with the side of his hand. “What does this mean for the kids?” “We’re not sure at the moment,” Durham said as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “The head’s talking about maybe suggesting to some of the parents that they ought to take them out of school ahead of time. You know, to ease the transition.” The headteacher of Chelmsley Wood was fifteen years younger than Durham and spoke like a man that had never taught in an actual classroom before. It was because he hadn’t. Ten years ago Durham might have kicked up a stink at the prospect of taking the kids out of school, five years ago he might even have had a quiet word with him, but this was all happening too late. There was no fight left in him. Murray sighed. “They’re children, for Christ’s sake, they need to go to school.” “The head takes the view that the coloured children might… [i]act out[/i] if they know they’re going to be leaving and won’t have to face any punishment for their actions. He’s just trying to protect the staff.” Conrad shook his head in disbelief at the words leaving Durham’s mouth. “I’m going to take it up with him.” “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’d watch that kind of talk too. There are a lot of very anxious teachers around here. You’re new at this teaching malarkey, Conrad, and you’re new to this school. Trust me when I say that he won’t take kindly to being lectured by someone that’s been on the job for five minutes. Especially not someone with a...” “You can say it,” Conrad said with a smile. “A coloured girlfriend.” It had taken a few weeks for the news to make its way around the school. Murray was shacked up with Honor Clarke. Clarke was the closest thing to famous as one could be in a place like Chelmsley Wood. She was an academic, one of only a few hundred university-educated coloured in the country, and she had made news in Birmingham by calling on the government to provide “reparations” for the slave trade. Durham had read about it at the time and hadn’t thought much of the woman. He bore no ill feelings towards coloureds, he’d spent long enough teaching them in school to know they were no different than whites, but talk of reparations was several steps too far for him. He was shocked when he’d found out the young [i]white[/i] History teacher that had just joined the staff was her boyfriend. So were a fair few of the parents. “I know this isn’t perfect but it’s a damn sight better than how things were before,” Durham said as he scratched the back of his neck. “You feel for those kids. I understand that, especially given your own… [i]circumstances[/i], but the work has to come first. The work always comes first. You’d do good to remember that.” Durham watched Conrad go through a range of emotions as he lifted his hand to his mouth to take a drag of his cigarette. As he did so his muddy green eyes met with the face of the cheap watch he was wearing and widened in shock. Conrad threw his cigarette to the ground. “Shit, I’m meant to be meeting a friend for a drink in fifteen minutes. I’ll see you tomorrow.” One of Murray’s light brown brogue crushed the butt of his cigarette into the ground and he shoved the newspaper into his shoulder bag. Durham watched as the young teacher paced off in the other direction. He envied the passion the young teacher had for their profession and the naiveté that came with not having been at life [i]or[/i] teaching long enough to know better. He’d been like Murray once, though without the beard and the coloured girlfriend, and stood there beneath the dreary Birmingham sky he couldn’t help but wonder what young Neil Durham would have made of the man he’d become. Long after his colleague had disappeared from sight Durham mumbled to himself with a sigh. “See you tomorrow, Conrad.” [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Whitehall, London[/b] John Coltrane’s [i]Naima[/i] echoed through the halls of Joyce and Fraser Campbell’s Downing Street residence. Not a night went by in the Campbell residence that Coltrane, Davis, Monk, or Coleman wasn’t played, especially now that the children had been sent away to boarding school. It was a promise the Campbells had made to themselves. Even on the most tumultuous nights they would still make time for them. Jazz music had been part of what brought the pair together whilst studying at Oxford and on some nights it was what kept them together. When Fraser had met Joyce Campbell he had thought her an unattainable beauty, at least for someone like him, and was so taken with her that he would stare at during lectures. Joyce had thought the boy simple, he was so nervous he could barely string a sentence together, but she soon learned there was a steely determination beneath it. Fraser had wanted to be a musician. At the time he had been prodigiously talented with a saxophone and spent more time practicing than he did studying. Joyce had tried to explain then that he could do anything armed with a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics degree from Oxford but music had been Fraser’s passion. Yet [i]somehow[/i] today Fraser Campbell sat in Downing Street as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He couldn’t quite recall how he had fallen into politics but through no design of his own he found himself the second most powerful man in Britain. Joyce had been the political one whilst at Oxford and to this day she remained cleverer than him. In truth, it ought to have been her that stood in front of that dispatch box every week. Sometimes Fraser suspected she would have been better at it than he was. Joyce had been his rock. Through good times and bad his wife had stood by him and challenged him to become more than he was. She was tall, thin, with blonde hair and legs that went to her chest. Sometimes Fraser kidded that her eyes were so piercing they could see into a man’s soul. Joyce had towered over him at Oxford and did so even more now she was expected to wear high heels at all times. In contrast, Fraser was a stout, unattractive man who had lost most of his hair quite early and wore thick-lensed glasses that made him look like an accountant. He was certainly not the type of man one would expect a woman like Joyce Campbell to marry. Neither was he what [i]anyone[/i] would have described as “Prime Ministerial” yet he was her husband and the Prime Minister all the same. It was on night’s like these though that the responsibility of leading an entire nation weighed heavily on his mind. The Prime Minister was sat in his shirtsleeves in a spotless kitchen. On the large white table in front of him were reams of documents and folders. Beside the documents was a large glass of red wine and an empty bottle on the kitchen counter signified it had been a [i]very[/i] long day for Fraser Campbell. “This is a fucking shambles.” The sound of high heels clicking their way towards Fraser caught his attention and he spotted his wife in the doorway to the kitchen. She smiled at him and the Prime Minister felt his heart flutter in his chest like it was the first time. He smiled back at her and stretched out a waiting hand in her direction. Joyce floated towards him slowly and took her husband’s hand, rubbing her thumb against his, whilst resting her head against his shoulder and placing a soft kiss against his cheek. Fraser could feel her gentle breath against his neck when she spoke. “What’s the matter, dear?” “It’s this repatriation thing,” Fraser said as he gestured to the draft legislation in front of him. “This isn’t why I went into politics. In fact if I remember correctly, this is [i]exactly[/i] the kind of thing I went into politics to oppose.” “I thought the papers looked good this morning?” “Of course the papers looked good,” Fraser sighed. “They always look good. They don’t have any choice but to look good.” “Well, they certainly didn’t have to be as effusive as they were,” Joyce said as she reached down to one of the documents on the table and scanned over it. “That was by choice.” It was clear from the look on Fraser’s face he was unconvinced. The invasion of South Africa had slowed considerably after the early successes the British had in Cape Town. Fraser was beginning to worry that it had been a mistake agreeing to it. Britain couldn’t afford a long, protracted struggle on a front so far away from its supply lines. If it turned into that, he’d have to give serious thought about withdrawing from South Africa altogether and that could make his position very uncertain. Especially given King William's public support for the conflict. Campbell's Home Secretary Thomas Moore was already on manoeuvres and seeing as the Palace hadn’t shut him down it meant they weren’t [i]completely[/i] anathema to the idea of Moore in Downing Street. Fraser’s chubby face flushed red with frustration as he mulled over his predicament. “Why doesn’t that inbred bastard at the Palace abdicate and run for office if he wants to run the country so badly?” Joyce smiled and reached for the glass of wine on the table in front of them. “That’s no way to talk about our King.” “Bollocks to our King,” Campbell muttered. “I’m the Prime Minister and I’m meant to be the one in charge here, not him. Yet here I am shipping millions of coloureds back because he intimated in passing that he would “appreciate it” if the guest worker program came to an end.” Joyce took a hearty mouthful of wine. Fraser felt his wife tense as she swallowed and the wine made its way down her throat. “Why don’t you do something about it then?” “There’s nothing I can do.” “He’s young and childless,” Joyce said as she kissed Fraser’s neck and ran her hand down his throat towards his trousers. He could smell the wine on her breath. It was intoxicating. She was intoxicating. “Rumour has it that pretty wife of his is having trouble conceiving. If [i]something[/i] were to happen to our King…” Fraser grabbed her hand at the wrist and pried it away from his groin. “Never speak those words out loud again.” “What’s wrong?” Joyce smiled. “Too much wine?” The Prime Minister shook his head and stood up from his seat. He walked across the kitchen patiently to the stereo in the corner of the room and turned the volume up until [i]Naima[/i] was obnoxiously loud. He walked back to his seat and pulled Joyce close to him. Fraser's hands were clamped around her wrists so tight he could feel her pulse. There was fear in his wife’s eyes. “They’re listening,” Fraser mumbled. “They’re [i]always[/i] listening.” Joyce’s face became equal parts shocked and relieved. Fraser pulled her body into his and his gut pressed against her toned stomach. He slid one of his hands up the side of his wife’s dress and his face, once a picture of crippling indecisiveness, dripped with an easy confidence that Fraser Campbell rarely displayed in public. “Trust me when I say that I have not forgotten who I am and what I promised you. I will do whatever it takes when the time is right. God knows we’ve worked too hard to get where we are to fall at the last hurdle.” It was true that jazz music had been part of what brought Joyce and Fraser Campbell together but it had been the lesser of two parts. The other part Joyce and Fraser rarely spoke about, even amongst themselves, in fact they had gone to painful lengths to hide any proof of its existence. Joyce and Fraser Campbell were committed republicans. Once Fraser had consolidated enough power they intended to put their values into practise. By [i]any[/i] means necessary. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Brixton, London[/b] In the middle of the small patch of grass at the centre of Angell Town council estate was the smouldering husk of a vehicle. The smoke from it billowed up into the night’s sky and filled the lungs of PCs James Oldfield and Ray Newman as they watched on. Ray covered his mouth with his forearm to stop himself from inhaling any more smoke. James knelt beside the vehicle with his hands on his knees and inspected it for any signs of evidence. Both men were stationed out of Brixton police station but that was where the similarities ended. Oldfield was six foot three and as skinny as a rake. His features were soft, shapeless, and unassuming. He had the kind of face that was easily forgotten. “Big Ray” was a heavy-set man, built like a fridge, somehow fat but flat-stomached at the same time. His face was not so easily forgotten. In the middle of it laid a thick red rose that dominated his other features. Newman peered over his nose at Oldfield as he watched the young officer inspect the burnt out vehicle. “I’m telling you, these people are fucking animals.” James look round at him and frowned. “We don’t know it was them.” “Oh, pull the other one…” Ray said with a derisive laugh. “A burned out car in the middle of a council estate in Brixton and you’re trying to play Atticus-[i]bloody[/i]-Finch. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work this one out, James.” James Oldfield might not have been a rocket scientist but he was the sharpest tool in the box at Brixton police station. He'd arrived armed with a wealth of knowledge about criminal psychology and a had thirst for problem solving unlike anybody in the borough. It wouldn’t be long before Oldfield was CID. As much as a killjoy as James was at times there was no other police officer in London that Newman would want to catch the case if one of his loved ones went down. He took to policing as naturally as Big Ray took to boozing, darts, and forgetting his children's birthdays. “I’m just saying,” James said as he stood up and started to scribble in his notepad. “Due process and all.” Ray shook his head. “You’re too soft on them. You think they give a fuck about due process? You think your due process will save you when one of their kind is bearing down on you with a machete?” Oldfield looked up from his notepad and shrugged. “Nobody said the job was meant to be easy, Ray.” The sound of a motorbike entering Angell Town estate caught Newman’s attention and he looked round as it made its approach. It pulled up beside the two police officers and Newman made a slow reach towards his baton suspiciously as the motorbike stopped beside them. Oldfield eyed the man and woman on the motorbike curiously as he slipped his notepad into his back pocket. They were black, the man was a wall of muscle and the woman slight and short, but other than that Oldfield couldn’t make much out. He looked towards Newman cautiously and Big Ray placed his hand on his baton. “What the fuck are you looking at?” Newman said to the man and woman who were staring at the officers silently. “Jog on.” The woman reached into the back of his trousers and pulled out a weapon. Newman seized up upon seeing it and his eyes had slammed shut. There were two loud bangs in quick succession that he recognised as gunshots. It wasn't until he heard the sound of the motorbike's engine scurrying off into the distance that his eyes opened again and a flash of relief crossed his face upon realising his was unharmed. It was replaced by dread as he noticed Oldfield sprawled out on the floor with two bullets lodged in his gut. “[i]James[/i]?” Oldfield moved to speak but a mouthful of blood came pouring out in place of words. Newman felt his blood run cold and his hands began to shake as he desperately tried to stem the bleeding. There was blood everywhere. He raised one of his hands to his radio and the blood on his fingers made them slip across the radio’s buttons. “They’ve shot James," Ray screamed into his radio as a decade of policing experience went out the window. "They’ve fucking shot Oldfield.”