[b]Mitcham, London[/b] The alarm clock beside Ray Newman’s bed sounded and shook Newman from his sleep. It was five-thirty in the morning. His eyes opened and he wiped at them with one of his hands before sitting upright. Newman’s bed was a mattress on the middle of the floor of his small, empty flat. He’d been meaning to buy a bedframe for a while but there was still a part of him that hoped Yvette might take him back. The rest of Newman knew that wasn’t going to happen. She’d moved on. He on the other hand had thrown himself into his work more than ever before. He’d never bothered to decorate the place because he only came back here to sleep. When he wasn’t sleeping he was out on those streets, at the station, or in a pub somewhere drowning his sorrows. Every two weeks his dart met and Ray would pretend to have a life. He’d tell stories about wild nights out with friends where he’d ended up sleeping with a girl half his age. None of them were true. The truth of it was that outside of his work Ray had nothing. Sat there on his mattress in a stained vest and a pair of too tight briefs that was clearer than ever before. He wanted to go back to sleep but his body was used to waking up this early to prepare for work. He could drink until he could barely stand but every morning without fail Ray Newman would be up before six. The alarm was a precaution. Finally Newman’s stomach rumbled loudly and he pushed himself to his feet and made his way across his flat to the fridge. It was empty but for a few beers and a half-eaten pack of ham that he’d opened a week before. Newman lifted the beers out of the fridge, balancing the ham on top of it, and carried it back over to his mattress. He popped open a can and took a hearty mouthful of beer in his mouth. He sighed with contentment upon swallowing it and pulled a piece of ham free from the packet. He sniffed it once, curled up his nose slightly, and then scarfed it down anyway with a shrug of his shoulders. There beside him was a remote control to a television in the corner of his room. It was old, Newman had picked it up at a charity shop around the corner, but it seemed to work well enough as long as you didn’t mind black and white television. The television sat atop a pair of stepladders that Newman had brought with him from the old house. He used the remote to turn the television on and smiled warmly as he saw the scenes on the news from Liverpool, Manchester, Cornwall, Belfast, Edinburgh, and [i]even[/i] Sheffield of hundreds of police officers lining the streets. This is what Britain needed. Not half-hearted “Voluntary” Repatriation Bills but a real show of force. Newman chuckled as he saw some coloured getting cracked over the head with a baton by a police officer in Bradford. Then something caught his attention. Footsteps to begin with. The walls in this crappy building were so thin you could hear it whenever someone moved in the corridors outside. The footsteps were slight, like someone trying not to be heard, but Newman heard them all the same. A shadow appeared through the slit underneath the door to Newman’s flat and Ray reached for the knife he kept beside his mattress. Slowly a piece of paper slid beneath Newman’s door and the shadow disappeared. Newman held the knife by his side as he waddled across his flat in his underwear towards the piece of paper that had been delivered. On the front of it was a Union Flag with the letters “NF” in the centre of it within a white circle. [i]National Front[/i] it read at the top and beneath were the details of a public meeting that evening. The tagline to the public meeting was “Britain for the British” and someone by the name of Edgar Francis. Newman had never heard of the man or the National Front. He folded the leaflet and placed it atop the television with a sigh before returning to the mattress. He placed the knife down, turned up the television, and reached for another slice of out of date ham with a smirk. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do that evening. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Whitehall, London[/b] It was eight o’clock and already Downing Street was abuzz with noise. The Prime Minister and his wife had left for Dorset first thing this morning and several other cabinet ministers were out at events of their own. Samuel Hobbs and Dominic Hewitt had been left to man the ship until Campbell returned. Hobbs took to the responsibility far more naturally than Hewitt and seemed in his element amongst the ever-increasing wall of noise. Phones rang endlessly and Downing Street staffers bustled around in a tizzy but Hobbs was an ocean of calm. At least until [i]more[/i] bad news from South Africa had come through on the wire. The Geordie had spent the past twenty minutes berating the Secretary State of Defence for refusing to return to London in light of the news. The Defence Minister was one of Thomas Moore’s men and was as committed to passively undermining Fraser Campbell’s authority at every turn. It wasn’t until Hobbs threatened to reveal the minister's second family to his wife that he finally agreed. Hobbs slammed the phone down and Dominic Hewitt looked at him with a bemused smile. “I’m going for a cigarette.” The well-groomed young Press Officer sauntered out of the room and left Hobbs on his own. Hobbs was still breathing heavily as he eyed the phone he'd slammed down. It had been a busy week for the government and Hobbs had been worked to the bone. Worse of all, he’d had to put up with Thomas Moore’s smug face everywhere he looked ever since Oldfield’s murder had been announced. The Home Secretary never wasted a crisis, no matter how pressing, and he’d certainly made the most of this one. Hobbs would have admired it if Moore wasn’t always such a self-satisfied twat. Across the room on Dominic Hewitt’s desk a phone rang. Hobbs sighed and lifted the receiver of the phone to his face. “What? What the fuck do you want?” On the other end was a grave voice that Hobbs didn’t recognise. He could tell from the tone of the voice that it belonged to a police officer. Long before Hobbs was Fraser Campbell’s Director of Communications he’d been a working-class boy from Newcastle. He knew how to spot a police officer from a mile away and he knew what they sounded like. The man asked to be put through to the Prime Minister and Hobbs shook his head. “No, the PM's in Bournemouth at the moment,” Hobbs said as he stared out at Hewitt smoking in the garden. “Who am I speaking to?” It was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service. Hobbs listened in silence as the Commissioner described a vicious attack on an old coloured man in Brixton the morning after PC James Oldfield had been killed. His face soured as he learned the murder had taken place hours after the Prime Minister had gone on live television and called for peace on Britain’s streets. The government’s week had gone from bad to worse. In conjunction with South Africa and Oldfield’s murder this was the kind of thing that could bring governments down. He spotted Hewitt in the garden chatting with a pretty Downing Street staffer and gritted his teeth. “You have to bury this in a whole so deep no one on Earth will ever find it. Do you hear me? No one can know about it. If you don’t make this thing go away we could have race riots on our hands. You do [i]whatever[/i] you need to do to make this thing go away at least until things have cooled down. This is non-fucking-negotiable. The Prime Minister needs this swept under the largest, heaviest rug that the Metropolitan Police Service has at its disposal.” He would be damned if the entire government was going to collapse on his watch. Hobbs had come too far and worked too hard for that. His father and his father’s father had been welders. Samuel Hobbs was the first member of his family to [i]ever[/i] attend university and now he had the ear of one of the most powerful men in Britain. His family had lived through the Troubles, they’d it when so many in Newcastle had been devoured by it, and that journey wasn’t about to come to an end because of one old man in Brixton. He caught the end of a question leave the Commissioner’s mouth and as if by instinct Hobbs blurted out. “Yes, I [i]am[/i] speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister on this.” The second the words had left his mouth his face had twisted with regret. Hobbs placed one of his pale hands against his mouth as he felt a cold sweat coming on. To the public Hobbs and the Prime Minister seemed as one but not even he had the authority to speak for Fraser Campbell. He wanted to take the words back but realised he was past the point of no return. His hand shook violently as he reached for the edge of the table in front of him to calm his shakes. On the other side of the phone the Commissioner asked who he was speaking to. Hewitt waved up at Hobbs from the Downing Street garden and Hobbs found himself mouthing the young Press Officer's name before he knew what was happening. “Dominic Hewitt.” The Commissioner assured Hobbs that the brakes could be hit on the murder investigation and intimated that the Met would want something in return. Hobbs had done this song and dance a million times before. He assured the Commissioner that the Prime Minister would remember the favour the Metropolitan Police had done him come the next round of spending and the Commissioner seemed pleased enough at that. In the garden Hewitt flicked his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his foot. “Oh, and is there any chance we could keep this conversation between the two of us? You know, for [i]security[/i] purposes.” Hobbs could hear the bemusement in the Commissioner’s voice at the request but he agreed. Hobbs said his goodbyes and pressed the phone down. He stood with his hand still resting over the phone and his eyes shut guiltily when he heard Hewitt enter the room again. Hewitt smiled and pointed towards the phone. “Who was that?” “Nothing,” Hobbs muttered solemnly as a half-hearted smile appeared on his face. “Fat Pat from the Treasury offering me another candlelight dinner followed by a soapy tit wank.” The young Press Officer laughed and Hobbs felt a second wave of guilt hit him. Hewitt was [i]many[/i] things but Hobbs would never wish misfortune on the young man. Yet moments before he’d thrown Hewitt’s entire career up in the air by using his name instead of his own. Hobbs tried to swallow to push the knot from his throat but it remained there. He smiled at Hewitt then reached for his own phone and dialled the number of Charlie Whitebread from the [i]Guardian[/i] with shaking fingers. He needed to shout at someone. Shouting at someone would make this all seem okay. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Brixton, London[/b] It was six hours after Keenan had arrived home last night that he'd found out about what had happened to Errol. Given that Errol wasn’t a blood relation of his he’d not been contacted by either the hospital or the police. He had to hear about it from the street. The man that had raised Keenan Gayle as his own was dead and Keenan was to last to find out about it. Apparently Errol had been attacked at a pub barely fifteen minutes from here. It turned Keenan’s stomach to imagine his surrogate father bleeding out on the floor of a pub alone. Even more so when he realised he’d driven past it not long after it happened. Were it not for Simone he’d be minded to do something about it. He’d spent all night fantasizing about tracking the people responsible down and murdering them until it dawned on him that Simone would be left on her own if he went through with it. That thought brought an abrupt end to his fantasies. He let Simone sleep in that morning and called ahead to her school to tell them she wouldn’t be in. Keenan had no idea how to break the news to Simone. She was innocent and quick to cry at the best of times. Usually her “Uncle” Errol was there to make her laugh. This time Keenan would be on his own once the tears started. Uncle Errol was gone. There’d be no one there to stop Simone crying or to help Keenan with his reading. Keenan and Simone were on their own. He’d made sure to cook his daughter’s favourite breakfast. Bacon, scrambled eggs, tinned spaghetti, mushrooms, and hash browns. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest meal for a nine year old girl to eat but Simone had acquired a taste for it after trying her father's breakfast one morning. She seemed confused upon waking up four hours later than usual but whatever curiosity it aroused disappeared quickly upon noticing her favourite breakfast on the table. Once she was done Keenan did the washing up and tried desperately to think of some way to tell his daughter about what had happened. After about ten minutes of unproductive thought he announced they’d be going to the cinema. At the very least the cinema would buy him more time to think. They took Keenan’s old Vauxhall Viva down to the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. They had passed the pub where Errol had been murdered on the way there and it had taken everything Keenan had not to break down. He’d gripped at his steering wheel so tightly that at one point his calloused hands cramped up whilst he was driving. He’d even had to pull over and take a moment. Now the father and daughter stood in the lobby of the Ritzy in front of several posters for films that were showing that afternoon. One in particular caught Simone’s interest. It was awash with reds, yellows, and blacks and there was a blonde-haired man in a tight red vest holding a golden sword. “[i]Flash Gordon[/i],” Keenan said as he pointed to the poster on the cinema wall. “What does it mean?” Simone rolled her eyes at the comment. “It doesn’t [i]mean[/i] anything. It’s his name, Dad.” “I see,” Keenan said as he attempted to balance the large box of popcorn in his hands. “This is the one you want to see? Are you sure?” Simone had insisted that they buy popcorn. Before they’d even chosen what film they were watching she had rushed towards the popcorn with beaming eyes. It brought a smile to his face to see his daughter so full of joy. She oohed and ahhed her way through Flash Gordon whilst munching on it. Even amidst all the bright colours and the flashy special effects Keenan could find no respite. His thoughts were [i]still[/i] with Errol. Keenan thought about Errol’s daughter Honor and wondered whether the news had reached her yet. He had no idea where she was, neither had Errol, but he hoped she found out from a friend rather than reading it in a newspaper or hearing about it on the television. As they left the cinema he’d knelt in front of Simone and prepared to break the news to her but the words didn’t come. Instead he'd cleaned a crumb of popcorn from her face and asked her what she wanted for tea. Each time he tried to tell her and failed it felt like a betrayal. It was sat in Wimpy whilst they ate that Keenan next convinced himself he was going to say something. “You know, when I was little we still couldn’t get movies like that over here. We’d have to watch old black and white films about the Great War instead. Can you imagine that? Flash Gordon in black and white? That would have [i]really[/i] been something.” His daughter looked despondent as she chewed on her food. On her plate was Wimpy’s world-famous “Bender in a Bun” and a portion of chips. All the joy that Simone had displayed earlier seemed to have been sapped from her as pushed her chips around her plates with her fork. Keenan frowned. “What’s wrong?” “Where’s Uncle Errol, Dad?” Simone said as she looked up at Keenan. “Did something bad happen to him?” The words knocked him for six. Keenan looked down at his own food and pushed it around a little as he tried to formulate a response. It was in moments like these that Keenan remembered how young he was. He’d been sixteen when Simone was born and there were times when he [i]still[/i] felt sixteen. Errol would have known what to say in this moment, he would have told Keenan was to say, but now he'd have to think for himself. “Uncle Errol died yesterday afternoon. He was attacked on the way back from Brixton. Some bad people hurt him. They hurt him bad. The nurses and doctors couldn’t make him better again. So he died.” Simone nodded dispassionately and then started to eat her food again. “Okay.” “Okay?” Keenan’s eyes widened with shock. “That’s it? You don’t want to talk about it?” His nine year old daughter opened her mouth wide, took a large bite out of her Bender in a Bun, and then set it back down on the plate. She covered her mouth with one of her small hands so as not to display her mouthful of food as she spoke. “It’s fine, Dad, I understand. Uncle Errol was old. He died. That’s what old people do.” Keenan shook his head angrily as he played out how the attack had happened in his mind. “He didn’t die, Simone, he was killed. People killed him. [i]Bad[/i] people. Uncle Errol would still be alive if those people hadn’t hurt him like that.” Still Simone’s face remained expressionless as she chewed on her food. Keenan didn’t get his head around how his daughter had reacted. He watched the gears in his nine-year-old daughter’s mind whirring around as she ate her food and then finally opened her mouth to speak. Before the words had left it Keenan lifted his hand in the air and shook his head gently with a sigh. His daughter look deflated by the gesture but Keenan shook his head again and then pointed to Simone’s plate. “Just eat your food, okay?” [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Garrett's Green, Birmingham[/b] Outside of Garrett’s Green Police Station was a group forty strong of students, academics, and intellectuals. At their centre was Honor Clarke. Clarke was wearing a Baja hoodie and cut-off denim shorts. A bandana bearing the Union Jack held back her thick black dreadlocks and they hung over the back of her hoodie. Birmingham had been one of the many cities across Britain that had seen a spike in police presence on their streets. It turned out that Honor hadn’t been the only one the police had targeted last night. Across the city there had been similar accounts of raids on people’s homes and arrests based on trumped up charges. It hadn’t taken much for Honor to rally a group together that wanted to send a message of their own. They sat with their arms interlocked in the middle of the road in front of the Police Station and sang protest songs at the top of their voices. It didn’t take long for it to provoke a response. Between fifteen and twenty West Midlands Police officers appeared from within the station. Most were clad in ordinary black police uniforms and unarmed but Honor spotted several with batons and pepper spray primed for use. As they approached Honor and her crowd of peaceful protestors one of the police officers trotted out ahead of the group. They group booed at his approach and the officer’s face turned red with embarrassment. “We’re asking you nicely,” Officer Johns said with a smile. “Please disperse.” From the crowd an elderly white woman shouted towards him. “We aren’t going to do that.” Johns sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then looked back towards the group with eyes that were thick with exasperation. “Disperse or we’ll [i]make[/i] you disperse.” “We shall not,” Honor sang at the top of her voice as she looked to the other members of the group. “We shall not be moved.” The other protestors joined her in song and the young officer shook his head and gestured to the large group of his colleagues towards the protestors. The police officers approached, some drawing their batons and others reaching for pepper spray, and Honor squeezed the young woman next to her whose harms were locked with hers. An elderly white professor reminded the group to remain calm and peaceful so as not to give the officers an excuse and then rejoined the group in song. Their voices grew in strength as the West Midlands Police officers drew down on them with their weapons drawn. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Westbourne, Bournemouth[/b] The veteran’s home burst into applause as Fraser Campbell's name was read out. The Prime Minister stood up from his seat, planted a kiss on his wife Joyce’s cheek, and walked up to the stage with a warm smile to the crowd. It was the sixtieth anniversary of the last stand of the Westbourne Hundred. During the height of the Troubles the city of Bournemouth had resisted the allure of the anarchists even when all those around it had surrendered. When the anarchists finally launched a full scale offensive on it a hundred men set up shop in an old school building in Westbourne and resisted thousands of anarchists for four straight days. It was one of many feats of bravery from loyalists in the South during the course of the Troubles but this one especially had captured the imagination of the British people. Joyce Campbell had convinced her husband to attend the sixtieth anniversary service to bolster his popularity amidst all that was happened that week. He had agreed on condition that she come with him and help him plan his speech. She sat in the front row looking radiant in a light pink dress. Fraser gestured to the crowd to bring an end to their applause and they did so dutifully to allow him to speak. “It’s an absolute pleasure to be here in Westbourne. Our great country owes a [i]profound[/i] debt of gratitude to the people of Westbourne, Bournemouth, and Dorset as a whole for its sacrifice during the Troubles. To put it bluntly there would be no Great Britain were it not for the fighting spirit of Dorset and the resolve it showed under [i]indescribable[/i] pressure. It’s only right then that we come together today to mark the sacrifice of the Westbourne Hundred and all those that gave their lives to restore peace and sanity to our nation.” The room burst into spontaneous applause and Fraser smiled modestly and pushed his thick lenses glasses further up his nose. In the crowd were the children and grandchildren of the Westbourne Hundred. They were young and old, rich and poor, but overwhelmingly white. Fraser noticed that most of all as he moved to speak once more. His wife smiled at him supportively and Fraser felt his heart swell with pride. There was a long standing ovation once the Prime Minister finished speaking and Joyce joined him on stage for a few moments. Fraser placed a gentle kiss on his wife’s cheek and they waved to the people in the packed room. For a second Fraser forgot all about the mess in South Africa, repatriations, and murdered policemen as he stared out into the crowd. Joyce leant into him and whispered. “[i]Someone[/i] has a spring in their step this morning.” He smiled and led her down from the stage by the hand. The Prime Minister’s staffers and security staff formed a waiting cavalcade but Fraser gestured them away for a few seconds. He led Joyce into the crowd and shook a few hands before an insistent staffer lead the Prime Minister away from the crowd. The muscle-bound men in black suits that made up the Prime Minister’s security team lead Campbell out of the building and towards the exit. They passed through the front doors to where a black Rolls Royce awaited the Prime Minister and his wife. “Prime Minister,” a voice called from behind them. “Excuse me, Prime Minister, a word if you would.” Fraser looked over his shoulder and spotted an elderly white man approaching him from within the veteran’s home. “I’m sorry, sir, we [i]really[/i] have to get going.” The Prime Minister’s security team moved towards the man and within seconds he had several pairs of hands on him. From within their hands he managed to shout to Campbell. “It’s about the Voluntary Repatriation Bill.” Fraser stopped in his tracks and then gestured to his security team to let the man loose. He apologized to him and then let a sigh slip through his lips. He’d grown sick of defending a policy that he hated with every inch of his body and that the Palace had forced on him. He tried to silently formulate some defence for repatriating British citizens. There was no defence for it. Yet the Palace had demanded it and the Palace [i]always[/i] got what it wanted. That much had been made clear to Fraser the day he’d been appointed. He wanted to savage the policy but he knew that wasn’t an option. Fraser could never do anything in public that might tip his hand to the cause he'd kept hidden for decades. Fraser swallowed his pride, apologized again to the man for his having been manhandled, and turned to the issue he'd raised. “Listen, I understand that people are going to feel [i]very[/i] strongly on the issue of repatriation but I don’t think it’s the time or the place for a discussion about it. We’re here to commemorate the sacrifice of the Westbourne Hundred.” “Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” the old man said with a shake of his head. “I just want to thank you, Prime Minister, for having the bravery to do the right thing. The South didn't fight and die for the Crown during the Troubles to see our country overrun by coloureds. It’s good to [i]finally[/i] have someone in Downing Street that’s not afraid to stand up for the British people.” He extended his hand towards the Prime Minister and Fraser turned to his wife with a confused look. She nodded him on in encouragement. He took the old man’s hand and shook it. “Thank you.” As Campbell took to the car with his wife he sat in silence and pondered the exchange he'd just had. Since the Palace had [i]suggested[/i] the Voluntary Repatriation Bill he'd acted under the presumption that the British public would revile it every bit as much as he did behind closed doors. He hoped they would consider it a niche issue like universal healthcare or Northern independence. Yet the further he travelled from London the more support for the policy he found and that worried him. He knew could count on the North. Though they denied it there was still support for the old cause there. Yet Fraser would have to carry the South if he was to liberate this damned country and from what he'd seen this afternoon they weren't going to go without a fight. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] [b]Vauxhall, Liverpool[/b] The North. Sebastian Hedland hated the North. It wasn’t that the North was a hotbed of closeted anarchist sympathisers and socialists, though that was part of it, for the most part his hatred for it came from its dreariness. It was dull, drab to look at, and the weather was somehow [i]even[/i] worse than the weather in the South. Once upon a time the [i]New Jerusalem [/i]had been the leading social democratic magazine in Britain, it had even published articles in support of the anarchists at the very beginning of the Troubles, but it had renounced its support for them when murder and political kidnapping became their tool of choice. The trade unions in the North had stood with them until the end. It was why the labour movement was dead and why there were no more trade unions and co-operatives. Or at least that was what Seb had thought. He’d taken a train to Liverpool on Fred Lambert’s advice to speak to the workers at the Daley’s Sugar Refinery that had allegedly set up a cooperative. He wanted to find out whether there was any truth to it, how the hell it worked, and whether they were worried the government might crack down on them. First though Seb needed to find the man that “ran” the cooperative. He’d taken a taxi from Liverpool Station to the Daley’s Sugar Refinery and was loitering outside of it trying to find an entrance when he bumped into a young man on his way inside. Hedland approached him anxiously and pointed at the picture clipped from the [i]Liverpool Echo[/i]. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Richard Short.” The young man eyed him from head to toe with a suspicious glare. His Liverpudlian drawl was so heavy that Hedland could barely understand him but clued out what the man had said from the context. “Who are you?” “My name’s Sebastian Hedland,” Seb said with a nervous smile as he patted down his pockets in search of a card. “I’m from the [i]New Jerusalem[/i].” The man looked unimpressed. “The new what?” “The [i]New Jerusalem[/i],” Hedland said with a smile as he finally located a card and handed it to the man. “It’s a politics magazine.” The man took the card and looked at it for a few seconds before handing it back to Seb. “Right, right, well… Ricky’s not here at the moment but if you follow me you can take a seat inside and I’ll tell him you’re waiting for him when he gets back. He shouldn’t be too long. He only popped to the offie round the corner to buy some ciggies.” Half of what the man had said had missed him but Hedland saw the man gesture towards the entrance of Daley’s Sugar Refinery and nodded at him. “Sure.” Seb followed the gruff, short Liverpudlian and took a seat on a wooden bench near the entrance. He watched as people walked up and down the refinery’s aisles and occasionally smiled at the workers when they looked at him. There was something in their eyes that Hedland didn’t like. They seemed suspicious, untrusting even, as if Hedland had come to make trouble. Ten minutes turned to twenty turned to forty-five that turned to an hour and as Sebastian took to his feet to leave the entrance to the refinery opened. Through it walked a man with shoulder length brown hair with thick, bushy black eyebrows, and long unkempt sideburns. He pushed a cigarette box into the top pocket of his baggy white shirt and Hedland glanced at him searchingly. “Richard?” Hedland called out to him. “Richard Short?” “Call me Ricky,” Short said as he shook Seb’s hand. “If these bastards hear you calling me my Christian name they’ll never let me hear the end of it. You’re that journo from London, I gather?” Seb smiled. “What gave me away?” “There’s not a Scouser on Earth that would be caught dead dressed in that clobber,” Short said with a chuckle as he gestured to the floral shirt that Seb was wearing beneath his grey suit. “Why don’t I show you round the place?” Under any other circumstances Seb might have been offended but after waiting for nearly an hour he was just glad that Short had [i]finally[/i] arrived. He seemed amiable enough compared to some of his colleagues and was quick to crack wise with both passing workers and Hedland as they walked around. Despite his long hair and ill-fitting clothing Ricky seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the refinery’s history and how it worked. It was when Seb asked Short how Daley’s had survived the Troubles when so many other businesses had been destroyed that Short got particularly animated. “We looked after one another,” Ricky said as he leant over some metal railings. “That’s what we do in Liverpool see, it’s not like London up here. Everyone knows everyone. Old man Daley looked after his workers and then when the Troubles came they looked after this place. After he died he left the factory to his son, John, who left it to us when he died six months ago. That’s that stuff karma at work, I reckon. Isn’t that what they call it? Karma?” Hedland smiled and then pointed down at some of Ricky’s colleagues walking underneath them. “How does it work? Who’s in charge here?” “We’re [i]all[/i] in charge,” Short said as he gestured his arms around the refinery with a proud expression. “If we need to make a decision about the place’s future we take a vote on it.” Hedland had thought of a dozen practical follow up questions before Short had even finished speaking but Seb hadn’t travelled across the country to ask about the practical. It was the ideas that interested him, it was the ideas that had [i]always[/i] interested him, and the idea at the heart of cooperatives was a familiar one. It was not one that was often spoken about in polite company because of its affiliation with the Troubles. Seb looked up from his notepad with a grin. “This all sounds an [i]awful[/i] lot like socialism.” Within seconds Ricky Short’s genial face became red with rage. “It’s not socialism to look after one another, mate, it’s common sense. Plenty of ours died fighting those so-called “socialists” that tried to burn our city to the ground during the Troubles. So I’ll be fucked if some twat from London tries to tar us with the same brush as those bastards. Please excuse my French.” Hedland had barely opened his mouth to respond when the doors to the refinery burst open. There was shouting from the lower level and Ricky ran towards it. Seb tucked his notepad into his suit trousers and followed after him as they saw the source of the commotion. Through the entrance of Daley’s Sugar Refinery were pouring a dozen men in black military uniforms without markings. They had assault rifles in their arms and levelled the butts of their rifles against any of the Daley employees within arms reach. A ginger-haired man with slick-back hair and a thick moustache was screaming at the top of his voice. “On the fucking ground.” Ricky placed his hands in the air and approached the men. “What’s going on here? Who are you people?” The man smashed the butt of his rifle against the back of Ricky Short’s head and he fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Once he was satisfied Ricky was unconscious he looked up at Hedland who was frozen stiff with fright. “Get on the fucking ground.” “I’m a journalist,” Hedland said as he lifted his hands up. “I work for the [i]New Jerusalem[/i].” The ginger-haired man shook his head angrily and started to pace towards Hedland. He had to be six foot two at the least and Seb could tell from the way the man walked that he was made of pure muscle. He had a crazed, murderous look in his eye as he bore down on Hedland. “I’m not one of them. Why aren’t you listening to me? I’m a jour-” There was a loud crack and Hedland’s world went black for a second. He fell to his knees at the man’s feet and felt blood trickle from the back of his head along his neck and down his shoulders. Seb’s ears were ringing and his whole world seemed to spun as he clutched onto the man’s feet to keep himself upright. He felt the man’s hand grab a hold of a handful of his curly black hair and saw his spiteful face smirk at him as he sent his knee hurtling towards Hedland’s face.