Morden Man

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Hey @Morden Man, Vilage and I were talking about shit and the topic of Lord of the Rings came up and for fun I was wondering if the series would exist in this alternate Britain, given the book was Tolkein's way of reconciling his experiences in the Great War with fantasy and stuff.

I imagine it'd probably be a lot different or there's a chance it doesn't exist if Tolkein died in the war. But figured I'd pose the question since it was on the mind.

@Dinh AaronMk

That's an interesting thought.

I think had Tolkien survived throughout a prolonged Great War he would likely have been aghast at what happened next. Tolkien was an ardent anti-communist so I imagine he'd have fled to the countryside during the Troubles given much of the violence was in urban areas. It would have given him more than enough time to work on Lord of the Rings. Given the climate though there's some question whether it would have been as successful and/or whether Tolkien would have lived long enough to receive the acclaim for it.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Whitehall, London

Samuel Hobbs rolled his eyes as he listened to the Health Minister trotting out flimsy excuse after flimsy excuse as to why his department had overspent. The Department of Health’s overspend was twentieth on the list of concerns that Hobbs had. At the top of that list was the ill-advised phone call he’d held with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police yesterday afternoon. Hobbs had been up much of the night worrying that his using Dominic Hewitt’s name would come back to bite him in the backside. He’d come in extra early this morning so as to busy his mind with other things. Currently listening to the Health Minister stammering down the phone was failing to do that. Hobbs scrawled a hastily drawn penis on the notepad in front of him and held it up for Hewitt to see. The young Press Officer smiled and began to scribble an obscene drawing of his own.

Before he had a chance to lift it into view the doors to the Downing Street spin room burst open and Fraser Campbell appeared. Hobbs noticed the look on the Prime Minister’s face straight away and instantly cut the Health Minister off mid-sentence and set the phone down. The other press aides, Hewitt included, continued working completely unaware of Campbell’s rage. Hobbs stood up from the desk he was sat at and opened his mouth to alert the staffers to clear the room but was a second too late.

“Out,” The Prime Minister glowered in the doorway to the room. “I want everybody out.”

Hewitt looked to Hobbs with worried eyes and Hobbs gestured towards the exit. Along with five other Downing Street staffers he slowly made his way out of the room and past the Prime Minister as carefully as they could. They hadn’t seen Fraser Campbell angry before. Hobbs had seen it many times. Though the public considered the Prime Minister skittish and nervous at the best of times he was prone to the occasional bout of rage. Usually reserved only for the consumption of his wife Joyce and Hobbs. Once the door had shut behind the last of the staffers the Prime Minister paced towards the desk opposite Hobbs and leant against it in silence.

Hobbs looked to his old friend with a concerned smile. “What’s wrong?”

“At my meeting with General Markham-Powell I was asked about an Errol Clarke. Does the name Errol Clarke ring any bells to you, Hobbs?”

Hobbs felt the same knot in his throat he’d felt yesterday after lying to Hewitt. If Campbell knew who Errol Clarke was there was no way he hadn’t worked out what Hobbs had done. Samuel Hobbs was a dead man walking. His palms began to sweat and his pale hands began to shake as he considered confessing to his mistake before Campbell dragged it out of him. That had to be why the Prime Minister was here. There were meetings that he was meant to be this very minute but instead he was here talking to Hobbs about Errol Clarke instead. Hobbs was done. His career was finished. The second this conversation ended he’d be escorted out of Downing Street. The smart thing for the Geordie to do now would be to own up and go down with his dignity intact.

“None,” Hobbs lied. “Should it do?”

Campbell’s rage was magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. “He was murdered in Brixton less than twelve hours after James Oldfield. Whilst I was on television calling for calm an old coloured man was being beaten to death less than two miles from where Oldfield was shot dead.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hobbs muttered unconvincingly as he stood up from his seat. “We need to get out ahead of this one.”

“Get out ahead of it? Everyone that matters already knows. The King himself knows about Clarke, Hobbs, but I had to find out about it by being blind-sided by the Chief of Defence Staff in a meeting that was meant to be about South Africa.”

Hobbs thrust his hands into his pockets to hide their shaking. “Have the press got hold of it? We need to make sure they don’t get hold of it.”

The Prime Minister nostrils flared slightly at the interruption. “I wasn’t done.”

Hobbs gulped at that. Campbell and Hobbs had been friends for the best part of ten years. They had met at a mutual friend’s wedding back when Campbell had been a lowly junior minister in the previous Prime Minister’s cabinet and Hobbs was a relative nobody at The Times. They had become fast friends. Hobbs and Joyce got on famously and the then-journalist’s ascension at The Times coincided with Campbell’s through the cabinet. When the King had unexpectedly appointed Fraser Prime Minister he had contacted Hobbs that same morning to come aboard. In all that time and in all the crises, personal and political, Campbell had never looked or spoken at Hobbs the way he was now. He stood in cowed silence as he waited for Fraser to speak the words he knew were coming.

“How did the Palace find out about Clarke’s murder you might ask? The Home Secretary told them about it. That’s right, even Thomas-fucking-Moore knew about it before I did, and instead of telling me he ran to the Palace. He even intimated to the King that we were “out of control” of the situation.”

Campbell removed his thick glasses, pulled a cloth from the inside pocket of his double-breasted jacket, and then rubbed at them with it. Once he was satisfied the lenses were sufficiently clean he placed them back on and continued recounting the events of that morning. His rage had receded somewhat. Though Hobbs knew that gauging the Prime Minister’s anger by the way he spoke or his facial expression was a fool’s game. Campbell would often seethe away in silence for hours after his rages had come to an end.

“On my way back from my meeting with Markham-Powell I asked myself whether Thomas Moore, as arrogant as he is, would have the balls to take something like that to the Palace if he thought I wasn’t aware of it. I mean, Moore is a bastard but not a brave one by any means otherwise he would have made his move a long time ago. So I called the Police Commissioner to check whether he’d spoken to anyone from Downing Street.”

Finally Hobbs had heard enough and he interjected “Fraser, I can explain.”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” The Prime Minister said forcefully. “He has to go, Hobbs.”

It took a few seconds for it to sink in but once it had the Director of Communication’s facial expression shifted. Gone was the dread and repentance to be replaced by a bemused smile that Hobbs did his best to disguise. “What?”

Fraser walked across the office and stood in front of Hobbs.

“Hewitt spoke to the Commissioner, he knew about Clarke’s murder and didn’t tell me, and worst of all he made assurances to the Commissioner without my consent.”

The relief that Hobbs felt was so complete he almost found it hard to stand. His stomach had been somersaults as he awaited the coup-de-grace from the Prime Minister but it seemed giving Hewitt’s name had worked up to this point. The tiny smirk on Sam’s face disappeared and he nodded solemnly in a way that was more befitting of the situation.

The Prime Minister let out a pained sigh. “I know you’re fond of the boy but I can’t have someone on my staff that I don’t trust, Hobbs.”

In a rather unconventional way Hobbs was fond of Hewitt but he was fonder of himself by a magnitude of a hundred. There was still a large part of him that couldn’t believe he’d actually managed to get away with it but he’d learned long ago not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wouldn’t argue for Hewitt, not even for appearance’s sake, the longer he prolonged this the most chance there was at snatching defeat from the jaws of the unlikeliest victory of all time.

Instead he nodded his head dutifully as he stared down at the ground whilst trying to look begrudging. “I understand.”

“Pack up Hewitt’s things and tell him I want to speak to him,” Campbell said as he made his way towards the exit. “Oh, and let security know that Mr. Hewitt will need an escort out of Downing Street. I know how important this job is to him. I don’t want to chance the boy doing something drastic."

*****

Shoreditch, London

Sebastian Hedland’s eyes crept open slowly and a relieved look washed over his face upon seeing the interior of his flat. It had been a nightmare. He’d never gone to Liverpool, Daley’s Sugar Refinery had never been raided, and what Seb had dreamt had happened hadn’t happened. He’d never been more relieved in his life. It was when the young New Jerusalem journalist tried to push himself up from the plush sofa that he felt the pain. His hands were red and swollen with welts on them where they’d been struck and Seb’s insides felt like they’d been torn apart. After the shock wore off he could barely sit up from the pain. It had been real. As he shut his eyes he saw the face of the ginger-haired man with the moustache that had subjected him to unspeakable horrors. He’d remember that face for the rest of his life. It was burnt into his memory. Every few seconds some small, seemingly insignificant detail flashed through his mind and Hedland had to fight back the tears.

A few metres away from him resting on the table beside him was a telephone. Seb dragged his body slowly towards it and tried to reach for it. His fingers hurt so badly that it hurt to stretch his hand out towards it. He tried to shut out the flashbacks, the smiling face of his tormentor as he stood over him, and reached towards the phone. He needed to speak to someone. He needed Lambert. Lambert would help him, Lambert would tell the world about what had happened, this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It had to be. As his fingers contacted the phone it slid off its holder and rattled along the floor even further out of reach. The exertion of the movement made the pain in Hedland’s insides intensify and he curled up in a ball on the sofa.

Then he noticed it. There on the floor next to him was a post card. Seb figured he’d knocked it to the ground as he’d woken. He reached down for it and lifted it in front of his face to inspect it. On the front of the postcard was the skyline of the Liverpool Docks with the words “come back soon” over it. Seb grimaced and turned the postcard over to inspect the back. It was blank but for an immaculately circular smiley face drawn in black pen. Hedland whimpered and let it slide from his fingers back onto the ground. It was him, he couldn’t explain how he knew it, but Seb knew that the ginger-haired man had written it.

Then the belated realization came to him. He was in Liverpool and now he was back in London. They had tortured him, violated him, and then to add to his mental anguish had transported him two hundreds miles back to London to prove they knew where he lived. They had been in his space, in his home, whilst he had lain there unconscious and vulnerable. They were trying to send him a message. They were watching him and could snatch him up again anytime they wanted to.

The young journalist buried his face in his broken hands and sobbed into them.

*****

Whitehall, London

A bead of sweat crept down Dominic Hewitt’s forehead. His life was crashing down around him. He had been called into the Prime Minister’s office ten minutes ago only to be informed that Fraser Campbell was letting him go. He’d worked to the bone for five years to prove that he was more than his father’s son and now all of his work had been undone. Worst of all was that Campbell seemed determined to let him go for something he hadn’t done. According to the Prime Minister there had been a murder in Brixton the morning after James Oldfield was shot and Hewitt had spoken to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police about it. No matter how many times Hewitt protested his innocence the Prime Minister didn’t seem to want to hear it. In fact his protestations only seemed to make Fraser Campbell even less patient with him. Nothing Hewitt said seemed to make a difference.

For the fifteenth time Hewitt pleaded his innocence with Campbell. “I swear I never said a word to the Commissioner, Prime Minister, I would never do something like that.”

Campbell glared at Hewitt and then exhaled with frustration. He reached into one of the draws and pulled out a thin file. He looked Hewitt dead in the eye as he opened the file and slid it across his table to Hewitt.

“We pulled the records, Dominic.”

Hewitt’s eyes scanned the one page document as he tried to make sense of what he was reading. There circled in red pen was a phone call from Hewitt’s phone from the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police. Dominic screwed his face up as he spotted it. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

After five more minutes of pleading the Prime Minister finally lost his patience and called for the security officers waiting outside of his office. Hewitt fought back the tears as they escorted him out and to the small office where his things had already been carelessly dumped into a cardboard box. A few of the colleagues Hewitt was closest to stopped by to say their goodbyes but most kept their distance. Finally as Hewitt began the long march out of Downing Street he spotted Hobbs stood waiting for him with a sympathetic smile. Hobbs gestured to the security team to give them some privacy and they nodded in acknowledgement and left the two men alone.

“I heard about what happened.”

“I didn’t speak to the Police Commissioner,” Hewitt muttered despondently to his former boss. “I didn’t do it.”

Hobbs sighed heavily and placed a supportive hand on one of Hewitt’s shoulders. “I know, Dominic.”

Suddenly the pieces snapped into place and Hewitt’s red, bleary eyes came to life with recognition. He remembered leaving Hobbs alone in the office to go for a cigarette and returning to find the Director of Communication’s hand on his phone. He’d said it was Fat Pat from the Department of Health, he’d even made the stupid “tit wank” joke for the fifteenth time, but it was actually the Commissioner that Hobbs had been speaking to. Hobbs was the one that had taken that call, the one that given all the assurances, and worst of all he’d thrown Hewitt to the wolves by giving his name.

Hewitt was so angry he was nearly frothing at the mouth. “It was you.”

A derisive chuckle left Sam’s lips and he shook his head as if Hewitt was insane. “What? Don’t go getting ahead of yourself there, mate.”

“You used my phone that day,” Hewitt said, his voice slowly rising as he spoke. “It was you, you piece of shit.”

Suddenly the smile disappeared and Hobbs wrapped one of his pale hands around Hewitt’s arm and dragged him to the side. He pushed a bony finger into Dom’s cheek as he spoke. “You fucking listen to me, you preening cunt, I am the one that decides whether you spend the rest of your life writing the fucking horoscopes for an in-house magazine or whether you land on your fucking feet.”

Hewitt stared at Hobbs with dead eyes. Even now, even after Hewitt had found him out, Hobbs still couldn’t bring himself to apologise for what he’d done. Samuel Hobbs had been something of a mentor to Dominic ever since he’d arrived at Downing Street, even if he was a reluctant one, but now Hewitt understood the truth of it. The Director of Communications only cared about his own survival. He was a cockroach. He’d be here in Downing Street long after the rest of them because there wasn’t a soul that Hobbs wouldn’t screw over to stay at the top.

As if sensing he’d overstepped the mark Hobbs pulled his finger back and patted him on the shoulder with a smile. “If you keep your mouth shut, I’ll see to it that you’re back in this place within five years and this whole Commissioner snafu will seem like some half-forgotten nightmare. You want my job? In ten years you can fucking have it. But not if you go throwing baseless accusations like that. Do you hear me?”

In his periphery Hewitt made out the security team approaching the two of them. Hobbs had offered him a way back in. It would mean five more years of hard work. Five years of trying to piece back together his broken reputation. Hewitt wondered what his father would say when he found out that he’d been let go by Downing Street. Probably that he never should have bothered to begin with. His father never thought he was good enough. Nigel Hewitt only cared about one thing. Himself. He was like Hobbs in that sense.

“I want to hear you say it,” Hobbs whispered to Hewitt as the security team were within a few metres. “Say the words, Hewitt.”

For a second Hewitt considered it. He’d spent his whole life trying to earn the approval of men like his father and Samuel Hobbs. If he walked out of Downing Street today without agreeing he’d be considered a failure, even by his friends, but Hewitt would sooner fail on his own terms than give Hobbs the satisfaction. He spat in the Director of Communication’s face and smiled as he saw the pale man’s face sour with disgust as he realised what had happened. The security officers wrapped their heavy hands around Hewitt and dragged him away from Hobbs before the Geordie could lay a hand on him. As Hewitt was being dragged out of Downing Street he brandished a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat at his old boss.

“Fuck you.”

*****

Garret's Green, Birmingham

Honor Clarke and Conrad Murray sat round a plastic table in the centre of their living room. The table they usually sat around had been broken when the police had turned over their flat. It was fluorescent green and partially see-through. On the table were a selection of vegetarian dishes that Conrad and Honor made together that they ate from at their leisure. Whilst he ate Conrad’s mind thought back to the conversations he’d had with Neil Durham and Daniel Noble that morning. The feeling he’d felt after he’d left Noble’s office had played on his mind ever since. He told himself once he’d finished eating he would talk to Honor about it. In truth he was scared to share those feelings with his girlfriend. She had spent much of the meal fuming at Conrad’s boss for having given him a warning.

“Those bastards,” Honor muttered as she took a mouthful of butternut squash casserole. “I can’t believe they would put you in that position.”

It was now or never, Conrad though, as he cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve actually been thinking about it and I’m starting to think they might have a bit of a point.”

Honor stopped chewing and shot her boyfriend an incredulous look. “What? How can you say that?”

“You have to see it from their point of view,” Conrad said as he eyed his plate nervously in an attempt to avoid making eye contact. “My association with you brings the school negative attention, Honor, and that negative attention impacts my student’s education, my relationship with my colleagues, and the standing of the school in general.”

Honor threw her cutlery down and glared at Conrad. He could feel the weight of her stare boring into his skull but kept his eyes glued on his meal. This was the reason the teacher had been reluctant to talk to Honor about this. He knew she wouldn’t take it well. Some part of him hoped that they’d be able to have a grown-up discussion about it without resorting to argument. The look on Honor’s face said otherwise. They almost never argued but tonight seemed destined to be one of those rare nights. His girlfriend’s activism was so much a part of herself that she took any criticism of it as a criticism of her person.

There was more than a hint of annoyance Honor’s voice. “So what? You want to disassociate from me? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

Conrad sighed. “That’s not what I said. I just think maybe you should think about toning things down a little.”

“Toning things down? You knew who I was and what I believed in when you agreed to enter into this relationship, Conrad. Once upon a time you would have been out there with me too. It’s not fair of you to ask me to “tone things down” because it makes things a little uncomfortable for you at work.”

“It’s more than that,” Conrad said as he met Honor’s gaze for the first time. “I could lose my job over this. Noble said the board wanted me gone because of the protest yesterday and that he had to talk them round. I’ve barely been working there for five minutes and they already want me out because of your…”

His feelings had gotten the better of him. In his mind he’d taken his newfound reservations about the impact of Honor’s protesting to their natural conclusion and his mouth had followed. Luckily he’d managed to catch himself in time. At least he thought he’d managed to catch himself in time. Honor was glaring at him from across the table with her arms crossed. Even with fury emblazoned on her face she was still beautiful. Her thick black dreadlocks hung over one shoulder and her dark, deep eyes were locked on Conrad.

“Go ahead,” Honor muttered. “Say it.”

The teacher hesitated for a second and then finished his sentence tentatively. “Posturing.”

Those dark, deep eyes grew angrier still. “Posturing? Can you even hear yourself? Posturing? I was out there trying to make a difference, Conrad, trying to change things so that people like me, some of whom are your students, don’t have to live in fear of police brutality every second of their lives.”

“Sitting in a street isn’t helping them,” Conrad sighed as he finally set his own cutlery down. “I teach those children, Honor, and I treat them exactly the same as I do all of the other children. I try to equip them with the knowledge they’ll need so they can be more than a statistic when they grow up. That is helping them, that is making a tangible difference to their lives in the here and now, not inconveniencing some police officers whilst they go about trying to do their jobs.”

Honor sat in silence for nearly a minute after Conrad had finished speaking and the teacher grew slightly worried. When he decided to open his mouth to check whether his girlfriend was okay Honor stood up from the table and picked up her late. Conrad attempted to follow after her but she looked at him with a blank expression and shook her head.

“I’m done with this conversation.”

“Wait,” Conrad called out to her as she walked towards the bedroom. “Honor, I’m sorry.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face her boyfriend. “No, that’s the worst thing. You’re not.”

He wanted to deny it for her sake if nothing else but the words wouldn’t come. She waited for Conrad to say something, to tell her that she was wrong, but once it became clear it wasn’t going to happen she turned her back again and slammed the bedroom door shut behind her.

*****

Sevenoaks, Kent

There was a stirring in Jonathan Markham-Powell’s home that woke him from his sleep. His wife murmured as Markham-Powell climbed out of bed and he placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and whispered to her to go back to sleep. The old general reached for a dressing gown that hung from the edge of a wardrobe and took a glance out of his bedroom towards the source of the noise. Any other man might have put it down to the floorboards creaking or the wind but Jonathan Markham-Powell knew better than that. He was old enough to remember the Troubles. He’d seen the violence that had torn Britain’s streets apart and he’d vowed then to always be prepared for the worst. He knelt down beside his bedside table and reached beneath it for a Great War-era pistol he kept in case of emergencies. Once he was certain it was loaded he stalked out of the bedroom and began to creep downstairs.

The general cleared each room one by one until he spotted a silhouette in his kitchen. He let out an exasperated sigh as he recognised the man sat at his kitchen table. To British intelligence the man was known only as “Marine B” but Markham-Powell knew him as Roger Black. They had a long history with one another that stretched back before the general’s appointment as Chief of the Defence Staff. Black was the most effective tool that Markham-Powell had against the closeted republicans, anarchists, and socialists that wanted to drag Britain back to the dark ages all over again.

The general could make out Black’s smile in the darkness. “Can’t sleep?”

Markham-Powell flicked the kitchens light on. Black was still wearing his black combat gear as he slurped from a can of uncooked bake beans. The sauce from the beans had caked itself in Black’s ginger moustache. He scratched at the sides of his slicked-back hair with the back of his hand as Markham-Powell watched on displeased.

He gestured towards the can of beans that Black was slurping nosily from. “You couldn’t have heated those up first?”

“They’re fine cold,” Black said between mouthfuls. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

The general would have shot any other man dead on sight for intruding into his home whilst he slept but Roger Black’s loyalty to him was absolute. He showed no regard for rank and rarely bothered with niceties but Markham-Powell knew that he would throw himself under a moving train if the general commanded it. That didn’t make him any more comfortable at the thought of the Marine skulking around in his house whilst he was sleeping but he knew better than to attempt to explain that to Black.

“How did the operation in Liverpool go?”

Black shrugged his shoulders. “We got nothing.”

The old general grumbled. The intelligence the general had received had indicated that Daley’s Sugar Refinery in Liverpool had been a front for a republican plot. It had long been said that the only reason the refinery had survived the Troubles was because its founder had been a renowned socialist. Whilst the other factories, refineries, and businesses burned to the ground Daley’s Sugar Refinery remained undamaged because it had stood shoulder to shoulder with those doing the burning. This latest move to become a “co-operative” had been nothing but an attempt to put the funds directly into the pockets of the plotters. At least that was what the intelligence had indicated.

“There was a journalist from some magazine called the New Jerusalem there,” Black said as he produced a business card from one of his pouches and took a glance at it. “His name was Sebastian Hedland.”

“Was?” Markham-Powell growled with a frown. “Did you kill him?”

Black chewed on a mouthful of beans, swallowed, and then shook his head. “No, it wasn’t worth the effort.”

“You know I don’t like loose ends.”

It was rare that Black left any witnesses. There was no crime Roger Black wasn’t willing to commit to keep Britain safe. Wanton murder and destruction was his calling card. He was a walking one-man Blitzkrieg that never failed to get results. He tortured, murdered, and maimed without hesitation if Markham-Powell asked it of him. If the general had a nation of men like Black he could restore Britain to its former glory within a fortnight. It was why it was so shocking that on this occasion Black had stayed his hand.

The Marine shot the general a confident smile. “Trust me, he won’t be talking to anyone.”

“Good,” Markham-Powell nodded. “We may have had some bad intelligence this time around but I know those Liverpudlians are hiding something. If there’s a place in Britain where the bastards that tore our country apart can rest their head without fear – it’s Liverpool. I’d sooner burn the entire city to the ground before I’d stop looking. They’re out there, Black, they’re still out there.”

A decade ago Markham-Powell had warned the government that the Troubles were not over and they had ignored him. The Prime Minister at the time, William Robert Jones, had even accused Markham-Powell of being paranoid. Then a republican cell had blown up an RAF barracks in Uxbridge that Jonathan’s son, Alexander Markham-Powell, had been stationed at. His son’s death had spurned the general into finally making his move. In secret he used the full weight of his influence to rally the Armed Forces behind him and deposed Jones. To the public, the King and the Prime Minister of the day were the most powerful men in Britain. To those in the know, General Sir Jonathan Markham-Powell was the man with his hands on the lever and both the King and the Prime Minister did his bidding. Even if they weren’t aware of it.

Black looked up from his beans with an inquisitive look. “The King?”

Markham-Powell sighed. “Yes, I met with William the Limp-Wristed this morning. He is as disinterested as ever when it comes to matters that do not regard clay pigeon shooting or water polo. The boy knows where his bread is buttered. He’ll do as I tell him because he knows what will happen to him if doesn't.”

Black smiled. “And the Prime Minister?”

“The least said about that sweaty buffoon the better,” Markham-Powell laughed. “The poor man still thinks he’s in charge even after the King forced his government into introducing the Voluntary Repatriations Bill. Can you believe that? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the man doesn’t tie his own shoes in the morning.”

“Probably that pretty wife of his.”

The general picked up Sebastian Hedland’s business card and inspected it. His eyes weren’t what they once were and it took him a few seconds to make out its characters. After a few seconds of thought the general pieced together a plan of action that would explain away Black’s raid on Daley’s Refinery in Liverpool.

“We’ll tell the newspapers the refinery was the headquarters of a republican plot against King William and then sell it off to the highest bidder in a few weeks time.”

“What about the situation up in Birmingham? The protests?” Black said with a frown. “I could go up there with the boys and put a stop to those if need be.”

“It’s nothing the police can’t handle,” Markham-Powell said with a shake of his head. “We made a lot of noise on this thing in Liverpool, Black. It’s best you and your team lay low for a time until I have need of you again.”

The marine seemed disappointed at that. The general slid the business card back across the table and the marine stopped it beneath his fist. From upstairs Markham-Powell heard his wife stirring and the general took a look at the stairs with a sigh. He tucked the old pistol into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, tied his dressing gown tight, and then walked towards the door of the kitchen.

As he reached it he looked back at Black still slurping from the can of beans. “Turn the light out after you when you leave.”

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

It had been four days since Antwan Dixon’s injury and three days since Roland Spencer had gone missing. The proximity of those two events hadn’t gone unnoticed on Gus Harris. He’d spoken with Sherry Calhoun shortly after word had reached him about Roland’s disappearance and the Sheriff’s Department had declared him missing. The truth of the matter though was that Roland was more than missing. There wasn’t a soul in all of Pickett County that didn’t know that. Word on the street was that Billy Brown’s boys had taken Roland on a drive that he was never coming back from. He’d been indebted to Brown in some way, shape, or form and that debt had something to do with Antwan. His injury must have broken the terms of whatever seedy agreement Roland had entered into. So as easy as clicking his fingers Brown had disappeared him. There was no fuss, no outcry in the streets as there had been when Jayson had been killed, only cold, hard ambivalence from the people of Norman. The only person that Gus had even heard speak a good word about Roland since his passing was old Laval. Outside of that it had almost gone entirely unnoticed.

Antwan’s injury on the other hand was the talk of the town. He’d been a well-liked boy even before Jayson had been shot and the injury had only intensified that. The flowers and cards were almost bursting out of the young boy’s room when Gus had gone to visit him. He’d promised himself he’d tell Antwan about Roland but he’d proven unequal to that promise. Antwan had looked so broken and dispirited already that Gus was certain telling him would have pushed him over the edge. They’d spoken for thirty-five minutes or so, mostly about how long it would be before Antwan would be back on his feet and what he’d do in the meantime, but Antwan had rejected the deacon’s attempts to comfort him. He was beyond comfort it seemed. After Jayson had died Antwan had been an angry, tearful mess. Now he simply stared off into the distance with a glazed-over look that had unsettled Gus. He hoped Antwan would find something else to live for or there was no telling where he’d end up.

Heck, even Gus was finding it hard to get out of bed in the mornings. He’d never felt so powerless, so impotent, in the face of adversity before than he had done of late. No more Vontae Carters. Every time he thought back to Vontae’s memorial service he couldn’t help but condemn himself under his breath. If he’d known then what was to come he’d never have thought those words. He’d sat on the edge of his bed every morning and wondered how differently things might have turned out if he had a chance to do them over again. Perhaps if he’d have been more cordial with Roland, more understanding, he might have been able to help him with the problems he was facing. Perhaps if he’d have gone to see Chew earlier he’d never have ended up falling back into bed with Dante. There were hundreds of things Gus looked back on and wondered about. Every single time he found himself wondering how Norman had been caught in the worst possible timeline of the all. So many dead, so much potential wasted, and for what? Billy Brown still ruled the roost, young black boys lived, toiled, and died in Norman having never left the county lines, and there still wasn’t a thing that Gus could do about it.

And then he remembered. There was one promise that Gus could keep. He’d promised to repaint the old Hamilton house. That rotting, peeling behemoth overlooked all of Norman and had been there since before there’d even been a Norman. Gus thought about its dust-lined walls, the pictures that adorned them, and all the tragedy it had seen over the years. It was still there. It endured, as Gus endured, and refused to fall despite it all. He’d leapt out of bed that morning after than he had done all week, thrown on an old grey tracksuit, some battered sneakers, and a beanie and set out for the hardware store. The deacon borrowed a ladder from a neighbour and bought four cans of green paint from the store and set out for the house.

Renee had been happy to see him. She didn’t often have visitors and it was clear she was missing her grandson very much. Gus sat on the porch with her transcribing a new letter to DeSean as he sipped on some iced tea. He still hadn’t been to see DeSean but he would soon. He owed Renee that much at least. Once he was done writing the letter out he ushered the old woman inside and took to setting the ladder up outside the house on his own. It was hard work, Gus knew it would take him a day or two at least, but it would take his mind off of the past month and once he was done he’d know he’d kept one promise he’d made. He hadn’t been able to stop Vontae Carter from being killed, nor Jayson Aaron, Yolanda Thomas, Dante Fulsome, or Roland Spencer but he could do this. He knew if he ever spoke those words out loud to anyone they wouldn’t make much sense but in his head it did.

He hung a heavy can of paint along the side of the ladder as he climbed it and began to paint. From atop the ladder he could see all across Norman. He saw Spencer’s Tires and Rims, Hobie’s Diner, the AME church, the old basketball court, and the rows of houses that the people of Norman inhabited. He stopped painting for a moment to take the view in. But for a few changes the small town looked almost exactly the same as it had done a hundred years ago. So much had changed and yet nothing had. It was the same place, the same misery, bogged down with the same tragedy as it had ever been. Yet there was something there. He heard it in the distance. The sound of children playing. His eyes rested on the basketball court where a set of boys were chasing after a ball and a thin smile appeared on the deacon’s lips.

There was still hope.

There was always hope.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

And posted.

Now the countdown starts until the next Byrd post.

@Vilageidiotx

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Mitcham, London

In the car park of Vestry Hall were half a dozen white vans, each dirtier than the next one, and a few old, battered station wagons. Right by the entrance was a large coach whose driver snoozed in the seat. It was the Jaguar that had been parked across the street that caught Ray Newman’s eye as he walked towards Vestry Hall. Whoever owned that clearly didn’t come from Mitcham. Newman brushed down his navy Harrington jacket and took one last glance down at the burnt orange polo shirt beneath it to make sure it wasn’t creased. He’d bought it this afternoon in town and had ironed it using boiled water in a pot. Once upon a time Yvette had done all his ironing. Now he had to make do with what little household items he had lying about. Once he was satisfied he looked presentable he walked up to the heavy doors of Vestry Hall and pulled them apart.

A dozen heads turned in his direction as he entered. There were men Newman’s age, boys barely out of school, and a few older men sat up at the front. Newman noticed the man on the leaflet, Edgar Francis, stood by the table at the front of the hall. Francis was dressed in a pinstriped double-breasted suit that was charcoal in colour and looked more expensive than everything Newman was wearing. On one of the man’s lapels was a pin in the shape of the National Front logo and its bright reds, whites, and blues contrasted with Edgar’s pale blue tie. Francis was a tall man, in his sixties, with a sense of majesty and seriousness about him that was reflected in his craggy, grave face. He had a full head of gray hair and a goatee that retained a few flecks of black.

Francis glanced towards him and nodded. Newman nodded back and upon finding all the seats taken took to leaning against a wall towards the back. Stood next to him was a young shaven-headed man in a denim jacket and a thick black overcoat that seemed several sizes too big for him. He smiled at Newman and Newman smiled politely to him as Francis shuffled behind the table at the front. A local man introduced Francis, noting his distinguished service in the Armed Forces and the success he’d had as a businessman and an author, before inviting Francis to speak. There was rapturous applause as he rose to his feet.

“First and foremost I want to thank you all for coming,” Edgar said in a crisp, cutting voice that spoke the King’s English better than the King. “I understand that some of you have travelled across London to be here this evening and it means a lot to me that you’ve taken that effort to hear me speak.”

There was another bout of applause and Francis reached down for a pint of ale at the table in front of him. He took a large mouthful of ale, glugged it down, and then wiped the moisture it left on his moustache with the back of his hand.

“I’d like to tell you that there’s not more work ahead of us, men. I’d like to tell you that the National Front won’t ask more of each and everyone one of you but I’d be lying if I did. We’re all here this evening because we love this country of ours. Not the kind of love that’s hidden away and only brought out on special occasions. The love you wear on your sleeve, the love you flaunt, the kind of love you’d fight and die for if it came down to it. The kind of love this government and previous governments have tried their hardest to stamp out.”

There had been loud cheers when Francis had spoken of loving Britain. The young man next to Newman especially had become particularly animated and clapped so loudly that it had hurt Ray’s ears. When Francis had made reference to the government the crowd had burst into a spontaneous volley of boos and hisses. Francis took advantage of each of those moments and would take another mouthful of ale as he waited for them to pass. The crowd seemed to love it. They looked past the double-breasted suit and his accent because he drank ale like they did. It was only then that Newman figured the Jaguar parked across the road likely belonged to Francis.

“We told them when they introduced the guest worker program it would lead to anarchy on our streets but did they listen? No, they branded us racists and tried to silence our voices. Now, decades later, they’ve realised we were right all along and are trying to roll it back. Well, it’s too late, gentlemen, the coloureds are here and they are here to stay. No voluntary repatriation is going to change that. If we want to do something about them, about them murdering police officers in our streets, we’re going to have to do it by force.”

There was venom in Edgar’s voice as he spoke of the coloureds. It sent a chill down Newman’s spine. He’d found himself nodding along with Francis somewhere in the avalanche of applause the other men laid on for him. Francis was saying what Ray had been thinking for a long time, even before Oldfield had been murdered, and it was exciting to hear it said out loud in a room full of people that agreed. Though there was something else. As much as it excited Newman there was something in Edgar’s voice that scared him. Ray couldn’t work out whether Edgar Francis was brilliant or dangerous. All he knew was that he agreed with every word that was leaving his mouth.

“They want us to believe the apex of the Troubles was the day the anarchists murdered the Royal Family, God rest their souls, but I say it started the day they let hundreds of thousands of coloureds onto British shores,” Francis gesticulated wildly as he spoke. “Until Native Britons can walk the streets of their cities safely again how can the politicians say the Troubles are over with a straight face? How can that collaborator Fraser Campbell tell us that Britain is safe when we have coloreds running our streets like animals and murdering policemen?”

Campbell’s name invoked the most violent response. Men stood up from their chairs so forcefully that the chairs were flung to the ground behind them. The skinhead beside Newman had even spat a mouthful of phlegm on the ground next to them at the Prime Minister’s name. It had landed precariously close to Ray’s shoe and he glared at the young man and shuffled over half a metre or so.

“Force, gentlemen, force is all the coloureds understand,” Francis bellowed as he pushed a lock of grey hair out of his face. “The liberties that we enjoy in this great country of ours weren’t handed to us, they were won by men that were willing to fight for them against all comers, and unless we are willing to fight for them again we will lose them. Are we going to let that happen, men? Are we going to stand by and watch whilst it happens?”

The “no’s” the men screamed back were almost deafening. Feet in workmen’s boots, trainers, and shoes alike pounded the wooden floorboards of Vestry Hall in support of the man’s words. Finally Edgar Francis lifted one of his veiny, wrinkled hands into the air and the men fell silent in an instance.

“Then go forth from here and do whatever it takes to protect our country,” Francis said gravely as his eyes locked intensely on Ray Newman stood at the back of the hall. “Otherwise there won’t be a country to fight for in five years time.”

*****

Albert Dock, Liverpool

A flood of pain across his face forced Sebastian Hedland into consciousness and his eyes forced themselves open. They shut within half a second as the bright light that hung over him shone into them. A sickening laugh from in front of the journalist assured him he wasn’t stuck in some nightmare and the forceful hand that clamped around his mouth confirmed it. Seb could feel breath against his face but was too frightened to open his eyes again. It wasn’t until he felt a cold blade pressed against his stomach that he opened them and confronted the gravity of his situation. Stood in front of him was the ginger-haired man that had lead the raid on Daley’s Sugar Refinery and knocked Seb unconscious. That was the last thing that he remembered. Now he was strapped to a chair without any clothes on and with no idea where he was.

The man smiled as he noticed Seb’s eyes had opened. “I hate to interrupt your sleep but we don’t have all night, sunshine.”

“What’s going on here?” Hedland said as he looked around. “Where am I?”

The room was perfectly dark but for the man stood in front of him. The lamp that illuminated him was directly behind him and depending on where the man stood Hedland would be plunged into complete blackness or blinding light. In the distance Seb could hear the sounds of other people crying out in pain and the dull thud of fists pounding human flesh. He gulped nervously as the ginger-haired man held the sharp knife for Hedland to inspect.

“I’ll be the one asking the questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m not one of them,” Sebastian stammered as he eyed the knife. “I work for the New Jerusalem.”

“You kept saying that,” the man laughed as he slid the knife over the journalist’s stomach. “Is that meant to mean something to me? You think working for some poxxy magazine is going to save you? The way I see it, working for a magazine got you into this little spot to begin with.”

There was that laugh again. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard. The man stepped into the darkness and returned several seconds later with a set of black and white photographs in his hands. He held the pictures in front of Seb’s face one by one.

Once he’d finished going through the pictures he picked up the knife again and slid it along Seb’s groin. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know who those people are,” Hedland said with a nervous shake of his head. “I’ve never seen them before.”

“Don’t lie to me,” the man said with an exasperated sigh as he reached for the photographs again. “Where are they and what are they planning?”

He went through them again, slower and more deliberately this time, and Seb tried desperately to look for something or someone he might recognise in them. Each was as alien to him on second viewing as they had been on the first one but he knew that wasn’t what the man wanted from him. There was a loud scream from somewhere and it made him jump in his seat. The ginger-haired man’s green eyes were boring into the journalist’s head and finally Hedland succumbed to the pressure.

“I swear I don’t know who they are.”

The man sighed and smashed the handle of the knife in his hand down on Seb’s fingers. There was a loud crunch and he screamed out in pain. The man asked again and Hedland could barely muster a whimper by way of an answer to it. Seb's captor shook his head and smashed at his fingers again. Seb’s mouth filled with blood as he accidentally chomped down on the inside of his mouth. It dribbled along his cheek as he glanced down at his broken fingers and whimpered in pain. Over the next ten minutes the ginger-haired man pounded on Seb’s slight frame with his fists. Each punch rattled Hedland’s body to its core. Once the barrage of blows had come to an end the man held Seb’s head aloft and breathlessly asked a final time time about the men and women in the photographs.

Through his swollen and bloodied face Seb muttered an answer that left his tormentor dissatisfied. He looked over his shoulder at someone and gestured to something in the corner of the room out of sight.

“Get the broom handle.”

Another man appeared and passed a broom handle to him. Through swollen eyes Seb spotted it and began to mutter barely comprehensible protestations. The ginger-haired man tipped Seb’s seat over and the journalist’s face clattered against the ground as his inquisitor disappeared behind him.

“Please,” Hedland muttered as he felt the broom handle’s searing pain. “Please… please no…”

It was a pain unlike any other Seb had ever felt before and it lasted so long that he had lost all sense of time. Once it was done he felt the blood trickle down his legs and the tears wash down his face. The man asked one last time and this time Seb managed but an exhausted head shake as the pain overcame him and he began to slip from consciousness. Even the searing light that shone in his direction dimmed as Hedland's world started to fade to black. He could make out the silhouette of his captor stood over him and the subordinate that had handed him the handle.

“It’s no good,” Seb's captor muttered dispassionately. “He doesn’t know anything.”

The other man tutted and reached for a weapon on his waist. “Should we kill him?”

“Don’t bother,” came the response as the ginger-haired man gestured to his colleague to holster his weapon. “He’s not worth the bullet.”

*****

Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham

Conrad Murray stirred his tea gently and watched as the dark brown liquid began to lighten. He lifted the mug to his mouth and went to take a sip of the tea before catching himself at the last moment. It was piping hot. He blew on it a few times as he carried it over to the table that Neil Durham was sat at. The staff room of Chelmsley Wood High School was empty but for the two men. Conrad blew on his tea a little more and finally ventured to take a sip of it. Durham watched on amused as Murray drew his tongue back sharply and set the mug down on the table.

“Are you alright, Conrad? You look a little rough this morning.”

“Thanks,” Murray said sarcastically as he touched the burnt tip of his tongue. “I was up all night trying to get Honor out of that bloody police station.”

Durham made a face and then looked down to the lesson plan in front of him. “Yeah, I heard about that.”

“Don’t give me that look,” Conrad said with a sigh. “They trashed our house, Neil.”

The older teacher took a deep inhalation of breath. Conrad watched as he saw Durham trying to piece together a response. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea considering the… current climate. People might have turned a blind eye to all of that before but since that police officer was shot down in London… It’s changed, people have changed, Conrad, they’re not going to take kindly to what they see as rabble-rousing.”

Rabble-rousing. Conrad gritted his teeth at Durham’s choice of words. West Midlands Police had come into his home, where Conrad and Honor laid their hands at night, and broken, smashed, and destroyed everything they could get their hands on. They’d even broken the only picture Honor had of her father Errol. She didn’t talk about her father much, all Conrad knew was that they had fallen out a decade ago, but he knew that her father meant more to her than she let on. He’d seen her face when she’d found the ruined picture. Just thinking about it filled him with rage. Neil looked at him with sympathetic eyes and Conrad felt his rage fizzle away into nothing. He reached for his mug of tea and took a careful sip from it. He and Neil spoke for a while about the day they had ahead of them, the football the night before, and their plans after work. The sound of someone clearing their throat in the doorway to the staff room brought their conversation to an end.

“Conrad?” Daniel Noble, Chelmsley High’s headteacher said with a polite smile. “Are you busy? I need a word with you.”

Conrad got to his feet, emptied out what little tea remained in his mug, and followed Noble out of the staff room. As he passed through the doorway Durham mouthed the words “good luck” to him and Conrad smirked. Noble was renown around the school for being a hard nut. He was a short, fat man that looked more like a council official than a headteacher and he carried himself like one too. His too-tight suit clung to his rolls of fat and his shoes were old and battered. Noble had no teaching experience of his own. He’d been brought in by the government to turn Chelmsley Wood High around. No one knew what the headteacher had done before but he was definitely not popular amongst the staff there.

As he took a seat in Noble’s office Murray looked up at the headteacher and frowned. “What’s this about?”

The office was plain but for a few certificates along the school’s ways that spoke to Noble’s education. He was the only faculty member at Chelmsley High outside of Conrad that had studied past undergraduate level. Murray had counted three others that had even attended universities. Even his prestigious education didn’t seem to match up to Noble’s schooling. There were certificates from Cambridge and Harvard that had price of place. Murray was staring at those when the headteacher’s deep voice answered back.

“We’ve had some complaints from some of the parents, Conrad.”

Conrad sighed. “Is this about what happened yesterday?”

“Look, I understand that you aren’t responsible for the actions of your partner and I’m sure she believed her actions were justified but we can’t have her bringing the school’s name into disrepute. God knows that we have enough of a mountain to climb to salvage the school’s reputation without giving people even more reason not to send their children here.”

“What are you saying?” Murray said as he ran a nervous hand through his beard. “Are you letting me go?”

Noble smiled and shook his head. “Of course not, we can’t afford to lose a teacher like you over something like this, Conrad, but let’s consider this… an unofficial verbal warning, shall we? A very gentle slap on the wrists if you will.”

It was wrong. Everything was about this was wrong. Conrad and Honor had been targeted because of the colour of his girlfriend’s skin and now Conrad was being punished because Honor had refused to take it lying down. Worst of all was that Noble was smiling at Conrad as if he was doing him a favour in “only” giving him a slap on the wrists for it. Conrad wanted to give Noble what for but he knew the fat man held his career in his hands. Instead he nodded dutifully and pushed himself up from his seat with his hands. Conrad had made it to the door with his hand wrapped around the handle when he changed his mind.

He clutched onto it and mumbled without turning. “What kind of message is this sending the kids?”

Noble looked up from his desk at Conrad with a raised eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

The young history teacher turned to face his boss with his hand still wrapped around the handle. Noble stared at Conrad as if waiting for him to repeat his question and Murray stood silently and matched his gaze. After a few seconds Noble let out a sigh and shook his head. His stomach wobbled with it. Murray watched as the headteacher leant back in his chair and placed his feet up on his desk.

“I’m your best friend at this school, Conrad, though you might not believe it,” Noble shrugged with a smile. “Half of the Board of Governors wanted you gone the second your girlfriend’s little stunt got underway but I managed to talk them out of it. Making an enemy of me would be a very bad decision.”

Murray's shoulders slumped and a repentant look appeared on his face. Without a word he disappeared through the door of Noble's office. As he wandered through the halls of Chelmsley Wood High School he replayed the conversations he had with Neil Durham and Daniel Noble over and over ahead in his head. For the first time in years, Connor Murray started to wonder whether the righteous indignation he'd been carrying with him was misplaced.

*****

Whitehall, London

Along the walls of the Ministry of Defence were portraits of Britain’s great military leaders over the years. Fraser Campbell sneered at the last, a portrait of Owen Pyke, as he passed through into the office of General Sir Jonathan Markham-Powell. As Fraser entered into the office he spotted Markham-Powell seated behind a large dark brown wooden desk. The title “Chief of Defence Staff” was engraved into a nameplate on the front of Markham-Powell’s desk. Upon spotting Fraser enter the room the general took to his feet and saluted. Markham-Powell was in his late sixties and his military uniform adorned with countless medals did little to disguise the still gym-fit body beneath it. The general had lost his hair young but had resisted the temptation to fashion what remained of his hair into a comb-over. There was an air of geniality to Markham-Powell that had always put Fraser Campbell at ease. Their meetings were one of the few duties that the Prime Minister looked forward to. Campbell gestured to the general to take his seat as he approached.

“Please, Jonathan, there’s no need for that.”

Markham-Powell flashed the Prime Minister a smile and sat back down. “You know what they say about old habits.”

Fraser took the seat opposite the general and loosened his tie with a relieved sigh. Ostensibly he was there to discuss the progress of the British campaign in South Africa but he was intent on taking this rare moment of privacy to relax. Once he was done with Markham-Powell there were another six meetings for the Prime Minister to get to and the events of the past few days had exhausted him enough as it was. He’d have to deal with aides, advisers, and disgruntled Cabinet members until late into the evening and that was just the things they had planned. Chances are with the luck that Fraser was having recently another police officer would be shot whilst he was talking to Markham-Powell.

Once he was comfortable the Prime Minister looked to the general and smiled. “How’s the new gazebo coming along?”

“Splendidly,” Markham-Powell said with an appreciate smirk. “It should be done within the week. As always with these things it has overrun a little and the estimates we were given were quite some way short but the wife seems happy enough with it. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.”

The general lived for his wife as much as Campbell and the pair had been married for nearly fifty years. Campbell hoped that he and Joyce would wear their love on their sleeves as proudly as Jonathan and Hortensia Markham-Powell wore theirs. On the general’s desk were several pictures of his wife and he on their travels and another of a young man that Campbell did not recognise.

“Whilst we’re on the topic of things that have overrun,” Fraser said glibly as he reluctantly veered back on topic. “How goes our campaign in South Africa? The last time we spoke you assured me that things were going well and yet I hear from my man Hobbs that there’s bad news out of Cape Town.”

Markham-Powell nodded. “I’m afraid so, sir, the whole thing has proved far more complicated than we’d imagined. We had hoped that with the support of the Dutch Afrikaaners that make up most of the country’s ruling elite we’d have taken South Africa in weeks. The natives have proven more resilient than we’d imagined, they seem to have a better understanding of the terrain than the Dutch, and have dug themselves in.”

“Any chance the Ethiopians involve themselves?”

“No, sir, I don’t see the natives holding out in South Africa long enough for that to be viable,” Markham-Powell said bluntly. “The Ethiopians have problems of their own at the moment and getting involved in South Africa would only increase those problems tenfold.”

The Great War had reduced Britain to a shadow of its former greatness and the Troubles had meant to world had left Britain behind. Once the British Empire laid claim to two-thirds of the world and now Britain was an afterthought. Decades of civil war and infighting had left the nation inwards looking, technologically backwards, and indifference to the goings on of the outside world at the best of times. King William had lobbied Campbell hard to invade South Africa and it was made clear to the Prime Minister by Moore’s faction that non-compliance with the order would result in his deposition. The King’s justification for the invasion was that it would restore some national pride to Britain. So far all it had done for Campbell was caused him innumerable headaches at great expense to the public purse. Plus the Prime Minister now lived in constant fear of the Africans turning their ire towards Britain.

“Well, that’s reassuring at least,” Campbell smiled as he pushed his thick lensed glasses up his nose. “The sooner this thing is over the better for everyone. We can’t afford to keep pouring money into South Africa if there’s no end in sight. God knows Britain has enough problems of its own too.”

“It’s interesting that you say that,” Jonathan muttered tentatively. “I had a discussion with some people from the Palace this morning,”

Fraser could feel his heart in his mouth as he gestured to the general to continue. “Go on.”

“Word seemed to have reached our King of a particularly troubling murder.”

“PC James Oldfield,” Campbell sighed as wave of relief flooded over him. “We’re doing everything we can.”

Markham-Powell shook his head. “No, no, not Oldfield, another one. A man by the name of Errol Clarke was murdered in Brixton the morning after Oldfield was shot.”

Campbell’s face flushed red. He had no idea who Errol Clarke was. There was nothing that the King and the Chief of Defence Staff knew that the Prime Minister shouldn’t be privy to already. He searched the recesses of his mind silently for some forgotten reference to Clarke or a murder in Brixton that morning. There was none. Campbell’s memory was second to none. If the Prime Minister had been told about it he’d know about it. Suddenly he became aware that he’d been silent for too long and smiled in Markham-Powell’s direction modestly as he searched for an excuse. He couldn’t find one.

“I’m afraid this is the first I’m hearing of it.”

Markham-Powell looked at him with eyes that betrayed a fatherly disappointment. “Yes, well, King William was very concerned when he heard about it. It’s one thing to send them home, sir, but another to have them murdered on our streets in the middle of the afternoon. I believe the King is concerned that if things like this keep happening that people might believe we don’t have a handle on the situation. He might be minded to make some changes were such a perception to become widespread.”

It wasn’t a threat. At least if it was a threat it definitely wasn’t coming from Markham-Powell. To the best of Fraser’s knowledge the general thought as highly of him as Campbell thought of Markham-Powell and their relationship had never been anything but cordial. There was concern in the general’s tone, real concern, like he was trying to warn the Prime Minister of the danger he was in. Changes. It was a diplomatic choice of word that belied the true nature of what the Palace had intimated to Markham-Powell. If Campbell didn’t get a hold of the situation he’d be ousted. King William would remove him as Prime Minister and appointed someone else. That would be the end of Fraser Campbell’s political career, the end of his time in public life, and most importantly the end of any hopes he might have at building the kind of Britain that the British people deserved. One where King’s didn’t discuss changing Prime Ministers as one might would changing their underpants.

“Who informed the Palace if you don’t mind my asking, General?”

“Who else? Thomas Moore,” Markham-Powell smiled knowingly. “I believe the Home Secretary lunches with the King at least once a week.”

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

There's a suggested time scale? This is the first I'm hearing of this.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Mitcham, London

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 even 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. National Front 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.

*****

Whitehall, London

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 more 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 whatever 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 ever 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 am 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 security 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 many 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 Guardian with shaking fingers. He needed to shout at someone.

Shouting at someone would make this all seem okay.

*****

Brixton, London

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.

“Flash Gordon,” 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 mean 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 still 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 really 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 still 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. Bad 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?”

*****

Garrett's Green, Birmingham

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 make 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.

*****

Westbourne, Bournemouth

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 profound 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 indescribable 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. “Someone 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 really 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 always 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 very 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 finally 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 suggested 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.

*****

Vauxhall, Liverpool

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 even worse than the weather in the South. Once upon a time the New Jerusalem 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 Liverpool Echo. “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 New Jerusalem.”

The man looked unimpressed. “The new what?”

“The New Jerusalem,” 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 finally 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 all 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 always 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 awful 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 New Jerusalem.”

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.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I would opt for Japan if I were you. Especially if you're familiar with them.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

@Chapatrap An old university friend of mine from was from Chelmsley Wood and spoke at great length (in a very shrill Brummie accent) about how awful the place was. Clearly it made an impression on me.