Текст книги "Kingdom Come: A Novel"

Автор книги: James Graham Ballard

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

26
A BULLET IN THE HAND

I DROVE BACK to my father’s flat, ready to shower and wash away the cloying scent of the dome’s sterilized atmosphere. A fire engine blocked the access lane, reversing slowly towards the avenue. I shouted to one of the firemen, but he was intent on manoeuvring the huge vehicle. A tang of seared paint and charred plastic filled the air, seeping into the privet hedges and touched by a third ingredient that reminded me of a butcher’s shop.

I waited until the fire engine reached the avenue, and drove down the exhaust-filled lane, followed by an ambulance with its lights flashing in my rear-view mirror. Two police cars and a breakdown truck were parked in front of the flats. The building was intact, residents watching from their windows as a group of my neighbours were questioned by a woman police officer.

I parked by the refuse bins, letting the ambulance drive up to the entrance. Crime-scene tapes surrounded a small Fiat, which sat on flattened tyres, retardant foam deliquescing on the gravel like crab spawn on a beach. Police engineers shackled a steel cable to the car, ready to winch it onto the loader.

I walked towards the entrance, waving to my neighbours, who as usual failed to respond. The glass door was starred by a bullet hole, and a pool of blood covered the tiles. Above my head a window closed sharply, and an elderly couple speaking to the police officer fell silent when I approached. Frowning at me, they stepped back, as if I were returning a little too early to the scene of my crime.

‘Keep back. Mr Pearson, can you hear me?’

I turned to find Sergeant Mary Falconer warning me away from the blood-soaked tiles. She stood so close to me that I could smell the powder on her face. She scrutinized me warily, as if searching for a pointer to the violent crime that had reached the doors of this once peaceful enclave.

‘Sergeant? I didn’t see you. This car . . . ?’

‘It’s all over. There’s no danger of fire. Can I ask what you’re doing here?’

Her chin was raised, eyes narrowed as she looked down her nose at me. I could tell that she had changed sides since the Metro-Centre bomb. I remembered how she had almost fainted after hearing that Geoffrey Fairfax had been killed. She had been closely involved with Fairfax and Tony Maxted, but her crisp manner made it clear that this belonged to the past. The faction in the Brooklands police who had allied themselves to this odd clique had gone to ground, and I assumed that Superintendent Leighton was climbing a different corner of the cat’s cradle of local politics, and had taken Sergeant Falconer with him. Had she once had an affair with Geoffrey Fairfax? I doubted it, though this rather frozen woman with her always immaculate make-up probably needed to feel subservient to a powerful man.

‘Mr Pearson!’

‘What am I doing here? This is where I live. I’ve moved into my father’s flat.’

‘I know that.’ She was more aggressive than I recalled, shoulders squared and head canted to one side as if ready to push me into the flowerbed. ‘Why are you here now?’

‘I’ve just come home.’ I stepped past her, as the residents in the porch moved away. ‘What exactly is going on?’

Sergeant Falconer waited until the burnt-out Fiat was tied down to the loader. Lowering her voice, she confided: ‘Your neighbours don’t like you much, do they?’

‘What have they been saying? This is nothing to do with me.’

‘Nothing? Where were you an hour ago?’

‘At the Metro-Centre. In David Cruise’s dressing room. Hundreds of people must have seen me.’

‘Did you use a phone? Contact anyone?’

‘You mean send a signal? What happened here?’

Almost casually, she said: ‘There was an attack on the Kumars just after five o’clock. Mr Kumar was driving home in his wife’s car. A group of ice-hockey supporters followed him from the street and assaulted him as he tried to leave the car. Your neighbours saw them spray petrol over him and set him alight.’

‘Good God . . . poor man. Is he . . . ?’

‘Somehow he got out through the passenger door and reached the hall. The gang were jeering and singing while Dr Kumar tried to revive him. She went to speak to them, but one of the supporters took out a handgun and shot her through the chest.’

‘Why . . . ? God almighty . . . Are they all right?’

‘We’ll know when we get them to hospital. If you have any information, Mr Pearson, it’s important that you give it to me.’

‘Information . . . ?’

The paramedics emerged from the Kumars’ flat, pushing a wheeled stretcher. Somewhere under the oxygen mask and the silver foil was Mr Kumar, bulky figure deflated by the restraining straps. Sergeant Falconer drew me away when I tried to approach him. The paramedics slid Kumar into the ambulance and ran back for his wife. Numbed by the sight of this elegant woman reduced to a parcel of barely human wreckage, I stared at the ambulance until it drove away, siren wailing as if bringing the news.

The driver of the breakdown truck reversed across the drive, and the passenger door of the Fiat swung open above our heads. Clinging to the frosted window like scorched parchment was a patch of what resembled human skin.

Without thinking, I gripped Sergeant Falconer’s arm. ‘This gang—who were they?’

‘Who?’ The sergeant stared at me, as if I was being tiresomely facetious. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘Why on earth should I? Sergeant?’

‘Some people think you had a motive. You wanted the Kumars out of your block.’

‘That’s absolute rubbish. I don’t approve of these attacks.’

‘Maybe not. But you’re doing a lot to encourage them.’

‘With a few TV commercials? We’re trying to sell refrigerators.’

‘You’re selling a lot more than that.’ She moved me away from the reversing truck. ‘If David Cruise is king of the castle, you’re his grand vizier.’

‘Writing advertising slogans?’

‘Oh yes . . . the kind of slogans that convince people that black is white, that it’s all right to go a little mad. You think you’re selling refrigerators, but what you’re really selling is civil war, nicely wrapped up as sport.’

‘Then why aren’t the police doing more? You’ve let things get out of control.’

For the first time Sergeant Falconer was evasive. She turned away from me, composing her expression and arranging her full lips squarely across her teeth. ‘We’re in control, Mr Pearson. But our resources are stretched. The chief constable feels we might provoke even more violence if we ban the marches and rallies.’

‘You agree with him?’

‘It’s hard to say. The Home Office sees this as a matter of community discipline. There are outbreaks of soccer hooliganism every four or five years. Containment is the official policy, not confrontation . . .’

‘Gobbledegook. Families are being driven out of their homes, shot on their own doorsteps. Dr Maxted is leading a delegation to the Home Office, demanding more action. I might join them.’

‘Don’t.’ The sergeant took my arm. Lowering her voice, she stepped closer to me. ‘Be careful, Mr Pearson. Go back to London and get on with your life. I’m afraid Dr Maxted is wasting his time.’

‘Really? You’ve changed sides, Sergeant. Not so long ago you were running errands for Geoffrey Fairfax and his little clique, and heating milk for a murderer’s baby.’

‘Duncan Christie was discharged. The police offered no evidence.’

‘Quite right. He’d served his role, shifting attention from the real killer. Fairfax and Superintendent Leighton kept him dangling long enough to stir up trouble for the Metro-Centre. By the way, what happened to the superintendent? I haven’t seen you driving him around.’

‘He’s on indefinite sick leave.’ Sergeant Falconer tried to step away from me, but I had backed her against the flowerbed. She waved to the two constables interviewing my neighbours, but neither responded. ‘The bomb attack was a huge strain on the Brooklands force.’

‘I bet it was. At least the superintendent missed getting his brains blown out. I hope he didn’t supply the bomb to Geoffrey Fairfax.’

‘Mr Pearson? Is that an accusation?’

‘No. Just a passing thought.’ I took the round of ammunition from my pocket and held it up to her. ‘Recognize it, Sergeant? Police-issue Heckler & Koch, I’m ready to bet. Someone gave it to me outside the Metro-Centre this afternoon. Not so much a friendly warning, more of a get-well card, telling me to keep looking.’

Sergeant Falconer reached out to take the round, but I closed my hands around her fingers, pressing the warm bullet into her soft palm. I was surprised that she made no attempt to free her hand. She watched my eyes in her level way, undisturbed by my overtly sexual play, and waiting to see what I would do. If it was true that she liked to attach herself to powerful men, then there was a vacancy in her life now that Fairfax and Superintendent Leighton had moved from the scene. As David Cruise’s vizier, I was certainly powerful, and might fill that vacancy. The Heckler & Koch bullet, identical to the one that had killed my father, was my valentine to her. By getting close to this attractive but conflicted woman, watching her heat the coffee milk in my father’s kitchen, I might learn the truth about his death.

‘Mr Pearson?’ She freed her hand, but made no attempt to take the round from me. ‘More passing thoughts?’

‘In a way. A lot more interesting, though.’

‘Good.’ Her poise had never deserted her, whatever the cost in later humiliation. ‘I see you’re driving a different car.’

‘It’s leased. My Jensen was in an accident.’

‘Nothing too serious?’

‘Hard to say. Somehow I don’t think it’s going to get through its MOT.’

‘That’s a shame. Dr Goodwin thought it suited you.’ She raised her chin, and managed a faraway smile. ‘You know—a little past its prime, but handsome enough for a spin. Erratic steering and hopeless brakes. A tendency to veer off into dead ends . . .’

‘Not exactly roadworthy?’

‘It doesn’t look like it. Try being a pedestrian, Mr Pearson. But watch your feet . . .’

She walked away from me, her smile fading into a smirk, and joined the two constables completing their interviews. I had unsettled her, and any concern she had once felt for me had gone. But emotions in the conventional sense probably mattered little to Sergeant Falconer. She attached herself to powerful men, fully expecting to be humiliated, and almost welcoming any rebuffs that came her way. She had played her part in the interlocking conspiracies that had flourished after my father’s death, probably without ever realizing that other lives would be at stake.

Yet my own role was even more compromised. I saw myself as taking part in a merchandising scheme in a suburban shopping mall, using a ‘bad is good’ come-on that was meant to be the ultimate in ironic soft sells. I had recruited a third-rate cable presenter and sometime actor to play the licensed jester, the dwarf at the court of the Spanish kings. But the irony had evaporated, and the slogan had become a political movement, while the cable presenter had expanded a hundredfold and was ready to burst out of his bottle. The ad man was faced with the final humiliation of being taken literally.

For the first time I regretted that I had sold my Chelsea Harbour flat. I turned to the bullet-starred door, more than ready for a cold shower and a colder drink, but my foot seemed to stick to the entrance tiles. I looked down at my shoe, and realized that I had stepped into the pool of Dr Kumar’s blood. Sergeant Falconer waved to me as I took off my shoe and limped into the hall.

27
AN ANXIOUS INTERMISSION

VIOLENCE AND HATE were coming out to play.

The Kumars survived, the doctor with a deep puncture wound to her left lung, and her husband with severe burns to his chest and arms. I tried to visit them at Brooklands Hospital, but the relatives who arrived from Southall turned me away. One of the nephews who kept guard over Dr Kumar manhandled me to the lift and threatened to kill me if I appeared again. Julia Goodwin, sadly, avoided me and refused to take my calls. My neighbours were equally hostile, staring through me on the stairways and declining to park anywhere near my Mercedes.

The delegation to the Home Office led by Sangster and Dr Maxted came to nothing. The junior minister offered them the usual assurances, but he represented a marginal Birmingham constituency with high unemployment and was only too keen to import the magic formula of sport, discipline and consumerism.

For the next week I remained at the flat, alone with my father, thrown back on my memories of the old pilot or, more exactly, on my reconstruction of him from the few clues he had left me. From the start I had separated myself from his right-wing views, his St George’s shirts and Hitler biographies, and the obsession with Nazi regalia. I loathed all that, as I loathed the attacks on the Asian communities near the M25. Nevertheless, my neighbours saw me as a sinister manipulator helping to sell, not refrigerators and microwave ovens, but a flat-pack führer and an ugly suburban fascism. Consumerism and a new totalitarianism had met by chance in a suburban shopping mall and celebrated a nightmare marriage.

MEANWHILE, THE SPORTINGweekends seemed to last for ever, moving without a break through the working week. A packed list of fixtures filled every venue from Brooklands to Heathrow. Mini-leagues and knockout championships brought coachloads of supporters to the Metro-Centre, where they marched and countermarched behind their drum majors. There were so many fixtures, so many local finals mutating into league quarter-finals and area semi-finals, that supporters were light-headed from the endless cheering. They needed to stamp and shout and wave their banners, to believe passionately in something or, failing that, in nothing.

At night, grimly, they preferred nothing. National radio and TV bulletins made clear that violence rose as sports fever mounted. Attacks on Muslim shops and community centres were now as routine as a post-match pint. After the evening football games any Chinese and Indian takeaways near the stadium were attacked by gangs of supporters looking for violence. On his cable show David Cruise commented slyly that the easiest way to find a curry house was to look for black eyes and broken windows.

Around the Metro-Centre the sports-club marshals, dubbed honour guards by Tom Carradine, had merged into paramilitary units, protecting hypermarkets and retail parks from ‘thieves and outsiders’, who were blamed for the drunken damage. David Cruise casually referred to the ‘enemy’, a term kept deliberately vague that embraced Asians and east Europeans, blacks, Turks, non-consumers and anyone not interested in sport.

New enemies were always needed, and one in particular was soon found. The traditional middle class, with their private schools and disdain for the Metro-Centre, became a popular target. Bored after trashing another halal butcher’s and another Sikh grocer’s, gangs of supporters took to roaming the more prosperous residential areas, jeering at any half-timbered house with a rose pergola and a tennis court. A Harrods or Peter Jones van caught in the motorway towns was promptly spray-painted and had its tyres let down. Teenage girls clip-clopping their docile nags under the beech trees of comfortable avenues were followed by hooting cars emblazoned with St George’s insignia. Bizarrely, the aerosolled Star of David began to appear on the garage doors of the most snootily gentile barristers and architects.

I urged Cruise to call for restraint, but he was too busy showing off his new Mercedes, a black stretch limousine that he christened ‘Heinrich’. With the Filipina girls bouncing on the jump seats behind the chauffeur, he swept from stadium to ice-hockey rink to athletics ground. Standing in the directors’ box, Cory and Imelda simpering beside him, he boomed at the crowd, his amplified voice drumming through the night sky. As ‘Heinrich’ made its threatening progress through the streets, he gave a continuous commentary to an on-board camera, reminding his viewers of gold-card and select-entry evenings at the Metro-Centre. For all his suggestive by-play with the Filipinas, and the strong hint that more than slap and tickle went on in their shared jacuzzi, he urged his viewers to defend their ‘republic’ against the corrupt alliance of the snobbish middle class and the snootier London boroughs who had always despised the motorway suburbs.

But Cruise’s worries were for show only. The reign of the bully had begun. Led by Cruise and the Metro-Centre, the new movement was sweeping through the Home Counties. Supporters in St George’s shirts swaggered down high streets from Dagenham to Uxbridge, hunted in packs through middle-class estates and terrorized every golden retriever in sight.

Three days after the attack on the Kumars, a gang of sports supporters invaded the Brooklands magistrates’ court where two marshals charged by the police with attempted murder were being sent for trial. The supporters jeered the police officers and shouted down the elderly neighbours testifying that they had seen the attack. The hearing broke up, and the shocked magistrates adjourned the case, releasing the accused men on a nominal bail.

The next day supporters’ groups invaded social security offices in Brooklands, Ashford and Hillingdon, demanding an immediate increase in supplementary benefit for those who left their jobs to become marshals at the local retail parks.

Despite the growing climate of fear, what was left of the county establishment firmly supported David Cruise and his brand of ideological consumerism. Mayors, MPs and even church leaders saw Cruise and the Metro-Centre as calming influences. They admired the new discipline, especially as it drove up property values and brought a surge in activity to every cash counter within ten miles of Heathrow. Crime continued to fall throughout the Thames Valley, and police chiefs dismissed the attacks on Asian and immigrant communities as the exuberance of a few sports fans.

Reassuringly, there was no obvious centre to the new movement. There were no cold-eyed strategists plotting to seize power. If all this had faint echoes of fascism, it was fascism lite, a mild and non-toxic strain.

I was far less sure, and stayed by the television set, amazed by the optimistic bulletins sent in by BBC reporters in the Metro-Centre car parks. Admiring the self-confident crowds and marching bands, they reminded the viewers that no one was organizing these displays of local pride.

But violence and hate, as always, were organizing themselves.

28
THE OLD MAN’S QUEST

THINKING OF THE KUMARS, both fortunately on the mend, I switched off the BBC news. I listened to the passing sirens of police cars and ambulances, by now an integral part of the Brooklands festival. I paced around the lounge, staring at my father’s framed photographs and logbooks. Years in the Middle East had turned him into a rightwing fanatic with his ugly library and Roman banners. But his grip on me still held, and I half believed that he would have supported everything I had done at the Metro-Centre.

Unsettled by so many doubts, I left the lounge and walked past the kitchen to the utility room. I kept the door locked, avoiding even a glimpse of the neatly ironed shirts and Hitler biographies. But now I needed to call again on his support, and the key was in the lock.

I SAT AT THEdesk, a workstation disguised as a shrine, and began with his computer. My father’s estate was still moving through probate, a process delayed by Geoffrey Fairfax’s death and passed to another of the senior partners, and most of his records were filed away in various computer folders.

I scanned the list of folders: income-tax returns, share holdings, BUPA subscriptions, nursing homes in the Brooklands area, undertakers and their fees, golf courses near Marbella and Sotogrande, light airfields in the Algarve. The last folder was labelled ‘Sports Diary’. Expecting to find a list of veteran car rallies, I opened the folder, ready to read his account of the London-to-Brighton run.

But the diary recorded meetings of a rather different kind. The image of my father in a raccoon coat, sitting high among the brass and leather of an antique Renault or Hispano-Suiza, faded quickly. Turning my eyes from the screen, I could scent the well-thumbed pages of the Hitler biographies, and the peculiar chemical reek of the coated paper that publishers seemed to reserve for atrocity photographs.

The sports diary covered the last three months of my father’s life, and recorded a number of racist incidents he had witnessed, attacks on Asian shops and asylum seekers’ hostels. Each entry described the sporting event that provided cover for the post-match incident, the number of supporters present, the damage inflicted and my father’s general thoughts on the supporters’ esprit de corps, background and professions.

The first entry had been logged on February 3.

Byfield Lane sports ground. Spartan League quarter-final. Brooklands Wanderers 2 Motorola FC 5. Thirty Brooklands supporters met at the Feathers, a regular rendezvous. At least ten had been to the match. Wore a St George’s shirt and was warmly welcomed. At 9.15 we formed up and marched down to the industrial estate. A Bangladeshi newsagent’s was attacked, windows broken, soft drinks and chocolate bars taken. Good-humoured, and no racist shouts. Seen as a prank by everyone. Members: supermarket junior manager, a call-centre worker, two delivery drivers, hospital clerk. Few knew each other, but they stayed together when police car cruised past, and waited for me to catch up with them. Decent types, mostly married, sport brings them together. No interest in Hitler and the Nazis. National Front they see as a joke.

A fortnight later my father was at the ice-hockey stadium.

Brooklands Bears 37 Addlestone Retail Park 3. The wide margin set everyone going. Hard contact sport acts like adrenalin. Inner group of a dozen met at the Crown and Duck. Elbow and shoulder pads under St George’s shirts. They kept me at arm’s length until I spoke loudly about ‘middle-class snobs’. Picked up twenty supporters waiting in car park and moved to bus depot. Chinese takeaway attacked. Cook and wife watched patiently as spring rolls thrown at walls. Manager emptied cash till, offered them money, was kicked to the floor for his pains. Indignation at thought of taking money. Open violence and racist anger, but community pride. Feel they are defending Brooklands, though no idea against what. Draughtsman, taxi driver, dental mechanic, hotel receptionist. Have cars, own homes, wives and children. Stick together, but looking for leadership.

I read through further entries. My father had joined a variety of supporters’ clubs. He seemed aware of the limitations of these saloon-bar racists, and was trying to gain entry to a more senior level of the leadership, if that existed. He was clearly worried that the uncoordinated attacks would slip into anarchy. He listed attacks on Asian property, the assault on a hostel for Kosovan refugees and the trashing of an unofficial gypsy caravan park.

In an April 12 entry he reported:

Local derby at an out-of-town football stadium. Tin shack stands with the latest giant-screen technology, like Sopwith Camel fitted with a Rolls-Royce turbofan. Tremendous atmosphere, a real sense of a united community. Good-humoured, passionate people. A hundred or so supporters, all from Metro-Centre clubs, formed up in the car park and set off for east Brooklands. Wrecked a Bangladeshi tailor’s, then broke into a large Asian supermarket. Running battles with Sikh youths armed with knives and iron bars. The St George’s shirts meant something. The supporters stood their ground, bare fists against the Asian knives, holding the line as their grandfathers did at Arnhem and Alamein. Fine men, careful to protect me, though I was a damned nuisance. Best NCO material: store managers, electricians, shoe-shop salesmen. They long for discipline and leadership. The Metro-Centre alone gives a focus to their lives.

My father described driving a seriously injured man to Brooklands Hospital.

We laid him in the back seat of the Bristol. Blood all over the leather. I put my foot down, outrunning the police Vauxhalls, earned many heartfelt handshakes. ‘Anything you need, Dad.’ When I asked to meet their leaders they looked blank.

He went on:

I realize there are no leaders. A Metro-Centre newsletter about a discount carpet sale is all that holds them together. They long for authority and some kind of deeper meaning in their lives. They need someone to admire and follow. The destination doesn’t matter. The nearest to a leader is a presenter on the cable channel called David Cruise. He winds them up at matches, but he is inadequate, an ex-actor lost without a script. He is dangerous, because the Metro-Centre is the mainspring of their empty lives.

Growing danger of a high-speed stall. The whole town will flip over and head for the ground at 400 knots. Will the passengers mind? Everything I’ve read about the Nazi leaders shows that their followers didn’t fear disaster but actively welcomed it.

My chief problem—there’s no one I can talk to about all this. Sport dominates everything, and fringe violence is part of the culture. Police too tolerant, and anyway see immigrants as a source of trouble, even if they aren’t to blame. The only person I’ve met is a Northfield psychiatrist, Dr Tony Maxted. An odd man, with an agenda of his own. Part of him welcomes the violence—it confirms some academic theory. He was very taken with my description of a high-speed stall.

Sadly, the Bristol was stolen during the night. Found torched in a lay-by on the Weybridge road. I loved the old lady, and it’s galling that it had to pay the price. At all costs, avoid being conspicuous. At any level, politics is a herd game . . .

On April 30:

There’s a limit to the infiltration I can carry out. The demos are getting more violent. I’m fit but no use at street fighting. Took a punch full-face from a young Bangladeshi defending his mother. Didn’t realize I was trying to help her. The group admire my ‘guts’ but tell me to go home.

It’s astonishing how well my masquerade has worked. No one suspects an old British Airways pilot. Chief regret is that I have frightened my neighbours, especially Dr Kumar and her husband. But I have to keep up the disguise for a few weeks longer. These Metro-Centre sports clubs are dangerous and need to be stopped. The supporters are turning into a freikorps, though they don’t realize it. That’s the strange thing. When I saw Fairfax about my pension he said: ‘Who are the leaders?’ Obvious question everyone asks. There are no leaders. Yet. Sooner or later some hard-eyed thug with the gift of the gab will seize control in a bloodless coup. Already there’s talk of a new ‘republic’ stretching from Heathrow to Brooklands, the whole M3/M4 corridor. A new kind of dictatorship based on the Metro-Centre. I tried to raise this with Fairfax, but he talked about his golf handicap. He’s part of a curious little cabal, they may have political ambitions of their own.

Then, on May 2, the last entry.

I watched the cable presenter David Cruise. Likeable in an actorish way. A highly developed feel for people’s ‘small’ emotions. Dangerous? He’s a toy, waiting to be wound up by anyone ready to make the effort. He might appeal to a certain kind of rootless person who believes in nothing and has worked out some pie-eyed theory to justify his own emptiness.

Tomorrow I will put on my St George’s shirt and try to get on his programme. I’ll play the old BA pilot card and stage a demo of my own. Warn people of the danger of too much sport and nothing else. Sooner or later a messiah is going to appear . . .

I closed the folder and sat back, my eyes scarcely noticing the führer moustache and forelock on the spine of a Hitler biography. I felt a vast relief, and a surge of confidence in this suburban flat and its memories. I felt close to my father again, and impressed by the bravery of this old man. He had known that something was wrong, and was determined to reach the source of the deep malaise that threatened his pacific community. His apparent membership of the St George’s clubs had convinced his neighbours and convinced me. To a larger extent than I wanted to admit, I had relied on my father to justify my support for the Metro-Centre and its sporting militias.

I now knew the truth, and I could admire my father and accept myself. I no longer needed to avoid the mirrors in the apartment. At the same time, these undercover missions raised a number of questions about his death. Had he been betrayed by a friend in whom he confided? Geoffrey Fairfax would have ratted on him without a qualm. Had someone slipped into the flat and checked his computer files? I thought of the ‘curious little cabal’ led by Fairfax and Superintendent Leighton, which had drawn Julia Goodwin into its fraying web. Had the cabal dealt with the meddling old man, recruiting some disgraced police marksman as their assassin, who had shot my father dead as he climbed the staircase to the mezzanine studio? Out of the smokescreen of rumour they then produced Duncan Christie, misfit and urban scarecrow, and kept him in place long enough for the killer’s trail to be stamped into the dust. Even Sangster and Dr Maxted may have had no idea of Fairfax’s real game. The fool’s mate set out on the chessboard concealed a far more elaborate gambit . . .

To Fairfax’s dismay, the murdered old man was replaced by his son, an even greater meddler. The bomb in my car, left there by the impatient solicitor, should have removed a minor nuisance from the board.

But at long last the pieces were beginning to fight back against the players.