‘Well, not a good idea.’
‘I won’t order you around. Anyway, you’ve earned it. Sales and viewing figures are up, and that’s not just the Metro-Centre. It’s all along the M25. There’s something new out there, and I’m giving it to them.’
‘Something violent. That frightens me a little.’
‘I feel for you, Richard. Sitting for years behind a big desk in Berkeley Square, you still believe in the human race. People like violence. It stirs the blood, speeds the pulse. Violence is the best way of controlling them, making sure that things don’t get really out of hand.’
‘They have already. These attacks on Asians and asylum seekers, the fiery crosses in front gardens. You didn’t want all that, David. Some of these supporters are using the sports rallies as a cover for racist attacks. Setting fire to streets of houses. It’s ethnic cleansing.’
‘Street theatre, Richard. Just street theatre. Maybe I wind them up a little, but the crowds want blood. They believe in the Metro-Centre, and the Asians don’t come here. They have a parallel economy. They’ve excluded themselves, and they’re paying the price.’
‘Even so. Can you talk to the chief marshals? Try to calm things down?’
‘Right. I’ll see what I can do.’ Bored by this talk and my wheedling voice, Cruise sat up and waved away the glass of vodka. ‘Think of them as skid marks, Richard. Roadkill. But we have to keep driving. Remember—“Mad is bad. Bad is good”?’
‘I meant it. I still do.’
‘Good. Maybe we need to go further, engine up the product a little. I could talk more about my alcoholism and drug use.’
‘You’re not an alcoholic. You’re not a drug user.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Cruise watched me patiently. ‘Alcoholism, drug addiction. They’re today’s equivalent of military service. They give you a kind of . . .’
‘Man-to-man authenticity?’
‘Exactly.’ Cruise raised a forefinger, calling me to attention. ‘Take sex compulsion. I’ve been looking at that book you gave me.’
‘Krafft-Ebing?’
‘That’s the one. It’s full of ideas. We could slip one or two into the programme, see how the sofa ladies react.’
‘They’d have a heart attack.’ Trying to reassert my control, I stood up and turned my back to the picture window and the shoppers waving from the floor of the atrium. ‘Be careful people don’t start to pity you. It’s far better if they fear you. Don’t give too much away. Be more punitive, more demanding.’
‘The stick, not the carrot?’
‘Be more mysterious. Get rid of the Lincoln. It’s too American, too show business.’
‘Hey! I love that car.’
‘Swap it for a black Mercedes. A black stretch Merc with tinted windows. Aggressive but paranoid. At the same time make it clear you’re manipulating their emotions. Make shopping an emotionally insecure experience. Forget value for money, good buys, all that liberal middle-class rubbish. We want bad buys. Try to touch their unease, their dislike of all those people who look down on consumerism.’
‘The old-style county set? I like that.’
‘Another point.’ I circled the sofa, apparently deep in thought. ‘You need your audience, but now and then deride them. You despise them, but you need them. Play the unpredictable parent. Invent some new enemies. Tell people to join a consumer club at the Metro-Centre if they want to be part of their real family. Defend the mall is the message.’
‘Defend the mall.’ Cruise nodded solemnly. ‘That’s it.’
‘Tell people to join the gold-card evenings, the discount shopping nights when they can go on TV. Keep them on their toes with the threat of withholding affection. Treat them like children—it’s what they really want.’
‘They are children!’ Cruise threw his hands in the air, then gave a middle-finger salute to the picture window. ‘I love it, Richard. I’m glad we talked this through. You can feel it happening—MPs are phoning up to help, they say they want to be part of the organization. I tell them there is no organization! Even the BBC offered me a show.’
‘You declined?’
‘Of course. People here would cut off my balls.’
‘We don’t want that . . . What would Cory and Imelda think?’
Laughing at this reference to his Filipina maids, Cruise stood up and patted me on the back. A red star pulsed on his control panel, and he saluted smartly. ‘Right. Rehearsal for the evening show. Stay to watch?’
‘I’ll get home and catch it there. I’m still settling in.’
‘Take your time.’ Cruise followed me to the door, an arm around my shoulders. ‘Someone told me you were off to London again.’
‘News to me. When?’
‘This Home Office delegation. Julia Goodwin, Maxted, Sangster. They want more police involved in our lives.’
‘That’s the middle-class way.’
‘You’re not going?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Good. The Metro-Centre is your real home, Richard. Your father would have understood that.’
I LEFT THE
dome by one of the side exits and joined the late-afternoon crowd that filled the plaza outside the Metro-Centre. Three separate rallies were taking place. Marching bands stamped and wheeled, supporters’ clubs cheered the high-stepping majorettes. The motorway towns were out for the day, small children on their fathers’ shoulders, teenage girls in saucy gangs. Families glowed with health and optimism, cheering and clapping in rhythm. I still assumed that I was part of a merchandising operation that was ringing all the tills in the Thames Valley, but something far larger was under way, a new kind of England that was disciplined, proud and content. The burning Asian houses belonged to another country.
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.