Though that wasn’t the clever bit either.
Cavan had time to shut his mouth and jerk back. Lawson Brierley’s eyes were going wide. I ran at him across the desk. I’d worn a pair of black trainers, for purchase, so I wouldn’t slip, just for this.
That, too, was not the clever bit.
Lawson had his hands on the desk edge, tensing to push himself backwards. Cavan was falling off his seat as I passed him. From the corner of my other eye I thought I saw the big camera and the guy with the handheld both tracking me. From the shadows behind Cavan, somebody threw themself forward and grabbed at my feet, but missed. I threw myself down, too, my left hand out to grab Brierley’s cravat if I could, my right hand coming back in a fist.
Lawson was moving backwards but he hadn’t started pushing away in time, plus the mike wire would be slowing him down. I hit the desk on my belly and slid; my left hand missed his cravat, catching him by the padding in the left shoulder of his hacking jacket instead, but my right fist smacked satisfactorily – and painfully, for my fingers – into his left cheek, just below the eye.
My momentum, and his push, carried us both back over his seat, falling in a flailing tangle to the floor behind, where I landed another couple of lighter blows and he managed to thump me once on the side of the ribs and once on the back of the head with weak, painless punches before we were pulled apart by security guards and production people.
That, obviously, wasn’t the clever bit either.
Brierley was ushered away shouting about communist violence and intimidation, surrounded by headphoned staff, while I was held, the backs of my thighs against the desk, by two uniformed security guards. I was smiling at Lawson, and not struggling at all. I was highly gratified to see that Lawson already looked like he was developing what we used to call, back where I came from, a keeker; a nice black eye. A door closed softly in the darkness and Brierley’s shouts were silenced.
‘It’s okay, guys,’ I told the security guards. ‘Promise I won’t run after him.’
They kept holding me, but their grip might have relaxed a little. I looked around. Cavan seemed to have disappeared as well. I grinned at each of the two security guards as the floor manager came over. She looked professional and unruffled. ‘Ken; Mr Nott? Would you like to go back to the Green Room?’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Though I’ll want my pliers back, or a receipt.’ I smiled. ‘I’ll pay for a new mike cable.’
Still not the clever bit.
‘Ken!’ Cavan came into the Green Room. The two guards were in there with me, and two of the awfullies. I was watching News 24 on the room’s TV and relaxing with a Scotch and soda. Not something I’d normally countenance, but, hey, it was only a blend, and besides, I felt a certain refreshing desire to get drunk quickly.
‘Cavan!’ I said.
He looked a little flushed. There was a smile on his face that looked unhappy to be there. ‘Well, that was a bit of a surprise there, Ken. What was that all about?’
‘What was what?’ I asked.
Cavan sat on the edge of the table with all the sandwiches and drink. ‘Bit of a rush to the head there, Ken?’
‘Cavan,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
The door opened again and the exec producer came in; a small, bald, harassed, sullen-looking guy I’d met briefly earlier whose name I’d forgotten the instant I’d been told it. ‘Ken,’ he said throatily, ‘Ken; what, what, what was that…? I mean we just can’t allow, I mean, that was just, that was really just, I mean, what, what on earth-?’
‘Cavan, old son,’ I said.
‘… I mean, I mean…’
‘What?’
‘… You can’t, just can’t…’
‘Are you calling the police?’
‘… no respect, professionalism…’
‘Ah, the police?’
‘… ashamed of yourself, quite, I mean, I don’t…’
‘Yes; are you calling the police?’
‘… in my entire career…’
‘Eh? Ah, now…’
‘… disgrace, just a disgrace…’
‘Have you called the police? Do you intend to call the police?’
‘… what you could be thinking of…’
‘I’ve no idea, Ken. Your man here might know. Mike; we calling the police?’
‘What? I… Ah… I… I don’t know? Should we?’
Mike looked at Cavan, who shrugged. He looked at me.
‘Guys,’ I laughed. ‘I can’t tell you!’ I returned my attention to the telly and said, ‘I think you should find out whether the feds are to be involved. Because, otherwise, I’m about to leave.’
‘Ah… leave?’ said Mike the exec producer.
‘Mm-hmm,’ I said, sipping my drink and watching shots of Camp X-Ray.
‘But, well… we thought we could, maybe, still do the discussion. I mean, if you would agree…’
Cavan crossed his arms and appeared innocently bemused.
I was looking at the two of them, shaking my head. ‘Listen, guys, I have no fucking intention of even beginning to take that nasty little right-wing shithead’s diseased ideas seriously, to debate them, for fuck’s sake.’ I looked back at the TV. ‘Never did,’ I muttered. I looked back at the producer. He was standing with his mouth open. I frowned. ‘You did get it all on tape, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Of course we did.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Very good.’ I watched the TV a moment longer. ‘So,’ I said to him, when he still hadn’t gone, ‘if you could just find out if the boys in blue are going to be involved or not. Okay? Thanks.’ I nodded at the door and then went back to watching the guys in orange shuffling between the cages in Guantanamo.
He shook his head at me, and left. I smiled at the two attractive awfullies, who grinned back nervously.
Cavan chuckled and got up to leave. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if I’m not mistaken, Ken, you’ve totally fucked us.’ He opened the door. ‘But it was elegantly done.’ He nodded as he left. ‘Look after yourself.’
I just smiled at him.
Actually, at that point I’d quite happily have settled for whacking a fascist and getting away with it, but – in theory, according to the mad, bad plan at least – what had to happen next was that somebody did take the matter further, and the cops did become involved, and I was formally charged with assault.
Because then – despite all the witnesses, despite the cameras and the videotape and the thing being replayable in slow motion from two or three different angles, and certainly despite what I hoped would develop into a splendid black eye for Lawson Brierley – I had every intention, in front of the police, in front of the lawyers, in front of a judge and in front of a jury if it came to that, of denying it had ever happened.
And that was the fucking clever bit.
Nine. BIG GUNS
‘I knew you were up to something.’
‘Fuck off! You did not.’
‘I did! Why do you think I was so nervous earlier in the Pig?’
‘You’re always nervous when I’m doing something you can’t control.’
Phil made a noise you could only call a gasp. ‘Now that’s not true, Ken. That’s unfair.’ He seemed genuinely hurt.
I put a hand on his shoulder. It was still true, mind you, but I said, ‘Sorry.’
‘You didn’t really hit him, did you?’
‘Yup. Biffed the blighter on the phizog.’
‘A proper punch?’
‘A proper punch. Look at them bunch a fives.’ I held my right hand out to show him the grazes on the knuckles. My hand still hurt.
‘You’re really proud of this, aren’t you?’
I thought about it. ‘Yes,’ I said.
We were in the Bough. Phil had said he’d hang about Capital Live! until the recording for Breaking News was finished, expecting a debriefing; he’d been suitably surprised when I’d walked into the office barely ninety minutes after I’d left him for the studio in Clerkenwell.