‘No way,’ replied Brown. ‘The special edition of the Clarion will be out soon. I want to get to it before my editor does. That way, I just might have enough time to come up with an excuse before I end up covering society weddings for Scottish Field.’
‘Call me when you hear,’ said Steven. It seemed as if he had barely closed his eyes when Brown rang back, although it was now a quarter past seven. ‘It’s out,’ yelled Brown down the phone. ‘They’ve gone with the banner, LIARS! GOVERNMENT COVER-UP! Listen to this. “The Clarion’s ace reporter, Alex McColl, has uncovered a government plot to deceive the public by concealing the fact that rats in the Blackbridge area have undergone a behavioural change due to the presence of a genetically modified crop growing on Peat Ridge Farm. We can exclusively reveal that the death of local minister, Rev Thomas McNish was not due to drowning as stated in a post-mortem report released to the press but to a rat attack, which the authorities covered-up in order to prevent public panic. It is to be hoped that the Clarion’s timely campaign to curb the rat menace will prevent the nightmare problem of super-rats spreading to other areas of Scotland.” Then they announce a new campaign and begin with “An open message to the Scottish Executive.” It says, “STOP THE DITHERING AND STOP THE GM MENACE NOW!” Tell me this is a pile of crap?’
‘It’s a pile of crap’ said Steven quietly. ‘Childs and Leadbetter set him up.’
‘But why? To create a diversion?’ suggested Brown.
‘No,’ said Steven thoughtfully. ‘It’s not a diversion they want to create… it’s a full scale riot.’
‘But why?’
‘I think that’s been their objective all along,’ said Steven, now seeing what was behind it. ‘They’ve been poisoning public opinion in the village against the GM trial from the beginning, carefully nursing fear and suspicion at every turn so that the locals would eventually be persuaded to take matters into their own hands. This story is them lighting the fuse.’
‘So what’s going to happen now?’
‘It’s my guess that, when the local hot-heads read this, they are going to march on Peat Ridge and burn the whole lot to the ground and God help anyone who gets in their way.’
‘But how will that benefit, Childs and Leadbetter?’ asked Brown.
Everything was becoming clear in Steven’s head. He’d heard on various occasions that the two men spent their time taking measurements and sampling the soil on Crawhill. They hadn’t been doing that at all! They were explosive experts. He would now bet money that they had been planting incendiary devices at specific sites on the farm so that the fire on Peat Ridge would appear to spread to Crawhill. People would assume that the fire, aided by the prevailing west wind, would have spread naturally and the barn full of BSE material would go up in flames, leaving no evidence and therefore no embarrassing problem for the government. ‘The fire is going to spread to Crawhill,’ he replied.
‘Of course!’ said Brown. ‘They’re going to get rid of the stuff and any residual problem with the rats will be blamed on the GM crop. You’ve got to admit, it has a certain beauty.’
‘I’m going out there,’ said Steven.
‘I’ll have to see my editor first,’ said Brown. ‘I’ll stroke his fevered brow and join you as soon as I can. I’ll bring a photographer. I want some shots of the stuff in Rafferty’s barn. With a bit of luck we can end up screwing the lot of them, including “ace reporter”, Alex McColl. That’ll teach him to check his facts first. Where will you be?’
‘I’m going out to police headquarters first,’ said Steven. ‘I want to make sure they appreciate just what’s going to happen when Blackbridge reads the Clarion this morning. After that, I’ll just play it by ear.’
Steven skipped breakfast but had some coffee before heading out to Livingston to see Brewer.
‘So someone threw the good doctor to the wolves,’ said Brewer, referring to Levi, the police surgeon who’d put out the wrong cause of death report on McNish. ‘I think he might welcome a wee transfer to the Outer Hebrides after this morning’s headlines.
‘Shame,’ said Steven with total insincerity. ‘I came to check that you’ll be circling the wagons on Peat Ridge today?’
Brewer smiled and said, ‘So you were wrong about the GM crop being harmless after all, eh?’
‘No I wasn’t,’ said Steven flatly. ‘The Clarion reporter was set up. He was deliberately fed a load of nonsense and he fell for it. The paper published it and now everyone is going to believe the story, not least because they want to believe anything bad about GM crops. The real motive behind this was to provoke a public attack on the farm. I hope you can handle it.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Brewer. ‘But there’s been a gas explosion at Fernside and there’s an Orange march through Boxhall today. We’re going to be pretty stretched as it is. Still, with the help of our friends in the private sector over there we should be able to man the barricades if the natives start getting too restless.’
‘I’m going over there right now,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll keep you appraised of what’s happening.’
Steven drove over to Blackbridge, hoping that Brewer was taking things more seriously than he appeared to be. He himself had pointed out that dealing with yobs, who felt right was on their side was quite a different proposition from handling rowdy drunks. He sensed trouble in the air as soon as he arrived. It was not much after nine in the morning but a group of men had already gathered outside the Blackbridge Hotel and were shouting abuse at the officials they knew to be inside. He caught one shout of, ‘Lying bastards!’ as he drove past, not slowing much in case he became a target for their anger too. He drove right up to Peat Ridge Farm and spoke to the security men who stopped him as usual. ‘Have any police arrived yet?’ he asked them.
‘No. What would they be here for?’
‘You haven’t seen the Clarion this morning?’
Both men shook their heads.
‘There’s going to be trouble. Get your act together and warn the others. I’d better check if your boss has seen it.’ The men got clearance from the house for Steven to approach and he roared up the drive to come to a squealing halt outside.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Lane when he appeared at the door. ‘You’ve been watching too much television, my friend.’
‘So you haven’t seen the Clarion either,’ said Steven.
‘Comics are for children, pally,’ said Lane.
‘Well, some of the children are about to start playing with matches,’ said Steven. ‘The Clarion has just put you and the Agrigene crop in the frame for the deaths of Ian Ferguson and the Rev McNish. They’re blaming the problem with aggressive rats on Peat Ridge Farm.’
‘But that’s a bunch of crap!’ protested Lane.
‘Of course it is but it’s just appeared in their “comic” so who are the locals going to believe? You or the Clarion?’
‘Jesus, I’d better phone the police.’
‘I’ve just been to see them. I thought they’d be here by now. I’ve warned your security men: they didn’t know either. Maybe getting in a few more might be a good idea.’
Steven got back into his car and called Brewer to ask when a police presence might be expected.’
‘The whole bloody world’s gone crazy this morning!’ complained Brewer. ‘We’ve had calls from all over the county about incidents and accidents. I’ll get some bodies over there just as soon as I can. I just don’t know what the hell’s going on.’
I do, thought Steven as a slight shiver of apprehension ran down his spine. The police are being diverted away from Blackbridge. He started to drive back down into the village and was alarmed to see that crowd outside the hotel had more than doubled in size. One of the government officials was now standing on the small wall surrounding the car park, trying to reason with them but was obviously being shouted down.