Steven caught sight of Alex McColl with a young photographer in tow; they were lurking on the outer fringes like sharks circling a ship with a list. He drove on by and went round to Eve’s house, hoping he might get a chance to see her and explain about last night if Trish Rafferty hadn’t already filled her in on the details.
As he drew up across the road from the house, a man he took to be Eve’s father opened the door and strode angrily down the path, shaking off Eve’s attempts to stop him. He had what looked to Steven to be a rifle slung over his shoulder in its carrying case. Eve was distraught and in tears. Steven got out and she saw him there. She came running over to him and pleaded, ‘Please, you have to stop him! He says that Ronald Lane is responsible for Ian’s death. He’s going to kill him!’
‘Him and all the rest,’ said Steven. ‘It’s getting very ugly round there,’ he said, nodding in the direction of Main Street. ‘Lane has been warned and so have the guards up there. The police should be on the scene soon.’
‘God, this is awful,’ sighed Eve.
‘Did Trish tell you everything last night?’ Steven asked.
Eve nodded. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you,’ she said. ‘I see now that you had to bully her into telling you. What Tom Rafferty did was quite unforgivable.’
‘The plan is to destroy all evidence of it,’ said Steven. ‘Childs and Leadbetter want the locals to attack Peat Ridge and then fire to break out so that they can fake its spread to Crawhill. I think they’ve set incendiary devices so that the barn will burn to the ground whatever the Fire Brigade might do.’
‘I must warn Trish,’ said Eve, alarmed at the prospect. ‘She must get away from Crawhill. What are you going to do?’
‘Try to stop them,’ said Steven. ‘But first I’ll see if I can persuade your father that getting involved in any of this is a very bad idea.’
‘Thanks, Steven, I appreciate it.’
‘Where the hell are the police?’ asked Steven, looking at his watch. ‘They should be here by now. I hope Brewer isn’t playing this too cool.’
‘This could be them now,’ said Eve. She was looking at a dark blue Minibus that was just coming into Blackbridge.
Steven’s spirits rose at the thought of police officers spilling out of it to disperse the crowd outside the hotel but they suddenly fell again when he failed to see any police marking on the vehicle as it passed the end of the road on its way to Main Street. ‘Oh shit,’ he murmured. ‘It’s rent-a-mob. I should have thought of that.’
Eve’s mouth fell open. ‘They’re importing troublemakers?’ she said.
‘Looks like it.’
A second Minibus came into view and then a third. None of them were police vehicles. ‘You go and get Trish,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll warn Brewer and then go grab your father.’
Steven ran back to his car and called up Brewer on the radio. ‘We’ve got big trouble,’ he said. ‘Three busloads of Yobs-R-Us have just arrived and there’s no sign of your lot.’
‘My lads are all over the place,’ said Brewer. ‘And do you know what?’
‘They’ve been attending hoax calls,’ said Steven, suddenly sensing what Brewer was about to say.
Brewer took it personally. ‘Christ, we can’t ignore it when some guy phones in to report a car accident with two dead and three children lying injured,’ said Brewer. ‘Any more than we can ignore a jammed level crossing or a tree lying across a main road or any of the other shit that’s being phoned in.’
‘Well Blackbridge is no hoax, I promise you,’ said Steven with a feeling of great foreboding.
‘There’s one patrol car already on its way and I’ll be with you shortly,’ said Brewer.
‘Over and out,’ said Steven quietly as the sound of angry voices was carried on the air from Main Street. Eve had already set off for Crawhill; he assumed that she’d bring her back here for the time being. That would help him too, knowing that there were no innocent bystanders between him and Childs and Leadbetter if things got nasty and the smart money was riding on that possibility. In the meantime, his prime objective was to find Eve’s father and extract him from the mob.
Ironically, he could see that the arrival of rent-a-mob was going to make that a bit easier than it might otherwise have been. He would no longer be the only non-local in the crowd. There would however, be a number on men in the crowd who would know him from his visits to the Castle Tavern so he’d have to be careful all the same.
The suit he was wearing would mark him out straight away so he went to the boot of his car and brought out the sweat shirt, tracksuit bottoms, training shoes and woolly hat he’d worn on his night expedition to Peat Ridge Farm. He changed in the back of the car, put on a pair of sunglasses then set out for Main Street, hoping to blend in with the crowd. Fortuitously, he arrived almost at the same time as a police panda car pulled up opposite the hotel. All eyes turned to look at the occupants as they got out.
Steven noticed the look of apprehension that flitted across the policemen’s faces as they took in the size of the crowd and sensed its hostility, but then professionalism took over and they adopted stony expressions of authority. They made their way through to the front where two hapless officials in their shirtsleeves had been arguing with the crowd. Men in authority always imagined they could identify with the common man by taking off their jackets. One of the officers climbed up on to the wall and appealed for quiet. Steven looked around for Eve’s father couldn’t see him. What he did notice however, was that many of the out-of-towners were carrying hold-alls. This was an added worry.
‘I must ask you all to return to your homes immediately,’ shouted the officer, whose appeal for quiet had fallen on deaf ears.
‘Disperse and go back to your homes immed…’ The officer did not complete the sentence. A bottle smashed into his face, breaking his nose and shattering his front teeth. He fell from the wall into the arms of his partner who collapsed to the ground under the weight. A flurry of feet made sure that both officers were now out of the reckoning. The Rubicon had been crossed: there was now no going back.
The two government men were next to be attacked. One fell to the ground under a hail of blows; the other made it to the door of the hotel but only to find it locked. He too succumbed to the anger of the crowd and fell to the ground, curled up in a foetal position and squealing in pain as blows rained in on him. The anxious faces at the hotel windows disappeared as stones and bottles sailed through them to let in the sounds of the street. The panda car was bounced on its springs until its own momentum could be used to help overturn it to loud cheers. The spreading fuel puddle from its tank only acted as an invitation to a mob that was now feeding on its own evil. A match was thrown and the vehicle erupted into a ball of orange flame to the accompaniment of more loud cheers.
Throughout it all, Steven kept looking for Eve’s father. He was beginning to think that perhaps he wasn’t in the crowd after all when he caught sight of him with two men he recognised as regulars from the Castle. He had started to make his way through the throng towards them when one of the out-of-towners jumped up on to the bonnet of one of the civil service cars and used an electric megaphone to address the rest.
‘These bastards don’t give a toss for ordinary working folk,’ he yelled. ‘They come to our villages, set up their experiments, kill our kids and then tell us there’s fuck-all to worry about. It’s all perfectly safe!’ Encouraged by the cheers he continued, ‘Let’s show the bastards that we can look after our own. And do you know what?… They’re dead right. When we’re finished with their GM shite, there will be fuck-all to worry about!’