General Bolat stared straight ahead. The Turkish Army would, he knew, soon confront a critical decision. Did they continue to back the president with his increasing autocratic tendencies or did they do what the Turkish army had historically done at times of crisis: intervene to restore the legacy of Turkey’s great founding father, Kemal Atatürk?
‘Well, what do you think, General?’ Ergun said.
‘We must trust in your guidance, Mr President,’ he said.
President Ergun grunted. ‘And in God’s too.’
If Suruç camp was some distance from Europe’s borders, other refugee camps were much closer. The camp in Edirne for example, was virtually within spitting distance of the Bulgarian border. Less than an hour after President Ergun had finished his speech in Suruç, the guards at the border post on the Turkish side of the Maritsa River flung the gates open to let a horde of refugees stream across the bridge, overwhelming the guards on the Hungarian side. Refugees who couldn’t gain access to the bridge began to ford the river. Chaos reigned.
Possibly the most dramatic scenes, as recorded on the world’s television, were filmed on the Aegean coastline, where by some quirk of history Greek islands such as Lesvos, Cos and Chios were to be found almost within a stone’s throw of the Turkish mainland. Not a day passed without lives lost. Rickety boats sank. Even with life jackets, exhausted refugees were drowned. And the promised land, when they reached it, was not the Nirvana they hoped for. Selkirk Global News outlets went out of their way to show pictures of sodden refugees being verbally abused by exhausted locals or pushed back into the boats.
Harriet Marshall, watching television at home after a long day campaigning, could barely contain her enthusiasm. She shouted to her partner, ‘Christine, come and look at this. You won’t believe it!’
She turned up the volume as the TV showed a pitched battle between a crowd of migrants and a stern phalanx of policemen, advancing ruthlessly, Perspex shields held in front of them. Rocks were thrown, followed by a sudden burst of gunfire.
‘Brilliant!’ Harriet clapped her hands. ‘Totally brilliant. And that was the BBC. Fox News ran a much longer piece. So did Sky. Just what we needed. That should shift the polls.’
Christine Meadows, an eminent scientist with a sheaf of publications to her name, was beginning to be seriously worried about Harriet. As a researcher, she was used to reaching evidence-based conclusions and one of the conclusions she was coming to was that her partner was, quite frankly, losing it.
‘Hold on a moment, darling,’ she protested. ‘I know we or rather you want to win this Referendum but does that mean anything and everything goes?’
Harriet looked at her in surprise. She gestured at the television. ‘This stuff is like gold dust for us. This refugee crisis couldn’t have come at a better time. First, Chancellor Helga Brun, then President Ahmet Ergun. Both of them coming in right on cue.’
‘I think I’ll leave you to it.’ Christine went up to her study. She was still trying to finish her latest book. She switched on the computer, found the file, picked away at the keyboard. But still she couldn’t concentrate. What on earth had got into Harriet? She was working day and night. Kept on popping out to visit the newsagent at the end of the road with some lame excuse about picking up the evening paper.
Given the pressures of the campaign, with Harriet being awake half the night, they had been sleeping in separate rooms in recent weeks. When she came down to breakfast next morning, Harriet had already left. The car had gone too. She was surprised. Harriet normally took the tube to Westminster, then walked over the bridge to the Leave office in Westminster Tower.
She noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the kitchen table. Maybe Harriet had left her a note.
It wasn’t actually a piece of paper. More like one of those cards they stick up in the newsagent. Yes, that was exactly what it was. Another of those notices about a missing three-legged black cat. ‘Three-legged black cat found’ the notice said. ‘Ring 077238954978’.
On a whim, Christine Meadows rang the number. There was a strange screeching noise at the other end of the line. Then an automated voice said. ‘This number has been disconnected.’
Odd, Christine thought. Very odd indeed. What on earth was going on?
CHAPTER THIRTY
With one week to go before polling day, Barnard took the day off. He spent the morning on farm chores, went for a ride after lunch (his bay mare, Jemima, though getting on in years, was still good for a day’s outing with the local hunt), then worked on his papers at the table in the drawing room.
The French windows opened out onto the terrace. In the middle distance, beyond the water meadows, the gentle hills of the Wiltshire Downs glowed in the afternoon sunshine.
What a lucky man he was, Barnard thought. When all this was over, he could spend a bit more time at Coleman Court: dam a chalk stream, make a pond, build a folly. That kind of thing.
His musings were interrupted by his wife, Melissa, carrying a tray of goodies.
‘Scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam,’ Melissa proclaimed. ‘Only seven more days left. Let’s celebrate.’
‘Let’s wait at least till tomorrow before we open the champagne,’ Barnard cautioned. ‘I may fall flat on my face tonight.’
‘I’m sure you won’t, darling.’
Truth to tell, Edward Barnard, who was usually as unflappable as they come, was just the tiniest bit nervous about the event in which he would be participating that evening. Not since 1933 when the Oxford Union had considered the motion ‘this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country’ had an occasion been so widely heralded.
Back then, the whole country had awaited the outcome with bated breath, and when the Oxford Union decisively approved the motion, waves of anger and disgust had risen across the land. The Daily Express trumpeted: ‘DISLOYALTY AT OXFORD: GESTURE TOWARDS THE REDS’. Cambridge University threatened to pull out of the annual boat race. Winston Churchill made a tub-thumping speech calling the result ‘That abject, squalid, shameless avowal’.
There was every chance, Barnard thought, that the evening’s debate in the Oxford Union, more than eighty years later, would prove equally if not more controversial. The Referendum was rapidly descending into a free-for-all knockout contest with Marquess of Queensberry rules suspended for the duration.
Melissa Barnard was just clearing the tea things away when she heard the sound of tyres crunching on gravel. She looked up to see a black four-wheel drive Range Rover with tinted windows enter the courtyard. She put the tray down and went outside.
Jerry Goodman, thirty-four years old, ex-Royal Marines and now a member of the Met’s Special Security Squad, got out of the vehicle.
‘Good evening, Ma’am,’ he greeted Melissa.
‘Hello, Jerry,’ she said, Then, as two other plain-clothes officers emerged from the vehicle, she added, ‘Hello, Tom; hello, Anna. Come in and have some tea. We’ll be ready in a jiffy.’
She took them into the kitchen and left them there, cradling mugs of tea in their hands, while she went upstairs. Barnard had already put his dinner jacket on.
‘The team’s here,’ she said. Strange, wasn’t it, she thought, how quickly they had got used to having ‘security’ around.
The Barnards had a Range Rover too. They left in convoy.
‘You go first,’ Jerry said. ‘You may as well head straight for the Union. They’ve got parking spaces for us there.’
‘That’s something,’ Barnard said. ‘Last time I made a speech at the Union in Oxford, I spent half-an-hour looking for a place to park.’