Omega Place Read online

  And then, with no fanfares, as he turned a corner and came on to the street that would take him back to his office, the name slid out of whatever dark recess it had been hiding in and came back to him.

  Dean Mayhew.

  Garden smiled to himself. The name to put with the face. Mr Dean Mayhew. The first thing he was going to do when he got back to his desk was find out who he was, where he came from, what part of the army he’d been in. And why he’d left. That would be interesting. Not very hard to get hold of, either. Certainly a lot easier than getting the bloody pictures Nick wanted to give the man.

  Garden left the street and crossed the foyer, nodding to the security men who, though they knew exactly who he was, still insisted he take his pass out to show them. Small victories. Everyone, everywhere wants them, he thought as he made his way to his office. Himself included. If he could find a way, no matter how insignificant, to get back at Nick Harvey for lording it over him, he would. You bet he would.

  20

  Wednesday 16th August, Kingsland Road

  Paul caught sight of his reflection in the window of a shop on the high street and for a weird moment didn’t recognise himself. Izzy had given him a complete shearing, not a number one, but a sub-zero job, as Rob had put it. He ran his hand over his head, feeling the stubble, which didn’t seem to have grown at all since Monday. Probably in a state of shock, he thought, grimacing at himself.

  He carried on walking down the street. Now that he’d been about a bit, he realised the area the squat was in wasn’t really like anywhere else. Certainly like nowhere he’d ever been before. It was poor and rundown, the kind of place they’d invented pound shops for, but it was alive like street scenes abroad you saw on TV, with all kinds of languages and food, costumes and people. People, it seemed, from everywhere. Tommy called it the Un-united Nations because everyone seemed to just get on with their own lives in their own way, as if they were still at home and weren’t in London at all.

  And it was an edgy place, with more than its fair share of strung-out junkies and chancers and hoodie-boys, all after whatever they could get, however they could get it. If they saw you had it, they might ask before they grabbed, or simply show you a knife and take it. Even if stuff was nailed down, they’d rip it off. Least, that was what Rob said, but then he didn’t really like the Kingsland Road. Way too many foreigners for him.

  Skirting round a couple of women who looked like they’d got dressed by wrapping themselves in rolls of vibrantly coloured cloth, Paul glanced at his watch and started to run. Orlando had called a meeting for ten o’clock and he knew better than to be late.

  The curtains in the front room were drawn, even though it was well before midday, but that was no surprise. Orlando preferred it that way, liked his privacy. Paul sat next to Rob and Terri on the bottle-green leatherette sofa, picking tiny pieces of the vinyl off the worn fabric of the arm. Tommy perched on the side of an armchair, the one Izzy had commandeered, and Sky lounged, feet stuck out in front of him, in a second not-matching armchair. No Orlando.

  Almost as if on cue, both Sky and Terri started to roll cigarettes at the same time, which was when the door opened and Orlando came in, a file and a number of newspapers under one arm. He walked across to the boarded-up fireplace, stepping over Sky’s legs and standing, the furniture ranged in front of him in a semi-circle, as if he was in his own amphitheatre.

  Paul watched him, aware that there was something about the man that was different today – a difference noticeable, now he came to think about it, since the events of the weekend. Orlando put the file and papers down on the large, sturdy cardboard box they used as a sort of table.

  ‘I think we have made our mark.’ He bent down and picked up one of the newspapers, holding it up so everyone could see the page that was turned over and its headline, which shouted ANTI-CCTV BLITZ! from the top of the page, above a picture of a camera covered in paint. ‘Firstly, well done, everyone.’ He looked directly at Paul. ‘Even those of us who got a little too close to the action for comfort.’

  Paul felt himself go red, his scalp itching, and from the corner of his eye he could see Izzy’s condescending smirk coming at him from across the room. Bloody teacher’s pet.

  ‘And secondly, I wanted to bring you all up to speed on some changes.’

  ‘So we are moving.’ Rob nudged Paul in an I-told-you-so kind of way.

  Orlando frowned at the interruption, but ignored it. ‘Those of you who’ve been with me for some time,’ another glance at Paul, ‘will know that Omega Place was always intended to have the very lowest of profiles, to get our message out at a grass-roots level. This was always the way I favoured, a street-level campaign, because that’s where people are, and that’s where the invasion is happening.’

  Terri leaned forward to stub out her roll-up, head turned so she could roll her eyes at Paul and Rob without Orlando seeing. Paul stifled a grin, knowing she was just taking the mick out of Orlando’s over-the-top manner, not Omega Place itself; she believed that what they were doing was a good thing. She’d said so, often enough, and was forever trying to get Rob to take what they did more seriously. But Orlando was making it sound like a religious crusade…

  ‘For a small group of committed people,’ Orlando nodded at everyone, spreading his hands out, palms up, ‘we have achieved a lot, taken the message out across the country at a local level. You have done such a good job that, for all “they” know,’ he made inverted commas with his fingers, ‘we could be ten times the size or more. But, for all that, I don’t think they, the watchers, have been paying attention to us. And I certainly don’t think our audience, the public, the people who are being watched, have grasped the message either.’

  ‘Sheep,’ Izzy said, looking up at Orlando and smiling.

  ‘Exactly!’ Orlando reacted as if Izzy had discovered an ancient and long-hidden mystery of the universe. ‘Exactly – sheep, doing what they’re told, following their leader, who is a Judas goat, and believing the fairy tales! In the face of all the evidence that more and more cameras don’t mean less crime, they actually want even more of them… it’s quite staggering.’

  ‘They’ve lost the will to protest, Lando.’ Sky shifted in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs. ‘Where are all the students on the streets, man? Jeez, back in the day…’ Sky lit his cigarette again and took a drag, shaking his head as he exhaled, ‘youth wouldn’t have let The Man get away with this kinda shit. No way.’

  Orlando made an exaggerated shrug.

  ‘God, you two sound like a couple of grumpy old men!’ Terri sat forward. ‘I reckon they’ve gone out of their way to make politics as boring and crap as possible so ‘youth’ would get totally apathetic and give up on it. They don’t want us to vote… if less than fifty per cent of the eligible population vote, less than half the population gets to decide what happens, right?’

  ‘But we found them out, didn’t we? We know they’re a bunch of hypocritical crooks.’ Izzy smiled up at Orlando. ‘Right, Orlando?’

  ‘True, Izzy,’ Orlando smiled down at his adoring disciple, ‘but Terri’s right, too… if fewer people turn out to vote each year, the politicians have fewer people to convince and we get less democracy. The fewer people who care enough to get out and use their vote, the better they like it… they want the young to get out of the habit of voting, to believe it’s not worth it.’

  ‘Yeah, but me dad says that if voting changed anything, they’d ban it.’ Tommy, playing with his cross, hanging from the new chain Rob had bought him the day before, sat watching Orlando and waiting to see what his reaction would be.

  ‘Well, maybe, Tommy…’ Orlando laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, the sound loud in the silence. ‘But maybe what they’re trying to do, in a stealth kind of way, is get the people to ban voting for them by just not doing it?’

  Paul waited to see what would happen, wondering when Orlando would get to the bloody point. Tell them what the changes he’d talked about
were going to be. His eyes wandered from one person to the next – Sky, looking at Terri; Izzy at Orlando, where else; Tommy…

  ‘So, are we moving, or what, man?’ Everyone turned to look at Rob, slouched in between Terri and Paul, chewing gum, and he smiled his best innocent smile. ‘What? What I say?’

  ‘Yes, Rob,’ Orlando sighed, in that way teachers do when faced with a carefully judged, not quite disobedient lack of cooperation. ‘Since you ask, we are going to be moving on from here, very soon. And we are also going to be ramping up the campaign as well, doing more of what we did at the weekend… creating the situation where people have to talk about what we’re doing and what we’re saying. And to that end, while Tommy, Izzy and I find our new base, the other two teams will be on the road, working together. I’m thinking the south-west – Bristol and Cardiff, maybe – as the target areas. OK?’

  The back garden of the squat was a tip. It was a wasteland of dying, yellowed vegetation, dead, rusting appliances and weed-covered piles of rubble and broken glass; it reminded Paul of some east European war zone and looked like the kind of place mangy, flea-ridden cats and other even less attractive vermin would probably be calling home. He and Rob and Tommy were sitting outside on a selection of busted-up furniture, sharing cans of lager and snacking on crisps.

  ‘You got the soft option, Tommo…’ Rob took a long pull from his beer.

  ‘You think?’ Rob nodded at him, grinning. ‘Well, me, I’d rather be out with you lot, doing stuff, than be a sodding gooseberry round here. Which is how it’s gonna happen, right?’

  Paul frowned and looked across Rob at Tommy. ‘Orlando and Izzy are an item?’

  Rob and Tommy stared at him for a moment and then launched into a fit of laughter that burst out like a shaken can of Coke. Tommy was the first to recover enough to talk.

  ‘You blind, man?’ He wiped tears out of his eyes with the heel of his palm as he checked behind him to see if anyone had come out of the house to see what all the noise was about, then lowered his voice. ‘She’s practically got her head up his arse, she’s following him round so close.’

  ‘Terri says she’s just about moved into his room…’ Rob shook his head and giggled as he looked at Paul. ‘“Orlando and Izzy are an item?” Where have you been, man?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Rob.’ Tommy glanced over his shoulder again.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘If either of them thinks we’re out here taking the piss, I’ll get it right in the neck and it’s going to be bad enough as it is when you lot go.’

  Paul picked up one of the open bags of crisps. ‘I just thought she was, like, sucking up?’

  Rob, who’d just taken another mouthful from his can, choked and snorted beer out of his nose.

  ‘Give over – I didn’t mean…’

  ‘We know what you didn’t mean, Pauly!’ Rob stood up, wiping his nose on his sweatshirt sleeve.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah…’ Paul sat back, scratching his head, the rickety old kitchen chair creaking ominously. ‘What time are we supposed to be leaving?’

  Rob finished off his can and heaved it over his shoulder into some weeds, where it joined an assortment of decaying rubbish.

  ‘Tonight, after I’ve got us another van, big enough for the four of us. Wanna come with me, Pauly? See how it’s done, learn a few tricks?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Why not? Be good to have someone else can do it in this mob, and not just me.’

  ‘You gonna clear it with Orlando?’ Tommy finished his can, squashed it down and lobbed it down into the back end of the garden.

  ‘Sod off, this is my territory, man. And I fancy getting Pauly here up to speed, cos Terri’s not interested in learning the game.’

  ‘Your lookout.’ Tommy stood up and stretched. ‘Who’s cooking tonight?’

  Paul tipped his head back and finished his beer. ‘No one.’ He thought about taking the can back into the house and not heaving it off to join its fellow empties in the urban jungle, but didn’t. ‘Sky said we were having an Indian, less hassle.’

  ‘Great, a Last Supper,’ said Tommy. ‘With poppadoms.’

  Rob had given Paul the backpack with his tools in to carry. Nothing really incriminating, if they were stopped, he’d said, just a selection of screwdrivers, a couple of hammers, a small Maglite torch and a fully charged cordless Dremel multitool with some of its accessories. It was what was tucked away in a special hidden pocket of Rob’s jeans that would cause trouble if it was found – what he called his jemmy, the flexible sliver of stainless steel he used, instead of a key, to get into just about any vehicle he wanted to.

  They were going to eat in about an hour or so, about ten o’clock. In fact it was Rob and Paul’s job to get the food. Like Rob had said as they’d walked out of the squat, a takeaway Indian brought home in a takeaway van.

  Walking along the streets, following Rob’s lead as he was the professional here and knew exactly what he was looking for, Paul found himself wondering what Dave was up to, back in Gosforth, this Wednesday night. He might be out with a mate, but it was a fair bet that he wouldn’t be out with a mate stealing a van.

  ‘You’re quiet, Pauly. What’s up, man?’

  ‘Nothing… just thinking about my friend, back home. Wondering what he’s doing.’

  ‘Getting homesick?’

  ‘Homesick?’ Paul shook his head. ‘No… but you miss your mates, don’t you.’

  ‘You can always find new mates, man. World’s full of people you haven’t met yet, right?’

  ‘Yeah, right…’

  As they crossed a side road Paul thought about what it must be like to be like Rob, who’d cut all connections with his past and was totally free of duty or commitment. Adrift is how he’d feel, he was sure, but Rob had a kind of total ‘no regrets’ attitude that meant he didn’t ever seem to worry about what was going to happen to him. There was no future for Rob, just now.

  Glancing to his right Paul stopped; an N-registration van, the kind of vintage Rob preferred because they were old enough to have little or no security.

  ‘Rob? What about that one, the grey Transit?’

  Rob came back and looked. ‘Well spotted, man. Let’s do a walk past, check the baby out and see if it’s worth our time.’

  Like a couple of pals on their way somewhere, they strolled down the side street, Rob stopping right by the van to bend down and tie his shoe lace, all the while checking it out. Paul moved nearer the door as he waited and cast an eye over the interior of what looked like a typical working van: dirty, threadbare upholstery, sweet wrappers, junk-food containers and an overflowing ashtray.

  ‘Bit rusty, no oil on the road that I can see, and both tyres on this side are OK,’ he said as he got up and started walking again, ‘which means, chances are, the others are probably all right as well. I think we should have it away with this one.’

  Paul, trying to look like he wasn’t, checked the street out. ‘Owner likely lives here, right?’ He checked his watch in the street light: just after 9.20 p.m. Middle of the week, not a night for going out, no one else about, that he could see. Shouldn’t be any problems. He glanced back over his shoulder at the Transit and felt a nervous flip in his stomach. ‘How we, um… how we gonna do this?’

  ‘You’re gonna follow me and do what I tell you to do, that’s how. Simple.’

  They carried on walking, Rob making like he was looking at door numbers, and then, as he nudged Paul to cross over the road, Rob started patting his pockets. Muttering to himself about dropping something, he turned and trotted back the way they’d come. Paul, like a dog, followed him.

  ‘Unzip the bag and get ready to give it to me, Pauly.’

  Paul swung the backpack off his shoulder as he ran and did as he’d been asked; then he saw a light flash off something in Rob’s right hand as they reached the van. Two seconds later, no more, the Transit’s door was open.

  ‘The bag.’ Rob grabbed it from Paul’s hands and dived into
the van. ‘And get behind the wheel.’

  Heart pumping, Paul jumped up into the driver’s seat, aware that Rob was down on the floor, the Maglite switched on and in his mouth. He was working on the underside of the steering column.

  ‘Keep a watch on the street, Pauly,’ said Rob, voice muffled by the torch in his mouth. ‘And be ready to drive as soon as the engine fires, OK?’

  Paul nodded, gripping the wheel as he scanned the street. Below him he heard Rob grunting, then a metallic snip and Rob saying something about he’d got it. Paul checked both wing mirrors and in the one on the driver’s side he saw a man come out of a house up the street and look back down towards the van. The silence inside the Transit was broken as its starter motor whined into life. Almost.

  ‘Give it some welly, man – don’t just sit there, Pauly!’

  Paul pressed the accelerator, but nothing happened. And then the starter motor died, making a death rattle, a not-going-nowhere clicking noise. In the wing mirror Paul could see the man was walking their way.

  ‘Rob, time to bail… I think we’ve been spotted.’

  Rob shot up from the floor. ‘Poxy heap of shit’s got a flat battery!’ He leapt across the cab and flung open the door. ‘Mile a minute time, Pauly!’

  Paul exited the van and shot off down the street after Rob, who’d gone like a greyhound out of its trap. Behind him he could hear the man yelling for them to stop. Fat chance, he thought, as the adrenalin kicked in and he picked up his pace, glad he hadn’t eaten a massive curry before going out to get a new set of wheels. As he raced after Rob he realised it felt just like the time, years ago, he and Dave had had to pelt away after they’d lit the paper bag full of dog poo outside some cranky old git’s house. Ah, the good old days…

  21

  Thursday 17th August, M4 westbound

  Terri had been driving for the last hour or so, Rob sitting up front with her. Paul and Sky were in the back of the Renault he and Rob had found and lifted only about twenty minutes after the nonsense with the Transit. They’d stuck in a couple of old mattresses and some cushions and, all things considered, it wasn’t such a bad way to travel. Like a band, with no instruments.