Cold Courage (21 page)

But Fried was unique in one respect. According to Sarah, he didn’t even agree with many of the key Fair Rule policy positions. Fried had joined the party because he had seen its appeal to a type of voter he could control.

‘He despises most of them. He would come home from party meetings and yell: “I fucked them all!”’

This meant that Fried had got one of the statements he wanted onto the party agenda.

‘Do you know what his ultimate goal is?’ Sarah asked.

Lia shook her head.

In the beginning it had felt like pie in the sky, Sarah said.

‘But not any more, not now that his numbers are up.’

Fried’s goal was not simply to get Fair Rule into Parliament. He saw himself leading something much larger.

‘He speaks out against the EU, but he intends to be in the EU Parliament before long himself.’

Fried’s objective was to unite all the fragmented far-right parties in Europe. To create a coalition that would make them even stronger and larger.

Lia shivered. She thought of the fanatic zeal she had seen in the Streatham Ice Arena.

Sarah glanced at her watch. It was already half past one.

‘I have to make lunch for the boy. Food is one of the only things that will get him to take a break from his games. But you can stay if you want to hear more.’

Sarah Hawkins loaded chicken nuggets onto a baking tray and boiled them a fresh kettle. She seemed lost in thought. The stillness of afternoon fell over the kitchen.

Lia thought about Sarah’s life and her own.

When Sarah placed the teapot on the table and sat down, Lia made a decision. She felt obliged, in return for all that Sarah had just told her. The time for her to face her own fears had come.

‘I don’t know anything about domestic violence,’ Lia began. ‘But I know what it feels like when someone you think you love becomes someone you hate.’

Sarah listened in silence. This was the first time Lia had ever spoken about her experience to anyone in England. No one knew but her parents: not her old friends in Finland, not anyone at
Level
, not even Mari – although Lia was unsure whether she could actually keep anything secret from her.

His name was Matti. Lia had been twenty-one and Matti a few years older. Perhaps it was his fascinating restlessness that had
interested
her first.

‘He had such a different energy than everyone else.’

Matti’s deep infatuation with her flattered Lia. He worshipped her. He gave her gifts and sent her letters – long, impassioned missives. He promised to build them the old Finnish dream, to fell the logs for their home with his own two hands, to fill the shed with a winter’s worth of wood and build them a bed.

Before long his manic ardour became exhausting.

When Lia began showing signs of reluctance, Matti enlisted every tool he could invent. He sent her more gifts. Whatever she wanted, he wanted. But when he started writing letters to her friends and fellow students, Lia balked.

‘He went to extremes you wouldn’t believe. He was a stalker.’

When she came out of her block of flats in the morning, that tall, slim figure was always there on the street corner. He tried to call her hundreds of times a day. When she didn’t answer, he called the people he saw her with.

Matti only drew the line at calling Lia’s parents, who were
surprised
to see the relationship falling apart. He seemed like a lovely boy. He was good with his hands and wanted to start a family.

One night a small cot appeared in Lia’s bedroom. With a baby doll lying in it.

‘That was the main reason I left Finland. I haven’t talked to anyone about this in years.’

‘I can tell,’ Sarah said quietly.

Sarah’s eyes told that she understood. Something of what they had experienced was the same.

‘He never hit me,’ Lia said. ‘He wanted to though. Sometimes I wonder if someday he’ll come here from Finland and do what he wants to me. Finish the job.’

Sarah took her by the hand. A quick squeeze, strong and
reassuring
.

Would Sarah be willing to speak publicly about everything she had told her about Fried? Lia asked.

‘Yes. If we do it the way I want and I get to see the story in advance,’ Sarah said.

She didn’t want anything that made her look like the bitter old ex-wife of a famous politician. She only wanted to tell her story. And she wanted facts about domestic violence victims to accompany it.

‘Sometimes they list the statistics in the newspapers and on the telly, but not very often,’ Sarah said.

And besides, it was only a couple of weeks until Christmas. Families did more hitting at Christmas than those who hadn’t
experienced
it would believe. Whenever a newspaper or TV programme dealt with domestic violence, the women’s shelters saw a spike in calls.

Thanking Sarah, Lia said she would get back to her within a day or two. She stood up to leave.

‘You forgot this,’ Sarah said, pointing at the vodka bottle.

‘Oh my God!’ Mari said.

Lia had asked Mari to meet her immediately at the Anthologist Bar. When Mari heard Sarah Hawkins’ story, all she could do for a while was repeat two phrases. Oh my God. That poor woman.

A determined look came over her face.

‘Fried will never recover from this.’

The three weapons they now had would send the sainted Arthur Fried to the bottom of the ocean. Corporate tax evasion, material support for racists and years of domestic abuse.

‘Do you understand why stopping Arthur Fried has been so important for me?’ Mari asked.

‘Yes. Now I do.’

Fried’s goal of becoming a force to be reckoned with in Europe was perfectly plausible, Mari said. He really could create a coalition
of right-wing extremists from different countries that all supported xenophobia, the limiting of women’s rights and a return of the European police state. A conservative coalition already operated in the Euro-Parliament, but fractures weakened it: the groups belonging to it were too different, and speculation was rife about the eventual withdrawal of the extreme right wing into their own caucus.

Did Sarah seem balanced? Mari asked.

‘She looks tired. And you can see how limited her life has been,’ Lia said. ‘But when she talks about Fried she seems sincere.’

‘Good. Instead of a print story, we’ll do a video. And then spread it all over. When people see a woman talking directly about being beaten, they’ll have to listen. This will stop everyone in their tracks.’

Mari created the plan right then and there. They would record Sarah Hawkins’ full account of Fried’s violence and then compress it down into a clip that was only a few minutes long.

Preserving the anonymity of the person making the video was important. Rico would take care of that.

For distribution they would give the final recording to an
organisation
with a good reputation so Fried would have fewer grounds to question its veracity.

Lia saw the tension release on Mari’s face.

‘We did it,’ Mari said. ‘We stopped Arthur Fried.’

She called the waiter.

‘This calls for champagne.’

The following morning, Lia called Sarah Hawkins from work.

‘Yes, a video is fine with me,’ Sarah said.

She had thought it over during the evening. When the story came out, she wanted to have a professional agent to help her, to answer all the media inquiries, as well as a lawyer just in case.

‘For a few days Arthur will be all the news can talk about. And I’ll be fair game for the tabloids. They’ll dig into all my business. They’ll go over every single visit I’ve ever made to a health centre looking for evidence that I’m disturbed and trying to prove whether this really happened. And Arthur will deny it all. But I have the nights I spent in shelters and the medical records of my injuries as evidence.’

Lia promised a media advisor, a lawyer and even a make-up artist so Sarah could look her best. Mari had thought of this the previous night as well.

‘And can we put a women’s help hotline at the end of the video?’ Sarah asked.

‘Absolutely,’ Lia replied. ‘You have my word on that.’

The large television screen on the wall of Mari’s office flashed once.

‘This is how it’s going to play out,’ Mari said.

Lia and all the other Studio regulars looked at the diagram that appeared on the screen. Organised within it was a list of dates and times outlining when they would release the revelations they had collected about Arthur Fried and what each person’s duties would be.

Like fighting a war. Nothing left to chance.

For Lia this was the first time being with the whole group
together
. She looked around as each person examined his or her list of responsibilities.

Maggie in her relaxed flowery dress, the carefully groomed dame of the theatre. Rico in his sagging jeans and T-shirt. Berg cheerful in his familiar loose overalls. Paddy had deemed the day worthy of a sports jacket in addition to jeans and a sweater.

And Mari, stylish and self-assured in her pencil skirt, like the boss of a large corporation ready to lead her troops in a hostile takeover.

They were all different but formed a cohesive team. Lia did not feel she was at their level. Not in her abilities or in her attitude.

This team meant to bring down Arthur Fried and the entire party he ruled.

They could destroy an international mega-corporation if they wanted to. I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to find one in the archives.

The first date was five days hence, 11th December. That would unveil revelation number one. By that time, Lia was to have found a reporter to leak information about Fried’s tax shenanigans. She would only give the information verbally, but with enough detail that the reporter could confirm her claims. The reporter would receive the information on condition that it be publicised in the manner they requested.

One week later would come revelation number two. That was the day when a private investigator Mari had hired would turn over to the police the information about Fair Rule’s support for racist
paramilitaries
.

Mari said she was using a PI who had a good relationship with the police. He would also get word quickly about what the authorities intended to do.

‘If the police don’t begin an investigation immediately, we’ll give the package to a reporter.’

To cover that eventuality, Mari would find an appropriate
journalist
at a different media company to the newspaper reporter Lia would leak the tax evasion story to. They had to use different outlets to avoid the impression that this was all just one organisation with a vendetta against Fried.

Revelation number three would go to the press just before
Christmas
. Rico and Berg would have the video of Sarah Hawkins’ story prepared well in advance.

They had to film it with a camera that no one could trace in a place no one could recognise. They had to take Sarah Hawkins to the shooting location in a way that would prevent her from knowing exactly where she had been. They had to mask any ambient sounds so police experts could not track them down.

‘We can do it,’ Rico promised.

He had already practised by removing background noise
frequencies
from old Britney Spears videos.

‘Britney sounds funnier and funnier the more sounds you remove,’ Rico said.

Lia laughed, and Rico winked at her.

Before the release of the video they would move Sarah Hawkins to a hotel for the duration of the saga. When Arthur Fried realised that someone was leaking damaging information about him, he would start trying to block any possible new sources. They could not let Fried get at Sarah to change her mind.

‘And when the video comes out, Sarah had better not be home. The media will surround the house,’ Mari said.

The video they would give to an organisation named The Wall that campaigned against violence against women and whose name was well known all around the country. The organisation had been founded in the 1990s after the rape of a young woman in
Birmingham
. The rape occurred in broad daylight in the centre of the city when three men dragged the woman into the ruins of a demolition
site where only one wall remained of the former structure. Passers-by heard the woman’s screams behind the wall, but no one went to help. The girl’s mother had founded the organisation, with the motto ‘Break the Wall’, and now their work consisted of exposing rapists and domestic abusers. They also waged pitched battles in the media if the courts found perpetrators guilty but let them slip away without punishment.

The women of The Wall would be happy to publish the video.

‘What if Arthur Fried makes a comeback even after all this? What if he shows up again in a few years?’ Lia asked.

‘That’s always a possibility,’ Mari said. ‘Then we’ll just have to see.’

When a public figure’s reputation begins to crumble, other
skeletons
tend to fall out of the closet as well, Mari pointed out. People got up the courage to talk. Who knew what ugly secrets Arthur Fried still had buried?

After the meeting ended, Lia remained in Mari’s office.

She was nervous about the operation against Fried. What might happen when the revelations started flowing? And she still thought about the case of the murdered Latvian woman every day.

‘We’ll have to get back to that later,’ Mari said. ‘You remember when I said we can’t handle two big jobs at once, right? Now we need all our time for Arthur Fried.’

Lia understood. But something else was bothering her too.

‘I don’t know what to think about you and me.’

A while ago they had been friends, plain and simple. Now they were something else. Lia was not sure what. Conspirators of some sort.

‘I miss when we had time to go out at night and have fun.’

‘Do you want to go out tonight?’ Mari asked.

‘Yes!’

‘There’s a place I’ve been meaning to show you. Let’s meet at eight,’ Mari said and wrote an address on a slip of paper.

Lia smiled.

Again, something new, like in the beginning after they had just met.

At eight that evening, Mari was waiting for Lia in Fitzroy Square.

The place was a minor disappointment for Lia. There were
beautiful
Georgian buildings and a garden fenced off for residents only, but no particular ambience or other reason for stopping.

‘I’m taking you to one of the most important places in the world for me,’ Mari said.

Lia laughed at Mari’s seriousness, until she realised that Mari meant it.

Mari led them onto a side street and from there into a large, white building, the Fitzroy Art Museum.

At the ticket desk, Mari flashed a card that gave her free
admission
, and the worker obviously knew her. Lia made a move to buy a ticket, but the woman waved her hand.

‘Go on in. We’re only open for an hour yet.’

They walked up the stairs to the first floor. Mari nodded briefly to the guard they passed.

Between the fourth and fifth galleries was a lobby with one piece of art and a bench placed in it.

They sat and looked at the installation, which was made up of two three-metre high fans. They were placed facing each other, several metres apart, blowing a strong current of air towards each other.

Between the fans, supported by the air current, were two thin black circles of ribbon. After inspecting it for a moment, Lia realised that the ribbon was some sort of film.

The large black circles of film whirled in the air against each other, occasionally parting. There was something magical about them. They never fell. Although they frequently rippled wildly as they morphed, they never slipped loose from the grip of the air currents buffeting them from either side, locking them in an eternal aerial gyration.

Lia lost herself watching it.

‘It’s wonderful,’ she finally said.

‘Isn’t it?’

The name of the work was
Double
O
. The circles of film formed two large noughts, or perhaps two letter Os. The artist was a Lithuanian named Zilvinas Kempinas.

Quite a coincidence, Lia pointed out.

‘The Baltic is well represented in London,’ Mari said. ‘Just as is every other country and corner of the world. If you know where to look, you can find things from everywhere.’

‘Do you come to look at this often?’

‘Whenever the urge takes me. For some reason it gives me a very comforting feeling.’

Lia had loved visual art since she was a child and had studied it as part of her graphic design training. These sorts of contemporary art installations had always represented two specific states of mind for her: they were clear and analytical yet at once open to intense emotions.

This is how Mari is. Impenetrable when you look at her from the surface, intelligent and implacably purposeful. But inside she’s all churning waves of grand emotion and ideals.

The museum was open on weekdays until nine o’clock, and Mari usually came late in the evening when few other visitors remained. She sat there when something troubling was going on in her life and she had to think clearly, or when she was feeling down.

‘It’s like it contains the rest of the world for me. It’s over there, and I’m over here. I don’t have to control it. It moves along its own trajectories. It can’t be controlled.’

Lia thought she understood.

Mari moulded the world to be how she wanted, one piece at a time. That must be hard. If it was possible to change things, what of all the possible things did you choose to change?

‘You can’t and shouldn’t intervene in everything,’ Lia said. ‘The world will keep turning on its own.’

‘Yes,’ Mari said. ‘That’s how I see it too.’

Watching the circles of film whirling in the air, they forgot the passing time.

Finally Mari stood up.

‘Now I want to go to a pub. Is the Queen’s Head & Artichoke OK?’

‘Sure, thanks,’ Lia said.