Red Crystal (21 page)

Then she called the processing laboratory and told them she’d need some rolls printed up very quickly the same day.

That covered the picture side of the operation. Except for the quality of the photographs themselves. That was up to her. She’d taken several test rolls of people walking in Hyde Park, to get familiar with the Olympus equipment. The results had been reasonably good.

There was nothing else left to do so far as the demonstration was concerned. She turned her mind to the longer term.

She needed supplies.

Taking the slip of paper from her handbag lining, she checked the dialling code for Paris and then called the third number on her list. The connection took some moments but eventually it rang. Gabriele was aware of being nervous and gripped the receiver more tightly.

A woman answered. Gabriele asked for Acheme. There was a pause and a male voice asked for her name. When she had given it, he told her, ‘Your consignment will be ready for Wednesday, the 29th. When you get to Paris telephone between ten and noon. You will be told where to go. You will need to bring the money.’ He added, ‘The consignment will be bulky. You understand?’

‘All right for a car, though?’

‘All right for a car.’

Gabriele put down the receiver and immediately considered the problems. Only twelve days away and a bare four days after the demonstration. She would have to get organized. She would have to find a suitable vehicle, something in which the consignment could be safely hidden. None the less, passing through Customs would be very risky. Perhaps they should use a circuitous route?

No, there had to be a better way, one which involved less risk. Or best of all, one which involved no risk at all.

R
YDER WONDERED IF
he was in the right place. The groups of marchers had got fairly muddled, but as far as he could see the bunch around him was Vietnam United Front. They were young, most of them, and noisy, their chants echoing loudly across Great Russell Street towards the dark dignified mass of the British Museum. Nick kept step with them, mouthing the chants, merging into the group.

Futher back were the Marxists, the International Socialists and various other factions; ahead the organizers – the Third World people – with whom he’d mingled at Speakers’ Corner. A few known agitators in each group. But no indication as to which lot – if any – were planning trouble.

Ahead was Montague Street which led directly into Russell Square. Somewhere in a building on the corner was Conway with an array of cameras hidden behind a curtained window. There would be other Branch members in the square itself, some behind the uniformed police lines, others on rooftops.

As the procession turned into Montague Street Nick decided to move up towards the leaders who were in clear view about twenty yards ahead. He made up ground gradually, picking up the chant of the forward group, swinging his legs and pumping his arms to the rhythm of ‘Fascists
out
, fascists
out
’.

Trees became visible over the sea of heads – the square. And ahead, a line of helmets – the mass of uniformed men blocking the marchers from the western perimeter.

He followed the leaders into the square, and made the swing right, past the cordon and along the south side. The crowd was bunching up now as the leaders slowed down and the back-markers, anxious to get into the square, pushed forward. Movement slowed to a shuffle. The chants became louder, the waving of the banners more agitated as the leaders shouted their message in the general direction of the National Front somewhere on the far side of the square and, more particularly, Nick guessed, to the inevitable band of mediamen, hungry for some colourful pictures.

He took a quick look round. No pushing or shoving nearby.

Craning his neck, he gazed back over the mass of heads towards the entrance to the square. The middle of the column seemed to have come to a halt and a thick concentration of demonstrators was pressing up against the police line.

A nasty feeling crept into Nick’s stomach; he suddenly had the suspicion that he was in the wrong place.

He took a last look at the head of the column, and then, turning against the tide, tried to make his way back. It was hard work. The crowd was closing in tighter. Why the hell weren’t the uniformed boys keeping the front of the column moving? People panicked when they got claustrophobic.

Almost on cue a banner jerked into the air ahead, somewhere near the police line, then jerked rapidly down again, as if being dragged to the ground. Anxiously Nick stood on tiptoe and peered over the throng.

A person turned. A quarter-profile. Tantalizingly familiar. Long straggly hair …

Wheatfield
.

Where on earth had
he
sprung from?

And beside him – dark hair, beard. Wheatfield’s foreign friend. The one who was camera-shy.

And then another, with bright red hair. Reardon.

Suddenly Nick was certain of where the trouble was going to be and with a hard shove, forced his shoulder into the crush of bodies and began to fight his way through.

The police line was thick, about five men deep. Gabriele hadn’t bargained on that. From her vantage point on the car bonnet she could hardly see over them.

Clutching her cameras, she scrabbled up on to the car roof, and hastily reset the tripod.

That was better. She could now see the demonstrators well bunched up against the rows of uniforms. Almost immediately she spotted Giorgio, his dark head clearly distinguishable in the crowd. Max would be close by. They were right in position.

She braced her legs well apart and, focusing the camera, took a couple of shots.

Just in time. A roar came up from the crowd, there was a surge, and the middle of the police line began to sag.

Any moment now …

A voice yelled from close by, ‘
You! Down!
’

She ignored it. A hand grabbed her by the ankle. She looked down angrily. A senior policeman in a peaked cap was motioning her off the car. ‘Come on! We’re moving everyone back!’

She shrugged as if she didn’t understand, and pointed to the press pass strung around her neck.

‘I don’t care,’ he yelled. ‘
Everyone
back!’

Gabriele looked desperately towards the crowd. It would be any moment now! She stalled again, shrugging her shoulders.

Another roar went up and the crowd surged. The police line showed signs of breaking completely.

The senior officer hesitated, then, abandoning his attempt to move Gabriele, ran towards the straining line.

The roar died down, the line held and for an awful moment Gabriele thought the momentum of the demonstrators had been lost.

Then from behind her came a clattering sound and a drumming of heavy boots on the roads. She spun round and saw a stream of reinforcements running from a side street. They ran towards the bulging line and, at a shouted order, the line opened up to let them through.

Immediately a bitter throaty howl of anger went up from the demonstrators. Gabriele saw Max jostling for position, Giorgio beside him.

It was going to happen. Tense with excitement, Gabriele settled back behind the camera and, carefully framing the picture, placed her finger on the shutter.

Victoria yelped as someone stood on her foot. She turned, intending to smile and show she didn’t take it personally, but an elbow came out of nowhere and hit her on the side of the head.

‘Oh, please mind out.
Please
.’

She began to feel uneasy. Everything was changing. The unified, friendly, chanting faces had gone. The voices were ugly now, the shouts and cries jarring in her ears. Tall bodies were pushing in on her, jostling roughly.

It wouldn’t last, she felt sure. Everyone was bound to sort themselves out in a minute.

Suddenly voices rose angrily and the crowd surged. The movement pushed Victoria sideways. She cried, ‘I say!’

But the mass moved on, crushing in on her, carrying her relentlessly forward. Victoria was appalled at her own helplessness. She stifled the urge to panic.

A leaden weight came down on her foot. Stumbling, she fought to regain her balance, but couldn’t disentangle her foot from the weight. With terrible certainty she suddenly realized what was happening, and panic shot through her like a wedge of ice. Everything moved into slow motion. She was being dragged down, slowly, inexorably. The bodies were closing in over her and the patch of light that had been the sky slowly receded …

She shrieked and grabbed at whatever she could find – hands, clothes, legs …

A kick, a foot in her back, a sharp pain. Her head hit the ground and she flung up her arms to protect it. But the feet kept coming – hard, brutal, kicking, stumbling, crushing.

They’d realize in a minute, then they’d stop.
Surely
…

But they didn’t stop and through her pain, all Victoria could feel was an immense and profound surprise.

Nick ducked as an arm swung wildly over his head. He came up, trying to get his bearings. He knew Wheatfield and company must be very close, but they were maddeningly invisible due to a large belligerent bull of a man who was bellowing and roaring in front of him.

All of a sudden the crowd heaved to one side, throwing some people to their knees, and a gap opened up. Nick forced his way through.

He was close to the police line now. Dimly he took in the fact that the line had been reinforced by the Special Patrol Group. And then, right in front of him, almost at the front of the crowd, he spotted Wheatfield. Next to him was red-haired Reardon carrying a banner pole and yelling a chant that sounded like ‘Go! go! go!’ Even as Nick struggled to reach them, he saw Reardon lower the pole and thrust it forward, stabbing viciously into the mass of police.

Immediately all hell broke loose and the crowd became a fighting screaming mass.

Wheatfield was close. Nick went for his arms but withdrew with a yelp of pain as the full force of a truncheon landed on his elbow. Fleetingly he thought: Christ, that’s all I need. He regained his balance and in the maelstrom reached for Wheatfield again, a Wheatfield who was jabbing and kicking furiously at a sack on the ground, except it wasn’t a sack, it was a policeman. Nick thought: You bastard. He almost had him, but one of the SPG was already there, yanking Wheatfield out of the crowd, raining blows on his head.

Nick elbowed through to the front and, fending off the shoves and pushes of the crowd, saw the SPG man deliver a couple more blows to a strangely apathetic Wheatfield, inert on the ground. Nick wished the stupid idiot of an SPG man would stop. This sort of thing looked bloody bad.

At last the SPG man reached for Wheatfield’s arm and, bending it up his back, pulled him to his feet, ready to haul him off into custody. Nick thought: One safely out of the way at least.

Even as he was thinking it, five or six people pushed out of the crowd and closed around the two men. The next moment they retreated and Nick felt a small tremor of shock. The SPG man was on his knees looking dazed.

And Wheatfield had disappeared.

It had all happened so
quickly
.

Nick thought:
Oh no you don’t
! and cast quickly around.

Got you
! There was Wheatfield. Back in the crowd, just away to the left. Black Beard and red-haired Reardon on either side of him.

Nick went for him again, but fell foul of two sprawled bodies on the ground. He got clear, then let out a sudden yelp of surprise as someone grabbed his arm and tried to wrench it out of its socket. He yanked his head round and glimpsed a black uniform.

Nick yelled, ‘No you great …’ but no one was listening and the truncheon was whistling down through the air and Nick reacted in the only way he knew. He dodged the blow and, with only passing regret, flung a hand up and simultaneously twisted and shoved at the face under the helmet. The SPG man staggered back, clasping a bloody nose, and Nick dived away.

Damn it, where are you, Wheatfield?

He craned his neck.

Black Beard. Reardon. Very close but in the thick of the crowd.

They were leaning over something.

Nick ducked down to see. It was Wheatfield lying on the ground.

Injured? Not
that
badly. Then
why
?

Nick gasped. Something black thudded into Wheatfield’s head and snapped it viciously to one side.

What the hell?

A kick?

But who from?

The foot appeared again, coming in with a vengeance, landing full in Wheatfield’s face.

The foot belonged to Black Beard.

Fighting among
themselves
? No.
No
.

This was something else, something that stank to high heaven.

Curious, Nick held back and watched.

Black Beard and Reardon were lifting a slumped Wheatfield to his feet and, supporting him by the arms, beginning to elbow their way through the crowd. They were heading towards the remains of the police line.

A flicker of a suspicion lodged itself in Nick’s mind.

And then, suddenly, he knew.

He exclaimed, ‘
Shit
!’ and rushed forward.