"Well there was a bit of a set-to, public disorder on Saturday out in the 'Shires', small town of Holtingham. Some local lads calling themselves the English Front Line marching on the Muslim hordes, came to blows with the UA-F."
"I did see something on that occurrence. Hardly a Clash of the Titans Minister, a threat to the fabric of our society." The PPS sniffed dismissively. "Yobs is yobs, that's what they do best."
"That's as maybe." Roger Palmer twirled a pen on his blotter, studied it until it ceased movement, as if the direction at which it settled would point to mystical guidance. "But the matter has become official concern to a degree. One of our shiny new Police and Crime Commissioners, Mr. Yasir Davi, has made an official request that this 'EFL', be proscribed as an illicit organisation and a banning order be put in place.
"In fact if you take his testimony as gospel, the whole town has become a hotbed of National Socialism and strutting brown shirts."
"So, feeling his feet, flexing those wannabe muscles, got the foreman's job at last, yes?"
"Not exactly. Our Mr. Davi was the sitting MP for that constituency, a Junior Minister in the Education Department. Had to resign his seat to take up his new role. Prior to all that he was a defence lawyer, renowned for sticking it to the establishment, in particular the police force, over minority rights; due and denied. A regular thorn in the side of the DPP and Chief Constable. Now with his new powers he has virtually become their keeper, got them dancing to his personal hornpipe. That's democracy in action for you."
"Ah, now I'm beginning to get your drift. Think I remember Mr. Davi. Would he be … ?"
"Yes he would be. An ardent promoter of Muslim interests and advancement in the UK. A leading light in the Council Of Muslim Britain."
"And the EFL?"
Protesters against alleged Islamic militants. Vigilantes if you prefer, creating some mayhem over their Jihadist activity; guilt unproven but probable."
"The UA-F? Now if memory serves me well are the self styled Union of Anti-Fascists, usual breed of unwashed, pop-up revolutionaries. A bit of a brawl turning delicate then?"
"Is that what it is Graham, delicate?"
"Oh I should say so. The Prime Minister for one is very keen on minority sensitivities."
"The sensitive minority being Muslims?"
"Rather! Islam is the new growth industry in vote cultivation amongst your most honourable colleagues, as well as the opposition parties. Haven't you noticed?"
"Usual abeyance to political correctness I thought. Just media munch as far as I am concerned."
Graham Turner tentatively stroked the side of his long nose with a long fore-finger. "I think that you underestimate the situation Minister."
"I do, do I?" The Home Secretary's response part cynical, part curious.
"It would seem so sir. Consider this: currently Muslims from the various nationalities and sects, amount to nearly five percent of the British population. That is approximately three million souls."
"Multi-culturism at work then."
"Granted, but what is more important in the priority stakes of your political siblings and particularly your predecessors in this noble office, is the size of the voting block that they represent."
"Why the assumption that their voting intentions would coagulate into a block vote? That's a bit of an assumption isn't it? These people are British citizens from all walks of life, as individual as say, Christians in their views on their identity and preferences."
Turners eyebrows arched ever so slightly, the smallest indication of personal concern. "I am rather surprised sir that you have not previously been better briefed on this matter which the situation demands, given the raft of responsibilities that you bear."
"Yes? Well Graham, I rather supposed that that was your responsibility, which is why I have requested your attendance. So, please educate your Minister."
"Certainly, but all I can give you are statistical facts. The political take on them is not in my brief sir."
Palmer was growing impatient with the Civil Service verbal courtship . "Get on with it Graham." He all but snarled.
"Well, the worrying trend supported by informed statistics, is that our brother Muslim Britons are procreating at a rate tenfold of any other ethnic grouping in Britain. That includes us, the indigenous population."
"Good Lord!"
"Sadly the good Lord may well find his seniority within these shores hotly contested in the not too distant future. If the figures are correct, in twenty-five to thirty years time, Muslims will constitute the largest single religious segment of the British population. Compare that with the reality of today that over fifty percent of Londoners are foreign born. So, if democracy is adhered to, given that block vote, it is a certainty that this blessed Isle will become an Islamic state, possibly within our lifetimes.
"Just don't tell the British public. Why worry them now with the inevitable?"
Palmer's jaw dropped and he pushed his chair back from the desk as if to escape from this cadaverous prophet of doom, rubbing the back of his head as if clubbed from behind. He stared up at his PPS with illogical belligerence.
"Statistically? Who was it said that there were, 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics'?
"Look these people come to this country to escape from their own God forsaken, medieval hell-holes don't they. Surely then they would fight tooth and nail to prevent such a thing happening here?"
Graham Turner shook his head with sad amusement at his Minister's naivety. "The establishment of Khilafah is an urgent obligation on all Muslims world-wide regardless of their peaceful outlook or radicalisation. That is a common leadership, with the role to establish the laws of Islamic Shari'ah and carry the Da'wah of Islam to the rest of the world. Failure to undertake this duty is one of the greatest sins according to Mohammed.
"Simply put, any Muslim in Britain, is required by his religion to establish Khilafah, turn this country into a Caliphate, Islamic state, ruled by a Caliph."
"As in Ayatollah Khomeini?"
"Correct."
"No way would British Muslims want that regardless of what is taught in the mosque."
"Surveys reveal that eighty-one percent of them classify themselves as Muslim before being British. Particularly the second generation born here, brought up amongst us in our culture. Many see themselves as returning to their 'roots' as it were ,with blind abeyance to a radical translation of Islam that demands the death of all Kafurs, non-believers; that's you and me by the way.
"They are being encouraged by rogue clerics to adopt extremism, 7/7 being one example and the numerous other plots that have thankfully failed or been nipped in the bud, due mainly to their amateur planning. This is a purely wanton policy as sheer logistics will eventually deliver up what they wish for.
"A new, rather pathetic manifestation which began in Whitechapel, are hooded gangs laying in wait outside their mosques accosting passers by, berating and threatening young women in 'scanty' clothes and anybody seen carrying alcohol. They have even filmed this activity, including physical assault on obvious homosexuals, posting them on U-Tube.
"Going back on the statistics, seventy percent of our Muslim citizens favour the arrest and prosecution of anybody they perceive to insult Islam. Some demand harsher penalty. Take Salman Rushdie for example. His 'crime' of leaving the faith is strictly forbidden under Sharia law, equated to treason under a charge of Apostasy, for which the penalty is death."
"Sharia Law? " Palmer tilted his head to one side tapping at his front teeth with a blunt fingernail, slightly agitated. "You mean stoning rape victims to death, amputating the hands off of minor felons? Just as well that in Britain we have our own civilised rule of law."
"That may be so at present. Forty percent of British Muslims want their Sharia Law, the Law of God, introduced in the UK. I do not want to worry you, but the process has already started. Mr. Blair's government quietly sanctioned local Sharia Courts to rule on family disputes through the Muslim Arbitration Cou
ncil which operates to this today."
Roger Palmer looked openly dismayed. "The thin end of the wedge then?"
"Indeed, a concession which has only whetted the fanatics' appetite for Khilafah to replace the national identity of Great Britain, which is to be stripped away in favour of an Islamic doctrine, putting us all under the rule of the Imams and Sharia Law."
The Home Secretary looked rather pale. "That could never happen."
Turner's twisted grimace of a smile excelled itself. "Oh, but it will. It is happening now. The virtual colonisation of this island by a thousand little cuts. The Muslims of the world are simply replicating what the Europeans did in invading other lands and imposing Christianity on the indigenous populations.
"All the indications are that the rest of the Western world will follow suit, succumb to the flood of Islamic immigration and breeding patterns. Some cases, maybe Holland or France, could precede us. America would be particularly vulnerable given their Bill of Rights. Democratic nations have no defence against the insidious infiltration of an alien culture that utilises our own laws and freedom of expression for minorities, against us.
"So Minister, whilst you and the security services fight the radicals and home-grown terrorists, it is the good Muslims, law abiding citizens of this country with rights and more importantly the vote, who ultimately will deliver what their Allah demands of them.
"Which brings us full circle as they say, to your little problem in little Holtingham."
"Smack bang up against it Graham."
The tall Civil Servant nodded a sombre confirmation, stepped back from the desk, precipitating the conclusion of his duties.
"So Minister, have I performed my duties in assisting you in your decision making?"
Roger Palmer stared bleakly back at him, lost, bewildered. The pencil snapped between his fingers; it had failed to point in the right direction. "Yes Graham, I rather believe that you have. Thank you."
With a crisp little click of shiny heels, the consummate Civil Servant left the office, the polished door shutting behind him with a whisper of a sigh.
***
It had taken him long enough to get around to it. Walking about in clothes bought fifteen years and more before, and frankly didn't fit too well now, was not to be desired. But neither was trailing up and down the High Street laden with plastic carrier bags and shoe boxes. Yet it did serve to take his mind off of present worries.
The EFL had unanimously voted to suspend any further night time patrols and to keep a low profile. The mosque vigilantes, 'The Invaders', had been conspicuous only by their reluctance to show their swaggering presence lately, even before Saturday's little debacle.
His grandfather Henry seemed to be reviving quite nicely, certainly for an eighty-nine year old. But the warning had been written on the wall in glowing capitals. The beginning of the end was in sight; depressing but inevitable.
As for Sid, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham had no knowledge of his whereabouts or intentions. If anything the doctor that Chris had spoken to on the telephone had sounded a little concerned for his patient, if not miffed at the lack of contact. Sergeant Sydique Sahni could, in theory, still be adjudged AWOL if he did not report his whereabouts soon.
The warden of Squires Court had attended the police station to report one of her charges missing, but the local constabulary's concerns for a young adult in a least a sound frame of mind and relatively mobile, were not overwhelming.
Suddenly tired of the whole shopping experience, Chris turned on his heel and pushed contra-flow through the crowded pavement, in the direction of Mafeking Road and home.
***
He was getting a dab hand at this cooking lark. Micro-wave ovens were a wonderful thing if you remembered to take the packaging off. Not that he had particularly felt hungry but the clock had declared it lunch time so he ate. Routines were strictly adhered to in Her Majesty's prisons.
Any appetite he may have accrued had been rudely depleted on his return home to find Mr. Piper, grandpa's next door but one neighbour for over thirty years, standing at their gate with a sad, perplexed look on his lined face. He'd removed the old rosewood pipe that he never lit from his mouth as Chris approached and stood alongside him with a frown of enquiry.
"Just what do you think the education budget per pupil runs out at nowadays?" Mr. Piper asked. When Chris followed his gaze at the house, a punch of dismay and indignation had hit him in the solar plexus. Scrawled with white chalk in two foot high lettering on the brickwork alongside the front door was the endearing greeting: 'NARTSY SKUM'. "I'd have gotten the cane at school for spelling that bad." He mused, tapping his empty pipe-bowl on the gate post before sticking the thing back into his mouth.
"Chances nowadays are that it was done by one of the bloody teachers ." He turned around, preparing to go. "Now if you'd been a famous poet young man, the council would have stuck a blue plaque up there commemorating your residence in Holtingham."
He winked as he stepped around Chris and wandered off in the direction of the High Street to go and draw his pension. "Give Henry my best wishes will you? May even get in to see him myself if the old bugger is not home soon."
It took but a matter of minutes to remove the graffiti with a bowl of water and a scrubbing brush, but the sense of violation of grandpa's home would sour his feelings for much longer. A feeling of guilt that he had brought this about himself burned deep; it seemed that all his adult life trouble was ever at his door. Now, literally.
Having finished his meal, he dumped the dishes into the kitchen sink as the front door bell rang. He froze for a second, visions of a torch bearing lynch mob from town at his door flashed through his aggrieved thoughts. But the shock awaiting him as he threw it back, braced for altercation with any 'Banksy' wannabe looking for a face to face, quivered all the way down to his boots.
"Hello Chris." Alison stood on his front step, her voice tinny and tense under the stress of what she had finally forced herself to do.
He could only stare back at her, a stupid expression on his whitened face, tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth.
"It's been a long time." She tried again, face twitching with nerves, her whole body seemingly poised for flight.
Noisily he cleared his throat, a dry rasping sound like a bronchial dog. "What's fifteen years between friends?" Was all he could whisper, the attempted humour not working its way through.
"Friends Chris. Is that all we were?" Her eyes grew moist with anger or hurt he couldn't tell.
He glanced over her shoulder at the little Nissan parked tight into the kerb. Not bad parking for a woman he noted with near surreal thought. A baby chair was strapped into the front passenger seat, a small pink hand fluttered into view through the glass.
"What can I say?" He shrugged, genuinely at a loss for any meaningful comment. "Do you want to come in Alison?" Just saying her name threatened to seize up his vocal chords.
"No best not Chris, can't leave the little one out here, and if I take him out of the car now there'll be hell to pay later. It's time for his feed back home."
"Oh, I see." His mind was racing like an engine on full throttle with the clutch pedal down. "What do you want then?" Blunt but honest.
Her face, which he could now see this close, had acquired a few worry lines across her once smooth forehead, crows feet at the corners of those big liquid eyes, and pinked over like a colour-wash.
"You were never a man of words Chris."
He grimaced, the ghost of a private smile loitering there. "Not likely to get a blue plaque on my front wall either."
Alison gave him a moment's baffled, suspicious look. "I just had to come by and say this Chris." She swallowed hard, a tremor in her voice now. "Despite what happened, what you did, how you treated me after, I could forgive and forget. If you wanted to take up where we left off, you know, be an item again, nothing has really changed, not for me it hasn't."
Words swirled around his tongue, but for an appall
ed moment he could only stare at her, eyes wide with disbelief. When he could finally speak his voice came out as a strangled croak.
"Nothing has changed? Are you kidding me Alison? You have a husband and two children. Barry is also my best friend who has lost everything; his home, family, self respect.
"Do you really think that I am so callous as to rub his nose into this sort of shit you are suggesting. What happened has happened. I don't blame either of you for getting together, trying to make a life for yourselves. I was well and truly out of the running.
"Rather stupidly, when I came back I did entertain thoughts of some great romantic re-union. But we are different people now Alison. Strangers. So just go back to your husband while you can still do so. Think of your children at least. They won't want a stranger for a dad. They want Barry back, and frankly, so should you."
She stepped back suddenly as if he'd slapped her face. No tears flowed, but the distraught look on it twisted his insides with agonising savagery. Without another word she turned to stride angrily away, slamming the gate so hard the metal catch snapped. Chris stood watching her car spin away from the kerb, revving noisily as gears crunched.
"That's more like a woman driver." He said aloud. Hating himself quietly.
***
He was cold, shivering violently. His whole body hurt from when they had beaten him with sticks, and yes, he was very frightened. He had been held in this black hole it seemed for ever. No means to determine minutes from hours, night from day, days from a week.
They'd brought him minimal amounts of food, disgusting swill, spitting into it before dropping it beside his huddled form with a snarl, and sometimes a kick at his arm or ribs. What exactly they wanted from him he did not know, yet had known that something of this nature was always a possibility.
Closing his eyes was academic, there was nothing to see in this perpetual darkness ,only broken by painful light from the doorway as they came and went. He laid his head back down on filthy damp straw. Whatever fate awaited him, there was little he could do to avert it. This much he did know.
******
EIGHTEEN
"Chief Constable Beaumont, as newly elected PCC for this region I would remind you of my previous warning. It is my responsibility to safeguard the interests of the community I represent. In short, you will perform your duties in a manner that is acceptable to these citizens of Holtingham."