Chapter 9 - Born Again

“The primary fragments issuing from an explosive vessel or container can also give to secondary fragments upon impact against other structural elements or machinery parts. Prediction of the characteristics of these secondary fragments…is generally much more uncertain.” – Forensic Investigation of Explosions A. Beveridge It’s a long time ago McCabe we appreciate that. But think back. Right back. After you were picked up by the IDS. Something they showed you, gave you? Don’t give us that. It would save a great deal of upset and inconvenience if you could… Boydy nosed the Trooper through the police cordon – a wall of fluorescent coated riot squad – and whistled. The crowns of two thousand people milled about before and around them. Hundreds and hundreds of flags flapped in the breeze heading in from over the river, billowing banners of all shapes and sizes blundered around and a moving forest of placards s proclaimed all sorts of measures and demands. For a moment, everyone in the Trooper fell silent. The inside of the car smelt of beaten leather and its engine throbbed and growled. Riot noise filtered in muffled by the carrier’s triple glazed glass. A chaotic cacophony of shouts and screams , sirens, thuds and thumps of collisions, riot shields being pounded, horns being sounded, helicopters clattering overhead and the rhythm of the crowd’s fragmented chants. “Why do they bother?” Lisa said. The driver hit the klaxon, but its sound was swallowed up in the sea of the crowd’s noise and, outside, colours, shapes and faces swirled around. A loud thud on Tony’s side of the car somewhere made McCabejump. “There must be thousands of them.” “How we supposed to get through this?’ Boyd shouted as they crawled forward. “Just keep straight. No problem.” From Tony’s side window, a man wearing a ski-mask, arms outstretched,stared in. “Primeval isn’t it? Tony said. “The sound of the excluded from the clan, the prisoners marched off to slaughter, the vengeful football crowd.” Boyd snorted. Dermott bounced himself up and down slightly and stared round. “These Trooper seats really do give a good view. Ever been on a demo, Mister McCabe? ” Dermott shouted over his shoulder. “A few.” McCabe looked down and saw his hands were trembling.

“Work related, I trust?” Dermott flipped open his phone. “Pretty much yeah. Nothing like this though.” The brigadier tilted his head and spoke,“…No we’re still in town. Yes we’ve got the target. There must have been a breakdownin communication somewhere along the line Ma’am.” He turned round to look at the woman behind him. “Should be there in… Yes. It’s all a bit chaotic here but we’re getting through and should be on the emwayin ten. Yes I know. Sorry.” He looked at the screen to check he had been disconnected. He rubbed his eyes. “Christ what the hell were the police thinking of sending us through this lot?” “How’s the boss, boss?.” Tony said. Boyd pummeled the klaxon in the middle of the steering wheel. “On the launch pad. She wants McCabe here up and running by the end of the month. I told her we’d do our best. What do you think? “I suppose so. He messed up before. But everyone deserves a second chance.” “And how do you feel about thatMister McCabe?” Dermott shouted above a surge in the crowd’s noise. “Well, you know, still not very happy at all, Mister Dermott, “ McCabe shouted back. “A new input into an emerging intentional pattern can initiate unexpected viral pathways leading to micro-end points and quasi-conclusionary nodes.” Tony replied and raised his eye brows at McCabe , “I’m sure he’ll do fine,” then fell back in his seat. “Thank you Tony for that expert analysis,” Dermott’s voice just heard above the crowd’s. “Give him the file.” Tony reached for something on the floor and said, “Boydy, get the roofcom working.” Blue light and a tinytray emerged from the dashboard. Numbers glowed. Boyd shook his head then looked up. “I dunno. What’s this? Ah, there you go. There’s a name for those. Oof. See that? Fucking get in there officer.” Boyd said. He laughed to himself and gunned the car forward thrust by thrust. The people in front of them were pushed further back.

“Which one?” Dermott turned round. “The official one.” “You know, we’re too fucking soft in this country. Things like this. Get them off the fucking streets.” Tony picked up a yawning briefcase from the floor and flicked through the files in it. “ Boydy, Stringer asked me to inform you that she will personally fry your testicles if you don’t get us back to HQ before two. So come on get us out of here,” said Dermott. “Sir.” The car jolted forward then stalled and the briefcase on Tony’slap fell to the floor. Cheers went up from the crowd and their thuds and thumping felt, abruptly, dangerous without the hum of the engine and the tinny radio. “Come on Boydy. Christ.” Lisa shouted. “Fuck it.” Boyd said. “Fucking foreign junk isn’t it?” His bull neck was sweating and his collar was stained with it. “The Museum’s lost an important asset, part of an ongoing operation.” Dermott was saying. “For some reason best known unto the thirteenth floor, your name came up Mister McCabe. Come on Tony. Christ why am I surrounded by fuckwits?” [they aquaplaned down the moiled outside lane of the highway] “Sorry sir. It’sin here somewhere.” Tony said and heaved the case back up from the floor. Boyd swore again and there were ironic sounding commendationsfrom the surrounding crowd as the Trooper restarted. “Just go Boydy will you, you fat northern monkey.” McCabe looked at the LED clock on the dashboard. “One o’clock. Fucking hell Tony I’ve got to get back to work by two.” “Relax McCabe,” Tony said and sniffed heavily reading a list. “Think of it as a kind of promotion.” “Promotion? I’ve been reft by internal security, we’re about to get lynched and I’m three hundred down on the afternoon.” Tony looked up from the case’s inner darkness and smiled.

“I think you’ll change your mind when you see this file. When I find the fucking thing.” They weaved and circled lost in the throng attracting the attention of the angry “Your back in the fold McCabe. Back we’re you belong” A riot squad officer waved and shouted something to them. “I mean what the fuck is going on here Tony?” Boyd swerved them off to the right. Fists, elbows and feet batterd the car as it moved slowly along a limb lined tunnel. “Do you mean right here this instant or more generally? “ He was tugging at something that had snagged on a metal holder. “Right here! You must know why they’re dragging me in. There was a deal for christ’s sake.” “You know how things are McCabe. All bets are pretty much off. And that’s a metaphor McCabe.” Boyd roared insults into the windscreen. “It still wasn’t anything like a bet.” Tony yawned and twisted the file around. “Still the literalist you always where.” McCabe stared through the rear window, and slowly wiped his face. “As for more generally, McCabe,well, you tell me.” Outside, everything was happening quickly and with a savage intent. The police shoved sections of the crowd back with their shields andthe protesters, most now with scarves, jumpers, bandanas, coats or flags round their heads, kicked and threw themselves at the advances. “What I don’t get is why you haven’t leapt at the chance,” Tony shouted. Music boomed somewhere ahead. They weaved into a small area of no man’s land between the crowd and the start of the police lines. People were getting grabbed and dragged kicking away and they reversed through a tumbling skirmish. “Because it took me a long time to get out and that was before all, all of this.” He gestured at the heaving scene outside. Tony shut the battery pod of the remote he was holding. “This? This is nothing. Anyway, deep down, it’s still the same McCabe, really. Trust us.”

“Trustyou? It looks to me like things have moved on a bit in five years . I mean lifting people off the streets. And look at these clowns and the drugs.” McCabe shouted in Tony’s ear. They drove slowly passed a marooned pick-up with a music system and a mounted set of speakers on board. “I don’t think Lisa appreciated that last one.” Lisa, still talking on her pda, wa showing him the middle phalange of her index finger and the extended middle digit of her otherwise clenched fist. The rhythm of steady fighting pulsed in the street. “Like I give a shit, Tony.” “Lots of things have changed since your day, McCabe. “ Tony shouted, jolted back by sudden speed. “They’ve had to or haven’t you been watching the news? But it’s really the same op. “ “Yes the powders,” He glanced up at the ceiling and shook his head in mock opprobrium. “Well, they practically pay us with it some months, the way things are. Besides, what with the pressures of the job…,” he shrugged his shoulders and half smiled. “Ah. Found it.” He was more stooped round the shoulders than back then and the hollows under his eyes had grown darker . “As for the clowns. The whole shitberg is one big circus don’t you think? Here you are.” The older man threw a blue file onto McCabe’s lap. McCabe lifted the heavy half open file towards him and raised his eyebrows. “What’s this?” “Part of why we want you in on this.” Tony said operating the remote. “Jessica Dobson, ay kay ay Bridget Malone, ay kay ay, the mud people’s Joan of Arc. She worked for the Museum for ten years in our section. ” Dermott said looking ahead into the shifting mass of people in front . “The main reason Stringer wants you in on things. Told me to give you that.” “So what?” “You knew her McDuff didn’t you? McCabe reached out his finger and let it come into contact with one of the files frayed corners. “No. After my time. Or before it.” “Not what I heard.”

Tony looked at Lisa then at McCabe. “I don’t suppose you ever learned what went on.” McCabe’s phone vibrated on his chest. “ It wouldn’t be the first time,” and he reached inside his jacket for the phone and flicked the black cover. “Hurry up with that now,” Tony said. “Hello!? Speaking. No. I know. No. Look I can’t hear you very well. Morgan knows where they are. Sorry. Third time yes. I’ll get in when I can.” McCabe sighed. “Christ, the bastard gaffer. So this, again.” “Well, Lisa was penciled in tilyour name cropped up. It’s a big thing on the thirteenth. A lot of heavy silverback activity, cross departmental tension and political pressure. It’s all in there. “ McCabe glanced down at the file again. The tiny date stamp hovered over her bare lower arm. Five years had hardly aged her but he felt his brain race to reconcile this image and the lingering ghostly one he half remembered. “Oh and don’t worry about your day job McCabe. You’ll be insulated, don’t fret.” He nodded up front. “Besides he’s your gaffer now.” “What the driver?” “Don’t mind him. The department is scraping the barrel a bit at the moment. “ McCabe turned the file the right way up. The photo, a faded passport sized image hair sorter pale features against bleached background. “You might find it interesting. Tony said nodding at the holder. “Fits in with all this so it does.” There was nowhere for them to go. The crowd’s ebbs and flows were impossible to describe they were so fluid. People were pushing and pulling from all directions, running away from police charges or getting propelled about or trying to climb on top of or over other people and, in places, fightingamongst themselves. “Mexican fighting.” Boyd shouted at them. “Like a Mexican wave only with fists an’ that.” Blue light flashed off the glass and steel of the buildings that towered over the ground. “Who is this driver Tony?” McCabe said.

A bluish cloud was drifting out and across from behind them. A disembodied megaphoned voice at a thousand watts ordered people at the front of the kettle to move back. “See that? It’s a powder . Fuck your eyes up hours afterwards,” Boydshouted. “Sticks to clothes comes off later. Great stuff.” Looking closer, as the Trooper drove hesitantly forward, McCabe saw smaller sections of the crowd moving in unison as they avoided police charges or tried to snatch someone back or retreated from fuming canisters. Some protesters wore red tops, helmets and masks. Over to the Trooper’s left and behind the fluorescent ranks of police more civilians were heading towards the police, other groups charged the police lines using barriers from along the route, attacked police vehicles and threw whatever they could get their hands on at the assembled constabulary. McCabe sat forward in his seat. He motioned to give the folder back to Tony who shrugged. “Mister Dermott, like I said before, I have to get back to the Overwell site or I don’t get paid.” Dermott cupped the lower half of his phone. “Mister McCabe, you are still, still acting like you have a choice in this whole matter. We have baked people for being less uppity than you. Just sit back there, take the fileand await further instructions.” “You said this wouldn’t take that long.” Dermott waved away his protests. A traffic cone flew past the window to McCabe’s left and bounced offa woman’s back. Lisa leaned towards him. He could make out the tiny fold of a scar, quite white against her skin, on the cusp of her right cheekbone. “You’re either with us or with them,” she sang and tilted her head towards the window then looked him straight in the eye. “Do you get it? So just sit back there and do as you’re told.” “Are the bad cop part of this outfit or something?” McCabe said. “ Lisa has all the zealotry of the recently converted, if you see what I mean,” Dermott shouted behind him. McCabe looked at the door release on Lisa’s side of the car. Lisa wiped a strand of shining jet black hair from her eyes and shouted to him., “Don’t even think of that sweetie. If you get out, they’ll lynch you, if I stop you I will. Got it?” “ Just ride the glide McCabe,” Tony yelled. Just let things pull your strings and you’ll be ok. Here, have some more of this.” “These little bastards look like they should be at school not in some riot.” Boydy shouted. “I blame the fucking parents myself.”

““ It looks very much like the whole thing’s falling apart anyway.” McCabe took the tiny mirror and the plastic security card. The chaos outside was intensifying. McCabe watched a march steward collapse into a defensive huddle below a beating from an trio of officers with batons and rubbed the side of his nose. He leafed through the file’s notes, forms and reports. The police trying to get the car across the packed paddock had been thrown into disarray by a tributary of the march that had turned up the hill from the river. The constbulary on the southern side of the kettle had been caught in a pincer movement and had formed a double rank with their backs to each other and rotated between sheltering under their riot shields and sudden charges into smaller groups of marchers. Reinforcements arrived from the side streets and fought their way through the melée. More sirens and megaphones fought with the gigantic noise the protesters were making. “Good tactic though. Hem them in. Push them tighter and tighter together. Get them going.” Lisa laughed. “They’ll keep them in here for hours. No food no water no amenities, nada.” “That’ll teach them..” Tony said. “Why isn’t this on a disc or computer somewhere?” “You must be joking, McCabe. Every bit of tech we have is compromised. Americans, South Africans, Israelis, even the fucking Belgiansknow what we’re up to before it filters down to us. No these days, strictly Kremlin rules. ” “What? Get Green onto it.” Lisa shouted into her pda. “You ok with that Mister McCabe?” Dermott shouted. McCabe stayed silent turning through the different sized pages, the reports clipped to yellowed surveillance shots and densely laid out transcript. “Old school and off the balance sheet.” This looks like it’s all bubbling along quite nicely.” Tony said, wiping his face with his hands. “Watch it Tony”, Boyd yelled. “We want you fresh for this afternoon. Lay off the flower eh?” “Fuck off Boydy. I am the great Insulating Tony.” There was a thump from outside. He leant back in surprise. “Hello. Where have I been all your life?” he said to one of the faces that had appeared at the windows. A girl , no more than seventeen with short red hair and blue eyes, pressed her face against the glass and stared right at them. Tony smiled back. Lisa looked at him and laughed. “ It’s reflective glass, Tony. She can’t see you.”

McCabe stared at Lisafor a moment. A slight diminutive frame, long black hair platted back in a pony tail, a pronounced arched nose and a tense looking mouth, she was dressed in what McCabe took to be the company colours – a dark olive up market track suit and gymtoned. “Tabern. Fucking hell,” McCabe said looking up Another huge noise shook the car. People outside shouted in rage and thumped the car’s beefy sides. A man, right opposite Boyd, was shouting something repeatedly his voice sounding loud yet at the same time, far away. Boydy shouted over the deafening roar, “I’ve often wondered, how can you be a wanker and be fucking at the same time? I mean when you fucking how can you wank as well? Wouldn’t be very polite would it?” McCabe sighed. A bare chested man with his shirt wrapped round his mouth and blood that trickled down his forehead in smeared rivulets, hammered his fist against the window next to Lisa. McCabe ducked as something heavy landed on the car roof and rolled off the car’s right side. “Bloody hell,” McCasaid half to himself. He re-read the report. “The fuck was that?” Tony’s voice could barely be heard over the broiling din. “Looks like a traffic cone filled with, I don’t know,” Lisa shouted. “Something like shit.” “How long did, did this woman work for IDS?” McCabe said to Lisa. She turned to him. “You what McDuff?” “I mean, how long was she a mole?” She shook her head. “Tony, what’s the mausoleum wanting with a truncheon like this?” Tony laughed and switched on the roofcom with a small cheer of satisfaction. The entire inside roof of the car was transformed into a small cinema screen. “Leave it Lees. He’s got hidden talents.” The ceiling of the Trooper had turned a metallic blue and a company name and logo flashed up in hallucinatory depth. Tony leant back and pressed buttons on a console attached to the seat in front of him. Options scrolled up and then shapes colours and faces appeared. “What do you think McCabe?” Tony shouted. McCabe shook his head. “What about?” Tony nodded upwards

“About the kit. I know - stupid waste of money and all that. But look at the definition.” “Yeh. Fantastic Tony,” said McCabe and closed the file. “That in the middle of all this you can still buy stuff, check your emails and get Sunshine News. It’s beautiful. The day is made for you.” A music video from another age played, three-quarters submerged under the frantic chaos. “Such cynicism McCabe.,” Tony said and wheezed. “Hear that? Nineteen seventy nine. Jesus wept. We really believed back then. D’youknow what I mean? That things could be right. Sort things out. Get the country back on its own two feet. Look at the place now – the riots, the strikes, the camps - and all that. Things became fucked up somewhere along the line. These songs make me feel it all over again.” He really looked like he was stopping himself from crying. “Maybeyou felt like that and then along came the music.” McCabe shouted back. A police helmet bounced off the Trooper’s matt black bonnet. “No. It’ not that. There’s something in this music, something special. A feeling, you know…?” “You read into it what you want to, Tony. You hear a song on a good day, it’s great on a bad day it’s shite.” A serenity passed over the taller man’s face. He closed his eyes and leant back in his seat. “You’re so idealistic, McCabe.” “Make you mind up, before, I was being cynical.” The thought occurred to McCabe that they were going to be trapped in here with all the other protesters for the rest of the day or that they were going to be torn apart by the hordes outside and that this song, if he ever heard it again, would remind him, finally, to commit suicide. “On reflection, Sir, do you think this was such a good idea?” Boydy was shouting. “These people look a bit punchy. I remember in Northern Ireland once being in a situation like this. We got lost ’n’ ended up in some taig rally, things got out of hand and that. Ended up having to shoot our way out.” “Just drive Boydy,” Dermott shouted, “Listen everyone. I’m on to the head snout here. They’re going to direct us through this mess. Lisa get Green on the line and tell him we’re caught up in this zoo march.” “Course, this is nothing like a good Irish punch up. Oops watch out love. Too many southerners for a real one here like.” Boyd said. The crowd was now furious. Some of them had organized themselves into groups and had started to throw bricks and bottles at the police lines. Others had video

cameraswith them. One was filming the car. He held the small machine up to his face and focused on the Trooper. If the intention was to film whoever was inside, it was a futile hope. They then ran about for a while, but were subdued by a couple of huge police officers and dragged away. Somewhere nearby a police officer, detached from his colleagues was upended by three hooded figures and somebody whooped with frenzied joy as they leapt over the Trooper’s bonnet. All the time Boyd was edging people forward to forcing them out of the way as they tried to get to the other side of the road. The noise outside ballooned exponentially into a roar of rage and triumph “Fuck.” There was another thud. From top left, an watery yellow liquid bubbled down the Trooper’s front windscreen. Boydy swore againand flicked the spray and wiper stalks. The car was being hit continually now. McCabe felt his eyes grow hot. A squad of about eight shielded and visored operatives forced their way past, manhandled and truncheoned whoever got in their way and snatched a group of people by Lisa’s side of the car. Through moil, and in the struggle, McCabe glimpsed a small woman of about thirty get lifted high onto someone’s shouldersand lurch forward then back and someone wrenching the bag from about her shoulders. Its contents sprayed briefly into the air and the woman disappeared under a busy scrum of officers. There was another crescendo of noise and screams as the police hauled away a thrashing figure. Other individuals around her pushed and struggled but were forced back with huge plastic shields or coshed with batons. “ I know her.” McCabe said over the din. McCabe twisted himself round and looked at the swirling crowd but the woman was nowhere to be seen. Lisa shouted something into her pda. He looked down from the Trooper’s high seat and briefly caught sight of all the glass, clothing, sodden cardboard signs and all the rubbly rubbish beneath and thought about the last time he had been driven through a crowd as agitated and as big as this. “ Get this scum off to a containment area or something.” Boydy shouted. “No politics please.” Dermott told him. “You read too much Daily Mail Boydy. Tony slurred. “The correct term for these people is ‘useless eaters’.” “Nothing wrong with the Daily Mail.” “Sir, Green can wait tilthree. After that things start to get delayed.” “Shit.” Dermott shouted. “Well, just say Stringer’ll sort it. There’s nothing we can do for the moment.” “He said we should have factored this protest thing in.” “Your fault Boydy you stupid Yorkshire bastard.” Tony said to the driver as loudly as he could.

“Sorry sir.” “We should be fucking H and Dee by now, you moon shaped fuck pig,” Lisa said. “Simmer down everyonesimmer down,” Dermott shouted. They mazed through another part of the crowd. “What the fuck?” McCabe said. In a tiny metre square of space McCabe could just make out the grim reaper figure as it leant back holding something that was dripping orange spots. The figure twisted itself and in a jolt of movement released it at a near perfect forty five degrees. The bottle arced through the air and exploded somewhere up ahead with a noise like someone’s head hitting a pillow. The hooded figure merged back into itsseething surroundings. Whether from exhaustion or surprise, the noise from the crowd faded. Over where the bomb had landed, a vegetal mass of flickering flame moved about at random. A warping black tree of cloud ascended into the air. From the Trooper’s perspective the fire and smoke from the burning riot squad officer, for a moment looked magical, unreal. “Well that shut everybody up,” Boyd said. There was a rapid increase in police activity from the opposite side of the kettle. The noise resumed. A siren whooped two hundred yards up ahead. “Did anyone see where the molotov went?” “That grim reaper threw it.” “Yes but where did it land?” “On a copper, I think. There’s an ambulance. Over there by all that fighting.” “Yes. That type of thing usually gets things going. Fuck my eyes.” Sections of the police turned ferocious after that. Those at the eastern side of the kettle where the bottle had exploded reacted first lashing out with their extended batons and sprayed pepper spray at close range and hit people with their rounded riot shields. The ISD people, though, missed a lot of the details. “Tell me. What was the stardom thing like then Bernie?” Tony asked and tried to focus his eyes on McCabe’s Class A smeared face. McCabe lolled his head to one side. He was finding it difficult to organize his facial muscles. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” He said and rubbed his eyes. “For a start, the drugs weren’t as good as this gaff , I have to say. Christ, what is that?” A look of credulity passed over Tony’s pale features and he smiled. “I went to one of your gigs way back – you were fucking brilliant I have to say. ” “Yeah well. We had our moments.”

“D’youhear that Lisa? This guy here worked in the pop industry.” “What?” coughed Lisa. She looked back in at McCabe from the tumult outside, “Let me guess, a fizzy drinks factory?” and wiped her red rimmed eyes. Tony laughed. “No really - the works. The Dolemens, you must have heard of them? ‘Drop Zone’? ‘Heaven breaks loose’? You know you must have heard that one….Dum de der dum…how’s the rest of it go McCabe?” He blinked repeatedly and assessed the scene outside. How did the rest of it go? Boyd coughed a royal smoker’s cough and swore. “Lisa, why are you crying?” Tony shouted. “I’m fucking not. My eyes are stinging. Fuck.” “CS powder in the vehicle. Relax stay calm.” Dermott shouted. “Whatever you do, don’t rub your eyes.” “Fuck I can’t see properly…this stuff…thought it was the inhalants…Boydy get us out of here for fuck’s sake…Sir, Mister Dermott sir can you see that copper who was…Tony this is fucking madness…” He dropped the file. Material spilled out into the narrow space. Despite the tears he saw her, quite clearly, upside down, laughing by a tree in a field. They picked up speed then and from several directions smoke poured from over the police ranks,then drifted across the crowds’ bobbing heads. The riot police in front of them were clearing a path and beating back the crowd. Objects rained down around them. Tears ran down their faces. The people they had overtaken started to hammer the roof and windows of the Trooper with abandon. The crowd engulfed the policemen momentarily. Boydswore and stopped. A mob of people started to pound the car’s bonnet, windows and roof. A parade of angry faces pressed themselves up against the windows. The Trooper started to rock from side to side. “Carry on Boydy, carry on. We can’t stop here all fucking day.” Dermott shouted. Boydy squinted and revved the engine. They moved forward at walking pace and people slid away from the sides of the car. The swaying ceased but a man clambered up onto the front of the Trooper. He dodged a police’s flailing grasp and steadied himself. It was all over in less than five seconds. He wore a pair of torn combat trousers, a scuffed pair of heavy looking boots and a bright yellow t-shirt with “AWP” written on it in black in a big Gungsuche fontand a coat tied round his waist. He saluted them all with a bright yellow tin of cider then squatted down and pointed in through the windscreen, the silver stud in his tongue and the hoop in his lower lip glinted in the riots simmering light, grinned and stroked his straggled beard. He turned to the crowd, gesturing and shouting for encouragement. There were shouts of recognition of whatever it was the man had said. He then turned back to the occupants of the Trooper and

got closer to the windscreen. He mouthed something, slow and deliberate and tipped the can up to his face, threw his head back, his dreads whipping back over his shoulders, stretched his arms out wide and spat a gigantic mouthful of cider at them. “Fuck this and fuck you sunshine,” said Boyd and bounced the car forward. The laughing figure tumbled towards them holding his hands out and smashed into the car’s forehead with a dull sound then rolled and fell over the side. Lisa laughed. They lurched to another stop. “What the fuck?” Tony said through his hands amid the ocean of noise. They jolted forward again and Lisa spilt something. A riot squad officer smashed her truncheon on the Trooper’s left driver’s side and cracked the glass. A frost of splinters webbed out from the dark centre of the blow. She screamed something at them in rage or incomprehension, her eyes panicked wide. Dermott held out his hands in bewilderment. “What? What?” He turned to Boydy, eyes streaming. “Go just go! Follow those cops. Where’s the stuff coming from?” “Ok ok hold on. Might be this window here. Shit,” Boyd shouted. “Was only open a bit there at the top look.” “Bloody hell Boydy.” Boydy accelerated into a gap to catch up with the small space behind their policeescort, the vanguard of which was being over-run by sections of surrounding crowd. The rage outside regained its intensity and not just the volume now but somehow the pitch of the crowd’s screaming was increasing. A almost drowned out voice crackled from the radio. “Get the news. Get the news.” Lisa shouted coughing and wiping her face, “See what’s happened. Fuck I can’t see.” Dermott flicked through the channels cursing and wiped his glistening face with a cloth. Tony looked around and shook his head and in a mock Surrey accent said, “How very much like the home life of our own dear Queen”. Then his face screwed up in some pain. A guitar from the roofcomplayed a major to a minor third. They sped forward, the acceleration shoving them back. McCabe for an instant held the gaze of a red-eyed face face aglow with an unhealthy pallor in the rear view mirror. “McCabe, you looked fucked. Your eyes!” Tony shouted and laughed. They all looked terrible now. Their eyelids were swollen and inflamed. Boyd’s face had turned a macabre khaki colour, his neck a dark purple. Lisa was retching drily into a door pocket. McCabe put his hands over his ears. Something hit the underside of the vehicle with a deep metallic thud. Almost straight away they were engulfed in a swirling, thick,red smoke. McCabe a started to shout and wave his arms about. Tony carried on laughing, hands on his

thighs, his whole body shaking. Dermott yelled directions and orders at Boyd. The news reported on Boyd shouted, “It’s just a flare. Just a flare. Look we’re out.” They forced their way through the agitated rows of masked riot police, appearing alien amidst the eerie decontextualizing smoke and then the way cleared before them. Four black police horses, with high undulating, glistening flanks and half covered with bright armour, sidled by them then reared away their riders trying to plug the gap the car had forced in the shrinking kettle. The smoke cleared and the Trooper untidily mounted the pavement, reversed and turned. Sticks and rocks rained down on the police lines and a large piece of tarmac crashed onto the retreating Trooper’s roof. Boyd accelerated them, coughing and shouting still,down the bare street abutting the march and whooped for joy. Dermott passed round some cigarettes. A minute later they were speeding down a residential avenue fringed with tall poplars. Houses and shops sped by and the broiling din of the riot faded into the city’s distant, ever present, roar. The interior started to clear. They cruised away, babbling and smoking, down adjoining sloping side streets towards the raw grey nerve of the riverup ahead. Boyd smiled into a street’s wide embrace. “Born again.” “Open the windows , get some fresh air in here for fuck’s sake. Christ that stuff kills,” Lisa said laughing and wiped her mouth. “That was a blast,” Tony said. “Did you see that guy’s face?” “Why the hell do they bother. It’s not as if demos change things,” Lisa said, amidst coughs, drying her eyes on her sleeve. “Got me a load of overtime., “ Boyd said over his shoulder. They were sucked down through the orange glow of echoing tunnels and spat out into teary flats of shining tarmac and swung towards the motorway’s over hanging intersections and rainy rust seeped fly-overs. An abrupt shower fired down from a hung-over sky, a good third dark cloud and they aquaplaned across moiled motorway lane whilst below them, the city’s circuit board swept by. “Listen up cunt. Right at the next fucking exit,” a flat metallic voice announced. “Must you Boydy?” “Sorry sir?” “The GPS” “Oh. Abusive mode. Keeps me focused.” “Where we going Tony?” McCabe asked.

“All the way, McCabe, all the fucking way.”