An Uncivilised Election Read online

  “Find out how broad your shoulders are,” said Gideon. He sat at his desk and pulled the accumulation of papers toward him. “Get me Symes of C.I., will you?”

  Lemaitre put in the call, still eying Gideon suspiciously. The call came through at once.

  “Hallo, Sy,” said Gideon. “Oh, I’m fine. Overworking, of course, but fine…. Yes, that’s it. Sy, I think Dowsett ought to talk to all the women, he’ll do it discreetly, I’m sure…. Good. I’m putting Piper on the Quack full time, he can go round with Dowsett. Thanks…. Yes, Kate’s fine.” Gideon rang off, put his right hand to his pocket and fiddled with the bowl of a big pipe, then said to Lemaitre, “Piper will contact you if he gets into difficulties. Now I want to run through all the outstanding cases and find out if you really know what’s going on around here.”

  Lemaitre looked baffled.

  “You retiring or something? You—” His eyes rounded, and he caught his breath. “Hey! You’ve just been to the A.C., haven’t you? He’s been looking like death warmed up lately. He’s retiring? That it? He’s retiring, so that you can get pushed upstairs, and I—” He broke off, eyes glistening.

  “Lem, I’m going to have a couple of weeks off, that’s all there is to it,” Gideon said. “Rogerson’s not fit enough to take on extra work, so you’ll take over from me, with someone to stand in for you. That’s if you think you can manage it.”

  “Do it on my head,” declared Lemaitre, and then realized what he had said, and went on hastily, “I didn’t mean any offence, George. There isn’t a man at the Yard who could do it half as well as you can, but I do know the ropes and I know how your mind works – well, some of the time!”

  “Let’s go over every case,” Gideon said.

  There was Lemaitre’s great failing: jumping to conclusions. If he was ever to be cured, it would have to be soon. But for the failing, he would be a certainty for the deputy job; with it, Gideon had his doubts. Could one cure a man of a lifelong trait? Lemaitre sat at Gideon’s side, going through every job that was being handled, shrewd, knowledgeable, practical, full of ideas, bursting with energy and satisfaction. This wasn’t the time to try to warn him.

  They did not finish until six o’clock.

  “Now how about a beer over at the pub?” suggested Lemaitre. “My mouth’s like sandpaper.”

  “Good idea,” Gideon said. Soon they walked across the courtyard, watched by Flying Squad men and others in the vicinity, pointed out by several men. When they were in the cosiness of the pub, with a dozen other Yard men, mostly big and making it look as if it were peopled by giants, Lemaitre said: “I was right about the election, George, but not about them springing it on us. Got nearly five weeks. Plenty of time. Think we’ll have any trouble with the Fight for Peace mob? I’ve got a feeling they might try to pull off a stunt.”

  3: The F.F.P.

  Gideon and Lemaitre were not the only people who were thinking about the activities of the Fight for Peace group on that Thursday afternoon. Within an hour of the date of the general election being known, a meeting of the Battle Committee was called to discuss action. The discussion, as always, was level headed and quite dispassionate; only now and again did a glint of extreme emotion show in the eyes of the people gathered in the room.

  “We are agreed on one thing,” the chairman said. “This gives us our greatest opportunity for making our views heard by the general public. And we should also be able to make our views felt.”

  A small, young, very smooth-looking man sitting in a corner of the room shifted his position.

  “Not before it’s time,” he said.

  “I think we all agree with you too, Daniel,” said the chairman. He smiled; he had a great natural charm as well as exceptional gifts in dialectics. “We have a skeleton plan of campaign in existence, of course, but I wonder whether we have fully realized the significance of the situation.”

  “It’s the chance we’ve been waiting for,” said a plump, rosy-cheeked young woman in her twenties. She had fluffy hair, a tweed suit, and a scrubbed look.

  “Yes, indeed, Jane,” said the chairman. “But we have to remember that a general election is the supreme example of democracy in practice, and above everything else we have to preserve democracy. We must – I am quite emphatic in my views about this – we must make sure that we use the weapons of democracy, not autocracy. We have to make quite sure that all the local groups are alerted and know exactly what to do, but that we must not use the actual polling day as one for physical demonstrations. We must restrain our overeager members. Or our ebullience will look as if we were deliberately impeding the progress of democracy. That in turn will antagonize a great number of the electors who might otherwise be sympathetic toward us. We know we are right in our aims; we have to use extreme care in our methods.”

  The young, smooth-skinned man leaned sideways to a very thin, bony-faced girl. She had jet-black hair which fell to her shoulders, wore a black sweater and a black skirt. She had no figure to speak of; the lines of the sweater curved only slightly at the breast. She was not bad-looking in a severe way. Her skin was pale, almost olive in colour, but without blemish. She did not wear lipstick or rouge. The neckline of her sweater was very high, and the sleeves were pulled low. She wore black stockings and black sandals.

  “He’s going to let this chance slip out of his fingers,” the smooth-looking man whispered.

  Out of the corner of her mouth, the girl replied, “Well, we’re not.”

  “We certainly are not.”

  The chairman glanced their way, paused, and made several others look round toward the whispering couple. No one spoke.

  “What your Battle Committee suggests is that we prepare a form of questionnaire, all to do with our subject, and that this questionnaire be sent to every newspaper, to ensure publicity, and to every candidate. Then we must arrange to have members attend every meeting – every meeting, I’m sure we all agree – of every candidate. The same questions must be asked at each meeting. We have to phrase these questions in such a way that everyone who hears them knows that we have the purest humanitarian motives and also knows the unbelievable danger to humanity which the existence of nuclear weapons creates. We have to use the general election as a platform, always – I repeat in a strictly democratic way – from which to tell the people of this country the suicidal folly of the present policy.”

  When the chairman paused there was a chorus of “Hear hear.”

  “Now, as for the questions themselves …” the chairman began. Two members of the committee began to hand out mimeographed lists of recommended questions, and the meeting got down to detail.

  The young-looking Daniel and the black-clad pencil-slim girl took what appeared to be a polite interest, until the girl said in a clear, penetrating voice: “Don’t you think the first question asked of a candidate should be: Do you want to live?”

  After a pause someone round the table said in a muted voice, “Oh, shut up, Amanda.”

  The girl in black took no notice.

  “I see exactly what you mean,” the chairman said. “You want to make a dramatic start to the questions. The trouble is, Amanda, that if you find anyone in an audience of an—ah—a ribald nature, and election meetings seem to breed hecklers with a peculiar sense of humour, they might answer for the candidate somewhat curtly. That could easily—ah—spoil the effect of the question.”

  “We need a more detailed first question,” said a well-dressed young cleric with gingery hair and many freckles. “We need to ask: Do you believe in the destruction of humanity by nuclear explosion? If the candidate says no, then one of us wants to jump up and start a barrage of supplementary questions. Certainly he won’t say yes.”

  “Some of these extremists will say anything,” a middle-aged man put in cynically.

  “We’ll have to have questioners sprinkled about the halls to keep the pot boiling,” said a sweet-faced little woman with silvery-white hair. “I always feel that if an audience believes that a great
many people among them have the same sentiments as the questioner, there is a deeper sympathy, less tendency to scoff.”

  “What we have to make sure is that the campaign is run as the chairman says – on strictly democratic lines and in complete conformity with the law.” The speaker was a tall, dark-haired, earnest-looking man, faintly like the woman in black. He wore thick-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses and kept pushing back his untidy hair. “The British people are very jealous of their democratic rights, and we shall get results only if we respect their views.”

  “How can we if we’re dead?” inquired the girl Amanda.

  “Amanda, you can be sure that the Battle Committee will do everything in its power to make sure that the questions asked of the candidates are effective, succinct and pungent. In fact we shall need a Question Drafting Subcommittee. Will you serve on it?”

  Most members of the committee were staring at Amanda, and the youngish-looking man by her side whispered: “Say yes.”

  “If you wish, yes,” answered Amanda.

  The chairman looked relieved, as if feeling that by putting Amanda on the subcommittee he had drawn her claws. The sweet-faced woman said, “I’ll second that, if you need a seconder.” The man with thick rims and lenses to his glasses was frowning at the ceiling, as if he was a long way from satisfied. From that moment on, however, the meeting made good progress. There was tremendous enthusiasm and great vitality in everyone present. Whenever a member showed a tendency to make a speech, the chairman gently headed him off. The silver-haired woman appeared to be very happy.

  After the meeting Amanda Tenby and Daniel Ronn went off together. They walked without speaking for five minutes, to a black and white MG sports car which had a much-repaired look about it. The leather of the seats was patched and the wire wheels were rusty. Daniel Ronn opened the door for Amanda, who slid her long, very thin legs in, and sat down, then shook her head and slid her hands beneath her hair and lifted it clear for a moment, so that the wind blew about it. Ronn took the wheel and started off. The engine roared, going much too fast to the corner. Ronn braked sharply, and went round the corner cautiously, as if he were aware of the big man at the far end of the street who was staring after him.

  Once they were clear of other members of the committee, Amanda said in her clear, precise voice: “They’re going to throw the opportunity away.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “We’ve got to think of something—drastic.”

  “Sensational.”

  “Drastic. We’ve got to make sure that members of Parliament and the people know we’re serious.”

  “Any ideas?” Ronn asked.

  “I’m working on it,” said Amanda. “I’m working on it.”

  Ronn glanced at her. Her high-bridged nose gave her appearance a touch of arrogance, and she wore false eyelashes, to heighten the grey brilliance of her eyes. She was staring straight ahead, but he did not think she was studying the traffic in the gathering dusk.

  “It’s got to be drastic,” she said again. “We’ve got to make them realize what they’re doing.”

  Ronn said, “We will.”

  Detective Constable Ashenden of the division made a note in his report that night, reading:

  Amanda Tenby and Daniel Ronn left the F.F.P.

  C’ee meeting looking as if they hated everyone they’d been talking with.

  There were reports about other members of the committee who were known to be firebrands, for Gideon’s request for detailed information was already in the hands of the division. No report was made on the chairman, however, nor on the silver-haired woman with the sweet face and dulcet tones. She was Lady Lucy Wallis, a lady with decided views of her own and a passionate hatred of everything to do with nuclear arms.

  The news of the coming election created a great stir throughout the nation, and of course in every one of London’s constituencies. Meetings of constituency associations of the three main parties, Conservative, Labour and Liberal, were hurriedly convened, so that the associations could be wound up for the period of the election, when everyone who worked for a candidate could tell the world what his politics were and how he was going to vote but must not be a member of any party or political association. Men and women who had been members of Parliament until that day faced five weeks of intensive campaigning, and many of them feared that they would not get back into the House, no matter how confident they might seem with their friends. Candidates who had been nursing constituencies for years began to hope, especially those who had been defeated by only a narrow margin at the last general election. Candidates who were on the party lists but had not yet “found” a constituency also hoped, especially those in the Liberal party who had not been fully blooded in politics but were greatly encouraged by the local and county council election results.

  The election agents, eager, patient workers in the constituencies, got busy, checking over their lists of voluntary workers, their committees, their financial supporters. Printers began to gear themselves for the rush of work, the election posters, the election addresses. At least three addresses would go to each elector, one from each candidate. The shrewder agents wrote that very night to the printers they wanted to use, to bill-posting companies, to the owners of those halls which permitted political meetings. At higher pressure still, they telephoned the owners of big auditoriums such as town halls and empty cinemas and dance halls and church halls which were large enough for the Eve of Poll rallies. All over the country, caretakers and clerks began to pencil in provisional bookings for these halls. One in every three or four commented: “November 5th. How about that for a date?”

  “Must be daft,” some observed.

  “There’s a reason for it,” remarked others sagely.

  As candidates, agents, workers, printers, hall secretaries and party machines geared themselves for the struggle, non-political groups made preparations too. The returning officer of each constituency had to arrange for ballot stations so that all the electors in the area under his control were within reasonable reach of a ballot box. This meant that he would need accommodation at many schools and smaller church halls, and on polling day itself would need a host of supervisors and poll clerks to watch over the ritual, to mark off those voters who had cast their votes, and to make sure that no one, out of malice or high spirits, tried to vote twice or more than twice.

  Even the criminals would have a vote.

  At every polling station, every hall, every meeting, everywhere up and down the country the police would be present, quietly watchful, making sure that the laws were observed. Arrangements would be made for the votes to be counted immediately following the ballot, usually at town halls. There would be the scrutineers and clerks and eager workers, the officials, the returning officer – and of course, the police.

  The commander of the Uniform Branch of the Metropolitan Police, recently appointed after serving as deputy commander, had already sent round a directive:Stop all leave for November 5th and 6th.

  Similar directives would soon be going out to all policemen in the land.

  Gideon walked from Cannon Row, after his drink with Lemaitre, into Parliament Street and then across to Parliament Square, watching the big face of Big Ben. It was ten minutes to seven. Kate, his wife, would begin to wonder where he was, as he hadn’t telephoned to say that he would be late. The stark beauty of the skyline made by the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey always affected Gideon, and he stood with a crowd of people being held back by a policeman on traffic duty, staring up. Someone pushed him. A man said: “Get a move on.”

  The policeman was letting them cross the road.

  Gideon walked more attentively past the gates which led to the House of Commons. Four policemen were on duty, and he caught sight of Superintendent Paterson, who looked after security at the Houses of Parliament, disappearing into a doorway. Paterson was going to be the busiest policeman on the force for a while. Gideon walked on, nodding to constables who saluted him. Before he rea
ched the corner leading to the Abbey, a man called: “Hey, George!” He turned round. It was sandy-haired Paterson with his yellowish moustache and his pale eyes and his big knuckly hands and big feet. He had only a suspicion of a Scottish accent.

  “Getting too proud to know your old friends, are you?”

  They shook hands.

  “Didn’t dare to take up any of your time today,” said Gideon.

  “Get away with you, you’re frightened of your wife, that’s why you’re in such a hurry. Could you have time for a quick one if I asked you nicely?”

  “I’ve just come from the pub.”

  “It isn’t the only one in the world,” said Paterson. “And I’d like a word with you, George.”

  “That’s different,” Gideon said.

  They walked along Victoria Street and eventually turned into a small public house in Petty France, where there were high-backed oak booths giving a measure of privacy. Paterson went to get the beer, Gideon slipped into a telephone kiosk and dialled his home number. Instead of his wife answering, his son Malcolm did.

  “Oh, hallo, dad! Not coming home to supper?”

  “Yes, but I’ll be a bit late,” Gideon said. “Half past eight or so. Where is your mother?”

  “She’s across at the Marjoribanks’,” answered Malcolm. “There’s been a bit of an accident – not very serious, I would say. They haven’t sent for a doctor, anyhow. Well, I mean they haven’t asked me to telephone for one, or go round. How’s crime, dad?”

  Gideon chuckled.

  “Not so good as it ought to be!”

  When he joined Paterson at a booth where there was just room for the two big men to sit, Paterson was looking up at him, eyes narrowed in a kind of Lemaitre look.

  “What are you grinning about?”

  “Young Malcolm,” Gideon said. “Wants to know how crime is.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Paterson. “Well, here’s to the man you’re going to vote for.” He drank deeply, before adding scornfully, “M.P.s. Sometimes I can sympathize with Khrushchev. What I want to say, George, is that I think you ought to keep a special eye on one or two of the extremist members we’ve got. There’s a peculiar idea that if a man’s a member of Parliament he’s above suspicion, but I wouldn’t like to say that’s true where the Q Men and Fight for Peace groups are concerned. I wonder, if I slipped you a few names, on the quiet, would you do a bit of digging? Say nothing to anybody, just dig.” Paterson lifted his tankard again, sipped, and lowered it; his pale-blue eyes showed how serious he was. “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong, but the three people I’ve got in mind have a lot of extremist friends, and there’s a lot of feeling being generated at the moment.” He grinned suddenly. “As if Gee-Gee doesn’t know!”