Face Down Read online

  It had all gone very well.

  23

  Saturday October 13. Worsley, Greater Manchester. 8.45pm.

  We arrived at the hotel late to discover that, like the patches of paint around the window ledges, the charm of the once-grand Victorian inn had long since faded. Any appeal it might once have possessed had peeled away at the edges, along with any vestige of class.

  In the large function room, the meeting had already started. An over-weight geezer with greased-back grey hair and elaborate Rhodes Boyson side-burns was addressing a room full of around forty people, a mix of young heavies, middle-aged men in charity shop suits and disgruntled pensioners.

  “That’s Dad,” whispered Knockers indicating the speaker.

  I nodded. Dad – Kenneth McManus – wore a grey three-piece pin-striped whistle with a flash pink breast pocket handkerchief. He was only a pencil moustache short of a sitcom spiv. It wouldn’t have surprised me too much if he’d opened up his jacket to reveal a set of watches for sale stitched into the lining, or if he had started selling black market beef from his briefcase.

  Dad was standing in front of a banner that declared ‘Defend Free Speech’. On both ends were posters with the same hand-written felt-tip pen slogan: ‘I’m Backing Broadwick’. He was speaking passionately about the threat to the “British way of life” posed by gypsies and Islamists. Mention of either word provoked a murmur of approval and occasionally light applause.

  I tuned in to that voice. It sounded Salford to me. He was talking about “Romanian gypsies”, saying “We are importing the scum of Europe – pickpockets, thieves and beggars; experts at helping themselves to your watch and wallet or a nice few grand of undeserved benefits, thank you very much. And thousands more will pour into this country in January 2014, when 29 million people from Romania and Bulgaria gain the right to live and work unrestricted in Britain under European ‘freedom of movement’ rules that we don’t have a say in.”

  There were shouts of “No!” and “Never.” ‘Dad’ was playing the crowd like a Stradivarius. Something nagged me about him, though, apart from the dress sense and saloon bar rhetoric. I’d seen this bloke before. I recognised the smirk. He was one of those jerks, those shifty cowboy berks who lurk in the murk where no one looks, where the Old Bill sniff around but can’t quite shine a torch.

  Katie obviously believed her father was another struggling small businessman with a few harmless Arthur Daley tendencies, but my Spidey senses were tingling. When I’d first seen him, he was definitely a Kim Jong-un – a wrong’un. Under the radar, like me, but rotten with it...

  On he went, attacking Irish tinkers “the tarmac mafia, the big fat gypsy tax-dodgers.”They weren’t “the proper Romany gypsies,” he said. “Not like the benign old folk you see on Blackpool pier and at race tracks; cross their palm with silver and they’ll tell you a lie...”

  That was it! Race tracks. It all fell into place. I’d seen him at Aintree a few years ago, with Andrew Palmer, a heavy from Fleetwood known as Pancake, and a big-time Scouse drug baron called Nutty Butty, short for Nigel ‘Nutty’ Butterfield. It was obvious they knew each other well. It was a sure bet that dear old Dad was laundering Butty boy’s filthy lucre, or processing some other dirty deal, through his chain of backstreet garages, market stalls and the garment factory Katie had often mentioned.

  The crowd were perking up. Dad was working up to his big finish and they knew it.

  “Everywhere we look, our British way of life is under attack. Our freedom of speech is undermined by liberal judges. Our laws are sabotaged by the European Court of ’Ooman Rights. Our values – the values our ancestors fought and died for – are being pissed away by Muslims, sorry ‘Islamists’, and their bleeding heart pinko apologists. Will we allow this to carry on?”

  “NO!” responded the crowd.

  “No, we will not,” Dad continued. “We cannot. There is a new Battle of Britain brewing, folks. It’s not a hot war, an open war or an honest war, it’s a stealth war, a concerted assault on British values, our freedoms and our civil liberties, hard-worn over the centuries. Men like William Broadwick are targeted by the people who hate this country – the wets, the reds and the PC rats – because they tell the truth. If you want to help the fight back, then back Broadwick, and please, I beg you, throw a fiver or any loose change you can spare into the buckets that are coming round now. With your help, and William’s, God willing, we shall take our country back.”

  The room erupted. The crowd stood and cheered – and as they did, two men in Stone Island navy blue blouson jackets left their chairs a few feet from me and started making towards the front. I noticed the glint of metal in the front runner’s hand. Matey boy had a Stanley knife.

  Quickly, I grabbed one of their deserted chairs, chased after them and crowned them both with one good hard swing. The blade fell to the floor a few feet from Dad. I drew some puzzled looks but Knockers was on hand quickly to join the dots. Suddenly, I was a hero.

  Their wallets told a story. The younger one, Tim Brennan was 22, and the proud owner of an expired NUS card; the would-be blades man Al Lynch was 31 and signing on. The stewards dragged the pair of them into a cleaner’s cupboard and waited on the cops. I, in turn, was dragged to the bar by Katie’s Dad and a merry throng of blokes his age.

  I sipped one of the three pints of Cascade that had been lined up for me already, with another two in the pipe. They had pints and chasers.

  “Does that happen often?” I asked.

  “The Reds? Aye,” Ken replied. “Too often, and when they haven’t got the numbers they’ve got the tools.”

  I grunted. “I’m not saying that I agree with everything you said tonight,” I said. “But I do know I support your right to say it, just like I’d support their right to protest against it. But you can’t have people getting carved up for having an opinion. This isn’t fuckin’ a 1920s bierkeller, it’s not Moscow. We used to have a thing in this country called free speech, and once we lose that, we lose the cornerstone of everything that matters.”

  “Hear, hear,” cried half a dozen beered-up blokes.

  “I mean, they call you fascists, but that really is fascism, isn’t it? Trying to maim and kill people because you disagree with them.”

  Ken slung his arm around me. “We’ll have you making speeches for us yet, Harry lad.”

  “Is this the City boy your Katie’s sweet on?” asked a chubby, red-faced man called Gregg.

  “City boy?” I said indignantly. “I do a bit of trading, mate, I ain’t won the Apprentice.”

  “Ooh ’eck, I love his accent,” purred Gloria, the landlady, who for some unknown reason was wearing a Stetson and occasionally drinking vodka shots out of a water pistol.

  She seemed a nice, friendly woman but I couldn’t help but notice that her entire sun-leathered boat-race was the colour of Kia-Ora, which was a little disconcerting to say the least. It wouldn’t be too unkind to observe that she looked a lot better from the other side of the room.

  Gloria’s Botox-frozen forehead said forty, the saggy old Deirdre Barlow Gregory added another twenty-five years. The bust looked positively fortified. If she took off her bra she wouldn’t need socks.

  “He could be in EastEnders, couldn’t he lads?”She winked lasciviously, and my testicles involuntarily retreated up into the safety of my body.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a misogynist, I like women. I just don’t want to shag a great-Gran, you know what I mean? Not outside of a desert island with no hope of escape. I’m not Wayne Rooney.

  I smiled at her politely and turned back to my Cascade.

  “He is a right diamond geezer,” said Ken in his best Cockney accent, which sounded painfully Australian to my Britneys.

  “’Ere, who is the most knackered man in Walford?” asked Gregg. “The poor bastard who dug Heather Trott’s grave.”

  The landlady laughed and waltzed away to serve a party at the other end of the bar. Her hem was practically skimming her vulv
a. She was mutton dressed as an ultra-sound scan of lamb foetus.

  “You see that?” Ken whispered to me conspiratorially. “I had that in every hole last week. Cracking fuck. Nipples like Eartha Kitt’s face.”

  This was an image that even shut me up. “Cool,” was the only word I managed to get out, although the phrase that sprang to mind was “Get a tomb.” I felt like I’d wandered into the Twilight Zone.

  “Ignore them,” said an elderly white-haired man, who introduced himself as “Albert, Albie Simmons”, adding “They’re all soppy in drink.”

  Gloria looked over and winked again, more lasciviously this time.

  “Would you call her a cougar, Kenneth?” asked Gregg. “Or maybe a sabre-tooth? Fanny like the Mariana Trench, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Now, now. Nothing wrong with an older woman with a healthy sex drive,” Ken protested. “As long as you replace the petroleum jelly with Polygrip Ultra.”

  Frank, a saggy, pale-faced man who looked like a 300-year-old turtle in a golf jumper spoke for the first time.“Is it vajazzled down there, Ken, or just stone-clad?”

  Gregg chuckled. “Good luck Kenneth I say. They do reckon sex is the best form of exercise, although I can’t see two minutes a month getting shot of this beauty.”

  He lifted his shirt and flashed a gut like an over-inflated Space Hopper. “And it all turns to cock after midnight!”

  The party exploded in hearty laughter, except for old Albert who tutted under his breath. “I’d best be making a move,” he said. He pulled me closer and said quietly. “Don’t think badly of them. They hit the brandies after the attack. You can’t blame them.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” I smiled and then glanced around for Knockers.

  “Don’t worry about the women,” said Ken. “Katie is over there with my Liz. They’re happy as Larry. Right, who’s got a gag for me?”

  “I’ll start you off,” said Gregg. “And this is true by the way – I'm going to take part in the Great Bradford Run next Sunday. It's not an official race, I just stand in the city centre & shout ‘Allah is a tosser’ and then off we go...”

  “Bradford,” groaned Ken. “I went there once and felt like a spot on a domino. I called 999 and got the Bengal Lancers.”

  “What does Bonanza mean in Spanish?” asked Chris, a small man from Clitheroe with a face like a beetroot in distress.

  “I give up,” said Ken.

  “Who set fire to the map!”

  “Why did Scargill wear a baseball cap?” chimed in Gregg. “Cos he knew it would be...three strikes and out.”

  I groaned inwardly. Bonanza, Scargill and Bernard Manning gags...it was hardly Mock The Week was it? What next, jokes about Harold Macmillan and rationing, or Dixon Of Dock Green? Heard the one about Alma Cogan? They were all too sloshed for a proper chinwag.

  “I saw in the paper that Greater Manchester police are looking for a Mosque arsonist,” contributed Frank. “I phoned the information line and sadly it wasn’t a job advertisement.”

  “Ha. Nice one,” I said, managing half a grin. “’Scuse me, lads, just nipping off to point Percy at the porcelain.”

  “Very Australian of you,” observed Gregg. “Go on, Harry lad, go unbutton the mutton.”

  As soon as I’d locked the cubicle door I was on the phone to Knockers. “Time to make a move Katie,” I said. “You look so ravishing tonight I can’t keep my hands off ya for a moment longer.”

  It took ten minutes for her to say her goodbyes. Ken and Liz had gone outside for a fag. As we drove off, I saw him slap her in the rear-view mirror. Another reason not to like the cunt.

  ***

  Later that night I lay in bed mulling it all over. Ken McManus was definitely not for me. Granted, he had a point about a few things and several people at the meeting were probably well-meaning and sincere, but there was much more to Ken than met the eye. If he was involved, there had to be pound notes in this and possibly something else, something much more poisonous disguised as common sense to slip past your defences. It was likely to be the political equivalent of someone splintering shards of glass into dough and then baking you up the kind of cake that kills you from the inside.

  23

  Sunday, October 14.

  Nell Butcher had lived up to her reputation. Private Eye wit Francis Wheen would dub her William Broadwick profile in the Independent On Sunday “the greatest demolition job since they blew up the Stardust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.” It was a merciless onslaught, describing the columnist as ‘a bubbling pool of sulphurous mud, fulminating mindlessly against a changing world that is leaving him behind.’ The opening words were: ‘Want to know what William Broadwick hates? Pretty much everything. From the moment his front door shuts behind his lardy posterior, poor William is in enemy terrain, darting and diving into cabs, restaurants and private clubs to avoid the awful heaving masses of humanity littering the path with their stupidity, their everyday banalities and their “all-consuming” lowbrow culture. He hates the poor, their children, the disadvantaged, the working class, the underclass, teachers and the Labour Party...and that’s before he gets started on travellers.’

  Broadwick, she claimed, had invited her to Rules because it was ‘one of the few places he fitted in; a mouldy old mausoleum with its walls lined with two dimensional caricatures and portraits of dead moustachioed bores...the sort of men who would have laughed as they had slaughtered the unfortunate deer whose once proud antlers are triumphantly displayed among the hunting prints, statuettes, busts, stained glass and dull architectural drawings.’ He is, she wrote, ‘an obstreperous ghost of times past and values either gone or nearly forgotten, spewing out goblets of prejudice and saloon bar hatred; a dying echo of imperial delirium.’

  For all of the columnist’s combative infamy, he was ‘one of life’s bores...,’ she said, asserting that ‘women terrify him. I ask about previous girlfriends, one night stands, flirtations and infidelity, he breaks into a sweat. The very notion of sex seems to terrify him, especially unorthodox sex; homosexuality disgusts him as much as it seems to fascinate him...his hate list includes most foreigners, modern art, modern comedians, modern pop, modern television, lads’ mags (which he calls “pornography for cretins”), rich leftie intellectuals, Common Purpose, the BBC, over-zealous Health and Safety officials, “oppressive” shopping malls and, perhaps less expectedly, gymnasiums and health spas. You worry for his blood pressure, for his heart – how long can it take the strain of sustaining this fiery firmament of perpetual rage?’

  There were digs at Broadwick’s features, his ‘extravagant’ eyebrows, his posture, his weight (‘his only exercise is the push back – pushing back from the dinner table when he’s finished eating’), his enthusiastic eating style – ‘he polishes off his pudding like a starving Somali beggar breaking a week-long fast...he can’t sit still, his fingers tap, his knees jiggle...there’s the occasional twitch of a muscle in his left cheek when he listens to someone else speaking (with ill-concealed impatience), ever eager to deliver his own unreconstructed Thatcherite certainties.’

  She berated him for not disclosing his salary – ‘said to be in the region of £375,000 a year after his esteemed Editor saw off a poaching bid from the Daily Mail’ – and for his feuds with a gay TV comedian, elderly Labour Party statesmen and ‘progressive MPs’.

  ‘“Ah diddums,” he replies, taunting me aggressively. “Poor little diddums. Did the nasty man tell people the truth about you??? You’ll be telling me I should feel sorry for Mr Potato-head” – his nickname for Ian Hislop – “next. Do me a favour Nell. These people dish it out for a living – they just don’t like it up ’em!” I bring up the subject of the former Deputy Prime Minister who has stated publicly that he wants to ‘smack Broadwick one.’ He replies: “If Fat-Boy Prescott still wants to punch me, then that’s his problem. Perhaps the great oaf thinks he can mangle me as badly as he does the English language. I'd just like to say through the pages of this august organ that if he eve
r tries it he’ll be going down a lot quicker than Tracey Temple; he’ll go down like the Lusitania.” Seconds out!’

  Broadwick’s quotes about his school friends, although accurately reproduced, were accompanied with mocking lines about his social climbing: ‘He’s stayed in touch with his schoolmates, while leaving them behind financially through his killer combo of ruthless ambition and recycled bigotry. Cue violins! I'm surprised he doesn't break into a rendition of 'My Way'...’

  Butcher’s cruellest observation though was aimed firmly below the belt. ‘He seems, I think, to blame his wife for their lack of children...even though you feel any competition for her affections would be as welcome in the Broadwick household as a garrulous Jehovah’s Witness with African swine fever virus.’

  She acknowledged his audience but claimed they were ‘the same people who are drawn to the far-Right’ adding that he appeals to ‘those who waiver between cynicism and disillusionment, oozing with resentment at the new human values that have left them powerless.’

  Broadwick’s attitudes, she concluded, ‘have not progressed beyond the 70s – the 1870s. He is a dinosaur, a relic of a nastier age, incapable of natural wit, empathy, originality or imagination. His column is the reason we need press reform. In it, one finds all of the evils of the tabloid press – prurience, prejudice and male insecurity. It is, however, a perfect reflection of William Broadwick. It’s judgemental, bigoted, out of place and out of time.’ Ouch.