CHAPTER 18. SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE.
He came out of somewhere far beyond the blackness between the stars to re-enter a world of hurt. Pain ate into his arms, down his left leg and chewed through his mind. He lay back, prone, immobile. Around him beeps and bleeps and more distant electronic sounds filled the silence. Soft soled footsteps passed by but didn't stop.
So he lay back and concentrated hard until he moved his arms. Only an inch or so but that was enough. The beeps became louder, faster and more insistent bringing back the footsteps and he sensed rather than felt something happening by his side. The bleeps reduced to their earlier rhythmic level.
"We woke up, ah? We in pain, ah?" a woman's voice said. She had a strong accent – Malay? Filipino? Something like that, the man thought with a burst of clarity. Yes, he tried to tell the woman. Yes, he was in pain. More torment than he believed humanly possible to endure. And the agony was getting worse, not better. Do something, he wanted to shout. Do something, anything to stop this torture.
The man felt and heard dials being reset somewhere behind and over his head.
"There there, man," the woman said. "This help you, ah."
Next the man heard a pen scratching on papers somewhere near his feet. The woman paused for a moment and then he heard her footsteps walking away leaving the man alone with the bleeping machines and his all consuming pain. A door closed somewhere over to his left.
Shortly after, the pain receded, ebbing away on a chemical tide from a morphine drip. Interstellar blackness reclaimed the man.
The following day, the man went on what seemed the longest journey of his life. Far longer than Voyager 2's journey out beyond Neptune and into the empty wastes of the Kuiper belt on the edge of the solar system. First they unclipped the machines, dials, monitors, feeding tubes, IV drips and things the man had no idea what they were used for. Then a nurse dropped a thick folder onto the foot of the bed, jarring his bad leg and making him grit his teeth against crying out.
"Time for go, now," she said.
Somebody kicked off the wheel brakes and then a porter and the nurse wheeled the bed past another bed holding a man who looked like a corpse. Out into a corridor where the harsh overhead fluorescents hurt his eyes and the noises of people hurrying to and fro shocked his ears. The procession marched into a goods lift. The doors slid closed and in the crowded space the man felt a touch of claustrophobia. The lift jolted – upwards or downwards, the man had no way of telling. And he didn't much care either way.
The doors opened onto a corridor exactly the same as the first except this had a yellow stripe painted along the walls. Then the bed turned left along the corridor, pausing only to allow a carer pushing a wheelchair to take right of way. The man licked his lips and tried to speak but no sound came out. He lay back, spent even by that tiny effort.
The bed glided along into another ward and the oriental nurse handed the notes over to another girl from the same part of the world. They spoke rapidly in their own tongue.
"You be good here, man; you get visitor now, okay," the first nurse told the man as she left. The new nurse then reattached all the various tubes and monitors and reset the dials. She fussed about the man for a few minutes. As soon she left to attend to her next patient the man closed his eyes and waited for the darkness to reclaim him.
The man's first visitors were his sister and her kids. The visit was short and filled with tears from his sister and older niece, Sarah. Young Jennie, who was only four after all, didn't seem to understand that her uncle was badly hurt and was more interested in her Peppa Pig book. The man wasn't sorry when they left.
Spent, he lay back on the pillows, eyes closed. There was a cough from the end of the bed. Wearily, he opened his eyes and in the sterile white glare of the ward saw his next visitor. He wished his family was back.
This visitor was dressed all in black, his shirt bulging over his belly. The man was reminded of a cane-toad, puffed up with its own importance. A younger man with a shaved head and wearing a cheap suit with a red ketchup stain on the lapel stood fidgeting behind him. At least, he hoped it was ketchup.
"You keeping alright, Naismith? Are they looking after you here?" his visitor's accent was as flat as the surrounding Fens.
"What do you want, Peachornby?" the man whispered. Naismith. That was his name. It was starting to come back.
"Just paying you a visit. Part of my Mayor duties."
"Mayoral," Naismith corrected automatically.
"You want me to bring in the photographer now, boss?" asked the young man by the door.
Naismith raised himself up a fraction. "No – no photos."
"Why not? You're a hero," his visitor rubbed his upper lip drawing attention to the beginnings of a toothbrush moustache. No, that couldn't be, not even... But then Peachornby's words penetrated the drugged fog in his brain.
"Hero?"
"Sure. You saved Donna's life. If it wasn't for you, she'd have burned to death in the fire."
"Crisped," the young man butted in with a nasty grin.
Naismith licked his lips. "I don't remember." Bits of the Town Hall fire were coming back, his memory recovering like a slowly rebooting computer. Smoke in the corridors, then opening a fire door but after that – still nothing.
"Yeah, you were a hero. Mason...," the young man stood to attention. "Bring in that snapper." Over Naismith's weak protests Mason left and returned with the Standard's house photographer. After introductions were made, Peachornby stood by the head of the bed making sure he filled the frame while the hero of the hour was relegated to one corner. The smudger fired off several snaps from his digital Leica before leaving.
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Peachornby said. There was a pause. "Don't worry, the law's caught the asylum seeking scum who did this. Mason said he saw some Ay-rab with a jerry-can hanging about earlier."
"Guy was probably trying to barbecue one of the swans they nick off of the river," Mason barked with laughter. "They eat anything, them."
"Now they've caught the bastard who torched our Town Hall we'll make the rest of these foreign scum pay for what they've done," Peachornby continued. "I'm putting my corps of Sleaford Smashers to work on driving them out."
Naismith licked his lips and tried to speak but he was so tired and the sedatives he was on were befuddling his brain, making it hard to get all his ideas in order quickly enough. But how did Peachornby know it was an asylum seeker who had burned the Town Hall? It didn't sound like the sort of thing a refugee would do as most wanted to keep their head down until they got leave to remain in Britain.
And who or what were Sleaford Smashers?
"Yes, they've caught the muslin tool who did this outrage – and those behind him; those Judeo-Masonic-Marxist conspiracy merchants who want to bring down our noble town and Lincolnshire and our glorious country. The same bunch who want to drown our Anglo-Saxon heri... heritage within the strait-jacket of the European Union and flood us with the flotsam and jetsam of the world and see us and our children...
"And our children's children," interrupted Mason who despite his youth was well on the way to becoming a grandfather himself.
"...enslaved in chains and led away to be devoured by the starving hordes of Africa and Asia; who let's be honest have contributed nothing to human advancement..."
Naismith found his tongue. He couldn't take any more, especially as Peachornby hadn't yet got onto his favourite subject of how all this was foretold in Henry Ford's 'The International Jew' and how the only people in the modern world who really understood the present dangers were the backwoods Militias in the United States. He'd heard it all before.
"I need to go..."
"You're not going anywhere, pal," Mason said with a snigger.
"No, I need to go urgently – ask the nurse to fetch a bedpan," Naismith croaked.
Peachornby blinked and looked annoyed by the interruption. However, he pressed the call button by the side of the bed. Shortly after, a neat oriental nurse entered the room. She glared at Naismith's visitors. She knew who they were and thought they belonged in a bedpan, too.
Peachornby shook his head. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a town to run." As there was no reason for him to linger, Peachornby left, followed by his henchman.
Naismith lay back, drained, as the nurse removed the bedpan. But not so exhausted that Peachornby's last words didn't set off the alarm bells ringing in his mind. That monster running the town? God help Sleaford if there were no brakes on Peachornby's power now. The BNP thug had to be stopped. But how?
Naismith had no sooner lapsed into an uneasy doze when he became aware of another visitor. Despite the intolerable heaviness, he opened his lids and squinted through the lashes. He raised a smile.
"Patryk. Lukasz. Good of you to come and see me."
Patryk looked down at the man in the white bandages and felt a wave of sympathy and, yes, admiration flow through him. He took off his jacket and hung it over a chair back. Until this moment, he'd never realised that he actually liked this Englishman. Originally, he'd thought of him as a snake, a charismatic politician on the make, better than some maybe, but mostly as a man just looking to fill his boots at the tax-payers expense. But by saving Donna from the flames at the risk of his own life, Naismith had proved himself to be better than that.
Patryk looked down and shuffled his feet. "I was just passing, boss," he said unconsciously imitating Mason.
Naismith was about to say something but didn't want to make the Pole any more uncomfortable than necessary. "Sure, Patryk. Please don't let me keep you any longer than necessary..., mate," he added. Was that was the first time he'd called anyone 'mate' and meant it? He thought it was.
"That's okay, boss. Haven't got much on, just a trip up to Lincolnshire Council with the stuff saved from the archive section. A lot got water damaged after the fire but the chaps at Lincolnshire reckon they can fix it."
Naismith nodded. Even that small movement brought on a fresh jolt of pain. He lay back.
"Can I get you anything, boss? A glass of water?"
"No, I'm not allowed any. I'm still on this feeding tube but the nurse informs me that hopefully it will be removed tomorrow."
"That's good." Silence filled the room.
Naismith licked his lips. "Listen, Patryk. I need you to do a little favour for me."
"Oh, yes?"
"Yes. It's down to you now, Patryk. I need you to stop him. You're the only one who can finish this madman before he goes even further."
Patryk sat back. "Me! But you wanted me to rig the election so he won."
"Not so loud, Patryk. Do you want the whole world to hear? That was then. I had no idea what the man was like. I had no idea that he was even capable of an atrocity like burning down the Town Hall. You must stop him before he becomes too powerful."
"Me? I'm just some Polish van driver. And how do you know Peachornby burned it down? The papers said it was some Kurdish guy..."
"You really believe that? Ask yourself who benefits most from this fire storm? Only Peachornby, that's who. No, Patryk. Don't put yourself down, mate. You're far more than a van driver. And I... No, the whole of Sleaford is looking to you."
"No need to make a speech, boss," Patryk said, embarrassed. "But why can't your so-called business friends stop him. What about Charles Langton-Gore? Couldn't he do something?"
Naismith shook his head. That brought on another wince of pain. "Damn these nurses. Why can't they give you enough pain relief? Is it rationed or something?" His hand, swathed in bandages, reached out and pressed the call button.
"No, mate. None of them have what Hemingway called cojones. No, it's down to us and I am flat on my back in this bloody bed."
"But how? What shall I do?"
Naismith grinned. That hurt but it was worth the pain.
"You'll think of something. I know you will." He better had, Naismith thought, otherwise Sleaford's really in trouble.
The door opened again and the nurse entered the room. "You tire out patient, ah. You go now, okay? You come back when patient maybe rested?" She shooed Patryk out and, as the two men left, heard Naismith complaining about the lack of pain relief.