CHAPTER 4. DEMOCRACY COMES UNDER THREAT.
Patryk was in the yard behind the Town Hall loading up his van with archive boxes filled with old files to take onto the Lincolnshire County Council offices. He looked up as a shadow fell over him. A man wearing a smartly hand-tailored three piece business suit leaned against the Transit's side.
"Did he bite?"
Patryk stood and stretched his back. He looked up at the other man. James Naismith was the Deputy Mayor of Sleaford Urban Council. Only thirty-two or thirty-three years old, the man had made a success of his life. Nature had been kind to him and fortune even kinder. Naismith stood six-two and had an athletic, gym-toned body. He swept his hair back. No signs of grey or premature balding. Patryk wondered if Naismith coloured his hair – the man was vain enough – but decided that he had been blessed with the right genes.
Naismith smiled with a devastating grin. The man was single and Patryk knew he could have nearly any woman working in the Council offices. Even the married ones. Maybe especially the married ones. It also helped that the man was almost a millionaire. He had inherited a small equestrian centre and stud based out on his farm and on top of that, and his farming subsidies, he had his salary as Deputy Mayor. You could tell by his effortless confidence that the man had money behind him.
"Yes. Peachornby couldn't resist. His eyes lit up like Skegness illuminations," Patryk said. "But what I don't understand, Mr. Naismith, is why you don't become mayor yourself? You'd easily win so why do you want that...," he paused for a moment, "...that racist idiot to become Mayor instead?"
Naismith shook out a Lambert and Butler, lit it with a gold lighter engraved with his name in ornate script and blew smoke up to the sky. "You've answered your own question. It's because he's an idiot, that's why. He'll be the front man drawing all the flak while I'll keep a low profile making all the real decisions."
"But why him? Why not offer being mayor to the Green party or that guy standing as an independent?"
"Because they would refuse and call the cops. Only that fool Peachornby is stupid and greedy enough that he'd go for it," said Naismith. He spoke quietly as a couple of secretaries had popped out for a crafty smoke break. The women smiled at Naismith as he turned his high-wattage grin on them. He tossed over his lighter and the women made a big show of lighting their cigarettes, placing them in their mouths and drawing deep on the smoke before exhaling. It was very obvious what they were suggesting. Naismith smiled but turned away.
"Well, you know best, Mr. Naismith. I'm only a van man so what do I know? But I hope you... we're... not making a big mistake here. I wouldn't trust Peachornby further than I could throw him."
"Neither would I. But I don't have to trust him. As long as he does what he's told and doesn't realise what's going on behind the scenes, then we've nothing to fear."
"That's what I'm worried about, Mr, Naismith. What if he works it out?" Patryk finished loading, climbed up into the cab and drove out of the yard. As he did so, he watched Naismith stub out his cigarette and go talk to the women. By now both were giggling coquettishly and flicking their hair. They stayed out after Naismith returned to his office.
"That cleft chin, Tess! and those long eyelashes – to die for!"
"And gold flecks in his eyes, that half smile. Ooh, he should be in the movies!"
"Big ear lobes, too – that tells you something."
"Oh shut up, Donna! You're always mucking in the gutter."
***
It's not like election fever ever gripped Sleaford. Both the Sleaford Standard and the Sleaford Target tried to drum up interest if not enthusiasm but both papers found it hard going even after they ran a series of interviews with all the candidates.
The Conservative candidate, a man called Charles Langton-Gore who owned a local estate agency, emphasised cutting taxes and repealing the ban on fox hunting. Langton-Gore was after the country voters in the outlying villages but as he probably had nearly one hundred per cent support in the rural areas anyway it was unlikely he picked up too many extra votes from the town.
Danielle Rice, the Guardian reading lady from the Labour Party campaigned on a platform of increasing free child care facilities and better public transport. It was probably purely coincidental that she was a single mother who couldn't drive. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat was a local General Practitioner who lambasted the government over its treatment of the National Health Service and how it was grossly underfunded. He had strange wandering eyes and attractive young women usually thought it best to take a chaperone when they visited his surgery.
And then it was Peachornby's turn. Someone from the British National Party's headquarters wrote Peachornby's piece for him. They felt, probably correctly, that a misspelled rant about how the Judeo-Marxist-Masonic conspiracy was determined to eradicate the Anglo-Saxon race and that Enoch Powell was right all along wasn't the message a modern, forward looking party should be sending out.
So instead his pre-prepared blurb was about the recent influx of eastern Europeans and the pressure put on schools, housing and public services. But anyone capable of reading between the lines would understand that the sub-text was still 'send them all back'.
Nobody took much notice of or remembered the Green Party's ex-hippy or the independent candidates.
***
On the Thursday of election day itself, cars with loud hailers attached to the roofs toured the streets of Sleaford. The Conservative preferred the traditional hymn Jerusalem, the Labour lady some Ibiza techno-trance tune from her teenage years in the early 1990s that reminded some people in the town of their nights loved up on Ecstasy at illegal raves out in the fields. Maybe that was her intention.
Peachornby wanted the Nazi party's anthem of the Horst Wessel Lied but that was overruled by the BNP's headquarters team. Instead he chose Song to the Evening Star by Wagner. Maybe he thought Germanic plus opera would make the association in the voters' minds with both Hitler and Mussolini. Two bites of the cherry, so to speak. If anyone understood the connection they kept it to themselves.
Last minute pamphlets were pushed through letterboxes; unsuspecting shoppers were waylaid in the town centre and asked if they had voted, infirm voters were ferried to the polling stations. Probably the only people really enjoying the day were the school children given the day off to allow their classrooms to be used as polling stations. They milled around Sleaford's town centre taking no notice of the electioneering.
The cops on duty knew they would be busy dealing with low level crimes and disturbances. A few cases of shoplifting, one drunk and disorderly and a couple of lads who got into a bit of pushing and shoving which the rookie constable decided to treat as an assault. The booking sergeant at the custody suite sent the brawling lads home after a stern reprimand. Then he took the rookie constable into an empty cell and explained a few matters to him. Forcefully. The rookie received the message loud and clear and kept his head down for the rest of his shift.
As he had to collect the ballot boxes from the polling stations at ten that night, Naismith gave Patryk the afternoon off. So he took the van to the Tesco Extra store on Northgate and had the gang of Poles usually to be found hanging about at one end of the car park wash it down and then valet the cab. Patryk knew their tricks and after he spoke to them in their own language they did a thorough job. He didn't tip them and they didn't expect one.
After getting his van cleaned, Patryk drove over to the printers where Lukasz worked, timing his arrival for the two o'clock shift change. The workers flocked out in droves, some sparking up their smokes immediately upon leaving the building, others waiting until they were outside the fence. Lukasz himself walked out, taking no notice of Patryk and hung about the bus stop with a few other non-drivers.
The printer's factory was in a complex of industrial warehouses on the north-eastern side of Sleaford, all of them painted a sort of dreary greenish-grey. The smell of distilled alcohol fumed from one the opposite units and two hard looking men hand-balled boxes into a beat up looking Luton van. Patryk had once walked over and the men claimed they were making paint thinners for a well-known commercial manufacturer. But Patryk heard the clinking of glass coming from the boxes as they were loaded and didn't think a commercial paint manufacturer would buy thinners packaged in vodka bottles.
Reversing into one of the loading bays, Patryk unlocked the Transit's back doors then walked over to the front of the printer's and slapped a receipt down on the counter top. Through the reception window, he could keep an eye on the parking lot.
He watched as a forklift truck loaded a pallet of cardboard boxes into the back of another white Transit. The boxes were marked up with the logo of one of the High Street banks and Patryk guessed they contained advertising leaflets. The forklift reversed, its banksman’s siren bleeping rhythmically until it turned around before disappearing back into the unit for a second load.
Eventually, the receptionist came from out of a side door. She was young and pretty and looked flushed as she readjusted her blouse. Patryk didn't need to look at her name badge which was pinned over her breast to know her name was Sienna. That girl had a reputation in town. Sienna looked at Patryk's receipt and hurried back into the main body of the printer's clutching it in her hand. He admired her pert bum moving under her pencil skirt. As the door opened, Patryk heard the whir and whiz and clatter of printing presses beyond.
Soon after Sienna returned. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't find your order. I've asked one of the print supervisors to look for it, if you don't mind waiting a few minutes."
"That's all right. I'll wait by my van," Patryk said, pushing his way back outside. Putting his hands in his pockets, he strolled over to the bank's white Transit. As he did so, the forklift came out of the main vehicular door and approached at speed. Its driver nodded to him. On top of the shrink-wrapped pallet was a single box. Its whiteness stood out stark against the brownness of the pallet.
The other Transit driver glanced up from his copy of the Daily Star. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the box. "I'm only here for three pallets, mate."
"Dunno, mate," replied the forklift driver as he lowered the forks and guided the last pallet into the back of the Transit. He jumped down from the open cab, swung himself up monkey-like into the back of the Transit and fetched down the white box.
"Well, spotted mate," said the forklift operator. "It's not for you. He glanced at the printed address label in the document wallet. "Sleaford Urban Council. Oh, I'll take it back inside."
Patryk stepped forward. "Sleaford Council? That's me. The girl in the office said it had been mislaid."
The forklift driver took one look at Patryk's van, which was prominently marked with the coat of arms above a big logo saying 'Sleaford Urban Council'. There was no doubt in the man's mind that a box marked for Sleaford Urban Council should be taken away by a van belonging to that organisation.
"Here you are then," he said, handing the box over to Patryk who in turn stowed it in the back. Patryk locked up and then returned to the reception foyer. After waiting a few minutes, he rang the bell and Sienna hurried back out. Her lipstick appeared more smudged than before and she was tucking in the tail of her blouse.
"I'm so sorry, sir, we're still looking in dispatch but they say they've not seen it..."
Patryk smiled to himself. He knew what that print supervisor had been looking for and it had been Sienna's box, not his. He waved away her apologies.
"That's all right. It was mixed up with the bank's leaflets but I've got it now. So, if you could just stamp my receipt as I'm behind schedule now?"
The girl smiled with relief. It didn't look good for the printer's efficiency if they got a name for mislaying customer's orders. This was a family firm and Patryk had heard that Sienna was the owner's niece or cousin's daughter or something – some relative anyway – and would probably get an executive post at some time in the future. Unless she caught pregnant first.
Sienna disappeared back into the factory and once again Patryk heard the busy hum of machinery. He hoped he wouldn't have to wait too long while she renewed relations with the print supervisor but she came back within two minutes. A big blue 'COLLECTED' had been stamped on his receipt.
Patryk looked at the form as he crossed the tarmac to his van. It was for something as mundane as a box of envelopes stamped up with the crest and name of Sleaford Urban Council together with its new slogan of 'We are a Fairtrade town'. But what filled that box was nothing as harmless as envelopes.
It was the paper equivalent of trinitrotoluene, commonly known as T.N.T. What was inside would blow a hole in local democracy in the same way as a few pounds of T.N.T. would crack open a strongbox. And in the same way that a hole in a safe will let the cracksman take the money or jewellery inside, so the papers in this box would allow Naismith to take total control of Sleaford itself.
Patryk pulled up by the bus stop and Lukasz climbed into the cab. Patryk was struck by how honest Lukasz appeared. A look that he was sure Naismith would find a use for. Lukasz was tall, slim and handsome. With his swept-back floppy hair and perfect teeth he looked like the hero of one of Kassia's favourite rom-coms.
"Got it?" Lukasz asked his friend.
"Sure. Like taking candy from a baby." Patryk drove back to his apartment, unloaded the box and then he, Lukasz and Kassia spent the most boring afternoon of their lives marking X's onto the blank ballot papers in the space next to the name of Peachornby, the BNP Candidate.
Sometimes they used their right hands, sometimes their left. Sometimes they made the X's as big as possible, filling the entire space, other times little tiny x's. Firm dominant X's contrasted with shaky, spidery X's. Anything to make the marks look varied. Anything to make them look genuine. Anything to pass later scrutiny.
"These blanks are really good," said Patryk. "You've even put in the little hole punches in the top corner like they would have."
"That was the hard part," admitted Lukasz. "Had to set up an old-fashioned hand press one night shift to get them right. If I hadn't the returning officer would smell a rat straight away."
"Who is the returning officer?" asked Kassia as she stacked a completed pile to one side of the table. She stood, shaking her hand free of cramp.
"Who do you think? The Deputy Mayor – Mr. Naismith himself," replied Patryk. "As you're on your feet, why don't you put the kettle on, love."
Kassia glowered at her fella but was glad to get away from marking the voting slips.
"Then we're home free," said Lukasz with a grin.
"We'll have to see – this is only the start of it," said Patryk as he marked up yet another X.
Once they had finished marking all the X's against Peachornby's name then they had to fold the forms up into quarters, again trying to make the folds look different. Some neatly folded into exactly symmetrical quarters, others roughly folded as if a bored drunk had done the job. If marking the X's was boring work, then folding the papers tested their patience to the limits.
Eventually, all the completed ballot papers were placed in a box labelled 'Heinz Baked Beans' picked up earlier from the Tesco Extra. As Kassia cooked dinner, the two men relaxed on the couch watching a DVD.
It was dark when Patryk and Lukasz stood and put on their jackets. Patryk ducked his neck and slipped his Sleaford Urban Council pass over his neck. He handed a temporary pass to Lukasz. Patryk kissed Kassia goodnight. "Don't wait up – I may be late. But tomorrow we control Sleaford."
"No you won't – Naismith will. Don't ever forget that, love," Kassia said as she stretched up on tiptoes to kiss Patryk on his lips.
Kassia leaned out of the apartment window and watched the two men load the full box into the van. Patryk looked up and blew her a kiss. Then they drove off. Men, she thought, men and their stupid power games. All the same, it would be great if Patryk was able to ride on Mr. Naismith's coat tails and make some decent money for a change.
They'd be able to move to a nice house, maybe with a little garden and she'd be able to wire more money back home. Her younger sister, Dzenetta, had just had a baby and could do with a helping hand. Kassia closed the window, made a fresh cup of filter coffee then sat on the couch and enjoyed the luxury of having the TV's remote control all to herself.