Common Murder

3

The alarm clock went off at a quarter to six. Lindsay rolled on her side, grunting “Drop dead, you bastard,” at the voice-activated alarm Cordelia had bought her to replace the Mickey Mouse job she’d had since university. She curled into a ball and considered going back to sleep. The early Saturday morning start to her weekend at the peace camp that had seemed such a good idea the night before now felt very unappealing.

As she hovered on the verge of dozing off, she was twitched into sudden wakefulness as Cordelia’s finger ends lightly traced a wavy line up her side. Cordelia snuggled into her and kissed the nape of her neck gently. Lindsay murmured her pleasure, and the kisses quickly turned into nibbles. Lindsay felt her flesh go to goose pimples; thoroughly aroused, she twisted round and kissed her lover fiercely. Cordelia pulled away and said innocently, “I thought you had trouble waking up in the morning?”

“If they could find an alarm clock that did what you do to me, there would be no problem,” Lindsay growled softly as she started to stroke Cordelia’s nipples. Her right hand moved tentatively between Cordelia’s legs.

Cordelia clamped her thighs together, pinning Lindsay’s hand in place. “I’ve started so I’ll finish,” she murmured, moving her own fingers unerringly to the warm, wet centre of Lindsay’s pleasure.

The feeling of relaxation that flooded through Lindsay afterwards was shattered by the alarm clock again. “Oh God,” she groaned. “Is that the time?”

“What’s your hurry?” Cordelia asked softly.

“I promised I’d be at Brownlow really early. There’s a big action planned for today,” Lindsay replied sleepily.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, is that all you think about these days?” Cordelia complained, pulling away from Lindsay. “I’m going for a bloody shower.” She bounced out of bed before Lindsay could stop her.

“I wasn’t finished with you,” Lindsay called after her plaintively.

“I’ll wait till your mind’s on what you’re doing, if it’s all the same to you,” came the reply.

It was just after seven when Lindsay parked alongside the scruffy plastic benders. She had tried to make her peace with Cordelia, but it had been fruitless. Now Cordelia was on her way to spend the weekend with her parents, and Lindsay was keeping the promise she’d made to Deborah three weeks before. She parked her MG between a small but powerful Japanese motor bike and a 2CV plastered with anti-nuclear stickers. If they ever stopped making 2CVs, she mused, the anti-nuclear sticker makers would go out of business. She cut her engine and sat in silence for a moment.

It was a cool and misty March morning, and Lindsay marvelled at the quiet stillness that surrounded the encamp-nient. The only sign of life was a thin trickle of smoke coming from the far side of the rough circle of branches and plastic. She got out of the car and strolled over to Deborah’s van. The curtains were drawn, but when Lindsay tried the door, she found it unlocked. In the gloom, she made out Deborah’s sleeping figure. Lindsay moved inside gingerly and crouched beside her. She kissed her ear gently and nearly fell over as Deborah instantly woke, eyes wide, starting up from the bed. “Jesus, you gave me a shock,” she exploded softly.

“A pleasant one, I hope.”

“I can’t think of a nicer one,” said Deborah, sitting up. She pulled Lindsay close and hugged her. “Put the kettle on, there’s a love,” she said, climbing out of bed. She disappeared into the shower and toilet cubicle in the corner of the van, leaving Lindsay to deal with the gas rings.

Lindsay thought gratefully how easy it was to be with Deborah. There was never any fuss, never any pressure. It was always the same since they had first been together. They slipped so easily into a comfortable routine, as if the time between their meetings had been a matter of hours rather than months or weeks. Lindsay always felt at home with Deborah, whether it was in a Fordham courtroom or a camper van.

Deborah reappeared, washed and dressed, towelling her wavy brown shoulder-length hair vigorously. She threw the towel aside and settled down with a mug of coffee. She glanced at Lindsay, her blue eyes sparkling wickedly.

“You picked the right weekend to be here,” she remarked.

Lindsay leaned back in her seat. “Why so?” she asked, “Jane told me it was just a routine blockade of the main gate.”

“We’re going in. Through the wire. We think it should be possible to get to the bunkers if we go in between gates three and four. The security’s not that wonderful over there. I suppose any five-mile perimeter has to have its weak spots. The only exposed bit is the ten yards between the edge of the wood and the fence. So there will be a diversion at the main gate to keep them occupied while the others get through the wire. And it just so happens that there’s a Channel 4 film crew coming down anyway today to do a documentary.” Deborah grinned broadly and winked complicity at Lindsay.

“Good planning, Debs. But aren’t you taking a hell of a risk with the assault case already hanging over you? Surely they’ll bang you up right away if they pick you up inside the fence?”

“That’s exactly why we’ve decided that I’m not going in. I’m a very small part of the diversion. Which is why it’s good that you’re here. Left to my own devices, I’d probably find myself carried along with the flow. Before I knew it, I’d be back in clink again.” Deborah smiled ruefully. “So, since I presume you’re also in the business of keeping a low profile, we’ll have to be each other’s minder. Okay?”

Lindsay lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before she replied. “Okay. I’d love to go along with the raiding party to do an ‘I’ piece, but given my bosses’ views on peace women, I guess that’s right out of the question.”

“You can help me sing,” said Deborah. She leaned across the table to Lindsay, grasped her hand tightly and kissed her. “My, but it’s good to be with you, Sister,” she said softly.

Before Lindsay could reply, Cara’s dark blonde head and flushed cheeks suddenly appeared through the curtains. As soon as she realised who was there, she scrambled down the ladder to hurl herself on Lindsay, hugging her fiercely before turning to Deborah. “You didn’t tell me Lindsay was coming,” she reproached her.

“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure myself, and I didn’t want both of us to be disappointed if she couldn’t make it. Okay?”

The child nodded. “What are we having for breakfast? Have you brought bacon and eggs like you promised last time?”

“I managed to smuggle them past the vegetarian checkpoint on the way in,” Lindsay joked. “I know you’re like me, Cara, you love the things that everybody tells you are bad for you.”

“You really are a reprobate, aren’t you?” Deborah said, amused. “I know you like taking the piss out of all the vegetarian non-smokers, but don’t forget that a lot of us are veggies from necessity as much as choice. I love the occasional fry-up, but beans are a hell of a lot cheaper than bacon. Not everyone has the same sense of humour about it as I do.”

“Don’t tell me,” Lindsay groaned. “Cordelia never stops telling me how people like me who love red meat are causing the distortion of world agriculture. Sometimes I feel personally responsible for every starving kid in the world.”

Impatient with the conversation, Cara interrupted. “Can we have breakfast, then?”

By the time they had eaten the bacon, eggs, sausages, and mushrooms that Lindsay had brought, the camp had come to life again. Women were ferrying water from the standpipe by the road in big plastic jerry cans while others cooked, repaired benders, or simply sat and talked. It was a cold, dry day with the sun struggling fitfully through a haze. Lindsay went off to see Jane and found her sitting on a crate, writing in a large exercise book. She looked tired and drawn.

“Hi, Doc. Everything fine with you?”

Jane shrugged. “So so. I think I’m getting too close to all this now. I’m getting so wrapped up in the logistics of the camp I’m forgetting why I’m here. I think I’m going to have to get away for a few days to put it back into perspective.”

“There’s always a bed at our place if you need a break.” Jane nodded as Lindsay went on, “Debs says you can fill me in with the details of today’s invasion plan.”

Jane outlined the intended arrangements. Nicky was leading a raiding party of a dozen women armed with bolt-cutters. They would be waiting in the woods for a signal from the look-out post that the diversion at the main gate was attracting enough attention from camp security to allow them to reach the fence and cut through the wire. What followed their entry into the base would be a matter for their own judgment, but it was hoped that they’d make it to the missile silos. The diversion was timed for noon, the main attraction for fifteen minutes later.

“You should keep out of the front line,” she concluded. “Help Deborah with the singing. Keep an eye on her, too. We don’t want her to get arrested again. It would be just like her to get carried away and do something out of order. I imagine that a few of the local coppers know perfectly well who she is and wouldn’t mind the chance to pick her up and give her a hard time. Crabtree is pretty buddy-buddy with the local police hierarchy according to Judith. Understandably enough, I suppose. So do us all a favour unless you desperately want to take on Cara full-time-keep the lid on Deborah.”

By late morning there was an air of suppressed excitement around the camp. The television crew had arrived and were shooting some interviews and stock background shots around the benders. It wasn’t hard for Lindsay to suppress her journalistic instincts and avoid them. She was, after all, off duty. Since the Clarion had no Sunday edition, she felt no guilt about ignoring the story. She noticed Jane and a couple of other long-standing peace campers having a discreet word with the crew, which had included a couple of unmistakable gestures towards the long bunkers that dominated the skyline.

At about midday, Deborah came looking for her. Leaving Cara and three other children in the van with Josy, one of the other mothers living at the camp, they joined the steady surge of women making for the main gate. About forty women were gathered round. A group of half a dozen marched boldly up to the sentry boxes on either side of the gate and started to unwind the balls of wool they carried with them. They wove the wool around the impassive soldiers and their sentry boxes, swiftly creating a complex web. Other women moved to the gates themselves and began to weave wool strands in and out of the heavy steel mesh to seal them shut. Deborah climbed on top of a large concrete litter bin just outside the gates and hauled Lindsay up beside her. Together they started to sing one of the songs that had grown up with the camp, and soon all the women had joined in.

Inside the camp, the RAF police and behind them the USAF guards came running towards the gate. On the women’s side, civil police started to appear at the trot to augment the pair permanently on duty at the main gate. The film crew was busy recording it all.

It looked utterly chaotic. Then, one of the women let out an excited whoop and pointed to the silos. There, silhouetted against the grey March sky, women could be seen dancing and waving. Alerted by her cries, the film crew ran off round the perimeter fence, filming all the while. Inside the wire, the military turned and raced across the scrubby grass to the bunkers constructed to house the coming missiles.

Outside the base the women calmly dispersed, to the frustration of the police who were just getting into the swing of making arrests. Lindsay, feeling as high as if she’d just smoked a couple of joints, jumped down from the litter bin and swung Deborah down into her arms. Like the other women around them they hugged each other and jumped around on the spot, then they bounced away from the fence and back towards the main road. A tall man stood at the end of the camp road. On the end of a lead was a fox-terrier. A sneer of scorn spoiled his newly healed features.

“Enjoy yourself while you can, Miss Patterson. It won’t be long before I have you put some place where there won’t be much to rejoice over.” His threat uttered, Crabtree marched on down the main road away from the camp. Lindsay looked in dismay at Deborah’s stunned face.

“Sadistic bastard. He can’t resist having a go every time he sees me,” said Deborah. “He seems to go out of his way to engineer these little encounters. But I’m not going to let him get the better of me. Not on a day like today.”