Revenger

9

The crowds streaming out of the exit to North Greenwich underground station were overwhelmingly white, middle-aged, middle-income, middle-class. They looked on themselves as the law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying backbone of the country, and they represented both the single biggest demographic group in the British population and the one that felt itself to be the most unjustly ignored and even despised by the political and media elite. As they made their way through the cold, persistent drizzle towards the O2 Arena they were greeted by giant advertising hoardings that screamed out, ‘THE ONLY WAY IS UPP!’ and ‘BRITAIN IS MOVING UPP IN THE WORLD!’ and ‘IT’S TIME TO GET UPP!’

In smaller letters, below these slogans, ran the words: ‘Vote for a new start. Vote United People’s Party.’

The only illustration on the posters was a photograph of a man’s face. He looked handsome, but not too handsome. His hair was as grey as George Clooney’s and his eyes could grab a camera lens as well as any movie star’s, but there was no attempt to hide the lines around his eyes, nor the slight thickening around his jaw and chin. And although he possessed a dazzling smile his mouth was now fixed in a look of grim determination. This was the face of a leader who took action, not an actor who performed. This was Mark Adams.

The route to the huge white dome was lined by policemen holding back protesters who were waving banners and placards that bore very different slogans to those on the posters: ‘DOWN WITH UPP!’ and ‘UNITE AGAINST FASCIST SCUM!’ The protesters were shouting the same slogan again and again, ‘Mark Adams, Little Hitler!… Mark Adams, Little Hitler!’

From time to time people would break away from the steady stream heading from the station to the O2 and start shouting back at the protesters. One group of about thirty shaven-headed men — all in the standard uniform of Doc Martens, jeans, white T-shirts and green nylon flight-jackets that had been associated with the Far Right for the past forty-odd years — had formed up on the other side of the police line, opposite the greatest concentration of their opponents. They started up a chant of ‘England for the English’, and then another, like a football crowd: ‘United!’ Clap-clap-clap. ‘United!’ Clap-clap-clap.

TV crews were gathering in the area, sensing that there was about to be serious trouble. Passers-by were holding up telephones to take photos and video footage. A black-suited man wearing a telephone headset was deep in conversation with the most senior police officer on the scene, a uniformed chief inspector. He was pointing at the skinheads and shouting angrily in a Geordie accent, ‘You’ve got to get them out of here.’

‘They’re your people. You tell them,’ the Chief Inspector replied.

The suit was Adams’s campaign manager, Robbie Bell, and he was getting nervous. This would all be on Twitter within seconds and on the rolling TV news shows not long afterwards. ‘They’re not our people,’ he insisted. ‘They’re not the people we want. Move them!’

The Chief Inspector looked around. It was all his men could do simply to maintain the pedestrian corridor. ‘How, exactly?’ he asked.

Amidst all the noise and the steadily escalating atmosphere of tension and incipient violence one man walked quietly towards the main entrance. His name was Kieron Sproles and he was everything the face on the posters was not: inconspicuous, unimpressive and eminently forgettable. As he passed the group of threatening, shouting men he hunched his shoulders and walked a little faster. He did not like them at all. They reminded him of the boys who had bullied and beaten him at school. He could practically smell the sweat and testosterone they exuded, and the brute physicality of their presence reawakened feelings of helplessness and humiliation that had haunted him all his life.

Sproles was born to be one of nature’s victims, the runt of any litter he was in. He stood no more than five feet, five inches tall and was skinny with it. His eyes were a watery grey and their drabness was a match for his clothes — crumpled, charcoal woollen trousers, a maroon crew-neck jumper and a beige winter jacket with elasticated cuffs. He wore shoes like Cornish pasties. He carried no bag of any kind, so bypassed the security bag-check. His ticket was perfectly in order. Detailed examination of the kind he never seemed to attract might have revealed that he was nervous, edgy and perspiring heavily. But what would that have proved? The whole event was charged with an atmosphere of adrenalized over-excitement. Kieron Sproles was by no means alone in that.

Once he was inside, he made his way to the nearest men’s room and locked himself in a cubicle. Then he pulled his shirt out of his waistband, ran his right hand up the small of his back, and found the edge of the tape that was fixed right across it, in a broad strip from his lower ribs to his hips. Sproles worked his hand down between the tape and his skin, grimacing as the hairs on his back were tweaked. Almost immediately his fingers came into contact with the edge of the Glock semi-automatic pistol that was wedged against his body.

Sproles gradually loosened the tape until the gun could be pulled free. He looked at it, checked the magazine for the umpteenth time and then placed it in one of the pockets of his jacket.

Sproles pulled the tape off his back and crumpled it into a tight ball. He tucked his shirt back in, left the cubicle and stood at a basin to wash his hands. The reflection that looked back at him from the mirror appeared no different than usual. He did not look like an assassin, whatever an assassin looked like. He put the ball of tape into the bin where the paper towels went. Moments later he was out of the men’s room and making his way to his seat. It was located in the front row of the crowd, less than ten metres from the edge of the stage.