EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN
Callum rolled himself
a fat cigarette and lit up. Ronan eyed him shrewdly and said, ‘You’re smoking a
fair bit. You’ve just put one out.’
He was miffed because it was his money that was paying for it.
Callum sniffed the air pointedly. ‘It’s the smell of damp in this shithole. You
need the smell of tobacco to clear the air.’
He looked around at the untidy, grubby living room, which was in the basement
of a decrepit house in Uckfield. The street itself was fairly elegant, and this
house stuck out like a sore thumb, much to the neighbours’ disgust. The
landlord, who had inherited it, was unable to afford repairs, and so it was
left in this insalubrious state, and he was happy to get what little rent he
could for the three flats in the building.
‘At least it’s cheap,’ Ronan said, optimistically.
Callum stared at the rotting, Sixties wallpaper, and shook his head. ‘He ought
to pay us to live here. I mean, look at it.’
He missed his mother’s council house on the Sherwood Estate in Tunbridge Wells,
which was a luxury compared to this. The furniture looked as if it had been
acquired at the rubbish tip. A flat furnished from a landfill site.
Ronan, who had roughed it for most of his young life, suggested their
predicament was all part of a daring escapade.
‘Well, we got to rough it, seeing as how we’re now living on the edge.’
Callum, far from decrying his friend’s absurd reasoning, seized the opportunity
to embellish.
‘Yeah, we are fugitives, mate. That’s what we are. Fugitives. Pass us those
chocolate bourbons, will you?’
Ronan pushed over the packet of the cheapest biscuits they could find in the
supermarket, and Callum grabbed a handful. He sighed deeply, ‘I could do with
some proper food. A kebab or a burger.’
‘We’ve gotta keep a low...’ Ronan searched for the word with difficulty.
‘Profile,’ offered Callum, inhaling deeply on his cigarette, through a mouthful
of chocolate bourbon. ‘I already been out to buy tobacco an’ them biscuits. So
why don’t we go out and get a takeaway? Or some pub grub? I could fancy a few
beers, an’ all.’
‘You shouldn’t ‘ave gone out like that. Not wiv your arms uncovered.’
‘It’s okay, mate. We’re a long way from Tunbridge Wells.’
‘Not that far.’
‘Relax. We’re soon gonna show the world whose country this is. It’ll be a white
revolution, mate. We’ll get ourselves tooled up. I know this mercenary, see...’
Ronan’s eyes lit up as he broke in
excitedly, ‘Yeah? You having me on?’
‘No straight up. He went out with my sister before Danton. He used to have this pitbull, but he had to
get rid of it.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It was harmless. Good as gold it was. But he was breaking the law by having
it.’
‘So what happened to the dog?’
Callum put two fingers to his head like a gun and made an explosive sound.
Ronan shook a disapproving head.
‘Poor bastard! If it didn’t harm anyone.’
‘Yeah, but it could have done.’
‘But it didn’t.’
‘It don’t matter whether it did or not. It’s not the point. It could have
turned suddenly – without warning.’
‘Yeah, we had one of the carers at the home like that. Good as gold. Then
suddenly...’ Ronan shivered at the
distant memory. ‘So what about this geezer? The mercenary.’
‘Done a lot of killing. Out in...well, somewhere in Africa. So he’d be with us.’
Doubt clouded Callum’s eyes as he added, ‘Probably.’
Ronan stretched forward eagerly on the beaten-up old sofa. ‘How do we get in
touch with him?’
‘He lives in Crowborough. I think I know where he drinks. And he’d know how to
go about getting some guns. He’ll have contacts. He might even join us. It’d be
good, ‘cause he’s got the experience. Hey! These biscuits ain’t that bad. But I
could still do with some decent nosh.’
Ronan pursed his lips sulkily. ‘The money ain’t gonna last forever. My money, that is.’
‘Relax. I’ll pay you back.’
‘What with? You ain’t got a job.’
‘We’ll get funding.’
‘Funding?’
‘Yeah. For our cause. That’s how it’s done, mate. You get rich businessmen who
believe in your cause to back you.’
‘But how d’you find them? These businessmen.’
Callum shrugged, ‘Move in the right circles, I suppose. Find the right,
like-minded people. Christ, I could murder a kebab and chips.’
‘I’ve only got three hundred quid left in the bank,’ Ronan said, frowning
worriedly. ‘An’ you’ve got bugger-all.’
Callum felt a sudden rage boiling inside him, brought on by the frustration of
having to rely on his friend for money.
‘Don’t tell me about it,’ he snapped. ‘I know. But I’m the one who’s going to
lead us out of this miserable hole. I’ll find a way. Believe me. And I’m sick
of these bleeding biscuits.’
‘You was just saying how good they was.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve got to have some proper food. And if you’re too tight-fisted to
cough up, seeing as how we’re fugitives from society, and this is an
emergency...’
Ronan interrupted him. ‘Okay! Okay! Let’s go out to the pub. But you ain’t
going like that. Cover up them tattoos, man.’
Callum tapped the side of his nose. ‘You ain’t been listening, have you? These
are not just tattoos. They are symbols. And they will help us to find the
like-minded people, Ronan. These tattoos are our passports. If we find the same
like-minded people – then bingo! We get our funding. Build our organisation.’
‘Well, I ain’t so sure we’re going to find many in Uckfield.’
A messianic, Tony Blair-like beam came from Callum’s eyes and bore into Ronan. ‘You’d
be surprised, mate. We find one person; then another. And another. It’s how it
all starts. Pretty soon we’ll be leading the fight to keep our culture and our
country free from scum. Here! D’you want
that last chocolate biscuit?’
IN EPISODE 148
A haircut brings Callum to justice.