'THE LAST COLONIAL WAR' - CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WENDEL'S LAST STRAW

You can probably imagine what my life was like in the weeks and months following my breakthrough Prime Ministerial press conference. I guess it would be fair to say my employers were ecstatic and then some. I spent more time in TV studios than out and about chasing down stories. Edward Montford had ensured I had become the favourite Scottish talking head on any panel discussing Johnny Tranter, the EFP and the hatred sweeping through the country. My weekly columns tended to be opinion pieces. At times I wondered if I would ever get the chance to get stuck into any actual hands on reporting.

Every now and then I would take my frustration to my editor. He would patiently put my most recent work on the screen and scroll down to the comments section. And there he would point out all the death threats which became more numerous with every article I wrote. I could see his point of course. Alf was a great minder but there was only so much personal security he could realistically offer. More and more my life was being governed by concerns for my safety. I couldn't walk anywhere. I had to run on the treadmill rather than the streets. When I made my way back to Hereford for the weekends, I could no longer risk the train.

Ironically enough Edward Montford also opened up the possibility of a return to Scotland. I had an agent by now: Sheila. More or less every day she would call me up whilst I was drinking my first coffee of the day to lay out yet another mouth-watering offer from one of the Scottish papers. Julie told me I had become something of a hero north of the border and she was well pissed off with me for not coming home more often. She had a theory we could go anywhere we like in Edinburgh and never have to buy a drink. By now Julie was receiving her own fair share of attention. Her dad had become Scotland's First Minister in late August following his predecessor's surprise decision to step down due to ill health.

Angus's promotion meant even more Brownie points for yours truly when Julie railroaded him into giving me a one to one exclusive. I told a disgruntled Alf his services wouldn't be required for my trip north. I had a different minder in tow: Wendel.

So it was we left a tense, brooding London and landed an hour later in a bouncing, vibrant Edinburgh. I took a deep breath and plunged into the whole introducing Wendel to my family thing. Thankfully it went without a hitch.

The next morning Scotland's new leader was somewhat diffident when he welcomed me into his new office. He certainly had the view to go with the job. His picture window looked out onto the drastic crags of Arthur’s seat.

Coffee? Please. Great.

He did the honours himself as if nothing had changed. He was the dad and I was his daughter's oldest friend. We took a moment of to reminisce about past sleep overs and some of Julie's more memorable antics.

After ten minutes of this, he checked his watch with a rueful smile.

“Sam, I don't want to rush you but I think we best get started.”

And of course, there was really only one thing to talk about. It was all I ever seemed to talk about. Johnny Tranter. The EFP. The rising death toll. The plight of Scots living south of the border.

“What did you think when you watched Edward Montford's criticisms of Scotland.”

He bought a little time with a sip of coffee. Should he answer the question as Angus Campbell? Or should he answer as his country's First Minister?

Be diplomatic or shoot from the hip?

“I have learned over the last few weeks what a brutal job being First Minister really is. Eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying every minute. But it is hard. Very hard. And let's be honest here, my job is a hell of a lot easier than Edward Montford's job is right now. Our economy is booming. We don't have riots on our streets. We have all the resources we need to give the people the excellent health care and education they deserve. Edward Montford is quite literally fighting fires. All day and every day. So now I am First Minister I think I am able to look at the things he said with a little more sympathy. I can imagine the kind of pressure he is under. And I don't envy him.”

“Have you spoken with him?”

“No, I haven't."

“Have you tried to speak with him?”

“I made a call on the day I was selected to be First Minister. He wasn't minded to take it.”

Christ. Boom. Another scoop for ace reporter Sam.

“How do you feel about that?”

A shrug. "I think it is absurd. We are neighbours when all is said and done. Not so very long ago we were family. This all feels like an older brother showing jealousy at a younger brother's sudden success. To blame Scotland for being successful is ridiculous, quite frankly. We have always been blessed with almost unique resources. For many hundreds of years, England has used these resources like a convenient piggy bank. London used our young men to fight the wars of Empire. Our oil wealth was used to build the M25. It is a long list. But there is no point going over all the old arguments for Independence over and over again. We are no longer a part of the Union. For the first time in three hundred years, we are able to harness our resources for the good of the people of Scotland and only the people of Scotland. This makes us exactly the same as every other sovereign country in the world. We make alliances and we do deals. As a Government, we do our absolute best to make the most of our opportunities. To be criticised for this is plainly absurd."

“Do you think you will meet with Edward Montford at some stage?”

“I certainly hope so. We have given London a standing invitation. Edward will be a welcome guest here at any time and should he choose to invite me to London I will most certainly accept his hospitality.”

“If the attacks of Scottish nationals continue, do you envisage a time when Scotland might feel the need to do more than simply condemn what is happening?”

This seemed to pale his face. Sorry Angus.

“Not a question I was hoping for. I don't have a definitive answer I'm afraid. I am determined to believe the government in London will do all it can to stop this appalling violence.”

“What actions do you expect as a minimum?”

“I expect the English Government to condemn the England First Party in the strongest of terms. This needs to be clear and unequivocal. The EFP is a fascist party, pure and simple. To tip toe around their brutality and thuggery is completely unacceptable. Every country in the world is appalled at what is happening in England and as First Minister, I cannot sit back and do nothing whilst Scottish people are treated the way the Jews were treated in Germany in the 1930's."

Bloody hell. This was more than I was expecting. About a million miles more.

“And what would not sitting back look like?”

Suddenly his face was wall to wall grim.

“Edward Montford knows the inconvenient truth of the situation every bit as well as I know it. Now that the Hinkley Point nuclear power station has finally been cancelled, England will be looking to Scotland to provide at least 30% of its electricity for the foreseeable future. We all know power can be cut off with the flick of a switch. I think it would be a very good idea if Edward Montford takes this into account.”

And there it was. Hardball. A hardball hurled at a thousand miles an hour from Edinburgh to London.

There was predictable outrage in England, but most of it was posturing. The truth had been thrown onto the table and it was there for all to see. Scotland could switch the lights out at any time.

Six weeks after my blockbuster interview, Johnny Tranter was arrested and charged with provoking violence. He was found guilty and given a heavy fine and a suspended sentence of a year.

Edward Montford had been the first to blink. In November he flew up to Edinburgh where he was photographed shaking Angus's hand with a rictus smile hanging off his gaunt face.

The crisis passed. The lights stayed on. Attacks on Scots eased off. Some said this was down to a new hard line approach from the Government. Others said it was because there were hardly any Scots left to attack.

By now a much bigger problem was starting to dominate Edward Montford's 'to do' list: Hackney.

The spring riots had started in Hackney. They had also ended in Hackney. In most towns, the riots were a one or two night affair. Moss Side and Handsworth took a further two days to pacify. Hackney remained at boiling point for ten days. In the end the rioters finally ran out of rage and the Metropolitan Police managed to regain a degree of control.

But there was a problem. A huge problem. In order to re-establish a degree of control, the police had more or less thrown away the rule book. As the dust slowly settled over the next few weeks, a wide variety of leaks showed just how far the rule book had actually been thrown. It became abundantly clear Number Ten had given the police permission to take whatever action they needed to take to reclaim the streets. Fifty two rioters were killed on the streets and a further 41 perished in police custody. Hundreds were hospitalised. Of course, the police had taken their own share of casualties, but none had died.

There was a clamour for a public inquiry which the Government batted away. The Prime Minister told an increasingly appalled nation an inquiry was the last thing England needed in such a time of national crisis. The police had prevailed. They had kept the nation's capital from burning. This was not the time to destroy their morale.

As youth unemployment rose inexorably, more and more young men and women were drawn to groups who promised drastic solutions to the country's accelerating decline. Hackney became a magnet. The police tried to patrol the streets, but they found it virtually impossible. The community viewed them with an implacable hatred. In effect, a huge no-go area was established and fired-up youngsters from all over England started to flock to what was by now known as The People's Republic of Hackney. By the end of the summer, barely a single resident was paying any rent. A new kind of economy started to emerge which was soon known as 'Revolutionary Criminality'. Marauding bands of the self-styled revolutionaries roved across the capital city stealing what the community needed. Kidnapping became commonplace. Tourists and businessmen and bankers were lifted from the streets and hidden away until ransoms were paid.

By late summer, to all intents and purposes, The Peoples Republic of Hackney had declared independence from the rest of England. A new Peoples' Council was installed to call the shots. All roads in were barricaded and pedestrians were thoroughly vetted before they were allowed to enter.

When the Government ordered all power to be cut off, the People's Council sent revolutionaries out across London to set buildings on fire. The night sky glowed red for three nights and on the fourth day Montford blinked first and ordered the power to be restored.

London property values fell and soon several banks were teetering on the brink of collapse. The rest of the world looked on with open mouthed astonishment as London seemed about to succumb to complete anarchy. For a couple of weeks, many thought England was on the brink of becoming a failed state.

But then things started to turn. The Peoples' Republic gave Johnny Tranter a new target for his rage. The England First Party mobilised its troops and deployed them to the streets around Hackney where they erected their own barricades. Now it was much harder for the raiding groups to get out to steal supplies. Brutal street fights were a daily thing. Soon there were more and more stories coming out of Hackney which suggested all was not well in the Peoples' Republic. Council members turned on each other. Some gave up in disgust and appeared on the news a few days later explaining why the dream had turned into a nightmare. Others simply departed the scene altogether. By the time the heat of yet another Indian summer started to drain away, the People's Republic was no more. The police still stayed well clear but the barricades were taken down.

I was itching to cover the story, but my editor wasn't ready to risk sending me onto the streets. My journalism was still office based. I found it immensely frustrating but I couldn't really argue. The comment sections underneath every piece I wrote were still filled with vitriolic threats.

On a Friday evening at the beginning of October, I took a call from Wendel as I was packing up my desk for the weekend.

“Could I ask a favour?”

“Course you can. Ask away.”

“My brother Leroy has been in touch. He says he needs to talk to me. He sounded pretty jumpy to be honest. Could you give him a lift when you drive down?”

“No problem. Where shall I pick him up?”

A chuckle. “Don't panic. You don't need to go anywhere near 
Hackney. He's waiting outside.”

“How will I know him?”

“Black. Skinny. Specs. Looks like a maths teacher. But don't sweat it. He'll know you.”

He did. He gave me a nervous wave as I walked out of the front door. I didn't agree with Wendel's maths teacher description. I thought he looked like a civil rights campaigner from the sixties. There was something tremendously earnest about him. A quiet determination. I could easily imagine him being knocked to the floor by baton wielding cops on the road from Selma to Montgomery.

“Hi. It's Leroy, right?”

A nod. A sort of shrug. Something very shy about every mannerism. He wasn't anything like his big brother.

We got going and headed west. I did most of the talking whilst he clutched his backpack to his chest.

“How are things in Hackney now, Leroy?”

“I don't really want to talk about it. I'll talk when we get to Hereford. Sorry. Is that OK?”

“Of course it is.”

We did fifty miles through the cooling evening in a silence which wasn't at all uncomfortable. I could sense the tension draining out of him. He stopped hugging his bag and put it on the back seat. He unzipped his jacket and occupied himself by rolling and smoking cigarettes.

He broke the silence as we passed a sign telling us Hereford was less than an hour away.

“Do you mind if I say something?”

“Of course not. The floor is yours.”

I found it hard to get my head around how different he was to his older brother.

“I've been talking to Wendel quite a lot. You know. On the phone.”

“OK.”

“And the thing is. Well. Well the thing is this....”

“Honestly Leroy. Don't worry about me. I don't bite. Promise.”

A trace of a smile. More furious rolling. Clouds of smoke through the open window.

“He's talked a lot about you. He doesn't really talk about anything else. I never heard him like this before. He's a bit of a loner, my brother. Always has been. This is different. For him, like. Well different. Know what I mean?”

I think I probably blushed. I wasn't expecting anything like this. “I think so.”

“Well, I suppose it's like this. He's my brother. And.... Well you mustn't hurt him. I couldn't stand to see him hurt. Know what I mean?”

Ah. So this was what he was finding it so hard to spit out. I felt my eyes fill up and did my very best to come up with my best smile. I wanted to hug him but that would have meant crashing the car. So instead I talked.

“I will do my absolute best never to do such a thing. You can have my word on it. Does that help?”

He gave me a fleeting smile and nodded. “Thanks. And sorry. It's just.... Well you know...”

“I know.”

And with this, we re-entered our easy silence as the warm light of the evening slowly thickened around us.

My eyes filled up again when I saw the boyish delight on Wendel's face as we walked through the door of his flat. He wrapped his little brother in an embrace which I worried might snap him in two. Thankfully I was hugged with rather less ferocity. The flat was filled with the smell of Bolognese sauce and he had a cold beer ready in the fridge.

I sat back and allowed the cold lager to cool me whilst the brothers caught up. Leroy came alive in the company of his brother.

Dinner was served and for a while, we were upbeat and happy. But it was never going to last. Once he had cleared away the plates Wendel decided it was time to get to the reason for the urgent visit.

And now Leroy was once again the serious activist for a bygone era.

“Things have been bad brov. Seriously bad.”

“I've seen the news."

Leroy snorted his contempt at the idea.

“The news. The news is just bollocks, brov. Lies, lies and more lies.”

“Fair enough. What am I missing?”

Once he was up and running, Leroy was a compelling talker. He was articulate and very, very intelligent. After a few moments, I asked if he would mind if I took a few notes and he said that would be fine.

He told how it was when the riot first exploded. At first, the cops were the same old cops. Heavy handed, but it wasn't like the brothers on the streets were exactly chilling. But then things changed. They started shooting. And the brothers were being taken down. Like a war. Like a real war.

He painted pictures of utter rage in the community. The determination to keep the police out of Hackney. And then the sudden influx of people from all over the country. And for a while everyone was buzzing off the whole thing. There was complete unity. A common purpose. Even their mum was bang up for the whole thing. Of course, he had doubts about the whole People's Republic thing. It couldn't last. He knew that. Deep down they all knew that. But it had been years and years since anyone had known any kind of hope. It just felt good to get the chance to fight back for once.

When they cut the power he knew it was all over. The idea of sending people out to start fires was crazy. For a while, people really thought they had won. But then things started to go bad. The news made out it was only the EFP who were doing all the fighting. But it wasn't. There were others. Hard looking types in vans with blacked out windows. Three of the leaders who the news said had jacked it in were actually shot by some kind of sniper. Lots of others just disappeared. They were snatched by the guys in the balaclavas. Sometimes they grabbed people off the street. Other times it was when they were asleep. There were all kinds of rumours. People had heard these guys speaking. Mostly they were foreign. East European. Something like that. A few spoke English but with accents. It sounded South African.

'The thing is.... Well.. the people who disappeared really disappeared. I mean they completely vanished. Nobody has heard a thing from anyone. The police deny any knowledge of anything. They're not interested. No-one is interested. You can imagine what it's like now. Everyone's scared shitless."

“Who do you think they are? The blokes in the vans?”

“Nobody knows. There's all kinds of rumours and theories. But they seem really... I don't know … professional. They are sort of calm. They never seem angry or flustered. They just do what they do. No fuss. No nothing. Like they're soldiers or something like that.”

And now he was looking hard at his brother with a horrible kind of desperation. He didn't need to use words to ask Wendel the question. Wendel's expression turned to one of near horror at the unspoken thought.

“No way man. It's not us. I can guarantee you that brother. I can absolutely guarantee that.”

“So who is it then?”

Wendel considered whilst fetching more beer from the fridge. "It sounds to me like some kind of private contractors. There's all sorts of outfits out there and Governments use them all the time. I guess it makes sense when I think about it. Montford got into all kinds of shit when he gave the police the green light to cross the line. Maybe he learned his lesson and found a way to get the dirty work off the books. What do you want me to do? Ask about? I should be able to find something out. I know loads of guys who have left the Regiment and gone to do private stuff. They're bound to have heard something."

Leroy shrugged. “That would be good but it's not why I'm here.”

“Oh. Right. So what's on your mind little brother?”

Leroy spoke to the coffee table, his eyes lowered. "It's going to get worse Wendel. I can feel it. They're not going to stop. Everyone who was involved with the Peoples' Council is disappearing."

“Meaning?”

“I was part of it, Wendel. Not a big part. I did Press Releases and shit. But I was involved. I was a face. I reckon I must be on one of their lists."

“So OK. You need to get out. That's not a problem. I've can put you up here and...”

“I knew you'd say that. But I'm not going to get out. I couldn't do that. Run away. Just leave everyone. Wouldn't be right. You know that Wendel. You would never run away. It's not you. Well I'm no soldier like you, but I'm not going to run.”

Wendel seemed to accept the pointlessness of trying to argue the point.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“We need to make plans to get mum out. If I'm gone.... well … there would be no-one to look out for her.”

“There's no way she's going to leave if you stay. You know that, right?”

“I know that. We both get our stubborn streak from her. We couldn't move her with a bulldozer.”

They both shared a smile at the image. Finally, Leroy raised his head and met his brother's eye.

“If anything happens to me you need to get her out. Both of you. You need to find a way to get her to Scotland. Because they don't just stop with the foot soldiers. They go for their families as well. It's a reign of terror. That's exactly what it is.”

Wendel looked at me and there was something frantic in his eyes.

“Of course I will help. Leave it all to me.” I said.

“But can you actually do it?” Asked Leroy.

“Course I can. My best mate's dad is the First Minister.”

“Wendel told me. I was hoping you'd say that.”

“You have my word, Leroy. But please listen to your brother. You need to get out as well. You really do."

“I probably do but I'm not going to. Just can't.”

“Well there's something you bloody well can do.”

Wendel sighed. He knew what was coming. “Sam.....”

“Don't you Sam me. Don't even think about it. Here is what you need to do, Leroy. You need to bring people to see me. Bring me the stories. The eye witnesses. The times and the dates and the details. I am not allowed to do street reporting but I can find out plenty from a desk. If that bastard Montford has put paramilitary death squads onto the streets of London I am going to write about it...”

“Sam, don't you even think about it! This stuff is darker than dark. Haven't you been listening to anything Leroy has been saying? These bastards are topping people right and left. You absolutely cannot go anywhere near this..."

“Oh do shut up Wendel and stop being so bloody alarmist. Edward Montford isn't about to order some kind of hit on me. Think about it. I'm not exactly low profile these days. Think about the way it would play out. Prominent Scottish reporter killed whilst investigating allegations of death squads in Hackney. Yeah? Sorry to sound like a cold hearted bitch, but I have been waiting for this story all my working life. So don't you dare try to handle me."

My outburst rendered them both silent for a few seconds. Leroy gave Wendel a shrug.

“Scottish women, innit.”

“Shut it, Leroy."

I grinned at the pair of them. “Now that is the most sensible thing I have heard all night.”

“What is?”

“Scottish women, innit. Innit indeed. Innit all the bloody way.”

We made our pact.

Over the next few weeks, I felt turbocharged. I gave my dad the job of arranging sanctuary for Patience MacDonald in the event of Leroy's dark premonition coming true. Dad took it in his stride and oiled all the right wheels.

Leroy brought people to me every day and slowly but surely the Guardian started to compile evidence. My editor kept a tight team and demanded absolute secrecy. By the end of November, we were almost ready to publish.

And then Leroy vanished.

We hunted frantically for two months but by February 2030 the truth was impossible to ignore. He was gone. Another statistic. Another on the long list of the Hackney disappeared.

We collected Patience on a wet Saturday and loaded up her belongings into a hired truck. Whilst we stacked her furniture, a procession of friends and neighbours came to hug her and to say goodbye. Actually being inside Hackney was downright spooky. I had lived and breathed the place for months but this was my first ever visit to the streets where Wendel and Leroy had grown up. Now it felt like a ghost town. No traffic. Hardly any people. Just the rain and the already faded graffiti of the Peoples' Republic.

I caught Wendel staring at a wall which had a set of goal posts painted in white.

“I used to spend hours by that wall. When I was a kid. Left foot, right foot. Over and over again. I was going to play for West Ham and win the cup at Wembley. That was what I was going to do.”

I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. I took him by the hand and we climbed up into the cab where his mother was waiting.

We drove north out of Hackney.

We drove north out of England.

Nobody spoke much. Patience and Wendel MacDonald were broken in different ways. Patience was broken by the knowledge she would almost certainly never have the chance to bury her second child. Wendel was broken by having all of his certainties destroyed.

The boy who had once dreamed of playing for West Ham at Wembley had instead opted to swear his allegiance to King and Country. He had opted to become the tip of the spear. In the front line of those sworn to defend the Realm.

And now the very same Realm had betrayed him. The very same Realm had abducted his little brother and murdered him in some desperate basement.

After Leroy was gone, Wendel continued to serve in the SAS. And his commitment and loyalty to his comrades in arms was still absolute.

But never again would he be loyal to King and Country he had sworn to serve.

Never again.

TO READ ALL PREVIOUS CHAPTERS PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW

ALL PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

I HAVE WRITTEN THIS STORY TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE FOODBANK I MANAGE IN DUMFRIES, SOUTH WEST SCOTLAND. OVER THE COMING WINTER OVER 3000 PEOPLE WILL COME THROUGH OUR DOORS AND RIGHT NOW WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH CASH TO HELP THEM ALL OUT. MAYBE YOU MIGHT BE WILLING TO HELP US OUT BY BUNGING A COUPLE OF QUID ONTO OUR JUSTGIVING PAGE? I HOPE SO. JUST FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE REST OF THE BOOK AND IF DO, PLEASE SHARE IT. MARK.

OUR JUST GIVING FUNDRAISING PAGE 

'THE LAST COLONIAL WAR' - CHAPTERS THIRTEEN AND FOURTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WENDEL

Well I guess it just goes to show even the most independent gals can get swept off our feet. Except I was already off my feet. I was very much down on the tarmac with an ankle which was already starting to throb like an absolute pig.

The ride to my flat wasn't exactly a picnic as every bump and jolt sent an electric shock up my leg. When we arrived Wendel asked what floor I was on.

“First.”

“No lift?”

“No lift.”

“So maybe best if I carry you?”

“Probably.”

And of course, by now I was starting to wonder about this knight in shining black leathers who had probably saved my life. My attackers were routine pond life, but they were hardly kids. I put them all between eighteen and twenty. Fair enough, none of them were ready to fight for a heavyweight title but neither were they eight stone weaklings. And they certainly had a full quota of natural brutality.

And yet the stranger on the bike had dropped them to the floor in a matter of blurred seconds. Sam the journalist tried to find the right words for an imagined piece. Casual, instinctive violence? Something like that. I certainly had never witnessed anything like it. Wendel was no giant. He was a regulation five ten and looked like he would have tipped the scales at twelve stones or so. But when he picked me up it seemed to require no effort whatsoever.

He carried me upstairs like I was a small parcel and gently put me back on my feet so I could unlock my front door.

Once I had the lights on he quartered my living room with flitting eyes and ordered me to sit down.

I sat.

“I'll make you some tea. Kitchen through there?”

“Yes. Actually, I'll have coffee...."

“Tea.”

OK. Tea. I shouted through through the door. “No sugar and just a splash of milk.”

This prompted a mildly dismissive chuckle.

When the tea arrived it was laced with at least four sugars. He gave me a brusque explanation.

“Best thing for a shock. Drink up."

And then he was rattling off a series of bizarre questions which I answered as best as I could. Was there a paper recycling bin? Where was it? Did I have a plastic bucket? OK. The washing up bowl would do. Where did I keep flour? I sat and drank my tea and I really should have been starting to worry. Had I jumped from the frying pan and into the fire? Had I opened my door to some kind of nut who was playing out some kind of weird 'Easy Rider' fantasy.

I could hear vague splashing sounds in the kitchen. He chatted amiably as he got on with whatever he was getting on with.

“I've seen you on the TV. Read your stuff too. Pretty good."

“Thank you.”

“I was on the phone with my brother a couple of weeks ago. Just after you were on Newsnight. He thought it was quite funny. Know what he said?”

“No.”

“Hey, bro. Looks like Scottish is the new black. Maybe after three hundred and something years, the brothers are about to get a bit of respite. He's a bit of a radical, my brother."

“I see. Could I ask you something?”

“Of course. Ask away.”

“What on earth are you doing?”

He emerged from the kitchen wiping his hands on a towel.

“Have you got any spirits? Scotch? Gin? Anything will do.”

“I have some whisky. It's in the cupboard over there.”

He poured about eight measures into a mug and handed it to me.

“Down the hatch.”

By now my patience was starting to wear a little thin. Fair enough he had saved my life, brought me home, carried me upstairs and forced me to drink tea with at least four sugars. And fair enough he was the best looking visitor I had ever had visit my flat by quite a distance. Every time I looked at him I was reminded of the cover of my mum's favourite Marvin Gaye CD. But a whole tumbler of scotch? Not a chance.

“No, I will not. Not until you tell me what on earth you are up to."

He shrugged, poured himself a drink and sat on the chair opposite mine.

"OK. You have a broken ankle. It isn't the worst break I've ever seen, but it needs fixing up. We could go to A&E, but I don't think we should. The average waiting time for Hereford A&E is over 30 hours. With everything going on in the town tonight I think it fair to assume you'd be hanging around for the best part of two days. It would be boring and very painful. Besides, I'm sure you will be itching to get your adventures down on paper ready for the first edition tomorrow. OK so far?"

“Yes.”

“As it happens I am more than capable of sorting out your ankle. The flour, washing up bowl and old newspapers were what I needed to mix up some papier mache which I am going to use to make a protective cast for your ankle. But before I do that part, I need to set the bone back into place and it will hurt like an absolute bastard. The good news is you are female which means you have a naturally high pain threshold. But I can promise you the Scotch will make it a whole lot more bearable. Is that acceptable?"

“So you're a doctor?”

“No.”

“A nurse?”

“No.”

“Any chance of an answer made up of more than one word?”

“I did work in an A&E department for six months. Does that help?"

“A bit. Why only six months?”

A sigh. He sat back and shook his head. “The joys of helping out a journalist in distress. I think this the part where I ask to go off the record. Can I do that?”

My turn to smile. “I allow anyone who saves my life to go off the record.”

“Good. So I am Sergeant Wendel MacDonald of 22 Special Air Service. I am a fully trained medic. Part of my training involved being seconded to the A&E department in a Birmingham hospital for six months. I treated gunshot wounds, stabbings, heart attacks, and strokes. I also set my fair share of bones and set them into casts. However, this will be the first time I have used papier mache. We are trained to improvise. To use whatever is available to manage any particular task. In this case, I have access to old newspapers, flour, a washing up bowl and a bottle of Scotch."

“So they taught you how to make papier mache in the SAS?”

“No. That was Primary School.”

I raised my glass with what I hoped was a sweet smile. “Here's to off the record.” I knocked back the 'water of life' like a proper Scot but it still hurt like hell when he crunched the bones back into place.

And then we talked as my makeshift cast slowly dried and hardened. We talked all the way to the bottom of my whisky as the sounds of rioting floated in on the unseasonably warm air of the night. I kept the 'off the record' status in place in order to tease out the nuts and bolts of his life story.

He was two years older than me. Just past thirty. He was a London boy, born and raised in Hackney. He had a younger brother, Leroy, and no sisters. The rocks in his life had always been his mum and his grandparents. His dad had departed the scene before Wendel started primary school. As a boy, his main thing had been football. When he was twelve he was given a place at the West Ham Academy as a 'box to box' midfielder. He lived the dream all the way to sixteen years old. Then they told him he didn’t have what they needed. His granddad told him not to let the rejection get him down. There were plenty of other clubs. Why not try Leighton Orient?

Instead, Wendel took the news hard and started to let his life slide. The local gang was more than happy to open their arms to him.

He stopped going to school and drifted seamlessly into nickel and dime crime. His career as an up and coming Hackney gang banger lasted less than six months. One Saturday morning his grandfather more or less dragged him out of his bed and forced him to sit in the living room to be subjected to a brutal inquisition. Arrayed against him were both grandparents, his mother, and his brother. The riot act was duly read and when it was over he felt like he'd done ten rounds with George Foreman. He was more or less ordered to sit at the kitchen table where his grandfather stood over his shoulder and watched him fill in every line of an online application to join the British Army. Only when Wendel hit the 'Submit' button did the old man let out a grunt of satisfaction.

At his first interview they asked him which branch of the army he wanted to join and for some reason, he said the Paras. He must have seen something about them on tele at some stage.

From the moment he walked into basic training he was a fish in water. His natural athleticism and stamina carried him through everything they threw at him. Everything was good and after a few months, he had his wings and his red beret and a slot in 3 Para. He made sergeant after six years and decided it was time to take the plunge and try for the SAS. Again he took everything they threw at him and he was awarded his sand coloured beret early in 2024.

He drew the line at telling me about anything he had done either in the Paras or the SAS. 'Off the record' only stretched so far. But he was more than happy to tell me all about his times playing for the Army football team.

By the time dawn arrived, my eyes were too heavy to keep open. Wendel issued his final set of instructions.

“Keep it raised as much as you can. Walking is bathroom and back only, OK?”

“OK.”

“I'll be round to check on you later. Mind if I take a front door key?”

Did I manage to say yes? Or was it more of a 'Mmmmm'? Whatever. He took the key. And I made like a good girl and kept my leg rested all day. I put together what I thought was a pretty damned fine 1200 words for which my editor promised front page coverage. I watched the rolling news roll by. It seemed the whole of England was on fire. Everyone was arguing the big 'will there be troops on the street?' question. I hoped there bloody well wouldn't be. Well, that one troop in particular wouldn't be ordered to the streets. A certain Wendel MacDonald who I was very much looking forward to seeing again later in the day.

He came just after seven bearing trays of take away food and a bunch of flowers. One look at his smiling face was more than enough to confirm what I had probably known from the moment he put me on the back of his motor bike.

I was hook, line, and sinker smitten. We have been an item ever since. I hope we will be an item until the day I die.

I think a lot about the night we met. The night of the first riots. The night I might well have been kicked to death on the warm tarmac. What if Wendel had chosen a different route back to his flat? What if he had made his way home half an hour earlier? Or later? What if I had stayed in and listened to the sounds of the riot through my window? What if?

It was fate that put us together on that baking hot night filled with the sounds of violence and breaking glass. But of course, lots of relationships start out with chance encounters. I suppose such lifesaving first meetings are pretty rare.

Hindsight sometimes makes me think there was more than mere fate at play. And here is where things get a little spooky. You see, there is the whole Scottish thing. The reason why I stared death in the face was my accent. My Scottishness. By this time there were barely any Scots to be found in Hereford. The spread of Johnny Tranter's poison had seen to that. And yet I was saved by a knight in shining armour who went by the name of MacDonald. Wendel wasn't your average MacDonald from Paisley or Arbroath. His family had acquired the name in very different times. Hundreds of years ago, a Scottish overseer on a Barbadian sugar plantation must have taken a fancy to one of the slave girls and awarded their baby his surname. And now, many centuries later, a descendent of the overseer and the slave girl arrived from nowhere to save a young woman who was about to be murdered for the crime of being born Scottish.

Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. But there is more. Much more. I have thought about this endlessly.

In the whole world, there were probably only two people who could have changed the course of history in the summer of 2030. One of them was me and the other was Wendel. To manage to do what we did, we needed to be together. A team. An item. A partnership.

If we had never met, then we wouldn't have been there to play our part.

This is where the sheer, million to one against chance of our first meeting becomes even more spooky.

Fate, right?

Bloody hell.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FINAL STRAWS

Maybe Wendel and I would have done what we did regardless. I like to think we would. I guess nobody will ever know.

What I do know is in the summer of 2029 there were two last straws which snapped the back of any reluctance we might have shown. One straw for me, one straw for Wendel. To be honest, my straw was relatively small beer. Wendel's straw was absolutely brutal.

The early heat wave riots raged for five nights. Hundreds were arrested and the damage ran to several billion pounds worth. The first few days of our relationship saw Wendel constantly checking his phone. The news was filled with speculation. Would the police be capable of restoring calm? Or would the army have to be marched out onto the streets? In the end, the police managed to hold the line.

Just.

However, restored calm did more or less nothing to paint England in any kind of flattering light. The TV screens of the world had become accustomed to a very particular view of the country as reporters gave breathless pieces to camera in every city from Plymouth to Newcastle upon Tyne. Cars burned and swarming, masked mobs of angry young men threw anything they could lay their hands on at the lines of riot police.

Slowly but surely consequences started to unwind. A decade of Brexit had eaten away at the City of London. One by one the major banks had moved large chunks of their operations out to Dublin and Paris and Frankfurt and finally Edinburgh. What was left of the City was all about 'off shore'. It was money laundering in a pin stripe suit and the rest of the world hated it. London continued to be the 'go to' refuge for the dirty money of the world and the men who owned it. A bank account showing enough zeros was enough to guarantee sanctuary for oligarchs, arms dealers, drug cartel bosses, corrupt officials and on the run dictators. The mansions of Kensington and Chelsea continued to be used as bricks and mortar versions of gold bars.

Looking after the ill-gotten gains of the world's super rich was just about the only way post-Brexit England managed to keep its head above water. As living standards slipped with every passing month, levels of resentment about this grew and grew. In the riots of 2011, the mob on the streets had focused all its attention on stealing expensive trainers and bottles of vodka.

The riots of 2029 were very different. This time thousands of rioters made their way across the city from Hackney to Kensington to put bricks through the windows of multi million pound mansions. Over a hundred gilded properties were burnt to the ground. The resulting insurance claims ran into the billions and one of the major players in the market was forced into liquidation.

New policies didn't cover riot damage. All of a sudden, a London property wasn't such a safe haven for dodgy money. Within weeks of the riots, it seemed like the whole of Mayfair was up for sale. Property prices went into freefall and the pound soon followed. The exodus from the City accelerated and by the end of the summer hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space were to be had at bargain basement rents.

Scotland had plenty of problems of its own. After hundreds of years of suffering from the consequences of emmigration, the country was now trying to wrap its head around a vast queue which was forming at the door. Tens of thousands of Scots living in England were voting with their feet. EU citizens from the baked south of the continent sought an escape from the desert heat of the long summers. And of course, the deal with Qatar meant nearly a quarter of a million of its citizens were eager to escape the furnace and take up their places in the Caledonian Ark Suleiman Khalidi had created for them.

Thanks to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, money was no kind of problem. A massive house building programme was underway and the world's clever money was desperate to invest in all things Scotland. More building meant more well-paid jobs which meant more immigrants.

The Edinburgh Government took a hard-line approach to planning. Permission for any kind of construction anywhere in the Central Belt was all but impossible to secure. Instead, the new villages and towns started to spring up in the long-empty areas of the country which had been depopulated in the Highland and Lowland Clearances.

Many compared what was happening in the Highlands and Islands to what had once happened in the American West. Thankfully there were no cavalry regiments roaming the countryside murdering locals. Many of the dubious characters who had found safe haven in the leafier parts of London were keen to set up shop in Edinburgh and the West End of Glasgow. Luckily the Scottish Government was in a strong enough position to order a draconian 'fit and proper person’ test for any person or company attempting to buy any property valued at more than a million pounds. No off shore entity was permitted to own any kind of land or building.

By the middle of the baking summer, the flow of English nationals looking to escape the worsening situation on the streets started to grow to unmanageable levels. New controls were put in place at the border and tensions rose dramatically.

By the beginning of August, Johnny Tranter's EFP was riding at nearly 25% in the polls and every weekend saw more and more disgruntled young people drawn to their street rallies. Tranter himself proved to be a remarkably canny operator. His speeches never quite crossed the line into anything illegal. He had a knack of not quite saying the words which would lead to his being arrested. It seemed like he was never off the TV and more and more people were keen to listen to what he had to say.

His message was consistent and it couldn't have been any clearer. Want to know why your life is suddenly so shit? Scotland. Want to know why it isn't safe on the street anymore? Scotland. Want to know why you can't get a job? Scotland. Want to know why your house is barely worth half what it was last year? Scotland.

Scotland, Scotland, Scotland.

The root of all evil. Some English people were desperate to get a permit to make Scotland their home. Many more wanted it wiped off the face of the map.

By now I had more or less found my feet at the Guardian. I spent my weekdays in my small flat in Kilburn. On Fridays, I drove back to Hereford to spend time with Wendel. I barely got back home to Edinburgh at all. My mum and dad still rang at least twice a week to tell me how worried they were and to implore me to come home.

And I continued to dig my heels in and be stubborn. Not surprisingly the Guardian mainly deployed me to report on anti-Scottish incidents. I received at least twenty death threats a day and the paper soon decided I needed a minder. Wendel recommended a pal he knew from the Regiment who had set up on his own as a provider of close security. Alf was a Welshman of few words who could back off a crowd with a single glare. On more than one occasion, I was glad he was there, especially when I was dispatched to cover any kind of EFP event.

I finally arrived in the journalism big time on the first Thursday in August. The Prime Minister was holding a major press conference in Downing Street and I was awarded the Guardian's allocated slot.

That morning I woke early with a churning stomach. I showered and did my best to power dress myself. I picked at a bowl of cereal and probably put on far too much makeup.

Alf gave me a once over when he arrived to pick me up.

“Well, you're done up like a dog's dinner."

“Thanks for that Alfie. And a very good morning to you too.”

The next hour had something of a dream like quality. The drive to Whitehall. The passage through endless levels of security checking. The back door route into Number 10. Handshakes and introductions with reporters I had kept on a pedestal for most of my adult life. A sudden hush in the room before the Right Honourable Edward Montford made his big entrance.

Edward James Montford, Member of Parliament for a few thousand acres of the South Downs. Born in 1970 with a silver spoon already spot welded into his mouth. Born into bucketloads of old money. A vast country house straight off a Constable painting. Eton and sporting prowess. Then Oxford, where his Hugh Grant good looks ensured plenty of adulation. A cricket blue and lots of pictures of him with a succession of well-heeled debutantes on his arm. President of the Oxford Union in full white tie and tails. Three years as a second lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards where he picked up a mention in dispatches in Kosovo.

After the army, he walked a well-trodden family path into merchant banking and pots of easy money. He married into 30,000 acres of Lincolnshire in 2005 and became a father of three. By 2017 his bank accounts were overflowing and he was ready for the next challenge. He was handed a super safe leafy Parliamentary constituency in the commuter belt which he won with predictable ease. It was basically one of those places where they say you could pin a blue rosette on a chimpanzee and it would still will by a landslide. Yeah? You know the kind of place.

By 2020 he was a junior minister and he soon became a TV regular where he defended the party line with a mix of articulate determination and old money charm. He became a tabloid favourite.

His stock rose very quickly. Men liked the fact he had been a soldier and seemed like the kind of bloke you could have a pint with. Women wanted to elope with him. One wag christened him the Tory George Clooney.

He held his seat easily enough in the midst of the post-Brexit Labour landslide of 2021 and was basically a shoe in for the leadership contest which followed. For three years, he eviscerated Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Question Time and proved the bookies' short odds right when he took his party back into power in the emergency election of 2026.

And then it all started to go wrong. The man who had found everything so very easy was suddenly swimming against the tide. Three years was enough to turn his salt and pepper hair completely gray. He followed through on his promise to slash taxes and reduce the size of the State, but the promised Singapore style boom never happened. His efforts to strangle Scotland at birth failed miserably thanks to the Qatar deal. He only just managed to keep a lid on the spring riots and by August there was rumoured to be a queue of Cabinet colleagues ready and waiting to stab him in the back.

As he took his seat and poured out half a glass of water, I was struck by how much thinner he was in real life. He was almost emaciated. His once boyish face was cut with deep lines and I wondered when he last smiled at anything.

For ten minutes we listened to a familiar stump speech. England had faced many challenges in the past and always found a way to come through. This time would be no different. Time for unity and pride. Time for the old Dunkirk spirit. Violence and lawlessness would not be tolerated. He was ready and willing to take whatever steps were required to restore order to the streets. Plans were in place to find a long term solution to the water situation.....

There was nothing new and the room knew it. The interesting part would be when the time came for questions. How would he handle it? Over recent weeks the old cool had largely disappeared. His performances in the Commons had become increasingly ill tempered. Would he lose it today?

He wrapped up and took a sip at his water. A lackey stepped forward.

“OK guys. Questions.”

A very predictable sea of hands. The lackey turned in my direction and pointed to me without a second's hesitation.

“Samantha. Why don't you kick things off.”

Arrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!

I have never, ever, ever been so nervous. This was ridiculous. I was without the doubt the most junior reporter in the room and they had chosen me to go first. Was it planned? It had to be planned.....

“Thank you, Prime Minister." My voice was actually surprisingly strong. "Over the last five months, 27 Scottish Nationals have been murdered. Every day the England First Party is fanning the flames of hatred. The Scottish people are waiting for you to give your unequivocal condemnation to these vicious hate crimes. It has been suggested your reluctance to offer this kind of condemnation is down to the fact the EPF are polling at 25%. Is this so Prime Minister?"

I sat and felt the cold eyes cut through me. His hard face twitched with a suggestion of a smirk.

“Maybe you haven't been listening properly, Miss Keating. I have spent the last ten minutes condemning all aspects of the violence and lawlessness we have seen over the last few weeks. And I am quite happy to reiterate my promise to come down hard on those who perpetrate this kind of violence. Very hard. But I think we need to look a little deeper into the reasons for much of the anger we had seen this summer. Miss Keating, our two countries have been through a lot together over the last few hundred years. English soldiers and Scottish soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder at Blenheim and Waterloo and Balaclava and Passchendaele and El Alamein and Goose Green. I myself was proud to serve with Scottish soldiers in Kosovo. For hundreds of years, we went through thick and thin together. And let's not beat about the bush here. There were plenty of times when things were pretty thin up in Scotland. And whenever things were thin, the good people of England were always there to help out. To prop up. To lend a helping hand. Let us not forget how the Union of 1707 came about. The Scots lost all their money on a fools’ venture in central America and were forced to ask London to bail them out."

Another sip of water.

“In my book, a Union is like a marriage. Like an Infantry Platoon. There will be good times and there will be bad times. Rich times and poor times. Times of war and times of peace. Partners in a Union look out for each other. They are there for each other. And for three hundred years the people of England were always there for the people of Scotland. We were like the rich side of a family offering some coal and a bag of groceries and a few kind words to the poor side of the family. And of course after the Brexit vote in 2016, things got a little tough and then what happened? Well, we know what happened. The good folk of Scotland couldn't jump ship fast enough. To paraphrase the words of your beloved Robert Burns, 'Bought and sold for Qatari gold, such a parcel of rogues in a nation.'

'So is it so very surprising so many English people are angry at you, Miss Keating? Is it so surprising they are angry when they open their electricity bill and wonder how they are going to pay it? Is it so surprising they are angry when they have to wait an extra fortnight to see their GP because the Scottish doctors have gone home? Is it so surprising they get angry when class sizes in the local school go to over fifty because the Scottish teachers have gone home? No Miss Keating, of course it isn't surprising. Of course I deplore all violence, but I can understand the anger which causes violence. Quite frankly, the English people feel like we have been shafted. We feel betrayed. So, of course, we feel angry. I feel angry."

And all the while, those cold eyes were fixed on me. When he was done, a brief silence sat on the room for a few seconds. Everyone knew what had just happened. I had been set up. The whole press conference was merely a vehicle for him to use me to send his message out.

A few days later a YouGov poll showed support for the EFP had slipped back to under 20%. The general view was that Edward Montford had stopped the rot. The Scottish Government was outraged and many countries shared the outrage. But the Prime Minister clearly didn't care what the rest of the world thought. He was only bothered about his own back yard.

Wendel had murder in his eyes when I got back to Hereford the following Friday. Had he found himself alone in a room with Edward Montford, the Prime Minister's life expectancy would have been measured in seconds. I told him I was fine. I was a big girl. I was bloody Scottish for goodness sake. All in a day's work for a thick skinned hack like me. And of course my lords and masters at the Guardian were as pleased as punch. They gave me a rise and the promise of a weekly column. The only way I managed to calm mum and dad down was by getting Alf to talk to them on Skype.

Being lined up as the designated punch bag for the Prime Minister of England and Wales basically put my career into the fast lane. It took me to the place I had always dreamed of reaching. It was my big break. And for that, I suppose I should be grateful. And I am.

But something else happened on that day in August 2029. I came to hate Edward Montford. And I have never felt more Scottish in my life. I made a quiet vow to myself as I walked out of the Press Conference. If the moment ever came when my country needed me, I would step up and do whatever was required.

Thankfully when the moment duly arrived nothing had changed.

I stepped up.

TO READ ALL PREVIOUS CHAPTERS PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW

ALL PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

I HAVE WRITTEN THIS STORY TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE FOODBANK I MANAGE IN DUMFRIES, SOUTH WEST SCOTLAND. OVER THE COMING WINTER OVER 3000 PEOPLE WILL COME THROUGH OUR DOORS AND RIGHT NOW WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH CASH TO HELP THEM ALL OUT. MAYBE YOU MIGHT BE WILLING TO HELP US OUT BY BUNGING A COUPLE OF QUID ONTO OUR JUSTGIVING PAGE? I HOPE SO. JUST FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE REST OF THE BOOK AND IF DO, PLEASE SHARE IT. MARK.

OUR JUST GIVING FUNDRAISING PAGE