Chapter 33
‘The organization is called New Dawn,’ Carrie says. They’re in the small park near the office, where Carrie had suggested they meet before work on Monday, in order to talk more easily.
‘I don’t think I’ve heard of them.’ Jamie wonders if his voice sounds strange to Carrie, or if it’s just in his head. He feels weirdly conscious of every movement he makes, every expression on his face.
‘Who’s the boss?’
‘The Boss. That’s literally his name.’ Carrie laughs. ‘I mean, it’s not, but that’s what he likes to be called. He heads up the local chapter of New Dawn, and he works with head office, so we know what’s happening at a national level.’
‘And is that who you give your list to?’ Jamie’s ribcage is tight.
He’s glad they’re walking, so Carrie can’t see his face.
‘Of companies who hire . . . non-whites?’ He’s amazed she can hear him, he’s dropped his voice so low, terrified someone will hear him and think he’s saying this stuff for real.
‘Not just companies. People, too. But yes, we all give our intel to the boss, and he adds it to the master list and grades it in terms of priority.’
Priority? Jamie needs to see this list. He needs to know where Echelon is; how much danger Nadeeka could be in.
‘Sounds very organized.’ Jamie risks a laugh, but it comes out thin and false. ‘Do you get to see this master list? Must be interesting, seeing what other people have added.’ He swallows.
‘Yeah, I got access once I was through my initiation.’ Carrie turns to him. ‘So tonight, then. You’re up for it?’
Jamie just nods. If he goes too hard for the list, she’ll be spooked. ‘What happens in the meetings?’
‘We discuss business – like if we have a protest coming up, or some direct action – but for a lot of us it’s just an opportunity to socialize with people who don’t shoot you down for speaking your mind.’
‘Sorry – direct action?’
‘Sometimes words and marches aren’t enough.’ Carrie looks at her watch. ‘We should get to the office.’
‘This direct action,’ Jamie says. ‘Is it against the law?’
Carrie stops abruptly, turning to face him.
‘I’ll tell you what’s against the law: Pakis grooming schoolgirls.
Jihadis funding their terrorism with state benefits.
Mosques radicalizing vulnerable British citizens.
’ A flicker of uncertainty crosses her eyes.
‘You do get that, don’t you? Because as your sponsor—’
‘Absolutely.’ Jamie nods vehemently. Does he sound convincing? ‘It’s a national disgrace,’ he adds for good measure. ‘I just wanted to check how far you – we – are able to go.’
Carrie holds his gaze. ‘We go as far as we need to.’
As they draw close to the office, Carrie begins talking about whether they should replace the coffee machine, and which charity partner they should support this Christmas.
Jamie marvels at her ability to segue so smoothly from xenophobia to office politics.
He’s never really questioned his colleagues’ political leanings, and he tries to imagine where he would have placed Carrie had he thought about it.
Centre? Maybe even slightly left of centre, perhaps because most of the women he knows position themselves there.
He finds it hard to reconcile Carrie’s cheerful demeanour with what he now knows lies beneath.
Carrie has to pass Jamie’s cubicle to reach her office, and so they continue chatting as they cross the open-plan space.
The cleaners have been, and the air is filled with a citrus tang.
Jamie’s chair has been pulled out and is facing the wrong way, and the contents of his desk have been shuffled about.
Jamie feels a lurch of panic. The silver-framed photograph that has over time been pushed to the back of his desk amid a tower of files has been given pride of place again on his monitor stand.
The photo is of him with Nadeeka and the girls, their heads pressed tightly together.
Maya and Nish have skin a shade or two lighter than their mother’s, but all three are very clearly not white.
Jamie quickens his pace, his body angled to block Carrie’s view of his desk.
He backs into the cubicle and fumbles with one hand for the photo, sliding it face-down off the stand and on to the desk.
He’ll have to take it home to avoid anyone at work seeing it and dropping into conversation that he has a brown-skinned partner with mixed heritage children.
‘So I’ll wait to hear about tonight, then? ’ he says.
‘You’ll get a message.’ Carrie drops her voice, and the secrecy sends a shiver down Jamie’s spine.
He isn’t sure what he finds more disturbing: the cloak-and-dagger arrangements or Carrie’s breezy talk of direct action.
She looks around, checking to see if anyone’s listening. ‘It normally comes before lunchtime.’
It comes at eleven; a text from an unknown number with three seemingly random words.
Broken tide ember. Jamie swallows hard. What if he goes to the police now?
Would it be enough? He dismisses the idea instantly.
He only has one shot at this, and he doesn’t know what tonight’s meeting will look like.
He imagines the police charging in – riot helmets on and batons raised – only to find a dozen Carries in a village hall.
What would they arrest them for: harbouring racist thoughts?
No. The police have already fobbed him off twice.
When Jamie contacts them again, he needs to have irrefutable evidence of a crime. That way, the police can’t fail to act.
He’s relieved when Carrie suggests they go together to the meeting.
Her incessant chatter is a welcome distraction from Jamie’s racing thoughts, as apprehension forms a knot of anxiety in his stomach.
What if they won’t let him in? What if it’s a trap, and they let him in only to turn on him?
What if, by attending the meeting, Jamie is himself committing a criminal act?
The gathering is in a British Legion hall, a single-storey building with an outside toilet, squatting at the back of scrubby parkland. Jamie follows Carrie inside. The man on the door – well-built and watchful – nods in recognition at Carrie, then fixes his gaze on Jamie.
‘He’s with me,’ Carrie says. ‘I’ve cleared it with the boss.’ The man nods, although his gaze rests on Jamie a second longer than it needs to.
Inside, the space is the size of a school gymnasium, the chairs laid out in church-service rows.
Most are occupied. At the front of the room is a small, raised platform on which are a lectern and several more chairs, all empty.
It could be a meeting of any kind, Jamie thinks, from the Women’s Institute to a parish council AGM, were it not for the fact that at least half of the attendees are wearing face coverings.
‘That’s optional,’ Carrie whispers, following Jamie’s gaze to a man with a red bandana fixed above his nose.
‘I’ve never bothered.’ They take seats at the back, and Jamie scans the room until he sees Alan and Chris.
Neither of them is wearing masks. Jamie is about to ask Carrie if she knows many people here, when four men step on to the stage and the room falls silent.
A man with a moustache and wire-framed glasses walks towards the lectern. The other three men are wearing balaclavas, slivers of white skin just visible around their eyes and mouth. They survey the audience for a few seconds, before sitting down as one. Jamie’s neck prickles.
Carrie leans into him, speaking in a low voice. ‘That’s the boss, in the middle.’
The boss wears jeans and a black quarter-zip sweater, his sleeves pushed up over muscled forearms. On his feet are a pair of grey and orange Adidas trainers; without the black balaclava, he’d look like any other bloke out for a pint.
He gives a single nod, and the moustached man turns to the audience.
‘The New Dawn is upon us,’ he says.
‘We step into the light.’ The audience answer in unison, a low but fervent chant that sends a crackle of electricity around the room. Jamie tenses. His whole body wants to run.
‘My brothers, the boss has asked me to commend you for your efforts this week. Those of you who have spent time leafleting, who have passed us information, who have recruited new members . . .’
Jamie feels Carrie’s eyes on him.
‘ . . . we see you and we thank you. The boss would also like to thank our brother who informed us of radicalization taking place under the guise of “cultural awareness sessions”.’ The speaker makes quotes with his fingers.
‘Thanks to swift action from several of you, the individuals concerned have been . . .’ his lips twitch ‘ . . . educated in the error of their ways.’
The audience applauds.
‘Regrettably, it has not all been good news.’ The speaker pauses, and the energy in the room shifts again, as though someone has opened a door and let in the cold air.
‘Someone we believed to be a true brother became loose-lipped. He has been dealt with, but the boss would like to take this opportunity to remind you that New Dawn meetings are sacred. Speaking about our activities jeopardizes the safety of everyone in this room.’ He pauses again.
‘And there will always be consequences.’
Sweat soaks into Jamie’s collar. He can feel dozens of pairs of eyes burning into the back of his neck, and is it his imagination, or is ‘the boss’ looking directly at him? He barely takes in what comes next, so loud is the blood roaring in his ears.
When the meeting finally ends, Jamie forces himself to move slowly. He stands, stretching as though he’s spent the last hour soporific, instead of wound tight as an eight-day watch. As he makes for the door, Carrie catches his arm.
‘The boss wants to see us.’
‘What? Why?’
‘He meets all the new members. It was the same when Chris brought me along for the first time.’
They’re moving slowly towards the front of the room, where the boss and his two henchmen are still sitting on the dais.
Jamie thinks he might throw up. He wishes fervently that he’d known so many people would have their faces covered; he would feel so much less vulnerable with a disguise of his own.
Stepping on to the dais, Jamie stumbles, and a smirk plays at the corners of one of the henchmen’s lips.
‘Name,’ the boss says. It’s the first time he’s spoken, and Jamie notes the lack of inflection at the end of what is clearly a command, not a question.
‘Jamie Golding.’ He can hardly give a false name, not with Carrie standing beside him.
‘Sponsored by?’
‘Carrie Finder, boss.’ Even Carrie seems nervous, a breathy quality to her voice.
A long silence follows. Around them, conversations are beginning and ending, and Jamie hears the scraping of chairs as they’re moved and stacked.
And, all the while, the boss stares at Jamie.
Only when Jamie glances away, the intensity of the boss’s gaze almost physically painful, does the boss speak.
He’d been waiting for him to give in, Jamie realizes. Round one to the boss.
‘Give him the initiation.’ The boss folds his arms high across his chest.
‘Initiation?’ Jamie has a sudden flashback to his first day of secondary school, when he and another boy had been dragged into the toilets and made to ‘dive’ for coins.
The moustached man steps forward. ‘There’s a Paki shop near your house.’
Jamie is so horrified to realize that New Dawn know where he lives, he almost misses what comes next.
Almost, but not quite.
‘Burn it down.’
Jamie’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Carrie makes a small sound, but Jamie’s rooted to the spot; can’t turn to see if she is as horrified as he is, or whether the noise she made had been one of approval.
The man with the moustache looks at the boss, waiting for another of the short nods with which Jamie is already uncomfortably familiar before he continues. ‘Burn it down, and you’re one of us. A brother in the new dawn.’
‘And if I can’t?’ Jamie’s voice is shaking.
The man holds his gaze. ‘You don’t want to find out.’