Chapter I
11th March 1964
‘Just watching the world go by?’
Eddie turned, feigning surprise. She looked up into the beaming face of the young man who until a few moments before had been attending the till of the tea shop in which she had sat. He was handsome, in a boyish way, with shiny dark hair and even shinier eyes.
‘Yes, I like watching the cars go by.’ She replied, smiling vacantly. She’d anticipated that the boy would try and engage her in conversation the last two times she’d sat in the shop. And while she had sat and warmed her hands on the mug of tea, waiting for it to be cool enough to drink, she had been aware of him fussing with his hair and uniform, wiping his eyes for any residual trace of sleep and otherwise attempting to make himself presentable to a pretty young lady such as herself. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so sad.
‘Oh, I like that too!’ he said quickly. His cheerful expression broke for an instant, as he grasped for something to say. ‘Just wondering, where are they all going?’ He winced, almost imperceptibly, though for Eddie he might as well be audibly screaming.
‘Exactly!’ she gasped. She wondered if she was laying it on too thick, but the gleam of relief in the boy’s eyes satisfied her. She paused. ‘Was there something you needed?’
‘Um, no, it’s just… you’re always on your own and I thought you might want someone to talk to.’ The boy was scrupulously avoiding eye contact and seemed to be busy looking out of the window himself as if the mystery of where all those cars were going would suddenly reveal itself.
‘Oh, how sweet of you!’ she breezed, ‘But I quite like these moments of quiet in the morning, before I start work. It gives me time to think.’ She smiled again. ‘I’m sure you understand.’ The boy’s hopes visibly crumbled to dust in front of her. He replied politely, asked her if she needed anything and when she replied that she was quite alright thank you, he returned to his post behind the till to analyse every microsecond on their interaction.
Eddie tore her attention from the self-excoriation of the boy and back on to the street outside. A supply van had parked outside a grocer’s on the opposite side of the street and the proprietor was helping the driver move some boxes out of the back. As she watched, she raised her mug to her lips. Real tea had become an expensive and stringently rationed commodity since India signed up to the Embargo, but she could barely remember what that tasted like. For all her Mum’s complaints, she found National Tea more than satisfactory. She took a sip and sighed with contentment.
Suddenly, the two men across the street fumbled one of the boxes and it fell to the ground. A few sheets of paper billowed from the top and the grocer hurriedly seized them off the ground, stuffing the paper into his pockets. The street was nearly deserted at this hour, when most shops were only just opening, but she noticed the panicked look on his face and the urgency with which he motioned to the deliveryman to finish unloading boxes.
This was her opportunity. She had been watching the grocer and his weekly deliveries for the last month. The van was always different, but the boxes always looked the same. Not in itself something to be suspicious of, one box does look rather similar to another. But the revelation that they contained paper changed that. Rationing aside, it was very odd that a grocer’s felt the need to hold such a large supply. She discretely withdrew a black notebook from inside her overcoat and made a note of the van’s number plate. Once that was done, she gulped down her tea quickly and made a move, giving a quick smile to the boy behind the till as she left.
She walked down the street, in the opposite direction to the grocer’s until she felt she was far enough away. Then she crossed the road and worked her way behind the shops, so that she couldn’t be seen by either the grocer and his deliveryman or by anyone in the teashop across the road. She weaved her way through gates and over fences and quietly thanked her lucky stars that she was permitted to wear a practical utility suit rather than some more stereotypically secretarial accoutrement. It would have been hell trying to do all of this in a pencil skirt and heels.
Finally, she emerged in the yard at the rear of the grocer’s. She could hear the two men still talking as they moved boxes but she couldn’t discern any words. The yard was a mess of stacked wooden pallets, soggy remnants of cardboard boxes and fraying mounds of twine. She picked her way through the debris, until she reached the back door. Putting her back to the adjacent wall, she listened carefully for movement and drew her pistol from the holster under her armpit. Confident that there wasn’t anyone behind the door she twisted the doorknob. To her relief, it wasn’t locked and she gently pushed open the door using it as a shield between her and whoever may be inside. Fortunately it seemed the grocer was outside, in conversation with the deliveryman, and she closed the door behind her.
Inside the grocer’s was neat and tidy, a marked contrast with the mess in the yard. Little rows of fruits and vegetables, a shelf of grey loaves of National Bread, a display of yesterday’s newspapers yet to be replaced by the proprietor. The boxes of paper freshly unloaded from the van were placed just inside the door. To her left was the grocer’s office, placed discretely behind the shop counter. She walked inside the office and was confronted with a chaos that mirrored the yard, but pallets and twine were replaced with receipts and invoices. She had a quick browse of the forest of papers but couldn’t see anything indicating an order of blank sheets of paper on quite the scale that she had seen over the last month. She pulled a tiny handheld camera out of her overcoat and took a few photos one handed, then stood back to consider.
She only had minutes to either work out what the grocer’s game was immediately, or to retreat back to observation but risk being seen leaving. She paced backwards and forwards while she thought, the floorboards creaking under her feet. She stopped suddenly and put one of her feet back. The floorboard groaned in response. She looked down at the floor. It was floorboards covered in large tiles of linoleum, pale yellow stained with grey from peoples’ shoes. She examined the tile that covered the creaky floorboard. It’s corners were peeling but it seemed less stained than the others. She probed the tiles surrounding it cautiously with her foot. They did not creak. Kneeling down, she peeled back the tile and revealed a hidden hatch. She smiled in appreciation. It was clever, an adaptation of an old trick that had very nearly fooled her. But it was a little early to be clapping herself on the back yet. She hauled up the hatch and looked down into the darkness below.
A metal ladder led down into a dim cellar. A heavy tarpaulin hung from the ceiling as a curtain, masking whatever activities were taking place on the other side. And they were definitely taking place as the tarpaulin failed to entirely mask the sound of conversation, the clanking of machines and the whisper of papers being shuffled and stacked. She took a deep breath in and out, checked that the safety on her pistol was off, then ripped down the tarpaulin. There were five men and women in the cellar, operating two printing presses. On either wall were tables stacked with clean paper and on a bigger table at the centre of the room were posters and leaflets. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted by the striking colour schemes of black, red and white and focussed on the people who had all frozen in the midst of their jobs when the tarpaulin was torn down. She flicked the barrel of the gun, motioning for them to line up near the far wall, against one of the tables of as yet unused paper.
She now had a moment to examine one of the posters in more detail. It showed a map of Europe, most of painted in glistening red. A muscular man bestrode the Continent his arms outstretched to Britain in a gesture of friendship. Britain by contrast was in black and was depicted by a threadbare shrivelled Tommy, his uniform several sizes too big and gesturing at the heroic figure before him with a medieval pike. He was hopping from one leg to the other in his agitation, and looming over him from behind was an organ grinder who commanded the Tommy’s aggressive dance. The organ grinder’s face was a warped caricature dominated by a hooked nose and a malevolent toothy grin. In bold letters that seemed to glow from the page, the poster read ‘BRITONS! STOP DANCING TO THE JEW’S TUNE! EMBRACE GERMAN FRIENDSHIP AND CAST OFF THE POVERTY ENFORCED BY THE EMBARGO!’. Eddie sneered and stuffed it into her pocket.
She gestured at the propagandists, urging them up the ladder. They shuffled forward, grumbling all the while. They were going too slowly. She needed to get the grocer as well as them. He was the supplier of their materials, he might know more about the network. Impatiently, she started up the ladder after them. That was a mistake. The man in front of her kicked down, his heel crunching into her nose. She felt the bridge give way and blood trickled from her nostrils. They were shouting now, the four others running to get away, the man who kicked her had jumped down from the ladder to bar her from pursuit. He swung a fist and she ducked, just in time. She could taste her blood in her mouth.
Stepping to one side, she brandished her pistol as a club, striking his knee with one blow then swinging back to catch his chin. He staggered backwards but seemed not to be phased, keeping his back to the ladder and raising his fists. He was a big man, and his grubby overalls were tight around a broad chest and shoulders. His arms were thick with chords of muscle and his hands were like spades. His face was set in a cold grimace, a little blood trickling from his chin from where she’d struck him.
‘C’mon girly,’ he growled, ‘you think you can take me?’ He stood on the balls of his feet, shifting his weight carefully. He was clearly experienced, and she guessed that his large frame disguised uncanny agility. She gave her nose an exploratory squeeze and hissed at the pain. The man’s face cracked into a smile. She didn’t have time for this. She raised her pistol and shot him in the knee. His expression changed in an instant to one of shock and pain and he came crashing to the floor as his kneecap burst into dozens of fragments. She ignored his screams and hurried up the stairs. The other four propagandists were nowhere to be seen inside the shop, so she ran out onto the street outside.
The van was gone, but she heard the groan and wheeze of an elderly engine. She hurried onto the drive next to the shop and pointed her pistol at the car which was struggling to start. The grocer was sat behind the wheel, his face pale with fear. The other four propagandists were crammed into the car with him. She grinned, and felt the congealed blood on her face crack.
‘Out!’ she barked and the doors opened slowly, the propagandists all keeping their hands raised. ‘Back into the shop.’ She ordered, and they obeyed, their eyes sullen. She followed them into the shop and motioned for them to go back down the stairs to join their howling comrade who was bleeding all over the floor in the cellar. Once they were down there, she heaved a filing cabinet on top of the concealed hatch. She could hear them panicking below and arguing with each other. She nodded to herself, it would make them easier to interrogate if they turned on each other.
She found the office phone and called the operator to put her through to the local police station. A quavering boy’s voice answered. She wondered if he knew that she was Mass Observation, or if he sounded like this all the time.
‘Mass Observation, Edwina Nash, 00-8956. I have apprehended a group of pro-Nazi propagandists at the Westfield Grocers’. I’ll need a Black Maria to take them into custody.’ She intoned flatly. There was a moment of hesitation while he called the MO officer resident at the station for confirmation.
‘That will be at your location presently, ma’am.’ He replied, ‘Um, I have also been told an MO will be along to debrief you and assign you to a different case.’
‘I look forward to it. Goodbye.’ She responded, putting the receiver down before he had a chance to reply. She sat in the office chair, put her feet up on the desk, tilted her head back and held the bridge of her nose. The big man downstairs had turned from screaming to whimpers but his friends seemed in no mood to quieten down themselves. She listened to them shout at each other, trying to assign blame to someone. All in all, it had been a good morning.
Nigh on twenty years ago I spent a lovely week at the Sussex Uni paging through MO docs. Using them as a secret police/Justice League of British Defiance is a fucking master stroke. Is SeaLion Press sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.