Nobody answered, nor did he hear any sign of movement within.
Strike checked the note on the door again, then set off. Turning left into Vicarage Lane, he saw the community center right in front of him, “The Well” spelled out boldly in shining Perspex letters.
An elderly man wearing a Mau cap and a wispy, graying beard was standing just outside the glass doors with a pile of leaflets in his hand. As Strike approached, the man, whose T-shirt bore the washed-out face of Che Guevara, eyed him askance. Though tieless, Strike’s Italian suit struck an inappropriately formal note. When it became clear that the community center was Strike’s destination, the leaflet-holder shuffled sideways to bar the entrance.
“I know I’m late,” said Strike, with well-feigned annoyance, “but I’ve only just found out the bloody venue’s been changed.”
His assurance and his size both seemed to disconcert the man in the Mau cap, who nevertheless appeared to feel that instant capitulation to a man in a suit would be unworthy of him.
“Who are you representing?”
Strike had already taken a swift inventory of the capitalized words visible on the leaflets clutched against the other man’s chest: DISSENT—DISOBEDIENCE—DISRUPTION and, rather incongruously, ALLOTMENTS. There was also a crude cartoon of five obese businessmen blowing cigar smoke to form the Olympic rings.
“My dad,” Strike said. “He’s worried they’re going to concrete over his allotment.”
“Ah,” said the bearded man. He moved aside. Strike tugged a leaflet out of his hand and entered the community center.
There was nobody in sight except for a gray-haired woman of West Indian origin, who was peering through an inner door that she had opened an inch. Strike could just hear a female voice in the room beyond. Her words were hard to distinguish, but her cadences suggested a tirade. Becoming aware that somebody was standing immediately behind her, the woman turned. The sight of Strike’s suit seemed to affect her in opposite fashion to the bearded man at the door.
“Are you from the Olympics?” she whispered.
“No,” said Strike. “Just interested.”
She eased the door open to admit him.
Around forty people were sitting on plastic chairs. Strike took the nearest vacant seat and scanned the backs of the heads in front of him for the matted, shoulder-length hair of Billy.
A table for speakers had been set up at the front. A young woman was currently pacing up and down in front of it as she addressed the audience. Her hair was dyed the same bright red shade as Coco’s, Strike’s hard-to-shake one-night stand, and she was speaking in a series of unfinished sentences, occasionally losing herself in secondary clauses and forgetting to drop her “h”s. Strike had the impression that she had been talking for a long time.
“… think of the squatters and artists who’re all being—’cause this is a proper community, right, and then in they come wiv like clipboards and it’s, like, get out if you know what’s good for you, thin end of the, innit, oppressive laws, it’s the Trojan ’orse—it’s a coordinated campaign of, like…”
Half the audience looked like students. Among the older members, Strike saw men and women who he marked down as committed protestors, some wearing T-shirts with leftist slogans like his friend on the door. Here and there he saw unlikely figures who he guessed were ordinary members of the community who had not taken kindly to the Olympics’ arrival in East London: arty types who had perhaps been squatting, and an elderly couple, who were currently whispering to each other and who Strike thought might be genuinely worried about their allotment. Watching them resume the attitudes of meek endurance appropriate to those sitting in church, Strike guessed that they had agreed that they could not easily leave without drawing too much attention to themselves. A much-pierced boy covered in anarchist tattoos audibly picked his teeth.
Behind the girl who was speaking sat three others: an older woman and two men, who were talking quietly to each other. One of them was at least sixty, barrel-chested and lantern-jawed, with the pugnacious air of a man who had served his time on picket lines and in successful showdowns with recalcitrant management. Something about the dark, deep-set eyes of the other made Strike scan the leaflet in his hand, seeking confirmation of an immediate suspicion.
COMMUNITY OLYMPIC RESISTANCE (CORE)
15 June 2012
7.30 p.m. White Horse Pub East Ham E6 6EJ
Speakers:
Lilian Sweeting Wilderness Preservation, E. London
Walter Frett Workers’ Alliance/CORE activist
Flick Purdue Anti-poverty campaigner/CORE activist
Jimmy Knight Real Socialist Party/CORE organizer
Heavy stubble and a general air of scruffiness notwithstanding, the man with the sunken eyes was nowhere near as filthy as Billy and his hair had certainly been cut within the last couple of months. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and while squarer of face and more muscular, he had the same dark hair and pale skin as Strike’s visitor. On the available evidence, Strike would have put a sizable bet on Jimmy Knight being Billy’s older brother.
Jimmy finished his muttered conversation with his Workers’ Alliance colleague, then leaned back in his seat, thick arms folded, wearing an expression of abstraction that showed he was not listening to the young woman any more than her increasingly fidgety audience.
Strike now became aware that he was under observation from a nondescript man sitting in the row in front of him. When Strike met the man’s pale blue gaze, he redirected his attention hastily towards Flick, who was still talking. Taking note of the blue-eyed man’s clean jeans, plain T-shirt and the short, neat hair, Strike thought that he would have done better to have forgone the morning’s close shave, but perhaps, for a ramshackle operation like CORE, the Met had not considered it worthwhile to send their best. The presence of a plainclothes officer was to be expected, of course. Any group currently planning to disrupt or resist the arrangements for the Olympics was likely to be under surveillance.
A short distance from the plainclothes policeman sat a professional-looking young Asian man in shirtsleeves. Tall and thin, he was watching the speaker fixedly, chewing the fingernails of his left hand. As Strike watched, the man gave a little start and took his finger away from his mouth. He had made it bleed.
“All right,” said a man loudly. The audience, recognizing a voice of authority, sat a little straighter. “Thanks very much, Flick.”
Jimmy Knight got to his feet, leading the unenthusiastic applause for Flick, who walked back around the table and sat down in the empty chair between the two men.
In his well-worn jeans and unironed T-shirt, Jimmy Knight reminded Strike of the men his dead mother had taken as lovers. He might have been the bass player in a grime band or a good-looking roadie, with his muscled arms and tattoos. Strike noticed that the back of the nondescript blue-eyed man had tensed. He had been waiting for Jimmy.
“Evening, everyone, and thanks very much for coming.”
His personality filled the room like the first bar of a hit song. Strike knew him from those few words as the kind of man who, in the army, was either outstandingly useful or an insubordinate bastard. Jimmy’s accent, like Flick’s, revealed an uncertain provenance. Strike thought that Cockney might have been grafted, in his case more successfully, onto a faint, rural burr.
“So, the Olympic threshing machine’s moved into East London!”
His burning eyes swept the newly attentive crowd.