Highbridge by Phil Redmond Read Free Book Online Page B

back on target. Noting again the array of domes clustered on the corner by the alley. All-round view. Way over the top for the average chippy. His mind went back to the consequences of the global tides of change that send manufacturing overseas. The local factories are closed, dismantled and shipped overseas too. More shipwreck than train wreck, but they still should have seen it coming. The companies sail away leaving their workforce behind. Marooned. Marooned on concrete islands once built as so-called new towns of opportunities and amenities. Sometimes referred to as overspill estates as they socially cleansed the inner cities to get rid of the Victorian slums or Second World War bomb damage. When the Council did more damage than Hitler, as his mum and dad often said.
    ‘Do you think politics is war by other means?’ he asked Matt.
    ‘You what?’
    ‘Never mind.’ He went back inside his head. How many times had he heard that one about the Council doing more damage than anyone while he was growing and fighting for his life on the walkways and underpasses of Butcher’s Fields? He saw it coming. At thirteen. When he opted out and left school. Voluntarily excluded himself. They didn’t like that. But back then they didn’t really give a toss. Well, no one carved themselves a nice little earner and gold-plated pension pot by caring or siding with the people.
    It was also another reason why he joined the army. They liked that. Get him off their statistics on to someone else’s. Hopefully one of the casualties. But something the politicos always forget. People. Punters. Voters. They don’t just read the papers. They live, breathe and create the stories that go in them. Politicians read about life. Real people live it. They also do another very dangerous thing. Well, some of them do. They read books. No wonder the first thing any puffed-up dictator does when they try to grab power is stop people reading. These days it’s cutting off the Internet, but it’s the same trick. Stop people getting ideas.
    ‘You think too much, Luke. Always been your trouble, mate,’ Matt said, puncturing the thought bubble Luke, as Matt had often pointed out, always retreated into. ‘There’s nothing you can do about the shifts in global capitalism mate, so why bother yourself?’
    ‘What? Get pissed or get something from the likes of that fat bastard down there?’
    ‘No. But you could spend a bit more time trying to fill that bloody black hole left behind by losing Janey.’
    Luke turned ready to have another go, but saw Matt was waiting for an outburst. It had been a deliberate shot. Bang on target. You see. People. They get ideas. Uncomfortable ideas. Right ideas.
    ‘You should have stayed at that seminary, Father O’Connor. Priesthood lost out when you decided to join our band of homicidal maniacs.’
    ‘Better than ending up a kiddy fiddler.’
    ‘Welcome, Mr Joe. And Mrs Nolan. You well tonight?’
    ‘All the better for seeing you, Lin.’
    ‘Yes. Those Chinese people in London. Not real thing. Usual?’
    ‘Yep. You know me. No imagination.’
    ‘You just have excellent taste. Be right back.’
    Joey flopped into the seat. The adrenalin from the station now subsiding.
    ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Natasha said as she picked up the menu.
    He didn’t need a reminder about which question. He knew when he changed the subject in the car, just as he knew she wouldn’t let it pass. But at least it had given him a bit more time to think. ‘They’re doing private security work.’
    ‘What? Group 4 or something?’
    ‘Don’t think they’re nursemaidin’ prisoners back and forth to court, or sitting as cocky watchmen outside some factory somewhere.’
    ‘They’re mercenaries?’
    ‘Close Quarter Operatives, they call it.’
    ‘Where?’ she asked, but Joey just stared back at her. Don’t ask.
    ‘What? You’d have to, or they’d have to shoot me if you tell me?’
    ‘I don’t know. All I know is that