The enemy within, p.1
The Enemy Within, page 1
ADAM MACQUEEN has contributed to Private Eye since 1997. He wrote the bestselling history of the magazine which was published in 2011, and edited the recent sixtieth anniversary celebration compiling the best of its contents over the years. He has also been on the editorial team of Popbitch and The Big Issue. His books include The Prime Minister’s Ironing Board and The Lies of the Land: An Honest History of Political Deceit. The King of Sunlight, his biography of the soap manufacturer William Hesketh Lever, was named by The Economist as one of its books of the year. His first novel Beneath the Streets, in which he introduced the character of Tommy Wildeblood, was longlisted for the Polari Prize.
Praise for Beneath the Streets
‘After I finished writing A Very English Scandal, I took a solemn vow — that I would rather spit-roast my own offspring than read anything else about the Jeremy Thorpe Affair. Seldom have I gone back on my word with more pleasure. As boldly conceived as it is vividly realised, Beneath the Streets is a delight’
John Preston, The Critic
‘A gripping thriller, interwoven with a really important thread about the condition of being gay in the 1970s’
Harriett Gilbert, A Good Read, BBC Radio 4
‘Adam Macqueen’s gripping debut novel is based on a provocative counterfactual question... He depicts his grim milieu engagingly – the 70s have seldom seemed so grotty and threatening – and this very English scandal has wit and invention to spare’
The Observer
‘Really well done. The detail and the authenticity is all there: London as a really scary, edgy, ugly place. The atmosphere is brilliant... As a portrait of a world I thought it was really fantastic, and I also read it with my computer by my side because I was constantly looking up the real-life figures and I was constantly shocked and amazed by how much of this is true’
David Nicholls
‘What if Jeremy Thorpe had succeeded in murdering Norman Scott? That’s the gripping premise behind this smart story of corruption, murder and establishment cover-up’
iPaper, 40 best books of the year
‘Adam Macqueen’s excellent debut thriller takes us back to 1976, a time of very British scandals. Former rent boy Tom Wildeblood is a thoroughly likeable hero, and the seedy allure of the period is convincingly rendered, while the plot skilfully mixes fact with fiction’
Mail on Sunday
‘A wonderfully evocative walk on the wild side of 1970s London. Darkly comic and deeply moving. A breathtaking, heartbreaking thriller’
Jake Arnott
‘Ticks all the boxes for me. Gay history. Jeremy Thorpe. And a rent boy turned detective called Tommy Wildeblood. Fantastic’
Jonathan Harvey
‘A gripping and occasionally hilarious depiction of what, up to this year at least, must have been the craziest period of modern British politics. The twist, on literally the last page, is superb. While some 1970s scandals were played out beneath the streets, some were hiding in very plain sight’
Law Society Gazette
‘A thrilling read...incredibly powerful’
Nina Sosanya
‘A fucking fantastic read. A gripping what-if thriller, packed with vivid period detail and page-turning twists. To find myself actually making an appearance in the final chapter was just cream on the cake’
Tom Robinson
‘A page-turning mystery, skilfully plotted and filled with tension. Lifts the lid on 1970s subculture to spine-tingling effect’
Paul Burston
‘A thrilling and brilliantly imaginative novel. It takes you into the secret world of Soho in the 1970s. But then suddenly it opens another door into the hidden world of violence and corruption that still lies underneath the England we know today’
Adam Curtis
‘Stonkingly good’
Rose Collis
‘Wonderfully evocative…darkly funny…deliciously believable’
Scene Magazine
Published in 2022
by Lightning Books
Imprint of Eye Books Ltd
29A Barrow Street
Much Wenlock
Shropshire
TF13 6EN
www.lightning-books.com
Copyright © Adam Macqueen 2022
Cover by Ifan Bates
Typeset in Minion Pro and Bebas Neue
The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781785632341
For Emily Travis,
for being inspirational, and remaining so for so long.
And for Adrian, for the exact same reason.
Many of the people in these pages, from Trotskyists to Tories, share their names and certain other biographical details with real people.
That is all they share.
What follows is a work of fiction.
Contents
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
PART TWO
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
PART THREE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
12 OCTOBER 1984
It was freezing on Brighton seafront, the numbing wind carrying a good dose of the sea’s brine. I could see the lights of the pier, twinkling up ahead. I pushed my frigid hands deep into my pockets and, head down, strode on. I was walking as fast as I could, having to will myself not to break into a run: I knew if I arrived at the police cordon breathless and sweaty it was bound to arouse suspicion, prompt unwelcome questions. Whatever happened, I needed to get in there unnoticed.
Get in, do what I had come here to do, and hopefully – there was absolutely no guarantee of this – make it out of the building again alive. I glanced at my watch. It was after one am already, but with all the adrenaline pumping through me it somehow didn’t feel like the middle of the night.
I spotted the hotel a long way off. It was unmissable: huge, like a giant wedding cake, tier upon tier, with elaborate cast-iron balconies running the length of its front on every floor. The whole thing was lit by floodlights shining up from the semi-circular lawn in front of it: the rooms must have very good curtains or there was no way any of their guests would ever get any sleep. Its name was picked out across the lowest balcony in gold letters that must be almost as tall as I was: GRAND.
Outside it the road was blocked with bollards, and I could see uniformed policemen stopping cars driving along the seafront. I made sure to turn off the chilly promenade well before any of them could spot me, and instead headed inland, zig-zagging through the streets until I spotted the concrete bulk of an NCP car park looming above the rooftops. If what I had been told was correct, the staff entrance was down the side of it, and barely guarded at all. My disguise should be enough to get me inside. If I was lucky. And I only needed to be lucky once.
There was an alleyway running along the edge of the multi-storey, just as I had been told. A single crash barrier across it, and a bored-looking policeman standing there. Deep breath; keep walking; stay as casual as possible. Try to look like I did this every day.
‘Morning!’ I said as I approached him, trying to keep my voice steady and holding the ID card I had been given out in front of me like a talisman. My heart was beating so fast and so loud I was surprised he couldn’t hear it in the still night air.
‘Cor, they work you lot nearly as hard as they work us, don’t they?’ he said cheerily, taking in the bow tie and crisp white shirt that made up my waiter’s outfit. He barely glanced at the card in my hand as he shifted the barrier aside to let me through. He had a ruddy, friendly face; quite handsome. Not so much older than I was. Probably had a family waiting for him back home. But I forced myself not to think about that right now.
‘No rest for the wicked!’ I quavered in a voice half an octave higher than my usual one, and I walked on.
A blast of warm air greeted me as I approached the shabby double doors at the end of the alleyway. Great extractor fan vents on the back of the building were pouring out heat and a thick fug of fatty meat smells. The back of the building could hardly have been more different from the fancy frontage: the alley was lined with bins, pallets, broken-down cardboard boxes and empty cooking-oil cans. Two of the round drums separate from the rest served as the seats in a smoker’s area, judging by the dozens of cigarette butts scattered around them. Assuming the policeman’s eyes were still on me – there was sod all else to look at at this time of night – I tried hard not to break pace as I approached the doors, pushing them confidently and mouthing a silent thanks as they swung inwards. And I was in.
I found myself in a dingy hallway, the linoleum floor all but covered with overflowing wicker laundry baskets. On the right was a kitchen storeroom lined with wire shelves holding enormous cooking pots from floor to ceiling; on my left rose a bare flight of stairs. Somewhere up there, several floors above me, among hundreds of other sleeping people, right now, was Margaret Thatcher. And if I, Tommy Wildeblood, had got things right, then she, her entire cabinet, and God knows how many other supporters of her vicious disgrace of a government were all going to die tonight.
PART ONE
SPRING 1984
ONE
There was a sense of restless tension in the entrance hall. You could actually feel it running through the crowd, squashed tight shoulder to shoulder as we were; it surged and ebbed each time the doors to the street swung open, everyone craning their necks to see if this time it was him.
It wasn’t, of course. His lecture wasn’t due to start for another half an hour, and it would be suicide for him to try to get in before that. He would be taking his life in his hands turning up at all, given the mood of the building: great long banners had been unfurled from the windows on the second floor reading No Nazis at NLP, Black and White Unite and Fight and, just in case this wasn’t personal enough, Harrington Not Welcome Here. Inside, someone had unfurled an old Anti-Nazi League banner over the side of the staircase and angled it so that the arrow pointed firmly out of the front door, which was a nice touch, even if the lopsided position meant that yards of spare material pooled on the stairs themselves and made an accident even more likely. The staff had already delivered a stern warning about the safety issues of so many of us thronging the stairs, but not a single person had budged. If Patrick Harrington, nineteen-year-old member of the National Front, wanted to get to his Philosophy lecture on the first floor, he would have to get past every one of us, black, white and every shade in between. We’d made sure every other entrance to the building was blocked off too. There was only one lesson that was going to be taught today.
The crowd convulsed once again as the doors opened, and for a second I lost my footing, carried sideways by the sheer force of people on either side. It took me a moment to get upright enough to see that it was only Richie, the president of the student union, dressed in an ex-army jacket with Rock Against Racism emblazoned across the back, which he kept for special occasions, and the pork-pie hat he wore to disguise the fact he’s going prematurely bald. ‘All right,’ he hollered, holding up his arms for silence. ‘I’ve spoken to the copper in charge’ – a chorus of boos, which he rode out with every appearance of enjoyment – ‘and he’s made it very clear that under the terms of the court injunction we are all banned from any form of protest outside the building and anyone who goes one step further than the doors behind me is going to get arrested.’ There was another bout of booing, accompanied by shouts from way back by the cafeteria of ‘can’t hear!’ and ‘speak up!’
An idea struck me and I called out to Richie, but he couldn’t hear me, so I stuck two fingers in my mouth and whistled, which ensured about half of the heads in the hallway turned in my direction. I gestured at the staircase – ‘Over here!’
The crowd parted to let a grateful Richie through, and he hauled himself up onto one of the parapets that extended from each step outside the curlicued ironwork of the banisters, holding on tight as he picked his way a few steps higher until he could be seen well over the heads of everyone beneath. A hush fell as he started speaking again. ‘As I was saying, Maggie’s boot boys are out in force today. It looks like the state is nearly as frightened by us exercising our democratic rights as it is by the miners!’
A great roar of approval echoed through the hallway. The right might like throwing questions around about how exactly Arthur Scargill chose to conduct the strike, but there were no such issues here: the student union had unanimously voted to defy the orders of the High Court that Harrington, such a keen spreader of fascist ideas that he was deputy editor of National Front News, should be allowed to enter all premises of the polytechnic and enjoy his education ‘without fear or harassment’ for as long as he remained a matriculated student here. When he’d turned up a fortnight ago brandishing his injunction, we’d torn it up on the doorstep and thrown it back in his face. It had been enough to send him on his way then, but this time he’d brought backup.
‘These state soldiers have made it very clear that they won’t allow us take our protest out onto the streets,’ Richie continued, his face beginning to turn as red as his hair as he stoked up the rhetoric. ‘Make no mistake: in 1984 we are truly living in Orwell’s world!’
There was another ripple of approval from the crowd, which masked my own sigh. It was only May, but Orwellian must already qualify as the most over-used adjective of this particular year, especially by people who have never actually read any of poor old Eric Blair’s books.
‘But don’t worry, comrades!’ Richie thundered on. ‘For our part I made it very clear to the officer in charge that we will be exercising our democratic right to protest within polytechnic premises to the full!’ The biggest roar yet echoed around the building. I could actually feel the banister on which I was leaning – half ready to catch hold of Richie if he slipped – vibrating beneath my hand.
‘Comrades, we stand united!’ he barked, visibly swelling from the reaction he was getting. ‘I say this to you now: the state can issue all the injunctions and orders it likes, and it can send in as many of its shock troops as it wants to enforce them, but we will never – never – allow the National Front to get a foothold in this college, and endanger the brothers and sisters of all colours who study here peacefully in our community!’
They didn’t sound very peaceful right now, as a deafening bout of cheering evolved into a chant of Fascists Out! Fascists Out! Fascists Out!
Richie stayed up on his eyrie for a few seconds, milking the reaction, before clambering down and beckoning me close so I could hear him over the row. ‘We could really do with someone out there to give us an early warning when he’s on his way, Tommy.’
I sighed. Richie had found out I had more than a little experience of being arrested when I’d dispensed some advice to my fellow protesters ahead of an Anti-Apartheid Movement demo in my first year. I didn’t mind him knowing – it was good to put the kickings and abuse I’d received in police cells and interview rooms over the years to work in a good cause – but I slightly resented the implication that it meant I wouldn’t mind it happening again.
‘There’s loads of guys upstairs hanging out of the windows,’ I pointed out. ‘Can’t they just get a message down to us when they see Harrington coming?’
‘In the language labs?’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘They’re Sparts. They say they’re running their own, independent occupation of the department and they won’t cooperate with us.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ The elections to the student union executive this year had ended with a landslide for the Socialist Organiser slate, and the Spartacist Society candidates had been causing trouble ever since.
Richie gave me a pleading look that suddenly reminded me that, for all his bluster, he was a good five years younger than I was, and I shrugged and gave in. Besides, I’d had an idea. ‘I’ll see what I can do. You wait just inside. Keep the door ajar and listen for my whistle, yeah?’
We shouldered our way through the restless crowd and I pushed on through the glass-panelled doors into the entrance porch of the building. The police certainly weren’t messing around. There had been three police vans parked outside when I’d arrived an hour earlier: now back-to-back paddywagons filled the entire opposite side of the street, and a string of officers were lined up in front of them at six foot intervals as far as I could see in either direction. Every single one of them had the look of a man who was up for a ruck. For now they were just in their ordinary uniforms, but the back of one of the vans was open and I glimpsed racks of riot shields and helmets hanging inside as I trotted down the steps and turned right, aware of the need to keep moving.
