Chapter 9
Roads & Transportation Department, County Hall, Kingsbourne, Wealdshire. Thursday 14 May 1998
The intercom buzzed. Andrew Starling, Superintendent of Roads and Transportation, bent forward and pressed a button. 'Yes,' he said in a tone that suggested he was either rude, busy, impatient, or all three.
'Mr Starling. I have a call from you from a Mr Zicchi.'
'Oh God no!' Starling found himself uttering under his breath.
'Sorry?' queried Miss Thackaberry. 'Shall I put him through?'
'Can you tell him I'm in a meeting?'
Miss Thackaberry gave an embarrassed little cough. 'Mr Zicchi did say that . . . if you said you were in um . . . a meeting . . . that he would um . . . well, I can't remember exactly what he said, but it sounded rather rude to me.'
'I'll bet it did,' Starling hissed through clenched teeth. 'You'd better put him through.'
'One moment.'
Starling switched off the intercom, took a deep breath, and reached forward to pick up the telephone. He let his hand hover over the receiver. 'No. He can stew for a minute. Let him see who calls the shots round here. I'm not his lackey.' He knew he was kidding himself. Anyone who had taken a backhander from Zicchi and his organisation was in no position to think he was in control. He changed his mind and decided it might be for the best if he picked the phone up now.
'Mr Zicchi,' he said, and wished that his voice didn't sound so feeble. 'How nice to hear from you.'
'Listen 'ere Starlin. My clients is well brassed orf wiv ya . . . know what I mean? Yeah, well brassed orf. They wants to see some progress immediate like or they's gonna 'ave t'fink of some way of gettin yer backside into gear . . . know what I mean?'
'I appreciate their concern, Mr Zicchi, but I hope they realise that, at the moment, my hands are tied somewhat —'
'Won't just be yer 'ands what are tied — if ya get me drift. Ever tried swimmin wiv yer legs tied together? Not easy me old china. Gives yer a bit of the old cramp it does.'
'Mr Zicchi —' Starling gulped. He knew that Zicchi was a villain but he never expected to receive a murder threat. He was beginning to feel more than a little scared. In fact, he thought he might be edging into the 'downright terrified' zone on the alarm scale.
'Hey Starlin. You still there? I was just 'avin a little joke wiv ya. I 'as ter be a bit rough wiv some of the riffraff what I 'as dealins wiv and I sometimes forgets meself.'
Starling wasn't convinced that Zicchi had only been joking. Trying to sound as normal as possible he said, 'The problem, Mr Zicchi, is the protesters. I can't just ask them nicely to pack their bags and hope they'll go away. They know their rights and I'm having to tread very carefully.'
'Listen, Andy.' (Andrew Starling cringed — how he loathed anyone calling him Andy.) 'If you wants a bit of 'elp gettin rid o' them long-'aired 'ippies — you jus' lemme know. I fink we could get 'em out of yer 'air fer good. An' it wouldn't cost yer much. In fact, I reckon me boys would be glad ter do it for nuffink. They don' like scum.'
'Neither do I, Mr Zicchi,' Starling stated emphatically (but it wasn't road protesters that he had in mind).
'I gotta go, Andy. You see what you can do 'bout gettin fings movin, eh? An' I might give yer a little reminder of this call.'
Starling put the phone down very slowly. A little reminder of this call? he wondered. What did that mean? Had Zicchi taped the conversation? What use would that be to anyone? Unless, of course, it could be used for blackmail. No, Starling decided, Zicchi wouldn't want anyone to hear a tape in which he was named. And I certainly mentioned his name enough times — creepy little spineless creature that I am.
It was time for lunch but Andrew Starling had no appetite. He'd landed himself in a proper mess and he could see no way out. As Superintendent of Roads, he was responsible for the planning and building of the Kingsbourne Bypass which would take traffic around the city of Kingsbourne. At the moment, all traffic travelling east or west had no option but to go straight through the middle of the city. Three routes had been proposed and Starling had used his authority to ensure that route 'C' was the one selected by the planning committee. Route 'A' had been a non-starter as it would have required the demolition of most of the houses in the village of Bishop St. Mary (but it made good strategic sense to include a route that everyone could agree wasn't viable). Route 'B' was the obvious choice and, as it followed a disused railway line for most of its length, would have been relatively cheap to build and would have caused few complaints from the environmental lobby. Starling kept asking himself why he hadn't opted for route 'B', but he knew the answer. Zicchi, acting on behalf of one of the big road building companies, had made Starling an offer that he just couldn't refuse. If Hardtop Aggregates won the contract, and if the more expensive route was chosen, Andrew Starling would receive a handsome payment.
The offer had been made by one of Zicchi's colleagues in the Travellers Arms, a quiet little pub on the outskirts of Kingsbourne. Starling had been given a package and had made the big mistake of looking inside. The envelope was stuffed with fifty-pound notes. He thought no-one had noticed but, the following day, a set of photographs arrived on his desk. They not only showed Starling in a huddled conversation with a known villain and Starling looking furtively around him as he took the package but, just to make sure he really got the message, there was a close-up of him examining the money. The cash wasn't just a sweetener; it was a guarantee that Starling would cooperate.
It wasn't too difficult for Starling to persuade the committee to turn down route 'B'. Although the railway track was disused, it had been purchased by a group of steam enthusiasts who planned to open the line as the Ouse Valley Railway. The group contained some powerful individuals and Starling knew that they would put up a strong fight to save their railway from complete destruction. Not only that, but they held positions of such influence in the community that most members of the committee were reluctant to do anything which would incur their displeasure.
At first, Starling wasn't too worried about the deal with Zicchi. His wife had very expensive tastes and was constantly asking when he was going to start earning some real money. His kids had acquired their mother's tastes and, with every passing year, were costing him more and more. One compulsive spender in the family was bad enough — but with three of them afflicted by the obsession — he needed all the financial assistance he could get.
He knew he could persuade the committee to adopt route 'B' so why not keep the money and enjoy it? Unfortunately, the money had not lasted long. Penelope Starling had never asked where the money came from — but she certainly knew what to do with it. Andrew Starling was well aware of his wife's ability to make money disappear, but even he was staggered by rate at which she disposed of the unexpected windfall. Did she really need three designer jackets at four-hundred pounds a time? Within two months, every penny had gone and she was discreetly hinting that it was time that her husband earned 'another little bonus'. If Zicchi demanded the return of the money, Andrew Starling would be in deep trouble.
The protesters were the cause of his plight. Ever since the Newbury campaign, when the anti-road demonstrators had managed to not only attract a great deal of public sympathy, but also persuade the media to give a more-balanced account of the issues involved, it had become increasingly difficult to ignore their activities. The campaigners had formed themselves into a professional army of fighters who were posing a formidable challenge to the building of the Kingsbourne Bypass. The front-line fighters, the ones who grandly thought of themselves as eco-warriors, were prepared to risk life and limb to protect the countryside.
Deep inside, Starling had a grudging respect for those who were willing to give up jobs and homes to spend weeks and months, if not years, living in squalid conditions along the the proposed route of the road. Anyone who could live for more than one day in a flimsy makeshift tent, a cramped hole in the ground, or a hut built high up in the branches of a tree, had to be either stupid or determined. Starling had long ago given up thinking that they were stupid.
In his more contemplative moments (usually after Penelope Starling had been discussing her spending plans), Starling actually envied the freedom of the eco-people. They were brave enough to throw away the shackles of modern society, such as mortgages, cars and careers — and live as natural a life as possible. He envied the fact that they truly seemed to care about one another. That they believed the earth was a living entity which would look after them if they looked after her. But he didn't let these romantic notions float around in his head for long. It was far easier to think of the front line activists as scruffy, unwashed layabouts who were motivated only by the desire to cause trouble.
If the campaigners consisted only of eco-warriors, they might have been easy to defeat. But their ranks were swelled by thousands of supporters, sponsors and well-wishers. Let someone shiver in a wood on their own for a night and there's a good chance they'll set off for home with tail between legs the following morning. But if someone thumps them on the back and tells them that future generations will thank them for their sacrifice — you've got yourself a martyr who will sit beneath the trees until hell freezes over. The whole country, it seemed to Starling, was full of back thumpers these days. Bankers, accountants, traffic wardens, and even some politicians were lending their support. The worst group of all though, from Starling's point of view, were the older generation.
Retired people, once referred to disparagingly as 'wrinklies', were now calling themselves 'grey panthers', a term which they had borrowed from the United States. Whereas once they would have turned their noses up in disgust at the sight of earring-wearing drop outs, now they were actually working with them. They were angry, they were fed up of being told what to do and what to think, and they had discovered that they had power. When such a large percentage of the population is past retirement age, it's a brave politician who ignores the voice of the senior citizen.
The media, of course, loved it when they got shots of old folk sitting in front of bulldozers or handing out sandwiches to scruffy teenagers who had chained themselves to trees. And the police and security men (the 'goons' as the protesters often called them) found it very difficult to know how to handle direct action by older people. The sight of a youth being given a hefty push by someone in uniform would cause few eyebrows to be raised, but a video showing an elderly person being roughly manhandled was worth its weight in gold to the campaigners.
As if eco-warriors and grey panthers weren't enough, road developers also had to deal with those who took advantage of the legal system. Whenever attempts were made to evict demonstrators, dozens of self- styled legal observers would be on hand to record assaults by the goons or report cases of the police exceeding their powers. Only that morning, Starling had been horrified to read in the newspaper that two retired people had been granted legal aid to take their fight against a new road to the High Court. He wished that people were far more ignorant about the law as that would make his job far easier but, these days, everyone seemed to know their rights.
The Internet was to blame, Starling believed. Anyone with a modem could access the World Wide Web and read page after page of useful information provided by lawyers sympathetic to their cause. What was even worse, there were pages and pages produced by environmental groups providing people with up-to- date information about when and where to meet to cause the maximum amount of disruption. It was little wonder that governments around the world were worried by the Internet — it was giving people too much information — and information means power.
Andrew Starling was confident that he could defeat the anti-road group, but what he was very doubtful about was whether he could defeat them quickly enough to satisfy Mr Zicchi's client. He also had to ensure that Hardtop Aggregates were awarded the contract for the road construction. It was not a happy Superintendent of Roads who, having spent most of the afternoon immersed in depressing thoughts, finally dragged himself out of his office at six o'clock to go home to his no-less-depressing wife.