2020 Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Kenneth Steven

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First North American Edition 2018

  First published in the UK by Saraband under the title 2020

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously

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  Visit the author’s website at kennethsteven.co.uk.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Steven, Kenneth C., 1968– author.

  Title: 2020 : a novel / Kenneth Steven.

  Other titles: Twenty twenty

  Description: First North American edition. | New York : Arcade Publishing, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018000585 (print) | LCCN 2018008494 (ebook) | ISBN 9781628728828 (ebook) | ISBN 9781628728811 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Dystopias.

  Classification: LCC PR6069.T444 (ebook) | LCC PR6069.T444 A615 2018 (print) | DDC 823/.914—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000585

  Cover design and illustration by Brian Peterson

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my good friend Britt Cartrite, who knows

  more about politics than most of us ever will.

  *

  I USED TO see them, yes. They were a polite group; I couldn’t say anything other than that. Always sat together as a foursome; would sometimes stay until the place closed. I remember once having to chase them out. I would say it was one of the boys that was the most talkative; I haven’t a clue what his name was or what any of them were called. I think someone else described them to me as animated. That’s not a word I would ever use, but I suppose it would be right. The girl was probably the quietest, at least from what I saw. When I was working behind the counter I’d glance up at them from time to time and she’d be listening. She was pretty.

  I can feel only sorrow in the light of what’s happened. Oh, you don’t want me to mention that—all right. Well, there’s really nothing more to say than that. I saw them now and again; I found them friendly enough to deal with, and I don’t think I ever gave them a second thought. I mean, it’s a multi-cultural community we’re living in. You take that for granted and don’t question it. In my childhood you were surprised if you saw a black or Asian face, but I was growing up in rural England. This is Manchester, and I dare say Manchester has been this way for a hundred years. No, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to make me suspicious. I’m sorry to be unhelpful, but I can’t say more than that.

  *

  “LET US TURN to something allied to the subject, and I’m actually going to be speaking to an individual who has asked not to be identified. I think it’s likely that the line will be poor, and I can only apologise for that in advance, but let’s see how we get on. We should say that our speaker is in the north of England—that much we can reveal. And you have agreed to speak to us—indeed you wanted to speak to us—regarding Sharia law?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do please go on.”

  “Well, I have been concerned for some time now.”

  “And I believe that you are aware of Sharia law being implemented?”

  “Oh, yes. I would say I know of the existence of at least five Sharia law courts. They are moving around all the time so as not to get caught, and they are dealing with cases in each place.”

  “When you say cases, what exactly do you mean?”

  “I mean theft, I mean adultery, I mean even cases of murder.”

  “And why are they being dealt with by such courts? Is it because it is felt British justice is simply not effective?”

  “Yes, not effective, and not sufficiently severe. British prisons are full of convicts who will come out and re-offend. There is very little sense of justice, very little sense that those who have been wronged have been compensated, that those who have committed crimes have been punished. This is a way of ensuring that crime is dealt with.”

  “And can I ask about punishments? There have been stories that seem to suggest punishments can be very severe—the cutting off of a hand, for example, or imprisonment in cells that have been created for the use of solitary confinement.”

  “No, I would not want to comment on that. I think you would have to speak to someone much closer to the Sharia courts. I am aware only of their existence and of how they are operated.”

  “Well, can I ask you about something else our programme has been discussing in the past few days, and that is female genital mutilation? Can you tell us if these courts have jurisdiction over FGM? Have they had a direct involvement in the use of FGM in this country?”

  “Well, there is not direct involvement.”

  “But would these courts be in any way responsible for the carrying out of female genital mutilation? Would they at some level be concerned with arranging the cutting of girls?”

  (The line goes dead.)

  “Well, we seem to have lost our speaker at an unfortunate moment, and in a way that poses as many questions as it answers…”

  *

  PRIME MINISTER’S QUESTION Time:

  “Will he at the very least admit the situation in this country is out of control? This week, police in the Sudburgh area—and we now know this is just one of several places in the north of England—have effectively given up. There are communities beyond the rule of law, where in fact we do not know what is going on. Does he not accept that this is an untenable situation and that it is time a task force was established to take back control of each and every one of these communities?”

  “All I would say by reply is this—which party is governing in the vast majority of these areas? I would say that it’s the leader of the opposition’s responsibility to get his house in order and ensure that he has jurisdiction over elements of his party that are out of control! In fact, I think it’s time he went down to some of these town halls himself—if he’s got the courage—and started knocking a few heads together! It’s not me he should be hectoring; it’s his own representatives who obviously don’t have a clue what their own leader is saying. Perhaps that says something about the lack of control he has, but it’s not for me to lie awake at night worrying about that: it’s for him!”

  “The Prime Minister knows full well that his party is in government and that trying to pass the buck cannot and will not work. And in answer to such a cheap political jibe, I will respond by saying that I have very much been in some of these constituencies over the course of the past seven days. The problems in these communities transcend the political divide, and cheap attempts to dump the problems onto the opposition are not acceptable. It’s time that he got out of the Westminster Bubble and into some of the hot water! Earlier this week one of his own members of parliament said, and I quote, ‘Six more months of this and the place is going to be on fire. All it will take is the striking of a match in the wrong place, and my fear is for those who are going to get burned.’ How much clearer can the mess
age be? Maybe as well as being deaf to warnings like that from those within his own party, he’s blind to what’s being written in every serious paper in the land this week. Perhaps he should get out a bit more. But in the light of what his own member of parliament warned, can I strongly advise that he wear fire-resistant clothing!”

  *

  WE WERE FRIGHTENED. I think things began to get worse during the May of that year. It seemed to be that the racist message became louder, even that it was deemed more acceptable. I had very seldom known racist abuse in the shop—in fact, it was more often the opposite. When my wife and I first opened the shop in the 1950s we were welcomed, and not only by other members of the Pakistani community. Plenty of white neighbours came in and wished us well, too. There was nothing but friendliness. Over the years there were a few times we had problems, but mostly it was because I think we were vulnerable in the very middle of the town. Groups of drunken young men going home late on a Saturday night: once or twice I was shouted at, things were shoved through the letterbox. Once somebody wrote something on the front door, but we were almost amused: they couldn’t even spell Pakistani correctly! So I would say that what we experienced was nothing compared to the past few months—perhaps the past year.

  My daughter began to be frightened. She is married with her own young child, and she noticed the change. It wasn’t just comments or the shouting on a Saturday night. It was bricks through the windows, and one went into her daughter’s bedroom. The child was terrified. When you are inside a room and a brick comes through the window it is truly terrifying. She wanted to leave. She wanted to move out as soon as possible so her family was safe. But where was she to go? This is where she grew up; it is where her own family lives and the members of her community. For her husband it is no different. He works in the town and his extended family is close by. My granddaughter has her two families close to her. But they are afraid to let her out of their sight. They are concerned about what it will be like when she goes to school. This makes me angry. We have never done anything to cause trouble in this country. We have lived quiet lives and worked hard, and suddenly we have to be afraid of everything we do. This is unfair. We are not the extremists that they hate. Why should we be made to feel guilty? I am sorry to be emotional but I cannot help it. I am both sad and angry, because there is nothing I can do. There is nothing any of us can do and it does not have to be this way. It should not be this way. I only see things becoming worse. I do not know where it will end and I am afraid—I feel truly frightened.

  *

  I REMEMBER THE four of them. Well, I remember three of them—I saw the girl only once or twice. When I think now about what happened it is hard to believe it could have been them, the same people. They were kids. That is the truth of it—they were nothing more than kids. Earnest talking: those are the words that come to mind at once. But I don’t think that even now I can assume their talk was malevolent, plotting. The truth is that I can’t know; none of us can know. They were friends; there was nothing about this particular group of four that stood out. Perhaps the one boy. It is dangerous to read too much into everything in hindsight, but one of the boys seemed almost to be the leader. I remember him walking past my desk one day in the library and we glanced at each other. Except with him it was more than a glance. I know that at that second I felt there was something about his eyes. I even remember thinking about it afterwards, asking myself if my thinking was racist. As perhaps all of us have done in recent years, asked ourselves about our own motives and our attitudes. Was it his particular look or was it his ethnic origin? Was I prejudiced against a look we might call Islamist? There is no such thing, but we have almost come to think there is. How many of us white Caucasians have stood waiting to board a flight and seen that face ahead of us in the queue? And the thought has gone through us—just the flash of a thought. Are they safe? Are they really boarding that plane, our plane, for the same reason as us? And we castigate ourselves for even asking the question, at the same time as asking it all the same. We have created our idea of an Islamist face, for better or worse.

  So I stamped their books; no doubt I exchanged the odd word with them too. But I did not know them. I had no reason to know them and I had no reason to be suspicious of them. I felt prejudice against that one boy, that one young man, for what may be nothing more than my own in-built and built-up resentment. Perhaps it is true to say that I felt he looked at me that morning with a kind of defiance. Perhaps I did feel there was fire in his eyes; it’s certainly true that his look shocked me somehow. I see hundreds of students every day; I know one or two by name, but the vast majority are little more than faces to me. There is no interaction; there is no need to know more. Many do not even meet your eye when you look at them. Perhaps it was that seeming determination to meet my eye, that wish almost to intimidate, that I could not forget—that set me thinking. But I know nothing for certain. I cannot tell the difference, then or now, between what I saw and what I might have imagined I saw.

  *

  YES, I REMEMBER Eric Semple, but I will say from the outset that I did not know him well. I was at school with him; all the way through primary and up until we would have been fourteen, fifteen. My parents moved away with us to Leeds when I was fifteen: perfect timing, just when I was working for my most important exams. But I stress that I did not know Eric Semple well. I was never at his house; I never met any of his family. There’s another ten or twelve you could have interviewed today who would have known him to the same degree as I did, and probably better. I suppose if there was anything there was a kind of circle. And he did attract people. I think it’s almost impossible to say what it was. I suppose he must have had something about him, but I don’t think for the life of me I could tell you what it was.

  Well, we were all teenage boys—perhaps it was as simple as that. Eric was very much a boys’ boy: he was very masculine, if I can say that. If there was a risk that could be taken, he was up for it. In fact, one of that group was actually injured at some point; I can’t recall what it was we were doing. But there was a lot of crossing of railway lines and climbing into places. He wasn’t particularly strong and there were others who were tougher, but Eric inspired. I can imagine someone suggesting some new idea and his eyes flashing. He had a kind of goodness of heart that made him likeable—and that almost made you want him to like you.

  But if you crossed him you were for it. He had a flash of temper that took you by surprise. He seemed too placid for that—just too nice. I reckon all of us got him wrong on that. I remember him laying into one of us for having gone behind his back. The anger just came from nowhere. It diminished quickly, too, but it just lit like a flame.

  The only incident I knew about—but didn’t witness—happened after I had moved. Perhaps just weeks after we went to Leeds. Eric and three of the others in our circle were out late one Saturday night. Whether they deliberately went into the district or whether they met the gang by accident I don’t know. I remember the whole thing being in the papers; it might even have made it onto television, but I’m not sure now. At any rate, they ran into a group of Asians and they were outnumbered—possibly by two to one. Eric got a hell of a beating. For whatever reason he was seen as the leader: he may perhaps have shouted something, have taunted them. You had to be careful when he’d been drinking; that anger was even closer to the surface.

  He was more or less left for dead. He was strong, and a fighter, but he was beaten to a pulp. I’m sure that had a real effect; I’m not going to deny that. I don’t honestly know what he thought before that. We didn’t talk politics; I can’t recall a single occasion when we did. I’m not honestly sure we were mature enough for that. It was about taking risks and pushing boundaries. But Eric was far brighter than he made out. He was certainly a dark horse. And he worked hard at home, even if he never did at school. And I heard that once he fought his way back after that beating he worked harder still. I don’t think any of that group had the slightest ambition to get to university;
I’m not sure Eric would have done at that time. I think what happened changed him in a big way. Strangely enough, it may even have knocked a kind of sense into him. But I had lost touch with him by then. I was away and out of his circle by that stage. I’m not the best person to ask, I’m really aware of that. I’m simply not the best person to ask. But he did change, of that I’m absolutely certain. Was it for the better or the worse? I think it all depends what side of the divide you are on.

  *

  THERE IS GROWING evidence that a breakaway group from the British National Party has joined forces with a section of the English Defence League to form an organisation called White Rose. The splinter group would appear to be composed of discontented members from both organisations intent on creating a much more militant community of activists. It is claimed the two breakaway factions have become more and more dissatisfied with the way their respective organisations have normalised their activities over recent years. White Rose is being described by one source as an army of resistance to waves of immigration past and present, and it seems at least part of the inspiration—and assistance—for the formation of the group may have come from the southern states of America. The police have refused to comment, as has the Home Office, but it is known that there have been severe tensions within the ranks of the British National Party and the English Defence League in Manchester and Birmingham in particular in recent months. No member of either organisation was willing to comment on these reports, which remain unconfirmed.

  *

  THE CCTV IMAGES are clear here from Edinburgh Waverley Station. If we freeze this image you can see two of the male suspects leaving the service they have taken from Manchester; we’re still uncertain as to why they wanted to board the East Coast Rail service in Edinburgh. It may be that they had plans to meet someone here prior to carrying out the attack; it may be they did in fact meet that person or persons during their time in the city. Otherwise, absolutely predictable behaviour: here you can see them crossing as a group to enter the station precincts proper—the female suspect even turns to laugh with the third of the male suspects immediately prior to entering the building. The important thing to stress is that they come across as absolutely relaxed—carefree even—and that ties in completely with later accounts from the train. The key suspect at this point would seem to be the third male: if you look at this image you can see the large, heavy-looking bag he’s carrying. This is where the device has been concealed. They arrive at Waverley at ten thirty-four pm, and have almost one hour exactly at the station before boarding the King’s Cross service at eleven thirty pm. We do lose sight of two of the males for most of the full duration of that hour; the suspect with the device can be followed for the entire time—he simply sits outside the main ticket office and toilet facilities with the bags—and the girl we see intermittently. We don’t know what happens to the other two males for that hour: it’s more than likely there was a meeting of some kind and we still hope to shed light on this. In the meantime, I’m happy to take questions from the media, but I must stress that it is likely to be a frustrating session. For very obvious reasons, I am not at liberty to divulge certain information as a result of our ongoing inquiries, both for the safety of members of the force and of the public. So when I cannot answer a particular question I would appreciate it if no further attempt is made to gain information. I would remind all of you that this is one of the biggest post-war operations there has been, for very necessary reasons.