Witch Hunt. Syd Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ was a canny move. Over the past couple of decades the ‘middle of nowhere’ had transformed into ‘desirable rural location’, affording him a very comfortable early retirement.

      ‘Mercedes? Are you still there?’ Janet’s voice brought me into the present. Oh yeah, the birthday party.

      I made a snuffling noise.

      ‘Oh come on, love. Uncle Roger might not be around for much longer. His kidneys aren’t looking good.’

      Dad’s rather morose older brother was a permanent downer at any festive occasion.

      A small sniff conveyed my cynicism. ‘He’s been saying that for years.’

      ‘Yes, well now it looks like he’s right.’ Janet made it sound like a final reflection, demanding of compassion.

      I sighed audibly. She changed tack. ‘It’d do you good to get away. And everybody’s expecting you. The kids are looking forward to seeing you and you know how upset your Dad will be if you don’t …’

      ‘Okay, okay. I’ll be there. I’ll only stay for a couple of hours though.’

      ‘That’s perfect. Thank you. See you Sunday then. One p.m. Try to be prompt.’

      I hung up.

      It wasn’t that I didn’t like visiting Dad. It was just with everything going on at the moment …

      Though I didn’t want to think about any of that. Instead I decided to distract myself with some brain candy so I dumped myself on the sofa and flicked on the TV. Out of habit I surfed through to my preferred twenty-four-hour news channel.

      There was some kind of kerfuffle outside County Hall. I couldn’t get what was going on at first then, as the report built up the eyewitness accounts, I sussed that Robert Cutt had been visiting and got an egg in the face from a couple of bystanders protesting about media monopolies.

      The mere image of him flashing up on the screen made my stomach tighten. Though he’d moved to England in his thirties, his white-blond hair accentuated a classic American face: fantastic cheekbones, wide jaw, good teeth and eyes that showed hyena-like cunning mixed with the blank dumbness of a circling shark. Sometimes in a certain light, it looked like there was nothing going on behind those startling peepers. Like the man had long said goodbye to his soul.

      Yet none of this did anything to detract from the overall effect; even his most vociferous opponents had to admit that Robert Cutt was a very handsome devil indeed. Regrettably the well-groomed exterior and contrived panache concealed a business savvy that was ruthless and pretty unethical in its hunger for power.

      I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched the sixty-something politician brushing away the cameras, that despite the egging he looked rather pleased with himself. It was gross: there was something about the man that really creeped me out. It wasn’t just the fact that, a few months ago, he’d been coaxed into revealing in a rather probing and frank interview that he believed that men were infinitely better adapted to leadership than the female of the species. Following on from that another documentary had revealed his friendship with TV evangelist, Pat Robertson.

      I knew about Mr Robertson before I had ever heard of Cutt: a friend once bought me a joke present for my birthday. It was a mug that had one of Mr Robertson’s quotes printed on it. It read: ‘The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’

      Bless his little cotton socks.

      After that documentary Cutt did a fair bit of political manoeuvring to put a respectable distance between their camps. Even so, there were similarities; both advocated a stable family should have a mother and father (one of each sex). And there was an insidious suggestion that women should remain within the home, though it wasn’t stated explicitly. Nor was it their conviction that human nature was ever nurtured. It was more about genetics and nature. But that was easy for him to say, coming as he did, from a line of pilgrim Baptists back in the good old US of A. Mr Cutt made a big deal of those roots and set himself up as something of a paragon of ancestral virtue.

      God knows how he came to be a political contender in the UK.

      And yet, it was none of that that had me reflexing into gag response when I saw his nauseatingly beautiful face. No. It was something about his eyes. The hard grey circles reminded me of someone.

      I’d just never been able to put my finger on who.

      I almost convulsed with repulsion as the screen showed him ushered by bodyguards into a black BMW: just before he got in, he waved a two-fingered victory sign at reporters.

      The scene had dulled my mood, leaving me with a restlessness that I couldn’t counter. I switched channels trying to find some comedy. Unfortunately the smarmy mogul had dampened me, so I cut my losses and retired to bed.

      I was just sinking into a light slumber when I heard that noise again: a scratching followed by a creaking of sorts. When I strained my ears, I could tell it was right above me, in the loft.

      I groaned and buried my head under the duvet, underlining my mental note to call pest control in the morning.

      But it got louder.

      I pulled the duvet down from my face and stared at the ceiling. ‘Shut up,’ I yelled at it.

      Magically, the shuffling stopped.

       Chapter Six

      The offices of Portillion Publishing were on level six of the larger umbrella company’s head office. The sleek glassy building had won several architectural awards for innovation and was set in the financial heart of London. I use the term ‘heart’ loosely: it was at the centre of the complex of roads and warrens that calls itself the City of London. I’d never felt comfortable about being in that place, with all those bankers. The lack of vegetation, the inhuman scale of the buildings, the overriding predominance of grey, the uniform of suits, the set pace of walking, all combined to give the impression that when you got off the train at Fenchurch Street, you entered a mechanised world set up purely to produce money. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with the individuals as such – some of my best friends worked in the City – but en masse, the whole set-up was overwhelming.

      As I walked towards the river, I had the sense of being swallowed up or, perhaps, it was more like joining in. Whatever, I was almost relieved as I went through the revolving doors of Cutt’s castle.

      Portillion Publishing was originally situated in Mayfair, but when the mogul acquired it, the outfit was ‘streamlined’. Accusations of asset stripping and general nastiness were flung around but faded once the concern was relocated to this nerve centre. It was enormous, shaped like a glimmering spire: a cathedral to Capitalism.

      The offices came off an inner courtyard that had the full height of the thirty-five-storey structure. Large glass elevators reached skywards to the ceiling where a crystal pyramid capped the top. Chrome fittings and mirrored pillars amplified the light. The effect was dazzling.

      A tall, willowy PA in a black designer suit collected me from the reception area. Her chic asymmetric bob and red lipstick were so impressive СКАЧАТЬ