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110 pages

English

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Britain, 1930s. Tony Cox, out-of-work, finds himself swept up in a wave of right-wing activism - mass rallies, charismatic leadership and public violence. Rising through the ranks of the British Union of Fascists, he is interned at the outbreak of the Second World War. Upon his release, Tony reinvents himself, burying his history from everyone, including the one person who truly loves him: his grandson. But when a violent secret from the past emerges, Tony's world is brought crashing down around him.Britain, 1990s. David Coxon-Dyet looks up to Tony. He knows nothing about his secret past, but as his personal life collapses and David is faced with redundancy and economic insecurity, the terrible truth about his grandfather is revealed.Betrayed by the actions of others, both grandfather and grandson take extreme measures to wrest back control. For these men in the street the consequences are profound.

Sujets

Isla de Man

Inglaterra

Historical fiction

Isle of Man

Blackpool

England

Liverpool

Île de Man

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 mai 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838599058
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Also by Martin Howe

White Linen

About the Author

Martin Howe is a journalist who has worked for the BBC, Channel 4 and a news agency in Washington DC. Writing literary fiction is his escape from the constraints of factual news. The Man in the Street is his second novel.

mbhowe.com
Facebook.com/MartinHoweAuthor
Twitter: @_MartinHowe
Instagram: @martin.howe.925

Copyright © 2019 Martin Howe

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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In memory of my sister Jane
1959-2019
“Swiftly the
Day Advances.”
* * * *
I had waited long enough.
I turned to Fascism.
Why?
Because, although democracy appeals to me, it has proved itself in practice, a perpetuated lie.
Because I am sick of muddling through.
Because I am tired of drifting along in the wake of garrulous statesmen.
Because I want to be positive rather than negative.
Because I realize that England is being left behind in the race for supremacy in a New Era.
Because I see no need for some 900,000 men, women and children to starve in a civilized country.
Because I want to be a citizen of an A.1 nation.
Because the Old Gang have failed disastrously.
Because I must bow to the demands of the Future.
Because I cannot help myself.
* * * *
I am the Man in the Street.

The Blackshirt, No. 26. Oct 21st-Oct 27th, 1933
Contents
Chapter 1
THREE FUNERALS – ALMOST
Chapter 2
BLACK HOUSE
Chapter 3
DEAD AND BURIED
Chapter 4
OLYMPIAN HEIGHTS
Chapter 5
GOD WILLING
Chapter 6
TRAITOR
Chapter 7
TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
Chapter 8
FASCIST MAN
Chapter 9
PIECE OF ETERNITY
Chapter 10
RIGHT REVEREND
Chapter 11
BOO TO A GOOSE
Chapter 1
THREE FUNERALS – ALMOST
“This is the life, a proper funeral – it’s all cremations these days – the church ceremony a flight of fancy, the interment a grounding in nature, the rites a time to grieve. If you want to, that is.”
It was bitterly cold. David hoped he wasn’t smiling. Some of the mourners looked distressed – they must be the family; but most – those he knew from work – appeared dutiful. The detective sergeant and his two constables standing conspicuously under the large oak nearby didn’t leaven the atmosphere – even if they were out of uniform – reminding people, as they did, why they were there. The police officers had interviewed almost everyone here, some on more than one occasion, and David wondered why they had bothered to turn up. He gazed listlessly over the heads of the bereaved – there was scarcely a cloud in the sky. Something was concerning him and it was a surprise when he grasped what it was. He did want to grieve along with the others he realized, not for the deceased like they were, but for his own loss of virtue. He had changed.
An insatiable curiosity about the dead man had brought David early to the village, prowling the sleepy winding streets as the locals gradually emerged, their progress marked by cheery greetings on the briskness of the morning, on the chances of a flurry of snow. He had climbed the steep tree-lined incline to the late-Saxon parish church his mind vivid with images of his late employer and had been startled by the bent figure of the verger, who appeared suddenly in front of him in the road. The old man had just finished sluicing out the church’s eleventh century thatched porch, steam still rising from the sodden flagstones, and was preparing to sweep up the leaves and other rubbish that had gathered beneath the timbered Wych Gate.
“It’s always the same,” he had complained to David as he leaned on his broom, “the vicar’s given up and the police do nothing. There’s no local bobby like there used to be. I’m left to clean up the mess.” He’d pointed over to the gable end of St Peter’s, “Look at the graffiti. On a church, for God’s sake. It never used to happen. When I was a lad the locals would have given the layabouts a good hiding.”
The stonework to the right of the ornate doorway, bordered with the sculpted heads of the twelve disciples, was covered in a host of elaborate tags and slogans, executed mainly in black spray paint. Slashes of colour adorned crude re-workings of the name “Bozo”. Pink acrylic spelled out declarations of love, of who had had who, or who wanted to have who. There was a rash of “Kurts” around the edge of the free-form mural, the lettering fresh and distinct. Politics crept in here and there. “Thatcher is a cow” was daubed in large faded block capitals across the middle of the wall.
“You here for the funeral?” The verger asked. David nodded.
“You know we don’t get many of them anymore, the place is full up. Today’s lot go back years in the village. Got their own plot. Although I don’t remember ever seeing what’s his name … the one being buried today – certainly never in church. Lived in London didn’t he?”
The churchyard wasn’t large, but cluttered. Headstones were stacked, two-deep, against a new brick wall that separated the graves from the neatly trimmed gardens of three modern bungalows. David heard a baby crying as he wandered past searching for evidence of fresh excavation. The burial site should have been easy to find but it was in the corner hard against the wall, hidden by a large rectangular Victorian brick memorial topped with a heavy flagstone and overhung by the branches of a spreading Yew tree. The last resting place of the Beckinsale family had only just escaped being swallowed up in a recent parish property speculation boom.
“Lucky right to the end,” thought David, “Bloody typical, Larry Beckinsale always got his own way, even in death. Anybody else and they’d have been scattering their ashes over next door’s herbaceous border.”
The hole was covered with wooden boards and the dark earth piled against the neighbouring tomb was encrusted with frost. There was a dank smell. The rimy brickwork was icy to the touch as David steadied himself. He noticed it was not a Beckinsale that was buried there but an Emily Fitzwilliam, spinster of the parish, who died after a long illness at the age of eighty-five in 1868. The large capstone had been pushed off-centre and rocked slightly when nudged. David could peer inside. It was empty. Suddenly the friable soil began to shift beneath his feet and a fall of frozen earth clattered on wood. He jumped back to avoid pitching onto the planks. Unsettled he glanced round then went to sit on a pile of neatly stacked granite slabs that had once been a memorial-cross and wiped the mud from his shoes. Looking down the hill David could see over the roofs of the village to the mist-shrouded fields beyond. The sun was breaking through. A crisp, immaculate, light-drenched, winter day had been forecast and he knew that would help him get through the next few hours.

The funeral was almost over. Handfuls of heavy clay were about to shower down on the glistering coffin, breaking the observance spell. The mourners would start talking, moving away, many looking forward to a drink in front of a roaring fire. In the lull between the fading words of the vicar and the first patter of the smothering earth that would finally bury the bastard, David understood that he was glad to have come this far, to have given nothing away.
The grieving widow, the weeping daughter, the son who couldn’t face coming to the church; there were always victims. David had never met any of them so why should he care? The only connection was that he’d worked with a relation of theirs and that didn’t warrant making a special effort to offer his commiserations. His signature in the office condolences card was enough. He moved off and joined his work colleagues, Chris and Paul.
“Let’s have a pint, this has been thirsty work,” he said.
“Too bloody right, I’m fucking frozen.”
“I shouldn’t have come, I’ve already got a cold and this’ll finish me off,” Paul coughed into his open hands, then beat his chest.
“If you didn’t, you’d be back at the top of the list of suspects. Mine’s a lager. See you in a couple of minutes.”
Chris waved as he disappeared into the crowd.
“Chris, it’s your round,” Paul shouted at the top of his voice, then sheepishly looked round as he remembered where he was, “He always does that, every sodding time, it really gets to me.”
David shrugged.
“I mustn’t get pissed, last time I was at a funeral I had one hell of a hangover.”
° ° °
It had been twenty-three years earlier and they were burying his grandfather, the Reverend Anthony Coxon-Dyet. That funeral had been different from Larry Beckinsale’s in a number of ways, but there were also similarities. The icy weather then had been as raw. David could still remember his aching hands and numbed feet. His grief had been painful too, he’d fel