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An ice-hockey cheerleader, the blond thug who had attacked Duncan Christie, strode through the press of people, his fists punching the air. He was moving at random, gathering more and more spectators into his train. Then he lost them when they peeled away and followed a pair of huge weightlifters whose rolling gait cleared their way through the throng.
Family groups, fathers with teenage sons and wives keeping watch on their daughters, still gazed at the Metro-Centre as the last smoke rose through the fissure in the roof. But most of the spectators had turned their backs to the dome. The crowd was watching itself, a congregation of the night waiting for the service to begin.
The Land Cruiser heaved sharply, and a window pillar struck my cheek. I gripped the roof rack as the vehicle rocked from side to side. A group of athletics fans, middle-aged men in team shirts, surrounded the Land Cruiser and tore off the aerials and wing mirrors. People turned to watch them, with the detached stares of office workers viewing the excavation of a building site.
I stepped down from the ru
A cigarette lighter flared in the darkness. There was a flash of light, and miniature flames glowed on the ground, racing around each other. The spectators moved back, hundreds of faces lit in a campfire circle. Then a single flame ten feet high lifted from the vehicle, and within an instant the Land Cruiser was an inferno of seared paintwork and exploding glass.
WHEN I REACHEDthe perimeter road, still waiting for the police to arrive, three more cars were burning. Smoke drifted over the heads of the crowd, and a few people followed me, shadowing my footsteps and changing direction as I did. Three ice-hockey supporters strode on my right, while an elderly couple in St George’s shirts kept in step on my left. Behind them came a large group of supporters, silently drinking from their beer cans. When I turned to avoid a traffic sign the entire column swung after me. I stopped to pick a strip of burnt rubber from my shoe, and they marked time without thinking, then resumed their strolling pace when I set off again.
None of them looked at me, or seemed aware that I was leading them. They followed me like commuters in a crowded railway terminal, trailing anyone who had found a gap through the press of travellers. The unique internal geometry of the crowd had come into play, picking first one leader and then another. Apparently passive, they regrouped and changed direction according to no obvious logic, a slime mould impelled by gradients of boredom and aimlessness.
Trying to lose them, I crossed the perimeter road. Ahead lay the Brooklands main thoroughfare, a high street of office buildings, shops and small department stores that led to the town hall. At least five hundred people were following my lead, though a few had overtaken me like pilot fish. Together we had drawn off other sections of the crowd in the Metro-Centre car parks. Groups of several hundred supporters crossed the perimeter road and set off through the side streets. Gangs of young men in St George’s shirts playfully rough-housed with each other. The Metro-Centre was forgotten, the last smoke rising from its dome, a mournful Thames Valley Vesuvius.
I walked on, keeping as close as I could to the office entrances. Within fifty yards I realized that the crowd had forgotten me. Forced together by the narrow street, everyone moved shoulder to shoulder. I had served my role, and the logic of the crowd had dispensed with me.
I RESTED INthe entrance to an insurance company and watched the people passing by, cigarettes glowing in the darkness, spray confetti arcing across the shop windows. A sound system blared out bursts of rock music. I was breathing rapidly, and felt strangely excited, as if about to make love to an unfamiliar woman, in charge of myself for the first time since my arrival in Brooklands.
And still there were no police. I passed a small car forced to stop on the pavement, roof dented by heavy fists. The grey-haired driver clutched his steering wheel, too shocked to step from his vehicle. Gangs of youths hurled beer bottles at the upstairs windows of a local newspaper, and the sound of falling glass cut through the jeers. A trio of eastern European men emerged from the doorway of an agency recruiting night cleaners for Brooklands Hospital. They were quickly set upon. Noses bloody, arms shielding their faces, they fought their way into a side street through a gauntlet of kicks and punches.
Fifty yards ahead was the main square, spotlights playing on the balcony of the town hall. A celebratory di
Within minutes a huge crowd of supporters filled the square, whistling and shouting at the town hall, overru
New arrivals pressed into the square, athletics teams carrying their ba
A cheer went up from the crowd, followed by a din of hoots and whistles. Brooklands’ mayor, a prominent local businessman who was wearing his insignia and chain, came onto the balcony with the captains of two football clubs. Confused by the restless crowd, and the sight of a car burning in a nearby side street, the mayor made an effort to call for quiet, but his amplified voice was drowned by the boos. Beer bottles flew over the heads of the nervous police and shattered on the civic steps.
Then the boos ended, and the square fell silent. People around me were clapping and whistling their approval. A huge cheer went up, followed by a medley of hunting horns, good-humoured hoots and shouts.
Two men stood on the balcony behind the mayor. One was David Cruise, dressed like a bandleader in white tuxedo and red silk cummerbund, gri
The mayor offered him the microphone, clearly hoping that Cruise would calm the crowd and defuse its anger after the attack on the Metro-Centre. The cable a
Scarcely loosening his grip, Maxted prompted Cruise with a few lines of dialogue, shouting them into his ear as the crowd began to jeer. Behind the two men was William Sangster, a leather bowling jacket over his evening wear. He was strained but smiling, puckering his plump cheeks as if trying to disguise himself from those in the crowd who might recognize their former head teacher. He and Maxted pushed Cruise to the balcony, each raising one of the a