Eban was stopped at the last set of traffic lights.
The spire of the illuminated cathedral was now plainly in sight.
He could hear the whistles, the shrieking and the clattering even from this distance.
Even with the car windows up.
He turned off the radio.
The noise sounded strangely primitive, barbaric, otherworldly.
His stomach clenched.
This was front-line stuff.
Not normally his territory.
People get hurt, he thought.
Now he could see a crowd.
Not huge, but more than he had expected.
Beside them a TV crew were setting up for an outside broadcast.
During the day the police had been there and thrown up a light cordon of aluminium barriers around the cathedral and its car park area. But now they didn’t seem to be trying too hard.
One armoured Land Rover sat in a poorly lit corner of the car park, at a distance from the crowd.
Its occupants wary no doubt, of providing an easy target.
Eban pulled the car to a halt beside them.
*
The back door opened and two officers alighted, putting on their caps and pulling down the flak jackets that had ridden up while they had been sitting in the back of the vehicle.
Rolling down the window, Eban smiled and tentatively offered his council identity card, half-expecting them to laugh.
The two seemed disinterested, exchanged a few words and pointed to the main area where the crowd had gathered.
He pulled into the main car park.
Climbing out of the car, he moved around to the boot, lifting out two swollen plastic carrier bags full of groceries.
An increase in the volume of abuse momentarily startled him.
Something had happened to incite them.
The crowd were much closer to the cathedral entrance than he’d originally noticed, and he was taken aback by their intensity of purpose.
Then in horror, he realised.
The abuse was immediately audible and clearly directed at him.
“Stop protecting that fuckin’ scum!”
“If you’re goin’ in… then send the bastards out!”
He panicked.
Felt disorientated.
Spun around quickly.
Then, moving fast – by fear more than design – bumped his groin sharply into the wing mirror of his car.
He doubled up momentarily as it had the effect of winding him.
Tins of tuna and packs of eggs fell loose, clunked and cracked on the tarmac.
A collective jeer went up, the volume of which again took him aback.
Suddenly feeling sick and exposed, he inexplicably managed an automatic smile between embarrassment and incredulity.
They can’t be shouting at me? he thought in disbelief.
Stumbling away from the vitriol, he noticed a handwritten sign reading Vestry.
Quickly pushing open a small doorway leading to a set of dimly lit, winding stone stairs, he half-jogged up them, only to be stopped in his tracks by an enormous, solid wooden door at the top.
Out of breath, he was surprised to note that he was already wet and sticky with cold sweat.
Eban paused momentarily to compose himself before knocking.
Thirty-two years old and wheezing like a retired asthmatic. For fuck’s sake… get a grip!