The next day it was announced that all of Vera’s department would have to attend an ‘interview’ on the 28th floor. There were two main rumours flying around the department. The first was that the suspect had already been identified and apprehended and that these ‘interviews’ were just routine and no one had anything at all to worry about. The second rumour was that the suspect had not been caught and that as the employees in Dick’s department were the last to be interviewed they had a lot to worry about. There was also a third rumour, that the suspect had been caught but had then escaped by miniaturising himself to a height of just half an inch then scuttling into an air vent to safety. To be fair though, not many people believed this particular rumour. Dick was standing at the water fountain and after making sure no one was looking, popped the two red pills in his mouth and took a sip of water.
‘Nervous?’ Benjamin’s sudden appearance caused Dick to gulp in surprise, half choking on the water but swallowing the pills in the process.
‘No’, Dick answered, trying to muster as much confidence as he could manage. Of course he was nervous. In fact he couldn’t recall a time when he had been more nervous. Not even when there had been an outbreak of Herpes Simplex type 2 while filming ‘Sperms of Endearment’.
‘Why should I be nervous?’ Dick enquired, nervously.
‘No reason’, said Benjamin taking a mouthful of water himself. ‘Unless, of course, you have something to hide’.
‘Me?’ Dick gave a small, anxious laugh. ‘I hope they catch the person who owned that fountain pen and torture him. Bloody traitor!’
‘How do you know it’s a ‘him’?’ Benjamin enquired.
‘I don’t. It’s just a figure of speech’.
‘I see. Like ‘fountain pen’?’ continued Benjamin.
Dick stared at him. He had no idea what Benjamin was talking about. Benjamin noticed his expression of surprise and continued.
‘You said ‘fountain pen’’,
‘So?’, asked Dick, still confused.
‘How do you know it was a fountain pen?’
Dick was beginning to sweat and splashed some water on to his face, partly to cool him down and partly to give him time to think. ‘When they made the announcement on the loudspeaker they asked if anyone had lost a fountain pen’. Dick was certain that’s what was said.
‘Are you sure?’ Benjamin moved closer to Dick, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘I thought they just said it was a black pen’.
‘No. It was tortoiseshell’.
This was the moment when Dick realised that he had said more than he had wanted to and definitely more than he should. He’d fallen straight into that trap. He knew the announcement had mentioned a fountain pen. Benjamin had been trying to confuse him. What the announcement had failed to give was the pen’s colour. Benjamin didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to; he just walked away smiling. Dick wondered what his next course of action should be but before he could even think of a plan, let alone put it into effect, he heard his name being called.
‘Attention Jeremy Brunel, Jeremy Brunel. Will Jeremy Brunel please make his way to the 28th floor’.
The emotionless, siren-like call of the tannoy was announcing that his time was well and truly up. They were calling all employees in the department in surname alphabetical order so Dick was one of the first to be seen. With a heavy heart and aching testicles Dick ascended to the nominated floor where he was directed to a small office. He hesitated outside the room then cautiously pushed the door open. Inside, another stern-looking Party official greeted him. Actually, ‘greeted’ was the wrong word as it implies some degree of affability. All this man did was glare at Dick and indicate an uncomfortable-looking chair on the other side of a table. This table was bare except for a lamp and what looked like a large recording device which Dick assumed was the lie-detector. Oh yes, there was also a polished stainless steel tray containing a large syringe.
Dick gulped twice, then once more, and sat down in what was probably the most uncomfortable chair he had ever experienced. It was too low, too hard and the angle of the back was totally wrong. It was being used, Dick assumed, to unnerve him and had obviously been supplied by the company that manufactures seating for fast food restaurants; designed to be so uncomfortable that you would only spend ten minutes seated, thus improving customer throughput (as they say in the fast food restaurant business).
The Party official sat facing him on a far more comfortable chair and Dick immediately felt a twinge of jealousy. The official attached sensors from the lie-detector to Dick’s temples, clicked a couple of switches and adjusted a dial or two. With the recent successful trials of Jack still fresh in his mind Dick had another urge to shout out, ‘Do you know who you’re interrogating?’, but thought better of it.
Dick had two rules about confronting people. The first was never have an argument with someone with a megaphone. The other was never talk back to someone pointing a large syringe at you. This was precisely what the Party official was doing and moments later Dick received a stinging injection in his forearm. As if this wasn’t uncomfortable enough the official then switched on the extremely bright desk lamp and shone it directly into Dick’s face. Dick hoped that the lie detector could discriminate between perspiration brought on by the heat of the lamp and the sweat of guilt. The glare of the lamp’s intense white light meant that Dick could no longer see the face of his interrogator and this unnerved him even more.
Taylor was right about the libido test. There wasn’t one. Instead Dick was asked to confirm his identity and various personal details. Throughout, the lie detector steadily hummed while a pointer scribbled its damning verdict on a slowly-rotating paper roll. Dick was answering questions about his employment history when he heard the door open. Someone else entered the room and sat down facing him; the intense light also rendering them invisible. They remained silent, seemingly there to observe the interrogation. After a few minutes they spoke. It was a female voice that took over the questioning.
‘Have you seen this pen before Mr. Brunel?’.
The woman placed a tortoiseshell fountain pen down on the table in front of him. Dick looked down and rubbed the brightness from his eyes so he could see the pen.
‘No’.
‘Pick it up. Examine it. You need to be one hundred per cent sure that you have never set eyes on this pen before’. The female voice was harsh and accusatory in tone. Dick picked up the pen and looked at it, trying to do his best impression of someone who hadn’t seen this pen before. He put it down, shrugged his shoulders and gave it a suitable look of disdain.
‘No. I’ve never seen it before’.
The lie detector continued to hum and the pointer on the recording device continued to scribble. Dick continued to perspire. He hoped to god that the injection and pills given to him by Taylor were working.
‘Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Resistance Movement?’.
The directness of this question unnerved Dick.
‘No. Never’.
This time he thought he heard the pointer scribble a bit more energetically. The woman sat back in her chair but her face still remained obscured by the lamp’s glare. Dick had been taken aback by her forthright nature, but wasn’t prepared for the directness of her next question.
‘We’ve been told categorically by someone working here that you are, and that the pen belongs to you’.
‘That’s a lie!’ Dick reacted violently to this accusation and thumped his fist on the table. The shock made the pointer leap right across the paper. ‘Shit!’ Dick thought. He hoped this outburst and the effect on the read-out wouldn’t condemn him. ‘Who told you that?’. Before the man or woman had a chance to respond Dick answered his own question. ‘It was Benjamin, wasn’t it?’
No response. Just the continued bright light and the constant hum of the lie-detector.
‘He’s trying to incriminate me! He’s jealous of my success with Project Gladstone and wants to see me fail!’
Still no reaction from his interrogators, but the pointer continued to scribble furiously.
‘He’s a lying bastard! Benjamin’s trying to frame me!’
The woman spoke. ‘Thank you Mr. Brunel. That will be all’. Dick heard her get up. ‘For now’. Switches clicked. The hum ceased and the light was extinguished.
Dick rubbed his eyes. After they had readjusted to the ambient light he saw he was alone in the room with the Party official, his mysterious female interrogator and the pen long gone. The sensors were removed and Dick sloped back to his desk, confused over what had just taken place. If the Party believed Benjamin’s allegations then why weren’t they acting on them? Why hadn’t Dick been arrested? Was this all part of their game? Would they let him think he was innocent but in reality, keep him under surveillance, watching his every step in the hope he’d lead them to Taylor and the resistance HQ? More worriedly, Dick thought that after this interrogation Taylor might feel that Dick was now too much of a liability to continue in his mission and would cease any further contact. This would mean Dick would be totally on his own, with no support or back-up and more importantly, no continued antidote to the monthly sexual suppression injections. As Dick waited for the elevator he smashed his fist against the wall. Damn Benjamin! Fuck shit damn piss hell!
Dick found it hard to concentrate on his work after he returned to his desk. At regular intervals the tannoy called his colleagues to the 28th floor. All of them left the office with looks of trepidation but all returned with expressions of relief. Well they would, wouldn’t they, thought Dick. They had absolutely nothing to fear, not even fear itself. Dick had heard that expression somewhere before but wasn’t sure what it meant however before he had time to mull it over, Benjamin walked back into the offices with more than a look of relief on his face. He was actually smiling. Dick wanted to leap up and pummel his head into a soft pulpy mess but resisted and smiled back, wondering what further damning allegations Benjamin had made to his interrogators.
Given his actual guilt and uncharacteristic outbursts earlier, Dick wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he’d been called back for further questioning. And this, in fact, is exactly what happened at half past five. At first Dick didn’t realise his name was being called. Then a colleague nudged him. Vera looked up from her desk and frowned. Benjamin just grinned. Dick got up and with an air of resignation, left the room. Perhaps the lie detector had malfunctioned and he was being recalled to undergo the questioning again. Or perhaps it had functioned perfectly and he was going to be told the results he dreaded. This, he feared, was more likely. Dick thought about making a run for it, but where to? The Party knew where he lived and he had no other place of refuge. He wouldn’t be able to live long outside of the system without being recognised or tracked down. He had no allies except for those in the Resistance and their secrecy meant he couldn’t even contact them. Of course, if he hadn’t lost his fountain pen he would have been able to send them a distress signal. Of course, if he hadn’t lost his fountain pen then he wouldn’t have been in this predicament in the first place, and so wouldn’t need rescuing.
Dick reached the 28th floor and it was on re-entering the interrogation room that he had his first shock. Sitting facing him was his neighbour Mary. It was when she spoke that Dick realised her voice was the voice of the female interrogator, the one who remained hidden behind the glare of the lamp. Dick knew the voice questioning him had sounded familiar but he’d been too anxious to make any sort of connection.
‘Sit down, please Mr. Brunel’.
‘So you’re not a doctor?’, Dick asked.
‘I am’, Mary replied. ‘A doctor of criminal psychology. I’m employed by the Party and one of my duties is overseeing interrogations’.
Neighbour or not, there was absolutely no familiarity about her tone. She was here in her official Party capacity with a job to do. A job to condemn him to a horrible fate.
‘You won’t be surprised to hear that following the interrogations of all the staff working here, we have identified the traitor’.
Dick farted.
Ignoring this, Mary continued. ‘It’s someone who managed to conceal his true identity and hoodwink his employers and the Party’.
Another fart. This one longer.
‘The curious thing is, he passed the lie detector test. We can only assume that he did this by means of a temporary chemical suppressant…’
Mary was interrupted by the door bursting open. Dick turned to face two armed guards. They stared at him, guns raised. In a complete reflex action Dick raised his hands high above his head.
‘Come with me’, she ordered.
Dick went to get up.
‘No, you stay here Mr. Brunel’.
Mary left the room with the guards in tow. He could hear her talking to them outside the room, then heard the sound of their heavy boots pounding the corridor.
Mary re-entered. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. The traitor thought he had avoided detection and even tried to blame one of his colleagues in an effort to disguise his guilt’.
Dick was stunned. In fact stunned doesn’t go anywhere near to describe how he felt. He was amazed, astonished and astounded all at the same time. In his state of shock he managed to get one word out. Fortunately this was a relevant word. It wasn’t something random like xylophone, giraffe or bungalow. It was the word ‘Benjamin?’
Mary nodded. ‘It seems Mr. Faraday was not what he appeared’.
Dick managed to get one other word out. ‘Wow!’.
‘We were certain there was a member of the Resistance operating within the department but despite our keen surveillance they somehow managed to evade us. Until now, that is’. Mary leaned forward slightly and continued, adopting a more earnest tone. ‘As you know, Benjamin tried to implicate you and I wanted to bring you here to apologise for treating you as a suspect. The party is well aware of the work you have undertaken for Project Gladstone and I of course know you on a personal level. Of course, I didn’t believe Benjamin’s outlandish allegations but I hope you understand that everyone had to be interrogated in exactly the same way’.
Dick nodded with a slightly blank look, trying to deal with the simultaneous mixed emotions of relief and shock. Relief that Taylor’s drugs had worked but shock that Benjamin had been a member of Resistance all along.
‘Are you one hundred per cent certain that Benjamin’s guilty?’ Dick added, hoping that he wasn’t pushing his luck, and that Mary wouldn’t say something like, ‘Hmmmmm. Maybe we were too hasty and got it all wrong’. But she didn’t.
‘Definitely. Although he passed the lie detector, we were alerted to his guilt by something far more serious’.
Dick’s frown was a cue for Mary to continue.
‘We received an anonymous tip-off and while Benjamin was being interrogated, a search was conducted of his work station. Concealed in a locked drawer we found a copy of your recommendations for Project Gladstone and even more damning, plans to build improvised explosive devices and a list of Party targets’.
Dick’s mind was reeling. His earlier hunch about Benjamin being recruited by Taylor as a back-up was right. If Benjamin was clever in disguising his anti-Party role then Taylor was a genius. A devious genius. He must have known that one of them would be unmasked in the interrogations so he hedged his bets. It obviously didn’t matter which one of them was sacrificed, Dick or Benjamin. Who cared as long as one of them continued the fight against the Party? Before he had time to consider the implications of Taylor’s cunning strategy Mary stood up.
‘You are free to go now Mr. Brunel’.
‘What about Benjamin?’ Dick enquired, also standing.
‘He’ll be taken to the State Police Headquarters for further interrogation’.
‘And then what?’ Dick enquired.
‘You don’t need to concern yourself with his fate, Mr. Brunel’. Mary held the door open for him. ‘Goodbye’.
Dick hesitated as he left the room. He stopped and shook his head. ‘I didn’t suspect Benjamin’.
Mary continued to hold the door open, now slightly annoyed that Dick hadn’t actually left yet, as despite its appearance, it was quite a heavy door. ‘No one suspected him, Mr. Brunel, no one at all. Which just goes to show that many people are in fact, not whom they might seem’.
As Dick left the room he took one last look at Mary to see if he could detect whether this barbed remark was aimed at him. Was it the sort of remark that, if you read between the lines, meant ‘I’m talking about you Jeremy Brunel. We know you’re concealing something and we’re watching you like a hawk’. If Mary was making a veiled threat to Dick then she certainly didn’t make it obvious. She didn’t raise an eyebrow by the tiniest amount or give a half smile. She didn’t even simultaneously wink and stamp her foot. Totally inscrutable, she gave absolutely nothing away. But then, just as Dick passed by her she uttered something under her breath that made him shudder.
‘William has a new jigsaw. The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Two thousand pieces including lots of blue sky… Drop in anytime…’