The Resistance’s first contact with David Parnell was made very subtly. It had already been established that he lived alone in a South London terraced house so a small envelope posted through his door late one night wouldn’t attract any unnecessary attention from an inquisitive partner. The envelope contained two things: a fresh red carnation and a note that said Parnell been identified as a possible member of the Resistance, and that if he was interested in learning more then he should wear the flower as a buttonhole when he left for work the next morning. Taylor’s biggest concern was that Parnell wouldn’t believe the note was genuine. If he really thought he was being set up by the Party to check his loyalty then he would probably just ignore the note completely and therefore end any chance of meeting with the Resistance. On the other hand, if Parnell believed the note was genuine, then this was his first opportunity to meet fellow dissenters. In Taylor’s experience, most wannabe Resistance members were so anti-Party that they were willing to take such a risk and disregard any doubts about the authenticity of the note.
The Resistance knew David left his house for work at about seven o’clock so Edward had been waiting covertly outside since half six. Wearing a dark grey raincoat and carrying an old battered leather briefcase, David left the house on time and passed right in front of Edward without even knowing it. No flower. Edward’s heart sank. He called Taylor and delivered his coded message of disappointment, then set off for work himself, following David to the station. Less than a minute later David suddenly stopped then turned round and set off back home at a quick pace. Edward was puzzled and decided to follow David from a discrete distance, observing him unlock the front door and go back inside. A few moments later he reappeared carrying a smaller holdall, something he’d obviously forgotten. He passed Edward for a second time, this time walking even more briskly so he didn’t miss his train. As he rushed by, Edward caught sight of a flash of red; the carnation that had been hurriedly pinned to his lapel. Edward reached for his phone again. This time he had good news to relay.
From that initial contact the recruitment process was fast. Several blindfolded visits by David Parnell to the resistance HQ for lengthy interviews indicated that with his Party contacts, he would be an ideal asset for the Resistance. It was during one of these interviews that Susan caught Dick alone in the lounge, sipping a glass of brandy and staring blankly into the fire.
‘What’s wrong?’, she asked.
‘Nothing’, Dick said.
‘Nothing as in ‘I’m not jealous about the potential new recruit?’
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Dick knew Susan had shared Alice’s uncannily accurate insight. What is it about women?, he thought. Did they share some form of hive mind with collective intuition?
‘Potential new recruit?, He’s almost a fully-fledged resistance member isn’t he?’, Dick asked, still staring into the dancing flames.
‘Not yet’, Susan told him. ‘His recruitment has been fast-tracked but there’s still some final security checks and double checks to be carried out before he’s admitted here and his blindfold comes off’.
Dick grunted his disapproval. Susan crouched down next to him and gently turned his head to face hers.
‘Look, as far as defeating the Party goes you’re still our best bet. No resistance member has met the Leader before. He seems to have taken a shine to you. The invitation to join the Party as an advisor is unbelievable!’
‘So if I’m your best bet why is Taylor so hung up on hiring the newbie?’. Without waiting for Susan to respond Dick revealed the answer. ‘It’s because he feels guilty for failing to identify Benjamin as a subversive. Worse than that, deep down he feels responsible in some way for his death’.
‘That is complete and utter nonsense’, protested Susan angrily.
‘Is it? I think Taylor’s over-compensating for his own shortcomings by speeding up Mr. Parnell’s induction and in the process he’s compromising our safety. All our safety!’.
Susan stood up. ‘That is not true! Mr. Parnell is being recruited because we need as many opportunities as we can to get inside the Party’.
‘But what better chance is there than me? I’ve met the Leader and he almost offered me a job. I can’t see anyone else in the Resistance achieving that in a hurry!’.
‘You’re unbelievable!’, snapped Susan, now visibly annoyed and becoming angrier by the moment. ‘You don’t want Parnell to join because you’re worried he’ll discover something about the weapon that you haven’t. He’ll show you up and undermine your position as “number one infiltrator”. You’re just thinking about your own glory. I don’t think I’ve met anyone so selfish or conceited!’.
What had started out as an angry outburst was quickly developing into a full-on row. Now it was Dick’s turn for an outburst.
‘Face it Susan, there’s no more proof now about a weapon than when I first arrived. It’s all conjecture and hearsay. In fact, I’m beginning to think there’s actually no weapon. That’s right, it’s all a big lie. A myth perpetuated by Taylor to reinforce his position as leader’.
‘That’s absolutely ridiculous, and you know it!’, shouted Susan.
‘Is it?’, asked Dick, before launching into his best impersonation of Taylor, which to be honest was not that good, being far too camp.
‘Look at me everyone, I’m Taylor the resistance leader’, Dick mimicked. ‘No one questions my authority because I‘m so tall and well-spoken and smoke a pipe. I’ve got the most important job here, co-ordinating the plans to locate the secret weapon. The weapon? You didn’t know about it? That’s because it’s a secret. Top-secret? No, make that ‘above top-secret’. It’s so secret that no one has heard anything about it — not even the fucking Party’.
Susan slapped Dick’s face hard. ‘A few minutes ago’, she said, ‘I came in and saw you sitting here, illuminated by the glow of the fire. I felt extremely aroused and thought we might make love later. Well you and your arrogant sense of self-importance have managed to turn me completely off that particular thought!’
‘I can’t believe you’re throwing away the chance to have sex with me!’ Dick responded.
‘You’re absolutely unbelievable!’ Susan continued her rant. ‘Again, you only think about yourself! You may have a large penis but I know one thing that’s bigger. Your ego! Believe me, Mr. Longg I’ll still have sex tonight, but just not with you!’
Dick was hurt. Not only had his self-esteem been damaged, but he’d also just thrown away the chance of a quick lay. He dealt with situations like this in the best way he knew.
‘Well you’re crap in bed anyway!’
Susan shot him a steely glare and stormed out at the precise moment that Edward, Taylor and Alice walked into the lounge. Standing next to them in the doorway she turned to face Dick and shouted, ‘Well your penis curves to the left!’.
Dick hoped that was the end of her outrage but he was wrong.
‘Bendy cock!’, Susan yelled before slamming the door behind her.
Dick made his excuses to Taylor and his colleagues and also left the lounge. Insulting him was one thing, but insulting his penis was quite another. And anyway, it was only a very slight curvature and totally within normal medical limits.
Jack’s final victim had been terminated the previous evening near to Aldgate. The killing was as sensational and gruesome as his previous murders. This particular harlot was found sliced from neck to navel, wearing her intestines wrapped around her neck like a scarf, albeit a scarf that was slimy and very smelly. Given the large number of victims and the duration of this campaign Dick was extremely satisfied to see that the story still made front page news. The media and public still retained an active interest in the crimes, although this now caused a dilemma; how to maintain this interest now all the harlots had been terminated. This was an issue that Dick had anticipated. Rather than have Jack killed by an upstanding member of the public as he’d previously contemplated, Dick made arrangements to have him taken out of the field and returned ‘to base’. Party technicians had wanted to scrap him but Dick was insistent that Jack be powered-down and just kept in storage. After all, who knew if his skills would be required in the future.
With Jack out of action Dick had to ensure that the public were reminded from time to time about the dangers of prostitution, in the sense that if you were a harlot you were firstly, a morally-defective deviant and secondly, you were very likely to be murdered in a grisly fashion without your consent. Dick needed to affect this in a way that required little input from him personally but which created the same level of publicity. A decommissioned Jack posed no problems. The media would still report future, more sporadic murders – but of course, they’d all be faked. There would be no killer and no victims – just realistic reports and photographs that would be distributed to the media through the normal news channels. Even eyewitness accounts would be faked. The police officers and the witnesses, in fact anyone involved in the reports, would be fictitious.
For the media trying to investigate the crimes, trying to locate these people would be so time-consuming and wrapped-up in red tape that they wouldn’t bother. The easiest option was to take the story as provided and run it. Dick knew this would work because in his experience most journalists were lazy hacks who just wanted stories delivered to them on a plate; chasing them was just too damn hard. He was sure this work ethic, or lack of it, was ingrained in all journalists’ DNA so it would likely exist in the future as well. And he was right. (Naturally, what Dick thought of journalists excluded book reviewers who, as everyone knows, are a breed apart; hard-working, discerning, conscientious, diligent, objective professionals who are as good-looking as they are intelligent).
Dick prepared a large number of these reports of future killings with all the relevant supporting information and devised a schedule to drip-feed these stories into the media over a long period of time. He didn’t worry that the stories might eventually be relegated to the second half of the newspapers or the part of broadcast news that began, ‘And finally…’ He, and of course, the Party just wanted the murders to be reported on a regular basis.
It had been another long day in the office when Dick finally finished his summarising report on Project Gladstone and handed it to Vera. As usual, they were the last two people remaining. Vera took the folder, flicked through it then put it down on her desk, tears welling-up in her eyes. As she dabbed them with a delicate lace handkerchief more sobs came. Dick looked up. More sobs. Then more still. Soon Vera was trembling. Dick didn’t know what to do. He was used to women crying tears of joy but these sorts of tears just made him feel very awkward. Instinctively he put his arms around Vera and cradled her head on his chest, pleased the roles weren’t reversed otherwise he’d surely suffocate.
‘I’m so pleased that Jack’s been a success’, Vera said between sobs. ‘And I’m so sad too’.
‘Sad? Why?’ Dick asked, patting Vera’s ample back.
‘Because of this’. Vera took the handkerchief away from her face and pulled back slightly from Dick so she could retrieve an open envelope from her desk. She reburied her face in his chest and more tears came. Dick kept one arm around her and with the other, took the envelope from her and shook loose its contents, a brief, very official-looking letter. By now Vera was crying so much her whole body was shaking and this made the letter extremely difficult to read. A few keys words caught Dick’s eye, but these were the only words he needed to see: ‘appointment’, ‘Ruling’, ‘Council’ and ‘forthwith’. He liked all these words, particularly the last one. He’d been desperately hoping for this new appointment ever since the Leader first mentioned it but wasn’t sure if it was an empty promise or a genuine opportunity. Now it was real, and far, far sooner than he had hoped.
Dick saw himself putting each foot on the rungs of achievement as he climbed the ladder of success. That was in the very near future. In the very near present he had to calm Vera down so he could go home, leaving the office and her, forever. He gently pushed Vera away so he could see her face. Her eyes were red raw, tears had completely smeared her blusher and there was a stream of grey green mucous seeping out of one nostril.
‘I need to tell you something before you leave’, Vera sniffed. ‘Something I’ve been keeping from you. Something I have to say but which must remain forever our secret’.
Dick really wanted to say his final goodbyes and leave. He really didn’t want to hear another pledge of undying love, especially from someone whose face was rapidly resembling a creature from a straight-to-DVD horror film.
‘Benjamin was completely loyal to the Party’.
‘Pardon?’ Dick couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘He was framed for his crimes’, explained Vera.
Dick was stunned by this revelation. ‘H-how do you know?’
‘Because it was me who implicated him’.
Dick wanted to ask a hundred questions, well maybe not a hundred, but lots of them, but he didn’t need to.
‘I planted the damning evidence on him one night and then tipped-off the security forces’. Vera snorted like a wild boar, siphoning the mucous up one nostril like dirty water disappearing into a plughole. Ordinarily this would have made Dick recoil in horror but at this moment he didn’t care. He was hooked by Vera’s confession.
‘He was making my life very difficult’, she continued. ‘You remember I had private talks with him in the meeting room; well it was Benjamin who requested them. He told me you were a traitor and that I was covering for you. He said he’d use his party contacts to gather proof and expose the truth. I told him he was talking claptrap and that if he continued to waste my time I’d have to discipline him and that would not look very good on his permanent record’.
In a most unlady-like way Vera wiped her face with the back of her large hand before continuing. ‘That’s when he told me he came in very early one morning and found me asleep at my desk. It was the morning after I got drunk. The little bastard took the brandy bottle from the waste bin and put it in my hand before taking photographs and leaving, returning after I’d gone home. He said he was going to blackmail me unless I resigned so he could take my place and unmask you! My job is my life Jeremy. I couldn’t face losing my job… or you!’ Vera burst out crying again, burying her head in Dick’s chest. ‘And now you’re leaving anyway!’ Vera was now sobbing uncontrollably. Dick tried to give her a comforting hug but the wide expanse of her back meant he couldn’t quite manage to get his hands to meet. Only by breathing in could he even get his fingertips to touch.
‘I’ll take that with me to the grave Vera. Thank you for everything. I won’t forget you. No matter where I end up, I’ll always keep in touch’. Dick knew this was a complete and utter lie but it seemed an appropriately reassuring and consoling thing to say.
‘Good luck Jeremy!’ Vera wailed. ‘Now go! I don’t want you to see me this way!’.
She broke out of his grasp and Dick took one last look at her swollen, red, mucous-ridden face and had to agree with her sentiment. Leaving his identity pass on his desk he left the room without looking back. Taking the elevator to the ground floor, Dick said goodnight to the security guard in the lobby and walked out of the Ministry of Information for the very last time. In the cool night air Dick re-read the letter in detail. It confirmed that his new position took effect tomorrow and that he should report to the Party Headquarters at 0800. Dick decided to walk home that night, thinking about his future with a smile on his face. It was only a few weeks ago that he arrived in this strange world and now, here he was, relishing the no-doubt painful death of his ex-colleague and about to become a trusted advisor to the Leader.
Dick’s promotion to the Ruling Council didn’t just give him a new opportunity to gather information; it gave him a new impetus and motivation. Dick was determined to find out about this so-called secret weapon once and for all, and before David Parnell. He thought about Parnell’s entry to the Resistance being expedited by Taylor and smirked. ‘Fast tracked?’, he thought to himself. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the fucking word’.