The Leader

by Guy Walters

  He spent twenty minutes in the kitchens, and then headed up to the magnificent art deco lobby. He strode purposefully across to the reception desk, not allowing himself to be distracted by the posse of upper-crust Blackshirts milling around near the entrance.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said politely to a female receptionist. ‘I have a meeting with Mr Nugent.’

  The woman looked down at a sheet of paper.

  ‘Ah yes, Mr Nugent. He is in room 312, third floor.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Armstrong, and turned to walk to the stairs. He took them two at a time, and within less than a minute was on the third floor, his heart beating rapidly. He walked slowly down the corridor, looking at the numbers on the doors: 308 . . . 309 . . . 310 . . . 311 . . . 312.

  Armstrong was about to knock on the door when he noticed it was slightly ajar. He gently pushed it open, concerned by the lack of voices coming from within.

  ‘Mr Nugent?’ he asked.

  Nothing.

  ‘Mr Nugent?’ he repeated, this time louder.

  Still nothing.

  Armstrong stepped into the room, only to come across a tableau that caused a hectic surge of bile to rise into his mouth. On the floor were two fully clothed bodies. Both had been decapitated. Clotted streams of brownish-red blood had oozed across the carpet from the stumps of their necks and collected in a sticky pool underneath a writing table.

  The table. Armstrong stared at the table, at the large bowl of fruit in its middle. There, in amongst the apples, pears and grapes, were the heads that had belonged to the bodies. One was clearly that of Allen. An orange had been stuck into its mouth.

  ‘And who might you be?’

  Armstrong looked over to where the voice had come from. Standing in the doorway that led into the bathroom were two men, both dressed in chalk-stripe suits, wearing snap-brim hats, and pointing revolvers at him. HMSSP.

  ‘We thought these two might have a friend. Pray, please don’t be silent.’

  Armstrong didn’t reply.

  One of the secret policemen walked over to the table and took a bunch of grapes that had been resting on top of Allen’s head. He plucked one off its stalk and walked towards Armstrong.

  ‘Grape?’

  Armstrong stayed silent.

  ‘Sure?’

  The man stared at him closely, his nostrils flaring wildly. He then slowly put the grape into his mouth and started chewing it noisily. Then he grimaced and pulled out a short brown hair from between his teeth.

  ‘Yuck,’ he said coldly. ‘I hate it when I get hair in my food. Especially someone else’s. You would have thought better of Claridge’s.’

  A madman, Armstrong thought, a creature from a nightmare.

  The man reached out and removed Armstrong’s glasses, and tried them on.

  ‘Ha! I didn’t think they were real. What are we trying to hide, Mr . . .?’

  Armstrong still stayed silent. He wanted to bolt for it, but he saw that the other man had kept his revolver aimed straight at him.

  ‘I think I know who you are.’

  Armstrong felt the bowler hat being slowly lifted from his head. There was something graceful, feminine, in the way that the man moved. He was relishing his work – if that was the word – exuding an aura that suggested that he was aroused.

  ‘I don’t think you are a mister at all,’ he said. ‘In fact, I think you are a captain. Am I right?’

  Armstrong remained expressionless.

  ‘What a bonus! Sir Roger will be pleased!’

  * * *

  ‘ARMSTRONG CAPTURED!’ yells the front page of Action, beneath which is printed a photograph of the fugitive taken at a police station. The few lines of text on the front page inform readers that the most wanted man in the kingdom has been successfully located and apprehended by the police working closely in conjunction with the newly formed security forces. Further pages do not specify where the ‘cowardly captain’ had run to ground, neither do they mention the bodies at Claridge’s, but readers are left in no doubt as to the professionalism of the investigation. What the pages delight in mentioning is the fact that the Leader has deigned that only one prison will be secure enough for Armstrong, the one prison that has always been associated with ‘only the foulest traitors in our history’ – the Tower of London.

  Otto puts the paper down on the small low table in his living room. Tony is sitting opposite him and he looks uncharacteristically worried.

  ‘Please, Tony,’ says Otto in a soothing voice. ‘Things are looking up! We have managed to eradicate this man Allen and the American – this certainly buys us more time. I am a very happy man, Tony, very happy.’

  ‘I know that, but this news here was most unexpected.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s within your power to get him out.’

  Tony studies his fingernails.

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Come on, Tony!’

  Tony looks at the fingernails on his other hand.

  ‘How about Dog?’ Otto asks. ‘Perhaps he can help you.’

  Tony bites a thumbnail.

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose. I’ll have to get him ready.’

  ‘Well there you go! How about a nice early-morning whisky to celebrate, to stop you biting those nails?’

  Chapter Ten

  Days Dwindle Down

  ‘HAVE YOU EVER been to the Far East, Captain Armstrong?’

  Armstrong didn’t hear the question, or at least he could barely discern its words. His ears picked up the vibrations, but his brain was too occupied with overarching agony. His wrists were lashed to two metal staples high above his head. The staples, which were driven into a vast stone pillar that supported the roof of the chamber, were at a height that meant that Armstrong had to stand permanently on tiptoe. He was stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of trousers.

  ‘I asked you a question, Captain Armstrong. Now please will you give me an answer?’

  Armstrong spat out a mouthful of blood and bile.

  ‘What . . . what was it?’ he croaked.

  ‘The Far East – have you ever been there?’

  ‘India,’ said Armstrong, ‘I was brought up in India.’

  The man looked impressed. This man was no clone, Armstrong thought. He wore an expensively tailored chalk-striped double-breasted suit, the jacket of which was hanging on the back of a chair. He was well spoken, well groomed, and he smelt faintly of good-quality cologne. He also wore a wedding ring, an item of jewellery that had already made repeated contact with Armstrong’s face.

  ‘Well,’ said the man. ‘I never knew that.’

  Armstrong stayed silent.

  ‘So you’ve not been to China?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve been to China.’

  Now it was Armstrong’s turn to look impressed, or at least that was the idea. Instead he merely nodded gently.

  ‘China is a fascinating place, Captain Armstrong.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  ‘A very advanced people, the Chinese.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you know the Chinese invented gunpowder as long ago as 206 BC?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I thought you might. After all, it is something that even a schoolboy knows! But how many schoolboys have heard of acupuncture, I wonder. Have you heard of acupuncture, Captain Armstrong?’

  Armstrong had, and its presence in their conversation caused him to breathe more quickly and heavily. He could feel a deep panic coming on, a dreadful panic that he was willing into becoming an attack, because he could use an attack to escape from what was about to happen.

  The man walked over to the chair and fished out a small cardboard box from his jacket pocket. He held it up with the cheap flourish of an amateur magician and then shook its contents.

  ‘Tacks, Captain Armstrong! Common household tacks. I’m afraid I couldn’t find any acupuncture needles, so we’ll have to make do with these. Sorry!’

  Maniac. That wa
s the only word that ran through Armstrong’s agonised brain. The man was a maniac. He had no real interest in getting the truth out of him; he just wanted to indulge his psychopathic desires.

  The torturer drew close to Armstrong, close enough for him to get another whiff of cologne. Armstrong’s arms ached unbearably – all he could feel was a swelling sensation in them and his hands, and he did his best to stand up a little higher, trying anything to relieve the pressure.

  He could take this, thought Armstrong, he could take every single fucking tack in that box. Anything not to betray the others, not to betray those who were now relying on him. Every tack that this bastard drove into his body would represent another life that he would not betray. As before, all they could do was drive the truth further into him, make it harder for them to dig it out. They would never get it out. Never.

  The man approached him with a single tack in his hand. It was at least two inches long, enough to cause the most extreme pain if inserted in the right place, and this was a man who clearly knew where those places were.

  ‘Where shall the first one go, I wonder?’

  Armstrong shut his eyes, and then opened them again. He would rather see where it was going so he could prepare himself, steel whichever part of his body the maniac fancied.

  The man stood in front of him, looking him up and down, from armpit to navel to nipple and back to armpit, from cheek to eye – please God, not the eye – and then to neck.

  Pain. Sheer, extreme pain. The man had violently pushed the tack into Armstrong’s left armpit, causing him to scream as he had never done before. He continued yelling as the man went back to the box and fumbled in it for another tack. Fucking bastard. Had he screamed that out loud? He no longer knew. He was somewhere else, somewhere where the only thoughts were those connected with agony and a desire to hold out.

  Some more theatrical dithering, some more drawn-out selection of a new target, and then in it went, slowly and firmly this time, straight into and across Armstrong’s right nipple. This was getting to be too much. His brain was now readying his body to shut down, to escape into unconsciousness. He tried to faint, tried hyperventilating, but still he remained awake.

  The other armpit was the third selection, rammed in violently. By now, the pain had reached a plateau, but it was a plateau of constant agony. Two more tacks went into Armstrong before he passed out. One into the left nipple, the other into his shoulder, after which Armstrong could see only darkness.

  * * *

  Once more, Major-General Clifford’s wife had insisted that he see the doctor, who now informed him that he really should take a rest – perhaps a couple of weeks at their cottage in Norfolk. But Clifford was having none of it, saying that he would rather perish than sit and rot on the Broads. Patricia had been desperately upset, saying she thought he was being selfish, and besides, she’d thought he liked Norfolk. Too fucking flat, too fucking wet, too fucking full of dwarves and madmen, he snapped back, instantly ruing his words. He was sorry for that, and apologised fulsomely, saying that he hadn’t meant to insult Patricia’s family, but that he was under a lot of pressure, and one day Patricia would see what it was all about.

  Armstrong’s capture had also greatly rattled General Galwey, as evidenced by the cable that Clifford held in front of him.

  VERY SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR AUNTS RELAPSE STOP WHAT CHANCE OF HER PARTY NOW STOP LET ME KNOW ANY NEWS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE STOP BEST GALWEY

  In truth, Clifford was helpless and he knew it. Armstrong’s trigger was essential for a successful outcome, and only Armstrong knew exactly what that trigger was going to be. It looked as though they had failed; although for the time being Clifford was loath to send out a signal ordering the plotters to stand down. The best he could do, at least for the next few minutes, was to light a cigarette.

  * * *

  After two days, many of the punctures caused by the tacks – which numbered nearly twenty – turned septic, and Armstrong found himself being treated in his cell by a doctor. The torture had come to an end – presumably a temporary one – and Armstrong was left wondering who his tormentor had been. Where did such a man come from? Who had discovered his unlikely talents?

  Armstrong shut his eyes, thinking of Philip, praying that he was still safe. He felt like sobbing, weeping uncontrollably, giving in to the full horror of his situation, trying to shut out the torture of the past few days. He had not revealed a thing, but he had come close, had wanted to say something to stop the pain. The torturer had revived him each time he had passed out, and made sure that his victim was fully conscious before he continued his work.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Armstrong asked the doctor.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Why are you cleaning me up?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir – I don’t know. I’m afraid I really am just a doctor.’

  Armstrong let his head fall back on his pillowless mattress. He thought of others who had been imprisoned here – Richard II, the young princes, John Wilkes, Walter Raleigh, Thomas More. He would surely go the same way as all of them, but that didn’t concern him.

  Instead, what had occupied his mind over the past few days – when it was not being overrun by pain – was an attempt to work out who had betrayed him. He found the idea unpalatable, but Armstrong reckoned that it surely had to be Ted, because Ted was the only one who knew he had gone to Claridge’s. It had to be him – the same Ted who had always been so reluctant to help. He remembered Ted’s face when he had first turned up at his house, his expression more than just one of surprise, but also one of guilt.

  But why had Ted done it? He was always complaining about money, so was it simply for the lucre? Armstrong knew that everybody had a price, but surely newspaper editors were too independent of mind to be bought like that. Or maybe not, maybe they really were the lowdown creatures so many of his colleagues had accused them of being. The only alternatives that Armstrong could think of were either that Ted’s daughter was being held hostage, or that Ted had turned fascist. In the end, thought Armstrong, the reason didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Ted had actually done it. He knew he would never see the man again, but if he did, Armstrong knew he would kill him. He thought of the others – of Lucy, Nick and Martin. Presumably they too had been arrested, receiving the same torture in other cells, perhaps in this very building. He also thought about his network of army officers, decent men like General Galwey and Major-General Clifford, all of whom Ted had no doubt betrayed too.

  The reason for the doctor’s visit became clear at half past seven the following morning. Armstrong had been in a fitful sleep, a state in which his mind knew it was dreaming and yet refused to yield properly to the physical demand of sleep. The dreams – which involved Mary and Philip – were violently interrupted by the metallic clang of cell door against stone wall.

  ‘Atten-shun!’ a guard’s voice screamed.

  Armstrong just lay there. If he was going to be executed, he wouldn’t go to the gallows having obeyed their orders.

  ‘Atten-shun!’

  The voice was absurdly high-pitched. Armstrong smiled. It reminded him of his drill sergeant when he was a subaltern. He lay there, still, feigning sleep. Steel-heeled footsteps rapidly approached him.

  ‘Up!’

  Armstrong opened an eye.

  ‘Up!’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  Armstrong pushed himself up on his elbows.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Up!!’

  Armstrong got up, but took his time about it.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice calmly irritated, as though he was addressing a demanding child.

  ‘You have a visitor!’ shouted the guard.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Leader, sir! The Leader himself!’

  The guard’s eyes shone with the zeal of a religious maniac. Armstrong’s closed. He heard laughter coming down the corridor, and recognised one of the voices. It was Mosley’s, there was no doubt about it. The
other voice was much lower, almost a whisper. It was not a voice he had heard before, and it was not one he liked.

  ‘Atten-shun!’ shouted the guard as Mosley entered the room.

  Armstrong refused. There was no way he was going to stand straight for the so-called Leader. Fuck that, he thought, as Mosley and the other man – a very tall, thin man – walked towards him. Mosley was wearing full Blackshirt uniform, the other man a suit with a lightning flash armband. Mosley looked ridiculous, Armstrong thought, like some puffed-up popinjay.

  ‘Good morning, Captain Armstrong.’

  That voice, that whining, sneering, overly patrician voice that had rattled and annoyed so many in the Commons, that had hectored and cajoled so many in the country, that had spouted so much nastiness and hate, that voice whose owner was nothing less than an embodiment of everything that was dark and wrong – this was the voice that was now addressing him from under that manicured moustache. Armstrong stayed silent. He was not going to dignify the man with a response, was not going to play a game of false courtesy with a murderer.

  ‘How are you feeling today? I trust your stay here is to your satisfaction.’

  Silence.

  ‘In a way you are privileged, Captain Armstrong. You join a long list of illustrious names who have also found themselves residing here in the Tower.’

  Armstrong wanted to tell him what he thought of him, wanted to unleash a bile-filled torrent of abuse. After he had done that, he would like to kill him, smash the life out of him.

  ‘You are allowed to speak, Captain Armstrong.’

  Armstrong stared back at him blankly. Mosley’s eyes were smiling.

  ‘Allow me to introduce you to someone,’ said Mosley. ‘This is Sir Roger Ousby. Have you heard of him?’

  Armstrong had, but he hadn’t known what the man looked like. So this was Mosley’s evil constable, another man who would do his bidding just to enjoy the feeling of power.

  ‘The thing is, Armstrong,’ said Mosley, ‘I would quite like you to talk. So far, you have been disappointingly silent, and we think that there is plenty going on in that brave head of yours. We’d like to know about your friends.’