by John King
Every possible whim had been catered for during the development and he himself had employed an interior decorator once the deal was struck. To add a personal touch. His only stipulation the display cabinets and their positioning. These he had filled with his trophies. Which were subtly lit. Artistic touches meant the gallery remained vibrant. Forever expanding. Slowly but surely. Of course, the loft lacked the exclusivity of his apartment, yet as a gallery it was perfect. Ruby was indeed privileged. The first person he had invited to view his exhibition. Since buying the property. The development itself was secure. He came and went as he pleased. Rarely saw his neighbours. The ideal arrangement.
Ruby was beginning to stir. He had further sedated her on arrival but she would soon begin to regain consciousness. Very slowly. Disorientated yet pliable. Aware enough to understand what was happening but not to cause a scene. He did not want her distressed. Jonathan had worked hard while she slept. As a soft-hearted carer who broke down when an elderly stranger passed away she obviously needed toughening up. She was weak, in both mind and spirit. No doubt saw people as inherently good. She was the three monkeys in one. She spoke no evil. Which was acceptable. But neither did she hear or see evil. This was not. It was a flaw that needed correcting. It was time she grew up. She was a child in a woman’s body. A simpleton.
After careful consideration he had identified four cases with which he knew she was familiar, having dealt with them personally. On the arm of the chair he had set down a ring. A locket. A dice. And a watch. He was ready. Safely tucked away in the loft he would be able to work without restraint. In the hospital terminations were rushed, while home visits were risky. The preserve of GPs. Ruby was an extraordinary case. A matter of self-preservation. Yet it had worked out well for both parties. She would learn about these four cases and come to understand the nature of his work. See the broader picture. The need to reallocate resources. To ensure fairness. Justice. God in need of assistance. Due to the weakness of the people. Fools such as Ruby. Sentimentalists. Emotional wrecks. He would allow her to savour the eternal damnation of each of these four leeches. To appreciate his work.
This was merely the prelude to her own punishment of course. How dare this lowly nurse put a man of his standing at risk. She was rotten to the core. His magic potion was inappropriate, a childish exit. In this special instance he would use the combat knife strapped to his calf to perform the termination. It was a purely professional decision of course. Her body would be found in the Thames. A senseless attack. He could not feed a young, healthy woman a barrel of morphine without arousing suspicion. A random attack was ideal. Its apparent sexual nature would throw off the hounds.
Her eternity would naturally involve sexual abuse. It was a hell he had conjured up on many occasions. Repetition inevitable but nevertheless effective. Sexual aggression was feared by every woman. A just dessert for a sluttish Lolita who posed such a typically feminine threat. Sweet on the outside, deadly within. Cunning. Devious. The VCR was loaded. The real world primed. Further documentary evidence of Man’s cruelty to Man. Or in this case, Woman. It was merely a case of waiting. He was tempted to have another drink but determined to remain at his sharpest. Two cuts to the throat would suffice. A bowl was at the ready. Followed by a mock sexual attack. No more. Always the professional. The physical realm did not matter. It was the spiritual that interested Jonathan Jeffreys.
When Ruby appeared ready to begin he picked up his four keepsakes and sat next to her. Her eyes were misty. Vision blurred. She blinked and coughed. A weakling. He slid his right arm around her shoulders and dropped the objects in her lap with his left. The uniform coming in handy. He explained the relevance of the cabinets. How they contained keepsakes. Mementos. Trophies. Relics. She could choose her description. But what they really represented were the patients he had assisted over the years. Pathetic cases who were a burden to their loved ones. Not to mention the state. The sick and elderly whose time had run out. The system was on the verge of collapse due to a lack of realism. He believed in survival of the fittest. In the frugal use of resources. Decisions had to be taken. People were suffering. He was an angel of mercy who ended their misery. At the same time cleansing society of its unproductive element. Cutting costs in the best way possible. He talked for perhaps ten minutes. Repeating key points until he felt Ruby understood. There was no point bringing her to the gallery if she could not appreciate its significance. The work that he had been carrying out for so many years. Hidden from view. Operating in the shadows. Without recognition. He had dedicated his life to public service. Ruby must appreciate this fact.
She must also understand that the afterlife enjoyed by a departing soul depended on the individual. There were no absolutes. A man, or woman, could shape their own destiny if they possessed the necessary will. This was unfair of course, as those who had lived bad lives could achieve eternal bliss when what they really deserved was eternal damnation. Fortunately his work placed him in a position where he could right this basic injustice. He was able to guide people towards their just desserts, and this he did, shaping and creating their heavens and hells. His work was therefore both material and spiritual in nature. He smiled. He expanded on this topic until he felt Ruby was ready to begin her lesson.
The VCR’s remote control was on hand and he began the documentary. There were no credits. Four men with shaved heads dragged a naked girl into an empty room. She was crying and doing her best to resist. But to no avail. She was screaming. Very loudly. He lowered the volume. The sound just audible. He did not want the roar of grunting men and a sobbing teenager to clash with his narrative. In the background teddy bears and fluffy toys lined makeshift shelves. The skinheads forced the girl on to a bed. She was spreadeagled. Vagina gaping for a professional cameraman forced to work in trying conditions. Searching for the truth. Providing a public service. Two skinheads held a leg each while the third pulled the girl’s arms above her head. Their arms were covered in tattoos. The fourth stripped and moved into position. Applied lubricant to an erect penis and forced himself into the girl. She was a virgin and bucked her hips. Was punched in the face. Now semi-conscious. Like Ruby. Who tried to look away. He held her head in position and felt the terror rip into her gentle nature as the rapist ripped into his victim. He could barely watch the assault. It was a crass display of savagery illustrating the basic animal nature of the people. The man began to plunge into the teenager. Faster and harder. Jonathan Jeffreys reached for his combat knife. Held it to Ruby’s jugular vein. Warned her that she must keep her eyes open throughout the documentary. Otherwise he would be forced to cut her throat. She had to understand that he was a civilised man who was trying to help her grow up and accept that the world was evil. That nobody could be trusted.
Mr Jeffreys reached into Ruby’s lap. His hand lingered as he chose the ring. It was unpleasant but vital for Ruby to see the truth. The subtle intelligence and mental strength of Jeffreys versus the uncontrolled physical frenzy of the raping skinhead hordes. Wrapped in the Cross of St George. Moving to slave rhythms. She slowly focused on the ring. Which was made of plastic. String tied through the loop. He had taken it from a certain Steven Rollins two years before. Did she remember the man? He was sure she did. Whispering in Ruby’s ear. Coaxing her along. He could reach out and lick her lobe if he wanted. But did not. Yes. She knew. There was recognition in her eyes. Followed by a quizzical expression. But he persisted. Until she mouthed the word yes. No sound emerging. Ruby fortunate she was under the control of an educated man such as Jeffreys who went on to explain how he had terminated the life of Rollins, a thug with a shaved head and tattoos, a probable rapist like those yobs on the screen, a macho fool who did not respect women, children, his fellow man, a drunken lager lout who was of course neo-Nazi in his political beliefs, a hooligan who drank in thug pubs and terrorised law-abiding immigrants, a self-centred white supremacist who patrolled the streets of the town armed with a baseball bat searching out defenceless Asians so that he could batter them
to a bloody pulp, running off to hide into the dark shelter of night. Rollins was Nazi scum, a threat to national stability, an ignoramus following a spurious agenda, the swastika a mask for his basic criminal tendencies. What good was such a man to decent society? He caused havoc wherever he went. Quite prepared to physically assault his own mother. Wife. Children. He existed for the public house. For mindless brawls. Stanley knives. Cheap sex. Football hooliganism. Amphetamines. Cocaine. Razor blades. Merciless beatings of socialists and communists and Jews. The smashing of windows. Standing in the high street with his right hand in the air saluting Adolf Hitler. Himmler. Heydrich.
Ruby was trying to say something but he hushed her. She was naive. So he explained that as Rollins was dying, neatly injected with his magic potion, he had sent him East, to a Stalinist gulag where time stood still and malcontents such as Rollins were forcibly re-educated and shown the error of their ways by a harsh regime that did not care whether the individual lived or died, where every man’s head was shaved to obliterate individuality. Rollins had done the same out of choice yet in the camp there was no choice, a frozen hell where a less civilised version of his own zero-tolerance approach had always applied. There was no hope, no chance of escape, only endless centuries of slave labour. First he would be transported across the icy expanses of Siberia, finally north towards the Arctic Circle, nearly dying on the way from dysentery, carrying his cancer with him forever, gnawing at his morale, and it was a long journey into oblivion, his fallen comrades buried along the line of the train track, cattle trucks used to transport this neo-Nazi to his celestial destiny, a reflection of his hero’s treatment of the Jews, and on his eventual arrival he would be forced to work with the Slavic subhuman element he so despised, a rabble of cut-throat oiks, the cold with him at all times as he broke rocks, dug for salt, watched his fellow prisoners buried in slag heaps, bones filling the soil, death a welcome release that would never come, bitter winters and cold summers, and every so often he would be taken to the trucks and shipped to another camp, sitting in his own faeces, to another freezing hell.
The first rapist climaxed and withdrew from the traumatised girl. Made way for his fellow. Entry easier now. Mr Jeffreys moved Ruby’s head back to the screen and noted the tears trickling down her face. The Rollins experience was allowed to sink in. He noted the cheap decor of the teenager’s room. Pop stars adorned the walls. Taken from magazines. Taped to woodchip walls. It was all so tacky. Cheap and undisciplined. The edges jagged. Torn. There was another teddy bear next to a fluffy pillow. A plastic doll dressed like a tart. Mr Jeffreys placed the plastic ring on the arm of the couch and reached down into Ruby’s lap. Picked up the locket. Smiled.
He held the locket up and turned Ruby’s head. It was made of silver. He clicked it open. She started at this and he knew he did not have to tell her to whom it had once belonged. She fully understood what was happening now. But she also had to know that these terminations were more than the meting out of justice. Rollins was a thug, but also a costly thug. He was costing the hospital a great deal of money. His cancer would return. Of that Mr Jeffreys was certain. Why bother wasting resources on a no-hope situation? On someone who did not contribute to the common good. Each case was judged on medical grounds. The client’s worth to society of secondary importance. Eternity an artistic twist. But he had moved on from the Nazi and explained how Pearl Hudson was nearing the end of her working life and was a typically frustrated, sadistic lesbian, twisted inside and unwilling to take her place in society, to marry and bear children, incapable of love, obsessed with disciplining small children who could not fight back.
To illustrate his power he had told Ms Hudson the story of Julie Drayton. A pupil of hers no less. The funniest thing had happened. Sitting in her living room on one of his home visits, with the teacher tied to her chair. Magic potion administered, she had actually cried as he described the death of Drayton. This had set him thinking. It was a little unorthodox yet he had decided to change his mind at the last minute. She was obviously tangled and perverted yet liked to be seen as a caring individual, a worthy addition to a society that secretly rejected her. Much like Ruby in fact. So he had included her in his vision of Drayton. Hudson became the wicked witch in the wood who tormented the little girl in her ramshackle home. Hudson doing her best to control her perverted feelings, tormented by this inner battle between good and evil. Which she invariably lost. Hudson was the lowest form of humanity, a child torturer, hated by everyone, who would drench her in phlegm if the Witchfinder General caught her. Paraded through the streets. Sins exposed to the world. All the time her mind would be in turmoil knowing that her brand of witchcraft was evil, the Witchfinder General moving through the woods ready to douse her in water. Build a bonfire where she would be burnt at the stake as the ignorant masses cheered and cursed her, only for Hudson to reappear in the woods and begin the cycle all over again.
There had been numerous framed photographs of the man in the locket in her front room. A brother he supposed. There were rows of books. Paintings and drawings. Batiks. There was the smell of a cat. It was really quite naughty of him to approach her at home. He remembered her face from the children’s ward when she visited little Julie. The poor girl misled by a devious old hag. He had made enquiries. Felt the poetic side of his nature coming to the fore. Hudson reminded him of a teacher he had hated when he was young. But it was business. Ruby understood. It was not personal. He drew a line between work and pleasure. Not that he had derived pleasure from the woman’s passing. She had no life to speak of, teaching in a pathetic little primary school, alone and without interests, cold and bitter and redundant. It was easy enough to banish the horrid woman to the woods and then lift her into his arms and carry her to the top of the stairs. Allow her to topple down and break her neck. He had made sure of that. The accidental death of a woman weak and dizzy after a spell in hospital. Pearl was a gem. Just like Ruby in fact. Two gems together. He laughed. Two witches pretending to dedicate their lives to others but all the while plotting. Did they really think he was fooled by their saintly displays? Their pious concern for others? He wondered if the two of them had engaged in devil worship together. The old woman pleasuring the younger one with a sex toy. Teachers and nurses. Public sector whores. Agitating. Begging for funds.
Mr Jeffreys guided Ruby’s head in the direction of the television set once more. So that she could see how the documentary was progressing. The second rapist was finishing with a tirade of violent obscenities. Rollins had deserved everything he got. Hudson a danger to children. The rape victim was once more aware of what was happening. Resisting. Struck again. A knife was produced and held to her throat. The third man stepped forward and plunged into the depths of her depravity. Such was their passion they did not use condoms. The masses were irresponsible even in sex. Violent rather than tender. AIDS a costly epidemic. He placed the silver locket next to the plastic ring. Reached down and took up the dice. It was homemade. Cheap wood with smudged blue dots. It was not even square. A childhood toy perhaps. He forced Ruby to turn her face from the documentary. Yet she seemed fascinated, her face soaked with tears of joy.
Did she recall a certain Daniel Rafferty by any chance? She tried to nod her head but could not. Spit dribbled from her lips. Her face soaked. It was disgusting. Rafferty was a horrible specimen. A debauched young man. Not that he was prejudiced against homosexuals, not at all, many cultured and powerful people were homosexual and dignified in their conduct. What he found revolting was the likes of Rafferty, who had allowed himself to become infected with HIV and then expected the state to foot the bill. With his ponytail and casual manner about the ward perhaps he saw himself as a bohemian. An artistic rebel. Well. This was impossible in the town in which he lived. He was a faceless fool in a faceless environment. Not a Notting Hill rebel. He was even too stupid to practise safe sex. Claiming benefit. Trudging lost through grim streets. A meaningless existence. Cold concrete and depression. The poor lad. He was crying out for a he
lping hand and Jeffreys had been forced to oblige. His chance coming one night when the bed next to Rafferty was empty and he had a clear shot at the young deviant. Buggered in a public lavatory no doubt. By a succession of suppressed homos. Too scared to admit their tendencies in a vicious environment. This was one of his bugbears. The intolerance of the white scum who inhabited the terraces and flats and yet expected mollycoddling by the state.
Rafferty’s hell was to stay where he was and be sent to work. Long hard shifts and monotonous, repetitive tasks. Surrounded by macho males. The raping skinheads and football hooligans. Drug users and fornicators. Rafferty would have to drink with these men seven days a week. Endless lager, chips and burgers. There would be no romance about his life, no Bohemian finesse. His sexual preferences would have to be suppressed and he would live in fear of his HIV status being discovered. If he was found out he would be attacked in the street. Bullied at work. Bricks thrown through his windows. The torment would be intolerable, yet there would be nowhere to run. He knew that the people around him would turn on him. Victimise Rafferty for the threat they thought that he posed to their safety. They were ignorant. Rafferty knew this. Mr Jeffreys leaning forward. Rafferty’s face unshaven. Passing away as he was sent packing to a local pub. Without tradition. No fine decor to speak of. Just ranks of hooligans. Pool players. Television watchers. Mediocrity in all its bleached glory.