Disturbia

by Christopher Fowler

  And there was something else. He made photocopies of the articles he had just read and headed towards his apartment, making a mental note to ask Sebastian about a phrase that had cropped up a number of times, his connection to a society known as the League of Prometheus. Instead of confronting him immediately, Vince decided to do some more reading up on the subject of the beliefs and proclamations of the Hon. Sebastian Wells.

  —

  ‘It seems like you’re here every day, man,’ said the Rastafarian desk clerk as he arrived at Camden Library the following morning.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, I have no life,’ Vince admitted, shaking out his umbrella and stowing it in a corner. He had stepped on a paving stone that had tilted, soaking his jeans, a typical street-hazard in Tufnell Park. As usual he was the first customer, and would probably be alone until the down-and-outs arrived when they were cleared out from the local hostel. At the battered Apple Mac in the corner of the reference section, he logged on to the Internet and began a subject search for items located under the references Wells, Sebastian and League, Prometheus. The latter organisation had been mentioned most recently in a Guardian article. God knows how much this could cost me, he thought, praying for speed as he checked the loading times and pulled down a couple of text-only articles.

  There were a number of old newspaper and magazine pieces to choose from, mainly concerning Sebastian’s early fundraising days for the Tories, when he had organised special events at his school. One concerned his putative friendship with a notorious Nazi sympathiser, a professor whose new book set out the theory that the Holocaust had not happened. The other featured the text of a speech he had given at the opening of a right-wing bookshop in South London. Mildly nasty stuff, yet no one had anything critical to say in print. On the contrary, the tabloids seemed to champion him as the voice of common sense, and he was generally considered to have the ear of a number of influential figures. This was a different image to the vague game-playing charmer presented to Vince.

  There were no societies listed under the reference Prometheus, so he printed hard copies of the articles and logged out before the bill had a chance to climb too high. As he checked through the classical section, distant thunder rumbled above the rain-washed skylight in the centre of the room and it grew so dark that the librarians had to switch the lights on, something they were always reluctant to do, as if they considered eye-strain to be a beneficial part of the learning process.

  Prometheus. Greek demi-god. Son of Iapetos, brother of Atlas. The name meant ‘forethought’. The wisest of his race, he was credited with bringing knowledge to mankind. He had been given the task of distributing powers and abilities on earth. He stole fire from the gods and gave it to mortals, only to be punished by Zeus, who had Prometheus chained naked to a pillar in the Caucasian mountains. Each day an eagle tore out his liver, and each night it grew back…

  —

  This was no help. It shed no light on the League of Prometheus, if such a thing even existed. Well, he thought, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. He would simply call up Sebastian and ask him a few casually phrased questions. But even as he considered the idea, he knew he would not do it because—the realisation came as a shock—he sensed that Sebastian would make a dangerous adversary.

  He would ask Esther to help him find some back-up contacts, and if Sebastian’s society proved to be some kind of neo-Nazi organisation he would base the proposition of the book around it, maybe even sell serial rights to a newspaper as an exposé. Even though he found it hard to believe that Sebastian was such a Jekyll and Hyde character, he knew that the time had come to cool their friendship. It was the only way to avoid further duplicity, and it would free him to write whatever he pleased.

  Having made the decision, though, he had an uncomfortable feeling about the possible outcome. As a small child he had read a book called Where the Rainbow Ends, an Edwardian adventure in which some children witnessed St George’s battle with the dragon. Years later, he had been shocked to discover that the book was a thinly disguised fascist tract. Even now he found it hard to recall those eerie evanescent illustrations without feeling a sense of betrayal. It was a sensation he was starting to associate with Sebastian.

  Chapter 9

  Playing Games

  The rain was drifting across the trees of Regent’s Park in silent undulating veils. Sebastian sat before the great mahogany board set up beside the window and considered his position. Exposed, he decided, but not precarious. He shifted one of the ceramic and ivory counters towards him, protecting his most vulnerable piece. He had been playing for five hours without pause.

  Strict but fair. That was how he would describe himself if someone asked. Disciplined. Moral. And bold, as bold as Prometheus thrusting his unlit torch into the sun.

  But of course, many people feared crossing paths with the truly unafraid. There were those who saw him as a threat. Many lies had been told, but in his mind the truth and the lies were quite separate.

  It was true, for instance, that he had been invited to leave university. It was true that he would have graduated with honours had he stayed. It was true that there had been some unfortunate business with a hysterical young woman, and that this perceived—and publicised—blot on his escutcheon would prevent him from ever attaining a position of power. It was true that the death of an interfering journalist had become linked with his name, providing a source of future embarrassment and another skeleton for the family cupboard. The fact that he would eventually inherit his father’s title meant further disruption to his political prospects. He had been forced to consider a less high-profile entrance into the state arena.

  It was not true that his family cut him off without a penny. It was not true that he kept the company of common criminals. It was not entirely true that he had squandered his family’s allowance on parties and drugs. It was not true that he had been forced to resolve a stimulant dependency (he had chosen to admit himself to the clinic in order to tackle a genuine psychiatric problem). It was not true that he had become the ‘fin de siècle wastrel’ recently described in an unflattering feature entitled ‘The New Bad Boys’ in The Guardian. It was not strictly true that he had had a nervous breakdown when the aforementioned hysterical girlfriend had died in so-called mysterious circumstances on his grandfather’s Devonshire estate.

  These days, at the grand old age of twenty-eight, his greatest pleasure in life—apart from his league meetings—was the creation of, and participation in, games. All kinds of games. Strategic puzzles. Peg and board amusements. Elaborate ritualised entertainments. Linguistic riddles. Intellectual anomalies. And sometimes, more overtly sexual charades involving the hiring of prostitutes and the testing of their personal tolerances. As a child he could complete The Times crossword in under seven minutes. He quickly worked his way through Scrabble, go, pta-wai, mah-jong, sabentah, poker and bridge. Then he began to invent his own games. As an adult it amused him to add new layers of role-playing and gamesmanship to an otherwise dreary life. And the best part of playing these games, of course, was setting the rules yourself.

  He had already attempted to involve Vince in his game playing, although the boy had no natural skill, no guile. Those honest blue eyes were picture-windows to his soul, incapable of hiding secrets. As opponents they were poorly suited. Some kind of handicap would have to be applied. He had studied his quarry at lunch the other day. They were dining at L’Odeon in Regent Street, a restaurant far too modern for his tastes but selected to impress the boy, and he had asked Vince what he was really writing about, and the boy had fiddled with his microphone-gadget nervously, unable to hold his eye, fobbing him off with some nonsense about the state of the capital. He should have recognised the signs then and interrogated Vince more thoroughly.

  Unfolding his long legs, he leaned across the mahogany board and shifted another white piece so that it imprisoned his opponent, then removed the appropriated counter to the brass railing at the edge of the board. He sat back and
surveyed the battlefield. The war was all but won. The best way to capture an enemy was to let him think you had no interest in capture at all.

  It amazed him to think that the boy had no inkling of how he was being used. Proles were like that: broadly honest, reasonably decent, breathtakingly naive. Indignant, of course, upon the discovery of any detrimental deception. But ready to empty their purses before you, should you call upon their assistance.

  He felt sorry for Vincent. The boy would never get to the heart of the matter. It simply wasn’t something you could catalogue on paper. It was far too perverse for his algebraic thinking to comprehend, a perversion of character, family and finance that ran deep inside and underground, to the very core of the nation. It only surfaced when those close to power found a way to control and make use of it; why else, he wondered, shoving aside the board, would organisations like the League of Prometheus be allowed to exist?

  Too bad the boy wasn’t a bit brighter. He rather relished the possibility of being found out. But that, of course, would defeat the entire purpose of the game. He did not want to have Vincent killed. Indeed, with no other candidates in sight he could not afford to. His fellow Prometheans would not allow him another chance to make good his promise.

  The rain was clearly in for the day. The finale of Der Rosenkavalier came to its melancholy end. With a sigh, Sebastian heaved himself from his armchair and switched off the tape. He wasn’t sleeping well. Lately his mind was filled with visions. Everything was coming to a head. Anger burned dully within him, and nothing, it seemed, not even the game, could assuage it.

  Chapter 10

  Background Information

  It took a lot of phone calls to track down Caroline Buck-Smalley. She had dated Sebastian Wells during his Oxford days, and had been photographed (and labelled with a helpful caption) arriving at a charity auction with him, draped in a Union Jack. Caroline now handled PR for her mother’s Knightsbridge dress business, and was reluctant to discuss anything else. Figuring that dishonesty was the best policy, Vince explained that he was writing an article about Sebastian for Tatler, only to have her demand that a formal request for an interview be submitted in writing.

  Vince argued that he would miss his deadline for the next issue, and just needed a couple of quick answers.

  ‘Look, Mr Reynolds, I simply don’t have the time to waste on this sort of thing,’ she heatedly insisted, ‘besides which I can tell you very little about Mr Wells, beyond the fact that he enjoys playing extremely childish, spiteful tricks on people and would rather spend his weekends with his pals figuring out stupid character-testing rituals than doing anything useful or constructive.’ The line went dead.

  Texts of the following speeches and monographs by the Hon. Sebastian Wells are available upon request:

  A Question of Race: Nationality and Identity

  Why There Must Always Be an England

  Breaking the Jewish Power Ring

  The Murder of Innocence: Tackling the Abortionists

  Prometheus and Power: Responsibility to the People

  He accessed the last article; he had read the others.

  The name Prometheus is a Greek corruption of the Sanskrit word Pramantha, meaning a fire-drill. The symbol for this invention is the Swastika.

  On the unseasonably fine evening of September the 23rd, Vince and Louie had an argument that started because Vince showed his friend photocopies of the speeches Sebastian had authored, and Louie got on his high horse and virtually accused him of collaborating with Nazis.

  ‘You have to confront him now that you know all this,’ said Louie. ‘He advocates forced repatriation, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘I thought you were in favour of quote lying till you’re blue in the face unquote,’ Vince explained.

  ‘Yeah, but I changed my mind. He’s a racist, and he has the money to back up his views with action.’

  The more Louie shouted, the more Vince opposed him. Sebastian had plenty of good points. He behaved with more maturity than this nitwit spouting agitprop at him in his own flat, a decently kept place, unlike Louie’s bug-infested rubbish dump in Chalk Farm.

  So they argued and got drunk and argued some more, and Vince explained that he would end the interviews with Sebastian when he was damned well good and ready and not a moment before, and Louie could tell him that he chainsawed the heads off babies and ate them for all he cared, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.

  ‘Fine,’ shouted Louie, ‘but while your fascist pal acts as an errand boy for the far right, filling his speeches with Victorian rhetoric, stuff about shining shields of truth and honour and duty, he operates in the kind of corrupt port-and-Stilton circles designed to keep wealth and privilege where it belongs—in the hands of the rich.’

  ‘You’re sounding like a really naff angry student, Louie,’ he pointed out. ‘Why don’t you go and bury your rage in an unusual haircut? Go and have your nose pierced again.’

  ‘I have no argument with you, man—’

  ‘Or me with him. I could easily find something else to write about.’

  ‘You’re not very convincing,’ Louie replied. ‘I think he interests you because part of you secretly wants to be like him. Only you don’t even realise it. Now, you have to decide whether you’re gonna do the right thing.’

  He knew Louie was right. The deadline for delivery of his manuscript was December the 10th, and he had most of the information he was likely to get from Sebastian.

  ‘Esther’s given me the telephone number of this guy she knows, a Doctor Harold Masters,’ he explained. ‘He lectures at the college. A couple of years ago he had a run-in with Mr Wells and his pals. Esther had a word with him and he said he’d be happy to talk to me. Besides, there’s some other stuff I need to dig out.’

  The Guardian July 1996

  …As the son of a lord who has long refused to declare his reputedly conflicting business interests, Sebastian Wells found himself ideally suited for withstanding interrogation by the police recently, when he was held in custody over his suspected involvement in a brutal murder upon a young black concertgoer. Upon being cleared of suspicion, Wells promptly sued the police for wrongful arrest and now looks set to win his case.—Jeremy Tyler

  New Statesman February 1994

  ‘…Traditional clubs don’t follow through on the liberal trends set by university societies,’ explained Dr Harold Masters, in his annual Edinburgh address. ‘While it is not surprising to find a lack of ethnic diversity in such very British institutions, it is more disturbing to note the return of wealth and class restrictions.’

  Societies like the hyper-secretive League of Prometheus remain so well protected by the silence of their members that it is impossible to gauge the club’s influence on the city’s financial institutions. Indeed, Prometheans make Freemasons look like chatterboxes. Yet for years this supposedly philanthropic institution has been dogged by rumours of its members’ violent behaviour, its links to the world of organised crime and illegal government-sanctioned sales of arms. All press enquiries are met with curt dismissal. Arrogance and secrecy, it seems, are but two weapons in the league’s power arsenal.—Jeremy Tyler

  The Guardian August 7th 1996

  …Privately, though, questions are still being asked about how investigative journalist Jeremy Tyler came to be found dead at the foot of the Westminster Bridge steps after apparently slipping on them during a drunken altercation. The outspoken Tyler had recently conducted a series of acrimonious interviews with members of a society known as the League of Prometheus, and was seen in the presence of several league members on the night of his death.

  The league’s chairperson, the Hon. Sebastian Wells, insisted that none of his members were still in contact with Tyler, and the police chose to accept his statement at face value. No investigation ensued in the wake of Tyler’s death, and no evidence of the journalist’s recorded conversations with league members was found in his personal belongings.

  With apparent eas
e Tyler’s life’s work has been erased—but perhaps this is merely the symptom of a larger public malaise.

  With apathy so endemic in our nation, it is hard not to speculate that the dying century’s conservatism has created a fertile new home for the spectre of Nazism to once more take root. The message is clear: messing with the Far Right’s brash new boys can be hazardous to your health.

  Vince noted that there was no author to the final piece. Given the fate of Jeremy Tyler, perhaps it was just as well.

  Chapter 11

  Breaking the Bond

  ‘Are you Vincent Reynolds?’ the boy at the cafeteria counter called across to him. ‘There’s a phone call for you.’

  ‘I thought I’d find you in there,’ said Sebastian. ‘I tried you at the entertainment place and they said you’d gone for the day. Listen, I can’t make our appointment on Friday, but I can do lunch tomorrow. Would that be convenient?’

  Say no, the voice inside his head hissed, if you see him in person you’re bound to say something dumb and give the game away. You know too much about him now, and you’re a crap liar. Say no. But it would be the last time they would hang out together, and his growling stomach got the best of him. It wasn’t as if Sebastian was a convicted murderer or anything. Vince was really going to miss the lavish meals of the past month.

  ‘That would be good,’ he heard himself saying.

  They dined in a busy Cal-Ital restaurant in a Kensington backstreet. Meeting in a crowded area seemed the safest thing to do. Recently Sebastian had taken him to a very old dining club just off Threadneedle Street where he was treated like a visiting member of the royal family, and Vince—after he had been fitted with a stained club tie—was pointedly ignored. The experience had left him feeling very strange, like a paid escort getting caught out in a smart hotel.