The Ministry of Love

by O'Mahony, Jason

  Bertrand bristled.

  “Stop calling me that. That was EuroPol’s designation. The Jackal, the Hawk, I would have even settled for the Hyena. I could laugh at my prey. But the Stoat? It is ridiculous and a breach of my human rights.”

  In fairness to EuroPol, Bertrand was lucky. Somewhere in the underbelly of Europe, deep in the criminal underground, was a vicious drug dealer and slave trafficker having the piss taken out of him by his criminal compatriots. In fairness, it is difficult to fear The Hippopotamus.

  “Mr. Bertrand will deal with Dr. Tredestrian,” Rilk said.

  “In an appropriate manner, I hope,” Spence suggested.

  “Oh yes, very appropriate. This is England, Mr. Spence. It will look like an everyday piece of ordinary English mindless violence,” said the assassin with a chuckle as off putting as it was menacing.

  • • •

  Corky Edwards winked playfully at the camera, before pushing a deep-fried lump of cheese wrapped in bacon substitute into the face of the fat kid pretending to be her own. As the television advertisement director shouted cut, the cheeky smile dropped from the plump celebrity’s face as she stepped away from the obese child who immediately started tucking into a bag of crisps provided by his equally ample mother. The mother then, with considerable exertion, got down on her hands and knees to tie the boy’s shoelaces that had come loose from his €900 trainers. He could hardly be expected to tie them himself. It would interfere with his eating and anyway, he wasn’t good at tying his shoelaces as he struggled to physically get near them. Judging by the amount of urine he left on the bathroom floor at home, his trainers probably weren’t the only item south of his sugar and salt fuelled waistline which was now out of reach. And yet, he summed up both the Corky Edwards fan base and the main consumer demographic that the bottom-of-the-market supermarket store was targeting.

  Their customers were hyper price conscious and looking for bulk over quality. The fact that the pack of fifty deep fried sausages with cheese injected into them had less nutritional value than the big fat kid advertising them was of little interest to them. There were fifty mechanically recovered meat objects that could be deep-fried and were cheap enough so as to ensure that the weekly grocery budget didn’t interfere with the other household essentials.

  These were Corky’s people. She came from the same council estates they came from and had the same collection of welfare cheats and slightly psychotic criminals as relatives. When she made it big in her girl band, they had cheered her on. Their daughters, in between performing oral sex on fellas in nightclubs who swore that they were on the verge of being professional footballers one day, saw in her a role model. Then she started using her last unexpected pregnancy as a means of getting onto the front pages of high visual low text celebrity magazines. She joined in the speculation as to who was the father; whether it was her former footballer and alleged rapist husband, or the heroin-addled former pop sensation she had apparently fallen in love with in three days of Celebrity Abattoir. Her fans, sitting in the council flats grumbling about the level of social welfare when not beating their variously fathered own swarms of children, just loved it.

  Corky swept off the set ignoring the various technical people around her, not out of a sense of snobbishness but out of pure self-absorption. As her celebrity status had grown, she had found that ‘issues’ had risen to the top of her personal agenda, issues which she just had to share with the two top-rated celebrity magazines, Celeb! and NotPhat. She was now the plucky single mother of four children by three different fathers trying to do her best by them. This seemed to include arranging for paparazzi to photograph their drunken mother being groped outside nightclubs in various states of undress. But her fans loved it and lashed out at her critics in the broadsheets for being judgmental.

  Despite the fact that almost nothing in her diet did not spend some time under three inches of searing hot cooking fat, Corky’s latest product was the Corky Edwards exercise video, which she was in the process of producing. Her producer was finding the whole experience quite challenging because Corky was “depressed and under so much pressure”. He wasn’t sure how stressful a few ads were, although he accepted the fact being constantly pregnant would wear any woman down, and Corky seemed to have to only walk past a minor Premiership player to have her eggs fertilised.

  Corky didn’t like exercising and so her very good looking trainer was showing her some gentle exercises she could perform in such a way that, when filmed, looked more rigorous than they actually were. The producer made sure that she wore one of the four same tracksuits so that they could edit the whole thing together and make it look like a continuous session. As opposed to the three minutes slots of Corky wobbling up and down before whinging that she was knackered and needed to go outside for a fag. The producer just shrugged. Wasn’t his money and looking at the way she was thrusting her grand canyon of a cleavage at the trainer, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was up the duff before they ever finished the damn thing.

  Corky, in the middle of a hacking smokers cough that would have unnerved a miner, never saw the individual come stealthily up the fire escape and hit her with an electric stun gun. She went down like a sack of spuds. Her attacker carried her, with considerable exertion, down to his vehicle where he taped her mouth, hands and legs and then covered her in a blanket, before checking that he hadn’t been observed. He had already surveyed the area previously so knew that there were now no active CCTV cameras looking onto the alley.

  Because of Corky’s notorious lack of professionalism and self-centred obsession, the fact that she missed all her appointments for the day meant that her disappearance was only noticed the following day when her eldest child, a twelve year old aspiring thug named Ryan-Leonardo, was arrested for selling drugs and the police called around to her house.

  • • •

  The National Companionship Agency dominated media headlines after Fairfax’s announcement and sharply narrowed the gap between his Liberal Democrat-Labour Alliance and Spence’s Tories. More importantly, it completely wrongfooted the official opposition. The broadsheet right wing newspapers were savage in their criticism of the agency, attacking the plan for the ideological ridiculousness of the proposal. To them, this was the Nanny State gone completely mad. The problem for them was that the same rotund round-faced balls of anger who waddled out of their gentlemen’s clubs to denounce the NCA just couldn’t stay on message. With just gentle prodding from Fairfax’s political allies along with a sherry fuelled lunch, they weren’t long being edged off the NCA and onto ranting about women’s rights and minority rights and homosexuals being allowed walk about the place unbeaten. Triscuit kept his people in line while goading the right-wingers into denouncing the whole concept of state intervention, and as a result, made them sound mad. Even the right wing tabloids had to tread carefully. The Daily Mail, normally first in to queue to rant about Fairfax, had to step softly as polls showed that middle-aged women, the core readership demographic for them, were very supportive of the NCA. That, and the fact that Triscuit had a gentle word in the ears of the big advertisers, who then pointed out to both the Mail and the Express that they didn’t want to be associated with NCA bashing.

  If there was a debate, it was not as much over the NCA itself as the use of Cupid 12, but that was being handled relatively well, thanks to the controversial idea of being transparent. Dr. Tredestrian had been very upfront with the drug, even publicly releasing the formula for testing by anyone who wished to test it and they all came back with the same result. It was harmless, provided the users were made fully aware as to the effect it would have.

  When the NCA opened its online website, and began recruiting the first 2 million volunteers, over 16 million people subscribed.

  CHAPTER 3

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  BRITISH GOVT REFUSES TO RULE OUT FORCING CITIZENS TO BE GAY. - Fox News

  ---

  The liberal socialist government in England is preparing to expand the so-cal
led National Companionship Agency program into a full National Love Service, along the same lines as the socialised National Health Service which regularly murders old people it deems unworthy of life.

  Prime Minister Alexander Fairfax, who has been endorsed by organisations that do not condemn full-blown gay sex orgies, has described the pilot scheme as “most satisfactory” and has announced his intention, if re-elected in the general election, to expand the scheme nationally.

  Although the National Companionship Agency has denied it, there is no evidence to suggest that the agency may not consider forcing British subjects to be gay in the future, and indeed to be forced to marry people of the same sex against their will. Fox News finds it disturbing that there were absolutely no documents presented to us ruling that possible option out.

  ---

  The Stoat had built his reputation not only with a sharp intelligence and a great skill at his chosen field of work but also with foresight. He was a very, very patient man who delighted in planting little seeds for later use, sometimes even years later. Membership of an East End London branch of the British National Party was one of those slow burning plays he enjoyed and had now decided to utilise.

  Given that London was, after New York, probably the second major city on the planet, it had made sense for him to assemble a small collection of thugs and goons for later use. What he wanted was a certain type of individual; not too bright, easily manipulated and impressed, and most importantly, frustrated with his lot in life. The sort of individual who went to a football match and ended up punching the referee, as if that would somehow reverse the decision to which he objected.

  Out shopping for antiques one afternoon, The Stoat had come across a BNP rally and had suddenly realised that he had found his well of anger. He had turned up at the next branch meeting, introducing himself as a business consultant who was concerned about the contamination of the white race. He helped ease the initial suspicions of him by being very easy with his money in the pub afterwards. The chairman of the branch, being just that little bit smarter than the socially maladjusted members, started to become more suspicious, asking a series of questions, and so The Stoat moved quickly.

  One easily executed burglary later, and a phone call to a police officer with a bit too much fondness for online poker and the chairman found his house being raided and a large selection of child pornography being recovered. The Stoat was quick to intimate to his BNP colleagues that anyone who defended the chairman may be a kiddy fiddler themselves. It really wasn’t that long before he was elected branch chairman unopposed.

  Within a year, The Stoat had transformed the group into his own personal collection of thugs. He kept them distracted with plenty of well-funded piss ups and activities, including a visit to Amsterdam to ‘study’ Muslim infiltration of a western European society that led to a number of the lads getting the clap.

  Finally, a job arose where The Stoat felt the four most vicious of his young acolytes could play a role.

  Plying them with yet more drink and a little cocaine to hype them up, he identified a ‘race traitor’ who was plotting with Muslims and Liberals and Queers to allow for white women to be forced into arranged marriages with Muslim men, all in the name of politically correct racial integration. Even he, who actually found their racist beliefs to be a mixture of the disgusting and the ridiculous, was a little taken aback at how easily taken in they had been by this nonsense. When he identified the man in question he was further surprised that they didn’t recognise him, after all he had been all over the media for the last month. But then, he’d not been on either the sports pages nor in a Steven Segal movie and so he probably shouldn’t have been that surprised at their ignorance.

  The Stoat arranged a minibus to drop them off near the target’s Islington home, which he had previously identified as being on Julian’s stroll home from Angel tube station. As they waited for him to pass, The Stoat kept them riled up with a mixture of cheap beer secretly laced with caffeine tablets, and complete nonsense about Julian’s apparent plan to create an all African group of black supermen (with suitably impressive endowments) to systematically impregnate white English women with “superior” black genes. By the time Julian sauntered around the corner, The Stoat’s men were close to frothing at the mouths, and bursting to exit the minibus and deal a blow for white English manhood.

  As soon as they had left the minibus, The Stoat cautiously started the engine, and backed the minibus up the street a few hundred metres, to allow him to observe the action whilst being at a clear distance so as not to be associated with it.

  Julian had his iPod on so didn’t hear their shouts of abuse as they advanced on him. The first he knew of the assault was when the lead thug punched him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground as the others laid in with forceful kicks from curiously well polished Doc Martens.

  Then Grace Kelly stepped in.

  • • •

  Switzerland realised the heaviness of the circumstance when he got out of the police car and had to force his way through a staccato of camera flashes. He refused to answer any questions ranging from the possibility of suspects to did she look fat?

  Thompson was waiting inside the lobby.

  “I’ve set up a command centre and seconded everyone on your list sir. DAC Likker is very eager to make progress on this.”

  “I can imagine,” Switzerland murmured. Since the BOYZMEAT killing, the celebrity serial killer story was dipping into hysteria as if it were on a bungee rope and Likker was beside himself with anxiety. There was a rumour going about that he had asked the Commissioner to ask the Home Secretary to declare martial law. He was not prepared to confirm or deny this report, but for now normal police rules applied. Fortunately, whilst Alexander Fairfax still had a unhealthy quota of New Labour media types in junior ranks, he had at least managed to keep most of the cabinet populated by level headed people.

  Thompson briefed him as they rode up in the lift. Or elevator as his junior officers insisted upon calling it.

  “We found Ms. Edwards strapped to a threadmill. She’d suffered a massive coronary. Medical examiner reckons she was injected with some sort of adrenaline-based chemical which, combined with being forced to exercise for hours non-stop, killed her. The lab will be back soon with the chemical analysis. Forensics are all over the warehouse where the body was found, but it looks clean. This guy knew what he was doing.”

  “The owner? Did he rent it out to someone?”

  Thompson shook his head.

  “The owner of the warehouse thought it was empty.”

  Switzerland nodded and walked into the command centre, nearly falling over a chair.

  “What’s wrong with the bloody lights?” he bellowed, rubbing a bruised knee. The room, crowded with young officers, was dark and bathed in orange, green and red lights.

  “That’s the CSI look, sir. It’s good for morale. It also makes our officers look, well, sexier to each other. It’s DAC Likker approved,” Thompson commented.

  “I can’t see a bleeding thing. It’s like Santa’s Grotto in here,” Switzerland muttered, as Thompson guided him into his own office where someone had the good sense to kit out with normal lights.

  Switzerland fell into his seat. The three case file updates were spread on his desk. By the annotations on their covers, they were being designated as the likely victims of the same serial killer.

  “Are we sure about this?” asked the DCI, seriously questioning that conclusion.

  “That it’s a SerKill?” Thompson asked. Switzerland rolled his eyes at the phrase. They were abbreviating stuff just for the sake of it now. Only this morning, he’d admonished two young officers for referring to a Gun Shot Wound as a GSW. They’d protested, saying it was shorter, until he pointed out that GSW had more syllables and so took longer to say. They blinked blankly at him. He got that a lot.

  “Yes, Sergeant. A serial killer.”

  “Well, we have six celebs. All died in mysterious ci
rcumstances, and all within a week of each other. And no clear suspect. Also, all were killed using means that required some technical ability, whether drugs, explosives or DVD production.”

  “And yet none knew each other, and all were in different parts of the country,” the DCI commented.

  “Better safe than sorry, sir.”

  Switzerland didn’t say it, but he thought the sergeant was probably right.

  “We recovered some CCTV footage from near the studio where Corky was abducted. Sadly, the nearest cameras weren’t working, so we’re looking through the footage of the nearest streets, building up a database of car index numbers, running them through the PNC. We might get lucky.”

  Switzerland nodded. Luck was a much more important ingredient in the policeman’s arsenal than many realised.

  “The cameras nearest the studio weren’t working?”

  “No sir, one camera, owned by the company next door overlooked the actual alley, but that went down last night. Pity that. The other one is a traffic camera covering the street the alley leads onto.”

  “When did it go down?” Switzerland asked. Thompson checked his notes.

  “Yesterday evening too. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Thompson said.

  Switzerland got up, put on his coat and headed for the door.

  “Coincidence my arse. Let’s get a look at the last thing those cameras saw before they went out,” he said, barrelling out the door of his office.

  Thompson grimaced as he heard his DCI swear after falling over a bin.

  • • •