by Mark Leigh
‘I know all about it!’, exclaimed Benjamin, with more than a trace of annoyance in his voice. ‘And I know a lot more, too’.
Dick gulped as Benjamin continued.
‘I’ve used my connections and I’ve been digging. Believe me, I’ve dug deep, really deep. Subterranean almost. You know what’s really odd? Despite what you told me, I can’t find any trace of you having a relative in the Party. None whatsoever’. Benjamin’s voice was now raised. ‘I thought if you’ve lied about this, what else have you lied about? The annoying thing is that your personal record checks out. It even confirms you were hospitalised last week. But I’m certain you are not who or what you seem and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it’.
Dick shrugged his shoulders and after wincing again from the sharp pain that shot up his back, immediately wished he hadn’t.
What Benjamin said next came out sounding like a threat. Not the sort of threat like ‘Unless you give me the map to the hidden treasure I will introduce you to Mister Pliers and his companion Señor Red Hot Poker’, but a more subtle form of intimidation.
‘The Party obviously values your successful solution but I know something they will value even more’.
What Benjamin said next filled Dick with dread.
‘The unmasking of an impostor in their midst’. Benjamin leant close to Dick and narrowed his eyes. ‘Need I say more?’
Dick knew Benjamin didn’t need to. He’d said enough. More than enough in fact. On a scale of one to ten, if ‘enough’ was five, then Benjamin had said thirty-two. Dick was very worried. There was no knowing how high in the Party Benjamin’s connections were or even what resources he had at his own disposal. Working alongside an annoying prick of a work colleague was one thing; he could tolerate that. Working alongside an annoying, jealous, interfering, suspicious, distrustful prick with access to his records, who was determined to reveal Dick’s real identity was another.
Benjamin doffed his hat and began to walk out. Pausing in the doorway, he turned to face Dick, ‘Have a good evening Jeremy’. He turned back round and walked out. Without breaking his stride Benjamin nonchalantly added, ‘If that is, in fact, your real name… ‘.
And with that, he was gone.
- - o O o - -
The next day, things had returned to normal. Well, as normal as they could be, considering that your co-worker had threatened to reveal your most deeply kept secret which would inevitably result in cruel and unusual punishments and your eventual death. Benjamin never referred to this recent conversation and went about his business as usual. He met in private with Vera once more; Dick hoped this was part of Benjamin’s new campaign to persuade her of his abilities and not part of his campaign to unmask him. Or maybe it was both — that way he would be extremely well-positioned to assume a senior role. Dick tried to immerse himself again in the various National Hat Week tasks but found it very hard to concentrate. After working on Project Gladstone he found the whole hat project as unstimulating as a hotel pay-per-view ‘adult’ movie channel. While Dick pushed paper around his desk, Jack was being fine-tuned and undergoing last-minute checks from the technicians. There was nothing more for Dick to do.
He felt a bit resentful that all progress on the project was being communicated directly to Vera, and that, for the time being, he was well and truly out of the loop. He was slightly aggrieved that no one from the Party had thanked him directly, but wasn’t sure if his expectations had been too high. Dick appreciated that his previous thoughts of a ticker-tape parade were unrealistic but still hoped his achievements would be sufficient enough to bring him to the attention of the Party hierarchy. Of course, this assumed that his solution to Project Gladstone would be a total success. What would happen if Jack too, went rogue? Or worse. What if he caught fire, or his head exploded or he started attacking real flesh and blood women like his infamous namesake? This was all completely out of Dick’s control and this made him frustrated in addition to resentful. Even with his limited knowledge of the Party, Dick knew that a consequence of Jack failing would be his own falling out of favour. Because of this alone, Jack had to work. This was his one shot to infiltrate the Party; to use one of the taglines Dick had devised in his previous career for a RomCom about dental technicians, ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression’.
While Dick continued to worry about Jack’s mission, a great drama was unfolding in the entrance lobby at the Ministry of Information which, if Dick had known about it, would have caused him even greater anxiety. Stationed there were a team of two security guards, one of whom was Frank, a pock-marked, unattractive, heavy-set man who suffered from a birth defect; an extra Stupid chromosome. While pleasant enough, or as pleasant as anyone working in a security role can be, Frank was particularly dim. He’d been hired for his bulk not for his brain on the basis that a criminal element would probably try and force their way past him, rather than force him to enter into a discussion about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and existential despair. Frank was the type of security guard, who, if finding a fountain pen on the floor would pick it up, look at it and think, ‘Hmmm. A fountain pen’, and put it into the lost property container that was kept behind the reception desk.
Unfortunately for Dick, it wasn’t Frank who found the fountain pen, it was his cynical colleague Charles. Charles was a weasely-looking man, as thin as he was suspicious. Charles never accepted anything at face value. If he saw something that looked like a duck and quacked like a duck, he would automatically assume that it was a goose in disguise. And so it was with the fountain pen. That’s not to say he thought the pen was a goose in disguise (that would have just been ridiculous), but he assumed it was something else. Of course, he was right. Charles saw the pen lying on the floor next to a stone column on the far side of the reception. He walked over, picked it up and examined it in detail. It was a nice fountain pen. The barrel was polished tortoiseshell. It was finely balanced with a gold-plated nib and clasp. He unscrewed the nib assembly, looked inside, frowned, peered more intently at it, frowned some more, then disappeared into the security office.
Later that day Dick was still worrying about Jack going wrong when he heard the officious announcement over the tannoy asking if anyone had lost a fountain pen. Dick thought it was odd to make an announcement about such a petty issue but assumed that’s what usually happened. Maybe the Ministry of Information was a caring, sharing sort of organisation that was always trying to reunite its staff with mislaid items. Then he panicked and felt his inside jacket pocket. Had he lost his pen? The pen with the homing device given to him by Taylor? Worry turned to fear then turned to calm. Dick breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the familiar pen-like bulge.
Elsewhere in the office his male colleagues were also checking pockets, desk pen holders or briefcases, shrugging their shoulders and continuing with their work. Dick relaxed and reverted to typing letters to members of the Beret Makers Guild. If the only thing Dick had to do was type this correspondence, he would have been fine. Well, not fine, he would have still been in an unbelievable amount of trouble — it’s just that it would have been a while longer before he was aware of it. It was when he came to sign the letters that Dick was alerted to the pending danger. Reaching into his jacket pocket again Dick pulled out his fountain pen and unscrewed the cap. This wasn’t as straightforward as he imagined because cigars don’t have caps. That was the point at which Dick remembered he’d bought a cigar the day before, tucking it in his jacket pocket for safe-keeping. What he didn’t remember was losing the fountain pen he usually kept there. That fountain pen.
Of course, there was a chance that whoever had found the pen hadn’t attempted to examine it in detail. The electronics had been well concealed to avoid detection by anyone other than the most determined, curious and meddlesome person. It worked exactly as a real fountain pen so there was no reason to expect it would be anything else. Unless you were Charles the security guard. Dick gulped and assessed his next course of action. This was easy
. The first thing he had to do was to find another pen to sign his letters. The second was to keep very, very, very quiet about his loss.
CHAPTER 18
Dick was in the library later that day when Vera again accosted him. In recent days their relationship had changed. This hadn’t been, to his huge relief, in any sexual predatory way, but in how she treated him. Vera was still the boss but he had gone from being just an employee to being an employee slash confidante. Dick liked this new dynamic as it gave him small but valuable insights into the Party, but he was also conscious of the fact that the small whispered conversations in the office or corridors infuriated Benjamin. Not that Benjamin ever mentioned this, but Dick could see it in his face.
Benjamin was one of those people who obviously found it hard to conceal their emotions. Whenever he saw Dick and Vera talking, he looked like a man who’d seen Dick naked in a locker room; an expression of equal parts astonishment, jealously and anger. Before recent events, Dick had taken great satisfaction in riling Benjamin but given Benjamin’s threat to unmask him, he was now keen not to provoke him. Which is why he was glad Vera was sharing her confidences here in private.
‘Be on your guard’, she whispered in her low-but-definitely-not-sexy voice. ‘There is an infiltrator among us!’.
Dick dropped the book he was holding. It was quite a large book and the noise made a few library users look in his direction and frown, and a few others make a ‘shushing’ sound. This ‘shushing’ sound made a few other users turn and tut. The tutting in turn, caused others to glare and whisper ‘Be quiet!’, though not as quietly as some would have liked. After the shushing, tutting and ‘be quiet!’s had died down, Dick picked up his book and Vera continued.
‘You know that pen that was reported lost?’, she asked. Dick nodded.
‘Well it wasn’t just an ordinary fountain pen!’
‘I know’, Dick said, immediately wishing he hadn’t.
‘What do you mean?’, Vera enquired.
Dick responded with as much sincerity as he could muster, which to be frank, wasn’t that much at all. ‘Well, I, er, well that’s to say, I erm thought that no one would make an announcement about a lost pen unless there was something unusual about it’.
Vera nodded. ‘That’s very astute of you. Good thinking, Mr. Brunel’. Continuing in her low voice Vera added, ‘I’ve just heard that it was packed full of electronics and probably some sort of signalling device. There’s a very high likelihood that it belongs to a member of the resistance movement, someone who could well be working among us in this very building!’
Dick meant to say ‘No!’ with the appropriate degree of disbelief and innocent surprise but he was so worried by what Vera had just revealed that he said ‘Noooooooooo!’ quite loudly, the way you’d say it in slow motion in the movies as you threw yourself across a room trying to catch a fragile object as it plummets towards the floor. This time everyone in the library began shushing, tutting and yelling ‘be quiet!’ so Vera and Dick had to leave. In the elevator going back down to the office Vera told him that the Party were treating this issue with the utmost seriousness. This was a Code 2B alert; everyone in the building was considered a suspect.
‘Everyone? Even you?’, Dick asked, mopping his brow which had begun to perspire.
‘Yes. Even me. And even you!’.
Dick looked shocked and worried — mainly because he was.
Vera continued. ‘I know it’s preposterous to think that either of us are implicated in some way but nothing like this has ever happened before. The Party are extremely concerned at this breach in security. Frankly it’s beyond belief that it could have even happened’.
‘How will they find out who the pen belongs too?’ Dick asked, perspiring a little bit more.
‘Well, that’s the problem’, Vera explained. ‘They’ve already carried out stage one, a forensic examination. The pen was handled extensively by a security guard so it can’t be checked for fingerprints. It also looks like it had never been used and that means no one would have ink residue on their skin’.
‘So trying to trace the owner is going to be pretty much impossible?’, asked Dick optimistically.
‘Impossible? The Party doesn’t recognise the word ‘impossible’. They’ll just implement stage two of the investigation’.
The elevator stopped with a slight jolt and the door opened.
‘Stage two?’, Dick asked.
‘Yes’, Vera added. ‘Interrogating every single person in the building’.
Dick let out a slight fart but the sound of the elevator door closing with a dull ‘clang’ masked it.
‘Don’t be concerned’, Vera added cheerily as she strode towards the office. The interrogation will be but a minor inconvenience for people like us. You’ll have nothing to worry about’.
As they entered the office Vera turned to Dick and smiled, the smile of someone who has absolutely nothing to worry about. Dick returned the smile with slightly less confidence.
- - o O o - -
The next meeting at the Resistance headquarters had been well-timed. Or badly-timed, given the circumstances. It had been pre-arranged for a while and Dick had been collected by Edward that evening after work.
Dick sat in the middle of the lounge, the centre of attention. He leaned back in a comfortable chair, debriefing his colleagues on Project Gladstone and Benjamin’s recent veiled threats against him. Dick gave a full account of Jack from the initial acceptance of his proposal, the successful demonstration and the impending start of his mission. Taylor and Humphrey listened extra intently while Dick recounted his time at the Scientific Research Centre in case it gave any clues to the so-called secret weapon. As Dick spoke he could see his audience hanging on his every word. He was respected. Even revered. Grace, who was sitting at the back, even winked and pouted at him. Everything was going so well until he finished reporting on Jack and mentioned, almost in passing, the mislaid pen. Taylor frowned slightly and suggested that he and Dick retire to a private room to continue their discussion. Once behind closed doors Taylor’s demeanour changed and that’s when Dick understood the meaning of the word ‘apoplectic’.
‘You lost it! You lost it! What do you mean you bloody lost it?! How could you be so damn stupid? This can compromise the mission and us! You’re a bloody idiot, Dick! A bloody idiot pure and simple! How difficult is it not to lose a pen? All of our members have similar signalling devices and not one of them has lost them, nor even misplaced them for a short while! I’ve never met someone so utterly careless, cavalier or irresponsible!’
Dick had never seen Taylor angry like this. He wasn’t so much like a bear with a sore head as a bear with a sore head who’d accidentally caught his testicles in a rusty bear trap. Even though Taylor was enraged, his temper was tempered by the fact that in this polite New Victorian society strong expletives were limited to ‘damn, ‘ bloody’, ‘hell’, ‘hellfire’, ‘bastard’, ‘piss’ and ‘bugger’. That’s the reason Taylor didn’t call Dick a ‘motherfucking cocksucker’ even though he rightfully deserved this description.
Taylor continued ranting and every time Dick tried to apologise, he was just shouted down. After what seemed like ages (and in fact it was), Dick became aware of the refreshing sound of silence. Taylor had stopped shouting and was now staring at him, the stare you give an idiot or a young child while waiting for them to answer you.
‘Calm down’, Dick said, not very helpfully. Then, even more unhelpfully he added, ‘No one’s died’.
‘No, but you might, if the bloody pen is traced back to you!’, Taylor exclaimed. ‘And we’re all in jeopardy if the security checks make any sort of connection between us!’.
‘It’s not as if I had my initials monogrammed on to it, is it?’ Dick replied with a degree of sarcasm. ‘Or it carried a sticker that says, ‘If found please return to Jeremy Brunel’. How on earth will they know it’s mine?’
‘By interrogation, that’s how’, Taylor shouted.
; ‘Oh yes…’ Dick said quietly, remembering what Vera had told him.
After several long breaths and a slow count to twenty, Taylor was much calmer. The threat from Benjamin was serious enough but now the whole pen issue threatened to expose Dick and wipe out all of his successes to date. Now the prime short-term objective was to ensure Dick avoided detection in the interrogation which, Taylor told him, might involve a libido test in addition to being hooked up to a lie detector.
‘Why a libido test?’ asked Dick.
‘It’s the easiest test to do’, Taylor explained. ‘Show the suspect various erotic images and check changes in their blood pressure and body temperature. The monthly injections would normally suppress the body’s natural reactions’.
‘So reacting in a certain way means you’re avoiding the injections, and that indicates to the Party that you’re subversive?’, asked Dick.
‘Not necessarily’, explained Taylor. ‘It could mean you’re avoiding the injections or it could just indicate that the chemicals aren’t working. Either way though, it means there is cause for concern and a cue to investigate further’.
‘Can you help me pass these tests?’, asked Dick nervously.
‘I can’t give you a cast iron guarantee that you’ll pass’, said Taylor, ‘But we have methods that can greatly improve your chances’.
Taylor left the room but returned a short time later with a small fabric bag. From this he removed some yellow and red pills, a syringe and a bottle of colourless liquid. As Dick saw the syringe carefully being filled he rolled up his shirt sleeve and tensed his forearm. After dabbing a vein with an antiseptic sponge, Taylor gave Dick an injection.
‘That will help to negate any truth serum’, Taylor said, withdrawing the needle and placing a small sticking plaster over the puncture wound. ‘Take the two yellow pills tonight and the two red ones just before the test. They are very fast acting and work in conjunction with the injection’.