Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  Philian Gregory felt bad about hitting O’Connell with a Taser as he crouched over a toilet bowl, but he didn’t have much choice. To have been caught in the act would have been to lose all that they’d worked for. The combination of vomiting and high-voltage inertia was unexpected. O’Connell slumped against the toilet bowl having breathed his last. Gregory called Carrington, explained the situation and asked for some advice. Carrington had a solution, as always. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do. The illness might be attributed to the cause of death but Taser marks were both recognisable and indelible.

  The two men left the estate in the delivery van, parking up for few hours in a layby. O’Connell would be safe in the bathroom for a little longer. His illness would account for any concerned friends not being able to get him on the phone.

  Carrington insisted on returning to the house alone. Nobody saw him enter and nobody saw him leave. The police confirmed that when they did a door-to-door the next day. And nobody heard the muted movements in the property as the stage was set. Fortunately, and despite his healthy, sporting lifestyle, O’Connell enjoyed the occasional cigarette. To all intent and purpose, the story was evident to the first-attenders. When the flames had been doused, the body that was found was burnt almost beyond recognition. Fire investigators did what they were charged with doing, following a routine that Carrington foresaw perfectly. Cause of death would be the illness and its effect on O’Connell. The fire simply a by-product of his having died with a cigarette on the go and a number of highly flammable aerosols in proximity to the dead man’s final taste of nicotine. Several reasons why smoking really wasn’t good for you.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “You know what confuses me?”, Philian Gregory broke the sleepy silence that the late-night train they were travelling on had induced in both of them.

  “Mate,”, Carrington smiled as he answered, “I know a lot of things that confuse you!”

  “Yeah, okay,”, Gregory replied, “fair point. I’ll rephrase my comment. There’s something odd that’s just struck me about your clock-face and what it tells us.”

  “Go on.”

  “I know you’re into the unknown and the unseen. I can live with that. I don’t get it, but I trust you. And your clock-face makes some sort of sense. Besides which, it’s all we’ve got go by at the moment.”

  “Is there a point here?”, his friend leaned closer and poured them both a shot from the bottle they’d smuggled on board.

  “The police.”, Gregory replied, “Where are the police in this? That’s what I don’t quite get. The computer’s thrown up plenty of names. Your theory is that they span the spectrum of society. And yet, there isn’t a single link there to the police force. Surely, if we’re looking into a group that cuts across all sectors, acts illegally, we think, and which we’re pursuing based on their being a threat, why haven’t they got any links in the police?”

  “Because they haven’t.”, Carrington replied, “Simple as that. Although, you seem to forget that one of the points on the clock-face is the judiciary. We’ve got a few names there. Granted, we’re talking law-makers rather than law-enforcers, but there’s a tangential connection at least.”

  “But no direct one.”

  “No, I’ll grant you that. You or I or anyone else looking at this would expect there to be at least one police officer in the mix. There isn’t. But isn’t that the point?”

  Philian Gregory chose not to reply. Carrington wasn’t giving him any answers but he knew his friend well enough by now to know that those answers would come in the end.

  “The point of the clock-face and the names we’re pursuing is that it isn’t supposed to make sense to us. If we could see the links and the connections, then we wouldn’t need the computer to help us. I know it’s all counter-intuitive, but it’s as it is. We’re the servants here. We hit a brick wall when we pursued our own biased agenda, as much because we were trying to fit things into something we could understand. Two minds, each with different backgrounds and life experiences, are bound to be limited in their insight. We’ve deferred to the computer and we have to accept that it can see things we can’t see. It’s impartial, unprejudiced, independent. And, above all, it is infinitely more knowledgeable than us. We need patterns. It is looking at a pattern that isn’t a pattern. You want to go back to more traditional ways?”

  “No,”, Gregory sighed as he replied, “I get what you’re saying. In a country of sixty-plus million, the handful of names that we have aren’t going to hit every occupation I suppose. It just struck me as odd. That’s all”

  “Odd! It struck you as odd? Man, do you not think that the past years we’ve spent with each other ain’t been a little bit odd in themselves? And, when this thing comes to a head, I think the oddness you’re seeing here will begin to seem incredibly sane. You just have to go with it.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Having said that though, you have made me think about one aspect of the clock-face. I’ll link in to another database when we get back onto the boat. I’ll double check the police side, but I want to pursue something linked to that. There’s something missing in the judiciary sector. Not just a lack of police. There’s a lack of prisoners there. You want to think about the law enforcers, then you have to consider the law breakers. We should check that all out. Now, let’s have another snifter and try and get some sleep.”

  The suggestion was met without argument by Philian Gregory. Opportunities to sleep had been many over the past few weeks, but sleep itself had been difficult to conjure up with so many people to pursue. Sucking the brains out of their target’s computers had provided bursts of activity, but the majority of their time had been spent travelling and planning their actions. It had been a period when they had said a lot and sat in silence together for long periods; shared a lot of doubts and fears and as many words of encouragement. And it had been the first period in their relationship when he had truly begun to understand Nathan Carrington in a deeper way. He had a strange, fatalistic peace within him that Gregory wished he shared. Perhaps it was the imminent end-game that he was resigned to, or perhaps it was simply an acceptance that he had done all that could be expected of him and now, whatever happened next would be what it would be. Neither explanation satisfied Gregory. It was more than that. It was, he was reluctant to admit, a power of faith in his friend.

  Nathan Carrington was no tambourine-slapping evangelist. Nor did he live his life in devoted submission to a Higher Power. And yet, he retained a faith in God that many who would claim to be religious would love to have had. The things he did were impossible to reconcile with Christian duty. In fact, were he ever to be brought to book, he’d be up there with all the other tabloid ‘evil monsters’, despite his having more justifiable motivations. None of which seemed to faze him too much. He was comfortable with his actions, saw little in the way of alternatives and was certainly never racked with remorse.

  That faith allowed him the freedom to be led along unplanned pathways. It was a faith that set aside the vanity of man and the pride that defined those who thought they were in control of their lives. It made sense really. Respectable family man and respected teacher, Nathan Carrington, had once thought that the future was comfortable and predictable. Death, prison, vagrancy and murder didn’t figure in his plans. But still, they came along. And the negatives of the past weren’t able to shake that faith. Things were just as they were, bounded by inexplicable borders and stirred by an immutable force that tiny, insignificant man was powerless to oppose. But that force was ultimately Good.

  For his part, Philian Gregory was what you might term a ‘soft-believer’. There was definitely something out there, but just what it was and how it affected your life, he didn’t know. He’d lived a life of steady certainty until meeting Carrington and, despite the highs and lows of that life, he’d never really endured or suffered enough to cry out in desperation. As a City trade
r, he’d run numbers based on his skills and experience, but the wins and the losses were no more than a function of inspiration or flawed human wisdom. God, if He existed, left you very much alone. Seeing the spark in Carrington had given him something of a new insight into the spiritual, although he was far from wanting to dive into the nearest baptismal font.

  Much of this insight into the inner-workings of Carrington’s mind had come about as a result of their looking more closely at the New Progressives. They existed out there in the wider world, where everybody was talking about the mass deaths under Reforgin and the forces that had delivered them. Sport and sexual gossip and fashion and finance continued to fill the papers and the television screens. Jobs were done, fortunes gained and lost, and families were variously drawn together or torn apart. It was how it had always been and how it always would be.

  Society worked. It had its flaws and it had its challenges but it somehow managed to stay in one piece and offer everyone a place. Millions of individuals found their niche and slotted into a wider whole. In their roles, Gregory and Carrington were separated from that society. It was both a necessary function of what they did, and a comfortable lifestyle choice that helped them enjoy the benefits of solitude. But the New Progressives seemed to gnaw at their consciences. Something about them seemed linked to what they were doing. How and why, they couldn’t say. And because they talked about this strange affiliation of like-minded individuals, the more they broached the subject of faith.

  “Look at this,”, Carrington had thrust the paper under Gregory’s nose as their train had pulled out of Liverpool Lime Street a week ago, “And tell me what you make of it.”

  It was a full-page advert that had been placed by the New Progressives in response to the comments made by the Prime Minister. It detailed who they were, what they believed in and why they felt they had a valid voice for Britain in the current era. They also categorically and completely denied any links to terrorism. The Prime Minister was deluded in his understanding. They weren’t interested in taking legal action against him for defamation nor in engaging in the usual tit-for-tat responses. They just wanted people to know who they were and for those people to make their own minds up.

  “Sound like a bunch of cranks to me.”, Gregory said after finishing the article.

  “Why?”, Carrington challenged him.

  “Because they’re denying the basics of humanity. Look, euthanasia, the death penalty, abolition of huge swathes of benefits. It’s a hundred steps backwards. And, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Your wrong.”, Carrington replied, “It makes a heap of sense. That’s the problem with it. If it weren’t for the invisible barrier of morality that exists in most people, they’d be mainstream by now. But if that barrier erodes, then we’re looking at something potentially huge here.”

  “No way.”

  “Believe it. Look, here’s the premise they build everything on. The death of God. Atheism’s in its heyday just now, but nobody has the guts to take the next logical step. These guys are doing just that. Without God, we become nothing more than animals. There’s no end-of-life Judgement, no Higher Law. It all becomes a logical drive for the survival of the fittest. They may not say it in those terms, but it’s what they’re all about.”

  “And the threat they deny?”

  “Is absolutely truthful from their point of view. They’re confident enough that the tide will turn in their favour. It’s just a matter of time and of allowing the false barriers of human morality and perceived immorality to drop. Their agenda is a new one, one that nurtures amorality. That’s why the PM is painting them as something they’re not. He wants to kill them off before they can grow any more. But it seems to be having the opposite effect.”

  They’d continued their conversation throughout that journey, using the free Wi-Fi on board the train to look for any connections to their work and the New Progressives, but finding none. They both agreed. Despite their being no direct link to what they were doing and this political movement, they each felt that it was a factor in their work.

  As he finally succumbed to sleep, Philian Gregory opened an eye and looked at his friend. In the midst of the storm, his face was a picture of peace and he slept comfortably. It was the sort of inner peace that the man who watched him wanted so badly but which he felt that he had moved a little closer to over the last fourteen days. Tomorrow would be something very different. It was the day that they returned to the boat and fed the computer the data that remained a mystery to them still. It was also the day that they were scheduled to catch up with Bob Dexter again and for the three to prepare for the next stage of their project. Not all of which would happen as they had planned it to be.

  The computer side of things went as they expected. As Philian Gregory pottered around the boat, tidying up and dusting away cobwebs, Nathan Carrington loaded the data that they had stolen into the laptop and let the programme do its work. He remembered the conversation of the night before and, whilst the computer sucked in all the files it was being fed, he sought out the relevant sites that he needed and hacked into their databases. The information that came in from those sources, coupled with the additional data they’d retrieved, would keep the laptop busy for a while. It might lead them several steps closer to their goal, or it might force them to change direction completely. It might even blow their theories out of the water and force them to concede that they had been defeated.

  Having been moored in a discrete, family-run marina in the Midlands, the boat had been left untouched and was ready to cruise away when they were ready. Having a shore-line to provide mains electricity was a major boon at this stage in their project. For which reason, they decided to stay where they were for a while longer. Having a fixed address also meant that they could receive post. They weren’t expecting any. It was only when the owner of the marina dropped by in the early evening with a small parcel that they realised they could be contacted. They eyed the package with suspicion but those suspicions were allayed when they opened it and found a number of memory sticks and a short note from Dexter: ‘Guys, making progress with Club. Aim to be with you next week. Meanwhile, some files for you. B’

  It wasn’t essential that he be with them and they trusted him well enough to know that he would be using his time well. They added the data to that being uploaded and left the computer to its own devices as they settled back into life on board.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  In the spare bedroom of a modest flat in Bayswater, something unusual was happening. Something that those who had set the process in motion were still trying to get to grips with. What had started out as a series of exploratory comments on social media had swiftly gained momentum and become a movement with enough power for change that even the Prime Minister had expressed his concerns.

  Charlie Thwaite was alternately confused and angered by Martin Roper’s reference to The New Progressives. Talk of threats and dangers was unfounded, in his eyes, and it had been frustrating that they had had to respond with expensive press advertising. Not that funds were short. His contributions alone were sufficient to keep the movement afloat. No, it was the having to make a defence that annoyed him. Other groups hadn’t been highlighted and they were certainly more blatant in their calls for change. If it continued like this, perhaps it would be best to disband the whole thing. After all, it was never a grand crusade in the first place.

  Just a year shy of his fortieth birthday, Charlie Thwaite had retired from a high-profile media career with enough money in the bank to explore whatever avenues took his fancy and with enough public credibility to be heard when he wanted to say something. Since leaving university and joining the news team of a start-up satellite channel, he’d progressed from covering the sports desk to becoming the standalone presenter of the nation’s highest rated sports and general knowledge game show. It had all been great fun and extremely lucrative. But it wasn’t what he’d wanted to do. In his
mind, he had always been a writer. The great novel within him awaited its birth and, although he had opportunities to influence scripts and stories in his broadcasting role, that had never been enough.

  The process of actually writing that novel had been harder than he’d expected. In fact, it still sat stalled in its early chapters phase. He sort-of knew who the main characters were and he sort of knew the gist of the plot, but they remained cloudy in his mind and, rather than just getting his head down and throwing words onto paper, he preferred to spend his time building the book in his mind. Inevitably, that led to days, weeks and months of procrastination, all of which were underlined by distractions.

  The solitary life that he had craved after the madness of celebrity was a pleasant change to start with. It hadn’t been long until it had become a little lonely though. For that reason, Charlie Thwaite began to post on the web. All he wanted to do was to reach out to other people and share some thoughts and ideas. Those who read his missives had other ideas. Without seeking to, he inadvertently touched on the fault-line of anxiety that rumbled below the surface of modern Britain. That fault-line ran most directly through the so-called Generation Z, although he never liked to use that term himself. To him, they were ‘the hobbled generation’, ‘the repressed generation’ or ‘the disrespected generation’. They were the generation who had followed those who’d enjoyed all the benefits of the post-war settlement and they were the generation that found themselves having to pay to maintain the benefits that their predecessors refused to give up.