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 Senor 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.
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
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
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.
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
