‘Very good choice, sir’. Carter replied, placing the bag at his feet and wondering how on earth he’d manage to persuade a young and impressionable new member of the Party’s administration staff to meet with the Leader that evening dressed as a milkmaid.
Seated at his desk again, the clothes concealed once more behind the panelling, the Leader flicked though the folder.
‘Vera’s found herself a good protege in this Mr. Brunel. I liked his plan for Jack but the follow-up is even more ingenious — capitalising on all the murders. The public have an insatiable appetite for scandal and gossip and seeding these stories in the media will spread the word like wildfire. The rogue mechanical harlots will soon be destroyed and over-sexed women and men will be too frightened to consider becoming prostitutes or indeed, visiting them. All in all, a terrifically good result, wouldn’t you agree?’
Carter nodded. ‘I would, sir. This Mr. Brunel seems to be quite skilled. It is fortunate that he has come to our attention’.
‘It is indeed’. The Leader put the folder down. This time he frowned. ‘He has demonstrated that he thinks very differently to his colleagues’.
Carter, who had been pondering whether Miss Havering would believe the ‘You’ve been enrolled on a farmyard familiarisation course’ story, was slightly taken aback by the Leader’s tone. ‘Thinking differently?’, Carter asked. ‘Well that’s commendable, isn’t it sir?’.
The Leader stood and looked out of his wide office window high up in the Party headquarters, lord over all he surveyed. He looked down at all the citizens going about their daily routine, a happy, content, but most importantly, controlled, population.
‘I’m not sure. Mr. Brunel worries me slightly. He’s conscientious, efficient and highly intelligent, all attributes the Party can exploit. Despite this, he makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. Something about him keeps irritating me. He’s like a tiny pebble in my shoe’.
The Leader closed his eyes and clenched his fists by his sides. He took a deep breath and shuddered.
‘I can feel… I can feel… a disturbance in the Fabric’.
Carter looked confused. ‘Does sir mean the curtains?’
The Leader sighed. He opened his eyes, sighed again, and turned to face Carter. ‘No. I mean the ‘Fabric’’.
‘As in cushion covers?’, added Carter.
‘No!’, exclaimed the Leader with more than a trace of annoyance in his voice. When I say ‘Fabric’ I mean the fabric of society. I mean I feel a disturbance in the energy that binds everything together in the universe and controls how it all works’.
Carter nodded and asked, ‘You mean like ‘a Force’. Like a ‘disturbance in ‘The Force’?’
The Leader’s eyes instantly widened.
‘Shhhhhhhhhhhh!’, he exclaimed. ‘Don’t use that word!’
‘“Force?”’, asked a confused Carter.
‘I said “don’t say it!”’ This time the Leader shouted.
‘It’s just that I think that talking about a disturbance in the Force is better than talking about a disturbance in the Fabric’, Carter added, quite reasonably. ‘A disturbance in the Fabric could be misconstrued as a flaw in the weave or defective stitching’.
The Leader hit the window hard with his fist before speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I know… but we have to use a different word to…’ He looked conspiratorially from side to side before whispering, ‘Force’.
‘Like “Fabric?”’, Carter proposed.
‘Yes, like “Fabric”’, the Leader agreed, his patience fast wearing out, ‘Because there are certain important legal issues involved, all right!?’.
The Leader had a way with his delivery that made it crystal clear when a matter was closed for discussion. This was one of those instances. Not only was the subject closed, it was boarded up with a sign saying ‘Keep away’ and two more that said ‘Enter at your peril’ and ‘Beware of the dogs’. The Leader continued. ‘Now where was I?’
‘Mr. Brunel and the Fabric, sir’, prompted Carter, with an almost unnoticeable inflection of contempt in his voice when he used the ‘F’ word.
‘Yes, of course’. The Leader said, turning back from the window, ‘I’ve instructed Vera to monitor his progress carefully’.
He studied a photograph of Dick that was fixed to the inside cover of the folder. ‘He is a most interesting fellow who reminds me of someone else though I can’t, for the sake of me, think who it is’.
Before the Leader could think any more about Jeremy Brunel, Carter had pulled a gun from his pocket and pointed it at him. In a flash the Leader almost simultaneously picked up a heavy table lighter from his desk and hurled it at the weapon, while throwing himself into his chair and propelling himself backwards. The lighter struck Carter on the wrist with a sharp ‘crack’. He gave an exclamation of pain and dropped the gun, then in a move that belied his age, hurled himself over the desk straight at the Leader. The chair toppled over, dumping both men unceremoniously on the floor.
Rolling over and over on the thick pile carpet they both fought for supremacy and the chance to inflict serious physical damage on the other. The Leader was younger and more agile but Carter was a larger man and physically stronger. The two men rolled back and forth and would have rolled some more if the Leader’s head hadn’t thumped against the one of the substantial desk legs, causing momentary concussion. Exploiting this moment, Carter used his weight to pin the Leader to the ground, managing to shuffle up his writhing body until he was astride him. Restraining the Leader’s arms with his knees, Carter now had both his own hands free to strangle him and in fact, this was exactly what he did.
All the Leader could do was feel Carter’s thick fingers slowly choke the life force out of him. He stared at his would-be assassin, seeing the hate deep in his eyes. He wondered what his own eyes looked like. Did they express pain or hopelessness? Or were they calm, waiting for the inevitable? No! There was still much work for him to do. Summoning a last ounce of strength, with his final gasp the Leader jerked and twisted his body. He heard his spine protest with a loud and unpleasant ‘Click’, but despite the pain, he managed to free one arm. Carter’s strong hands were still gripped firmly around his neck but with his free arm, the Leader groped blindly around on the desk top. He could feel his windpipe slowly being crushed. Breaths were now laboured and infrequent. Then he felt what he’d been looking for and grasped it as if his life depended on it, which in fact, it did. Half a second later Carter felt the cold, sharp blade of the ornate letter opener pressed hard against his sinewy neck. This was the signal, and the persuasion he needed, to instantly remove his hands. Both men lay there panting; Carter from the exertion and the Leader from the fresh breaths that filled his lungs.
Carter got up and helped the Leader to his feet. ‘You did well, sir’, he said, breathing heavily.
‘And you…’. The Leader was now taking in deep, measured breaths. ‘You’re a good bodyguard and an excellent adversary. Your attacks always keep me on my toes’. He picked Carter’s gun up from the floor.
‘Or in this case, on your back, sir’.
‘Very good, Carter. Very good!’. With that, the Leader punched Carter playfully on his arm.
‘I need to be on guard at all times against assassins. They could be anywhere, even people among us right now. For all I know Carter,
The Leader pointed the gun at Carter’s head. If Carter had been alarmed at this action he didn’t show it, not even when the Leader squinted along the barrel and cocked the gun.
‘Sir, I’m not your assassin. You have my word on that as a gentleman’.
The Leader smiled, then un-cocked the weapon and handed it to Carter, handle first. Carter took it and placed it back within his jacket.
‘I know Carter, I trust you. I’m always glad to have you by my side particularly when there’s a disturbance in the Fabric’.
‘Ah yes, sir. The Fabric’. Carter nodded, this time thinking about a linen tablecloth.
Jack’s second victim was a sweet, smiling girl named Harriet. She smiled when she met Jack in bar called the Royal Sovereign on Bethnal Green Road and he offered to buy her a gin. She smiled as they joked and laughed in the corner of the saloon bar, warmed by the flames of a roaring fire and two or three other gins within her. She smiled when he agreed to her proposition and followed her out to the deserted narrow cobbled mews at the back of
