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, you could be my assassin!’
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 the bar. She stopped smiling however when Jack plunged his long sharp knife into her abdomen several times in quick succession.
Harriet’s body was found later that evening by two well-to-do gentlemen using the mews as a short cut to Dunbridge Street. Like Elizabeth, Jack had made sure her body was found in what the police would officially call a ‘distressed state’. The tabloid newspapers, fed by ‘anonymous but reliable Party sources’ (AKA Dick) didn’t exercise restraint in their descriptions of the body. The papers’ owners had seen circulations rise after the first crime was committed which is why they took it in their own hands to elaborate on this latest murder to make it even more sensational. Depending on which report you read Harriet’s body had been found with her liver, spleen and kidneys removed and arranged in a neat pile on her chest (or as neatly as you could pile various bodily organs), her pancreas, small intestines and appendix tucked in her jacket pockets, or her nose and heart shoved up her rectum. Or all of the above.
It didn’t really matter which version of events was most widely believed. What was important was that in a very short space of time two harlots had been murdered and mutilated by an anonymous killer. Prostitution was scandalous enough in this puritanical society, but prostitution linked to what seemed like a mentally deranged serial killer ensured the bloody attacks became the talk of the town and the country. Ordinarily, if the prostitutes were real flesh and blood women they’d be absolutely terrified and would stay off the streets until the killings stopped but these man-made women didn’t operate with real logic or emotions. Their programming meant their prime directive was to entice men into having sex with them at any cost. That’s why deaths three, four and five followed later that week. And six and seven the week later.
By this time the deaths were making prime time television news. Dick had drip-fed various reports into the media to promote pro-Party messages. Rumours were rife that the vicious killer was a member of the Resistance, that he was someone who had avoided his monthly injections, a foreigner, a philanderer, an atheist, or a chronic masturbator. Once these stories had been planted speculation spread like wildfire, fanned by the winds of public interest and a circulation frenzy
‘Serial Slasher Slays and Slices Seventh!’ screamed the most recent front page headline. The Leader smiled, placed the paper down on his desk and leaned back in his chair. He’d been reviewing Jack’s progress on a regular basis via Vera’s reports and decided to commend Mr. Brunel on his good work once all the prostitutes had been terminated. He thought that as long as he could manage his unbelievably hectic workload he would try and meet Jeremy in person. As he contemplated this, the Leader shivered and looked around his office. He had that niggling feeling again and his foot was irritating him. If he didn’t know better he would have sworn there was a small pebble in the toe of his shoe.
CHAPTER 22
It was Susan who next intercepted Dick on his way home one evening and, after the usual blindfolding procedure, took him to the resistance headquarters. Dick was a little frustrated that the location still had to be kept a secret from him but Susan explained that it had been two years before she had been trusted enough to be told.
‘So Taylor doesn’t trust me?’, Dick asked over the hum of the hovercar.
‘Of course he does’, said Susan. ‘He has every confidence in you’.
‘Did he have every confidence in Benjamin too?’, Dick asked.
‘That colleague of yours at the Ministry?’
‘Yes’. Dick replied. ‘My colleague who, it turns out, was also in the Resistance. You must know him. In his mid-thirties. About five eight. Slightly built. Dark hair’.
‘Do you know the name he used in the Resistance?’
‘No’, Dick admitted.
‘Well I can’t help you. His description is too general. And besides, even if I can’t identify him by his appearance, I would know something as important as us having another member working alongside you at the Ministry’. Susan thought again about Benjamin and shook her head. ‘You’re wrong about him being in the Resistance’, she said. ‘Definitely wrong’.
Dick was confused and wondered how Taylor had even managed to conceal Benjamin’s identity and role from even his closest colleagues.
‘As far as I know’, Susan continued. ‘You’re the only man we’ve got on the inside’.