Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  “I can’t leave you.”, he said quietly, “And I don’t agree. Yes, there needs to be an end to whatever’s happening, but if it’s for you to let them take you, then that’s not a just end.”

  “Just?”, Carrington turned to stare at Philian, “You think anything is just? You think that Patty’s suffering was just? You think that her mother lying down on the railway track and being bisected was just? You think the people behind all this, carrying on their lives of plenty is just? And you think that three men free to enjoy their remaining years is just? You have so much to learn.”

  “Then teach me.”

  “Teach you? Teach you what? Teach you to accept the slings and arrows that you can’t oppose. Teach you how to die but stay alive? Teach you to beg, to steal, to degrade yourself to get food and your next drink? Teach you to disappear?”

  “Yes. If needs be.”

  “Which one?”

  “Let’s start with the disappearing.”, Philian said, “And let’s start the lesson now. I can’t just let you give yourself up. By rights, I should. I can’t tell you why I feel like this, it’s not like me at all, but it’s the way it is. We’re in this together now. You think I can just up and leave and go back to my old life? You think they’ll wave a gun at me and then just let me go? It’s not just about you anymore. I’ve been drawn into it. And I’m not letting you go. So, shall we do that disappearing act?”

  Carrington placed a hand on the gravestone and whispered one last prayer. Philian left him to his thoughts but waited only a short distance away. He heard the whispered ‘Amen’, and turned to see the grieving father walk towards him. They said nothing as they walked through the graveyard, each of them looking up at the ancient spire of the small parish church and each choosing to offer their own prayers for some sort of direction.

  Once they were back amongst the mainstream hurly-burly of the hectic suburb that was coming to rush-hour life, they spoke again. Carrington was resigned to there being another act in this long-running drama and was secretly quite glad that he wasn’t facing it alone. Not that he believed for one second that Philian would stick it out. He was reckoning on a week at tops. He’d been out on the streets, anonymous and hidden for over a decade, and it didn’t get any easier. In a nation of such abundance, he had long since stopped worrying about the basics of life. They were there to be gleaned. All one had to do was overcome those few moral barriers that seemed to create a web of order to the world, and then you could dip in. The biggest hardship had been the isolation. The university he’d had tenure at had been a rambling, thriving, bustling seat of learning. Every day in its cloistered detachment had been filled with human interactions, some consisting of moments that were truly life-changing, most, no more than vignettes of courtesy, comedy or convention.

  “You got a phone?”, Carrington asked.

  Philian nodded.

  “Rule one, then, switch it off. Switch it off and remove the battery and the sim. Ideally, bin it all, but maybe not now.”

  He watched as Philian complied.

  “Rule two,”, Carrington continued, “is that everything leaves a footprint. And I mean everything. Forget CCTV. That’s surveillance 101. If they’re going to catch you, it will be because you’ve dipped a hand into the world. What do you propose to do about money?”

  Philian explained and his companion agreed that it was doable. They changed direction slightly and walked to where they could grab a taxi.

  “You should get away with it.”, Nathan told Philian as he eyed him up, “You still look the part and it’s unlikely that the powers that be will have had a chance to intervene yet. But this is the last time. Believe me, all that plastic in your wallet, it may promise a hefty line of credit but the minute you use one, they’ll know where you are. I’ll set up a diversion. Pass them off to someone else. That way, it buys us time as they chase down shadows. After that, we’re on our own.”

  All Philian wanted to do at this stage was complete the urgent action that he had pre-prepared and then find somewhere where he could get his thoughts together. His hands were shaking as he completed the forms in the bank. His voice threatened the same shakiness, but he knew his only chance of success was to put on a confident front. This wasn’t stealing. The money was his, after all. Even so, it took a lot of nerve to answer the suspicious questions that he was bombarded with, the most important one being, the reason for the withdrawal.

  “As I said on my e-mail,”, he told the senior clerk who was grilling him, “I want to buy a boat. The one I’ve found is a bargain, but the guy will only take cash. Hence my being here. She’s a beauty. I don’t want to lose her.”

  Fortunately, when the type of boat was discussed, the clerk had a certain prior knowledge. His parents had recently bought a boat to cruise the canals so he knew a little of that world. Once they’d found this interest in common, things went along smoothly and Philian left the bank just before noon clutching a tightly packed envelope.

  “Okay?”, Nathan asked as they met in a fast-food joint.

  “All fine,”, Philian replied, “but I’m glad it was a one-off. I felt guilty even though it was my money. Bizarre really.”

  They ate a couple of burgers each, drank cup after cup of coffee and left the restaurant an hour later. Lunchtime crowds filled the pavements.

  “Shouldn’t we be hiding a little?”, Philian asked.

  “We are.”, Nathan explained, “The best place to hide is in a crowd. If we were Britain’s Most Wanted, it would be different. As it is, the public aren’t on the alert for us. The few people looking for us will be checking CCTV, but they will almost certainly miss us with crowds around.”

  “Next step,”, he continued, “is to get ourselves as far away from here as possible. You’re the trainee. Give me a plan.”

  Chapter Seven

  The plan that Philian outlined worked well. So well in fact that, whilst Nathan Carrington was congratulating him on his thinking, others were cursing him for wrong-footing them. The month that was the maximum any of the interested parties believed that Philian could last out for had expired and he’d survived. Carrington was managing his drinking a little better and together, they had carved themselves a sanctuary in time from where they could address the future.

  To paraphrase a term in common parlance, life’s fortunes can go up as well as down. Philian Gregory’s were certainly on the descendent side. He was learning to live with that certainty and the prospect of the decline continuing. Simultaneously, like opposing sides to a triangle, the fortunes of the self-styled Three Hombres were rising like never before. With new identities, money to burn and the power of the information they held, they were each enjoying a life far distant from the lonely prison cells that they had recently left behind.

  In one of the many plush meeting rooms of a Crowne Plaza near Heathrow airport, representatives of the third side of that triangle were trying to draw things together. These were the appointed representatives of a group that had once gone under the banner of The Brothers, changing to The Circle as it grew. The original name they’d chosen was apt. Though sharing no actual familial ties, they were all male and closer than any siblings in thought and deed. And they were bound together by a common thread that was as inescapable and as unique as any DNA double helix. The ties that bound them hadn’t loosened much over the decades that had passed since their activities ceased. Some had grown out of their foibles. Some had died. Some had adjusted their preferences to more legitimate means of satisfaction. It had been the death of little Patty Carrington that had sounded the death knell for their shared activities. Not that hers’ was the first death they’d been responsible for. There had been others over the years. It was sometimes an inevitable consequence of the things that they did. It had also served as a practical solution on several occasions. But Patty was different. Her abduction and murder, as far as any of them knew, had been a maverick action by just three men
. The Brothers didn’t work like that. They did things together and they did things that they could all justify. Rejected and abused children were fair game. Those who had already yielded to over-friendly uncles and step-fathers could survive and, if they didn’t, their death or disappearance was little commented on. Patty was pure. Patty was from a respectable family, much like those which The Brothers, in their mainstream life, headed up. And Patty was always going to be too fragile.

  When Sutherland, Wilkins and Roberts had tried to engage the help of their friends by sharing a number of video clips with them, few had taken them up on the offer. Being there was always easier, but it wasn’t the distance from the activity that failed to arouse the other Brothers. It was Patty’s look of confusion. It was the haunting aura around her face as she gave up pleading and instead sank into a nightmare world that was beyond her comprehending. Her suffering had lasted for a week. The Brothers knew that she had switched off after a couple of days. The Three Hombres had only a bag of meat to play with. The few others who were involved had long left the scene. They preferred fresher prey. It was an inevitability that Patty’s retreat into herself would be a total one, as she switched off enough synapses to terminate her own life.

  Patty Carrington’s death wasn’t necessarily in vain. It led to the death of The Brothers as a united group, its transition to the looser affiliation of The Circle and some of its members being caused to think again about what they had become involved in. Her legacy was the gift of fear to those who had caused her suffering. Despite the efforts of all those members who could buy enough influence to divert the official investigation, the child’s father drew nearer and nearer to the truth. To do so, he had endured his own suffering as he’d infiltrated deeper into the world of the paedophile. He’d had to watch impotently as others were used and abused. He’d had to find the strength inside to raise a cheer, or, worse still, an erection. And he’d had to do it all in the knowledge that what these youngsters were going through was exactly what his beloved Patty’s dying days had been filled with.

  When Carrington broke the final seal, drawing the three guilty men out into the open, The Circle knew that the ride was over. He made sure that they saw what he’d done to them before handing them over to the police. That was enough to convince them to make the choice and forfeit the risk of it happening to them. Capture and disgrace were one thing, emasculation without anaesthetic was another. A deal was done. The Three Hombres would take the rap and would be compensated on their release. The group’s activities would end in their current form and this would be seen as further proof that this was the work of a trio and not a network. And a price would be put on Carrington’s head. A price that reflected the fear of those who knew that his knowledge extended beyond the immediate environs of his daughter’s suffering.

  Police records, secured through safe connections, seemed to imply that Carrington was content to draw a line under his actions and let the authorities continue the official pursuit. He didn’t want to become a lone vigilante. He’d avenged his daughter’s death and that was enough. But he still had information that was too dangerous to too many. They’d tried to get to him in prison, never truly believing what they were hearing when every attempt on his life failed. The challenge had been insurmountable. He was protected by his hero status among the other prisoners, respected by the guards for his courtesy and good behaviour and, most importantly, he was savvy about the system. He spent many days in isolation. He made sure that the press were in constant touch and that word got out to whoever needed to hear it that his choice not to pursue other activists was not set in stone. So long as he remained quiet, the threat was diminished. So long as he was in prison, they believed he was under control. What they hadn’t expected had been his disappearance. He left the prison and boarded the first bus that passed, closely followed by two men with one mission. They followed the bus to its terminus, waited for Carrington to disembark, then clambered aboard themselves only to find that he wasn’t there.

  Those same two men were now being grilled intently as they sat in that comfortably air-conditioned meeting room near Heathrow. The pursuit of Carrington had plagued their lives and, thanks to Philian Gregory, he still managed to elude them. They’d worked together the whole time. They were hired hands who refused very few jobs and whose reputation in all but this case was extremely positive. The world knew them only as Hendricks and Powell. Despite sounding like a trending brand of premium toiletries or a long-established department store, they had none of the subtlety or charm of either.

  “Thank you for coming gentlemen.”, P’s voice was calm and measured as he addressed the people seated in front of him, “As you will have probably gathered, our meeting is something that has been requested of me by some of our more influential friends. Friends who are, quite frankly, disappointed.”

  “But we’re doing all we can.”, Hendricks protested, “I don’t see what else …”

  He stopped speaking as P held up his hand.

  “At the risk of being overly aggressive,”, P raised his voice a notch, “we are not here to discuss the state of affairs. We are here to accept it. Disappointed, they are, and disappointed they remain until Carrington is dead. End of debate. Now, how do we move forward?”

  Neither men spoke.

  “Let me help you then,”, P resumed, “and tell you that we have an assurance of increased funding. In fact, an appeal to all interested parties has secured more than enough extra capital. Therefore, money is not an issue. What we do with that money is the key question. For my part, I suggest that we break the problem down a little and reorganise. I will take over on the monitoring of Sutherland, Wilkins and Roberts. I understand that this may have been distracting you, so I want to take it on myself. I have certain means at my disposal and want to try a slightly different approach.”

  “It makes a difference.”, Powell conceded, “But monitoring those three hasn’t been the main problem. It’s this Gregory bloke. He’s not acting the way we thought he would. We gave him a few weeks at most, but he still hasn’t broken cover. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not from somebody like that. Someone so normal.”

  “But he’s with Carrington.”, P replied, “Which means all bets are off. I don’t know what the relationship is, but Gregory won’t be able to take one step without Carrington’s express approval. You’re right though. It’s unusual. He’ll slip up soon, he’s bound to. And that’s why we are authorising you to do whatever you must to bring this to an end.”

  “There’s more to this than vengeance, isn’t there?”, Hendricks asked.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, exactly what I’m saying. The deal we’ve been working on has been the death of Carrington to appease the so-called Three Hombres. I don’t buy that anymore. We could take out the three of them, forget Carrington and reach the same end. What is it about Carrington that makes him so special?”

  “Please gentlemen, after the years we’ve spent together, let’s not fall out now. Your objective is the termination of Carrington to repay the Hombres and give them the vengeance they want.”

  “But”, P continued, “I am prepared to concede that yes, there is a little more to it. I only tell you this as an added incentive. Carrington doesn’t have a great deal of usable leverage over us. What he lacks in quantity though, he makes up for in quality. There are certain documents that we believe he has in his possession which would prove to be extremely embarrassing to some very important people. He doesn’t have the means to store them remotely, as far as we know, hence, when you take him out, you neutralise that threat.”

  “You want us to retrieve those files?”

  “No, not necessarily. Just eliminate Carrington. But if you get a chance to recover any documents then please, destroy them before you’re tempted to read them. The people they implicate are not the sort you want to upset. However, they will certainly show their gratitude in a very generous way if you
’re successful.”

  “And you are authorising us to do whatever we feel is necessary?”, Hendricks asked.

  “Yes. Everything and anything.”, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, black jump drive, “And whatever you plan on doing, there will be a useful contact in this database. They’re all safe and they all know you may be asking for help. I mean it when I say there are no limits this time. Forget trying to snare Carrington. He’s eluded you for too long. Go for Gregory instead. Scour his personal life, his friendships, his business relationships and probe into the minutest aspects of his life. He’ll yield something up yet, I guarantee it. When he does, you need to be ready to strike.”

  “And, gentlemen.”, P stood as he concluded, “Be very careful about speculating over things that do not concern you. Your involvement begins and ends with the past. The future is a dangerous place. The Brothers are long gone. In the void they left, new forces are stirring. Forces whose actions will make those of the past seem like a picnic. Let them be. Focus on the task in hand.”

  Hendricks and Powell accepted this as the end of the meeting. They gave P a brief nod and left the meeting room. They didn’t say anything until they were back in their car which was fitted with sophisticated equipment enough to ensure it was a safe zone where nobody could hear what they had to say.

  “We’ll go to the shelter.”, Powell said, “We can start work there. You drive the first stint, I’ll take over later.”

  Hendricks nodded agreement and slipped the car into Drive.

  Meanwhile, P made the best use of the room that he’d hired for the day. He attached a small scrambler to the hotel’s phone line and began making contact with those who were awaiting his call. He saved the last three calls until last. The Three Hombres were beginning to annoy him. He hated the hold they had on him and looked forward to be free of it. Sutherland was likely to kick the bucket soon. That would be a welcome development. But Wilkins and Roberts were in fine fettle. Wilkins was the least threatening of the three but the most passionate about Carrington paying for his actions. Wilkins and sex were like rhubarb and custard, inseparable. When Carrington had broken that part of Wilkins, he’d taken away an essential part of his life. No, with him, it was all about vengeance. Which left only Roberts. He was the younger, as fired up by dreams of vengeance as the others, but maybe open to a little subtle influence. He wasn’t in his fifth decade yet. Money would buy him a new life and he had enough years to make the most of it. Maybe there was an opportunity there.