Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

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  Their pursuers weren’t far wrong in their analysis of the situation. Carrington had been blunt, firm, assertive and downright rude at times, but he had protected Philian Gregory from the common dangers that fugitives faced. Survival was the top priority. Philian had naively believed that he could simply wander about with their substantial funds hidden safely about his person. That was until the day that it disappeared. He’d woken Nathan in panic and then spent an hour in self-admonishment and downright fear, before his friend revealed the money under his own mattress.

  “This time it was me.”, he’d explained, “But next time, you might not be so lucky. We’re fortunate to have this lot, but we can’t risk losing it all. The secret is to find secure stashes as we travel and hide it in small amounts. We’ll start today.”

  “But what if we run out and aren’t near a stash?”

  “Welcome to my world! This is life on the streets mate. You think we’ll always have enough for a bed and breakfast, or a meal? Dream on. That’s your second lesson for today. You’re on the streets now, and you take food and shelter where you can get it. We need to prepare for the long-haul. That money won’t last forever.”

  It had taken them a week to divvy up the money and place it at the locations that Carrington recommended. It made sense to Gregory, once he’d had time to think about it, but it only reminded him how dire their situation was. Nights out in the rapidly cooling end-of-Autumn outdoors were a further reminder. This was a world where Carrington thrived, more by experience than any natural flair for it, but it was a threatening world, a world apart from the mainstream and a world where the two of them became little more than animals in the sight of passers-by.

  “You’ll get a sense for the safer places.”, Carrington assured him, “And you’ll start to discover the towns and villages where the locals will help and, more importantly, those where you’ll be forced to move on. You’ll learn, my friend, but don’t ever believe that it gets any easier.”

  It was that first foray out into the world of the homeless and the thought of the impending Winter that caused the rift between the two to widen. It wasn’t a personal rift in their relationship. It was the divide between their expectations for the future and their acceptance of the situation. Carrington’s drinking was a little more under control, but he still chose the oblivion of drunkenness to facing the day more often than not. When he was sober, the two enjoyed long talks, comfortable silences and shared activities. What Philian learned in those times more than made up for the hours he spent in solitude with Carrington lost to the world. And in those moments, he understood that there remained a fundamental difference between them and one that would need to be addressed. Carrington had given up. He’d resigned himself to hiding away and living out the rest of his days in anonymity. The extent of the fight in him, was purely the efforts that he put into becoming invisible. For Philian Gregory, it was different.

  In their early days together, Philian had deferred to Carrington as much because it was all so much a shock to him as because he trusted his companion to keep them off the radar. They’d survived longer than he’d expected. They could well survive until the threat against them died out. But that wasn’t enough for Philian. He refused to accept the inevitability of the living death that their pursuers were imposing on them, and became increasingly certain that they had to be more affirmative in their action. First, he wanted them to be able to join society again, even if it meant floating on the edge of the mainstream. He raised this with Carrington and received both an ambivalent and negative answer. It didn’t stop him planning it though. Secondly, and a thought that only came rarely and usually when Philian himself had drunk too much, there was the option to turn the tables and confront the threat head on. With Winter drawing in, Philian watched the resigned acceptance of suffering growing in Carrington’s behaviour and resolved to act as he thought best. He’d utilise everything that he’d learnt from the other, but he would do something that the other wouldn’t believe possible. He would find them a new home where they could at least settle as they hid from those who were after them. It was a decision that would cost Philian dearly but as the first snows came, it was one that he made for all the right reasons.

  Chapter Eight

  The idea was nothing revolutionary. In fact, it was the simplest of plans. During their travels, Philian and Nathan had often passed over, under or around the network of canals that cut a hidden swathe through the English countryside. They’d even taken shelter and slept away a number of nights under the network’s remote bridges. As they’d touched this world-away-from-the-world, a seed had been sown that slowly began to bud as Philian sought a means of escape for the two of them. An escape from the constant need to keep moving and from the unpredictability of the mendicant lifestyle.

  Property was out of the question. It came at too high a price and with the need for too many proofs of identity. Proofs that would always leave a trail behind them. The idea of a motorhome was an option, but again, it was too visible and required one or other of them to break cover. Licence plates linked to drivers, which in turn linked them into a surveillance system that they needed to bypass. Narrowboats might, technically, require the same, but the reality that Philian discovered when exploring this possibility, was that this was a sub-culture that remained a little amateurish and primitive in its control mechanisms. Yes, they would have to have the boat registered, licensed and insured but the checks on those processes were minimal. There would come a time when it would all be managed more professionally. Given the number of people opting to escape to the waterways, that was an inevitability. Now though, it seemed possible that the two fugitives could secure a home for themselves and remain as far off the radar as it was possible to be.

  Making the first contact with Amanda was the hardest part. They’d parted amicably enough, but with an understanding between them that this time the separation was permanent and neither of them would be under any obligation to the other.

  Amanda worked in marketing for one of the nation’s larger supermarket chains. Although much of what she did remained a mystery to Philian, he understood enough of her role to respect the fact that she was quite a senior figure in the organisation that employed her. With such seniority came a certain amount of public exposure. And with that knowledge came a challenge that Philian had to overcome. He was connected to Amanda by certain links and those links were a potential portal for those who were seeking him. He couldn’t let the link be established, partly for his own protection but mainly to protect Amanda. For those reasons, he made his first approach via a brief letter that he sent to her via courier with specific instructions that it be delivered personally to her. She had a secretary/PA, but he knew that such deliveries were not unusual when she was in the middle of a particularly secretive campaign. He kept the wording tight and vague:

  Dear Amanda,

  Apologies for contacting you. As you may know, I am in an unusual situation just now. If you feel you can help me, I would like to speak with you. Of course, I understand if you want nothing to do with this.

  The following number will be active for this week only. Please, leave no record of this letter and use the office phone system to contact me. Be very cautious, but also be assured, you are in no danger.

  Hope to hear from you soon.

  Philian (07665 183902)

  She’d rung him the day after the letter had been delivered. Their conversation was brief and Philian was relieved when she agreed to meet him at a location that nobody would be able to identify from the veiled way in which they described it. It was the place where they had first made love. Not the most salubrious of spots, but one which remained little known and which they could both visit without being followed. They used the same routine that they’d adopted that first time, when Amanda had been driven by the need to avoid being spotted with Philian. Her parents were strict Brethren. Had they been informed that their p
recious daughter had been seen with a man, they would not only have had to suffer the judgement of their peers, but her father would have translated that judgement and shame brought onto the family into a suitable punishment. Going to the theatre was not frowned on. Not much anyway. The particular theatre she preferred had a flaw in its security that allowed patrons to enter and exit via the toilets without being seen. The shows it tended to favour were enough of a deterrent to opportunists that this weakness in security was never used much and therefore remained open. On the day that she met Philian, she followed the familiar route, walked quickly through the run-down alleyway behind the theatre, used the bent bars in the fence to access its perimeter and then the same footholds to climb into the building.

  “Thank you so much for coming.”, Philian emerged from the shadows and greeted her with a heartfelt hug, “And I’m sorry to drag you into all of this.”

  “Seems strange to be together again, down here.”, she replied as she looked around at their old haunt, “Some things don’t change, do they? But other things, well, what can I say? What’s going on?”

  With the sound of the machinery that buzzed, clanked and rattled through scene changes masking their voices and, comfortable in the knowledge that their location was secure, Philian told her everything. He didn’t ask for her approval, nor did he make any excuses for what he’d done. It was where he was and he needed Amanda’s help if she was willing. She asked a lot of questions, probing deeper into Philian’s recent history than he’d wanted her to, but he answered her as best he could. Then he laid out his plans. She agreed that she could help and various practical aspects of the project were confirmed.

  “Thanks again.”, he whispered to her as she left.

  “Don’t thank me.”, she turned back to him, “Look, I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into, but helping you seems to be the right thing to do. It’s a side of you I’ve never seen before. Who knows, if I’d seen it earlier then maybe things would have been different. You take care of yourself and we’ll meet again, I’m sure.”

  Philian spent the rest of that night in the safety and warmth of the echoing chamber that held so many good memories for him. All that seemed to have changed over the years had been the addition of a number of security cameras, but even if they were working, they posed no threat to Philian as they couldn’t penetrate the brick wall that had made their love-nest seem so secure.

  A week or so after that first meeting, as the last of the Christmas celebrations ended, the right vessel appeared on brokerage and Gregory made his move. It was a good time to buy a boat. Winter was cold and miserable on the water and demand was low. Added to that, there were those who needed to free up capital after the excesses of the Summer season and were prepared to accept a lower price than they would demand in the Spring.

  Because everything was online and because the checks that were made by the licensing authorities were minimal or non-existent, Philian was able to register the boat under a fictitious name and address. Everything was moving online now and, for the most part, it was a win-win for the customer and the companies they dealt with. In an age where money-laundering and cyber-crime were being monitored carefully, it was also a highly-regulated area that required numerous checks and controls. But that wasn’t the case with the charity that regulated the waterways. They’d grown out of an old and antiquated British quango and had followed the route of a paperless system in order to modernise and save money. What they hadn’t accounted for was someone like Philian plumping for a recently-demolished house as his official address and his use of a name that he’d invented after a brief scan through the first book he could lay his hands on.

  The tricky part had been in making the purchase. That was where Amanda had come in. She had the capital ready to hand and trusted Philian enough to accept a cheque from him that she agreed not to bank. He’d shown her the balances in his accounts at the same time that he’d explained why he couldn’t touch that money just now. If the cheque expired before he could repay her, he’d send her a new one. With three months on it, it was an optimistic gesture on her ex-boyfriend’s part. One that she should have simply thrown away and made the loan a gift. One day soon, she’d regret not doing that. But she trusted Philian. Had she not trusted him, he’d had an alternative means of shifting the funds, but he was much happier with the way things were working this time. Amanda initially bought the boat in her own name, registered it, licensed it and insured it and paid a year’s moorings in the marina in Staffordshire where the boat currently lay. A month later, she sold the boat to George Evans. He took over all the liabilities and not one of them required him to prove who he was.

  Which was how Philian Gregory and Nathan Carrington found themselves settling into a new home under assumed identities and far enough away from the mad, mad world they had left for them to finally relax a little.

  Although Carrington had been sceptical at first, that scepticism soon disappeared as he began to understand that Gregory might just have seen something beyond his own constrained world-view. For years, he had accepted that things were as they were. He was reconciled to an anonymous life of bitter struggle and survival that he could not escape from. He was to live out his years alone and unknown because that was the price he had to pay for revenge. Then Gregory had come along. Not only had he stooped to help, losing everything in the process, but he had brought with him a determination to never accept their current position. Talk of fighting back had been rapidly silenced by Carrington, but he had been more open to the prospect of Gregory perhaps leading them into something more than the half-life they’d known. As he woke on that first morning aboard the boat, he thanked God for sending him a friend who could help change things.

  “Not bad, is it?”, Philian joined his friend on the stern deck of the boat as the beginnings of a Spring morning cast myriad shades of beauty across the water.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you.”, Carrington replied, “This is more than I could ever have dreamed of. And it feels safe.”

  It was safe because they were living under assumed names. It hadn’t been difficult to give their new names to the marina who, for a fee, allowed them to register it as their postal address. Once insurances and other necessary documents had been obtained, they left the marina, paying a retainer to keep the formality of their existence going. Without the need to steal another’s identity, they had created their own and in an environment where they could get away with the subterfuge.

  They looked nothing like the two disparate individuals who had left the plaza that fronted the LMBA building in London last Winter. Gregory had shaved the thick, dark hair on his head and replaced the growth there with a heavy beard that still grew black but which was peppered with hints of grey. He was thinner than he’d ever been, had a darker colour to his complexion, thanks to living outdoors so much, and he had lost the affected accent that he’d spent so long nurturing. Carrington had piled on the pounds that Gregory had lost. His face was fuller and the gaunt death-mask of alcohol no longer dominated his features. He still drank. They both did. But with somebody there to help him regulate his intake, Carrington was reasonably sober, more and more often. It was his shift away from the brink of alcoholic oblivion that provided them with a means of attaining a small income. The funds they’d scattered around the country had been retrieved and placed in a secret hiding place on the boat. That would be enough to maintain them for a year or so. But they could now add to it.

  If Carrington’s mysterious gift with numbers had been the catalyst that changed Gregory’s career fortunes, even from the depths of his alcoholic numbness, then that gift could also bring in a steady income. The stock market was out, for obvious reasons. You couldn’t trade shares without exposing yourself to detailed scrutiny. But there were other ways of gambling and Carrington’s ability reached into diverse spheres. In the same way that he’d studied trends in company stocks and market data, he now turned his attention to the horses
. There were betting shops all over the country and they worked in cash. Never an exact science, Carrington was able to read and remember form like nobody else and use his unique abilities to deliver a solid return. They’d practised in the period up to their arriving on the boat and the results were reassuring. Over a one-month period, Carrington had delivered a 50% return on their imaginary investments. They wouldn’t be greedy about it. Such greed would put them back in the spotlight. But they could make a living from this.

  After their few weeks of acclimatisation at the marina, during which time they had many long and productive discussions with several of the other boaters there, they’d decided it was time for them to set out and make their disappearance complete as they became anonymous cruisers. The wider world of the canal network beckoned them and they looked forward to being on their own again, as detached and unknown as before but in a more respectable way. The marina was a good start, but they had to stay mobile. That was the beauty of what they were doing. Homes and fixed locations bought with them neighbours. Neighbours had a habit of prying and it would be hard for the two of them to maintain the stories of their fictitious lives for too long. On the canals, if you didn’t like your neighbours you moved on. That was nothing compared to the freedom of anonymity. They’d painted the boat to keep her watertight but she didn’t look anything special. Behind that anonymous façade, they could live in the small space she offered with enough mod cons to make life bearable but without the fear of being tracked down. It was a promising time for them both.