Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  He took a pleasure cruise from Skipton, having persuaded the skipper of the boat with a large wad of cash that the light crust of ice that covered the waterways should be no barrier to his request. The canals were no longer working waterways, as they had been in the past, when the barges battled on through all weathers and moved the raw materials that had fed the nearby factories. There was now a very clearly defined season, during which the canals were awash with all manner of boats, but that season was short. The day-boat owner ran several other businesses to accommodate this pattern, but taking Dexter out for a jaunt was a useful source of income.

  As they cruised, his passenger relaxed and watched the world go by. The different world that was a part of, but somehow detached from, the mainstream. They had canals in London, but they were more leisure amenities. Here, they were the places where people lived a simple life in simple conditions. Pubs lined the towpaths, fewer now than in the heyday of the canals, and strange remnants of worn ironworks whispered to the passer-by of an age long gone. The skipper explained a lot of the history of the area as they travelled, making Dexter yearn for a second-chance after this latest mission, in which he might be able to spend more time on the water. Maybe even hiring a boat himself. Maybe, and why not, even buy one of his own?

  The week flew past and the appointment with Falstaff loomed nearer. Dexter packed up everything from the lodge, wiping down all the surfaces with great care and double and triple checking that he’d left nothing behind. He had the place for another week, officially, but he wouldn’t return. His exit route was to be back into the fray in London, hiding amongst the New Year madness of the capital and distancing himself as far as possible from the character he’d become so used to playing. There was something pleasantly enjoyable about being somebody else for a time. It gave you the opportunity to say and do things that you never could as yourself, and it helped you find and explore aspects of your personality that had long ago been hidden. The sinister reasons for his acting this way were the only negative to the game. Although, in truth, he gained some comfort from detaching himself from the person he was in order to do things that he didn’t want to believe that he was capable of. It was a lame justification, but he clung to it.

  The point of no return arrived when he pulled the hire-car up to the gates of Falstaff’s estate and buzzed through to the main house. He recognised Falstaff’s voice through the crackle of the intercom and returned to his car as those gates began to open. They closed behind him as he coasted slowly up the long driveway, looking all around at the beautifully lit Winter scene that a full moon was helping to appear worthy of a picture postcard.

  “James.”, Falstaff was ready and waiting for his guest as the car crunched to a halt, “Leave it there and come on in. They say we’re in for a bit of snow so you’re better with it closer to the house.”

  “Thank you, William.”, Dexter left the car unlocked and dashed into the warmth of the entrance hall.

  “Bill,”, his host replied, “call me Bill. Now, what can I get you to drink?”

  They settled in front of a blazing fire and let the first whisky of the night relax them. The only sound in the house was the gentle rumble of an old boiler and the cliched ticking of several ancient clocks that echoed through the old manor house.

  “I’ll take you on the tour later.”, Falstaff said, “But we should eat first. I hope you’re okay with a curry.”

  “Aye, curry’s good.”, Dexter replied, remembering to add the Scottish lilt that defined him as McCloud, “Although, maybe not what I was expecting.”

  “Don’t be deceived by all this.”, Falstaff’s arm swept through the surroundings, “There was a time when father would ring a bell and cook would rustle up his favourite food, but those days are long gone. Old money doesn’t go as far as it used to. I only keep the place because selling it would be too expensive and troublesome. I’m the last of the clan, as it were. The National Trust can have it when I pass, but for now, I like the atmosphere in the place and can put up with the downsides.”

  “But you’re not talking a takeaway, surely?”

  “No. Certainly not. Prepared by my own fair hand and currently reaching its perfect state on the AGA. And no, we won’t be eating in the formal dining room either. This is my favourite room and we can eat off our laps. A little proletarian I feel, but eminently practical.”

  The food was as good a promised and the conversation was light and enjoyable. Only once were they interrupted by a brief phone call that Falstaff dealt with quickly and returned from smiling. He muttered something about a fortuitous piece of news before settling back down to eat. Dexter always had an opt-out clause in his plans, and there were numerous times during the evening that he considered exercising that choice. For all Falstaff was and had been, he was very enjoyable company and somebody who you could sit with for hours and enjoy his tales of life as a QC and life as part of the upper echelons of the British establishment.

  “Brandy?”, Falstaff asked.

  “I’d better not.”, Dexter replied, “Driving and all. But please, go ahead yourself.”

  He let his host pour a generous measure, before continuing.

  “Well, Bill.”, he sighed, “You’ve done me proud. I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality, but I haven’t been completely honest with you. I have something of an ulterior motive in visiting. Would you permit me to retrieve something from my car?”

  The judge seemed relaxed about Dexter’s confession. He opened the front door and returned to sit before the fire. He wondered what this would be about. Probably another request for a little sideways application of the law, or perhaps a recommendation of one sort or another. Either way, he was always accommodating. That is, if the price was right. This time however, there would be no bargaining.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “So,”, Falstaff took the envelope that Dexter offered him, “what do we have here then? A little business proposal for me, or perhaps, a request for the smoothing of some wheels?”

  “Open it.”, Dexter replied calmly, “It should be self-explanatory.”

  He watched as the judge peeled back the envelope’s flap and pulled out the numerous pages that were held loosely with a paperclip. As he examined the first page, his face dropped for the briefest moment before his fixed and nonchalant smile returned.

  “I see.”, he whispered, “A little disappointing after serving you my finest curry, but so be it. And you want me to do what with these?”

  “I want you to do the right thing.”, Dexter replied.

  “Which, I suppose, is to turn myself in and make a full confession to the police. Well, thanks, but no thanks. I think you may be overstating the power of your hand.”

  “Those are copies, of course.”, Dexter explained, “And I have other sets in secure locations, so please, no clever ideas.”

  “Copies of originals?”, the judge asked slyly, “Perhaps supplied to you by a certain Mr Baxter?”

  “As good as.”

  “Ah, so not as cut and dried as that then! Splendid. And all the better for me.”

  “They’ll be enough.”

  “I don’t agree.”, Falstaff laid the papers on a small side-table and rose to pour himself another brandy, “Of course, if they could be proven to be genuine, then that would be another matter, but copies, and quite poor copies at that? No, they’d never be admitted as evidence. Seems you may have wasted your time, whoever you are.”

  “I don’t think so.”, Dexter leant back on the sofa as he spoke, “Not now that your reaction has confirmed to me that these are the genuine article. I agree that they may be lacking in legal credibility, but that’s not really why I’m here. I simply want to see justice done and, trust me, if your faith in the admissibility of those documents is lacking, then it’s not lacking as much as my faith in the judicial system.”

  “Then what would be justice to you?”, Fal
staff asked.

  “Nothing less than your termination.”

  “Bold words. Meaning, I suppose that you are ready to kill me?”

  “If I have to, then yes. But I would prefer if you fell upon your own sword. My being forced to act would skew the balance of justice. The only way to correct that would be for me to publish these documents and make it known why you were killed. You do it yourself, I destroy the documents and justice is satisfied as best as it can be.”

  “Don’t lecture me on justice!”, the judge shouted angrily at Dexter, “Not when I’ve given my whole damn life to the system. I don’t know who you are or what you do when you’re not playing the misguided vigilante, but I can tell you that you can’t hold a candle to me when it comes to justice. You think it’s as simple as me killing myself? Don’t be such a fool. My departure won’t make a blind bit of difference.”

  “It would stop you indulging in your little pleasures.”

  “And what? You think there won’t be a dozen others to take my place? You really don’t get this whole thing, do you? Young boys and girls being loved in the most intimate way by older men and women. You find it disgusting. Fine. We each have our own moral compass. I, on the other hand, have no issues with it. They’re well looked after, they’re introduced at an early age to a world that they’ll have to face soon and they feel loved and needed. Not that I have to justify myself to you, but, to make it clear, I have no moral qualms about what you call my indulgences. I happen to hate the stink and fug of smokers. I detest the vomiting vanity of selfies and those who seem to think the world wants to see them puffing and pouting their way through life. But, I accept other people’s choices. And I am comfortable with my own.”

  “And the law?”

  “The law, my boy, is not infallible. One day, I’m fine to get high on a certain brand of weed killer, the next day, to do so is illegal because a law has been passed. The same with the age of consent. It’s an emotive law that frames children in a certain way. I happen to see them differently. No, the law and justice aren’t so easily merged.”

  “As for morality,”, he continued after a brief pause, “well, no doubt we differ on that too. You may think morality breeds legislation. In which case, when you do eighty on the motorway, does that make you immoral? People talk about a moral compass. Morality at the top, immorality at the bottom, everyone placed somewhere on the dial. But what if there is no morality? Of course, it’s inconvenient that the law restrains the more progressive individuals like myself, but be under no illusions, morality is a dying concept. We are the amoral. We are the evolved future of mankind and we aren’t restrained by foolish concepts and constructs. God is now officially dead. So too is morality.”

  “Then that leaves us at a bit of an impasse.”, Dexter sighed, withdrawing the gun he carried from inside his jacket, “All I can do is make my offer again. A little tablet in another brandy, or a bullet in the brain. Your choice.”

  The judge refilled his drink and sat opposite to Dexter, eyeing the gun warily and looking down at the small white pill that had been left there for him.

  “You don’t do this sort of thing very often, do you?”, he smiled at his guest.

  “More often than I’d like.”

  “Even so, you’re still very much new to the whole thing, I’d wager. Good, nonetheless. The whole identity theft thing of McCloud. Shrewd and carefully planned. You had me there. And the friendship thing. Well, you played that one nicely. In fact, you had me hooked from the start.”

  Dexter said nothing as he listened to Falstaff, wondering where he was going with this.

  “I venture to say,”, the judge continued, “that you might also have been successful in your mission, had you not forgotten the tiniest detail.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is simply that you bunched me in there with the likes of Baxter and his other lone-wolf buddies, when you should have understood that I am a part of something a little bigger. A little more far-reaching. In fact, a little more supportive. You see, you’re not the only one with surprises this evening. Let me show you what I mean.”

  Leaning across towards Dexter, Falstaff withdrew a gold pen from his pocket and tapped the empty brandy glass, causing it to ring out loudly.

  “My colleagues.”, he announced as four men entered the room, each one wearing a dark hood and each one pointing a handgun at Dexter.

  “McCloud was a fine cover.”, Falstaff explained, “What with him being out of the country and out of contact just now. And your procuring the documents from Baxter and the securing his imprisonment was an impeccably executed plan. But, you let your guard down just a little too much and didn’t protect yourself from being observed in all that you did. Certain friends of mine alerted me. As I say, I’d have fallen for the whole thing had it not been for them, but then, that’s what differentiates us. I operate as part of a mutually supportive team. You operate alone. Nobody to cover your back. Not like me.”

  “Which leaves us where?”, Dexter kept his voice as calm as possible, offering no resistance as the gun he held was passed over to the judge.

  “With the tables turned, I guess.”, Falstaff smiled as he replied, “And with you choosing not whether to die or not, but how to do so.”

  “You can’t guarantee you’ll get away with this.”

  “Can’t I?”, the smile changed to a leer, “You really think that we, in our positions of authority, haven’t had to deal with worse than the likes of you? Believe me, we will get away with it. Weren’t Bob Dexter’s last words to his close colleagues something along the line of his going away and maybe not returning? I’ll check the details with our Mr Saunders when you’re gone. You see, doing it alone might minimise risks to others, but it does so at a higher risk to yourself. Now, any wise and wonderful last words that you would care to share with us?”

  Dexter shook his head and closed his eyes. He mumbled a brief prayer, almost forgotten by lack of practise, but somehow retained deep in his memory from when he’d first learnt it on his mother’s knee. It was too late now to think about where it had gone wrong and how they had managed to track him in his movements. The mention of Saunders was a clue. Had they deceived him as well as he believed he’d deceived them? He trusted the twins implicitly and wouldn’t even entertain the thought that they’d been careless. Maybe it was just one of those things. Sometimes the roll of the dice shielded you, other times it exposed you. So be it.

  “One final thought.”, Falstaff’s voice whispered across the silence, almost covering up the click of the gun’s slider as it was primed, “The choice that you gave me. It was honourable. In many respects, it did you credit. For which reason, we will be making your death a little more heroic than it should be. You’ll be found in an alley having been shot in a mugging gone wrong. The press will say something about your having fought off your attackers. Your loved ones won’t know about this seedier side of your life. Now, deep breaths and it will all be over soon.”

  The shot echoed loudly through the high-ceilinged room. Blood and brain tissue smattered across the sofa and the coffee table, chunks of bone echoing as they ricocheted off the fireplace. Dexter’s eyes remained closed as he slumped backwards, strangely at peace in his final moments.

  Something was off though. He could feel the fragments of flesh and the rivulets of blood running down his cheek. There were hushed noises around him that he couldn’t equate with the voices of angels. The voice he heard might have been a part of heavenly reunion but it carried no celestial undertones.

  “Bob. Bob, you alright?”

  He opened his eyes and looked up, past the remains of William Falstaff QC and straight into the familiar eyes of a friend.

  “Philian?”

  “Come on, Bob, we need to get out.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  Still reeling from his near-
death experience and trying to take in the scene of the Falstaff’s four guardians shaking uncontrollably due to the Taser prongs that had delivered thousands of volts into their unsuspecting bodies, Dexter managed to stand.

  “We’ll use your car, if that’s alright.”, Gregory told him, “Go and get it warmed up while we finish off in here.”

  “It is you, isn’t it?”, Dexter asked, “Philian?”

  “Yes, it’s me, and yes, it’s good to see you again, but can we save the formalities until later. Killing those four isn’t on our agenda. We just need to deal with the judge first.”

  He tried to argue some more but his old friend pushed him away towards the door and he composed himself enough to dig out his car keys and make his way out. As he turned for a last look at the scene, he watched as Falstaff’s near-headless body was turned on its back and his shirt torn open. Philian Gregory, leaner, meaner and fitter than Dexter had ever remembered him being, had retrieved the envelope of photographs and was placing them around the judge’s body. He was joined by another person, moving swiftly from the kitchen and carrying a red-hot metal pole with a small, glowing emblem on the end. The smell of burning flesh drove him outside and into the car that was covered with a smattering of snow. He started the engine.

  As the windscreen began to clear and the heater take effect, he heard the back doors opening and watched as Philian and his friend buckled themselves in.

  “Here.”, Philian said, handing Dexter a slip of paper, “Punch that postcode into the navigation and get us there as fast as you can.”

  “But in one piece, if you please.”, the other man spoke for the first time.

  The car skidded as it gained purchase, but Dexter was used to driving in the proper snows that fell across his native country so this light flurry was nothing to him. He straightened up and swung the car deftly through the estate’s gates, concentrating hard as he hurtled along the back-lanes and only relaxing as they approached the motorway.

  “I don’t get it.”, he managed to pluck up the courage to speak, “I had you as being against The Circle, when all along, you were a part of it. What’s going on Philian? At least give me something.”