St. George’s Day
S Payne
Smashwords Edition
~**~
Copyright 2010 S Payne
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover design by S Payne
~**~
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organisations and events are used fictitiously and a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, groups, organisations or persons living or dead is purely coincidental and is to be taken with a large pinch of salt before meals and at bedtimes.
1
Today’s Alert Status: Substantial
Monday
Jay Christie stood with his back against the wall to avoid being pushed onto the tracks by any potential assassin that might be following him, mindful of the thirty seven death threats he’d received this year alone, three of which specifically mentioned “crushing the life out of him.” Other than pushing him under a tube train, he could not imagine what else they could possibly have in mind.
To gain entry to the underground station Christie had first to negotiate the metal detectors searching for weapons, the explosives and bio-chem weapon screens, and the thermographic scanners that identified anyone with a raised body temperature who might be carrying an infectious disease, presumably with the intention of deliberately spreading it via close proximity to others.
It was years since the last virus had been manufactured and released in the hope of causing a pandemic. But Christie was certain that somewhere in a backroom laboratory someone was inevitably toiling day and night in the perpetual search for just the right pestilence to fulfil requirements. Two of his personal death threats made reference to such diseases, although he felt these lacked conviction, having been sent by email, rather than through the post in an envelope complete with an actual sample. He recalled it had been some time since he’d even received anthrax spores, never mind anything serious.
Christie was a worried man, though he was determined to conceal this, above all to his staff. On reflection, perhaps worried is too strong a word. Concerned is more accurate. After all, he could always delegate his way out of most worries. But today the concern bordered on worry. One of his most experienced members of staff had disappeared in highly suspicious circumstances while on an assignment. Only recently he’d warned her to be ever vigilant.
‘Obviously, one has to be on one’s guard,’ Christie had cautioned. ‘Take my advice, always get someone else to open your parcels and remember to stand well back, preferably in a distant part of the building.’
Now, with a local by-election imminent, he found himself in need of a replacement to interview the Fundamental Party candidate, a man known for his reluctance to embrace those he despised and condemned as agents of free speech and democracy.
On hearing the approach of the train, Christie manoeuvred cautiously towards the edge of the underground platform, tensing his body against the sudden thrust of a hand in the small of his back. Alongside him, his fellow travellers jostled for position. They readied themselves for the familiar struggle for remaining seats as the train emerged from the tunnel with a rush of sooty air, blowing a long strand of dead hair across Christie’s lips. He could see as the first few carriages decelerated past, that the tube was predictably crowded with morning commuters and an empty seat was a rare commodity.
A starting gun discharged in Christie’s mind as the carriage doors slid open and he strode purposefully for the last available seat. He was well ahead of a heavily-pregnant woman and her toddler and an elderly couple who’d obstructed the crowd behind them. From another door a young man was hurrying for the last available seat, but he was no match for Christie’s dauntless resolve.
Christie would usually take his car to work, but today he’d no choice but to suffer the indignity of mingling with the sweaty plebs as the vehicle was off the road for repairs and not least to have several bullet-holes plugged and re-filled with the usual fast-drying liquid plastic. The bullets had not penetrated the inner armour, but the holes were nonetheless unsightly and it was generally thought that if a vehicle had already been a target, it would attract the attention of other snipers. The comparison might be made with the antelope that behaves like a victim and is soon invited to lunch by the hyenas.
Christie figured that he was entitled to as much comfort as could be expected from an underground cattle truck. After all, he was famous. He’d been interviewed by screen channels, radio, and magazines, quoted often, and even mentioned in parliament, albeit in connection with allegations of corruption. However, he had no wish to be recognised on public transport, so he snuggled down into his fairly-won seat and followed the first two rules of riding on the underground - never make eye contact with fellow passengers and expose as little flesh as possible that could be the target of the latest wave of indiscriminate syringe attacks.
As a result of the last devastating outbreak of yet another drug-resistant strain of TB, a cursory glance showed him that over half of the commuters wore masks. However, it was fear of gas or some other airborne attack that kept masks on the agenda, and for many, a must-have fashion accessory. Though several masks sported a smiling face motif, they did nothing to comfort Christie or persuade him the tube was anything other than a death-trap waiting to be sprung. His stylish and tailored stab and bullet-proof jacket meant he’d stand a good chance of surviving a blast if it occurred in another carriage, but despite the considerable risk of airborne danger, he could not bring himself to don a face mask.
The heavily pregnant woman stood immediately before him, hanging by one arm from an overhead handrail. Her child wandered off a few paces to where the elderly couple staggered precariously among outstretched legs and luggage. The woman stared down at Christie as the doors rumbled shut and the train struggled out of the station. He stared down at his feet, dispassionate towards his audience. It was evident that nobody recognised him, so a display of courtesy would be wasted. He’d save his savoir faire for a suitable time and venue, when it could be fully appreciated.
Soon, the few muted conversations surrounding him were drowned by the noise of the tunnel. The heaving motion of the train tested its suspension to the limit and was, it seemed to Christie, reminiscent of a night spent with a woman from accounts that he’d later regret when she showed all the hallmarks of being a bunny-boiler. He relaxed, gradually elbowed his neighbour’s arm off the shared armrest and felt his eyelids becoming irresistibly heavy as his mind wandered to more immediate matters.
He had a new secretary that needed breaking in. Only yesterday she had stretched across his desk in what he belatedly decided had been the most provocative manner. He was convinced now that she’d deliberately spilled her sugary, pea-green soft drink, leaving his laptop smelling of peppermint. He could have bent her over that desk and taken her from behind right where she stood, but something told him she probably wasn’t ready for that level of commitment.
He became suddenly aware that something was horribly wrong on the train when passengers at the far end of his carriage began choking and falling over one another in their desperate attempts to flee the green viscose slime that was seeping in through the ventilation ducts. He instantly recognised this as a deadly gas that prevented nerve-endings from making their connections. He knew how easily absorbed the molecules were and that a lethal dose could be as low as ten milligrams. It was undoubtedly a terrorist attack - the moment he’d always feared when making his sporadic journeys among the tunnel-travelling plebs.
Springing up from his seat and simultaneously shoulder-barging the pregnant woman out of his way, Christie trampled her toddler as he lunged towards the nearby emergency exit to the next carriage. Holding his breath, he hurled aside the frail old couple that stood between him and salvation. He dived through the door and tried to slam it shut in the face of his fellow travellers, feeling a desperate tug on his left shoulder as someone behind him tried to gain some leverage at his expense.
‘Tickets please!’ came a muffled and distant voice. Christie felt the faintest pressure on his shoulder. ‘Ticket!’ repeated the voice, slightly louder. Opening his eyes, he realised he was still seated. He glanced down the crowded carriage then up at the inspector hovering over him with outstretched hand. There was no gas, no chaos, no trampled child, certainly no story for the next edition.
‘Ticket please!’ insisted the inspector, more impatiently. Christie shook himself awake and fumbled in his jacket for his ticket, displayed it and watched the inspector move off, accompanied by the usual armed security guards who glowered menacingly at the commuters. The train rumbled into his station, and as he stood Christie made a great display of generously offering his vacated seat to the pregnant woman.
Jay Christie was the editor of The New Globe. He had his own daily column and also occasionally contributed articles under pen-names. In the dim and distant times of quality newspapers, it was acknowledged that any publication’s readership was buoyed by a few top writers, of which, he fancied, he was one. Alas, the heady days of serious newspaper journalism were a vague memory, replaced by the glib coverage of angst-ridden celebrity traumas. Cover stories on the private lives of senior politicians catered to the prurient fascination of the public for the sex scandals of their leaders.
Today, The New Globe was one of only two surviving national dailies that had a printed edition and had slid so far down the gutter in its desperation to survive, that it was said by its main competitor, The Moon, to have “…finally arrived in the sewer.”
Christie approached the rear entrance of The New Globe, a building constructed in the 2040s and whose lower floors were specifically designed to withstand the impact of truck bombs. Fumbling for his cigarettes, he could barely wait until he reached the dubious safety of the recessed doorway. He lit up, drawing long and hard as he loitered in what was ostensibly an emergency exit, but was used daily as a smoking point. It was illegal to smoke in public but the exit door was entirely obscured from the street and a place frequented by those so gasping for a drag they were prepared to take risks, not least when Ruth was on patrol. Certainly the message on the packet – “Die young! Someone else needs your space” – had proved no deterrent, even when accompanied by a yellow and black hazchem symbol with skull and crossbones motif emblazoned on the front.
He exhaled a hazy cloud of grey-blue smoke that momentarily blurred his vision. Even as he did so, the local masked roof sniper took a shot at him. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly with a loud clang off the metal bar of a fence some metres from where Christie stood. Adjacent to the fence were the many pockmarks in the brickwork that testified to the regularity of this event. The bricks around the doorway itself were relatively free of damage, suggesting the sniper was a lousy shot. However, nobody was quite sure if Ruth was actually trying to hit smokers or just warning them off. She was just one more citizen with a personal agenda. Nobody even knew if the sniper on the roof of the building on the far side of the car park was a man or a woman or when he or she was going to be up there on the roof. But the name stuck - it was Ruth, and she had assumed the guise of the vengeful non-smoker that plagued those who dared to indulge their habit even in hidden doorways on private land.
Ruth had not actually hit anybody, but then nobody wanted to test her patience. It was never necessary for her to line up a second shot. Christie demonstratively threw down his barely-smoked cigarette and crushed it with his foot so the watching figure had no doubt her mission had been a success. Confident that he had done enough to disarm the sniper, he ambled across to the metal fence and inspected the result of the impact. The shot had missed him by over three metres from a distance of perhaps two hundred metres. The chip in the paint indicated only a small calibre bullet. Not a seasoned veteran, he’d decided on previous occasions, and not a serious weapon, though one would not wish to find oneself on the receiving end of its missile.
The casual manner in which Christie left the scene was not indicative of any great courage on his part, or even of a fake bravado. He was merely accustomed, like all too many others in the London of the mid-21st century, to being viewed through a telescopic lens. At least Ruth had a known agenda, and fortunately, it did not seem to be to increase the capital’s body count. Focussing on the vantage point on the distant roof, Christie thought he detected a mixture of rasping, ragged coughs, interspersed by wheezing and choking and considered there was nobody more sanctimonious than a reformed smoker.
The editor invariably arrived at the office before the rest of his staff, claiming he enjoyed the tranquillity of early morning, though what he really enjoyed was the opportunity to read everyone else’s mail. Having stolen any secrets to be had, Christie lurked in his office, preparing himself for the daily rabble-rousing of the troops. He finished his coffee, combed his thick, greying hair and straightened his tie. Ready.
Crashing through the swing doors that led into the open-plan newsroom, the editor surged along the carpeted aisles between the various work stations, soon to be trailed by a regiment of sycophantic, low-grade employees and battery journalists or hacks, scribbling notes in pads whilst tripping over wastepaper bins and coat-stands.
‘Let’s keep those false allegations and sleaze stories coming folks. I want to see ruined careers and broken marriages. I want my people to be able to look a law suit in the face and laugh. That’s why the good Lord put lawyers among us.’ He made the sign of the cross on his chest then paused to peer over the shoulder and at the screen of one of his staff. ‘Excellent,’ declared Christie reading the text aloud. “The blood-soaked corpse draped across the bed.” That’s the stuff. But let’s keep the more obvious clichés under strict control, hmm?’
Christie momentarily glanced at the following disciples. ‘I want to read about real tragedy.’ Fixing his sights on an adjacent workstation, he leaned in to share his halitosis with another junior acolyte. ‘Cosy doesn’t sell. Blood-soaked corpses sell. Find more of them. Shouldn’t be difficult. They seem to be piling up all over the place. Give me something hot, like the story you wrote two weeks ago. But don’t use “blood-soaked corpse,” for a couple of days.’
The editor’s habit of remembering things others would rather he had forgotten was seemingly contradicted by his tactical lapses of memory that kept his staff constantly enervated. More debilitating was his ability to apparently yield ground on an issue, only to take it all back in one devastating and unexpected action. Some senior colleagues considered that dealing with him was rather like playing a chess game in which they believed they were winning until he delivered that crucial, telling move that resulted in checkmate.
Several more fawning members of staff joined the Christie bandwagon, asking rhetorical questions and making ingratiating compliments.
‘So far, I’ve already counted two “rearing its ugly head.”’ Christie’s exclamation carried to the four corners of the newsroom. ‘That’s rearing one ugly head too many.’
‘Mr Christie!’ interrupted an inexperienced young hack.
The editor deigned to indulge the journalist. ‘And?’
‘I started here last week,’ began the nervous hack.
‘Indeed you did,’ acknowledged Christie. ‘You took the place of what’s-her-name that went off to cover another story about home-made bombs and was never seen again.’
‘Surely I can use hard facts in a science piece?’ asked the young man tentatively. ‘And names? I mean, sources of empirical evidence and...’
‘Is that a question for a grown man to ask?’ returned Christie, his voice assuming a disappointed tone.
‘I just thought...’
‘Empirical evidence?’ sighed Christie. ‘I suppose, if you really think it’s necessary.’ He shook his head contemptuously. The misguided fool, thought the editor. Doesn’t he realise his article’s merely to beef up the column space on a website that nobody visits other than to read irresponsible loose gossip and scandal? The editor was only too well aware that sensible only appears when mindless was in short supply, and there were precious few occasions when that transpired.
The disappointed new addition slunk silently back to his screen without another word. The learning curve for Christie’s apprentices was often more a toboggan run than a nursery slope.
‘Give me grief-stricken family members crying for loved-ones that failed to make it to the next round of Big Sister,’ demanded Christie of his staff as he resumed his safari through the newsroom, a growing herd on the verge of stampede jostling to keep up with him. ‘Quotes, quotes, quotes. Find fresh bodies before they land in our laps. Imply who’s responsible, even if you haven’t a clue. Lace every sentence with innuendo. Pack those paragraphs with circumstantial evidence. Be anecdotal. Find me something startling!’
‘Mr Christie,’ began yet another fawning hackette for whom he had an appetite. ‘I’ve heard from a reliable source that a well-known celebrity has had unprotected sex with a shire horse.’
‘Now that’s startling!’ he admitted, conjuring a picture of someone balancing precariously on a stack of crates whilst attempting to service a Clydesdale. ‘Photos?’
‘Oh yes,’ she confirmed. ‘Very explicit.’
‘As we have built, so shall we demolish,’ he grinned approvingly. ‘Remember the publication’s motto: “In victory, gloating.” Have six hundred words on my desk in two hours. With pictures.’ With these final instructions he was gone, leaving the hackette glowing with pride that he had condescended to nourish her efforts with his enthusiasm.
Today Christie would take brunch with the veteran environment and science correspondent, Geoff Clean. Clean wanted to change the world and he wanted to do it by Thursday, because he knew time was running out. He was strictly organic, as demonstrated by the food stains on the front of his T-shirt that entirely failed to disguise his ursine physique. Clean looked as though he’d be more at home on a farm feeding free-range pigs or strapped to a tree somewhere as part of a wider protest to protect a threatened slice of ancient forest, than sitting behind a desk extolling the virtues of non-GM food. The state of the world genuinely troubled Clean. There had been no alien invasion, no gigantic asteroid had slammed into the planet causing global catastrophe. So why had it all gone pear-shaped?
‘Your problem, Geoff,’ stated Christie, blandly, ‘is that you can’t come to terms with the fact that the world is getting screwed by the greed and selfish pursuits of humankind.’
It occurred to Clean that this was rich talk from someone who would have sold his own mother for the price of a steak dinner. On the first anniversary of the attack on the Palace of Westminster, the staff of The New Globe had, like everybody else, observed a two-minute silence. A respectful hush descended upon the assembled diners in the canteen in remembrance of the self-seeking cliques that had perished that afternoon in April, when the terrorists had chosen St George’s Day to make their statement. But Christie, then merely an aspiring editor, had continued eating, to later be mildly rebuked by Clean. ‘I’m afraid, Geoff,’ remarked Christie, ‘the sins of the world will never be put right by the eating of a cold lunch. I shall pray for them in my own time and manner.’
The editor dusted his plate with a light coating of pepper. ‘I can still taste the food,’ he explained. ‘By the way, we may have to drop the polar bear story.’
‘But why?’ complained Clean.
Christie sighed. ‘Column space, as always.’
‘Can’t we at least do a few hundred words on the last of the Arctic ice? Most people are no longer aware there still is an Arctic, that it’s only in summer that it’s absent.’
‘I’ve seen more ice in a glass of Scotch before now,’ agreed Christie.
‘What about the polar bear?’ implored Clean.
‘Don’t think they drink whisky.’ Christie doused his food with more pepper. ‘What was the last word on the animal?’
‘There’s a rumour the poor beast drifted south on a chunk of pack ice and landed in Scotland where the locals wanted to feed it on deep-fried chocolate bars.’
‘Chocolate bars, eh?’ pondered Christie.
‘The bear was said to be quite sick,’ continued Clean hopefully.
‘Hardly surprising on that diet. Polar bear on ice,’ mused the editor. ‘Sounds like a musical extravaganza.’
‘Of course, it’s been years since anyone saw a polar bear in the wild,’ cautioned Clean. ‘It’s only an unconfirmed sighting at the moment. There’s obviously no photo as yet.’
Christie chuckled briefly. ‘Photo? That’s never a problem,’ he declared, a fork-full of food poised at his lips. ‘We’d simply use an old one from our archives. Naturally, we’d have to paste in the chocolate bars.’
‘Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there really was a last polar bear in the wild?’ Clean ventured.
‘Hmm.’ Christie finished chewing a mouthful and prised a grain of rice from between his teeth. ‘But let’s not count our chickens, eh, Geoff? Or our polar bears,’ he added as an afterthought. The editor smiled to himself, obviously delighted with his witticism. ‘I just hope we’re not flogging a dead horse. I do have other stories looking for a home.’
Clean did not share his boss’s view that extinction was a laughing matter. ‘It would be a very popular story if there was a polar bear,’ he pleaded. ‘You know the public can’t get enough of furry animals.’
Christie chewed over the polar bear and his food simultaneously. ‘Perhaps it does have human interest after all,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll see if there’s space for a few paragraphs. Meanwhile, is there any word from Moscow Zoo on the cloning of the woolly mammoth?’
‘They claim there are just a few more technical problems to be overcome,’ Clean said enthusiastically.
‘I wonder what one of those things would fetch on the open market?’ Christie asked rhetorically, directing his thought to the challenge of housing such a beast. Sponsorship would, naturally, cover all costs.
The conversation of the two journalists was interrupted by the welcome company of Kate Smart, a capable reporter having previously worked alongside Clean, but was now assigned to the home news desk. She was outspoken and persuasive, yet had the reputation for stalking her prey with stereotypical feline precision and subtlety - though if she’d heard herself being described in such terms she would undoubtedly take exception to it. Kate Smart and Geoff Clean remained good friends and were two of the last experienced reporters remaining at The New Globe.
‘Hi Jay, Geoff. What’s new?’ asked Smart, cheerfully.
‘My mail was opened again this morning,’ complained Clean, ‘I almost fell down a gaping hole in the sidewalk where someone had stolen the manhole cover, presumably for its scrap value and the world just lost another rain forest the size of Belgium.’ He took a sip from his plastic cup of water from the free tap.
‘Why is it always Belgium?’ pondered Smart.
‘Okay, an area the size of Lesotho.’ Clean was nothing if not flexible.
Smart offered him a frown. ‘Huh?’
‘Exactly,’ said Clean, loading another forkful of tofu curry into his mouth, grains of rice dropping out from the corners. From a plastic bottle he squeezed onto his plate a blob of brown sludge. ‘One more Belgium-sized chunk of rainforest and there’ll be nothing left of it.’
‘No, what I mean is,’ persisted Smart, ‘it’s always been Belgium, hasn’t it. Never the size of Portugal or Luxembourg. Does somebody measure it? And what about the gaps between the trees? Are they being taken into account? Are the gaps standard sized gaps or merely taken as an average?’
Clean shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Anything else?’ she prompted with a playful smile.
‘Riz on the terror desk tells me that yesterday’s suicide bomber was educated at Eton and Oxford.’
‘I should hope so,’ the editor interjected. ‘I’d hate to think I could be blown to pieces by somebody with only a state school education. And I do wish the staff would refrain from referring to the internal security desk as the terror desk.’
‘We need to re-distribute the world’s wealth,’ insisted Clean. ‘Only then will we see an end to terrorism.’
‘You forget “terrorism” has been replaced with “biased misanthropism,”’ corrected the editor pedantically.
‘Do you really think most of our readers will know what that means?’ asked the environment man.
‘Probably not,’ agreed Christie. ‘Which is almost certainly why the Ministry of Enlightenment came up with it. But they’ll be able to surmise the meaning from the context.’
‘A misanthrope?’ began Smart. ‘Sounds like someone who just walked straight out of a Dickens novel. Mr Misanthrope planted his bomb and retired early to bed with a glass of Old Haggarty’s fortified wine and a blueberry muffin.’
‘Did they have blueberry muffins in those days?’ asked Clean.
‘Only the well-off,’ replied Smart. ‘Everyone else had to manage with gruel.’
‘Misanthrope. It’s just not a term one can get one’s teeth into,’ complained Clean. ‘I mean, hatred of mankind, it’s a bit vague, isn’t it?’
‘Well, if you’d really prefer,’ conceded Christie, ‘you may use “terminatory nihilism” if the occasion demands.’
‘Better,’ Clean agreed. ‘Though it still has overtones of 1980s Hollywood movie. Anyway, what these people need is a chance of a decent life in a fair world. D’you think people want to live in caves and be subjected to regular bombing?’
‘I’m not sure there’s enough reproduction furniture to go round,’ grinned Christie patronizingly. ‘And isn’t it just a little disdainful to refer to council flats as “caves?”’
‘Very good,’ Smart broke in to congratulate Christie on his levity. ‘All this talk about misanthropes and nihilists first thing in the morning. Hasn’t anyone some good news?’
‘Ruth took another shot at me,’ replied Christie. ‘That’s the second time this month. Someone really ought to do something about her.’
‘Ruth’s there to help you quit your habit, Jay,’ insisted Smart. ‘You said you wanted to quit. There’d be no need of Ruth if only our government would follow the example set by so many others and make smoking illegal.’
‘And infringe our personal liberty to poison ourselves?’ smiled Christie. ‘Besides,’ he reconsidered, ‘I thought they had banned it.’
‘Not that anyone takes much notice of what’s legal and what’s not,’ put in Clean. ‘Rather like the ban on fox-hunting. Half a century later and it still goes on.’
‘Ahh, that’s the landed gentry, Geoff,’ explained Smart. ‘Laws don’t apply to them. They have a special exemption. Or perhaps some laws are optional. Anyway, on the question of smoking, I’m still convinced Ruth’s a man. No woman would ever do such a thing.’
‘Oh, Kate,’ Christie sighed, ‘you know well enough that women are regular contributors to violence. How about those women suicide bombers outside Westminster Abbey? That wasn’t spontaneous combustion.’
‘People are just not ready for a world free of religious intolerance,’ Clean slurred through a mouthful of food, sending a grain or two or rice sailing across the table.
‘Exploding women are one thing,’ said Smart, ‘But Ruth’s not a serious hazard.’
‘Are you kidding?’ nasalised Christie, if only to give his jaws a rest. ‘From where she sits she can cover a dozen buildings or more. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets hit. If only the police had enough resources.’
‘The only thing that keeps them from polishing their seats with their arses,’ began Smart acrimoniously, ‘is a terrorist attack or a good juicy murder.’ Christie began shaking his head solemnly, though Smart suspected it was because of her use of the prohibited term “terrorist” rather than her criticism of the police.
‘We all know they don’t venture out into Gotham City merely for your common or garden sniper these days,’ she continued. ‘Anyway, I still haven’t heard any good news.’
‘The owner of a website critical of the Fundamental Party,’ offered Christie, ‘has been found dead at his keyboard, apparently strangled by the flexi-cable.’
‘Police do not suspect foul play,’ quipped Smart.
‘Of course, he’d still be alive if his keyboard was solar-powered,’ remarked Clean. ‘As is the legal requirement, I believe.’
‘Perhaps his office faces north,’ suggested Smart, ‘and doesn’t get enough sun. They do make allowance apparently. Either way, it’s hardly good news.’
Clean attempted to drag the conversation back to a topic he’d mentioned minutes earlier. ‘Somebody’s been intercepting our mail y’know. I found my letters opened again this morning.’
‘Outrageous!’ declared Christie with a frown. ‘The depths to which people will sink!’
‘What about your electronic mail, Geoff?’ asked Smart.
‘I’m constantly having to change everything because someone keeps breaking the codes.’
‘A hacker?’ suggested Smart. ‘Maybe someone from The Moon? That’s industrial espionage, isn’t it?’
The editor turned to her and consciously changed the subject. ‘You look particularly dapper today, Kate.’
‘Thanks Jay. I’ve got a Railroad function to attend later at the Guildhall. They’re celebrating a major achievement.’
‘One of their trains arrived on time?’ suggested Clean. ‘Or perhaps they’re performing the last rites on another loss-making section of track. The Circle Line, for example.’
‘Speaking of last rites,’ said Christie, ‘Many years ago when there were still speed cameras, a friend of mine, a priest, was rushing on his way to perform the last rites on one of his parishioners. He wasn’t going particularly fast, but he got caught on a speed camera. When he told them his mitigating circumstances, they argued that it was hardly a matter of life or death.’
It took a second for the penny to drop, then Clean suggested: ‘That was a joke, right?’
‘God’s truth,’ insisted Christie.
Clean smiled. ‘I never knew a man of the cloth to lie unless it was absolutely convenient.’
‘What did your priest friend say?’ asked Smart.
‘He punched-out their area manager,’ replied Christie.
‘He sounds a little unorthodox,’ she concluded.
‘Yes, I suppose he is. I remember the time he gave up religion for Lent.’
‘Hardly a fundamentalist, then?’ proposed Smart.
‘I guess not ,’ agreed Christie.
‘I take it he never made bishop,’ Clean retorted.
‘What happened to him?’ Smart asked the editor.
‘He left the capital and moved to the Outer Hebrides. He said he was tired of London.’
‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,’ declared Clean, waving his hand with a philosophical air. ‘Samuel Pepys.’
‘London? It’s over-crowded, over-rated, and over-priced,’ said Smart, ‘not to mention dangerous and often downright bloody frightening.’
‘But otherwise, London’s fine, eh?’ grinned Christie. ‘By the way, it was Johnson, not Pepys,’ he added, turning to Clean.
‘Huh?’
‘Johnson,’ Christie sighed smugly. ‘Tired of London, tired of life.’
Clean shrugged carelessly, though he actually felt a mild irritation at being corrected yet again.
‘He created man; taught him the art of expression,’ said Smart.
‘Who said that?’ mumbled Clean, through a mouthful of curry.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I think I read it somewhere.’
Not to be outdone, Clean searched the recesses of his brain for a suitable religion-related rejoinder whilst chewing on a rather tough chunk of under-cooked carrot. ‘According to Lenin, “religion is the opium of the masses.” Perhaps people get high on it. The religion I mean. Not the opium. I had an aunt who swore she’d had a vision of Hamish Birchall whilst on a trip to Lourdes.’
‘Who on earth is Hamish Birchall?’ giggled Smart.
‘Only one of the greatest jazz musicians that ever graced a stage,’ answered Clean with mock surprise at her ignorance.
‘Religion has always been a powerful force,’ said Christie, unmoved by his colleagues’ levity, ‘sadly, not always for good. By the way, it was Karl Marx.’
‘Karl Marx?’ queried Clean fearing the worst.
‘Opium of the masses.’
‘Well, they were both Communists,’ accepted Clean grudgingly and rather crestfallen.
‘And what about you, Jay?’ asked Smart. ‘I know you’ve always taken your faith seriously. Has recent history influenced that at all?’
‘I’ve always believed,’ began Christie, gazing up at the ceiling, ‘there is a higher force that watches over us, guides our every move and...’
‘Yes, it’s called the Inland Revenue,’ she laughed.
Christie shot her a disapproving glance. ‘There were times in my life when I felt the special favour of His guidance and protection. What else is there to have faith in?’
‘Certainly not our so-called captains of industry,’ argued Clean. ‘They’ve been shafting the planet ever since the Industrial Revolution. Three centuries of industrialisation has not been kind to the planet.’
‘But we’re doing our bit now aren’t we?’ asked Smart.
‘Not before time,’ Clean replied. ‘And besides, there’s still the job of persuading the not-so-newly-emerged economies to ease off the gas. Not least when they drive their cars.’
‘Surely,’ began Christie, ‘it’s their prerogative to screw the planet? We had our turn. I mean, let’s have a little fairness here.’
‘There are about three billion cars in the world now,’ moaned Clean. ‘And a lot of them are still using fossil fuels.’
‘And all this in a world that still awaits the invention of a ball-point pen that actually works twice,’ noted Smart.
Clean once told her that the secrets of the universe had come to him in a flash. He’d searched frantically for a pen that worked. Then, by the time he’d found one, the secrets were gone, lost to the depths of the endless void.
‘The planet was doomed the day Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny,’ suggested Clean, confident that with industrial history he was now on home turf.
‘I knew a Jenny once,’ mused Christie. ‘Twice, actually.’
‘When you say you knew her, Jay,’ returned Smart, ‘are we talking biblical?’
‘Eh? Oh, yes, very much so.’ He smiled at the memory.
‘And politicians …’ continued Clean, still chewing on too much food.
‘Politicians?’ interrupted Smart. ‘Worthless bastards to a person.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Kate. If they genuinely cared about the environment they’d have taken far greater steps and sooner than any of them ever did.’ Clean used a more conciliatory tone than usual when discussing politicians.
‘Aha,’ cried Christie, as though he’d just found some coins that he’d mislaid yesterday down the back of the sofa. ‘Yes, the environment. Perhaps, Geoff, we can have a chat about that sometime in the near future.’
‘How soon in the near future?’
‘Forty minutes?’
‘Most politicians have no agenda other than to feather their own nests and those of their cronies,’ Smart continued the theme. ‘Sheep in wolves’ clothing. Just like the religious types. Oh, I don’t mean people like you, Jay. I’m talking about the radicals.’
‘Politicians, police and the clergy. Not a great fan of any of them are you Kate?’ observed Christie as he lifted his glass to drain his wine and instantly thought better of it. ‘I’ll catch you guys later. Don’t forget to drop in Geoff.’ He dabbed his lips clean with a paper napkin and departed the table.
Forgot to recycle his napkin, thought Clean. The two colleagues watched as the editor moved through the canteen. Several juniors practically fell, supine before Christie as he passed. Others ducked their heads in avoidance rather than have to decide whether to bow, scrape, or generally grovel. When Christie was well out of earshot Clean turned to Smart with a look of concern.
‘I wonder what he meant by that comment about the environment.’
‘What comment?’ she asked.
‘He wants to chat about the environment. Why now, I wonder?’
‘Probably wants you to cover more of it.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Clean with a frown. ‘Last time we had a chat about the environment, my column space was reduced. He said it was becoming a dead issue, that the public had heard enough about it and that there were other things of more immediate concern to the readers.’
‘Such as what colour drawers the latest supermodel was almost wearing last night at a party? Or who’s been giving whom a blowjob lately? Or should that be who? Or worse still, who’s the latest celebrity to be ridiculed by the media for air-kissing in public?’
‘What could possibly be more important than our environment?’ murmured Clean, distractedly.
The car in front of Terry Thomason’s black London taxicab hurtled along with all the speed of a geriatric tortoise, despite a fairly clear road ahead. It had a sticker attached to the rear indicating that its top speed was 25 kph at all times, a voluntary restriction that gave the owner the benefit of a huge tax discount, but the acceleration of a fully-loaded milk float negotiating a steep hill with speed humps.
Terry drove on, past the empty space where the Palace of Westminster had been, its twelve hundred rooms and one hundred staircases reduced to rubble by the attack years ago. The many statues lining the palace’s two miles of corridors had been smashed and scattered, so that when the emergency services had begun clearing the debris in the search for survivors, they often came across what they took for human limbs jutting out of the wreckage.
The limbs of some statues and bodies had actually become bizarrely combined. When the Member for Central Fissure and Cerebellum was discovered, he had the right arm of William Pitt the Elder embedded in his anus. It was an ironic end for the MP, dying in the same manner in which he had lived. Outside on the lawn near St. Stephen’s entrance, the statue of Oliver Cromwell had been completely shattered by the blasts, his sword fired like a missile along the length of Whitehall to behead the statue of Charles I stranded on his traffic island in Trafalgar Square.
The first plane had missed the House of Commons and taken out the Lords, which had been only sparsely populated, as was the custom. Most of those actually in attendance had, mercifully, been in their usual state of advanced stupor. However, the second plane entirely demolished the Palace of Westminster, burying the Government and Opposition almost to a person.
Terry recalled the bubonic plague scare that was one of many that followed the attack on St George’s Day, when rumours spread that biochem weapons may also have been involved. Hoping to allay fears, some religious leaders claimed it was divine retribution, which was always very reassuring. Quoting the Book of Revelation, one bishop insisted ‘The seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled,’ which was, naturally, a great comfort to those that believed they were afflicted.
The scare soon became a panic with a remarkable resemblance to hysteria. Hospitals, soon overwhelmed with suspect cases, kept people at arms length, quickly realising that barge poles were more effective, until the supply of barge poles ran out. Health workers then failed to turn up for work fearing they might contract a disease.
If fear feeds on uncertainty, then a banquet was served up on that St George’s Day. The markets were as sick as the population imagined itself to be. Otherwise, demand for commodities evaporated overnight and Mother Nature briefly rejoiced. Within days the infrastructure of the UK had collapsed.
In London, the financial district was deserted with the resultant loss of income for pubs and other affiliated businesses. The loss to McStarburgers coffee bars alone was thought to have been the equivalent of the GDP of a medium-sized country. There were no road haulage deliveries to replenish supplies, no public transport and frequent power cuts. Panic buying had quickly given way to panic looting by anyone who either disbelieved the rumours or was too stupid to realise the potential risk of human contact. Fear of contamination had set neighbour against neighbour, one community against the next and dogs against cats.
Lord Crispin Membrane, currently charged with embezzlement, had defended the new emergency coalition Government’s policy of quarantine for districts where suspected outbreaks had occurred. The army had enforced curfews, frequently broken by desperate mobs that did battle with the troops.
‘This kind of behaviour is outrageous and must be controlled at all costs,’ Membrane had addressed his cronies in the House. ‘The next thing you know, it’ll spread to districts where decent people live.’
The House of Lords was now known as the Marquee of Lords, since their lordships occupied a large tent for which Membrane himself held the receipt.
In The Albion Terror Attack Sweepstake, Terry had drawn the Sellafield nuclear installation, but it was his gran, Joyce, who’d picked up the money with her Palace of Westminster winning ticket.
2
Jay Christie sat casually on the corner of a table, one leg swinging gently from the knee down. He was about to address his gathered staff and cleared his throat to signal silence. Today’s address included an especially sad announcement.
‘This publication,’ he began, ‘under its original name of course, The Globe, has a memorable history. It covered the French Revolution, the Battle of Waterloo and had a war correspondent there when the Light Brigade made their famous charge against the Russian guns.’ Christie’s face assumed a disappointed aspect that was reflected in his voice. ‘Unfortunately, by the time our man realised the cape was still over his lens, the charge was over.’
There was an audible sigh much like that emitted by a crowd of football supporters when a shot goes narrowly wide of a goal post.
‘This newspaper has informed the public for over two centuries and it has never compromised its principles. We have never compromised our principles.’
Christie’s being frugal with the truth again, thought Geoff Clean, the environment correspondent.
‘But,’ continued Christie, ‘we have seen rival publications go out of business because they failed to adapt to a changing market.’
Here we go again, thought Clean, down the same old road. He knew every bend and fork of its well-trodden tarmac.
‘When it was necessary, this paper went tabloid to become,’ Christie paused for effect, ‘The New Globe, to emphasise it had changed not just its shape but also its name.’ It occurred to the editor that a baby born on the day the first edition of The New Globe was published would, by now, be embarking on a life-time career of claiming benefits. ‘A new market,’ he continued, ‘demanded a new product. Ibtihal Jabba was one of those that helped build that new product.’
Clean waited for the usual scenario to unfold. He hardly needed to listen and the editor’s words became merely a dull noise as Clean gazed out of a window wondering what would become of his environment page. Firstly, Christie waxes lyrical about past glories. Check one. Then he makes the same old comparisons between The New Globe and those unfortunate flagships that went down with all hands still at the keyboards, half-gloating, half-commiserating with those members of staff that had joined The New Globe from failed competitors. Check two. ‘They had failed to adapt,’ Christie says, as if he were Darwin himself quoting from The Origin of Species. Check three. Finally, he will serve up the real meat sandwiched between the stodgy slices of bread. There must be cutbacks, which means pay cuts, or downsizing, which was Olde English for job losses…
‘The religious affairs post,’ announced Christie in sombre tone, ‘is available once more, following the untimely death of Ibtihal Jabba.’
The words rebounded off a wall of silence. Some people subconsciously took a step backwards amid nervous coughs, throat-clearing, nose-blowing and shuffling of feet. The dreaded post was once more up for grabs – and nobody in his or her right mind would be clutching at it with both hands.
After disappearing for a week, Jabba had finally returned to The New Globe, albeit in twelve separate sacks, none of them smelling too good.
‘Ibtihal’s loss will be felt by all of us here and the paper’s principles will not be compromised by such intimidation.’
I’ll bet they will, thought Clean.
‘There will be a mass later. Now,’ Christie’s tone lightened. ‘Tomorrow’s assignments. I like the last tiger story, though the photo of the man displaying the carcass of what he proudly claims to be the last wild tiger is a little blurred.’
‘Yes,’ a young journalist beaming with pride eagerly acknowledged. ‘The photo has been authenticated.’
‘Excellent,’ congratulated Christie. ‘Though it could be a little sharper, that’s nothing we can’t sort out.’
‘The man says he shot the tiger for its teeth and claws so he could make a bracelet for his mother-in-law’s birthday,’ clarified the junior hack with special responsibility for species clinging on by their eyelids.
This, considered Christie, could be someone who might, in due course, take over Geoff Clean’s responsibilities. ‘What more could any son-in-law possibly offer?’ responded the editor. ‘And at least the animal didn’t die to satisfy a whim. But can we be sure of the claim that it’s the very last wild tiger? I mean, we wouldn’t want The Moon to discover there were still some tigers left, would we?’
‘I’ll check it out,’ promised the hack earnestly.
‘We’ve been down the last tiger road before,’ warned Christie with an exaggerated sigh. ‘People have been shooting the very last one for decades to the best of my knowledge. We don’t want any more of them popping up unannounced in a far-flung corner of a foreign field that was forever a tiger sanctuary. That would be rather embarrassing for us.’
‘And tragic for the tiger!’ came a voice from a far-flung corner of the newsroom.
‘Exactly!’ agreed Christie, spinning round in the hope of catching a glimpse of the culprit, though he had a pretty shrewd idea who it was. ‘We can’t let sentiment stand in the way of factual reporting. Hard facts have to be faced.’
‘Preferably supported with pictures,’ suggested the young hack covering the very, very last tiger.
‘Certainly,’ confirmed Christie, confident that the picture archives would provide a much more dramatic photo to fit the story. ‘Pictures give the public irrefutable evidence.’
‘Except when they’ve been tampered with,’ came the lone voice of dissent once more.
Christie spied Kate Smart as she browsed through a magazine, displaying flagrant disregard for his public address. She lowered the magazine and bestowed a grin on her irritated boss, then slid off a stool and began meandering in his general direction.
‘Any further questions regarding extinction?’ asked Christie of his adoring juniors.
‘Who’s covering the by election,’ Smart questioned, ‘now that Ibtihal’s extinct?’
Everyone at the paper knew the murdered reporter had disappeared immediately after publication of a piece that criticised the Fundamental Party.
Christie seemed taken aback by the directness of the question. ‘I’ll decide that later, Kate,’ he began hesitantly. ‘It’s a decision that requires some thought and…when I decide…it will be based on my decision.’ The editor hurriedly delegated the remaining assignments, and then swept out of the newsroom, back to the sanctity of his blast-proof inner office.
Geoff Clean paused to glance at a framed article that hung on a wall. It was dated November 2038, with the headline question: “Is God Dead?” A former religious affairs correspondent, whose decapitated corpse was discovered in a builder’s skip near his home a week after the offending article was published, had written the article. The correspondent had complained to Clean that the editor was always doctoring his otherwise innocuous articles, making them read provocatively in the eyes of the Fundamental Party.
Clean found Jay Christie’s secretary, Svetlana sitting at her workstation just outside the editor’s office and it occurred to him he should warn her of forthcoming events. She was, he thought, about as attractive as it was possible for anyone to be without actually appearing in the underwear section of a catalogue.
Svetlana was achingly beautiful, with blue eyes set in a slightly tanned face, framed by thick, shoulder-length blonde hair. She was the kind of girl who turned heads, stopped conversations and had cars screeching to a halt by the kerb. Today she wore a skirt with a side-split that revealed tantalizing wedges of her slender legs.
‘Svetlana. I have a meeting this afternoon with representatives of the Renewable Energy Institute from…’ he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘…somewhere south of the Mediterranean.’
‘You mean…’ she startled.
‘Yes, I mean there’s no need to panic if you see men in long robes walking through the corridors.’
‘Your story on the solars?’ suggested the secretary.
Clean nodded in confirmation. ‘That’s part of it.’
‘Oh. I have the books purchased you desire.’
Svetlana’s a truly delightful girl, thought Clean, though it occurred to him Christie had employed her for reasons other than her impressive command of English which was, on a good day, appalling. Only yesterday, he had struggled to explain to her that a sovereign wealth fund was not referring to the money the king kept in his deposit account. However, she was very obliging. She had procured the books Clean had asked her for, since he’d no time nor inclination for shopping.
‘“Cinderella and the Two Sisters of Questionable Appeal” and “Snow White and the Seven Diminutive Miners,”’ read Clean. ‘You can’t beat the classics. Thanks ever so much Svetlana. I’m sure my niece will love them. There’ll be a little something under your pillow – me!’ He chuckled at his joke.
‘I’m not sure,’ she frowned. ‘You are wanting to hide under my pillow?’
‘Never mind. Just a joke.’ Besides, he thought, I wouldn’t want to bump into Jay Christie coming out from under the duvet. ‘Don’t forget about the visitors this afternoon.’
He entered Jay Christie’s office to clarify some current editorial issues and apparent policy changes. Presently, Svetlana supplied two coffees and some cookies.
‘How’s your article on population change coming along?’ asked Christie.
‘Its painful,’ replied Clean. ‘And I’m not sure how I’ll fit it into an environment piece. Of course, I was hoping to keep it as uncontroversial as possible, but it’s hardly possible to write it at all when you’re not permitted to name countries when connected to population issues. It reads like a mathematics paper.’
‘Coordinates, Geoff. It’s the only safe approach. And it’s not, strictly speaking, an environment piece.’’
‘Oh? Population not an environmental issue? And how am I supposed to approach a subject so contentious as birth control?’ wailed Clean.
‘Gestation avoidance,’ corrected Christie.
‘Gestation avoidance? Since when?’
‘Since the Ministry of Public Enlightenment sent out its latest decree. Be vague,’ the editor waved a hand airily, possibly to improve circulation. ‘Prevaricate, imply, insinuate, intimate. But under no circumstances let it appear that you are making a stand on the population issue. Besides, you know how I feel about…gestation avoidance - and I’m certainly not alone.’
‘I doubt most readers even know what it refers to,’ supposed Clean.
He considered that just as the phrase “war on terror” had been replaced by “overseas contingency operation”, that in turn became “extraneous occurrence inspection,” and later “sorry, exactly which war are you referring to?” so the phrase “birth control” was now also suitably disguised so as to be virtually unrecognisable as such. For it was widely believed, with the world’s finite resources stretched beyond breaking point, more humans were exactly what the planet most needed.
‘Anyway,’ resumed Christie, ‘gestation avoidance, or “parturition regulation” if you really must, is far too controversial a subject to tackle head-on without some form of protection.’ He considered his statement for a moment and added: ‘I mean, of course, the protection of some form of disclaimer.’
‘Speaking of controversy,’ began Clean, ‘your articles on asylum seekers…sorry, refuge seekers…or is it fugitives?’
‘You mean “asile chercheur,”’ stressed the editor, delighted at having the chance to correct his learned colleague once again. ‘“Asylum” was abandoned long ago because of its mental health associations. So you see, to be on the safe side, we switched to using asile chercheur. If in doubt, say it in French. It sounds chic and nobody has a clue what it means since nobody speaks the language anymore.’
‘Except the French,’ noted Clean in an uncharacteristic moment of pedantry that earned him an old-fashioned look from the editor. ‘Asile chercheur. That’s a new one for me. I thought we had switched to using “fugitives?”’
Christie shook his head fiercely. ‘No, no. Connotations of escaped convicts.’
‘And what happened to “displaced persons?”’
‘It was considered the phrase suggested the persons were forced out against their will or had fled for fear of their own safety.’
‘I thought they had,’ Clean admitted earnestly. ‘Isn’t that the whole point? I wish somebody would tell me of these changes.’
‘Memos are constantly being circulated to keep staff informed,’ sighed Christie. ‘It’s not as if these subjects are taboo, y’know.’
‘Could have fooled me!’ cried Clean, his eyes widening. ‘And who decides all these changes?’
‘Good question,’ admitted Christie. ‘I don’t think anybody is quite sure. It just sort of happens. Someone at the Ministry of Public Enlightenment, presumably.’
‘Good to know we’re not paying taxes for nothing. I’d hate to think the staff at the Ministry of Public Enlightenment might be wasting time and resources sitting there ploughing through dictionaries just to come up with alternative labels.’ Clean had always suspected that this government department, among others, had access to the overhead surveillance cameras. ‘Anyway, your article will certainly stir a few readers to clear their throats. But doesn’t it break the previously mentioned rule vis-à-vis not mentioning anything directly when crusading for the unmentionables as it were?’
‘Not quite sure I follow you there,’ the editor cautiously returned. ‘There’ll have been a few raised eyebrows over the teacups I’ve no doubt. However, if one is careful not to mention names, dates, places or anything else remotely verifiable, then I think one can safely assume it can be dismissed as inadmissible by our detractors. Except, of course, we know it to be the truth.’
‘Huh?’ Cleaned frowned in confusion.
‘Better safe than sorry, eh?’ nodded Christie cryptically. ‘The fact is, Geoff, The Moon editorials of late have been accusing us of cowardice!’
‘The nerve,’ cried Clean in solidarity. ‘Er, cowardice regarding what?’
The editor huffed. ‘Don’t you ever read the bloody thing? They’re accusing us of being afraid to address sensitive issues.’
‘It’s all very well for them to say that. They can print what they like without fear of being attacked.’
‘That’s why we have to occasionally make a definite stand on certain controversial issues,’ said Christie defiantly, ‘however vague and ambiguous it may read once it’s in print.’ Christie took a sip of coffee and pressed the intercom on his desk. ‘Svetlana, you’ve put sugar in my coffee again.’ He turned to Clean. ‘Nice girl, but a bit naive. Her boyfriend told her that unprotected sex was a cure for constipation. Now she thinks she might be pregnant. Try one of those crumble cookies, they really are delicious.’
Clean took a cookie from the plate. ‘But is it politically correct to name countries in connection with population…er, I mean gestation thingy?’ Clean wiped some crumbs from his mouth. ‘I’ll have to get some of these cookies. Where’d you get them?’
Christie winced and brushed away several crumbs Clean had spat in his direction. ‘Svetlana buys them. You’ll have to ask her. And don’t forget, “politically correct” is not a phrase we use anymore. I mean, it’s just not…well, you know, politically correct to use such a phrase.’
Clean took another cookie and a slurp of coffee. ‘You said yourself, Jay, that the paper edition is losing circulation. I seem to recall you recently said that ever since the attack on Westminster readers are less keen to read…’ he broke off to glance nervously at the suspended ceiling. A suspiciously crooked tile could be evidence that a microphone had been hidden up there. ‘Less keen to read certain material.’ Clean dunked too long in his coffee and a chunk of cookie broke off to float free in the cup. ‘So how come the sob-story in your column about…’ Again the reticence followed by anxious glances to the ceiling.
‘Spit it out Geoff,’ prompted the editor hoping his colleague would not take his order literally.
‘You-know-what,’ whispered Clean.
‘What do I know about what?’ shrugged Christie.
Clean mouthed rather than utter the word audibly.
‘It’s a special case,’ emphasised Christie evasively. ‘A one-off. And besides, there’s the second article that insists policies are too lax. But of course, we use “embracement” now. It suggests a much warmer, welcoming atmosphere for the “embracee.”’
‘Embracee?’ questioned Clean. ‘Does such a word actually exist?’
‘It does now,’ Christie insisted adamantly.
Clean, tentatively fished with a finger in the hot coffee as the biscuit sank beyond sight, tiny oil circles appearing on the surface as it disintegrated. Christie watched Clean’s finger chase the cookie without success, though with evident pain and handed his colleague a teaspoon.
‘And it is presumably supposed that by giving a concept a friendly name,’ assumed Clean, ‘the actual experience for the embracee will consequently be similarly agreeable?’