26. THE MIND OF A MAN

THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES 26

It might have been coincidence or it might have been some spooky form of control in the ether, but Royston found himself unable to stop the little boat from steering itself in the direction of the Tower of London. And the only way from the river into the tower was via Traitor’s Gate, an iron monstrosity that was kept firmly shut unless, like at the precise moment when the flat boat nosed towards it, it was opened for maintenance work to be carried out.

He nosed the boat inch by inch in the sombre half light of the channel that in past times had led many a condemned man (and woman) to a dingy cell in which they would while away the days and sometimes weeks awaiting the moment of their execution. And it was during those past times that it was discovered that the best way to silence critics and opponents of all kinds was to separate them from their heads or dangle them from a rope, kicking and screaming until their last moment came and went. It silenced them, and to some it was fun, which is why crowds turned up to applaud.

The Prime Minister had studied those past times as a schoolboy at an expensive public school when he’d been variously described as a young thickie by some and a thug by others. He had drooled over the glories inherent in the kind of power that a wealthy man with or without a crown on his head can do to those whose ideas might vary from their own. And as a schoolboy he had always had quite a few original ideas of his own.

Like the time when Carter Junior had refused to part with a bag of minty humbugs and when he had aimed a steady punch at the evil boy’s crotch in order to win those delicious sweets it had hammered against a well concealed copy of one of the thinnest books in the school library, The Poems of Hawley Harvey Crippen, and caused him excruciating pain to his clenched fist. As a boy, the Prime Minister had admired that particular poet and the whole idea that he had smashed his fist painfully into a copy of his turgid verse sickened him almost as much as the pain, and made him vow that one day he’d get even with Carter Junior.

So he was ready and waiting at the Tower for his planned victims to arrive even though Carter Junior could never be among them on account of ghis death from a dose of something terminally unpleasant a decade earlier.

He had nothing in particular against any of the Curmudgeons, in fact he hardly knew of their existence, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know people to decide that he hated them. They only had to do one minor thing, commit one minuscule offence against him, for him to want to bellow off with their heads at the top of his voice as if he was a great actor playing a powerful king.

And they’d committed their trivial offence, at least two of them had. The young woman was less guilty, in fact there were few people on the planet who were less guilty than pretty she, but the men had not only paraded themselves before him dressed only in their underpants but their presence had somehow convinced him that he should be dressed similarly, and he’d taken his own trousers off in public, a fact that he guessed would be replayed times many on the Internet for the remainder of his days..

Yes, without thinking he’d actually removed his own trousers in the presence of people who doubtless had phones capable of recording it for posterity! And hadn’t nanny warned him? Told him about the dangers of silly behaviour under the public gaze?

The whole affair had made him look ridiculous. And one thing above all others that he hated, was looking ridiculous.

So he scowled at Blinky and Royston. Their guilt was obvious.

They must lose their heads after a session in the torture chamber supervised by himself. And that would be fun to watch, him with his bumptious expression that people take as amusingly muddled, enjoying the turn of the screw and the heave of the rack. He’d enjoy it like he’d enjoyed the pictures in his history books.

And word had come to him. They’d managed to get away from their guard, which had angered him and turned his mental image of the axe that would sever their heads into steel that dripped with blood, red and gorgeous. But rather than flee to any corner of the world that was safe from his network of spies they had somehow managed to come straight to the Tower, even, spookily, via the Traitor’s Gate.

That was only right and proper because they didn’t seem to want to do what he expected them to do, so they were traitors, weren’t they?

But not the woman.

She wasn’t exposing her underwear in public like they were, at least not quite, though she might if the wind caught her pretty little skirt and whipped it around a bit, which would be more fun than anything else that had happened since the election. No. She was a beautiful young thing and he had caught that look in her eyes, the one that had suggested quite blatantly that she would do anything for him if he asked her because power turned her on. If he said, all charm, of course, like he was, that it would be more pleasant sitting around if she let him remove her bra, then she’d ask him, nay, probably beg him to. She might even take it off for him and rub his face with its soft lacy fabric all fragrant with her sweetness whilst allowing him to…

No! The thought was too hot for a day like this! But he wouldn’t let her be taken to the depths of the Tower and the torture chambers. Not her. He had other plans for sweet little things like her.

It was a perverse thought, but he knew, deep inside, that in a twisted sort of way he might best be described as a pervert. Not by himself, of course. He knew himself and he knew, well, he knew what he liked and it was more beautiful than flowers in bowers or the magic of flesh-on-flesh hours, and that made him normal, didn’t it? Or if not exactly normal, certainly not perverted.

Yes, he had critics absurdly dressed in underpants, and he knew what to do with them, how to make them scream their way to death, and refresh himself afterwards with the young woman.

And Igor. He was in the mix, too, sartorially if in no other way. He had created the gemstone and he had filled it with too many lies. And the trouble with his lies was that they were, in reality, truths.

And he knew too well that truths and lies were completely and utterly interchangeable, he’d messed around them all his life and hadn’t it been fun? But maybe times they were a-changing, as the folk singer sang, and Igor might turn out to be one trick too many. One lie too unbelievable. He must go too.

Meanwhile the small flat river boat was slowly edging under Traitor’s Gate and into a hellish gloom that might be fun.

© Peter Rogerson. 06.02.20