Jeffrey smartened a crease in a crisp white shirt Kendra had purchased for him and he shined his shoes with spit and toilet paper. A firm knock on the thick metal cell door was followed by the opening of a hatch. He had been pre-warned it was to be a nine a.m. ceremony to avoid public or press intrusion, and that, for its duration, he’d be clad in wrist and ankle cuffs. It wasn’t ideal but as long as Kendra was still prepared to devote her life to him, it didn’t matter. He turned his back to the door while officers clamped on the restraints. The corridors of his segregated unit were unusually quiet as he made his way towards the rear of the building, flanked by three guards. Jeffrey was desperate to see Kendra again. In long, lonely stints in his cell, he tolerated their separation by creating an imaginary world where he and his wife owned a beautiful house in a village near San Antonio and spent their days working on a horse ranch and taking long mountain hikes with their children, two sons. Jeffrey gave them the childhood he had been robbed of. Sometimes his fantasy was so vivid that, when he snapped back to the present, his confined surroundings confused him and it took him a moment to adjust to reality.
Kendra had shown him photographs of the Camden chapel where they were to tie the knot. The location mattered more to her than to him. Her first wedding had been in a Las Vegas drive-through. This second union would be perfect, despite her disapproving family’s refusal to join them.
Jeffrey and his escorts approached a large, square van with open rear doors in the loading bay. It was familiar to him, having spent his trial commuting to and from court each day inside a similar vehicle. He took a seat as one of the guards affixed his hand and ankle cuffs to a metal pole in front of him. But, instead of sitting with him, the guard exited the van, closed the doors and left him alone. That went against procedure and a wave of unease struck Jeffrey. There was something amiss about this sequence of events.
But, before he could decipher what it was, the doors opened again and, this time, an unfamiliar uniformed guard appeared and took a seat opposite him. He held a tablet in front of him, its screen facing Jeffrey. It flickered before it came to life. A thin man with pale skin and dressed in a dark suit was seated and staring at him.
‘Who are you?’ Jeffrey asked after a short, uncomfortable silence.
‘Me?’ the pale man replied. ‘I am the one person in the world you shouldn’t have come to the attention of.’
Jeffrey stared hard at him; he was sure they had never met. Was he related to one of Jeffrey’s former clients? ‘What do you think I did to you?’ he asked, nerves catching in his throat.
‘I spent a very long time planting the seeds of change in the public’s collective consciousness. I fired up their imaginations and I offered them something they didn’t know they needed. From behind the scenes, I organized, planned, promoted and executed what was required to get this country back on its feet. I made people work, I made relationships work, I made the country work. I thought of all eventualities – apart from the arrival of someone like you. Even I couldn’t predict all it would take was one psychopath with a God complex to destroy public confidence in all my efforts.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘The Sanctity of Marriage Act was my child. Smart Marriages, Smart towns, Smart lives, Smart jobs, Smart fucking everything . . . all ideas conceived and brought into this world by me.’
‘I . . . I didn’t mean—’
‘What you did or didn’t mean to do is irrelevant,’ the man interrupted, his voice raised. ‘What’s done is done and now we must play the cards we’ve been dealt. And God knows which direction that will take us after today’s rally.’
‘You can’t blame that on me.’
‘No, you’re right, not all of it, no. Hairline cracks appeared before you turned up at the shitshow. But, by the time you’d finished, those cracks were so wide you could push a fist inside them. You gave the enemy what they needed – the face of a monster.’
An image of Kendra appeared in Jeffrey’s mind. He urgently wanted to see her again. She was the first person he had ever felt safe with. Here in this van, he was unprotected. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked. ‘I can make a public apology, tell everyone I’m sorry and that they should still support the Act despite what I did.’
The pale man laughed. ‘Let me tell you something, Jeffrey. Throughout each industrial revolution, we have created technologies that have changed the pattern of how we live. And we’ve taken advantage of technology to help us evolve. These upheavals used to take centuries but we are moving at such a rapid speed with AI and robotics that now they can evolve in a heartbeat. Smart Marriages were leading us into our fifth industrial revolution, one that was ofmymaking, ofmyplanning, ofmyexecution. And then you, one solitary cancerous tumour, appeared from nowhere, your cells dividing and eating away at the trust of the public that I have spent such a large proportion of my career cultivating. So, no, Jeffrey; your apology will mean nothing. Your day of public reckoning has long since expired. And the next time your name appears in the media will be when the public is learning of your suicide.’
The prison guard placed the tablet on the seat next to him so the screen remained facing Jeffrey. And before Jeffrey could defend himself, the guard threw himself across the prison van, wrapped a cord around Jeffrey’s neck and attached it to a hook in the van’s roof. He used it to yank Jeffrey forward, forcing him to his knees. Helpless, Jeffrey hurled his body around to try and free himself but he was stymied by his handcuffed wrists and ankles and the other man’s strength. He began to choke.
‘For the rest of her life, your darling Kendra will believe the note I have left in your cell which says you’d rather be dead than married to her, your DNA Match,’ the pale man continued, his face up close to the lens. ‘How do you think that’ll make her feel? Her brothers, sisters, mother, grandparents, children and grandchildren have already disowned her for being with you. And without her beloved Jeffrey, she will have absolutely no one. It wouldn’t surprise me if she followed in your footsteps. And if she doesn’t, then perhaps my colleague and I can pay her a visit and encourage her to do the right thing.’
‘No,’ gasped Jeffrey, ‘Please, no.’
The thought of leaving her alone was heartbreaking, but the thought of her being hurt because of him was unbearable. ‘I beg you,’ he whispered.
‘Chalk her up as another casualty to add to your tally.’
Two of Jeffrey’s fingers slipped under the cord, allowing him to gasp the tiniest amount of air. ‘I’ll . . . do . . . anything.’
‘That’s if she was actually real at all.’
‘W . . . what?’
‘Perhaps it was someone from my department who intercepted your emails and communicated with you. Maybe the Kendra you met was one of my team. Who knows? You certainly won’t.’
Even in his desperate heightened state, Jeffrey could read the pale man’s expression. He was here for revenge and to punish, and not to negotiate.
And in a few short moments, when Jeffrey allowed his fingers to slip from under the cord, the pale man got what he wanted.
91
Roxi
Roxi checked the monitor behind the window and spottedtwo familiar faces. Breakfast news presenters Esther Green and Stuart James had interviewed her several times when she was Influencing and she felt comfortable around them. And, because they were unlikely to grill her to the degree other hardened hacks might, she had agreed to appear on their programme. They wouldn’t be letting her off the hook, but she wasn’t concerned.
