Sentence The Onehundredandsixtyfirst
“What is a Doryphore?” asked The Man, in what she thought a feeble attempt at levity to mollify her entrenched suspicion of him but, by the inappropriate use of that neoteric whimsy found most frequently in the cartoon pages of The Sunday Post he only showed himself up and, strangely, his vulnerability embarrassed Tammy on his behalf; but then she remembered how he had violated her trusting nature and attempted to murder her beloved Bernie and she blushed to her roots, as she glanced down at her own nakedness before this Brute who had kidnapped her, and Tammy noted immediately the very large Boots he wore, and when she took her first look at his face she was startled by the Guido Fawkes mask which hid his identity: that, surely, she thought, meant that he did not intend to kill her, for keeping his face from her eyes surely gave her some hope of survival from this ordeal; her hands and feet were raw, fingernails broken and bleeding, her shins and knees scraped from the rough rocks and boulders she had been climbing down, and she felt his eyes taking a masculine interest in her exposed body – but she had no choice, so, as quickly as she could, she descended the last few feet until her bare soles were planted on the scrubby grass and gravel; “turn around, “said the man, “and put your hands behind you” – Tammy obeyed and felt her thumbs pulled together with a cable-tie: “that's temporary,” said The Man, “let's get you inside and clean you up – I've got some fresh clothes for you, I see you've discarded the others, awkward clambering about in them I suppose,” and she nodded, wary of entering into conversation, being aware of the Stockholm Syndrome, by which hostages can become complicit with their captors through the experience of mutuality, oh, yes, she knew all about that from her mother, for Tabby had been involved in the debriefings afterwards, and had written about it for one of the psychology journals she contributed to – Tammy almost snorted – under her cover identity as a University Lecturer, well, she did give a few lectures and tutor a few students, but Tammy now knew that it was all simply a means of assessing possible future recruits to MI5 and even MI6 – what changes? she wondered – they still use the same practices that produced Philby, Burgess, MacLean, Blunt and the others, oh, but now there are various aptitude tests and psychological profiling – she knew all this not just from Tabby and Uncle Tavish, for she had done plenty of her own researches into the subject of what makes a good spy or spy-catcher, and one thing she had come to conclude was that, ugly though the truth might seem, the intelligence services actually demanded that their employees first loyalty was to The Service, rather than to The Government, for Governments change according to the whims of the electorate, while The Services continued, ostensibly serving the government of the day, in reality, themselves; but why was she bothering to let these thoughts occupy her mind? obviously just a distraction from the bleak reality of her present predicament, but The Man had shown her a bag in which she could see neatly folded clothes and was not surprised to find that they were her own, he had been in the flat, delving inside her wardrobe and drawers; she felt the anger rising inside her, but damped it down – now was not the time to risk antagonising him, so when he took her by the elbow and helped her walk with him around the great base of the ruins , she complied with an air of meekness, for she knew her survival, and perhaps Bernie's, depended on not antagonising him; they came to a wooden door and The Man used a key to unlock it and help her through into the ground floor of the Tower; he showed her through to a room, not unlike the one at the top where she had been shackled to the radiator, but he cut the cable tie with a Stanley knife and told her to put on some underwear, and that he would then clean and dress her wounds before she finished dressing; none of this took very long and so she was soon dressed, leaving outdoor clothes in the bag for later, according to him; “upstairs now,” he said, “but wait there and I'll take a photograph, just to show my employer that you are safe and well –
I won't tell him about your rather dangerous escapade this morning, that would just annoy him and he's not someone you want to annoy,” so just at the bottom of the steps he took a photo of her, and then followed her as she climbed the 120 steps, not to the room she had been in before, but probably the one below – she couldn't be sure what floor this was because the constant spiralling and the similarity of all the doors they had passed had made it difficult for her to separate and retain the different pieces of information that she tried to hold in her mind; but this room; although it had only the one door – that which they entered by – it did have a small and barred window, and also a truckle
bed, a table and two chairs, and a radiator: Tammy expected him to handcuff her to it, but instead he told her to sit on one of the chairs and, from the other bag he had carried over his shoulder, he produced a Thermos flask, several water bottles, and a set of plastic boxes containing food; suddenly she realised just how hungry she was, having no idea of when she had last eaten, and she fell on it like a wolf and devoured it, washing mouthfuls down with coffee from the flask; she realised that she was starting to feel better, stronger in herself, but was hesitant about asking The Man any questions, for she felt that he was possessed, not only of strength and power over her, but also of an internal conflict which could so easily be translated into rage and she felt certain that that was what Bernie had come up against in the lift at Waverley Station – his fury that he had allowed himself to be followed, and by an amateur, and in so doing had put himself at risk; she began to believe within herself that, while he was clearly a 'Bad' man, he was not necessarily an intentionally cruel murderer and she knew that her decision not to add to the anxiety he clearly carried within himself was the right course to take: oh he would be suspicious if she came over as anything but resentful at his treatment of her, but anything seeming to veer towards friendliness could so easily flick a switch and that was something she had to avoid to the best of her abilities; she was, she knew, walking a tightrope, but she would try to draw on everything she had learned from Tabby and Tavish to get her through the time ahead; and she wondered if she should dare to ask him but decided on a different game, by replying to the non-sequitur he had put to her earlier: “I should think you might use a doryphore mollifying an entrenched neoteric if such a concept were not a self-contradiction, don'tcha think?” and he gave a sudden, but entirely genuine, barking laugh – as one might who rarely laughs, and replied, “no, I seldom have the opportunity or the freedom – to think, that is.”
“What is a Doryphore?” asked The Man, in what she thought a feeble attempt at levity to mollify her entrenched suspicion of him but, by the inappropriate use of that neoteric whimsy found most frequently in the cartoon pages of The Sunday Post he only showed himself up and, strangely, his vulnerability embarrassed Tammy on his behalf; but then she remembered how he had violated her trusting nature and attempted to murder her beloved Bernie and she blushed to her roots, as she glanced down at her own nakedness before this Brute who had kidnapped her, and Tammy noted immediately the very large Boots he wore, and when she took her first look at his face she was startled by the Guido Fawkes mask which hid his identity: that, surely, she thought, meant that he did not intend to kill her, for keeping his face from her eyes surely gave her some hope of survival from this ordeal; her hands and feet were raw, fingernails broken and bleeding, her shins and knees scraped from the rough rocks and boulders she had been climbing down, and she felt his eyes taking a masculine interest in her exposed body – but she had no choice, so, as quickly as she could, she descended the last few feet until her bare soles were planted on the scrubby grass and gravel; “turn around, “said the man, “and put your hands behind you” – Tammy obeyed and felt her thumbs pulled together with a cable-tie: “that's temporary,” said The Man, “let's get you inside and clean you up – I've got some fresh clothes for you, I see you've discarded the others, awkward clambering about in them I suppose,” and she nodded, wary of entering into conversation, being aware of the Stockholm Syndrome, by which hostages can become complicit with their captors through the experience of mutuality, oh, yes, she knew all about that from her mother, for Tabby had been involved in the debriefings afterwards, and had written about it for one of the psychology journals she contributed to – Tammy almost snorted – under her cover identity as a University Lecturer, well, she did give a few lectures and tutor a few students, but Tammy now knew that it was all simply a means of assessing possible future recruits to MI5 and even MI6 – what changes? she wondered – they still use the same practices that produced Philby, Burgess, MacLean, Blunt and the others, oh, but now there are various aptitude tests and psychological profiling – she knew all this not just from Tabby and Uncle Tavish, for she had done plenty of her own researches into the subject of what makes a good spy or spy-catcher, and one thing she had come to conclude was that, ugly though the truth might seem, the intelligence services actually demanded that their employees first loyalty was to The Service, rather than to The Government, for Governments change according to the whims of the electorate, while The Services continued, ostensibly serving the government of the day, in reality, themselves; but why was she bothering to let these thoughts occupy her mind? obviously just a distraction from the bleak reality of her present predicament, but The Man had shown her a bag in which she could see neatly folded clothes and was not surprised to find that they were her own, he had been in the flat, delving inside her wardrobe and drawers; she felt the anger rising inside her, but damped it down – now was not the time to risk antagonising him, so when he took her by the elbow and helped her walk with him around the great base of the ruins , she complied with an air of meekness, for she knew her survival, and perhaps Bernie's, depended on not antagonising him; they came to a wooden door and The Man used a key to unlock it and help her through into the ground floor of the Tower; he showed her through to a room, not unlike the one at the top where she had been shackled to the radiator, but he cut the cable tie with a Stanley knife and told her to put on some underwear, and that he would then clean and dress her wounds before she finished dressing; none of this took very long and so she was soon dressed, leaving outdoor clothes in the bag for later, according to him; “upstairs now,” he said, “but wait there and I'll take a photograph, just to show my employer that you are safe and well –
I won't tell him about your rather dangerous escapade this morning, that would just annoy him and he's not someone you want to annoy,” so just at the bottom of the steps he took a photo of her, and then followed her as she climbed the 120 steps, not to the room she had been in before, but probably the one below – she couldn't be sure what floor this was because the constant spiralling and the similarity of all the doors they had passed had made it difficult for her to separate and retain the different pieces of information that she tried to hold in her mind; but this room; although it had only the one door – that which they entered by – it did have a small and barred window, and also a truckle
bed, a table and two chairs, and a radiator: Tammy expected him to handcuff her to it, but instead he told her to sit on one of the chairs and, from the other bag he had carried over his shoulder, he produced a Thermos flask, several water bottles, and a set of plastic boxes containing food; suddenly she realised just how hungry she was, having no idea of when she had last eaten, and she fell on it like a wolf and devoured it, washing mouthfuls down with coffee from the flask; she realised that she was starting to feel better, stronger in herself, but was hesitant about asking The Man any questions, for she felt that he was possessed, not only of strength and power over her, but also of an internal conflict which could so easily be translated into rage and she felt certain that that was what Bernie had come up against in the lift at Waverley Station – his fury that he had allowed himself to be followed, and by an amateur, and in so doing had put himself at risk; she began to believe within herself that, while he was clearly a 'Bad' man, he was not necessarily an intentionally cruel murderer and she knew that her decision not to add to the anxiety he clearly carried within himself was the right course to take: oh he would be suspicious if she came over as anything but resentful at his treatment of her, but anything seeming to veer towards friendliness could so easily flick a switch and that was something she had to avoid to the best of her abilities; she was, she knew, walking a tightrope, but she would try to draw on everything she had learned from Tabby and Tavish to get her through the time ahead; and she wondered if she should dare to ask him but decided on a different game, by replying to the non-sequitur he had put to her earlier: “I should think you might use a doryphore mollifying an entrenched neoteric if such a concept were not a self-contradiction, don'tcha think?” and he gave a sudden, but entirely genuine, barking laugh – as one might who rarely laughs, and replied, “no, I seldom have the opportunity or the freedom – to think, that is.”
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