Headhunter Read online

THIRTY ONE

  His backside isn't even in the seat of his chair when Lawson's name appears on the caller ID of his phone. He waits before he picks up, just long enough to be sure he can keep his voice level.

  'Take your time,' barks Lawson when Campbell answers.

  'Sorry. Making tea.'

  ‘Plans later?'

  'No.'

  'Need to talk to you about something. Let’s get drinks and I’ll talk you though it.’

  Campbell says nothing for a second, assuming immediately that Lawson is referring to Lisa and his relationship with her But then, if he had any concerns about workplace relationships, would he not just have Campbell into his office for a quiet word?

  ‘OK. What time?’

  ‘Four. Today sucks, let’s get out early. Get you something to ease your pain.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He replaces the receiver and figures he has half an hour before he'll need to leave and get his things together for the train, so he sips at his tea and logs himself in to the database.

  He pulls his notes together and starts typing names; Stingray Securities, Bodden Ventures, Icarus Financial, Crystal Dynamics, Seven Mile Solutions, Barracuda Trading, Hunter Technologies, Orbit Capital, Forward Solutions.

  Nine names, all linked in some way, all cross-referencing each other. He looked at them awhile, wondering if a pattern lurked in there, waiting to be found. Barracuda and Stingray were both sea creatures. Two of them had the word Solutions in them. It was weak and Campbell could see nothing else but then why should he? Again he questioned himself. Was this all in his head? Had he been so conditioned to see trouble that he conjured it from nothing?

  It was true that since the incident he had increasingly sought out risk and excitement, the return of his boring, quiet life suddenly unbearably dull and increasingly unsatisfying. The travelling had followed, then the touristy thrills like the bungee jump and the white-water rafting. The scuba diving had left him awed and exhilarated but at the same time showed him a certain tranquillity that struck a chord. It was exciting and relaxing at once, thrilling and peaceful and the standard safety approach of the buddy system ensured that you were not on your own, despite the inescapable sense of isolation, of being sealed in to all that gear alone but free in a boundless ocean.

  He had sought out other ways to chase away the boredom, tried climbing and taken up caving. He’d tried a few boxing classes at the gym, but already new well enough he didn’t like getting hit, padding or no. But all the while Campbell had a lingering sense that he must stay fit and sharp, not let himself slip back to the way he had been before; complacent and comfortable, content with a sofa and a six-pack and out of breath running for the bus.

  It was more about not wanting to feel so exposed as he had when the gatecrasher had done so much damage, not because he expected such a thing to happen again. Or perhaps after the dust settled, it had felt as though something were missing, or that what had been left behind was more than just a memory stick and a trail of wreckage. Something that in having rid himself of it, Campbell felt its absence keenly.

  He pushed his wandering thoughts to one side and began printing all the data and reports stored on Scorpio's systems and stuffed it into his bag before he headed out the door, a forced smile and a wave directed at Lisa on his way.

  He skimmed the paperwork on his way home and tapped information into his smartphone as he went, building notes on a document app that allowed for little more than free-form text. It made it easier to tap in everything as it came to him but was not great for organising or ordering the information and the screen size made it hard to navigate.

  But the process allowed him to organise his thoughts well enough and the beginnings of a framework took shape in his mind. Nothing yet was by any means clear but he was able to discern connections and links in what seemed to be a larger structure, like glimpsing the cranes and metal struts and girders of a new building through thick fog and from distance.

  He sees Lawson heading for the lifts at four and follows after him, shooting Lisa a shrug as he passes her desk and she watches them both go.

  Giles says nothing on the way down, nothing out the lobby and into the street and only opens his mouth the say the name of the bar they’re heading to but it’s not a suggestion and he isn’t asking Campbell’s opinion, just telling him where they are going.

  At the bar Lawson sets up a tab and then picks out a gin he’s never heard of and the barman adds tonic and a quartered strawberry to two glasses and they head for a table near the window. Lawson starts making small talking as he drinks, pointing out almost every woman that passes the other side of the glass.

  Campbell wonders if this is his crassly handled way to introduce the topic of office relationships but it starts to seem more as though Lawson is merely keen to sink his drink and get to the next one. He hands Campbell the small plastic token for the tab and sends him to the bar for more drinks.

  As he waits he slips a hand into his right pocket to check his wallet and realises that his phone is gone from his left trouser pocket. He feels a jump in his stomach and then remembers that he left it on the table.

  Relief that he has not lost it lasts fleetingly however. He knows that it is safe from any opportunistic passing-thief because Lawson is at the table to keep it safe. But that seems suddenly no comfort.

  Campbell watched the woman at the counter being told the cost of her round of drinks. Only at this point did she consider opening her handbag to rummage for her purse and then begin to paw through it for the correct change. She eventually discovered that she did not have it and proffered a debit card instead.

  Come on, thought Campbell. Not now. What's wrong with having money ready before you ask the price?

  The next customer seemed to take forever making his choice, perusing the array of spirits and beers though everything had been invisible to him while he queued. He finally settled on a lager Campbell all but elbowed him aside in his haste, slapping down a twenty pound note and pointing at the gin Lawson had selected.

  He strode back across the room with the drinks in hand and tried to calm himself as he neared the table, exhaling long and slow.

  Lawson was tapping at the screen of his smartphone and the screen looked white and filled with text but any more than that it was impossible to see.

  He slowed his pace as he got closer, staring at the screen and watched as Lawson tapped through the settings and severed a Bluetooth connection. His own phone lay there on the table top, just where he’d left it. Unmoved?

  Campbell slid the phone handset to one side, away from Lawson. After a moment, as Lawson remarked on the shortness of a skirt and sipped at the fresh gin and tonic, Campbell picked up the handset and checked it.

  What he was checking for exactly, he wasn't sure. There were no apps open that had not been open before he'd used it and the notes app he'd been picking through was minimised as he had left it. The Bluetooth was on, but that was often left on to connect with his computer at home. He recalled Lawson tapping through the Bluetooth options on his own phone as Campbell had returned and wondered if there were a way to check the history of what devices he had connected to. If there was he didn't know it.

  He was being paranoid again; his thrill-radar seeking for something that wasn't there.

  ‘Have you ever been to the Caribbean Dan?’ Lawson says.

  ‘No, never been,’ he says.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ says Lawson and then winks at Campbell.

  Lawson lets it hang there a while longer as he sips at the drink and waits for Campbell to ask.

  ‘We’re off to the Caribbean?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘We is you and I?’

  ‘Work trip. Big one. Some key players out there and some big deals coming together.’

  Campbell nods and wonders what to say about the sheer number of references he’s uncovered in the research he’s been doing. Is it even an issue that there seem to be so many links t
o Cayman? They all seem to be hidden in the paperwork, tucked into the shadows. But here is Lawson telling him straight out that they have interests in the Cayman Islands and need to travel there as a result.

  ‘It’s the stuff I’ve been working on is it?’

  Lawson shrugs, sips. ‘Lots of stuff.’

  ‘I thought I was an analyst though. I mean, why am I needed if you’re going there to do deals?’ Campbell says, the thought just occurring to him. Lawson is being oddly tight lipped about it.

  ‘You have a problem with the expenses paid trip to Grand Cayman do you Dan?’

  ‘Not what I meant.’

  ‘Well what is it that you mean exactly? What is the problem?’ Lawson’s irritation is clear and Campbell isn’t sure how he’s managed to press the wrong buttons so fast. Maybe there’s something else on the other man’s mind, or maybe he’s annoyed that he has to take Campbell along on the trip with him. It is clear enough that Lawson answers to someone higher up the chain.

  Lawson doesn’t wait for an answer and is off again. ‘I don’t have time for this sort of nonsense. We need you there, you’re coming. Clear enough?’ He stands. 'Need a piss.'

  Left to his own thoughts for a moment Campbell stews awhile and waits for the flush in his cheeks to subside. He can't tell if he's feeling riled because he's been dressed down publicly by his boss or because the dressing down was so uncalled for.

  He takes deep breaths, swigs again from the glass and calms himself. He considers the luck of being paid to go on this trip and also the instinctiveness of his reaction, so negative, so suspicious.

  He tries to locate the source of his unease and he hears his friend Steve’s voice in his head, telling him to stop complaining about all the things in life that are happening just the way he wanted them to. To stop conjuring demons from the shadows of his imagination.

  Lawson surely has a point too. He has been working on various Cayman-based companies and the idea of having him there with them to lend his expertise, tap the information he’s learned these past weeks probably makes it worthwhile, even if he does feel disconnected from the process itself.

  Should he not see this as a show of faith and so soon in his tenure? What better endorsement of his performance than wanting him there on site when they tie up some deals at last – it’s not as if he’s seen many others happening so far. Lawson was undoubtedly a bristly character at times, but that didn’t make him an idiot.

  Indeed, where was the other man? Campbell had been musing things for a good few minutes and suddenly noticed that he was still alone. Looking around he scanned the bar and tried to pick out the distinct look of his boss whose posh-boy appearance stood out in most places. No sign, although he noticed that the room was starting to fill up fast now as he looked around the room. Campbell's eyes lingered as they searched, alighting on a group of laughing young women, a solitary striking red-head in a tailored suit, a short-haired woman who returned eye-contact. Or maybe she was just staring at the bruises. He almost missed Lawson, catching sight of him in the corridor leading to the bathrooms, talking guardedly with two men, their heads low and close.

  Cocaine. It was his first thought and he felt his guts sink and twist. Lawson was barely half way through his second drink and now he was buying coke and would no doubt be forcing a wrap into Campbell's hand soon enough and insisting he get himself to the bathroom to chop out a line.

  This was not what he wanted at all. A night with Lawson was one thing, particularly in the mood he was in, but a coked-up Lawson quite another, let alone if Campbell was going to be pressured into getting high as well.

  He considered bolting and heading out the door, maybe telling Lawson that he'd lost him in the bar, tried to find him in vain. But that wasn’t going to work, and would probably cause more problems than it would solve. And after all, giving someone you didn't like the slip might be acceptable social behaviour in certain circumstances but not when he was your boss and he’d just handed you the expenses-paid bar tab whilst telling you about the expenses paid Caribbean trip..

  Campbell knew he would need to ride this out as best he could, maybe just fake the drug taking - disappear into a cubicle for a few minutes here and there and hope that Lawson was too messed up to notice that he wasn't wild-eyed and talking a hundred miles an hour.

  He turned to look again and saw Lawson disappearing back down the corridor, making no doubt for the nearest flat surface with a tiny bit of privacy. Campbell shook his head and looked at the other man's bottle, still half full, then his watch, which read just after five. Jesus. How about some impulse control?

  THIRTY TWO

  He spends two minutes wondering whether to wait for Lawson's return or go after him and try to stall the man.

  There was a break in the crowd which would mean that the wait for service would be short, and suddenly to urge for another drink to dampen his rising anxiety was fierce, but that would almost certainly mean surrendering their table. Still, it had been fifteen minutes or so since Lawson had left him and he was starting to wonder why he should be concerned about showing the other man any consideration where none was being shown for him.

  As a handful of people filed in the door Campbell saw the opportunity to get served at the bar dwindling and jumped up and made his way there ahead of them. Lawson might bitch about losing their spot but Campbell would have worse to deal with tonight than that if the other man was in the bathroom with the coke this long.

  He got himself another drink and watched as the group who had just come in and who he had beaten to the bar made for his vacated table and occupied it.

  With a shrug he headed in the general direction of the bathrooms to make himself more visible to Lawson when he emerged and took the scenic route through the bar, brushing close to the suited red-head, passing face to face with the short-haired woman who looked him right in the eye again and smiled.

  Campbell tried to play it cool, but there was no containing the smile on his own face. The girl was pretty and green-eyed and appeared to be alone.

  Campbell paused for a moment, poised to say hello, but then had a flash of an image of being interrupted from any conversation with her by a hyped-up, nostril-pinching Lawson, fresh from the bathroom. He kept moving for the corridor, the smile in hibernation.

  Picking his way through the crowd Campbell saw no sign of his boss and made for the door of the gents, a large chrome M occupying most of the surface, a W on the one next to it.

  He placed his free hand on the door, looked back once over his shoulder to check he'd not missed the other man on his way back into the bar, perhaps whilst his attention had been diverted by one or two of the women he'd clocked. Nothing. No sign of the slicked back brown hair or the cocksure grin.

  Stepping inside, there is another door to move through and then he is hit by the bitter smell of urine, undercut with bleach. Campbell's nose wrinkles as he takes a few more steps inside and he nods at a man heading the other way past him out the door, his acknowledgement met with a blank-eyed stare. Good manners in London tended to mean not actually speaking at all. A smile or a nod at most. Full blown interaction was for the tourists.

  There are three cubicles, two of them open and the one at the end closed tight. He waits and listens, expecting to hear the sound of sharp phlegmy inhalation, but the dull thud of the music from the bar is all he can hear, rumbling through the wall.

  He waits a beat or two, hesitant to call to Lawson through the door for fear of upsetting him, or upsetting whoever else might be in there. He recalls the blank-eyed stare of the man he just passed and wonders how things are done in this type of place, a notch or two above what he’s used to.

  His mouth is open, Lawson's name on his tongue, when the click of the door behind him stops him. He turns his head to look and two men walk in behind him, both sinewy and grizzled looking, unshaven in a way that tells of lethargy rather than vanity. They look straight at him and he thinks better of making any attempt at conversa
tion or even eye contact and he looks at the floor. They are out of place here and he’d on edge from the off.

  They cannot be avoided so easily however and he can see in his peripheral vision that they are making straight for him. In this closed space, there is nowhere to run, although the thought of making for one of the spare cubicles and bolting himself inside does cross his mind.

  'You the man then?' comes the question though it takes Campbell a moment to decipher the rapid-fire delivery. The accent is untypical for this postcode. No plummy tones, or clipped pronunciation, but proper London.

  'I'm sorry?' he says and regrets sounding so formal, feels like he might make himself a target if he sounds so well-spoken.

  'The man. For the gear yeah?' It comes at him thick, like there's no space bar.

  He opts for silence and shakes his head, frowning.

  'The gear, man. The fuckin' stuff. You the man for it?'

  'You've lost me mate. I think you're after someone else.'

  'Jesus Christ man, come on,' says one and Campbell's shoulders lift and square a little as the two of them crowd in on him. 'Fuckin' slow.'

  'I... listen. Honestly, you've got the wrong man. I don't know what you're after lads, I'm just having a beer here, right...' he says, trying a conciliatory tone.

  Things happen quickly then, start to blur and flash before he can get hold of things and slow them down. One of the men moves in closer to him, head low and eyes locked on his, barely and inch from his face and the other man looms around to form a closed circle and from somewhere inside jackets and a flurry of hands there's a small, full plastic bag being pressed into his palm. It is no larger than say, a boiled sweet, plump and round in its wrapping, but significantly less innocuous and he tries to pull away but there's no space to move, nothing but the wall and the corner he's been backed into.

  The closer of the two men is mumbling something low and unintelligible and Campbell is so crowded in that he cannot tell which of them is trying to pass him the small item that he does not want but as he tries to pull his hand away and dodge the handover there are hands reaching into his own pockets, swift and urgent and he begins to protest, begins to hope that if it is Lawson in that cubicle that the noise will draw him out to his aid, but things keep happening and Campbell is simply lost in the current.

  He tries to twist his hips in an attempt to pull his pockets away from prying hands, feels the sting and ache of his injuries being knocked and it only now registers that he may be about to be mugged again for the second time in a few days and then there's a click from behind them and the door is opening and what brief shred of relief that registers is scattered immediately as he sees the looming shape of the bouncer walking in and clocking the scene.

  The two men break ranks on him and as they do so they shove him back against the wall violently and begin cursing him, pulling away as if stung.

  'Fuckin' prick, man' says one. 'Fucking queer.'

  They move backwards fast and seem to bounce off either side of the approaching doorman despite the tiny space his bulk leaves on each side and he regards them both coolly as they pass.

  'Alright lads? What's this?' he asks but he does not pursue them. He turns to Campbell, turns to the scowling man with the bruises and cuts on his face, the face that knows trouble. 'What's up here then? What's going on?'

  Campbell does not give an answer because he doesn't know what the answer is. He shrugs and starts trying to form a response but the bouncer is looking at him suspiciously.

  'What is it?' he prompts, not satisfied with the silence.

  Then he points at Campbell's waist. 'Pockets.'

  'What?'

  'Empty your pockets please. Sir. Need to see.'

  The accent's not so thick as the two vanishing men but thick all the same and Campbell wonders if he has misheard but then realises that he hasn't, that the bouncer would indeed look to check the pockets of anyone behaving suspiciously in a bathroom. That's fine, he thinks, except that those two just had their hands in his and so he's suddenly not sure what he might pull out. Empty wallet, or something full.

  The wallet is still there, light a few cards which were lifted a few nights previously, but nothing else is missing, nothing new. He pulls out a handful of coins and house keys and holds it all up for inspection.

  The other pocket is gestured and he doesn't feel it straight away; his fingers hit the phone first. But as he moves his hand over it to pull it out, his fingertip presses into the firm edge of something plastic that has no place there. He shows the phone to the bouncer who nods and looks down again at the pocket.

  'Empty?' he asks. Campbell nods and withdraws involuntarily as a hand reaches out and pats the spot where the plastic lump sits.

  'It's not mine,' he blurts out, the panic spiking suddenly.

  'Mmn. Never is,' comes the flat response and the bouncer holds a hand out in front of him. Put it there.

  Campbell takes it from his pocket and sees it for the first time. A small plastic bag with a sealable strip along the top, and below the line a plump little pebble of white, residual powder dusting the inside of the plastic where the rest of the contents has settled. 'Those guys...' he says feebly, pointing at the door.

  'This establishment,' begins the bouncer as he looks at Campbell over the packet of cocaine, 'Operates a zero tolerance policy towards drugs and drug use.'

  'Listen, please. I came in to find my mate...'

  'Yeah?'

  'And then they came in and started asking me stuff. Was I the man and all this.'

  'Yeah?'

  'All up in my face and trying to give me that.'

  'Oh yeah?'

  None of this is being bought and the other man seems amused at the floundering, laughable attempts to talk his way out of it. Campbell stops, seeing the dead end he is in.

  'This is two grams mate. Three probably. Three grams of coke. Zero tolerance, you stupid prick. Yeah? Three grams of zero tolerance.'

  The music keeps on thudding through the walls and the bouncer keeps staring at him, challenging him to make another attempt to explain the baggie of coke being held in front of his face.

  The door handle clicks again but nothing follows and Campbell takes a second to register that the departing strangers must have locked it behind them. There's a hammering on the wood and a shout from beyond as a drinker from the bar protests at the barrier. The bouncer's head turns and Campbell's panic turns to flight and he doesn't stop to think about what he's doing, but goes with the instinct.

  He barrels past the big man, through the gap and knocks him off balance as he goes. The doorman roars in anger and Campbell hits the door in two strides, slips in the wet and scrambles at the lock handle on the inside.

  By the time he has flicked it open the bouncer has recovered himself and closed the gap and a meaty fist grips shirt and skin, somehow finding an as yet unbruised part of his flesh, but the door is open now and the drinker on the other side has the entry he was demanding, albeit blocked by the two men crashing through it.

  Campbell twists and pulls and tries to free himself from the grip of the bouncer who has stumbled in his pursuit when the door he expected to push his prey against opens instead. There is a press of bodies as the three of them tangle and try to keep their feet and it is only as Campbell fails to do so that he sees his chance.

  Tripping over legs he goes over and feels his shirt come free of clasping knuckles. He lands hard on his knees, feels jarring pain, ignores it and as he looks up to get his bearings, to figure a gap through the crowd in the corridor and the bar beyond he sees instead he is facing the wrong way. But the wrong way is the right way because he sees a few yards distant a Fire Exit sign and a push-release bar across the door. He stays low and scrambles forward, staying clear of the bouncer's grasping hand and then springs to his feet and is between two people and smashing hard into the door which doesn't shift a single inch.

  He pushes on the bar again, once, twice and shoulders the door ha
rd. Nothing but an explosion of pain in the shoulder that he landed on the other night when he was beaten to the ground. Nothing when he kicks the door and only when he grips the bar in furious frustration does it occur to him to pull the bar up instead of pushing down.

  It pops open with a rush of cold air and there is a screech of fire alarm in his ears before he steps out onto the concrete of the fire escape and the short stretch of alleyway.

  There are shouts behind him as the fire alarm gets going and Campbell wastes no time in moving, sprinting for the street and looking back quickly over his shoulder to see the scarlet face of his pursuer emerge form the door. He hits the end of the alley fast and as he does so, another huge specimen of a man looms up in front, same suit, same haircut as behind, and Campbell wonders whether there are two of them, miked and up and in radio contact. But the speed of his approach, or the sluggish response of the other man mean that he's past him and away before he can figure out who he is and will not wait to find out. A half empty pavement and a clear street is all he needs to put distance between them and he hits top speed and keeps it up for as long as he can, ducking left and right as he goes, the better to elude them if they are even still following.

  Only when he stops and finds a quiet spot does he notice that his phone is ringing, the vibrate function buzzing against his thigh.

  'Giles.'

  'Where the hell are you?'

  'Where are you?'

  'I'm outside the bar. The fire alarm's gone off, we've all been kicked out.'

  THIRTY THREE

  'Weird.'

  She says it with a flat intonation, as though it were a statement rather than a question, but he has volunteered no information and the pinched crease of her brow is an effective question mark.

  'Weird,' he says. 'Weird.'

  The question mark sits there on her brow as she watches him think through what words to use, where to begin.

  'The whole thing. The big chat that took not time. The bathroom.'

  Lisa looks at him patiently, though in truth the patience is thinning.

  'The bathroom especially.'

  'Wine?'

  'Please.'

  She pours a generous top up, hoping this might prompt a freer and more revealing tongue but hopeful she will not need to wait for the wine to do it, more that he is suggestible to her will.

  He takes a deep swallow and murmurs approval. 'It seemed like he had something big to say, but actually...' Campbell shakes his head searching for an explanation. ‘It was nothing that he couldn’t have said in the office. It was like he made it a bigger deal than it was. Even as he was trying to downplay it.’

  'Maybe they're just a bit nervous of new faces, these Cayman guys, and he wants to prepare you for it. This business, everyone plays their cards close.'

  'But he could take a photo and my CV with him if I’m not there to do the deals. '

  'Giles maybe wants to cover all the angles? Why would he take you along and pay for hotels and plane tickets if he thought it would be pointless?'

  He shrugs, looks at her, through her.

  'Maybe he feels that just a look and a handshake will be enough to show them there's more to Scorpio than what they've seen before, that we're getting bigger. Small margins, you know. Little things making a difference.'

  'Exactly,' she says brightly, eager for something positive to run with. 'If some of these guys are in need of a bit of convincing then obviously they'll want to try that bit harder, show them that there’s a bit more to us. They've probably seen your CV already, or at least Giles will have sent them your bio. You aren't just filling a chair Dan, you're here for a reason. You should have seen Giles when he knew you were joining.'

  'Really?'

  'Yeah. He was really buzzed. Really thought he’d hooked a catch, you know. You could tell he felt like he'd got the one he wanted.'

  He considers that a moment in silence.

  'The bathroom,' he says finally, a look on his face like he's been forced to taste something extremely sour.

  'What happened in the bathroom then? Which bathroom?'

  'The bar. Giles disappeared for a pee and was gone ages. Like twenty odd minutes. He'd just had a pop at me for questioning why I needed to go to the Caymans so I was sitting there feeling like a naughty schoolboy and waiting. Anyway, I went looking for him in the bathroom after a while and...' He is still not clear how to describe what took place in there, struggles to recall what was actually being said to him and how.

  'These two guys follow me in.'

  'They followed you? How do you know they were following you?'

  'Walked in behind me, then. As in followed after me. But then they came straight over to me, as though they were looking for me, started talking to me and asking questions.'

  'What questions?'

  He shakes his head and stares into space, like he might pluck out the answers that are floating there, invisible. 'I could hardly understand them. Accents were thick. They were asking if I was the man, or something.'

  'What man?

  'The man. Like, you da man!'

  'What does that mean?'

  'No clue. But then they were getting up close and one of them tried to give me something. Some coke. I mean I didn't know it was coke at the time, it was just some small packet in my hand-'

  'You took it?'

  'No, I mean, he was putting it in my hand and I was trying to move my hand but I was up against the wall, and they're all up close, really close and they were trying to grab my pockets and...'

  'Were they selling you the coke?'

  'No. Well, perhaps. But I wasn't asking them to sell me the coke.'

  'Maybe they just figured that's what you wanted and got confused - all the accents and the naughty geezers and all that.'

  He smiles. “Naughty geezers? Yeah. Maybe,' he says as though he's really trying hard to accept that could have been a possibility, really stretching to get there. 'But then the bouncer comes in and then suddenly they were pushing me away and calling me names.'

  'What names?'

  'Fag. Queer. Something like that. And pushing me, like I was the one all over them instead. It was so weird, but maybe they were just trying to confuse the bouncer, make it look like something else. Like an argument instead of a drug deal.'

  'What does the bouncer do?'

  'Doesn't do much to stop them. Asks what's going on but they leg it and then it's just me and he starts asking to look in my pockets, as if he's just starting to realise what might be happening, even if I hadn't. But then I realise there's coke in my pocket.'

  ‘I thought you said you didn't take it?'

  'I didn't, but they must have put it in my pocket. Maybe they were trying to get the cash off me, thought I was being a bit slow on the uptake or something. One of them said that I think, said "fuckin' slow, man".' He tries to say it in the accent and Lisa smirks.

  'Anyway, when the bouncer saw the coke I knew I was screwed, so I just panicked and ran.'

  'Where was Giles whilst all this was happening?'

  'I thought he might have been in the closed cubicle, but he never came out.'

  'Perhaps he was there the whole time? Scared to come out.'

  'He was still in the bar when he called after I got out. But I saw him head towards the bathrooms and I saw him in the corridor before I went looking. He was standing there talking-'

  The silence drops into the room like a rock, large and heavy.

  'What?'

  Talking to someone. Two men.

  The two men. He sees them clearly in his mind; heads low as they talked to Lawson, wiry and grizzled and quite clearly the same two who will accost Campbell in only a few minutes time when he goes to seek out Lawson in the bathroom and finds only trouble there.

  'What Daniel? What is it?'

  He drinks again, two big swallows. 'I think I'd like some more wine.'

  THIRTY FOUR

  He stares up at the bright clear sky so that his vision is filled an
d nothing else intrudes. The streaked white contrails of several aircraft criss-cross the blue, like they're trying to sketch out a giant tic-tac-toe board.

  Caspar Hogg thinks about that, about a game that always seemed to end in stalemate. Playing each board and never winning, never losing once the fundamental tactics were learned.

  That's where he is now it seems to him, trapped in constant stalemate. He cannot see a way to win, not when his opponent knows all the moves he can make and can see them coming and block if he tries them. But he's not about to concede either, not about to drop his concentration and allow himself to be outmanoeuvred. He must keep playing and do so for long enough that at some point they will both simply agree to stop and to walk away. As if.

  He has been busy these past few days, harvesting all the data as it comes, collating all the responses feeding back to his boss what he asks - who is on board, who has replied, who are they waiting for. He closes his eyes as his thoughts run back to the job.

  Caspar does not know who they are, but whilst their randomly assigned tags give them equal anonymity, their varying significance is betrayed in Horner's face each time the two men talk. He is more pleased to hear about some than others having indicated their approval and involvement. He is more anxious at some silences than others.

  Caspar Hogg's curiosity has wilted recently though and he no longer wishes to know what the significance is behind each random tag. He is in deep water now, has got in far enough and deep enough to feel how cold it is, how the current is pulling and he wants only to keep his feet grounded beneath him. To go further, he fears, will mean that the bottom may drop away and he will go under, the tide taking him and the cold snatching his breath away.

  Horner's reactions are about as controlled and measured as they have always been, but each conversation they have and every update Hogg delivers allows him to read Horner a little better and he maps those reactions against the name-tags and they stay with him, driftwood on the shore.

  So now he too is finding himself pleased when certain tags pop up, more anxious when others still do not. He is beginning to know who to be afraid of.

  No. It would be more accurate to say that he is beginning to know who to be most afraid of. He's far enough along now to know that none of these individuals are going to friendly, trustworthy people. Anonymity is rarely sought by the innocent, and Michael Horner, though obviously a powerful and calculating man, appears to be near the bottom of this food chain.

  Near the bottom, but still a step or two above Hogg.

  The glare of sunshine behind his closed eyes dulls as a cloud blocks it out. He opens his eyes and looks up to see Rookes standing there over him. So a cloud of sorts.

  'What?'

  'Nice out today,' says Rookes in a flat tone.

  'Very.'

  'You're not supposed to be out.'

  'I'm taking some air.'

  The eyes are blank as they stare back at him, the silence another dark cloud.

  'I've hardly been out of the chair for 24 hours.'

  Rookes looks momentarily like someone's hit the pause button, so completely still does he remain. Then slowly he raises his hands to the corners of his eyes and his expression drops to a look of exaggerated sadness and he dabs at the tears that aren't there. Hogg wonders whether there ever have been.

  'Back at it. You can beach yourself when this is done,' he says and he doesn't seem to mean beach in the sense of going and lying on the beach like a holidaymaker so much as a stranded whale.

  Fat jokes, thinks Hogg. Brilliant. It's not so much the fat jokes that he really gives a damn about so much as the lack of effort or imagination. These men who all lack for wits so keenly because all Horner wants are thick-necks and hawk-eyes in his security detail.

  Hogg hoists himself up and steps past Rookes who does nothing to move out of his way. Hogg stops and looks up at him, at the blank stare levelled at him that flicks to the birthmark on his face and holds there a beat before shifting back to his eyes.

  'Really?'

  Rookes slowly steps clear to let Hogg move past and he walks a few paces and then turns to look at him.

  'Just ask. Just ask Rookes. That's all. Don't need to be such a prick the entire time.'

  The smallest glimmer of a smirk and a tiny little glitter in the eye as he looks back at Hogg, eyes still fixed on his, rather than the birthmark.