by N C Mander
<4hire> always something new.
<4hire> What u interested in these days?
<4hire> yeah came across some guy
<4hire> crowing about hacking an exchange or something
<4hire> wouldn’t touch it
<4hire> mhhm
<4hire> u wd like him rumpy
<4hire> RubiksKube
*
0515, Thursday 29th June, Nelson Gardens, Bethnal Green, London
‘Early start?’ Tony startled Edison, who was about to leave the flat at quarter past five on Thursday morning. Edison had one hand on the latch of the front door but turned to look at Tony, adopting an air of nonchalance.
‘First day,’ Edison said to appease his suspicious flatmate, whose ratty features were arranged into an expression of curiosity and distrust. ‘Can’t sleep. So, thought I’d get some air and head to the Wharf early. You’re up early.’
‘I could hear you tramping around up there,’ Tony accused him. ‘Rather than a walk, you could have a coffee with me, now I’m up.’
‘Thanks, but if it’s all the same to you, the air will do me good. Settle the nerves.’ Tony shrugged and scuttled into the kitchen where he busied himself, filling the jug on the filter coffee machine whilst Edison made his escape.
The warm light of a mid-summer morning was just beginning to wash over East London as Edison made his way to the bus stop and boarded the empty D6. He watched the world go by through hazy eyes, still half asleep, and was startled when the tinny voice announced over the bus’s PA system that the next stop would be Billingsgate. ‘Pull it together, man,’ he muttered to himself as he stepped off the bus. He needed to have his wits about him as he headed into the field for the first time in over a year. He strode off in the direction of the fish market, where he was met by Mo, the agent Kat had told him to expect.
Kat had been in touch with Edison the previous day. Their conversation had been perfunctory and functional. Mo, a relatively new field operative, would be staking the possible drugs drop that Thursday morning. His cover was as a buyer for a West London hotel, Edison would be his boss, along for the ride after a bad batch of langoustine the previous week, if anyone asked. ‘Which they won’t,’ Kat assured him. ‘If they do make an appearance, we don’t interfere,’ Kat explained. ‘We just observe.’
‘All right,’ Mo greeted Edison with a wary handshake. ‘We’ll head inside, walk the floor and see what merchandise is on offer. I think our punters might like a bit of monkfish this week, and there’s a few guys with stalls near our target, if they’re there, which I doubt, who sell that. Let’s go.’
Edison’s smart brogues shuffled through the slush of melting ice as the pair of spies made their way past the stalls of produce. Mo came to a halt. Edison saw a near imperceptible widening of his eyes before the young man collected himself and studied a selection of red snapper, inviting Edison to bow his head over the display of fish with a wave of his hand.
‘Opposite side of the aisle, two stalls down,’ Mo said urgently, positioning himself so Edison could see two young men tending an understocked stall. ‘They’re back.’ Edison felt a shot of adrenalin course through him. Surreptitiously, he eyed the men on the stall. He caught his breath. Of the two men busying themselves around the stall, one was familiar to Edison. He recognised the single earring, and the man was wearing a gold chain round his left wrist, just as the shadowy figure in the pub in Clapham had been. The guy with two mobile handsets, thought Edison. It’s definitely him, he thought, eyeing the target as best he could without drawing unwanted attention.
‘Anything I can help you with gentlemen?’ the thickly accented voice of the stall owner spoke to them. He spoke like he’d never left the Isle of Dogs; his East London accent took a bit of deciphering.
‘Any monkfish?’ Mo asked, seemingly ignoring the activity of their marks.
‘Not today, mate, but there’s some fine halibut,’ the fishmonger encouraged him, manhandling a large fillet of white fish out of the polystyrene box in front of him and proffering it to Mo for closer inspection. He considered it carefully before shaking his head.
‘Thanks mate, but it has to be monkfish today,’ with a nod to Edison who was slowly making his way toward the next stall. ‘Boss’s orders.’
‘Good luck, there’s not been a good landing of monkfish for a while.’
Mo followed Edison, who had moved off, perusing the wares of the market holders as he went. A large crate had arrived, wheeled on a pallet, at the stand where their marks were busying themselves with a crowbar to get the top off. Edison observed them covertly.
‘Do we know who those two are?’ said Edison quietly, jerking his head in the direction of their targets.
‘I recognise them from the e-fits the drugs squad provided us. They reckon they’re petty criminals. Pawns. Call them what you will.’ Both men looked back toward their marks, they were busying themselves with the humdrum routine of regular stallholders.
‘So, they aren’t members of VIPERSNEST.’
Mo shook his head.
The pair moved off. Edison cast a furtive glance back at the man with the earring. Once they were out of earshot, Mo said, ‘I need to phone this in. Get everyone mobilised.’ He disappeared into the crowds.
Edison turned toward Canary Wharf, lost in a whirlwind of thoughts. He couldn’t shake a sense of unease that centred around the identity of the stranger who, in a city of seven million people, had crossed his path twice in less than a week.
*
0753, Thursday 29th June, Canary Wharf, London
He didn’t have long to contemplate the stranger with the earring. He was late for the team scrum. Edison arrived in the foyer of the soaring office building that housed Penwill & Mallinson, breathless and sweating, at three minutes to eight. His journey had been hindered by the crowds of people, and he had dodged his way through the throng at a jog to begin with before his lack of fitness caught up with him, and he slowed to a walk, weaving in and out of the commuters with their heads buried in their smartphones and plugged into their headphones. A smartly dressed woman greeted him. ‘Steven,’ she addressed him with a forced smile as she looked him up and down. Edison glanced down to see his dishevelled appearance. His shirt was stained with sweat where his overweight midriff strained against the buttons, and his shoes were splashed with fishy residue. He felt embarrassed and promised himself for the umpteenth time in the last three days that he would lose the extra weight he was carrying and get fit.
‘Anna,’ he said, slipping into the skin of Steven Edwards. He held out a hand and offered Tom’s secretary a broad smile, ‘A pleasure to see you again.’ The woman who’d greeted him took it gingerly, returning none of Edison’s warmth. She was blonde and impeccably dressed in a tailored trouser suit. They had met for the first time two days earlier when Edison had come into the office for his formal interview, and she had been just as unfriendly then.
‘I have your security pass ready, so we can go straight up. This way.’
Edison followed Anna as she led him to a bank of lifts which took them up to the fifteenth floor. They hurried past the bank’s reception desk, past a well-appointed kitchen, where some of the staff were chatting over their morning coffee, and into an enormous open-plan office, walled on two sides with floor-to-ceiling windows, flooding the space with light and offering far-reaching views over to the City of London in the west, and south across the river to Greenwich.
‘Don’t get used to the view,’ Anna said. ‘They’re building office blocks at a rate of knots, it feels like, and one will pop up there before you know it. We’re probably funding it.’ She laughed at her own joke. Edison smiled, glad that the icy reception he’d received downstairs was beginning to thaw. A good relationship with the office admin staff was key for any intelligence-gathering – secretaries and assistants know everything about everything. ‘The team sits over there,’ she indicated three banks of desks at the far end of the office, flanked by a fishbowl office on one side and windows on the other. ‘That’s Tom’s office, where you had your interview.’ Anna pointed at the fishbowl. ‘I sit just outside. I’ll give you a proper tour after the scrum. This way.’ She led him across the office where, against one of the two walls not made of glass, there was an open space, sparsely furnished and a few people milling around a large LCD screen. Edison recognised some of the faces from Tanya’s brief.
‘Boys and girls,’ said Anna, commanding their attention, ‘this is Steven Edwards. I’ll leave you to introduce yourselves.’ She put a folder she had been carrying on a high-top table next to the screen before disappearing.
Edison smiled self-consciously as his new colleagues gathered around him. He recognised Tariq, Maria and Emma. Billy and Christoph appeared moments later, both clutching coffee and relieved to discover that Tom hadn’t arrived yet. ‘He cannot abide lateness,’ Billy explained to Edison. ‘Jamie will be late though. He’s always seven minutes late for everything.’
‘Gets away with it too,’ Maria said. Edison sensed a note of jealousy in her tone, carefully concealed under her jovial manner. She spoke with a clipped, cultivated accent, no doubt acquired at an expensive boarding school, but she was clearly Russian. And very beautiful, Edison thought, before admonishing himself – although he wasn’t sure whether that was out of deference for his dead wife or the complicated relationship he had with Kat.
‘Who gets away with what?’ Tom said, striding in and greeting Edison warmly. ‘Hey, Steven, welcome, I hope they’re all making you feel at home.’ He paused, pulling a face of mock horror. ‘You don’t have a drink, they really aren’t looking after you.’ Anna reappeared with an enormous cup of coffee, the mug adorned with the words ‘The Boss’, which she handed to Tom. Later, Edison spotted a matching cup with the words ‘The Real Boss’ emblazoned on it, sat on Anna’s desk, which made him chuckle. ‘Anna – thank you. Please could you sort Steven out with a coffee?’
‘Sure,’ Anna said. Turning to Edison she asked, ‘How do you take it?’
‘Any chance of a tea?’
‘Of course. Green, chai, chamomile, English Breakfast, you name it we probably have it.’
‘Regularly bog-standard breakfast tea, please. White, no sugar. Could you leave the bag in?’
The tea appeared just before Jamie came sauntering across the room. Edison checked his watch. 8.07 a.m. as predicted.
‘Thank you for joining us, Jamie,’ said Tom to the latecomer and then, turning to the rest of the team, he said, ‘Could someone please update Jamie’s calendar? I believe this meeting has somehow ended up in his diary for eight fifteen.’
Jamie grinned, ignoring the sarcasm dripping from Tom’s tongue. ‘Struggled to find a spot in the bike park.’ He turned to Edison. ‘Jamie Dunn,’ he said, holding out a hand.
‘Steven Edwards.’ Jamie conducted himself with a confident swagger, and Edison was glad that his predictions, so far, had been proved correct. He was looking forward to getting to know him a bit better. He was sure he would learn a lot from him.
‘All right, let’s get started,’ Tom said, positioning himself at the high-top where his secretary had dropped his briefing file. He consulted it then went on, ‘You’ve all met Steven, the newest member of the team. He’s mostly going to be working on the security around our trading systems and ensuring they’re adhering to whatever new straitjacket the FCA are lumbering us with. Make sure you’re working with him, not against him.’ The meeting continued with updates on trading positions from the fund managers and news of a cash injection coming from the sales team who had closed a round of fundraising for the third iteration of the bank’s alternative fund which seemed to get everyone excited. Edison was reminded of Tanya’s request to find out who was invested and began to formulate a plan to secure that information.
His phone had been buzzing occasionally in his pocket throughout the meeting, but as the time ticked on, it vibrated more insistently against his leg. Finally, after Anna delivered an update on the grand total raised by the team at the weekend’s marathon – ‘That’s nearly five thousand pounds for the plight of the refugees,’ she told the team with tears in her eyes. ‘You guys really do care. Unlike some of our politicians.’ – Tom released the team to their desks and accompanied Edison back to his office. ‘Tom, where are the bathrooms?’ Edison asked, searching for an excuse to check his mobile messages in private.
‘Has no one shown you?’ Tom said, genuinely concerned about the warmth of Edison’s reception and the impression it might be leaving on his newest recruit.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Edison assured him, ‘I was a bit later than I would have liked to be. Anna promised me a full tour after the scrum.’
‘Back past the kitchen, toward the lifts, on the left,’ said Tom. ‘Come back to my office once you’re done, and I’ll brief you on what needs doing.’
Once safely tucked away in the privacy of one of the cubicles, Edison retrieved his phone from his pocket. There were three missed calls and five voicemails, all were from his mother-in-law. Three of the messages on his answerphone were date-stamped from two days ago. Another the day before. In the excitement of the last few days, Edison had forgotten about the de Courcys’ imminent arrival in London.
He listened to the voice messages in order. The first explained that she and Gauthier would be in London for a little over a week to arrange for the sale of the flat. She’d requested that they arrange a time when he would be out for the agents to take the promotional photographs. She’d also asked how long it might take for Edison to make arrangements to move out. Her messages had become increasingly frustrated in tone as Edison continued to blank her. Her final message the previous day had changed tack, and she’d affected concern, saying she was worried about him and that she understood that he may be finding the sale of the flat difficult, but she would really appreciate an acknowledgement, if nothing else, just to let her and Gauthier know he was ok. That message had ended with Jane telling him that she and Gauthier would be arriving in London on the last Eurostar that evening (Wednesday) and would get to the flat to meet the first agent at 8.00 a.m. on Thursday.
This morning’s voicemail had been left at 8.45 a.m. ‘Edison,’ Jane’s voice said. ‘We have arrived at the flat. Am I to understand from your absence, the keys left on the table and the fact that I cannot see any of your personal effects, that you have already made arrangements to find alternative accommodation? Please let me know.’ The faux concern of the prior evening had evaporated, the message was full of venom. Her son-in-law had outsmarted her. He had deprived her of the satisfaction of evicting him in person.
Edison sent a text message. Yes, moved out. Good luck with the sale. Jane did not like text messages. She insisted on calling them SMS and never used the verb ‘to text’.
Edison turned his attention back to his work and read the text message from Kat. Edison, it read, need to debrief on Billingsgate ASAP. Be at the Star & Garter on The Narrow at 8pm.
Edison shot off a reply confirming he’d be there.
Back in Tom’s office, he explained Edison’s priorities for the coming days. After twenty minutes, during which time Edison had taken copious notes on Tom’s expectations for him, Tom drew breath and said, ‘I think that should keep you busy for a day or two.’ Edison thought that Tom’s instructions could keep him busy for a month but didn’t say anything. The meeting was concluded, and Edison retreated to his desk to consider ho
w best to approach the mountain of work expected of him whilst pursuing his other lines of enquiry.
*
‘Fancy lunch?’ A voice interrupted Edison’s focus. He had spent the hours since his meeting with Tom familiarising himself with the technical set-up at the bank. It wasn’t a complex system. But it was elegantly built by someone who knew what they were doing.
‘Lunch?’ the voice said again. Edison had been digging around the security profile of the trading system. He looked up from his screen to realise he was being addressed by Jamie.
‘Sure,’ said Edison, ‘but I’m on a diet.’
Jamie looked him up and down critically, and his eyes lit up. ‘Getting in shape for something?’ he asked and bowled on without waiting for a reply. ‘I can help you. I know a bit about nutrition and could even sort a training programme out. I managed to get this guy round a marathon at the weekend you know.’ He slapped Tom on the shoulder, who had made his way out of his office.
‘I still haven’t forgiven him for that,’ Tom said. ‘Have you seen Emma?’
‘Gone for a sandwich, I think,’ said Jamie. ‘Joining us for lunch?’
‘No time today,’ said Tom, retreating into his office.
‘Come on, Steve.’ Jamie said. ‘There’s a good place for salads. High protein, low carbs. That’s what you need, I reckon. Did you say you were training for something?’
‘No, nothing. Just getting back in shape. Eat less, move more,’ said Edison.
‘All right,’ Jamie continued as they accelerated down to the foyer in the lift. ‘Bring some kit in tomorrow. I can show you some good running routes round here. You’ll soon be back in shape. With a bit of help.’ Jamie winked and Edison grinned at him, building rapport with targets had been a key part of Edison’s role as an intelligence officer, and he’d developed a chameleon-like ability to adopt multiple personalities to inveigle his way into people’s trust.
They settled down to lunch, tucking into superfood salads served in cardboard cartons with plastic cutlery.