The Cryptographer

by Tobias Hill

  ‘You make it sound like a monopoly.’

  ‘No.’ He glances sharply back at her. Stops rocking. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean –’

  ‘No problem.’ He is watching her again now. Gauging her, she thinks, as if he has had her wrong. ‘I also told them my money would make them indispensable.’

  ‘Indispensable?’

  Margaret Mutevelian leans towards him, murmuring blandly. In a voice like that, Anna thinks, one could say anything and still sound like a diplomat. Law hears her out, shakes his head, no, and turns back.

  ‘I told them that if they could establish themselves as suppliers of a leading international currency, it would be extremely difficult for any domestic government to limit their growth. They would feel concerned, as they will when corporations expand to a certain point. But they would be reluctant to take any of the usual actions if Soft Gold were indispensable. They wouldn’t want to rock our boat. The financial markets are volatile enough as it is.’

  ‘The usual actions,’ she says. There is a quality to her repetition which suggests incomprehension, she can hear it herself too clearly. The youngest of the men is smiling down at his laptop screen. Whether he is laughing at her or is only trying to understand what has been said, Anna cannot be sure.

  ‘Anti-trust measures. Monopoly commissions, as you say. I needed them, and I needed them to believe me, and I believe they did.’ Law pauses again, as if he is about to say something more; and again he does not.

  ‘And were you right?’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he says, ‘I was.’

  She looks up at him. Not because she wants to, but because it is time she did. Already she can feel the interview slipping away from her, the weight of it veering out of control. She wonders where it will take them. The accountants are writing hard in their little black electric books. Law is watching her as he did in the hall of glass: half frowning, half smiling. As if he has come across something he doesn’t quite understand, whether in himself or in the woman who faces him.

  ‘You didn’t tell me what your work was.’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’

  ‘What is your work?’

  ‘Cryptography.’ He leans forward. His eyes on hers. Kennedy grey. ‘My work is the study of hidden things. You’re here about the account. The one in the name of my son.’

  The men look up one after the other, mute as court stenographers. In the time it takes Anna to make up her mind about what to say Margaret is already talking. ‘Mister Law, I strongly suggest that this is not a constructive –’

  ‘Margaret,’ John Law says, but his voice is quiet.

  ‘– avenue of discussion. It is not the place of the Revenue to –’

  ‘Greta,’ the Cryptographer says, and she turns. ‘You can go now.’

  She looks at him. The older of the accountants smiles, tentatively, as if someone has told a joke he is afraid not to understand. ‘Sir?’

  ‘You can go. Thank you, Greta. I’ll be alright here.’

  She says nothing, but stands, not entirely steadily though with a certain dignity. Without guilt, Anna sees that she is much older than she first appeared.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Law says again.

  ‘As you wish.’ Mutevelian’s cheeks have flushed, white at the bones, red at the cheeks. As if she has been slapped. She doesn’t look at Anna as she passes, but her eyes are resigned. As if, Anna thinks, she has tried to prevent the inevitable.

  The older man is the last to leave. He bows slightly as he closes the door behind him. The silence he leaves behind extends and intensifies itself in the room with the wall of glass and the two seated figures. Like heat in a greenhouse.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Law’s voice is still soft, there is no edge to it. ‘Greta has been with me for many years. Sometimes she may defend me more enthusiastically than is strictly necessary. I’d like to apologise on her behalf.’

  ‘She wouldn’t want you to.’

  ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’d say she was trying to protect you from something.’

  He stretches. ‘Well, that’s her job, isn’t it? To protect me from you?’

  No, she thinks. Her job is only to represent you. It would take something special, Anna thinks, to make Margaret Mutevelian go so close to the bounds of duty. But she says nothing, and again the air begins to fill with a jarring silence. A trembling begins, deep in the muscles of her arms, and she wills it away.

  ‘You’re not what I expected,’ Law says abruptly. Anna tries to smile.

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Someone less approachable. As it happens I rarely have the pleasure of meeting the Revenue at such close quarters. I thought you might be more chilling.’

  ‘I can be extremely chilling.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘Perhaps I would, then.’ He stops, backs up. ‘We’re not so different.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘We’re both disliked.’

  ‘Speak for yourself.’

  ‘Professionally. I meant professionally. We both work with money.’

  ‘You said your work was cryptography,’ she says, smiling, quick-fire.

  ‘Cryptography then.’ Grinning. ‘Cryptography and money are not unalike.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘They both lay their numbers over the world. Grids of numbers, following the contours of hills and towers. And not only those inanimate things but lives, too, bodies and faces. You must see that in your work, as I do in mine.’ He slows. ‘A code can express anything, after all. Just as everything has its price.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Sometimes I think it does,’ he says. ‘Don’t you?’

  When she doesn’t answer he looks out at the courtyard. The light is lengthening, already it is beginning to go. A stooped figure in green celluloid boots moves between the grandeval roots of cedars.

  ‘Do you like gardening?’ John Law asks, the unforeseen question catching her by surprise. She shrugs automatically.

  ‘I like gardens.’

  He laughs, perhaps at her expense, but not as if the joke is unkind. Later she will regret not having laughed with him. ‘Not quite the same thing.’

  ‘Definitely not. You always have, haven’t you?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Asphodel Nine.’

  ‘Nice thinking there. I’m afraid they’ve wasted you on me.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to tell them.’

  ‘You do that, Inspector.’

  ‘Just Anna,’ she says, but what she means is, Wait. They are talking so fast now, too fast, it seems to Anna, the rapidity of the words veering almost to the point of argument and back towards laughter. It is both more and less than an interview; more than she has hoped for, less than she can allow. He is only a client in the end, after all, and one with false accounts. But it is as if he is constantly just ahead of her, looking back. As if he knows where the conversation is leading them.

  Wait for me.

  She scrolls through her notes, lost in his millions, trying to remember what it is she is supposed to want to know. ‘You were telling me about Asphodel Nine.’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Do you still receive income from it?’

  ‘I doubt it. Greta would know. That was all a long time ago. I read that nine tenths of genetic code serves no function. I invented a way of writing one code into another. Vegetable storage space. I had –’ he shifts uncomfortably again – ‘I wanted to make my mark. Now can I ask you something, Anna?’

  It is softer than she imagines it herself, the way he says it; an easy sound. A name like a smile. ‘If you want.’

  He nods at the courtyard. ‘Do you like my garden?’

  She looks, as if to check. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad. It’s one of my favourites. I mean of my own. The trees here are transplan
tations, every one. I purchased them and brought them in full-grown. It takes a bit of work, but I think it’s worth it. Some of these are already extinct in their natural habitats. There are sequoias as high as twenty-storey buildings. Taller than that and we’d need planning permission. One of the yews is sixteen hundred years old. They tell me it was alive in the region of York during the last days of the Western Roman Empire. There are natural bonsai from the Japanese Alps. The wind makes them. How do you put a price on things like that?’

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘I did. These are all priceless things, but I purchased them all in the end. They all had their price.’

  He stops, as if waiting for something. ‘Tell me about the account,’ Anna says, and when he smiles again she feels her heart lurch and right itself.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  What question? she begins to ask. The words are on her lips as she stops herself. She shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not here for that.’

  ‘Of course.’ He sits up. His face falling into shadow as he does so. ‘Of course. I am sorry. What was it, exactly, that you wanted to know?’

  I want to know who you think of, when you think of money.

  So she thinks, but it is not what she says. Anna’s thoughts and words are so often distinct. In her it is a kind of professionalism, so she believes. She can feel herself beginning to blush, the blood rising in her skin like heat in air, she knows how it must look, and for a moment she wishes herself gone. But the client is waiting, his face as grave as when he first entered the room.

  ‘The account,’ she says again.

  ‘Oh, you must know all about it, to be here. Don’t you? You must know almost everything about me.’

  ‘If I knew everything, I wouldn’t need to meet you.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, and smiles. ‘And that would be a shame.’ But he looks tired. A little of the brightness has gone out of him, as if the last of the courtyard’s cold air has dissipated from around him.

  ‘Will you tell me about it?’

  ‘No,’ he says slowly, ‘I don’t think I will. I’m sorry I did it, and I can pay. I can certainly pay. Will that be enough, do you think?’

  ‘Enough for what?’

  ‘For the investigation to end.’

  She goes still. ‘Well. You’re not required to explain to me why you have acted as you have. You’re not being charged with a criminal offence – we prefer our clients to be earning, as long as they can reasonably be allowed to do so. But if you’re admitting a fraud, there’s still reason for an investigation,’ she says, wondering as she does so whether it is true, why she wants it to be true, what it means to want it. ‘The Revenue is not in the habit of concluding matters at this point.’

  ‘I see,’ he says, but slowly, as if he has considered something else and decided against it. ‘Do you happen to know what I owe?’

  She types lightly, almost soundlessly, her eyes following the text as it surfaces on the screen. ‘Eleven million, nine hundred and seventy-five thousand, four hundred and twelve soft,’ she says, and adds, almost apologetically, ‘and fourteen cents. Compound penalty interest over such a long time –’

  ‘You’ll have it by next week.’

  She saves and shuts down, the tablet screen fading to the dullness of slate. The light in the courtyard has almost gone now. Anna looks for the gardener under the trees, but he or she is out of sight.

  ‘Are we done?’

  At the sound of Law’s voice she turns back. The room’s illumination has not yet come on automatically. In the gloom the Cryptographer’s face looks surprised. ‘Done. For now.’

  He bows his head. ‘Of course,’ he says, and stands. ‘Well. It’s been a pleasure, Anna.’

  ‘I rather doubt that. But thank you.’

  ‘But it has,’ he says. ‘An unexpected pleasure, truly,’ and she sees that he is smiling again, and is glad of it. ‘Can I walk you out?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she says. And he does. Out through the endless corridors, the porcelain and celadon, the rooms of glass and charged silicon, to where London waits under a clear sky for the emergence of night.

  It is only later, when she is alone, that she realises she trusts him. It comes to her as something matter-of-fact, as if the issue has already been decided and she has known it for some time: as if her conscious mind is the last of her to know. Despite his smoothness, his graceful assurance, his edge of arrogance, and all the evidence she has of his deception, she is like Terence in his room of flowers. She trusts him. It makes her laugh at herself in the dark.

  For hours she turns the belief over in her mind, testing it. So it is later still, the small hours, when she remembers the question she never answered. The one John Law never quite asked. Does everything have its price?

  ‘Now I remember why I felt sorry for him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You could close the case. It wouldn’t be hard, now the Revenue has its grubby hands on his grubby money. That’s all they ever want.’

  ‘Money isn’t grubby anymore.’

  ‘Money will always be grubby. You could talk to the Board. Those who smile on you so benignly.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Because I want to understand him.’

  ‘You had a specific job to do, and you’ve done it, and with commendable speed. What are you going to do with him now?’

  They are below St Paul’s, side by side on the grass, eating greasy street food from a Brazilian vendor. Anna can feel Lawrence leaning gently against her. It is only partly his age. The weather has turned milder, as it often does; a last manifestation of warmth before the true onset of winter. In the golden light they eat and talk on the greenness of old cemetery ground.

  ‘You don’t see.’

  ‘What is there to see, Anna? Tell me. Enlighten me.’

  ‘I want to understand why he did it.’

  ‘It isn’t your job to understand.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, you’re being obtuse. You said yourself that what he did makes no sense. Aren’t you curious?’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’

  ‘You are. You lie as badly as I do. Why have you changed your mind about him? He might do it again. He might use the code next time – then what? You know paying is just his way of getting rid of me.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t he?’ He rearranges himself uncomfortably. ‘He’s done all the Revenue asks of him, after all. They aren’t considering criminal charges. Are they?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then what would be the fault in letting him pay and be done? Twelve million soft is no small thing. Mister Law has paid the price of crossing the Revenue, and the country can make good use of a sum like that.’

  ‘Paying is his way of removing any obligation to explain his motives. He’s tricked me. He’s buying me out.’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  ‘Well, I want to know why, Lawrence. That’s why. What?’

  ‘Your friend was right.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your accountant.’

  ‘She’s not my bloody friend. Why?’

  ‘Because you are playing a dangerous game.’

  ‘She never said that. What does that mean?’ Anna says. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But Lawrence only shakes his head and goes back to his food, mouthing palm oil from his hands, the light pale in his white hair, delicately licking the last remains from the tips of his fingers.

  She goes back only once. She is on her way to somewhere else – an on-site interview with a software consultant in Bridge Street – and finds herself there before she knows it, outside the unassuming doorway.

  It is afternoon, and the sky is all cloud lit through from above, tawny and lucid with incipient rain. Over the storeys of SoftMark Anna can see
the tops of trees, the heights of the sequoias in John Law’s hidden gardens.

  There is a café across the narrow street. For a while she sits, watching the entrance. No one goes in, though one or two go out, salary-men dressed to kill. She is not sure what she is looking for, anyway. She is going to be late. There are flies on the café walls, dull with the onset of winter. Dark and slow, as if they are waiting for someone to finish them.

  It is the seventh of November, the first Friday of the month. Anna sits alone in a room on Cloak Lane, at a butcher’s-block table lit by church candles. It is Martha’s choice, this, a restaurant within brisk walking distance of two of London’s criminal courts as well as Westminster’s Temples of Law, with deceptively modest decor and remarkably immodest prices, so that while Anna waits she at least has time to scour the menu for the least exorbitant options.

  She is early, and her sister is late. More often than not this is how it turns out between them. Although they tend to meet at Martha’s insistence – as if between the scant pair of them they can hold their family together – it is Anna, on the whole, who waits, her life apparently less full than her sister’s, her patience wearing thin. Just as, on other days, it is Lawrence who waits for her.

  ‘Sorry,’ Martha says as she descends. ‘Sorry, sorry, I ended up with one fucking fraud all day, money is so boring, I don’t know how you do it, I was going out of my mind in there. Anyway, here I am. Did you wait long? Am I a bitch?’

  ‘No,’ Anna lies. ‘And yes, you are,’ she adds, so that Martha, stooping to kiss her, mocks a scowl.

  ‘When I’m a judge,’ she murmurs, ‘you’ll make sure to call me Honourable Bitch,’ and having kissed Anna she dumps herself into a chair. Beyond her Anna can see people turning, frowning at Martha’s presence, or attentive, as if this is someone they almost recognise, or think they should. It is a quality Anna’s sister has inherited from their mother. Anna has only their father’s watchfulness.

  ‘What was it?’ she asks, but Martha is already hunched over the menu, rapt. Anna has to speak again before she notices her. ‘The case, was it important?’