by Neil Rowland
Clive wasn’t able to enjoy himself. He grew oppressed by his unusual disorientation. Therefore he finished off a final glass, ducked through the low exit and ascended back to the street. Again he was whacked by searing heat, not only the noise and ferocity, as he confronted those alienating thoroughfares of east London. This was not a typical impression for Clive, as by then he was excited by the City and the challenges it posed. Today the City was made from glinting concrete, glaring glass and metallic paving stone; that denied him any comfort or progress.
When he turned into the required street he noticed two female employees from Winchurch Brothers strolling towards him. Probably they were returning from an outside appointment. Clive picked up his step, thinking that he might return to the office with them, to hide his lateness from managerial displeasure. Perhaps these ladies could offer a few clues about his new situation; and he could ask why nobody was in The Banker and Flower Girl. He noticed that particularly beautiful lady again, with whom he’d previously worked. What was her name now?
Clive was shocked when, after they saw him, the women reacted with horrified surprise; even putting hands up to their mouths. They wanted to run away it seemed, just at the sight of him. But somehow they were frozen for a while, too scared to even move. Clive watched their expressions in amazement, shocked and afraid himself. He felt a new perspiration over his brow and a rising chill in his blood.
“What’s the matter ladies?” he announced.
“Oh my god, Clive?” gasped the other.
“Come on, give me a break. Stop piking me, will you?” he pleaded.
“What are you doing here?” Pixie Wright said. Yes, that was it.
“Don’t you know?” he replied.
“Are you in your right mind?” she returned.
Pixie was an incredibly elegant blonde: he was confident that he’d spoken to her a few times. She’d a cool rippling figure and an even more excellent head for figures; under that semi-beehive hair arrangement, like an old time girl vocalist - Diana Ross or Martha Reeves say - or perhaps, outwardly, a Hitchcock heroine.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” he declared, offended.
“It isn’t safe for you around here,” she gasped.
“What’s the matter with everyone today?” he asked.
“What can you be thinking of?” she said, breathless, panicked.
They confronted each other on the pavement, with heavy crowds dividing around them, in a state of astonishment.
“What are you trying to tell me?” he pleaded. Pixie Wright assumed a degree of familiarity and even concern. But like unfamiliar code, he was unable to interpret meanings. He stared dumbfounded into her eyes, lost in her mystified expression, complex with untranslatable feelings.
“I’ll literally scream until the cops arrive,” declared Olivia Pearson.
“That’s just your style, isn’t it,” Pitt commented.
“Try me, Clive. Go on!”
Yet for some reason he was more interested in Pixie - she held a secret.
“Clive!”
“I’m the guy who should call for a policeman,” Clive insisted.
“Don’t you threaten us, you disgusting creep!” Olivia yelled.
“That’s charming, isn’t it,” he complained.
“How did you get out of that place? I mean, did they release you, or did you escape..?” Pixie asked.
“I’ve got no idea... what you’re talking about,” he admitted.
“You have to get away before it’s too late!”
“Too late for what? I was hoping to slip back with you,” Clive explained.
“Slip back where?” she puzzled.
“I forgot all about the time. I’m chronically late.”
“Did you lose your senses?” Pixie replied.
“You can’t get shot of me that easily,” Clive retorted.
“They were trying to eliminate you. Why expose yourself to that risk?” Pixie insisted.
“Eliminate? Me?”
Her hypnotic eyes rounded. Her white blonde hair seemed to evoke both extreme youth and old age. “They are trying to take you out. It’s insane to return to the office now!”
“Why do they want to kill me?” he urged her.
“Perhaps the idea...I’m not certain though...is to make it simpler for them.”
There was information to pass on, but it was lost to him.
“Leave her alone! Go away!” shouted the other woman. Rage and fear pushed her to edge of control. Then Pixie pulled her away by the arm, as if for her own safety, until both women scurried away.
“They all seem to be losing their minds today,” Clive said to himself quietly, as he observed the pair as they threw themselves into the revolving doors of the Winchurch Building.
4
Had he said or done something out of place in the office? Could that offer any explanation?
Plainly it had been a hard morning at work; in fact the previous weeks had been difficult, as far as he remembered. The details were hazy, he merely had a general if compelling impression. There had been a complex and difficult merger happening; a leveraged and unsolicited bid. The pressure of that deal had got to him lately, he knew; it tingled on his nerves like the feel of nicotine or coke for an addict. It had been an exhausting twenty-four-hour piece of business, on which he was asked to lead. Handsome profits for the company if he succeeded, if he handled things correctly, but big pressure and risks too. Wasn’t this a fact you had to live with? Nothing could justify the reaction of Olivia and Pixie, outside the very doors of the firm. He wasn’t directly their manager, but he was certainly one of their bosses. He had certainly been Olivia’s mentor for a year; this was how she repaid him.
Pitt was shaken, disturbed, by the hostility of their reaction. But their horrified response seemed completely in earnest. So what had people been saying about him; what was he supposed to have done? The City was always crackling with rumour and gossip, breaking reputations as it crunched numbers and chewed statistics. Was it all part of the prank that started in a black limousine, with that guy joshing about being the devil?
“But she implied that they’re trying to kill me,” he recalled, allowing her warning words to resound. “Can she be serious?”
Well they’d almost succeeded, hadn’t they, on the evidence so far.
Maybe this was an elaborate office joke after all. During his first years at the company, his boss, Sir Septimus Winchurch himself, had highly approved of his impressive, rapid progress. Sep had been impressed with Clive from the beginning in fact; with his sharp mind, his eager attitude, exemplified in a strapping physique and fresh good looks. Sep made a point of starting him off in a more responsible role and at a higher salary, with bigger bonuses, than the other graduate intake, once his internship period had concluded.
The shrewd old chap, a doyen of the City (among the last of the old school) regarded Clive as a brave musketeer on the markets; just the talent to take his company into the new global era, and to accommodate a new political world order. Even so he had a few doubts, as Clive was “a northern outsider”, whose background didn’t exactly stack up, compared to previous company policy and conventional recruitment practice.
With the passing of over a decade, Clive thought, at some point thereafter, Winchurch had taken exception to him. No longer seen as the brilliant golden boy from an admirable grammar school outside a northern town. The boss had grown regularly irked by his progeny’s strict ethics and scruples (that came from a tight, respectable family background) which were not in tune with an unregulated financial era. The old chap was not tolerant of occasional miscalculations, or misjudgements, that even directors were guilty of. Such errors had been inevitable, a calculated side effect arguably, considering the fast and unpredictable nature of this ‘casino’ side to the business.<
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As far as Winchurch was concerned Clive didn’t belong to the trustworthy list of schools and universities. Sometimes it could be down to the precise college. Pitt’s mathematical intellect, his eager charisma, his rugged physique even, had been appealing attributes. Clive gave them the sense that he could not only survive in the financial bear pit, but savage the dogs and wolves. He could hold his own in that sphere of gargantuan egos. But the old chap always questioned Pitt’s nerve, doubted his sympathies, at the sharp end of a crucial negotiation. This was even as Sep needed his experience and expertise to close out a complex deal. Did Pitt truly understand that Winchurch Brothers was more important than anything to him, Septimus, than even his own flesh and blood?
Clive lingered on the pavement outside HQ. He stared up at the sheer glass surfaces of the building, brooding over the morning’s events. His colleagues would be laughing at him, if they intended to test him through an office hoax. If so then it was the most elaborate prank they had ever pulled off. He was puzzled why they selected him for a joke, considering his status in the organisation. His talents and achievements in the company had been respected by colleagues and staff, not only by his boss, the board and significant shareholders. This had not only been true during the tony times, but after the debt bubble burst, as the big bang went into reverse, and practically sucked the FTSE back to a dot.
Pitt wasn’t going to be intimidated by some maverick who wanted to severely embarrass him or even to wreck his career. It was a Friday anyway, almost the weekend, according to his calculation, so he was entitled to go home early. This action would undermine the unknown practical joker; it would deny him a triumphant scene. Clive did not recognise the time of day, or even the changes of seasons; but on this occasion he would absent himself. Maybe he would let his wife know of these plans and book a late flight to Rome or Paris. She would be delighted, as they rarely had the chance to arrange spontaneous holidays. Unfortunately he couldn’t find a phone in his pockets to make a call or to communicate with. Did he lose all those techie devices somehow, or had he left them on his desk?
Still he would get in touch with her somehow. If there was an office scam, then it would turn cold as sliced meat by Monday morning. Most likely somebody would call him later to explain the ruse and to apologise. They would grovel and be shamefaced, because this had been miscalculated from the start. It was a dangerous game to try to make fun of an associate and a key-holder.
But these explanations didn’t quite convince. Despite such bravado, he feared that something had flipped. It came as a shock to believe that any colleague wanted to humiliate him. He took a deep breath and slipped back into the Winchurch building. There was no option but to retrieve his jacket, briefcase and other personal belongings. Most likely he had left everything in his locker, as he didn’t like any clutter around his working space. It was a bit sneaky to return back into work like this, but Pixie’s warning words had affected him. She said that someone was out to eliminate him. The threat was vague, yet at a subliminal level, Pitt had believed her.
He wasn’t noticed. In place of the regular doorman, Harry (a man devoted to racing pigeons and the Arsenal) there was a craggy substitute security man, Harry’s vacation stand-in, unlikely to identify Pitt. This was a bit of luck, as the reserve desk guard wasn’t interested in Clive’s jerky movement across the lobby, but was instead fascinated by a multiple array of security screens, as if he was enjoying the most expensive media package.
Clive decided to take the service stairs. He didn’t wish to hang around waiting for an elevator either. There were multiple flights and he still risked bumping into a junior colleague. It was a crazy proposition, but he sensed that his role, his status within the organisation, had gone awry. He wasn’t going to ignore the warning offered by Miss Wright, even if it didn’t typically respond to verbal rumours or tip offs.
Super rapid elevators ran up the core of the building, while the stairway was empty. In fact he didn’t know who did use the stairway. Clive could hear the machinery’s ecstatic whining as he trudged up the hollow well. He only encountered one person during the entire ascent. But he didn’t recognise that individual and the nervous looking guy didn’t recognise him either. They hardly acknowledged each other. To discover a character he had not met in the building before, on the back stairs, was also a strange phenomenon.
Clive reached his usual level of the building, puffing as if reaching the finish line of a peaks walking challenge. Hesitantly, for once, he pushed through port-holed doors, rather like serving doors in a restaurant (he always thought) and nervously entered the next corporate space. Somehow his normal work place had transformed into a danger zone, full of hidden questions like landmines.
A mental warning sign stopped him from going further. The male locker room that he patronised was at the end of the next corridor. He fixed his glance and set off directly, keeping soft feet, as calmly as his heart and lungs allowed. There was no reason to veer off into a trading area. He had every right to behave out of character, to set off early for a long weekend, however unfamiliar. That’s exactly what he intended to do, to wrong step them. This hadn’t been such a great day at the office so far. He wasn’t going to extend his hours like an ambitious intern. He didn’t need to insinuate himself like a graduate Trojan.
Clive felt the presence of his colleagues, the whole eyes-focused-front shirt sleeve culture. Obviously his desk would be unoccupied in his absence; temporarily abandoned; who could take his place now? Was it even possible to replace him, given his portfolio, his expertise, his involvement? Those people would be wondering what had taken him, as this was not his normal pattern. Despite such risky behaviour, there was no need to be afraid, despite Pixie’s warning.
Perhaps he should just show up and try to explain. This wasn’t like misbehaving on a boys’ night out. He picked up the normal bustle of financial traffic. The office continued as usual, just beyond thin walls and divisions, amidst a spectral hum of information technology. Even his boss was only a few divisions and walls away. His heart skipped a beat, hurtled like financial tickers over Bloomberg screens. He strayed across a glass division - a screen of etched crystal that had been presented by a Swedish client - that surely revealed his outline, a smoky ghost, if people gazed up for a moment.
What made him tread carefully when he could afford to swagger? Did he really have a reason to be nervous around here; considering he was Winchurch’s head boy and protégé, or had been?
Pitt strode stealthy as a cat burglar, before he darted into the locker room. He took a breather, adjusting to a humid enclosed space, like a heart chamber. He faced regimented lines of lockers, grey and mute as the morning cleaning shift. Yet there was an equal risk of being discovered, if it was dangerous to be found. Clive searched in his trouser pockets and was relieved to find a set of keys. The ring contained the appropriate swab to open his locker.
Except that there were many other keys and passes, which he couldn’t remember adding or accumulating. What was going on with his head? On the other hand he did tend to collect keys and gather junk. It was one of the gripes of his missus. At least he was able to pick out the swipe which could open his locker.
After opening the box he stared confusedly at various contents. There was a loud check jacket on a hanger, two flowery kipper ties and a yellow nylon shirt. Not only did these not belong to him, but he wouldn’t be seen dead in such a get up. Clive had good taste in clothes and was scrupulous in presentation. If there was a new occupant of the locker, who’d exchanged possessions, then he had not disposed of, or reprogrammed, the previous swipe. That was careless security as Clive well understood, in an age of corporate espionage.
However, at this point he had company; there were steps and voices at the entrance; two guys had entered the room, to join him. Fortunately Clive was hidden from view like a street robber between the tall avenues of steel. The pair chatted, slacking, enjoying th
emselves, while Pitt froze to attention in the adjacent aisle. He recognised the voices of colleagues, and obviously they’d recognise him.
“I need another change of shirt. The air conditioning is buggered. If it gets any hotter I’ll be wearing my French swim briefs.”
“On for tennis, Sunday evening? Don’t forget the sun cream!”
“Definitely, chum, always a pleasure to smash your balls over the grass.”
“No chance, Jonny, ‘cause my back spin’s deadly as a knife. You’ll get your balls served back in cubes, matey.”
Clive identified the first speaker as Martin Abrams, and his companion was Jonathan Spence. He didn’t want them to discover him playing truant, if that’s what he was doing. Could this pair be responsible for the practical joke?
“We shouldn’t piss about here. We’ll be noticed if we’re gone too long. There’s the Singapore deal, and then I have to refer quotations back to Shanghai,” said Abrams. “Just let me splash my face...”
“I’ve got a fresh shirt,” Spence informed him. “For once it’s not the old geezer who’s making me sweat. You know we’re fortunate the establishment didn’t collapse. We are meant to be grateful. This is the afterlife, remember?”
“Who could have predicted Pitt turning up? Right in the street, outside the very building. He was supposed to be under lock and key, according to rumour.”
“Not satisfied with nearly wrecking all our jobs and careers.”
“Wants to come and have another try!”
“Incredible, if it really was that crazy dick and not a case of mistaken identity.”