by Neil Rowland
“Let’s not worry about it,” she suggested, pulling away.
“You’re a really bang up girl, Pixie,” he declared.
“You still know how to flatter a girl, with your sweet northern phrases,” she teased.
“Always ready to turn on the charm,” he replied.
“I note you rediscovered a sharp haircut and a posh outfit.”
“Thanks to a friend of mine, not far away from our old house.”
“They used to hate you for that. You strayed away from Brooks Brothers,” she recalled. “So I assume that the rumours are true...that you were doing consultancy work for a rival.”
“I’ve no idea about that,” he said.
“You ought to understand...have no doubt... that Septimus and his new directors will not permit employment to a rival,” she argued.
“Just as they disapproved of our relationship.”
“Glad you’re listening,” she remarked.
But he was afraid of what it meant to desire her.
Nervously they went to bed at the same hour, if to different rooms. Clive was quickly conscious of her in the room next door. Pixie could sense him moving about and then his presence in the space as well. She had a pistol under the bed (resulting from their first affair). She was afraid of him, given those events and incidents. She knew how to fire a rifle; in Switzerland she had gone hunting with a group of local men; not just learning how to smile at a future husband or to iron his shirts, but to fully participate in a local culture and society, much to the chagrin of her Swiss guardians.
Pixie’s memory showed no flaws; they had been lovers once. Consequently she fretted for hours under soaked cotton sheets. She wasn’t just tormented by potential danger, but at the speed of that renewed bond with him. She was kept awake by memories of happy experiences together; as well as the clash between the cruel and the kind. She had tried to eradicate those memories and hardly dared to bring them back; chewing them over in her mind was like taking an emotional cyanide pill.
Intellectually she believed in him, yet in her body she was mistrustful and distressed. She called out from half sleep, suffering nightmares. Clive was awake and heard her, which prompted him to shout back in response, to ask if she was all right. The tension only grew heavier in the air as she refused to answer. Then she couldn’t get back to sleep again, as she was conscious of Clive, wide awake, troubled and restless. She listened out acutely, full of desire and fear, stiff and perspiring. She followed his movements in her imagination as he paced about, in the dead small hours of the night, when only urban foxes and service workers were about.
Indeed he suffered a feverishly restless night. He sweltered with the close humidity. At first he pushed his face into the pillow, as if trying to suffocate himself. He was sad and tormented by his actions during the lost year, which had caused him to be a pariah and to lose his wife and son. It was unthinkable that Noreen could have had an affair with that guy in town and then agreed to a new life in Seattle.
Exactly how was he supposed to have attacked Emily Winchurch? What were the circumstances? Pixie might give him the full background in the morning - or later that morning - if he was able to survive this nocturnal hell; an eternal torment of a bad conscience.
Even the brief blackouts had escaped him. He was intensely aware of Pixie in the adjoining room. What was wrong with him? The smooth curves of her creamy body, warmly naked, sleek with perspiration, deranged his imagination. Whether it was misery or lust, he couldn’t stifle a desire to find her: a voice that told him “why not?”
This convinced him that they’d been lovers in the past. He felt their relationship in his nerves. There was an intense attraction and sympathy; a friendship that picked up from where they had left off. He gained this insight just as, during their chat, he’d recognised her mannerisms. He sensed a habitual relationship with her, a passionate familiarity, in the recent past. Sleeping apart was mysteriously painful, as if they’d been torn away. He craved her intimacy, to feel her body next to him. Pitt’s nerves vibrated through the night like wires in a high wind, protesting against spiritual cold and hunger, after she had abandoned him.
In this manner they endured an interminable night. Not relieved by high humidity, wafting from the ground like acrid incense, which shrouded London outside, as the A/C in his spare room rattled like an old bus on a reduced timetable.
19
When daylight infiltrated the blinds, Pixie chose to escape her nightmares by knocking at his door, most likely to rescue him. She felt safer and justified in the sunshine, knotting a robe around herself.
Her signal stirred him from turbulent last-minute slumbers, which came as a mocking coda of real sleep. In these sweaty phantasmagorical turnings, recent incidents were replayed in an endless loop in his mind; just as the clatter of a novelty alarm clock had earlier shaken Pixie to her senses.
She wanted to discuss those urgent matters, following which she intended to go into the office as normal. Otherwise, there was a danger her boss would grow suspicious; because they already knew Pitt was back in circulation. They must have tracked him through credit card transactions already. She couldn’t allow her fears to keep her away from work.
Pitt and she blinked at each other across the breakfast island. They struggled to suppress a percolating feeling of panic. Somehow it was unnatural to have slept in separate rooms, although he couldn’t say exactly why. Certainly his nerves, or erotic memories, had recorded things which couldn’t be shrugged off. His imagination filled sexual blanks, and he feared this was incriminating. Jangling nerves at breakfast exacerbated such feelings. They certainly didn’t enquire how each other had slept.
Yet his nerves were overridden by his need to find out. She knew more about the previous year - as if they’d been to the same movie but he’d fallen asleep half way through. She was cast into the role of a mystic, interpreting, reading his runes. It was like hearing about misdeeds after a drunken night on the tiles; getting all the antics of another guy, who had a dark side to his personality, having to assume that the whole tale was not a vicious fabrication.
Only Pixie was able to brief him. He’d be entirely in the dark if not for her. This was the peculiar dynamic as he leant across the bar and fastened on to her every word.
“I’ll try to speak to the boss today,” she announced.
“You’re piking me, aren’t you? Talk to Winchurch about this?” His smarting pink eyes squinted at her, as he nervously scratched up his wavy hair.
“You rented an office of your own. Did you realise that?”
“An office? Are you serious?”
“No, not exactly an office... but you had a room in Clerkenwell. You know... I think it was just off the green somewhere. I never went there. You wouldn’t tell me the exact address or location.”
“I refused to tell you? Weren’t you helping me?” he wondered.
“You had to be secretive. You were trying to protect me. But you had your paperwork, so to speak; conducted your campaign. You considered that it would be dangerous to inform me. Either I could betray you or, more likely, betray both of us.”
“There’s greater danger now,” he observed, playing with the condiments as if they were battleships.
“I realise that,” she admitted.
“You’re telling me that I was working from there?”
They began to feel the first morning heat, like an angry leather fist behind the kitchen window.
“Apparently you decided to get your own HQ. Where you built a case against Winchurch and his clients. You were communicating to the outside world... and had prepared that dossier of data and statistics on the ZNT case. From time to time you had my help with that.”
“Who was I communicating with?” Pitt wondered.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The plan was to get enough eviden
ce, collect enough data to present to the FCA, even the Fraud Squad and, after that, the CPS. You also had a contact in the media. We had developed contacts with the FT and with Robert at the BBC.”
“All sounds cosy. So why didn’t I stick with my plan? I just had to apply myself, put in the homework, as there was evidence... the boss told me to lead on negotiations into the flotation and sale of BIP. I was the guy who made it technically possible,” he reminded her. “I was their security.”
“While you were one of them, you were not a threat. Later, when you were briefing against ZNT, they got your location, they followed your footprints, both real and virtual. They even managed to locate and raid your private office.”
“They did?” he exclaimed. “Did it cause a lot of damage?”
“They removed the files, erased data, and deleted all traces you had captured. They attempted to eliminate you from the virtual world, as far as they could succeed.”
“But they didn’t, completely, did they! How do you know about this, any road?” he wondered, draining another shot of coffee.
“Sep’s people couldn’t entirely succeed, because you’d developed a complicated network of proxy servers. They caught glimpses of you, but you sent them along the wrong tunnels, so they lost you.”
“In that case I’d use compromised servers,” he told her. “I would have built in some redundancies... and piggy backed off other people’s servers,” he explained.
“You rented a server from a Thai company. The engineers hired by Winchurch were unable to trace you back... because you selected different servers and mechanisms.”
“I kept busy, didn’t I? Very busy. Some year for me that was, wasn’t it,” he commented.
“Looks that way Clive,” she agreed, trying to discover some appetite.
“No two ways about it,” he replied.
“You even adopted categories of porn sites as disguise. So they would be nervous even if they removed your mask.”
“But I didn’t present any case to the authorities. Assuming that the relevant authorities would have the guts...and take that leap of faith,” Clive thought.
“You didn’t get the opportunity, or you lost it yourself,” she explained.
“So with my lost memory I’d nothing to show?”
“It’s the information you have forgotten, or mislaid, that is vital,” Pixie told him.
“Can’t say that I disagree with you,” he said.
“As we speak... the deal went through,” she commented. “BIP is no longer British or listed here in London as a British company. It was successfully raided by ZNT, even without your lead, and against your judgement. Behind ZNT stands a consortium of various high value individuals and groups.”
“Certainly Pix, because they include mafia figures, many with communist pasts, or involvement in the drugs trade, as well as CIS oligarchs and BRIC entrepreneurs, thirsty for respectability on the global stage,” he stated.
“This consortium bought shares, literally using laundered revenue streams. These can be sourced to totalitarian regimes, or criminal groupings in other parts of the world, if anybody is foolish or brave enough to do that,” she explained.
“Which is where I came in,” he considered, with a grin.
“Also why they forced you to leave the negotiations team early,” she said, ironically.
“Winchurch persuaded BIP to float, and then presented an artificially low share offer, way below true market valuation. They took advantage of low stock prices during the recession. His task was to persuade executives, and the workers, at BIP, to accept the offer,” Clive concluded. “I can imagine the conversation. ZNT needed Sep and the British establishment to achieve their goals. That was to be listed on the London exchange and to purchase key British assets.”
“They are benefiting from previous R and D, drawing on capital assets,” Pixie explained.
“I came to my senses too late,” Clive observed. “Whatever my strategies, I failed to prevent this business going through.”
“It could be possible for us to reverse engineer the ZNT deal... We can do that, if you can literally relocate that missing dossier. Any idea where those files may have gone to?” she pressed.
“That’s the fifty million pound bonus question.” Pitt exhaled and rubbed his face again. “ZNT is Swiss based; one of the largest global players, since the millennium.”
“Not only that, but they are headed up by a guy who already owns key assets, including a bundle of luxury brands names....fashion, cosmetics and even diamonds.”
“Winchurch Brothers provided this character with a global brand in pharmaceuticals, a chain of private hospitals and health care franchises... with a huge R and D investment.”
“The company helped with cross border transactions...advised on how to circumvent the regulatory environment here...”
“We, that is Winchurch Brothers, enabled the consortium to offset their debt, initially raised from the banks in order to purchase BIP, to avoid paying British tax on their future profits,” Clive calculated. “It’s like paying themselves back for getting into debt. Can you think of individuals doing that?” he declared.
“In return Sir Septimus was able to take a huge commission, literally to rescue his own company from liquidation,” Pixie considered. “After we’d crystallised our losses.”
“The employees at Winchurch’s are grateful no doubt, to keep their jobs. They are saved because traders find value in a triple dip recession. But what about the health of the economy as a whole? How about the people at BIP, after ZNT restructure, repatriate and eventually refloat?”
“Sep and the ZNT consortium know you have evidence. They fear being turned into a legal soap opera,” Pixie continued.
“That’s marvellous, ‘cause I don’t know where it’s stored now...what I might have done with that information.”
“You may have forgotten, but are they going to take any risks?” she asked.
“Do they doubt that my memory has blanked?” he replied.
“You knew they might call, while you had that office in Clerkenwell. It was only a matter of time.”
“What was I doing there, exactly?” he wondered.
“There were bars on the doors and windows. You installed surveillance devices. Yes, it was an incredible set up. You knew that even security precautions would not stop those guys. If they had access to US and European networks... if they could fight an intelligence war against western information and defence systems... if they can dare to assassinate their opponents in the London streets, then they have the means to track ‘Lucifer’.”
“Who’s Lucifer when he’s at home?” Pitt asked, looking horrified.
“You are Clive,” Pixie told him. “You are Lucifer. You were the errant investment banker, who shaped himself up as the whistle blower.”
“So I wanted to frustrate ZNT. I stood in the way of these hyper rich criminals. They’re playing the markets now, with all the greedy fervour of the newly converted,” he said. “Join the capitalists to beat them at their own game. If your ideology can’t deliver prosperity for the people, not even enough rice and potatoes, play the free market instead. Trouble is they got very successful at the grand casino, didn’t they. So much so that the casino virtually belongs to them,” Pitt commented.
“Yet how can you...how can we, hope to frustrate such powerful people Clive? Don’t they effectively run the world these days?” she objected.
Clive gazed uncertainly into the deep warmth of her green eyes. “That’s a fair point, Pixie, I have to admit! Was I stupid? That was the biggest lot of arrogance I ever attempted. Now we’re both in the cooking pot,” he agonised.
“They are determined to make you pay the penalty,” she agreed.
“There’s no doubt they screwed with my head, and with my life!”
“Yet they felt your presence,” she told him. “They still regard you as a potentially deal breaking threat.”
“Just an annoying nay-sayer at their meetings,” Clive said. “They would like to delete me like a negative message on their devices. They extorted the world’s resources... fed our addictions... so need to exchange currency surpluses into technological assets...as well as social and political influence,” Clive calculated.
“ZNT have powerful friends,” she warned.
“But they don’t tolerate an enemy like me,” Clive observed.
20
Their meeting continued as if they sensed the peril of the outside world and recoiled from it. They understood that the cosiness of sharing breakfast together, as if on any work day morning, was an utter illusion.
“Got any idea where I sent my information?” Pitt asked.
“How can I?” she told him. “You were trying to protect me Clive, don’t you...remember?”
“That’s a brilliant example of gallantry,” he remarked.
The increasing temperature from outside felt like a column against his back.
Pitt aimed another arc of Assam into a square tea cup. His hand was shaking, despite his best efforts. Yet they had to keep calm - both of them. Don’t look down at the long drop as you squeeze around the rope bridge.
“We should speak to Emmy Winchurch, don’t you think? Or I should try to contact her. All I know is that she’s recovering in hospital. In England rather than abroad... though there was talk of sending her to Geneva. That was Winchurch’s first idea... but the unfortunate girl was spared such a fate. Sep decided on a private clinic here, so that he could visit her more easily,” Pixie explained.
“I assume Sep was in touch with his security team, after I was seen on the street last week...back in circulation,” Clive said. “Did he want to speak to you?” he asked.
“Well of course. I didn’t have the benefit of your supernatural story. There was some reluctance to inform on a former boyfriend. But you were a rapist on the run, as far as I was concerned. After the crime your movements were mysteriously lost. I didn’t have your side of the story. I thought it would be a break in their enquiries.”