by Neil Rowland
“This is how I normally drive,” Clive said.
“Then you need fucking lessons. You need a fucking refresher course, Clive.”
“You can say that again,” Pitt replied.
“Viktor wants to help. We mean to help you get your memory back. We buy you a nice meal, you see that, and that don’t mean you own the restaurant. Do you understand the principle?” he sneered.
“Who’s Viktor when he’s dining?” Pitt asked.
“Mr Di Visu wants the files back... or the copies that you made of his information... which you stole from your employer. He likes you...or he used to.”
“He sounds barmy. You’re a friend of his, are you?”
“I’m who you want to be,” he said.
“A narcissistic poser like you?” Clive scoffed.
“Yes, come on, Clive!” he said, gesturing.
“Come on, what?” he declared.
“Aren’t I everything you despise in a man? When women look at me they swoon. You’re fucking envious. You want to smash my face in.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, mate,” Clive replied.
“My looks, my charm, my wealth, my power. I’ve got everything you ever dreamed about.”
“My whole life was on credit,” Clive noted.
“Admit it. You think I need a pussy pink car like this one? We drink champagne out of a car like this,” he said.
“Be my guest,” Clive said.
“What chance do you stand with the pretty women, when I’m around?”
“My aim is to end ZNT. I’m not competing. I’m going to get you kicked off the FTSE.”
“Nobody is going to listen to a deviant like you, Clive,” he insisted.
“That’s your idea?”
The guy laughed loudly and exorbitantly. “We understand you better than you ever understood yourself. We have you by the short and Achilles heel.”
“How can you know me like that?” Clive asked.
“What a loser you are!” he growled.
“But I’m the bloke who has the evidence. It can be retrieved,” Pitt warned.
“Just couldn’t keep your hands off that lovely young girl, could you? Shame on you, Clive,” he jeered. “You wanted revenge, but your throbbing dick got in the way. Big tits and a come-hitcher look, that’s all it took to sink you and your campaign. What a disgrace, you fucking weak minded little cunt hound.”
Every word reverberated in Pitt’s left ear. “I just want to find my wife again,” Clive insisted.
“A woman? Your wife? How are these going to help you? The world’s most untrustworthy banker?”
“She’s my strength,” Pitt argued.
“Huh, don’t make me laugh. You dropped her for that secretary in the office.”
“She isn’t a secretary,” Clive insisted. “She’s a respected professional.”
“You couldn’t wait to rip through her underwear and have sex with her.”
“That only happened because my wife left me. Don’t ask me why that happened. She went off to America... with some guy.”
“Your pretty girl secretary doesn’t have the full picture. Not like Emmy Winchurch.”
“What are you trying to say?” Clive replied, glaring and squeezing the wheel.
“What I’m trying to say is that you hate women too. That’s right, you hear correctly. No need to get upset. You think women are another race! Another species! “
“That’s utter crap, mate. There are some women who wouldn’t agree,” Pitt retorted.
“Maybe you don’t understand how much.”
“You’re talking bollocks,” Clive said.
“Shall we ask Emmy Winchurch?” the guy laughed.
“I think women love me,” Clive argued.
“You fuck them, all right, but you don’t love them,” he grinned.
“What do you know about it? About me?” Clive shuffled uneasily, shifted his slick hands and stared towards the crest of the road.
“Come on, you’re a City boy. Testosterone makes you boys tick. Big decisions and big bucks give you a big erection. You went to after-hours parties where the lovely girls were drunk and drugged up? They’d do anything, everything for a rich banker...and not remember a thing. You’ve partaken in illegal games and adventures, with all those other guys, haven’t you?”
“That’s never really been my scene,” Pitt insisted.
“You have to let off steam. With an unlimited bank account the imagination is no limit. Wealth fires your lust. The adrenaline of the floor. It’s an aphrodisiac for the lovely girls. Why have riches when you can’t satisfy your lust? Pretty girls wanting a handsome pay out. What female resources available! After you’ve finally left the office at night,” he remarked.
The youngster revealed perfect squared teeth in a ridiculing smile.
“I’m a married man...was a married man....”
“There was a lot of fun around the East End,” he recalled.
“Girls are another commodity to be traded?” Clive said. “You’d give them a share price if that was possible,” he remarked.
“Rather, as you might say, you don’t have your third leg to stand on!”
“You remind me of a woman yourself,” Clive remarked.
“Yes, yes, and do you like me?” he asked, beaming victoriously.
“Not very much,” Clive admitted.
“Way to fucking go. But don’t worry because we’re guys together. We’re fucking drunk and out of control, sticking notes into the girls’ g strings. Don’t be one of these ridiculous hypocrites.”
“I guess there’s a certain truth in that,” Clive admitted.
“We are the perfect companions of beautiful young women....of any nationality,” the man argued. “We are what they want!”
“I don’t want to be like you guys,” Clive told him.
“Oh no!?”
“You only have your fun because... you fear you may be dead in the morning.”
“Life is killing you now, in your boring existences... sweating to cover your heating bills. You have your mouth on the tit of our oil and gas.”
“Not until the fat lady sings,” Clive said.
“Oh God, the fat lady just had her last orgasm. Now she’s on dying on her back,” he joked. “How shall I put this?” the young guy considered. “Mm, let me see... you are properly fucked, Clive, my man.”
Pitt was silent. He tried to focus on driving, keeping to the lane, as normality slipped by at regular speeds.
“We liked you at first. We had respect for your abilities. You were, y’know, almost a brother to us,” he mocked.
“How exactly?” Pitt wanted to know.
“Just don’t go around boasting of being such a lady killer.”
“I lost more than my inhibitions,” Clive reminded him.
“If you turn traitor, City boy, then you have to pay a surcharge.”
“You failed to cover your tracks, mate.”
The guy leant closer to the driver’s side. “You’re speaking total bullshit,” he shouted. Saliva flicked off his tongue, burning Pitt’s dry cheek. “We wanna bring a little sadness and confusion into your life... and to the Winchurch girl.”
“You’ve succeeded,” Clive observed.
“Didn’t we! Didn’t we, just.” He nodded as if to salute himself.
“You are the experts.”
“As for the rape of that girl,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. Then he chuckled.
“What are you implying?”
“She was a real little slut,” he snarled. “We wouldn’t fuck with your life, without a reason. Why does that old man think so much of her? Well, that’s all right with us, if he wants to be the sentimental father. Yo
u broke our security and stole our thoughts, okay. We didn’t know your secrets until you had ours. Isn’t that true?”
They came into London. Pitt didn’t know how much longer this guy was going to stick around. Clive wanted to know if the missing year could be restored, or at least if his life could be repaired.
“It’s time for me to go! ... I’m sure you have your plans.”
“You are going to leave me here?” Clive was incredulous.
“You have a job to do. Didn’t you realise that?” the guy told him.
“You’re using me to damage Winchurch?”
“You’re still an employee? Why did you decide to duplicate your memory, anyhow?” he demanded.
“I’ll get my memory back,” Clive promised.
“We will help you,” promised the sharp young man.
“You intend to catch up with me again?”
“We shall meet again...wasn’t that a little war time song of the Brits? Blue bird over the white cliffs of Dover. Is there even a fuckin’ blue bird in this country?”
“When exactly are we supposed to meet again?”
“Dig a bit deeper my friend,” he said.
“You’re not taking me out?”
“Won’t you play like a gentleman, Clive?”
“You don’t think I can invalidate your UK assets? If I can turn my dossier over to the relevant authorities?”
“Who’s listening? Go watch another football match. Think hard about your memory. Then we’ll ask you for our stolen property.”
Traffic streamed and shoppers went about their business along the high-street, just as normal.
“What if I refused to let you?” Clive suggested. “Maybe I should drive you directly to the police station.”
The guy found this threat most hilarious.
“So long Clive. We’ll meet again!”
35
Pitt decided to return to Pixie’s apartment, merely to return her car - which certainly had extra miles and adventures on the clock.
He began to reconstruct her probable movements. She must have returned to London by now. Surely she didn’t believe in his innocence any longer.
So he slipped back her pink Porsche and returned to the west London street. Fragments of the barrier, smashed when he’d roared through, were still scattered and brushed into the gutter. After telling a right story to a passer-by he managed to borrow a phone and attempted to call her. Ironically he could only be regarded as a normal citizen by complete strangers, if they had a relaxed attitude to clothing.
Clive learned how she’d visited the hospital with Winchurch, as he had glimpsed. Pixie was the only link to the real world, he realised, or to his old normal life or however that could be described. She might lead him to the truth and help him to escape this nightmare. Or he could put her back into harm’s way too, as he feared. In the world of international politics and business there was near gender equality in assassination risk. Pixie Wright was in danger of getting a return visit by those brutal investigators, tipped off by recent events.
Pitt got a connection and she picked up. He was relieved, but not surprised, as she wouldn’t recognise the source of this call. To his surprise she didn’t hang up at first recognition of his voice, while he awkwardly reintroduced himself. There wasn’t the dead flat tone as expected. To his surprise she listened and even made sympathetic noises.
Pitt stood around the side of her apartment block, like a street criminal, trying to make sure that the owner of the phone couldn’t overhear. It was unlikely that the guy would make any sense of his account. He struggled to make himself heard above evening traffic. A hot wind swirled litter, dust and leaves around him.
Clive got the sense that she had moved on in the story. There was a fresh note of sympathetic anxiety in her voice. She was already at a more advanced place, where he needed to catch up. Pitt didn’t know how she had achieved this advance, but he would like to hear how.
“No, I can’t let you upstairs this evening. Not back into my apartment. No, it’s literally too dangerous,” she confirmed. “What I mean is... that they are suspicious about me. I defended you this afternoon with Sep. He’s suspicious definitely suspicious. They made sure I returned home alone. You know, perhaps they are watching me,” Pixie told him.
“What do you suggest? Any idea?” he declared, trying to avoid interference.
“You spend the rest of your money, literally check into a hotel and get yourself a hot shower, all right?”
“Are you serious? Pixie you’re making this sound like a date,” he objected.
“Why not think about this as a date?” she replied.
He considered. “Let’s hope that those bloody gooseberries don’t try to join our party. Otherwise we might be caviar and toast,” he commented.
“Certainly, Clive. If we meet again, you shouldn’t stand out. So look nice on our date, will you?”
“All right Pixie, I get you. I can’t talk too much longer here. This poor guy thinks I’m going to pinch his device.”
“Why should you do that?” she replied. “Then Clive, you should hang up. Give them my contact details, when you arrive. That’s if you don’t have enough money to pay?”
“Give your money to whom?”
There was a gentle noise of frustration. “The hotel. You know, when you get to reception.”
“Right...thanks...where should we meet then? Can I suggest the American bar at the Savoy. Do you know it?”
“Yes, why shouldn’t I, Clive? But that isn’t the cleverest idea...don’t you feel we would be conspicuous at the Savoy?” she argued.
“What about the public bar at Claridge’s then?”
There was some restrained laughter. “Clive! That’s not a clever idea either.”
“You said this was a date,” he objected. He checked on the guy waiting for his phone back; looking increasingly grumpy.
“We shouldn’t go to those smart places... where our enemies sometimes go...or their friends... thinking they belong there. Are you prepared to bump into them by mistake?”
“Right, I hear you... it’s a fair point, Pix,” he admitted. “They aren’t famous for keeping to a strict budget.” Their preference was for high class hookers at the bar, not potential murder victims.
“We’ll meet in Leicester Square,” she decided.
“You’re joking aren’t, aren’t you?” he complained. “Why d’you want to meet there?”
“It’s the safest location, Clive... if we really have to meet in person. Now please give the gentleman his phone back.”
The guy was already standing impatiently and expectantly beside him.
Pitt found a chic hotel in the West End - a boutique hotel - to compensate for his abandoned drink at the Savoy. As a matter of fact they had a decent bar at this place. However it was safer for him to drink there than in ritzier places. He was still able to pay for a room in cash. He still had a bundle of Breadham’s notes, crisp as a pressed cravat.
On the way to the hotel he bought new clothes, as Pixie suggested. This time the style was smart casual, as if preparing for golf and cocktails on a business trip. This was funny, but not as amusing as turning up along New Bond Street; cutting a dash through the well-heeled promenade in filthy shreds. He resembled a scarecrow, an expensive one, and drew startled looks from shopping tourists; he was either derelict or an eccentric billionaire.
Let inside his hotel room, Pitt looked around, acclimatised, and tried to enjoy the tranquillity. He ran a hot bath in a torrent, stuffed his rags into the basket, took his fresh outfit from the wrappers, and sprawled over a feathery bed. Yet he couldn’t switch off and be still; he couldn’t clear his mind, as he stared up into a rococo ceiling. All the while his heart bounced and vibrated, as if an earthquake was building. Any step or voice in th
e corridor outside made him jump. Even as he stretched in the bath, hidden by the steamy atmosphere, his muscles tensed as if expecting to be interrupted.
36
Clive approached the centre of Leicester Square. His wavy hair licked into obedience, burnt skin soothed, trying out a new set of clothes, with his old reliable shoes freshly cleaned and polished.
He envied that carefree attitude in the West End, as he gave the appearance of stepping out. People milled around garish souvenir shops, eateries and showpiece cinemas. Pixie had shown logic in choosing to meet in a humdrum and commercial district. Knighted financiers, such as Sir Septimus, as well as sophisticated hedge fund managers, would not want to be seen dead there. Only a red carpet for a film premier would persuade them to visit; even if they might shun cameras or any publicity. They wouldn’t imagine Pixie and Clive arranging a rendezvous at such a grimy location. Even if they knew about the ruse it would be easier amidst hustle and bustle to evade security.
The problem was in finding her, when he began to press into a thronging Leicester Square; as they had stripped him naked in the world of communication. The sheer numbers and bulk of humanity was disconcerting, while he missed her. Although this didn’t compare to areas of say Beijing or Mumbai, it was still bewildering. In those cities he could take more time, as his life had not been threatened. There were just the normal risks of a megalopolis; taking a wrong turn from the bar or climbing into an unknown taxi cab, or responding to the wrong group of guys, or girls, and accepting a drink or something worse.
Pitt was growing concerned, wishing they had made precise arrangements. The square was a global meeting place, yet he was lost in the world’s swelling population. Fortunately he recognised Pixie at last, as she perched on a bench within the park area. She was wearing a tightly cut pink dress suit. Somehow she had a passing through look. He knew her well enough to understand that she was nervous. This was despite her poise, her projected confidence, as she lifted her chin, emphasising the silver slipper, quarter-moon curve of her jaw.
But she managed a smile and, as he approached, looked him up and down appreciatively. She was glad to see him. Her gaze had a way of flickering obtusely to one side. No doubt they had been on numerous dates before, assuming her version was correct. Still their meeting felt strangely like a first date, even while it was not really a “date” at all.