by Chris Simms
Tom leaned over the stair railing, careful to sound keen, but not sycophantic. 'No problem – it will be perfect for any one of our sponsors.'
'Good work,' answered Ian, disappearing into his office.
Tom continued up to the top of the metal steps. As he stepped into the room, Creepy George was just sinking down behind his monitors and their eyes met for an instant. Waving hello to his more friendly colleagues, Tom lobbed his empty cup into the bin by his desk and heard the empty Becks bottles from the evening before clink together. Next he dropped his post into his tray, sat down and turned his computer on in one fluid motion.
Safely out of sight behind his monitor, he dropped his cheerful expression like a piece of litter. Raising a hand to his head he gripped his temples, head still pounding from last night. He'd got in at about ten o'clock, nicely drunk from the beer session with Jon. But then Charlotte had wanted to go out. A dab of speed later and he was up for it too, joining the other clubbers desperately in denial that the weekend was over. They hadn't got in until after two.
Hung over on a Monday morning. Not good at any age, much less at thirty-two, he thought while shifting round the contents of his top drawer looking for some paracetamol. And he had to get his Audi back from the garage and put a halt to these Monday morning drive-ins with his boss. What a way to start the week! No easing into the day with some Zero7 or Cafe Del Mar album gently washing over you. Instead it was stop-start all the way along Oxford Road with a continual stream of enthusiastic business talk battering his ear. Then a quick diversion through the city centre to check on the abandoned properties and half-finished developments that needed screening off for the Commonwealth Games.
He went to 'Favourites' on his screen and scrolled down to an entry that simply read 'Cornwall'. He clicked on it and the view from the web cam overlooking Fistral Bay filled his screen. The golden sand was almost deserted. There were just a couple of people walking their dogs, waves breaking nicely about forty metres out and the bobbing heads of half a dozen surfers visible in the swell beyond. Tom's shoulders sagged a little more and he let disillusionment flood his head like a wave rushing into a rock pool. Shutting his eyes, he imagined the life he was yearning for more and more. Striding along the beach at dawn with a Border collie or perhaps a long-haired Alsatian at his side, sucking in the clean air, feeling the sea spume fleck his face with microscopic drops, skin growing tight as the salt water dried.
He let the image hang in his head, savouring it like the delicious instant before a long-awaited sneeze.
Then a phone rang from the next workstation and the reality of his surroundings returned. With an effort he pushed the listless feelings back down and opened his eyes. The view of the beach still filled his screen. He stared at it for a second longer, then closed it down and reached for his post.
After shuffling paper round for as long as he could, he turned his attention to tracking down the owner of the derelict building on Great Ancoats Street. He could remember it used to have a religious message across its front, something about miracles happening every day. Obviously not where paying the rent on the building was concerned, he thought. A phone call to the Land Registry revealed that the Christian Mission had sold it on to a businessman, a Mr K Galwi. He dialled the man's phone number but got a 'number no longer available' message.
Tom clicked on Directory Enquiries and typed in the surname and initial. Forty-eight hits came up for the Greater Manchester area. He printed the list off, grabbed three cans of full-fat Coke from the fridge in the kitchen, then returned to his desk and picked up the phone. A succession of bewildered-sounding old ladies with broken English, dead phone lines and answer machines greeted most of his calls.
By 12.30 he'd had enough. His headache had been washed away and his sugar levels restored by the Coke, but now he was starving. Standing up, he glanced round the room, noticing how flat the atmosphere was. Everyone's head was bowed as they settled down for another week on the meaningless hamster wheel that was work. Knowing that it was weak of him to keep relying on his company credit card to bolster morale, he stood up and asked the room if anyone wanted a sandwich from town – he was doing a run to First Taste. As he expected, there was a flurry of activity, Ges being the first to order. While he went through his routine of being undecided about what to choose, his free hand had crept across his desk and on to his considerable paunch. Tom scribbled down, 'Ges – Indian starter selection with chutneys, club sandwich, dessert (strawberry cheesecake).'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Ges. 'The Indian starter selection with chutneys and a club sandwich, I suppose.'
Tom pretended to write it down, then Ges added, almost as an afterthought, 'And the lemon and lime cheesecake.'
Tom crossed out 'strawberry' and scrawled 'L&L' above it. 'Gemma?'
A girl of about twenty-three with wiry ginger hair glanced round her screen. 'Smoked salmon with low fat cream cheese on brown, thanks.' Due to get married at the end of the summer, she had been slimming mercilessly for months.
Tom looked towards a blonde woman at the next workstation to Gemma's as she struggled over the unfamiliar menu. 'Julie, a jellied eel?' Sent up from the London office as temporary help in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, Julie's southern accent and feisty attitude had been a welcome jolt to the office. Tom had noticed Creepy George staring at her on several occasions.
'I'll go for the Thai ginger chicken on whole grain and a bag of those salt'n'vinegar organic crisps, cheers.'
'Ed?'
When getting his Coke earlier on, Tom had seen Ed's sandwiches in the fridge. He knew his colleague would now have been thrown into confusion. Were the sandwiches going to be on the company or should he eat his own and save some money?
Tom put him out of his misery. 'Don't worry. I'll get them on expenses. We're way over target this month.'
They all smiled while Ed looked relieved and said, 'Beef with horseradish on a white roll, please.'
Even though he knew the offer would be refused, Tom called over to the corner out of politeness. 'George?'
The mass of black hair rose slowly from behind the barricade. 'No, thanks.' He lowered himself back into his seat.
'OK,' said Tom, sitting back down and pressing a speed-dial button on his phone. He read out the sandwich order and said he'd be over in about twenty minutes. Down in reception he grabbed the keys for the pool car and set off back towards the centre of town.
Three quarters of an hour later he walked back into the office, unzipped the cooler bag, put the tray on the table in the middle of the room and popped the lid. 'Lunch,' he announced, grabbing his All Day Breakfast baguette and bag of crisps.
Creepy George manoeuvred the digital camera into the small gap between two of his monitors. A cable ran from the back of the camera into the Apple Mac on his right. The monitor's screen filled with the view of his colleagues crowding round the table. George tilted the camera up slightly, then focused in on Julie's face. No one heard the faint click as he took a picture.
George disconnected the camera, placed it in his top drawer and turned his eyes to the image captured on his screen. Her mouth was open, eyes half closed in mid-blink. The tip of his tongue flicked across his upper lip – her expression was far better than he dared hope for.
Closing in, he used Photoshop to cut round the edge of her face and neck, then dropped her decapitated head on to his desktop and dragged the rest of her body into the trash bin on the corner of his screen. Next he brought up the image he'd downloaded from comatosex.com the afternoon before. The woman lay on the flowery carpet of some anonymous living room, the edge of a faux velvet settee encroaching in the top right-hand corner of the photo. Face slack, she lay with arms and legs akimbo, like a corpse photographed on the street of some war-ravaged city.
Clicking on Julie's forehead, he dragged her face over the unconscious woman's. George's expression darkened with frustration; the scale was out and the lighting and backgrounds didn't match. It would take hours of
manipulation on the Apple Mac to make the image even remotely convincing. Sighing, he saved it into his special file that needed a codeword before it would open. Once everyone else had gone home he would retrieve it and begin his work.
Chapter 3
May 2002
The following Monday Tom got the call from head office in London. With all the rush of chasing business before the Games began, he'd failed to notice how much Ian was away from the office. Now it turned out his meetings were with a prospective employer –'The Giant Poster People', their biggest competitor. The conflict of interest meant Ian had to leave It's A Wrap immediately.
The director from the London office asked him to pop down to Ian's office and make sure that he wasn't in. Shocked, Tom did as he was told. It was obvious Ian had been in over the weekend; all of his personal effects had disappeared, even down to the 'Head Honcho' placard from the door. Tom went over to the filing cabinets. The keys were all in the locks. He pulled drawers open and looked over the clients' files inside. They all seemed in order. He sat down at Ian's bare desk and had a quick peek in the drawers: a couple of biros and Post-it pads. He'd even taken hole punches, staplers and the big calculator with built-in clock and alarm. Tom picked up the phone and let the London office know that Ian was well and truly gone.
Next he was put through to the IT department and asked to turn on his former boss's PC. Once it was booted up, the person at the other end of the phone gave him Ian's logging on details, Tom wincing as he had to type the word 'WINNER' into the password field. He was asked if the computer's desktop appeared especially empty, as if things had been deleted. Tom thought that nothing looked amiss. An inner box then appeared on the screen, asking him if he would let [email protected] remotely access the computer. The person asked him to click on the 'Yes' button and as soon as he did the cursor began to move of its own accord with bewildering speed. The IT specialist shot through Ian's directory, opening up files and asking Tom if everything appeared in order. As far as he could tell, it seemed to be. The cursor carried on its quest, taking Tom deep into the machine's hard drive, rummaging through deleted files while the voice in the phone's earpiece supplied an emotionless commentary. The only stuff Ian had wiped was of a personal nature – emails to his wife, downloads from BBC Sport on anything to do with Chelsea football club and bookings for hotels round Manchester with lastminute.com.
Finally the voice said nothing to do with any clients appeared to have been deleted, though an unusually large number of files had been accessed over the course of the previous week. He was passed back to one of the directors. After a bit of a talk that included the phrases 'rudderless ship', 'crucial period', 'man with local expertise' and 'exceeding targets', Tom was offered Ian's old job.
Sitting back, he stalled for time. He would have to talk it through with his wife, Tom replied. Launching into a few plans Charlotte knew nothing about, Tom explained they were thinking of starting a family, possibly moving house. Finally he added that he had a week's holiday booked, starting from that Thursday.
With a soothing tone to his voice, the director said he fully understood. He appreciated that stepping into Ian's shoes in the circumstances was a 'big ask' but, he added, it would be a move accompanied by a 'commensurate pay rise and profit-related bonus'.
Knowing the extra money would bring the move to Cornwall within his reach, Tom thanked him for his offer and requested a little time to come back with an answer. The director instantly agreed, adding, with a hint of regret in his voice, that he would need an answer in twenty-four hours.
Pushing his front door shut behind him eight hours later, he flung the keys to his Audi TT on the hallway table. 'Honey, I'm home,' he called out in a fake American accent, placing his briefcase on the oak plank floor and shrugging off his Paul Smith suit jacket.
'In here,' called a voice off to his side. Passing the doorways leading into the living room and dining room, he paused to glance in the mirror on the wall at the end of the corridor. Then he stepped into the kitchen, poured a glass of red wine from a newly opened bottle and sauntered back into the front room. His wife was sitting on the leather sofa, long legs curled up under her and strands of blonde hair swirling over the cushions behind her head. Spread out on the coffee table before her was a mess of holiday brochures: Greek Villas, Tapestry Travel, Ionian Idylls. None looked remotely mass market.
Slumping down next to her, Tom cocked his head to the side. 'Snaff, snaff, snaff, what have we here then?' he announced in a creaky voice, but their age difference meant his Professor Yaffle impersonation was lost on her.
She folded open the brochure across her lap and looked at him with heavily lidded eyes. 'Darling, it's got to be Greece; look at these properties. Private beaches, their own olive groves, pools. This one even has a rooftop garden and barbecue area.'
Tom smiled, wondering how to start telling Charlotte about his day. After the conversation with the director in London, Tom had logged on to the Cornwall tourism web site, clicking through the 'businesses for sale' section. The small cafe on Harbour Road overlooking Towan Beach was still for sale. It was going for a London price, but then so would his house in Didsbury if he sold it.
Tom knew he was at a crossroads in his life: either pack in his job now and avoid the stress of the coming months, or see it through until after the Games and reap the financial rewards. The part of him that always sought compromise was already urging him to put off the move to Cornwall for a while longer. The only question nagging at the back of his mind was whether he could cope with all the added responsibility of taking over Ian's job.
'So, you like the idea of your own private beach, then?' he asked, the Cornish coastline in his mind's eye.
Charlotte smiled at him. 'Well, it would beat the sunbeds at the gym.'
Tom took a breath. 'Ian's left. Buggered off to our biggest competitor. Really left us in the shit. I got a call from one of the directors down at the London office.'
Charlotte raised herself up, turning to face her husband, her mind working through the implications. 'And?'
'Well,' said Tom, feeling like he was blundering into a pool of quicksand. 'They were sounding me out about taking over. But,' he carried on swiftly, before she could interrupt again,' it's going to be mayhem in there over the next few weeks.' Voice trailing off weakly, already knowing how things would turn out.
Sure enough, Charlotte leaned towards him and took his hand in both of hers. 'They've offered you Ian's job?' she said slowly.
'Yes.'
She screeched with delight and flung herself on to him. The wine in his hand came dangerously close to sloshing over the carpet and he had to lean forward to quickly place it on the table.
'Oh Tom, Tom, Tom. I'm so proud of you,' she said, face pressed against his chest. Slowly he was forced backwards by her weight until he was lying diagonally across the sofa.
The decision had been made. Tom told himself that, as long as he packed the job in once the Games were over, he could get through it.
Having pinned him beneath her, Charlotte raised her chin, wisps of fine hair hanging over her face, a wild and mischievous look in her eyes. 'They'll have to up your pay bigtime,' she said, grinning.
Tom nodded, thinking of the work and pressure.
'And didn't Ian drive a bright yellow Porsche Boxter?'
He nodded again, knowing everything would be resting on his shoulders.
A strangled 'Yes!' escaped her lips and she banged her fists up and down on his sternum. He felt like a heart-attack victim.
'Bollocks to Greece. I know where we deserve to go!' she squealed. She launched herself off him and ran across the room towards the computer in the corner. 'I'll check for flights now. Oh, I can't believe this!'
From his ungainly position on the sofa Tom watched as his wife pushed the chair towards the terminal. Her tight buttocks quivered under white cotton tracksuit trousers with each step and his chest clenched with desire. Twenty-two and she hasn't got a clue, he thoug
ht with a smile.
Later that night, as they lay naked and asleep, an empty bottle of champagne and a mirror speckled with dots of white on their bedside table, a dark-blue Ford passed their driveway and pulled up in a space under the trees further down the street. The passenger door clicked quietly open and a man got out, straggly ginger hair briefly lit by the car's inner light. Treading carefully, he walked back up the road and turned confidently through Tom's open gates.
The metallic grey paint of the Audi TT reflected back with a liquid shine what little moonlight was breaking through the cloud layer above. The man's eyes lingered on its shimmering form as he passed the vehicle. Cutting across the small patch of grass at the side of the garage, he stepped noiselessly up to Tom's front door and crouched down.
With the tiniest of creaks, the letterbox slowly opened and a second later a thin torch beam probed the dark hallway. The spot of bright light slid across the floor, crept up a wooden leg and then eased on to the surface of the small table just inside the front door. A polished coconut shell full of loose change. A mobile phone. A packet of extra strong mints. A tube of lipstick. A couple of unopened letters. And a set of car keys.
Next the man hung a square of felt-like material through the letterbox. The flap lowered, then opened again as a garden cane with a hook on the end was fed through, the quivering length of wood extending out into the darkness like the tremulous tendril of a plant seeking sunlight. The hooked tip finally made it to the end of the table but stopped short of the keyring itself. The man strained against the other side of the door, trying to increase the reach of his implement by a few millimetres, but it was no good. He drew the length of metal and flap of material back through the letterbox and the circle of light moved to the edge of the table, jumping suddenly to the far wall and briefly dazzling him as the beam was reflected back by a mirror. The torch clicked off and the letterbox was lowered back down.