what is said in the everyday to and fro of mutual trickery, but rather for what is left unspoken. It’s all about hidden meanings, reading between the lines, teasing out the subtext. This is where the skill resides.
The first handover, for example, is not about the leaking of sensitive information. Its true purpose is more subtle than that. Katharine and Fortner set it up with such ease in the pool because they know that a duplicate of our commercial price sets is of no more use to them than a copy of The Economist. The true value of the exchange at Saul’s flat lies in giving JUSTIFY a dummy run. Katharine and Fortner want to see how effectively I can operate within our new arrangement; whether, in the heat of the action, I become sloppy, forgetful, thrown by nerves. More crucially, it is essential from their point of view that I commit an act of industrial espionage-however slight-as soon as possible. That will bind me into the treachery and give them leverage with which to threaten me should I develop cold feet at a later date.
Fortner pulls up in the car outside. Katharine moves to the door. Just as I am standing up to leave, Cohen’s girlfriend walks into the lobby. I recognize her from the Christmas party. She is tall and self-confident, with an older face that she will grow into. We catch each other’s eye and stare lingeringly without words. In different circumstances, the moment might even be construed as flirtatious. We both consider the prospect of a brief, embarrassed greeting in which neither of us knows the other’s name, but she soon looks the other way and walks off toward the reception desk.
There is no doubt in my mind that she recognized me, at least as an Abnex employee or, more exactly, as a member of Murray’s team. She will tell Cohen of this encounter when she sees him tonight, perhaps giving him a description in the hope of discovering my name. He will piece it together from there.
Was he with anyone?
Yes, she will reply.
Really? Cohen will say. A woman in her thirties, tall, good-looking? An older man, too?
Yes, she’ll say. As a matter of fact he was.
22
To: Alec Milius
Address: Alec-Milius@abnex. co. uk
Subject: Dinner Sat
Alec
Hi. Hope you get this and your system doesn’t fuck it up like last time. What’s happening about tomorrow night? Let me know what time you’re picking up Fortner Katharine. I’ve invited a guy who was working on the Spain film to come to dinner with his girlfriend-haven’t met her before.
I’m trapped in a vortex of daytime television. Looking forward to Saturday. I don’t see enough of you these days, my friend-it’ll be good to catch up.
Saul
Q: What’s the difference between an egg and a wank?
A: You can beat an egg.
Tanya walks past and floats a single sheet of paper into my in-tray. It’s a circular about restricting noncommercial use of the Internet within the office. There is a tangerine on my desk and I tear open its skin. The smell of Christmas billows up out of the fruit.
I hit Reply.
To: Saul Ricken
Address: sricken 5471@compuserve. com
Subject: Re: Dinner Sat
Meeting F + K at your place-seven thirty okay with you? I have to work, so coming direct from here.
Can’t believe you’ve never heard the egg joke before.
See you tomorrow night.
Alec
I have a long meeting on Saturday morning between nine o’clock and twelve thirty with Murray and Cohen in one of the small conference rooms on the sixth floor. With the exception of George on security duty downstairs, the office is deserted. Even the canteen is closed.
I am the last to arrive and the only one of us not wearing a suit. Cohen remarks on this immediately, and Murray reminds me about “company policy” as we sit at the start of the meeting. Another black mark against my name. Cohen, of course, looks trim and showered, elegantly attired in a bespoke navy herringbone. You could take him anywhere, the little fucker.
His attitude toward me throughout the meeting is spiteful and manipulative. At one point, he presses me for details about a research project he knows I have yet to begin working on. When I can’t give a full answer, a shadow of irritation falls across Murray’s face and he coughs lightly, writing something down. They are both sitting opposite me at the conference table so that the relationship between us takes on the characteristics of an interrogation. My mind is slipped and weak. I woke up late and missed breakfast, and I have a gathering nervousness about the handover tonight. Cohen, by contrast, is sharp and alert. He listens with faked overattentiveness to Murray’s every word, nodding vigorously in agreement and taking detailed minutes on his laptop with neat little punches on the keyboard. If Murray cracks a joke, Cohen laughs. If Murray wants a cup of coffee, Cohen fetches it for him. The whole affair is sickening. By lunchtime, my gut feels hollow, and my mood is one of blank anger.
I eat alone in a pub on Hewett Street, haddock and chips with plastic sachets of tartar sauce. There’s a man at the next table reading FHM, one of those glossy magazines for men who don’t have the guts to buy porn. A bikini-clad actress beams out from the cover, all cleavage and flat tummy. There’ll be a suggestive interview inside about what she looks for in a guy, next to a Q A health page answering readers’ queries on penis size and bad breath.
Cohen has had a sandwich at his desk, washed down with a carton of low-sugar Ribena. “I had some e- mailing to catch up on,” he tells me as I come back into the office, “a query from a law firm in Ashgabat.” I sit at Piers’s desk and flick through a copy of The Wall Street Journal.
“Where’s Murray?”
“He’s had to go home. Family crisis. Jemma’s fallen off a swing.”
“Who’s Jemma?”
“His youngest daughter.”
This could make it more difficult to print the price sets from my computer.
“So what are we supposed to do?” I ask him.
“You can go, if you like.”
This is exactly Cohen’s style: probing, arch, ambiguous. The remark is designed to test me. Will I work through the afternoon, or take the opportunity presented by Murray’s sudden departure to clock off early? Cohen won’t make a move until he knows what I intend to do. If I stay in the office, he’ll stay, too. If I leave, he will remain another half hour and then pack up. He can never be anything other than the last man to go home at night.
My best option is to leave now, have a cup of coffee, and return to the office in two hours. By then, Cohen will almost certainly have gone. He’s clinical and industrious, but he likes his weekends as much as the next man. I can then pretend to do an hour’s work at my desk-for the benefit of the security cameras-during which I can print out the price sets on the LaserJet. That way I’ll still be on time for the seven-thirty handover.
“I might go,” I tell him firmly.
“Really?” he says, disappointment in his voice.
“Lots to do. I want to go shopping in the West End, get myself some new clothes.”
“Fine.”
He isn’t interested in any excuses.
“So I’ll see you on Monday.”
