“Monday.”
Three blocks away, I order a macchiato and a chocolate wafer in a decent Italian cafe where there’s a pretty waitress and a fuzzy TV bolted to the wall. The BBC is replaying highlights from the Euro ’96 soccer tournament-a Czech player saluting the crowd after chipping the goalkeeper, Alan Shearer reeling away from the goal with his right hand raised in triumph. Simpler pleasures. My neck starts to hurt from craning up at the screen, so I turn to the copy of The Times that I brought with me to pass the time until four o’clock. I read it almost cover to cover: op-eds, news, arts, sports, even the columns I usually hate in which overpaid hacks tell you about their children going off to nursery school, or what brand of olive oil they’re using this week. I drink two more coffees, lattes this time, and then make my way back to the office.
George is still on security duty as I come in through the revolving doors.
“Forget something, did we?”
George has just come back from holiday. He looks sunburned and overfed.
“You won’t believe this,” I tell him, all casual and relaxed. “I got all the way home, made myself a nice cup of tea, and was just settling down to watch Grandstand when I remembered I had some letters to finish by Monday morning. I’d forgotten all about them, and my notes are here in the office. So I had to get on the tube and come all the way back.”
“That’s too bad,” says George, rearranging a bunch of keys on his desk. “And on a weekend an’ all.”
I walk past him toward the lifts, clutching my security pass in the sweat of my palm. I have to wait for some time for a lift to arrive, pacing up and down on the cold marble floor. George ignores me. He is reading today’s Mirror next to the flickering monochrome of five closed-circuit televisions. The crackle of his newspaper provides the only noise in the reception area. Then a lift chimes open, and I ride it to the fifth floor.
The coffees have started to kick in. I am fidgety without being any more alert. If I can see that Cohen is still working at his desk, through the glass that separates our section from the lift area, I will leave the building for another hour. If Cohen has gone home, as I expect he has, I can proceed. Panpipe music issues from a speaker above my head.
I emerge slowly from the lift as the doors glide open and immediately look through the window partition in the direction of Cohen’s desk. My view is partially obscured by a rubber plant. I carry on to the door of the office, still looking around for any sign of him.
Keep moving. The cameras are watching. Don’t loiter.
The team area appears to be clear. No sign of Cohen. His briefcase has gone, and his desk has been tidied the way he leaves it night after night: neat piles, immaculate in-trays, a squared-up keyboard with the mouse flush along one side. It’s all about control with Cohen, never letting anything slip. Even his Post-it notes are stuck down in exacting straight lines.
I sit at my desk and disturb the screen saver with a single touch on the space bar. Why is this suddenly so hard? I had not expected it to be as difficult as this. There is no risk, no chance of trouble, and yet I feel somehow incapable, lost in an immense space surveyed by invisible eyes. Even the simple process of keying in my password feels unlawful. I should have done this yesterday, not now, should have let the printout get lost in the constant traffic and buzz of office life. To do this alone on a Saturday afternoon looks all wrong.
So I wait. As a smokescreen I type e-mails that I don’t need to send and fetch reference books that I flick through ostentatiously at my desk. I go to the gents’, fetch coffee from the machine, drink water at the fountain, overdoing every aspect of normal everyday behavior for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. I do this for the better part of an hour. It is unthinkable that George is watching with any great attentiveness, yet I go through with the absurd routine. I am held back not by cowardice, or by a change of heart, but by the simple panic of being caught.
Finally, at around five o’clock, I resolve to do what I came here to do. I sit at the computer and load the file. Three clicks of the mouse and the document opens up on the screen.
There are four pages constituting about thirty seconds of normal printing time. The Print dialogue box prompts me-Best, Normal or Draft? Grayscale or Black White? Number of copies? I go for the default setting and press Return.
The file spools over to the printer, but it takes longer than usual to emerge from the LaserJet. I busy myself with other tasks, trying not to look distracted by the yawning gap of time. I pour myself a plastic cup of water at the fountain, but my nervousness is all-consuming. When the fax machine on the facing wall beeps with an incoming message, the shock of it causes me to spill a small amount of the water as I am bringing it up to my mouth.
Why was I not more prepared for this? They’ve trained you. It’s nothing. Be logical.
I look down at the printer, willing it to work, and, finally, the first page discharges, smooth and easy. Then the second. I look closely at the two sheets of paper and the printing quality is good. No smudges or runovers. The third page follows. I try to read some of the words as it comes out upside down, my neck twisted around, but I am too disoriented to make any sense of it. Then I stand over the printer, waiting for the fourth and final sheet.
It isn’t coming out.
I wait, but there’s no sign of it. The printer must have run out of paper.
The drawer is stuck, and I have to give it a sharp tug before it opens, but there is still a half inch of A4 paper lying inside the machine. I slam it shut, but this has no effect. It is as if every piece of hardware in the building has suddenly shut down.
There must be a bad connection somewhere, or a fault with the main server.
And I am on the point of crouching down, ready to trace leads and check power cables, when I hear his voice.
“What’s this?”
Cohen is absolutely beside me, shoulder-to-shoulder. Not looking at me, but down at the printer. I breathe in hard and cannot disguise the sound of it, a startled gasp of air as my face flushes red. His breath smells of menthol.
Cohen has picked up the three sheets from the printer tray and started reading them.
“What do you want these for?”
If you ever get caught, they told me, don’t answer the question. Deflect and deny until you know that you can get clear.
Think. Think.
“You gave me a shock,” I tell him, mustering a half laugh, in the hope that this will explain my blushing. “I thought you’d gone home.”
“I was on the sixth floor,” Cohen says coolly. “Library.”
I didn’t hear the lift. He must have used the staircase. I look down at his shoes, silent suede loafers.
“What do you want this for?”
“The commercial price sets?”
“Yes,” he says. “The price sets.” He holds up the first page and flaps it in my face.
“I needed a copy at home.”
“Why?”
“Why not? So I can get on top of my work. So I can see the long-term picture.”
Don’t go on too long. The bad liar always embellishes.
Cohen nods and mutters, “Oh.”
I look back at the printer, trying to avoid his eyes.
“So what happened to shopping in the West End? Got to get myself some new clothes, you said.”
“I had some letters to finish by Monday. Forgot.”
“And this, of course,” he says archly, passing me the sheets of paper.
Cohen knows that something is not right here.
The fourth and final page has emerged into the printer tray without my realizing it. I bend over to scoop it out and tap the pages into a neat pile, stapling them in the top left corner. Cohen walks back to his desk and takes a pen out of a drawer.
“I’m going now,” he says.
“Me too. I’m all done.”
