three weeks before, Bartini had convinced a meeting of creditors to give him a little more time — three more months to trade his way out of trouble. But this morning, everything had changed. As he walked up the back steps to open the office he had come across a shoebox. Inside, was a letter addressed to him and the decomposing hand in its snap-shut plastic bag.
He sat there remembering, even now bile reaching a beachhead at the back of his throat, but he had to be strong. The letter was dynamite — a pressman’s dream. He had to convince the detective to let him publish.
Either that, or he’d just publish anyway — damn the torpedoes and double the advertising rates.
•
All I wanted was a quiet morning, but Mandy Gore was waiting for me. As I said, she was usually affecting some tragic pose, but in her element she ruled the open plan office like a great fat Persian sunning itself on a divan, occasionally laying the tip of a whimsical claw against the throats of the lesser creatures at her mercy.
‘Morgen …’
I pretended not to hear her and kept walking down the corridor to my office. I dumped my briefcase onto my conference table, slumped into my chair, and realised that Mandy had followed me.
‘Oh, Mandy. What I can I do for you?’
‘Sorry to bother you, Morgen.’
She just stared at me with that interminably ‘hurt’ expression worn by Persian cats and disappointed, middle-aged women, waiting for me to read her fucking mind.
‘What is it, Mandy? I’ve got a lot to get through this morning.’
Without waiting for an invitation, she slid gracelessly into one of the chairs facing my desk.
‘I’m trying to organise Feargol’s retirement dinner. Do you think you’ll be able to make it?’
‘Of course I’ll be there … why wouldn’t I be?’
Now she looked really hurt.
‘I’m sorry Morgen … it’s just that you don’t always show up for social things. And under the circumstances …’
She continued to stare at me with those purple eyes, expecting me to understand.
‘Under the circumstances … what do you mean?’
‘Well,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I hear that Don Affridge is going to be head of our department …’
‘Since when was that announced?’
‘Don’t get angry, Morgen … it hasn’t been announced. It’s just what everyone’s saying.’
‘I’m not angry, Mandy. I’ll be very pleased for Jock if he’s appointed … and I would consider it puerile in the extreme not to show up for something as important as Feargol’s dinner because of some petty, testosterone-driven office politics.’
Mandy looked only vaguely chastened. In fact, she had the gall to give me another of her knowing semi-smiles.
‘Why do you call him Jock?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
Her smile deepened, and there was a warning there.
‘I’ve never heard anyone call him Jock … except you, Morgen.’
She continued to smirk at me in a manner suggesting that my game was utterly transparent. It was clear I was going to have to get her onside.
•
The four of us sat in the boardroom waiting for Feargol.
The sweet fume of Affridge’s specially imported Beljean coffee graced the room like a benediction and Affridge himself sat there with contrived dignity, basking in the glow of his imminent destiny. And I had to admit, for a comically cranial caricature, he was looking pretty good.
The two others present were Jai Molloy and Louise Lumley — the most senior of the junior lawyers in the department and neither of them losing any time in sucking up to the new boss. No announcement had been made, but they hung on Jock’s every word as though pearls were dripping from the beard of some latter day Bentham. Did they not realise how obvious they appeared — vying with each other to laugh quickest at his jokes and paraphrasing his words in order to reach the same wise conclusions with apparent independence? Then it struck me that perhaps they wanted their sycophancy to be obvious — to let him know they were on his side.
Jock was quoting from The Art of War by Sun Tzu. What the fuck would he know about it?
‘Your enemy is always most vulnerable,’ declaimed Jock, with a fair attempt at an inscrutable smile, ‘to the weakness he doesn’t know he has. Learn your enemy’s weakness and time your strike for when he is least prepared to defend it.’
‘Interesting,’ said Jai, with a glance at Louise.
‘Very interesting,’ she agreed. ‘I think we could apply that principle in our work here.’
‘You might just have something there,’ encouraged Jock, a buck-toothed grin bisecting his head and rather detracting from his suave Confucian pose. He savoured the aroma of his coffee once again and took a delicate sip.
‘That coffee smells lovely,’ said Louise. ‘Beljean is it?’
‘Beljean, indeed,’ smiled Jock. ‘Exclusively available to those with friends in high places … so good it should be a crime.’
The other two laughed in obsequious admiration, but we were spared more of Jock’s drivel when the door banged open and Feargol made his usual cyclonic entrance. I knew what was coming, so thought I might as well make the best of it — for the present.
‘I think we all know why we’re here,’ said Faecal, sitting a little self-consciously at the head of the table. ‘I’ll be finishing up at the end of the month. I’m staying just long enough to clear up a few odds and ends, but then Don Affridge will be taking over as head of Legal Compliance.’
Immediately, I leapt to my feet and commenced the speech I’d prepared in the shower that morning. ‘Congratulations, Don.’ (And I shook his hand.) ‘I know you’ll be saddened, as we all are, by the fact of Feargol’s departure, but let’s face it … Feargol couldn’t be leaving us in better hands.’
The four of them looked at me a little quizzically — Jock especially — wondering if I was taking the piss, but none of them interrupted.
‘As for the reason for Feargol’s departure … he’s going travelling. He’s racked up the points in the first half, so he can afford to coast in the second … and I stress that this is only half time!
‘When cancer picked on Feargol Lukic … it bit off more than it could chew. I’ve never known a stronger … more resilient team player. And Feargol, I reckon you’re gonna kick the shit out of cancer, mate.’
They all laughed, as I resumed my seat, and Faecal grinned at me gratefully. Jock was delighted with my apparent attitude, but the other two were deep in thought. They’d obviously assumed I was going to be isolated as some kind of hard-done-by opposition figure, but my endorsement of the new regime had taken them by surprise. They had to think about what that might mean for the future structure of the department.
Don Affridge seemed to sense that something gracious was required from him, and he rose in turn.
‘Thank you, Morgen … fine sentiments. Fine sentiments, indeed.’
He bared his tombstone teeth once again, took an elegant but ostentatious sip of his aromatic Beljean coffee, and continued: ‘I, of course, would also like to wish Feargol the best of luck at this … difficult juncture. But I would also like to thank him for the vote of confidence in me … and I just thought I’d take a few minutes to outline my plans for the future of the Compliance Division.’
He