Fleetingly, Chris recalled his first impression of the senior partner, the day he came to work at Shorn. Like a troll in the elf pastel shades of the interview room. He looked at Notley now, at the brutal crackle of power about the man, shoehorned into the Susana Ingram like too much upper body muscle, and an initial urge to match the partner smile for smile slid abruptly away. His pulse began to pick up slowly.
Notley seemed to shake himself.
‘It was a different time, Chris. We’re all used to it now, but back then you could smell the change in the air.’ He breathed in, deep. ‘Fresh, like spilt fuel. Reeking with potential. The domino recessions had come and gone, we’d been bracing ourselves for it all that time, for the worst we could imagine, and it came and went, and we were all still standing. Better than still standing. We’d barely missed a step. A few riots, a few banks out of business, that nuclear nonsense in the Punjab. We surfed it, Chris. We rode it out. It was easy.’
He paused. He seemed to be waiting for something to fill the gap. Chris hurried to oblige, mesmerised by the intensity coming across the desk at him.
‘You still had to drive, though? Right?’
‘Oh yes.’ A casual gesture. ‘The domino gave us competitive driving. Hard-edged solution for hard-edged times. But it was still pretty civilised back then, still pretty close to its roots. You know how road-raging started?’
Chris stumbled, wrongfooted. ‘What? Uh, yeah, sure. Those formula cars, ones you see on the history channel, looked like little rockets, right? They started getting owned by the same people that made the money. And then, uh, with the roads empty and everything ...’
He stopped. Notley was shaking his head.
‘No?’
‘Not really. Well. Yes, sure, you had that dynamic. That’s part of it, I suppose. But it all goes back a lot further than that. Back to late last century, the pre-millenial stuff. Stuff my father told me about. Back then some of the harder-nosed firms were already experimenting with conflict incentives for their new recruits. It was an American thing. Eight trainees in a section, sectional office space, and only seven desks.’ Notley made a QED motion with both hands. ‘So. Get to work last, you had to work on a window ledge. Or beg space from someone with a better alarm clock. Let that happen to you more than a couple of times, you can see how the group dynamic starts to lean. The late guy’s the weakest link. So the rest gang up on him. Chimp behaviour. Lend him your desk-space, and you’re weak, by association. You’re making the wrong alliances. So you don’t do it. You can’t afford to.’
Chris couldn’t decide, but he thought he saw a faint distaste rising in Notley’s eyes. Or maybe it was just the energy again.
‘Now. You transfer that idea, not just for trainees but for everyone. Think about the times. The domino recessions are scratching at the door, you’ve got to do something. Most investment houses and major corporations are waterlogged with top-end personnel. Ex-politicians on sinecure non-executive directorships, useless executive directors shipped around on the old-boy network from golden handshake to golden handshake, headhunted bright young things staying the obligatory two years then shipping out for the next move up on rep vapour and nothing else, because I ask you what, in two years, have you really achieved in a corporate post? And that’s just how we were fucking things up at the anglo end of the cultural scale. Elsewhere, you’ve got fuckwit younger sons and daughters being cut in on Daddy’s pie straight out blatantly, because in those cultures who’s going to tell Daddy otherwise? And all of this is teetering on the brink as the dominos start to fall. Something has to be done, at a minimum something has to be seen to be done. Something harsh.
‘So what do you do? You go right back to that eight-trainee section with seven desks, and you extrapolate. Late to work, you don’t lose your desk. You lose your job. At a time when you had a dozen identically qualified people for every real executive post, why not? It was as real as any other measure. You sure as hell couldn’t depend on sales figures or productivity, not with a global economy in tailspin. And since no one could afford to lose a job at a time like that, you got some pretty fierce driving. Some genuine road rage. But back then,’ Notley produced another of his smiles, wintry this time. ‘Back then, it was still enough to just get there first. Have you got anything to drink in here?’
‘Uh.’ Chris gestured across at Mike Bryant’s brushed steel, fitted drinks cabinet. ‘I don’t know, it’s Mike’s office. He’ll have some stuff in there.’
‘I imagine so.’ Notley hulked to his feet and wandered over to the cabinet. ‘You want anything?’
‘I, uh, I’ve got to—‘ He nodded at the datadown. ‘You know, finalise. The, uh—‘
An impatient wave. ‘So finalise it. I’ll make you a drink in the meantime. What do you want?’
‘Uh, whisky. Laphroaig, if it’s there.’ He knew Mike kept that around; he produced it with a flourish every time they ended up in the office late. Chess juice, he’d taken to calling it. ‘Just a small one. No ice.’
Notley grunted. ‘Think I’ll join you. I’m a gin man, myself, but I’m buggered if I can see any in here.’
Chris bent to the datadown. Nailed the explosives along with the cheap Russian machine pistols he’d already selected and thumbed it all down to issuing, tagged with Mike’s notification code. Notley placed a brimming tumbler at his elbow, swallowed some of his own drink and glanced over the on-screen detail.
‘You done? Good. So put on a tolerant expression and listen to the old man’s story.’ He went back to the seat and hunched forward over his drink. ‘Let’s see, I was working at Calders UK, I would have been what, twenty-four, twenty-five, something like that. Younger than you, anyway. About as stupid, though.’
No smile with that. Notley took another chunk off his drink.
‘I had this promotion playoff. Not the first I’d driven, not even one of the first, but it was the first time I’d thought I might be in trouble. Barnes, the other analyst, was my age, good rep, on the road and off, and he drove this flame-red Ferrari roadster. Very fast, but very lightweight. Nothing like the ones they make now. I was on Audis at the time, no choice back then, it was what I could afford. Good wagon, in its own way, but heavy, very heavy.’
‘No change there, then.’ For the first time in the conversation, Chris felt he was on familiar ground.
Notley shrugged carelessly. ‘Armouring is what they do. Same with BMW. Maybe it’s a German thing. Look, I knew if I could just get in front of Barnes, I could hold him off all the way there. Nothing that little roadster could do to my back end that wouldn’t straighten out in the shop. Back then it was the rule, everybody knew. You didn’t have to kill anyone, you just had to get to work first. So, that was it. Get ahead, stay ahead. Block and cover. And I had Barnes like that, every mile ‘til the last. Then the little cunt slipped past me.’
He raised his eyebrows, maybe at his own sudden profanity.
‘To this day, I still don’t know how he did it. Maybe I was too confident. Maybe it was a gear change I left too loose, do that on a heavy wagon, you know how it is, suddenly you’re underpowered.’
Chris nodded. ‘Happened to me a couple of times, before I got the Saab.’
‘Yeah, you’ve got that spaced armouring now, right?’
‘Yeah.’ He wasn’t sure if it was the whisky, or just the slide after the hours of tension and the rollercoaster ride of facing Notley’s gun, but Chris could feel himself starting to relax. ‘Works like a dream. I hear BMW are trying to get past the patents and do their own version.’
‘Quite possibly.’ Notley stared into his glass. ‘But we were talking about Barnes. Barnes, and that last bend on the overhead as you come into the Eleven off-ramp. It used to be a lot narrower then, barely even a double lane. We hit it with Barnes ahead, and I knew there was no way past him. And the way I remember it, there was no Roberto Sanchez making headlines then, no Harry Rice either. Could be it was just still under wraps, all denial and cover-up until Calders decided what needed to go into the shredder and what they could get away with. But I don’t remember any precedent, I just remember fury. Fury that I was going to lose by a couple of fucking metres.’