‘Give him a break, Louise.’ Notley took her shoulder and turned her away again. ‘If he can do for us what he did for Hammett McColl, I’ll forgive him not shaving occasionally.’
‘And if he can’t?’
Notley shrugged and tipped back his champagne. ‘Then he won’t last long, will he.’
He put down the glass, patted her on the shoulder again and walked off into the press of suited bodies. Hewitt stayed where she was until Hamilton appeared noiselessly at her side.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Don’t ask.’
On the other side of the room, Chris was in fact deep in nothing other than the classic party nightmare. He was becalmed at the edges of a group he had only passing acquaintance with, listening politely to conversations he had no interest in about people and places he did not know. His jaws ached from trying not to yawn and he wanted nothing more than to bow out quietly and go home.
Five days into the new job? I don’t think so, pal.
Out of boredom he went to the bar for a refill he didn’t want. As he was waiting, someone nudged him. He glanced round. Mike Bryant, grin on full beam, with a Liz Linshaw clone in tow and a tray full of drinks in his hands.
‘Hey, Chris.’ Bryant had to raise his voice above the crowd. ‘How did you like Hewitt? Talks up a storm, doesn’t she?’
Chris nodded noncommittally. ‘Yeah, very inspiring.’
‘You’re not kidding. Really gets you in the guts. First time I heard her speak, I thought I’d been personally selected to lead a holy fucking crusade for global investment. Simeon Sands for the finance sector.’ Mike did a passable burlesque of the satellite-syndicated demagogue. ‘Hallelujah, I believe! I have faith! Seriously, you look at the productivity graphs following each quarterly address she gives. Spikes through the roof, man.’
‘Right.’
‘Hey, you want to join us? We’re sitting back on the window flange there, see. Got some of the meanest analysts in creation gathered round those tables. Isn’t that right, Liz?’
The woman at Bryant’s side chuckled. Shooting a glance at her, Chris suddenly realised this was no clone.
‘Oh, yeah, sorry. Liz Linshaw, Chris Faulkner. Chris, you know Liz, I guess. Either that or you don’t have a TV.’
‘Ms Linshaw.’ Chris stuck out his hand.
Liz Linshaw laughed and leaned forward to kiss him on both cheeks. ‘Call me Liz,’ she said. ‘I recognise you now. From the App and Prom sheets this week. You’re the one that took down Edward Quain in ’41 aren’t you.’
‘Uh, yeah.’
‘Before my time. I was just a stringer on a pirate satellite ’cast in those days. Quite a kill. I don’t think there’s been one like it in the last eight years.’
‘Stop it, you’re making me feel old.’
‘Will you two stop flirting and grab some of these drinks,’ demanded Bryant. ‘I’ve got a dozen thirsty animals back there to water. What do you want in that, Chris?’
‘Uh, Laphroaig. No ice.’
‘Yyyeurgh.’
They carried the glasses over to the tables between the three of them and unloaded. Bryant pushed and shoved at people, joking and cajoling and bullying until he had space for Chris and Liz to sit at his table. He raised his glass.
‘Small wars,’ he said. ‘Long may they smoulder.’
Approval, choral in volume.
Chris found himself squeezed in next to a tall, slim executive with steel-rimmed glasses and the air of a scientist peering down a microscope lens at everything. Chris felt a ripple of irritation. Affected eyeware had always been one of Carla’s pet hates. Fucking poverty chic, she invariably snarled when she saw the ads. Fake fucking human imperfection. It’ll be cool to ride around in a fucking wheelchair next. It’s fucking offensive. Chris tended to agree. Sure, you could run a datadown uplink projected onto the inside of the lenses, but that wasn’t it. Carla was right, it was zone chic. And why the fuck pretend you couldn’t afford corrective surgery when everything else you were wearing screamed the opposite.
‘Nick Makin,’ said the narrow face behind the lenses, extending a long arm sideways across his body. The grip belied his slender frame. ‘You ah Faulkner, ahn’t you?’
‘That’s right.’
Mike Bryant leaned across the table towards them. ‘Nick was our top commission analyst last year. Predicted that turnaround in Guatemala over the summer. Went against all the models for guerrilla conflict that we had. It was a real coup for Shorn.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Chris.
‘Ah.’ Makin waved it off. ‘That was last season. Can’t live off things like that indefinitely. It’s a whole new quarter. Time for fesh meat. Another new appoach. Speaking of which, Chris, ahn’t you the guy that let a pomotion challenger off the hook at Hammett McColl last year?’
Probably imagination, the way the whole table was suddenly listening to this sharkish young man with the carefully masked speech impediment. Probably. Chris’s eyes flickered to Bryant. The big blond was watching.
‘You heard about that, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ Makin smiled. ‘It seemed kind of. Odd, you know?’
‘Well,’ Chris made a stiff smile of his own. ‘You weren’t there.’
‘No. Lucky for Elysia Bennett that I wasn’t, I’d say. Isn’t she still awound somewhere?’
‘I assume so. You know, Nick, I tend not to worry too much about the past. Like you said, it’s a whole new quarter. Bennett was two years ago.’
‘Still.’ Makin looked around the table, apparently to enlist some support. ‘An attitude like that must make for a lot of challengahs. Shit, I’d dive against you myself just for the expewience if I thought you’d have a sentiment attack like that after the event. If I lost, that is.’
Chris realised abruptly that Makin was drunk, alcohol-fuelled aggressive and waiting. He looked at his glass on the table.
‘You would lose,’ he said quietly.
By now it wasn’t his imagination. The buzz of conversation was definitely weakening as the executives lost interest in what they were discussing and became spectators.
‘Big words.’ Makin had lost his smile. ‘Fom a man who hasn’t made a kill in nearly four years.’
Chris shrugged, one eye on Makin’s left hand where it rested on the table top. He mapped options. Reach down and pinion the arm. Snap the little finger of that hand, take it from there.
‘Actually,’ said a husky voice. ‘I think they’re quite small words from the man who took down Edward Quain.’
The focus of attention leapt away across the table. Liz Linshaw sat with one long-fingered hand propping her tousled blonde head away from the back of her seat. The other hand gestured with a cigarette.
‘Now that,’ she continued, ‘was the mother of all exemplary kills. No one ever thought Eddie Quain was coming back to work. Except maybe as lubricant.’
Somebody laughed. Nervous laughter. Someone else took it up, more certainly and the sound built around the table. Bryant joined in. The moment passed. Chris gave Makin one more hard look and then started laughing himself.
The evening spread its wings under him.
CHAPTER FIVE
An unclear space of time later, he was relieving himself in a scarred porcelain urinal that reeked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a week. Yellowed plaster walls crowded round him. Sullen, gouged graffiti ranged from brutal to incomprehensible and back.