A Cursed Place

by Peter Hanington

  The current receptionist, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed woman who looked like she arrived straight out of college, bestowed on Jags her biggest white-toothed smile. ‘A very good morning Mr …’ Her eyes flicked down at her computer screen, which was embedded in the white Corian work top, ‘… Jags?’

  ‘Hi.’

  The girl read something else on her screen and adjusted her expression from friendly welcome to profound regret.

  ‘I’m incredibly sorry sir, but I’ve just seen that Mr Curepipe’s running a little late …’ Jags nodded. Of course he was. Jags still hadn’t got used to Fred’s new name, even though it had been a couple of years now since the million-dollar wedding. On marrying Elizabeth, Fred had taken her surname. This had been hailed as an almost heroic act of self-sacrifice and feminism in every quarter. It seemed like the only person in the world who saw things differently was Jags. Fred hadn’t taken Elizabeth’s name because he was a feminist – he’d taken it because he was a scheming little shitbag. ‘… but he asked me to give you the trips feedback form to fill in. While you were waiting. Please.’ She passed him a sheet of A4 paper. A questionnaire.

  ‘Frederick wants me to fill this thing in?’

  ‘I guess so, sir. He asked me to ask …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Jags took the piece of paper and went and sat down on a low white leather sofa. The receptionist called after him.

  ‘Thank you so much. Can I get you cold press coffee? Filtered water?’

  ‘No thanks. What about Elizabeth Curepipe, where’s she?’ The girl checked her screen.

  ‘He asked me to tell you that she’s unavailable …’ Her face flushed at this mistake. ‘I mean, I’m afraid Mrs Curepipe is unavailable.’

  Jags read the questionnaire. It seemed strangely low-tech for Fred, but there would be a reason for that. There was always a reason. Where had the employee travelled to? Purpose of trip. How long was the stay? Hotel or accommodation details. Had the issue been dealt with to the satisfaction of all involved? Possible next steps? Expenses incurred. He scribbled down some answers to Frederick’s dumbass questions.

  Jags was kept waiting for a quarter of an hour; after finishing with the form he sat back and watched the people come and go. The average employee age was late twenties to early thirties; they strode in and out in a purposeful manner, most of them holding their laptops open in front of them – just in case they got an urgent email while walking between the water cooler and the crapper, Jags guessed. Eventually the bushy-tailed receptionist strode over and asked if he’d like her to take him up to Mr Curepipe’s office.

  ‘I know where it is.’

  Fred Curepipe was waiting for Jags outside the elevator, his thin hand outstretched. Forbes Rich List top five, GQ Man of the Year, titan of the tech world … all of that, standing in front of Jags with that annoying shit-eating grin on his face.

  ‘There you are, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Jeez, you look tired Jags, bad flight? Or were you hitting those Pisco sours a little too hard? I hear they’re good. Are they good?’ Fred Curepipe spoke quickly, especially when a thought or idea excited him. The story was that his engineers and software developers had to record any meetings with their boss that involved him describing a new idea or an improvement to a Public Square product and then play the recording back at half-speed in order to work out what on earth he was talking about.

  ‘They are good. You should go try one someday.’

  ‘I shall, I absolutely shall.’

  Jags nodded. One Pisco sour would put Fred on his bony arse. The two men studied one another. Jags noticed that that Fred’s mousy brown hair had thinned a little since he’d last seen him. Apart from that, he looked the same as ever. Despite living on the West Coast for over a decade, Fred still wore the same preppy north-eastern wardrobe he’d adopted at college. A blue Oxford button-down shirt open at the neck, khaki chinos, and a bright ribbon belt. His trousers looked an inch too short to Jags, his socks too white and his Italian loafers, just ridiculous. To Jags’ eye, he looked like someone who was about to go play lawn tennis or polo or some such sport. And who was probably going to lose. Of course, Fred didn’t play any sport, ever. All he did was work.

  ‘Here’s that form you asked for.’ Jags passed him the piece of paper and watched as Fred ran his eye down the list of wisecracks and obscene suggestions that Jags had made in response to the various questions. Alongside Purpose of visit? Jags had written, To fake a man’s suicide on behalf of Public Square.

  ‘That’s very funny Jags, really amusing …’ Shaking his head, he strode over to a boxy black paper shredder. ‘Everyone else at the company has to fill these forms in. You wouldn’t believe how much we can ascertain about a person from how they answer a dozen innocent-looking questions. What they write, how they write …’ Jags watched as, within seconds, the questionnaire was turned into gerbil bedding. ‘Not you, of course, you’re special. But I thought you might be interested and I didn’t want you getting bored while you were sitting down there in reception … waiting.’ Jags imagined how good it would feel to jam Fredrick’s hand down into the shredder and watch the machine eat his fingers, from manicured nail to knuckle.

  ‘Where’s Elizabeth?’

  ‘She’s busy. You’ll have to make do with me for now. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable.’ Jags looked around at the options. Fred’s office was not short on chairs; his collection mirrored the furniture collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York although if you gave him the chance, Fred would tell you that his chairs were of a superior quality. Jags chose a Breuer club chair, the one furthest from Fred, who remained standing, one hand on his old oak desk, big as a boat, which Jags remembered him saying used to belong to Washington or Reagan or some crap like that. Once he felt that he’d established his authority, Fred relaxed.

  ‘Elizabeth’s in the middle of an hour-long meeting with Public Square employee representatives.’

  ‘The company’s getting unionised now?’

  ‘Not a union, no, a little less adversarial than that. Hopefully.’ He smiled. ‘She’s calling it the family council. It’s a dozen representatives across all the various divisions – every arm of the company. It’s got no real power, but it’s a chance for them to let off some steam, feel like they’re being listened to. She’s got some real hotheads in the room but she seems to like it that way.’ Jags nodded. This sort of thing was right up Lizzie’s street. It wasn’t enough that Public Square was hugely successful, nor even that it was respected; she needed people inside and outside the company to love Public Square the way she did. Fred was happy for her to look after that sort of thing. It wasn’t his strong suit. ‘So …’ he paused. ‘Do you need to tell me anything about your trip down to Brochu? Or was it all rather straightforward and dull?’

  ‘I’m not sure dull is the word I’d choose.’

  Fred sighed and sat down.

  ‘We had a security problem that needed attending to, Jags, and you’re my security guy. All I want is for you to tell me whether you managed to make the problem go away.’

  ‘The problem has gone away.’

  ‘Excellent, so now we …’

  ‘I should tell you that the problem made a pretty convincing case for himself. I hope those algorithms of yours were right about him.’

  Fred nodded slowly. ‘We had more than five thousand different data points on that particular subject, nearly as many as we have on your average American or European. The sum wasn’t wrong, it was spot on. Does that reassure you?’

  ‘I guess it’ll have to.’ Jags shuffled in his seat; these things cost tens of thousands of bucks and they weren’t even comfortable. ‘I sent you those ideas you asked for about what to do with Brochu medium term, too. D’you get a chance to run your eye over those?’

  ‘I did …’ Fred gazed out across the Public Square campus, straight white paths bisecting neat green lawns – some grass, some Astroturf. Fred preferred Astroturf. ‘You want to give every fa
mily in Brochu twenty-eight million pesos?’

  ‘I don’t want to do anything, you asked me how much it would cost to move the town, Fred – that’s how much.’

  ‘Thirty-five grand – approximately. They’re expensive peasants, these peasants of yours.’

  ‘They’re not my …’ but Fred ignored him.

  ‘For the sake of argument, let’s say we bought the whole town, then that’d be … he glanced down at his steepled hands and found the answer there. ‘… around three million dollars.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money, Jags.’

  ‘Depends how you look at it. The last time I heard, the mining part of Public Square was worth fifteen and a half billion dollars. Once you add it all up.’

  Fred lifted both eyebrows in a look of exaggerated surprise.

  ‘You’ve been going through the company accounts in some detail by the sounds of it, Jags. And doing some really big sums too. Bully for you.’ All employee searches were monitored; if Jags had looked at the Public Square accounts using any company-owned device, then it would have been red-flagged and Fred would have known about it. These flagged alerts were the first thing Fred Curepipe looked at each morning and the last thing he read at night. Jags shook his head.

  ‘Or maybe I just read about it in the New York Times.’

  ‘Nope. The Times doesn’t have that number. Nor the Wall Street Journal. Maybe it was just a lucky guess?’ He paused. ‘Of course, I’m delighted to see you taking such a keen interest in the company Jags, but I don’t see what our internal accounts have got to do with security and security is what you’re …’

  ‘That’s enough Fred …’ Elizabeth Curepipe was standing at the door. Blond shoulder-length hair, blue eyes, the reddest lipstick Jags had ever seen. ‘You know I don’t like it when you two fellas fight.’

  Her suit jacket and short skirt were charcoal grey and expensive-looking. Jags didn’t really like the way she dressed these days. She used to dress different, more casual. Now it was either this kind of thing or the black polo neck and trouser thing, clothes that looked to Jags like some sort of armour. She strode over and, bending from the waist, kissed Jags gently on the cheek.

  ‘Hey Lizzie, good to see you.’ He wondered if the lipstick had left a mark, it seemed impossible that it wouldn’t have. He glanced at Fred, who was doing a good job of pretending not to have noticed or not to give a shit. Elizabeth went and sat down in an Eames chair by the window and lifted her feet up onto the ottoman, legs crossed at the ankles. Jags noticed that the soles of her black patent shoes were also red, but not as red as that lipstick. It became clear that she must have been standing at the door for a while as she’d clearly heard a good deal of their conversation.

  ‘I read your report too, Jags, and I’ve been thinking about Brochu. I’m against trying to buy the whole place out. A buyout’s not really Public Square’s style. We do well when they do well – remember? And we do well when we’re doing good.’ She smiled; a 100-watt smile that Jags had frequently tried and failed to capture in his battered notebook. ‘I want something that feels more like a win-win. So I’ve got a different idea …’

  8 The Lennon Wall

  THE HEADLAND HOTEL, HONG KONG

  Patrick finished mixing the radio package, filed it to London and then pulled on some jeans and a shirt and made his way down to the main restaurant. His plan was to eat something decent, drink something non-alcoholic and then straight back upstairs to bed. If he could stay awake until ten p.m. his time then he’d also be able to phone Rebecca during her lunch break.

  His drinking had got a little out of hand in recent months. The one day on, one day off rule had slipped. First it was two days on, one day off and, before he knew it, and for the duration of his time in Ukraine, it was seven days on and zero days off. He could make a case for needing a drink at the end of each day in Donetsk, but Hong Kong was different and a bit of discipline was called for.

  When the lift doors pinged open at his floor he found himself face to face with one of his colleagues, Vivian Fox, although he almost didn’t recognise her. Viv was in charge of the BBC newsgathering operation here in Hong Kong as she had been in Ukraine and Turkey before that. Her main responsibility was TV and Patrick was a radio man, but they’d spent a lot of time together over the last few months. He’d always respected her, but in recent times he’d come to like her too.

  This was the first time he’d seen her wearing anything other than her usual uniform of cargo pants, Bata boots and a dark linen shirt. Instead of this, she was wearing a knee-length, dark green dress, heels and make-up. The most striking change was to her hair, which was having a night off from its usual neat ponytail and was hanging long and dark around her shoulders. Patrick nodded.

  ‘Hey Viv. I thought Brandon said you guys were already in the bar?’

  ‘Yeah, we were … I mean they are. I mean I just had to jump back up to my room to get something.’

  Patrick smiled at his colleague.

  ‘Like your best dress and a full makeover?’

  ‘What? Shut up.’ She paused. ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who. The new face. He’s called Dan something. He’s from Colorado.’

  ‘Dan something from Colorado? No, I’ve not met him. I’ve seen him around though. He was at the demo in Central this afternoon … it didn’t look like he had much of a clue what he was doing. All the gear, no idea. You know?’

  Viv shot him a look. ‘That’s a little mean, Patrick. He’s probably just new.’

  Patrick glanced down at his shoes. Viv was right.

  ‘Sorry, I’m tired. Hungry and tired.’

  The lift stopped once more, then sailed down through the floors. As they passed the fifth floor, Viv nudged him.

  ‘Have you noticed how there’s no fourth floor in this hotel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See how the number 4 above the door never lights up?’ Patrick shook his head. ‘Try pressing 4.’ Patrick tried but the button had no give to it and remained unlit. ‘See? One of the cleaning ladies told me all about it earlier today. Weird huh?’

  ‘What’s the reason?’

  Viv explained that in Cantonese the word four sounded virtually the same as the word death and was therefore considered unlucky. ‘It’s a homonym.’

  ‘A homonym? No kidding. You’re not just a pretty face.’

  ‘No I’m not, you sexist prick …’ They’d arrived at the lobby. Viv ran a hand down her front, flattening out a crease in the dress. ‘This does look kinda pretty though doesn’t it?’

  ‘What? Yeah, Viv, you look great.’

  ‘Cool. So you want to come and help extend the hand of friendship?’

  ‘Tempting, maybe later. I’m gonna go get something to eat first.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you in there. I’ll be the one laughing at absolutely everything Captain Colorado says.’

  The chicken Caesar salad in the hotel restaurant did little to lift Patrick’s mood. It was the cheapest main course on the menu, but doing the conversion from Hong Kong dollars to pounds Patrick realised he would still have to subsidise his dinner to the tune of fifteen quid. While waiting for his food he got his phone out and did a little digging into Colorado Dan’s life story … the fellow’s name was Dan Staples and he wasn’t as green as he’d appeared. His main outlet was an American regional paper called the Colorado Guardian; in fact he’d made the front page that same day although the piece read to Patrick like little more than recycled agency copy with a bit of colour thrown in. He was listed as a freelance journalist on LinkedIn and had over ten thousand followers on Twitter, which was nine thousand five hundred more than Patrick had. Dan even had his own Wikipedia page. Patrick scanned it. He’d done a fair amount of work and been a lot of places in a short space of time. Patrick muttered to himself.

  ‘Your own Wiki page? What a vain bastard.’

  His food arrived – what looked like a ch
ild-size portion. He asked for extra bread and extra dressing and the waiter brought both, although the service became increasingly starchy. He drank tap water with his meal, although what he really wanted was a cold beer. Several cold beers.

  On his way back to the lift, he decided to poke his head in at the bar, just to see what was going on. The place was decorated with odd items of chinoiserie, painted screens and the like, and his tribe of hacks and hangers-on filled about half the room. Patrick saw Brandon at the centre, holding court, and Viv deep in conversation with Colorado Dan, busily extending the hand of friendship. Judging by the way Dan was looking at her, anything she decided to extend, this man would take with both hands. He’d swapped his war corps outfit for a blue shirt and chinos and had his arm draped casually across the top of the sofa at Viv’s back.

  Patrick had to admit that he was a good-looking bloke – a square, stubbled jaw and closely cropped blond hair. The American caught sight of Patrick standing at the door and gave a friendly nod. Patrick pretended not to have noticed and continued to scan the bar, as though looking for a group other than the one right in front of him – the one he belonged to. The most enticing thing he saw was the thick-stemmed, silver Asahi beer pump that sat front and centre of the zinc topped bar. Tears of frozen water at the tap head winked at Patrick and he could feel his resolve weakening. One pint wouldn’t hurt. He was rescued by the appearance of the hotel doorman who tapped him on the arm before positioning himself between Patrick and temptation.

  ‘Mr Reid?’