by Andy Hyland
‘I know,’ she said, taking my hand and pulling me along, waving down a ride with the other one. ‘But I’m not stupid. You think I don’t know my Dad’s keeping tabs on me? I bet the driver tells him every little juicy titbit. Anyway, we need to talk.’
I didn’t like the way she said ‘talk’. It sounded ominous. Maybe it always sounds like that when girlfriends use it. I wasn’t really in a position to know. Sure enough, once we were settled in the back of the cab and she’d told the driver where we were heading, she turned to me, serious.
‘So, I wanted to get this out of the way at the beginning of the evening. Saves spoiling things later.’
‘Are we breaking up?’ I asked, suddenly scared. Actually, slightly more scared than I’d been staring down Sitri in Rarkshah.
‘No, we’re not. Not unless you’ve got that planned as a surprise. I wanted to talk about the way you…disappeared. I mean, you vanished. You weren’t answering calls, then your phone was out of commission. Becky came by, said you were off on some family emergency. But like I said, I’m not stupid.’
‘No, you’re not,’ I agreed. ‘I never, ever thought you were. Sorry if you felt I did.’
‘So. Anything you want to tell me?’
Quite a lot, actually. But nothing that was going to make her life any better. I was going to have to say something. I took a deep breath, and the words came tumbling out all by themselves.
‘Look, I’m going to disappoint you. All the time. Because my life isn’t easy, it’s not straightforward. And we’ll be doing something fun or important, or fun and important, and I’ll get a call and I’ll have to leave and I won’t be able to tell you where I’m going or why. People rely on me, and for some of them I’m all they’ve got. So when they ask, I will go to them and I’ll do whatever they need, because they’ll do the same for me. Sometimes, they’ve already done the same for me. So that’s why you and me – us, and I hate saying this, it could be a bad idea. Because I will screw up again and again and again. I’m sorry.’
Julie looked thoughtful, and then leant forward, kissed me on the lips and stared hard into my eyes. ‘I don’t call that screwing up. I call that looking out for people. I call that sacrifice. There’s so much you’re not telling me. I can’t make you open up, and I won’t try to. But I’m far more positive about what we’ve got and what we can have than you seem to be. So if, for a while, I have to be the one to drag us forward until you can see what I see, then that’s okay. But one day you’re going to have to let me in.’
We held each other tightly for the rest of the drive.
‘This is it,’ her muffled voice said into my shoulder as the cab slowed. I looked out the window. Turns out that Willis, Beck and Thornton have plenty of money and don’t mind letting it all hang out. We were at Ascension House, a monument to financial success, parked on State Street, and overlooking Battery Park, with a great view, for example, of Simeon’s attempted murder. Coincidence? No, I didn’t think so either.
Imagine someone looked at the spire of a cathedral, in all its gothic majesty, and thought to themselves, ‘You know what, skip the rest of the place, let’s build a giant spire like that.’ Ascension House is what they’d end up with.
Two security guys in dark suits and wearing earpieces eyed the cab suspiciously, but changed their expressions sharpish when they saw Julie climb out behind me. ‘Miss Fairchild,’ one of them said, smiling politely. ‘Did the limo not turn up?’ He gave me a harsh look. What did he think I’d done? Run off with the limo and hidden it?
‘No, Mark, it arrived okay, thanks. I just fancied a change. You guys okay?’
‘You know, busy night and all that. I’m sure it’ll go without a hitch.’ And there was that look again. Even dressed smartly, there must be something about me that gives off a vibe. ‘Shall I tell your father that you’re here?’
‘No thanks. I’ll track him down once we’ve got inside and picked up a drink. Do you want me to get you anything?’
‘No thanks, Miss. Appreciate the thought though.’
It was like that right the way in. Julie was known and genuinely well-liked, maybe even loved. ‘It’s a family firm,’ she said as an aside to me after she’d been greeted by name by the hundredth couple we passed. ‘Some of the men who work for Daddy took over the jobs from their fathers, who took over the job from theirs.’
‘You didn’t fancy it?’ I asked.
‘Wasn’t really an option. Not that I’d have wanted it, but you’re standing in one of the last great bastions of male chauvinism. It’s an old boys’ club. I don’t even mind that really, although I suppose I should. It’s the way it’s always been, and it’s hard to think of it being the same if it changed. Wow, that made almost no sense.’
‘I get it. What’s that buzzing?’
She cocked her head and concentrated. ‘Can’t hear anything. You sure?’
‘Yeah, it’s like a…vibrating. High-pitched. And something else as well, more distant. Like someone left on a dishwasher in the kitchen. That kind of rumbling underneath anything. You don’t feel it?’
‘Look around you. Where’s something like that going to come from?’ the great lobby of Ascension House had been transformed with ribbons and lights into something resembling a ballroom. No room to dance, but there was the same sense of luxury and space. The empty core of the spire reached right up to skylights many floors above. The working offices were arranged around the outer edge. Even now you could see some of the lower level workers staring at monitors on their desks, perhaps looking down enviously. ‘Leave off the drink tonight, okay? I think your nerves are playing up on you. Relax.’
Relax was now going to be the last thing I was going to do. The rumbling wasn’t subtle, so if it wasn’t detectable by her or by the other Unaware gathered around, then something was off. ‘Yeah, maybe it’s me that’s buzzing a bit. Must be because I’m here with the most beautiful woman in the place.’
‘You carry on talking like that and we’re going to have a great night,’ she said, squeezing my arm. ‘Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour. Ooh, pastries.’ She ducked to the side and came back with two palmier biscuits, one in her hand and the other tucked in her mouth. ‘Grab anything you like the look of. No, not me, get off – my Dad’s probably watching.’
The grand tour was certainly impressive. The original spire had been constructed over a century ago. Time passed, storms took their toll, and it was repaired and added to. ‘The basement’s still completely original,’ Julie, now on her second glass of champagne, informed me, ‘but it’s closed off. Personally I think it’s where they bury the old partners. Daddy’s got a key somewhere, but I’ve never managed to find it. So many rumors about this place – secret rooms, tunnels. I suppose if a building gets this old and is shifted around so much, it acquires a certain mystique. Look – there’s Daddy.’
She pointed to a photo of what must have been the up-and-coming men of the time. Some anonymous, probably long-gone restaurant, expensive and hard to get in to. They were gathered round one of the tables, five of them, raising glasses to the camera, all smiles. ‘That’s Daddy,’ she said, pointing to the grinning guy second from the left. Handsome, happy. The same blonde hair as Julie, swept back and parted to the side. I checked the names beneath.
‘Edwin Monk,’ I read. ‘The senior partner’s son, right? He’s the one next to your Dad.’
Julie looked around and dropped her voice. ‘Not the senior partner’s son. The senior partner.’
‘That’s not possible. I’ve seen the guy. This photo is early nineties, so he’d be, what, early fifties? But he’s ancient. Eighty if he’s a day.’
‘Don’t mention that while you’re here. He’s got some sort of disease. It upsets Daddy, he won’t talk about it. Come to think of it, nobody ever really talks about any of the senior partners the firm’s had. There was something weird about all of them.’
‘Wow. And then the other side of your Dad, that’s Compton?’
&n
bsp; ‘Yeah. He died a while ago. His son made partner really young. You heard about him, right? The guy murdered by his wife. Shame. I liked him. Nice guy.’
I looked around at all the smiling faces, the visitors, the perfect display of wealth and manners that the bank was putting on, and made a snap decision, leaning in close to Julie’s ear. ‘Hey, want to try something?’
She looked shocked. ‘Not here. My Dad’s around somewhere.’
‘No, not that. Look, how about we try to get into this basement you were talking about? Everyone’s occupied up here. Nobody’ll notice us. Come on, I dare you.’
She shook her head, but the drink was dancing in her eyes. ‘I would get in so much trouble.’
‘Bet you wouldn’t. Bet you could smile and talk your way out of it no problem. Come on.’ I truly, truly didn’t believe there was a hint of danger involved. The bright lights, the razzmatazz. Should have remembered that it’s the brightest lights that cast the darkest shadows.
‘I would,’ she said slowly, ‘really, really like to know what’s down there. I nearly got in once, when I was about thirteen. Snuck away while Dad was in a meeting and followed someone I thought was a janitor lugging boxes around. Must have made it halfway there before Dad realized I was missing. Got grounded for a week for that.’
‘And how long did the grounding last?’
She smiled. ‘He let me off after a couple of days. I sweet-talked him into letting me go to a friend’s birthday party.’
‘And now you’re all grown up. What are they going to do? Call the cops? Anyone asks, we’ll say we were…looking for a bit of privacy.’
‘You’re awful.’ She hesitated, a smile creeping onto her face. ‘Why the hell not? Like you say, what are they going to do? See that door over there? The left hand one of that group of three. Give it two minutes, and then follow me through.’
I dawdled by the photos a while longer, before making my way across the floor, ducking between groups, glancing up and around as innocently as I could to make sure nobody was paying attention. You can never tell with these things, but in the absence of any evidence we’d been rumbled, and with no gut instinct warning me of any problems, I opened the door and went through.
Away from the public and working areas, the décor was no longer breathtaking. Bare white walls and a steel staircase led down. Julie waited at the bottom, looking nervous. ‘Along here,’ she whispered and made a good effort at tiptoeing in heels before giving up and settling for walking as quietly as possible.
‘Where are we headed?’ I asked. She pointed ahead then to the right. This brought us to a crossroads. Two passages led off to the left and straight ahead. The way to the right was blocked by a large steel door. I gave it a push without any hope. A numeric pad sat to the right. My hands twitched, but I resisted the temptation. Like I said to Becky, an active cast would probably set off all sorts of silent alarms. And besides, I still wasn’t ready for Julie to experience that side of me.
‘Looks like our little adventure finished early,’ Julie said, sounding more relieved than disappointed. ‘What was that?’
Footsteps, coming from the left. I pulled her down the corridor straight ahead and pressed her against the wall. We were completely exposed. A quick glance to their left and whoever was coming would spot us easily. Either we’d be rumbled and make our excuses, or we’d get lucky here.
We got lucky. The guard, a smart woman in the same sharp suit we’d come to expect from any Carafax associate, walked straight to the door, punched in a code that I didn’t quite catch, and went through. I slipped back quickly and silently and stuck my foot in the gap, not allowing the door to close.
‘Still want to see what’s down here?’ I asked, half-hoping Julie would say no and head back to the party. Truth be told, I was starting to think this was a pretty bad idea. Having her out of the way would be one less thing to worry about.
‘I’ve never got this far before,’ she answered, pulling her heels off. ‘Why stop now?’
There were several good answers to that question, none of which I wanted to go into at that moment, so I nodded and pushed the door open slowly. A new, distinctly different, section of the basement lay before us. A corridor with meshed steel flooring and dimmed red lighting. Doors were on either side at regular intervals, and long windows at waist height ran the length of the walls between them.
‘Down,’ I whispered to Julie, and we hunched and crept along to the nearest window. Risking a look could lead to trouble, but if we didn’t, then what was the point of us being here? I rose slowly, the top of my head and eyes coming into view for anyone who might be on the other side of the window looking out. Fortunately, nobody was. It looked like a cross between a laboratory and a server room. Racks of computer equipment lay in the center, while on the outer edge, lining the room, were sterile white desks holding monitors and stacks of documents. A few figures walked between the computer racks, checking and tweaking. They moved stiffly and mechanically, and their eyes stared straight ahead thoughtlessly.
The rumbling I’d mentioned to Julie upstairs was stronger here. ‘Can you feel it now?’ I whispered to her. ‘The grinding and vibrating?’
She listened hard but shook her head. Everything had an industrial feel to it, including the noise, but it was industrial strength magic, not machinery. ‘Let’s head back,’ I suggested.
‘Come on, a little bit further,’ she pleaded.
To my shame, I didn’t need much convincing. We scooted along beneath window height to the end of the corridor, which then branched in several directions. I picked the first turn to the left. This led to a new, stunted corridor, where the only door was to the right, and standing ajar.
‘All going off well upstairs?’ asked a male voice inside. I glanced round and found myself looking into a hang-out room for the staff. Lockers lined the walls, and in the center stood a couple of tables and some shabby looking chairs. A coffee machine gurgled against the far wall. Only two occupants at the moment: the woman we’d followed in, and a lanky guy with a mop of blonde hair, jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up.
‘I don’t know why they’re bothering,’ the woman answered. ‘Strange time to trouble ourselves with this. More work we don’t need.’
‘Mayor’s been pressing for it for months, I heard. Getting more agitated every time Monk put him off. It was easier in the end to give him the night, let him raise his money. Not that he’ll get to spend it.’
‘I heard we’re ready,’ the woman said in a low voice.
‘As of two days ago the tower is fully operational. That won’t mean much until all the connections are in place, but there’s nothing more we can do here. Now we’re waiting for Monk to make his play.’
‘In the meantime, work as usual,’ she sighed. ‘Gotta check on the troops.’
‘Rather you than me. Two years and they still freak me out. You hear about Randy? Screwed up on his assessment. Reckon he’ll get assimilated into tech staff.’
I motioned to Julie to head back. We couldn’t risk one of them seeing us and triggering an alarm. Not now we were this far in. I’d be dead meat, and I wasn’t sure if even Julie’s Dad would be able to get her out of the resulting pile of shit she’d find herself in. We headed back down the way we’d come without incident, getting past the main security door and letting it shut softly behind us.
Julie slipped on her heels as we got ready to rejoin the world above.
‘That make any sense to you at all?’ Julie asked. ‘That was plain weird. What did any of it mean?’
‘No idea. Maybe there’s some tech or experimental part of the bank’s work that they keep hidden. The bat cave to Wayne Manor.’
‘Hmmm.’ She wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t need her to be. I needed her to drop it while I got my thoughts together. We were back to the main stairs now. A quick trot up and we slipped through the door at the top. The party was still in full swing and a quick check indicated nobody had seen us re-enter.
I was wrong. Turned out one person did see us head back in, and he was pissed off.
‘Here’s the man now,’ Julie said, turning and waving to someone behind me.
For a moment I was truly expecting to see the limping form of Edwin Monk, leaning on his cane and eyes promising a long slow death, heading towards me. Instead, I found myself face to face with Frank Fairchild, no longer the dashing and vital man in the photo we’d seen earlier, but sturdy and distinguished. His blonde hair had faded but kept the same parting. His eyes, the same shade of blue as Julie’s, managed to greet her warmly and assess me coldly all at the same time.
‘Found you both at last,’ he smiled without humor. ‘Giving your friend the grand tour, eh Julie?’
‘This is Mal, Daddy. He’s my boyfriend, not my friend. Be nice. Mal, this is my Dad, Frank.’
‘A pleasure,’ I said extending my hand.
He took it and shook it in a vice-like grip. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Be nice,’ Julie repeated.
Frank gave her a who-me look and cast his eyes back across the lobby to where a woman in black had a small group gathered around her, looking somber. ‘Neville’s mother, Deirdre. You remember her, right? Terrible, terrible thing she’s going through. She was asking after you earlier. You couldn’t spare ten minutes, could you Jules? I’m sure she’d love to see you.’
‘So that you can interrogate Mal?’
‘Of course so that I can interrogate Mal. Did you think I wouldn’t?’
She paused, huffed, then nodded and gave my hand a squeeze. ‘He’s very nice, really,’ she said before giving my kiss and cheek and heading across to the now-sonless widow Compton.
We watched her back as she left.
‘You have a wonderful daughter, Mr -’
‘Save it,’ he growled. ‘You think I don’t know what you did back there? Your stupidity is one thing, but dragging her after you is unforgiveable.’
‘I’m not disagreeing with you on that,’ I admitted.
‘You’re an idiot for coming here, but from your file I shouldn’t be surprised by that, I suppose. You see up there?’ He pointed his chin up two flights of stairs to a mezzanine floor where the great and the good were milling round. Edwin Monk was there of course, leaning heavily on his walking stick, the mayor and a few other celebrities coming up in ones and twos to pay homage to the great man.
