Headhunter

by Robert Young



  Headhunter

  Robert Young

  © October 2016

  License Notes

  Be careful what you wish for…

  ACT I

  ONE

  Black. Total and endless. The longer he stares into it, the more it seems to swirl and pulsate, like a living entity.

  But he does not have silence, not so long as he lets this continue, for they shout and holler at him through the tunnels and their pitch and tone rise in clamour.

  Eventually he must relent but for now the moment is for him and if it means that they suffer a little more and grow more frantic then that is not his problem to contend with.

  Their need for a respite is merely distraction. There are other ways to see in the darkness, other heightened, sharpened senses that are tuning in and seeking what he needs. Finding it.

  There.

  That cold breath of air is gentle and barely perceptible but in the freezing darkness it is a lover's welcome caress.

  He works his arm slowly up through the small space. Snaps the helmet light on.

  The voices behind him rise again. They have seen it.

  For a full 30 seconds he waits for his eyes to adjust and then finds that soft breeze again, follows it forward on his stomach, inches at a time.

  The way seems to be blocked at first but when he moves closer he can see that the angle and the light have created the illusion of an obstacle and when he gets his arms in front of him and pushes, the blockage yields with ease.

  'Found it,' he calls, surrendering the solitude he had so long savoured. He knew it was not his to keep, only borrow.

  He uses a forearm to sweep the debris forward in front of him and moves deeper in through the motion of arms and hips, occasionally thrusting off the purchase of his toes against the floor. Minutes will pass before the rocks he is pushing forward are taken by gravity and slide away down into a convenient crack at the bottom of a short incline and settle there, clearing his path.

  Moving down the slope and over the crack, he sees and feels his way sharply back up again as the fissure he is moving through changes course. The rise turns into a chimney and he is standing in it, having shifted, twisted, shimmied and pushed his way into a position that feels increasingly cul-de-sac.

  As he goes, he feels the fear, hears the doubt in his mind with each and every shunt forward and up, but he keeps on regardless of it, or perhaps because of it. When he is fully upright, there is a shelf at eye level, and darkness pushes out and away above him suggesting at open space. He has only to negotiate this narrow pipe and he will, he is certain, have broken through and into the chamber they have come to find.

  But the space around him is so slight, so tiny that his body occupies it completely. The more he shifts and scrambles, the more the room runs out. He is bound in rock. Petrified.

  When the options run out, his breath comes faster and he struggles to control it. He knows that the tension he is feeling makes the space press tighter on him, or feel that way, but he cannot escape the sense that this chamber he has accessed is beginning to shrink around him, to grip him tighter and squeeze.

  Panic won't help. It will take him over and is more likely to kill him. But there in the adrenaline that is seeping into his blood, is the edge that he needs. He must find that thin red line now and not breach it. He is dangling by its slender thread.

  He edges up a fraction, just the action of rolling forward on the balls of his right foot. His left foot shifts and his knee moves up and sideways and he does not need a foothold because the space is so tight, he grips through the pressure.

  Twice more and he frees a shoulder, another push and then for a moment, no more than three seconds, his hands are trapped, his face pressed against rock and he is back in that lockup; blind and smothered, his arms bound tight and chafing, the coarse nylon and tough elastic of his sleeves like ropes.

  Then he is back in the cave again, with a desperate thrust the shoulder pops loose, pinched and scraped by the rock wall and his elbow has room to move again and through a series of ins and ups and rotations, tugs and pulls he has somehow hooked fingers onto the lip of the shelf and he knows now that it is done.

  Soon the fingers are a hand and then his arm is over the edge and pulling the rest of his bulk up and dragging his chest free, his other arm, his hips, his legs, his feet.

  He waits until he feels the line tugged tight and they want an answer but will relish the time he has until that happens so he can get control back again, push the panic and the fear back into its box, the lid down shut.

  'Come on, speak. Why have you stopped?'

  He tugs back on the line in answer.

  'You OK? You through?' Pensive and hopeful and scared all at once.

  'If you boys are going to shit yourselves,' he calls, the words bouncing down the tunnel away from him. 'Do it now.'

  'What?' A pause. 'You OK?'

  'If you can lose a pound or two right now it would help.'

  'Tight huh?'

  Daniel Campbell smiles.

  'Breathing optional,' he shouts back and then stands up in the cavernous space and slides the mag-light from his pocket and plays its long beam across the jagged, glinting ceiling.

  'Takes your breath away.'

  TWO

  He sets himself apart from the other men in the room because he does not knock and he walks straight up to the wide desk without asking permission.

  His suit is black and immaculately cut, such that it is impossible to miss the honed, trim shape beneath it. Square shoulders, narrow waist. His hair is close cropped but in a way that suggests it has been done with some skill and at a price, rather than running a set of cheap electric clippers with changeable plastic attachments over his scalp a few times. His teeth are fixed, suspiciously perfect, his eyes pale, his smile warm and confident.

  'We may have him.'

  From across the desk narrow eyes squint at him behind thick-rimmed, thick-lensed spectacles. The man is squat, almost square shaped when he stands up, which is not often.

  'We may have a bead on your man. The investment guy.'

  The eyes stay narrow and the large, square head nods.

  'May? May is better than no idea I suppose, Dusan. Though I hoped for more.'

  'All good things come to those who pay, boss,' the called Dusan replies.

  The eyes close as the laugh comes. Ice melts.

  'Good, yes. Funny. How close?'

  'I'll need to put eyeballs on him and frankly I'd like to do that myself. To be sure. But we don't want to spook him.'

  The squint is back, the nod.

  'I hate to over-promise, as you know. Few weeks? Depends on a few things. Got a few things to do too.'

  The nodding stops, the eyes glaze as the other man thinks on it. He scratches at the scar on his chin, which doesn't itch. Just a tic. He's had it longer than the scar.

  'It isn't priority,' he tells him.

  There are others in the food chain that will take that clear instruction at face value. The trim man in the sharp suit knows not to, not entirely. He can see through those thick lenses and past the squinting eyes. There is a keen desire not to appear to be personal, or vindictive. His boss has built this operation, and its various facets, on simple, ruthless efficiency. It is his hallmark.

  But nobody likes getting stung.

  THREE

  It is one of those soaked London mornings where it wasn't the slippery road surfaces or poor visibility that were any sort of danger so much as the number of bobbing, darting umbrellas to be dodged.

  The pavements would swell as the rush hour peaked and the rain refused to let up. Campbell had missed the worst of it this morning, getting in early after a session in the gym.

&nbs
p; The office filled with people and noise and at nine o'clock he unplugged the earphones that he was using to block out the world and shut down the video link to the on-line presentation that he had just sat through about burgeoning yield opportunities in developing markets.

  A tap on the shoulder turned his head.

  'Morning Mr Campbell. How was the caving?' asked his boss with a smile.

  'Very good. How was Frankfurt?'

  'Three days of high adrenaline sitting. If you have any regard for me at all you won't ask for details.'

  'You're living the dream,' Campbell grinned.

  'Tomorrow morning, by the way. Ten thirty.'

  'What?'

  'You're overdue your one-to-one. Six-monthly review is now nearly eight monthly. HR are not amused.'

  'Done. I'll bring coffee,' says Campbell and returns to his screen to start typing up the notes he scribbled through the on-line presentation.

  He has a meeting in a week with the presenter and has yet to really prepare any research or questions. This is barely scratching the surface but Campbell has been relying on his ability to wing such situations for a while now. Twice in the last six months he has simply taken an entirely different set of notes into a meeting and managed to avoid being exposed for his total lack of readiness, adopting instead an aggressive line of questioning, or thoughtful silences to cover his shortcomings.

  He stumbles across some promising related material and expands on the notes he's made until by lunchtime, he's found a folder for it to make it look official and filed it away as complete.

  The phone on his desk trills. It's an internal call from the different ring tone.

  'Campbell,' he says.

  'Dan. You lunching?' asks a voice at the other end. ‘I quite fancy a pint.’

  ‘Not today Steve.'

  ‘Really? Damn. Tomorrow,’ Steve says it more like a demand.

  'Tomorrow.'

  'Tonight actually,' says Steve suddenly.

  'Tonight as well?'

  ‘Yes. Tonight drinks.' Steve explains. 'Meant to tell you last week.'

  Steve Denson is a long time colleague and friend. Campbell spent several years at an adjacent desk, and frequently an adjacent bar stool with Denson. They no longer work alongside each other, but it hasn’t stopped them drinking together just as frequently.

  ‘I can do that,’ says Campbell.

  ‘Good man. Six o’clock.'

  At the moment the clock on the wall flicks over to six pm Daniel Campbell is back out of his seat and pulling on his jacket.

  In the huge gleaming foyer of the building he spots Steve waiting with a half dozen others, all young men in suits and ties, all looking eager to get to the bar.

  They file through the large revolving doors and in the slick street outside cabs are hailed.

  'So what's tonight then?' asks Campbell as he settles into the soft seat of the cab along with Steve and another man whose name he cannot recall.

  'Whatever you make it big man,' replies Steve with a smile. ’No, not really. It’s actually my birthday.’

  ‘It is not,’ said Campbell surprised.

  ‘Pretty certain it is.’

  ‘Oh hell, I completely forgot.’

  ‘Daniel,’ Steve adopts a tone of deep hurt. ‘No card? No flowers?’

  ‘I will buy you a bouquet of the very finest lager.’

  The other man laughs and Steve plants a hand on his knee to quiet him.

  'It is also, I believe, the anniversary,' he says looking darkly at Campbell. 'Of Daniel's miraculous defeat of various nefarious criminal types.'

  The uncertain expression on the other man's face suggests that he is caught between calling out his colleague's apparently obvious lie or playing along with some as yet unknown in-joke.

  Campbell spares him. ‘Denson, what you lack in subtlety you fail entirely to make up for with wit. What he is getting at, is that I got caught up in some… some nonsense, about three years ago and managed to get myself out of it without any lasting damage.'

  This seems to only halfway convince.

  'What happened?'

  Campbell pauses for a moment and the other two stare at him, awaiting the response. 'Long story.'

  'Get him drunk, he'll tell you everything,' says Steve as the cab slows outside their destination.

  As the cab empties, Steve replaces the hand on the other man’s knee and with a serious expression, shakes his head.

  FOUR

  The champagne bucket on the table shines with condensation and the waitress slides a tray of cold-frosted flutes down onto the polished black table.

  She clears away the empty beer bottles and takes another order and then Campbell hoists the cold, dripping bottle from the ice, peels away a little excess foil from the lip of the bottle and carefully begins to pour.

  'To the gatecrasher,' he says as he raises a glass and the others join him in the toast.

  'To gangsters and memory sticks,' adds Steve.

  'And the Dam Scam,' Campbell finishes and they all sup.

  There are more rounds of drinks, more champagne and eventually Steve is permitted to pay for one of them though Campbell notes that one of the big earning traders in the group has had a word in a waitresses’ ear so that it never shows on Steve’s tab.

  The man from the cab, whose name turns out to be Justin, hovers and chats and seems like a decent personable chap who wrestles manfully with his restless curiosity for a number of hours and several drinks before he yields and asks Campbell the question.

  'What is all this about then mate? Gangsters and criminals and memory sticks?'

  'How long you got?'

  For a moment Justin wears the look of a man who has just overstepped the mark but Campbell's frown is the result of the gassy champagne repeating on him.

  'It’s OK. I can't really give you the long version, because it will take all night and most of tomorrow. But basically a few years back some guy nearly died in my kitchen at a party I was having. No-one knew him and he left a memory stick behind that had a load of information about some company. It was a big blackmail thing.'

  Justin's eyes were wide and his mouth open. Campbell ploughed on.

  'I kind of got stuck in the middle of it. There were a few unsavoury villain types and it went pretty high up too. It was a bit hairy for a while.'

  'Jesus,' is all Justin has.

  'Seemingly the one person not involved actually,' Campbell cracks a smile and Justin wonders for a moment whether it is to reassure him or Campbell.

  'So what happened?' he asks.

  Campbell shrugs. 'Figured a way out of it I guess. Went travelling for a bit afterwards. Haven't heard anything from anyone since.'

  'Jesus,' he repeats. 'That's just… .'

  'Yeah. It’s all pretty odd, you know. Like I have to stop every so often, remind myself that it all actually happened. I mean if I told you the whole thing, wrote it all down, you'd never believe me.'

  Not knowing what to say to that Justin says nothing and looks around for the rest of the group and as the silence between the two of them thickens, is relieved to see their approach.

  The table top is covered once again in beer bottles and a waitress appears shortly afterward with yet another champagne and ice bucket and several fresh glasses.

  Campbell looks up at them and shakes his head in mock-reproach. Justin opens his mouth to ask Campbell another question but the words 'dam scam' are lost in the clamour and the heavy pounding baseline and Steve has slid himself between the two onto the cushioned leather. Justin has had all he will get.

  ‘You alright?' Denson claps a hand on Campbell's shoulder and squeezes.

  'I just don't normally drink this much champagne with men. Exclusively men.'

  Denson looks about them round the table and bobs his head sideways. 'OK. Fair point,' he concedes. He turns and pulls Justin close to shout something in his ear which Campbell doesn’t catch and then watches Justin and two more of
the group vanish down onto the dance floor.

  He then turns as Steve settles into the seat, sliding down until his head rests on the low seat back. Campbell snatches a frosty long necked beer and slides down the leather to join his friend in the repose.

  'How you bearing up fella?' Steve asks staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the same point on the wall that Campbell’s are.

  'Good,' Campbell nods. 'Gets better, you know? Not under my skin so much any more. Little less every day.'

  Steve nods, tips back his own cold beer. Some time passes. Not in silence, for there is none here to be found and voices must be raised above the music just for a private conversation. Steve looks up at him, a swivel of the eyes, head unmoving.

  'It's the lock-up gets me.' Campbell might be talking to Steve, might be to himself. 'I can still feel that cold.'

  Steve says nothing. Knows not to.

  'The other stuff was bad enough. But most the time I felt I had a fighting chance, had a chance of something. Even in that bloody house with the girls and all those twenty stone slabs of anger and the guns going off… I was in the middle of it then, up to my eyeballs. But the lock up,' says Campbell and then when the words fail him he shakes his head then drops it.

  'It’s just a scab Dan. You can pick at it or leave it alone. But soon enough it’s gone either way.'

  'What does this count as? Coming out and celebrating like it’s bonus day? Is that picking it?'

  Steve shrugs. 'It’s what you want it to be Dan. A chain around your ankle or a medal round your neck. You get to choose. Or it’s nothing at all. The past.'

  'Feels like I have to face it down though Steve. Like it keeps on happening in my head, keeps on waking me up at night. And I have to keep on beating it.'

  'Only happened once mate. The rest is you.'

  'Like the skiing right?' Campbell says.

  'Like the skiing.' Steve nods at him and sits up. 'Three hours I was lying there and I'm in agony the whole time and every single thought that ever went through a man's head went through mine. It wasn't the fall, or even the lying there in the cold and the white and knowing that under those trees I'd be hard to spot. It was when I heard them searching. I could hear them shout and I was so totally sure that they'd miss me. Total conviction, in the bones.'

  'Darkest before dawn right?'

  'It only happened once Dan.'

  They clink the half empty bottles together and raise a half smile. ‘Happy Birthday mate.’

  At that Justin re-emerges from the press of bodies near the bar and spills into the area around their table, arms around the shoulders of two slightly drunk, smiling women. Behind them follow two more, and the other two guys who Justin dragged along with him.

  'Girls, these are my friends,' says Justin as he snatches four empty champagne flutes and holds them up, 'and these are the boys from work!' He laughs enthusiastically at his own joke and proffers the glasses to the girls and then the bottle.

  'Sit! Drink! Talk!' he says and everyone shifts and shimmies on the leather finding space somehow for everyone.

  'Lisa, this is Dan,' Justin hollers as he ushers a tall woman with long sleek brown hair in his direction. 'Dan is some sort of superhero. He's like if Indiana Jones and Wolverine had a baby. And Dan ate the baby.'

  Lisa offers a hand and her expression flickers uncertainty. Campbell can't decide if Justin’s over enthusiastic manner is a help or hindrance. He'll need to come up with something to explain to her quite what such an introduction is the result of, if she is not to assume that these men around the table with their suits and smiles and champagne are not just another bunch of braying city boys, all brogues and pinstripes and no self awareness.

  'Indiana Jones and Wolverine?' smiles Lisa as she squeezes into a quickly opened space on the seat. ‘Wow.’

  'Uh, well, I have facial hair and an interest in ancient history.' Campbell ventures.

  Lisa smiles and raises and eyebrow. ‘Your friend is easily impressed. So actually just a nerd then?' Campbell shrugs.

  She leans in a little closer. ‘That’s OK, I have the complete DVD box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Guess we’re both nerds.’

  Campbell pulls back a little looks at her. 'I know a nerd when I see one,' he says. 'They don't look like you.'

  With a smile she slides a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses from the breast pocket of her blouse and slips them on.

  'Touché,' he says as Lisa holds her empty glass in front of his face.

  FIVE

  It says 1.30 a.m. on Campbell's watch as Steve slides over to him. He nudges him with a shoulder as Lisa and her friend make their way to the toilets.

  ‘She seems nice,' he says.

  'She is mate. She's very cool actually.'

  ‘Good for you.’

  'Time to wind it up soon, no?' says Campbell tapping his watch.

  'This place is open 'til three Dan. No rush.’

  ‘Seriously. I have an appraisal tomorrow.'

  'So? Come on Campbell, you run rings around everyone on that team. What are they going to pull you up on? Punctuality?'

  'Yeah but still-' Campbell stops as he turns as he notes that the latest bottle of champagne is being hoisted out of the ice bucket by a tall, lean looking man with thick, slick hair and a square jaw. He is not one of the group.

  'Hey!' shouts Campbell, but before he can step around Steve, before his friend can even register what is happening, the tall man has filled his own glass.

  Campbell darts between the bodies crowding their table and the bar beyond and is in the man's face, eye to eye before Steve can follow in his wake.

  'I'm going to assume that was a mistake that you're about to apologise for,' says Campbell with a smile that carries more menace than any frown he might wear.

  'Who are you?' replies the man, with a shake of the head, all arrogance and contempt.

  Campbell steps closer. 'You want to find out?'

  Steve is at his shoulder now and behind the man several of Campbell's group are standing looking over.

  'What's got you boys so excited then?' says the man and takes a sip of the champagne and then frowns. '… the hell is this?'

  'It's not yours for a start.'

  'Oh shit. Oh wait,' he says and holds up the bottle in his hand to the light. 'This is your champagne right? Christ.'

  Campbell feels his shoulders drop a little and his chest deflate but still he wonders if this is a ruse.

  'Chaps,' says the man looking from Campbell to Steve and back again, 'chaps I'm afraid I've just helped myself to your bloody champagne. What an absolute arse. I'm so sorry.'

  The man raises hands in surrender, both clutching the offending articles. He hands the bottle to Steve and then looks back at Campbell.

  'Wrong bottle, so sorry. Come on. Let me get you a replacement,' he says and he slides a hand onto Campbell's shoulder and spins him around to the bar. 'And let's get you a proper bottle too. Bloody Moet!’

  When at last Campbell returns from the bar, the magnum of Krug sent in replacement seems almost empty on the table, or so it seems, though it refills several more glasses as Campbell is welcomed back to his seat. Lisa is sitting talking to Justin now, as Campbell noticed she was ten minutes ago when he was locked in conversation with the square jawed champagne thief.

  Steve is smiling up at him and makes space for him on the seat. He shakes his head.

  'This just happens with you Campbell. Scrapes and silliness and more drinking stories than I can fit in my little brain.'

  'The magnum was not my idea. The guy insisted.'

  'Oh, I know. I'm not having a moan. I'll only regret this for a day or two. It's been cracking.'

  'Has been good right? Sorry to unload on you again Steve.'

  'No bother. Long as it helps.'

  'What helps?' asks Lisa leaning in from the other side.

  Campbell looks around to note a retreating Justin who trots down the steps to the dance floor and throws him
self into the melee with some style.

  'Someone else picking up the tab,' says Campbell as he raises his glass.

  'You didn't pay?'

  'Better than that. He hoodwinked some gimp into replacing our half bottle of Moet with a magnum of Krug,' says Steve.

  ’Nicely done,’ concedes Lisa and she smiles at Campbell and lets the eye contact linger a moment. Just a moment. She lifts the bottle until she sees that it is empty.

  'Did you get some?' he asks offering his own glass.

  'That's OK. I think I'm probably all done.'

  'Yeah. I think I said that about an hour back.'

  'Actually,' she says as she stands, 'Not quite done.'

  The words hang there and she looks at him so he stands.

  'You going to ask for my number Dan? I'm pretty much all out of meaningful glances and small talk.'

  He pauses as he gathers his composure. 'I was thinking I might just take you home.'

  'Really? That sounds like the kind of thing that makes me glad I have a rape alarm.'

  'Oh. Yeah OK, scary rather than suave. Sorry.'

  'You were going for suave?'

  'Not for a moment. Not even close,' he says and then slides his phone from his pocket. 'I'm just hoping that I can still get your number.'

  She smiles and enters her details into the handset.

  'Bye Dan,' she says and then heads for the door.

  Campbell sits down and lifts his glass to his lips but his stomach turns and he admits to himself finally that the time to withdraw is now, and has been for some time.

  At the cloakroom he fishes a ticket from his wallet and hands it across and as he waits for his coat he notes the fresh stiff business card that he slipped in there earlier, handed over by the champagne thief who talked rapid-fire at him about his job and the markets and all the valuable experience Campbell had and the opening at his office.

  Giles Lawson. Scorpio Capital.

  Campbell slips the card back into his wallet as his coat is handed over and he makes his way outside.

  At the pavement he scans the road for cabs. He spots one coming but then notes the person a few yards closer waving it down. He trots over.

  'Hey!' he calls. She turns.

  'I saw it first and I've been waiting ages,' Lisa says.

  'Sharesies?' says Campbell and she laughs and climbs in.

  SIX

  He has heard it said that behind every fortune there’s a crime.

  He wouldn't see it that way of course. He has long since dispensed with examining his conscience; considers such things quaint and indulgent. His ability to convince himself of his own hype is a good part of why he has got to where he is and why he’ll get where he is going.

  This current low is merely part of the cycle and he knows well enough that when you play a high stakes game, you are sometimes going to lose a hand. But crisis is opportunity and you can't have highs without lows, no peaks without troughs and that is after all, the business he is in. In the parlance of the financial markets, that point when things crash to the bottom is known as capitulation. But he has never given up, merely altered his strategy. He has reallocated his assets according to his needs and in adapting to this new reality, can plan again.

  Indeed, he is already off the bottom and considers that he is into his own recovery phase. From here he has plans and targets, grand ambitions and a furious drive to achieve them. There will be casualties in reaching his goals. There always are. But it's just business.

  And a little personal.

  This levelling of the scores that he expects to achieve will satisfy not just his wounded pride and that large painful bruise to his monstrous ego, but inject a sense of focus and motivation that will keep the plan on course.

  The money will be enough for the others, as it so often is and finding those who will do his bidding so long as he bids high enough, is no problem. Sharks swim in the same circles and he knows which questions and who to ask and it took so little time to assemble them that he considers the next steps in the plan will follow suit, no matter how convoluted.

  The sun is blazing outside, as so frequently it does here, and though he cannot see the ocean, he can smell it. Things have not turned out so badly for him, an outcome he congratulates himself on often, but he's had to adapt to a situation of someone else's making and his ego simply will not accept that. The loss of face was unbearable and will leave a scar but the whole thing could have proved fatal. That it has not, he considers not a lucky escape, not instructive in the ways it might have been. It has served merely to reinforce his sense of invincibility. He knows he is not infallible; such has been too clearly demonstrated for him. But he survived nonetheless and he believes now that what does not kill you only goes to show that you cannot be killed.

  He has learned all the wrong lessons from his experience and he has but one thought that carries him through the days; revenge will be savage and searingly hot.

  SEVEN

  Six full miles door to door, Campbell's journey to work, and he takes a masochistic approach to his hangover and runs all the way. He has a ten minute swim as an additional head-clearing measure and then gets to the office, beaten there only by a puffy-eyed Steve who notes the colour in Campbell's cheeks and shakes his head.

  'Gym as well? Do you even sleep these days Dan?'

  'I'll sleep when I'm dead,' he responds and looks at his watch. 'Which is in about two hours.'

  Steve's eyes close as if it is him that has to contend with an appraisal with the boss this morning. It is not, and Campbell is all too aware of the sensation that he is at once apprehensive but nonplussed by the prospect. Like he is worried that he isn't worried.

  There is much of the morning to mull on the significance of that and he manages to mostly convince himself that it's merely a side effect of too much alcohol and not enough sleep. Otherwise, he is able to burrow into a pile of reading material that has been accruing on the wrong side of his desk.

  For a while longer he does a good enough job of pushing away thoughts of the meeting that is to come that he is surprised when the moment arrives. His boss leans a shadow over his desk, clutching pad and pen.

  'You can pretend all you like, but it’s happening.'

  'Mr Gould. You cruel, cruel man,' Campbell says as he stands.

  'You promised coffee, brought none, and have the gall to call me cruel. That's the very first agenda item.'

  Campbell smiles and grabs a pen and pad of his own, aware that these will almost certainly be no more than props, but he has a role in this to play and knows his lines.

  In a square, nondescript meeting room the heavy door thunks shut as the two men slide into chairs across from each other. Campbell places his pad in front of him and drops the pen onto it.

  Trevor Gould is several years his senior but is trim and smart and has a polished manner about him that tells of a man for whom career progression is a tightly scheduled plan. It is a source of bafflement for Campbell, a concept as alien to him as blackmail and violence once were, though he knows more of both now than he cares to.

  He has been stumbling along through life these past years, ad-libbing a career as he goes. It is not that he doesn't know what he must do to make more of himself, just that he doesn't know how. He knows that it has something to do with discipline, something to do with application and that words like focus are important, that his punctuality is worth less than his attitude.

  But whatever the trick is that allows you to get through the boredom and keep going, to resist the distractions and to actually give a damn and mean it, it is a trick he has not learned.

  For Daniel Campbell, such is not what life is. Even before the incident he was more cruising than committing to whatever filled in the daytime hours that formed the gaps between his real life and sleeping. He worked to live, as it goes, not lived to work.

  It took him a few moments to gauge that Gould had got in front of him on this point this morning and was leading w
ith it.

  'Will I bother taking the cap off my pen?' he asks him and Campbell considers that the hangover and the sleep deprivation have dulled his edges today.

  'Lots of boxes to tick,' he replies and is brought up short as Gould cracks the pen flat on the desk with a sharp sound.

  'I still don't know if you're doing this on purpose, or you just haven't figured it yet.'

  Unsure what he should say, Campbell opts for silence.

  'I suppose you don't have to be stupid to be in denial.'

  'I feel a little bit trapped by that. I can't say I'm not in denial can I? Not without an irony overload,' Campbell says hesitantly. 'The thing is though…'

  'The thing is though that you really don't know do you?'

  'I'm a little slow out the blocks this morning Trevor.'

  'Are you kidding me? Are we actually going to do this?'

  The look on Gould's face is anger melting into resignation as he registers Campbell's own enduring confusion.

  'Daniel, the only thing we really need to discuss is when you go.'

  'When I…?'

  'Leave this organisation. Go. Exit. Depart,' Gould says, trying to force the issue that he believes Campbell is ignoring, out into daylight.

  'This is… this is out of the blue a bit Trevor. And a little aggressive to be honest. Aren't you supposed to give me a warning first?'

  'I'm not sacking you, for the love of God. Daniel, your head is out the door and has been for a long time and I don't know if your heart was ever in it. I can live with the latter, I don't expect people to love it. But I do expect people to at least pretend to want to be here.'

  'You think I want to leave?' he says, slightly wounded. But even as he catches that inflection in his own voice he is thinking of a snatched conversation from the champagne thief, whose card nestles in his wallet even now.

  'I'm not sure you know you want to yet, because you seem not to spend too much time thinking on it, but I know that you don't actually want to stay. The quicker you connect those dots the quicker we can all get on with our lives.'

  When his mind snags and catches on the truth of Gould's assertion Campbell is equal parts shocked and certain of it. That such a thing should lie hidden from him in plain sight so long clears his head more effectively than the six mile run in the cold morning air and the swim that followed. He has a sudden jarring clarity and it unsettles him.

  'Dan, I don't want to lose you. Frankly you are the best guy on the team. But sometimes you're a liability as well. Remember Mablethorpe's?'

  Campbell nodded. He remembered it well. For two hours he and two colleagues, Gould included, had sat through a presentation by the CFO of a leading oil services firm which had included every piece of management-speak and obfuscation that had ever been uttered.

  After one 'going forwards' too many Campbell had thrust a hand out as the man looked in his direction and before he'd had a moment to pause mid-sentence Campbell had said, 'This is all bullshit though isn't it? So there's not so much going forwards as sliding backwards really.'

  The scarlet cheeks of the enraged CFO were matched only by Gould's cringing embarrassment and but for a strikingly accurate and insightful report that Campbell had delivered by the following morning he might have been on a warning.

  'That guy was talking bullshit though. And I apologised to him in writing as well as over the phone.'

  'I'm not going to dignify that with a response.'

  Campbell shrugged and examined the table in front of him.

  'Three times I've had you re-submit reports because they've been too tersely critical or borderline contemptuous, and I've lost count of the number of times you have rolled your eyes behind the back of a Chief Exec or an MD, or hardly bothered to stifle a yawn.'

  'I do more of those reports and meetings than anyone else and they're all the same.'

  'You do more of those than anyone because you're supposed to be a step away from Senior Analyst and are on the pay grade for it and because that is your job,' Gould's voice rose as the anger bubbled up and he bit it back before he resumed. 'And they are not all the same, they are all designed to look the same in order that the subtle differences stand out and sniffing out those differences is…'

  'My job. I know.'

  'I've seen plenty of good people drift into cul de sacs and wander around like a tourist in the fog trying to figure out where they are and where they're going. I hoped you might snap out of it once you were back in the job for a while. I thought that the travel thing was still distracting you. But then it was the caving or the diving or the bloody white-collar boxing.’

  'Plenty of people,' Campbell began defensively, 'have hobbies outside work. I thought that was supposed to be a good thing. You're actually in training for the marathon aren't you?'

  'I am. I am in training for the marathon, but at no point will I be telling senior company executives that they talk shit in front of a room full of people.'

  Campbell silently accepts the rebuke.

  'My point is, none of those things were the answer. They’re just symptoms. They’re just you trying find an outlet, or a way to relieve the boredom. But they don’t seem to be doing that do they? So it's decision time.'

  He nods, eyes glazed and distant. He is thinking of that pristine business card with its clean script and the stars of the constellation picked out around the word Scorpio.

  Gould sighs and Campbell can see that the frustration was supposed to have been kept in check, that Gould had been building up to this and had seen it going differently. The man was faced with losing the best man on his team, and not just that, but he was actually having to push him out the door. That can't have been easy.

  ’Can I think on it?’ said Campbell.

  ’Take all the time you need,’ replied Gould. ’Shouldn't be long.’