‘No. Should I be?’
No reply.
‘So what sort of shampoo was it?’
‘You really care?’ he says, exhaling.
‘Not really, no.’
This is how things will start out. Like our last meeting, in March, the first few minutes will be full of strange, awkward silences and empty remarks that go nowhere. The broken rhythm of strangers. I can only hope that after two or three drinks Saul will start to loosen up.
‘So it’s good to finally meet the guys you work with,’ he says. ‘They seem okay.’
‘Yeah. Harry’s a bit of a cunt, but the rest are all right.’
Saul puffs out his lips and stares at the ground. There is a waitress about ten feet away moving gradually towards us, slim and nineteen. I try to catch her eye. A student, most probably, making her rent. She sees me, nods, and comes over.
‘Glass of champagne, gentlemen?’
We each take a glass. Clear marble skin and a neat black bob, breasts visible as no more than faint shapes beneath the thin white silk of her shirt. She has that air of undergraduate self-confidence that gradually ebbs away with age.
‘Thanks,’ says Saul, the side of his mouth curling up into a flirty smile. It is the most animated gesture he has made since he arrived. The girl moves off.
We have been talking for only ten or fifteen minutes when Cohen sidles up behind Saul with a look of intent in his eye. I take a long draw on my champagne and feel the chill and fizz in my throat.
‘So you’re Saul,’ he says, squeezing in beside him. ‘Alec’s often spoken about you.’
Not so.
‘He has?’
‘Yes.’
Cohen reaches across and touches my shoulder, acting like we’re best buddies.
‘It’s Harry, isn’t it?’ Saul asks.
‘That’s right. Sorry to interrupt but I wanted to introduce Alec to a journalist from the Financial Times. Won’t you come with us?’
‘Fine,’ I say, and we have no choice other than to go.
Peppiatt is tall, almost spindly, with psoriatic flakes of chalky skin grouped around his nose.
‘Mike Peppiatt,’ he says, extending an arm, but his grip goes dead in my hand. ‘I understand you’re the new kid on the block.’
‘Makes him sound like he’s in a fucking boy band,’ Saul says, coming immediately to my defence. I don’t need him to do that. Not tonight.
‘That’s right. I joined Abnex about nine months ago.’
‘Mike’s interested in writing a piece about the Caspian,’ Cohen tells me.
‘What’s the angle?’
‘I thought you might have some ideas.’ Peppiatt’s voice is plummy, precise.
‘Harry run out of them, has he?’
Cohen clears his throat.
‘Not at all. He’s been very helpful. I’d just welcome a second opinion.’
‘Well, what interests you about the region?’ I ask, turning the question back on him. Something about his self-assuredness is irritating. ‘What do your readers want to know? Is it going to be an article on a specific aspect of oil and gas exploration or a more general introduction to the area?’
Saul folds his arms.
‘Let me tell you what interests me,’ Peppiatt says, lighting a cigarette. He doesn’t offer the pack around. Journalists never do. ‘I want to write an article comparing what’s going on in the Caspian with the Chicago of the 1920s.’
No one responds to this. We just let him keep talking.
‘It’s a question of endless possibilities,’ he says, launching a slim wrist into the air. ‘Here you have a region that’s rich in natural resources, twenty-eight billion barrels of oil, two hundred and fifty trillion cubic feet of gas. Now there’s a possibility that an awful lot of people are going to become very rich in a very short space of time because of that.’
‘So how is that like Chicago in the twenties?’ Saul asks, just before I do.
‘Because of corruption,’ Peppiatt replies, tilting his head to one side. ‘Because of man’s lust for power. Because of the egomania of elected politicians. Because somebody somewhere, an Al Capone if you like, will want to control it all.’
‘The oligarchs?’ I suggest.
‘Maybe. Maybe a Russian, yes. But what fascinates me is that no country at the present time has a clear advantage over another. No one knows who owns all that oil. That hasn’t been decided yet. Not even how to divide it up. It’s the same with the gas. Who does it belong to? With that in mind, we’re talking about a place of extraordinary potential. Potential for wealth, potential for corruption, potential for terrible conflict. And all of that concentrated into what is a comparatively small geographical area. Chicago, if you like.’
‘Okay–‘
I had tried interrupting, but Peppiatt has still not finished.
‘–But that’s just one angle on it. The former Soviet states–Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan–are just pawns in a much bigger geographical game. Look at a map of the region and you see the collision of all the great powers. China on the eastern flank of the Caspian Sea, Russia on its doorstep, the EU just a few hundred miles away to the west of Turkey. Then you have Afghanistan in the southeast and a fundamentalist Islamic republic right next door to that.’
‘Which one?’ Saul asks.
‘Iran,’ Cohen says, without looking at him.
‘So you can see why the Yanks are in there,’ Peppiatt says, as if none of us was aware of an American presence in the Caspian. ‘They’re over-reliant on Middle East oil and they’re trying to get a piece of the action. And their best way of doing that is to toady up to the Turks. And why not? We Europeans treat the government in Ankara as though they were a bunch of good-for-nothing towel heads.’
Saul snorts out a laugh here and I look around, just in case anyone has heard. But Peppiatt is on a roll. This guy loves the sound of his own voice.
‘In my view it’s an outrage that Turkey hasn’t been offered membership in the EU. That will come back to haunt us. Turkey will be Europe’s gateway to the Caspian, and we’re allowing the Americans to get in there first.’
‘That’s a little melodramatic,’ I tell him, but Cohen immediately looks displeased. He doesn’t want me offending anyone from the FT.
‘How so?’ Peppiatt asks.
‘Well, if you include Turkey in the EU, your taxes will go up and there’ll be a flood of immigrants all over western Europe.’
‘Not my concern,’ he says, unconvincingly. ‘All I know is that the Americans are being very clever. They’ll have a foot in the door when the Caspian comes online. There’s going to be a marked shift in global economic power and America is going to be there when it happens.’
‘That’s true,’ I say, my head doing an easy bob back and forth. Saul smiles.
‘Only to an extent,’ Cohen says, quick to contradict me. ‘A lot of British and European oil companies are in joint ventures with the Americans to minimize risk. Take Abnex, for example.’ Here comes the PR line. ‘We got in at about the same time as Chevron in 1993.’
‘Did you?’ says Peppiatt. ‘I didn’t realize that.’
Cohen nods