He talked about being psychic, quite seriously. Then, bizarrely, he produced a pack of cards. He wanted to absolutely prove that he was psychic for some reason. Were they Tarot cards? Richard seemed to remember they were cards with letters on them… and didn’t Mitchell start talking about politics or something at the same time? It was as though he was trying to prove Richard wrong every time he asked a question. Questions that had something to do with…? Richard couldn’t remember. They were probably drinking that goddamned Salmiakki Koskenkorva – liquorice vodka. That would account for it. It had got quite weird and rather irritating, and the whole political thing had got really annoying in the end. Mitchell kept telling him to remember the facts, and repeatedly saying, “You need to wake up,” just repeatedly saying “You need to wake up now,” to whatever point he made. Well, they were both completely drunk. The standard of debate couldn’t have been very high. It was probably a slur of barely intelligible babble.
Suddenly Richard had an uneasy feeling. A feeling Mitchell had said something important to him he’d completely forgotten.
And then he remembered the email Mitchell had sent him two days ago. He had dismissed it as a jokey way of saying they had to go for a drink sometime. He read the words again with a feeling of déjà vu, or a feeling of having read them in a different life:
“Remember Helsinki? Have you made a decision yet? It’s getting urgent. Let’s arrange to meet soon.”
It was only at that moment, now that Mitchell was dead, in fact because Mitchell was dead, that the strangest idea began to insinuate itself. Back in Helsinki, Mitchell had said something to him that was not only very important but very secret. But no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t remember anything definite. Why can’t I remember the thing that I’m trying to remember?
Richard shook his head, trying to shake away the presence of the dream serpent, the shadows of grotesque unreality that still swarmed around him; trying to imagine what Mitchell could possibly have said to him that was so important. Something to do with Oldhams Bank, perhaps – or another project?
There was a more ominous possibility. The possibility that it was something to do with Zima. But that would be preposterous. Anything to do with Zima would have lit up in his consciousness like a neon sign. Where there should have been a memory there were just shadows.
So whatever this shadowy memory was, it couldn’t be Zima. He tried to think what else it could have been. There was one more possibility. The possibility that Mitchell had never said anything important to him in Helsinki. That, like the snake, it was imaginary. So, finally, unable to bring to mind any substantial notion of what Mitchell had said, he dismissed it as the memory of a dream. Richard switched off the laptop. He was annoyed though, that he’d read his emails just because a stupid snake dream had woken him. It was still only two a.m but now he wouldn’t get back to sleep.
6. Virtubank Software
The Bank of England, an ugly Georgian building consisting of an unfortunate hybrid of several incongruous elements, conceals the administrative machinery that once controlled an empire and continues to exert huge power over the global economy.
Walking near the building, along Threadneedle Street, you are aware of it only as a windowless Portland stone wall on top of which a disproportionately small Greek temple perches. From a greater distance, you would be able to see that the Greek temple has somehow been grafted to the front of something that looks like a French Hotel de Ville.
So, the Bank of England is ugly, but imposing. Fortunately though, the eye is somehow drawn away from it by other distractions. A statue of Wellington, on horseback, stands before the pleasant façade of the Royal Exchange building and, further down Cornhill, James Henry Greathead, 1844 -1896, forces traffic to bifurcate by occupying a position in the middle of the road on top of his stone pedestal.
In addition to Cornhill, six more streets scatter out at random angles from the intersection where the Bank of England is situated. They are surprisingly narrow – certainly not grand, continental boulevards such as those, for example, that radiate, in organised symmetry, from the Arc de Triomphe. They were not created for parading military might before cheering crowds. The might here is financial, not military, and so great is it that it must be concealed rather than paraded. Therefore, the streets are not (as Dick Whittington and his cat believed) literally paved with gold. Furthermore, the design is ramshackle and haphazard because they still mark out the positions where they were arbitrarily formed in medieval times.
In the vicinity of the Bank, the streets are crammed with more white stone buildings. Behind these, a little further away, glass skyscrapers rise up. All this would surely inspire feelings of awe in any who came here, or perhaps envy.
Richard emerged from Bank tube station and was confronted by the sight of all this history and glory. He felt a sense of disgust at the sight, both with the buildings and with himself for continuing to work here.
Yet capitalism was a necessary step on the way to socialism. Marx himself had promised this much. And, looking up, if not to Richard but to the impartial observer, at that moment the City seemed celestial. Fluffy white clouds were moving across a porcelain-blue sky. It was almost expected that horn-blowing cherubs would appear, unrolling scrolls of parchment so that some triumphant announcement could be made. You could believe that perhaps they would proclaim that here, right here, they were constructing the New Jerusalem which Ezekiel had prophesied.
It was obvious that heaven and the celestial sphere was an abstract dimension hidden just out of sight of most mortals, as the world of finance was.
Looking back at the Bank of England, it becomes clear the temple is at ground level and the wall it is built on is, in fact, its foundations. Everything else at that level is also subterranean. Black cabs and bright red buses crawl through these underground passageways, while swarms of pedestrians bustle along shadowy walkways. Above this, a better world exists in sunlight and splendour.
◆◆◆
The headquarters of VirtuBank Software (UK) Ltd were in the heart of the City. No expense had been spared to express the image of cutting-edge technological prowess. The whole façade of the building was gleaming, precision-cut, plate glass, apart from six vertical stainless-steel tracks where transparent lifts slid up and down the exterior.
Richard stepped into one of these lifts from the reception area and, as the brushed steel doors closed behind him, he stepped forward and looked through the plate glass walls at the view. The small courtyard through which he had just passed held its usual throng of tourists and office workers; some looking up at the building, some taking photographs. It was an impressive enough building to merit a photograph.
From inside the building, members of the VirtuBank dev team on the fifth floor would be able to observe Richard, standing stock-still, ascending to their level as though by supernatural force.
Inside the lift, illusions of reflection and translucence bewildered the senses. The views of the surrounding buildings were mirrored back at the same time as other images were permitted to pass through directly, so that it was hard to tell what was real and what was reflection. The image of the skyscraper of St Mary Axe, popularly known as the Gherkin, floated upwards over the receptionist in an adjacent office while, turning round, Richard saw the more solid frame of the building itself looming above him. It shone like a sky-rocket.
Richard walked past reception, along a wide passage and into a large open-plan office. But he did not venture far. The hot-desks were nearest reception so that he, and other travelling consultants, would not disturb the office-based staff, many of whom, scattered randomly, were already bowed over their personal desks, or concentrating on their workstations. He sat down at one of the hot-desks and opened his laptop.
Darion, smartly dressed in a dark suit, came over, and was already wearing an expression of shocked disbelief by the time he was standing beside Richard’s desk.
“What about that, my friend?” he said.
“I know.”
“I was really shocked.