“A man may not know his own mind,” Richard replied dryly, but when Weber showed him an annoyed face, he felt obliged to explain. “It’s a quote from The Egyptian by Mika Waltari.”
“I want to keep this meeting brief. Very brief. We have no time for quoting literature. So let us assume that you want to go through with the original plan. What we need to do is establish credentials so that we can trust one another and take it from there. Would you agree?”
“I suppose so. Though I have no idea…” He was cut short by another Weber frown.
“I have a photograph to show you.” Weber reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a photograph. He showed it to Richard, taking care not to wave it around indiscriminately, so that only Richard could see it, though there seemed to be no reason for such care.
Richard saw a much younger version of himself looking out of the photograph. He must’ve been nineteen, maybe as much as twenty-one in the photo. Standing next to him was Stuart Douglas and, beside Stuart, Eddie. They all looked scruffy, young and defiant. There was a poster with a clenched fist in the background. The poster used to hang on the wall of Stuart’s student flat. Richard remembered the place fondly. It was a sprawling old Victorian house in Glasgow’s Kelvinside. The epitome of radical chic, it was more or less a squat with all sorts of people coming and going without bothering to contribute to the rent. People would simply hand over their keys on a whim to acquaintances. Hardly any of the assortment of hippies, free-loaders and naïve young people realised that Stuart paid a substantial rent to the owner, or that that money came from a wealthy actress who believed she was making a contribution to the socialist cause. How utterly decadent and pretentious it had all been. But so much better than the dull, organised squalor students went through for no apparent reason these days.
“So you have an old photograph of me. What do you want now? An autograph?”
“You probably need more time to consider what you want to do. That’s understandable.” Weber took a gulp of coffee. “We don’t need to rush into anything, but I think it’s worth our while having a proper talk sometime soon. Somewhere less public and in the open. I’d prefer the park.”
“Which park?”
“Any park. Regent’s Park is nearer for you though.”
“OK.” “Shall we meet at the Clarence Gate entrance on Sunday?”
“What time?”
“Ten a.m. One more thing. Take this card. It will get you into the Turkish baths in Porchester Gardens without paying. Go there tonight and stay for half an hour. It is a club for homosexuals. Don’t worry, no one will bother you and I will not meet you there. All you have to do is drink for free in the reception area for half an hour and then leave. Of course, if you want to make friends or use the facilities there, you are free to do so. It is a very exclusive club with good standards of behaviour.”
“What? Wait, why do I have to go there?”
“If you don’t do this before we meet again it will be very dangerous for you. In fact, our present conversation may already have put you in danger. You must do it.” Weber pushed the plastic card towards Richard.
Richard took the card obediently.
Standing up, Weber tossed a ten-pound note onto the table and left.
Once Weber had left, Richard almost felt sorry he had been so uncooperative. This had been a chance to piece together a few bits of the jigsaw. What if something were to happen between now and Sunday? What if Weber were to decide to top himself too?
◆◆◆
That evening, Richard made a visit to the club as Weber had told him to. It was only much later that he found out why he had to do it – Weber liked to ensure that anyone he met frequented, or at least visited, the Turkish baths in Porchester Gardens. It was good cover. It explained why he met so many random men. The fact the club was not exclusively gay explained why he could meet straight men randomly too.
Standards of behaviour were indeed good, as Weber had mentioned, but (and again, Richard only discovered this later) Weber detested homosexuals. Fortunately, he had found a way of disguising these feelings, or rather, of using them to his advantage. He was known as a sadist. Indeed, on the occasions when he had to, he took great delight in meeting some young boy or other and taking him to the private rooms to administer a good beating. No one questioned this. Weber had noticed, with disgust, that it was within the acceptable parameters of homosexual behaviour, along with pretending to be a dog or other animal.
21. Allocation Of Resources
That Friday, Richard went to see Anita, the Resource Allocation Planner. His luck was in: Anita offered him a project at a tier-one bank in London – Royal Commercial Bank. The project had been running for a few months, so it was still early days for a bank of that size. It was even better than Oldhams; ideal for his purposes.
“It’s a big project, Richard. There are a number of different roles that you might be suitable for.”
“Such as…?”
“There’s a role for Technical Support to the Financial Reporting Business Analyst. You’d be making sure that the BA documents get converted into proper functional specs, etc. There’s also a Release Management role – software deployment, and so on.”
“I’m not sure,” he said. He didn’t want to seem over-eager. Normally he would much prefer the BA role, but if he was personally responsible for Release Management then deploying the Zima software would be so much easier. “Can I think about it?”
A look of annoyance hardened Anita’s face. “I have to ask you to decide fairly soon. There’s a whole list of people trying to get themselves assigned to this project. It’s a biggie, as I’m sure you realise.”
“I quite fancy the Release Management role for myself actually,” he blurted out.
“Discuss it with Germain,” Anita said, relaxing back into her seat. “He’s Project Director for this one. He wants you to meet him on the bank’s premises at one p.m.”
◆◆◆
Clouds slid down from the sky, disappearing into the ground in front of Richard as he approached the RCB HQ by traversing a small plaza in which fountains played. When he was really close he was able to observe himself approaching. He looked busy and businesslike, the clouds surrounding him and still slipping downwards behind his reflection. And then it was all gone; the sky, clouds, and Richard himself all simply vanished as sliding doors opened briefly, revealing the interior of the building.
Without changing pace, he entered and was swallowed up into its vast atrium. He turned slightly to look upwards through the plate glass, taking a last glance at the clouds and sky. They had resumed their normal aspect; instead of slipping down the mirrored exterior of the building, they were back where they belonged, high above the ground making an imaginary heaven for imaginary angels.
Richard joined a quarter-hour-long queue of externals trying to get temporary permission to enter the building for similar reasons to himself. That is, they were all consultants or contractors who had some business at the bank. Richard wondered how many disparate systems the bank must be running that regularly required this number of external people. Eventually, he had his temporary pass and someone was on his way down to accompany him to the meeting room. It was a young bank employee who made his excuses and left Richard to open the meeting room door himself. Seemingly, the young man had urgent business of his own.
“Richard! I asked Anita to assign you. Take a seat.”
Richard shook hands with Germain Stoltz and did what he suggested – sat down. Round the table he recognised Dmitri Vassilov, whom he had met on the Moscovsky Zakrit Bank project in Moscow, and Maria Woo. The guy with the short hair and missing dog tooth was new to him, as was the lady with the very dark make-up and hair tied up in a tight bun. They turned out to be Michael Turner and Kinga Harmati.
There