A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [100]
Cohen has had a sandwich (prepared at home) at his desk, washed down with a carton of low-sugar Ribena. ‘I had some e-mailing to catch up on,’ he tells me as I come back into the office, ‘a query from a law firm in Ashgabat.’ I sit down at Piers’s desk and flick through a copy of the Wall Street Journal.
‘Where’s Murray?’
‘He’s had to go home. Family crisis. Jemma’s fallen off a swing.’
‘Who’s Jemma?’
‘His youngest daughter.’
This could make it more difficult to print the price sets from my computer.
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ I ask him.
‘You can go, if you like.’
This is exactly Cohen’s style: probing, arch, ambiguous. The remark is designed to test me. Will I work through the afternoon, or take the opportunity presented by Murray’s sudden departure to clock off early? Cohen won’t make a move until he knows what I intend to do. If I stay in the office, he’ll stay too. If I leave, he will remain another half-hour and then pack up. He can never be anything other than the last man to go home at night.
My best option is to leave now, have a cup of coffee, and return to the office in two hours. By then Cohen will almost certainly have gone. He’s clinical and industrious, but he likes his weekends as much as the next man. I can then pretend to do an hour’s work at my desk - for the benefit of the security cameras - during which I can print out the price sets on the laserjet. That way I’ll still be on time for the seven-thirty handover.
‘I might go,’ I tell him firmly.
‘Really?’ he says, disappointment in his voice.
‘Lots to do. I want to go shopping in the West End, get myself some new clothes.’
‘Fine.’
He isn’t interested in any excuses.
‘So I’ll see you on Monday.’
‘Monday.’
Three blocks away I order a macchiato and a chocolate wafer in a decent Italian cafe where there’s a pretty waitress and a fuzzy TV bolted to the wall. I haven’t been in here before; my usual place was closed. The BBC are replaying highlights from Euro 96 - a Czech player saluting the crowd after chipping Peter Schmeichel, Alan Shearer reeling away from the goal with his right hand raised in triumph. Simpler pleasures. My neck starts to hurt from craning up at the screen, so I turn to the copy of The Times that I brought with me to pass the time until four o’clock. I read it almost cover to cover: op-eds, news, arts, sports, even the columns I usually hate where an overpaid hack tells you about their children going off to nursery school, or what brand of olive oil they’re using this week. I drink two more coffees, lattes this time, and then make my way back to the office.
George is still on security duty as I come in through the revolving doors.
‘Forget something, did we?’
George has just come back from holiday. He looks sunburned and overfed.
‘You won’t believe this,’ I tell him, all casual and relaxed. ‘I got all the way home, made myself a nice cup of tea and was just settling down to watch Grandstand when I remembered I had some letters to finish by Monday morning. I’d forgotten all about them, and my notes are here in the office. So I had to get on the Tube and come all the way back.’
‘That’s too bad,’ says George, rearranging a bunch of keys on his desk. ‘And on a weekend an’ all.’
I walk past him towards the lifts, clutching my security pass in the sweat of my palm. I have to wait for some time for a lift to arrive, pacing up and down on the cold marble floor. George ignores me: he is reading today’s Mirror next to the flickering monochrome of five closed-circuit televisions. The crackle of his newspaper provides the only noise in the reception area. Then a lift chimes open and I ride it to the fifth floor.
The coffees have started to kick