A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [99]
There is no doubt in my mind that she recognized me, at least as an Abnex employee or, more exactly, as a member of Murray’s team. She will tell Cohen of this encounter when she sees him tonight, perhaps giving him a description in the hope of discovering my name. He will piece it together from there.
‘Was he with anyone?’
‘Yes,’ she will reply.
‘Really?’ Cohen will say. ‘A woman in her thirties, tall, good-looking? An older man too?’
‘Yes,’ she’ll say. ‘As a matter of fact he was.’
22
Plausible Deniability
To: Alec Milius
Address: Alec_Milius@abnex.com
Subject: Dinner Sat
Alec
Hi. Hope you get this and your system doesn’t fuck it up like last time. What’s happening about tomorrow night? Let me know what time you’re picking up Fortner & Katharine. I’ve invited a guy who was working on the Spain film to come to dinner with his girlfriend - haven’t met her before.
I’m trapped in a vortex of daytime television - Big Breakfast, Kilroy (good hair), Richard and Judy, Call my Bluff, Home and Away & Rikki, Esther, Oprah, some crap about antiques and now Fifteen to One. William G. Stewart is smug. But he never fluffs a line.
Looking forward to Saturday. I don’t see enough of you these days my friend - it’ll be good to catch up.
Saul
Q: What’s the difference between an egg and a wank?
A: You can beat an egg.
Tanya walks past and floats a single sheet of paper into my in-tray. It’s a circular about restricting noncommercial use of the Internet within the office. There is a satsuma on my desk and I tear open its skin. The smell of Christmas billows up out of the fruit.
I hit Reply.
To: Saul Ricken
Address: sricken@compuserve.com
Subject: Re: Dinner Sat
Meeting F + K at your place - seven-thirty OK with you? I have to work, so coming direct from here.
Can’t believe you’ve never heard the egg joke before.
See you tomorrow night.
Alec
I have a long meeting on Saturday morning between nine o’clock and twelve thirty with Murray and Cohen in one of the small conference rooms on the sixth floor. With the exception of George on security duty downstairs, the office is completely deserted. Even the canteen is closed.
I am the last to arrive and the only one of us not wearing a suit. Cohen remarks on this immediately and Murray reminds me about ‘company policy’ as we sit down at the start of the meeting. Another black mark against my name. Cohen, of course, looks trim and showered, elegantly attired in a bespoke navy herringbone: you could take him anywhere, the little fucker.
His attitude towards me throughout the meeting is spiteful and manipulative. At one point he presses me for details about a research project which he knows I have yet to begin working on. When I can’t give a full answer, a shadow of irritation falls across Murray’s face and he coughs lightly, writing something down. They are both sitting opposite me at the conference table so that the relationship between us takes on the characteristics of an interrogation. My mind is slipped and weak: I woke up late and missed breakfast, and I have a gathering nervousness about the handover tonight which parries clear thinking. Cohen, by contrast, is sharp as a pin: he listens with faked over-attentiveness to Murray’s every word, nodding vigorously in agreement and taking detailed minutes on his laptop with neat little punches of the keyboard. If Murray cracks a joke, Cohen laughs. If Murray wants a cup of coffee, Cohen fetches it for him. The whole affair is sickening. By lunchtime my gut feels hollow and my mood is one of blank anger.
I eat alone in a pub on Hewett Street, haddock and chips with plastic