Iain Rodgers
The Zima Confession

About the Author

Iain M. Rodgers was born in Glasgow. He sometimes has difficulty describing himself as a Glaswegian because for most of his life he has been pinged around like a pinball. The list of places he is associated with includes Glasgow, Manchester, Lagos, London, Sheffield, Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Moscow.

His cover story is that he was a Civil Servant for a while, which got him into I.T. One day he decided to give that up, teach English in Moscow and try to write books. His cover story is a fabrication.

1. God Save The Queen

(Glasgow – 1977)

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

Harriet Tubman

A dark orange paper lantern, hanging from an elaborately decorative centre rose of the high Victorian ceiling, provided barely enough light to illuminate the languidly twisting coils of silver smoke that filled the room. The air was thick with the smell of cannabis.

Young men and women, a mixture of long-haired hippies and short-haired punks, were sprawled over the floor smoking joints and drinking from cans. In one corner of the large room, looking either like a witch or a puritan, an earnest young woman in a high-necked maxi-dress was kneeling to roll a joint on a low, half-broken side table. She did it carefully and ritualistically. Several people nearby watched with interest, as though her performance formed part of an important ceremony.

A guy with a guitar was slumped in a beanbag trying to play Leonard Cohen’s famous blue dirge Famous Blue Raincoat, though no one was interested in his depressive mumbling. Eventually, someone decided he’d heard enough. A kid with spiky hair and an imitation leather jacket pierced with hundreds of safety pins and button badges skipped through the bodies strewn on the floor and pushed poor ‘Leonard’ off the beanbag.

“That’s shite by raway pal.” The punk sneered in a rough Glasgow voice. Then he shouted back over his shoulder: “Moira, put ra Pistols oan. Let’s get some life intae ris party.”

◆◆◆

Meanwhile, Stuart and Richard were quietly discussing something in the corner opposite the young woman rolling the joint.

“You’re all just wasting your time you know. All this marching and selling newspapers will never get you anywhere,” Richard stated.

“History, man. History’s on our side.”

“History bollocks. You guys are just kids. You’re just playing at this.”

“Eddie’s totally serious. Mibby worryingly serious.”Stuart spoke with a slight Glasgow accent which, though mild, sometimes influenced Richard to imitate it to some extent. After pausing to think for a moment he added, “I guess ye could say I’m more interested in an academic way myself.”

“I know that, man. See that PhD you’re doing, all that theory shit, ‘German philosophy from Hegel to Marx’, I don’t really get it. I wish I’d done some proper subjects myself; engineering say, instead of this politics and sociology crap.” Richard thought morosely for a few moments before perking up a bit. “Imagine if, years from now, your education finally pays off and you find yourself in a half-decent job. Let’s say no one even knows you’re a commie. What would happen if you could reconnect with all your comrades from the Party and put yourself at their disposal?”

“What could you do then that you can’t do now?”

“Who knows, man? But I bet you could do a damned sight more damage, or good I mean, than a hundred of these silly pot-smoking kids that think they’re being so cool and radical.”

“Mibby you’re right, but you’re not even a Party member. You’re just a guy who tags along; a fellow traveller. You’re not even interested in what the Party wants.”

“You’re right Stuart, I’m not. I’m not interested in all this posturing and posing, but, see if I thought I could do any good I would definitely do whatever it takes.”

“Like fuck ye would.”

“Course I would! And me not being a Party member would help anyway. I’m not on anyone’s radar. I’ve never even had my picture taken on any of your half-assed marches or demos.”

“‘Half-assed marches’? Yeah, right-e-o! How come you’ve never even come on a march or demo, ya bastard?”

“Waste of time man. Take all those stupid asses that demonstrated to save every last job in the shipyards. All it did was make sure that the yards couldn’t compete. Instead of saving jobs they made sure they all went.”

Stuart was eyeing him with suspicion. They had argued on this subject a number of times already and agreed to differ. Richard didn’t bother to bring the same old arguments up yet again but was dismayed that even Stuart didn’t seem to understand him. He was well aware that nobody in the Party took him seriously. For one thing his background was against him. But, more importantly, there was an ideological divide between him and the others. If he had to explain to these Marxists in terms that would be acceptable, it was the difference between Das Kapital and Der Grundrisse. Properly reading either Das Kapital or Der Grundrisse was not something he had bothered to do, but he believed the difference between them explained the difference between himself and the others. Ultimately, he was reluctant to describe himself as a Marxist of any kind. An anarchist called Kropotkin had more attractive ideas. But that was something best not mentioned at all.

“Oh jeezus!” Stuart blurted out.

“What?” Stuart jerked his head to the side in the direction of the door, which was being closed again after opening briefly.

“Line-up-Linda’s just arrived. She’s probably heading straight upstairs to get her legs in the air.”

Richard knew Stuart didn’t like Linda MacKerricher. He thought she was a slut. So she was; but Richard didn’t see anything wrong with that. She was a liberated and independent young woman. In fact Richard found her crazily sexy. He cursed his luck in not catching sight of her – probably wearing those kinky wet-look boots and that purple mini-skirt. Liberated and “easy” though she was, Richard could never pluck up the courage to even talk to her, let alone join in one of the orgies she was reputed to take part in.

“So why would a posh cunt like you even want to help?” Stuart continued, snapping Richard out of the reverie that Linda MacKerricher had unknowingly evoked.

“Lots of ‘posh cunts’ are revolutionaries. Most revolutionaries are posh cunts in fact – Marx himself, Lenin, Guevara… you name it.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Guildford boy.”

“Fuck you Mr Kelvinside Academy.” Richard knew that Stuart was as middle class as it was possible to be for a Glaswegian, but still had one over on him when it came to class-related, inverted snobbery. Richard’s parents now lived in Milngavie, having moved up to Scotland from Guildford when he was about three. In the mindset of most Glaswegians, Richard was a toff – almost aristocracy.

“OK Guildford boy. So you like to tag along to the odd meeting. You like to slag off the hardcore members but will we ever see you put your money where your mouth is?”

“If I thought it could do some actual good I would. I mean the way society is just now… there’s lots of things wrong. Systemic things. You know yourself how we’ve discussed it all; over and over again. Things that are wrong. Things that are wrong with the system itself and so can’t be fixed by the system.” He wondered if he was getting a bit drunk. He didn’t usually use Glaswegian expressions like “You know yourself”. He would normally say “As you know” or whatever the correct expression was.

“OK, agreed. So what do ye propose then?”

“Nationalise the banks without compensation. Step one.”

“You can’t just do that though.” Stuart said with the sort of patience usually reserved for small children, “You can only do that after a revolution. Industries can only be nationalised after they’ve failed. Or by force, after revolution.”

“Not true. Labour’s in power now and there are already mutuals, co-operative banks, the National Savings Bank. Why don’t they just expand that sector and take over the banking system step by step?”

Stuart shrugged. “Step by step hasn’t worked. The Left has already tried Parliament. Every time they do something the Tories just reverse it next time they’re in. Plus the Left never stick to their guns when they get into power; they always change. We’ve had Keir Hardie, Aneurin Bevan, Benn. Even Harold-bloody-Wilson was supposedly ‘hard Left’ and look what happened.”

Stuart’s attention was drawn to the door again. Richard looked too, hoping that Linda had come back. He was immediately disappointed. Instead of Linda MacKerricher wearing a mini-skirt and boots, someone wearing a duffle coat and a Partick Thistle hat and scarf was trying to push a bicycle into the room. It seemed that the Thistle fan was intending to ride the bike around the room as an amusing stunt. This was giving rise to a bit of an altercation because several of the punks were trying to prevent him. Their idea of anarchy in the UK did not extend to permitting people to ride bicycles in rooms.

“OK, let’s agree, as usual, that only revolution will really change things. So how do you do it?” said Richard.

“How would you do it?”

“Just what I was trying to say a moment ago. You need something to trigger it, an act that causes significant damage to the existing system so that it’s unable to function properly. Once that happens the socialists will rise up and the system will be unable to defend itself.”

Stuart didn’t say anything but nodded briefly in agreement. Then, remembering there were more important matters to attend to, he stretched his head back and began tipping half a tin of Tennent’s Super Lager down his throat, seemingly oblivious as Richard continued his monologue:

“We’re just kids right now, students. We know nothing. We don’t know anybody who knows anything or has any influence. Even guys like Eddie are half-way to Walter Mitty; they’re kidding themselves. But all this education we’re getting might eventually be good for something. If we could keep in touch with the people we know who really want to change things and make a difference then one day we might be useful.”

Stuart had stopped gulping the lager. His head lurched back down to its default position as he crushed the empty can into his fist. He studied Richard for a long time, as though he was somehow having difficulty recognising him. But finally a glimmer of comprehension flickered to life.

“What exactly would you do?”

“Sabotage. I mean something big. Something fucking big. Remember what I was telling you about Georges Sorel?”

“And you’re volunteering…?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Count me in, man.”

A wall of sound slammed through the room as The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen blasted out. The punks immediately started pogo-ing in a frenzy, forcing the hippies lazing on the floor to reluctantly create space for them. The guy who had been singing Leonard Cohen songs left the room, meekly cradling his guitar to prevent damage. Stuart had to shout:

“We should go and see Eddie with this idea. He’ll know what to do about it, or he’ll know someone that does.”

2. Eddie’s Kitchen

“This idea of yours is aw very well but you realise it could put us aw in jail?” Eddie’s mean, feral eyes stared at Richard accusingly through heavy black-rimmed glasses, making him look every inch the wee Glasgow hard-man he aspired to be. Richard had been invited round to his flat to go through the sabotage plan for the third time and it was becoming clear Eddie had little faith in either him or the plan. They sat in the cold kitchen to avoid disturbing Eddie’s dad who was watching TV in the living room.

“It could, but this is what we’re here for isn’t it? Handing out pamphlets to people who chuck them into the first bin they walk past will never get us anywhere. We’re supposed to be a revolutionary party not a pamphlet distributing party.”

They sat in silence. Richard wondered if he’d pushed Eddie too far. Anyway, he was past caring. He looked round the cold, outmoded kitchen. There wasn’t much there to soothe their nerves; an old-fashioned pantry, solid enough to withstand nuclear attack, had been painted yellow in an attempt at modernity. A worn-out Tricity cooker, covered in grease. Pitted brown linoleum on the floor. A ceiling pulley for hanging washing on.

The council had vowed to build modern flats ‘fit for heroes’ but, somehow, they had created drab, grey schemes instead. Out in the street there were no facilities; no shops and nothing to do. Inside there was no comfort. Attempts to cheer up the interiors of these houses nearly always ended in tragicomic kitsch – in this case exemplified by the wallpaper with its repeated pattern of crowing cocks. Perhaps the cocks had provided a few moments of jollity once, but they had been crowing at least since the mid-sixties and looked a bit worn-out. To top it all, there was a lot of tyre screeching and occasional gunfire coming from the living room. The TV was blasting out at maximum volume to compensate for Eddie’s dad’s deafness.

“So what sort ay event do you think’d be sufficient tae trigger revolution in the UK?”

“It would have to be big, Eddie.”

“So big it’s impossible?” Eddie asked slyly.

It was clear Eddie thought he wouldn’t or couldn’t go through with it and was just looking for an excuse to avoid marching and agitating – the sort of party work that Eddie thought was essential. “Eddie,” Richard was trying to contain his anger.

“Eddie, when Marx was writing he expected a revolution eventually, but he never lived to see it. Well, we’ve had dozens of attempts since then. We’ve got the USSR and China to show for it – OK, Cuba and stuff like that too. None of these were good or real revolutions. We still haven’t seen what Marx was expecting. We need something better, more final. And it has to be in an advanced economy not a backward one. So if this puts me out of action for a while as far the Party’s concerned – even if it takes my whole life – then so be it.”

“Richard,” Eddie was obviously annoyed too, “yur always making excuses. Nothing is ever good enough fur yuh. You think no socialist country ever succeeded in improving the lot of the people? Well yer wrong. The USSR is an improvement on the Tsarist Empire. Things huvney worked out perfectly but this is the real world.”

“Yeah, but…”

“And don’t forget the USSR’s always been at war,” Eddie said, ignoring Richard’s attempt to interrupt. “They hud tae fight the revolution, then the counter revolution, then World War Two. Now we’ve got the Cold War. So they’ve been fighting proxy wars all over the world. But in spite ay aw rat thur still making progress.”

“Yeah, but the USA’s made greater progress.”

“The USA did well frae both world wars by sucking the British dry. All I ever hear from you is how great these Capitalist countries are, nothing about the achievements of Russia or China.”

Richard could tell Eddie needed more evidence of commitment before he could take this risk. He wondered if he should perhaps tell Eddie about his Uncle Bobby who, according to family legend, had gone to the USA and had tried to start up a union to improve working conditions. He was immediately arrested and soon after that died in prison. Reason for death – unknown.

But he decided not to bother. It was only a story anyway. It had all happened before he was even born. Furthermore, it proved nothing. He wasn’t aware of any sense of following in Uncle Bobby’s footsteps. Moreover, particularly now that he’d come up with this plan, he preferred his motives and beliefs to remain invisible in order to be more effective. So he decided to bite his tongue.

To prevent himself blurting out any story about his Uncle Bobby, he dug his nails into the palms of his hands and glowered at Eddie.

“They’re more advanced Eddie, just like Marx expected. That’s all.”

3. The Black Worms

(Moscow – 2012)

Years of nothingness had passed. The promises, the beliefs, the hopes, had turned to numbness.

Richard paused in the middle of pulling his left sock off and stared – confusion oscillating between fascination and horror. There were awful dark indigo bulges on the top of his foot in the flesh just beneath the skin. It seemed that parasitic worms of some sort had hatched out in his bloodstream.

Tentatively, he traced a finger over the bulbous nodes where their translucent, tubular bodies overlaid one another, half expecting to see them begin to writhe and twist deeper into his foot, or burst out leaving trails of filthy, contaminated blood. But as he examined them he knew they wouldn’t. For they were not parasitic worms – they were something even worse – more portentous.

Varicose veins. He was starting to get varicose veins now! He sighed. Of course! Of course – this was just one more thing he was going to get as he got older. Varicose bloody veins! He shuddered at the ugliness of it – and sighed again. The inevitable was happening; as the inevitable always would. He removed the other sock.

And now he would have to face it. Another day had ended. Another night of sleeping alone in a strange bed would bring it to a close, leaving him to trust his subconscious mind to guide him to the next dawn, through whatever voyage of darkness or dreams that sleep would bring.

He glanced over to the far end of the room. The pale, naked creature he saw there made him flinch momentarily. But he consoled himself that being an unremarkable middle-aged man with mousey hair was a strength. It was a form of camouflage

The glance into the mirror had been unintentional. At home there would have been no mirror to glance into, intentionally or not. But, as usual, thanks to VirtuBank, he was staying in a hotel. This time he was spending a few days in Moscow, though for no particular reason, because the technical problem their client had reported had turned out to be trivial.

And this was how his adult life had been measured out – moving from one hotel to another, sometimes returning briefly home (if his flat near Baker Street could be called home) to seek out a few acquaintances to get drunk with.

But he was lucky. He was still here, and his life still had purpose too. The period of numbness was over. Now, at VirtuBank he had a glimmer of hope. He had stumbled into a job which gave him a real chance of achieving his dream.

He hadn’t been in touch with his friends from college for years. The only people he had known since that time were workmates that came and went as he changed job. Even so, he was lucky. He was well aware that, by now, many of his lost or forgotten friends would already be dead. He knew that for certain. It was both surprising and obvious.

For example, he was aware, from the media, that so many of his teen idols had passed away already. Admittedly, film and rock stars seem likely to die younger than normal due to suicide or substance abuse. Nevertheless, a good proportion of them had also died in accidents or of natural causes, indicating that a similar fate would have befallen some, or perhaps by now, many, of the people he had ever known in the past.

So he was lucky. If he had been John Lennon he would have been dead long ago. But time was running out for him too. Had he cut himself off from any kind of normal life, that fateful day in 1977, for nothing?

The cause he had sacrificed his life for was worth more than the life of one man, but somehow he was not ready to accept his contribution to that cause would amount to nothing. He still wanted his place in history. He climbed into bed, weary and close to tears, trying to convince himself there was still a chance; that the promise he had made all those years ago was worth the misery and loneliness.

4. In Plato’s Cave

(Helsinki – 2013)

Andy Mitchell sat at his desk, staring at the paper in front of him. Somehow it had all become too much. Past failures crowded in on him. Even Richard. Especially Richard – he was going to be the biggest failure of all. What were they doing to him? What use was any of it? Everything he had ever done had unravelled.

After their meeting in Helsinki, Mitchell wondered what good would come of it.

Almost none, probably. He didn’t blame himself for that aspect of this whole mess. He had followed the correct procedure. Well, as much as possible. He’d reported back to Skinner that the procedure didn’t seem to work properly – it had been even worse than the previous time.

Skinner didn’t seem to give a damn except that Mitchell hadn’t got Richard’s signature in the correct way at the proper stage.

But he had dismissed all that nonsense from his mind by now. Even if he’d got the signature in the proper way, what difference would it have made? Richard wasn’t real any more. How could his signature be of any importance? Richard hadn’t been in touch since and everything was still in the drawer waiting to be collected. Perhaps Richard had decided to do nothing about this whole thing and keep himself out of harm’s way. So much the better if he had.

Later, in the bar, it was clear at least no lasting damage had been done – in as much as Richard, or some husk of his being, had no recollection of anything he shouldn’t know about.

Mitchell imagined how, to Richard, the world must be made of shadows projected into his consciousness. It must be a strange way to live. Like living in Plato’s cave.

As he put his signature to the paper, it was suddenly blurred by a teardrop. The tear surprised him. But then he simply folded the piece of paper twice, put it in an envelope and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit. His best suit that would soon be ripped to shreds, covered in black oil and soaked in blood.

◆◆◆

The shadows of two men are walking together but on separate paths. Where is this place? We are floating in space. The brightness is too bright, the darkness too dark.

Mist begins to obscure the blinding brightness. Cloud-like wisps lightly tumble upon themselves, thickening into shadow, making everything incomprehensible. Slowly, it begins to rotate, like a dying galaxy.

Then nothingness.

Yet there is a sense of something new; something approaching.

Hidden by shadow, something disturbing is near and getting nearer. Vermiform, it oozes from the darkness. A colossus; tattoos on its long, limbless body glisten like rubies, emeralds, sapphires and countless other multicoloured jewels as it emerges. It moves by undulating lazily, pushing before it a head in the shape of a blunted lozenge. It hesitates, then goes forward again, zigzagging from shadow into ever brighter light, revealing shimmering fractals glittering on its surface. It is magnificent! A fallen angel. A Lucifer.

Its monster head, an expressionless mask, moves from side to side, seeking prey. Its metal eyes hunt.

Suddenly the head splits wide open, transforming into a gaping pink mouth, exposing fangs like curved needles. Richard woke up. He was bathed in sweat.

It was that dream again. Why did he keep having nightmares about a damned snake?

5. By Email

(London – 2013)

Andy Mitchell was dead. The email said so.

“How can they be telling me this by email? It must be a hoax – a spoof email perhaps?”

Having just awoken from the nightmare about the snake, everything still felt unreal to Richard, so he found it hard to take in. A fake email from HR would mean there was a breach in the firewall. But a serious breach in security for an email like this wasn’t at all likely. The message was real. Andy Mitchell was dead. Richard reread it a dozen times wondering what could’ve happened to his boss. A heart attack? Car accident? The email didn’t say.

He remembered the last time he saw him. It was while he had been staying in the Grand Sokos Hotel for a project. Mitchell had suddenly turned up in Helsinki and rang his room at quarter to midnight. It was summer, so it was still broad daylight. He had got dressed again, gone down to the lounge bar to meet Mitchell and they had drunk until three a.m. By then they must’ve been as pissed as newts. His recollection of what had happened was very hazy. To start with, the conversation had been normal enough. Mitchell had talked enthusiastically about music and playing bass for some band in his youth. But then he turned a bit odd. He became more and more morose. Suddenly it all came out as anger. He ranted for a while about what a bitch his wife was. He mentioned he was in serious debt.

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. Really!”

“What was it? Heart attack? Car accident?” Richard was still struggling to imagine what could have caused the sudden death of a perfectly fit and healthy man. Mitchell was only just in his forties.

Darion, a giant of a man with the strong lower jaw of a T-Rex, had a soft Greek accent that was ideal for expressing amazement.

“Suicide!” In his amazement, Darion elongated the third syllable of the word. His dramatic exclamation caught the attention of everyone in earshot and spread what seemed to be a ripple of unwanted emotion through them. Several co-workers nearby glanced up in apparent annoyance that their concentration had been disturbed.

“What! You’re kidding.”

“No,” Darion said in a more neutral tone. “It was suicide.”

It took a moment for Richard to think of anything to say. “Do you know what made him do it?”

“Nobody knows. Apparently the police said it was a ‘brutal suicide’.”

“God! I wonder what that means?”

“I don’t know. Someone said he jumped in front of a train.” Steve Wong had been unloading his laptop onto a nearby desk. Now he came over.

“Yes, that’s what I heard too. I heard he was in debt.”

“But come on! Nobody kills themselves just because of a little bit of money.” Darion’s accent had grown a little thicker. He seemed indignant that Mitchell couldn’t face up to mere financial problems. After all, they were all City workers. Money was easy to come by. Admittedly, it was easy to lose too, and never quite meant what you imagined it would. “He could’ve run away somewhere. What’s wrong with Venezuela?”

The guys laughed a little. They knew that Darion had recently been to Venezuela and had had a whale of a time with the local girls. The economy there was smashed to bits and any foreigner was seen as a billionaire.

“Venezuela is a favourite place for dodgy geezers to run to,” said Steve winking at Darion.

“You know, it’s not such a bad idea, my friend. You can go there any time you like; they will welcome you as a hero of socialism and give you your own place to live.”

“Wow! Really?”

“In a favela, or whatever they call the slums there, but it would be cosy, no worse than the others there have, and you should not have the bourgeois expectation of more.” He winked at Steve to indicate he was being ironic and understood both he and Steve fully expected more. A lot more. After all, Darion was a securities expert for a specialist financial software company and Steve was a qualified accountant for that company. The tailored suits, fine cotton shirts and silk ties they both wore made it clear they were a cut above the likes of Richard, who nevertheless was also reasonably well dressed in a dark suit and silk tie. His were not quite so ‘designer’, though.

“Better than topping yourself, anyway,” said Steve.

“Anything’s better than that. Imagine his family!” said Darion.

“Last time I saw him, he seemed quite happy,” said Richard. “He came over to Helsinki.”

“There you go!” Darion asserted, case proven. “He was swanning around all over the place pretending to be a manager and getting paid for it. What the hell did he have to go and top himself for!?”

Everyone shook their heads disapprovingly and smiled a little. Darion was always joking but, whatever his troubles, at least Mitchell did seem to have had a pretty cushy, well-paid job. In the short time they’d known him, he’d acquired the nickname of “The Invisible Man” because hardly anyone ever saw him. It seemed he just travelled from place to place, doing very little except occasionally chatting to his subordinates. In the end, none of them were able to sympathise with what he’d done. They all considered it to be a selfish and unnecessary act.

“Christ!” said Darion, suddenly serious.

“What?” asked Steve.

“Don’t you remember? Andy thought he was psychic. I wonder what shit he saw in our future.” Darion drifted off, leaving the others wondering if he was still joking or not. Steve just shrugged and wandered off too.

But Richard was slightly disturbed by this. He remembered Andy mentioning this in Helsinki. And now he remembered that Mitchell thought that he, Richard, was also psychic.

And suddenly it slithered into view. The thing that he had been trying to remember.

Mitchell had actually said, “When the stranger returns you must wake up.” He could practically see and hear him saying it. Yet it was not Mitchell and it was not Richard. It was a kind of film of them talking together. They were just actors playing roles in a film. It could not have been anything real because, no matter how drunk he’d been, he would’ve recognised that phrase immediately. Unless, through drunkenness, Mitchell hadn’t said it properly.

There was one more reason why it couldn’t be true: if Mitchell was his contact, and he was now dead, the last hope of the plan he’d been waiting for had already disappeared.

7. Advance To Mayfair

The meeting was taking place in a building in Mayfair belonging to Her Majesty’s Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Those present were Mark Osbourne, Jim Callan, Dr Joseph Skinner, Jack Logan, Graham Wood and Tom Brookes, all of whom had arrived almost simultaneously with great urgency and seated themselves around a tatty government-issue table. Last to arrive was Mark Osbourne, who took his place at the head of the table and began talking immediately.

“OK gentlemen, thanks for coming, sorry about the short notice. I guess you all know why by now. Anyone not heard the news?”

Everyone shook their heads except Tom Brookes, who looked round the table in alarm. What was going on that he wasn’t aware of?

“What news?” Brookes blurted out.

“Mitchell just killed himself.”

“What?”

“So we need to know why and clear up any loose ends he left lying around. He was handling several cases at the time of death, most of which are ticking along smoothly, I believe. The only item that gives me cause for concern is the work he was doing on Winter.”

Osbourne paused for a moment as though expecting someone to contradict him. He looked down at his laptop and continued:

“So, let’s talk about the suicide first. Any ideas?”

There was stony-faced silence.

“He left a note. I doubt if it means anything though. It seems utterly confused, quite frankly.” Osbourne passed photocopies of the note around the table.

Callan read aloud: “I occupy this crevasse – the realm of nothingness which lies coiled in the heart of being – like a worm, but existentialism is a false dichotomy, and therefore metaphysical hope is impossible. I have seen through the illusion. I know what it’s like to be dead. I already know. When I walked into the room to see him I was dead then. He didn’t notice but I knew.

“Anyway, as JFK said, ‘Don’t sing me no la la la tune no more I ain’t gonna listen to that shit again.’ By JFK I mean Jo Fucking King – but, my dear reader, no I ain’t joking.

“Inside my mind I have seen into the soul of the universe and it is filled with A MILLION maggots of death. They breed. They are the EVIL in everything. THE e-vile.

“Now I just want to go there and be inside it. It will be me. I will be it. We will reign forever.

“I’ll stand on the mountain that stands on me and I will see everything.”

Callan had finished reading, but everyone continued to stare at their personal copy of the note as though they still expected to find some meaning in it.

Logan was the first to speak: “Christ! Mitchell wrote that? Are you sure? I mean…” he was lost for words. “I said cheerio to him Friday, going out the office. He said cheerio back. He was the same old Andy Mitchell I’d known for…”

Dr Skinner interrupted: “Some of that might not be complete gibberish; he’s quoting Sartre – I think – and John Lennon. We should trace the quotes and see…”

Callan interrupted Skinner’s interruption: “That’s a fool’s errand – we’ll never get to the bottom of any meaning that might be found in a synthesis of Sartre and Tomorrow Never Knows. Was he on drugs or something?”

Osbourne replied: “Actually, yes. That seems to be it. We found significant traces of ChiroButyline-A in his blood. It’s a tranquilliser that was banned worldwide about six months ago because people who took it for any length of time tended to commit suicide.”

“Why would he be taking it then? How could he even get hold of it?” Callan asked.

“Both questions – we don’t know yet. Second question – maybe he had been prescribed it some time ago but had decided not to take it, then for some reason had started taking it recently.”

“I see. So it could have sat in his bathroom cupboard for years?”

“This is all speculation, but something like that is likely. However, if he had required medical help for any reason, he should have informed us. Needless to say, he didn’t.”

“Should have, yes. But of course it would be like waving goodbye to his career.”

“But such cases are handled delicately to ensure people do volunteer this sort of information. We all know the rules.”

“Of course we do, yes,” Callan agreed.

“Hopefully, none here would hesitate to inform us if they required this sort of help.” Osbourne looked around defiantly and received a murmur of affirmation before continuing. “So we have to be aware that perhaps there is some sort of foul play involved.”

It took several uncomfortable seconds of grim silence for this information to be digested.

“If so, everything he was working on might be in jeopardy,” Callan remarked.

“Yes, it might be,” Osbourne agreed. “Bear that in mind when taking over his ongoing cases.”

This ruffled a few feathers. Jack Logan, in particular, looked agitated or even annoyed. He had apparently guessed what was coming next.

“On that note,” Osbourne continued, “Graham, Tom, I’m dividing the majority of Mitchell’s cases between you – except Winter. Jack, you’ll take over from Mitchell. It has to be you because of the aversion treatment. You’re the only spare resource. Put in an appearance at VirtuBank but keep a low profile.”

Dr Skinner broke in to say: “But Osbourne, Mitchell’s work there was finished. There’s nothing left to do.”

“We just want to keep an eye on things.”

“But how about Callan? Surely he can…”

“Can we just back up a bit?” Callan interrupted. “I have a question. How did he kill himself? Is it possible that someone killed him?”

“He threw himself under a train, Jim,” Osbourne replied.

“Possible then – it’s one of our favoured methods.”

“The platform looks virtually empty at the time, according to the CCTV. Of course CCTV too can be tampered with in various ways, as we know.”

“How many cases was he handling? Was he overworked?”

“No, definitely not. If anything, his workload was lighter than normal.”

“Also, we all get tested for drugs once a month. He couldn’t have been taking this drug for very long,” Callan suggested.

Osbourne contradicted him bluntly: “We don’t get tested for this stuff. It’s banned and it’s never been on the list.”

“So why did they test for it in the autopsy?”

“A jar of the stuff was found amongst the mess that the train left.”

“OK. But let’s not jump to conclusions. I presume we’re going to go ahead with a thorough investigation. Check for debts, mistresses, all the usual?”

“Of course,” Osbourne said with finality. He looked down at his laptop again to make it clear the discussion on this matter was closed and he wanted to move on. There was another period of gloomy silence in the room as he did so.

“So what went wrong in Helsinki?” Osbourne was looking at Dr Skinner.

“I don’t know. Everything went more or less to plan. Mitchell gave him the key and verbal instructions.”

“But is Winter up and running? Is anything happening?” “We don’t know. We haven’t heard anything yet.”

“So probably nothing is happening. Any idea why?”

Dr Skinner glanced nervously at the expectant faces around the table.

“I, I mean Mitchell followed the procedure to switch phases. He got a signature and he followed the procedure to flip him back.

Then he gave Snowman the key and told him what to do with it. Maybe he was confused and didn’t remember what the key was for. Phase transition is not easy.”

“Other possibilities?”

Skinner shrugged. “Maybe Snowman doesn’t want to do it.”

“After all these years, I think that’s unlikely.”

Jack Logan butted in, “Yes, but maybe this is too hot to handle. Experienced operatives like Mitchell don’t just top themselves for no reason.”

Callan spoke: “But there does seem to be a reason in Mitchell’s case: ChiroButyline-A. As for Snowman, the most likely explanation for his inactivity is that he couldn’t understand what to do because you guys had just turned his mind inside out. Or imagine if he was in the wrong state when you gave him the instructions – he would probably be completely unaware of them when he flipped back.”

Dr Skinner made a gesture as though he wanted to interrupt, but changed his mind. Graham Wood and Tom Brookes were looking bored now. All they knew about this was that they didn’t need to know anything.

Callan continued: “It could be that he simply had no idea what to do with this damned key he found in his possession. He probably threw it away. He might have handed it in to the hotel, thinking it belonged to someone else.”

“We could have that checked out,” Dr Skinner said. “We could phone the hotel.”

“I doubt if they keep records of people handing keys in to them, Skinner,” Osbourne said. “But I think you might be onto something, Callan. Let’s assume that it’s true that he was in no state to remember verbal instructions and he misplaced the key or threw it away – what can we do about it now?”

“Give him the whole package again in writing,” Callan said.

“But how?” Osbourne asked. “Mitchell gave him the instructions verbally in Helsinki and we expected him to cooperate. As far as Snowman is concerned, nobody else was involved. Dr Skinner wasn’t there and he was going to communicate only with Mitchell. So what are we going to do? How are we going to give him the instructions again?”

“Send them through the post anonymously,” Callan offered.

“Why would he swallow that?” said Osbourne. “What’s the scenario? Did Mitchell send them knowing he was about to…?”

“OK,” Callan agreed, “No, that won’t do.”

Osbourne said, “We need someone who was already involved for this to be credible to him. We’ve got no one.”

Dr Skinner hesitated and then said: “Apart from myself but, as we know, I’ve not been cleared to see him in any circumstances since the separation event, in case of fusion. So, yes, there’s no one suitable.”

“There is one other person,” Callan stated.

“Who?” Dr Skinner asked. He seemed both surprised and worried.

“Mitchell told me about a girl that he used for errands. He told me he intended to use her to try to keep an eye out – ”

“But this is completely irregular! How was he using this girl? Who the hell is she to – ”

“I gave him permission. As it turns out, she could be just the person to keep this project on track.”

“But, you’re hardly authorised to have given per…”

Now Osbourne interrupted: “Please, Dr Skinner, spare us. All is fair in love and war. Let’s consider this possibility.”

8. A Meeting In The Park

A week had passed since news of Mitchell’s suicide. Since then, Richard hadn’t had a lot to do – perhaps Mitchell had been more effective at delegating work than he had been given credit for. This afternoon he sat at his desk watching everyone else work. The integration team were not at their desks. It was Thursday; they must be in the main meeting room. Rayhaan from pre-sales was screwing his face up at his screen. No doubt there was something about his power-point presentation that was causing him some concern. In pre-sales, you had to be careful of exactly what you said, and how you said it.

Richard’s thoughts drifted back to Helsinki. That Helsinki trip had been quite a jaunt! He reminded himself of one particularly delightful event. A few days after meeting Mitchell, he had been sitting in the hotel bar minding his own business when some super-nice girl started chatting to him. They ended up getting blind drunk together. He recalled her showing him a tattoo on the top of her thigh, hitching up her skirt so he could read it (which was nice of her). He had a vague memory of rolling around in bed with her shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, he was so drunk he couldn’t remember any details. He had no idea if she was good in bed or not, and it was unlikely he had been, the state he was in. “Rolling around in bed” was probably an all-too-accurate description of what they’d done. All he could remember about her was she had long brown hair and green eyes. She had a name like Mandy, or Elaine, or Ella or Maureen, or something. Well, she had some sort of name. Most people do, especially girls. In the morning she was gone before he’d woken up. It was a shame. And it was also a shame he was stuck in London just now. When you were abroad, staying in a hotel and on decent expenses, things like that tended to happen. Well, maybe not quite like that; she really had been something.

Time dragged for Richard. There were only a few other people around, all busy looking at their terminals. There was no one to talk to; they were not exactly transfixed by their terminals, but it was clearly their preferred way of interfacing with reality. Talking to any of them would be considered an annoying distraction. Even those of them that had been emailing him today.

It was time to take another look at today’s emails. Nothing special there; the usual stuff about cakes in the kitchen for someone’s birthday. Richard knew the cakes were all gone by now. He had one himself just to be sociable, even though he didn’t know the person concerned. The core five lift was out of order… Don’t use the sales dept printer until further notice…

There was an email from Mitchell. For half a second, Richard truly believed it was from Mitchell. He opened it with a sense of dread, as though he really was going to be hearing from beyond the grave.

“Meet me at the bandstand in Hyde Park at three p.m. today.”

There was nothing else. Just that. It couldn’t be Mitchell, of course. It was someone else who had access to his email account. Who could that be? No one else should have access to Mitchell’s account. It was almost more likely it was Mitchell.

Richard looked at his phone to check the time – two p.m. He would need to hurry. Scrambling to get his laptop switched off and packed, then wriggling into his coat, he left the building, heading for Bank tube. Bank would be better than Tower Hill, though a longer walk; the Central Line was more reliable than the Circle Line. The Circle Line is often delayed because it’s the favourite one to commit suicide on.

Luckily, the tube was running well. Richard made it to Hyde Park Corner in plenty of time. He was waiting at the bandstand by 2:45. Who am I waiting for? he wondered.

It got to 3:05. No one had turned up. Richard had eagerly scrutinised every passer-by, trying to build a reason around that particular person; who they were, what their connection to Mitchell was, and why they would want to meet him. The girl in the mini-skirt who smiled at him would’ve been a particularly happy choice. Too good to be true.

A couple of squat, rough-looking Bulgarians had passed by too, giving his imagination a scenario that was less pleasant to contemplate. Richard told himself to keep a grip on his imagination as they passed him by without incident, spitting out their conversation in guttural tones, completely unaware of Richard and the wild speculation they had caused him.

Quite a lot of people passed by, with Richard’s imagination, now suppressed, failing to relieve the boredom of waiting. There were loads of people cycling in London these days. Richard knew he was not brave enough for anything like that. He was not courageous; not physically; most of the time not even mentally. If someone criticised his work as incorrectly documented or badly structured, he would agonise for ages. That was what made him a good techie – fear of doing something wrong – even something trivial.

The girl in the mini-skirt was coming back. She looked vaguely familiar somehow, unless his memory was playing tricks from having noticed her ten minutes ago. She was in her late twenties, quite smartly dressed, with lovely, long blonde hair. Her shoulder bag looked expensive. All her clothes did, in fact. He speculated that perhaps she was Mitchell’s daughter. She looked a little too cheerful and rather too well dressed, even glamorous, for that though.

“Hi,” she said. “ … Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Melanie. I sent the email from Andrew’s mobile. I didn’t know how else to get in touch.”

Richard was still slightly taken aback. In spite of his speculation, he hadn’t expected the girl in the mini-skirt to be the one. He couldn’t get over the impression that he’d seen her before somewhere.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“Possibly,” she said, more shyly than he expected, given her confident demeanour. But she continued without further explanation, “I have something for you. It’s from Andrew.”

Richard realised the expression of doubt that had clouded the girl’s face must be a reflection of his own puzzlement.

“You did know Andrew, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Andrew, yes. We called him Mitchell though. Andy Mitchell. I didn’t know him all that well; only a few months. He was my boss.”

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“So who are you then?” Richard asked.

“I was his girlfriend.” The vague idea they had already met persisted, but it was suppressed by another idea – Richard seemed to remember Mitchell had a wife. Yes, of course he had a wife. Well, it seems he had a girlfriend too. A hell of a girlfriend, in fact.

“You seem quite cheerful for a girlfriend who’s just lost her nearest and dearest,” Richard said bluntly.

“Ah.” Her eyes looked down, showing that she was rather contrite after all. She hesitated a moment and then, after brushing her hand elegantly through her hair, the cheerful look returned to her face and her eyes looked directly up into his. “I was more of a girlfriend experience.”

“A girl…”

“I work at Aphrodite’s Secret.” She snapped open her shoulder bag and took out a glossy card.

“See,” she said, offering the card.

Richard took the card. Out of a vague sense of embarrassment, he didn’t look too closely at it, but a brief glance at the shiny black card with gold lettering was enough to let him know what kind of a girlfriend Mitchell had had.

“Anyway, take this too.” She handed him a padded envelope. “He told me not to open it, and I haven’t. He gave it to me with instructions to pass it on to you if anything happened to him. I had no idea that he had probably already decided to kill himself.”

“Thanks.” Richard felt slightly abashed. For some reason, it seemed like she had acted with the greatest kindness to give him the envelope. Still unopened, too. In fact, such was the level of altruism she had exhibited, it was Richard’s turn to feel contrite; he suddenly realised she needn’t have bothered. He wondered why she had, in fact. Was that suspicious? Am I being set up? he wanted to ask.

“So what’s in it for you? Why have you – ” he blurted out.

She interrupted before he finished asking. “Oh, it’s quite simple. When he gave me the envelope, it reminded me that he was pretty much irreplaceable as a customer. He gave me this.” She showed him her necklace.

“Very nice.” Richard was trying not to make it too obvious that his eyes had decided not to focus on the necklace but to look a little further down the top of her blouse. It wasn’t just his eyes that were enjoying themselves; his nose too was enthralled by her scent. No wonder the poor bastard was in debt.

He couldn’t get over the impression that he’d seen her before somewhere. “Did you say we’ve met before?”

“Yes, don’t you remember? I had dark hair then. I was staying in a hotel with Andrew and ended up in the cocktail bar being chatted up by some nice gentleman.”

Richard was still mystified.

“The Grand Sokos Hotel… I had green eyes too… contacts.”

“Oh my god! Oh it’s…” Richard was going to say “so nice to see you again”, but in the circumstances he wasn’t sure if he should.

“Andrew got me to fly over to see him. That was when he gave me this handbag. It’s Miu Miu,” she explained. “He was always giving me lots of little things like that.”

“So you felt obliged to help him out because of that?” Richard asked, returning to the subject of the envelope.

“Not exactly. I decided it would be a good idea because, I thought that, seeing as we got on so well together in Helsinki, I thought maybe if I helped you with the envelope, you would quite likely be interested in seeing more of me.”

Richard was surprised but delighted with this idea, but before he could express his delight she added: “As a customer.”

9. A Word For Winter

Karl Marx was right. In late capitalism, every human relationship would be based on money. Now that the idea was in Richard’s head, it was pretty much irresistible. The idea of Melanie, that is, not the idea of Karl Marx being cynically correct.

So it seemed Melanie had simply taken the opportunity to advertise herself to a prime potential customer in return for helping Mitchell. Fair enough. He wondered if he’d paid for her services back in Helsinki. He couldn’t remember handing over any money, but then he could hardly remember anything about that night. So maybe that was the explanation, and it hadn’t been romantic infatuation after all, which was a shame. But he wouldn’t mind seeing her again anyway, even on those terms.

Whatever the case, Melanie would have to wait until later. In fact, she might need to wait until he could afford a Miu Miu bag or two. She seemed to imply she thought he could be as good a customer as Mitchell had been in that respect. Unfortunately for her, that was most unlikely; he had a hard enough job paying his normal bills, never mind trying to pay for an expensive ‘girlfriend’.

Anyway, right now, all he wanted to do was open the envelope. He watched Melanie walk off, back in the direction of Knightsbridge. For some reason, he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t see him opening the envelope. That act was going to be too private. It was possibly even dangerous. By the time he judged she was far enough away, he was itching to get it open and have done with it.

Some burka-clad women were waddling towards him, and skaters suddenly appeared and sped off. He would need to head further into the park, into the trees. There he would be alone. Alone, and therefore vulnerable in a different way.

He began walking further into the centre of the park, looking for a quiet bench. He wanted to be sure no one was watching. He also felt he had to sit down to open the envelope. He was so nervous about it; it was worse than getting exam results. He could feel his heart beating. At last he found a quiet park bench.

The burka-clad women were well in the distance now, being overtaken by some joggers. He sat down. With trembling hands, he ended up accidentally ripping the envelope open so clumsily that it burst apart, sending a flash-drive and a smaller envelope spinning into the air. Fortunately, they were both white and easily visible. He scrabbled to retrieve them, quickly and anxiously checking the ground at his feet to make sure nothing else had dropped out. Nothing had.

He stared at the small envelope, almost as though it was beyond belief. Something that was impossible had finally happened.

The word was clearly marked on the small envelope. The word he had been waiting for. There it was… ZIMA!

“Zima” (in fact, ‘зима’ in Cyrillic) was Russian for “winter”.

It was too good to be true! A wave of relief swept over him, as though he had been trapped, but the trap had sprung open, releasing him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had never felt such a feeling of elation and freedom. Soon the whole world would be free!

He opened the second envelope, but it was almost as though the second envelope was reversing the spell the first had cast. He was already becoming aware that, in reality, the word Zima had not liberated him; not yet. Instead he would be moving, in some intangible way, into a world of shadows and danger.

But at least he now knew. The sense of anticipation had been replaced by a calmness. Now he knew where he stood. He knew for certain he would need to do everything carefully.

The second envelope contained a key and a message from Mitchell.

“Richard, if you are opening this envelope it is because something has gone wrong for me. I left this message with someone I could trust, so they could pass it on to you. This is a copy of the key to my desk (#31). There you will find the remaining instructions. Too bad that we could not work together on this.

You blanked me in Helsinki. Please, you must proceed now. This is the only chance.”

Richard blinked. “Blanked him?” He closed his eyes and tried to remember. For some reason, he put his hand to his forehead and immediately felt stupid and self-conscious about it. He was distracted by the image of himself posing thoughtfully. Suddenly the trees darkening in the distance were the Tulgey Wood in which the Jabberwock lived.

“As in uffish thought he stood.”

He couldn’t remember. There was nothing. No real memory at all of what had happened in Helsinki. He decided that it could not be important anyway. Everything was clear now; now he knew what he had to do.

All of this had taken years, and had been delayed by months by the misunderstanding or miscommunication, or whatever it was, in Helsinki. Now he could not contain his impatience – he wanted to get hold of those instructions immediately. He had to remind himself he needed to do all of this very carefully, but his thoughts were in turmoil. What if I go back to the office with the memory stick and someone asks to see what is on it? Is there going to be anything on it or in the instructions that would be explicit or incriminating? If so, is it better to keep them (the memory stick and instructions) separate to reduce the chances that they will incriminate me?

But the turmoil didn’t end there. It swept around him like a maelstrom: If I have to keep the memory stick and remaining instructions separate, how might I do it? He weighed his options anxiously. He thought of taking the stick home first, before going back to the office, or putting it in a locker in a train station, or hiding it some- where in Hyde Park, or even posting it to himself in an envelope.

But he’d waited years for this and didn’t want to leave it anywhere until he knew what it contained. Now he had it, he somehow couldn’t let go of it, whatever the risk. He was stuck with it, held in its power like Gollum and the One Ring To Rule Them All. It was his “precious”.

He would have to go back to the office. Why was he so worried someone there might ask why he’d come back? Returning to the office wasn’t such an outlandish thing to do. So what if he was carrying instructions that would sabotage the entire banking system? Why on Earth would anyone ask to see what he was carrying? No matter how incriminating the material was, no one would have any cause to ask to see it. Finally, he succeeded in reassuring himself he might as well go back and get whatever it was out of Mitchell’s desk as soon as he could.

◆◆◆

He was back in the tube, on his way back to the office. It was already building up to rush hour. The tube was busy. Richard held the memory stick in a fist made by his right hand and kept it in his pocket. Whenever he became desensitised to it through familiarity with its shape, he would give a little squeeze to reset his perception of touch. As though, if he didn’t, it might really vanish. The idea the whole thing was, in any case, just a dream, also haunted him. Even the preposterous notion some particularly expert pickpocket would be able to steal it from within his grasp nagged him.

He had to do everything else with just his left hand. He kept his Oyster Card in his left-hand pocket so that it would be easy to get through the tube barrier.

10. Four Seasons

(Glasgow – 1977)

Richard had gone to meet Eddie in the Socialist People’s Party bookshop on the top floor of a tenement building in Queen Street. As usual, there was no one there except whoever had volunteered to man the till. Today it was Linda McPherson, who had doomed herself to sit in the store for hours with little prospect of a paying customer.

There wasn’t a huge demand for the sort of books stocked by the Socialist People’s Party bookshop. They were mainly thin revolutionary pamphlets that preached only to the converted. Or, at the other extreme, academic tomes probably only read by the writer and his publisher.

Once, Richard’s attention had been caught by one of these mighty works, bound in three hefty volumes – A Revolution Betrayed: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1956. He imagined it might be interesting to read this to get an insight, from a non-capitalist viewpoint, of what had gone wrong, and understand what had gone right. But after struggling through two pages of academic sociology-based language, Richard had slotted the book back where it belonged – to gather dust on the top shelf. As usual, Eddie was dressed in the uniform of the party: a black donkey jacket and dark blue jeans. His thinning black hair was combed tight onto his scalp. His eyes blazed angrily through thick-rimmed black glasses. In his own mind, he had earnestly avoided following any of the current fashions. In doing so, he had spectacularly failed to avoid the fashion peculiar to the Socialist People’s Party.

He went to open the back room and found it was locked. “Hey Linda, we need tuh get through ra back.”

Linda, in her guise as a post-feminist punk dominatrix, condescendingly unlocked the door to the back room to allow them through. She was in charge today. She scowled at them through her thick, dark make-up.

“Next time let me know when you want tae use that room,” she said in a voice that could curdle milk.

“Sorry Linda. You know ra both ay us anyway,” said Eddie.

Linda didn’t think this worthy of a reply. She simply resumed her task for today of looking bored, sitting with her legs daintily crossed, on a chair next to the till. She flicked open a paperback novel and directed her bored attention to its pages.

Eddie ushered Richard into the room and locked the door behind them.

They sat down side by side at a table in the centre of the room. Eddie seemed very tense, as though it was he, not Richard, who was about to commit to this.

“Nice posters,” said Richard. There were no windows in this room. On the far wall there was a row of four Soviet posters, depicting winter, spring, summer and autumn. Each poster had the name of the season in Cyrillic at the top and a transliteration in English letters at the bottom. They were evidently printed for tour- ists, though there was hardly such a thing as a Western tourist in the USSR at that time. When visiting the Soviet Union, Western visitors had to go via an official route as civil servants, trade unionists, in school parties, or some other form of official delegation. Individual tourists were a rare species.

“Archie brought thum back. He loves his hoalidays in Russia.”

“He told me all about it. He even told me about the posters. He was dead chuffed with them.”

“Yup. He likes his Russian culture.”

“I guess it’s harmless enough.”

“Yeah.”

The way Eddie said it reminded Richard that Eddie knew there was considerable doubt in his, Richard’s, mind about the USSR and how harmless it was. In itself, that wasn’t a great betrayal. There was doubt about the USSR in the minds of most people in the People’s Party. The old-timers like Archie still hadn’t shaken off their pro-Soviet tendencies, but many of the younger guys looked to China as the main hope of a socialist future. Some of them, like Richard and Stuart, didn’t like any of the current examples of socialism.

“Must be terribly expensive to travel there though.”

“Contacts via ra unions. It’s all organised by his union. It’s dirt cheap, apparently.”

“Probably subsidised.” Richard didn’t hide a slightly sneering tone in the word “subsidised”. What was he, he asked himself. Some sort of “perfect market” apologist? Was it wrong for committed Party members to be subsidised? Especially when they were going on a high-minded cultural exchange to see one of the few working examples of a supposedly socialist country.

Richard felt embarrassed. He wondered if Eddie had noticed his sneering tone. To his dismay he realised he probably had, because Eddie was looking sideways at him; what he was saying amounted to a defence of Archie: “He has to go to a lot ay seminars while he’s there, cuz it’s supposed tae be an official visit, but he loves rat kinda hing anyhow.”

“Not my idea of fun though.” Richard winced to hear himself. Now why had he blurted that out? A lot of the stuff the activists did wasn’t fun. It was to do with attending long, boring meetings; committee work. They didn’t rush around doing exciting stuff. They didn’t try to assassinate anyone or commit terrorist acts, but they were quite convinced that passing resolutions at their meetings would eventually lead to international socialism, to fairness and equality. Richard didn’t mean to criticise this, only he wanted to short circuit it. He wanted something more direct. Something truly revolutionary.

“Anyway, wur here fur a purpose, Richard. You sure about this by ra way?”

Richard was aware that some of the Party members, including Eddie, doubted his sincerity. He was thankful that Stuart had vouched for him and convinced Eddie to take his plan seriously. Their first meeting to discuss things had gone well. This was the final hurdle. All he had to do now was avoid hesitation. Deep down he knew he was more committed and had clearer ideas about his objectives than any of the others, even Eddie.

“Dead sure. I don’t need any more discussion about it.”

“OK. We’ve been told what we need fur codes. We need things that you’ll remember in any context, mibby years frae now. Things that will stick out but no’ too much.”

“OK. I know that already from the last meeting.”

“You’ll write them down, and stick rum in this envelope, but don’t let me see rum. I’m no involved. I’m just goanie pass ruh envelope oan. As we discussed before, ruh first contact might be quite tricky. Someone just turning up out ay ra blue one day…”

“OK. So…” Richard wanted to check again if this was OK. “I need to be quite sure of one thing: that no one will know me personally. They’ll know me only as a set of code words that matches a person who’s going to identify himself and his location once a year (or no more than four times a year if things change quickly). I have to do this via a specific type of advert in a specific newspaper, as we discussed. This means a handler can locate me and then can identify himself to me using the first code word, or code phrase.”

Eddie nodded, “Yes, that’s the deal. Happy with that?” “Everything seems OK to me. I only have your word that you’re not going to look at the codes though.”

“You don’t need tuh worry about me, I canny do anything with the codes.”

Richard was agitated. “But how…”

“Listen, whit mair can ah do? For whit it’s worth, you can have mah word if you want it. You huv the word ae Eddie MacFarlane, the guy that’s nivvur let anybuddy in the Party down.” Eddie looked angrily at Richard. “OK, Eddie, it’s fine. This is a bit more stressful than I expected.”

“Your handler won’t have anything tae identify you by except these codes. And no one else will know them.” Eddie seemed to be trying to say it in a reassuring way.

“I don’t want to leave a trace of who I am.”

“That’s already agreed. Ah think ris wull work out just fine. The codes for the first contact just need to be quite exact so rut, wance we’ve goat a use fur ye, we assign a handler. He gets ra code words and then gets in touch with ye.”

“It’s all good Eddie.”

“Ruh hing is, you may never hear frae anyone. This all depends on you getting into some sort ae position where yu’re goannae be useful. It also depends on you no aborting when yu’re coantacted.” Eddie paused. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say this but he was going to anyway. “By ruh way if you want tae abort fur ideological reasons dae it now, right? I don’t want tae be part ay a complete waste ay time.”

“No problem, Eddie. I don’t know why you doubt me. I trust the Party. I’m in agreement with its overall objectives. As far as I’m concerned, aborting is only for operational reasons – if there’s an obstacle. We can suspend and resume if we have doubts and only abort if we know for sure there’s an insurmountable problem. We discussed it all in detail back at your place. We went through lots of different scenarios. We even did some role play exercises, as you know.”

“Remember, frae now oan yu’re no going tae be dealing wi’ pals. There’s gonnae be no Stuart, no Eddie, no naebuddy tae help frae now oan. I know ruh guy that I’m handing this envelope tae, but I don’t know what kind of person or group that it goes tae efter rat. We have tae trust that it’s someone competent.”

“I’m sure it will be. I’ve never met anyone in the Party that was a fool.” He hesitated and then decided he’d better say it. “One thing though, Eddie. As you know, I’m not interested in marches or any of that sort of agitprop shite. I want this to be something real. If I’m going to do anything, I want it to be something significant. I don’t want to find that my mission is to unplug the photocopier or put some scratch marks on the boss’s car.”

“Fur this idea of yours to work, we have to hope that you end up somewhere useful.”

“That’s not looking too good at the moment. I might need to try to change the course of my degree a bit. Accountancy would be good but I don’t fancy it. I might have to add in a bit more Economics.”

“Ah wish ah could just casually say stuff like that. I struggled tae get a few O levels.”

“Well, I’m not saying it will be easy, but I need to find something that gets me somewhere.”

“Ah’m still worried. As soon as you get a decent job as an accountant, or whatever, you’ll be wan ay ‘them’ – the bosses. You’ll be driving around in a fancy car waving two fingers at yur old coamrades.” Eddie’s face was already starting to twist in anger at the thought.

“It’s not like that at all, Eddie. This is more important than making a few quid for myself. I want to see a new kind of society. If an advanced country like Britain can give a lead, the world will follow. It will transform the lives of millions of people. The way society’s organised just now, money and status are intertwined. In the society we want, the link will be broken. Do you see what I’m saying? Money …” he gave a grunt of disgust. He’d said stuff like this before anyway. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Eddie knew what he meant.

“Right, OK, let’s get oan wi’ it. So this is what you need tae do. This is the list ay actions that need codes.” Eddie pushed a form towards Richard. “You already have this list from our last meet. I’ll go out tae ruh bookstore and leave you tae write codes that corre- spond to each of these actions. When yu’re done, droap it aw in ruh envelope here and I’ll come back in and get it. Take yur time. Yu’ve got aw day. I’m just going to go outside and chat to Linda while you get ruh codes written.”

Eddie went back out to the bookshop and left him to it.

Richard already knew his words. Four of them were right there on the wall in front of him: Zima, Vesna, Leyta, Ocyen. He needed something memorable and knew this would work. For identification, he needed phrases that would jump out. Hopefully the ones he had decided on were ones that he could remember no matter what, but anyone else (who overheard by accident) would presume to be just some sort of literary quote. He took out his copy of the codes that he’d decided on and copied them neatly onto Eddie’s form:

Identify handler: When the stranger returns you must wake up.

Discuss: You will remember me again when we meet one day, though we have not met.

Identify operation: Zima (Winter)

Suspend: Vesna (Spring)

Resume: Leyta (Summer)

Abort: Ocyen (Autumn)

He read them all one last time. He was happy enough. He folded the form neatly, put it in the envelope and sealed it. He stuffed his own copy back into his pocket. He would burn it later.

11. Focussed

He was a young man then. Now what was he? Nearly sixty! His life had gone past like a dream. He’d got into IT, then banking software. He had never settled down anywhere.

More years had passed than he had expected. He felt like one of those Japanese soldiers hidden in the jungle from the forties until the seventies, not realising WWII was over – except this war, the Class War, was not over. It hadn’t even started. The memory of choosing all those code words had faded to a blur. It all seemed not quite real any more. The codes themselves were firmly imprinted in his mind, even though, for many years, he had given up on ever hearing them. He even wondered if they had been totally serious at the time. Well, they must’ve been, because here he was: about to take the biggest risk of his life to put their plan into action.

In fact, he hadn’t climbed very far up the ladder to a position of any particular power. He hadn’t climbed to the dizzy heights he might have imagined as a student. Even Stuart’s progress had been greater – university lecturer, or whatever he was. That part of the plan had been a complete failure. In the end it was just luck that had put him into an IT job in the banking industry, where he believed he could carry out his plan. Where he was now, he was too lowly to attract much attention, but he had real opportunities to do damage – he was trusted to deploy software for an important private bank. If only the Party realised what they could do with him, and if only they had the right resources to exploit the opportunity. He had access to a weak point in the banking system. He could deploy software that could sabotage an important private bank. He could deliver a psychological blow that would spread uncertainty and panic among some of the richest and most powerful people in Europe.

He’d almost given up on getting anything from the Party when now, at last, it had become obvious that the financial system, still recovering slowly and painfully from the financial crisis of 2008, would not survive a further shock. At last they had sent him the package he’d been hoping for.

He’d lost touch with Stuart and Eddie years ago. Of course, losing touch was part of the deal. The last he’d seen of Eddie was an angry face, mouth wide open, shouting. Eddie’s enraged face shouted out of a photo in the Evening Times. That was Eddie: he had a short fuse. The accompanying story was that he, and several others, had been arrested on a demo in support of the miners during the miners’ strike in the eighties. The strike had failed. After that, the old-style socialism that Richard had grown up with, but never really believed in, had died worldwide.

Richard could remember the photo of Eddie almost as though it was projected into space in front of him. The furious anger of his face shouting out of the newspaper was iconic of those times. So many of the activists back then were angry young men. Angry, but not well focussed. Richard speculated that, deep down, Eddie wasn’t motivated by a desire to change society; he merely wanted to exorcise his own demons. Give vent to his fury at the world.

But Eddie was never more calm than he was that day when Richard handed the codes to him. That day they had both been focussed on achieving something.

12. A Real Campaigner

To begin with, Eddie had been shocked Richard had come up with this plan. He was also somewhat suspicious of his motives. Eddie sometimes doubted if Richard was even a socialist of any sort. Stuart had vouched for him, though, and Stuart knew him better than anyone. Stuart was rock solid. A real campaigner.

So Eddie had decided it would at least be worth discussing the plan. After the discussion back at his flat, Eddie had been quite convinced that Richard was genuine and capable too. That was why he’d gone to the trouble of getting in touch with contacts that could make it happen. After the final meeting, as the months went by, he’d begun to have doubts again. But it was too late by then.

It hadn’t been too late at the moment Richard handed him the envelope. At that moment, all he had to do was nothing. Richard would never know he’d sabotaged the plan. But even though Eddie had his doubts, on balance he thought it was worth the risk of going through with it. His own personal risk was very limited. So he handed the envelope over. Before he did, Eddie did something to ensure that, even though Richard would have no idea who his handler was, at least his handler would know Richard – he slipped a photo into the envelope.

Eddie had noticed something about Richard – he didn’t quite seem to live in the real world. He talked about things as though they were academic or theoretical. Maybe that’s why he was so calm when they were sorting out the code words. Maybe the reality of the situation was hidden inside a whole abstract fantasy.

Eddie didn’t live in any fantasy world. He’d had a tough upbringing. He lived in a rough part of Glasgow. He knew every time they went on a march or handed out leaflets, there was likely to be someone who wanted to give them a good kicking. He also knew that what could happen to Richard might be a damned sight worse than taking a kicking from a few fascists.

13. Instructions

Though it was not yet five p.m. it was already quiet in the office. Most of them would leave early to try to beat the rush, or go for a drink so that the rush hour had died down before they actually set off home. The rush ‘hour’ in London starts around four p.m. and goes on until around seven p.m.

As Richard opened Mitchell’s drawer, he was aware Jim Callan was approaching down the corridor of the open-plan office. His heart sank. Should he close the drawer quickly? A brown envelope was the one and only thing in there. Should he try to pick it up before Callan saw him? It was too late for that. In any case, he was only looking into a drawer, for Christ’s sake, not stealing the Crown jewels. Just keep calm.

Jim Callan was not someone who would just come and casually talk to you. He would always plant himself strategically before you and puff himself up a bit before starting a conversation. He did that now.

“I thought that was Mitchell’s drawer.”

“Don’t know. It’s a hot-desk. I had the keys.”

Callan eyed Richard malevolently. Whatever he did, Callan always did it confrontationally. There was a long, intense silence as though Callan was a judge in a reality cookery contest and was about to vote Richard out.

“The hot-desks are over there.” He pointed to the area behind reception, near the managers’ glass cubicles and the break-out room.

“I guess they moved them. I was given this one ages ago. Maybe they did it by mistake,” Richard offered.

“What you need it for anyway?”

“I kept some tax forms and things here for safe-keeping while I was away in Moscow.”

Callan paused again, preparing to escalate the level of confrontation. But this time he seemed to realise it was none of his business anyway. He relaxed slightly, perhaps to catch Richard off-guard.

“How was Moscow?”

“Expensive. Painfully expensive. The per diems barely covered our food. We were all teetotallers by the time we were done.”

Callan allowed himself a little smile at this. All the consultants drank like fishes when they were away from home. “I mean how did the project go?”

“Not bad. The project’s still ongoing but they’re into phase three now. I’m back in the UK for a bit.”

“What’s next for you?”

“Nothing next as yet. I’m still at Oldhams, for a good while.”

“Did you know that project will be finishing up soon?”

“No?” Richard’s heart missed a beat. If he was moved on from Oldhams, what was the point in having the memory stick?

“Be careful.” Callan looked pointedly at him. Richard felt an involuntary spasm in his cheek. He wasn’t very good at this, he realised.

“There are a few redundancies coming up. Consultants need to be chargeable.”

“Don’t worry, I know that.”

With that, Callan decided to withdraw. Richard watched him move slowly and purposefully back up the corridor and re-enter his frosted glass cubicle. Callan was another of those on-contract project managers that rarely made an appearance in the office and seemed to have the vaguest workload. For some reason, Richard didn’t like him. He waited until he was sure Callan was settled into his cubicle before quickly picking up the envelope. Then he went down the service elevator at the back of the building to avoid having to pass Callan’s office.

Christ! If I’m made redundant, the plan’s over, he thought.

14. The Bridge

People swarmed towards Richard and bustled past. Most of the swarm was heading south, as he was, pouring out of the City, streaming across London Bridge and disappearing into the station named after it. But some of the most agitated and determined ones were, for some reason, going against the flow.

A seagull swept through the air, holding its wings out rigidly to be carried by the wind. Richard imagined what the seagull, looking down, would think of the human folly it observed.

And suddenly Richard too was high above it all, looking down on himself and seeing his stupid mistake with chilling clarity.

He was trapped. He could see the bridge spanning the Thames from north to south and the river itself beneath, running west to east. He could see himself, by now halfway across, being carried along with the flow of humanity – just another anonymous member of the multitude on the left-hand pavement, busily progressing to the South Bank. To his right, traffic flowed freely in each direction, and on the far right-hand side other members of the agitated nest bustled past each other.

His attention focussed on the person he knew to be himself. He could see through this person’s coat and into the pocket where the memory stick was clutched in his fist.

What if someone accidentally jostled him? What if a pickpocket decided that he was an easy target?

What if the members of the swarm, still blandly unaware of his intentions, somehow sensed the threat to their hive and turned on him?

He would lose a memory stick that was worth around a fiver, but was irreplaceable. He would lose his chance to change the course of history.

He saw the melee developing. From above he watched the swarm converging on him. Then, looking through his own eyes, faces full of fury. But that was from a future which, although it was foreseen, had not yet happened.

And then he felt a twinge of guilt. These were people, not members of a hive or nest. These were the very people he intended to destroy. Wealthy bankers, City workers, spoilt middle-class Londoners with pleasant jobs that all relied on financial services.

In his guilt he realised they would be justified in turning on him. It wasn’t likely; nevertheless he tried to think of a way of escape. But of course, there was no way of escape. He began to realise he was no more trapped here on the bridge than anywhere else. He would be vulnerable wherever he went. He just had to get home as soon as possible.

All he had to do was get himself, his laptop bag containing both envelopes, and the memory stick in his pocket, back home. But it wasn’t easy when every passer-by might somehow realise you were a ticking time bomb.

And then a surge of rage boiled up within him. It wasn’t easy when you gave in to feelings of guilt. He gripped the memory stick until he felt it would cut into his hand. These were the very people on whom guilt or pity was wasted. They had to be destroyed for the good of humanity.

15. Dreams

Richard slumped into a seat on the Jubilee Line. The train was packed and it had taken him several stops since getting on at London Bridge, to position himself to obtain such a prize. He had to use a few cunning moves to outsmart any of his competitors in a clandestine game of musical chairs.

Things like that gave your life a false sense of purpose. London was very good at giving you a general sense there was a buzz around and you were involved in its excitement. It gave you opportunity to think you had accomplished something. In fact, all it had to offer was illusory nonsense. Years could go past before you realised your life was actually empty.

But who said life had to have any meaning? Well, now, it did have meaning.

Today he was on the Jubilee Line because he had decided to walk from the office across to London Bridge tube station, as he sometimes did, hoping the walk would relax him. But it hadn’t helped at all; instead he had felt an increasing sense of panic and paranoia while walking through the crowds of people, that some- one, perhaps everyone, knew what he was up to. Slumping into his seat, and giving the memory stick another squeeze to make sure it was still there, Richard finally began to relax a little.

A lot had happened in the years since he was an activist. Everything had changed. He wondered if he still wanted to go through with it. Of course he did. Things were worse than ever nowadays. The attempts that capitalism had made to save itself had proved futile.

Capitalism was failing to satisfy the advertising-induced greed of developed countries. Nevertheless, it was claiming itself to be successful. Successful in raising the living standards of poorer nations. This process had been given the label of “globalisation”.

Successful? The world population was projected to peak at fifteen billion. Imagine fifteen billion people trying to live in the style of the USA! It would not be physically possible for the planet to provide the raw materials. It was doomed to failure. Catastrophic failure.

Meanwhile, the banking and financial systems, perhaps in combination with IT, were concentrating wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people worldwide. The funny thing was that, because of taxation, this wealthy elite actually felt they were supporting the rest of the population, instead of it being the other way around. The wealthy elite were now so wealthy compared with the rest that they paid a significant percentage of total taxation, and therefore believed they supported, rather than exploited, the masses. They seemed to have overlooked the fact that the cause of this was the masses not being paid enough due to their exploitation. Eventually, there must be a breaking point. Either the elite would break away from the rest of the population, deliberately using social spending and welfare as a means of suppressing them, or there would be revolution. That, he reminded himself, was why he was not a Social Democrat. Welfare abuse was their raison d’être. He was no longer an activist either. He had been sleeping. In fact, Richard was a card-carrying member of the Conservative party. His reasoning was that since capitalism would destroy itself through its internal contradictions, he should help it along as much as possible. It was like being an actual socialist without the hypocrisy, he reasoned. Or, actually, it was like being a capitalist – with both hypocrisy and irony.

“Stanmore!” a woman’s voice joyously exclaimed, waking Richard from his daydream.

“This train terminates at Stanmore,” the invisible woman continued.

The breathless glee with which she said the word “Stanmore” led Richard to assume it was one of her favourite places and she was very much looking forward to going back there. The Jubilee Line had an invisible woman to tell you what stations you were at, or were approaching. Soon the invisible woman breathlessly cried out “Baker Street”.

He was there. Baker Street. Almost home and safe to take a look at what he had.

“MIND… THE GHYEP!” a stern male voice boomed out from the walls of the station repeatedly as Richard pushed his way out of the carriage onto the bustling platform. The robot man warning everyone to “mind the gap” had obviously been educated in Eton or some such place. The calm, robotic repetition of this advice conflicted with the chaotic flurry of the crowds of people who gave no indication they were minding any gaps whatsoever.

During every tube journey, commuters were accompanied by invisible people offering all sorts of advice and warnings. The Jubilee Line woman was particularly posh and enthusiastic. Other lines had imaginary people of different temperaments or social backgrounds (the woman on the Docklands Light Railway serving Canary Wharf was surprisingly common compared with her customers).

Advertising vied for your attention too. There was a bombardment of excitement, beauty, witty advice, things to do, places to go. Your brain had to process visual information where what was real mingled with images from TV screens and posters, and auditory information where real people were shouted down by electronic people who had more important things to say.

In the shiny, synthetic, Brave New World of the near future, real and imaginary lives would become difficult to separate. People already existed as avatars; there was already a Sim World where people were becoming real millionaires for activities they undertook in an imaginary, computerised existence. Bitcoin too was accepted as a genuine currency and were increasing in value (though the Chinese had recently put a slight dent in that value). There was the Twitter-sphere. There was the whole Facebooking world of bullshit friendship. Richard himself had more than a hundred Facebook friends, though the only people he knew well enough to drink with were a handful of work colleagues.

In the near future, dreams, reality and simulation would intermingle freely (and all that before we even start to ‘experiment’ with drugs). What was to become of actual freedom? How would anyone know if they were really doing what they thought they were? How would people know if they really wanted to do the things they did or were guided by companies trying to make them behave in some way that would be beneficial to company objectives? People primarily existed as consumers to sell to, not as individuals or members of society.

Richard stepped through the heavy, darkly lustrous rosewood doors at the entrance of his apartment block, and then traversed a greying black and white marble floor. He pulled a manually operated lever to open the gold-coloured trellis doors of the lift and took the gracefully slow journey to the second floor. The lift travelled upwards inside a dusty, gold-coloured cage within a quarter-turn staircase. The solid wooden balustrade of the staircase was still polished like new; shiny and smooth to the touch. He was lucky to be able to afford to live here. VirtuBank paid well.

VirtuBank paid well, but not so well that Richard could live in the style for which the building had originally been designed. Richard liked to use the lift, though it was old and slow, so he wasn’t reminded that, though they had once been sumptuous, the carpets of the staircase were threadbare. The solid wooden balustrade was pitted and scored. In places it was patched with sections of mismatching wood. The elegant, family-sized apartments had long since been butchered – downsized, downgraded, divided up and converted into studios or one-bedroom flats. Each of the resulting dwelling places had been separated off from its neighbour by flimsy partition walls.

He entered his shabby, one-bed apartment. Here, all trace of the building’s original magnificence had been erased. Here, it was obvious that it was worn out, dirty and even disgusting. If it wasn’t for the memory it had been a five-minute walk from Baker Street and the entrance hall had made some effort at keeping up appear- ances, you might presume you were in a slum.

He stepped over a fresh scattering of junk mail and bills. He could collect that together later and add it to his growing pile of uninteresting, unopened mail. Right now he was eager to find out what he had.

16. Nightmare

It turned out that what he had was a password to the folders on the memory stick. What he had on the stick was some software and detailed instructions for its deployment.

Using his laptop, Richard began studying the instructions carefully. It looked like a good job, as though it had all been written to VirtuBank standards using their templates. All the correct documentation was there. They had also carefully imitated the Chennai English of VirtuBank’s own developers. There was a covering letter:

“Kindly find attached software patch PRX20-INT-101. This is a priority stand-alone patch with no dependencies. It fixes internally discovered software issue INT-101. Install immediately. Kindly requesting to carefully follow all below mentioned instructions and attachments, having firstly read through them, further to standard practices.

… etc. etc…

…in case of doubts kindly revert.”

He paused to think. It was clever that they had made it seem like it fixed an internal issue and not any issue the bank had discovered. “Priority” and “stand-alone” sounded good too. Fewer questions for the bank’s testing team to ask.

So, it seemed they had finally understood what he would be capable of doing – Operation Zima was what he had hoped for. He would have to install this software, which would harm the bank somehow. But was that good enough? His intention all along was to trigger revolution and destroy capitalism. Was Oldhams quite as important as that? Of course, it was his own enthusiastic messages that had signalled to them it was, but perhaps he had been over-optimistic. Now the software was right here on this USB stick, things felt different. He wasn’t prepared to risk his neck just to cause some inconvenience to one medium-sized bank, albeit a private bank that held the assets of some very wealthy people. Then again, whatever this was going to do, he had no one to complain to, or seek confirmation from. Mitchell was dead. He could send a message asking for help, but the message cycle took months. In any case, help had never been part of the plan.

Why on earth did they need him anyway? he wondered. The instructions didn’t explain any of that. He was annoyed at how little the instructions explained. He had been left to guess at what was going on.

But then he decided he was just making excuses to himself. Now that the plan was a reality, it was suddenly more frightening than he had anticipated. He continued to read carefully. When at last he turned to the final page of instructions, something caused him to frown.

At the bottom of the page in bold, enclosed in a red text box, was an advert for water-damaged rugs. Above the box was a note in large, bold text:

“Publish this advert in the usual way. Do not wait for the next date in the cycle. Publish immediately, with no alterations.”

Why would he have to do that? And did they expect him to copy this into the paper without even knowing what it said?

He spent thirty minutes decrypting the message hidden in the advert. It read:

“Continuing with plan as stated. Contact now only required if Ocyen or Vesna.”

He sat back and stared in disbelief at what he had decrypted. There should be no need for this message. What was going on? What on earth was this supposed to achieve?

Above all, why would Mitchell ask him to use code words, albeit encrypted, in his message? Perhaps it would be safer, now that he had the software, and now that Mitchell was dead, not to send any more messages at all?

But he had no choice. It was an instruction from his handler. He had to follow whatever instructions he was given. He logged in to his Evening Times account and bought a full-page advert for water-damaged rugs, for sale to trade only.

◆◆◆

Richard remembered Eddie’s prophetic words. He hoped they weren’t true:

“The thing is, push comes to shove, you won’t have the bottle, Richard. It won’t be as easy as you think.”

He was back in Eddie’s kitchen. Back breathing in the smell of chip fat, hearing the bittersweet jingle of a distant ice cream van making its way through the Council Scheme. Just Eddie and him, sitting on greasy wooden chairs either side of a small, fold-down table. It was the first meeting to discuss his plan.

He cringed to remember his lame, though sincere, reply: “What about when we threw the newspapers in the river?”

“Oh sure, that was you. It was all your idea. But that was just opportunistic. If I remember right, you were a bit drunk, staggering down the road with yer pals when suddenly the opportunity presented itself. One in the morning, big pile of Telegraphs, no one around but us.”

“Fair enough. It’s just an example.”

“Here’s ruh hing. What effect did it huv? No effect oan anythin’. Even if you’d stoapped the entire production of the Telegraph fur ivvur, what effect would that huv? Some sort ae sabotage is not goannie help us. Society’s stroanger ran nat.”

“I don’t agree. There’s a thin skin of civilisation. Scratch the surface and things get ugly. Take me for example. You always say that I’m pretty middle-class, and you’re right. But the thing is, I’m not happy. The thing is, there are thousands, maybe millions, of people like me. If someone could trigger something… get the people to wake up… who knows what could happen?”

◆◆◆

He had to be careful. This was all about detail. He checked everything again. The software pack really did look as though it had come from the dev team in Chennai. No difference at all, unless maybe the sequence numbers weren’t genuine?

Well they wouldn’t be unless they had managed to get fully qualified and capable programmers into Chennai.

There were probably other details that looked correct at first glance but would be fake.

If this pack was referred back to VirtuBank’s team in Chennai to be double-checked, it would be obvious it was fake.

His task would be to get this into the bank and ensure it didn’t get detected during testing or documentation and referred back for any reason.

The first problem was the software had to just turn up on-site and get installed. It wasn’t a download from the patch site. It bypassed that whole system and he needed a cunning excuse to have it accepted on-site. The first thing he would have to do was come up with that excuse.

17. Trade Only

Every year, Richard put a large advert in the local newspaper back in Glasgow. The advert was designed so that as few people as possible would be interested: fire-damaged goods; water-damaged furniture; second-hand (and obsolete) electronic goods. For sale to trade only. He put his own phone number as the contact. If anyone did happen to be interested in the advert and rang him, he would apologise and explain that someone had already agreed to buy the whole lot. He never had to apologise to very many disappointed customers.

The adverts were placed on one of these days – January 25th, April 25th, July 25th, October 25th – so they would be easy to track. The method of passing messages was very simple. Richard could write anything he wanted to make the advert look genuine. The messages hidden there were decoded using serial numbers that were part of the advert itself. Therefore, so long as he had all the letters of the alphabet somewhere in the wording, he could send any message just by “pointing” at the letters using his serial numbers. It was that simple in principle. The serial numbers printed on the advert had to be transformed using a mapping algorithm, but it was still a simple technique. It would be easy for an expert to decode. But why would anyone ever suspect these adverts were not genuine? They would surely never come to the attention of any decoding expert.

Starting on July the previous year, he had put adverts in on every possible day. The more often he placed the adverts, the more paranoid he was that he would expose himself. Nevertheless, he was really convinced he was in the right place at the right time by now, and he was surprised no one had reacted yet. His messages had become ever more urgent. His last message read: “Still at VirtuBank. Opportunities with access to main servers at several major financial customers.” His full contact details were there as usual.

He had checked his coding and decoding again and again, wondering if he had made a mistake, so convinced was he that he should have been contacted this time. There was no mistake. He had posted that last message to the paper three months ago but had still been ignored. He had expected an immediate response.

Every time this had happened, he had gone through the same feelings. Elation in placing his advert. Anticipation while waiting for a reply. Disappointment that, yet again, nothing had happened. Each time the disappointment was more numbing, the possibility of ever doing anything more remote.

This time he had been so disappointed that he had not bothered to repeat his message on 25th October, 2013. Yet that was the time when they finally reacted.

18. Risk Analysis

Richard remembered, sometime in the mid-eighties, walking up and down the rows of gravestones looking for his father’s headstone one sunny day in the hills near Milngavie. His dad had died suddenly, of a heart attack. Richard was on holiday in France when it happened. No one had managed to contact him, and the funeral had to go ahead without him. He flew up from London as soon as he could and found the stone where he laid flowers a few years previously. Now both his parents’ names were inscribed.

There was something funny about how death always seemed to take you by surprise. Death was inevitable, but every time it happened it was shocking.

His father had been the last living link to Uncle Bobby, the first real socialist he’d ever heard of.

They were all socialists, of a sort, of course, everyone on that side of the family. Family, friends, neighbours. Almost everyone in and around Glasgow was. The industrialised Central Belt of Scotland, blackened and scarred by heavy industry, had fought back to produce people who wanted to create a cleaner, brighter future – Keir Hardie, Manny Shinwell, Uncle Bobby.

They had all hoped that socialism would be the answer, apart from his dad that is, but their efforts had been absorbed by democracy or deflected by the establishment or blocked by the law. Actually, Richard never knew if his father was a socialist or not. Richard assumed he wasn’t, somehow. He seemed very sceptical of socialism. He was also ambitious. He had got a better job and taken the family down south for a few years until they returned to Glasgow after Richard’s maternal grandmother died.

Stories of Uncle Bobby – in fact his Great Uncle Bobby – were legendary in the family. But Uncle Bobby, for all his good intentions, had ended up dying in prison. An unknown failure.

Richard didn’t want to fail. He wanted to avenge the memory out of principle.

Over the next two days he went through the software instructions again and again. He had to be sure this was for real and could be done. He wondered why he had been so slow to realise Mitchell was telling him to wake up. His failure to react must have made Mitchell uncertain of his intentions, which would explain why he had not gone straight on to give him the operational instructions. Unless he had done that too, and those instructions had been waiting in his drawer ever since Helsinki. That might explain why, this time, he had not disguised the word “Zima” in any way that made the message ambiguous.

Richard felt such a fool for not reacting immediately – when Mitchell might have helped or given him more information. Now, whatever he had to do, he would have to do by himself, totally alone.

For some reason he couldn’t control his doubts. He didn’t like the idea of doing this with no help and no clear instructions. Furthermore, such a lot had changed since this whole idea started, back in the seventies. Technology, politics, everything. Would this operation still be relevant? Was deploying this piece of software his only task? What would it achieve? Would it be something destructive enough? Would it be worth the risk?

19. An Unexpected Visitor

The doorbell rang. It was a loud shrill ring that made Richard jump. Not now! Why would the bell ring now? In three years of staying at the apartment in Glentworth Street, he had never heard the doorbell ring. He had never had a visitor. Why on earth was someone ringing the doorbell right now, at the very moment Operation Zima was initiated?

He hesitated, wondering if he should answer or not. The memory stick, the instructions spread out all over his desk, his home computer, switched on and still showing the PDF of the Chennai team’s covering letter. It was all evidence and all incriminating. With trembling hands, he grappled to clear it all away.

The doorbell insisted on ringing. The fact it kept ringing was all the more suspicious and worrying. Had he been set up? Were the police already there to question him? Or, if not the police, who?

He felt his heart thumping. His mind was racing. What really happened to Mitchell? He didn’t seem to be the suicide type. Perhaps he was pushed under the train? This person ringing the bell…?

For Christ’s sake, get a grip!

It took him a minute or two, but everything was tidied away at last. The bell was still ringing every now and then, but Richard still didn’t want to answer. He wanted to get away from the flat, but there wasn’t a practical exit apart from the front door. He could sneak out the kitchen window onto the emergency exit. He considered that for a moment. What if he just didn’t answer?

The damned bell shrieked at him again. Finally he gave up. He decided it would be better to see who it was. Anyone that persistent would keep trying, and it would better to meet them at the front door rather than clambering down the fire exit. He pressed the intercom. “Who is it?”

“Zima.”

The reply startled Richard. This was not on! No one knew; no one should know!

“Mister Zima? I don’t know you. You have the wrong apartment.”

“No, Mr Slater, I am not Mr Zima. I am Mr Weber. I need to talk to you about Zima.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Please, Mr Slater, I do not wish to intrude. Meet me in five minutes in the café on the corner of Melcome Street and Baker Street.”

Richard felt a wave of relief and gratitude sweep over him. At least the stranger was not trying to get into the flat.

“OK. In five minutes. I think there is some mistake though. I don’t know you.”

“You will remember me again when we meet one day, though we have not met.”

Those words! Those words were quite exact – exactly like the second cipher Richard was supposed to remember. But Richard already knew there was something wrong. The ciphers were supposed to be delivered in order: Identification; Instructions; then possibly Discuss or Suspend, Resume or Abort. He was relieved he did not have to invite the stranger into the apartment, but still it meant he had to go out, leaving all the stuff he had just acquired inside the apartment. What if the person ringing the bell was trying to lure him outside so someone else could search the flat?

The memory stick was still lying on the desk! He snatched it up and dashed around in an almost comical hurry, trying to think of a good hiding place. What about inside the coffee jar? That would have to do. He poked it down into the middle of a half-full jar of instant coffee. The paperwork went into the middle of a pile of other paperwork and then he headed out to the café.

20. Weber

“Klaus Weber.”

“Richard Slater. Pleased to meet you.”

Weber took a sip of his coffee before replying, as though he needed the time to consider his response.

“Well, I’m glad that you say you’re pleased. Though I don’t believe you. In fact, neither of us believes anything about the other. So, how are we going to do this when neither of us are to be trusted?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. But we have some mutual friends. Do you remember Stuart Douglas?”

Richard wished he had learnt how to play poker, or at least how to keep a poker face when required. He had no idea if his face had given away any clues, but he did indeed remember Stuart Douglas.

Back in the day, they had spent many hours arguing about dialectical materialism and stuff like that.

“I know him pretty well. I imagine he’ll be retiring soon,” Weber stated, not bothering to wait for confirmation of whether Richard knew him before continuing. “I expect that, after all this time, you might be wondering if it’s worth the effort? You probably even changed your mind about your belief system…”

“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 was silence, during which the people round the table nodded at Richard and then resumed their task of doing nothing in particular.

“We’re just waiting for Frank,” Germain explained.

At that moment the door opened and Frank stepped into the room. “Speak of the devil! Sit down Frank, we’re just about to begin.”

Frank sat down, acknowledging the glances of the others. Germain continued: “I just thought this was an opportune moment to gather a few of you guys together and give you a brief overview. I know some of you are already on the project” – he looked towards Frank and Dmitri – “but I just want to give you an idea of the big picture here. Things are going OK so far. We produced a scoping document and the bank have agreed to sign that off. That should happen…” he prompted Maria to finish his sentence.

“This Tootheday,” said Maria, having difficulty pronouncing the word “Tuesday”. She had been in London for at least ten years, but her accent was still quite strong.

“Yes, Tuesday. So that’s pretty good going. Thanks to everyone involved there.” Everyone round the table looked pleased. Even those, like Richard, who had had nothing to do with it. “The bank have been very reasonable too, which helps.” He paused and decided to draw inspiration from the ceiling, leaning his head back and clasping his hands together on top of the desk.

“The thing is the bank is still in quite a bad muddle. They haven’t fully recovered since the crash. You probably know from the news that they had to split off their Indian operation and they had to sell off 300 branches here in the UK. They’re desperate to get their IT systems consolidated around our software so they can get back into India and the rest of Asia. Everyone is very aware that that’s where the growth will be…”

Richard found himself drifting off into his own thoughts. RCB was almost the perfect target. It was too good to be true. He couldn’t shake off the idea he was being set up. How had Klaus Weber come by that old photo? Why had he turned up at the very moment when he had been awakened by Mitchell? It was suspicious. It was frightening.

“Richard, you’ll be answering to Alexei Petrov.”

Richard was startled out of his reverie. Answering for what? What had he done wrong!

“A-Alexei?” he stuttered.

“Alexei Petrov. Do you know him?” The Project Director had broken off his conversation with the ceiling and was looking directly and expectantly at Richard.

Richard racked his brains for an answer. No, he didn’t know him. The answer was “No.” All he had to do was say “No”.

“No.” Just to be sure he was telling the truth he added, “I don’t remember working with him, at any rate.”

“OK, well Dmitri can take you to meet him straight after this meeting. Dmitri will be working closely with you and you will both be under the guidance of Alexei as Chief Technical Architect for the project.”

Many of the technical people working for VirtuBank in Europe were from the ex-Soviet Union. During Soviet times, quite a few of them had been top mathematicians or physicists working on the space program, missile defence or something similar.

The Project Director resumed his explanation of the situation at RCB, warning some of the bank staff were now in a tricky position, having lost former colleagues they might have relied on for help, as well as IT systems that had still not been properly replaced. He advised them to play this to their advantage and to push things through as quickly as possible, rather than allow it to become a hindrance.

Of course! thought Richard. If everyone’s in such a rush, that gives me an even better opportunity to push my false software through. As soon as the software is installed it will be easy to persuade the bank staff to do only the most rudimentary user acceptance testing. Thanks to the Project Director, everyone round the table basked in a warm glow, feeling confident they would achieve their objectives on time. Especially Richard, whose personal objective would trump everyone else’s.

22. Aphrodite’s Secret

A man may not know his own mind, Richard thought, twirling the black and gold card from APHRODITE’S SECRET (Exclusive Gentleman’s Sauna) round and round in his fingers. He hadn’t planned on seeing Melanie, but he felt the events of the afternoon were worth celebrating in some way. What better way than this? Besides, it would be a perfect way to find out a bit more about Mitchell.

Finding out if the whole Mitchell thing hung together – that was the reason why he was now paying the taxi driver for the journey to the club. That was the real reason. Mitchell or Weber? Which one was for real? Mitchell was convincing. Weber had not given the proper identification code. He had mentioned “Zima” out of context. He had mentioned it as though it was an introduction, not as an operation, and he had not offered any instructions for the operation. Weber was probably some sort of imposter. If Melanie had more information, he would be able to confirm it. What he would be able to do about it was another matter.

It was hard to believe Mitchell had committed suicide. Perhaps Weber… perhaps Weber had killed or even tortured him. Richard shuddered. Perhaps that was how Weber had got hold of the codes? Would a professional killer be able to torture and kill someone and have the evidence wiped out by throwing the body under a train somehow? He didn’t know if or how that would be possible, but he knew he would need to be very careful with Weber.

As the taxi drove off, Richard speculated that perhaps he had not brought enough money. He had £500 in twenties in his pocket but he had no idea how much a girl like Melanie would cost. He had an idea that it was a lot though.

He had no particular qualms about what he was doing. It was the capitalist version of an ideal of feminism he’d grown up with. Back in the day, back in the squat in Kelvinside, feminism had been all about freedom. Relationships had been all about free love and one-night stands. But things had changed. Free love was never quite as free as it purported to be. Everyone was jealous of everyone else. Even girls like Line-up-Linda often turned out to be wilder in reputation than reality. Linda liked sex, yes, but as Richard had eventually found out, not quite in the random gung-ho gangbang way that everyone had assumed – or hoped.

This was some sort of throwback to those times. Except that, as Marx predicted, all human relationships had become financial.

Aphrodite’s Secret was in the middle of nowhere, just off the North Circular Road. More precisely, it was in the middle of an industrial estate which was quite deserted at this time of night. There was darkness all around apart from a cosy little scene in an oasis of light.

Included in the oasis of light, just to the right, was a parked Bentley with a personalised number plate. The blank grille of the Bentley’s face neither smiled nor scowled. It was inscrutable. On the left-hand side, an Aston Martin maintained a sickly expression on its visage, as though expressing disgust.

Behind and between the two sports limousines was an impressive red awning adorned with gold trim and tassels. This overhung a plush red carpet. A red carpet that melted beneath Richard’s steps as he approached the entrance. It was as though he had floated there, drawn like a moth.

Thick glass doors emblazoned with decorative gold lettering slid apart effortlessly and Richard drifted through them into the space beyond. Here, the dull thud of music throbbing from the interior quickened the pulsing of his blood. He felt almost faint with anticipation. But he had yet to get through the wrought-iron gate protecting the reception area. Beyond reception, a waterfall gurgled cheerfully down a false cliff, in the middle of which was a not-so-secret, secret door. It was all very snug and reminded Richard of a Santa’s Grotto he had the wide-eyed pleasure of visiting as a child.

A buzzing noise indicated the receptionists had released the electric lock of the wrought-iron gate for him, and he obliged them by opening it and letting himself in.

“Have you been here before?” a blonde receptionist dressed in a clinician’s white coat asked him. It was a genuine white coat that would be worn in a genuine clinic, not a cheap thing that you would wear to a fancy-dress party, and certainly not a “naughty nurse” uniform.

“No,” said Richard.

“The entrance fee is £80. Drinks are free, apart from our bottles of Moet Grand Cru, and the rest is negotiable.”

“OK.”

“What shoe size?”

“Erm. Nine.”

“OK. This is your locker key. Take this bathrobe to change into and wear these sandals after you change.”

Richard wandered to the rustic door dreamily. The dull thumping clarified itself and transformed into proper music as he opened the door. The lighting was intimately dimmed but he was able to see the immediate features of the club quite clearly. There was a wide entrance to changing rooms with lockers just to his right, and directly in front, a raised circular platform on which two stunning girls, naked except for a layer of glistening oil, cavorted within a narrow cone of light.

There were other guys in the changing rooms. Some of them belonged to stag parties and were quite drunk. None of them were alone. Suddenly he felt quite lonely. He changed, gloomily wondering if Melanie would even be here. He hoped she would be.

By now the stunning, oiled-up girls had stopped cavorting and had been replaced by a couple of equally stunning “schoolgirls”. The schoolgirls skilfully carried on the tradition of cavorting. They slunk around, each undressing the other with overacted passion and enthusiasm.

The bar was straight ahead of him, raised above floor level by three shallow steps. He headed off to see if the drinks really would be free. But achieving this goal was not as easy as he had expected. Every few steps another spectacularly sexy, scantily clad woman would approach him.

Each of them seemed eager to know his name, and where he was from. He supplied this information courteously but somewhat warily. Some of the girls thought he had nice hair, others said that he had nice eyes. Many of them were concerned that he looked sad and needed to be cheered up. He politely fended each one off. It wasn’t easy. He made a mental note of several of the girls in case he decided to change his mind, but for now he only wanted to see Melanie, and he had a reason. He could already see though, that nearly all the girls here were quite as pretty as she was and they were all dressed in just underwear or were completely naked. Naked, shaven, some with large fake boobs, some with real ones. Pale white girls, black, brown, blonde, brunette…

“Rum and coke please.” Richard had made it to the bar. From this elevated position, he looked round and surveyed the scene.

It was strange to recall that, from the outside, this building was simply a windowless industrial unit, intended for use as a warehouse or factory; a lot of effort had gone into creating a theatre in which the imagination was encouraged to reign like a decadent potentate.

The main room, in which the bar was situated, was large but partially segmented into more intimate spaces by the arrangement of snug seating areas – opulent, high-backed, curving shapes that lent themselves to being occupied by panther-like females. The openness of the room was also interrupted by tall, highly decorated pillars that pretended to support intricately baroque mouldings that swelled upwards, and swooped and dripped downwards. The restrained lighting enhanced the feeling that intimacy would be protected and private. Men, cosseted in luxurious towelling robes, laughed and joked with their new female friends; some standing, some sprawling on large couches – Roman Emperors at an orgy, surrounded by concubines and both guarded and threatened by the panther women, some prowling, some reclining.

Beyond the bar’s oval-shaped counter, visible through a wide, round archway, a loose web of shadow undulated across the walls slowly and randomly, for the light in that room originated from the sapphire depths of a small pool. In this mysterious domain a naked girl relaxed, or perhaps simply displayed her wares, by floating with her long black hair spread into inky tendrils on the water’s gently rippling surface.

That she was holding her arms out, as though crucified, further enhanced the sensation of something ethereal, something beyond even the realm of magic, being demonstrated. She was performing a miracle. Richard could see the miracle – her perfect body suspended in a column of light.

He looked around to try to see Melanie. Perhaps she isn’t here! Loneliness suddenly stabbed at his heart and seeped through him like a hollow pain. What was he getting so upset about? He was surrounded by beautiful women. Any of them could make him feel less lonely. Perhaps he would go over to the swimming pool soon, or perhaps he would go and look for one of the other girls he’d already made a mental note of. His heart was beating fast at the idea. Yes, he had decided, he would do it! But there was one final obstacle. It was the only thing stopping him now – he was spoilt for choice. He couldn’t decide which one to approach. He sipped some of his syrupy drink. It had just enough alcohol to give it an edge. There was no hurry to decide yet.

There was a kind of three-dimensional map on the apex of the bar showing the facilities. As well as the stage and the pool, there was a Turkish steam room and a Finnish sauna. You just had to go through the archway to which the apex of the bar pointed. Maybe he should take a walk there too. Not yet; soon.

A voice behind him said: “Hi, I saw you coming.”

It was Melanie! At once Richard felt less lonely.

She was completely naked apart from high heels and a pair of pink cashmere leggings which came up to her thighs. She stood on tiptoes and leaned over the bar to ask for a drink, and Richard noticed she had a tattoo of an ankh on her shoulder. The lean that she did was obviously carefully choreographed to ensure that her naked breasts thrust out over the bar while her bottom and long legs would be nicely displayed to whoever was interested, which would include most observers. Her action was not lacking in grace or charm, but Richard found it distasteful, as though he expected her to behave with more decorum when they were together.

Free love was never free, not even when you paid for it. You always felt insecure or jealous for one reason or another.

“Just an orange juice please,” she told the barwoman, who delivered the order in a tall glass with a black straw. She had a whole row of juice lined up just ready.

“Well, I’m glad to see you.”

“I bet you are!” she replied, turning to him and reaching into his gown.

Richard stopped her. She turned away again, suddenly uninterested, and sucked at the straw.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

“OK. We can talk.”

“About Mitchell.”

“We can talk about Mitchell,” she said, her long lashes pointing downwards as she examined the straw carefully. “Let’s go somewhere more private though,” she suggested, looking straight at him. It was that radiant, angelic face again. When that face made suggestions, they were rarely denied.

“OK.” She took his hand and led him through the arch and along a corridor. There were numbered doors on either side of the corridor, like a hotel. At length she stopped outside one of the doors and knocked. There was no reply, so she reached up to the hook adjacent to the top of the door and took the key. She pushed the unlocked door open and locked it behind them.

The room was sumptuous in a fake way. All of the elaborately carved wooden furniture was made of moulded plastic. Heavy duty, good quality plastic. But still – plastic. There was a huge, fake Louis Quatorze bed with a fake crystal chandelier hanging over it like the sword of Damocles.

There was a nice little side table on one side of the bed with a nice little table lamp, all in fake walnut, and there was comfy fake sofa on the other side of the bed. The walls were covered by a material that resembled silk, and although there was no window behind, one wall had full-length curtains along its whole width. You could imagine that they would slide open at the press of a button to reveal a balcony overlooking the ocean. You could imagine many things in this room.

“Why did Mitchell give you his mobile?” he snapped.

“Oh, this is so boring. Why can’t we just have some fun, babe?”

“Don’t call me babe. Answer the question.”

She sat down and looked sulky. This wasn’t getting anywhere. Richard sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her crossly. They were having their first tiff. A fake one, of course.

“Listen Melanie. I’m quite happy to be a good customer of yours if you like. I have nothing better to do with my wages. But I’d like to be able to trust you.”

She perked up a bit. She didn’t reward him with the whole radiant face act, but she definitely stopped the sulky face act.

“I can tell you if you like.”

“Go on then.”

Having promised to be a good customer, Richard wondered what he’d let himself in for. He wondered how much this fakely magnificent room was costing him right now, and as for diamond necklaces and designer handbags, he had to admit he still hadn’t bothered to find out what they would cost. He hadn’t done his research. For all he knew, he might have already blown all the money he brought with him just by stepping into this room.

“Andrew was really, really nice to me. Sometimes we really were like girlfriend and boyfriend. He just told me he was in trouble and he wanted me to have his phone for safe-keeping. So I did. I didn’t expect him to kill himself the very next day.”

“I see.”

“Can’t you see that he was really in love with me?” She turned to him, her face suddenly distraught, tears falling from her beautiful eyes.

Richard didn’t doubt it. She was lovely, she was sweet, she was an emotional roller coaster. He remembered how lonely he had felt as he tried to find her just a few moments ago.

“Did you love him?”

“No, not really.”

The sincerity of her answer convinced him she might be telling the truth pretty much the whole time.

“No, I liked him a lot, and I’ll really miss him, but…” she tailed off and started crying again, holding a tasselled cushion up to her face to catch the tears.

Richard wondered if he should go and put his arm round her to comfort her, but he couldn’t do it. He would feel such a fraud, although perhaps the fake room would welcome another fake addition to its collection of fakeness.

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