The interview, p.7
The Interview, page 7
Who knew? Maybe this evening there’d be a few slices left over that he could take over to Kate’s place. She’d see what he was really doing, of course – checking up on her – but it would give him some cover.
‘How is Anna this evening?’
He tried to keep his tone neutral but Barbara still showed him the full whites of her eyes by way of response.
‘Something on your mind?’ he asked her, innocently.
‘If you are telling me you haven’t checked on her yet, I am going to bend you over that counter and tan your backside. Don’t think I won’t.’
‘Tempting.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘And I’m getting to it.’
‘That girl is in love with you,’ Barbara said, as if it was one of the foremost mysteries of the universe.
Luke smiled, despite himself. ‘I’ll look in on her.’
‘Oh, I bet you will.’ She reached into the mound of paperwork in front of her and handed him a chart. ‘Room six is due an assessment.’
Luke feigned surprise. ‘And you don’t want to look into those dreamy blue eyes of his? I’ve seen you laughing with him, Barbara. I think you may have a crush of your own.’
‘Do not make me beat you around the head with this phone.’
‘I’m going, I’m going.’
Luke back-pedalled, showing her his palms.
‘You didn’t tell me what you wanted on your pizza,’ Barbara called after him.
‘Chow mein,’ he called back with a wave.
Room six was one of their private rooms. Luke pushed his way inside and glanced at the middle-aged man sitting up in the bed in front of him. He was lean and athletic-looking. A reminder that appearances could be deceiving where coronary care was concerned.
Luke clicked his pen and pointed to the textbook the man had flipped closed and set down on his lap when he’d entered the room. ‘How’s your Portuguese coming, Mr Nicholls?’
‘Better than the Norwegian I tried to teach myself last year.’
‘I can imagine. You saw Dr Summerhayes this afternoon. How’d that go?’
‘You tell me.’
Luke hooked his foot around a wheeled stool and rolled it closer to the bed before sitting down.
‘Your figures don’t look half bad.’
‘For someone waiting on open-heart surgery, or a regular human being?’
‘You mind if I run through a few things with you?’
‘Be my guest.’
It took close to fifteen minutes to get through everything and Luke was distracted throughout. The phone in his pocket still hadn’t buzzed with a message from Kate. It made him wonder if maybe he should have practised some more interview questions with her. Or perhaps the problem was that she’d been overly rehearsed.
He shook his head, tightening his grip on his pen. Applying for this fancy new job had always been a risk. A pivot point, he suspected. And if the interview had gone badly . . . Well, he feared how she might take another loss.
‘Am I keeping you from something?’ Mr Nicholls asked him.
‘You’re keeping me from a hundred things. But that’s OK. We’re done.’
Luke clicked his pen, stood up from his stool.
‘Who’s next on your hit list?’
‘Pretty girl. Room four.’
‘Tell her I said olá.’
‘I will not, Mr Nicholls.’ On his way out the door, Luke gestured to the call button on the side of the bed. ‘If you need anything, hit that. Nurse Barbara could use the exercise.’
‘I’ll tell her you said that.’
‘You do, and there’ll be two of us needing surgery. Get some rest. It’ll be a while before any of us are back with you now.’
In the corridor, Luke pulled his phone out and felt another twinge of disquiet as he stared at the empty screen. For just a second he thought about calling Kate, raising her spirits if needs be, but then it occurred to him that perhaps her interview had been delayed or it had run longer than anticipated. It would be a mistake to interrupt her. Better to give it a little while and hold off for now, he decided. Trust in his sister. In karma, too, for that matter. She deserved only good things.
20
Friday 6.21 p.m.
I ran back to the door. I rattled the handle. It was still locked. I banged on the glass with my fist. I shouted and yelled. I kicked the door with my foot.
‘HELLO! IS ANYBODY THERE?’
No answer.
I banged again, louder this time.
My heart was pumping hard. Anger coursing through me.
‘HELLO! ANYONE?’
Nothing.
The only sound I could hear was my own ragged breathing.
Was this a stunt – an outrageous, amped-up psychometric test – or was it something worse? Was Joel an unhinged maniac who, for whatever reason, had decided to torment me? But why me? I was ordinary. My life was ordinary. I think that’s what I was struggling with most of all: the certainty that there had been some kind of mistake here, but that I had been caught up in it all the same.
I turned from the door. The telephone handset was dangling over the edge of the desk, swinging from its cord.
I picked it up.
On the phone, a series of printed labels had been fitted next to the speed dial buttons. One of the labels was marked BLDG SECURITY.
I waited a looming moment, staring sightlessly through the panels of glass in front of me, my finger hovering over the button. Joel had to be watching me from somewhere out there with my bag. Would he try to stop me? After a few seconds, when he still didn’t show himself, I went ahead and prodded the button.
Nothing happened.
It jolted me for a second before I realized I hadn’t hung up the phone from the previous call. Quickly now, I tapped down on the cradle and pressed the button for building security again.
It made no difference.
No.
I tried the button marked RECEPTION and got the same result.
I hit 0 and that didn’t work, either.
My blood ran cold. There was a metallic taste in my mouth.
It wasn’t simply that there was no connection, I realized. There was no dial tone either. Just dry silence from the earpiece.
Try an outside line.
I pressed 9 and got nowhere. I jabbed it a second time. I hung up properly and waited a beat and repeated the process all over again. When that didn’t work, I plucked the phone jack out of the base of the phone and replaced it, then ducked down and followed the cable to a socket in the floor, took it out and reconnected it.
The phone remained dead.
This is why he took your handbag. He doesn’t want you to have your phone.
Something skittered across my heart – some portend of a terror I wasn’t ready to face just yet. It took me a long moment to set the receiver down into its cradle again, and when I did I felt like I was dropping a pebble into the dark pit of my own deepest fear.
My skin felt suddenly waxy and numb. Something was amiss with my vision, too. My sight was vaguely blurred at the edges, as if I was watching events unfold from behind a fogged pane of glass.
Stress. Fear.
Do something. Act.
I rushed across the room and traced my fingers over the aluminium door plate, then crammed my fingertips into the gap where the latch was engaged. I couldn’t reach it. It was fitted flush into the metal frame. The door unit looked solid and expensive. The hinges were on the outside of the door. There was no keyhole to pick and I didn’t have any kind of tools with me inside the cube. I didn’t even have the propeller pencil Joel had given me to fill in the questionnaire with. There was just the glass desk, the two chairs, the carafe and the cut-glass tumblers, the desk telephone and the track lighting above.
I spun and braced my hands on my hips, staring forwards, trying to clamp down on my fright.
I’m not claustrophobic. Normally. But I was starting to feel suffocated.
I glanced at the remaining blinds which were still closed and then I darted around the room, raising them one after the other. When every blind was up, I turned on the spot, scanning the empty office that surrounded me, searching for movement, for Joel, asking myself what my next move should be.
21
Friday 6.26 p.m.
I began feeling around the glass panels. Each one was taller and wider than I was. The panes of glass were several centimetres thick. I was pretty sure they were made of toughened safety glass.
The panels were fixed and solid. There was a sturdy black girder at each corner of the cube, and there were wide strips of colour-matched metal in between the intervening sheets of glass. The floor was polished concrete.
I completed a fast circuit of the space, running my hands over every nook and cranny, top to bottom, side to side, my breath juddering, my eyes feeling hot and swollen in my head.
I didn’t find any weaknesses.
Where was Joel?
I still didn’t know. I still couldn’t see him. I knew it was possible he could be hiding, perhaps spying on me from behind a pillar or a desk, but deep inside, a much more disturbing explanation had occurred to me. I think the truth is I just didn’t want to confront it yet.
Was he watching me remotely? Were there cameras?
I thought of how he’d been able to see me when I’d answered his phone call. At that stage, I’d only opened three of the blinds. And yes, he could have had a line of sight into the cube from some secret vantage point, but my guess was I would have spotted him by now.
I glanced up. The track lights glimmered above me. If there was a camera lens hidden somewhere, I couldn’t see it.
The idea made my skin crawl.
It also pushed me towards a decision.
Grabbing the chair I’d been sitting in earlier, I wheeled it forwards into the corner of the cube. That placed it a metre or so away from the desk – near enough for the phone cable to stretch to when I took the phone from the desk and placed it on the chair. I then reached out and steadied the chair by the arms to stop it from swivelling, and I climbed up onto it. When I straightened carefully with the chair twisting beneath me, the top of my head was only a short distance shy of the glass ceiling.
I braced one hand on the thick metal girder nearest to me – it was braided with rivets – and reached down to slip off one of my shoes. I switched the shoe to my other hand and ducked down a second time for the phone, picking it up with the receiver still attached. The base of the phone was made of sturdy plastic. I thought it would make a reasonable hammer.
The chair squeaked and rotated under me again. I was afraid it might roll back and I could fall, but I managed to keep it steady as I placed the heel of my shoe towards the top-right corner of the pane – as close as the phone cable would allow me to stretch.
I took a breath and lined everything up.
One sharp blow.
In my mind’s eye, if I got it right, the sheet of glass would drop away in one complete piece like a curtain falling from a rail.
The chair fidgeted under me. My knees were quaking.
I checked my aim again and angled my face away, hunching my shoulders.
Then I drew back the phone, squinted at my shoe one last time and—
There was a soft, metallic click from behind.
I spun, almost falling.
The door to the cube had popped open.
22
Friday 6.32 p.m.
I stepped down off the chair, returned the phone to the desk and slipped my shoe back on.
I looked at the door for a long moment. It was hanging ajar.
Really?
There was no way the door could have sprung open on its own. It had definitely been locked. But at the same time I hadn’t seen anybody approach the cube and I couldn’t see anybody close by now.
A strange thing.
Just seconds ago, I’d been desperate to break out of the cube, but now that he wanted me to leave, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
My body felt locked. Stiff.
But then something else struck me.
If he could somehow open the door remotely, then could he shut it remotely, too?
I darted forwards and placed my foot into the gap between the door and the jamb. My breaths came fast and shallow.
Placing my hand against the door frame, I took a small step outside. Absolute quiet surrounded me. Eerie would be an understatement. The office floor wasn’t simply empty and silent. It felt desolate. When I glanced towards the floor-to-ceiling windows to my left, all I could see outside was the pale evening sky.
Out of nowhere, there came a sudden, rumbling burble to my right.
I jerked around fast, my heart slamming into my throat.
But it was only a water cooler burping up an air bubble.
Keep it together, Kate.
I was obviously going to have to do something here. What was it Joel expected me to do?
I didn’t care.
I just wanted to leave.
I set off across the office floor in the direction of reception, threading my way between abandoned desks and filing cabinets, looking side to side, glancing backwards over my shoulder.
I almost stumbled but I didn’t see anybody, and when I reached the reception area there was no sign of anybody there, either.
The neon pink sign had been turned off. The desktop computers on the reception counter were powered down. Two desk chairs had been rolled neatly against the countertop.
Standing still, listening closely, all I could hear was the drumming of my own blood in my ears.
I wanted my handbag back. I wanted to take it with me.
Forget it. Get downstairs. Get to security. Get help and come back for your bag later.
I hurried towards the industrial-style metal doors, wrapped my fingers around the handle of the door on the left, and for the briefest fraction of a second before I pulled I felt a flutter against my ribs.
The door didn’t shift.
I tried the one on the right but both doors were locked fast.
I bowed my head, acutely aware in that moment of the absolute silence and enormity of the office space behind me. Of how alone I felt.
Stepping back, looking side to side, I searched for a button to press, a door release of some kind.
The only thing I could see was on my left. It was a flat metal sensor plate that looked exactly like the one on the other side of the doors I’d watched Hayley waft her key card in front of earlier.
OK, so perhaps there was a door release behind the reception counter. A button or switch of some kind for Hayley or Justin to press. That would make sense.
I ran back and looked. When I didn’t see anything immediately, I shoved papers and blotters out of the way. I wheeled both desk chairs aside and ran my fingers along under the front lip of the countertop. I got down on my knees and craned my neck and looked beneath it.
No button. No switch.
I could see power cables and a printer set on a low drawer unit.
I raised my head. There were two desk phones on the reception counter. I lifted the receiver on the first phone and all I heard was dead air. No dial tone. I tried the second phone and got the same result. I punched buttons and hung up and tried again. Nothing.
I set down the receiver, got slowly to my feet and stared at the locked doors ahead of me.
That was when the phones starting ringing. All of them this time. Every single phone in the office.
23
Joel watched Kate on the laptop screen in front of him. He saw her step back from the reception counter and raise her hand to her mouth.
He had multiple angles on her. There were cameras and speakers wired throughout the office. Some were concealed in ceiling panels. Others were in desk tidies, in plant pots. Several were inside the glass cube. He could also watch through the webcams on the computer desktops that had been left on.
She was scared, and it didn’t give him any pleasure to see it, other than a craftsman’s appreciation for a task well done.
Strange how life could turn out. There was a time – long ago now – when Joel had been on the side of the angels. Or so he’d believed. That was the problem with intelligence work. You never knew exactly who was playing whom.
Eight years in, his career in the ascendancy, he’d been pulled aside and commended on his interviewing technique. Everyone got taught the basics. How to interpret physical responses, ask open questions, draw out a lie. But Joel had an innate talent for the work. He believed in his ability to drill down to the truth absolutely. You had to, in order to be the best.
Which is why he’d been selected for a delicate assignment. In the back halls of Whitehall, on the extreme down low, a senior civil servant had accused the Home Secretary of leaking government secrets and Joel was tasked with interviewing the government minister late at night, in her apartment, without anybody – including the Home Secretary herself – knowing he’d be there.
And what did he conclude?
She was guilty, no question. Not a shred of doubt in his mind. And that was exactly what he reported back to the boss of his boss, second-in-charge of the Service. And it was also why he was so puzzled, three days later, when the senior civil servant who’d blown the whistle was forced to quit in disgrace amid whispers of sexual harassment, while the Home Secretary had kept her job without the slightest blip to her career.
Wheels within wheels. Circles within circles. It was way above Joel’s pay grade to know what kind of a deal had been struck, what leverage had been secured, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. It wasn’t what he’d signed up for.
He quit six months later, leaving long enough before handing in his resignation to allay any direct fears about what his exact motivations might have been. And, in the habitual way of the Service, his unspoken discretion was rewarded.
The first approach came within weeks. A friend of a friend had recommended him. How would he feel about assisting the Head of Security at one of the world’s leading petrochemical companies with the task of vetting their proposed new CFO?
